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Xenonauts: Community Edition 0.30 HotFix 1


llunak

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Ugh, triple post but this is too large to tack on to the last one:

I'm not sure I like the miss trajectory changes and I think either some further development is needed or the system needs reverting. Reasons:

1) As I've said above, the new system nerfs suppression from weapons fire since shots are typically passing the target rather than landing nearby. This isn't necessarily problematic in terms of game balance, but it is a significant game balance alteration beyond what the change was supposed to do. This could be fixed by linking suppression to bullet trajectory rather than impact area, however.

2) Corner shooting has regressed. Unless I'm completely misremembering, vanilla had pretty much entirely gotten rid of the issue of hitting a corner that a soldier was standing against with missed shots whereas currently its rampant. This looks rubbish and is a bit silly, but it's also a game-balance issue too since it's (again) nerfing suppression and makes using AoE weapons from a corner a non-starter. I assume this could be fixed while retaining the new system though.

3) This needs more testing, but I have a feeling close-range shots are hitting more often than they should. If I have chance, I'll do some proper testing of this but it would make sense on paper for close-range shots to be more likely to scatter through the target's tile. There's not really a good fix for this. The close-range hit bonus could be toned down to compensate, but it does mean that your chance of hitting is always going to be higher than the stated value. That's not necessarily a problem, but it makes the game a little less transparent.

4) Again, need some actual testing on this, but I don't think I've seen a grenade scatter since playing 0.3hf1 other than when it is blocked by something (and I've thrown quite a few grenades!).

To be clear, in principle I do like the new system and would prefer it to the vanilla one. At present, however, for me these issues outweigh the benefits of the new system considerably. As such, I'd recommend/request these issues be fixed, or else the system be reverted, or else the new system be made optional via an xml edit rather than required (a la the %/flat TU costs for shots).

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I got a problem which I'm not sure of the cause.

On the ENDGAME mission I killed the boss and destroyed the power centers but still the door to escape WILL NOT open.

I tried just killing the boss and that did not work either.

Why does not the final door open. I've tried everything I can think of to open the door but it remains LOCKED apparently.

Before I installed CE I played to completion and the door opened.

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Some other people have reported this. At this point I'm unsure which versions of the game have it fixed and which do not...

Basically this is caused because the spectre for the final door in the final mission has an incorrectly set damaged state. The damaged state cannot be opened and has 0 HP, which makes it invulnerable. This needs to be set to 100 HP, so it can be destroyed correctly if the door is being destroyed.

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Some other people have reported this. At this point I'm unsure which versions of the game have it fixed and which do not...

Basically this is caused because the spectre for the final door in the final mission has an incorrectly set damaged state. The damaged state cannot be opened and has 0 HP, which makes it invulnerable. This needs to be set to 100 HP, so it can be destroyed correctly if the door is being destroyed.

How do I do this?

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- Might have just been my plane's speed (which affects UFO speed in air combat too; this should really get fixed)

I don't know what you mean.

but I'm wondering whether the reduced roll distance on higher difficulties is affecting UFOs as well. Just double-hit a light scout with a staggered launch while usually only the second missile would hit.

I'm pretty sure I tested that, but looks like I'll have to have a look again.

- I think the new miss trajectories are nerfing suppression.

I'll have a look.

2) Corner shooting has regressed. Unless I'm completely misremembering, vanilla had pretty much entirely gotten rid of the issue of hitting a corner that a soldier was standing against with missed shots whereas currently its rampant. This looks rubbish and is a bit silly, but it's also a game-balance issue too since it's (again) nerfing suppression and makes using AoE weapons from a corner a non-starter.

One of us certainly is misremembering, because I don't think anything has changed about this.

I assume this could be fixed while retaining the new system though.

How would you expect that to be fixed? Shots stray randomly. If you shoot just past a corner, about half of them will obviously hit the corner.

3) This needs more testing, but I have a feeling close-range shots are hitting more often than they should. If I have chance, I'll do some proper testing of this but it would make sense on paper for close-range shots to be more likely to scatter through the target's tile. There's not really a good fix for this. The close-range hit bonus could be toned down to compensate, but it does mean that your chance of hitting is always going to be higher than the stated value. That's not necessarily a problem, but it makes the game a little less transparent.

I know, but as you say, there doesn't seem to be a really good fix for this. I still consider this to be better than hitting and discarding it with "miss".

4) Again, need some actual testing on this, but I don't think I've seen a grenade scatter since playing 0.3hf1 other than when it is blocked by something (and I've thrown quite a few grenades!).

I've been wondering about this too, but I don't remember changing anything there. I'll have a look.

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I don't know what you mean.

There's some kind of relationship between the speed at which a player aircraft is flying at and the speed at which a UFO targeting that aircraft flies at. I'm not sure what it is, exactly, but in the past I've seen very slow turn rates and nerfed roll distance from UFOs targeting slow-moving planes (i.e. planes that have had their speed reduced to minimum).

It's easy enough to test this: load up air combat with a Condor vs. a Light Scout. Do one test where you fly at full speed towards the UFO and launch a missile. The UFO should cleanly dodge it. Then do the same again but reduce the plane's speed to minimum on the approach. In that instance, I'd anticipate the UFO either failing to dodge the missile or only just evading it due to a much shorter roll distance.

The turn speed is harder to demonstrate as it doesn't come up in vanilla air combat - it's something I found when making You Can't Take the Sky From Me where turning is more important and I found if I was turning at a very slow speed it would reduce the UFO's turn rate as well.

(Thinking this through, I actually think it's likely that this is the cause of the issue I reported and not the change you'd made to the game).

One of us certainly is misremembering, because I don't think anything has changed about this.

If I have a chance I might roll back to vanilla and test this (it's bee a while).

How would you expect that to be fixed? Shots stray randomly. If you shoot just past a corner, about half of them will obviously hit the corner.

I don't know, not least because I don't know what the code's like or how plausible it would be to build in an exception. What I'd suggest is adding in a re-roll for scatter if the bullet scatters into full cover which is adjacent to the shooter (with something to limit the number of rerolls so that if there's nowhere for the shot to scatter to other than into adjacent full cover then it won't infinite-loop). But don't know if that's at all possible.

Hmm, thinking about it - this isn't something that should actually happen that often since when corner shooting the game should be using the leaning mechanic and therefore odds of scattering into the corner in such an instance should be fairly small. Is scattering definitely happening from the part of the tile which was used to trace LoF rather than the centre?

I know, but as you say, there doesn't seem to be a really good fix for this. I still consider this to be better than hitting and discarding it with "miss".

Just a thought: would it be possible make missed shots always avoid the intended target regardless of where the shot scatters to? That would solve the issue.

Alternatively, if I have time I'll run some numbers over the weekend to get an idea of how much this actually matters. As indicated already, my comment was anecdotal and it might have just been down to chance rather than anything systematic.

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How would you expect that to be fixed? Shots stray randomly. If you shoot just past a corner, about half of them will obviously hit the corner.

I don't know, not least because I don't know what the code's like or how plausible it would be to build in an exception. What I'd suggest is adding in a re-roll for scatter if the bullet scatters into full cover which is adjacent to the shooter (with something to limit the number of rerolls so that if there's nowhere for the shot to scatter to other than into adjacent full cover then it won't infinite-loop). But don't know if that's at all possible.

I might consider this. It's quite possibly the only sensible way of going about it.

Hmm, thinking about it - this isn't something that should actually happen that often since when corner shooting the game should be using the leaning mechanic and therefore odds of scattering into the corner in such an instance should be fairly small. Is scattering definitely happening from the part of the tile which was used to trace LoF rather than the centre?

I'm quite sure it is. The thing to keep in mind is that shooting is still based on cells. If you shoot via a cell just next to the corner, straying just a bit towards the corner means hitting the cover's cell.

Just a thought: would it be possible make missed shots always avoid the intended target regardless of where the shot scatters to? That would solve the issue.

One of the reasons for doing the change was allowing shieldbearers and vehicles to cover better also others behind them. It can't work without this (barring even worse mechanisms like ensuring that missed shots stray wildly).

Alternatively, if I have time I'll run some numbers over the weekend to get an idea of how much this actually matters. As indicated already, my comment was anecdotal and it might have just been down to chance rather than anything systematic.

It's the normal interfering chance, 25% and 19% for normal standing and crouching characters. So a point-blank 60% shot is actually 70% for a standing target. It should be even possible to calculate how much to decrease the short range bonus so that it roughly matches the way the chances were before (and similarly it should be possible to adjust shown chances to roughly match reality).

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Just a thought: would it be possible make missed shots always avoid the intended target regardless of where the shot scatters to? That would solve the issue.
That wouldn't seem true to the original X-Com, where it was quite common that a "missed" shot would strike the target anyway, simply because there was nowhere else for the shot to go. Games that don't have an "Eating the Gun Muzzle" effect have misses that go off in wildly impossible angles.
It's the normal interfering chance, 25% and 19% for normal standing and crouching characters. So a point-blank 60% shot is actually 70% for a standing target. It should be even possible to calculate how much to decrease the short range bonus so that it roughly matches the way the chances were before (and similarly it should be possible to adjust shown chances to roughly match reality).
On that subject, I've noticed that shot traces get a little weird and impossible, like a shot fired while standing inside of a building, on a second floor, that must exit a small window at roughly shoulder height, and then strike a target on a floor below. Drawing any logical line of fire should mean this shot is impossible, yet it is possible to hit this. Similarly, a crouching character shouldn't really be subject to being hit by a standing shooter two tiles away, because any shot that was angled far enough down to hit him was never aimed anywhere at the target anyway. Edited by lusername
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That wouldn't seem true to the original X-Com, where it was quite common that a "missed" shot would strike the target anyway, simply because there was nowhere else for the shot to go. Games that don't have an "Eating the Gun Muzzle" effect have misses that go off in wildly impossible angles.

The question isn't whether it relates to the original X-Com but how it relates to vanilla Xenonauts game balance. In the vanilla game, a miss is a miss and it will never scatter in such a manner that it hits the intended target anyway. Hence, in vanilla, the bonus for being close to the target is represented by an accuracy bonus. In contrast, the current version of XCE has shots scatter 'properly' but as a consequence the bonus for close range is double-counted: once for the additional to-hit bonus and twice for the increased likelihood that a missed shot would hit the target anyway.

The suggestion I made was therefore related to maintaining vanilla balance. I hadn't been considering the impact that would have on covering other units (as indicated by llunak) however and that seems like a good reason to reject the idea.

On that subject, I've noticed that shot traces get a little weird and impossible, like a shot fired while standing inside of a building, on a second floor, that must exit a small window at roughly shoulder height, and then strike a target on a floor below. Drawing any logical line of fire should mean this shot is impossible, yet it is possible to hit this. Similarly, a crouching character shouldn't really be subject to being hit by a standing shooter two tiles away, because any shot that was angled far enough down to hit him was never aimed anywhere at the target anyway.

Those are limitations with the engine regarding how it can deal with height (basically, it can't). So I doubt it's possible to do anything about that.

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Given that the XCE writers have source access, I'm not convinced that it's impossible. All it would take is a few added attributes to gate shot passage heights. It also doesn't really explain behavioral oddities of this nature that don't even involve terrain obstacles which have to be defined individually...you get oddly impossible angles with just standard-height floor and ceiling obstacles, too. A simple solution might be that the effectiveness of cover is reduced when the cover is within the point-blank distance of a weapon, because right now, you get kind of silly situations where standing shooters are unable to shoot each other because of a knee-high fence between them, a tile away from each, all of the shots repeatedly going at their feet as they strike the fence.

On that note, objects that are standing on or land upon "air" apparently just hang suspended in the air. This is apparent if you toss a flare from off the side of a roof, where, when it lands on an air tile, just hangs in mid-air instead of continuing its trajectory. Also, objects and characters on floor that is destroyed do not fall, and the destroyed floor continues to function as floor forever afterwards despite no longer existing.

Edited by lusername
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Given that the XCE writers have source access, I'm not convinced that it's impossible. All it would take is a few added attributes to gate shot passage heights.

And will you be the one to set those few attributes for all the thousands of objects in the game?

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Regarding the shooting around corner issue, could it not be fixed by assuming the shooter is shooting from one of the corner cells rather than the central cell of his tile (i.e. he'd be leaning)?

That way you'd need much more of a scatter to hit the wall he's shooting around, rather than 50% of the shots doing so?

EDIT - actually, looks like this has already been addressed in a post above.

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  • 2 weeks later...
2) Corner shooting has regressed. Unless I'm completely misremembering, vanilla had pretty much entirely gotten rid of the issue of hitting a corner that a soldier was standing against with missed shots whereas currently its rampant. This looks rubbish and is a bit silly, but it's also a game-balance issue too since it's (again) nerfing suppression and makes using AoE weapons from a corner a non-starter. I assume this could be fixed while retaining the new system though.

The amount of shots that hit corner the soldier is hiding behind definitely increased compared to vanila to a point where it is a complete waste of TU. :/ reading the replies in here seems like quite few of you noticed it, though dont see a definite answer on if this can be addressed in anyway.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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