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Xenonauts: Community Edition 0.32


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Version 0.32 of Xenonauts: Community Edition has been released.


Installation (Windows Steam users):

Installation (other users):

  • In the game launcher, use "Modding Tools" to install the base X:CE mod (it may take a while, you will get a confirmation dialog when the installation is done). Note that if you use the Xenonauts 1.5x release as a base, the newly installed mod will not show in the list, ignore this.
  • Exit the launcher.
  • Run X:CE's game executable instead of the base game's executable. It is possible to run it directly from assets/mods/xce and it is not anymore necessary to copy it anywhere (it may be useful to create a desktop shortcut to simplify accessing it though). If you do copy the .exe files, you may need to copy .dll files as well.
  • Verify in the launcher that it is the correct version.
  • Install the X:CE settings and X:CE balance mods in "Modding Tools" in the launcher. While they are not required, without them many X:CE features will not get activated.
  • If you have Skitso's map pack or Skitso's art pack mods installed, deactivate/delete them. They have been merged directly into X:CE.
  • On first game start you may get a dialog warning about X:CE mods not being activated correctly or in the correct priority order, simply confirm that you want it to be fixed automatically.

What is the relation between X:CE 0.32 and Xenonauts 1.5x?

  • Xenonauts 1.5x releases have been based on an older X:CE version than 0.32 and thus do not contain all of these features/fixes. Also some X:CE changes have intentionally not been incorporated. See Xenonauts 1.5x release announcements for details.
  • X:CE 0.32 should contain all relevant Xenonauts 1.5x fixes and new features. There should be no advantage in switching to Xenonauts 1.5x instead of X:CE 0.32 for players who have already switched to X:CE.
  • X:CE 0.32 can read saved games from Xenonauts 1.5x, but Xenonauts 1.5x cannot read normal X:CE 0.32 saved games. Switching option saveCompatibility in assets/gameconfig.xml to "gh15x" before running X:CE 0.32 should produce saves in a format that Xenonauts 1.5x can read (keep the option as "xce" for normal play, otherwise some new X:CE 0.32 values may not be kept in save files).

Changes summary:

  • Faster alien turns.
  • Dawn/dusk in ground missions.
  • The show roof mode is now enabled by default.
  • Show an explicit notification when a soldier has fallen or is stunned in ground combat.
  • Teleporting using a teleport pod now costs 8 TU instead of being free, if a soldier doesn't have enough TU to teleport, they will stay on the teleport pod.
  • Reworked Wraiths deciding where and when to teleport, they should now again be dangerous rather than suicidal.

General improvements:

  • Faster alien turns (faster pathfinding, faster decisions).
  • Game built with more optimizations, making it generally run somewhat faster.
  • Limited FPS during hidden movement (maxFpsDuringHiddenMovement in gameconfig.xml) for faster alien turns.
  • Dawn/dusk in ground missions.
  • Support for ground combat ambience sounds. Note that no sounds are actually included and need to be provided by a mod (see assets/sounds_gc.xml for how to add them).
  • Provide an animation while a building collapses.

UI:

  • The show roof mode is now enabled by default.
  • Show an explicit notification when a soldier has fallen or is stunned in ground combat.
  • Show an alert when there are intruders in the Xenonaut base command center.
  • Commander rank is now higher than Colonel (as it was for example in the original game). This is a purely visual change that swaps the texts shown in the UI, internally nothing changes.
  • Fixed showing of where a leaning shot is blocked.
  • In research view should also number of scientists working on a project in other bases.
  • Show original rank in end combat report for promoted soldiers.
  • Previous/next buttons in inventory view in ground combat.
  • Move Up/Down buttons in the Modding Tools view are now called Priority Up/Down to make it clearer what they do (mods listed first have higher priority).

Balance:

  • Teleporting using a teleport pod now costs 8 TU instead of being free (TeleportUseAP in config.xml). If a soldier doesn't have enough TU to teleport, they will stay on the teleport pod.
  • Reapers and zombies have some chemical armour to reduce effectiveness of defensive stun gas tactics.
  • Line of sight distance now ignores height levels (previously was calculated as 3D causing shorter range towards the ground level).

AI:

  • Reworked Wraiths deciding where and when to teleport. They should now again be dangerous rather than suicidal. Note that this does not change anything about teleporting ending their actions for the current turn.
  • Civilians and local forces now have different ranks (and so can be configured separately in aiprops.xml).

General fixes:

  • Internal game files are no longer created in assets/mods/internal.
  • Avoid aliens seemingly teleporting during their turn (caused by almost instant animation).
  • Avoid unseen aliens briefly flashing after loading a ground combat save.
  • Show hidden movement screen immediately after alien turn starts.
  • Fixed path finding to always find the fastest way to a target location.
  • Allow Reapers to attack through open door.
  • Aliens at the end of their turn should properly turn towards the direction from which they expect Xenonauts to attack.
  • Fleeing soldiers should be less likely to run towards even more dangerous locations.
  • Fleeing soldiers should not stop when they notice a new alien.
  • Fixed a problem that made fleeing soldiers actually stay in place in some cases.
  • Avoid crash caused by starting Xenonaut base defence when there are only ordered soldiers but none are actually present.
  • Fires should no longer start inside UFOs just because the UFO has landed/crashed on a hayfield.
  • Fixed a problem sometimes preventing running up/down stairs.
  • Prevent disappearing of corpses of characters killed while they were not visible by the player.
  • Reapers and zombies should be created correctly even when they are not visible by the player.
  • Do not allow landing down into an object.
  • Make air combat buttons speed up more (up to 5 times), and timeout at the end of air combat is also affected by speed.
  • Fix dropping of weapons when a soldier has items in both hands.
  • Fix possible crash when ending or reloading ground combat with fire/smoke tiles.
  • Fixed saving of mods status (order, activation) if a larger number of them is installed.
  • Fixed the game locking up if a soldier is shot by an alien and another soldier reaction fires at the alien.
  • Fix soldiers/aliens dying from fire to die properly.
  • Fixed shooting at target behind 100% to still scatter sometimes.
  • Fixed movement such as vaulting or flying sometimes moving into an object.
  • Fixed alien armour to always apply correctly.
  • Armour of soldiers killed by overdamage is no longer recovered.
  • Fixed adjusting volume of sound effects during hidden movement.
  • Camera level should no longer change when a soldier that is not selected moves between height levels.
  • Fire should no longer keep injuring aliens indefinitely until it is revealed by Xenonauts.
  • Merged fixes from recent vanilla 1.5x releases.

Modding/mapping:

  • Farm's forest maps have been moved to the forest tileset. Since they share resources with the farm tileset, searching for forest resources automatically falls back to the farm tileset if a resource is not found.

Bug reporting:

If you encounter any problem, you can report it as the X:CE bug reports forum. Please read and follow the bug reporting guidelines.


Possible future features/changes:

  • New ground combat mission types.
  • Enhanced crash sites (not to be confused with the mod, although the work may be based on it).
  • Collective alien strategies in ground missions (such as flanking, group charging or coming to the help of breached UFO defenders).
  • More challenging play on Insane difficulty.
  • More (semi-)random maps.
  • Fixes/improvements for the map editors.

These may or may not get done and are subject to change. They are listed to give a possible overview of some new improvements in future releases of X:CE.

Whether and how soon they get implemented also depends on how many contributors to X:CE there will be. Which can be also you:

  • If you would like to help improve X:CE, there are areas where it is possible to contribute without being a coder, such as fixing map problems, providing art for new features or creating maps. Feel free to ask for details.
  • If you know C++, there is the Community coder program (and do not be afraid to ask for guidance).
Edited by llunak
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Thanks! Great work and commitment llunak! (and kabill)

Are there any changes compared to the latest RC?

[*] If you have... ...Skitso's art pack mods installed, deactivate/delete them. They have been merged directly into X:CE.

This isn't entirely true as the art pack improves almost all desert/industrial tiles colours in atlas files. If I understand correctly, the atlas images are not included in the X:CE so large part of the visual finesse that this mod has, is lost.

Edited by Skitso
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Are there any changes compared to the latest RC?

Yes, and not just the executable.

This isn't entirely true as the art pack improves almost all desert/industrial tiles colours in atlas files. If I understand correctly, the atlas images are not included in the X:CE so large part of the visual finesse that this mod has, is lost.

So you have edited only the resulting atlas files but not the source files?

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Well, sorry, but that simply doesn't work. Atlas files are generated and even if X:CE used them, your changes would still get overwritten the moment the atlas files would be regenerated. If GH updated their files, it'd would be the same with 1.5x (or rather your atlases would revert any changes done by GH).

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That doesn't really make a difference, X:CE is not going to use an added atlas file one way or another. I suppose I could add to my todo list that I could write a small app that would compare the differences between the vanilla and your atlas files and merge the differences back to the source files.

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So at the moment the only way to get them to work properly is to manually overwrite the files?

Atlases don't work with modularity if they include copies of items they do not change, that's like not using the MODMERGE stuff, just in binary. I see no good way around that.

That sucks as I'm definitely not going to remake ~one third of the tiles in the game. :/

As I said, I can try to dig them out in an automated way, somewhen. Do you have the original atlas files before your modifications, or at least know from which game version they were? And I take it I should check maps as well, in case I discarded atlases there too?

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As far as I know, atlas images have not changed in ages and you should be able to compare them to 1.0 -> at least.

Map pack has only farm atlases (improved tree stumps) so fixing the art pack atlases should be enough.

Edited by Skitso
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