Jump to content

X:CE 0.33 Release Candidate


Recommended Posts

In the downloads section you can find release candidate of X:CE version 0.33.

This is an unstable release, intended to test changes before a final 0.33 release. Please join the testing (see below for specific areas which especially need testing).


Installation:

  • 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 balance mods in "Modding Tools" in the launcher.
  • 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.

Changes summary:

  • Improvements to some base views, most notably to the barracks and soldier equipment views.
  • Interceptors are allowed to be launched even when not fully ready, and rearm before refuelling (and the cost of slower rearming).
  • Soldier cost has been reduced to 5000$.
  • Opening/closing door during ground combat is no longer a very cheap and safe operation.
  • Fixes in AI handling, effectively making aliens less forgiving in some cases.
  • Ground combat UI adjustments (no hidden movement screen, soldiers roles in minibars, consistent TU/health order).
  • Fixes to throwing (most notably, grenade throwing can now miss).
  • Weapons in manual combat now have their damage slightly randomized.
  • The soldier bravery stat is now more likely to improve.

General improvements:

  • Added alternative music for air combat (slightly different version of the existing music, as taken from the alpha 10.2 demo).
  • It is now possible to change soldier roles even from the barracks base view.
  • Soldier equipment base view can now make available limited items if equipped by soldiers not assigned to the current dropship. E.g. if there are 6 plasma rifles, 1 assigned to a soldier in a dropship, 2 available in the stores and 3 assigned to soldiers not assigned to any dropship (or other dropship then the selected), the available count will be shown as "2+3", and if no rifle is available in the stores, the next one used will be first unequipped from an unassigned soldier. Note that only explicitly using equipment does this, so changing a soldier role does not (but explicitly clicking 'equip default role equipment' does).
  • Game is autosaved more often while in Geoscape.

UI:

  • Display quantity of resources in stores in the manufacturing view.
  • Dialogs (such as new UFO detected) should now be placed so as not to obscure the location they refer to.
  • Time units are now always consistently shown first, even in the ground combat panel (TimeUnitsFirst in config.xml). Change the option or use this mod to revert to the original order: [ATTACH]6331[/ATTACH]
  • Minibars on top of the ground combat panel now also show solder roles (SoldierRoleInMiniBar in config.xml).
  • The hidden screen movement is no longer show, as it doesn't really hide anything (HiddenMovementScreen in config.xml), and 'Xenonauts turn' notification is after each alien turn (XenonautsTurnNotificationDuration in config.xml).
  • The order of the stores and baracks base views has been swapped, so that the related barracks and soldier equipment views are next to each other.
  • Switching between barracks and soldier equipment base views keeps the same soldier selected.
  • The aircraft equipment view now automatically selects dropships if switching from a related base view (barracks, soldiers equipment, vehicle equipment).
  • Barracks base view now remembers which sorting column is active, and sorting should be more stable.
  • Barracks view now shows HP% even for wounded soldiers.
  • Hired but not yet arrived soldiers are also listed in the barracks base view.
  • The barracks base view can filter to show all soldiers, only available soldiers or only fully ready available soldiers.
  • Adjusted scrollbar colors to make them better visible on white backgrounds.
  • Research and manufacture base views now use scrollbars instead of empty "-" projects.
  • Soldier equipment base view now remembers which weapon/equipment tab is active, as long as the view is active. Also, the best available weapon tab is automatically selected when the view is shown first.
  • Fire cursor now shows "x3" (=number of shots) even for shotgun-like weapons.
  • Cover indicators are now shown also for UFO walls (which should be useful given the sometimes problematic mapping of round UFO shapes onto tiles).
  • Modding Tools buttons are now called 'Priority Up' and 'Priority Down' to make priority order of mods more obvious.

Balance:

  • Throwing now uses both accuracy and strength and additional hit penalty is applied only if throwing to near the maximum range (ThrowingAccuracyUsesStrengthAndAim in config.xml).
  • Getting suppressed by enemy fire now can cause bravery stat progression (suppressionGivesBravery in gameconfig.xml ).
  • Interceptors now rearm before refuelling (rearmBeforeRefuel in gameconfig.xml) and can be launched both without being fully fuelled and fully armed. Since this would effectively increase their operational time during an alien wave, rearming time has been increased by 50% (increasing e.g. Foxtrot full refit time from 5:20 to 6:00).
  • Weapons in manual air combat now have +/- 20% damage spread (airCombatDamageRandomChance in gameconfig.xml), instead of always inflicting exactly the same amount of damage.
  • Opening door can now trigger reaction fire, both when done by soldiers and aliens. This means that aliens can no longer open UFO door and immediately open fire without any risk, and similarly breaching UFOs is now more risky without proper breaching tactics. Aliens get penalty to their reaction fire ability on lower difficulty levels. Additionally, it is slightly more costly to close door, making door spaming harder. Use this mod to revert to the original setup when opening/closing door is very cheap and safe: [ATTACH]6332[/ATTACH]
  • Soldier cost has been reduced to 5000$ in order to prevent early missions possibly being economic loss if suffering casualties and in order to make it easier to staff non-primary bases.
  • Certain types of non-lethal explosives are now fire hazards and may start a fire.
  • It is no longer possible to fly while carrying a shield (both technical and gameplay reasons).

AI:

  • Make AI use estimated accuracy (includes a chance a missed shot will still hit if it doesn't scatter enough).
  • Wraiths are no longer explicitly prevented from teleporting to Xenonaut bases's command center, if they are able to do so (since there is now a notification about an alien present in the command center).
  • Unarmed civilians no longer automatically open all doors around them, drones open doors around them only if in alien environment.
  • Fixed aliens to be able to open door even diagonally.
  • Ensure aliens properly evaluate their situation on every tile they move to.
  • Fixed AI handling to not skip processing an alien further if the alien triggered reaction fire.

General fixes:

  • Fix grenades to actually scatter on miss.
  • Fix strength stat progression to work properly (i.e. as described in gameconfig.xml).
  • Aliens should no longer be repeatedly wounded by fire until player sees the fire turned into smoke.
  • Fixed camera to not change height on movement of an inactive soldier.
  • Fixed base backgrounds to properly upgrade as appropriate.
  • Fix some objects having slightly different weight when equipping in the base and during ground combat.
  • Short aborted missions no longer give stat increases.
  • Fixed conditions for whether an interceptor can be launched to be consistent.
  • Fixed medikit cursor to not show enemy HP.
  • Fixed reduced FPS drawing possibly staying active after ground combat ends.
  • Fixed column sorting in the barracks base view.
  • Missions count is now shown before kill count in the casualty list view.
  • Do not show door open icon in the inventory view.
  • Record mission and kill counts also for dropships.
  • Fixed soldier role equipping not assigning any equipment at all if even just one wasn't available.
  • Fixed alien grenades to have the same TU throwing costs as human grenades.
  • Weapons lying on the ground can no longer be unloaded without being picked up.
  • Fixed sorting by status in the barracks base view.
  • Fixed geoscape notification dialogs to be shown only when geoscape is visible (as opposed e.g. when air combat starts or base view is entered).
  • Fixed relations on geoscape to be shown properly as lost if so.
  • Fixed day of year calculation (for a proper day/night shape).
  • Fixed even markers that have scrolled away to not highlight geoscape marks.
  • Fixed throttle control in air combat to work properly, instead of the maximum position being about 80% of thrust and full (non-afterburner) thrust being achievable only by right-clicking in order to disable throttle control again.
  • Fixed dead soldiers to not receive in-memoriam promotions (visible in the casualty list).
  • Fixed detection of whether stairs was usable or broken.
  • Fixed selection of a city for a terror attack to properly skip unsuitable ones (under attack or in lost regions).
  • When clicking on Geoscape first needs to bring a selection of which item was clicked, the following dialog should now also properly keep the game paused.
  • Do not show selection cursor or cover indicators during alien turn.

Modding:

  • Armour can be set to have suppression reduction proportional instead of subtractive (ArmourSuppressionPercentage in config.xml).
  • Suppresion beyond weapon's effective range can be enabled, at a reduced rate (SuppressBeyondRange in config.xml).
  • Starting buildings are now configurable in gameconfig.xml .
  • Power core explosions can be now further configured in gameconfig.xml .
  • Escort chance can be static as set by the AM_* files (useStaticEscortChance in gameconfig.xml).
  • The "FinalBoss" AI behaviour is now hardcoded only for the Praetor Commander.
  • Monthly reports can be now specified in monthlyreports.xml .
  • Proportion of regular damage can be now applied also as stun damage (proportionStunDamage in config.xml).
  • Maximum number of alien bases is configurable (MaxAlienBases in gameconfig.xml).
  • Fixed overkillDamage to work properly.
  • Fix UFO supply missions to properly contribute to alien base growth when using the individual base growth mechanics.
  • Fixed alienWavePeriodMultiplier to work as specified in gameconfig.xml.
  • Reactivate additional manufacturing categories, if used.
  • Minimum fuel and being fully armed is now configurable for whether the interceptor can be launched (minFuelToLaunch and fullArmamentToLaunch in gameconfig.xml).
  • Research requirements can now also specify a random chance. For example, if a research Foo has requirements "Researches.Bar(AND)Function.Chance(FooChanceName,1,30)" , the research will additionally have only a 30% chance of becoming available when Researches.Bar is available. Each named chance is rolled only once (value from 1 to 100) for each name and remembered, so another research can specify e.g. "Function.Chance(FooChanceName,31,100)" to have its chance met exactly when the first one is not.

Testing

Please test this release candidate. The areas that especially need testing are

  • Game balance in ground combat related to these changes (door opening, throwing).

Compatibility

Saved games from X:CE 0.33 should be fully compatible with X:CE 0.32.

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 0.33 and thus do not contain all these fixes. Also some X:CE changes have intentionally not been incorporated. See Xenonauts 1.5x release announcements for details.
  • X:CE 0.33 should contain all relevant Xenonauts 1.5x fixes and new features.

timeunitssecond.zip

easydooropen.zip

timeunitssecond.zip

easydooropen.zip

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Extra notes:

- Some of the improvements in this version have also been done by kabill.

- Files provided in the download section may change without notice as long as a release is not announced yet (as has indeed happened for this version).

- I will not be available for most of June. This means that final 0.33 (which ideally would be identical to this version) will most likely have to wait until July. Moreover, if there is a problem with this version, it either needs to be reported very soon, or it will need to be fixed by another community coder, or you'll need to go back to 0.32.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Those are very good additions and changes again! Throwing miss is one of my fav..

I deleted my post about research percentages. I test it and it works awesome..

I created 5 manufacture item, itemA, itemB, itemC, D and E and used the code:

Items.A(AND)Function.Chance(FooChanceName,1,30)(OR)Items.B(AND)Function.Chance(FooChanceName,31,60)(OR)Items.C(AND)Function.Chance(FooChanceName,61,80)(OR)Items.D(AND)Function.Chance(FooChanceName,81,90)(OR)Items.E(AND)Function.Chance(FooChanceName,91,100)

and i checked it with about 10 new game.. the research pop up with different item manufactured every time. BUT if you restart the game, the game remembers the same random number.. you need to close and reopen the game to test.. BUT it works!!!!

And the ChangeName "Foo" can be anything.. i think the best way is to use research name there..

--------------------------------------

But Ilunak i find out something which shocked me.. There is downed ufos by LOCAL forces?! I became WTF when i saw that downed ufo by local forces.. I am nearly sure there is nothing like this before... Is it new thing with comes 0.33? What is the limit of local forces.. scouts? cruisers? battleships? and its very cool that they are calling ourselves to help them.. Is there a way to mod this? Why didnt you put it into Changes summary?

This is really really good element.. I always tough that why local forces cant down even a scout even we got nearly same aircraft at beginning!

Edited by drages
Link to comment
Share on other sites

and i checked it with about 10 new game.. the research pop up with different item manufactured every time. BUT if you restart the game, the game remembers the same random number.. you need to close and reopen the game to test.. BUT it works!!!!

Yes, that's how the research implementation works, the random numbers are chosen when loading researches, i.e. during game startup, not during starting a new game. But loading a saved game works properly.

And the ChangeName "Foo" can be anything.. i think the best way is to use research name there..

It is simply an identifier.

But Ilunak i find out something which shocked me.. There is downed ufos by LOCAL forces?! I became WTF when i saw that downed ufo by local forces.. I am nearly sure there is nothing like this before...

It's always been there. A couple of days into the game, on easy or normal difficulty, if the player hasn't managed yet to down a UFO, the game will basically fabricate a crashsite.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm a little confused which way the Mod Priority works.

I'm used to the concept Load Order, which makes instantly sense which mod is loaded first and last, with the last ones over-riding the first ones.

But here, does higher priority mean its loaded first or that its loaded last?

Does the priority mean that its more important, thus loaded last?

Or does the priority mean its loaded in first before others?

Its driving me nuts. WHICH ONE IS IT?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's always been there. A couple of days into the game, on easy or normal difficulty, if the player hasn't managed yet to down a UFO, the game will basically fabricate a crashsite.

Wow.. I play and mod this game for months and i didnt see it happening even at my tests.. anyway.. it could be nice to mod that but not so necessary.

Random research will add a huge rpg elements. I read about the door open/close and reaction topics. I am at your side.. For that reason, the player should blow up the doors if he wants a safe entrance..

Only manufacture problems left to solve to finish my projects.. again thx so much for your time and effort.

---------

higher priority means it will override everything lower then that.. i think its clear..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can someone explain this to me? I tried looking at the code for that file and couldn't discern what makes it useful in/for modding...

That's been coded by kabill, from the commit message I only know it's meant primarily for Lore+.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not sure if I'm noticing this because of the break I've had with the game or if it's an issue with this update, but the AI seems to be behaving a bit strangely: I've seen lots of aliens running really close to my units and then reserve all TU's to reaction fire, which is not that wise as they will probably not be alive to shoot that reaction shot. I've noticed this at least with caesans.

As an example I had two shotgunners outside of a light scout. A caesan opened the ufo door, ran out and just stood there doing nothing. On my turn I spent my TU's running in circles and the caesan had reaction fire. I had three similar situations in the very same mission and I can't remember this happening before, not this ofter at least.

EDIT: I'm noticing a tendency that if I have a reaction fire to an alien, it stops and reserves TU's. Could it be?

Edited by Skitso
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Caesans are lame about being aggressive. Even I coded a crazy aggressive caesan ai, they are not so likely attack. But sebs are not so.. they just make u bullet maniac if you are insight.. I didn't do any ai test after 0.33 but as I said caesans are lame about this.. if you are right and they are more lame then that, it's very bad...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not sure if I'm noticing this because of the break I've had with the game or if it's an issue with this update, but the AI seems to be behaving a bit strangely: I've seen lots of aliens running really close to my units and then reserve all TU's to reaction fire, which is not that wise as they will probably not be alive to shoot that reaction shot. I've noticed this at least with caesans.

It's been like that since ever, it's that damn MinumumAccuracy thing. Hopefully I'll finally get to doing something about it for 0.34 (which in turn will mean the game will again get a bit harder).

EDIT: I'm noticing a tendency that if I have a reaction fire to an alien, it stops and reserves TU's. Could it be?

That's exactly what 0.33 should be fixing, unless it's MinumumAccuracy preventing fire again and AI deciding there's no better position.

Caesans are lame about being aggressive. Even I coded a crazy aggressive caesan ai, they are not so likely attack. But sebs are not so.. they just make u bullet maniac if you are insight.. I didn't do any ai test after 0.33 but as I said caesans are lame about this.. if you are right and they are more lame then that, it's very bad...

I don't think the AI treats Ceasans any differently other than them having different aiprops normally.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Caesans are lame about being aggressive. Even I coded a crazy aggressive caesan ai, they are not so likely attack. But sebs are not so.. they just make u bullet maniac if you are insight.. I didn't do any ai test after 0.33 but as I said caesans are lame about this.. if you are right and they are more lame then that, it's very bad...

Yeah, and I don't even want them to be that aggressive. Reserving TU's is fine, but it just doesn't make any sense to FIRST be aggressive and run close to my units but THEN decide to do nothing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's been like that since ever, it's that damn MinumumAccuracy thing. Hopefully I'll finally get to doing something about it for 0.34 (which in turn will mean the game will again get a bit harder).

Is the MinimumAccuracy issue hard coded? Changing its values in the aiprops won't change the situation? Would be great if you'd manage to do something about it. :)

That's exactly what 0.33 should be fixing, unless it's MinumumAccuracy preventing fire again and AI deciding there's no better position.

Wasn't the original issue that the alien just stops and does nothing after reaction fire? Now it reserves TU's at least.

Edited by Skitso
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ilunak. I still don't get what overrides what at aiprops coding. I mean there is ai cod at beginning.. global one.. than you change it to the categories like aggressive defensive passive command, then you override it at the race coding again even for every rank of an enemy.. so when I override it at the race code, what happens to categories? They all get override? Like aggressive defensive and all.. if they all override with race code, there is no meaning at all categories..

I made many tests with aggressive ai.. I was trying to make enemies attack me without care anything.. no cover no Los just attack if they see my soldier. At sebs they did that mostly.. they just goes open and fire as much as they can and they try to hide after that. But caesans still try to fine somewhere to hide and then if they can still fire they act...

I thing there is something out there like u said about min acc. Should I give them huge acc? Sebs fire me with more less acc stats with less acc weapons..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

MinimumAccuracy is alterable in aiprops. Remember that aliens only fire burst or snap shots, so MinimumAccuracy always takes its queue from the two least accurate grades of shot an alien can fire. One huge step up for aliens would be the ability to use normal and aimed. You'd see a lot more shots then.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is the MinimumAccuracy issue hard coded? Changing its values in the aiprops won't change the situation? Would be great if you'd manage to do something about it. :)

The code using the value is the way it is, and it'll need to be changed to something more flexible. Changing the value will just turn it into a different problem, IIRC kabill did a mod to do that, and aliens mostly just kept firing from wherever they were.

MinimumAccuracy is alterable in aiprops. Remember that aliens only fire burst or snap shots, so MinimumAccuracy always takes its queue from the two least accurate grades of shot an alien can fire. One huge step up for aliens would be the ability to use normal and aimed. You'd see a lot more shots then.

You'd see a lot more dead soldiers too. Not sure that'd be a good change.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We know that the AI can reason out which target to shoot at. It can determine whether a target is flanked, whether it should shoot because friendlies are in the way, if the target is already wounded, what rank the target is (and therefore how potentially dangerous it is). What it does not know is whether to fire a shot now, or wait for a better shot. MinimumAccuracy cuts through any kind of sophisticated reasoning by simply setting a minimum threshold. If MinimumAccuracy were to be replaced, then it needs to be replaced by something sophisticated enough to work out when it’s suitable to shoot, and when it’s suitable to reserve shots.

When to shoot?

Statistically it’s better for aliens to shoot whenever possible than to not shoot. Their weapons are powerful enough to severely wound or kill a target whenever they hit. The more shots an alien fires the more likely it is to hit a target and aliens need fewer shots to kill targets than Xenonauts need to kill aliens.

This presumption doesn’t stand up in practice. An alien which always shoots whenever it can ends up standing wherever it is, firing off as many shots as possible every turn. An alien which does this may hit a Xenonaut target but because they are static they’re far more likely to be shot and killed before they get many shots off! In addition the collected opinions of Xenonaut players on this when it happened through beta is that this is uninteresting behaviour. (I’m pretty sure that this was when MinimumAccuracy was introduced to prevent aliens from simply standing wherever they are). Desirable alien behaviour would appear to be to shoot often, but not so much that the shooter stays still.

Reserving TU

Reserving TU is a defensive action. You put aside TU to be able to respond to your opponents actions in his turn, because you cannot respond in an effective manner during your own turn. It’s a risky move – a unit which reserves TU can’t act effectively in their own turn, may die in the opponent’s turn before they get to act and waste TU if they don’t see a target or if the target moves out of view before it can respond.

The most effective use of reserved TUs is when you anticipate danger. If Xenonauts breach a UFO, being able to fire back in the Xenonauts turn from prepared positions disrupts the attack. If you expect that a target will walk around a corner it’s more effective to wait in ambush than to reveal yourself, possibly miss and give away your position. It would follow the only time an alien needs to reserve TUs for a shot is when it cannot see a target to shoot, it has a reasonable idea of where a target is or where a target might be and there is a good chance the target will walk into the shooter’s line of sight.

It may be possible to predict where Xenonauts will be. If GJ’s ProbabilisticSearch routine is fully implemented then legally, the game can know with a very high confidence where Xenonauts are. It follows that from that the game can know where Xenonauts can go (as in, the total area all Xenonauts can be in) given an average TU score. A variable could then be set to report this to the alien AI with varying degrees of accuracy and from that the AI can work out if it’s worthwhile reserving TU. However, if that’s too much work, then a much simpler method would be to only permit aliens to reserve TUs when they can’t see any targets and only do that when their aggressivity has been triggered by the proximity of a Xenonaut.

Edited by Max_Caine
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Barracks base view now remembers which sorting column is active, and sorting should be more stable.

Wow the amount of fine tuning and improving going into the CE edition is truly amazing.

The sorting is such a small thing in the overall game, but really makes the game such a better experience.

Any chance we could get the stores list sortable. At the moment it seems to list items in the order they were unlocked, but being able to sort them via name or quantity would be really helpful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...