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[v1.59/X:CE v0.34.2] X - DIVISION v0.99+ Alpha Test


drages

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X-DIVISION

0.99.01 Alpha Test Version

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Hi People of X!!!

After months of planning, editing, adding, deleting, remaking, discussing, coping, pasting, coding, painting and doing much more things. Finally we start first test run of X-Division 0.99. First of all, this version is not playable yet as a whole game. This is for a test run to check possible bugs/missing elements/balance issues for new added features. You got every GC items unlimited. You got a base with all map cover and got 3 last tech bomber plane with most powerful torpedoes. Just bring down all ufo's and go for ground battles. You can change the game time with startingAlienTicker value="0" code at gameconfig.xml.

You should have this mods active:

Untitled-1.jpg

What should be tested?

-Sprites of the weapon/armour/shield combinations for both alien and human weapons.

-Weapon sound/projectile/particles. Any missing or non fitting effect for weapons.

-Ufo GC tests. Any crash at loading or map problems? Every ufo should have it's core drop.

-Ufo Crew. There should be only guard/soldier/warrior/elite. I mean there should be no guard/warrior/elite if there is soldiers.

-Balance and AI.

-Aliens, do they have weapons? Do they fire them? SPecially important against ceasans because they use shields. Any reaction crashes?

Against 1 Phase Ufos, use:

-Division/Laser Weapons with jackal armours.

Against 2 Phase Ufos, use:

-MAG/Plasma Weapons with predator/wolf armours.

Against 3 Phase Ufos, use:

-Gauss/Pulse Weapons with sentinel/ravager/alpha wolf armours.

Against 4 Phase Ufos, use:

-Rail/Sonic Weapons with Best armours.

Chart for Phase Ufos:

newufos.jpg

Finished Part:

- Human GC Soldier Weapons/Grenades/Explosives/Shields/Armours %95

- Alien Weapons/Grenades %100

- Alien Units and Equipments %100

- Alien Ufo's, their timing and crews %100

- New AI %90

Not Finished/Included:

- Vehicles

- Air Aspects

- Manufacture

- Research

- Descriptions

- X-Pedia

I will try to make a Q/A section as Sentelin :) advised.. i hope i can handle.. prepare for bad english..

- You got already 0.98 nearly finished, why did this take so long to make a just next version?

0.95 and others were a test for version 1.0. 0.98 gave me many info about the calculations, planning and balance. I got a big imagination and sadly when i start, i can't stop. I made many plans and changed them at progress. It's very hard to handle if you add so many things, even the game itself didn't use them. 0.99 is a huge step and much bigger then 0.98. It will be 1.0 after all tests and balance finished.

- What is your purpose? What will X-Division become at 1.0?

Some people played X-Com for years even with the same things, against same enemies even they memorised everything at that game. X-Division will have a long game play with many new things. It's like X-Com 2K's Long War. You will start the game and it will take your hours and days always with new things to get, to use, to research, to beat. Many gamer finished this game more then one time like they did to X-Com.. X-Division will like to play this game 5 times in a one gameplay.

- What did you plan to make that long game play?

Numbers are important. This kind of games needs content. You want always new things. This should never stop. Every combat should have a purpose. Maybe an alien to capture, maybe a weapon to get, maybe a material you need. X-Division will have tons of new things to use. There will be always new things to make you have them.

- Everyone can add more things to this game. Will be good enough to have more weapons or such things?

No. Adding things more and more without plan will ruin it. You can add 10-15 weapon and players can use them with joy, but this won't be enough to make the game enjoyable at long term. This needs a very serious and disciplined planning. X-Division planned with every little aspect of this game. This mod is the only mod which adds the "enemy" to the planning. We got decent number of aliens and they have about 10 weapon at vanilla game. X-Division's first step is having a massive and organized enemy to fight against. After the enemy army recreated, i made player side. We are defending ourselves so we need to have a counter for every incoming attack. The balance is created from the beginning to the end. You won't able to overpower them and they will grow stronger when you get better. This is a race between aliens and you.

- Let's talk about the number you mentioned. What do we have for players?

Game got 3 Phase at vanilla. X-Division made this 4. It looks not so much maybe but every phase is much larger at this mod and adding a new one is like adding %30 more game content. As players, we got 4 phase and each phase got a ballistic and energy weapon branch. Every branch got 6-9 weapons and each weapon got 2 upgrades. Including this we got a special weapon branch with 3 upgrades, a weapon tech bring us by our rebel caesan. Additional weapons like launchers, flamethrowers we got totally more then 160 weapons not including grenades and such. 6 explosive branch from beginning flag grenade to singularity heavy explosive will help us. 4 Branch of flashbang and smoke grenades will add tactical aspect to the game. We dont have new shields so 0.98 shields will stay. We will have melee weapons as axe, knife and swords. No, not lightsaber.. Vehicles and airforce will have their new content soon. All weapons got their unique art. Every armour got their 3. version and it makes the mod huge as size. And miniguns.. yeah miniguns.. :)

- 160 weapon?? It's 3 times more then 0.98.. why so many? Will i need them at all? Even at vanilla game i could finish the game with lasers. So the new enemy you talked about?

Aliens. 3 Main race with some helpers tried to conquer us with about 10 plasma weapons and 7 ufo types. They don't have any armour or resistant mostly. As i said, we need a serious enemy to use a serious defense. I used much time to plan to create a balanced and organised enemy. I want them to use everything against me. Player should feel the stress. As numbers, aliens got more then 100 weapons now. New grenades for both damage and tactical aspects like we have. They will use different kind of weapon types and tactical objects special for their races. Caesans will use their energy weapon tech with explosive grenades and their force fields like our shields. Their resistance against energy will make you use kinetics against them. Their helpers wraiths will use most powerful energy weapons and flashbangs to assault you. When you will try to handle them at range, xenomorphs will ambush you with their ballistic proof skins. Sebillians will go for with smoke grenades and tougher reapers, Androns will use much more drones and heavy weapons. Aliens will start weak phaser weapons and bring their ion cannons later.

The biggest planning was about the 4 game phase. Every phase, aliens will upgrade their weapons, ranks and types. They will become powerful step by step. You will see different colored units at every phase. For example you will fight against soldiers at 2. phase and fully elites at phase 4.. even with powerful armours you wont able to run to the open. Like all the normal races, Xenomorphs, drones, reapers, everything will have different colors, better weapons and stats.

Aliens now have about 30 ufo's. This was one of the biggest problem against my planning. 7 Ufo were so few to add something and make the game longer. So now every ufo type got different content per phase. You will have scout at every phase but with updated crew and stats. Special cargo ships and shuttles will bring you surprises and rare material, objects and enemies to capture. Overpowered ufo's for their phase will bring terror and base assault missions. Now enemies got special terror teams with unique armour penetrating and chemical weapons. Their drops will give you the best tech you can have but first you need to beat them.

You will need high explosives for andron tanks, gauss rifles against caesans, sonic cannons for sebs, flamethrowers for reapers and more. If you got the right weapon, everything will be fine. But if you don't have?....

- You made a mod for aliens rather then us lol... How did you balance them? They are so many variations..

Yeah that balancing. The first step was controlling everything. I planned all the damage outputs from alien and our weapons. Then i gave that stats to the weapons, armours and resistances for that phase. If you look to the excel file named "weapon-stats 0.99.xls" you will see TONS of numbers about every stat at the game. So i know the damage of the aliens at a phase and i gave armour stats to our armours which we will get at that phase. Of course there will be in game balancing.

- So we got good numbers and aspects. But about the weapons.. are they only better damage then older ones?

No. Every weapon branch have their specialty. For example, plasma weapons will be very heavy, slow and low ranged but hits hard. Pulse weapons are low damage but fire fast and got good accuracy for mostly new soldiers. Gauss weapons will be one shot long range weapons and MAG's are crazy burst. We got 4 ballistic and 4 energy weapon branch. 2 Branch is replacing other mostly, i mean Division weapons will be replaced by Gauss and MAG will be replaced by Rail.. Laser will become Pulse and Plasma to Sonic... But these 4 branches will have different characteristics. And the special antimatter branch will be average damage but they will ignore alien resistances. Explosives got tons of things.. stun, chemical, emp, explosive, armour penetrating..smokes and flashbangs.. you need to have everything to survive.

- They are about 400 new items to use. How will be their visuals at game? Will we have only different equipment picture and same pew pew at ground combat?

I hate that. Just change the picture and everything same. You need to feel to use it. We can't change the look at the soldier images so we got bullet projectile, particle/explosion and the sound. Nearly every weapon and it's branch got it's own projectile and particle, including alien weapons. You got a Gauss rifle MK-1 and it fires a reddish flaming bullet. When you got MK-2 of the same rifle, your bullet and plume became yellowish. So you will feel the weapon changed. Sounds, X-Division got about 100 new sounds for ground battle. New bullet fires, reloads, explosions. This realy makes a different.

- AI.. did you change anything?

AI changed totally. I wanted to create an aggressive one. I wanted to make them fire to you. But still needs testing. They are so aggressive, they just leave ufo even command room to hunt you down..heh..

- New vehicle plans?

Thanks to our new modders mostly Aaargh, we got many new vehicles to able to use at X-Division. 0.98 got some problems about this. I will correct them and tried to add proper vehicles and weapons. Wont take long i hope.

- You didn't touch to air combat right?

Wrong. I made some experiments about counter missile weapons and special weapons like huge cannons. But even i like to mod the air combat, i use %90 autosolve. I still think about this. Is it worth for the time? So i will make this as a DLC after everything finished. I need to edit new UFO stats too. 30 ufo and new airplanes waiting.. bahhh.. 0.98 air combat is working well so it wont stop the release date of this version.

- We need research and manufacture for play the mod, you know...

Yeah. One of the most exciting part of this version will be random research. You wont have all the upgrades of your weapons. MK-1 will be easy and you will get all weapons but lesser Mk-2 and few Mk-3 will be availbe.. You will need to capture many key aliens and get many items/resources to get new versions. My plan is making manufacture a type of engineering. You will research the weapon but manufacture will handle upgrading. You can think this like a big manufacture of a weapon type and it will be infinite. A manufacture for a weapon update and for that weapon version alone is ridiculously many numbers of total manufacture. You saw the numbers already, guess the research and manufacture numbers.. 0.98 got 400 research topics and 0.99 will have more then 600 easily..

- Your lore team gone puff.. any ideas about this?

Everyone got RL issiues. It's totally normal and i am very thankfull to them for their help. I am planning to write important lore parts and make someone translate for money. But do not wait to add every object from me.. You do not need to know how alien ion pistol works anyway.. interrogations are important. We will see..

- Where is the download link?!

Heh, morning.. it's uploading now. It's 4 GB.. so takes time :)

Thanks for reading. It's 2 am and i got duty tomorrow.

Untitled-1.jpg

newufos.jpg

Untitled-1.jpg.c297b648395b0a96304175b1b

newufos.jpg.15bd8fcafa1875ab855a5141ed90

Edited by drages
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Seraphim

Who is that ? Anyway, I can't imagine how much effort and how tedious it was for you to write this article.Sure there are mistakes but men you had outdone yourself, it's almost like someone else written it.

Meanwhile, this could use some more formatting for easier reading and to look more eye candy.Short example :

Aliens. 3 Main race with some helpers tried to conquer us with about 10 plasma weapons and 7 ufo types. They don't have any armour or resistant mostly.

As i said, we need a serious enemy to use a serious defense. I used much time to plan to create a balanced and organized enemy. I want them to use everything against me. Player should feel the stress. As numbers, aliens got more:

- Then 100 weapons now

- New grenades for both damage and tactical aspects like we have.

They will use different kind of weapon types and tactical objects special for their races:

- Caesans will use their energy weapon tech with explosive grenades and their force fields like our shields. Their resistance against energy will make you use kinetics against them.

- Their helpers wraiths will use most powerful energy weapons and flashbangs to assault you. When you will try to handle them at range, xenomorphs will ambush you with their ballistic proof skins.

- Sebillians will go for with smoke grenades and tougher reapers, Androns will use much more drones and heavy weapons. Aliens will start weak phaser weapons and bring their ion cannons later.

Edited by Sentelin
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Some amazing Progress Drages! :o

I've been away for a long time with RL issues. Sadly haven't been able to work on the Balance minimod or even my own mod. Hell I don't even have Xenonauts installed or anything anymore at the moment. (But this is all a story for another day)

If you wish I could very happily write up some Lore segments for weapons and such if you wanted to give me a list and any possible basis for the way you want the lore to work for each entry and such.

Although my English skills aren't the best. Someone could always go over what I write up and fix what I mess up if they so desire. :)

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As for AI.With Illunak's improvements on AI from CE 0.33 side and that AI script in X-Division, I think you will likely end up nerfing their stats or making them little less aggressive, I can already see myriads of comments about it.

Nah, that was just fixes. But in case you end up nerfing the AI, I'd be interested in the best-performing AI, as I find the insane AI still not insane enough :). Maybe the AI could be released as a standalone mod?

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Nah, that was just fixes. But in case you end up nerfing the AI, I'd be interested in the best-performing AI, as I find the insane AI still not insane enough :). Maybe the AI could be released as a standalone mod?

I think so too. Insane is, not insane. I want an ai which fires when they see me rather then try to hide. Fire first ask later. I tried this first at melee aliens and I think they do this somehow. Even the numbers are so high, aliens like to hide much rather then firing. My only problem is they are leaving ufo and command room. I tried some goal numbers but still they do not stay inside.

For this reason I plan to lock all the ufo main and command room doors. I still think it should be locked for humans at least.

And I still don't know something about ai. When I coded behaviour at the race code, what happens to individual aI about aggressive defencive passive and command?

Edited by drages
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I think so too. Insane is, not insane. I want an ai which fires when they see me rather then try to hide. Fire first ask later. I tried this first at melee aliens and I think they do this somehow. Even the numbers are so high, aliens like to hide much rather then firing.

That is a problem with aiprops.xml's MinimumAccuracy. If the AI can't make a such with at least this accuracy, it simply won't shoot. Something I want to fix, because it's really lame in practice sometimes.

And I still don't know something about ai. When I coded behaviour at the race code, what happens to individual aI about aggressive defencive passive and command?

I don't understand the question.

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I try to say, at the beginning of the aiprops file you have the behavior code for all that aggressive defensive command and passive right? But at race code, at the beginning you can add behavior code again, to make every race act different. Here comes the question. So how this specific behavior code effecting the global ai of that aggressive dwfensive command and passive ai?

I hear that minimum accuracy problem here and there. I want a battleground with shoots fire even with a little chance. Aliens shoot fire even it's hard to hit. Because as a Xcom like game, you can never know a bullet can land to its target or not. As I remember from tftd, aliens even shoot from great distances and you can be killed one of them anytime. Aliens shoot thrn go behind something. At this game they are so related to stay out of Los. I want them stay under cover or behind something, not 1 step out of my Los, they lose a fire opportunity to do that.

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Holy cow !! I am god damn overwhelmed by number of weapons and armors , so much that I literally lost 45 min just staring at them and enjoying in models and textures (did all of them have been done by you ? ). On side note, whoever has to do "strings" will be in the lots and lots of trouble. It's going to be awhile before I can give any concrete feedback. In the mean time, I will leave those question about AI to Illunak because he can give you better answer.

Edit: I can't believe there are Katanas in mod (did you get that inspiration from Xcom-2 game preview, that devs aired a little while ago).

I doubt you will devote your entire time and likely a lot of money to make, who knows how many sprites and render them from 3D to 2D perspective . I will just use my imagination when I equip Katana and pretend it's not a buton. :D

Edited by Sentelin
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Heh. Yeah every weapon image edited by me. Searching, editing and retexturing.. I love to work with visual things. Code is killing me.. string and descriptions will be done by mad draku who send to me by heavens. Without him I don't think I got enough patience to do that descriptions.

Katanas was always at my list. I still don't like seeing a buton as a katana. For that reason I consantrate on something you can use like a buton so axes are best match.

Try them in game.. see new effects and sounds :)

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Here is the first problem that I noticed, this what you will see on SS I manage to produce also with Katana.I will post screenshots in sequence, it's better if you visually see it:

1.Nothing unusual here, I just opened backpack to show you that everything is as it should be and to equip medpack:

xenonauts_2015_09_21_01_23_18_18.png

2.Then I closed backpack and re-opened again:

a)Closed:

xenonauts_2015_09_21_01_23_46_31.png

b)Re-opened:

xenonauts_2015_09_21_01_23_55_03.png

3.See that medpack in slot below ? Well it stays there and you can pick it up:

xenonauts_2015_09_21_01_24_01_57.png

As you can see on forth picture I got free medpack and I could do that as long as my soldier has enough remaining TU, so I ended up with 5-6 medpacks.I could do the same with Katana (red).I tried to reproduce this with axe and knife but it didn't happen, there could possibly be more weapons/equipment that have same bug but it will take time to discover them all (at first I though it's related to 2x3 items, but katana is 1x5 so it's not that)

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I don't see why it wouldn't be possible, it's just another stats (although maybe UI scaling might cause problem) .However I would bug Illunak about this to implement in final 0.34, it shouldn't be problem for him and I think it's not complicated to implement, not to mention that something like this is useful for vanilla players too.

Edit:Scratch what I said, because I didn't read what you asked properly and I was quick to judge.What you are asking might not be so simple after all, I will have to pull source code from Xenonauts git repo to be 100% certain but replacing all soldier stats with Armor resistance stats when armor is equip , doesn't sound to me that simple the more I think about it. I though you asked for resistance stats to be displayed along with other soldier stats when armor is equipped that's why I answered so hasty.Then again it's best if you ask Illunak.

Edited by Sentelin
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Tested early UFOs a bit.

Weapon sound/projectile/particles: division rifle and sniper rifle sound is too loud, shotgun and alien heavy phaser sounds are missing.

Ufo GC tests: i had a crash on one map, will post a savegame. just move any soldier forward to water. Maybe it's a map pack issue, the map looks like it's from one of them.

Balance and AI:

1. Aliens sally and do not defend their ship! Dunno if it's a bug or intended. Assaulted bomber corvette, all 15 aliens aboard fought me outside. Even the officer!

2. This officer and his navigator also died the dumbest death ever. They got 3-4 tiles close to my shotgun guy...and did not shoot. I saved the game, killed them, checked their weapons - it was a heavy phaser. They dont want to shoot from distance because of low accuracy, and when they get close they have no TU left to shoot because this weapon can only burst fire. When i reloaded and skipped turn they did shoot my men so it's not like something is bugged, just wierd AI behaviour because of weapon stats.

3. Scatter lasers are bugged or working as intended? They have 3\6 ammo and cannot burst because of that(though they have snap and normal), i thought maybe you changed them into some sort of "cannon", but all their stats make them look useless(low ammo, accuracy, high tu to shoot, no area damage)

4. Default riot shield looks very weak. 10 kg weight for 60 hp? Not worth it.

5. I like however that medkit weighs that much. I had to make one guy a dedicated medic. Also a minor bug: if in loadout you take onehanded as primary and medkit as secondary at the mission site they dissappear and you spawn with both hands empty. But thats probably a part of medkit bug which was already posted, and not important to fix on its own (just place medkit in inventory and equip at mission).

crash.sav

crash.sav

crash.sav

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montealex thank you for your time.

There was some post about water on some maps.. probably its about map, my mod have nothing about map editing, only new ufo's assignments..

I will edit that sounds..

That accuracy thing is ruining my AI plans.. I dont want them snipe you with heavy weapons at early game at least but as your report i will give them a bit more acc.. The AI which rushes you leaving ufo behind.. SENTELIN.. can you give me any idea to prevent that please!

I try to make a heavy laser rather then multishot one but i was considering about it's stats.. as i thought, it needs a buf.. and which MK are using? MK-1 weapons are lame mostly, MK-2 is the optimal and MK-3 is powerful..

Riot shields weight much.. noted.. it would be updated by enchanted one early anyway..

Medkit bug is on my list. Yes i tried to make a medic specialty rather then everyone got it..

Thx again!! Everything counts!

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I don't see why it wouldn't be possible, it's just another stats (although maybe UI scaling might cause problem) .However I would bug Illunak about this to implement in final 0.34, it shouldn't be problem for him and I think it's not complicated to implement, not to mention that something like this is useful for vanilla players too.

Edit:Scratch what I said, because I didn't read what you asked properly and I was quick to judge.What you are asking might not be so simple after all, I will have to pull source code from Xenonauts git repo to be 100% certain but replacing all soldier stats with Armor resistance stats when armor is equip , doesn't sound to me that simple the more I think about it. I though you asked for resistance stats to be displayed along with other soldier stats when armor is equipped that's why I answered so hasty.Then again it's best if you ask Illunak.

Replacing is not necessary. It would be better as you said. I just asked so because i thought it would be easier.

I need your help about AI which leaves UFO, even the command room..

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I try to make a heavy laser rather then multishot one but i was considering about it's stats.. as i thought, it needs a buf.. and which MK are using? MK-1 weapons are lame mostly, MK-2 is the optimal and MK-3 is powerful..

Yes, i tried mk1 and mk2. MK 3 actually has 3-shot burst for the same TU cost as a snap, so the weapon is kinda useful as a high-caliber shotgun.

Also predator armor+plasma cannon(all 3 tiers) is missing a sprite.

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Sorry drages for not responding sooner.Anyhow, you can't have both as the things are now.You can either have overly defensive AI that will camp in some corner or inside UFO waiting for your soldiers to come by and snipe them or what you have now (raging AI who doesn't defend UFO and goes all out from start).

This is something that needs to be tweaked by CP, however this is league above me, so your best bet is to cooperate with Illunak on this.I would really like to improve AI but I lack experience and I have only basic knowledge of AI programming.

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I can't really read that list of mods needed.

Just make no for armored assault and fury mod. As always, every game editing mods should be off. Only visuals and maps allowed.

And make a fast hunter vehicle. For my vehicle attack animation problem, you will see the attacking animation file as move_e at Xenonauts\assets\mods\XDivision_099\units\xenovehicles\VEHICLE.HUNTER\VV.MACHINEGUN- folder. Just delete or rename the VV.MACHINEGUN folder and activate that folder with deleting "-". So you will see the attacking animation on the move to e direction. I made it to see the animation is working or not. So it's working but as i said i cant make it work as attacking. It's up to you now..

I have some free time, and I'm looking to practice my technical writing skills. If there are any Lore entries that need completing, I would be happy to make a couple. I'd just need to know generally how the thing behaves in game, and any specific or general tone/method you need.

The weapon branches are listed. I do not plan to make them a scientific explanations. But if you want to write something, it would be good to have some little lines for branches. Not so detailed, not crazy realistic.

Edited by drages
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2015-09-29_00001_zpsoatt85sv.jpg

Mechwarr... Xenonauts Prepare For Combat...

I am still missing the first Mechcommander.. I wish i had it with unlimited missions.. i wish i could play vanilla missions with gold edition weapons.. i wish we got Mech Warrior 5 rather than that lame online money grab.. anyway..

The coolest mech ever created (i am in love with it since mech warrior "2") and Xenonauts final defense line against aliens..

I made the walking animation too and it's working. Just for this direction for now but won't be any problem to do the others. Got some more mechs to use.

My biggest problem is one weapon for vehicle. Ilunak.. can't we have it? I can help about UI art and anything you ask..

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I've taken a quick look at it so far....it seems like the game isn't even using the vehicle_spectre.xml in units\xenovehicles\VEHICLE.HUNTER\VV.MACHINEGUN. I tried replacing the file with one from another vehicle which should have changed the graphic to the new vehicle but it remained the same. Deleting the file altogether does nothing as well.

So yeah, my initial thought is it has something to do with the game not using that file and nothing to do with the actual file itself. Unless it's named wrong?

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