[1.65/X.CE V0.35.0] X-Division 1.00 Beta (1.00.11c)

[thethirteenth1]

Also unrelated, is there a discord/ slack/ IRC something for x division? This is such a great mod, i'm really surprised by the seemingly small community :-/

[thethirteenth1]

Possibly premature: assuming its the single shot stats as described in weapons_gc.xml

 

The gatling laser seems inferior to the precision laser in nearly every way.

• worse ammo count
• worse accuracy
• worse reaction modifer
• worse range
• worse weight
• worse recoil
• is strengthlimited (i'm actually not sure what this means but it seems bad)

The only advantages are:

• close range bonus for gatling laser
• +35 dmg in exchange for -10 mitigation

 

 

Separate thing i noticed:

weapons_gc.xml: Line 551

Seems to having a floating "<BurstFire/>" tag
I Haven't actually fielded precision lasers yet... would this break things?

[Charon]

1 minute ago, thethirteenth1 said:

Hi, I had a question about the Gatling Laser Mk 1/ 2

 

From the Soldier Equipment screen in game:

Gatling laser mk 1 seems to have burst fire:

The tooltip is wrong, its 1 shot. This has already been fixed for the next version.

2 minutes ago, thethirteenth1 said:

suppression is actually 14, not 13

Why do you know it better than we  ? I coded a new flat suppression system where the values are the ones you see minus 1. So 13 is correct.

Although they are not correct for some other things like weapon.railheavymk1.desc etc ... . I would love to see the correct values getting used but i think one or 2 points off the actual values wont let people have  a too much distorted view on how the weapon handles. @Phoenix1x+52 did them and i really appreciate his work here, even if some values are off.

You can see that the values get off the further you go down the list, which points to exhaustion and overworking. This is why i think the result is as good as it could get.

So if you want to do some changes you are welcome to correct things: https://github.com/X-Division/X-Division

 

Good catch though, well done.

[Charon]

17 minutes ago, thethirteenth1 said:

Also unrelated, is there a discord/ slack/ IRC something for x division? This is such a great mod, i'm really surprised by the seemingly small community :-/

Be a pioneer, make one

8 minutes ago, thethirteenth1 said:

Possibly premature: assuming its the single shot stats as described in weapons_gc.xml

 

The gatling laser seems inferior to the precision laser in nearly every way.

• worse ammo count
• worse accuracy
• worse reaction modifer
• worse range
• worse weight
• worse recoil
• is strengthlimited (i'm actually not sure what this means but it seems bad)

The only advantages are:

• close range bonus for gatling laser
• +35 dmg in exchange for -10 mitigation

+35 is a world difference. if something has 50 armour, you would do 20 damage with a precision rifle, and 55 with a gatling one. Thats more than +100% damage.

11 minutes ago, thethirteenth1 said:

Separate thing i noticed:

weapons_gc.xml: Line 551

Seems to having a floating "<BurstFire/>" tag
I Haven't actually fielded precision lasers yet... would this break things?

Nothing is broken and the code line is correct  .

[thethirteenth1]

Sorry if I came across as overbearing, I didn't intend that! I was just noting things that confused me.

Oooh, theres a github! Nice! School is just ending for me, maybe this will be my debut onto the open source software stage...

Thank you for the dmg analysis, that does put things more in perspective.
Unfortunately, i was looking for a more direct energy equivalent of the division heavy machine gun. Ah well, gonna have to play the squad slightly differently is all.

Hm, curious about the burst fire tag thing. Goes to show i dont know as much about xml as i thought.

 

Thanks for your response!

[thethirteenth1]

Hm, the github doesn't seem to have all the files like weapons_gc.xml

 

Is this intentional, or just haven't gotten around to adding it?
actually there seem to be a lot of missing files relevant to the mod. Is this supposed to be just for strings and stuff?

[Charon]

6 minutes ago, thethirteenth1 said:

Sorry if I came across as overbearing, I didn't intend that! I was just noting things that confused me.

I noticed i came across a bit condelscending, i apologise for the inconvinience.

9 minutes ago, thethirteenth1 said:

Hm, curious about the burst fire tag thing. Goes to show i dont know as much about xml as i thought.

Hm ? Nothing much to see here. its the (Burst) code line started and ended with nothing inbetween. Like a sandwich without any filling, it doesnt do any harm but you wouldnt eat it either way.

4 minutes ago, thethirteenth1 said:

Hm, the github doesn't seem to have all the files like weapons_gc.xml

 

Is this intentional, or just haven't gotten around to adding it?
actually there seem to be a lot of missing files relevant to the mod. Is this supposed to be just for strings and stuff?

As far as nobody needs it they havent been uploaded. As it means additional work for me to upload the latest things everytime i decided to upload them as people need them. If you want to work on anything drop a note and i can upload them.

The ultimate goal will be to have a full working github project online.

[Charon]

@thethirteenth1 We are also making regular teamviewer sessions, if you want to join i can drop a not for you. Usually we are available around 20 00 - 00 00 GMT +2, and ofcourse mostly available on steam.

[Phoenix1x+52]

6 hours ago, thethirteenth1 said:

Hi, I had a question about the Gatling Laser Mk 1/ 2

 

From the Soldier Equipment screen in game:

Gatling laser mk 1 seems to have burst fire:
105 Energy Dmg
45% : 30 ACC x 6 shots
70% : 55 ACC x 6 shots

Gatling Laser mk 2 seems to be single shot:
125 Energy Dmg
45% : 35 ACC x 1 shot
70% : 70 ACC x 1 shot

(these agree with strings.xml)
 

Is this intentional? mk 1 -> mk2 seems to either be
1) A slight nerf for its role (6 shots -> 1 shot, trading massive dps for accuracy)
2) A completely different role (from burst dmg -> pseudo harder hitting sniper / cannon)

Looking in weapons_gc.xml (weapon.scatterlaser) [I'm a coder too, not afraid to dig into source code tee hee]:

• Mk 1 is actually a single shot weapon, with burst first commented out.
• suppression is actually 14, not 13
• I just noticed, clip size of 3 wouldnt even let you fire 6 shots...
• reactionModifier is .2, not .5 as stated in strings.xml

Mk2 has similar values.

 

Which one is the intended? It seems that it's supposed to be a single shot weapon, and strings.xml update just got missed. (If so i need to go re-theorycraft my squad loadout again cry)

damn, i thought i corrected that. i'll go again through all the strings and look for errors. it's only the tooltips. mk1 and mk2 have no burst. Maybe mk3?  

[thethirteenth1]

7 hours ago, Charon said:

@thethirteenth1 We are also making regular teamviewer sessions, if you want to join i can drop a not for you. Usually we are available around 20 00 - 00 00 GMT +2, and ofcourse mostly available on steam.

That sounds like something I might be interested in joining; but in a few weeks.

@phoenix1x+52 yep, just got mk3 i am excite.

 

Are stat maximums listed somewhere? is it the global max progress in gameconfig.xml?
I currently have units with more than 100 TU which seemed off; even Charon's Changes mod seems to keep AP globalMaxProgress at 100

 

 

[thethirteenth1]

Okay, this seems to suggest that global max progress is the controller

 

In which case, here's a save file. Chinook-1 has some soldiers with >100 TU.
And greater than 150 strength, which seems to be another limit.

 

I dont think this should affect anything but:
I started this game on normal, then felt it was a bit too easy with the 80% attribute scaling so tried changing the difficulty to veteran.
That.... didn't seem possible.
So I modified my gameconfig difficulty settings for normal to be the same as veteran.

Nutritious breakfast.sav

[thethirteenth1]

I just have to say, mk3 heavy laser weapons look REALLY REALLY COOL

Props to whoever made/ sourced  the artwork for it!

[Charon]

1 hour ago, thethirteenth1 said:

Are stat maximums listed somewhere? is it the global max progress in gameconfig.xml?
I currently have units with more than 100 TU which seemed off; even Charon's Changes mod seems to keep AP globalMaxProgress at 100

Yes, the gameconifg. Your last mission fully counts so you can go over 100 tu this way ( 97+5 = 103 ). Progression stops after that. Additionally armour can pump your TU up as bonus ( 103 +10 = 113 )

48 minutes ago, thethirteenth1 said:

I just have to say, mk3 heavy laser weapons look REALLY REALLY COOL

Props to whoever made/ sourced  the artwork for it!

@drages.

[thethirteenth1]

Quick question:
Are you guys still looking for feedback on the mod, or are things pretty much set and tuned at this point? (Other than melee weapons)

[Charon]

10 hours ago, thethirteenth1 said:

Quick question:
Are you guys still looking for feedback on the mod, or are things pretty much set and tuned at this point? (Other than melee weapons)

What we are really looking for are hands which can do something, but we fully appreciate every oppinion on the mod. Nothing is set in stone either, every good idea can improve or change the whole game.

[nocktowl]

I feel somewhat dumb for having to post here about this, but it seems I botched up the installation. ( 1 http://prntscr.com/f8p6ut 2 http://prntscr.com/f8p6ql ) I noted that some of the files in my download might be corrupted as i got these errors from 7-zip while extracting part two and 3 into my assets folder. ( http://prntscr.com/f8p79z http://prntscr.com/f8p7ef ) And other than that the main menu screen appears to have fragments of the vanilla main menu mixed into it so I'm fairly sure I went full retard at one point while installing the mod and am not sure what to do, which is a shame for me as being a masochist I ADORE this mod.

[Charon]

6 hours ago, nocktowl said:

I feel somewhat dumb for having to post here about this, but it seems I botched up the installation. ( 1 http://prntscr.com/f8p6ut 2 http://prntscr.com/f8p6ql ) I noted that some of the files in my download might be corrupted as i got these errors from 7-zip while extracting part two and 3 into my assets folder. ( http://prntscr.com/f8p79z http://prntscr.com/f8p7ef ) And other than that the main menu screen appears to have fragments of the vanilla main menu mixed into it so I'm fairly sure I went full retard at one point while installing the mod and am not sure what to do, which is a shame for me as being a masochist I ADORE this mod.

If you think something is corrupted check the MD5 sum. If its the same its your program. You do realise that you cant extract part 2 and 3 anywhere ? Its a multi rar file consisting of 3 files, you open it by having all 3 in the same folder and opening the first one. Extract to the position of your choice - done.

Your modloader doesnt look anything like the official one, please check the installation instructions again.

So yes, i would suggest a clean installation before that as well.

 

Added the the instrunctions:

5. Unpack the multi rar file and put everything into your Xenonauts folder -This is a multirar file, you open it by having all 3 in the same folder and opening the first one.

 

Never go full retard .

[nocktowl]

Holy shit that explains a lot, my apologies for having to beg your time to write that, my mod-loader setup was the same one I used last time I played X-div (around 4 months ago) though I guess it got buggered up this time  Thanks!

[thethirteenth1]

23 hours ago, Charon said:

What we are really looking for are hands which can do something, but we fully appreciate every oppinion on the mod. Nothing is set in stone either, every good idea can improve or change the whole game.

There's one thing that's jumped out at me, and it's wound / injury timers. I think they are too short.

I'm playing on veteran, currently I think a few weeks into Phase II. So that's the context behind my statement.
 

Overview:

Quote

 

My roster consists of 22 troops. 2 squads of 8, and then replacements. I keep people in squad until someone gets injured, then cycle them out for a replacement. Replacement then stays until injury, etc. This ensures I never need to take too many privates on a mission.

I consider successful missions ones where I have 0-2 light wounds, where light is 1-3 day recovery times. (This is with a med bay). These are maybe 2/3 of all missions i do. This is because that is enough time to fully heal before the next wave of UFO's. The 6 replacement troops means that even taking 2 wounds per mission, I can comfortably do ~5 missions per wave. Even more if I pull of small crash sites flawlessly, which is not uncommon with your overwhelming numbers advantage.

Okay missions are ones where someone gets wounded (<50% health). Recovery times approaching a week mean that it might actually impact the strategical aspect of how many missions I can do. But generally it's not a big deal.

Dicey missions are ones resulting in numerous wounded soldiers. These will most probably affect the next wave, but just do a few ships less, and smaller ships, and generally I can easily sustain through.

Catastrophic missions are ones where someone dies.... I generally avoid these by pulling out of terror missions when the vehicle goes down x_x (Though i've been lucky a few times where I've carried a dead xenonaut to evac, and then he got revived. Yay!)

 

The fact that soldiers can still be sent on missions while injured, and the fact that injuries can recover fully before the next wave, render injuries generally a mild inconvenience rather than a significant strategical impediment.
Line of Sight manipulation, shield scouts, and smoke if I can't achieve that, usually guarantee that the aliens never shoot at me in the first place. If i get flanked from an unscouted alien, I'm usually dead anyways to point blank burst fire. And having 70 hp versus a full 100 hp doesn't really matter to the 50dmg / shot 6 shot %$^%$ andron.

The only missions where I generally even consider possible wound times are terror missions, because i almost always come home with multiple wounded.

 

Doubling the times for injury recovery would force me to pay attention, as injuries would persist across at least one wave.
This might make wounds too punishing; I'm not sure if it's possible to either lower the threshold you could send a troop on, or change the rate wounds vs. injuries heal.
This may be technically impossible but it popped into my head: Exponential recovery (slower in the beginning, faster in the end; or vice versa, i need to think on this; and then increase the threshold). Hm, this might actually be equivalent to just moving the threshold.....

[Charon]

Just now, thethirteenth1 said:

There's one thing that's jumped out at me, and it's wound / injury timers. I think they are too short.

I'm playing on veteran, currently I think a few weeks into Phase II. So that's the context behind my statement.

Elaborate. Ah, you did.

4 minutes ago, thethirteenth1 said:

This might make wounds too punishing; I'm not sure if it's possible to either lower the threshold you could send a troop on, or change the rate wounds vs. injuries heal.

Everything is possible.

2 minutes ago, thethirteenth1 said:

My roster consists of 22 troops. 2 squads of 8, and then replacements. I keep people in squad until someone gets injured, then cycle them out for a replacement. Replacement then stays until injury, etc. This ensures I never need to take too many privates on a mission.

I consider successful missions ones where I have 0-2 light wounds, where light is 1-3 day recovery times. (This is with a med bay). These are maybe 2/3 of all missions i do. This is because that is enough time to fully heal before the next wave of UFO's. The 6 replacement troops means that even taking 2 wounds per mission, I can comfortably do ~5 missions per wave. Even more if I pull of small crash sites flawlessly, which is not uncommon with your overwhelming numbers advantage.

Okay missions are ones where someone gets wounded (<50% health). Recovery times approaching a week mean that it might actually impact the strategical aspect of how many missions I can do. But generally it's not a big deal.

Dicey missions are ones resulting in numerous wounded soldiers. These will most probably affect the next wave, but just do a few ships less, and smaller ships, and generally I can easily sustain through.

Catastrophic missions are ones where someone dies.... I generally avoid these by pulling out of terror missions when the vehicle goes down x_x (Though i've been lucky a few times where I've carried a dead xenonaut to evac, and then he got revived. Yay!)

4 minutes ago, thethirteenth1 said:

The fact that soldiers can still be sent on missions while injured, and the fact that injuries can recover fully before the next wave, render injuries generally a mild inconvenience rather than a significant strategical impediment.
Line of Sight manipulation, shield scouts, and smoke if I can't achieve that, usually guarantee that the aliens never shoot at me in the first place. If i get flanked from an unscouted alien, I'm usually dead anyways to point blank burst fire. And having 70 hp versus a full 100 hp doesn't really matter to the 50dmg / shot 6 shot %$^%$ andron.

The only missions where I generally even consider possible wound times are terror missions, because i almost always come home with multiple wounded.

 

Doubling the times for injury recovery would force me to pay attention, as injuries would persist across at least one wave.
This might make wounds too punishing; I'm not sure if it's possible to either lower the threshold you could send a troop on, or change the rate wounds vs. injuries heal.
This may be technically impossible but it popped into my head: Exponential recovery (slower in the beginning, faster in the end; or vice versa, i need to think on this; and then increase the threshold). Hm, this might actually be equivalent to just moving the threshold.....

You are basically suggesting to increase the time neeeded to recover wounds. This would lead to the fact that you will have to spend a lot more time to switch around equipment. And i dont think that this is something i am looking for, the balance between aircombat - Geoscape Management - Ground combat seems good.

Wounds tend to recover before the next wave - in Phase 1. Keep in mind Phase 1 is a tutorial, slowly showing the player what the game got. Once you are in need of having your best squad ready to storm that alien base before it becomes a fortress inbetween waves, more UFOs starting to show and the felt shorter spawning period of waves will make things more dicey.

In our last teamviewer session we agreed to try out to give the alien weapons better accuracy which should lead to an improved AI and make smoke less attractive for alien units. Improved accuracy will also mean more hits will find their targets and more wounds will be caused. Maybe this will already be a remedy.

I agree that the wound system has a lot of potential, but as a game designer i want to avoid decisions which needlessly will expand on managaing your soldiers, if I can help it.

[thethirteenth1]

1 hour ago, Charon said:

Elaborate. Ah, you did.

Everything is possible.

You are basically suggesting to increase the time neeeded to recover wounds. This would lead to the fact that you will have to spend a lot more time to switch around equipment. And i dont think that this is something i am looking for, the balance between aircombat - Geoscape Management - Ground combat seems good.

Wounds tend to recover before the next wave - in Phase 1. Keep in mind Phase 1 is a tutorial, slowly showing the player what the game got. Once you are in need of having your best squad ready to storm that alien base before it becomes a fortress inbetween waves, more UFOs starting to show and the felt shorter spawning period of waves will make things more dicey.

In our last teamviewer session we agreed to try out to give the alien weapons better accuracy which should lead to an improved AI and make smoke less attractive for alien units. Improved accuracy will also mean more hits will find their targets and more wounds will be caused. Maybe this will already be a remedy.

I agree that the wound system has a lot of potential, but as a game designer i want to avoid decisions which needlessly will expand on managaing your soldiers, if I can help it.

Ah, I see. Hm, I'm all the more curious about those teamviewers sessions. I've never really contributed to game design before, despite playing a lot of games and complaining a lot of "omg this mechanic sucks" to friends...

I suppose I should also play the rest of the campaign out. Phase 1 is a "tutorial". Jesus. My troop roster would like to have a word with you...
(Also I hate androns)
[In all seriousness though if this is the tutorial.... I can't wait for the next phases]

I suppose my comments above boiled down to: I wasn't feeling pressure from wounds. The potential of alien bases / improved accuracy / later phases may change that. I guess I'll have to keep playing to find out!

 

P.S. Thanks so much for taking the time to respond to me! Now go get the next version out : P

[ckelloug]

What weapons should one ideally have by the time phase 2 rolls around?  I've got Division mk1 ballistics and lasers and I seem to get my posterior kicked way too often.  Perhaps my tactics are just lousy. . .  Do I need to exchange weapons with every alien I kill?

Also,  what skills does the X-Division team need?  I'm a computer engineer and nanomaterials researcher between consulting projects and might be able to help out.

[thethirteenth1]

4 hours ago, ckelloug said:

What weapons should one ideally have by the time phase 2 rolls around?  I've got Division mk1 ballistics and lasers and I seem to get my posterior kicked way too often.  Perhaps my tactics are just lousy. . .  Do I need to exchange weapons with every alien I kill?

Also,  what skills does the X-Division team need?  I'm a computer engineer and nanomaterials researcher between consulting projects and might be able to help out.

I went into phase 2 with mk-3 lasers (you gotta get some VIP captures for this though) and mk 2 ballistics (also need captures for mk 2, but its a lot more common). I found even that challenging... youre gonna be uhh.....
have fun with mk 1. : P

You make a good point about the alien weapons though. Those few waves of phase 2, i relied a lot on using the alien's weapons against them cause that seemed the only way to make dmg stick. (I HATE ANDRONS)

My advice for you on missions: Disembark, see if anyone is around, set up a line of fire with good sight ranges as close to the dropship as possible.
Your goal is not to take the ufo. It's to hope someone wanders into your kill zone, you kill them, then you grab their body and evac. It's a good way to get research jumpstarted.
If youre lucky enough that all the aliens slowly wander into your kill zone, then you can try taking the ufo.
If you have the resources, copious spam (heavy emphasis on the copious and the spam) of stun grenades will bypass armor. Some units have resistance to stun dmg though : [

As for skills, I can't speak for the team but I have noticed a lot of requests for lore writers from them. Your nanomaterials background is a less common skill, I think it'd be really cool to see multisyllabic science-y words in the lore : P

[Charon]

10 hours ago, ckelloug said:

Also,  what skills does the X-Division team need?  I'm a computer engineer and nanomaterials researcher between consulting projects and might be able to help out.

We have ideas for the next 2 years in my notepad, and i still hold textfiles with community feedback from 4 months ago. Since Xenonauts 2 will be on the radar this might change things up a bit later on.

Right now we are focusing on these major points:

1. Im reviewing the game with my tester @Phoenix1x+52
2. Mapping and all mapping ideas which come with it. New Terror Site Map Style, bigger, better AI, more interesting environment. Destructible UFOs with destructable entrances, more varied UFO interior, to give you a new challenge every time you raid one. Completely new UFOs for the ones which right now use the old battleship map ( terrordreadnaught, dreadnaught, mothership, infiltrator ). Unfortunately we won´t be able to realise any of that without help.
3. Make the X-Division installation easier by making an installer exe. The biggest obstacle for X-Division to be made available for the wide public is the complicated installation process, we would like to have an exe which helps people with the installation. Doesnt seem to be that hard, but if no one does it wont be done.
4. Lore writing. Lore writers seem to vanish faster than a carrot into bugs bunnies mouth.

 

6 hours ago, thethirteenth1 said:

My advice for you on missions: Disembark, see if anyone is around, set up a line of fire with good sight ranges as close to the dropship as possible.
Your goal is not to take the ufo. It's to hope someone wanders into your kill zone, you kill them, then you grab their body and evac. It's a good way to get research jumpstarted.
If youre lucky enough that all the aliens slowly wander into your kill zone, then you can try taking the ufo.
If you have the resources, copious spam (heavy emphasis on the copious and the spam) of stun grenades will bypass armor. Some units have resistance to stun dmg though : [

Thats good advice. When faced with challenges you can come up with any kind of strategy and call it your own. The game will be there for you as long as you play it ^^. Until maybe the next patch comes .

Edited May 18, 2017 by Charon

[Charon]

@ckelloug I forgot to mention that i made the list so you can get an idea what is happening right now, if you want to help in any way you and everybody else is welcome.