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


Charon

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New attempt:

"Commander, after that alien assault on our base we have frantically tried to analyse the event as well as collect any information we can on similar events happening to our sponsors.

To start with the latter part, I've squeezed intel out of an old friend in the armed forces about a ground assault on a deep nuclear launch facility. A covert group of ETs was able to access the base despite most of it being half a mile underground, and beat the hell out of base security. It was only by deliberately collapsing the residential wing that the base commander saved anything. Unfortunately, secrecy has prevented us from getting to prepare for this threat, as it was only by mentioning our own experience we were able to take part of theirs.

Back to our analysis of the event itself:
It's clear the aliens divided their efforts between destroying the base assets and trying to take over the base completely. The loss of a base will obviously mean the loss of all assets in it, and will leave the area it protected undefended until a new base can be built.
Even if we drive them off, the ETs can cause lasting damage by wrecking hangars, destroying labs and demolishing workshops, and it's obviously in our interest to prevent that, so try to take the fight to them, Commander, and go and meet them in force!

Without a way of intercepting and decoding alien communications, it’ll be hard to tell if a UFO is going to mount an attack on our base (and, if so, which base) or if they’re intending to attack a city. Look for escorted Massive class signals. They aren’t going to make it obvious that they’re going for us, but sooner or later they will have to head directly to our base. The bases most likely to be attacked will be the ones they have the most operational data on – i.e. typically the oldest ones, but don't rely on "most likely" overly much. It would probably be a good idea to station a garrison or erect defenses at the bases most at risk, and to ferry troops to bases suspected to be targeted. Also note that defensive base batteries won't do us any good if we can't see the enemy, so a base out of radar coverage (its own or that of another base) is a sitting duck.

As for the base assault craft, we have made some interesting observations. After action analysis of surveillance of the craft indicates it had mounted populated drop pods even before we were able to observe them. This implies they prepared for the assault well in advance and intended to launch it as fast as (in)humanly possible to deny us the chance to deploy our troops closer to the breach points and to set up booby traps in our base. While interesting in itself that they consider our bases to be something of a threat, it also provides us with a tactical advantage: Damage sustained by UFOs rarely if ever kills any crew members: all casualties usually occur due to the impact of a crash. In this case, however, damage to the UFO is likely to also cause damage to the troops in the drop pods. Our best estimates are that we may be able to kill up to 50% of the crew if we damage the craft to 100% (at which point it will crash), with the casualty rate essentially increasing linearly with the damage inflicted (20% damage to the craft = approximately 10% of the crew killed). We also estimate that damage inflicted by base batteries has the same effect as damage cause by our airborne forces when it comes to killing ETs.

Interestingly enough, the aliens don't seem to be nearly as interested in a rapid deployment on terror missions, where they mount, enter, and deploy the drop pods only at the last minute, which indicates they're not nearly as worried about local forces that they are about X-Divison ones, which we can take some meagre pride in. While the drop pod deployment strategy difference ought to allow us to determine if a mission is a terror or a base assault one, our current technology only allows us to determine that by examining surveillance images in detail back at the lab, which takes hours, at which time the attack has already taken place. I hope we'll be able to develop a technique to transfer photos over a radio connection and perform automatic analysis of them, or have the rather unlikely luck of acquiring the means to intercept and decode the aliens' communications.

And, finally, let's discuss what happens if we DO lose a base: Our pilots have instructions to seek out free hangar space on other bases, and, if that's not possible, perform emergency landings wherever they can, preferably at some kind of airport. However, I'd expect the local authorities to be too greedy to let us have working aircraft back, although they'll likely let the pilots return.
Engineers and scientists will be evacuated in a flight to the base that can make the most of them, i.e. have available berths and free lab/workshop space, while the remainder will have to be fired (but can be rehired, of course).
Our guess is that the lost base will be converted into an alien base rather quickly, but we hope that if we can retake it reasonably quickly we may be able to recover it to a larger or lesser extent. The only way to know for certain is to actually lose a base and then try to retake it, and that's a proof I'd rather not get."

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13 hours ago, PALU said:

Back to our analysis of the event itself:
 

That's a rough cut in the red line. How about something along the lines of "Even though that info came late for us, it gives us enough data to be very sure about the tactics the ETs are employing:"

Quote

And, finally, let's discuss what happens if we DO lose a base:

"And finally, let's go over the emergency protocol for an attack on one of our bases:"

Quote

while the remainder will have to be fired (but can be rehired, of course).

while the remainder will seek shelter elsewhere. We can re-hire them later.

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2 hours ago, Dagar said:

while the remainder will seek shelter elsewhere. We can re-hire them later.

@PALU I especially have to agree to this one. While from a gaming perspective what "really" happens in the game is important to the player, but worrying about who gets fired or not usually comes second to worry about the safety of people, in a believable scenario.

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@PALU I would add following two things:

- Soldiers: Any soldiers that are inside base (but not inside command room) when attack begins are lost if you abort mission. You could tell those unlucky soldiers throq away their weapons and armour, then disguise as civilians and lurk out of base, since Aliens are not really interested about personnel but base itself. After that they return to normal life because of traumatic experience, fear of alien revenge or something.

- Stuff in storeroom: Aliens are unlike to be interested about your items because they have much better gear available. This is good if you plan recapture.

@Charon Thanks.

Edited by Ruthless Reuban
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Some further massage:

"Commander, after that alien assault on our base we have frantically tried to analyse the event as well as collect any information we can on similar events happening to our sponsors.

To start with the latter part, I've squeezed intel out of an old friend in the armed forces about a ground assault on a deep nuclear launch facility. A covert group of ETs was able to access the base despite most of it being half a mile underground, and beat the hell out of base security. It was only by deliberately collapsing the residential wing that the base commander saved anything. Unfortunately, secrecy has prevented us from getting to prepare for this threat, as it was only by mentioning our own experience we were able to take part of theirs.

Although this information comes too late to serve as a warning to us, it strengthens our analysis of how the aliens behave:
It's clear the aliens divided their efforts between destroying the base assets and trying to take over the base completely. The loss of a base will obviously mean the loss of all assets in it, and will leave the area it protected undefended until a new base can be built.
Even if we drive them off, the ETs can cause lasting damage by wrecking hangars, destroying labs and demolishing workshops, and it's obviously in our interest to prevent that, so try to take the fight to them, Commander, and go and meet them in force!

Without a way of intercepting and decoding alien communications, it will be hard to tell if a UFO is going to mount an attack on our base (and, if so, which base) or if they’re intending to attack a city. Look for escorted Massive class signals. They aren’t going to make it obvious that they’re going for us, but sooner or later they will have to head directly to our base. The bases most likely to be attacked will be the ones they have the most operational data on – i.e. typically the oldest ones, but don't rely on "most likely" overly much. It would probably be a good idea to station a garrison or erect defenses at the bases most at risk, and to ferry troops to bases suspected to be targeted. Also note that defensive base batteries won't do us any good if we can't see the enemy, so a base out of radar coverage (its own or that of another base) is a sitting duck.

As for the base assault craft, we have made some interesting observations. After action analysis of surveillance of the craft indicates it had mounted populated drop pods even before we were able to observe them. This implies they prepared for the assault well in advance and intended to launch it as fast as (in)humanly possible to deny us the chance to deploy our troops closer to the breach points and to set up booby traps in our base. While interesting in itself that they consider our bases to be something of a threat, it also provides us with a tactical advantage: Damage sustained by UFOs rarely if ever kills any crew members: all casualties usually occur due to the impact of a crash. In this case, however, damage to the UFO is likely to also cause damage to the troops in the drop pods. Our best estimates are that we may be able to kill up to 50% of the crew if we damage the craft to 100% (at which point it will crash), with the casualty rate essentially increasing linearly with the damage inflicted (20% damage to the craft = approximately 10% of the crew killed). We also estimate that damage inflicted by base batteries has the same effect as damage cause by our airborne forces when it comes to killing ETs.

Interestingly enough, the aliens don't seem to be nearly as interested in a rapid deployment on terror missions, where they mount, enter, and deploy the drop pods only at the last minute, which indicates they're not nearly as worried about local forces that they are about X-Divison ones, which we can take some meagre pride in. While the drop pod deployment strategy difference ought to allow us to determine if a mission is a terror or a base assault one, our current technology only allows us to determine that by examining surveillance images in detail back at the lab, which takes hours, at which time the attack has already taken place. I hope we'll be able to develop a technique to transfer photos over a radio connection and perform automatic analysis of them, or have the rather unlikely luck of acquiring the means to intercept and decode the aliens' communications.

And, finally, let's go over our emergency protocol for in the event of a base loss: Our pilots have instructions to seek out free hangar space on other bases, and, if that's not possible, perform emergency landings wherever they can, preferably at some kind of airport. However, I'd expect the local authorities to be too greedy to let us have working aircraft back, although they'll likely let the pilots return.
We can expect to lose all soldiers at the base, as they'll be tasked with protecting the civilian evacuation, which means they have to be at defensive positions as the evacuation craft takes off.
Engineers and scientists will be evacuated in a flight to the base that can make the most of them, i.e. have available berths and free lab/workshop space, while the remainder will seek shelter among the local population, but we can't forward them to other bases even if there is free space in them.
Our guess is that the lost base will be converted into an alien base rather quickly, but we hope that if we can retake it reasonably quickly we may be able to recover it to a larger or lesser extent, and that hope extends to stored equipment, as they have little use for our equipment. The only way to know for certain is to actually lose a base and then try to retake it, and that's a proof I'd rather not get."

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The main problem that i have with the Base Attack numbers is that they are generally lower than the terror Crashsite ones. So if i just copy and paste the Crashsite numbers over the Base Attack ones, it will mean an increased unit count.

The other point is that Base Attacks are arguebly the least fun part of the game. Paired together with the fact that IF you defend your base you normally send over your A-team, and if that gets defeated ( and you cant pull out ) makes every base attack an all in, no matter how you look at it. I rather think that retaking your base is solving the same thing in a more controlled manner, because you can always pull out of an Alien Base, if you think you cant make it.

 

Edit: From a development point of view, if you would allow soldiers in the command room to evacuate when you abort the mission, would make the whole thing more enjoyable since you are not risking your 100 hour campaign in a single mission.

Edited by Charon
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There are some other significant differences between base attacks and terror missions:

You have to protect the command center, while being attacked from multiple directions, and the enemies are fairly concentrated, with no civilians to distract them (although there is base destruction). If the aliens were programmed to do so, they could easily just overrun your positions. Sure, you'd kill some, but the remainder will kill multiple defender in every turn in that scenario, with the defender fire power dropping a lot faster than the alien one.

Tactics to delay enemies are sort of counter productive, as e.g. gas will just allow them to smash your facilities while being protected against your forces.

Base assaults take place in a much smaller area than terror attacks, and line of sight is mostly blocked by walls and doors. While this means aliens can't subject you to a massive number of attacks from out of sight range, you can't fight them at medium distance either, much of the time, so it's a lot of turning corners to find yourself rubbing noses with an alien. It can also be noted that the breaches are fairly crammed with hostiles as it is, so they'd struggle with sending more troops in without either further breaches or the ability to send in reinforcements through existing ones (and those reinforcements would be in trouble if base defense batteries could attack targets at the surface level...).

And, as mentioned, the total loss on a failure is devastating.

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15 minutes ago, PALU said:

There are some other significant differences between base attacks and terror missions:

You have to protect the command center, while being attacked from multiple directions, and the enemies are fairly concentrated, with no civilians to distract them (although there is base destruction). If the aliens were programmed to do so, they could easily just overrun your positions. Sure, you'd kill some, but the remainder will kill multiple defender in every turn in that scenario, with the defender fire power dropping a lot faster than the alien one.

Tactics to delay enemies are sort of counter productive, as e.g. gas will just allow them to smash your facilities while being protected against your forces.

Base assaults take place in a much smaller area than terror attacks, and line of sight is mostly blocked by walls and doors. While this means aliens can't subject you to a massive number of attacks from out of sight range, you can't fight them at medium distance either, much of the time, so it's a lot of turning corners to find yourself rubbing noses with an alien. It can also be noted that the breaches are fairly crammed with hostiles as it is, so they'd struggle with sending more troops in without either further breaches or the ability to send in reinforcements through existing ones (and those reinforcements would be in trouble if base defense batteries could attack targets at the surface level...).

And, as mentioned, the total loss on a failure is devastating.

Whats your solution ?

Edit: My go-to solution would be to disable base attacks altogether. If every base attacks means that all your aircraft gets saved, and if you plan ahead your personel gets saved as well, than there would only be your items at loss. And then you can attempt to retake your base, with the possibility to pull out.

Arguably we are trying to fix a vanilla issue, but in vanilla you could have just shot down the UFO. X-Division kinda aggravates that problem, although being able to retake your base lessens it a bit again.

My personal preference is to shoot down Base Attacks, and farm their content, but it leaves out the question what people should do which are not good enough to pull off that stunt. I cant imagine that being fun for people.

Edited by Charon
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With no way to implement withdrawal, I'd retain a lower troop count. Sure, it will usually be a cakewalk if you shoot up the UFO badly, but you can consider that a reward for good preparations (and you don't get any UFO parts either). It can be noted that base assaults are the most dangerous when the aliens is one tech step ahead of you, at which time your base defenses may just scratch the paint of the UFO, and aircraft you send against it may be completely inadequate, and so fail to do much damage either. Your under equipped troops will then face more or less a full complement of invaders, with no chance to retreat. The game doesn't allow for a "desperate fight for survival" adrenaline surge either, as nothing like that is implemented.

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1 minute ago, PALU said:

With no way to implement withdrawal, I'd retain a lower troop count. Sure, it will usually be a cakewalk if you shoot up the UFO badly, but you can consider that a reward for good preparations (and you don't get any UFO parts either). It can be noted that base assaults are the most dangerous when the aliens is one tech step ahead of you, at which time your base defenses may just scratch the paint of the UFO, and aircraft you send against it may be completely inadequate, and so fail to do much damage either. Your under equipped troops will then face more or less a full complement of invaders, with no chance to retreat. The game doesn't allow for a "desperate fight for survival" adrenaline surge either, as nothing like that is implemented.

What is a "lower troop count" ? Lower, equal, or higher numbers ?

Sebillian: 21 - 46 - 51 - 57
Caesan: 29 - 51 - 67 - 81
Androns: 23 - 39 - 35 - 38

Also check the edits above.

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9 minutes ago, PALU said:

Lower troop count that on a corresponding terror mission. I don't have any useful input regarding the exact numbers, though.

Because, like any player, tester and developer, we dont really do Base Attack missions. Which kinda speaks for itself.

 

Edit: @PALU As an experienced player i dont really have a problem with playing around the weaker parts of the game, but for less experienced players Base Attacks will most likely be the end of the game for them. I guess thats the pain they will have to go through, and find a solution for.

Edited by Charon
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I've probably done slightly more base attack missions than terror missions, because of a related exploit (the first time came as a surprise). However, as a save scummer I've been able to slog through them. As soon as I was able to bring down the craft I did, converting these missions into (very tough) crash missions. I only attack alien bases to the extent required for meta gaming reasons as well, as those are fairly easy to block from appearing, by shooting down the craft when you can, and raid them when landed when you can't shoot them down.

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I have finalised the Base Attack numbers.

 

old ones:
Sebillian: 21 - 46 - 51 - 57
Caesan: 29 - 51 - 67 - 81
Androns: 23 - 39 - 35 - 38

 

new ones:
Sebillian: 21 - 46 - 51 - 57
Caesan: 29 - 51 - 67 - 81
Androns: 23 - 30 - 34 - 38

 

  • I mostly left the numbers intact but
  • decreased terror units where necessary
  • switched around some units
  • androns got a lot of multi stage enemies reduced
  • and added the appropriate Base Operators from both other main races to androns

 

I looked over the Bombing Run and Construction numbers of Motherships a bit, but mostly left them as they are, except for the andron one. Above changes where implemented as well.

With this i consider the matter closed.

 

I have also increased the ammo count for sonic weapons as well as added burst fire modes for the sonic cannon mk2 and mk3. Can you go over the numbers @PALU and check if all affected Xpedia entries are still up to date ? weapons_gc.xml

Also can you include everything which you want to include, as i will release the new version as soon as you give me the heads up.

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Yes, it's a known, and rather annoying issue. You'll sometimes have to change the transparency setting to get to see things (it's the roof icon beside the backpack one). The transparency setting toggles through 3 different settings. For the top level of the cruiser you may have to use the most transparent setting, which, at the same time, makes it hard to see doors and railings. After a while you learn where the doors are, but it's still annoying.

I believe that the inside of the UFO under the dome gets revealed when you step inside (i.e. one of the soldiers oh the threshold moves one step forward [well, the one turning outwards would have to turn around first, of course]).

Weapon rebalancing: I'll take a look and post the latest Xenopedia file sometime today.

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15 hours ago, PALU said:

We can expect to lose all soldiers at the base, as they'll be tasked with protecting the civilian evacuation, which means they have to be at defensive positions as the evacuation craft takes off.

 

Engineers and scientists will be evacuated in a flight to the base that can make the most of them, i.e. have available berths and free lab/workshop space, while the remainder will seek shelter among the local population, but we can't forward them to other bases even if there is free space in them.
Our guess is that the lost base will be converted into an alien base rather quickly, but we hope that if we can retake it reasonably quickly we may be able to recover it to a larger or lesser extent, and that hope extends to stored equipment, as they have little use for our equipment. The only way to know for certain is to actually lose a base and then try to retake it, and that's a proof I'd rather not get."

On another thought, there is slight problem with bold part. Soldiers lost are NOT considered as MIA unless they are inside command center. And so soldiers outside command center do not appear on casualty list. So I would say soldiers inside command center are tasked to protect base controls until civilians are safe and so they basically sacrifice themself. Soldiers outside command center have no role on helping with evacuation and manage to escape or something.

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Since I've never accepted a base to be lost, I have no first hand experience, and so has tried to interpret what's been said here. If that interpretation is incorrect it ought to be adjusted (except for the first base assault, I've never stationed anyone inside the command center, trying to keep the troops to protect the room surrounding it [and clear out one breach at a time], and fortunately wraiths have never teleported into the center).

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I know Ikm a bit late to the base defense discussion, but are there any qualitative changes you could easily make to the tactical map itself that would aleviate some of the issues you described, like populating the map with armed security personnel (civillians technically, but you know what ai mean), or some veeeery explosive containers that would serve as ways for you to purposely destroy a room to kill or heavily injure all aliens within?

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6 hours ago, PALU said:

Since I've never accepted a base to be lost, I have no first hand experience, and so has tried to interpret what's been said here. If that interpretation is incorrect it ought to be adjusted (except for the first base assault, I've never stationed anyone inside the command center, trying to keep the troops to protect the room surrounding it [and clear out one breach at a time], and fortunately wraiths have never teleported into the center).

Its not. Keep with the approved text. All other soldiers except for the 16 who defend the base can indeed be seen as securing the emergency tunnels and craft.  Technically @Ruthless Reubanis right, other soldiers dont appear in the casuality list, but i rather would call that the bug, than saying they deserted their position or something. The approved text doesnt specifiy which soldiers are protecting what, and thuse leave room for the players fantasy. As a lore writer you dont have to specifically write out every little detail, its about stimulating the fantasy of a reader. That, and that soldiers not present in the Base Assault dont get a memorial event is a bug, i would say.

5 hours ago, Mr. Mister said:

I know Ikm a bit late to the base defense discussion, but are there any qualitative changes you could easily make to the tactical map itself that would aleviate some of the issues you described, like populating the map with armed security personnel (civillians technically, but you know what ai mean), or some veeeery explosive containers that would serve as ways for you to purposely destroy a room to kill or heavily injure all aliens within?

Map makers are welcome. If you know one, please point him into the right direction ;).

Edited by Charon
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OK, I've attached the latest Xenopedia file, adapted to the latest Sonic changes. Note that I've only compared ammo clip size and the cannon bursts, as the comparison was manual (in Sublime) rather than using a diff tool, so it there were some other changes I missed them. I didn't see any changes to the Mk-1 line, for instance (which is fine, given that they're advertised as being a worse starting version than normal).

While I welcome the changes to provide a more reasonable clip size, I'm not completely sure that may be the best way to address the ammo issue. A selling point of the Sonic tech is that reloading is very fast, while the problem (as I see it) is that the ammo is so heavy you can't carry a reasonable supply of it. I also note that the cannon change provides a massive increase in its potential damage (I've never used cannons. Originally because I didn't want to destroy alien gear, and later because I haven't had sufficient time/resources to experiment much, but I'm considering trying it out, unless the RNG provides me with the end game key, as it looks like a good force field buster and shield bearer eliminator).

xenopedia.xml

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2 hours ago, PALU said:

While I welcome the changes to provide a more reasonable clip size, I'm not completely sure that may be the best way to address the ammo issue. A selling point of the Sonic tech is that reloading is very fast, while the problem (as I see it) is that the ammo is so heavy you can't carry a reasonable supply of it

So you are saying we should decrease the weight of ammo clips in order to increase the maximum damage potential by playing on the strong side of the sonic weapons, which is a fast reloading mechanism ?

2 hours ago, PALU said:

I also note that the cannon change provides a massive increase in its potential damage

The cannon does overdamage, and so even if it is unreasonable powerful ( i dont think it is ) it holds little value when you destroy the loot you need. But yes, if you wouldnt need any loot anymore the cannon definitely can prove to be very powerful, which i think should be the intended design.

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Yes, I think decreasing the ammo clip weight might be a better option as it puts further emphasis on the thing that differentiates the Sonic tech from others. I guess it depends on how you use the soldier inventory, though.

Given that the things I'd mainly use cannons against are immune to overdamage due to the cannon just stripping a layer off, it wouldn't matter much. Basically, the cannon would take the place of a rocket launcher's armor piercing role in my case (but wielded by my heavy as a complement to the antimatter miniigun [my current A team heavy uses a Rail minigun for shield whittling currently]).

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