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


Charon

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6 minutes ago, dipmonk said:

I'm doing an 99% honestman runthrough so the savescumming isn't an option (I say 99% cuz I allow myself one reload per ground mission if shit goes horribly sideways. Like when I learned that roborexes explode... with 7 of my 10 soldiers within the blast radius).

I ... would have liked to see that :D.

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@dipmonk Mini-mines work too, but you need more of them (which means even more Bombers to deploy them). The only difference between the different kinds of mines is the explosive yield, unless I mis-remember things. I've brought down almost all UFO's encountered (although some into the drink, but that at least provides relations = money), giving up on only a few of them (I count raiding landed craft as bringing them down), and much of the time I've been short on at least some current level component while I've scrambled to update my fleet to be/stay competitive. It didn't help that I've tried to provide my troops with armor and weapons at the same time, so production facilities have run non stop until very late [sometimes stopping due to a lack of money, but with a little foresight it's possible to switch to resource production, such as picking apart enemy soldier armor and weapons, which doesn't consume much money (but does consume a fair bit of time when you've got large piles of them]).

I'm probably sporting more soldier teams than what's optimal, which results in a drain on resources and production facilities to equip them, especially since you can teleport them around in a shorter time than it takes aircraft to fly the distance, but on the other hand shipping weapons around cost money too (and re-equipping the soldiers is a pain, as the gear availability isn't uniform, nor is the soldier strengths, so predefined uniforms are of little use except possibly as a starting point: I find constantly correcting the missile loadout on my troops as they're sent out to be a drag).

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On 3/21/2019 at 1:02 PM, Borak said:

Few questions about terror missions -

1) Can I reduce the enemy count by damaging the carrier?

2) When can I expect to be able to shoot down the carriers outright? I came across a thread where some were shooting them down but then another comment that they are not actually intended to be capable of being shot down.

3) Is the reward/penalty all or nothing? i.e. if I kill every alien except one, then pull out, is the penalty the same as not having attempted the mission at all?

4) The Andron/Drone combination seem just about unbeatable for the first carrier. I can unload a laser minigun point blank and they still have a chance to survive. Other laser weapons need time to wear them down with a lot of full resists, by which time you're swamped. Can't imagine ballistics. Anyone have any joy taking them down in October?

Thanks!

 

 

1) Not sure about that, I'll test it soon

2) Anytime you have enough airpower, radar coverage and bases. So far (nearing end of phase 2) I have shot down every UFO except two Landing ships on phase 2 (too strong escorts on both). So yes, even first terror ship can be shot down with littlle luck (no total surprise attack) and strong airforce (you'll need around 14 hits with Alenium torpedoes, so at least 5 Foxtrots are needed just for that). IIRC there is 10% chance that terror ship has much better than just "fighter-class escorts". Not impossible to shoot those down also, just much harder. Capturing terror ship intact (without shoting it down) is not intented to be possible. It's possible because of a bug.

3) As PALU said, aborting mission is a failure. However there seems not to be penalty for pulling out terror ufo crash mission. Pulling out normal terror mission means around 300K$ penalty for funding.

4) Main problem is not Androns but the fact you cannot know if there are Androns, Sebillians or Caesans. So for first terror mission loadout should be something like that:

- 4*Shield, with around 4 Chemical and as many as can carry Alenium grenades, Laser pistol, perhaps Alenium rocket or two if enough space

- 2 Laser minigun, 2 batteries, few Alenium rockets (drop excess to craft)

- 1 Laser precision/Rocket launcher, Alenium rockets (drop excess to craft)

- 1 Rocket launcer, Alenium rockets as much as can carry (drop excess to craft)

Chemical grenades slaughter Caesans, Laser weapons (and chemicals) Sebillians, Laser precision and Alenium rockets/grenades Androns.

Needless to say, Smoke grenades are your best friend.

That way October terror battle is possible even if there are Androns.

Edited by Ruthless Reuban
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From a development viewpoint there are a few things i disliked.

  • The main critique is the time that the terror site took. It was too long. Now i dont mind the difficulty, but 4 hours plus is too long of a mission. Such things are acceptable in Phase 4, but not for a Phase 2 terror site. The lenght usually corresponds with the number of (ranged) units.
  • I ran out of equipment, even when loading everybody full. Now that is a critical point, as it kinda shows that even if you load yourself up to the last inventory square you will end up short by a little bit. This also corresponds to the number of enemies you have to take down.
  • Too many harridans. We had more energy resistant enemies on the field than energy weak ones.
  • Too little sebillians for a sebillian terror site
  • Too many terror units and weapons. They should be special
  • Reaper count was ok

 

Lets look at the data. Numbers are maximum units that can spawn in a terror site per phase.
Sebillian: 23 - 35 - 36 - 38 
Caesan: 32 - 44 - 47 - 58
Androns: 25 - 33 - 33 - 37

The first number is the master number, its where all calculations start from.

Now by looking at the numbers we can already see a few things to change. Sebillian Phase 1 to 2 has almost an 50% increase in units. Androns are a bit high in count for Phase 1. The Ceasan count is ok, since a lot of numbers are in low level Xenomorphs.

By taking the above critique into account i have made the following number changes:
Sebillian: 23 - 28 - 32 - 36
Caesan: 32 - 40 - 48 - 58
Androns: 23 - 31 - 34 - 38

The overall changes were:

  • Smoothing out transition between phases
  • Big decrease in terror unit count
  • Substituted by their main race normal soldiers
  • Decreased secondary race count ( Harridans, Wraiths )
  • Androns was the only race i decided to lower the master number
  • Removed some inconsistencies in the lore department

 

I will revise the unit loadout for Crashsites and Base Attacks as well, and then upload a new version for everybody to enjoy as well.

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The Andron raw number count does in no way reflect the pain of their terror missions.  I just did a phase 4 terror craft mission (shot down, so some units should have "died" in the crash), and the after action report said 163 killed (the final one cut the mission short as the Robodog Ghost spawned, which is a know bug).

- 8 Terror Elite, each of which had to be taken down 5 times.
- 2 Robosadists, both of which had to be taken down 4 times (including the "corpse" destruction).
- 4 Andron bosses morphing into Robodog Ghosts, which had to be taken down 3 times each (including the dog).
- A bazillion Roboreapers, most of which had to be taken down 3 times (some where terror troops originally). A small number did not start with a force field.
- 1 "Normal" Andron boss that only had to have its forcefield destroyed and then the unit itself.
- The remainder were normal Androns, Robodogs of various kinds, and 9 or 11 Drones.

Can you imagine any way in which you could even haul the amount of ammo required to take them down (I made a very heavy use of an exploit to even have a chance to make it, on top of save scumming to be able to take them out at the rate they surged forward)?

Edit: Not only terror missions. As I'm no longer desperate for resources, I bomb downed Andron craft because of the pain to slog through all the terror units and the Roboreapers (plus optional sadist).

Edited by PALU
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I'm still not sure how you're meant to be able to shoot UFOs down, outside of winning autoresolve, or going into the files and nerfing the alien turn speed.

Don't get me wrong, I love the mod. It's just...well, the aliens hulls are strong as fuck [makes sense due to alloys] and they turn fast as hell.

Main solution personally was to just nerf their turning speed, and boost the speed/armour/health of human fighters/heavy fighters [the ufos that are captured and repurposed].

Outside of that it was, even in phases 1 and 2, a game of 'watch all your pilots die horribly'

 

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18 hours ago, PALU said:

The Andron raw number count does in no way reflect the pain of their terror missions.  I just did a phase 4 terror craft mission (shot down, so some units should have "died" in the crash), and the after action report said 163 killed (the final one cut the mission short as the Robodog Ghost spawned, which is a know bug).

- 8 Terror Elite, each of which had to be taken down 5 times.
- 2 Robosadists, both of which had to be taken down 4 times (including the "corpse" destruction).
- 4 Andron bosses morphing into Robodog Ghosts, which had to be taken down 3 times each (including the dog).
- A bazillion Roboreapers, most of which had to be taken down 3 times (some where terror troops originally). A small number did not start with a force field.
- 1 "Normal" Andron boss that only had to have its forcefield destroyed and then the unit itself.
- The remainder were normal Androns, Robodogs of various kinds, and 9 or 11 Drones.

Can you imagine any way in which you could even haul the amount of ammo required to take them down (I made a very heavy use of an exploit to even have a chance to make it, on top of save scumming to be able to take them out at the rate they surged forward)?

Edit: Not only terror missions. As I'm no longer desperate for resources, I bomb downed Andron craft because of the pain to slog through all the terror units and the Roboreapers (plus optional sadist).

So far i have fixed regular terror sites, terror crashsites havent been revised yet. I will take your report into account.

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18 hours ago, PALU said:

The Andron raw number count does in no way reflect the pain of their terror missions.  I just did a phase 4 terror craft mission (shot down, so some units should have "died" in the crash), and the after action report said 163 killed (the final one cut the mission short as the Robodog Ghost spawned, which is a know bug).

- 8 Terror Elite, each of which had to be taken down 5 times.
- 2 Robosadists, both of which had to be taken down 4 times (including the "corpse" destruction).
- 4 Andron bosses morphing into Robodog Ghosts, which had to be taken down 3 times each (including the dog).
- A bazillion Roboreapers, most of which had to be taken down 3 times (some where terror troops originally). A small number did not start with a force field.
- 1 "Normal" Andron boss that only had to have its forcefield destroyed and then the unit itself.
- The remainder were normal Androns, Robodogs of various kinds, and 9 or 11 Drones.

Can you imagine any way in which you could even haul the amount of ammo required to take them down (I made a very heavy use of an exploit to even have a chance to make it, on top of save scumming to be able to take them out at the rate they surged forward)?

Edit: Not only terror missions. As I'm no longer desperate for resources, I bomb downed Andron craft because of the pain to slog through all the terror units and the Roboreapers (plus optional sadist).

I suggested solution to this "ammo problem" long time ago: dropship (or terror mission etc entrance/exit zone) as "locker" that contains unlimited amount of certain resources. Charon agreed but also said it's quite impossible to make since there is no soldier equipment screen before battle like on original UFO. I solved this problem my way. Balancing is for NG+2 difficulty.

- Dropship (or exit zone) has locker with unlimited resources and invisible system that immediately delivers items to soldiers.

- There are three types of lockers: medical, ammo and shield.

- Any soldier can access any locker when touching dropship or exit zone.

- If soldier has safe path to dropship/exit zone AND there is no enemy contact for 5 turns, then soldier is assumed to be touching dropship/exit zone.

- To access medical locker, soldier must have medipack or two medikits on inventory. Doesn't matter how many "charges" are left.

- To access ammo locker, soldier must have had at least three clips for ammo (for any weapon soldier uses) when combat started. Applies to heavy weapons and "secondary weapons" too. To clarify: soldier does NOT need to carry those three clips after combat has started.

- To access shield locker, soldier must have had shield equipped when combat started. Doesn't matter how much "charge" shield has left or if shield is totally destroyed.

- Swapping equipment is allowed. So any soldier that has shield (or had shield destroyed), has medipack/first aid or has weapon equipped, is valid to use locker. However, locker provides more shields/ammo/reloads, not more items.

- Shield locker is because I used to get extra shields for battle but that created huge hassle. And on NG+2 difficulty (not to mention when enemy weapon damage modded higher) even fully loaded shield does not guarantee your soldier will survive if you are careless. For NG difficulty shield locker may be overkill.

- Ammo locker does NOT apply to rockets/grenades or anything that is not available unlimited quantities on bases.

- Three clip requirement is for limiting amount of rockets and/or grenades could be brought into battle.

How it works:

- Use Xenonauts_gc_editor.exe instead of Xenonauts.exe

- To avoid seeing map, open Task manager "always on top" and hide left side of screen

- Select soldier that needs "reload"

- Press U during combat to open editor.

- Use "reload" button to reload shield/weapon/medikit/first aid

- If shield is destroyed, select similar shield from drop down menu

This solution is far from perfect but it's quite well balanced, makes sure strike team does not (totally) run out of basic supplies and still limits amount of special stuff like rockets and grenades.

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@Changeling_wilHow to deal with UFOs depend on the craft (which differ between phases, as they're a bit different in each phase).

- Large craft: Use mines when you get them, before that you'll have to use missiles/torpedoes.
- Medium craft: I take those out by sending a full wing of repurposed alien interceptor craft (the latest I can get hold of, of course) and set those on the alien's tail to blast them from behind. One way is to send two one way and one the other: the craft will turn, which will allow the one(s) on the remote side get in behind. Afterburners and changing speed is very useful. You can also often cross the UFO firing field diagonally, since, fortunately, aliens haven't figured out that you should fire at where the target's predicted position at the time of impact, and not the current one (this is essential for mine deployment, as many craft fire at your bombers with powerful cannons, but by having a sufficient angle they'll miss). Another useful trick is to fly towards the enemy and then roll out of the danger zone (which can also be used to get the craft to turn so another aircraft can get at the tail). In some cases you can just take the damage and fly straight at them at afterburner speed. It can be noted that some bombers can be taken down by a couple of wings of repurposed craft with little risk.
- Major craft: Bombers, bombers, and more bombers until you get the buggers down. For some you'll have to accept taking damage, while for others a correct/perfect execution will leave the bombers unharmed.
- Alien Interceptor craft: I leave those to auto resolve. You should have a good or very good chance if you're using suitable latest generation weapons (I haven't experimented, but stuck to what seems to be working: ballistic cannons, both because they work and because they don't require weapon system part, which I've rather used for other things (aircraft and repurposed interceptor weapons: I'm a fan of the Focus Lense line of very short range hard hitting few shot weapons. Works great against escorts if you manage to execute your rolls correctly).

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@Ruthless ReubanI rather think the problem lies in the fact that androns require too much ammunition to take down, not in the solution to create infinite supplies in your dropship.

The andron andron race was origianlly written and implemented by drages, and hasnt seen any balancing. He basically wrote them blind for the .4 version. Despite that the feeling and experienced made with those units is spot on.

Phoenix noted an ammo problem for the androns as well.

Edited by Charon
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Just some general feedback on aspects of the mod from the point of view of a new player. This will apply only to the first 3 months as that's where I am so far.

 

Alien resources system for production - It's ok, but I think there's too much detail. Having to go back to the workshop all the time to build/deconstruct something else gets tedious.

 

Live alien / specialist based research system - I don't like this better than the original system. Obviously it's a big part of the mod so not going to be changed, just giving my opinion. There are a few problems with this system -

a) It necessitates stunning specific aliens who may or may not show up conveniently (or alive). There are so many variations, it's hard to keep track of which ones you still haven't got. If you get unlucky, an important line of research can be severely delayed / not available, even if you've been familiar with the particular technology for a very long time in-game. This is not interesting difficulty in my opinion, just annoying.

b) From a lore perspective, I find it very contrived. You take these aliens back to your base and 'torture' them for information? You need a lot of technobabble to explain how you're supposed to communicate, why these lifeforms would respond to torture, and why, faced with 1000 examples of a laser rifle, for example, you still can't have any chance of using that technology until an alien in a certain color shirt or armor configuration explains it to you. None of this makes much sense to me, and lessens the psychological impact of the aliens, turning them into so many different colored power-ups you need to collect.

c) Setting up to stun a particular alien takes time, but not a whole lot of skill. It seems like fake difficulty to me, and fairly boring. I agree that there should have been more necessity and opportunity to stun in the base game, over and above a few command units. But I think this mod swings the pendulum way too far in the other direction.

d) Stunning aliens is less satisfying, for me, than killing them with your cool new weapons. This may be personal preference.

 

Weapon /Range rebalance - I like most of this. The weapons are cool, and the combat range adjustments have enhanced the tactical game. I don't like so many similar variations though. Mk1, mk2, mk3, and different ammo for all of them. Just clogs up your weapons screen for not much gain. Also assault rifles seem much worse than any other weapon type, at least in ballistics/lasers which is where I am.

 

Soldier stat / Experience system - This has improved but introduced other problems. While accelerated stat gain has the effect of making rookies useless for less time than before, it makes them more useless out of the box. Also I'd like to see the stats capped and the range of possible stat differential between professional soldiers reduced. It makes no sense to me why a veteran could ever carry more than 3 times as much weight as a rookie, or move more than twice as far in the same period.

It also seems now that soldiers are more or less interchangeable because experience is the only relevant factor. I no longer say 'well this guy has good reflexes, so I'll make him an assault specialist' or 'this guy has good accuracy but low strength, so he'll snipe'. It's just 'This guy is a rookie, so he sucks at everything, this other guy is a veteran, so he's great at everything'.

 

Difficulty Balance - Terror Missions

I like the difficulty and I think it's well balanced for ironman apart from terror missions. Continuing on the theme of previous posters, I think there is a balance issue with these.

Firstly I agree with Charon that they take far too long. It's just a slog. I am enjoying the game a lot, but it's getting to the point now where I can't be bothered doing another hours long terror site. This is regardless of the difficulty.

The missions themselves are not just hard, it destroys the balance of normal missions. As previously mentioned in the thread, in some instances it is not even clear if it's possible to bring enough ammo to complete a site.

I have to laugh at the 'rewards are based on how many civilians survive, engage the enemy in the field!' tip. As if when playing a terror site at NG+2 you would have the luxury to care about civilians. You are pinned near the dropship at pain of squad wipe for several turns, by which time civilians are dead. That's it, in fact it's the best case scenario. There is no 'advancing tactic'.

The missions are so long (hours) and there are so many enemies that inevitably you'll get bored and make a mistake, or just get unavoidably unlucky, lose a couple of guys, resulting in possible squad wipe. This heavily encourages save scumming. In fact I'd love to see a successfully completed terror mission with no casualties at NG+2 ironman that doesn't use exploits.

There is not even the, admittedly arbitrary, reprieve of 'air recon' on 20 turns. Now, after miraculously surviving a grueling 3 hour mission, you need to take your squad (extremely slowly, or you're dead) fishing for random stragglers. Blow up that building, or you'll be sniped. Rinse and repeat. It's not fun.

That the penalty for failure is the same whether you kill 90% of the enemies or don't attempt the mission at all makes these missions absolutely not worth attempting unless you're save scumming.

Lastly, they cannot be avoided by shooting down the UFO, at least for the first couple of months, unless you happen to have multiple bases in the spawn area and can throw foxtrot waves at it.

Basically terror missions are starting to ruin the game experience for me and feel like a chore.

 

Well that's it for now, will have more complaints soon :) . Not to sound negative - think the mod is very good. Would be interested in writing some lore.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Borak
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47 minutes ago, Changeling_wil said:

I'm still not sure how you're meant to be able to shoot UFOs down, outside of winning autoresolve, or going into the files and nerfing the alien turn speed.

Don't get me wrong, I love the mod. It's just...well, the aliens hulls are strong as fuck [makes sense due to alloys] and they turn fast as hell.

Main solution personally was to just nerf their turning speed, and boost the speed/armour/health of human fighters/heavy fighters [the ufos that are captured and repurposed].

Outside of that it was, even in phases 1 and 2, a game of 'watch all your pilots die horribly'

 

I wanted to keep out of that until you said Phase 1 and 2: There are plenty of LPs out there (Charon's, Svinedrengens, mine...) that show successful air combat. If you are having problems even if Phase 1, you should revise your tactics.

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31 minutes ago, Changeling_wil said:

I'm still not sure how you're meant to be able to shoot UFOs down, outside of winning autoresolve, or going into the files and nerfing the alien turn speed.

Don't get me wrong, I love the mod. It's just...well, the aliens hulls are strong as fuck [makes sense due to alloys] and they turn fast as hell.

Main solution personally was to just nerf their turning speed, and boost the speed/armour/health of human fighters/heavy fighters [the ufos that are captured and repurposed].

Outside of that it was, even in phases 1 and 2, a game of 'watch all your pilots die horribly'

 

You just need good enough aircrafts and armament. And tactics. Like I have said, this mod offers player more than enough tools to make it. You just have to get those tools and use them effectively.

I rarely use (Heavy) fighters other than escort purposes. Asierus/Corsair are much more effective. You also need many aircrafts since rearming is painfully slow. Beginning of February I have:

12 Asierus
9 Foxtrot
5 Corsair
4 Sonda
3 Heavy fighter
2 Firebird
1 Lancer

(+2 crafts on production)

That's enough for now. Somewhat cash stripped so cannot make more Lancer, Sonda and Corsair since I have to sell UFO datacores to keep bank balance OK. 3 Foxtrots are down currently but 6 is quite enough.

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Mauser cannons on Asierus are very effective on early alien fighters. You can usually take down 3 of them with 3 of yours without losses with very basic tactics of running over them enmasse. With a bit of care and rolling into your firing arc from the side you can take them out with no damage. Basically at the start of the game you need to be doing every crash site to get the resources to build planes.

 

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18 minutes ago, Charon said:

@Ruthless ReubanI rather think the problem lies in the fact that androns require too much ammunition to take down, not in the solution to create infinite supplies in your dropship. 

The andron andron race was origianlly written and implemented by drages, and hasnt seen any balancing. He basically wrote them blind for the .4 version. Despite that feeling and experienced made with those units is spot on.

Phoenix noted an ammo problem for the androns as well.

 I agree. Better balanced Androns would be good thing. Still, my solution (unlimited ammo on dropship) solves this "not enough ammo" -problem entirely.

TBH, I don't like idea Androns are "weaker". I consider current Androns are pretty well balanced. So I suggest that either there is bigger clips for certain weapons or there are less Androns.

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4 minutes ago, Ruthless Reuban said:

TBH, I don't like idea Androns are "weaker". I consider current Androns are pretty well balanced. So I suggest that either there is bigger clips for certain weapons or there are less Androns.

Technically Antimatter weapons are your go to andron killers. Not only do the weapons have generally better stats, the ammo also completely ignores any kind of armour. Which also makes them great against any other alien, except shields and reapers - YES, you are supposed to get access to antimatter weapons at one point in the campaign. Whether or not you make it there is up to your skill.

1) Instead of bigger ammo clips for weapons, you have antimatter weapons and

2) decreasing the andron count is exactly what i have in mind. I plan to especially reduce multi stage enemies, so instead of 8 Terror Androns you might only see 2, but the difference of 6 androns is getting put into regular, single stage ones.

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54 minutes ago, Borak said:

Just some general feedback on aspects of the mod from the point of view of a new player. This will apply only to the first 3 months as that's where I am so far.

 

Alien resources system for production - It's ok, but I think there's too much detail. Having to go back to the workshop all the time to build/deconstruct something else gets tedious.

 

Live alien / specialist based research system - I don't like this better than the original system. Obviously it's a big part of the mod so not going to be changed, just giving my opinion. There are a few problems with this system -

a) It necessitates stunning specific aliens who may or may not show up conveniently (or alive). There are so many variations, it's hard to keep track of which ones you still haven't got. If you get unlucky, an important line of research can be severely delayed / not available, even if you've been familiar with the particular technology for a very long time in-game. This is not interesting difficulty in my opinion, just annoying.

b) From a lore perspective, I find it very contrived. You take these aliens back to your base and 'torture' them for information? You need a lot of technobabble to explain how you're supposed to communicate, why these lifeforms would respond to torture, and why, faced with 1000 examples of a laser rifle, for example, you still can't have any chance of using that technology until an alien in a certain color shirt or armor configuration explains it to you. None of this makes much sense to me, and lessens the psychological impact of the aliens, turning them into so many different colored power-ups you need to collect.

c) Setting up to stun a particular alien takes time, but not a whole lot of skill. It seems like fake difficulty to me, and fairly boring. I agree that there should have been more necessity and opportunity to stun in the base game, over and above a few command units. But I think this mod swings the pendulum way too far in the other direction.

d) Stunning aliens is less satisfying, for me, than killing them with your cool new weapons. This may be personal preference.

 

Weapon /Range rebalance - I like most of this. The weapons are cool, and the combat range adjustments have enhanced the tactical game. I don't like so many similar variations though. Mk1, mk2, mk3, and different ammo for all of them. Just clogs up your weapons screen for not much gain. Also assault rifles seem much worse than any other weapon type, at least in ballistics/lasers which is where I am.

 

Soldier stat / Experience system - This has improved but introduced other problems. While accelerated stat gain has the effect of making rookies useless for less time than before, it makes them more useless out of the box. Also I'd like to see the stats capped and the range of possible stat differential between professional soldiers reduced. It makes no sense to me why a veteran could ever carry more than 3 times as much weight as a rookie, or move more than twice as far in the same period.

It also seems now that soldiers are more or less interchangeable because experience is the only relevant factor. I no longer say 'well this guy has good reflexes, so I'll make him an assault specialist' or 'this guy has good accuracy but low strength, so he'll snipe'. It's just 'This guy is a rookie, so he sucks at everything, this other guy is a veteran, so he's great at everything'.

 

Difficulty Balance - Terror Missions

I like the difficulty and I think it's well balanced for ironman apart from terror missions. Continuing on the theme of previous posters, I think there is a balance issue with these.

Firstly I agree with Charon that they take far too long. It's just a slog. I am enjoying the game a lot, but it's getting to the point now where I can't be bothered doing another hours long terror site. This is regardless of the difficulty.

The missions themselves are not just hard, it destroys the balance of normal missions. As previously mentioned in the thread, in some instances it is not even clear if it's possible to bring enough ammo to complete a site.

I have to laugh at the 'rewards are based on how many civilians survive, engage the enemy in the field!' tip. As if when playing a terror site at NG+2 you would have the luxury to care about civilians. You are pinned near the dropship at pain of squad wipe for several turns, by which time civilians are dead. That's it, in fact it's the best case scenario. There is no 'advancing tactic'.

The missions are so long (hours) and there are so many enemies that inevitably you'll get bored and make a mistake, or just get unavoidably unlucky, lose a couple of guys, resulting in possible squad wipe. This heavily encourages save scumming. In fact I'd love to see a successfully completed terror mission with no casualties at NG+2 ironman that doesn't use exploits.

There is not even the, admittedly arbitrary, reprieve of 'air recon' on 20 turns. Now, after miraculously surviving a grueling 3 hour mission, you need to take your squad (extremely slowly, or you're dead) fishing for random stragglers. Blow up that building, or you'll be sniped. Rinse and repeat. It's not fun.

That the penalty for failure is the same whether you kill 90% of the enemies or don't attempt the mission at all makes these missions absolutely not worth attempting unless you're save scumming.

Lastly, they cannot be avoided by shooting down the UFO, at least for the first couple of months, unless you happen to have multiple bases in the spawn area and can throw foxtrot waves at it.

Basically terror missions are starting to ruin the game experience for me and feel like a chore.

 

Well that's it for now, will have more complaints soon :) . Not to sound negative - think the mod is very good. Would be interested in writing some lore.

 

Some points from long text:

 

Live alien:

a) For keeping track what you already got https://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/index.php?/topic/13414-165xce-v0350-x-division-100-beta/&page=134&tab=comments#comment-172625

For unlucky part: it's part of this game, You have to survive with what you have got. There are even some randomized researches btw.

b) As explained on Xenopedia entries, you do NOT use alien technologies directly but you make something similar based on what you have learned from alien tech. So Aliens use Phaser tech, you create Laser tech since you cannot duplicate Phaser tech. And so on.

c) In addition, it's also dangerous.

d) You only need one alien specialist, after that you can blow up similar specialists.

Soldier stat / Experience system: Stats are capped already.

Xenonauts is spiritual successor for UFO: Enemy unknown (1999). On Enemy unknown, rookies suck everywhere and veterans rock everywhere. Same atmosphere on Xenonauts :cool:

Terror missions: Exactly. For terror sites you basically have three choices: 1. Ignore them. Yes, quite heavy penalty for funding but nothing disastrous unless you ignore them all the time. 2. Develop team of elite soldiers that can handle terror sites. 3. Create air force that can shoot down terror UFO's.

As for difficulty, is supposed to be HARD difficulty. You did read NG description? This NG+2 is so hard that I didn't see much point modding it much harder. Usually when I play turn based games, I take hardest difficulty and mod it around 10 times harder to get enough challenge. No need on this mod to do that.

You can very easily mod that 20 turn air recon back if you want. I consider that after 15 turns terror mission is either basically won (few aliens camping) or lost (you pulled out), so removing air recon is more annoying than creating more difficulty.

Edited by Ruthless Reuban
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Thanks for the comments.

 

a) My point was it's tedious and reduces aliens to color-coded Pokemon gotta catch them all powerups. The fact it's trackable with effort doesn't make this effort fun.

b) I never said you use alien technology directly. You didn't in vanilla either. This is not the point I was making. I said in order to utilize alien technology, that you may have 1000 examples of, to any degree, you need to have it explained to you by an alien.

c) Just in my opinion, it's more annoying than it is dangerous.

d) See a).

Soldier stats - The caps are too high, starting values too low, therefore range too wide imo.

Spiritual successors are not obligated to refrain from improving on the original.

Terror missions - Elite soldiers have little to do with it. Equipment effectiveness and enemy resistance to your current technology do. If avoiding doing the terror missions is the best option, this doesn't seem good game design. Here you have a game element that requires effort to develop that the best strategy in-game is to avoid. As mentioned, having an airforce capable of shooting them down takes at least a couple of months, and then you need luck to have the ufo within range of multiple bases so you can hit it with several waves. Until then, you need to contend with boring slogs through terror sites (and save scum, lets be realistic). Once you have the airforce necessary, you get to avoid this bore.

Difficulty - As I said, I find the difficulty well balanced apart from the terror mission insurmountable spike that is definitely not worth doing without save scumming.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Borak said:

Thanks for the comments.

 

a) My point was it's tedious and reduces aliens to color-coded Pokemon gotta catch them all powerups. The fact it's trackable with effort doesn't make this effort fun.

b) I never said you use alien technology directly. You didn't in vanilla either. This is not the point I was making. I said in order to utilize alien technology, that you may have 1000 examples of, to any degree, you need to have it explained to you by an alien.

c) Just in my opinion, it's more annoying than it is dangerous.

d) See a).

Soldier stats - The caps are too high, starting values too low, therefore range too wide imo.

Spiritual successors are not obligated to refrain from improving on the original.

Terror missions - Elite soldiers have little to do with it. Equipment effectiveness and enemy resistance to your current technology do. If avoiding doing the terror missions is the best option, this doesn't seem good game design. Here you have a game element that requires effort to develop that the best strategy in-game is to avoid. As mentioned, having an airforce capable of shooting them down takes at least a couple of months, and then you need luck to have the ufo within range of multiple bases so you can hit it with several waves. Until then, you need to contend with boring slogs through terror sites (and save scum, lets be realistic). Once you have the airforce necessary, you get to avoid this bore. 

Difficulty - As I said, I find the difficulty well balanced apart from the terror mission insurmountable spike that is definitely not worth doing without save scumming.

 

 

a) Not everything is supposed to be fun, this is for hardcore gamers. Capturing live aliens fits lore well and is present on UFO Enemy Unknown too.

b) It would take years to reverse-engineer even single alien weapon technology, no matter how many samples. However when alien tells how it works, it's much faster.

c) Terror mission without air coverage is annoying. Capturing live aliens is just part of game. And if playing NG, it's not even necessary to capture many aliens. On NG+2 is more necessity.

d) See a) and c)

Soldier stats: I don't think same way but you can very easily adjust soldier starting and maximum stats so that is very small problem. So basically: mod game way you like it :)

Xenonauts is improvement from UFO: EU in almost every aspect. However Xenonauts must have something from original (soldier stats is one thing), otherwise it's not spiritual successor.

Terror missions: Elite soldiers have much to do with it. For first terror mission, you should have team of "elite" class soldiers. Avoiding terror missions is one possibility. Unless you have good soldiers and equipment, it's better to avoid it. If map is truly "bad", then it's better to retreat. Not every mission is meant to be won. I pulled out from two terror ufo crash missions because I had not very good equipment and map was quite bad. One reason was that developing air force took much resources from weapon development.

As stated earlier, building airforce that can bring down terror battleship takes less than 40 days. So even first terror UFO is possible to shoot down (unless it has super escorts, of course). And even if you cannot shoot it down, ignoring first terror mission is not big problem at all. You just have to accept that you are fighting against superior enemy with superior technology, so not everything hoes smoothly every time.

As I said, even first terror mission is doable without save scumming. You'll need team of elite soldiers and equipment I mentioned earlier. What really sucks, is phase 2 first terror mission if it comes on second ware and so are phase 2 enemies. That is still doable with proper technology. As some phase 2 tech can be acquired during phase 1...

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Feel free to do that. I just cannot see how capturing alien specialists could be repetitive game mechanic. Capturing live aliens may be but capturing specialists first time not. Considering certan specialists are "must have" and failure could mean long delays on research side, it basically forces to take even huge risks sometimes.

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Regarding the fact that trying to rescue civillians is pointless in terror missions when the only viable tactic is to trench yourself in your landing site until the alien numbers slim down, by which point all civilians are dead - what if you made the civillian AI heavily prioritize getting to your airship at virtually all times? If you justify it by considering that, well, a chinook landing is pretty hard to miss by both sight and sound, and that you might be broadcasting it via speakers. But justification aside, how would you feel about that tactically, Charon? If the civillians get to you, then they also serve to attractvfire from aliens that would otherwise shoot at your soldiers, instead of from aliens on the other side of the map. And if enough civillians get to your ship succesfully but you still consider you gotta retreat, cue the hilarious realisation there is not enough space for all your troops in he chopper.

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15 minutes ago, Mr. Mister said:

But justification aside, how would you feel about that tactically, Charon?

I feel about that that the proper solution is proper maps, not an abstruse AI.

If you want to know how all X-Division maps should look like you can take a look at mulligans mission here, and the X-Division Gold standart for maps below it. You should always go for the proper solution, if you can. Apart from that the AI doesnt have a simple slider of "go to the ship". So developing a different AI would propably take longer than anybody making all the maps necessary. If we dont have somebody to make the maps, we dont have them. All we can do is to be transparent about it.

 

Edited by Charon
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