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

[PALU]

OK, I've finally figured out how to deal with bomber dreadnoughts: If you fly into a corner you can get out of the firing (but certainly not hit) range of the missiles long enough to shoot down the last missile and escape. It's the only part of the battle area that isn't covered by the firing range usually (and I guess I've been lucky on the previous instances I've escaped).

Edit: Something completely different: Why is the reward for bombing a downed Mothership 0$? There are good reasons for raiding it, of course, but bombing it ought to give you something, if your A team isn't in shape for taking it on (I would guess it's a bug/oversight, of course).

Edited February 9, 2019 by PALU

[Charon]

On 2/8/2019 at 10:03 PM, PALU said:

Edit: Something completely different: Why is the reward for bombing a downed Mothership 0$? There are good reasons for raiding it, of course, but bombing it ought to give you something, if your A team isn't in shape for taking it on (I would guess it's a bug/oversight, of course).

Since when is even the slightest value in X-Division an oversight ?

You dont get anything from bombing a mothership because ... you cant bomb it. Even when grounded a mothership will still have enough defenses up to repell any kind of air attack to "finish it off", but against nuclear warfare. Which isnt really allowed since you cant simply nuke some place in another peoples country. Every mothership has a Praetor onboard, if he didnt die on impact. Even the lowest Praetor has around 50 000 ships at his command. Do you really think he will just say "Welp, crashed, cant help it. Now i gotta detonate my ship ... ... ... not." What actually happens is either that the crew can repair the mothership and/or he simply calls in a supply run with 2 dozens UFOs which (A) give him a lift into space and (B) can repair the mothership to flightable conditions again. Having  the 0$ airstrike options is simply a "Lets ignore this, ok ?" from the command room perspective.

:P As if the leader of 50 000 UFOs would self detonate his ship just because he crashlanded :DD.

[Ion Mage]

Xenopedia error;  The ceasan light scout operator interrogation report has a paragraph at the end about having a green skin when engaged, but which turned pink on capture.  I think that was meant for the Sebillian equivalent :P.

[Dr. Ethan]

so i saw that Fire in the Hole is included with this, if so why are there no breach points on the alien ships?

[PALU]

@Ion Mage Thanks. Will be fixed in the next version posted.

[Charon]

@PALU

For the next version i fixed some shield trickeries with harridans.

Firstly, harridans are not supposed to have shields. The Terror warrior and elite had some early shields and this lead to some funny implications. Like shooting a cannon with a 0.01 reaction modifier with a 1.0 reaction modifier. I made the following corrections, and you can see it fit to change the lore if you want to, as mentioned units gained a bit of resilience in the process:

 

(1) I removed the shield from the Terror warrior and elite and appended the 62.5% of the shield hp. For the terror warrior this means from 400 to 500 hp, and for the terror elite it means a change of 500 to 688 hp. This removes the buggy behaviour of cannon wielders firing with the reaction modifier of a rifle.

(2) I set the reaction modifier of the Blood Cannon from 0.01 to 0.1. This is a sensible value, since it wont trigger on most units, but on ones which carry heavy equipment as well ( miniguns, cannons, etc ... ).

(3) Fixed the wrong reflex value of the terror warrior from 210 to 120.

 

This is the said video which the incident occurred in:

 

Edited February 15, 2019 by Charon

[Dagar]

On 2/15/2019 at 11:04 AM, Charon said:

@PALU

For the next version i fixed some shield trickeries with harridans.

Firstly, harridans are not supposed to have shields. The Terror warrior and elite had some early shields and this lead to some funny implications. Like shooting a cannon with a 0.01 reaction modifier with a 1.0 reaction modifier. I made the following corrections, and you can see it fit to change the lore if you want to, as mentioned units gained a bit of resilience in the process:

 

(1) I removed the shield from the Terror warrior and elite and appended the 62.5% of the shield hp. For the terror warrior this means from 400 to 500 hp, and for the terror elite it means a change of 500 to 688 hp. This removes the buggy behaviour of cannon wielders firing with the reaction modifier of a rifle.

 

Ah, good thing to know. I presumed shields only lowered the reaction modifier value to 1.0, i.e. that they only had an effect with higher reaction weapons. In turn, I presume that means that Xenonauts shield wielders still can shoot any kind of alien heavy guns with 1.0 modifier, since they all are one handed?

[Charon]

27 minutes ago, Dagar said:

Ah, good thing to know. I presumed shields only lowered the reaction modifier value to 1.0, i.e. that they only had an effect with higher reaction weapons. In turn, I presume that means that Xenonauts shield wielders still can shoot any kind of alien heavy guns with 1.0 modifier, since they all are one handed?

Indeed. Thats not indended, but indeed.

[PALU]

Is it intentional that movement in high grass is extremely costly for mechs (and, I think, other vehicles)? 19 AP for a single step seems rather excessive, given that grass shouldn't have any effect at all on a mechanical vehicle (and probably not on power armor either, although that may be harder to separate from other infantry movement).

Edited February 17, 2019 by PALU

[destrower37]

Question : is there any resource/way to keep track of what alien i've captured during missions , i know it's wise to capture everything but at the same time, capturing aliens come up with a cost and i want to decide if it's worth capturing a certain alien or not

at least some way to correlate between the alien type and their looks

[PALU]

Pen & paper... The Xenopedia shows the ones you've "processed" through interrogations, but the list gets rather long fairly quickly, and isn't available while on a ground mission (and the ones you've captured but haven't interrogated yet are available through the research screen).

There are certain Xenopedia entries that list aliens and roles that may be encountered during various phases. However, all "operators" of a given species look the same.

[Charon]

19 hours ago, PALU said:

Is it intentional that movement in high grass is extremely costly for mechs (and, I think, other vehicles)? 19 AP for a single step seems rather excessive, given that grass shouldn't have any effect at all on a mechanical vehicle (and probably not on power armor either, although that may be harder to separate from other infantry movement).

I dont think thats intentional. Definitely not on the X-Division side. Rather looks to be a byproduct of the additional tu cost multiplied by x3. If we could have no movement penalty for vehicles due to environment obstacles i would do it.

[Charon]

17 hours ago, PALU said:

There are certain Xenopedia entries that list aliens and roles that may be encountered during various phases. However, all "operators" of a given species look the same.

True, but all operators are UFO specific. You won´t encounter a landingship operator on a corvette mission. You won´t encounter assault operators in a terrorised city. In all instances you can clearly predict which operators you will encounter, except for a few exceptions, where additional operators have spawned to give additional opportunities to capture them ( bonus spawns ).

[Dr. Ethan]

So, Charon are you just not gonna answer my question?

On 2/14/2019 at 8:48 PM, Dr. Ethan said:

so i saw that Fire in the Hole is included with this, if so why are there no breach points on the alien ships?

 

Edited February 19, 2019 by Dr. Ethan

[Charon]

9 hours ago, Dr. Ethan said:

So, Charon are you just not gonna answer my question?

 

I have actually kinda slipped into retirement some while ago/am in the process of. So with this i am in no obligation to answer any questions which may arise, and dont threaten the peace of the thread. Especially not questions which have been answered before and/or which information is easily available by reading the first post. So except for moderation purposes the mod creator Charon is gone, but the player Charon is still here. Apart from that i take interest in any interesting issues.

If you cant find an answer to your question yourself maybe the community can help you.

 

Taking the right time to quit is a skill worth writing books about. Last one puts out the light please.

The thing with @PALUis an intern development discussion for everybody to read and participate in, as is the 1.00.10 version.

[Charon]

@PALU

For the next version:

• decreased TU% for Praetorian in all Phases to the level of the Warrior, while keeping the higher damage. This means Praetorian can attack up to 50% faster, but given they also have 25% less TU than Warriors it is not a significant change.
• Decreased TU% for Rogues, Stalker and Ravagers.
• Increased the range of the Shock Gun from 2 to 3, due to the game not counting from the border to border of the hitbox.

 

Check the weapon.AlienMatergyMinigun entry, i think there is a word missing here

Quote

Technology, the Alien Matergy X, and

 

Edited February 19, 2019 by Charon

[Ruthless Reuban]

On 2/17/2019 at 10:43 PM, destrower37 said:

Question : is there any resource/way to keep track of what alien i've captured during missions , i know it's wise to capture everything but at the same time, capturing aliens come up with a cost and i want to decide if it's worth capturing a certain alien or not

at least some way to correlate between the alien type and their looks

In addition to pen and paper, you can use checklist instead of writing down all captured aliens. I use following lists for phase 1 and 2, something might be missing however:

 

Caesan  Phase 1

Guard
Chieftain
Light Scout Operator
Scout Operator
Corvette Operator
Early Terror Operator
Early Assault Operator
Early Bomber Operator
Weapon Sergeant
Navigator
Psion
Technician
Medic
Xenomorph Drone
Xenomorph Warrior
Facehugger

Seblllian Phase 1

Guard
Chieftain
Light Scout Operator
Scout Operator
Corvette Operator
Early Terror Operator
Early Assault Operator
Early Bomber Operator
Weapon Sergeant
Navigator
Technician
Medic
Reaper Bull
Reaper

Caesan Phase 2

Soldier
Terror Soldier
Officer
Landing Operator
Cruiser Operator
Alien Outpost Operator
Basic Terror Operator
Basic Assault Operator
Basic Bomber Operator
Small Base Operator
Weapon Officer
Pilot
Assault Psion
Engineer
Physician
Wraith soldier
Wraith terror soldier
Xenomorph Marble Drone
Xenomorph Marble Warrior
Xenomorph Praetorian
Xenomorph Queen

Seblllian Phase 2

Soldier
Terror Soldier
Officer
Landing Operator
Cruiser Operator
Alien Outpost Operator
Basic Terror Operator
Basic Assault Operator
Basic Bomber Operator
Small Base Operator
Weapon Officer
Pilot
Engineer
Physician
Harridan soldier
Harridan terror soldier
Reaper Alpha

 

Edited February 19, 2019 by Ruthless Reuban

[Ruthless Reuban]

17 hours ago, Dr. Ethan said:

So, Charon are you just not gonna answer my question?

 

It seems to be disabled on modloader.

[PALU]

- I've reworded the sentence missing the word "Technology" and adjusted the descriptions of the top Harridans a little to match the upcoming changes. I don't think the Praetorian, top Xenomorphs, or Shock Gun changes affect anything described in the Xenopedia.

- Feedback: I've found both the Gauss and Rail Rifles of the Mk-3 status to be rather disappointing, with rather poor performance against everything (well, if they manage to hit with at least two bullets they can destroy small terror drones), while the Mk-3 Rail SMG was a very positive surprise (4 bursts from one shield bearer [3 as reaction shots, 1 the next turn, emptying the clip], plus 2 from another at more or less rifle range managed to destroy a killer cyber disc, and two bursts at point blank or slightly longer reliably killed wraiths, while the rifle failed to kill a Wraith with the 4 bullets a Guardian wearing soldier can manage to fire in a turn. All 4 bullets did hit, while a single burst from a Sonic Rifle Mk-3 had no trouble eliminating other Wraiths at similar distances). To add insult to injury, it seems the kinetic rifles are less accurate than the energy ones (based on experience: I haven't checked the actual weapon stats). I'm seriously considering ditching the Rail Rifle Mk-3 in favor of another SMG...

- A meta gaming question: I've waited for a mighty long time (I think over a month, all during phase 4) for an alien base I allowed to be established to grow into an Alien Fortress, as I suspect that's where I'll find a "capeable" psionic unit (it would be good if that text was corrected to say "capable", as it's displayed rather prominently once you reach that stage in the game). I've shot down everything appearing, but now I get a supply ship seemingly aimed at that base. Will the base grow faster if I allow the supply ship to reach it?

[Charon]

18 hours ago, PALU said:

as I suspect that's where I'll find a "capeable" psionic unit (it would be good if that text was corrected to say "capable",

do it.

18 hours ago, PALU said:

I've shot down everything appearing, but now I get a supply ship seemingly aimed at that base. Will the base grow faster if I allow the supply ship to reach it?

Indeed. A base which gets supplied grows faster. Approximately by 33%.

But i dont think you will find what you are looking for in there. There is a special something which will spawn based on time and chance. The longer you wait the higher the chance.

[Charon]

18 hours ago, PALU said:

- Feedback: I've found both the Gauss and Rail Rifles of the Mk-3 status to be rather disappointing, with rather poor performance against everything (well, if they manage to hit with at least two bullets they can destroy small terror drones), while the Mk-3 Rail SMG was a very positive surprise (4 bursts from one shield bearer [3 as reaction shots, 1 the next turn, emptying the clip], plus 2 from another at more or less rifle range managed to destroy a killer cyber disc, and two bursts at point blank or slightly longer reliably killed wraiths, while the rifle failed to kill a Wraith with the 4 bullets a Guardian wearing soldier can manage to fire in a turn. All 4 bullets did hit, while a single burst from a Sonic Rifle Mk-3 had no trouble eliminating other Wraiths at similar distances). To add insult to injury, it seems the kinetic rifles are less accurate than the energy ones (based on experience: I haven't checked the actual weapon stats). I'm seriously considering ditching the Rail Rifle Mk-3 in favor of another SMG...

And we also had feedback bitching about how useless sonic weapons are. So i guess if everybody complains about everything everything is balanced.

I tried to look into the issue, but the rail rifle mk3 has 28 range, while the SMG has 13. They are for completely 2 different uses. Good luck trying to use an SMG in an open desert.

I appreciate the feedback.

[PALU]

Thanks for the answers. I'll still let the supply through (only to take it out when it takes off again, assuming it works like base builders), as I should at least be able to bag a Sebillian Large Base Operator from it (not that I need it, I think, as I've got all Data Hacks, but that's one of the reasons I let the base be build in the first place). It was the second Sebillian base building mission total in my game: the first one came in the wave preceding that one, and I raided that base to let the second one grow, as I thought it would grow a lot faster. Raiding the first one eventually gave me Antimatter Mk-3 though, so it was definitely worth it.

"Capeable": I'm referring to the text in the lower right corner of the geospace saying my mission is to find a capeable psionic unit. I don't know where that text comes from (but I haven't searched for it).

Feedback: Well, I do have significant issues with Sonic weapons: in particular their poor ammo capacity and heavy ammo, and I'm not really convinced they're better than the tier 3 weapons... However, using a Rail Rifle in the open desert is rather pointless anyway, as it won't hit particularly often, and when it does hit it generally doesn't cause any damage worth mentioning. I fire Gauss/Rail rifles more for the sake of it than with any expectation that it will produce any useful results. My teams have one kinetic rifle bearer each, again, mostly for the sake of having something that might be useful against anything that might show up to be Energy immune (ignoring meta knowledge).

[Charon]

2 minutes ago, PALU said:

"Capeable": I'm referring to the text in the lower right corner of the geospace saying my mission is to find a capeable psionic unit. I don't know where that text comes from (but I haven't searched for it).

Fixed. Its in the strings.xml.

5 minutes ago, PALU said:

Feedback: Well, I do have significant issues with Sonic weapons: in particular their poor ammo capacity and heavy ammo, and I'm not really convinced they're better than the tier 3 weapons... However, using a Rail Rifle in the open desert is rather pointless anyway, as it won't hit particularly often, and when it does hit it generally doesn't cause any damage worth mentioning. I fire Gauss/Rail rifles more for the sake of it than with any expectation that it will produce any useful results. My teams have one kinetic rifle bearer each, again, mostly for the sake of having something that might be useful against anything that might show up to be Energy immune (ignoring meta knowledge).

Well, if you think the Sonic weapons suck in their own way than everythings alright, no ?

6 minutes ago, PALU said:

However, using a Rail Rifle in the open desert is rather pointless anyway,

You mean rather pointless in comparasion to snipers ? Yes, they are still rifles, jack of all trades, master of none. If you have any specific situation at hand a specific weapon will outperform the average one, like snipers for open fields, and smgs for close encounters.

With the endless special weapons available at the time of Phase 4, rifles might loose some of its ... charm. Especially against all that kinetic resistant units. Eg. even if they slowly loose their purpose they should still be there as a tactical option available for players who want to use them. One thing X-Division does quite well is the steady shifting of importance from weapon to weapon, throwing you into situations where you might wanna use a special weapon JUST for that one period/problem.

[PALU]

Feedback: Sonic weapons suck in their own way, but at least they don't seem to be worse than the Pulse ones in general, which means they're about as useful as those.

I mean that Rail Rifles are rather useless at a distance compared to other rifles. At least the Pulse ones seem to hit reasonably often (I haven't used Sonic ones long enough to get a feeling for them). The Antimatter Mk-2 ones have impressed me with their accuracy (again, I haven't had Mk-3 long enough to get any feeling for those). The fact that most enemies have better protection against kinetic weapons just makes it worse. Kinetic rifles can take out small drones, but that's about it (and that can be done with other rifles as well). In theory they should be useful against Harridans, but that requires you to hit the buggers with a sufficient number of bullets. They should also be useful to wear down shields, but, again, that requires that they actually hit.

[Charon]

13 minutes ago, PALU said:

I mean that Rail Rifles are rather useless at a distance compared to other rifles. At least the Pulse ones seem to hit reasonably often (I haven't used Sonic ones long enough to get a feeling for them). The Antimatter Mk-2 ones have impressed me with their accuracy (again, I haven't had Mk-3 long enough to get any feeling for those). The fact that most enemies have better protection against kinetic weapons just makes it worse. Kinetic rifles can take out small drones, but that's about it (and that can be done with other rifles as well). In theory they should be useful against Harridans, but that requires you to hit the buggers with a sufficient number of bullets. They should also be useful to wear down shields, but, again, that requires that they actually hit.

rifle:

            <Set1 ap="22" accuracy="35" />
            <Set2 ap="35" accuracy="55" />
        </SingleShot>
        <BurstFire ap="45" accuracy="45"

 

division mk3:

            <Set1 ap="22" accuracy="35" />
            <Set2 ap="35" accuracy="55" />
        </SingleShot>
        <BurstFire ap="45" accuracy="45"

 

mag rifle mk3:

            <Set1 ap="22" accuracy="45" />
        </SingleShot>
        <BurstFire ap="45" accuracy="40" 4 burst

 

gauss rifle mk3:

            <Set1 ap="22" accuracy="45" />
            <Set2 ap="35" accuracy="70" />
        </SingleShot>
        <BurstFire ap="45" accuracy="32"

 

rail rifle mk3:

            <Set1 ap="22" accuracy="70" />
            <Set2 ap="35" accuracy="90" />
        </SingleShot>
        <BurstFire ap="45" accuracy="50"

 

As you can see the accuracy for snap and normal shots only increase, with the rail rifle having by far the best accuracy. Gauss weapons have very bad burst fire accuracy, but thats due to their line of technology and their focus on single bullet fire. The MAG weaponry is also a special case because they heavily focus on improving burst and everything burst related. Other than that the damage and mitigation all go up as you unlock later weapons.

Im not disputing that kinetic rifles may suck, but their relative strenght only increases during the campaign. What changes are the enemies and the circumstances, or maybe kinetic rifles suck in general ?