Jump to content

[X:CE 0.34.2] Xenonauts X-pansion Pack


Policenaut

Recommended Posts

xxp.JPG

XXP is intended for players who want a vanilla like experience but with some new additions and changes, expanding upon Xenonauts without straying too far from the original. XXP adds 3 new alien types, 10 new weapons, 4 new aircrafts, 4 new UFOs and 1 new building upgrade. All new additions have been made with the intention of each having its own purpose and they all come with Xenopedia artwork and writing imitating the tone and quality of the original entries.

The gameplay has been rebalanced/changed in many different areas as well ranging from:

  • Geoscape balance when it comes to the air war vs the ground war | The ground war should be bit more relevant for making money and boosting relations. UFO landing frequency and duration has been drastically increased so you have the option to initiate GC missions without the need for air combat. Crashed UFOs have also been modified so that alien technology and the crew receive damage in the crash, resulting in less alien tech to capture.
  • Each vehicle has been given its own unique abilities | Vehicles now have positive and negative aspects to diffrentiate them more. Hunter - Scout and utility vehicle equipped with various rockets and a secondary machinegun. Scimitar - Infantry support tank equipped with a laser/plasma/MAG cannon and a secondary scatter laser. Also has the ability to drive through buildings and various objects. Hyperion - Artilery vehicle equipped with a laser/plasma/MAG cannon and a secondary cluster rocket system. Also has the ability to drive over water. To use the new secondary weapons you press the L key by default. The old laser/plasma/MAG cannons have also been altered somewhat to diffrentiate more as well.
  • More rocket types have been added | Smoke rockets and more vehicle rockets as well.
  • Stun gas has been changed to damage on contact | No more getting damaged once and then being invulnerable for the rest of the turn.
  • Dropship range and capacity has been altered | Charlie range decreased and Valkyrie range increased. All dropship have a 2+ capacity increase and the Valkyrie can now carry 2 vehicles.
  • AI Changes | Caesans are now more tactical and sneaky, make use of cover and stick together more. Sebillians are now more afraid of fire. Androns will "camp" less, be more aggressive and can crush through walls. Harridans will no longer fly around aimlessly towards the heavens like heathens only to get picked off by snipers.
  • Armour and HP rebalance for aliens | Armoured aliens other than Androns and Drones now actually use armour values, adjusted the HP for various units as well.
  • Weapons rebalance | Weapons adjusted for the armour and HP changes. Plasma and MAGs have been changed so that Plasma does more base damage while MAGs have much better armour penetration (mitigation), making them more effective against highly armoured units.
  • Xenonauts Armour changes | Buzzard made into a recon/sniper suit capable of nightvision and has an accuracy boost, at the cost of smaller viewing arc and thus now requires the live capture of any Harridan unit and can no longer be unlocked by defating drones. Small nightvision boost was added to the Sentinel and Predator armours as well. The Sentinel armour has also been changed to incorporate a counterpsionic system and thus now also requires the live capture of all Caesan psionic units to unlock for research. Lastly, the Predator has received a small armour boost from 70 to 75.
  • Alien crew changes | Harridans and Wraiths have been made into main races instead of being support races for the previous 3 main races (Caesans, Sebillians and Androns). Every main race except the Praetors have been given their unique support race. Praetors now only appear in Battleship and Dreadnought UFOs, and now receive a crew that is mixture of all the other alien main/support races.
  • UFO changes | All UFO types gradually appear instead of completly replacing previous UFO types. UFOs on research missions will land more often and terror missions/base attacks have been increased in frequency as well. Scout missions now slightly increase the main alien ticker size for every minute they are active on the Geoscape. Different missions have specialized crews, for example construction and supply missions have more non-combatants and low level units, while base attacks and terror missions feature more high level units and support races.
  • Alien Base changes | Now grow independently in size rather than being given a fixed sized as the invasion escalates. Discovery changed from automatic discovery to 95% approximate location and 5% automatic discovery every 3 days. Alien Bases no longer damage funding and instead increases the amount of max UFOs by 2. Alien Bases now feature mixed main race units with drone support and more non-combatants. Praetors no longer spawn in alien bases.
  • Alien Weapons are now captureable | No longer auto sold but their accuracy penalty has been increased from 50% to 75%.
  • And many other misc changes and additions | Funding damage/bonus adjustments. Starting soldier stats changed from minimum 35 to 40. Retakeable Xenonaut Bases activated (72h time limit). Dropship RNG survival rate increased when crashing over land. Armour changed to reduce suppression by percentage. Sell captured aliens on the black market. And more...!

For more detailed changes check out the changelog included in the download.

IMAGES:

aircraft.jpgaliens.jpggraphics.jpgufos.jpgweapons.jpgxenopedia.jpgrebalance.jpg

DOWNLOAD:

Nexusmods

Also available on Steam Workshop.

INSTALLATION:

  1. Download and install the latest version of Xenonauts: Community Edition.
  2. Download and install the latest versions of the the Tropical and Swamp Tileset and Xenonauts Fix Pack (the ones included with X:CE are outdated).
  3. Install XXP and put it at the top of your mod list.
  4. Activate the following mods included with X:CE: [xcebalance], [xceextramaps], [xcesettings], [Skitso's Ultimate Megamix Map Pack 2000], [Skitso's Improved Tile Art Pack], [Skitso's Alien Base Booster Pack], [Restored Community Map Pack], [Random Map Pack Farm Edition], [Random Map Pack Desert Style], [Random Map Pack Arctic Collection], [NewCars], [Khall's Tundra Tileset], [Khall's More Portraits]. All other mods included with X:CE should be disabled.
  5. Optionally download recommended mods and place them below XXP in your mod list.
  6. Make sure you don't have any incompatible mods activated (check the compatability section below).
  7. Clear your internal scripts folder. For example: [C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Goldhawk Interactive\Xenonauts\internal\scripts\] or [C:\Program\Steam\SteamApps\common\Xenonauts\assets\mods\internal\scripts\]. Simply delete the scripts folder there.
  8. Start a New Game!

RECOMMENDED MODS:

COMPATABILITY:
This mod is not compatible with X-Division or other overhaul mods, Kabill's Tactical Armories or other ground combat and weapon rebalance mods, Armored Assault or other vehicle rebalance mods, Skitso's Sounds of Pain or any other mods that edit human death/injury sounds and any mods that add new armours. UI/script mods that edit _basebuilt.lua, sequipview.lua, combatguiexport.lua and combatguiexport_large.lua must be merged manually or their changes won't apply. Mods that change the art style of the soldier faces must overwrite or disable the new female afri05/06 and asi05/06/07 faces, or you will get vanilla art style faces mixed with the replacements. You must also disable the new Sentinel armour graphics or add faces to it, or you will get headless soldiers when wearing the Sentinel armour in the equip menu. Custom weapons should be compatible (as long as they don't edit the research requirements of existing entries) but balance with XXP can't be guaranteed.

XXP also includes variations of some mods that have been edited and merged into XXP. Do not use the following mods with XXP:

  • Better Armour Graphics
  • Unique Teleport Sound
  • More Civilians and Local Forces
  • Furies, Terror, and Dreadnoughts Oh My
  • Lore+
  • Saracen Reborn
  • Armoured Assault
  • Extended Weapon Descriptions for Fighters

KNOWN ISSUES:

  • Jellynoid slime tiles in some cases floating in the air
  • Creepers being able to move through 1x1 gaps

If you find any bugs/issues please report them in this thread or PM me.

CREDITS:
zzz1010 - Original Creeper Pack mod which was edited, rebalanced and slightly redesigned to create the new Creeper.
Max_Caine - Max_Caine's Warehouse mod which included the original Toxic Goo Launcher, Firewall and Glitterglass Grenade which were all edited and rebalanced. Drone Strike Package which included the Smart Weapons, Drone Aircrafts, Attack Frigate UFO and Drone Carrier UFO. These were all edited and rebalanced as well. Many Xenopedia entry texts that were edited in various ways.
Ferry Susanto - Toxic Goo Launcher, Firewall and Glitterglass Grenade artwork.
Bogdan Bungardean - Drone Aircraft artwork.
Marwan Islami - Smart Weapons artwork.
skaianDestiny - Vehicle alienium/plasma/fusion rocket artwork which were reworked for the new vehicle rockets.
Kabill - Inspiration for the vehicle and dynamic UFO changes. Also the Unique Psionic Attack and next soldier button graphics.
Axiomatic - Inspiration from the UFO and crew diversity mod.
The "Furies, Terror, and Dreadnoughts Oh My" team (SkaianDestiny, Kabill, Dpelectric, Langy and Ilunak) - original versions of the Assault Lander and Dreadnought that were edited and slightly rebalanced.
[Tribe] Lorebot - Inspiration from the Saracen Reborn mod which was edited and slightly rebalanced.
IgnusDei (Francois Cannels) - UFO Xenopedia artwork.
HenryPonciano - Various Xenopedia artwork.
LordJulian - Jackal Armour Graphics.
Skitso - Inspiration for dawn/night color correction among other things.
Ilunak - Next Soldier UI button .lua script which was merged with XXP's .lua script.
chuumink (Henry Wirawan) and unrealsmoker - Local Forces Xenopedia artwork.
Di-To - Disappoint Xenopedia artwork.
Lightgemini - Improved Projectile Particle effects which were edited.
Deathlock - Giant Slime sprite which was edited and converted to Xenonauts.
Lore+ team (Max_Caine, a333 and Henry Ponciano) - Lore+ art and Xenopedia entries which were slightly modified.
Buzubuzu - "Extended Weapon Descriptions for Fighters" which was edited to be compatible with XXP and also fixed a Xenopedia bug related to the ReplaceItem() function and the wrong name and graphics for the Fusion Missile.
PepeXP - Inspiration for my version of the cover icon overhaul.

I was not able to get in contact with all content contributors but I hope it's alright that I used your content to create the Xenonauts X-pansion Pack. Thanks to everyone in the Xenonauts community who contributed with content in some way, which all helped make this mod come to fruition. This mod wouldn't have been possible without all of your previous efforts! You're the best!

SPECIAL THANKS:
Toby - For being humble and initially gifting me Xenonauts, thus paving the way for the creation of the Xenonauts X-pansion Pack.
X:CE team - For making most of the changes possible to implement and still keeping Xenonauts alive.
X-Division team - Various insight that helped with the development of the Xenonauts X-pansion Pack.
Doctopus - For all the great feedback and bug reports.
...and YOU! - I hope you'll enjoy the XXP and if you have any questions or feedback feel free to PM me or post in this thread.

Edited by Policenaut
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Policenaut said:
  • Hyperion - Artilery vehicle equipped with a laser/plasma/MAG cannon and a secondary cluster rocket system. Also has the ability to drive over water. To use the new secondary weapons you press the L key by default. The old laser/plasma/MAG cannons have also been altered somewhat to diffrentiate more as well.
  • More rocket types have been added | Smoke rockets and more vehicle rockets as well.

Is that really a thing ? Dual Wielding vehicles ?

14 hours ago, Policenaut said:

Discovery changed from automatic discovery to 95% approximate location and 5% automatic discovery every 3 days. Alien Bases no longer damage funding and instead increases the amount of max UFOs by 2. Alien Bases now feature mixed main race units with drone support and more non-combatants. Praetors no longer spawn in alien bases.

I made the discover chance 25% for 4 for day with a 50% proximity one, and 50% exact localisation. Feels good to compare values.

 

I recommed following mods, and especially because i made them for the community:

As an option:

 

I will also bring out the new version for the ambient sounds, if the tests continue to be promising, and i also can take a look at your ultimate ambient sound system to minimise bugggy behaviour.

Congrats on the launch, good to see some new blood here :).

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks and yes it's possible to give the vehicles secondary weapons, but I had to edit the UI (combatguiexport.lua) to make it possible to see the ammo for the secondary weapon. There is also a bug with secondary weapons that causes them to crash if they are combined with singleshot weapons. The workaround is to use burstfire instead with a shot count of 1.

It's also not possible to change the secondary weapons, but you could create different versions of the same vehicle with different secondary weapons. 

Edited by Policenaut
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Policenaut said:

You can change the primary weapon like normal but the secondary weapon is limited to 1 weapon per vehicle that cannot be changed.

Because there is no UI for it, i guess ? @Solver would that be a good idea ? If I fetch Draku he may build us another window.

4 minutes ago, Policenaut said:

You use the primary weapon like normal and the secondary by pressing the L key on your keyboard.

How did you find that out ?

Even if we can only use 1 additional weapon, it still some variety. @drages look at this !

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Policenaut said:

Yeah, there's no UI/functions for it but it could be possible if it was added in an X:CE update. I also figured it out by reading some old threads on the forum, but I still had to edit the UI to fix the ammo counters.

You fixed what precisely ?

I was thinking about creating a smoke cloud ability, or a flamethrower, those would be compatible all along and really cool.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Policenaut said:

By default the ammo counter for the secondary weapon is hidden when using vehicles since it's a scrapped feature. I had to move the positions of the primary and secondary weapon ammo counters to bypass it.

Sounds neat, mind if we take some of that for X-Division maybe ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Policenaut said:

You can change the primary weapon like normal but the secondary weapon is limited to 1 weapon per vehicle that cannot be changed. You use the primary weapon like normal and the secondary by pressing the L key on your keyboard.

Why the L key? Is it some old function you activated that way?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Solver said:

Why the L key? Is it some old function you activated that way?

The L key toggles the secondary weapon/left hand weapon by default. The secondary weapons for vehicles uses the same function. I tried editing the UI to work like when infantry use 1H weapons but vehicles seem to be hardcoded to use the 2H weapon mode UI. Pressing L to toggle the secondary weapon still makes it work though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Larry Burstyn said:

I am  having crash problems not sure as to why.   It's happened when I playing ground battle or strategic portion of turn.  Crash is just game stopping.  Only way out is to sign off and reboot windows. 

Do you have the Ultimate Ambient Sounds mod installed? It's prone to cause crashing for some people, so try uninstalling it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I've just started playing with this mod, but I think I'll really like it... keeping it mostly like the original but fixing/tweaking some things!! I've played it for a couple of hours and thought of a couple of suggestions:

===> groud missions
- I find cover to be not that effective; how can you get shot with a plasma rifle from far away, when behind high cover?!?! I think increasing the effectiveness of cover would make the fights more fun and realistic (specially when there is no prone position!) since, 1) shooting at something behind cover becomes useless (except for suppression), and so 2) that "forces" the attacking side (usually the player) to actually come up with alternative active strategies (flanking, ambush, rockets, smoke greandes, etc...), since those are the only efficient ways to hit the enemy. This last one 3) is actually an implicit bonus to the defending side since it would have had time to prepare terrain, choose defences, etc...

- location of aliens/civilians/local forces at start seems to be pretty much random, but that leads to some weird situations: Xeno landing right next to an alien (you'd expect them to land on a safe area, no?), or aliens right next to a civilian (why whold the civilian not run?). So, in UFO missions I'd suggest placing aliens initially only around the crash site, and civilians/local forces randomly but not near the crash site; ideally they'd move towards the landing site for cover/protection (they'd be waiting for the arrival of Xeno).
On terror missions, I'd stick with the randomly distribution since aliens would be all over, actively attacking the city when Xeno arrive.

- player acess to civlians and local forces LOS/vision/position, since it is expected that they would try to help Xeno in locating the aliens.

- I've already suggested this on another threads, but always thought it would be cool to have have alien re-inforcements. The idea would be that, when a UFO is shot down, aliens would send a heavily armored but small rescue mission after X turns that would just try to rescue all surviving aliens and some of the recoverable items. This would give a "bonus" to the player if he was fast.

- reaction fire should probably be tweaked. I've had some cases of aliens running right in front of my soldiers (with full TUs) and being able to fire first. Also, a soldier with enough TUs, should always have reaction fire if it sees an alien (within a reasonable probability of hitting it)

 

 

==> air missions
- fights are too easy on autoresolve... two F17 take down a fighter without taking any damage.

 

Edited by krolyn
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2017-03-14 at 3:15 PM, Larry Burstyn said:

I deactivated the Ultimate Ambient Sounds mod and have not had a crash since.

Good to hear. I've put a disclaimer in the first post so other people will know about it as well.

EDIT: There is now a LITE version available that has vastly reduced crashing.

Edited by Policenaut
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On Sunday, March 26, 2017 at 2:53 PM, desertoth said:

Does Hold the Line have higher or lower priority than this mod? Same question for the other recommended mods as well, really. 

Edit: Step 5 of Installation instructions. 

It doesn't matter. They should merge properly in both cases.

Edit: Preferred to below though, Steelgonads names of the world will delete some edits XXP does if put above. The others shouldn't do something like that though. 

Edited by Policenaut
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Got the chance to play a bit with this.

One biggest complaint to get out of the way - the location of the ammo indicator in the UI sucks. I couldn't even find the counter at first, and I keep running out of ammo because I don't notice when I'm running empty. The way it's hidden under the UI bar, it's like you were trying to hide it.

The early game is slightly more difficult perhaps - I see the early aliens have been boosted slightly in HP, which actually matters more not because of killing the aliens but because of suppression. They're a bit harder to suppress. Also it takes longer to get Alenium research. All good though.

Androns might be slightly too aggressive. I like their new behaviour overall, they feel like they should, but my first encounter with them was a landed Corvette and the Androns just kept streaming towards my troops without defending the UFO. Their aggression needs to be balanced with the defense goal so that they also do a proper UFO defense.

I don't really see the point to making alien weapons remain in your stores unless you sell them. They suck so hard, I'm not sure why I would ever want to use them. The accuracy is so bad that I'd always rather use ballistics than the alien stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The ammo counter change was because of the secondary vehicle weapons, it was the best place to put it without having to completely remake the UI. I tried an alternative method first involving editing the 2h weapon panel to be transparent over the ammo count for the secondary weapon, but for some reason that particular .png didn't work with the mod system and just used the original .png.

I'll look into making the Androns a bit more defensive in UFOs. When it comes to alien weapons I don't want to mess too much with them since the AI uses them, but perhaps lowering the accuracy penalty is worth doing. Maybe introducing something that lets you convert X amount of alien weapons into alloys/alenium is something worth trying? That gives them a bit more usage and would give an incentive to hoard them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Policenaut said:

When it comes to alien weapons I don't want to mess too much with them since the AI uses them, but perhaps lowering the accuracy penalty is worth doing. Maybe introducing something that lets you convert X amount of alien weapons into alloys/alenium is something worth trying? That gives them a bit more usage and would give an incentive to hoard them.

An alloys/alenium conversion would be more interesting than what we have now, though I'm still not sure why (in a mod that's "vanilla style") there's a need to keep alien weapons. What's the idea behind it? Is it a problem in vanilla that you only use human weaponry?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...