XCE ridiculously hard now

[Ichthyic]

I've been playing xenonauts for about seven(?) years now, was thinking it was time for a change, and so tried the latest xce build.

uh... NONCOMS can hit you for 75-85 points of damage.

any alien with a plasma rifle can, and will often, hit you for 75-85 damage per projectile, on a burst.

accuracy is sky high, they seem to be able to shoot across the entire map with great accuracy, and even through half cover as if it isn't there.

I'm sorry, but this is insanely ridiculous,  basically, you have to forgo trying to set up ambushes, because inevitably at least one of your team WILL die if the alien shooting has at least a plasma rifle.

too much reloading after I find out where the aliens are.  it's the only way; I have to find them, reload, then go back with multiple units to take them out.

the direction this is taking is too much towards aliens being stupidly overpowered, and that was just on veteran! 

not fun any more.



 

Edited September 17, 2017 by Ichthyic

[Charon]

Young Padawan, after seven years of pilgramage, i can tell you that you are not ready for X-Division.

[Ichthyic]

...like I said.

oh, also?  the stupidly powerful alien weapons now make things like shields useless, because they get taken out in a single hit.

*sigh*  I guess I will have to go through and find the dumb mod edits, and tweak them back to something sane again.

 

Edited September 17, 2017 by Ichthyic

[Solver]

X:CE is not at fault here because there are no changes to weapon damage or accuracy in X:CE. Weapon combat parameters are exactly as in vanilla. There are also no changes to alien accuracy or resilience. Thanks for jumping to conclusions though. Shields are actually more powerful than in vanilla as they even act as cover for the soldier behind the shield soldier.

Yes, your troops will die to plasma rifles, unless you have some armor. So your tactics probably aren't good. Move slowly, leave TU for reaction fire, make sure your soldiers end their turn in cover and crouched as often as possible.

[Charon]

4 hours ago, Solver said:

X:CE is not at fault here because there are no changes to weapon damage or accuracy in X:CE. Weapon combat parameters are exactly as in vanilla. There are also no changes to alien accuracy or resilience. Thanks for jumping to conclusions though. Shields are actually more powerful than in vanilla as they even act as cover for the soldier behind the shield soldier.

Yes, your troops will die to plasma rifles, unless you have some armor. So your tactics probably aren't good. Move slowly, leave TU for reaction fire, make sure your soldiers end their turn in cover and crouched as often as possible.

Is the summary "Git gud" ?

Yes, but as he said, there are no tweaks which buffs the aliens, so there is nothing you can find to change it . Its just the vanilla experience + no door camping and tele fragging. But if you want to look go into the xcebbalance folder under mods.

But i actually havent played XCE ever so i cant say anything, ups.

 

@Solver you mentioned some AI improvements, maybe those are responsible for the AI taking shoots from better positions/not taking shots from bad ones ?

[Charon]

The differences i found where a deleted

<PathingMechanics

FloorPreference = "0.25"

in the defensive AI

and the fixed wraith <Teleportation maxDistance="15" />. Other things are slight fixes to AI script behaviour. Like sometimes aliens would skip a turn. Solver might give me a list of changes regarding AI, so i might post it later.

@Ichthyic Best of luck !

[Solver]

The only general AI fix in the code I remember is a bugfix to aliens sometimes deciding to do nothing at all. No good shot, no better cover, so they do nothing. In X:CE, they'll still take a low-chances shot if there's nothing else to do.

X:CE fixes alien pathing with regards to doors, they don't get stuck in buildings or UFO sections and can actually open doors when they want to. Vanilla is unreliable in these terms.

Aliens understand splash damage in X:CE. In vanilla, their accuracy calculation only considers whether they miss, or score a direct hit. In X:CE, they understand that splash weapons still do damage with a close miss.

And one specific AI fix is Wraith teleportation. In vanilla, Wraiths do not teleport beyond how far they can run, and generally often display dumb teleportation behaviour, like going somewhere where they are easily killed. X:CE Wraiths understand the concept of teleporting to safety, behind some cover, and also of teleporting behind your soldiers to do an ambush.

Except for the Wraith fix, the others are just corner cases. One of those fixes will maybe come into play one out of ten combat missions.

[Charon]

3 minutes ago, Solver said:

X:CE Wraiths understand the concept of teleporting to safety, , behind some cover, and also of teleporting behind your soldiers to do an ambush.

They make great use of that in X-Division .