18 hotfix 3 UNOFFICIAL patch notes.

[Waladil]

Hopefully I'm not gonna get in super-huge trouble for this, but I've gotten 18.3 from a guessed dropbox URL (don't want to share it, but you can try guessing it yourself!), and I've been going through the XML files and wanted to note some changes I've noticed.

***POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD, READ AT PERIL!!!*** I'm writing this as I write the first spoiler-y, hidden game mechanic-y part. So if you don't like that stuff, wait for official notes. Probably will be here soon anyway.

The bug when items disappear when you get the upgraded version seems to have been fixed. The code uses a replace function now rather than a function that adds a new item type and disables the old item type, so frag grenades should be replaced by alenium and such. You don't have to manually re-issue the new tech, in short.

The ticker STARTS at a higher point (5000 rather than 4000), but has a lower base advance speed. Also, UFO missions generate more ticker points now. They're also more likely to generate events such as abductions and minor attacks. In short the aliens are more aggressive, but a skilled player can better keep them slowed down.

The marauder's price was fixed (now 750k, down from the original 7.5m. Not a balance change, just a typo).

Armor rebalancing:

Jackal got +10 incendiary

Wolf got +15 incendiary

Buzzard got +15 kinetic, +17 energy, + 10 chemical, and + 25 incendiary. Buzzard armor is now more protective than Jackal across all cases, but less protective than Wolf. Before it was marginally better than basic armor, and was actually worse than basic v. chemical and incendiary.

Predator got +25 energy. It is now better protected than the Hunter or the Scimitar v. energy damage.

Sentinel got +15 energy.

All tanks had their vision range REDUCED to 18, from 20 (22 in the Hyperion's case)

Minor typo fixed in the Xenopedia (I'm embarrassed to note that fixing this typo probably took less time than it took me to find the change. I'm only noting it here so I don't feel bad about wasting that time.)

Jump pack AP cost reduced: Moving vertically now only costs 2 AP, down from 6.

And that's all I got before, quite frankly, I got bored. There's a whole lotta files and my method for finding changes was really inefficient. Need some automation up in this place.

[erutan]

Well it's already on Desura for most of the people on this forum, and nothing in here is really a spoiler per se.

Still, it's interesting to see some of the changes. I wonder if there has been any rebalancing of alien vs xenonaut vision - at the very least this makes tank + HW less of an obvious choice, which is a good thing.

[Waladil]

All Xenonaut soldier sight ranges stay the same, and there are no (known) changes to aliens stat/sight ranges, I checked that just now. So its just the tank LOS nerf.

[TrashMan]

So youre even more boned now by reaction fire....

[raziel1981]

dling now, wonder if the corrupted save games problem will occur again and if the lost items bug is truly resolved.

[Gauddlike]

Depends if Chris made the suppression/LOS change he was considering.

[Chris]

The actual post notes are up now. In future, please don't do this:

Firstly, with people randomly downloading stuff from our Dropbox we run the risk of having our bandwith limit exceeded again and getting temporarily banned again (we're on our first of two warnings before permaban).

Secondly, it's not like we're actually holding releases back from you guys, it's just they take a bit of time to work through the system. At best you'll get the release a few hours early, at worst you'll end up downloading an incomplete upload or the wrong file and you're not that likely to find all the changes anyway - it'll just lead to confusion.

In short, I think it's easier for everyone if you just wait for the game to arrive via the normal channels