V1Full of the Walrus Tactical Balisitc expansion: Art, XP, and recoil update.

[WalrusJones]

Well...

We could always make a magnet joke about the Androns, Albiet, Andron's are going to be a pain in the ass regarding kinetic weaponry when alien armor comes out. (You REALLY need some kind of energy weapon to kill them quickly, but they at least are kind enough to have low HP.)

[StellarRat]

Well...

We could always make a magnet joke about the Androns, Albiet, Andron's are going to be a pain in the ass regarding kinetic weaponry when alien armor comes out. (You REALLY need some kind of energy weapon to kill them quickly, but they at least are kind enough to have low HP.)

I would imagine that electro-shock grenades should be extra effective against them.

[WalrusJones]

I will see about giving them a weakness to shock, but stun grenades are getting nerfed.

[WalrusJones]

Edit: V19 is the perfect thing to adapt into an easy alien armor patch.

Do note, there will be discrepancies regarding my version of alien armor, and the Dev's version of alien armor.

1. Armor will ramp up based on what I call each new piece of armor, health of higher tier aliens will tone down (While still being a tinge better then guards health.)

2. Psyonics will have energy weapon resistance, and the dark-red materials that certain aliens wear using will also be counted as bonus energy weapon resistance, not kinetic resistance.

- In general, using alloy based ballistic ammo's (Or a certain spoiler tier,) will be the best way to defeat alien officers, but will be strongly discouraged for casual mook grinding due to them legitimately taking you back a step to use.

- And, when I say "Energy weapon resistant," I mean, very resistant.

3. Weapon pattern alterations of V19 will be overwritten by the Ballistic expansion weapon patterns developed in V18, which will be slightly rebalanced with the idea of powerlevels-To-Tu+inconvienience (Bad weight, range, accuracy, and recoil. Also heavy weapon,) (Damage+Piercing Versus difficulty of use, as opposed to just damage.)

- "Generalist" weapons will generally be marginally stronger then specialist weapons in powerlevel-difficulty ratio, specialist weapons will generally be better in terms of raw power to weight ratio (Ultra heavy weapons get even worse on powerlevel-difficulty, but will be FAR superior in terms of cost-effect if actually used to effect.) (Submachineguns, carbines, assault rifles, and battle rifles are generalist weapons, in a scale of power. Shotguns, sniper rifles, machineguns, rocket launchers, and ultra heavy weapons will be specialist weapons.)

- I will try to acquire shotgun sprites for later tier weapons, unfortunately, the only person who has had them made appears to be gone from these forums, making acquiring their sprites impossible without stealing.

4. Androns are going to have very low hitpoints, this is the least I can do to make up for the "Them being this tough," thing I want them to have going.

-They be tungsten, they shatter before they are scratched.

5. My post count now can no longer be stored in 8 bits.

[lightgemini]

Pocket size allenium battery + 10k volts capacittor + finger trigger =

Isnt technology freaking awsome?

[Max_Caine]

Tsk. I don't see any tungsten on that sword!

[WalrusJones]

Tsk. I don't see any tungsten on that sword!

High speed steels are well known to carry up to 18% tungsten, and would be a VERY strong contender to be a part of a dual-steel sword as the blade itself.

[Wrath_IX]

Hey Walrus,

I looked through your files for the mod and there are a few things that kind of put me off it.

The civilian weapons research time for one.... since when has a flamethrower been a publicly available civilian weapon?

also it looks like the tier progression is missing from the research tree or possibly I missed it.

there is also a matter of that it makes a complete mess of the ballistic weapons menu in the crew load out screen none of the weapons replace anything so you end up sorting through a massive bloody list of existing weapons and some of the unlocked ones are by my impression a little misguided in their stats. For example you have a magnum pistol doing more damage than a shotgun. And while the idea of outfitting troops with personal hand cannons sounds fairly humorous anyone who has laid down solid slug shotgun shells will tell you they are quite a bit more devastating than a medium caliber magnum round.

Along with that there is the issue of value for the investment of in game time/resources.

a fair number of the weapons are truly not worth the effort to obtain with terribly low damage and range. which is due largely to them being obsolete weapons even by the timeline of the game.

That aside I love the civilian variation of the weapons and have wondered if you were able to get some manner of randomized civilian distribution so that said civilian weapons would show up randomly in the hands of local forces?

Artwork is great but the functionality side is a bit weak.

Even a fictional paramilitary force is going to try to limit weapon inventories to fit cleanly into clearly defined operational roles on the battlefield. Its one of the reasons that you see virtually every military force adopts standardized weapons with a smaller array of specialized weapons for certain missions or roles.

Its one of the things that the base game gets right really well.

a standard basic sidearm

a Close Quarters weapon

a universal role assault rifle

a long range precision weapon

a rapid fire suppression weapon

and a portable heavy ordinance weapon.

Adding a wider variety only muddies the waters and makes more weapons that go by the wayside and get ignored.

That is not to say that I don't admire the work you have created. I love the art, the designs and the work you have done.

I just don't see this gaining a great deal of traction.

[WalrusJones]

The flamethrower ACTUALLY isn't a part of the civilian weapon tier, hence, why in the side, it is engraved "Sorry, this is a lie."

As for the rest of the weapons... I have plotted out their roles individually, to prevent scrappy weapons from being a thing, by pattern:

Generalist weapons:

Flexible weapons of roughly equivalent size/difficulty ratio each with their own emphasized attack. All of which are intended to be a generalist, generic weapon of a different flavor, for different preferences.

Submachineguns: Minimal power, maxium ease. Burst emphasis. (People liked giving their snipers this.)

Carbines: Low power, moderate ease. Snap emphasis. (A flexible, low power run and gun gun. People who like run and gun play gave favorable reviews of it.)

AR's: Moderate power. No emphasis. (I haven't gotten a lot of feedback on them, actually.)

Battle Rifles: High power. Aimed emphasis. (Long range, powerful rifles with high recoil, and poor snap-normal shots, but an extra aimed shot. Of great benefit to a veteran soldier, and an experienced player.)

Specialist weapons:

Generally lower power-difficulty ratios.

Shotguns: HIGH Suppression weapons designed to maximize survivability and reaction fire in close quarters. (The low damage on the semi auto shotgun is due to the lack of an armor set to mitigate, currently.)

Sniper rifles: Squad support weaponry with impressive range and power levels.

Machineguns: Squad support weaponry with incredible TU-Damage levels, and adequate supression.

Pistols: Grenades, C4, and eventually shields will be the pistol specialists thing.

Most importantly, this is a pre-balancing version, and I am seeing some entires I didn't update in the weapons_GC for my release folder.

(Recoil on the hunting revolver is lower, for example.)

I need armor before I can balance this, which means my update to the next version is when we are getting this.

More importantly, the 20 gauge shotgun was never intended to be a killing weapon: It has a suppression radius of 4, Low TU costs, and normal shotgun suppression values.

- It is one safe gun to use in CQC, even if you keep it in a backpack. Suppression (Even if aliens can sometimes burst, its still an extremely valuable tool.)

(I may be giving it a burst fire, as well, in future versions, with a 2 tile nerf to its range. It feels a little overkill.)

- Also, that hunting revolver has a recoil of 68, and a range of 10. You arn't hitting with that, and this is currently factored into this late additions exorbitant damage. The key thing is: As a one handed joke weapon, I wasn't really able to hit anything with it in my tests. You can technically train a super soldier to use it, but by then, better weapons will have replaced it.

The main point of providing the large arsenal is to be the one who chooses what their roles are, instead of having it chosen for them.

Your generic rifleman can be different from mine.

- Are you the bitter person who feels the G3 was the superior choice for a ballistic rifle? Give your men all some sort of battle rifle, suffer with the consequences, reap the benefits, and enjoy your new playthrough of the ballistic era.

You really seem to be judging weapons based on single attributes, which is very much against the spirit of this mod.

Every weapon, when I played it right (Or in the case of civilian weapons, played them EXTREMELY right,) was brutally effective at its intended purpose.

The supression shotgun (The saiga) suppressed enemies quite well, the soviet carbine was a rifle with vastly improved mobility that punched slightly less hard, and missed a little more, the submachinegun was an excellent backpack weapon.

The battle rifle was a good intermediate weapon for the time where I was developing lasers, given to my strongest soldiers who could handle it, while the weaker men used laser rifles.

The next tier has far less overlap.

Namely, its one big tier with one weapon of each pattern, battle rifle, submachinegun, carbine, rifle, machinegun, shotgun, pistol, etc.

This will help reconsolidate the level of weapon choice.

However, having a large initial bucket of battlefield worthy weapons (And some intentionally bad joke weapons, the Skor, and civilian weapons,) is something I feel is a good choice: The beginning of the game is the part you will need to play through the most times, the more choices you have, the more replayable this segment is.

My disclaimer also specifically stated that realisim was a secondary goal to raw tactical diversity (And a few challenge/joke weapons.)

Now, I am aware that you were making your own weapon mod...

I am assuming you gave up that pursuit wraith?

Now, Of course, most military see a few primary weapons make up the bulk of their arsenal, but they also usually employ many other weapons in smaller numbers, some for testing, some due to unusual properties of the weaponry.

Edited July 26, 2013 by WalrusJones

[jupilerke1967]

Hi,

after installing youre mod my game crashes every time i start my first ground combat .

i only use 1 mod and thats the more xenonauts from all country's

regards,

jupilerke

Edited July 30, 2013 by jupilerke1967

[Ishantil]

WalrusJones, I wholly approve of you using using Henneko's Tsukiko as your download button. Is this mod designed for any particuarly build? Are there any issues with using it with 19.5?

Thanks,

[WalrusJones]

@Ishantil: It isn't designed for 19.5, when it becomes the steam stable version I will update it for it, and then work on the next major version (The next version gives me some things that will make it easier to make my changes.)

@Jupilerk: Tell me about your crash. Are you trying to use a vanilla save with it? (It doesn't like that.)

Are you installing it to the steam stable version? If you are using the experimental build, the game may decide it doesn't like my mod.

On what screen does it crash?

How long have you left this crash unreported?

Are you using V1 partial, or V1 full?

[jupilerke1967]

Hi Walrus,

- i had the full V1 mod installed when the crashes happened

- first crash was with a vanilla saved game so i tought that was my mistake,second crash was with a freshly installed stable steam version third crash was on th same condition as second crash so i didnt wanted a fourth crash and i freshly installed xenonauts again on steam without youre mod.

- the screen it crashes on is where the chinook appears and ground combat begins after you click on the screen.

- crash happend 1 days ago so i posted direct on youre mod space ( this is not my first game i use mods on)

- i used another mod at the time the crashes happened and that was the more xenonauts backgrounds mod from modlist

regards,

jupilerke

P.S. hopefully i can play youre mod soon;

Edited July 31, 2013 by jupilerke1967

[WalrusJones]

What XML files are in the "Xenonauts more backgrounds?"

Are you trying to use the launcher to install my mod (This doesn't work?)

What is your screen resolution?

[jupilerke1967]

no i copy paste it

screen resolution is 1920 1080

and the xml files are String_xml_slices/strings/soldiernames/soldierfemalenames

[WalrusJones]

Hmm.

I am somewhat concerned.

Tonight, I will try to recreate your crash.

If you run the game in a window, try running it in a larger window, preferably full-screen.

[JamesRoshal]

Crash posted.

Installed manually into assests, over written everything that it asked for, booted game, set base in NA

, clicked base, clicked the solider gear tab, crash. 1366x768, full screen

Edited July 31, 2013 by JamesRoshal

[WalrusJones]

Ohh boy, So V1 full was a bad cookie, and I didn't actually get a report on it until now.

I will backup my assets (I use an experimental build,) and see if I can recreate the crash tonight.

I suspect that I probably accidentally released something that shouldn't have been released yet in weapons_gc.xml, or broke something in weapons.xml.

This means I may be releasing some experimental files early, as I know they don't crash.

I apologize, as this is most likely a failure in how I package new versions of my mods together.

Future versions will contain files closer to the main developmental build.

I should have done a better job of screening my releases at the very least.

I will try to package together a new V1_Full (V1_Full_Fixed) tonight that uses modified versions of my development files for weapons and weapons_gc.xml (Or unmodified, if I finish a certain joke weapon,) hopefully putting an end to the maddness prior to me actually getting down and dirty with what broke the original release version.

Part of me is a little confused as to why this hasn't been reported up-until now... I do hope that one of those 25 downloads was someone trying to play it before these last three came around.

Edited August 1, 2013 by WalrusJones

[JamesRoshal]

I just tried it today, so yay. ^^

As for that, There is no anger. and I love the effort you put up to this... plus we all make mistakes.

also Steam.

Edited August 1, 2013 by JamesRoshal

[WalrusJones]

I will try to give a few extra goodies with the next release.

Namely, the semi-jokish sword (It hits hard.... And is TU efficient.... But it has a drawback in addition to being melee. Its not in ground combat that it suffers... Buuuut.)

[JamesRoshal]

I am so tempted It ask to see a throwing combat knife.

but why ask when i can try to make one ^^

Edited August 1, 2013 by JamesRoshal

[WalrusJones]

Well, if it works, try to make it have a total power level of less then 30 (Damage+armor piercing,) and a amazingly low TU cost, I would most likely include it if it is reasonably well done, or finish-able.

To keep it as a useful weapon:

- If given Low TU Cost (4-6) would make throwing one from your pocket faster then pulling out and firing a sidearm if you soldier were jumped.

-- With a powerlevel of less then 30, it wouldn't be a serious gamechanger by any stretch of the imagination, but it would be interesting to use.

(This fits in with my mods lore of "Sebellians are tough enough to be virtually immune to knife sized weaponry," but still provides a weapon that would be useful for dealing with other things.)

I do want this mod to be fairly open to community submissions in the future, and while it is silly, it seems like a great first community weapon (Not something I would have thought of.)

The only challenging issue I see with the weapon is giving it a projectile sprite, I have a series of sound effects I am working on for a blade hitting flesh (For my sword, but they are ambiguous enough to work for a throwing knife.)

I have promised my neighbors that I would help them out with something today, but before tomorrow night, I will have finished my alterations to V1F, and release V1 Full [Fixed] assuming higher powers (Computer compiling gods,) don't get in my way. - I still will probably have a working version by tonight out, but the expanded on one will be tomorrow.

[Ishantil]

This is great to see, WalrusJones. Keep up the good work!

[WalrusJones]

I know steam validation will be done by the time I get back, meaning that will be able to recreate the crash, and see if patching in my experimental files will fix it (With the Messer being removed for one last time.)

[JamesRoshal]

Don't push yourself to hard, I would love to play this mod, but not at a cost.