shinobi Posted August 5, 2013 Share Posted August 5, 2013 Hi all, been a while since I tried Xenonauts, been a bit busy in RL, anyway so i downloaded the new steam version and had a bash. and I don't know if its just me not being used to the latest version, but I noticed a few things. Firstly Aliens can fire from epic, Epic ranges. I'm talking about 2-3 turns movement range away. (also seems like xenonauts sight range has been reduced?) secondly they seem to have mad amounts of AP. I watched a suppressed alien fire 3-4 shots and KO a guy. Thirdly seems like their Damage and Accuracy has increased a fair bit? other than that everything I've seen seems a looks more positive and it looks like the team have made some great moves forward. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ol' Stinky Posted August 5, 2013 Share Posted August 5, 2013 If this is the current experimental build (19.6): After the glut of alien red shirts, your enemy will be using guns of ~20 range. This isn't really so different to you, but it feels like a leap because red shirts use pistols that have a range of 10. It's not even worth their time trying to snipe you with that, since guns that are out of range are less accurate, do less damage and cause no suppression. Once you get past lightscouts they upgrade to alien plasma rifles, and they'll be able to one-shot unarmoured xenonauts. The AP thing is a bug, the AI will sometimes cheat. They shouldn't be able to fire multiple bursts per turn. Hopefully it gets fixed sooner rather than later because it really steams my clams! And yeah, they're more dangerous now. Look after your guys and don't let all the lightscout missions lull you into a false sense of security. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StellarRat Posted August 5, 2013 Share Posted August 5, 2013 The aliens are definitely cheating on the TUs. Another big problem I found last night is that they seem to be able to see through concrete walls. They were firing at my guys on the other side of a full height wall. No aliens could have had LOS to these guys. I did a little experimenting and it turned out that as soon as my guys were within two tiles of the wall they began receiving fire. In fact, the aliens managed to punch through the wall with one burst and actually kill one of my guys with the second burst all in one turn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mytheos Posted August 5, 2013 Share Posted August 5, 2013 @StellarRat (Maybe you should have your guys use better deodorant) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StellarRat Posted August 5, 2013 Share Posted August 5, 2013 LOL. I decided to avoid that wall... and make a trip to the store for some stronger deodorant, of course, they were taking so much fire with the cheating TUs that maybe that wasn't where the smell was coming from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svidangel Posted August 5, 2013 Share Posted August 5, 2013 Pointed this out a few builds ago, but I'm not sure if the translucent halo that lets you see troops through walls is allowing aliens to just see through it. have you noticed it being more of a problem when you are "above" the wall vs below it? I had noticed that when I was below a wall I could actually see the alien one space above me straight through the wall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StellarRat Posted August 5, 2013 Share Posted August 5, 2013 Pointed this out a few builds ago, but I'm not sure if the translucent halo that lets you see troops through walls is allowing aliens to just see through it. have you noticed it being more of a problem when you are "above" the wall vs below it?I had noticed that when I was below a wall I could actually see the alien one space above me straight through the wall. Well, in my case the alien was well back from the wall. It seemed when my guys were within about 2 tiles of the wall the alien started firing at them. So, I'm thinking it's not a halo or anything. I think the program is simply ignoring the wall for LOS purposes. It's probably either a bad map prop or a software bug. I'm going to upload the save tonight so you guys can try it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shinobi Posted August 6, 2013 Author Share Posted August 6, 2013 The aliens are definitely cheating on the TUs.Another big problem I found last night is that they seem to be able to see through concrete walls. They were firing at my guys on the other side of a full height wall. No aliens could have had LOS to these guys. I did a little experimenting and it turned out that as soon as my guys were within two tiles of the wall they began receiving fire. In fact, the aliens managed to punch through the wall with one burst and actually kill one of my guys with the second burst all in one turn. I noticed this through the ship, all my dudes went out to the north and the east and I was being shot from someone miles away, then on the alien turn from what seemed to be the corner of the map plasma kept flying, all the way down and hitting the ship Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shinobi Posted August 6, 2013 Author Share Posted August 6, 2013 Right so I thought the TU cheat and off map shooting was bad on small ufo runs, and then Dakar just got invaded (which i thought was a little early anyway) so I start with a visual on two hostiles anyway, moving out of the ship I suppress them both, only to be hit from from the dark with 3 bursts of what i assume is plasma rifle from various points on the map, killing two of my guys and blowing up my Scout, one of the aliens I suppressed then does the same thing, killing another and suppressing another two. lets just say the remaining team members died the following turn.... out of curiosity whats the difference in sight range between humans and aliens (I'm guessing this varies between different species??) but it seems to me that humans have say a sight range of 10 and aliens have a range of about 30 or something crazy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ol' Stinky Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 (edited) out of curiosity whats the difference in sight range between humans and aliens (I'm guessing this varies between different species??) but it seems to me that humans have say a sight range of 10 and aliens have a range of about 30 or something crazy. All xenonauts and xenonaut vehicles have a sight range of 18. Skimming aiprops.xml, this seems to be the range of various alien races. Caesans: 18 Sebillians: 16 Androns: 14 Harridans: 18 Reapers: 18 Drones: 18 Human civs have a range of 14, poor sods. The AI can "guess" where units are, though, and it's not something that's been fine-tuned. In my experience, assume all enemies have a sight range of 20 tiles. Edited August 6, 2013 by Ol' Stinky Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shinobi Posted August 6, 2013 Author Share Posted August 6, 2013 thanks for that Stinky, very interesting. surely we can get our guys some glasses? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ol' Stinky Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 I was surprised when I looked through aiprops.xml just now, really, since it used to be worse: I think Harridans had a sight range of 22 tiles at one point! Maybe 20. I guess that was toned down when they got those stat buffs, thank all that is holy. Harridans are probably the aliens I fear the most, especially since at the moment hypervelocity weapons (i.e. snipers) ignore smoke penalties... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mytheos Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 LOL. I decided to avoid that wall... and make a trip to the store for some stronger deodorant, of course, they were taking so much fire with the cheating TUs that maybe that wasn't where the smell was coming from. Ahaha, well not much you can do about that problem then 8-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mytheos Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 Well Alien Squad sight has produced some interesting things for me as of late. Rule seems to be if you have 1 Alien that can see you, you had better watch your back, especially if you take a couple of turns to deal with it. I had a light scout that I could see around one side and 75% of the way around the other, only the very back 2-3 tiles were black. I chased a Seb from around the front of the door to the right, and when my squad was setup a bit to the left of the door, I suddenly got ambushed. I had 2 Seb come from behind the ship on both sides, and the one I was chasing stopped running and engaged. But yeah before if you took a fight 3-4 turns you might have occasionally run into it, but for whatever reason (more Aliens?) I am seeing it a lot more now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StellarRat Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 Rule seems to be if you have 1 Alien that can see you, you had better watch your back, especially if you take a couple of turns to deal with it.I noticed that too, but I think what's really happening is that they are trying to concentrate their forces to fight you. So, if aliens are on different parts of the map they may indeed come from different directions including the flanks and rear. I don't think they are actively trying to surround you, they're just taking the shortest path to your forces. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svidangel Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 Didn't vehicles used to have longer sight ranges? Also, noted, androns for punching bags now! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ol' Stinky Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 Yeah, they had +1 over troops. Back then I hated it because it made vehicles so desirable, and I prefer playing a squad of soldiers. But that was before the AI revamp, iirc, when the aliens pretty much never fired during their turns and relied on reaction fire to net kills - and they had the accuracy and reaction scores to pull it off. Also, armours had vision penalties and shields were unusable. In 19.6, I guess vehicles having an extra square of vision wouldn't be as much of a gamechanger. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Posted August 8, 2013 Share Posted August 8, 2013 There's actually a mistake there: Sebillians are supposed to be 14, and Androns should be 18 like the rest - I must have changed the wrong number during balancing, will be fixed for next build. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StellarRat Posted August 8, 2013 Share Posted August 8, 2013 There's actually a mistake there: Sebillians are supposed to be 14, and Androns should be 18 like the rest - I must have changed the wrong number during balancing, will be fixed for next build.AH! Well, that explains a great deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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