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V20 Experimental Build 2 Available!


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Firstly, if you do not know how to access the experimental branch on Steam, please read the instructions (and warnings!) in this thread. All saved games from earlier versions (including experimental versions) are incompatible, attempting to load them will cause problems.

We have decided a put out a new experimental build today, mostly because we've fixed a few key issues that cropped up in the last one (also as a powerful counter-blow to EA's release today of Battlefield 4). Not a great deal in the way of new features or assets, but I did finish doing the maps for the Middle Eastern tileset, which are a big improvement over the old ones. Also we finally said goodbye to the awful, awful old role icons and replaced them with shiny new ones! The main gameplay oriented change is probably the morale system - we discovered that this previously had hardly been working at all, due to a bug where all soldiers were treated as privates; that bug is now fixed, and additionally I have done some balancing work to try and reduce the number of incidents where your whole team freaks out at once.

Here's the change list:

Fixes

- Soldier ranks were not being passed from the Geoscape to the Ground Combat

-- This meant all soldiers were conmsidered to be "privates" by the game (even though names were displayed correctly)

-- This fix has had a significant effects on the morale system!

- Fixed hang during alien turn when aliens tried to move through a blocked doorway

- Fixed research button being disabled if you had the maximum number of scientists

- Fixed number of sicentists/engineers not being limited by lab/workshop space

- Jetpack troops now display their shadow on the ground tile beneath them

- Updated Xenopedia font size to scale better at small sizes

- Fixed Reaper transformation animation to not be gigantic

- Fixed LOS not being updated when opening a door

- Reapers now make a more Reaper-y attack sound (previously was stun baton)

- Fixed the map randomisation system so it didn't break if a tile set had only one map (affected later terror missions)

- Fixed pistol sometimes being loaded with incoreect number of shots

Additions

- All the maps for the Middle East tileset have been overhauled, with multiple new maps added to each

-- There are now 3 maps each for small (light scout, scout and corvette) medium (corvette, landing ship and cruiser) and large (cruiser, carrier and battleship) map types

-- Each map has more variety in randomised UFO and dropship placement

-- A number of new building submaps have also been added for additional level variety

-- Please give feedback on how you find them!

- New soldier role icons (at last!)

- The new Arctic props (snowy barrels, crates) have been painted over

- Aerial terror sites now have a popup explaining the consequences for mission failure

- Added shrubbery blocks and wrecked tank props for the Middle East

Balance

- The morale system has been rebalanced, units should be more likely to panic individually than in large groups

-- The top ranked Officer on a mission grants a bonus to the starting/maximum morale of each soldier, which is then subtracted if that officer dies

-- When a Xenonaut dies, it will apply a morale penalty to all other Xenonaut soldiers within 20 tiles, based on the dead soldiers rank

-- When a soldier experiences a "morale event" (panic, fleeing etc...) they will now get a small boost to their morale in order to "stabilise" them

-- If a Xenonaut is within 8 tiles of another Xenonaut they will get a morale boost based on the rank of the other soldier (stacks for up to 2 nearby soldiers)

-- Soldiers who are wounded now take much more morale damage than previously

- Some initial AI changes (expect more and better to come soon too)

-- Reduced minimum accuracy for considering a shot by the AI from 35% to 10% accuracy (helps encourage aliens to shoot at you)

-- Slightly reduced the priority of non-Xenonaut soldiers for alien targetting

-- Removed the large penalty that was placed on any plan that involved an AI alien staying in the enemies LOS (probably a contributor to timid alien behaviour)

- Aerial terror sites are now spawned by bomber missions instead of ground attacks, making them much less common

Please post your comments on the build here. If you encounter any bugs please post them in the experimental build sub-forum of the bugs forum. I will post new threads in the beta forum shortly for in-depth discussion of the current Geoscape and Ground Combat balance, but feel free to post brief opinions here too.

NOTE: We were delayed releasing this by a day due to a compilation bug, a delay which has ruined my BF4 joke.

HOTFIX: Just hotfixed the bug where it cost 0AP to move jetpacks diagonally. This was just a tweak to a config file, so the version number is unchanged and saves are unaffected.

HOTFIX 2: Just hotfixed the Valkyrie, which was crashing when you tried to use it. This was just a missing submap, so the version number is unchanged and saves are unaffected.

Edited by Aaron
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Good stuff! I didn't even notice I was playing a new build until I saw the new icons! Seems like the aliens are still more interested in finding cover, even when they already in cover, than killing my troops, but at least they are shooting more than they were.

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I didn't play any builds since 17 or so, here are stuff I find so far:

Did I go to the right middle east map? It was part Africa and Part Arabia. Didn't find them very interesting so far, perhaps desert makes for dull stuff.

Frozen aliens are viewed as a threat by NPC guards. They keep attacking even when I downed an alien with my Stun rod.

At some point in my game, when I had completed a mission the Geo Scape UI stopped accepting my mouse clicks on the station icons at the top. I could not get the mouse hover highlight to activate, nor could I manage to click and open the screen.

I was still able to click on cities on the map and acces my bases that way.

After I resumed a game during a mission, once I completed the mission and returned to the Geoscape I then had problems during interception.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=191856566

The image linked here shows the lab screen being shown on top of the Interception screen. I was able to hit space and I could hear the intercept mission playing back. But as the Lab screen was in the way I was unable to click icons and eventually my missile less foxtrot was shot down.

Edited by pistolhamster
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Well, it's an unstable build. You have to expect bug and report them if you want to. I am currently waiting for a patch that will fix the CTD when you try to organize your soldiers in Geo and the fact that the 2nd terror mission is automatic crash.

But overall, I like how the game is evolving.

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@Selvhan: The terror site crash sould be fixed (by "Fixed the map randomisation system so it didn't break if a tile set had only one map (affected later terror missions"), we are still working on the soldier inventory crash however; when we get a fix for that I'll hotfix it in asap.

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I want to commend you for the good job you've been doing improving the game and I very much look forward to the final edition. What bothered me most about V19 were the base defense missions. They seriously need to be fixed and I have yet to see an announcement about that. The problem is that instead of actually attacking you most of the aliens will just move to a single room and stay there until you kill them all of. This is a major buzzkill. I hope that fixing this is on your to-do list. :)

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I want to commend you for the good job you've been doing improving the game and I very much look forward to the final edition. What bothered me most about V19 were the base defense missions. They seriously need to be fixed and I have yet to see an announcement about that. The problem is that instead of actually attacking you most of the aliens will just move to a single room and stay there until you kill them all of. This is a major buzzkill. I hope that fixing this is on your to-do list. :)

My theory based on what I've seen is that their offensive AI gets screwed up occasionally - they end up in aggressive mode, but don't know where they're supposed to direct that aggression. At the start of the mission, they know they're supposed to go the command center to attack... but it seems like reloading a saved file when they don't have line of sight to you, or if they go a full turn or two without having line of sight, they forget where you are. Last time the AI went off the rails during my base defense and started milling about in my hanger bays, I used the combat debug tool to relocate a couple of them to have line of sight to my troops. After doing this, the aliens seemed to remember where I was, and started advancing on my HQ again.

There are some other screwy things with base defense missions, though. Sometimes, not all of my base structures from the Geoscape are reproduced in ground combat. This results in black holes in my base. Sometimes, these black holes completely disconnect the alien entry points from the rest of my base... so the aliens are stuck there with no way to get to me.

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Yeah, we're actively working on the base attack mission AI at the moment and hopefully it should be pretty intelligent (and destructive) once we're done. A lot of the time, it's the case that the AI is actually behaving very intelligently but one of the inputs is broken or not behaving as intended so the AI ends up looking stupid.

Vaultdweller - if you have save files of those base defence missions then those would be useful. Sounds like a pretty major bug we'll want to fix prior to release.

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Vaultdweller - if you have save files of those base defence missions then those would be useful. Sounds like a pretty major bug we'll want to fix prior to release.

I won't have any saves from during the base defense missions - I have a revolving set of save files that I make mid-battle, and overwrite them for each battle. I almost certainly have a Geoscape save file from shortly before the missions (because I have about 120 numbered save files), but I don't have nearly enough time to sift through them.

That said, it can probably be reproduced. My first base was attacked three times over the course of the campaign, and in all three cases there were missing structures and disconnected entry points. I'm pretty sure the last two had the exact same structures missing. Is there any way to easily trigger an attack on the base? Or would I just have to jack the game speed up, and sit idle waiting for it to happen?

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