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V22 Experimental 5 Hotfix Released!


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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. This update may work with saved games from previous V22 experimental versions, but will not recognise saved games from before that. If you experience issues when loading a saved game from previous versions, please mention that if making a bug report!

The texture atlases in experimental build 5 turned out to have a problem with loading the tiles for Terror Missions, so Chris reverted it over the weekend. I have been able to work around the issue for the moment, so we are putting a hotfix out so you guys can continue playing with build 5. This build still includes the texture atlases, but now they are only enabled for the standard crash/landing site mission types i.e. arctic, desert, farm, industrial and middleeast

There were also a handful of minor fixes over the weekend which we have included too.

Here are the hotfix changes (i.e. the new changes since experimental build 5!):

- Fixed tile images not loading for Terror Mission tilesets by excluding them from atlas process

- Fixed crouching units not re-crouching after throwing a grenade

- Medipack changes: when selecting a unit the maximum heal amount is shown that can be healed (including bleeding wounds).

- Disabled Xenonaut reaction fire against mind-controlled units.

And here are the original changes from experimental build 5, just for reference:

Fixes:

- Fixed Nissen Hut roof tiles not displaying

- Made top of Shrike impassable but not blocking LOS

- Fixed issues with some Desert/Farm/Storeroom buildings not correctly displaying their props

- Tooltips appear slightly faster

- Bug fixed: when throwing a grenade with a crouched unit, the grenade wasn't thrown but the TUs were decreased

- Now the alien LOS is reset at the start of both the human and the alien turns (prevents aliens "seeing" areas they were in last turn)

- Fixed TU's displaying wrong values when they had an increase in ground combat

- Fixed terror missions causing crash if city name was translated in strings.xml

- Building frame now is showed over every base tile, rather than just on top-left of existing buildings

- Fixed trees being missing on industrial and soviet town maps

Additions:

- Implemented new "texture atlas" system for tiles

-- This takes the individual sprites for tilesets and bakes them into larger image files

-- This should lead to dramatically faster loading speeds

- Implemented crushable corn fields in several farm maps

- "Xenonauts Lost" on debrief screen changed to "Xenonaut Casualties" (because they may still survive)

Balance:

- Autoresolve strength now is modified by airplane's health, ammo percentage and fuel level (if <15%)

- Changed values in AI for smoke; slight aversion instead of attraction

- All stats now cap out at 100 instead of 99

- TU gain has been slowed down a bit; you now need to spend 250 TU to get a TU increase on a soldier (up from 150)

- Crouched units no longer suffer +25% to the Stopping Chance of all intervening obstacles

- Jackal armour weight reduced from 16kg to 10kg

If you encounter any bugs please post them in the bugs forum, and make sure you mark them as being from the experimental build!

Balance comments can be made in the following threads:

Ground Combat: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9793-Ground-Combat-Balance-V22-Experimental-5

Geoscape: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9794-Geoscape-Balance-V22-Experimental-5

EDIT - I've done a stealth patch to remove the immediate spawn of the alien base and immediate final mission unlock. (Chris)

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I've posted this question elsewhere, but it might be more visible here: with the new texture atlases, will it be necessary to do anything with new/copied map sprites? For example, if I've copied the images and spectres from one map type into another, do I need to do anything else with them or will they work as is?

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I persisted with this version (non hotfix) over Easter and can say it is pretty stable so far.

One problem I have been noticing very long/slow alien turns on the carrier missions.

I will update to the hotfix when I get home and see if this is still the case.

I can give a save of this if it is still an issue.

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Mine just downloaded. You could have also skipped the 150 -> 250 TU increase.

- Removed the 25% stopping chance penalty for crouched units

Can someone explain this? Currently (as it was reported) crouched unit gives 81% chance to be hit by friendly fire (probably aliens too if they are aiming at someone else)

Edited by silencer
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Can someone explain this? Currently (as it was reported) crouched unit gives 81% chance to be hit by friendly fire (probably aliens too if they are aiming at someone else)

I've rewritten this, as it's not entirely clear from the changelog what this change actually did. Basically if a unit was crouched, any obstacles in the line of fire had a 25% higher Stopping Chance than normal. But it wasn't very clear and let to quite a bit of confusion, so we thought it'd be simpler if we removed it. Intervening cover now has the same stopping chance whether a unit is crouching or standing.

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I've rewritten this, as it's not entirely clear from the changelog what this change actually did. Basically if a unit was crouched, any obstacles in the line of fire had a 25% higher Stopping Chance than normal. But it wasn't very clear and let to quite a bit of confusion, so we thought it'd be simpler if we removed it. Intervening cover now has the same stopping chance whether a unit is crouching or standing.

If you explain it that way, it's easy to understand. I'd argue for keeping it for the tactical depth and because it fits intuition: you want to crouch for cover, but stand to fire over obstacles.

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It fits intuition now I've told you that the system exists, but it's been there for the best part of a year and most people weren't aware of it existing or thought it was a bug when they did notice it!

If I'm honest, up until this build I still thought it was a bug! Not at all sorry to see it go. (It'll buff aliens a bit because they often fire when crouched against targets in cover, but that's probably a good thing).

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I've posted this question elsewhere, but it might be more visible here: with the new texture atlases, will it be necessary to do anything with new/copied map sprites? For example, if I've copied the images and spectres from one map type into another, do I need to do anything else with them or will they work as is?

You mean copying single pngs and the relative xml files or whole atlases?

If in the first case, you don't have to do anything else in particular. The game will search for a given file first in the atlases, then in the single unpacked files, so you won't need to add them to the atlases in order to make them appear in game.

If it's the second case, i.e. merging two different atlases... well, that's a bit complicate to cover here!

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Kabill, I think if you use spectres from a different tileset, you need to copy them to the right tileset folder and alter the file path found in the spectre's .xml file to point to this new location. Otherwise it wont be displayed in the game.

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You mean copying single pngs and the relative xml files or whole atlases?

If in the first case, you don't have to do anything else in particular. The game will search for a given file first in the atlases, then in the single unpacked files, so you won't need to add them to the atlases in order to make them appear in game.

If it's the second case, i.e. merging two different atlases... well, that's a bit complicate to cover here!

I meant the first. Basically, I wanted to know if any information needed to be added to the atlases/new atlases made with custom assets. It sounds like this isn't the case (yay!). Thanks.

Kabill, I think if you use spectres from a different tileset, you need to copy them to the right tileset folder and alter the file path found in the spectre's .xml file to point to this new location. Otherwise it wont be displayed in the game.

D'oh, I've done the copying, but not changed the directory in the spectres to point to the copied images. Oddly, still seems to work at the moment, but I assume this is because the compression thing Chris said was going to happen hasn't happened yet. Ugh, better get on that. Thanks for bringing it up.

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Ah, the game seems so good atm! The new first aid UI is a good improvement but should default on the max heal option. Also the bottom line information (current HP/health after healing) is a bit unintuitive and information maybe not even needed. Would be better to show current HP/maximum HP or at least change the dash to ">". Bleeding could use a bit of buffing as it's quite mild and doesn't have that much of a gameplay effect. Could me maybe randomized?

The AI still seems to "know" where my flanking units are and react to their movement even if nobody can see them. Also, I had a lone sebillian shoot me 2 tiles out of my LoS. Has this been changed or should aliens have same vision range as humans? It was a day time mission and the sebillian was last one alive so there shouldn't be any squad sight in play either...

There's still also the LoS bug when loading a GC autosave. No visibility before units are moved.

But otherwise, as I said, the game feels so good and ready! :D

Edited by Skitso
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Also, I had a lone sebillian shoot me 2 tiles out of my LoS. Has this been changed or should aliens have same vision range as humans? It was a day time mission and the sebillian was last one alive so there shouldn't be any squad sight in play either...

I've noticed this as well. Only spotted it since using the 'Original' LoS mode, but that might be coincidence.

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In this patch there should be no reason why a Sebillian can shoot you from beyond your sight range if it's the last alien alive. We've removed the persistent LOS between turns for the aliens, and they have the same sight range as your guys do. If you were definitely playing Experimental 5 HF then it's a bug.

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