Xenonauts Release Candiate 1 Released!

[Chris]

This is an experimental build. To access it, please follow the instructions in this thread.

This build will hopefully not be the final release build of Xenonauts. We'll be releasing another build tomorrow, but we've put this build together to help discover any unforseen crashes and also to give us an easy "restore point" if the fixes we put in overnight fundamentally break something.

We're still working on some crashes, and I'm still playing the game and making balance tweaks...although they are getting smaller and smaller now.

Major Changes:

- There are now 14 amazing Steam Trading Cards for the game. We will now be literally pennies richer every month from people selling them to one another (I imagine the foil version of Josh Eales will be a major collectors' item).

- The "Wraith" crash has been fixed. It was actually caused by attempted Mind Control.

- The Valkyrie deployment crash has been fixed

- The fire system has been updated so it now displays the "best" fire path if you have a 0% chance to hit the target, which should make it more obvious what is really blocking the shot

- You can cancel Retreat from air combat by pressing the Retreat button a second time

- Caesan Officers and Psions now both use Fear, which no longer requires LOS and has been made more powerful

- Hunter missile turret research is now granted automatically when you research the Hunter

- There is now a Quickstart Guide in the game directory that explains the basic mechanics. This will get its own launcher button shortly.

- Harridans have had their new AI enabled: they now use their jetpacks and actively seek higher ground. Have fun with that.

- Turn times have been sped up significantly

Smaller Changes:

- Shrike now can hold 10 troops, Valkyrie can hold 12, as 4 extra soldiers each was a bit overpowered

- Harridans now have standard sight ranges (18 tiles, rather than their previous 20 tiles)

- More fixes to aliens at night giving the "visible" icon when they are not actually visible

- Wolf weight reduced by 1kg

- One of the three Androns in a Small Base Command Room has been moved into an aggressive patrol role instead

- Game no longer crashes if you try to close the game with a drop-down open

- Pushed back the map reveal time on Terror / Xenonaut Base missions from 12 turns to 20 turns

- Fury now correctly gets unlimited Singularity Torpedoes, rather than it having to be reloaded manually

- Marauders now require less Alien Alloys to produce

- A Marauder can now solo a Carrier provided it has either a MAGSTORM or Fusion Explosives (it has 750 bonus autoresolve strength)

- Air Superiority and Scout missions now turn up almost every wave, though they are still limited to one per wave

- Carriers, Battleships and Interceptors delayed by 50 ticker points and staggered a little more

- Panic is now possible when soldiers have below 40 morale, rather than the previous 50

- "Safety in Numbers" morale boost has been removed, as it gives bonuses / penalties on the fly in missions and can really confuse things at times

- Morale penalties for the death of friendly troops reduced, suppression morale damage reduced slightly

- Panicking troops now have less chance to Berserk and more chance to Flee

Remaining Work:

You'll probably not be astonished to discover that steadily more problems are rearing their ugly heads as we work. Here are the major issues we still want to tackle today and tomorrow:

GROUND COMBAT TO-DO:

- The Hidden Movement screen does not properly display aliens shooting from higher ground down at your soldiers. Obviously not ideal given the changes to the Harridans.

- If an enemy is close enough to a UFO to be on the UFO sub-map but still outside the UFO, you don't get a fire cursor when you mouseover them.

- C4 and Plasma Charges explode if the unit carrying them is shot with an explosive weapon, whereas only C4 on the ground should explode.

- If there's time, we want to look at the way roofs are displaying. There's some weirdness with LOS and the Roof toggle too.

GEOSCAPE TO-DO:

- If you lose a ground combat mission, all future saves in that game are corrupted. We're working on fixing that.

- The infamous Soldier Equip screen crash is back with a vengeance. We won't be able to fix it this weekend but we're going to organise an expedition specifically to find and kill it next week.

- The Quantum Cryptology Center info needs to carry over to Crash Sites

- Scrollbar on Barracks screen is still broken

- The launcher needs the Quickstart Guide button added

- We want to replace the briefing screen with some one-off, slightly more tailored pop-ups

Let's see how that goes, eh? Game-breaking bugs will be fixed during the two weeks prior to "official" release if they crop up or don't make it into the deadline.

I'll consider looking at the LOS / LOF strangeness in a bit more detail too, but only once we have a version of the game that is otherwise good to go. Making LOS changes often has all sorts of weird side-effects.

I've attached a save from my current playthrough so people can test the mid / late game balance without having to replay the opening hours of the game again. It's taken just before Landing Ships start to appear, so kinda the early-mid game.

[ATTACH]3869[/ATTACH]

PT_EarlyTerror.sav

PT_EarlyTerror.sav

[HammerHead]

So, we can expect the full release really soon? Time to start writing the review.

[Skitso]

- If there's time, we want to look at the way roofs are displaying. There's some weirdness with LOS and the Roof toggle too.

Does this include the floor bug (floor not displaying) when xenonaut is on second floor?

[Solver]

- If you lose a ground combat mission, all future saves in that game are corrupted. We're working on fixing that.

Is there a temporary workaround or something? It's quite annoying that there's no possible recovery from a lost mission.

[Chris]

Is there a temporary workaround or something? It's quite annoying that there's no possible recovery from a lost mission.

There's a pretty obvious workaround I will avoid mentioning

But yeah, avoid playing Ironman with this particular build.

[Victor_Tadeu]

"- C4 and Plasma Charges explode if the unit carrying them is shot with an explosive weapon, whereas only C4 on the ground should explode."

Not sure if a bug... just sounds annoyingly awesome! Just put and entry in Xenopedia for charges saying that them can be detonated by other explosions while being carried around!

[Solver]

There's a pretty obvious workaround I will avoid mentioning

Shots fired

[Caaygun]

The infamous Soldier Equip screen crash is back with a vengeance. We won't be able to fix it this weekend but we're going to organise an expedition specifically to find and kill it next week.[ATTACH]3869[/ATTACH]

I met this by chance a few days ago in 22.10, then spent literally 2 hours for save spamming to procure repro steps in vain. If you have any directions to facilitate us testing for it, just say.

[Kordanor]

No idea if it was due to our feedback, but I am glad you implemented Steam Trading Cards and the Panic change to 40 morale instead to 50. For your own sake. ^^

[Chris]

No idea if it was due to our feedback, but I am glad you implemented Steam Trading Cards and the Panic change to 40 morale instead to 50. For your own sake. ^^

When I realised we could make a small amount of money from trading cards I set Aaron to work on it immediately. I figure we should do it before release if we're ever going to do it.

[KevinHann]

Just wanted to say I'm pleased with the list of changes made / on the "to do list". Really hope there will be enough time to address all of them.

[silencer]

Quite a nice update. Thank you on the air combat retreat button update.

[VaeliusNoctu]

@Chris

I get: atachment.php file after download the savegame and btw where i must copy savegames for xenonauts?

[KevinHann]

@Chris

I get: atachment.php file after download the savegame and btw where i must copy savegames for xenonauts?

There should be a Xenonauts folder in your Documents, I think that's the default save location.

[Descan]

Is there a temporary workaround or something? It's quite annoying that there's no possible recovery from a lost mission.

... Probably to save before each mission and revert if you lose, and then don't do the mission.

[KevinHann]

Or there could be a "You LOSE!" temporary ending screen if that happens to avoid the crashes after - it's the same effect

[Chris]

Steam Cards are now enabled. Enjoy.

@Chris

I get: atachment.php file after download the savegame and btw where i must copy savegames for xenonauts?

You need the .sav file, not the attachment.php file. Just click on the link and it should download. Stick it in the /Xenonauts/ folder in My Documents.

[Jean-Luc]

When I realised we could make a small amount of money from trading cards I set Aaron to work on it immediately. I figure we should do it before release if we're ever going to do it.

I'm betting it was the thought of Steam trading cards that kept you going all these years. Whenever you felt like rage quitting and setting fire to the office you simply thought of those delicious trading card profits.

[lemm]

- Shrike now can hold 10 troops, Valkyrie can hold 12, as 4 extra soldiers each was a bit overpowered

I think that's a good adjustment (and I'd say it's a major change, not a small change).

In v22.9, I missed the opportunity to research the Valkyrie, so I had to assault carriers and battle ships with a shrike. Twelve men felt like a good number for those missions.

The final mission was quite difficult with 12 men because I didn't know what to encounter (and also because my squad was mostly newbies), so it took me a few tries before I made it through. However, I think it would have been far too easy with 16 soldiers.

[Chris]

I am going to reverse my nerf to the Shrike / Valkyrie build times now I've nerfed their capacity, though. The double-nerf leaves them a bit underpowered.

[dpelectric]

Harridans have had their new AI enabled: they now use their jetpacks and actively seek higher ground. Have fun with that

I can't wait! But yer killin' me; every time I get a solid start to a game, out comes another build with juicy stuff like this that makes me quit and restart again !!!

Shrike now can hold 10 troops, Valkyrie can hold 12, as 4 extra soldiers each was a bit overpowered

I wouldn't describe this as a "smaller change"; I think that'll have quite an impact

[Redwallzyl]

"- C4 and Plasma Charges explode if the unit carrying them is shot with an explosive weapon, whereas only C4 on the ground should explode."

Not sure if a bug... just sounds annoyingly awesome! Just put and entry in Xenopedia for charges saying that them can be detonated by other explosions while being carried around!

but C4 does not explode from other explosions in real life you can even set it on fire. an electrical charge is needed.

[legit1337]

but C4 does not explode from other explosions in real life you can even set it on fire. an electrical charge is needed.

Wrong. C4 can be set off by a smaller explosion, or by electrical charge. It is quite stable otherwise and not much else sets it off, not even high temperatures.

EDIT: Is anyone else getting crazy funding hits on the first wave? Like I got -100,000$ to just australasia alone.

Edited May 31, 2014 by legit1337

[Skitso]

@Chris, could you check the map randomizer functionality? For some bizzarre reason I'm not getting my map pack levels anymore, but just the vanilla ones. I had some 20 ground combats, starting a new game each time, and got multiple same vanilla maps but not my maps. Anyone else, could you download my map pack (link at my signature) and see if they are in the map pool for you. Thanks!

EDIT: closing the game and restarting I had two my maps out of 15+ tries, every time starting a new game. Could the randomizing work only when the game is started?

Edited May 31, 2014 by Skitso

[Caaygun]

Is it possible to get that psion back on the light scout please? He added that nice little niche for the caesan early game, and provides that needed opportunity to train bravery. Also lorewise, RL alien abduction claims often cite suggested mental meddling.