Completed Let's purge the Xeno in Xenonauts (Ultimate doom expansion set for terra)

[Ulminati]

Indeed. We're headed straight for it. The massive ufo will get airstriked. There's a slim chance we'll be able to get to the terror site before nightfall, but not if we take a detour.

 

[CaptainAwesome]

On the one hand, I lived! And without a single injury! And while fighting bravely in battle!

On the other hand, terror site, so this happy state of affairs will not last long.

 

[Baron Dupek]

So after bunch of shots in his back he finally rest in pieces :scannersheadexplosion.gif:

 

[Fafnir]

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9952-V22-Experimental-7-Hotfix-2-Released!

Seems like balancing is almost done! Some of the big ones. No one checks the thread in Strat Gaming so I figured I'd post it here.

BUGFIXES:
- Night mission graphics have been updated to work with the new LOS system, and to look more murky. They're pretty cool now!

CHANGES:
- Psionic power calculation is now a random roll up to alien psionic strength vs. a roll up to soldier current morale, unit stats rebalanced accordingly.
- Psionic powers are now affected by range (the defence roll gets +1 for each tile beyond the max range)
- Berserk now has a 70% chance to fire at empty tiles, rather than attacking a random nearby unit
- Weapon projectile speeds sped up
- Weapons will no longer reaction fire beyond their operational range

BALANCE:
- Morale regeneration per turn reduced significantly, but turned up after a unit panics etc
- Light Scout UFOs now have 6 aliens inside, with a greater spread of combat scripts.
- Scout UFOs now have 10 aliens, with some spawning in the rear compartment (currently trying to make them stay there!)
- Light Drones can no longer reaction fire

- Aircraft repair / rearm times have been halved
- First wave of UFOs is always entirely Light Scouts
- Triple-fighter Air Superiority missions pushed back a little

 

[Ulminati]

UPDATE TIME

This update is dedicated to Flying Spaghetti Monster, whose incessant demands for an update every single day eventually made me fire up Xenonauts while hung over. Your blood is on his hands.

Spoiler

When last we left off, we were headed for a terror site. As luck would have it, we reached it during the night. And if we idle in the area until dawn, it's going to end. So a night time site it is. Last time we had one of those, 2/3rds of everyone died to massive waves of androns and we had to flee. So this is going to be interesting.

Landing site is kind of shit. An open road and basketball court with no cover whatsoever. Everyone spreads out a bit in case plasma cannons are incomig. A new alien we haven't seen before bursts out of the house we were trying to clean. An alien tank shot, not screenshotted, hits Hellraiser in the face and she keels over dead.

RIP Hellraiser

It survives a point blank shot from hoaxmetal, but serratedbiz (who got tagged by a couple of shots from the darkness) takes it out.

The mind rape begins. Zdzisiu survives a shot that looks like it came from an alien tank. Then he and the nearby civilian both get hit by psionic attacks. Thei fail miserably and come under alien mind control.

With none of the aliens visible, people are sent out to what sparse cover remains in hope zdzisio shakes off the mind control before causing more damage.

Aliens spotted. 3 Caesan soldiers and the tank that felled hellraiser.

The tank moves up to advance while the Caesans shoot at us. One of their shots misses and damages their own.

But another flies true and destroys Hoaxmetals tank.
This is the point where everyone on the shoutbox started going "OMG WE'RE DEAD! FLEE! RUN!" Codexian bravery at its finest.

CIS Sis fall sunder alien mind control and starts shooting at Serratedbiz, nearly killing her sister in arms.

Then a tank shot, from a different direction than the tank we know of, flies in to finish the job.
RIP Serratedbiz

The_Scorprion manages a solid hit on the alien tank with his MAG Rifle and it blows up. A pity it wasn't still with the Caesans when it did. It might've taken them out.

More of the new and unknown type of alien warp in. These buggers can teleport. Spekkio, CIS Sis and The_Scorpion all fall under alien mind control this turn.

A second alien tank appears out of the gloom. With CIS Sis having left cover under mind control, there is nothing to save her from a faceful of plasma.

RIP CIS Sis

Spekkio and Zdzisiu have finally shaken off Mind Control, but they're permanently suppressed by the 3 caesans, wraith and tank. With 0 TUs each, there's no way we can make them fall back to a defensible position. Not that there is a defensible position, since we landed in the middle of wide open space.

Leaving the shieldmaidens to probably die, everyone else stacks up in the drop ship and prepares to run. Serratedbiz would've joined us, but she's 1 TU short of GITTIN TO DA CHOPPA.

Scrooge, being the highest ranking Xenonaut left alive, decides to wait one turn to get Serratedbiz aboard. Spekkio and Tzaero give their lives to hold the aliens off.
RIP Spekkio and Zdzisiu

And that's how the night time terror site goes. Most of our officer core is gone, along with some of our MAG weapons, plasma caster and a bunch of armor. All plans to end that alien terror site this month are now out the window.

You brought this upon us Flying Spaghetti Monster

Kashmir Slippers, Smashing Axe, jcd and lighbane are recruited to replace the dead. I took screenshots of them, but for some reason ShareX decided not to save them.

In spite of this, most of the funding nations are pleased with our results this month. Except Southern africa. Leaving the alien base in their territory drained their funding to $0, and they are now under alien control.

Red nations denote where ITZ has arrived.

A swarm of battleships arrive over Europe. We manage to shoot down one of them.

More of the teleporting aliens are encountered. It survives a plasma blast and 3 MAG shots. Then Scrooge uses her jetpack to leap onto the cliff above her and end it.

Alien with a plasma cannon finds JCD. The shot flies true, but he miraculously survives.

Undead Phoenix was interred in the holy dreadnought after Hoaxmetal was blown up. He sets a new record for uselessness by dying 3 turns into his first mission.

JCD and lightbane both fall under alien mind control and start shooting at their battlebrothers. Aliens also teleport in behind us.

Kipeci will have none of that wallhax bullshit. Automatic fire from a MAG rifle puts an end to that nonsense.

The_Scorpion falls under mind control and shoots scrooge. JCD and Smashing axe are under mind control as well. Lightbane is beserking.

A bunch of screenshots are missing here as well. Basically, everyones moral hit rock bottom when Scrooge died. Those who weren't mind controlled or panicking were suppresssed. I had 4 turns of not being able to give anyone orders because noone had TUs left.

Smartcheetah was the last to fall. But the outcome was never un doubt once 4+ people got mind controlled.

We got 3 of them. They got all of us. The majority fell to "friendly" fire from mind controlled allies or panicking once the officers were dead.

Mass panic and hysteria sweeps the earth. With all the xenonauts dead, there is no-one left to stop the Xenos from anal-probing us all. ITZ HAZ ARRIVED! TOTAL DOOM EXPANSION SET FOR TERRA!

And with that, the let's play is over. We've lost all our xenonauts, all our weapons and all our armor. It'd take close to 3 momths to re-fabricate all the stuff. And there's no way we'd be able to clean massive UFOs in basic armor + ballistic rifles. Even if we somehow didn't end up losing all the funding nations during those 3 months, we'd be going with a plane full of recruits who'd die the first time they met anything with psionics. This is the total party kill condition that we mentioned in the OP, which would result in me declaring the aliens win.

I hope you've enjoyed the let's play. Xenonauts is a fun game. Harsh at times, but fair. We could probably have gotten further if I'd been boring and careful. But the people wanted (A)wesome and I tried to deliver on that.

Winning the game was never an option. My xenonauts is several beta patches out of date and the final mission is bugged in this version. My goal was to show most (if not all) of what Xenonauts has to offer and provide some entertaining deaths. I like to think I delivered on that at least. Judging from the number of people who seem to have picked up Xenonauts on the codex these last couple of weeks, you thought so too.

Thanks to everyone who participated. I hope your deaths were as entertaining to you as they were to me.

We'll get them next time! In the meantime, the Kodex Kool Krew is fighting for glory in the fields of blood bowl. We can always use fresh meat there: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...in-blood-bowl-on-fumbbl-now-recruiting.91384/

 

[Scroo]

It was a great LP though, thanks for that! In fact this LP made me want to buy this game once it will be released

 

[Baron Dupek]

Totally unproffesional lack of tactic combined with cannon fodder syndrome throwing meatbags like a trash,

Spoiler

I rike it.

 

[Zdzisiu]

Ha, I chose the perfect time to switch side it seems!

 

[Undead Phoenix]

 

[shiteatingnippledick]

I all the brave men who died making this.

 

[Ulminati]

I may (I probably will) start a new Let's play in 3 weeks ro so once the game is released. I'd like to wait until some extra map packs are released for greater variety. The only thing that's keeping me from jumping right back into Xenonauts right now is knowing I'll be grinding light scouts on the same 4 maps for the first couple of months.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

I'm happy to contribute.

 

[SmartCheetah]

Well, at least my lass died at the end, watching all those dying bros ]:3

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Ulminati

 

[spekkio]

Hey, Ulm - what's wrong?

And that's how the night time terror site goes...

That's p. much how all missions against one of the 3 strongest PSI aliens go. Mind control can be dealt with (with an experienced team, specific tactics and some luck), but MC + Dread = game over. And in this mission it was only Caesan leader, not Praetor (lack of Dread attacks).
Also: these new portraits look like shit.

Those who weren't mind controlled or panicking were suppressed. I had 4 turns of not being able to give anyone orders because noone had TUs left.

Well, at least:

Xenonauts is a fun game. Harsh at times, but fair.

So fair that the authors decided to rebalance it... PSI was totally broken in V21.

Losing an entire team in an UFO recovery mission? WTF?

Spoiler

Totally understandable, taking weak team into consideration...

And with that, the let's play is over. We've lost all our xenonauts, all our weapons and all our armor. It'd take close to 3 momths to re-fabricate all the stuff. And there's no way we'd be able to clean massive UFOs in basic armor + ballistic rifles. Even if we somehow didn't end up losing all the funding nations during those 3 months, we'd be going with a plane full of recruits who'd die the first time they met anything with psionics. This is the total party kill condition that we mentioned in the OP, which would result in me declaring the aliens win.

Man, you suck! What about showing us these Praetor missions?

Spoiler

Beating the game in its current state with non-experienced soldiers and readers discouraging you from taking it slow is indeed impossible.

We could probably have gotten further if I'd been boring and careful. But the people wanted (A)wesome and I tried to deliver on that.

My goal was to show most (if not all) of what Xenonauts has to offer and provide some entertaining deaths. I like to think I delivered on that at least. Judging from the number of people who seem to have picked up Xenonauts on the codex these last couple of weeks, you thought so too.

Thank you very much for that, BRO. I bet you increased Xenonauts' sells by a visible margin. The authors should transfer some hot tranny escorts funds to your basement account.



See you soon...

 

[Ulminati]

^^


If you're going to hex edit money and items and spam screenshots of it in other threads, expect someone to call you on it Spekkio. Your anus must be gaping with the amount of butthurt you're radiating.

I know they nerfed PSI in v20 and v21 too. You should try the deliciousness that is V19 (what this LP was running on). I'm currently replaying on V22e5 and it's a lot easier now. On the bright side, it seems like aliens have recieved an accuracy buff across the board. That was badly needed in my opinion. And I like the new LoS that's updated constantly rather than at the end of your turn. The new AI scripts for small/medium UFOs where they (usually) don't all hide in the ufo and wait for you to breach is also very nice. Grenades are a bit bugged in ths build I have though. You don't see tu cost/accuracy % if you're throwing at the ground. You have to hover over a target.

Insane doesn't mess about by the way. I'm running insane in v21e5. Placed my first base in N. Africa (to cover n africa, s africa, europe, middle east and russia). My secondary bases (radar + 2x hangar) went live in late october in central america and asia). At the end of october, central america had already decided to side with the aliens. :D
Mid-november the first alien base popped up in Europe. Good times. Took the base with 8 people. One person went down, but the saving throw vs death seem to be a lot more generous in V21+, so he regenerated like the terminator. At least in V22e5 they fixed the drop of assault plasma. So now I'm sporting plasma weapons and corsairs in december.

 

[spekkio]

If you're going to hex edit money and items and spam screenshots of it in other threads.

Holy cow, and I thought you were butthurt about spamming YOUR sacred LP with my filthy screenshots. Now its also about other threads?
An you're accusing me of butthurt...



Good riddance with being wiped out by PSIfags after making fun of me for nerfing PSI in my game...



On more serious note - I don't know how they plan to release full version in May, with so many balancing issues still around. Plus some people liked old things that were removed and want them back, while some people want even more changes. Lack of any PSI training for humies is not a good idea, IMO. Giving humans PSI powers would be going too far, but making them stronger against PSI - that’s a good idea IMO.
But whatever, I plan to buy this game as long as it appears on GoG. Best X-Com "reimagining" so far.



*Edit:

I also noticed aliens can't open doors during alien base attacs - is this another bug or a feature (AI waiting for you to come in an get reactionfired)?

 

[Ulminati]

I also noticed aliens can't open doors during alien base attacs - is this another bug or a feature (AI waiting for you to come in an get reactionfired)?

I've had the AI open doors during my base attacks. the AI in 22e5 seems a lot more aggressive on the whole. It's not perfect, but it's a definite improvement over 19.

I actually had a happy little glitch in one of my base raids. the fog of war vanished after I killed a reptile. I was on ironman so I couldn't reload to fix it. But it was interesting to see the AI in action. The "static" defenders in the command room moved around when the door was closed to different pieces of cover. Some of the AIs that were bunkered down in the rooms I hadn't cleared suddenly decided to go hunting. but instead of heading directly for my dudes, they went the long way around past the entrance to try and get a flanking on.

I know there was AI mods for v17 that got put on hiatus untl release, but I'm hoping they'll make a resurgence. I'd love a "lurker" AI that tries to avoid contact with xenonauts. Make it hide in buildings/far corners until a trigger is met (xenonauts within x squares of UFO for instance), then switch it to aggressive so it arrives behind your dudes during the breaching. All in all, the fact that just about everything is in .xml/.png files makes me. Tweaking the balance should be very doable.

There's already a bunch of interesting mods in the pipeline. Mods to make the AI smarter/more aggressive. Balance tweaks. Graphics replacements. (I'm considering making a melee weapon to satisfy ERYFKRAD and co by cloning the stun rod, changing its damage to physical and giving it chainsword graphics).

And then there's the really Cool stuff like:

An aircraft combat overhaul that adds tons of new types of aircraft and tweaks for those who are into that:

A graphics mod that make laser weapons fire actual laser beams:

Mods that add toxin grenades and (my favourite) incendiary grenades. There used to be a flamethrower mod too, but I couldn't find pix:

UFO Breaching and alternate layouts:

Mods will fix it!

 

[Azira]

The "reveal the whole map" thing, isn't that intended? I seem to've read something about the map being revealed after a set amount of turns pass, but I could be wrong.

Here it was:
"The "reveal map" feature is now working as intended. The map is revealed once you clear the command room of an Alien Base, and after 12 turns on Terror and Base Defence missions (it does not affect Crash Site missions). Have a play and let us know how it works, or if you encounter it at all."

But seeing as you hadn't cleared the actual command room, it seems what you had was indeed a bug. Did you report it?

 

[Ulminati]

I hadn't reached the command room when it happened. I'm not sure what I think about it. I can se eit working on the base defense/base raid. (Makes sense you'd have access to cameras). But on terror sites just sounds plain retarded. Oh well, it can probably be modded away.

 

[Ulminati]

Another nice thing in V22e5 that wasn't in V19: Alternate ship layouts!

Cruiser can either be the one we had earlyish in our let's play, or this alternate one with smaller inital champer and bigger back chamber:

Landing ship can be the big cargo hold we had FUN™ with earlier in this Let's play, or this wider layout:

I approve.


Caesans also get psions earlier, which makes then less of a pushover.

 

[spekkio]

But what's with these portraits, are those the new official ones?



*Edit

I hope it's this shit:
http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/7357-Jsleezy-s-Real-Fighter-Portrait-Pack

 

[Ulminati]

It is. I wanted to try it out. Forgot to back up the regular ones.

 

[SmartCheetah]

Portraits in this mod looks more like drug addicts/dealers then actual 79' soldiers.