52 replies to this topic

[Zombie]

I've been playing this game on and off for the last week, and am starting to notice some differences between Xeno & UFO:EU. So I thought I should start a topic about them.

First of all, if you send a dropship to a mission and your soldiers finish it, they don't have to come back to base between missions. If your ship has enough fuel and your crew is healthy enough, you can directly send them to another site nearby. All your ammo is restocked too, so you don't have to be skimpy on shots.This has some advantages as you can go to an area and clean up everything and head back to base when you're done. I'd recommend you have an interceptor (or two) nearby just in case the aliens retaliate and try to shoot down your dropship en route.

Secondly, ships seem to refuel/reload a lot faster than in UFO:EU. (Or maybe they don't and the time goes by quicker in Xeno)? I especially notice this with dropships as you can be out and about almost immediately after returning to base. Even with interceptors, they don't need to be at 100% fuel to send them out (weapon reloading is the limiting factor here).

Smoke Grenades. I mean what's the deal with it in Xeno? Smoke doesn't spread much, doesn't last long and some aliens see right through it. Is it worthwhile, because I haven't found a use for them yet. Stun Grenades and flashbangs on the other hand are a lot more useful.

Tanks/vehicles seem to have more armor than in EU. I started to use them as bait which seems to work a lot of the time. Run them over to an alien to get their attention, then slowly creep back to lure them in. Where you lure the aliens to is dependent on where your soldiers are and the terrain. If you're in tight quarters, then lead the aliens back to your shield/assault (shotgun) or heavy weapons folks to shoot. If there is an open area, set some snipers up around the perimeter and take out the aliens from distance. As in X-COM try not to kill aliens with the tank. There have been instances where the aliens follow my tank and shoot at it from the rear and they either miss or hit and do little to no damage.

Countries get a lot more pi$$ed off at you for ignoring their section of the globe now. Gone are the days of getting enough points locally to impress countries globally. When you start out every country will cut funding except for (hopefully) the country your first base is in. Expect that to be a given. I guess the only way to circumvent this is to build bases ASAP to get as much radar coverage as you can.

So there's a few differences. These are the just the ones that pop out at me from recent memory.

- Zombie

[NKF]

I've been watching an LP of Xenonauts, and the tanks seem a bit overkill with their exploding projectiles. I do like the Humber-like design of the basic tank.

The fixed maps make the mid to late game a bit of a slog to watch through.

- NKF

[silencer_pl]

Tanks also don't suffer in LoS at night. Economy is worse in Xenonauts, aliens use squad sight - this will get you pissed at late stage where you will be sniped from half the other map. High ranking aliens have Muton amount of health, the best alien weapon has enough armor mitigation making armor completely useless in terms of defense. The see through smoke probably was squad sight but anyway smoke reduces accuracy. I think it's 20% each tile ?

[Zombie]

silencer_pl, on 17 July 2017 - 06:14 AM, said:

Tanks also don't suffer in LoS at night.

Tanks have lights in Xeno, so yeah, makes sense. There were probably limitations in UFO preventing tanks from having lights, though I think there are bits in the game files which allow it.

silencer_pl, on 17 July 2017 - 06:14 AM, said:

Economy is worse in Xenonauts

Worse? It's basically nonexistent. And to me that makes it really bad as it eliminates another variable in strategy. Wealth acquisition in UFO was a priority as it meant you didn't have to rely on country funding. In Xeno you are stuck with the financing from countries and whatever else you can scrounge up from missions. Sure, it streamlines things as you aren't spending a lot of time selling stuff anymore, but it hurts strategy.

I should mention that I have finished Xenonauts already so it's not like this is my first time through the game or anything. It's just that the first time I completed the game I ignored the differences and played it assuming a clean slate (no prior knowledge). It takes some time getting used to but it isn't impossible. I did "cheat" a little bit at the end to figure out the final mission (YouTube videos helped).

Another thing I should mention is UFO placement in the Battlescape. In Xeno, the UFO is always placed on the West (or North, or North West) edge of the map - no exceptions. In UFO:EU the UFO could be anywhere, including smack-dab in the center of the map, right next to your dropship, or on an opposite corner. That made for a quicker/easier way to finish a mission sometimes. Speaking of dropships, in Xeno, the dropship is almost always on the opposite edge of the map from the UFO. This makes for stupidly-long missions as it forces you to trudge across the entire map every time. That's annoying!

I suppose I should mention that in Xeno, you can't use the aliens weapons against them anymore. You can research them but the technology acquired leads to upgrades to your present weapons (for the most part). I do like that for some things (like thrown grenades and launched bombs from tanks or aircraft) they will be automatically upgraded when the research into a technology is finished which is a nice touch.

Another big difference is storage at a base. In UFO:EU you had to add more modules if you wanted more storage. In Xeno, you only need one it seems. And tanks need a garage now - they don't reside in the stores. I suppose that makes up for the fact that there's a new module now - the medbay which heals your soldiers faster. Unfortunately, soldiers get hurt - a lot - and your squad on a mission can still heal the injured, but only to a point. There's always going to be some small percentage of health which can't be fixed on the Battlescape (unlike in UFO:EU where you could fully patch up a soldier if the wounds were very minor). Stub your toe in Xeno and you're going to be visiting the medbay whether you like it or not. On the flip side of the coin though, your injured soldiers can still be sent on missions even though they aren't 100%. I find this isn't a really big plus as I usually end up swapping soldiers around quite a bit anyhow. Gotta train up those greenhorns somehow, so I send them out with a few vets in case they fail in critical situations.

- Zombie

[silencer_pl]

You can use their weapons, just not to great effect. Which sort of makes sense if alien physical biology is different. But is it really? Sebiilains? Maybe, Haridans maybe. But Caesans or Androns? I doubt it.

[Zombie]

You know, it's funny. The other day I was finishing up a crash site (and this is another big difference between Xeno and X-COM: in Xeno you are going to be dealing with 90-95% crash sites - UFO's refuse to land anymore) and there was one alien holed up in the ship with my team camped outside the main door. The thing would not budge, so I took my Hunter scout car off to the port (left) side of the craft and fired off a shot from it's pulse laser weapon against the hull hoping to rattle the thing. Only somehow the blast propagated through the UFO and took out the alien. That kinda surprised me as I thought explosives wouldn't do that.

As I said before, tanks are indispensable in Xeno. I've been using them for a variety of roles, but mostly they are for scouting and bullet magnets (not cannon fodder). I may even use them to destroy terrain (either by riding over it or blowing it up). Pretty useful things. The biggest thing I use them for is scouting. First thing during my round they will move until they spot an alien, then I'll try to take it out with my team. If nobody is in a decent position I'll withdraw the tank and move everyone around so that at least 2 have a shot. If the alien advances to shoot the tank, it'll get it.

Soldier advancement seems to be a little easier than in X-COM. Maybe that's due to my playstyle (everyone on the mission gets a kill if possible). Even if someone doesn't get a kill, just shooting at an alien will usually improve multiple stats. And keeping everyone teetering on the brink of encumbered increases strength at least.

- Zombie

[Zombie]

For the alien landing craft, the front door to the ship is big enough to get a tank inside which is useful for a couple reasons. First, the ground floor of the ship is littered with canisters and various alien junk which makes shooting aliens troublesome due to blockage but the tank can run over and destroy as much as you want. No junk=no blockage=clear shots. Secondly, you can roll a tank over one of the lifts to prevent any aliens from filtering down while your men are congregating. Once one group is in place, you can roll the tank over the other lift and get the second group in place.

The one item I haven't really found a use for (yet) is the Rocket Launcher. It's of course heavy, destroys valuable equipment/artifacts, can't reaction fire and suffers from any meaningful upgrades (like to the gun itself, not the shells). You can equip a tank with a rocket launcher (if you want) but it's bypassed quickly due to the Pulse Laser having explosive "shells". Explosives do not give much suppression either, and that's the name of the game early on. If you can suppress an alien, your men can fire at it without worry of drawing reaction fire.

- Zombie

[Zombie]

I just ran into Wraiths (teleporting alien species) today (met them in my previous campaign but I killed them without capturing). So I knew the autopsy info but not an interrogation. Anyhow, I had a few men nearby to one I spotted, but nobody had enough time to use a baton so I did the next best thing: dump a stun grenade on it. But how to keep it from teleporting off? Well, I kept tossing flashbangs on it which suppresses it (reducing movement points by half preventing it from teleporting). It worked great. This afternoon I was looking at how others dealt with Wraiths and found out that Scott Manley (claim to fame is his Kerbel Space Program videos) did the same thing I did. Kinda cool.

I'm still having issues with base building strategy though. Because the financial aspect of the game is toned down I'm always worried I will not have enough money to build. So long story short, I probably end up waiting too long to expand (financial aspects aside, I prefer to build my bases so they have a compliment of soldiers to defend it, but soldiers take a long time to train up to decent levels). So I guess the strategy is to just build intercept bases and don't worry about losing it to the aliens if it is detected? This is the part I despise about Xenonauts: being pigeon-holed into a single strategy instead of the open feel of UFO:EU.

- Zombie

[Zombie]

So it's been about 3 weeks since I last posted about Xenonauts. What has happened since then? Well, I've been playing almost every night, which usually includes two combat missions (sometimes more). I have three bases now: my primary in the USA and secondary in Europe (both have full assault squads, except all research happens in the US while nearly all production happens in Europe... there's a small manufacturing facility in the US for "need it now" items with short production times) and my newest base in the Far East - Indochina area. All have 1 Foxtrot and 2 Corsair interceptors, plus an extra open hangar for upgrades (the X-59 Marauder is nearly done being researched), and Europe has 2 suits of Predator armor produced. I guess that third base really helped because for the first time ever, all the countries are happy with me.

About those differences... there's a big change in how UFOs spawn from UFO:EU. The game now throws waves upon waves of UFOs at you in a short period of time, and then it's dead quiet afterwards. Seriously, it's not uncommon to have 10-12 UFOs in the air at once. How you deal with the sudden glut of activity is another matter. I try to shoot down as much as possible over land to give my teams some training, but there are times when the stupid UFOs will stay over the water "strafing" every imaginable thing in the seemingly bustling oceans. In those cases you have to shoot down the UFO and just take the points. If there are three threats in the air over a base, I'll try to take out a small one and a medium one first, go back to base to refuel/rearm, then head out again to get the last UFO if it's still around. Sometimes I get lucky and that third one lands, then it's just a matter of sending out the troops to clean up the mess.

UFO designs are different as well, Almost all of them have some type of out swept "wings" or "arms" protruding on either side of the main door. Wanna knock at the door to see who is home? Good luck, hope you have someone with a lot of TUs able to traverse the distance around the "wing", open the door (and have someone else shoot at any enemies), then close the door and head back to safety. And if you look at the UFOs, almost all have a big cargo hold. Why do you need such large cargo holds though? What are they hauling? And why do most have long low walls? All it does is create clutter and bottlenecks. Tanks make short work of removing it though.

Tanks, I know I mentioned them before, but they are the best. I use them like fullbacks in American football: big husky blockers carving a path down the field for the rookies to follow and eliminate enemies. Almost all UFOs have doors big enough to let tanks in (at least, only on the ground floor, higher floors can only be accessed by 1x1 lifts). Remember those "wings" or "arms" on UFOs? Tanks can "plug the hole" while still allowing sniper fire to go over the top of them (best make sure you have some high accuracy snipers).

As I said earlier, I have two bases with soldiers who actively run missions. My "primary" base in the USA has soldiers with a maximum of "only" 37 missions under their belts. Compare that to my base in Europe with soldiers having a max of 64 missions which is nearly 75% more. The pool of soldiers originally contained nearly everyone, my only criteria for transfer was that each base should have one soldier for each "main" role (Shield, Assault, Heavy Weapons, Rifleman, Sniper). Not really sure what the Scout role is for, it's default equipment is just a pistol - I'd much rather have a Shield doing the scouting as it adds more survive ability. Rocketeer is self explanatory which I don't use. And also a Specialist - soldier brandishing a rifle and rocket launcher + C4 in the backpack. I guess that's more of an "engineer" role, but rocket launchers and C4 are too heavy to be toting around every mission so I just use riflemen. Anyhow, long story short Europe is a really busy place for UFO activity. Case in point: my squad there all have 100 in TU, Strength and Accuracy now, plus one has 98 in health and my Heavy Weapons soldier has an amazing 82 reflexes. Talk about a killing machine, I wouldn't want to be the alien walking around in view of the heavy weapons guy.

Tanks are probably going to be coming to an end soon for my game. With Predator armor on the way and soldiers with nearly maxed out stats, they will basically take over tanking duty. I'll need to do a little soldier reorganizing soon as I want two squads of about equal skill and armor/makeup. The elimination of the tank will also free up three extra spots on the transport for more rookies. I shall miss it.

- Zombie

[silencer_pl]

The other thing that is different, that in in UFO:EU UFOs sizes are random throught the game. Sure you can get a swarm of large/v.large but on base mission. Here the UFOs get bigger with time, so you should be fighting only Carriers / Battleships at the end, and fighting a battleship is just tedious. It made me a little bored fighting 50th Carrier in a row.

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but rocket launchers and C4 are too heavy to be toting around every mission

I don't know, I've always had 2 rocketeers and did not complain about strength and if you have 100 STR soldier this shouldn't bother you at all. Now if you equip Singularity Cannon...

Quote

UFO designs are different as well, Almost all of them have some type of out swept "wings" or "arms" protruding on either side of the main door. Wanna knock at the door to see who is home? Good luck, hope you have someone with a lot of TUs able to traverse the distance around the "wing", open the door (and have someone else shoot at any enemies), then close the door and head back to safety. And if you look at the UFOs, almost all have a big cargo hold. Why do you need such large cargo holds though? What are they hauling? And why do most have long low walls? All it does is create clutter and bottlenecks. Tanks make short work of removing it though.

Or use a mod that allows to place breaching charges

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my primary in the USA and secondary in Europe (both have full assault squads, except all research happens in the US while nearly all production happens in Europe..

How's your budget?

[Zombie]

silencer_pl, on 04 September 2017 - 06:04 AM, said:

The other thing that is different, that in UFO:EU UFOs sizes are random throughout the game. Sure you can get a swarm of large/v.large but on base mission. Here the UFOs get bigger with time, so you should be fighting only Carriers / Battleships at the end, and fighting a battleship is just tedious. It made me a little bored fighting 50th Carrier in a row.

Well, in EU the UFOs typically ramp up in size as the specific mission it's carrying out progresses. So it is sorta random. Another thing is that just as in Xenonauts, you'll be fighting the small stuff when you start out, then begin to fight the larger ships as time goes along. Not exclusively though. As you say, Cruisers and Carriers do predominate though.

silencer_pl, on 04 September 2017 - 06:04 AM, said:

I don't know, I've always had 2 rocketeers and did not complain about strength and if you have 100 STR soldier this shouldn't bother you at all. Now if you equip Singularity Cannon...

Dunno, just seems like my starting squad never has the necessary strength to be able to handle rocket duty. Sure, as soldiers improve their strength goes up and then you'll be able to use them, but why? A tank can do the same thing if you really want explosives. Not saying rockets are bad or anything, as evidenced by NKF's all-rocket campaign challenge in UFO:EU.

silencer_pl, on 04 September 2017 - 06:04 AM, said:

Or use a mod that allows to place breaching charges

Eh, I'm running a pure vanilla game right now.

silencer_pl, on 04 September 2017 - 06:04 AM, said:

How's your budget?

Ok? It's hard to base it on anything. But my funds are always hovering around the $4-5 million mark so I think that's decent... for now at least. Once I start churning out Marauders, Predator armor and (eventually) MAG weapons things might change.

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Some things which I miss in Xenonauts:

• Mind Probes. Can't tell anything about an alien now, maybe we should guess?
  
• Motion Scanner. Where's that last alien, or am I even close to it? True, now civilians and friendly combatants are present which would cloud the readings, but still... I want the option.
  
• Proximity Grenades. So much for setting up ambushes or to cover your tracks.
  
• Incendiary. Well, I guess it's technically in the game as the Alenium Rocket, but that's the only thing I know of with incendiary damage.
  
• Electro-flare. Come on, this is basic equipment kind of stuff. Yeah, a lot of missions have lighting present, and tanks have lighting too, but if you want to pinpoint a spot, you're out of luck.
  
• Blaster Launcher. It was nice setting waypoints and blasting a pack of aliens to smithereens. Would really come in handy for Carrier ships where the command room is huge and has a ton of furniture/junk in the way preventing clear shots.
  
• Mini map/overhead map. Which areas did I explore? Where are my troops in relation to alien units? Such a handy thing in the original game.
  
• Psionics. Some aliens get it, why not me too? At least give me a way to negate MC attacks.
  
• Grenade relay/throwing things. It wouldn't be exceptionally useful in Xeno, but there are times where I miss not being able to toss something.
  
• Drills. True, they were only in TFTD but it was a cool weapon nonetheless.

The other day my squad was easily cleaning up a Carrier crash site. Everything was going swimmingly well until I got pinned down by a flying Harridan camped out next to the ship's hull on the North-West side. My spotter could "see" it (due to the red alien icon present), but when you clicked on the icon the alien wouldn't show. I moved men around and kept checking every turn, but the alien wouldn't budge so I ended up in a war of attrition. I eventually said "hell with it" and cleared the inside of the ship and held it for three turns which ends the mission. It's an annoying bug, and happens in Cruiser ships too where the "top" or "height" of the ship covers up the South-West door. With that you can still right click on the door to gain entrance, but it's tricky. Anyone else have this happen to them? Is there a fix?

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Zombie, on 07 September 2017 - 05:56 AM, said:

The other day my squad was easily cleaning up a Carrier crash site. Everything was going swimmingly well until I got pinned down by a flying Harridan camped out next to the ship's hull on the North-West side. My spotter could "see" it (due to the red alien icon present), but when you clicked on the icon the alien wouldn't show. I moved men around and kept checking every turn, but the alien wouldn't budge so I ended up in a war of attrition. I eventually said "hell with it" and cleared the inside of the ship and held it for three turns which ends the mission. It's an annoying bug, and happens in Cruiser ships too where the "top" or "height" of the ship covers up the South-West door. With that you can still right click on the door to gain entrance, but it's tricky. Anyone else have this happen to them? Is there a fix?

Right then, another day, another Carrier mission. As always, my squad was easily mopping up the place until my shield man was shot by a Harridan somewhere above, this time along the South-West side of the UFO. Not a big deal as the shield sopped up the damage, so I sent him in to investigate. Because this was on the opposite side of the UFO, the hull was not blocking my view of the Harridan. Took a screenshot where I found it (look for the green legs).



Apparently this is WAI, and I'm fine with that, but having the hull block my view is cheating. Anyhow, mystery solved.

- Zombie

[silencer_pl]

There is flare on night mission in unlimited quantities....

From psionics you have defense, your bravery + higher rank and only 4 aliens have psionics.

About the Harridan, that's unfortunately game engine. It was made for 2D games, in fact the game is entirely 2D, the upper zones are cheating the engine. I've heard that the devs had to do a real cracking in order to pull this off.

[Zombie]

silencer_pl, on 10 September 2017 - 07:36 AM, said:

There is flare on night mission in unlimited quantities....

Wow, thanks never realized there were flares until you mentioned it. Had a hell of a time finding them though because I always have plenty of various grenades on each soldier either for use or "ballast" (weight, so soldier increases strength). If anyone is interested, you can right click on the grenade slot and it'll bring up a list of items one of which is the flare.

silencer_pl, on 10 September 2017 - 07:36 AM, said:

From psionics you have defense, your bravery + higher rank and only 4 aliens have psionics.

That's like saying there's "only" 2 aliens in UFO which have MC, but at least there you have the the ability to train psionics which is your defense and offense. In Xeno you are limited to basically bravery which is hard to train specifically for. Sure, you can get medals which increase bravery by 1 pt, but other than that your soldiers train bravery in much the same manner as UFO.

silencer_pl, on 10 September 2017 - 07:36 AM, said:

About the Harridan, that's unfortunately game engine. It was made for 2D games, in fact the game is entirely 2D, the upper zones are cheating the engine. I've heard that the devs had to do a real cracking in order to pull this off.

I honestly don't care if aliens can spawn in sniper locations on the Carrier, just give me access to get to those locations. And don't have an elevated spawn point on the North-West side of the ship if I can't accurately target the alien there. Simple stuff really. Any more info about this (like a dev comment or a discussion about it somewhere) would be greatly appreciated.

- Zombie

[silencer_pl]

Buzzard Suit or Sentinel Suit

[Zombie]

Well, yes those suits would allow you to get to the same level, but not INTO the spot where the Harridan is camped out. Besides, you're locked out from shooting while airborne so you still have to land to shoot anyway. I was thinking more along the lines of a redesign of the ship itself to give everyone access to those areas. Access means that my troops can get to the alien face-to-face and poke it with a stun stick, shoot at it, whatever. And I shouldn't need a suit with flying capabilities to get there either, give me stairs or a lift or a transporter.

- Zombie

[silencer_pl]

I'm sure in Xenos 2 there won't be this issue.

[Zombie]

silencer_pl, on 14 September 2017 - 12:00 PM, said:

I'm sure in Xenos 2 there won't be this issue.

I sure hope not.

Yet another Carrier ship today, and yes, another camped out Harridan in it's perch. Just about the best way to handle Carriers+Harridans is to actually go through the front door with your breaching squad (Shield, Assault, Riflemen, Heavy Weapons) and clean out that area first. Meanwhile, move a couple snipers to the SW edge of the map on one side. Make them kneel, and hold tight from distance. Next round your squad inside should make it to the two inner doors. Have them cover the doors and move your Harridan "spotter" to the SW side exterior doors of the ship where your snipers are. Who the spotter is depends on team makeup, but I suggest someone with a lot of HP+Armor+TU (and preferably higher reflexes too). Next round, clean out the rest of the first floor and plug the lifts to prevent anything filtering down. Move your spotter one tile out of the exterior door and hold. The Harridan can't see anyone yet, but we know he's basically right above us. Next round, just move your spotter out a couple tiles and look to the ship - hopefully you'll see it in which case it can be dispatched by the snipers. The reason you want to someone with high TU and reflexes is so he doesn't trigger a reaction shot from the Harridan. You'll want this person with high Armor and HP because if the Harridan does fire, at least you might survive.

If there wasn't a Harridan on that side, there may be one on the NE side. I would suggest avoiding that situation like the plague. The hull of the ship blocks any way for your snipers to target the alien. I suppose if you had a rocket launcher dude or a tank with explosive ammo you could use them as the "snipers" instead as I think the splash damage from a nearby detonation would kill the Harridan. It'll also destroy the corpse, but hey, the kill still counts. So that's an alternative strategy if you need the kills. Otherwise if you don't want to chance it, just clear the rest of the ship and hold it for 3 rounds to win the mission.

- Zombie

[silencer_pl]

Armor does not count against Harridan sniper. Alien sniper rifles have 99 armor mitigation I think or 90, so it pierces even predator armor. I've sort of hate this armor mitigation thing and I also hate the stats progress in ranks in Xenos. Where for example Ceasan non combatant has stat of a rookie soldier, Caesan Elite has like ~200HP, only mag weapons could kill him in one shot. Or maybe it was 150, but anyway elites have higher health values than mutons. And with Battle Rifles they just auto shot you from accross the map. Also the Battle rifle has big armor mitigatin - I think it was something of 25-50, so basically your armor is just for the bonuses. Predator for better heavy weapons handling and Sentinel for 360 view angle + flying over the edges.