XTA 9.643 beta Changelog

[ShineSmith]

------------------- Change Log of XTA v9.643 beta (0.82.0.0 and next version) ------------------ by Deadnight Warrior

Non-upgreadable commanders are now on "Hold Position" by default, prevents them from wandering off into the battle, they also move in water equaly fast as they do on land
Reduced dancing for all guided missiles, they now shoot in a marginal parabolic (arc) trajectory towards target, prevents missiles from hitting ground
Removed missiles bouncing off ground
Increased Stumpy/Raider damage to non-commanders by 25%
Increased weapon speed of almost all lasers (except for very short range ones), they now hit their target more often and sooner
Increased damage land scouts do to all other scouts by 50%
Increased LLT DPS by 23% (damage +10%, reload time -11%)
Ravens and Dominators can toggle rocket type
Heavily optimized animation scripts of all fighter planes
//Some model and script changes due to new collision volumes and missile arc trajectory, DTs still protect LLTs

Tanks for all ur hard work DeadnightWarrior

He also stressed that this is a work in production as is a BETA not a final vertion of 9.643

[1v0ry_k1ng]

damage groups? in xta? what heresy is this

also, making scouts counter scouts dosnt solve the scout OP thing. it just encourages more scouts.

[Johannes]

damage groups? in xta? what heresy is this

also, making scouts counter scouts dosnt solve the scout OP thing. it just encourages more scouts.

Scouts killing scouts helps to defend vs scouts with scouts. It doesn't make them more powerful on the offense. Yes its kinda hacky solution, but should work for what it's meant.

Doesn't solve the problem though that xta scouts are still bad at actually scouting stuff.

[babbles]

well, they're no longer named "scouts", they got renamed to "Fast attack vehicle" or something, and same for Kbot, few versions ago.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

damage groups? in xta? what heresy is this

also, making scouts counter scouts dosnt solve the scout OP thing. it just encourages more scouts.

Scouts killing scouts helps to defend vs scouts with scouts. It doesn't make them more powerful on the offense. Yes its kinda hacky solution, but should work for what it's meant.

right, scouts counter scouts, and what I wrote is that 'it [scout countering scouts] encourages [the player to build ] more scouts'. yes it is hacky. no, it isnt a solution.

[Deadnight Warrior]

damage groups? in xta? what heresy is this

Damage groups exist since day one. Any AA missiles do ~100 damage to aircraft but only ~40 to land units. Guardians/Punishers do more damage to ships than to land units, mines do 5 damage to other mines but 1000+ to other stuff, etc.

yes it is hacky. no, it isnt a solution.

Instead of saying it's not a solution to every other potential solution of a problem we encountered in XTA, post a viable solution yourself. Then post a picture of your face when other people say that your solution sucks.
And increasing scout to scout damage was Shift's idea.

[babbles]

Then post a picture of your face when other people say that your solution sucks.

This.

[ShineSmith]

"Scouts" main use is charging through front lines or undefended gaps and taking out mex's wind farms. If you drop their HP the amount of "scouts" making it to the sweet spot will drop considerably.

It was called a SCOUT for scouting, not assault. Fast assaults at the start should be for flash tanks and Ak's imo.

Drop the HP and cost accordingly, but keep build time the same to stop increased spam imo.

Im not in favour of the scout-vs-scout attack bonus tbh. But at least DK is experimenting for the right answer ! And more pro-active responses on the forum would be better for the whole community. Lets try and keep things positive plz

[Johannes]

If you drop hp the actual scouting gets even harder.

[babbles]

Weseals and Jeffies had different names, atleast in XTA, for as long as I can remember. Weasels were fast attack, jeffies were scouts.

I raised this point and said they should both be one of the other. Noruas changed them to be named fast attack vehicles.

They were given a LoS boost, iirc people like TMO said it would help when Commanders die as you could use scouts with Jethro lines. Turned out they just made more storms when their comms died. So this feature was never really used for its true purpose

Thing is, scouts are far too expensive to merely be scouts. You put that much resources into something you don't want it to go find out what your enemy has been doing at a specific point of the map for 2minutes

[ShineSmith]

SO what would u suppose would be best then babz? Any stats concepts to share?

[babbles]

<<<<<hp
<<cost

[pintle]

Terrible idea to add the damage groups.

The artillery damage to ships was added recently and has a pretty marginal impact on play, and I was against it from the start.

Buffing scouts = spam moar scouts much? Just use ak/pw to guard, or do your own scout rush, take some damage, defend with commander. Seriously...

Dont give Raven and Dominator missile toggle: remove that broken op crap from hovers, or AT LEAST add it to diplomat and merl and not dominator (which is already used a milllion times more often than the diplomat). Those stupid missiles have no place in the game imo.

Before changing the relatively stable land game, maybe fix sea, fix broken op hovers, and provide a greater incentive to make t2 gunships over t1?

25% is a huge buff to stumpies, and the damage class= massive fail.

Damage class for AA makes sense, and keeps a clear role distinction, mines likewise have that to minimize chaining mines, the arti sea, and stumpy, is just crackpot balancing with no place in the game, no intuitive precedent for the player, and afaics no balance necessity.

There are things that make the game unplayable atm. Changing the core game with huge 25% buffs to units that dont need it, and ignoring the blatantly broken stuff, while a hilarious way to "maintain" a mod, is pretty much traditional for XTA I guess :<

[1v0ry_k1ng]

Instead of saying it's not a solution to every other potential solution of a problem we encountered in XTA, post a viable solution yourself. Then post a picture of your face when other people say that your solution sucks.

scout --> reduce Mcost, reduce dps.. keeps it resilient for scouting but less effective at raiding. scrap the vs scouts damage group, because damage groups =/= XTA design philosophy (with the except of air/ground/sea interactions, eg artillery vs sea, missles vs air.)

stumpy--> reduce AoE to nothing so it can fire point blank at flashtanks without damaging itself. possibly increase projectile speed slightly to reduce innaccuracy at range vs moving targets. no damage buff and defs no armour groups

edit:

[babbles]

you're supposed to do it after I tell you that your ideas suck

[1v0ry_k1ng]

you're supposed to do it after I tell you that your ideas suck

I think it would be some kind of crazy lie to say either of my suggestions suck

[Johannes]

to stop stumpy self dmg just give it noselfdamage=1

[1v0ry_k1ng]

to stop stumpy self dmg just give it noselfdamage=1

that tag has a history of failure

[Gota]

OK to all people who say nerf stats and decrease cost...This will not fix anything unless you make it overall weaker and if so you dont necessarily need to make it cheaper.
Anyone who gives a suggestion IMO should first say what he thinks scouts should do and how they should play in game.

Personally i don't particularly like the "in base running around catching scouts between wind gen lines" gameplay.
If this gameplay is acceptable by XTA players scouts should not be touched since this is their only use atm and they are not cheap units.
If this gameplay mechanic annoys others as well than the scouts need to get an overhaul.


As i see it there are several solution:

1)make scouts cheaper and make them unable to deal any damage thus making them pure scouts that are excellent at it and worth it.

2)nerf scouts in the several possible ways;reduce their stats a lot and reduce cost just a bit,just reduce stats without changing cost.

3)make wind gens,mexes and metal converters have more HP thus leaving the scout to be just as good as killing everything for cost compared to everything else but overall less effective and damaging at the beginning.

4)shift the cost of build time to metal or energy thus making them less viable on start(ATM you get 300 build power for free at start form the commander thus in effect minimizing their cost disadvantage which is the build time) but at the same time not much different in mid or late game.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

Personally i don't particularly like the "in base running around catching scouts between wind gen lines" gameplay.
If this gameplay is acceptable by XTA players-

nah XTA players love that stuff