-HOTFIX!-

-Changelog: CAN WE FIX IT? Edition-

Features & Touch-ups:
-The Raider MG has been given proper plasma effects.

Balancing:
-The Alien Alloy Cannon can no longer damage vehicles or teamkill.
-The Alien Plasma Carbine can now damage vehicles.
-EXALT and XCOM Rocket Launchers rebalanced to better reflect their factions' playstyle.
-Alien Blaster Launcher accuracy greatly increased.
-Alien Blaster Launcher explosion radius increased to 6 (from 5.)
-Alien Blaster Launcher projectile speed increased to 50 (from 40.)

Bugfixes:
-None.

Credits:
-None.


Download Link updated.

That's exactly what I've used it as in the few instances that I've called one in. The bots will immediately pelt you with bullets the second you're in range and as the buggy has no defense whatsoever, you're most likely going to be killed if you try and do lightning fast drive-bys on groups of enemies.

Aside from controlling choke points and assisting assaults, it's a fantastic anti-vehicle option too. The MG tears through armour like butter which some might dislike but again... the buggy is flimsy as all hell. A single soldier firing at you can kill you in it much less a shot from any of the vehicles, so in that sense I think it's fine.

Alright, seeing as I've gone dark for a bit, I'm gonna post a small PSA to fill everyone in on what's going on now, and what I plan for the future.

Mod development hasn't ceased entirely, but it's been fairly slow going. If you haven't picked up on this already, I tend to update in quick, short bursts, before disappearing for a while. I update as motivation comes and goes. As I've said before, I'll always keep the mod updated to the latest version of RWR so people who enjoy it can continue to play it without issue.

That all being said, here are some goals I have for future updates:

-Easier-
-For the Aliens: Add the ADVENT Shieldbearer, the XCOM 2 Sectoid, and the UFO Defense Chryssalid.
-For EXALT: Major balancing, as EXALT seems to be a very strong defensive faction, which isn't my intent. Special grenades for this faction as well.
-For XCOM: Some new toys. Flamethrower will come at some point.
-Aesthetics: Proper retextures of some vehicles to better match their faction colors. A new loading scree banner is also in the works.

-Difficult and ambitious-
-Add the Enemy Unknown Drone to the Alien faction. Dedicated medics with negligible firepower.
-Adding some secret weapons to the special crates scattered around in some maps (XCOM Laser Weapons, for example)
-Adding secondary objectives (Cargo Trucks and Prison Buses) to quick match.

-A project by itself-
Something I've wanted to try for a long time is a non-playable minifaction that serves a similar purpose to Halo War's rebel faction. They guard resources, objectives, and maybe even some points on the map, but aren't a major threat in the long term. My idea is The Bureau's Zudjari. They have their own set of precision pulse laser weaponry, and only have a handful units in their faction. They have no vehicles to speak of, and their anti-armor is lackluster. There's just a few things I need to figure out to make this work.

-How to make it so that a faction's units will not go on the offensive whatsoever. (This can probably be done by tweaking settings in the AI files.)
-How to make it so that units will naturally spawn around certain objects, such as Cargo Trucks or Prison Buses (and how to only apply this to one faction.)
-How to make it so that a unit doesn't count towards a territory capture (so that the Zudjari cannot capture points.)

I already know how to make it so that the faction is unplayable, from looking at Tremozl's old zombie mod. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated (if any has extracted sounds from the Bureau, please send them my way.) You deserve to know what's going on, and what my goals for the future are. Sorry for the long post!

So a little progress report.

I've got a prototype ADVENT Shieldbearer done. His grenade ability isn't done yet, and I'm debating whether or not to actually go through with it. Here's the problem the problem is twofold. Most alien units already have vests, so his ability to provide a shield becomes somewhat unnecessary. I also haven't found a way to make it so units within an AoE are equipped with a certain item. So, I've begun to give him a small revision, and I've got a few things in mind. Either:

-Make him a heavy rifleman that attracts a lot of aggro and has thick armor (this is what he is currently.)
-Redesign his grenade ability as a kind of deployable cover (creates a ring of chest-high cover on impact, could comfortably hold 4-5 units.)

Will work on this further, feedback is greatly appreciated.

Next I've got the Scatter Grenade, based off of Warbrand's work with the MIRV grenade. So far, this is a slightly pricey grenade that you can hold up to two of. It does what it says on the tin; once thrown, it scatters into 6 small bombs that explode on impact. These bombs do the same damage and have the same radius as a vanilla 40mm shell. You cannot respawn with these. I'm working on making them EXALT exclusive, but so far that hasn't worked out well (EXALT's call list and armory get all kinds of scrambled.) I may make them available to all factions until I work that out.

Finally, working on some retextures. Basic stuff; just recoloring faction vehicles to better represent their faction. Alien vehicles will be purple, XCOM's tan, etc. This will hopefully give each faction a better sense of uniformity.

Getting back into the swing of things, so expect more updates like this. Gonna work on the Classic 'Lid next. Oh, and I made a little banner for the thread in Photoshop. Check the OP.

Hmm, depending on how the shieldbearer's grenade would work with the deployable cover, I could see some potential annoyances occuring depending on how often the AI might use the grenade with poor thought processes. Would he be throwing this grenade toward clusters of enemies like the rest of the AI or will he specifically target friendlies with it?

If your second choice doesn't work out then the first would work fine for him, I think, though if you really wanted to make him live up to his name, I would consider preventing all Alien units (the bosses specifically all seem to do this without fail,) from using the riot shield aside from him. Perhaps even granting him a unique type of riot shield that is a little bit larger than the default, protection wise.

I'm not too certain about the limitations of RWR and how difficult it is for asset manipulation, but I think the vehicle recolouring is an awesome idea and I really hope you can pull it off nicely! Would it be possible to also change the Alien vehicles to fire plasma projectiles too? Just to complete the aesthetic and all.

The scatter grenade certainly sounds like it would be a welcome addition and Exalt could certainly use a little love and I have something of an idea/suggestion for you to consider that may be able to fit this grenade in nicely:

I have noticed that within RWXcom you have not included the briefcase RP item. I was thinking that you could potentially attach powerful items to it that unlock when it is returned to an armory (similar to the way briefcases unlock in the vanilla game,) which would allow the inclusion of Xcom Laser weaponry and maybe grant access to say, the Ethereal Psi-amp and such. Even some armours too. I think it would be a decent way to emulate the 'research' aspect of the Xcom titles in a presentable way within RWR though the challenge would probably revolve around making it a fairly rare drop from AI. Perhaps only allowing boss units to carry them?

Also I've been meaning to ask you for some time now, but have you ever considered or tried to get your mod working with the campaign mode of RWR? I made a stab at it myself and I did manage to allow the campaign to be started but most of the armory was all messed up.

...I'm dreading the classic Chryssalid making its debut (awful memories of ironman runs in UFO defense,) -especially- if you somehow find a way to make its iconic ability work. I'm pretty sure that's not possible within RWR but...

This is what I'm considering. The only problem with this is that I currently have no idea how to prevent the Aliens from using the riot shield. I've tried in the past to get this to work (removing the shield from their resources file,) but that had no effect. Acake successfully did this, but even after examining his mod file, I can't really figure out how. Probably will go with your suggestion and give him a big ass shield that's wide enough for a few guys to hide behind.



Texture editing is no biggie. I can just extract the vanilla textures and edit them in Photoshop. Photoshop is smart, powerful, and easy to use, so I'm confident I can make them look nice. I can make the guns on Alien vehicles fire plasma too, but I'm considering making them ADVENT vehicles that fire rails/MAG rounds. Considering how OP the Alien Raider is right now, I'm probably going to make it ADVENT as well. Plus, I think that the conventional vehicles of RWR fit more nicely into the ADVENT motif.



A briefcase? That's a thing? I'll absolutely look into this, I didn't even know that was a mechanic in vanilla. I've got 100+ hours into this game and I've never touched the campaign. Make of that what you will.



I've tried my hand at this as well, and I ran into the exact same problem. I've been meaning to give it another shot for a long time now. I'll probably ask around for help, I know a few modders who have had success making their mods work in campaign.



I don't think there's a way to emulate their ability in RWR. There's a number of zombie mods out there, and none of them have managed to do something similar. I just don't think there's a way you could cheat the system to make it work. Don't worry though, they'll be tough enough on their own.

Well, after playing the update after not playing RWR for a while...and I have to be honest with you. IT WAS A VAST IMPROVEMENT! . After playing aliens and EXALT I was very happy with the improvements. I had this moment of "I AM GOING TO DESTROY YOU!" as a alien. I had a moment of "Dont see me dont see me don-SHIT! SHOOT AND RUN!" Moment when I was sneaking with EXALT. As I played as XCOM I felt like I was getting hammered when I kept getting hit by plasma. The Aliens have had a nice improvement from last time I commented. I could easily hold a line once I got entrenched, but in the open, lets just say the ten people that were following me went...MIA. I like the chat that EXALT has, they seem to have that insurgent feel to them now. I also like the Alien chatter as well. I didnt see much improvement on XCOM chatter but its ok. I like the new charger ADVENT Stunner I think he is called. Although I feel he is kinda weak when I hit him with the assault rifle. The standard Plasma Rifle of the aliens is very nice, even more so when Im able to stick to cover and pink a tank and take it down. "I SHALL MELT THE TANK AROUND YOU!". Although I have had the FF incidents, not nearly as bad as other people have said. But I also can accidentally kill myself when my character doesnt lean over the cover and shoots the cover, killing himself. All in all, a really good improvement from last time. I am happy with this update, I am excited to see what you do in the future.

Holy shit man, your mod got me 1,000 views. I'm gonna be doing a mere update video, with hopefully better quality commentary and stuff . But seriously, thank you all for watching and actually liking my stuff.

(Story here)I was just playing Xcom at Keepsake bay against aliens, I managed to get the building with the nice overlook over the docks, (The west side of the map) I held the line there and I even managed to set up a mini gun there for a time. I was pretty much an immovable object vs and unstoppable force, it was awesome. As I held the line with the mini gun I had fun suppressing as my forces moved up. Sadly, I got into a pretty long firefight with an APC, it lasted longer than it should. I lost the mini gun then continued to hold the line with an Advant rifle. (Suggestion here)I soon thought, "Shoulden't Advent be more...Expendable?" The rifles of advent seem REALLY powerful! I also kept finding Advent captains HIGHER ranks than Earthreals! I also thought that when I play as aliens, shouldent I be advent? Like you gave up on humanity and threw your lot in with the aliens. I was thinking normal advent without armor should be normal. With normal armor will be the Shielders, the Covert will be those Stunners, and the Top armour of course, the Captain. There, I wrote another thing and got some thoughts in, what you do, is what you do..I suppose..

First off I wish to offer my heart felt thanks for your wonderful work on this amazing mod! Secondly I think you should add a campaign mode to this mod. I realize that modding can be a very time consuming labor of love. I personally am working on modding another game (World of Tanks Blitz). So I realize the amount of digging and thinking that an happen. however, I believe that this would become a even more stellar mod if you could add that important piece of the full experience.