Nevermind, figured it out!

Is there a way to determine which areas of a UFO are breachable beyond memory? I'm trying to breach a carrier on the front-right third deck breach point, and while breaching a Cruiser had a greyed area that marked the breach point, the Carrier doesn't have that and I don't know where to put the breach charge.

I appreciate the response. It seems to be mostly fixed.

@cypermasq: I'm afraid it's a bug with some UFO types. I spent *a lot* of time back in the day trying to work it out and couldn't get anywhere. I don't remember if save/reloading helps but otherwise I don't have any useful suggestions for you (sorry).

This might be an issue thats already been resolved but I can't find an answer. I am having trouble getting the roof of the UFO to disappear to give me a proper interior view.

@Kitten Souflle: D'oh. But glad you sorted it!

Welp, I uninstalled the mod, moved it up and down the priority list, tried multiple breaching charges on the same spot only to realize, I was off by a single tile on the breaching charge placement every time. Feel so dumb. Many thanks for the video. Honestly think the video should be linked in the mod description. Extremely helpful.

@Kitten Souffle: Not sure what the issue might be here. Try selecting a weapon to attack with and scanning the UFO hull. That should help you identify where the breach points are, since the destructible hull segments will show up separate to the rest of the hull. If nothing like that shows up, and if you can't see an obvious hole already, I guess the mod is not installed correctly. Otherwise, only think I can think of is maybe you've not quite placed the charge in the right place (it can sometimes be a bit hard to tell).

I don't know if it will help but here's an old video demoing the mod: https://youtu.be/gDXoZ9copgU around a minute or two in is where I breach the hull.

I have the mod installed and get the alternate UFOs. I can even see the rubble looking breach sites however, whenever I prime the breaching charge and place it next to the rubble spot on a crashed UFO, the breaching charge explodes only on the tile it was dropped on and does not affect the 'breaching zone' in any visible way. Am I using the charge incorrectly? I cannot figure out how to break the rubble looking walls on the UFOs outside of the breaching charge.

@Caramel - did I write instructions in the Xenopedia entry for the breaching charge? I don't remember now. In any case, it is mentioned in the tips above, so it is explained somewhere!

okay, that's fair, but maybe have something that mentions that? I was so confused...

@Caramel - yeah, I think I gave them a range of 0 to mitigate against them being used as a weapon (they have massive damage, so it would be easy to exploit).

right...apparently you need to drop it. I thought you used it as an actual weapon

I can't seem to use the breaching charges. Whenever they are selected the hit chance is always 0 and left clicking doesn't work.

@Brotherman Bill - I take it this is with an ongoing game? You may need to start a new game to get the mod to work properly (that's certainly true in terms of accessing some of the equipment / technologies the mod adds - I'm not sure what would be causing crashes / freezes but it's a very long time since I was working on this so I'm probably forgetting something).

installed this mod but unfortunattely last save crashes and preveious save has issue that geo map is unclickable :(

@darkdill: ah, that's what you were referring to. I thought you meant in general. You might be able to stop it spreading by destroying the grass/wheat (I don't remember if the remnants burn or not)? But probably simpler/safer just to let it burn out.

This issue tends to crop up on maps where a UFO crashes into a farm field. The wheat really burns easily.

@darkdill - I don't think there is any way to extinguish fires, no. Unless, possibly, the game will only allow one smoke/fire effect on a tile at the same time, so it is possible that applying a smoke effect will erase it (either that, or the fire will block the smoke from appearing). Might be worth a try sometime to see, otherwise I think you need to wait (it should only take a couple of turns for them to burn out though - I'm honestly surprised this has been an issue for you).

Yeah, I figured out I was dropping the charges in the wrong spot. I thought you were supposed to drop them next to the small piles of blueish rocks, but that's not the case.

One other thing I found that's a bit annoying is that on rare occasions (i.e. farm maps), the UFO was entirely surrounded by fire, both at the breach points and any paths my soldiers could take to reach the front door of the UFO, meaning it couldn't be infiltrated. Kind of annoying.

Is there a way to put out fires early on? Or do you just have to wait a long while?

@Darkdill: there are only specified places where UFO hulls can be breached. These should be obvious in most cases - if you're not sure, select an attack and mouse over the hull as you should be able to find the bits that can be damaged where they highlight.

The hull sections are also intended only to be destructable using specified weapons - the breaching charge and later plasma breaching charge. It's not clear to me whether you are using these or just conventional weapons - the latter can be used but it will take a lot of firepower (explosives are not actually very effective - terrain has no armour value, so multiple small-damage attacks like from a machine gun are actually a lot more efficient than explosive weapons).

If neither of these points addresses the issue, I can only assume there's a problem with the install or priority given to the mod.

The walls seem to be invulnerable. I can't break them open even with Plasma Charges.

Put FitH in the top of the priority list above everything as right and proper lit some incense said a prayer and restarted my campaign.. Just completed research into plasma explosives... and nothing.. I need this I need more demo charges they are soo useful for making my own doors into the bridges of UFOs I mean.. There's nothing like taking cover. and removing entire bulkheads of bridge. Instead of sending my ppl to get shot one by one through a door. Boom goes the Wall and I have heavy machine gunners ready! *insert evil Laugh*

@raneko - yeah, that will probably be it. It might be they will work together if you give FitH priority over XXP but don't know for sure. Might not apply to an existing game though (e.g. if you have already unlocked the required tech, changing the mod order won't correct the issue). Might work ifyou have an older save game though.

@Kabill I'm using other mods including the XXP Think there could be a issue with Fire in the whole and the XXP?

@raneko: are you using any other mods? Might be an incompatibility/load order issue

I have plasma explosives but I'm still forced to use the big bulky Breaching charge.. Help?

@Ced: it should be, in principle. But the same point applies as I made previously - there's no way to do that without either making it overpowered as a weapon (as it would need much higher damage), or making hulls easily destroyed by anything (which then misses the point)

addendum: would the graviton be better for breaching?

I'm approaching it from a standpoint that it's Unproven. If it ends up tanking, I'll disable the mod. No biggee.

Love the changes, btw! I'm hoping there'll be no problems.

It might work but it might also overwrite some changes made to the UFOs by X Division. For example, UFO loot (like alloys and alenium) is determined by map items, so it might intersect with those (if e.g. there is more / less of this kind of loot in X Division). It might be fine, I don't know but might be worth checking before getting too invested, in case it screws you over later down the line.

I installed the mod in my X DIV game; so far, it seems to work just fine!

@PharaohTet: I suspect the answer is no but I would recommend asking the X Division authors. It is not impossible it has this mod integrated in some form.

Is this compatible with X Division?

@Ced:
1) The mod makes no changes to alien bases so you can't breach the UFOs there.
2) You can use any weapon to breach but it will take a lot of shots. Because of how damage mechanics against terrain work, I think it is actually more efficient to use a heavy automatic weapon (plasma/mag machine gun). Terrain has no damage reduction, so all that matters is total damage output, and a full burst from a heavy automatic weapon will outperform explosive weapons on single-target damage. (No, I'm not happy with it either, but that's how the game works.)

Can the Singularity cannon be used to breach?

Can you breach the docked UFO's in alien bases?

I'll give that a shot. Targeting over the hull never showed any breach points besides the one mentioned, but I'll take your word for it.

@floatybones: there are breach points leading into the engine rooms at ground level as well, 90 degrees either way around from the front entrance.

Landing ships so far have been a nightmare. The only breach point I can see is in the roof of the landing ship, and since I don't have buzzard armor yet I'm forced to go through the entrance of the UFO and have gotten squad wiped nearly every time...

@Ced: Absolutely, yes.

Is this community edition compatable?

(Continued) In any case, regarding the specific suggestion, I'm not sure there's a way to prevent the engine rooms being vulnerable to the balcony (other than a complete overhaul, or removing the doors into the cargo bay). Put another way, it wasn't strictly my intention for aliens to be able to shoot in there, it's just the nature of the general layout (and possibly some weird LoS stuff because vertical LoS is not well modelled in the game).

@Radient Dawn: You can only get shot from the balcony in the engine rooms if the side doors are open, so best not to let that happen!

My strategy for attacking Landing Ships has been to approach from three directions, attacking from the main entrance and both breach points at the same time. You can keep a couple of soldiers around the side of the main door, such that they can open it and scout inside without making themselves vulnerable. If you have a vehicle or a couple of snipers you can clear out spotted aliens from safety and otherwise keep them pinned down while the side teams move into position to attack the teleporter room. Shotgun-armed soldiers are generally fast and powerful enough to take out anything that comes down the teleporter.

Not gonna lie, I find Landing Ships troublesome too. But it is possible to assault them without just camping.

Another question is a Landing Ship layout. LS assault from the main entrance is a D-day cosplay, since the main room is the death zone -- it can be shot through from left and right sections, and from any place on the balcony. Furthermore, side sections can be shot shot from the balcony too -- the only cover is the teleporter section in the back, where your troops can be easily taken down by down-teleported guys.

Overall conclusion -- landing ship layout encourages only passive approach, with a very long corner gunfight to kill all the balcony defenders before getting to the bridge. There's no cover before any aliens above will be killed.

But I cannot deny, from the visual side it looks awesome. Just needs some attention to make the ship interior more suitable for the gameplay. My suggestion is to make the side sections safe from the balcony fire, to make some place where your troops can fortify before the attack continues.

@kabill I can agree with that. It WOULD be silly if it worked like in the movie "The Gauntlet," where the corrupt cops who want to kill Clint Eastwood and the witness he's protecting send the SWAT team and they literally fire SO many holes into the safehouse that it collapses. They escape, of course, but yes, it'd be silly for the troops to be able to do that.

I DO approve of the "Rockets aren't COMPLETELY useless once you get to the ship" idea, though. I'm cool with it taking three or four rockets because yes, they wouldn't be as effective as a shaped breaching charge like you've made.

@Radiant Dawn: I don't necessarily disagree with you. But in practice, 3-4 rockets is about the same as a single machinegun burst, which is the kind of thing I was trying to avoid. Without being able to give damage reduction to terrain, anything that makes conventional explosives effective for breaching makes firearms moreso, because firearms do more actual damage to target.

(Am interested to see how Xenonauts 2 deals with this. They seem to have opted for fully destructable UFO hulls which is cool but if you can blast through with M16s it'll be a bit silly!)

I see both your points. I'm Greek, we like old-fashioned philosophical debates, not the internet kind, so I went in prepared to be wrong and your reasons are good.

Guess I'm just too much of a fan of the 3rd Doctor Era. "I say, Benton. Chap with the wings, five rounds rapid."

I mostly agree with kabill here, except the case if there's a possibility to make variable armor panel HP depending on craft. For example, 3-4 rocket hits for Scout and 3-4 fusion rocket hits on Carrier or larger crafts would give a player a choice and still keep breaching charges viable.

If there's no possibility to do so or just no time/will from kabill's side, the current mod's state is still satisfying in all ways (except, maybe, researchable charges - i will think about a kind of a submod after finishing some translations).

@captaindefenstrator: this was actually a deliberate decision on my part, to make breaching charges useful. If HP are too low, it becomes too easy to shoot out the breaches with regular weapons. Given the tactical advantages afforded by using breach points, giving them some kind of barrier-to-access was important. And while I'd be happy for explosives to also be useful, there's no way of doing this within the constraints of the game mechanics.