Xenonauts Forums - Xenonauts Suggestions & Feature Requests

Uniforms

hachiryoku — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:51:24 GMT

Optional uniforms? I noticed the Army guy and a few other things like cops. Would it be hard to add those to options of player uniforms? Maybe even come out with some others as well. Desert cammies, black SWAT, etc.

I'm sure you have a million other things to do. This is just a thought for the future.

Wouldn't mind being able to select the faces as well.

Love what you've done so far. Closest thing to the original X-Com, but yet it has it's own feel.

[GEOSCAPE] Keep real UFOs' names hidden until researched

smoitessier — Fri, 17 May 2013 09:35:32 GMT

I think it would add more suspense if the first time you encountered a new UFO in an air battle you didn't know what you were up against, i.e. light scout? Strike Cruiser? Fighters heavy or otherwise.

Return of the tiles

flashman — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:26:55 GMT

18.5/4 are missing several tiles from 18.3

These seem trivial but they are very useful tiles and removing tiles breaks custom maps between builds.

Having access to 5x5 version of tiles makes it easier to map without having to fix every single road/pavement because you needed to put a 10x10 ground down for 2 squares.

soviettown/ground
Indus_concrete_5x5
Indus_concrete_10x10

Town/ground
grey_concrete_5x5

Support for burst fire on area-of-effect weapons.

Ol' Stinky — Thu, 16 May 2013 10:19:56 GMT

Disclaimer: if this is merely me being a programming noob, please tell me what I'm mucking up, and I'll withdraw the suggestion. Thanks!

At the moment, it seems that if you change a weapon to have an explosive effect, it can't be burst fire as well. It's not any kind of issue with the game because, well, no area of effect weapons are meant to have a burst fire mode as things stand.

So, consider this modified rifle that causes explosions (as an example, not as something I'm looking to put in).

Code:

I know you guys have your hands full at the moment with game-critical matters - and I only ask because I don't know how much work it would actually be to implement. But it would be cool as hell to be able to make player-plasma weapons different from the other tiers by having explosive effects, or to give the aliens a bit more variety in weaponry.

Add a soldier's health in the dropship screen

smoitessier — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:06:31 GMT

It would be great to see a soldier's health on the soldiers' equipment screen, right now it's kind of hard figuring out who is wounded before launching a mission, you have to switch to the hiring screen for that... feels counter-intuitive.

Show map name

Mothman — Tue, 14 May 2013 08:28:52 GMT

Hey,

with the real beta coming closer and closer every day there are more people who start doing maps now.
At the latest when Xenonauts is finished there will be a lot of maps from different people. I assume that most of you will do it like me: Download all the map packs and install them at once. How many maps will that be? Probably enough to make me not want to look at each to see if they are good/not bad. But if I encounter a map ingame, that is bugged or just no fun, because I don't like the style the creator has: How do I find out which XML to delete?

I suggest an option or a parameter to the desktop shortcut, that displays the map-name unobtrusive somewhere on the loading screen right before and after a mission.

Button on top menu for "Drop Ship Management" screen?

Pypok — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:46:18 GMT

Maybe add a small button right next to the plane icon to go directly to drop ship management screen? Won't add that much space and will be a nice little addition.

Two ground combat AI issues: Sorties and line of sight

Bromley86 — Mon, 13 May 2013 09:02:23 GMT

Sorties

I loved the feeling of surprise when I first strolled up to a UFO door only to have the aliens rush out and shoot me. Likewise, I appreciated it (even if I didn't like the death of my entire team) when, having wondered around the alien base blasting a few sleepy Wraiths, I first approached the control room and was rushed by a load of psychotic, armoured, alien-RPG-wielding maniacs.

I've got a feeling that there's a precise on-off trigger for this behaviour though. In the case of the alien base, it seems to be opening of the outer door (but that's based on just 2 missions, so I may be wrong). Variety of trigger and variety of response would be a good thing. Triggers might be 50% outer door, 25% inner door and 25% one/more of the doors elsewhere. Response might be 50% sortie and each turn after the trigger it'd perform the check again with a reduced probability (say 50%, 25%, 13%, 6%, 3%, 0%). Perhaps also a 1% chance each turn that they'll just rush out anyway, trigger or no.

Similar triggers could apply to the UFO sorties.

Line of sight

I've often heard shooting and alien screams and wondered what was going on. In a base defence mission I got to see; the aliens in other hangers were firing at closed doors and walls in an effort to kill a guy one of their buddies had spotted. That's fine, assuming they have a chance of drilling through the walls, although they might be better off trying to join the fight. A bigger problem is that, whilst I don't think they shoot at their own, they don't mind shooting the avalanche torp and killing their own or themselves. Thinking about it, I'm sure I saw a UFO explode in v18.3 because of a similar thing.

Small, probably unpopular request about Hidden Movement screen

ladlon — Sun, 12 May 2013 00:48:36 GMT

Hi, I'm eagerly awaiting the Steam version to pre-order Xenonauts. Looks great so far, guys.

I actually have a small(?) request, which I suspect will be shot down. I would ask only that it be an optional setting, as I never want to suggest changing/removing/adding something that may affect other people's enjoyment of the game.

Simply put, I was wondering if it would be possible to have an on screen 'Hidden Movement' text over the play area (big text superimposed over the existing play area), rather than cutting to the existing 'hidden movement' image/text. The reason being, I personally find the jumping back and forth between the play area and that graphic a bit... jarring?.... annoying... I fully get why it's there (hidden movement, afterall!), but I personally think the same thing can be achieved by simply freezing the gaming area (rather than cutting away from it), and just putting the text 'HIDDEN MOVEMENT' superimposed over it.

Again, make it optional, so those who want it (or want to be fully faithful to the original X-Com) can have it, obviously. I just personally find it kind of throws me out of the moment, and subconsciously almost feels like a 'Footage Missing' kind of graphic!

Besides, having the gaming area still visible would not only be less jarring (at least to me!), but would allow you to still ponder the tactics/area, and might even add some paranoia, as you view the buildings, etc, wondering where that movement is happening.

But, ya, mostly because I just personally find the switch to the graphic a bit intrusive.

Please don't bash me on this, fellow gamers! I just was wondering if this could be an optional thing. I can't imagine it would be hard to do, and wouldn't mess up/compromise anything, as far as I can see.

Just my two cents... Thanks!

Feature/Mod Request: Hour lines on the globe

Waladil — Sat, 11 May 2013 20:12:45 GMT

This is something that seems really easy to add, so easy that I might do it myself, in point of fact. It wont look as good as if someone with better image editing skills/programs did it, but it would work. Anyway, the actual suggestion:

Add 24 lines on the globe images, evenly spaced, representing hour marks. These would be for people, such as myself, who have a distinct preference for certain mission times. Me? I hate night missions. I much prefer to do day missions if possible, so I try and time my Chinook launches to arrive before dusk/after dawn.

Basically the way it would work is you would get a crash site, and the ETA of the Chinook. Then, wait for the terminator to be the appropriate number of lines away from the crash site. (If you've got a 2:30 ETA, then 2 1/2 sections away, etc.) Launch at that point and you'll arrive at the desired time!

Yes, you can ballpark this now, and I do so constantly. But having a visual aid would be nice.

EDIT: Started work myself. It really is far cruder than what someone better than I could do, but it works.

Slowing down the game when UFO's land?

Pypok — Sat, 11 May 2013 18:23:35 GMT

I know it's not a big deal, but I was just wondering why not slow down the game to 5sec when the UFO's that are flying around land (become green)? Sometimes I don't react in time to slow down the game manually.

A confirmation dialogue for trying to do a mission with one or more unarmed troops.

Tiktaalik — Sat, 11 May 2013 03:13:04 GMT

I seem to forget to arm my troops a lot since I cycle them out usually because of injuries. At this moment I'm in a mission with my first encounter with Harridans and I've got one guy sitting in the dropship like a no friends loner because I forgot to arm him when I added him to the team. I've done it a few times and at the is point I can't reload a save where this ground mission is available waiting.

What might be a bit helpful would be a confirmation dialogue that would pop up when you attempt to go on a mission with one or more unarmed soldiers. Something like, "One or more of your troops are unequipped. Continue?"

Personnel/Training screen and character class

Bromley86 — Thu, 09 May 2013 09:29:28 GMT

There might be training later in the game. If not, rename this to just Personnel?

More importantly, would it be possible to include that useful character class tag that's now visible on the Soldier Equipment page? There's potential for letter overflow, but there's likely some spare space in the Armour and Status fields.

EDIT: Knew there was something I'd forgotten. Ability to change armour on this screen would be useful if you've just rotated the injured people off the dropship and need to reissue their armour to their replacements.

Scoring

Bromley86 — Wed, 08 May 2013 08:38:02 GMT

UPDATE

Played loads of L. Scout and Scout missions, and with the below they all came in at 100-135. Couple of Corvettes which came in at 120 & 135.

Played 3 terror missions that came in at 380, 320 & 305. Those were played with the Xeno casualty penalty set to -5. I've increased that to -10 and added the escape alien penalty to failed missions to avoid positive terror scores when you lose.

Changes from original suggestion in italics:

50 UFO
100 base attack/defence
150 terror site
10 Aliens killed
15 Aliens captured
5 Local Forces surviving
15 Civilians surviving

-10 Xenonauts killed
-20 Vehicles lost
-5 Local forces killed
-10 Local forces killed by Xenonauts
-5 Civilians killed
-20 Civilians killed by Xenonauts
-10 Aliens escaped

------------------------
ORIGINAL POST

Had a look, but couldn't see a discussion on score.

At the moment, it's all very samey. There's also no reason to place your chaps in danger in order to save civilians (civilian dies, you lose a couple of points) and little penalty for going Rambo with the rocket launcher in a school. At the end, your score will be 11X.

The UFO recovery is important, but there should be some recognition that killing 9 aliens is a little tougher than 3.

50 UFO
15 Aliens killed
25 Aliens captured
5 Local Forces surviving
20 Civilians surviving

-5 Xenonauts killed
-20 Vehicles lost
-5 Local forces killed
-10 Local forces killed by Xenonauts
-5 Civilians killed
-20 Civilians killed by Xenonauts
-?? Aliens escaped

Take a typical small scout mission with 3 aliens, 1 LF & 1 civ, aliens all killed and everyone else surviving. Current score 111, score using above 120 (50+45+5+20). So higher than the current level, but with a greatly increased downside.

Each Xenonaut killed costs you 5; each civilian killed 25; each local force killed 10. The cost of losing your guys is relatively low because you're already taking a massive hit when you lose one (all that experience and �10k to hire a replacement).

If a civilian at risk of imminent death next turn, at 25 points you might risk your fellows to save them. If there's nothing you can do to save them though, you'll have an incentive not to mow them down yourself as that'll increase the points loss by another 15.

I've never seen an alien escape, so I don't know how that should be scored. I'll revisit this once I've played a terror mission to see is it massively unbalances the score there.

Mute Music/Effects option

Mothman — Mon, 06 May 2013 19:51:28 GMT

I feel stupid for requesting something like that (because the ingame music rocks and who turns sound effects off?) but when I tried to turn off the music, I could only set the volume to 1 as a minimum. It would be nice if the minimum was 0 so the game music and other sources don't mix.

Before anybody starts throwing stones: Was was working with the leveleditor and listening to mp3s. And when I tested the maps I just happend to notice that you can't mute the music in Xenonauts. :p

It just doesn't feel right to have an ingame volume control panel without the possibility to mute something.