http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/ This forum contains announcements and progress updates from the development team. Only developers can start threads in this forum. en Sat, 18 May 2013 14:22:59 GMT vBulletin 3 http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/images/misc/rss.png http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/ http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/5110-V18-5-AI-Hotfix-%28Unofficial-Semi-Fix%29?goto=newpost Fri, 17 May 2013 12:02:54 GMT Seems the AI is a bit broken in V18.5 (there's a bug in the game where the aliens can't see your units, so they won't shoot at you).

This will be addressed in V18.51 shortly along with a number of other issues, but in the meantime you can download an updated .exe below and have aliens shooting at you again.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/.../AI_Hotfix.zip

Two things to note:

1) Please don't report bugs from this build. It's not an official release, it's just to tide everyone over until V18.51 in a couple of days.

2) The Version number says V17.9 on it. Ignore it.

3) The AI is still bugged. The aliens currently see your troops wherever they may be, but are unaware about intervening objects. So they'll stand where they are and "mine" their way through props and walls to reach their targets.

We're working on fixing this up and we'll release V18.51 when it is working correctly. But at least they're aware the Xenonauts exist now. ]]> Chris http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/5110-V18-5-AI-Hotfix-%28Unofficial-Semi-Fix%29 http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/5092-Forum-Upgrade?goto=newpost Thu, 16 May 2013 12:18:58 GMT The forums have been rather slow for the last couple of days, as many of the regulars will have noticed. We've upgraded our hosting package now to have much more RAM, hopefully this will speed things up significantly and also stop our site collapsing immediately after a major site links to us. ]]> Chris http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/5092-Forum-Upgrade http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/5017-V18-5-Released%21?goto=newpost Mon, 13 May 2013 10:04:26 GMT We have just released Build V18.5. This is basically V18.4 with an AI patch, some stability fixes and a little more content. The Standalones are... We have just released Build V18.5. This is basically V18.4 with an AI patch, some stability fixes and a little more content.

The Standalones are available on Desura already - get them here, if you are logged into the Desura site.

I've also taken a leap of faith and released V18.5 to the branch releases (still awaiting authorisation), as they've not been updated since V18 HF1. Let's hope there's no game-breaking bugs in it, eh?

CHANGELOG:

• File Compression: We have disabled the texture atlases for this build, so loading times will be slower. However, the white tile bug was caused by insufficient engine memory being available, so I'm hoping that removing the texture atlases will cure this. Let me know if it works.
• AI Patch: The AI has had another update. The aliens are now better at decision making, and will thus now shoot at your units when you would expect them to do so. This means they will punish your mistakes far more, and the game is much better for it. I'd say the AI is now as good as, if not better, than the AI in the original game (edit - it emerges this is perhaps not the case). Again, if you disagree then let us know why.
• Xenopedia: I've nearly finished all the non-UFO and non-autopsy research descriptions now, and I've run a spellcheck on it. There's still areas of inconsistency in it which will be addressed later, but we're getting there. New Shrike art too.
• Bleed Icon: Soldiers who are suffering from bleeding now have a blood drop icon on their soldier portrait.
• Automatic Finish: The missions now end immediately when the final alien is killed.
• Combat Shield: This is back in.

BUGFIXES:

• Crash bug on loading a mission has been fixed
• Right-clicking with a vehicle weapon no longer causes a crash.
• Renaming the "Rifleman" soldier role no longer causes a crash when new soldiers are hired
• Mission score is now correctly added to the nation relations score after a mission
• Smoke no longer propagates incredibly slowly.
• Ridiculous Geoscape square cursor replaced with arrow one.
• Opening soldier inventory over an Alien Battle Rifle no longer crashes the game.
• Alien Base missions now have alien spawn points set correctly, so they don't all spawn in the Command Room.
• Downed UFOs can no longer be detected as flying UFOs after being shot down.

Hopefully this will be a much more stable experience than V18.4. The AI should make a big difference to the game too. ]]> Chris http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/5017-V18-5-Released%21 http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4893-Build-V18-4-Released%21?goto=newpost Sun, 05 May 2013 15:30:36 GMT This is the proposed Steam stable build. The only updates that will be made to it are bugfixes and small balance changes or animation updates (made... This is the proposed Steam stable build. The only updates that will be made to it are bugfixes and small balance changes or animation updates (made to the XML files). This code has been branched completely from the main trunk now and will also form the basis for the new demo that will come when we launch on Steam.

For now it is only the standalone. Please give it a try, because I want to roll it out to the Desura branches quickly but just need confirmation it is stable first. Any bug reports would be much appreciated, particularly crash bugs or things that make the game unplayable.

The Standalones are currently awaiting authorisation by Desura.

CHANGELOG:

• The biggest change is that we've started using the texture atlases and file archives again. This should reduce ground combat load times by about 50%, and also reduce the file count of a full install of the game from about 140,000 files down to 38,000 (we can't get on Steam with 140k). I've given it a quick test and it seems to work, BUT it needs a proper check. If any images are not displaying, please tell me - this will be because of the file archiving.
• The UFO datacores should be working and should unlock technology correctly again.
• There's now a UFO Analysis research project for each type of crashed UFO - a bit like an autopsy for the alien races. This pops up automatically. We will add them for the UFOs that don't leave crash sites too, but not for this build.
• Various updated animations and fixed tiles. Also some newly-painted prop art for the Middle East and Town tilesets.
• When you click on an alien spotted icon in the ground combat, they are now highlighted in red for a second.
• Cover walls (i.e. waist high walls) are no longer turned invisible by a unit's transparency aura.
• Large props are now turned invisible by a unit's transparency aura.
• If a unit is crouching and fire their weapon, the projectile is offset downwards by 20px instead of coming out of their faces.
• Smoke and suppression no longer propagates through walls (but an open window will allow it to spread as if the wall were not there).
• Hypervelocity has been disabled for this build. There's an issue in the accuracy code where a hypervelocity weapon will always display 0% chance of shooting over a prop if it does not cause enough damage to shoot through it if it were to hit it (the calculation doesn't consider that the unit might shoot around it instead it).
• If a soldier is assigned a new role, he will automatically also be assigned the default loadout of that role.
• There is now a Comms Array in an alien base. Recovering it will allow you to build the equivalent of the Hyperwave Decoder.
• Light Scouts can now Evasive Roll and contain one more alien in crash sites.
• UFOs should no longer chain-lock a slower interceptor if you try to run away. Now they will lose interest after an interceptor has retreated once.
• There are more Xenopedia descriptions than there were before, and a few pieces of new art.
• Various other small bugfixes.

Changes that will be made before the final build:

• The launcher video is going to be disabled, as it still causes some people issues with startup.
• The Buzzard Scatter Laser and Sebillian Elite sprites will be updated to fix Giganto Soldier and keep the Elite consistent with the other Sebillians.

I am going to be working on the Xenopedia in the hopes of having that (provisionally) done for the Steam version. The only other thing that might make it into an update is an AI update to make the aliens a bit less passive. ]]> Chris http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4893-Build-V18-4-Released%21 http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4764-Build-V18-3-Hotfix-2-Released%21?goto=newpost Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:55:31 GMT A very quick update, this one. Two changes: 1) I forgot to remove the developer code that forced the final mission, so it appeared immediately in... A very quick update, this one. Two changes:

1) I forgot to remove the developer code that forced the final mission, so it appeared immediately in HF1. It does not do so in HF2.

2) I set the wrong ammo items to be unlimited in HF1, so it meant that plasma / laser etc cells were not appearing at all. This is now fixed.

HF2 contains all the fixes from HF1 in it. Just copy it into the directory and replace all the files:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...183hotfix2.rar

EDIT - actually, just added another small fix (why not?) - Wolf Armour and Laser Weapons are now split out in the research tree, both only requiring one precursor technology rather than being linked together. ]]> Chris http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4764-Build-V18-3-Hotfix-2-Released%21 http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4744-Build-V18-3-Hotfix-1-Released%21?goto=newpost Wed, 24 Apr 2013 20:01:32 GMT Right, there's been a bit more work done since we started releasing V18.3 so you can find the changes in the archive at the links below. To apply it, just extract the files into your Xenonauts directory and overwrite the existing files:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...183hotfix2.rar (link updated to Hotfix 2, which includes Hotfix 1)


CHANGELOG:

• There's now a flat accuracy bonus for short-range shooting. If the target is within 5 tiles, the shooter gets a flat 8% boost to hit per tile, maxing out at 40%.
• The % chance of the power cores exploding on a crashed ufo is now 20% instead of 50%.
• Significant boost to strength of defensive turrets. Each now does slightly more damage than a Torpedo of the equivalent tech level.
• New Xenopedia images for the Reaper autopsy, Praetor autopsy and the Alien Sniper Plasma.
• Ammo for infantry Laser, Plasma and MAG weapons is now available in unlimited quantities on research.
• The Electroshock grenade is also available in unlimited quantities on research.
• Aircraft, vehicles, armour and weapons now have a sell value of 50% of their build cost.
• Manufacturing has been rebalanced to reduce mid-to-late game build times and somewhat reduce build costs. However, alien alloy / alenium costs have now been added to all appropriate projects (previously plasma weapons etc didn't have any cost).
• Research has been rebalanced to have longer research times for most things after Laser Weapons.
• Marauder and Saracen aircraft art swap has now occurred (Saracen is still disabled by default).

• Sight Ranges have been updated for both humans and aliens to stop reaction fire being such a massive issue:
  
  • Human Vehicles: 17 tiles
  • Basic: 16 tiles
  • Jackal: 14 tiles
  • Wolf: 15 tiles
  • Buzzard: 16 tiles
  • Predator: 15 tiles
  • Sentinel: 17 tiles
  • Most aliens: 17 tiles
  • Sebillians: 15 tiles
  • Harridans: 18 tiles
  
  
• These changes are subtle but should even things up a bit. Harridans should still be able to inflict reaction fire hell on you, whereas unarmoured troops now have longer sight ranges than Sebillians to fit with the lore of them being a bit dim.

• The Soviet Town terror map been updated slightly. The flat now has a roof and the factory door now opens correctly.
• The Carrier and Battleship maps have been updated now so you can't see around the walls. The thin purple lines in the shroud that that give away the floorplans in some cases have also largely been corrected, but that's only in the dev build (too many tiles to include in a hotfix).

At present I'm working on fixing up the sprite issues reported in the last build, which will be included in the Desura auto-updater version (most have been updated). ]]> Chris http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4744-Build-V18-3-Hotfix-1-Released%21 http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4736-Build-V18-3-Released%21?goto=newpost Wed, 24 Apr 2013 09:31:32 GMT Build V18.3 has been released. The current status of the build is as follows: * Standalones are awaiting authorisation on Desura. It appears to... Build V18.3 has been released. The current status of the build is as follows:

• Standalones are awaiting authorisation on Desura. It appears to have been authorised for the Premium branch but not the Standard branch.
• Auto-updater versions will follow if it is confirmed to be free of major bugs

I have named this build V18.3 to avoid confusing people who ended up with Hotfix 2 from the forums or with V18.1 due to Desura's peculiar numbering system.

Because it takes so long to upload / authorise, we've made more changes since we started uploading it. There will be a hotfix patch today that will improve balance, and will likely be incorporated into the branch release.

Overall, I've not been able to sit down and play the game much

CHANGELOG:

• The "replace" function now works for research projects, automatically scanning all units for the item to be replaced and updating it with the new one. This has been used for the Advanced Medipack and the advanced aircraft missiles and explosives.
• Disappearing equipment bug associated with wounded soldiers should be fixed.
• Trying to use a loadout that contains an armour which cannot be equipped (e.g. you don't have any of them) will no longer crash the game.
• Weapon fire paths for shots now turn orange beyond the operational range of the weapon (where accuracy and damage drops off)
• Teleporters should be working again.
• Shift + click will now override TU reserve settings for soldier movement

• The interceptable C-17 transport plane has been removed from the game. It was a neat idea but it caused too many problems to be worthwhile; now item transfer simply occurs with a 24 hour time delay. This will fix several crashes.
• There's a bit of new art for the Foxtrot and Saracen, and for the vehicles too (though the latter will look much better with the new UI)
• Ferret should no longer occasionally disappear when destroyed
• Stunning an alien no longer produces two corpses
• Aircraft now fly from base to base when told to transfer (they are not interceptable).

• Dropships should now appear in the tech tree. Previously I'd forgotten to include a recoverable item.
• Aliens now have somewhat shorter sight ranges. It's still longer than human sight ranges, but less so. This means the Hunter also has a reduced sight range (but it is still longer than most aliens). (EDIT - actually, this isn't in the game. It'll be in the hotfix).
• Rate of alien alloy recovery increased a bit
• Marauders no longer incorrectly cost $7.5m each
• Vertical movement with jetpack now costs 2APs per square instead of 6APs
• A few sprite updates including fixing the giganto soldier with Buzzard and Precision Laser
• C4 is now incendiary damage

From Hotfix 1 & 2, included in this release:

• Aliens should no longer spawn inside solid objects.
• Scimitar is now correctly a 3x3 vehicle instead of 4x4.
• CTD when you walk through smoke is removed.
• Grenade throw mode no longer disappears when you mouseover an alien.
• Grenades should no longer occasionally just disappear when you try to throw them.
• The auto-generated crashsites now no longer make the radar ranges on the Geoscape disappear.
• UFOs are a bit less aggressive now. Only the air superiority missions will actively try to shoot down your aircraft.
• When you click "Go To Aircraft / Vehicle" after you've built a new one, it now takes you to the specific unit just built rather than just to the general screen.
• Ctrl key is no longer incorrectly "sticky" on screens with quantity arrows, so they'll only max the quantity if you actually have Ctrl held when you press the button rather than having pressed it at any point before the click.
• Hopefully the aliens shooting through solid walls issue should be fixed
• Hopefully the invisible civilian issue should be fixed
• UFO walls and floors should no longer disappear on loading a save game
• Landing ships should no longer sometimes be empty when shot down
• The two auto-generated crash sites in the first week should no longer be empty
• There should be less freezes in the Hidden Movement screen
• The Chinook range has been extended a bit, so hopefully it now should have global range
• You can no longer "scan" a UFO with the crosshair to reveal aliens inside it from outside
• Incendiary damage (most explosives except grenades deal incendiary damage) now do double damage against terrain, but normal damage against units...so rockets are better at clearing terrain now!

Also, will be moving all of the existing sticky beta Balance Discussion threads into the "Old Thread" section and creating new ones. Now I'm back from holiday and the game is (hopefully) much more stable than pre-hotfix V18 was, we should be able to act on the points of discussion more easily.

Please play the new version, report any major bugs, then post summaries of your opinions (whether new or previously posted) if they are still valid in the new build. ]]> Chris http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4736-Build-V18-3-Released%21 http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4551-V18-Hotfix-2-Released%21?goto=newpost Thu, 11 Apr 2013 14:06:59 GMT I'm currently off visiting my family on a ten day mini-holiday. The internet isn't great here so I'm not going to be releasing any major new builds until I'm back home (which will be a week today), but I'll continue to package up the latest fixes so we can give them a trial run before updating Desura.

It's helpful if you guys keep reporting bugs in this build, as work shouldn't grind to a halt on Xenonauts despite me being away. On the programming side of things, being able to assign the coding team bugs is a nice easy way to keep everyone busy and keep improving the game without requiring too much input from me.

So, hotfix #2 for Build V18 is here. This requires V18 to work and includes Hotfix #1 too.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...V18hotfix2.zip

To use it, just unzip the file into the /xenonauts/ directory and overwrite the files.

CHANGELOG:

• All fixes from V18 Hotfix 1
• Hopefully the aliens shooting through solid walls issue should be fixed
• Hopefully the invisible civilian issue should be fixed
• UFO walls and floors should no longer disappear on loading a save game
• Landing ships should no longer sometimes be empty when shot down
• The two auto-generated crash sites in the first week should no longer be empty
• There should be less freezes in the Hidden Movement screen
• The Chinook range has been extended a bit, so hopefully it now should have global range
• You can no longer "scan" a UFO with the crosshair to reveal aliens inside it from outside
• Incendiary damage (most explosives except grenades deal incendiary damage) now do double damage against terrain, but normal damage against units...so rockets are better at clearing terrain now!

Let me know how it works and report any major bugs you find in it please! ]]> Chris http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4551-V18-Hotfix-2-Released%21 http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4412-V18-Hotfix-1-Available%21?goto=newpost Thu, 04 Apr 2013 19:14:34 GMT This is just a small hotfix that fixes a number of bugs in the game courtesy of our ground combat coder and some work from Giovanni. To use it, just... This is just a small hotfix that fixes a number of bugs in the game courtesy of our ground combat coder and some work from Giovanni. To use it, just replace your existing Xenonauts.exe with the one in the archive file and then replace the existing vehicles.xml in /assets/ with the one in the folder too. If you downloaded the game via the Desura client you do not need this!

Archive here: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/26290309/V18hotfix.rar

The fixed bugs are:

• Aliens should no longer spawn inside solid objects.
• Scimitar is now correctly a 3x3 vehicle instead of 4x4.
• CTD when you walk through smoke is removed.
• Grenade throw mode no longer disappears when you mouseover an alien.
• Grenades should no longer occasionally just disappear when you try to throw them.
• The auto-generated crashsites now no longer make the radar ranges on the Geoscape disappear.
• UFOs are a bit less aggressive now. Only the air superiority missions will actively try to shoot down your aircraft.
• When you click "Go To Aircraft / Vehicle" after you've built a new one, it now takes you to the specific unit just built rather than just to the general screen.
• Ctrl key is no longer incorrectly "sticky" on screens with quantity arrows, so they'll only max the quantity if you actually have Ctrl held when you press the button rather than having pressed it at any point before the click.

We'll be working on other bugs for the remainder of the week, like the shooting through walls or spawning inside UFO walls (separate issue to them spawning in props), but that'll require updates to numerous files so that won't arrive publicly until we release V18.1.

Enjoy. ]]> Chris http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4412-V18-Hotfix-1-Available%21 http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4377-Build-V18-%28Beta-Candidate%29-released%21?goto=newpost Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:48:52 GMT Build V18 is our beta candidate. This means that it will be our first beta once all the major issues with it are fixed; so game-stopping bugs or... Build V18 is our beta candidate. This means that it will be our first beta once all the major issues with it are fixed; so game-stopping bugs or major features that aren't working as intended. Our focus here at Goldhawk in the immediate future will be fixing these issues, and releasing updates to V18 until it is complete enough to be called "beta".

Just to clarify, even when V18 reaches beta status, it does not mean that the game is finished. It will be possible to play the game from start to finish, but likely will not be particularly well balanced and it will still contain placeholder art. It just means that that focus of the development team has moved from adding required features to improving the user experience and making the game as fun as possible.

Build V18 is at this status:

• The standalones are available on Desura here (sidebar on the right).
• Once V18 is confirmed not to have any game-breaking bugs in it, we'll roll it out to the Desura auto-updater too.
• At the same time, we'll send it off to be ported to Mac / Linux by our porter.

In short, we're going to try V18 as a standalone first to see if it works, while leaving V17.91 available for download.

So, onto the changes / additions.

NEW FEATURES / IMPROVEMENTS:

• More Maps: We've added about 20 more maps. There will be more added, but there should no longer be any crashes due to missing maps any more and the early game should be nice and varied.
• Shot Path: When you shoot at a target in the ground combat, the projectile path is now shown along with the stopping chance of intervening obstacles. This should make the factors affecting a shot more obvious.
• UFO Art: We've now done all the final Landed art for the UFOs, and the Crashed art for all UFOs up to the Landing Ship. One of the later UFOs still needs a painted floor and interior added, which will come in the next update.
• Crash Site Auto-Generation: To make the early game less reliant on blind luck, there are now two crash sites auto-generated in the first two weeks, a Caesan and a Sebillian Light Scout.
• Bullet Deviation: Lots of complaints about "unrealistic" bullet deviation over the past few months. We've improved this a bit (let me know if it works better for you), but the main purpose of this fix was actually to stop "miss" shots from having insufficient deviation to actually miss the target and ending up hitting them anyway. "Miss" shots are now unable to hit the target.
• AI Improvements: There's been some more general AI improvements, but the biggest improvement is to Reapers. They don't mill around uselessly any more, they now properly try and eat civilians / Xenonauts.
• Final Mission: This has been added in its blocked-out state. You can play it if you want, but personally I'd wait - it's not been balanced and the briefing screen explaining what you're meant to do hasn't yet been added :)
• More Research Art: We've added a few more pieces of art to the Xenopedia. There's still plenty of missing images, but it's filling up.
• Updated fonts: One from the forums: a333 has dived into the horrors of our engines and managed to fix up our fonts so they now display unicode characters, which will allow the game to be translated into other languages. We'll be thinking about what to regarding translation shortly, but it wouldn't be possible at all if he hadn't done that, so that's good news for everyone.

BUGFIXES:

• Light Scout UFOs should no longer spawn without crews.
• Large props no longer appear black on night missions.
• Soldier equipment no longer vanishes when the soldier is wounded.
• Soldier hiring pool being empty bug is now fixed.
• Geoscape notifications no longer vanish if a crash site times out.
• Projectile impact sprites are now correctly visible on props and units, rather than just on the ground.
• Hay bales and crates should no longer appear inside the Chinook.
• Corvettes should no longer give you millions of dollars (this should actually be fixed now).
• You can no longer see through the doors of UFOs.
• Pressing Esc on the Soldier hiring pool window no longer causes a crash.
• Alien corpses should display correctly in most cases, rather than displaying a Xenonaut corpse.
• Reaper Autopsy research project has been connected up properly.
• Sebillian Guards no longer suffer from dwarfism.
• When you load a save game, the game no longer notifies you about every workshop project you've unlocked.

BALANCE CHANGES:

This is mostly about the research tree / progression being simplified:

• Autopsies no longer take up research time (they pop-up automatically after a mission) but no longer give a damage bonus.
• There is now a single "explosives" research for each tier that unlocks the aircraft heavy missile, the aircraft light missile, the infantry rocket and the infantry grenade.
• When researched, missiles (aircraft and infantry) and grenades are now available in unlimited quantities.
• Advanced ammunition no longer costs Alenium, just money.
• We've removed one of the interceptors from the game, as we had more researchable interceptors than we did weapon tiers and 8 researchable aircraft in all.
• We've scrapped the Dreadnought UFO - the Battleship is already enormous and we don't realistically think we can make larger in-game maps.
• If you want to discuss these changes, this is the thread to do it in.

• Hunter Rocket turret is researchable as soon as you've built the Hunter.
• Jackal armour now costs $30,000.
• Corsair requires far less Alien Alloys than before.
• Advanced aircraft weapons now only improve damage; like-for-like replacements are otherwise identical as you go up through the tiers. This is just to stop air combat getting overcomplex.
• Laser weapons have had a damage buff because previously they were worse than ballistics.
• Amount of Alien Alloys per crash site increased somewhat.

It is also worth noting what we are still working on for this build and still needs to be added before it can be considered beta:

• Once the shape of the tech tree is more settled, I'll add the Xenopedia text for projects that do not have it. I'm chopping and changing quite a bit at the moment so it's a bit out of date in places too.
• We need a "replace" function for the research tree, as when new unlimited weapons are unlocked you still have to manually rearm all your troops / aircraft. If an item is a like-for-like swop with increased damage and unlimited quantity, it should be done automatically.
• I've been seeing invisible civilians on some terror sites again. I'll try and find that bug and kill it, though repro seems hard.
• There's a bug where manufactured weapons are duplicated if you drag them to an invalid location in the Solder Equip screen.
• There's a lot of very aggressive UFOs in the game at the moment. We'll make it so only the Air Superiority alien missions will actively engage your aircraft, as it's happening too much at the moment.
• Seems some are still getting the launcher startup crash. We'll try to fix this, but there's now a LauncherFix.bat file in the game directory that will run the launcher without a video. If people complain about the launcher crash issue in the meantime, please direct them to that.

For comments about our beta plans in general, see this thread. ]]> Chris http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4377-Build-V18-%28Beta-Candidate%29-released%21 http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4278-Fix-For-Empty-UFOs?goto=newpost Sun, 24 Mar 2013 14:58:45 GMT Giovanni has discovered the problem with the UFOs appearing without a crew, and there's an easy fix for it. Download the two XML files linked below and put them in /xenonauts/assets/ufocontents/ folder and it should work fine:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/26290309/ai....sebillian.xml
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/26290309/ai...out.caesan.xml (right click and Save File As)

The problem was that the "missing crew" UFOs weren't on Research missions, they were on Scout missions. Light Scouts previously only ever did Research missions until I moved them forwards, so there was no contents column present for the Scout mission crew and thus they appeared empty...so not a coding bug at all!

Enjoy. ]]> Chris http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4278-Fix-For-Empty-UFOs http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4249-Build-V17-91-Released%21?goto=newpost Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:12:49 GMT Build V17.91 has been released. This post will be updated as things progress. At present: * The auto-updater versions are available for Premium... Build V17.91 has been released. This post will be updated as things progress. At present:

• The auto-updater versions are available for Premium Pre-Orderers. There's a glitch affecting the Standard branch which I'm trying to resolve.
• The standalone versions are available on Desura (probably best to download these).
• The Mac / Linux versions will be ported if the build proves stable (V17.9 did not)

This is mostly a stability update, rather than one that adds a bunch of new features. I'm not convinced the auto-updater is working properly so please try the standalone if possible, or in your bug reports at least mark which version you are using. Here's the changelist:

BUGFIXES:

• Launcher load-up crash should be fixed. If it is still crashing on loadup, you can use the -novideo tag as a workaround (we'll see if we can put together a batch file for you guys to use).
• You can now save / load the game on the Geoscape.
• You can now save / load the game on the Ground Combat.
• When you load a Ground Combat save game, all the men and aliens are no longer crammed in the top left corner of the map.
• When you load a Geoscape game, you no longer get the "new technology available" popup.
• Hidden Movement should correctly show projectiles now, so your troops will no longer be gunned down without you being able to see it.
• Corvettes and other large UFOs no longer give ludicrous amounts of alloys when captured.
• You can no longer place base buildings outside the base grid area.
• The Sebillian Light Scouts still aren't spawning crew, despite my best efforts to fix it. As a result, I've disabled all Sebillian Light Scouts, so all Light Scouts will have Caesan crew (none of which should be empty).

UPDATES / BALANCING:

• Overlay tiles are now supported. This means the car parks around all of the drosphips have been removed and their shadows will overlay onto whatever terrain they are placed on.
• There are a few new maps. The Western Town terror site has been updated significantly, and the Soviet Town terror site now has a work in progress map. Alien bases also have a map now.
• There's a new Corsair interceptor Xenopedia image.
• The rocket sprite has been replaced with a smaller and better version.
• The sight ranges of Caesan aliens have been reduced by 1 to 19. This is one greater than a soldier wearing Basic Armour, but 1 less than a Hunter armoured car.
• All alien weapons have received a 10 point accuracy deduction.
• The Alien Plasma Rifle has been reduced to 0 mitigation, so it will usually not 1-shot a soldier wearing Jackal combat armour (though it should still instakill a soldier with Basic armour).
• The Jackal has been reduced in cost to $40,000.
• Shotgun range reduced by 1 to 7, damage increased to 65 and mitigation reduced to 0. This is a net increase to its close-range firepower.
• The "kinetic" resistance of Hunter and Jackal armour has been boosted significantly. This makes your armoured car and Jackal-armoured troops much less vulnerable to early-game friendly fire damage, but still just as vulnerable to alien plasma fire (which uses "energy" resistance).

Finally, it should be noted that this build does not use any kind of compression so is about 135,000 files. I'm pretty sure that either our file archiving system or or tile atlases have caused a lot of the texture issues in the last build, and I'm wondering if they may also be behind our invisible civilian bug. Therefore this build is uncompressed and we'll see how that affects these issues.

In terms of balancing, I've not done too much of that this week. So once the Corvettes start arriving, my current balancing runs out and you're on your own.

From what I understand, the Desura guys are at GDC so I don't know if authorisation is going to be particularly quick. ]]> Chris http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4249-Build-V17-91-Released%21 http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4223-V17-9-Launcher-Crash-Fix%21?goto=newpost Mon, 18 Mar 2013 12:15:15 GMT If you're having a problem with the launcher crashing on load in V17.9, the file below should hopefully fix the issue until the next build.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/26290309/Xe...20launcher.zip

This needs to be put in the Xenonauts directory, so /Desura/common/Xenonauts I think. ]]> Chris http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4223-V17-9-Launcher-Crash-Fix%21 http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4173-V17-9-Released%21?goto=newpost Wed, 13 Mar 2013 20:44:33 GMT Version 17.9 of the Xenonauts Alpha has been released. The detailed status is below, which will be updated as it progresses through the various... Version 17.9 of the Xenonauts Alpha has been released. The detailed status is below, which will be updated as it progresses through the various systems - I'm posting this now because there's about 6 hours of uploading to go and I'm going home:

• Windows Desura client versions are available on Desura
• Windows standalone versions are available on Desura
• Mac / Linux versions will be ported across when it is confirmed that the build is stable

This build is NOT beta. It is a significant update but we're still missing a number of features before we can call it beta - I will list these features in another post so you know what we'll be working on.

The changes and improvements are listed below:

1) Updated Launcher: We have put the new launcher in the game. This looks much more professional than our old one, and has a number of new features:

• Cross-Platform Compatible: All versions of the game will now have a launcher. Previously the poor Mac guys didn't get one (making it difficult to change resolutions).
• RSS Feed: You no longer have to keep checking our forums to see if a new release is out, as the launcher has an in-built RSS feed for this forum.
• Save Game Location: You can change the save game directory of the game using this button.
• Disable Stat Tracking: Xenonauts collates anonymous stats on all players so we can use it for balancing purposes. If you don't want it to do this, you can now opt-out with the tickbox.
• Crimson Dagger novella: Under the "Extras" tab, you can find Lee Stephen's prologue novella, Xenonauts: Crimson Dagger.
• AA disabled: Anti-aliasing used to be on by default in the old launcher, and it is now disabled. This has no real positive effect, but on small (laptop) screens it made the Geoscape look horrendous. If this affected you, it is now much sharper.
• Sweet Title Animation: The alien fleet orbiting menacingly above Earth is now animated. Feel the fear in real-time.

2) New UFOs: The game is still not fully balanced for you to play to late game, but we have final landed UFO graphics in place up to the sixth UFO type (although the hand-painted floor is not yet done for that one).

The final UFO will follow in the next build, along with the first damaged versions. The later ones are seriously, seriously big.

3) Wall Transparency: There's now a 2-tile transparency aura around all Xenonauts and visible aliens, which should make it much easier to see enemies. It's not infallible as it doesn't work for props at the moment, but it should be much better than before.

4) Updated Research: There have been updates to the research tree:

• The Xenopedia is now a Geoscape pop-up rather than the full-screen thing it was before
• Jackal armour and Hunter armoured car are now researchable (Hunter at the same time as the MiG, Jackal from the Alien Plasma Pistol)
• A lot of the research descriptions have been updated. I think all the early-mid game projects have research descriptions now, the only ones that don't are those in danger of being merged.
• There's a number of new or updated Xenopedia images, including the first three autopsy images. These are proper guts everywhere stuff, just like the original.
• There's now a pop-up after each research project is completed, telling you about anything new unlocked and giving you a link to the research screen.
• There's also a pop-up when new workshop projects become available as a result of a research project finishing.

5) Improved AI: There's been some boost to the AI, so aliens should be better at taking cover now. We're not far from a big improvement, but GJ can't turn on the planning layer yet because there's a crash bug in it that he can't find. Hopefully in the next build the code will all be done and it'll just be ongoing behaviour tweaks.

6) Rendering: We've ripped out and replaced the previous rendering algorithm, which was struggling with multi-tile objects and would cause incorrect draw order in some cases. The new one should fix this. Took a while to sort that, sadly it's a sort of invisible thing but believe me when I say it's a big improvement.

7) New sprites: I've done a lot of rendering recently. We've added new civilians to the Soviet Town tileset, and added female civilians to both types of terror site.

I've also re-rendered about 95% of all of the Caesans and put them in the game. Previously their sprites had inconsistent lighting from the different directions and had some setup issues; these should now be resolved.

8) Maps: Didn't make as much progress on this as I hoped, but I've added 2 new maps for the Light Scout to each tileset. There'll be many more in the next version / beta.

Also, we've harmonised the dropship maps across all of the different tilesets. As a result, all the dropship maps are currently in a parking lot whatever the tileset. This is a temporary thing until we get some code in place to let us overlay the dropship shadows on whatever ground is underneath it, which will be in place in the next build.

9) Usability Improvements: We've made a lot of improvements to the usability of the game. This is not an exhaustive list, just what I can think of off the top of my head. Also, there will be plenty more of these before beta.

Geoscape:

• Alien Invasion research is already in progress when you start the game
• Second tileset world mask in place, letting us have some randomisation of tileset even if UFOs are shot down in the same area each time
• "Go to XXXX" pop-up windows on completion of vehicles or aircraft
• Soldier Equip screen selects the dropship category rather than Unassigned by default
• The F-17, MiG-31 and Chinook aircraft have been renamed to their Condor, Foxtrot and Charlie designations respectively. This is consistent keeping with later technology designations.
• When an aircraft reaches a waypoint, the notification now also has a "Return To Base" button.

Ground Combat:

• Reserved TUs can now be used to shoot with. This is an optional toggle in the options, but is set to allow shooting by default.
• The Alien Spotted graphics have been updated to look slightly better. Also, the icon for an alien that has been spotted by the team but is out of the current soldier's LOS is now orange, rather than 60% transparency red. This should make it clearer.
• Grenade Selector (right click on grenade quickslot) now closes correctly when you click on a grenade to select it, rather than having to right-click on the quickslot again to close it

10) Balance Changes: We've done quite a bit of balancing, though this is only limited to the first couple of months (there's been too many bugs or issues recently for me to get too far into it). More will follow next build.

Geoscape:

• All difficulty settings are now identical. I don't want there to be any discrepancy in the game balance that could be caused by difficulty settings at this stage (we'll balance them later).
• Aforementioned Hunter / Jackal made researchable, so are no longer starting items.
• Starting cash reduced to $500,000
• Starting soldier squad reduced to 10 men
• Monthly maintenance and salary costs reduced
• Starting monthly funding much reduced
• Workshop build costs and build times much reduced
• Workshops / Laboratories have 15 working space, Living Quarters now hold 35 people
• Bases are now 6x6 tiles instead of 7x7

Invasion / Air Combat:

• Longer between UFO waves
• Missiles achieve lock much faster, so they are effectively able to fire from longer range
• Cannons now correctly fire at anything that enters their fire arc, rather than having to achieve lock first
• Scout UFOs are now Small, while Light Scout UFOs are Very Small. Thus you can tell immediately whether to deploy a Condor or a Foxtrot against them.
• Foxtrot no longer made of glass.
• Cooldown reduced on evasive roll for both alien and human side, making alien fighters more adept at dodging missiles
• Scout UFOs slower than before, now the same speed as Condors (but a lone Condor will not defeat a Scout)

Ground Combat:

• Accuracy penalty for moving and shooting with heavy weapons increased to 50% from 25%. This makes sniper rifles less overpowered as they are much less mobile than before.
• Machinegun ammo a lot heavier than before, 3kg instead of 1kg.
• Aliens have much better stats then before, with the Non-Combatants in particular getting a major boost.
• Should be more frequent spawning of aliens outside the UFOs now.

11) Bugfixes: We've fixed a few bugs too. Not an exhaustive list:

• Game no longer crashes if you're not connected to the internet.
• Wages / maintenance no longer deducted before your new funding arrives at month-end.
• Reaction fire should no longer interrupt actions / animations (so reaction fire should not stop burst fire after one shot etc)
• Soldier Roles now remember armour correctly.
• Base defence turrets upgrading correctly again
• Clicking on the Xenopedia description text no longer makes it turn orange

I think that's it. We'll post up a list of what we're working on for the beta in a separate post. Enjoy! ]]> Chris http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4173-V17-9-Released%21