Mnemnify

In yesterday's video he stressed that he's still interested in playing a turn-based, XCOM-like game that doesn't provide the Enemy Unknown frustrations. Also, he's covered several Early Access titles in the recent weeks, and discussed at length the pros and cons of Steam's Early Access program. Given that he also presented a pre-release version of Xenonauts already, I can't imagine he'd revisit the game before release. As to whether he'll feature Xenonauts again at all, I''d say the odds are very high. He's personally interested in the game, which is a key factor in his game choice (cf ). And lastly, I'd bet that the fact that Xenonauts is not a side-scrolling platformer, brawler, tower-defense game, action-RPG, or any of the other common archetypes makes it more attractive for a second "WTF IS ...?" TB may love brawlers (and CCG's, and FPS's) but he also relishes presenting titles that are distinct from the indie masses.I'd bet money on a second Xenonauts presentation.

John Bain, aka TotalBisuit, TotalHalibut, and the Cynical Brit, is a widely-watched Youtube game commentator focused on PC titles. His "WTF Is ..." series provides first-look impressions of games, with a significant focus on indie titles. It's definitely fair to say that his growing influence in the indie market is significant: there are many instances of a game's radically increased popularity and sales after getting positive attention on his channel. Right, so the above was by way of introduction for those who have never heard of TotalBiscuit (a smaller group every month, probably). He did a "WTF Is Xenonauts?" video in September of 2011, and I bring him and his Youtube channel up now because today he mentioned Xenonauts whilst (which he has repeatedly pointed out is a fun but seriously flawed game). He's "looking into Xenonauts," he tells his viewers. It seems likely that he will be revisiting Xenonauts soon, perhaps after Beta ends?Chris has said that Xenonauts has sold strongly on Steam as an Early Access title. More positive attention from TotalBiscuit could ramp up the response to Xenonauts, and its sales, even more.

Yep the standalone is up on Desura!

I'm not sure the decrease shown is related to the extra weight bug. I have only seen the decrease in AP's shown that once, after I used over 1000 AP's on the previous mission. Just to reiterate, the decrease is only shown on the Soldier Summary screen available at the end of ground combat. Actually, maybe under the right conditions the decrease in AP's due to the extra weight bug shows up in the Summary screen (the right conditions having something to do with using over 1000 AP's in the previous missions?), but otherwise it does not. Hold on, come to think of it, before that mission I forgot to reset everyone's weight by click-moving each held weapon. So maybe it is the extra weight bug after all. Yes, that seems likely, and this bug report is fallacious.

I was testing the experience/advancement system, and had all my soldiers do a lot during my first ground combat. I got 2 skill-ups in AP's, Accuracy, and Strength, and 1 in Resilience for all soldiers (took advantage of as current weak alien AI to take many, many 0% shots at a stationary alien). The next mission I ran fairly normally. The single alien was hiding behind the ship, so it did take a bit to find him; all my soldiers did do a fair bit of moving and used a lot of AP's, but I didn't try to exploit the system. On the Soldier Summary screen (sorry, I forget what the in-game title of this screen is), three soldiers had AP changes, but they were all decreases. Something on the order of ~56 going in was shown at this point as ~48. After the chinook returned to base, an examination of the soldiers' stats on the personnel screen did not show the decreases. I'm unsure if increases which were earned in the second mission were reflected in the listings at this point -- I didn't note down everyone's stats at each point in the process. Perhaps a bug with the cumulative advancement system? Some kind of wraparound effect?

It's so hard to resist suggesting advancement mechanics, no matter what has been said before. If I'm repeating any of that, my apologies... In my first game (9.5) I began with every soldier carrying only enough to keep all his AP's. Never got a single Strength point - ran 12 to 15 missions. I began a new game (not because of the Strength thing!) and overloaded every soldier just enough to lose one or two AP's. I did nothing else different. After the first mission every soldier got a Strength point. So I doubt it's currently a function of weight carried and number of steps. It seems likely it's a factor of excess weight carried and number of steps. Or perhaps there's a multiplier applied to excess weight. I do think the latter is a quite good system. But perhaps the benefit from non-excess weight is too small. In general, raising your Strength faster by giving up some AP's is a good strategic choice, IMO. But absolutely having to give up AP's to get any Strength gain, as seemed to be happening with my first game is perhaps a bit too simplistic. A fairly straightforward system. But it does share the problem us old folks experienced with UFO and TFTD (and more? I only played those two). Poor reactors get left behind, in a feedback system that favors those who start out with higher Reflexes. "Reaction Stealing," of course, is the operative term. Of course, if you know the term you know the workaround. Get your cat-like soldiers away from the action or too depleted to contribute, and let the slow-witted improve (or die quickly). Here, a similar system as what I said about Strength above might mitigate the problem: small gain for failing a reaction test, larger for succeeding. The highly reflexive (so to speak) would still advance faster, but not by as much, and contrived training-by-combat would give those learning to be faster a better shot to live through the practice. It's more realistic, to boot (as much as that's worth, or not worth) - we often learn more from our failures .... It also retains the small victory we feel for getting off a reaction -- "One more dead alien, and a real shot at getting better at this sort of thing!" I wish I didn't know that one. It's pretty easy, if tedious, to game that system. I rather like the Primary/Secondary split used years ago for TU's. Hard to exploit it for easy TU's. Might I suggest Health increases based on Strength and Bravery increases, and AP increases based on Reflexes and Accuracy? A similar mechanic but a relatively plausible variation: physical and mental fitness make you more durable, combat acumen makes you execute more efficiently. Verisimilitude aside, maybe it's a minor tweak in complexity that adds a bit of depth to the system? Hmm, on Firing Accuracy ... not to harp on one thing repeatedly, but re-use of the 'more for success, but some gain for failure' model would work nicely here, too. I do like that you don't have to hit your target to get any advancement. And getting steeled by living through the sheer terror and panic, not exclusively by avoiding it - that's a spot-on change. Lastly, kudos for the persistent, cumulative system.

I've had light scout missions where only one soldier fired - one shot kill, and another soldier gained stats, but the soldier who fired and killed gained none.

So I see that the topic of theoretical experience gain stat increase systems has been discussed to dea... er, extensively. What I'm wondering about is the current implementation of experience and stat gain. It seems clear to me that the old UFO system is not being used, just from correlating my soldiers actions in-battle and the results in the Debriefing. Anyone have any insights to share?

I don't know what the algorithm for experience gain is, but I just started my second game with v9.5, and I don't seem to be gaining any. After each of 3 battles, the soldier summary screen shows, but no soldier shows any stat gain. Each mission was a definite success: -6 Kills -Only 1 Civilian death -0 Soldier injuries Is this normal? In my first game I didn't get stat gains from every mission, but whenever there was a summary screen I did (No soldier ever received a wound in that aborted game, though I expect wounds would have brought up the summary screen, too). And after 3 missions I had definitely gained stats. EDIT: on my fifth battle I did gain some stats. Must have just been bad luck. Though now I'm wondering what the experience algorithm is. If I can't find another thread on the topic, I'll start one.

If the bases are indeed underground, perhaps there is an implicit access lift in some module. Though really that should be the command center: how else is the command center built first? But I'm not sure that surface-level access is specifically needed for a garage or basic stores. Vehicles and stores are flown out and in, presumably, not trucked across the surface. It does seem implausible that an underground base has no access lift at all, which is why I asked if the bases were in fact underground.

Ah, ok it has been discussed before -- well, or course it has Obviously multiple, unknown entry points does make this issue null and void, indeed. I do find myself wondering how the aliens get into the base; in UFO the bases were underground, so entry via hangar and access lift made sense. Xenonauts features no access lift, does this mean that the bases are above ground? If alien access is restricted to specific modules, it does give players a strategic choice. One could make a layout with a long path from the accessible modules (eg hangars) to the command center, as a measure of tactical defense for a small and undergeared defense force. Now, such a layout takes longer to build, so this involves a choice. If the layout of the initial base is instantly customizable, the downside of this choice is removed, which I suppose is something to consider. I also appreciate that the hangars are more consolidated on the initial base layout. This should make an invasion there less likely to be pure chaos.

I use 1920 x 1200.

Sorry if this is the wrong section for text omissions and misspellings. I also wasn't sure about the topic; I hope Geoscape is appropriate for Xenopedia stuff. The Caesan Autopsy Xenopeida entry finishes: "Our soldiers will need to capture a live specimen before we could learn any" Presumably at least one word is missing -- presumably "more." -- or perhaps a few -- "more about [etc.]."

My apologies if this was already discussed elsewhere - I did a search and found nothing on the topic, but could have missed something. One of my pet peeves with UFO was the terrible layout of the first base with regard to defending from invasion. It bothered me enough that I hacked the game to use a layout of my own design. Now, I understand why in UFO you did not get the opportunity to design the layout of your first base: that would be a lot of detail for the first moments of play, and the first-time player would have no idea what layouts would be preferred, or what the tactical considerations even might be. I'm sure similar reasoning applies equally well to Xenonauts, and I never really expected any first-base-layout options when I first heard about this project some time ago. Nonetheless, I find myself feeling that same niggling dissatisfaction: "All my bases will be well-designed, except my most important one." Now, I still don't expect an in-game method of laying out your first base to be added, but perhaps this might be an easy thing to accomplish with some light modding? I see a 1-day hack which can be enabled from one of the xml files. Is there a zero-cost building hack as well? Put the two together and you can basically tear down and rebuild your first base at the start of the game, then save and quit and disable the cheats. Or perhaps the layout of the first base can be edited directly somewhere? I acknowledge this is a minor quibble -- it's just one of those things that bothered me twenty years ago and still applies, so I thought I'd mention it.

Actually, I'm not entirely sure which bug(s) I'm getting. In the 8-odd ground combats I've tried (all of which froze after a turn or three) I've seen: Hang during the "Hidden Movement" on-screen graphic. Return from the "Hidden Movement" onscreen graphic, but my units are unselectable. Hang during action revealed by my soldier's sight, during the alien turn. I was presuming that this is two different bugs. I tired editing missiontypeprops_gc.xml to reduce civilianCount and friendlyAICount to 0 everywhere, but still see allies in the ground battle. I've seen all three problems described above in 9.4 run with Desura client, and 9.3 downloaded and uinzipped. EDIT: I was testing by running Quick Battles, and it occurred to me that this may be part of the problem. So I ran a Full Demo, and made it through a ground combat for the first time. And 9.5 is available, now. Time to test without the civvies/allies workaround.