freeaxle

The game is looking and playing great - good job! Is there any chance the windows not providing cover until broken bug will be fixed?

I'd argue that the problem of trying to be perfectly accurate in a work of fiction is that if you actually achieved that, you'd be writing about real life, rendering it non-fiction There are so many hand-waves available around the science and the history details, the easiest of which of course is that there are some other points of divergence in the Xenonauts world, other than, you know, the hyper-realistic portrayal of an alien force trying to destroy humanity! Or maybe the reports were written by a political analyst who wanted to look smart and made a few mistakes because of it. Nowhere is it claimed that the Xenopedia was written by a %100 reliable source. As for the alien science, and this will piss off the science people I'm sure, we're talking about a hyper-advanced alien force with UFOs. Maybe they know something about science, something we currently consider impossible, that we don't? In the end though, I personally find all the material internally consistent. The writing is very well done and highly entertaining to read. The game itself is fantastic. If you are really considering not buying it because an IRBM was incorrectly called an ICBM, some general decided to name a class of air-to-air missile a torpedo for whatever reason (apparently a torpedo was originally a floating mine, so it's hardly a fixed term anyway) and a couple of fighters were incorrectly named then you're depriving yourself of a wonderful experience. BTW, I don't want it to sound like I'm being overly critical. I can't stand Prometheus because a biologist couldn't imagine that a hissing snake like creature could be dangerous and thus should be touched!

So my current approach is a flexible team - 8 guys. 1 X Shield. Equipment: Shield, pistol and a bucket-load of grenades. Favoured stats: Health, TUs The shield acts as a scout where there is little cover, spotting units for the other Xenonauts. The shield also guards UFO doors while I get my team ready, and is used to draw reaction fire. The grenades help extend the shield's usefulness a bit - smoke for cover, flash for suppression and a grenade to explode tricky aliens. 1 X Assault. Equipment: Shotgun and bucket-load of grenades. Favoured Stats: Health, TUs, Accuracy, Reactions (often the best all round soldier). The assault scouts in areas with lots of cover, especially full cover. Useful for eliminating those pesky aliens who hide behind corners. The assault also goes into UFOs after the shield has drawn the alien fire and finishes off the aliens. The grenades help give the assault a bit more utility when the shotgun is out of range. 1 X Sniper. Equipment: Sniper Rifle. Favoured stats: Accuracy. The ballistic sniper rifle is useful, but underwhelming compared to the later versions of sniper-rifle. The range and accuracy though make even the ballistic sniper rifle a useful addition to a team. Good for staying out of the enemy's sight and dealing the initial damage to aliens spotted by the scout. 1 X LMG. Equipment: Machine Gun. Favoured stats: strength, accuracy. LMG is brilliant for damage output. It can also be used to suppress enemies in a pinch, though is somewhat risky due to the reaction fire malus of the machine gun. Good wherever an alien is behind cover or is too tough to be killed with the other weapons. Awesome against grouped aliens. 1 X Rocketeer. Equipment: Rocket Launcher. Favoured stats: accuracy, strength. The rocket launcher tends to be the weapon of last resort due to its tendency to destroy precious artifacts, but I wouldn't go on a mission without one! They are very good at blowing up the alien that has somehow survived a turn's worth of fire. Also brilliant at getting aliens behind cover, especially full cover. The stun rocket is potentially useful, but I've never really used it. 3 X Rifles. Equipment: rifles, c4, grenades. Favoured stats: any. The rifles are the Xenonauts left over. I use the rifle position as a training position and try to have 8 Xenonauts on rotation to ensure I have relatively skilled replacements rather than complete rookies when a Xenonaut dies. The C4 is incredibly useful for blowing doors off UFOs, which I find makes them easier to breach. Other than that, they serve a general purpose role. Grenades give them a bit more oomph too. My team strategy is to generally advance in two directions - the open path is taken by the shield with the sniper, rocketeer and a rifle providing support. The path with lots of cover is taken by the shield, backed up by two rifles and the machine gunner. Once I've cleared the map I blow the UFO's door off its hinges and shoot any vulnerable aliens with the MG and sniper. The shield and assault then go in and finish the job. I've found during my play that you can never have enough grenades either... On a side-note, I've found the pistol to be quite useful. If you can get close to an alien (the shield helps), the low TUs of each shot allow you to do a fair bit of damage to an alien. Generally though, I tend to use the pistol to finish off an already damaged alien.

I've had the aliens stick their heads out the door at stupid moments far more than at opportune ones. I think you just tend to remember the time the alien stuck his head out the door and killed the 6 guys in the open more than the time he stuck his head out the door only to have it removed

The point isn't to make it so that the player only does 2-3 of each UFO type, but to fix the fact that every air-strike (assuming you can GC it) is a huge waste of useful resources. This means that without the boost, your strategy of air-striking half the crash-sites is a highly inefficient strategy. The 'clever' strategy is to GC all of them in this situation. With the extra resources, including alloys, you can then afford the best aircraft and multiple teams of fully equipped Xenonauts. So yes, you can use all the alloys you can get. And if you are getting too many alloys you can sell them to make GC even more lucrative - and please don't tell me you can have too much money I am not arguing that the player should only do 2-3 UFOs of each type, that's a straw-man argument. I'm saying that the player shouldn't feel forced to do every UFO in order to avoid the massive opportunity cost of air-striking one. As I have said though, the value of airstrikes has been upped which should go some distance towards fixing this.

First of all, I am not a 'casual player' or a casual gamer in any sense. I am very much into complex strategy games. The purpose of airstrikes is so that you don't feel like you have to do a GC on every single shot-down UFO. I love GC, but it feels like a chore if it's the 20th time I've assaulted a UFO type with the same aliens with the same weapons and tactics. The only way, as a strategy gamer, I am going to not do this is if the reward of the airstrike compensates for enough of the benefits (experience, materials and cash) I lose by not doing the GC. At this stage, it seems like GH has moved the balance so that the loss of not doing the GC is small enough that I'm happy to wear it for a much more enjoyable game.

That is a fair point. I would argue though, that doing a mission on the average increases the power of your team. Yes, you can expect an average loss of X Xenonauts, but the Y surviving Xenonauts become that much more powerful. By grinding from the start you get a much more powerful team earlier than if you pick and choose your battles. In fact, by grinding you get a team that is better able to survive each mission, so your average losses go down and grinding becomes a more attractive proposition. All you are doing by not grinding is slowing down the progression of your team and facing harder UFOs with less experienced troops, leading to increased casualties and decreased troop progression. There is one caveat to this though: if you grind missions you are more likely to get bored or simply fatigued and you start making dumb moves. That's when you really start making mistakes and that's when the casualty to experience ratio stops being worth it. The problem is, this isn't an in-game reason to not grind and with the rewards skewed the way they are it feels like you have to grind every mission otherwise you are losing out massively. EDIT: I notice that in the latest build (1.04) airstrike values have been increased. Hopefully this will reduce the comparitive loss of not doing a UFO GC. However, due to the non-monetary bonuses of grinding UFOs I would still prefer to see airstrikes increase relations as well as give cash to make them a genuinely equal alternative option to GC.

The problem with airstrikes as they stand is that there is no in-game reason to airstrike a UFO if you can get a ground team to it. You do the GC and you get soldier experience (which is hugely important), materials and 4/5 times as much cash. The only reason to airstrike a UFO if you can get a team to it is if you don't want to grind through every UFO in the game, which is not ideal IMO. I was under the impression that Airstrikes were supposed to improve country relations in the release version, though they don't currently. If they did then this would rebalance the equation - GC for extra short-term cash, soldiers and materials or airstrike for a longer term boost. A relation boost would be especially valuable in the current version where it is a battle for the first few months to maintain positive relations with countries.

This is why I'm always very careful about my troop placement in the dropship - machine gun, shield and assault in the front row so that I can either blast the crap out of the alien with MG, draw its fire with the shield or charge it with the assault.

Interrupts should only happen where reaction fire happens - with the same number of APs - so the difficulty of charging an alien shouldn't increase. They won't increase the deadliness of reactions, but will give you more options of how to deal with them. Mainly what I mean by 'interrupting interrupts' is that when a reaction happens, whoever is 'reacting' rolls against the reaction stat of the other unit. Whoever wins goes into an interrupt turn. Eg a soldier comes around the corner, meets an alien who tries to react but loses the roll. The soldier's turn goes into 'interrupt mode' (letting you know that the alien is about to blow his brains out). The soldier's turn hasn't actually been interrupted yet. Continuing with the example, say the soldier decides to risk a charge. This time the alien wins the reaction roll and proceeds to blow the soldier's brains out. That is really the main bit of the system. Beyond that first interrupt, I would advocate one more, but limit it to that. To continue the above example instead of the alien shooting when it interrupts the soldier it decides to run triggering one final interrupt from your soldier (ie. the soldier gets his turn back) and then there are no more interrupts from there. I agree that any more than that would be annoying, and so I'd leave it at that. Basically, what you have then is only one interrupt which may be ended by a good reaction roll from the unit that's had it's turn interrupted. Hope that clarifies things

Yes, it would technically be possible for there to be a whole switcheroo mess of interrupts in a single alien or soldier's turn. Under the system however, it would require both trying to run towards each other on every interrupt (which you could avoid by limiting the number of times a unit can interrupt their enemy anyway). As an example, the only way it happens is if the alien comes around the corner, the human sees it and tries to run at it with their stun rod, the alien interrupts the (rather courageous) charge and then decides that it would also like to engage in close combat and charges the human. For as long as they both charge each other then yes, you would get a mess (if you don't limit interrupts as suggested above). However, I don't envisage this being a common scenario as the risks are huge (one side will go "bugger this for a game of soldiers" and blow the other side away). So I feel that the messiness is not such a huge issue, as the main point of the interrupt is to give you a bit more choice about how you respond to an alien coming around the corner. The problem with reaction fire is it is rather limiting. For example, it is useless to the guy with the rocket launcher. Also useless if you want to get cover instead of taking what might be a futile shot against a tough enemy. I can see where you're coming from in terms of breaking up the turns however, I see at as a case of giving the player a little bit more tactical flexibility. My experience with Jagged Alliance was that the interrupt system was not hugely intrusive (though that was my experience, so YMMV). As for the 360 degree vision, I agree that in the current system it would be unnecessarily frustrating. You sneak up and every now and then you get shot, sounds like a barrel of laughs don't it (sarcasm in case you didn't pick that up ) If you implemented it with the interrupt system then I think it would work. Basically, if an alien can interrupt something behind, but has a very low chance of winning the interrupt (ie. it spins around, but your soldier gets to go on much as normal) then I think it adds interest. You then have to choose between just shooting it, taking cover or making a mad dash towards it with your stun prod. I think it works better than the 360 reaction with the current system (which people have rightly pointed out was annoying) but also better than the current system without 360 reaction fire where a dude in power armour, having fired a shot at the start of a turn can still sneak up on an alien so long as he stays behind it. @Thothkins: you're probably right, but you can forgive a man for dreaming right

Ha ha, whoops! I've been doing that a lot today. I told a friend the time I was arriving at the airport, but neglected the dates, but anyway... Basically the JA system has an 'interrupt' where reaction fire is in Xenonuats. When an enemy triggers a reaction (JA uses a different system to determine this) instead of your merc (soldier equivilant) firing a few snap shots, he essentially gets a turn with the APs he (or she for that matter) has left over from their last turn. Only the mercs who 'interrupt' get the turn (meaning that one merc could get it, or the whole squad could get it depending). If my explanation doesn't clarify things, let me know. I've not been good at explaining things for the last week (I blame uni).

So I've been playing some X-Com and reading the Xenonauts forum and discovered a mechanic that I feel could be tweaked - reaction fire. Now I've done a quick search, so forgive me if this has come up before. For me, reaction fire was always a little unsatisfactory. I did prefer Jagged Alliance's interrupts. Basically, I'd like to see reaction fire replaced with an interrupt, though perhaps with some limitations on actions that can be taken. So for instance, an alien comes round the corner and your guy gets an interrupt, you can fill the alien with lead, or run and take cover. Possibly ban aimed shots, doing stuff with your inventory etc. and it adds a bit more depth to the tactical game. The other thing that would be good with this system would be the ability to have interrupts during your turn. Firstly, lets say you come across a guy and he interrupts, but decides to head for cover, his moving could give you an interrupt, which would just return the game to your normal turn. The cooler thing however, would be that if you encounter an enemy (this would work for both sides) and they try an interrupt (determined by the game mechanics rather than the player) rather than rolling against your reaction stats, he rolls against you. If he wins, then he gets his interrupt to run or shoot. If you win, rather than taking your turn, you get an interrupt against him. Think of it as like a Western duel: you see him go for his pistol, so you go for yours. The nature of the interrupt turn means you can shoot him, or run (again at the risk of giving your enemy another chance to get another interrupt). I suggest this because: a.) Greater tactical depth; b.) Slightly more 'realism' (as in it makes sense in the game) than (as is under the current system) if an alien begins to draw but you win the reaction contest, you keep taking your turn, maybe dig in your backpack for that really handy item, maybe spend a while lining this alien up in your sights with your super-aimed shot etc. etc. while the poor alien is frozen with his gun half-drawn. c.) A better system for sneaking up on aliens. In the original I hated trying to stun aliens because it felt like such a gamble. You walked forward and either the alien didn't react and your soldier lived, or it did and he didn't. Instead, if you send in a guy with quick reactions, maybe the alien tries to draw, you see this (because you are suddenly in an interrupt instead of taking your normal turn) and decide to blast him with your pistol instead of running up and stunning him with your rod. d.) It allows for reaction fire behind you. Basically, if you sneak up on an alien, they have a chance to hear you, and can spin around to reaction fire. You would have a greater chance to get the interrupt (thanks to the whole spinning around and shooting you thing) and can decide what to do from there. This instead of a system that feels arbitrary (oh you tripped the reaction modifier. I'm sorry, there isn't enough of your soldier left to bury) or unrealistic (seeing really is believing...). EDIT: An interrupt basically replaces reaction fire with a turn for your soldier (or the enemy's if they are the one reacting) with the APs left over from that soldier's last turn.

The op didn't deserve to be flamed.

I find the idea of that being granted a patent ridiculous. They have not specified at all how it would work. Its like me saying I would like to patent a flying car. It will fly with flying engines. Yep, I now own flying cars.