erutan

"Save & Close" could be a good wording for the settings menu. Nitpick, but for the cleaners missions it should probably be "enemy activity" vs "alien activity". If there ends up being mixed missions in the future just keeping it to enemy would be simpler.

Having various different accents (or languages, it's not like we really need to understand someone's barks) would probably be better than having 20+ lines recorded per voice, especially given how international the unit roster is. It's a bit harder with Xenonauts / XCOM inspired games as compared to blizz RTS, JA2, etc as there's less individual character with each unit, aside from what you build up over time in your head due to emergent gameplay. I just read https://bossfightbooks.com/products/jagged-alliance-2-by-darius-kazemi which goes over the insane amount of voice combinations in JA2 (a game I've played through multiple times and I'm sure only scratched the surface of) but there you had very clear characters vs generic soldiers. It'd be sort of fun to have backers with custom portraits record lines for the game, but I imagine that'd be terrible to manage from a QA standpoint.

Why not introduce the C4 / frag grenade dynamic of X1(CE?) to get around grenade realism? One is your typical frag grenade that has a fairly large radius of damage, but doesn't impact tougher terrain much. Riflemen will want to have a few to chuck over cover ahead of them for targets they're not confident of hitting. The second is more of a "bundle of dynamite" similar to the C4 in X1CE - it does more damage in a 9 tile box (with a bonus to terrain) but handwaves the rest of the blast radius away by being a shaped charge. It'd be heavier, so a shorter range, and accuracy would matter a lot more so you'd want to be closer, which makes for some interesting choices. I could see these being carried more by assault types and shield / pistol (generally ~1/4 to 1/2 of a squad depending on the type of mission)... I found having having dedicated grenadiers with shields very useful in X1 (they'd have pistols obviously, but their clutch moments were from their piles of grenades). I do find that having frag grenades destory concrete ala xcom neue makes cover more of a consumable than a more traditional tactical consideration - LW1 toned down terrain destruction and made for more interesting gameplay, while still allowing for some opening up of terrain for flanking etc.

This has really improved since the last demos I tried. Some questions/bugs/comments: * Are the walls supposed to be a brick facade with concrete underneath, or is them turning into grey slabs a bug? * Some walls can be shot through. * Weapons that give you a TU bonus do so an unlimited amount of times - I can keep switching to a SMG and moving/firing until it's time to reload. Pistols less useful, but you can still creep around to wherever you want. * Really enjoying the heavy weapons (sniper, lmg) - the grenade launcher is satisfying without being too OP in blowing up terrain. Assault rifles aren't getting a ton of kills, but they're good for those finishing touches getting in a suppress. Shotgunners kept dying - it's a little hard to move close enough to use them without dying the next turn without smoke, though suppression / overwatch fire helps. Overall it feels very "tactical".

Interesting take - I think it'll be more interesting than just "Xenonauts with better graphics and some QoL fixes". I'm personally a huge fan of JA2, so having things go in that direction sound good to me. Since we're going with 3d models this time and don't have the same issues pre-rendering animation frames, why not have a prone mode eh? You could have it that certain heavy weapons can only be effectively used crouching or prone, which would increase the balancing options. But minor issue. I think having a rating in different fields makes sense (combat, technical, science, etc) - to riff off of previous posters I think still keeping sub-stats under those is a good idea though. I'm not against streamlining / simplifying where it makes sense, but I don't think we need to go simpler than new XCOM - it's proven that their level of complexity can get mass market adoption. One issue would be balancing out each field rating vs specific stats under it - what if someone has a science rating of 3, but is maxed on medical but little research, should they be able to use a prototype laser weapon? To borrow from Fallout or JA2, what if each (rank) of a field lets you assign a "perk" that acts as a bonus. These would stack with modifiers from armor and weapons while still allowing for a personal "feeling" for each soldier. So say each soldier has an option for fixed or semi-randomized stats (you'll need some display of movement and TUs etc if for nothing else they show up in combat and when you have some armor that modifies them), but they get a slight boost in relevant stats when you level up a "field", plus get to choose a "perk" to go along with it. So we're going more like nu-xcom in that you get a boost in stats when you level up vs using a skill, but they're tied to profeciencies in a field vs an overall rank. Perks also feel a bit more personal than numbers IMO, seeing someone has a profeciency or skill rather than just a higher number. Having a lot of pre-made characters also allows for some interesting/quirky combinations of perks, and less power-gaming of "optimal" perks (though it'd be fun to have some all low level ranking characters that you can then define better as well). Someone with science perks for medicine, but a combat perk for melee due to them being a knife fanatic or whatever. One of the best things about JA2 was how characters had "personality" - without voice acting that'd be harder, but some actual sense of personality / backstory, hopefully some interaction between them goes a ways towards that. Overview / overall stats (could be more or less). Could be static and only effected by starting stats (semi-random or not, config option), or could have small bonuses when leveling up relative ratings. Health (armor, perk) Efficiency (time units - combat rating, perk, armor) Fitness (exhaustion mechanic - overall ratings, perk?) Accuracy (combat rating + perks, weapon mods?) Morale (combat rating + operative rating, perks) Research (science rating, perks) Medical (science rating, perks) Development (technical rating, perks) Explosives (technical rating, perks) Infiltration (operative rating, perks) Persuasion (operative rating, perks) Overall fields and perks (10 in each rank, each rank boosts relevant stats and every other grants use of a perk. 5 in each rank, only perk each time?). You can also have some perks that apply negative and positive effects, have certain ones unlocked at certain ranks. Sort of a skilltree but less forced imo. COMBAT RATING (each time someone levels up they get more accuracy, time units, etc) marksmanship (tactical bonus to hit with projectile weapons) sniper (tactical bonus to hit targets x+ tiles away) cqb (tactical bonus to hit targets x- tiles away) martial (tactical bonus to melee attacks) resilient (tactical health bonus, faster wound recovery) weightlifting (bonus to carrying capacity, melee, less time units) distance runner (bonus to time units, less carrying capacity) SCIENCE RATING (each time someone levels up they get more medical, research, etc) physics (strategic bonus to research, bonus to... thrown item accuracy? idk lol) chemistry (strategic bonus to research, bonus to chem weapon use) medical (strategic/tactical use) adaptive (gets to use new weapons with a -1 to science rating) self-medicating (bonus to exhaustion, more susceptible to toxins in field) drug-resistant (less likely to be harmed by gas/poison, self-buff items less effective) TECHNICAL RATING prototyping/manufacturing (strategic use) explosives (tactical use, manufacturing bonus?) mechanic/repair (strategic and tactical use) adaptive (tactical bonus to using enemies equipment in field) OPERATIVE RATING stealthy (tactical bonus to not be spotted) recruiter/mentor (strategic bonus for recruitment, funds, etc) charismatic (tactical morale to nearby soldiers) cryptography (bonuses to finding new targets, gathering resources from raids?) assassin (tactical bonus to hit with silenced weapons / throwing knives / etc, minus to persuasion) pacifist (bonus to persuasion, non-lethal weapons, etc minus to lethal weapon accuracy and morale loss after a kill)

"Interestingly, this game was kickstarted by fans who thought that the official Firaxis reboot from a couple of years ago - X-com Enemy Unknown - simplified the core strategy a bit too much." orly?

re: being "locked out" of using mods, the game will settle down soon and resources will be shifted to other projects - it's not like there will be a constant stream of experimental updates forever.

There's a difference between the game itself and tools like the level editor being OSS.

I'll see if I have time to give 1.08 a test once it's up. Glad to be of some assistance again.

Glad that worked out for you thither - I didn't have any extra bugs back when, but things have changed since. Hopefully we're not in a situation where 1.2.3 fixes fonts but there's some other bug that a later version fixes.

I haven't tried the new mac version on steam, but I remembered the blurry text showing up in the past for OS X I made a post about what WINE version I used to get around the issue. http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/2576-Mac-bug-reports?p=58028&viewfull=1#post58028

Congratulations, and I'm really happy to see it's doing well commercially. If for no other reason than bugfixes in the future. Really like the idea of vetted fans being able to contribute features to the game (as mods and then some rolled in as official patches sounds pretty great). Looking forward to where things go!

I think having a simple "bloody" vs "non-bloody" fallen sprite would be ideal in terms of ease of execution but adding in visual indicators. Having to hover over a body and check its tooltip is a bit clunky.

The graphics are gorgeous, and I like the music and most of the writing... some of the puzzles / options based on character building aren't quite as interesting as I'd like, but aside from the crap AI it's not a bad game. The Berlin campaign has some nice NPCs.

It's certainly far better than Shadowrun Returns... been playing that a bit recently due to a steam sale and the AI is pretty random.

The new mechanics by themselves were enjoyable, but they didn't really fit into a coherent whole... the overlap of class skills, gene mods, and new items got a little messy at times. It would have been nice to see them adjust the original game a bit more rather than just build on top of it. I've come to really enjoy the tactical layer of XCOM for what it is, just a shame the strategic is built more like a board game than a simulator.

Very nice! I sort of remember there being some friction with zzz's (your?) ideas, but I always enjoyed the seeing the work you came up with.

My first thought was that health is more important because without it you're dead... but he's right that TUs are what change / we pay attention to the most, and having them on top would make things more scannable. I think it'd make a nice thing to test out in experimental 8.

Same, and depending on strength I'll have riflemen carry a shotgun and assault carry an assault rifle in their backpacks for versatility. I don't use vehicles for my primary squad, but they can provide some nice cushion room for my secondary one.

Yeah, I was shot at through a corvette wall - there are also some instances where there is no obscuring cover but there's a drastic cut to accuracy...

You also might be better off trying a save from the geoscape than from ground combat (less variables that might be changed) - but since the game is in development there isn't a real upgrade path.

I like that idea for base defense. You could even bump up the number of aliens or something to counteract the advantage of having no fog of war - it'd also make it feel a bit more unique. An alternative would be to be able to check x rooms a turn (time to check cameras) outside of soldier LoS, but that'd be more coding. Clearing the command center sounds perfect. What if for terror missions it was based on remaining aliens? e.g. when it's down to the last one? and/or a higher turn number?

The stealth ones would only be larger UFOs - say a stealth landing ship that only decloaks when grounded, so some of them will get by until you tech up, but it's not like zomg you can't intercept anything. An alternative to this would be to say, cut the radar range of xcom bases by 1/3 or something on a stealth UFO type - so it can still be detected, but due to it's lower signature / response it effectively decreases the range it could be detected at. You could possibly have some research to (partially?) negate that. I would agree that UFOs on certain types of missions/plans could have a tighter approach run as well. Intermittent jamming would just be frustrating as a game mechanic imo.

Say mid-late game there was some kind of "stealth" UFOs that could cloak at will, and upon capturing a landed one you could research ~hyperwave decoder that'd passively upgrade radar. So you'd have a period where there'd be more tension / a twist, then it's resolved. That said, I don't think the mechanic is important enough to make it given we're in the final stretch before release.

Having fallen soldier names scroll in credits seems like it might be able to make it - having a separate room / UI etc for memorials seems a bit much.