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Unbelievably, not everyone who has purchased Xenonauts has played the original X-Com. This means that occasionally people will try to play Xenonauts and have absolutely no idea what's going on, because right now we're concentrating on getting the mechanics in place before we polish the UI so it has things like tooltips to explain exactly what everything does. In fact, even those that who have played X-Com don't always know about all the features in Xenonauts - up til now, the only way to find everything out was to spend about a year hanging about on our forums. No longer! There is now a manual for Xenonauts. This will be included in all of the builds, and available for download from our website (link below). Essentially it just explains the function and basic controls for all of the screens in the game, as well as a bit of developer commentary on how we'll be developing the screens. Of course, the forums (and hopefully the wiki) will still remain the best place to get all the detailed information on the game, but hopefully this will allow all players and journalists enough of an introduction to the game to stop them drowning in confusion.... Download link is here: http://www.xenonauts.com/devfiles/XenonautsManual.doc Comments, suggestions etc are welcome.

I decided to write this 'guide' as I've seen a few people mentioning they had trouble with the aircraft combat. This works for the UFO Scout and may work with the UFO Corvette using heavy missiles (this is untested). I engage the UFO with 2 F-17 aircraft (let's call them 'Adam' and 'Bob'). I command Adam (which the UFO always seems to go for) to fly directly north, and Bob to fly almost straight at the UFO, but not attacking it (changing course as needed to make sure Bob stays outside the UFO's cone of fire) (see pic 1). When there is about 2 cones length between Adam and the UFO, I command him eastwards (see pic 2). When Bob passes the tip of the UFO's cone of fire, I command him to attack the UFO (see pic 3). Bob will move to intercept, but stay behind the cone. At this point Bob will fire his missiles, the UFO will roll, but still be hit (since you're attacking from the side - also, it rolls too early and away from the missiles). After being hit the the UFO should turn to flee (with 70% damage, if both missiles hit). To make sure you catch up to it and kill it (using the cannon), activate the afterburner on Bob (see pic 4). You can also command Adam to attack, but he may not be able to intercept before the UFO has either escaped or died due to the distance. So, basically, flank with Bob, while luring the UFO with Adam. Here it is, in pictures: Pic 1: http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/4394/act1t.png Pic 2: http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/5143/act2h.png Pic 3: http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/9953/act3.png Pic 4: http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/8152/act4g.png Against a Corvette class UFO, your missiles will not do a lot of damage (I have not tried this tactic with the MIG plane/heavy missiles) and I had to use almost all the shots in the cannons of both aircraft to take the Corvette down, taking some damage in the process (although both planes survived). Chris, not sure if you were planning on updating the AI for aircraft combat or not (and as I have only seen the first two types of UFOs, I don't know if the tactic works with the later ones). Todo: Does this tactic work with 2 MIG's against a scout?