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Stretch Goal Poll Options


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OK, so a few people have suggested a poll where we ask people what features they are most excited about and would like to have put in the game as rewards for us doing well. I think this is a good idea. But first, I need to know what should go in the poll.

Here's a few ideas from me:

- Mac / Linux port (likely to be at $100k)

- Female soldiers (likely to be at $200k)

- A new tileset (possibly with a sub-vote about what tileset you'd like - given we already have desert and tundra tilesets coming)

- A new alien species? Although we might struggle to find one that has a good battlefield niche / ability that is not already planned.

- Vehicle levelling - allowing vehicles to become slightly better with combat experience, although I'm a little unconvinced by this.

- Military terror mission? Aliens are attacking a miltary base?

- Mission objectives on terror missions - such as protect X civilian (the mayor etc) while the aliens are actively trying to kill them?

Other ideas are welcome. I'm not keen to put pilot / aircraft experience in the game though, unfortunately. I think it'll be too tough to balance.

Edited by Chris
added mission objectives
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Nah, you can talk about that in that post, it's a bit different (I've posted there). We can't put that in the poll, unless we stick it under "improved modding options" but even that is a bit wishy-washy...

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Out of the four undecided (no goal numbers set) I'm most interested in the extra tile set and th military terror mission.

How about an oil rig terror mission? =)

Or a mission to take out a WACO type farm with alien worshipers?

EDIT: The Waco farms could start showing up when countries lose faith in the Xenonauts and contain 1-3 aliens (commanders?) and a bunch of hostile civilians. You still get negative score for killing the civvies, but they open fire on the Xenonauts rather then running around being helpless...

Edited by Gorlom
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Maybe add in some of the other concepts you've previously mentioned, like soldier medals (and suppression fire, but maybe that's a gameplay mechanic you want in for sure if you can)? Even if they're things you're planning to put in, can't hurt to give people more choices and also get a sense of their priorities.

Any other basic questions you can ask, just to round out the survey (and maybe help the PR campaign)? Stuff like "how did you find out about the drive?", "have you played the demo?", etc. - just thinking that more questions makes a survey feel beefier and maybe having some of that data would help target PR going forward?

Out of curiosity, Chris, are boxed games even remotely an option given pricing/shipping? Another question in a survey could be to ask people who likely they'd be to pay $65 (or whatever) for a boxed copy, to get a sense of if there's enough support to even make it worth going down that path.

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What about "additional sub-maps and battlescape elements"? Seems to me several people have voiced their desire for maximum randomization/replayability.

My other idea would be "visual customization of aircraft", maybe also the pilot names thing, both taken from the thread about what to offer to pledgers above 200$.

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- A new tileset (possibly with a sub-vote about what tileset you'd like - given we already have desert and tundra tilesets coming)

- Military terror mission? Aliens are attacking a miltary base?

A combination of the above would be great. Basically more "special missions" like the military base defense, liberating governments from alien influence, joint operations with npc forces like a large-ish scale ground battle between earth military and aliens that you can get involved in, etc. Things that show that earth is fighting for its life beside what the Xenonauts are doing.

Female soldiers would be nice as well. The OS ports too (I don't care about them but it's good for business).

Vehicle xp and new alien species aren't necessary imo, they're very appealing on paper but not as relevant in practice imo.

I'd also advise re-emphasizing that the main goal is to get an office and gather the team so people don't keep asking why do you need 50k for this or that.

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recycling an earlier post:-

Increased Map variations – Arctic, desert etc. up to the number of XCom ones

Enhanced Geoscape events, in parallel with UFO activity, showing the panic, or cooperation, within the funding nations as the invasion progresses.

Training to be enhanced to ensure that you don’t spend the last third of the game with cookie cutter soldiers.

Variation between funding nations – with geography, expertise and cold war influence affecting various facilities, buying & selling

A more detailed Geoscape with more cities on it.

Female soldiers, if only in the base pictures – coming with $200 000 I see

Enhanced solder screen enabling room for call signs, character roles, and possibly player notes.

Enhanced alien artefacts – more to their culture/goodies than just power sources and alloys. Can be looped into research

Being able to track alien influence on funding nations – colours on Geoscape or enhanced funding nation info

Remove soldier from selection and force onto next soldier when going through soldiers on Battlescape

Oh, and to help for post release...

Mod – Ticker & events to be moddable

Mod – Psionics to be moddable preferably with a graphic of a Psi Amp & Psi Lab to be handy

Mod – weapon effects to be added beyond what is there – electrical arcing for example?

Alas tech, pilot and engineering skills are probably huge, but enhanced training would almost be the same as Soldier skills.

as for the above

- Mac / Linux port (likely to be at $100k) - I don't use either so personally meaningless. Can see the sales advantage for you guys though.

- Female soldiers (likely to be at $200k) - seems a huge jump from 100k. Would like to see intermediate steps. Can be modded.

- A new tileset (possibly with a sub-vote about what tileset you'd like - given we already have desert and tundra tilesets coming)

Yay!

- A new alien species? Although we might struggle to find one that has a good battlefield niche / ability that is not already planned.

Hard to say, since there are so many we haven't really seen. Some of the original EU ones struggled to really find a story and a niche, so I'd rather that the ones you had really fit in.

- Vehicle levelling - allowing vehicles to become slightly better with combat experience, although I'm a little unconvinced by this.

Happy that the advanced R&D takes care of this by providing updates. Not to keen on "Pimp my tank"

- Military terror mission? Aliens are attacking a miltary base?

This is a yes. Particularly in keeping with some Cold War/ variation in funding states as above and on other thread. You have to have a reason for doing this. If it's that they are going to launch the bases' missiles, then why haven't they just launched horrid weapons from orbit?

Other ideas are welcome. I'm not keen to put pilot / aircraft experience in the game though, unfortunately. I think it'll be too tough to balance.

Pilot and Tank piccies are an option, even without skills

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My other idea would be "visual customization of aircraft", maybe also the pilot names thing, both taken from the thread about what to offer to pledgers above 200$.

Those aren't really stretchgoals that require large ammounts of funding to get implemented are they? Picking from that thread means you can't beef out the reward tiers with them.

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Out of the four undecided (no goal numbers set) I'm most interested in the extra tile set and th military terror mission.

How about an oil rig terror mission? =)

Or a mission to take out a WACO type farm with alien worshipers?

2nd ENTIRE post! :)

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I'd like to put in my vote for Vehicle Experience, or, more specifically, pilot experience. I want to be able to shuffle vehicle pilots/drivers around and make them actual characters just like your soldiers. This would even allow you to make it so pilots could leave their vehicles after they're destroyed (for example, as a rescue mission for a downed interceptor pilot, or the crew of a tank could bail if they're lucky enough that the alien plasma didn't immediately incinerate them but it did break their tank). You could also have one tank pilot/driver go from the start tank and then slowly upgrade his vehicle to newer models as they come off the production line. Would be awesome. May be too much work, though - we'll see how well the Kickstarter does.

The impact of pilot experience might be a bit difficult to deal with too, though. The main things you'd want would be bravery, reactions, marksmanship, and possibly two vehicle driving skills (one for pilots of aircraft, one for drivers of ground vehicles). Someone should work on a full-on proposal for what to do with pilot experience before fully deciding 'yay' or 'nay', I think.

Female troopers at $200k looks just fine by me. Military terror missions would be excellent, too. And, of course, new tilesets.

A new alien race doesn't seem all that needed, though. The other thing I can think of that you might want to put in for 'stretch' goals would be things like the new UI and the other bits already mentioned on the Kickstarter page.

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How about a hostage mission of some sort? Admittedly, I don't know the aliens' motivations or if that's how they roll (maybe they'd just kill people instead), but a mission with a bit more pressure to get the civvies out alive could be fun. In general, I'd say definitely include "more mission types" on the poll if that's do-able for you guys to implement. My top preference for any improvements would be gameplay mechanics - suppression, lying prone, moving while crouched, etc. - but additional mission types would definitely be high on the list.

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Nah, you can talk about that in that post, it's a bit different (I've posted there). We can't put that in the poll, unless we stick it under "improved modding options" but even that is a bit wishy-washy...

Chris, no worries at all, I knew it was a long shot! :)

Just seen your post in the mod thread though, that's fantastic! Thanks very much. I'll get a full list of intentions drawn up so you can see what's possible.

Thanks again.

Of the existing stretch goal ideas then; anything that adds content and variety gets my vote. So a new tileset (jungle/forest??), terror mission objectives and maybe a couple of custom missions tied to research events would all be great.

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Well at least give us pilot portraits and number of kills (just noticed kills are already in the game, umm..), what was the greatest enemy shot down by the pilot etc. Not necessarily experience.

So we could have pilot rescue missions, I would love that.

And since we are copying stuff from the other thread: how about visible damage after battle on your aircraft in hangar? Plasma burns, leaking fuel tanks, destroyed weapons. All gradually changing back to normal with the repairs going.

Edited by Shima
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This is my personal opinion on what i'd favour, rather than what i think would get everyone most excited, though i'd hope there was some overlap.

Here's a few ideas from me:

- Mac / Linux port (likely to be at $100k)

- Female soldiers (likely to be at $200k)

Not really too bothered by this. In fact, at the resolution i play at, i can't tell the genders anyhow. People might be puzzled why female soldiers requires 200k, so i'd be careful to point out why they are there as you have in your edits.

- A new tileset (possibly with a sub-vote about what tileset you'd like - given we already have desert and tundra tilesets coming)

This would be the big one for me. Every tileset drastically increases the scope of the game and it's re-playability. I personally was always disappointed in X-Com that the urban missions were some small town, so i'd suggest a option to vote for a 'Downtown' Tileset that gives you the feel of landing in the middle of a major city. (i understand that'd be a particularly big undertaking though but eh, it'd be cool to have a firefight from inside a crashed bus)

- A new alien species? Although we might struggle to find one that has a good battlefield niche / ability that is not already planned.

Most of them are still under wraps, so i don't know if people could really gauge the usefulness of this.

Maybe you've aleady got this, but there could be alien non-coms doing stuff on the battlefield. You could combine that with the extra objectives, so you like have a objective to stop alien experiments on people (or cows, gotta rescue those poor cows) or capture alien scientists.

- Vehicle levelling - allowing vehicles to become slightly better with combat experience, although I'm a little unconvinced by this.

From a logical standpoint, a well experienced crew would be able to use the weapons better.

- Military terror mission? Aliens are attacking a miltary base?

This would involve a tileset as well no? Sounds like a awesome idea. It perfectly fits the theme of the game and adds a lot to it.

- Mission objectives on terror missions - such as protect X civilian (the mayor etc) while the aliens are actively trying to kill them?

Extra mission objectives would be good.

As for other ideas, where did those military radio sounds on the aircraft come from? I really like the radio chatter and it's something i think could be explored further to make the game more immersive.

Edited by Zeromanicus
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We could add portraits and kills for the pilots, I reckon. I don't want to give them stats, but we could probably add that.

Which then segues nicely into another reward tier, as has been talked about on another thread...

In order to save some of the work for doing new generic (non-KS-backed) portraits, can you have some of the standard soldier portraits make up the pool of potential pilot photos rather than drawing all new pilot photos?

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My top preference for any improvements would be gameplay mechanics - suppression, lying prone, moving while crouched, etc. - but additional mission types would definitely be high on the list.

This actually tops a new tileset/new missions for me too. I'm assuming suppression is in anyway, as that was one of the basic Kickstarter goals, I think. But anything that adds more depth to the game gets a thumbs up from me.

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Maybe additional art.. For instance, seeing statistics of how many people died because I didn't make it in time to terrorized city and it was nuked is disheartening.

But if it were accompanied with art picture of the nuke going off and obliterating the city...

Another thing I miss are police forces. All we see is national guard getting their asses kicked by aliens. Few policemen in an industrial zone or terror mission, armed with pistols and occasional shotgun, desperately trying to help civilians escape would be nice.

Also, more voice acting. At this moment, I can't even tell if a civilian or army soldier is killed, by the voice.

PS: military base mission sounds wonderful!

Edited by Shima
fixin' typos
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The problem for the boxed copies is I don't even know where to start looking to get them produced...

The Iron Tower Studio behind Dead State said they looked into this and the logistics made them cry. Apparently to cost it, they'd need to put it in the higher hundred dollar tiers, which they felt would upset the lower tiers too much.

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