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Xenonauts V1.5 Plans


Chris

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When we released Xenonauts, we decided we were not going to do any further content patches for the game and so forth - instead, we would move onto other projects. Our position remains broadly the same, but we have decided that the game requires some extra work that will be released as Xenonauts V1.5.

We are hoping to release a version of Xenonauts V1.5 that contains the following updates:

  • Steam Workshop support
  • Vastly improved mod loading support, including a better launcher mods interface
  • An updated line of sight system that fixes the sight issues between different terrain levels and better communicates the corner shooting system
  • Soldier nationality flags
  • Geoscape notification feed information on aircraft readiness ("Condor-1 Repaired" etc)
  • Terrain transparency on cursor
  • Ability to hide all props /walls on a level using "Hide Roof", showing only units
  • Mind Control now activates with a turn delay
  • Morale regeneration added at end of the turn, rather than the start
  • Berserk no longer always targets your own soldiers
  • F5 quicksaves the game
  • Numerous visual / stability bugfixes
  • Many more things made moddable

The observant amongst you will have spotted that most of these things are things that have been implemented by the Xenonauts: Community Edition team - this is because V1.5 is going to be a modified version of X:CE. This is going to be a one-off merge; X:CE will continue to develop in its own Steam branch after this but future changes will not be rolled into the official version.

This decision was going to be inevitable as soon as we decided to integrate Steam Workshop and llunak's mod loader. All the extra moddability offered by X:CE means that if we did not adopt it as the base of Xenonauts V1.5 we would end up splitting the mod community in half and confuse players (as many mods would need X:CE and others would not).

Additionally, X:CE has been carefully maintained so that it is essentially a better version of Xenonauts V1.09. Having played around with it a bit myself I can say that the quality of life improvements add a lot to the gameplay and take nothing away from the original experience. It makes sense to merge them into an official release and push them out to everyone that owns Xenonauts.

From the Goldhawk side, Giovanni's going to be putting in the Steam Workshop integration and rewriting the launcher. We're going to want your feedback on how this should work - if you're a modder (or avid mod user), please read this thread and comment. We're also now going to have to officially support the additional code written in X:CE up until now, so expect V1.5 to spend quite some time being iterated on the Experimental branch before we release it as a Stable build.

We are planning to publicise the release of Xenonauts V1.5 when it comes - it is not a content patch, but it will fix most of the major gameplay issues in the game and make it substantially easier for people to access and load mods that address what they may consider balance issues in the game. The modding community and X:CE team are then well placed to take Xenonauts in whatever direction they see fit.

We'll also release a demo for the game, as a few months have passed since release and there's now much less chance it'll cannibalise our sales. We're not sure on the ETA for all of this yet, but we figured we should make you aware of our plans now we've settled on our final course of action.

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So how would one go about switching back from the community edition to 1.5 once it's released via steam? Would I have to do a re-install?

Also, just thought I'd mention that the tool-tip for Accuracy on the soldier equipment screen is wrong. It says that the higher of strength or accuracy is used for heavy weapons instead of the lower.

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They're not changing it.

That's a shame, really all I wanted was a final Xenopedia entry from our favorite egomaniac scientist explaining what actually happened afterwards.

*SPOILERS*

What happened to the alien fleet that was already in orbit? Why was the Ethereal Praetor so important anyway? If the whole point was to kill him, why couldn't they just blow up the whole ship with a singularity torpedo? And most importantly... what was the head scientist's name? In my headcanon I've named him "Dr Richards"... because he's a dick.

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*Spoiler*

It would have been nice to at least explain why a Singularity Torpedo would be unable to destroy the dreadnought, and I do personally think the ending is pretty lackluster. I was secretly hoping for something more akin to the original XCOM, heck even the Playstation version had a end game cutscene.

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Hi and nice to hear about this update! Any idea when it will be released? This month? This year? I'd like to start a new playthrough at some point but now I want to wait for this update.

Yeah, I know there is X:CE, but for some reason I'd like to wait for this update before I go to that mod.

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We don't really know, to be honest - it's mostly on the production side of things because people now have other commitments (either within Goldhawk or external) that need to be prioritised over this.

I'd hope it'd be out in the next three months, but really that's just me plucking figures out of the air.

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Hi and nice to hear about this update! Any idea when it will be released? This month? This year? I'd like to start a new playthrough at some point but now I want to wait for this update.

Yeah, I know there is X:CE, but for some reason I'd like to wait for this update before I go to that mod.

Exactly the same reason why I uninstalled Xenonauts CE after having issues while combining mods and why I´m waiting for 1.5.

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*Spoiler*

It would have been nice to at least explain why a Singularity Torpedo would be unable to destroy the dreadnought, and I do personally think the ending is pretty lackluster. I was secretly hoping for something more akin to the original XCOM, heck even the Playstation version had a end game cutscene.

This.

The ending is so lackluster that I don't(and maybe more) would not want to play again.

Seriously, to reach the ending on normal we had to spend roughly 20+hours on a campaign.. only to get treated to a victory screen.

No closure.

Sad

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  • 4 months later...

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