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Debating Xenonauts 2


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All good ideas. What about adding in some more audio for immersion? Perhaps some radio chatter on the strategy layer? How about a fully narrated ufopedia? Kind of like the feel of Mass Effects narration. It could perhaps be one of the scientists with recorded findings but adds immersion like your in a briefing and may be fairly simplistic to create and easily cancelled out of if you prefer reading vs listening.

Cover system but I do like elevation advantages, and I like kneel, and prone for additional hit %

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Hey,

I'd really enjoy this game but all the bugs and crashes make it extremely annoying. I'm still with You but please whatever You do, concentrate your efforts on stability fixes for Xenonauts first, if this is a possibility... I've bought the game and am trying to play it on a recent build of OS X on a Macbook Air 2,1 - I keep losing hair. Crashes, corrupted savegames, botched sprites and interceptor bases becoming unusable owing to phantom hangar space and planes torment me daily... Sorry for this slightly off-topic post but since this is my third crash in an hour I couldn't refrain myself from making this statement :)

Yours,

T.

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The cover system in Xenonauts annoys me a lot. I understand how it works, but it breaks immersion when a tile two tiles away blocks a shot. Playing around the cover system makes the firefight feel more like puzzle solving than an simulated combat experience; it feels like I'm gaming the system by exploiting awkward angles. In fact, the cover system is so immersion breaking that I find it hard to enjoy the game. Simply converting to XCOM EU's cover system is reason enough for me to buy Xenonauts Remake. Cover should be the immediate objects surrounding a soldier, not the dozen possible objects littered across the map.

Edit: I've been reading a few of the forum posts and noticed something. There's no discussion on the ammo system! XCOM EU ammo system was infinitely more important than the one in Xenonauts. As it stands, ammo hardly matters because it is so easy to load up on a surplus of ammo on the soldiers. I suggest taking XCOM EU's ammo system, where for instance, a rifle fires 20% of its magazine rather than 1 bullet out of 20. Reloading needs to be a tactical consideration. Ammo conservation at the moment is either silly (running out of ammo in a short firefight) or a non-decision (too much ammo in the gun for reloads to really be important).

Edited by Snarks
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That is at least partly the fault of the community. Too many calls for realism in the weapons and outcry over any change that reduced ammunition to an unrealistic level. Everyone knows an M-16 doesn't have an 8 round magazine so you cannot do that etc etc.

Makes game balance more difficult :P

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Hi,

I'm a bit late into this. I would welcome a game reboot.

My main suggestion would be concerning overall strategy. Allow a more open-ended progress to the game, instead of forcing the player to build a bunch of bases immediately to forestall losing. Allow the players the chance to fail without it meaning that the game is screwed after that point.

Ed

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi All,

I'm new to this forum and I just want to share my opinion about story of new game.

First of all I was hoping for sequel not remake, Xenonauts 1 is good enough for me.

I disagree that there are no interesting options after events of end game. Please see below story plan.

After end game countries united into Federation, some of them against their will and by force.

New regime was very militaristic and they invest in armed forces heavy because they knew that new alien invasion will come sooner or later. Xenonauts were recognized for they achievements during fight against allies and they were given autonomy from government armed forces.

Everybody was surprised that 3 years after defending first invasion new contacts were spotted on course to Earth.

It didn't took much time before all ships were in orbit. Earth early defense systems did little or no damage to alien fleet.

Alien approach to conquer Earth was different this time - they started from bombing cities and military sites from orbit. After a week bombing stopped leaving millions dead, most of army units managed to survive as they went in to hiding in woods and hidden bunkers but communications were in chaos.

After bombardment skies were crawling with alien fighters and scout vessel, sometimes supported by bigger units.

And then Xenonauts were called to alien crash site shortly after alien ships entered atmosphere. After short fight they managed to secure site with no casualties.

When returning to base they noticed black smoke and ruined equipment outside their base. They quickly disembarked and rushed to bunker just to see terrible picture of fight inside and their friends killed, their bodies mixed with aliens. But not all aliens were gone, some of them were waiting for survivals to come back so fight broke out in tight, dark schizophrenic bunker between our team and aliens.

Once aliens were killed, Team decided to fallow protocol and they destroyed base taking as much useful materials with them.

They headed to they backup location they were hoping to meed rest of survivals but it didn't went easy.

Your ship was shoot down! After crash you wake up after a week in a farmhouse, you learn that some team members died in crash, some died after from wounds, it's just you, 3 squad members and co-pilot, most of your equipment was destroyed and you have only shotgun, hunting rifle and pistol but mission stay the same - to go to backup rendezvous point to learn what happened it that week you were unconscious and continue the fight. You learn that there is civilian airport nearby, you decided to go there hoping to find some transport.

After short fight with aliens in airport you managed to secure old helicopter and you head to backup location.

When arriving you found place to be empty with just few resources but no information what happened to other xenonauts.

You decided that you need to go into hiding and try to contact remaining xenonauts or army units. To do that you established small base in nearby mountains but without extra resources you have no hope of survival.

First mission was not to fight aliens but to fly to nearby, ruined city for food and equipment. There team found that city is in chaos and they had to fight for food with local population and army deserters.

In time team managed to build their straight, recruit new members from local population and start fighting aliens and everything and everybody that was against them but most of them knew that they can't win that war.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So I think that in new game there should be:

1. RPG style game.

2. More interaction between team members so player get attach to them

3. Team members should have different views about conflict and express them.

4. there should be more scripted missions as part of quest.

5. Adding new team members and some equipment mostly by quest and missions.

6. Planes replaced by smaller drones as aliens control skies.

7. Vehicles also replaced by drones.

8. More dynamic missions - like alien reinforcements coming - you have choice to run or fight them back and that should be very hard.

9. Darker climate, hopeless mission without positive ending, at least at the beginning.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's just my view. I will buy anything you will made anyway!

Kind Regards

Greg

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My thoughts on some of the listed points as well as some other things, from the perspective of a non hardcore player who liked the XCOM remake but never played the original.

Full 3D: I'm ambivalent about this...3D and 2D isometric are both good when done right. I do agree that ditching the paperdolls is a good idea, and whichever path you take please do try to make the characters less cartoonish. Or make everything more cartoonish if that's the style you're going for...as it is now the characters and environment just seem really disjointed.

Aliens: Mo aliens mo problems, I love it. Also like to see some alien species that do things that aren't tactically advantageous but just bizarre. Xenonauts does creepy way better than XCOM but it could really amp it up if the AI starts thinking outside the dimension.

Research/Development: I like this, especially if it means the chief engineer gets to throw some barbs of his own in reports. In general the R&D cycle should be more evenly paced, rather than research a whole bunch of nothing followed by a huge lump sum of awesome stuff late in the game.

XCOM Cover: Good idea, I like it. The current cover system is really unintuitive and gets in the way of tactical maneuvering.

Difficulty options: I want there to be more ways to tweak the difficulty level, as it is without mods I find easy to be far too easy and normal to be punishingly hard due to one of the three main game areas (tactical combat, air war, economics/region management) going badly off the rails. Ideally an adjustment scale for each one though checkboxes for select tweaks might also work.

Accessories: I want to equip my guys with accessories, e.g. reaper protection or extra sight range. Don't care whether this takes the form of a new slot or pistol plus offhand.

More stuff: More base buildings, weapon/armor options, aircraft, etc. would bring additional flexibility and depth. Both Xenonauts and XCOM are far too linear in this regard.

Side missions: I'd like to have a couple of small adventures in addition to the main war, for both passing the time and adding depth to the story. Perhaps add some hero units like XCOM's Triad guy, he was cool and added a lot of flavor plus a reason to care about at least one of your dudes.

Artifacts: A fun addition, perhaps as rewards for those side missions, would be unique items with powerful bonuses and perhaps also some disadvantages.

Additional base types: The strategic planetary defense simulator aka geoscape would feel a lot more strategic with new, minor base type such as SAM sites and local radar installations. And it's only fair that the aliens get a few of these, too.

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Would love another Xenonauts game. My thoughts

I completely disagree with going 3d.

What I would like to see more varied battles. More unique scripted fights, some 'boss' type battles with unique characters. We fall in love with our soldiers but every enemy they face is just another faceless alien.

It would also be great to include some aliens as allies. If our world is suddenly thrown into galactic politics by an aggressor surely they are not the only government out there. It would be interesting if countries could ally with the invaders and Xenonauts could ally with a smaller group of aliens in opposition to the invaders.

I would also like to see some command and control on the ground. There are no 'leaders' really on any of the missions, make it a specialized role with unique mechanics.

I would also like close combat to be a thing. Once in close combat you should not be allowed to disengage until one side is down.

The scout class should really be a ninja class with stealth and close combat perks. Please no unique abilities, just passive perks for different soldiers.

THanks for reading and good luck!

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I have been thinking about this and I would much prefer a sequel over a reboot.

There are definitely options that make some sense as a follow up to the original Xenonauts and still allow for a cold war situation.

How about after the final battle in Xenonauts the mantle of leadership was taken up by the next strongest psionic alien. This alien was much weaker and could only control a smaller force of aliens at the time. Due to the severely weakened nature of the alien fleet they decide to keep a low profile, the good old dark side of the Moon or Mars base maybe. Back on Earth the victory and liberated Alenuim provide a boost to the planet with unlimited clean energy available to everyone. However over the next few years a new discovery is made, Alenium in it's active form only has a half life of around 10 years. Inactive Alenium was only discovered after the battle in alien storage and it quickly becomes the rarest material on Earth as it was being activated in everything. It is soon hoarded and coveted by the major powers in the same way nuclear weapons were. Without Alenium it is increasingly difficult to field advanced technology like plasma or laser weapons so humanity dusts off good old ballistic tech and starts watching their neighbours closely again.

As the first Alenium age begins to burn itself out on Earth the aliens decide that the new era of distrust is their perfect opportunity to strike and try to provoke the Humans into wiping each other out. This would allow the aliens to recover some of their technology and resources without risking another full on confrontation. The aliens are still very much reduced in numbers as they only have what they could escape with last time. They would also be low on inactive Alenium so recovering this would be a priority to allow them to maintain their technological advantage.

You could still have a cold war feel but you could make the funding blocks into whatever you wanted them to be for balance purposes. Maybe Europe is no longer a very rich place (i.e. no longer the best place for a starting base) while Africa became a power house. The difference in land mass could have made a difference when Alenium was raining down from the skies, Africa could have easily been able to secure enough to become powerful. The two could even have merged, literally becoming a barrier between East and West or you could fragment the USSR and USA without needing to justify how this could have happened in the 70's.

I also feel this would allow the Xenonaut scientist to make a comeback as an embittered older man who was initially hailed as the father of the Alenium age then used as a scapegoat by the Earth governments when Alenium was discovered to burn brightly but fade quickly.

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Hello all,

For those of you who are old enough to have seen it first time round (or even heard of it!) I am a big fan of Gerry Anderson's tv show "UFO". When UFO: Enemy Unknown (as it was called in England) came out in the 90's, I was thrilled to actually be able to play a game which had much in common with my beloved tv show.

It's horribly dated now, of course, but still holds a special place in my nostalgic heart :)

Games come and go, though, but despite new alien strategy games coming out (X-Com Apocalypse, UFO: Aftermath etc) only Terror from the Deep came close to matching that first one.

And then I stumbled across Xenonauts...

While still capturing that "essence" of the X-Com game, Xenonauts has surpassed it in virtually every area. I'm sure many players have already commented on the things that make it superb (my favourites are the simple things like opening the door without having to rush through it and die and vaulting fences) so, I needn't rehash them here.

I just wanted to say thank you to the designers for making such a fabulous game.

Now, I have read that Xenonauts 2 is in the offing and I am eager to see what shape that will take, be it a re-boot or sequel.

If it was a sequel, I would love to see it in the form of a re-imagining of Terror from the Deep. I think, with the right enhancements, that could be a great game. The only problem is, as pointed out, a sequel would see humanity starting with advanced technology, from the first game, whereas I enjoy the game, the most, at the beginning, when all we have are jets, rifles, flak jackets and machine guns.

While I understand that capturing the alien technology, researching it and then using it against them makes sense, I feel that it really could do with stretching out somewhat. Would today's scientists be able to study advanced alien technology, reverse engineer it and create usable equivalents in a matter of months, especially in the 1979 setting of the Cold War? Granted, it's a game and I doubt humanity would have years to develop technology, if invaded from another world!

So, yes, stretching the period of tech advancement out would be nice (and thus the corresponding alien escalation to match I suspect), and it would be great to utilise different terror sites. In TFTD sites would occur on Cruise Liners or Cargo ships at sea, as well as Island sites.

My only other bugbear is the main screen interface being too small. It's a real strain to see how much money is in the coffers!

Thank you, once again, for making Xenonauts and I look forward to seeing the sequel or re-boot.

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  • 1 month later...

Can't tell you how much I love Xenonauts. I've missed ye olde "UFO: Enemy Unknown" for such a long time. You guys have done a great job! So, for Xenonauts 2, you guys are making underwater gameplay available, right? Like in "X-COM: Terror from the Deep". Yes? :)

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  • 2 weeks later...
Can't tell you how much I love Xenonauts. I've missed ye olde "UFO: Enemy Unknown" for such a long time. You guys have done a great job! So, for Xenonauts 2, you guys are making underwater gameplay available, right? Like in "X-COM: Terror from the Deep". Yes? :)

lol

that would be interesting :)

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Heya Goldhawk, i'll early access/kickstart Xenonauts 2 instantly no matter how it ends up :D. I love Xenonauts, so you deserve it.

I've got some thoughts too, that i'd like to share.

I prefer the tactical fights of Xenonauts to that of Xcom. The fights felt gamey in Xcom and a lot more cerebral in xenonauts. I also love the isometric viewport, i hope you dont plan on changing that too much.

As others have stated on the page dedicated for Xenonauts 2, i'd love for you to make the aliens much more alien. Xcom apocalypse had some interesting and strange aliens, for example the Multiworm that spawned hyperworms on death. The popper that exploded on proximity was also awesome and could be lethal.

The Xenopedia is awesome, and a fantastic way of telling a story. I've spent so much time reading all of the entries several times over, instead of saving the earth. Keep up the good work. Oh, and i've read the short story.. Twice:p

Lastly, have you settled on an engine? Perhaps already decided on a polygon count and texture size for your character models?

Thanks for your time.

EDIT: Oh , and the move to 3D could make modding a whole lot easier. And awesomer! Especially if you keep the viewport at a distance and models a bit simpler then modern AAA games. So that you dont have to invest a month to a single model.

Edited by Iommi
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  • 1 month later...

Vertical Terrain - we should have hills etc in the game, rather than purely flat maps with buildings offering the only verticality.

Seams a nice idea, but be careful, getting out of flat floors changes both the programming and gameplay. I mean maybe it is just a little improvement to the game that requires a lot of resources to implement it.

Your biggest asset in this game is the setting. […]Different groups could also have different starting equipment and research.

feels like you need to capitalize on that tension a lot more. In the game everybody just goes, "oh, aliens? Isn't that what Xenonauts was founded for? […] Hawkish military brass on both sides probably would have read the initial unidentified air contacts and attacks as the handiwork of the other superpower and resulted in at least a brief shooting war.

risk moving the focus away from the big old alien invasion and turning the game into more of a political simulator ... and it sort of flies in the face of the "we're all in this together" wordwide X-Com vibe.

I love the timeline of the game, but I agree that the game doesn’t use the setting at all. The world is divided at that period and picking up staring sides NATO or USSR seams the right idea. Fighting the war in separate sides until the aliens beat the shi*t out of you, or a major event happens (let’s say at the middle of the game progress) then founding X-Com and sharing NATO and USSR resources, funding, manpower, research progress, bases and technology.

I can’t imagine the USSR or USA waiting for the X-COM to defend their airspace at the first stages of the invasion, it just feels out of place.

Also the ICBMs could be shown in the game. Imagine if the planet is surrounded by UFOs but they can’t enter the atmosphere yet because they are adapting, the right move for NATO or USSR is to launch all those ICBMs towards UFOs. Maybe it just would be translated into the game with an event entry, saying that “we launched 100 ICBMs to the space but 95% of them were shot down by UFOs defenses” and showing a nice art picture of the event.

Also, the SR-71 could be a good reconnaissance plane to overcome the lack of radar arrays at the beginning.

I also love the idea of patrolling the skies. Maybe using refueling on flight or landing on a random military base (not X-Com base) to refuel.

And I would like to mention also the submarines, which were, after ICBMs one of the most feared weapon at the time. I know they are almost useless on an alien invasion… but they would be also the last survivors in case of total annihilation.

Game takes place in an alternate timeline, and may be set in ~2005 rather than 1979 (although the USSR did not collapse in this timeline)

Can you tell us why? I love 1979, it seems the perfect time for an alien invasion. The game itself is an alternate timeline, why adding an alternate timeline starting point paradigm?

Even if you do move to 3d-engine, I think you should at least keep using 2d portraits

Totally agree, 3D portraits always look so cloned

Unit experience progression should be nonlinear so that noobs gain stats more quickly than experienced soldiers. This would make full wipes more tolerable and prevent having so many over powered veterans.

Simply the best idea I read so far, but I just reviewed the first four pages...

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  • 1 month later...
Can't tell you how much I love Xenonauts. I've missed ye olde "UFO: Enemy Unknown" for such a long time. You guys have done a great job! So, for Xenonauts 2, you guys are making underwater gameplay available, right? Like in "X-COM: Terror from the Deep". Yes? :)

Why not merge the two games into one. You can fight on the land and in the water?

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was positively surprised when I picked up Xenonauts and immensely enjoyed the old school equipment screen etc.

would buy either variant though I somehow would prefer a continuation sequel

(maybe the second invasion fleet destroyed a lot of the infrastructure of the earth defense forces when arriving, explaining why a lot of stuff has to be researched again?)

whatever way you decide to go, I personally would just like to see more options for everything

bigger tech tree

more weapons, ammo types and armors

more psi

more enemies

maybe some special quirks or skills for soldiers to earn?

etc etc

anyway I am quite confident in your ability to design another great strategy game and as I said am quite welling to throw some of my money in your face in exchange

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  • 2 months later...

Soldiers sitting and base and doing nothing until next invasion is rather strange imo.

I would love to see some kind of training system, especially if player can set and change focus of training.

For example, I'd want my sniper to train marksmanship at every free moment, while assault soldier should focus on physique.

Perhaps this should work so being active on mission gives soldier stat point increases as it does right now, but training helps too, just slower.

This also keeps soldiers you've hired, but not assigned to dropship still up to shape and improving until they're needed. Right now, you do all the early easy missions, get elite squad, and when difficulty picks up, start save scumming just to keep your elites alive, because getting them up to that level took 50 missions to get there and there's no way to replace them.

It also removes grinding from actual missions where you have to make sure each soldier gets a shot at someone, just to improve their stats, so you basically leave those few aliens alive and spend turns and turns bringing your rookies closer for them to get a shot.

But I'd hate training system where you actually assign soldiers away to train (like psi training in XCom games) and can't use them in a mission for a month or whatever.

Edited by InCreator
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