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Pretty sure people are breathing, not heard news reports linking a recent spate of asphyxiation with reading the forum :P

I would be genuinely interested in seeing a map pack put together using the method TacticalDragon mentions.

I tried it myself a long time ago but didn't really like the results and I know at least Skitso has tried something similar if not others as well.

If TacticalDragon is really interested enough to give it a shot then I hope they do share the results with the rest of us.

More variations and more community input is always nice to see.

I am not personally willing to devote the time to trying it again but that might be why it didn't work for me in the first place, it was just a test to see if it was possible.

Someone with more enthusiasm for the system might get some great results.

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DaWu, I can see where you're coming from on the maps, but from what I understand in the final version of the game, the maps will work with both a hand-crafted and random element working together. Random elements can be generated per tile-set and added to the map with the hand crafted UFO's or set pieces like parts of maps.

In this current build that system isn't implemented yet. During the first few months of in-game time you'll only be encountering some of the lower tier UFO's and depending on where you shoot them down, some biomes in the game don't have very many maps yet while others have quite a bit of variation. Play up to the point where you're encountering Medium UFO's on a regular basis and by then I promise you that you will have seen a very decent amount of map variation.

I've been here watching Xenonauts develop since the very beginning. Over the last 2 years I've watched this game go from a almost unplayable mess to them making huge leaps and bounds and the game improving every step of the way. Like you I'm a OG X-Com lover. I have the new ones too but that's not old school X-Com to me. Having seen Xenonauts grow and evolve I promise you, as a fellow OG fan, Xenonauts is the best game out that brings back the original feeling. Give it a chance and you won't be sorry.

If not though, as Xenonauts is still technically "Early Access" on Steam and is listed as a "Beta" you can indeed get you're money back through Steam's customer support. They will refund it to you're Steam Wallet like they did with me the last time I bought a "Beta" I really didn't like. It's in Steam's terms of service that they have to give you a refund but Only if the game is in Beta and has not been released in full yet. Once a game has been released though there's no going back and all transactions are final.

You do have plenty of time though before Xenonauts gets fully released so as a fellow OG, I ask you to give the game a chance. Put a few days into playing the newest build that just went up on Steam and if you're half way through the game and still feel the way you do, then by all means indeed, get your money back through Steam's customer service. They'll handle everything for you.

Take my advice though, give it a chance, I promise you won't be sorry.

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What I don't understand is if they were able to make the random maps work in the original, why is it so impossible to make it work for this title? What is the fundamental difference that makes the random map generation worse? I mean, I can tell that the maps in the original were to some extent more "simple", in terror from the deep it was basically just all ocean floor and coral reefs, some hills here or there and some kelp, and Xenonauts maps have a lot more different elements going on. But given how much value and replay-ability it ads i just think that maps would have to look pretty awkward and crappy before i'd consider the randomness a negative. Are there any examples of horribly deformed and retarded maps that one could look at in order to convince one self that the developers are making the right choice here?

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It is not impossible to do, the devs just prefer to do it another way.

They could have spent a lot of time working on an algorithm to generate random maps or they could spend a lot of time making a lot of less random maps.

For aesthetic reasons they chose the latter.

Time wise the random maps would need a lot of time spent in developing the algorithm so the maps made sense but very little time to generate each individual map while the hand crafted approach needs no time developing an algorithm but much more time designing each map.

As suggested earlier in the thread the tools are there for someone who is interested to make their own more random maps.

Load them up and give it a go.

You might come up with something really great that the community is interested in playing.

If it doesn't work out then you will at least have a greater insight into the issues the devs have seen.

First step, make a couple of dozen submaps with mutually merging borders in a single submap folder.

Second step, make a level that is filled with this single submap so the level picks randomly from the submaps for each spot.

The game cannot randomly generate submaps though as creating a realistic building with all of the proper features and props that make sense is a little tricky for a mathematical algorithm.

*edit* Found an old thread from someone who worked out their own way to make random maps.

The levels they designed are no longer supported due to changes in the game but it shows that it was possible.

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/2634-201-levels-for-the-alpha

Edited by Gauddlike
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It's mostly to do with making coherent-looking maps that look acceptable in this world of modern graphics, which wasn't a concern back in ye olde days of low-res X-Com. The ground tiles in particular are problematic in randomised maps.

You don't even need a complex algorithm to do random maps, our existing systems would do it fine. You'd just fill the map with identical sub-maps, and then have literally dozens of variants of those sub-maps. It'd produce a fully random map layout each time.

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I'd ask Skitso or Stinky that question. They're good at mapmaking.

Thanks. :)

Making a good looking random map in an urban setting is almost impossible, or at least very hard and time consuming. On the other hand, making a completely random arctic or middle eastern map with no or only few buildings is completely doable - and I think I might even give it a try after I finish my farm map pack...

Edited by Skitso
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It's mostly to do with making coherent-looking maps that look acceptable in this world of modern graphics, which wasn't a concern back in ye olde days of low-res X-Com. The ground tiles in particular are problematic in randomised maps.

You don't even need a complex algorithm to do random maps, our existing systems would do it fine. You'd just fill the map with identical sub-maps, and then have literally dozens of variants of those sub-maps. It'd produce a fully random map layout each time.

An algorithm would be useful for generating roads, rivers, fences and other features that span more than a single submap.

In a true random system I think something like that would be incredibly useful to give maps that tie together properly.

It is not required as you say but I think without it random maps would look like a collection of squares with each square having a feature, which is exactly what they are.

You can get around this by always having roads in the same place on a map or each submap having a path in the same location so they line up.

I think gamers these days expect better and would likely be hugely disappointed if that's what they got.

That is one reason I like the hand crafted layout with randomised details approach.

As long as there are enough maps made so you don't see the same one twice the maps are far superior to random ones in general.

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Yeah, but it's like 10-20 hours of work at least per high quality map with unique assets. So to get a decent amount of maps (20-30 per tileset and per ufo) the community needs to step up. I've already made 5 desert, 4 middle east and soon 4 farm maps. I'll try to make few arctic and industrial too. If every one here that are able to do maps would try to make for example 5 quality maps, we wouldn't need to have this conversation...

Edited by Skitso
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I have only done one farm map since the latest version of the level designer came out and I am not convinced on the quality :P

Too busy trying to get myself up to speed on respiratory conditions and treatments ready to start my new job soon.

I think I might sit down one weekend and update the wiki though.

The information there is very outdated and having a good source of information and tips might help.

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@Gauddlike: Thank you for the long reply and trying to explain things to me :D

As far as "giving it a go myself" I'm afraid that I'm pretty useless though, I'm just a consumer on the low end of the tech-savvy scale, I have no idea about editing files or using tools with any kind of complexity (even photoshop is beyond me, just to give you an idea.)

I can understand the problem with getting lots of different submaps to work with each other in random configurations though, especially since the maps are more rich in diversity than the original games. Things like buildings weren't randomly generated in the original game either, just randomly placed to some extent, so I'd never expect something like buildings to be randomly generated of course.

What I am hearing from your reply, and from what Chris wrote below is that it WOULD be possible to implement truly random map generation, but that it would be a lot of work, and that the current system is a pretty good compromise with some advantages and disadvantages. I can also tell that it's been a much debated subject, so I really do appreciate you guys answering my naive questions even though you have probably said it all 1000 times! :D

The only thing I'd like to say in closing is that I really hope that given the fact that it IS possible, I really hope that we might get a true random maps DLC at some point in the future, because I do think that despite how many hand crafted maps you make, the thousands of hours I sink into games like this over many years (I will probably be playing this still 5-10 years from now, i love these games!) will lead to a loss of enjoyment over time because given enough play time you're bound to get to know all the map variations very well, even if there are thousands.

So, I'd be happy to pay another 5-10 dollars down the line for a random map ad-on to the game. :)

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It is worth having a go at the editors for no other reason than seeing your own maps in the game.

There is nothing quite like getting your favourite troops set on fire, shot by plasma, and blown up by grenades on a map you made yourself or in a close replica of your own home.

They do appear very daunting at first, especially the submap editor, but the level designer is actually quite straightforward once you experiment a bit.

I usually spend a while just looking over the devs maps before I start just to see how they put things together, then I disregard everything I have seen and go break a map of my own.

I imagine there will be a handful of community map packs along the way as well.

There has already been one and the game hasn't even been released yet.

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