Jump to content

My first Impressions of Xenonauts (Beta V19) - Fix fonts and clicking


Recommended Posts

So, I just played my first Xenonauts mission, and here are my impressions:

Showstoppers:

The font choice is terrible! It is too small, over anti-aliased, and generally hard to read. I am playing on 1280x1024 so I don't know if fonts get scaled down on this resolution. But if you look at the zoomed in variant, it shows the font is all smudged. Next to it is the same text written in an even smaller font in LibreOffice, which in my opinion is much more readable:

http://i.imgur.com/rvDQQeb.png' rel="external nofollow">

But, why use a font for ants in the first place? It is not like screen space is a premium in this game, it just makes the game tiresome to play.

Secondly, I feel like I never know what left or right clicking actually does and am afraid that half the time it will make me perform an action I don't want to perform. There is no clear inspect action vs perform action concept. Sometimes I just select a soldier and he/she leaves the crouching stance, wasting some TUs. And performing moves is done by double clicking, I think, while right clicking rotates. I fire on enemies by clicking on them, so misclicking by one tile moves my soldier right next to it and to certain doom.

Also, clicking on the current weapon in the interface also plots a path for the current soldier towards the position behind it, and again makes me afraid that another click wastes a move.

Other stuff:

  • Hint at where the last enemies hide out so it doesn't become an overcautious map crawl to find them.
  • Save soldier loadouts, so I don't have to load up everyone individually. And maybe add items to the inventory by double clicking, not dragging.
  • Drag and drop should work beyond the inventory screen, e.g. for swapping items between soldiers next to each other or picking stuff up.
  • Maybe allow moving forward while crouching, at greater TU expense? And sidestepping would be nice.
  • I'd like a warning when I am wasting med kits on healing a soldier which is healed to the maximum already. Or an instant "heal to max" option.
  • I shot someone in the back, twice! Maybe warn newbies like me?
  • Faster enemy movement calculation, it feels as if there is time added to it for effects.
Edited by Tomatoblossom
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The UI is being overhauled in the next update, so most of the font issues should finally be addressed.

Any major changes to the inventory system seem like they would take a huge amount of work, and be pretty unlikely to happen.

Stop shooting past friendlies. It's almost always a very bad idea.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Other stuff:

  • Hint at where the last enemies hide out so it doesn't become an overcautious map crawl to find them.

  • Save soldier loadouts, so I don't have to load up everyone individually. And maybe add items to the inventory by double clicking, not dragging.

  • Drag and drop should work beyond the inventory screen, e.g. for swapping items between soldiers next to each other or picking stuff up.

  • Maybe allow moving forward while crouching, at greater TU expense? And sidestepping would be nice.

  • I'd like a warning when I am wasting med kits on healing a soldier which is healed to the maximum already. Or an instant "heal to max" option.

  • I shot someone in the back, twice! Maybe warn newbies like me?

  • Faster enemy movement calculation, it feels as if there is time added to it for effects.

1. You can hold a UFO for five turns instead of scouring the map, only taking a small score penalty for letting an alien escape.

2. You CAN save soldier loadouts. Try clicking on the soldier icons on your loadout screen.

3. I just want the ability to drag and drop the list of soldiers, so I can group up squads or roles...

4. Side-stepping and crouch-moving would, realistically, take about as much time as doing it step-wise. Implementing a new control scheme this late... Well, I don't know how the engine works, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

5. The next update revamps the ability of projectiles to go through tiles without hitting them, so you should see 50% less friendly fire.

6. You can mod movement speeds and projectile speeds in gameconfig.xml and weapons_gc.xml. I personally play with 3x-5x speeds.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I shot someone in the back, twice! Maybe warn newbies like me?
Actually, I like the idea of this kind of cautionary messages. For example, if you're building too much and at risk of suffering economically due to high upkeep costs, or if you're at risk of hitting a friendly due to friendly fire, or when you consider launching a chopper without fighter escorts. Of course you only make these mistakes once, but they are frustrating that first time and can even be game-breaking in worst-case scenarios.

This doesn't even have to be popup messages, just a subtle "You are at risk of hitting your own men" text in red or orange appearing somewhere out of the way would cut it. Would save beginners some frustration.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually, I like the idea of this kind of cautionary messages. For example, if you're building too much and at risk of suffering economically due to high upkeep costs, or if you're at risk of hitting a friendly due to friendly fire, or when you consider launching a chopper without fighter escorts. Of course you only make these mistakes once, but they are frustrating that first time and can even be game-breaking in worst-case scenarios.

This doesn't even have to be popup messages, just a subtle "You are at risk of hitting your own men" text in red or orange appearing somewhere out of the way would cut it. Would save beginners some frustration.

You mean like this: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/7799-Financial-Director?p=90212&viewfull=1#post90212

I agree that some more messages would be helpful. There are several things that are very difficult to figure unless someone tells you or you just stumble on them. My two are: Not being able to put a vehicle in the dropship because your soldiers aren't arranged correctly. That one is really frustrating. It also doesn't explain why can't assign soldiers to the dropship when it's over capacity. It just greys them out with no explanations. And no explanation about why you're losing funding in a certain territory. I don't think it tells you when you don't have enough lab or workshop space to fully utilize your staff and I think there is no explanation about not enough living space to hire more people.

Edited by StellarRat
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...