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  1. Yeah, we can't really add any more vertical space. The only possible space is the right hand side of the soldier role line; I guess with icons we could maybe have an indicator for it. Something like this:
    4 points
  2. Hello everyone - we've reached the end of the month, so it's time for another progress update on Xenonauts 2! Milestone 3 Release: The biggest news in February was the release of Milestone 3, which launched in conjunction with a Steam promotion and contained many significant upgrades and improvements to the game. We were concerned there might be stability issues arising from our migration to Unity 2022, but in general the release went smoothly. This is in no small part due to the many people who helped us by testing the build on the Experimental branch, so a huge thankyou for that! However, most of our time over the past couple of weeks has still been spent fixing bugs reported by the commmunity. Over the past couple of weeks we've released a couple of patches onto the Experimental branch, and if testing doesn't reveal any further bugs then we'll release them onto the main Steam / GOG branches some time next week. Milestone 4 Planning & Harvester UFO: Our next big update will be Milestone 4, which we're expecting to have ready for early testing on the Experimental branch in roughly six weeks. This will be another major content update centered around the introduction of a new UFO, in this case the Harvester - the penultimate alien craft in the game (the Battleship is the largest UFO and is due in Milestone 5). We're therefore already working on the content necessary for this. Aside from the obvious work required for adding and balancing a new UFO, there's quite a bit of extra work required here because the Harvester is so much larger than the Abductor and Cruiser UFOs that it requires an entirely new set of maps. We're aiming to have three new maps per biome for this UFO, which means a total of about 25 new maps will also be added in Milestone 4. Androns & Updated Aliens: Milestone 4 will also see the re-introduction of the Andron alien race. We removed these prior to our Early Access launch because the models and animations looked pretty bad, but we've now created a new set of models / animations for them. I think they've come out well, and are now some of the best-looking aliens in the game. In gameplay terms these remain heavily armoured, fearless robotic enemies, but unlike in previous incarnations they now carry standard alien weapons (either rifles or machineguns) rather than having an integrated cannon arm - this makes it much easier for players to gauge how much threat any Andron unit poses, because you can now actually see the gun they're using. We're also likely to revisit a few of the existing aliens before Milestone 4 arrives and either retexture them or update their animations, as some of the aliens definitely look better than others right now! Colossus Battlesuit: The most important research project unlocked off the Harvester is the Colossus Battlesuit, the "ultimate" suit of armour available to the player, so this is something else we'll be looking into this month. We want this to be a powerful asset that offers exceptional protection, but not something you want to equip on literally every soldier in your team - so it needs some disadvantages to go alongside its strengths. I've not yet decided exactly how this will be done yet, so hopefully we'll have more details for you in the next update once we've had a chance to test some of our ideas! That's all from me for now. As always, thanks for reading, and I'll be writing another update at the end of next month!
    3 points
  3. This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although note they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain! Balance Changes & Gameplay Updates: Added an additional five waves of UFOs after the game content ends, so players have more time to experiment with their new equipment if they want (unfortunately this change may only take effect for new campaigns created in 3.0.10 onwards). The "ghost" soldiers that are added to your squad on the Soldier Rescue mission will now fill empty slots in your dropship if possible, rather than always going in slots 7-9. The extraction region for the dropships is now a bit more generous - it includes the side doorways etc, rather than only counting the interior of the cargo hold. Bugfixes: Attempted to a fix an immediate lockup some players were getting when booting up the game. Fixed doors being opened under the shroud incorrectly being visible again. Fixed the conversation not triggering when you see The General for the first time in the ATLAS Base mission. Fixed players on non-1080p screens potentially getting duplicate radar circles when placing new bases towards the edge of the map. Fixed players being able to assign wounded soldiers to the dropship via the assignment menu that is generated when double-clicking an empty dropship slot. Fixed players being able to bypass the dropship vehicle limit using the same assignment menu mentioned above. Fixed the green deployment tiles still being present if you loaded a save game from Turn 1 in a mission that has a deployment phase. Fixed the heal animation from the automed unit (and possibly also Sebillian regeneration) being incorrectly offset. Fix text rows displaying much smaller / larger than intended when clicking and dragging them (e.g. in the engineering queue, or a soldier in the dropship soldier list) unless you were playing on a 1080p screen.
    3 points
  4. Our Milestone 3 update to Xenonauts 2 has now officially been released! This update will break existing saved games, but if you want to keep playing your existing campaigns please switch to our Legacy branches where Milestone 2 is still available (instructions on how to do so here). This initial version of Milestone 3 is an "developer" build with additional logging that causes slower performance and occasional flashes of red debug text while you play. We'll switch back to a normal "release" build without this extra logging by the end of the week. We've decided to do this because we want to ensure anyone suffering issues from our upgrade to Unity 2022 can easily provide us the information to fix them - we'll be watching the forums / discord / Steam forums carefully for feedback and bug reports, so please let us know if you encounter any bugs or other problems! As we've made a LOT of changes to the game in this update, I'll start by highlighting the most important improvements here with a little developer commentary. New Content: Additional content is always nice, and Milestone 3 contains the new Cruiser UFO which unlocks a lot of new technology for the player to play with! Although is still not possible to complete the campaign (that will be Milestone 5 as there's two more UFOs yet to come), the playable time for the campaign has been extended significantly. The playable time for the campaign has been extended to 260 days (up from 180 days in Milestone 2), during which time the Cruiser UFO will begin to spawn. This contains or unlocks several new pieces of content: Cruiser UFO (with two interior layout variants) Alien Fusion Weapons Xenonaut Fusion Weapons The Gemini interceptor The Pegasus dropship The ARES (an improved version of the MARS) Unity 2022: Players have been requesting two major improvements that were struggling to deliver on our outdated version of Unity - faster load times, and proper support for borderless windowed mode. We therefore upgraded to Unity 2022 so we could give you those things in Milestone 3! Borderless Fullscreen mode should now be properly supported in the settings menu. The monitor resolution settings are now handled natively by Unity rather than through our own code so please report any strange behaviour as a bug so we can look into it (particularly if you have multiple monitors or some kind of unusual hardware setup). Load times should now be reduced by about 30% across all sections of the game, we're hoping to reduce this by another 10%-20% in Milestone 4 (NOTE: this won't be apparent for the next few days, as all the extra debug logging from a "developer" build cancels out the improved loading speed). The tactical mission briefing is now also shown on the loading screen, rather than at the start of the mission, which gets you into the action faster once the load is complete! AI Improvements: Many players found the primitive AI in earlier versions of the game a bit immersion-breaking or easy to exploit. We've made significant AI upgrades in Milestone 3 that mean enemies should be more intelligent and civilians should be less suicidal. We're continuing to work on this, but personally I think a major improvement is already visible. We've upgraded the general decision-making of the AI, and also addressing various specific issues including: Civilians are now much less suicidal. Melee units (especially Reapers) should make better decisions. AI units will no longer just stand in fire / smoke until they die or pass out. The AI will now open doors even if the tile on the other side is blocked by another unit, allowing them to shoot at Xenonauts camping doors. Cleaner reinforcements will now act more aggressively on most maps, and move quickly towards your dropship / extraction area. Bleeding Wound Healing & Bleeding Aliens: Community feedback suggested it was unfair that aliens did not suffer bleeding wounds like Xenonauts did - so now they do (although Sebillians heal them immediately). We've also added a heal chance to all Bleeding Wounds, so they're no longer a guaranteed death sentence if there's no Medikit nearby. Aliens now suffer Bleeding Wounds when they take damage in the same way that Xenonauts do. However, each Bleeding Wound now has a 25% chance of healing and disappearing after it inflicts damage at the end of the turn. Unconscious units will now also continue to suffer damage from any bleeding wounds they suffered while conscious, and may die as a result. Usability Improvements: Although Milestone 3 was focused on adding new content, we also added a couple of usability features that were frequently requested by the community to make soldier management and item management easier. Pre-Mission Soldier Equip / Arrangement - we've added a button on the pre-mission Soldier Equip screen that allows easy access to the screen where you can set the positions of your soldiers within the dropship, allowing you to easily switch back and forth between these screens prior to launching a dropship. "Sell Junk Items" button - we've also added a button on the base stores screen that will set all "junk" items (e.g. items that are not used in research / engineering projects) to sell at maximum quantity. We're likely to expand this system in future. Abduction missions: Abduction missions have been updated to address player concerns. They are now explained better, and no longer end immediately when the timer expires - but the Panic gain or reduction of the mission is now tied to the number of freed civilians, so the result should feel less arbitrary (now the civilian AI is improved, you're also expected to protect the civilians and you will get reduced rewards if they die). Abduction missions no longer end immediately when the timer expires and the abduction tubes disappear; the mission will now continue until all alien forces are eliminated (effectively these are now deathmatch missions with an additional time-limited objective). The timer on abduction tubes has been reduced by 2 turns (from 8 turns to 6 turns). There's now a teleport animation when the tubes disappear. You still gain Alien Alloys for each abduction tube you disable, but the Panic increase or reduction from the mission depends on how many of the 10 civilians you rescue: If you don't attempt the mission at all, you get +20 local panic +2 panic for each civilian remaining in an abduction tube when the timer runs out and the tubes teleport away -2 panic for each civilian freed from an abduction tube that survives the mission +0 panic for a civilian freed from the tube who is killed before the end of the mission Data Raid missions: These are the missions where you have to capture Data Sticks from the Cleaner office. Relatively minor changes here, just some UI improvements and a tweak to the objectives that means if a soldier carrying Data Sticks is killed you don't necessarily have to send another soldier to recover the Data Sticks from their body if you don't want to (this was mostly done for reasons of lore consistency). Victory is triggered off the number of computers you have interacted with (i.e. sabotaged), rather than how many Data Sticks you have brought back to the dropship. We've added a new UI element for this mission that shows how many Data Stick items are being carried by each soldier. The objectives now show how many turns remaining until the enemy reinforcements start appearing. Enemy reinforcements timer reduced by 1 turn, unless the mission is encountered in month 1. Extract VIP missions: The changes made to the Extract VIP mission have all been around player convenience; making it more obvious where you need to go and when the enemy reinforcements will be arriving, etc. At the start of the mission, the camera shows the empty dropship you are trying to reach before panning to the starting positions of your soldiers. The VIP is now automatically added to your team at the start of the mission (rather than the player having to click on them). The VIP now has 50 TU rather than 40 TU. Enemy reinforcements timer reduced by 1 turn (from 9 to 8) The objectives now show how many turns remaining until enemy reinforcements start appearing. Soldier Rescue missions: Not all players understood that you were expected to leave 3 free slots in your dropship on this mission so you had space to pick up the 3 soldiers that needed to be rescued. To make this more obvious, we've added placeholder soldiers in the dropship that fill these slots (this also means you can view their stats prior to the mission). Added "ghost" soldiers to the dropship when launching towards the Soldier Rescue mission. Updated the logic about which soldiers are recovered if the player does not leave those 3 free slots in their dropship. The game will now always pick living soldiers over dead soldiers (irrespective of their origin), and will prefer your existing soldiers to those you are supposedly trying to rescue. Eliminate VIP mission: On Eliminate VIP missions, the camera will now pan to the VIP and show a message reading "VIP Sighted" when you see the target. It will also show a "VIP Eliminated" or "VIP Stunned" message at the appropriate points. The objectives now show how many turns remaining until enemy reinforcements start appearing. MINOR BALANCE CHANGES: Soldier Progression: We found that soldiers were becoming too strong too quickly in previous builds and this problem was just getting worse as we extended the length of the campaign. We've therefore taken several steps to slow down soldier progression a little: Starting values for soldier attributes are now capped at 65 (previously 70) Starting soldiers are now Privates rather than Corporals. Reduced the speed at which soldiers gain combat experience to about 60% of the previous level. The training speed of the Training Room has been halved (both the starting value and the gain from completing Interrogation projects). However, the soldiers you can rescue on the Soldier Rescue missions now have +3 to all their base stats, in addition to the +3 to all stats they get for being a Sergeant rather than a Private. Strategic Layer Balancing: Duration of crash sites reduced from 72 hours to 32 hours. Reduced the completion time of the initial research project, so you can now begin work on the new research immediately after winning the ATLAS Base mission. Delayed the first possible alien retaliation mission, as it would frequently spawn in the same wave as the first Destroyer (meaning the player had often just fought a battle when it happened and had a damaged squad). Reduced the number of Cleaners in the Cleaner Base to make it a bit more manageable if you manage to unlock it early. Wraith Destroyers now contain 1 fewer enemy. Increased Alloys gained from Observers, Abductors and Cruiser UFOs by 50%. Increased Alenium / Alloys gained from Alien Base missions by roughly 100%. Warden Armour now requires 6 Alloys to build (up from 4). Accelerated Weapons now require more Alloys to build, with the most expensive weapons requiring 6 (up from 4). Laser weapons now require more Alloys and Alenium to build, with the most expensive requiring 6 of each (up from 4). Swapped the Alloys and Alenium cost of advanced building upgrades; these generally now require twice as much Alenium as they do Alloys. Construction time of Radar Array reduced from 20 days to 15 days. Training Center building increased in cost from $250k to $350k. Doubled the duration of Corpse Analysis II engineering projects. Tactical Combat balancing: It is no longer possible to see doors opening or closing under the fog of war, as this made the position of alien units very obvious. These doors will now only visually update when one of your units sees them. Sectons now trigger their Psionic Triangulation accuracy bonus from being near Psyons, not by being near other Sectons. However, if the Psyon is killed (and no other Psyon is nearby) the Secton will now immediately panic and lose all remaining TU. Using a healing item will no longer trigger enemy reaction fire. Medikit weight increased to 25 (from 15). Reaper Zombies now have 70HP (up from 40HP). Mentarch can no longer crouch or be suppressed. Slight Accuracy reduction on MARS Cannon weapons. Alien melee weapons can no longer gib units through overdamage. Enabled reaction fire on the various alien melee weapons (mantids, sebillians, reapers, mentarch, zombies). Air Combat balancing: Alien missiles in the air combat now have a 0.35x damage against units that can do evasive roll; this means alien Fighters and alien Interceptors are now a bit weaker when autoresolving air combat battles. Reduced construction cost of missiles / torpedoes by 20% Reduced upkeep for Angel from $100k to $75k per month Reduced upkeep for Phantom from $150k to $120k per month Bomber UFO weapons updated. The main cannon now fires faster and destroys armour more quickly, and the secondary weapon now has a much smaller fire arc but can rotate to cover the rear and sides (but not the front) of the UFO. Unescorted Bombers are therefore now weaker against agile planes like the Phantom, but keeping away from the rotating turret can be more challenging if there are escort UFOs present. Destroyer UFO increased to 200HP (from 175). Fighter UFO turn rate increased by 50%. Fighter Cannon armour destruction increased to 2-5 (from 0-3). Abductor UFO increased to 275HP (from 250). Abductor Cannon range increased by 10%, armour destruction increased from 1-3 to 3-5, and reload time reduced from 0.75 sec to 0.5 sec. Projectile speed slowed down by 33%. Alien Interceptor Missiles armour destruction increased to 3-7 (from 0-4). MINOR GAMEPLAY / CONTENT CHANGES: Added a number of new maps for Terror Sites / ATLAS Base / Cleaner Data Raid / Convoy Ambush / Rescue VIP missions. Added new 3D models for the Cleaner Accelerated Rifle, Accelerated Shotgun, Accelerated LMG, Alloy Shield, Stun Gun and Stun Baton. Added new 2D inventory tile art for the melee knife and the HEVY Smoke Rounds. Added Fusion weapons to the game. For any Kickstarter backers who saw the old incarnation of these weapons, we've updated the designs of the Shotgun and LMG and also given each weapon a unique ammo battery design. Added proper melee animations for the Mantid and Sebillian units. Units now play an injury sound and injury animation when struck with a stun weapon that does not inflict damage. Soldiers should now hide their carried weapon when performing their ladder climb animation. It is now possible to use any combination of uppercase and lowercase letters in soldier / aircraft / base names. Moved a check that was preventing a player launching an empty dropship from the Launch Aircraft screen to the pre-mission Soldier Equip screen instead (i.e. after you've had a chance to fill the dropship with soldiers). Stopping chance 0% objects are no longer highlighted on the fire path. Added a basic sort order system to the soldier loadout profiles. Units that can crush terrain now do not crush an open double door when they pass through it (most noticable inside UFOs and in Alien Base missions). The MARS now shows a custom "cannot interact" cursor when hovering over a mission objective item (like a computer desk) that soldiers can interact with but vehicles cannot. Double clicking an empty slot on the Soldier Equip screen will bring up the soldier assignment menu directly, so you don't need to select the slot and click the button any more. Clicking a weapon in the soldier inventory on the Soldier Equip screen will select it in the Armory, allowing you to add more ammo quickly (let us know if this ends up being annoying). Set the large rock mesas in the Polar and Desert maps to be significantly tougher, and added proper destruction states to the Polar one. Updated the Soldier Equip screen so items in the inventory and in the base armory panel now both have a slight highlight on mouse hover. There's now a small animation when soldier pawns switch places in the dropship (on the Aircraft screen), which makes it easier to understand what's happening. Added tooltip description text to the Stalker Armour and Exosuit Armour. Improved the performance for the Farm cabbage fields, as some players were experiencing FPS drops there. Updated the sort order on several items in the soldier armory and in the base stores so things are grouped more sensibly. Abduction tubes and the various Stealth unit shaders (Wraiths / Stealthsuit) no longer draw under the shroud. Security guards in the dockyards now have little hats so they don't look quite so much like Cleaners. BUGFIXES: Fixed a crash that could occur if you tried to run a building upgrade project when having a large number of buildings (most commonly occurred with the Gauss Battery Upgrade project). Fixed a bug where the text on UFO information pop-ups was not being displayed for users playing in Chinese / Japanese / Korean. Fixed a bug where Unassigned soldiers are not showing certain items on their paperdoll image on the Soldier Equip screen (jetpacks, MARS weapons, etc). Fixed soldiers sometimes not being removed from the dropship even when reduced to below 50% HP Fixed a bug where the Autofill Dropship button on the Soldier Equip screen could bypass the dropship vehicle limit. Fixed reloading a weapon in the tactical inventory not playing the reload sound. Fixed the tactical camera getting stuck at a weird angle if you were halfway through rotating it and something else tried to take control of the camera (sighting an enemy, etc). Fixed a bug where Senty Guns were incorrectly showing on the Soldier Equip screen in secondary bases (they should only appear before Base Defence missions, as that's the only time they can be used). Fixed a bug where the soldier paperdoll could get blurred if a certain combination of items were equipped. Fixed a bug where the soldier portrait could disappear on the dropship soldier arrangement screen. Fixed the Autofill Drosphip button not appearing immediately if you used RMB to unassign a soldier from a full dropship. Fixed the bug where grenades could get stuck displaying a 0% hit chance. Fixed a bug where units could stand in mid-air at the top of a ladder. Fixed a bug where you could place two soldiers into the same destination tile if one of them was using a jetpack. Fixed a bug where unconscious units could not be revived with a medikit, Fixed a bug where the shoot/move preview hit calculations was not accurately updating the value for Wraith Cloaking Field based on the new soldier location being previewed. Fixed a bug where TU values could end up with a decimal point after a Berserk action. Fixed a bug where suppressing an enemy unit with reaction fire would not stop them finishing their planned movement. Fixed a bug where crouching during the pre-battle deployment phase on cerrtain missions cost TU, and did not refund it if you stood up. Fixed a bug where the crouch keyboard shortcut ("C") did not work during the pre-battle deployment phase. Fixed a bug where the combat shield was not disappearing after being destroyed. Fixed a bug where certain weapons could not be picked up from the ground after being dropped. Fixed certain objective items (mostly the computer desks) being incorrectly rotated in some situations. Fixed the Bleeding Wounds counter being displayed vertically if the unit has more than 10 Bleeding Wounds. Fixed the open door mouse cursor remaining active on the menu if you press Esc while hovering over a door. Fixed a visual issue where the green deployment area tiles could sometimes remain after the end of the deployment phase. Fixed throwing a grenade / flare onto the roof of a building causing windows on the floor below to shatter. Fixed some visual issues with the restaurant sign in the Western Town terror maps. Fixed a number of bugs with the Ultimate Power achievement (bring all Colonels to a mission). Fixed a few types of aliens not correctly showing the red obstruction shading when they are hidden behind an object. Fixed a minor issue with fire paths where shooting round corners was more permissive if you were shooting through an adjacent unit. Fixed a typo in the Electroshock Pistol name. Removed some incorrect tooltips from the Mod Manager panel.
    3 points
  5. Took the time to start a new playthrough with 3.40 just to feel how the difficulty and balance feels after latest changes. Here's my random thoughts. I played with veteran difficulty with increased starting funds. Start of the game and plot might not make much sense for the players that have disabled or skipped the tutorial. Maybe add a text box or dialog scene at the beginning of the game that summarises events that are otherwise told in the tutorial. Most game tutorials don't have any story content, so people might really miss out here. I had a Cleaner VIP mission very early in the game (first or second cleaner mission, right after the first abduction) and it felt really difficult. I tried to push forward as fast as I could while looting one side building for extra intel and I had no business trying to capture the VIP. There's just too many cleaners and the time limit is too tight. It's way more difficult than any other cleaner missions while they should be about the same IMO. Reduce enemies and add one or two more turns. Also, might be a good idea to force the mission to spawn later and/or be one time persistent mission. It has no business being that tough so early in the game. New jungle (escort) maps are way too clutterd and dense. Makes them difficult and annoying to play. Soldier progression feels spot on now. Cleaner mission repetition annoys me still. Had a second (too tough) VIP mission before even one intel gather. I'd gladly have it the other way around: 2 intel gathers and then a VIP mission. Would make more sense difficulty curve, progression and story wise too. Resources were quite well balanced but even with the increased starting funds I had, I felt the money was a bit tight. Alenium/alloy seemed fine. I hate to build basic air weapons. Why is the logic different than with troop weapons? Air game felt too punishing after day 100. I only had three angels with laser lancers and needed to transfer them around the globe to try to keep panic down. It didn't end well. I would have needed at least 2 more airplanes at that time but had no means funding them and their weapons. Also, as I need to complete a destroyer crash site before I can research Ufo Hull plating and only then I can research Phantom and after that, I still need to build and arm them. This all takes like a month or more and by that time, destroyer waves have raised the panic to 90-100 at least in some regions. AI still leaves a lot to be desired: They waste a lot of TU's moving back and forth for no reason, don't stay put when in optimal positions, don't take multiple shots when close to a clear target, but move into shroud instead and take a quick snapshot from there etc. AI doesn't seem to be aware of where each side's frontlines are, so they often move into unoptimal locations behind my lines. My third abduction at day 87 was brutal. Wraiths and servitors in dock biome and I just had to save scum my way through it. Waaaay too difficult. Huge difficulty spike. After the Cleaner HQ is destroyed, the game starts to repeat itself and becomes somewhat boring. The plot to reveal Cleaner HQ has so cool progression that when it's finally resolved, I feel the game starts to become stale. It might be a good idea to introduce some similar large scale objective for the player to strive towards a month or so after the Cleaner HQ so advancing the plot wouldn't feel so linear and predictable where you just shoot bigger and bigger ufos down. Mid/late game needs cleaner style mission variety too. Make alien base similar mission objective as cleaner HQ with multi-tiered proggression maybe? Civilian turns take too long. Do they all need to move so much and every turn? Do we need to have a civilian turn at the end of the mission when all the enemies are dead and we could just call it a day? End of mission screen should also show changes in panic and the amount of broken/lost gear Shotgun civilians are still super aggressive and raid ufos completely fearlessly. Abduction missions start to annoy me - too much repetition. Maybe after completing a few, unlock an abductor alien base mission where you need to rescue already abducted people or something instead. Other that that, the game felt good. Somewhat buggy, but still great fun.
    2 points
  6. This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although note they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain! Note this build is NOT AVAILABLE ON GOG, as they are once again having server issues and we're unable to upload it to their systems. Balance Changes & Gameplay Updates: Added the soldier nationality flag to the tactical UI. Stalker Armour tooltip now displays the "cloaking field" effect with hyperlink that explains what it does. Actuator module now weighs 5 (rather than 12), and grants +20 Strength (rather than +25 Str). This makes it slightly better at increasing carrying capacity, and makes it more useful for soldiers that are close to the Strength cap. Bugfixes: Fixed soldiers being bald in tactical missions (a bug introduced in our last hotfix). Fixed the camera sometimes being unresponsive after loading a save game. Fixed a crash that could occur when a patrolling dropship is ordered to go to a mission site. Fixed an AI hang that can occur if a unit is blocked by a Xenonaut standing behind a door. Fixed an issue where unassigning a soldier with heavy armour from the dropship could allow you to double-press the Heavy Armour button, and get the soldier into a broken state. Fixed some Cleaner missions sometimes spawning after the Cleaner HQ had been destroyed. Fixed certain sloped roof tiles incorrectly being destroyed. Fixed the Servitor sometimes playing a movement sound that does not end. Fixed the base icon not being removed from the Geoscape if the base is destroyed by aliens. Fixed the data raid objective text being broken in Spanish. Fixed a desert map not containing reinforcement move nodes. Fixed a dockyard map where aliens can spawn inside the UFO hull. Fixed a dockyard map where a ladder had been placed at the incorect height. Fixed some pillars that were blocking movement in Western Town maps.
    2 points
  7. To be quite honest. I do like it that way, it makes it more challenging and you need to approach the UFO with a slightly different tactic. Maybe it could stay like that on commander?
    2 points
  8. The soldier circled wants to go on top of the container via the ladder on the side, but it won't work. user_ladder_issue-15.json
    2 points
  9. I guess most people here fall in love with the UFO game, back in... Well, it was a long time ago :) So, let's face it, we are far from young ! And yes, our eyes are not good as they were. Wear glasses is not always possible depending how far your are from the screen and so on. So yes, I think it's REALLY important to be able to increase the font size for all text on screen. As it is now (Milestone 3), It's really too small for my taste and make the game hard to play French translation is also a bit strange, and some texte are missing (replaced by error messages like "missing thing xxx"), But as a whole, It seem it will be a great game at the end... I'm happy to have fund it. But please, just increase the font size :)
    2 points
  10. This is a small update with a couple of important changes that has been released straight onto the default versions for Steam / GOG / Epic. A larger bugfix update will also be released onto our Experimental branch for testing later today. Changelog: As there do not appear to be significant new bugs or stability issues arising from our Unity 2022 upgrade, we've compiled this update as a normal "release" build rather than a "development" build with extra debug logging. This should substantially increase load speeds and will remove the red text that sometimes flashes up in the bottom left of the screen. Fixed a bug that could cause crashes during certain ground missions that was linked to broken translation strings (e.g. playing in Spanish and trying to recover a Data Stick on the Cleaner Data Raid mission).
    2 points
  11. Ah, yeah, I can see how that's confusing. I'll add those areas to the extraction area for the next hotfix.
    2 points
  12. Sure thing. I'm running Windows 10 pro on a Surface Pro 4.DxDiag.txt
    1 point
  13. This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although note they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain! Another quick batch of fixes for Milestone 3 while we continue to work on Milestone 4. Gameplay Changes: Mentarch can now be suppressed again. However, it now has 80 Bravery instead of 50 Bravery so it is harder to suppress than it was in Milestone 2. Added correct white silhouette images for the MARS vehicle weapons (used in the unit minitabs at the top of the tactical UI). Bugfixes: Fixed a crash that could occur when quickly switching between the aircraft screen and another strategy screen. Fixed the player being able to hire more engineers / scientists than their workshop / lab capacity should allow if you have excess lab capacity free at a secondary base. Fixed the soldier portraits on the Soldier Equip screen sometimes disappearing. Fixed the aircraft transfer duration repeating after completion and taking twice as long as intended. Fixed an issue when completing an engineering project on the 5th or 6th base, which would take you to the workshop screen for the 4th base instead. Fixed the heal animation not displaying properly.
    1 point
  14. Yup, that's likely to be at least part of it - but that's then extremely similar to the Predator armour from X1, so we're considering all the available options.
    1 point
  15. 1 point
  16. This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although note they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain! We're hoping that this hotfix is a little more stable than the previous two, which both introduced serious new bugs (alongside fixing various issues). If testing suggests we've got on top of the stability issues then we'll release this onto the main Steam / GOG branches next week. Bugfixes: Fixed a loop in the pathing system that would cause the game to crash with an "out of memory" error in various situations. Fixed soldier hair sometimes not appearing correctly in tactical missions. Fixed a number of issues related to the shroud / fog of war, including it not revealing properly in some instances. Fixed an issue where equipment on dead Xenonauts was not being recovered from alien bases (and the Cleaner HQ), even if you won the mission. (Hopefully) fixed the bug where ground tiles around the UFO were sometimes revealed from the shroud on night missions, right from the very start of the mission. Fixed another instance where players could sometimes not boot into the Main Menu. Fixed an issue where players would be unable to zoom the Geoscape / Air Combat camera if they had a touchscreen peripheral plugged in. Fixed a minor issue with the Abductor UFO hull hitbox in tactical missions, as it could sometimes block shots that did not appear anywhere near the UFO.
    1 point
  17. So, I'm not sure if you needed my saves but here are all the saves for that combat mission, plus all the logs if they help? auto_groundcombat_turn_6_start-410.json auto_groundcombat_turn_5_end-409.json auto_groundcombat_turn_5_start-408.json auto_groundcombat_turn_4_end-407.json auto_groundcombat_turn_5_start-406.json auto_groundcombat_turn_4_end-405.json auto_groundcombat_turn_4_start-404.json auto_groundcombat_turn_3_end-403.json auto_groundcombat_turn_3_start-402.json auto_groundcombat_turn_2_end-401.json auto_strategy_before_combat-215.json output.log output.log.1 output.log.2 output.log.3 output.log.4 output.log.5
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  18. We've now released our Milestone 3.3.0 patch onto our standard Steam / GOG / Epic branches, which fixes several stability issues that existed in 3.0.9. We'll be releasing another small patch containing further bugfixes onto the Experimental branch in the next few days, so please continue to report any bugs you encounter! Balance Changes & Gameplay Updates: Added the soldier nationality flag to the tactical UI. Actuator module now weighs 5 (rather than 12), and grants +20 Strength (rather than +25 Str). This makes it slightly better at increasing carrying capacity, and helps avoid the situation where soldiers near the 100 Strength cap would get little or no net carrying capacity increase from equipping it. Added an additional five waves of UFOs after the game content ends, so players have more time to experiment with their new equipment if they want (unfortunately this change may only take effect for new campaigns created in patch 3.3.0 onwards). The "ghost" soldiers that are added to your squad on the Soldier Rescue mission will now fill empty slots in your dropship if possible, rather than always going in slots 7-9 (and removing any soldiers already in those slots). The extraction region for the dropships is now a bit more generous - it includes the side doorways etc, rather than only counting the interior of the cargo hold. Stalker Armour tooltip now displays the "cloaking field" effect with hyperlink that explains what it does. Bugfixes: Fixed an immediate lockup some players were getting when booting up the game. Fixed doors being opened under the shroud incorrectly being visible again. Fixed an issue where equipment on dead Xenonauts was not being recovered from alien bases (and the Cleaner HQ), even if you won the mission. Fixed the conversation not triggering when you see The General for the first time in the ATLAS Base mission. Fixed players being able to assign wounded soldiers to the dropship via the assignment menu that is generated when double-clicking an empty dropship slot. Fixed players being able to bypass the dropship vehicle limit using the same assignment menu mentioned above. Fixed the green deployment tiles still being present if you loaded a save game from Turn 1 in a mission that has a deployment phase. Fixed the heal animation from the automed unit (and possibly also Sebillian regeneration) being incorrectly offset. Fixed text rows displaying much smaller / larger than intended when clicking and dragging them (e.g. in the engineering queue, or a soldier in the dropship soldier list) unless you were playing on a 1080p screen. Fixed a crash that could occur when a patrolling dropship is ordered to go to a mission site. Fixed an AI hang that can occur if a unit is blocked by a Xenonaut standing behind a door. Fixed an issue where unassigning a soldier with heavy armour from the dropship could allow you to double-press the Heavy Armour button, and get the soldier into a broken state. Fixed some Cleaner missions sometimes spawning after the Cleaner HQ had been destroyed. Fixed certain sloped roof tiles incorrectly being destroyed. Fixed the Servitor sometimes playing a movement sound that does not end. Fixed the base icon not being removed from the Geoscape if the base is destroyed by aliens. Fixed the data raid objective text being broken in Spanish. Fixed a desert map not containing reinforcement move nodes. Fixed a dockyard map where aliens can spawn inside the UFO hull. Fixed a dockyard map where a ladder had been placed at the incorect height. Fixed some pillars that were blocking movement in Western Town maps. Fixed a minor issue with the Abductor UFO hull hitbox in tactical missions, as it could sometimes block shots that did not appear to be passing anywhere near the UFO. (Hopefully) fixed the bug where ground tiles around the UFO were sometimes revealed from the shroud on night missions, right from the very start of the mission. (Hopefully) fixed an issue where players would be unable to zoom the Geoscape / Air Combat camera using the mousewheel if they also had a touchscreen peripheral plugged in.
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  19. Nope, didn't work. So yeah, I guess I'll be doing honestman from now on. Thanks for the reply anyway.
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  20. Sorry, no logs or save files available this time. Just reporting a crash on an other wise very stable release.
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  21. Balance issue. I'll probably change it, thanks.
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  22. output.log Here it is, but I played since, so it might not show on the log file, as it seems to refresh itself every new day.
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  23. Thanks for taking the time to attach the save and log files on your bug report! We've made a fix for this crash that will be deployed on the next patch we're releasing!
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  24. Thanks for the responses! We've made a fix for this bug that should be included in the next patch we'll be releasing
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  25. Good to know that the fix worked for you, let us know if you come across a bug again!
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  26. Bad, finally ! Keep battle UI as clean as possible, put flags ONLY at armoury. Replacing text with coloured icon in armoury, (which is full of numbers) makes sense. It help to make screen more visually attractive. add name of state as tooltip on mouse over flag icon. (surprisingly low amount of people could recognize vietnam flag from china, or poland from russia) On the other side: Overflow battle UI with useless graphics fluff - ( or junk information) is step into wrong path. Check my recommendation for Miss-Hit text feedback.
    1 point
  27. I caught this from Console, with a screen capture just before it bailed on me.
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  28. I play the map for some time before each crash; it's like I am leaking memory.
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  29. Hello, I managed to reproduce it on a different tactical map just now. As attached. Regards, OT output.log
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  30. You're spot on, I am playing on a surface pro. The zoom came back after I disabled "HID compliant touchscreen" from device manager. Thanks for your help!
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  31. Hello, Can you please check and see if the aiming is correct over half-cover? It feels like when there is a barrier directly in front of my soldier, he/she hits this far too often when an alien (that is 3 feet taller than the barrier) is on the other side of it 4 feet away. Kind Regards, OT
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  32. Hello, Please add an "Are you sure?" alert so that when I misclick on the UI that is still in development; I do not throw a grenade at my entire team and kill everyone. Things like this help stupid people like me. Kind Regards, OT
    1 point
  33. These add-ons should be displayed on the suit or the model of the soldier, and not just thrown in the back pack, Yes you we need to change the graphics, but it would enhance the look of the game, as well as feel more realistic. It is just a cheap work around, but this really needs to be fixed, if you are going to keep the player involved in the game? The back pack is what it is, just a way of carrying extra equipment, that is not going to be used immediately, and it just look cheap?
    1 point
  34. Here you go. The highlighted soldier shows it: user_shroud_issue-16.json
    1 point
  35. Cheers for the repro case! It's been fixed and we hope to release a hotfix for it soon.
    1 point
  36. There are currently some issues with the "Planned Loadout", which should vanish when you add the vehicle/soldier to the Dropship (or when you then change the loadout).
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  37. I'd like to have few improvements to the end of mission stats screen. Alloys and alenium should be in their own paragraph under Recovered materials above the Recovered items we have now. Changes in panic levels should also be on display. The effects of your actions are often left a bit vague. Unit specific kill numbers.
    1 point
  38. I read your article twice, I found that you are trying to say something, but I didnt found the point. Sorry.
    1 point
  39. Enemies you encounter are somewhat randomized so it's very possible you don't meet Facehuggers for long time on terror missions. IIRC terror mission enemies are determined by enemies that terror UFO has. It's also possible that Facehugger died if you shot UFO before it landed.
    1 point
  40. The door in the centre of this image is not animating properly when walking thru it. Also, as an aside, I haven't had any data collection missions this run through - have they been taken out? auto_groundcombat_turn_3_start-214.json
    1 point
  41. Ah, sorry I don't have a save from then. I will endeavour to send a save when it happens again.
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  42. That's a strange one. This is on a fully zoomed out Geoscape screen right? Normally, it shouldn't be possible to see more than one circle on a zoomed out screen, what resolution are you playing on?
    1 point
  43. Description: Armor Bug on starting Shield and Assault Planned Loadouts (new campaign/Tactical Armor) What Happened: I started a new campaign (commander difficulty) and was configuring my guys loadouts as I noticed that something is wrong. My Shield guys couldn't carry the stuff I would usually load them up with. I quickly glanced at there appearences and noticed that they seem to be equiped with Heavy Armor,... so I tried to untoggle it, then that happend: By further inspection I came to realize that my first assessment was wrong, they weren't pre toggled with heavy armor, but they are equipped with it anyways. So, toggling Heavy Armor seem to glitch something, adding even more Armor (and Weight). The Assault Loadout is also affected. Conclusion: Something is messed up and not just visually, but also Armor HP wise. If you ask me, that's pretty much game breaking. (Edit: It does only affect "Planned Loadouts" in a wierd way (see post below), so I also changed the Title and the Description accordingly.) Further information: - the other Loadouts aren't effected. - new campaign on cleanly installed V3.0.7 (Steam Version) user_day_0_307th_commander_4rec_plus2-1.json output.log
    1 point
  44. Hello everyone - this month's update covers both December and January, as I was out of the office over new year. We've all returned refreshed from our Christmas break and we hope you all had a good festive season too! Milestone 3: The biggest piece of news is that Milestone 3 is out on our Experimental branches for testing, with the goal of releasing the final version of Milestone 3 onto the default Steam / GOG / Epic branches on February 19th. There's an extensive changelog for Milestone 3 which you can read here, but this new build ticks off a number of content items on our roadmap: the Cruiser UFO, both alien and human Fusion Weapons, the third interceptor aircraft and third dropship aircraft, plus the ARES (an upgraded hovering version of the MARS). We're currently hotfixing the game on a daily basis to remove crashes and AI hangs encountered by our community, and we'll be focusing on smoothing out the game balance once the worst of the bugs are dealt with. Unity 2022 - Load Times & Borderless Fullscreen: The biggest single task we've completed on over the past couple of months has been upgrading to Unity 2022, which Milestone 3 now runs on. This has been quite disruptive, but worthwhile - the update has enabled us to reduce load times by ~30% across all parts of the game, and we're hoping to further improve that to a ~50% reduction in the coming months. The game now also properly supports Borderless Fullscreen mode, allowing you to freely Alt-Tab without issues (something a LOT of people in the community had been requesting). Players should encounter fewer issues with multi-monitor setups than before too. The upgrade should also help speed up development somewhat. I won't bore you with the technical details, but code compiles much faster in 2022 relative to our older version and there's much more powerful debug tools available, so we'll collectively be spending a lot less time twiddling our thumbs while we wait to test our work. AI Upgrades: The other major task we've been working on is AI improvements. The AI now has access to more information about the battlefield around it, and it's making much more sensible decisions in combat about where to position its units and how to attack. However, we're still keeping a close eye on the AI because further tweaks or bugfixes may be required - even minor issues in the AI settings can cause AI units to do bizarre things in certain situations. But the good news is that these issues should now be easy to fix, and it's just a case of testing the game enough to find them all. Specific AI improvements have been also made to the civilians (who were famously suicidal in older builds) and for melee aliens like Reapers, which had been struggling to attack effectively. New Assets: As well as the new content I already mentioned has been added for Milestone 3, we've been adding lots of new maps to the game and have also added a significant number of new 3D models for various soldier weapons that had previously been using placeholders. The research art for the new research projects is also largely complete and should be finished by the 19th. We're also starting to work on updates that won't appear until Milestone 4. Kickstarter backers will remember pre-Early Access versions of the game contained the Andron alien race, but they were removed due to issues with their models and animations. The updated Androns have now been designed and are in the process of being modelled up so we can reintroduce them in future. This is part of a wider task to create additional variants of existing aliens. The Wraiths in particular don't have enough 3D model variants to represent their different ranks, so we've designed a more heavily armoured Wraith variant that will appear in the later UFOs, and also designed a proper uniform for the basic "civilian" Wraith you encounter acting as a pilot or engineer inside UFOs (currently they just appear naked). Conclusion: Overall, it's been a productive couple of months for the team despite the disruption of the Christmas holidays. The Unity 2022 upgrade and the AI upgrades were both large tasks so it's nice to have them done, and I think Milestone 3 is going to be another significant upgrade for the game - once testing has ironed out all the kinks. Thanks for reading, and please let us know if you encounter any bugs or issues when playing on the Experimental branch!
    1 point
  45. Firstly, I really really love this game and think there's some brilliant improvements that really made me enjoy the game more thoroughly than ever before. However, here are some small areas of feedback - It gets samey - real samey. After a while you just want to skip combat missions because there's no variation. The grounded UFO is usually in one of a few places, and you get to 'know' how many aliens are going to be in and out of the ship - and how they react. I'd love to see some variance in level design and alien tactics - maybe they all swarm on one mission, maybe they sit back with snipers and you've got to use cover to rush them... maybe underwater levels, maybe levels atop a skyscraper where you've got to go up and down levels to clear out the block... Maybe there's a bomb or experiment on humans that gives a time imperative... these could be really cool things to add, and with the exception of underwater - would change the type of soldiers and weapons you need on the mission. - The alien base doors - truly annoying. They're super hard to see as they're the same colour as the walls, and the isometric view means that they (and others things) can be entirely obfuscated by the foreground items. I've wasted so much time just trying to walk around alien bases and find the doors/remaining aliens. Simple suggestion, can we have glowing edges or a flashing light on the doors? - Right/wrong tactics - I feel that there's a right and wrong way to play this game. I personally always use snipers and destroy them all from distance. It's kinda easy then. I never lose soldiers and the aliens accuracy means I rarely get hit. What about some flying creatures? Or mortar style attacks? I personally never seem to use the hi-ex or assault folks (never seems a need). Just snipers and rifles. - Changing difficulties. I've played through early release twice (more on that later) and I've got to about 20% of the way through, and i'm flying. I win every battle with ease - but I can't then change up the difficulty level and need to start again. Ouch - that's like 30-60 hours wasted... - To me, it's REALLY not clear that the game just 'stops' at 30% completion before I start playing. I know it's early access, but come on guys, stick that s*** on the homescreen in big letters. It's a real d move to expect people to go onto forums and store pages and find this stuff out. We all have busy lives and it wouldn't take long just to have that on the main screen and then people know. Also, I previously completed 30% on a former release, and then on update my save game didn't work anymore, so then I went through again, hoping for more than 30% of the game to be there on the new release, but it wasn't. It was in fact, the same again. Argh (yes yes I know I could have done some research, but surely it's easier to just make that super clear on the homescreen?) All in all though, one of my favourite ever games. The above (apart from difficulty and messaging the current level of completion of the game) would just elevate it greatly.
    1 point
  46. It's an ambush, so it logic you can use the whole terrain to position your troops
    1 point
  47. ,We know how Ukraine supported the UN resolution banning the propaganda of Nazism and fascism.
    1 point
  48. INTRODUCTION Hello everyone. Let my first briefly introduce myself since this is my first post on these forums. I’m nearing my mid-forties, I live in Slovenia, and I like to play strategy (and other) games. I have played X-COM and UFO Enemy Unknown over and over as a kid and discovered it again some 4-5 years ago. I have just completed my first and only vanilla X:CE playthrough on normal difficulty without ironman. From the outset I planned to play Xenonauts with X-Division mod since I like modded games and reading about X-Division mod I’m led to expect much higher difficulty and much deeper gameplay. I thought it would be a good idea to get myself somewhat acquainted with vanilla gameplay first – hence one vanilla playthrough. This will be my first attempt at writing an AAR of any kind. It will also be my very first attempt at X-Division playthrough apart from a short sniff of 3-4 in-game days of gameplay. For this new game I have chosen NG (standard?) difficulty with Ironman, and I think all options as set by X-Division installer. X:CE version is 1.65/0.35.1 and X-Division 1.00.11c New Dawn. What about your motivation for writing an AAR, you might ask? Well, when I played another game a couple of years ago read some AARs from various players and it was great fun reading them, especially when the player/writer had an interesting story to tell. IMHO what makes a good are somewhat developed characters and story plots, so I will try (and probably fail) to write up something in that vein. I don’t know if this kind of a written AAR thing is even interesting to anyone anymore because of YT, but it doesn’t hurt anyone so why not... I have an excuse to learn something new and write in English. Regarding the additional lore, research, weapons and new mechanics of X-Division mod I have absolutely zero prior knowledge of it apart from reading some of the spoilers in mod descriptions. No videos about X-Division were viewed, so anything I write will be my fresh view of the game developments as they occur. Finally, I’ve taken the liberty to name some characters that will be “contributing” to the story. The names might or might not resemble actual national/ethnical naming conventions and I apologise to anyone that might find my made-up names inappropriate in that regard. As final disclaimers, English is not my primary language, and I could be using some other language expressions wrong, so please bear with me on this… Without further ado, lets dive in. We start with... THE CHARACTERS Military non-combat personnel: General Hugh-Trevor Rhys-Martins 59, British General, X-Division Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) calm, sophisticated and charmless with a rare spark of charisma Yevgeny Klimentovich Voroshilov 51, Russian Senior Officer, Executive officer to C-in-C and Chief of Operations (X-O/C-Ops) son of a retired Soviet Union marshal; temperamental and loud Kurt Reynalds 54, american Senior Officer, Air Detachment Commander (ADC) WW2 pilot (4 kills) and cereer officer; an Air Force man through and through Luciano (Loukianos) “Lucky” Corelli 39, Italo-Greek Junior Officer, Quick Reaction Force Commander (C-QRF) believes in his soldiers, can get emotional (inherited this from his papa) Andy MacGuinnes 36, Irish NCO, Recruitment & Drill Officer recruits tremble when he is around, but otherwise he is a fine fella' Petra Horachkova 33, Chech NCO, Communications Liaison Officer (CLO) new face in X-Division, brought in to ease communications with outside world Knut Mathiessen 47, Danish NCO, Quartermaster seldom seen outside stores and never without a cigarette (he makes certain nobody sees what he hides in his desk drawer) Pedro de Gini 48, Spanish NCO, senior radar operator reliable and experienced Anatoly Arkadyevich Shvetsov 33, Russian NCO, Interceptor pilot distrusts all western equipment Junichi Akamatsu 34, Japanese NCO, Interceptor pilot son of a WW2 Japanese fighter ace Horatio Gisbergh 23, American enlisted, junior communications operator off-duty he is seen around wearing headphones, listening to casettes on his brand new Walkman, or writing something in his notebook. Combat personnel - soldiers: Civilian personnel: Dr. Amalric Dreyfuss 41, French Lead X-Division Scientist brilliant scientist and a pain to work with Diego Vasco da Silva Magan 35, Brasilian Junior Scientist Silent, keeps to himself Vitaly Kaganov 38, Ukrainian Lead engineer dislikes intellectuals Veronika “Verka” Burszinska 47, Polish Officer’s mess & kitchen assistant a loving mother and wife, loves a good gossip
    1 point
  49. CHAPTER 1 – THE GATHERING CLOUDS August 21st 1979 [08:21 GMT; Internal memo to all X-Division personnel by Petra Horachkova] On authority of C-in-C: All personnel are to return to base immediately. All vacations are cancelled until further notice. Liaison & Communications Department [later that day; Vera’s letter to her daughter Yulija] My darling Yulka! I’m so unhappy and I’m so sorry, dear, but my vacation has been cancelled and I won’t be able to come to your wedding. I can’t tell you much except that there has been some ********** at work. Oh, my baby, I miss you so much and I want to be with you on the 2nd, but it just won’t be possible. I must go now, my shift is up. Please give a big hug to Andzrej and little Mila for me and take care of your father. You know how he gets all emotional, and then he starts crying. I hope this ******** will be over soon and I can still come and be there with you on your big day. Love you! Your mama August 25th 1979 [22:25 GMT; Horatio Gisbergh’s diary entry] There has been much going on in the past 4 days since all personnel has been summoned back to base. I sense something is going to happen, otherwise they wouldn’t activate as all. August 28th 1979 [Vera’s letter to her husband] Janek, my dear, don’t be a fool. You know well I can’t go until given a leave. If you’d heard what I hear at the ****** ***** you’d understand, but you know I can’t tell you anything. They need me here, and remember - they pay really good. Maybe in the spring we could finally get a credit and order ourselves that little Skoda if all goes well. So please remain calm and take care of Yulija and the wedding. You know how emotional she can get. Behave now and when I come home we will have some fun, my big man! Your Verka August 29th 1979 [22:15 GMT; Horatio Gisbergh’s diary entry] Today we started experiencing severe communications problems. There was some unexplained interference in the past two days but not like this! Looks like the orbital comms satellites are shutting down one by one. As to what is causing this nobody knows or is willing to tell us. X-O just yells at us to re-establish the lines. All three of us in the comms were sweating our butts off all day to no avail and in the evening, we had to abandon the satellites. Now we rely on ground lines. What in the world is happening?? August 30th 1979 [00:37 GMT; Horatio Gisbergh’s diary entry] OK, this explains the satellites. Since I’m under strict threat of repercussions if anyone else should learn about it, I won’t write it down. Let’s just say I was sending an off-world message that the Dreyfuss character put together for the last two hours. D***! I need a beer. Nah, I need something stronger... [06:03 GMT; C-in-C memo to all X-Division departments] Please report status of your department ASAP [06:30 GMT; Research department report by Lead researcher Dr. Amalric Dreyfuss] I am pleased to report that our laboratoire at X-NACOM is in full working order, all the instruments are well maintained and properly calibrated. I am currently dealing with a couple of small experiments that are progressing nicely but I am ready to take on any serious research into new fields of science at any time. But I need more personal assistants, which I only have 10 at the moment. And they are not on my level for sure. Please consider allocating more funding for an additional laboratoire, instead of throwing it at those pistoneheads at Engineering that only know how to break things. Amalric, Dr. Dreyfuss [06:37 GMT; Air detachment report by ADC Kurt Reynalds] Commander, as I was condensing in previous reports, I have at my disposal a mere two F-17 fighter jets of U.S. origin, converted from standard F-16s to what we think is best adaptation for combating UFOs. We have taken out all unnecessary equipment and stripped the airframe almost to the bone to make them faster and more agile, so that they may have a chance of catching and dogfighting with the saucers. However, all this was achieved at the cost of armament, as the airframe has become very delicate can only carry a single Sidewinder A-A rocket and an internal cannon. If the ET comes down on us I sincerely can’t imagine how we do much harm to them. I therefore strongly suggest ASAP a renewal of our experimental fighter programme that has collapsed some 10 years ago from funding cuts, and building more interceptor bases around the globe, funding permitting. Also, if we want to intercept anything, we should build a network of radars, covering at least the most important areas. We do have an AWACS plane that we “borrowed” from one of our patrons, but it can only cover so much land and has a considerable down time after each mission, therefore it is not the best of options. Without the radars and better planes, we are sitting ducks. Reynalds, ADC [06:39 GMT; Quick Reaction Force report by QRF Commander Luciano Corelli] Commandante, Q.R.F. is ready to meet any ground force. Al mio comando be 10 soldiati professionali from all the world, from Nato and from iron curtain country. Immagine there is some tensioni between NATO and Warsaw Pact personni, espezialle between Americani and East German soldati, ma con capo fermo si lasciano alle spalle le loro differenze e sono una squadra efficace! Scusi, I try to say they are effettive with a firm boss. MacGuiness say to me the squad spirit is very good and I have no reason to doubt. Team is armed with standard armi da fanteria americani,we have good firepower to fight with all known organizzazioni, ma anche la mafia! Pero, the quick reaction is really no quick reaction. We have uno elicottero! Uno elicottero, commandante. Ma ciò che è abbastanza è abbastanza! This thing is so slow! We need some faster macchine, no? Capitano Corelli [06:53 GMT; Engineering report by Lead engineer Vitaly Kaganov] Komrade, my men be ready to product any thing. My men build many nuclear submarine with own hand, is the best submarine in Soviet flot and in world. Tell french doctor to give me blueprint and we build, but good. Kaganov [06:57 GMT; Chief of operations report by X-O/C-Ops Yevgeniy Klimentovich Vorshilov] Komrade Commander, I report all X-Division personal at base. We are bad ready for serious alien invasion. Only one base for operation of our soldat is bad for defence. In SSSR everybody know big number is must for success. I demand we build more base around the world on all continent where we can have more soldier and some tank. Don’t listen to american covboy pilot Reynalds, he think he can shoot down NLO UFO with his toy plane. I say soldier be the answer to alien, real soldier with real gun and some tank. When they land on Zemlya, we send soldier with tank, bullet to the head or to the back and no more alien. We in SSSR we know how it is done. Operation room secure. Communication secure after I yell on Gisbergh american boi and his team all yesterday. Bezopasnost Security good, we have no spy and letter of all person is read and sensitiv information we censor as need-I personally instruct Horachkovna how do it. Yevgeniy Klimentovich [08:00 GMT; C-in-C memo to Quartermaster] I am still awaiting your report, Quartermaster! [08:22 GMT; Quartermaster report by Knut Mathiessen] Commander, excuse me, there were many shelves to count. That I already did 10 days ago and reported in great detail. Alas, here is my updated report... X-NACOM base is well stocked with provisions and standard combat equipment. We have enough light infantry weapons and good supply of ammunitions to face any outside threat. We also have a healthy stock of jet fuel, air rockets and air torpedoes and if need be we can easily get more. The kitchen is well provided by local suppliers and we have ample drinking water to last out even if the supply breaks of any cause. As far as I’m concerned, we are hygge! K. M. August 31st 1979 [12:37 GMT; C-in-C internal memo to all X-NORAM personnel] All personnel to Hangar 4 at 14:05 hours for emergency briefing. [14:05 GMT; C-in-C emergency personnel briefing at Hangar 4] Y. K. Voroshilov, X-O: Everybody, attention! H.-T. Rhys-Martins, C-in-C: Thank you, Yevgeniy. [shuffling through papers]. X-Division, at ease! Ahem… [adjusting the shirt collar that seems too tight for the task ahead] Men... and women! I stand before you to convey to you a worrying development... in which it seems our organization will have to play a pivotal part. We, the X-Division, have been, after many years of stagnant funding and indifferent world leaders, called to face the threat of... an extra-terrestrial force… [murmurs in the audience] ... of unknow origin and of unknown intentions. These extra-terrestrials have not returned communications despite our continuous attempts to do so. We must therefore assume that the extra-terrestrial intentions are hostile… [loud murmurs and yelling in the crowd] … now, men, now… please calm down… [murmurs not subsiding]. X-O, if you would? Y. K. Voroshilov: Kak prikazhete! Vnymanie... ATTENTION! H.-T. Rhys-Martins: Thank you, Yevgeniy. Now… where was I? Ah, yes… The extra-terrestrials have not established contact despite our attempts to communicate with them therefore we must assume their intentions are… hostile [a soldier whispers something to his neighbour] … Y. K. Voroshilov: SOLDAT, your commander speaking! You know meaning of ATTENTION??! H.-T. Rhys-Martins: Yes, thank you... Yevgeniy. Now... The extra-terrestrials are to be considered hostile until we establish communication with them and learn about their true intentions. We have been asked by the funding nations of the Earth to arrange for immediate defensive provisions of all continents and all their peoples, where ever they might be. This means we need to step up our efforts and I count on every and each one of us to give 110% of our commitment to this cause. There have already been some extra-terrestrial activities that we know of and must be considered hostile. Some of you and your close ones may have already been affected by these actions. Since august 29th the extra-terrestrials have been systematically shutting down Earth’s communications going through orbital satellites and it took them mere three days to shut down every one of them. There are currently no working satellites remaining in Earth’s orbit. We are dealing with an extremely cunning and unpredictable enemy... Nobody knows what action they might take next, but luckily, we have some smart heads among us [nods at Dr. Dreyfuss and his research group in the crowd] that will start analysing the data we are gathering worldwide as we speak. I believe we will have some answers soon. The sooner the better, Dr. Dreyfuss! Let me also remind you of the Iceland incident from 20 years ago and the cost that was paid at the time to contain it. For those among you who do not know what I am talking about, I have authorised the disclosure of a highly classified file from the archives to all X-Division personnel. Study it, learn from it. That is all. I believe everybody knows their part. To your stations and keep your eyes open! Yevgeniy, if you will... Y. K. Voroshilov: Dismissed!
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  50. I am absolutely LOVING the airgame now!! I don´t know if it´s because I am playing on Easy or what, but two Condors went a long way downing everything on their path all through their shelf life until the arrival of Asierus. I was actually very proud to retire the birds as undefeated champions of a bye-gone era. I was surprised to read the scientist on the XPedia talk about them being expendable "Send one, lose one" type of sacrificial craft. In vanilla I felt the airgame was just alpha striking, now I am using pulling and bait-and-switch tactics, shifting velocities constantly to adjust for turn rate and turn on afterburners for kill shots. " If the UFO has escorts you will need to figure out what to do." Hoooooeeeeey. Well, I guess R.I.P. this run, then. This mod has been so much fun.
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