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Yes! I remember in Rebelstar on the ZX Spectrum (showing my age here) that if you were the attackers and you managed to blow up the 3 laser turrets in the base you got reinforcements for doing so (some with Photon weapons!). It's this kind of diversity that would make xen2 fresh. Diversity in terms of missions, maps etc. For xen1 this tended to be provided by the modding community. If xen2 is structured in such a way that it is easy to bolt on new modules for it then the sky really is the limit for this sort of thing.

A good game spreads more by word of mouth really. Not many knew about xen1 when it came out, but it must have done well enough by definition for chris and the team to produce a sequel, otherwise why bother? It's still a great game to play, and always will be, just as the original UFO: Enemy Unknown from Microprose was. Heck, I still even play Rebelstar on a Spectrum Emulator from time-to-time. Or even Lazer Squad. Classics of the past. One bolt from the blue I remember (because it nearly wrecked the 3rd year of my degree) was the Nintendo 64's Goldeneye, which I always say was better than the film. Compared to 1st person shooters from today it's very choppy, but it was dripping with atmosphere and quality. It just came out of nowhere to be one of the top games on the N64. Finally, remember that this game is really a labour of love. Chris personally loves this type of game and loved UFO (which is why Xen was produced). It's in his interest to make sure its a great game because he will probably be playing it himself! Programmers of Big companies cannot put this kind of love into the kind of corporate games they make simply because they aren't really 'engaged' as much in what they are producing. The goal for most of them is just a paycheck at the end of the day. Turn-based strategy is not really catered for these days in comparison to other types of games, yet there is definitely a market for them - as shown by xen1. This is why xen2 is so important.

Hi all, I’ve started this thread to flag up something I feel is being overlooked in current discussions about improvements to the game. More Mission Types and Secondary Objectives have been mentioned before but don’t seem to be getting the attention they deserve. More Mission Types and Secondary Objectives seem to me to be a (relatively!) simple way of adding a huge amount of variety to the game – far moreso than new tilesets, which Chris has explained are “EXTREMELY time consuming and expensive to make – they’re the most expensive component of the game by some distance.” Here are some ideas for what could be new Missions or Secondary Objectives. These have been taken from other threads and aren’t all my own ideas – I’m not trying to plagiarise Defend a landmark. Capture alien leader. Assassinate alien leader. Escort VIP (e.g. politician, scientist) to exfiltration area. Destroy alien transmission beacon. Rescue downed pilot (not necessarily your own). Free prisoners. Rescue local soldiers under attack by aliens. Defend supplies. Clear command post of all aliens. Activate Surface to Air missile site via panel in control room. Rescue hostage. Carry wounded civilian back to your chopper. Retrieve information local agents have compiled about aliens. Destroy alien mind-control device causing humans to fight you (once destroyed, the humans could turn into allies). Eliminate cultists (humans working for the aliens). The rewards for these could be as varied as deemed appropriate. Examples include: Improving end of round score. Improving relations with a particular country. Cash bonus. Stash of equipment (e.g. 10 packs of C4 or equivalent). New Xenonaut. Unique weapon (maybe just an existing one but with slightly improved stats to avoid new artwork). Revealing location of alien base. Research boost. Temporary manufacturing time reduction. I freely admit that I don’t know much about programming or the ways in which games like Xenonauts are made, but here are some justifications I believe to be accurate: Most of these would need little if any new graphics, which seem to be the most expensive aspect of production. I could well be wrong about that, of course! They’d add a significant amount of replayability to the game, and make each mission far more interesting. Especially if some Secondary Objectives are revealed mid-mission as you stumble across them. It’s genuine variety in gameplay and not just largely superficial changes, as tilesets essentially are. They could add to the whole feeling of immersion in the Xenonauts world; making small-scale battlefield decisions that impact the global war. More decision-making would be required by the player: do you order one of your valuable troops to take an injured civilian back to the chopper, thereby increasing your reputation with that country, but losing him for the next few turns when the aliens are about to counter-attack and he’s needed on the frontline? They seem like such brilliant things to include, it’s puzzling why they’re not high on the wish-list. It’s likely that I’m missing something, like the actual scale of the task from a programming perspective, but aren’t things like Kickstarter designed to raise funds to make these sorts of things a reality? All thoughts on this matter are much appreciated!