Bombrik

Saw this post, just had to reply: YES! Those were genius tricks, and an anti-piracy version of Xenonauts should have..about 2-3 months in, all the other nations you don't have bases in, start attacking you cause they think *YOU* are working with the aliens. You get enemy fighter jets hunting down your squadrons, and 24 man assault teams hitting your base every single day.

I miss the days of Demos, that was where I made most of my decisions on what games to get as Commercial Review sites and game mags like PC Gamer so easily skewer towards butt-kissing of big game companies. I remember back when everyone was all over Daikatana, calling it the second coming. Saw the same of Master of Orion 3. I bought Xenonauts due to two factors. 25% of it was the recommendation of a friend. 75% of it however was due to Chris, the maker of the game, personally responding to a thread of mine and offering a refund if the game didn't work on my antiquated OS. I saw that as great customer service, and I felt it should be rewarded with my pledge of financial support. So I bought Xenonauts, and proud of it. Regarding Piracy..I'm a little mixed on that. I am guilty of pirating games from some companies that, due to experience with them, I simply don't trust (Like any game by Paradox, who has a habit of releasing games at 40-50 bucks, then patches at 20 bucks a pop) or to test if a game will simply work (I pirated Game Dev Tycoon, saw it worked, then immediately bought a legit version) or to get my hands on games that are hard to get (Outpost 2, Birth of the Federation, Metal Fatigue - Basiclly any game that qualifies as Abandonware at this point, but the company refuses to release as such and refuses to sell on Gog.com). I feel that piracy, least from my stance, is a symptom of a cynical mistrust of some big name developers, and is a product of that period of game design just after the rise of small independents that gave us great games (Sir-tech, Blizzard before Activision, Triumph Studios, Interplay) and during the time big companies like EA gobbled up the small companies and game design was dictated by people who had no clue about games and just wanted to see profit margins. This lead to lots of shovelware and a general mistrust of games that came out. As shown by DRM fiacos like the latest Simcity. With the rise of Indies, we are hopefully getting back to that golden age of game developing and hopefully, indie developers can restore general faith in game production and cause a decrease in piracy. Also more people releasing demos would be good as well. I remember playing the demo of Jagged Alliance 2 to death.

Good question. I have the Steam edition as well, and can't find this "Community Edition".

I'm curious if 'looting' actually is of benefit in this mod. In a battle, you will run into killed civilians/officials and sometimes pick their weapons up. Do those weapons go to inventory/storehouse and have a sale value?

Makes sense to me. I think they mislabeled it, as what I've read states the soldier is really hallucinating. Given this is caused by an alien Psi-Attack, I am assuming the soldier sees said random person AS an Alien and opens fire. But this situation suffers from a question of What exactly DO you call it?

Never, in every UFO capture mission I've done, crashed or landed, have I seen the Aliens roaming the map ever turn to retake the ship. Usually there are 1-3 stragglers, and they are all out hiding cause I also don't hear them exchanging fire with civies. Guess they all want to pull ETs and wander off and hide among the populace. Time for me to invest in Reeses Pieces. Also, the Vehicles work very well as weapons fire magnets. The aliens always get fixated on them, and stand out in the open constantly firing. What follows is usually lots of pinging sounds, then machine gun fire then my cackling. If I was an alien, and I saw one of those vehicles driving up, I'd be saying "Oh shit" instead of standing there like an ant screaming "Bring it!" at an M1 Abhrams.

I don't think the AI cheats, just that it has actual use of tactics and sometimes even dumb luck can occur it. Situations I've seen in my current round include.. 1: A Sebillian tossing a grenade from a covered position, with the grenade getting 'blocked' and landing at his feet. 2: Aliens engaged in fighting my own people, only to get outflanked and finished off by civilians/local authorities. 3: A full on Sebillian 'Strike Team' that was moving into a position on me after just landing and getting out of the helo, with one laying down suppressing fire, two moving to flank and the leader rushing in to drop a grenade. While I won that battle, about half a dozen turns was spent on that terror mission simply fighting at the doors of my chinook. 4: Base Defense Mission - With my main team forming a bottleneck and keeping out forces from breaking past two chokepoints, and having my most wounded, high ranker guard the command room by herself, a lone Sebillian snuck AROUND the group, heading to approach from an entirely opposite direction and rushed into the command room. He died from a reaction fire salvo, but he died right at the very doorway of my command center. For some reason I keep expecting the aliens to rush for the command center/UFO once my people have taken it, yet they never seem to. Still, I always keep two guarding the main door while the rest of my team sweeps and cleans. But I've yet to see the aliens move to retake the ship.

I'm more curious as to the future of Xenonauts itself. Any planned additions? Planned new features? An expansion? Or is the game regarded as finished, with just aim on bug fixing and then that's it?

Honestly? I like the Cold War setting. Most games of these type always go with the near/distant future, around 10-50 years into the future but at a familiar enough point where we have SOME connection to it, but still it's something that seems to be the 'default' backdrop. 1990s X-Com started at this and went further and further. The UFO Afterlight series did the same. X-Com put itself closer to modern day, but still ahead of the present. I consider the Cold War and 1979 to be a absolutely perfect moment and refreshing change. Around 1979 was when science-fiction started, such as the movie Alien. The mindset of being afraid of the unknown was already in the people's conscious, as well as a thirst for scientific advancement due to TV shows and movies at the time. Also, the game gives a certain bleakness: You know you are bringing a ballistic rifle to a laser gun fight, so every victory has that underdog feel to it. The idea of the two powers cooperating would be feasible, given leadership at the time and the Soviets aware that they were in danger of losing their grand Empire. Doing this earlier would of been more difficult, especially the closer to the Cuban Missile crisis we go. The USA (Under Carter at the time), and the Soviets were losing their rough edges due to having come so close to the brink of mutual annihilation. Toss in this 'Iceland Incident', and we got ourselves a high probability of cooperation between the two super-powers. Technological advancement in a time of war was not unheard of, if you look at the advances made during World War 2. We started the war still fielding cavalry units, old dreadnought designs and prop planes, and ended it with Atomic Bombs, Carriers and a slew of aeronautical advancements. Toss in the influx of this alien technology, as well as the forming minds that would start computer advancement in the 80s and 70s, and LCDs occurring is also more likely. Heck, maybe this world would of jumped from Betamax, straight to DVDs and leapfrogged over VHS and Laserdiscs. I do feel that the situation of conflict between the USA and Soviets could of arisen, but that would of required a whole new level of the game that, I think Goldhawk couldn't manage at it's resource level: Introduce the game with the base options between either the American friendly areas, or Soviet friendly areas, and all Neutral nations have to be influenced over. If you pick American, then the Soviet areas are unavailable to you, but they act as their own Xenonauts division: Fielding troops, airplanes, chinooks and such. At this point, a 'Xenonauts: The Coldest War' game would have you fighting the Aliens AND Opposing force. The Opposing Force will target aliens, but you as well. You can target the other side, and gain more and more money easily, but you weaken the overall Earth-defense against the aliens. Course this kind of game exists only in my wildest dreams, and I'm not sure how it can even be MADE. Keep in mind, this is a game by an Indie-developer, with far limited resources, putting up an excellent game. While Firaxis had far more of a budget at their disposal, I feel X-Com Enemy Within/Unknown felt rather..linear. Xenonauts is far more open, and far more engrossing. What Goldhawk Interactive did, was very impressive, and I have not enjoyed a game this much since Jagged Alliance 2, from an era when games had a graphics "ceiling", which was easily reached, so the development had to be all on the game's depth. Xenonauts has depth and re-playability. Still, I'd love to see some kind of Expansion Pack, as well as an ability to wage war against areas that surrender to the aliens and take it back. Also, ways to get more money! I'm going broke here! The aliens may win cause I'm having to hock everything.

Alright, purchased the game, tested it under Win XP Pro 64 Service Pack 2. Reporting full operational status on all modes (Geoscape, Interception, Ground Combat). Minor graphics tearing when I alt-tab back, but just on the options menu and then only lingering for a matter of seconds. Too minor a thing to worry about. Main point here: Xenonauts *WORKS*

Well, asking cause Win XP 64 (The 64 bit version) has a history of spotty support. Many games and programs that work for XP, simply will not work with it. Xenonauts looks absolutely wonderful, and I'm eager to throw my money at the makers, but want to err on the side of caution.

Sorry if this is posted/answered somewhere else, but I couldn't find the answer to this. The game looks great, and I want to buy it, but does it work on Windows XP 64? X-Com: Enemy Unknown/Within didn't technically work, but there is a hex edit to make it work. Just need to know, before I set down cash for the game.