Gauddlike

Did you say spells? You know how the commissar feels about sorcery...

I loved countdown to doomsday. Think I have it on an emulator somewhere still, might have to go find it. Would be interested to see something like that based on a slightly newer engine

It would be nice if the threshold didn't count the reduction from smoke I reckon. The actual accuracy still would so aliens could still decide to fire on you they would just be more likely to miss.

Well the Commissar 'retired' it...

I think the bug there is that the scoring screen is saying there were two casualties when only one actually died, the second survived his wounds.

How about you make the male soldiers all have stupidly floppy haircuts, keep the grumpy expressions, but also make them shine in daylight?

We are all Josh Eales and Josh Eales is all of us.

It sounds more like a case of having to balance the AI one way or the other without time to try and get zerging aggressive AI working alongside the more balanced AI that seemed to be preferred by the community at the time. As TD says the TU costs also play into a lot of the AI actions. If a shot is possible then it is usually taken, even if that leaves little time for anything else. If shot costs are just a little lower then the same number of shots are possible but more TU are available for advancing or hiding, depending on the situation. Some changes there might be worth considering if you decide to try making the aliens more fluid and mobile to support the aggressiveness.

I just want to know how Thothkins is the only person on the first page to get points for 'miscellaneous' and what he had to do to get them...

Lol yeah I hadn't noticed that! Kind of sums it up I guess

A new animation where the soldier waves his arms around and shouts 'SkitsOpen!' would suffice.

Oh dear, wonder if I type things backwards my post count will start going down instead of up?

Bit late though as the game is officially feature complete and will not have any more changes like this made to it. Just bug fixes from now on!

The game engine does not belong to Goldhawk and they do not have the rights to change it in any way. If it was possible to code something that ran outside of the game engine and did this kind of colour shift to the png images as they were loaded then it would probably have the desired effect. I don't know enough about the subject to say if it would be possible but I do know that the game has just hit its final deadline so a huge change like this will not be worked on by the devs. I don't see how it could be possible as a mod without accessing the source code either but there is always a chance someone will manage it.

I see today more as the deadline where new features will be stopped. The polishing will continue while preparations are made for release and arrangements made for mac/linux versions. Once the press release is ready and the game definitely doesn't break under normal gameplay then the release will happen. One of the best things about Goldhawk is that they are definitely prioritising a stable release over a quick release.

There is a set of guidelines stickied at the top of this thread that outline the rules Goldhawk use to make the official maps which may be useful for you. They are not absolute rules so you can make them however you want but if you want to stick to a similar sort of theme and feel as the official ones they can point you in the right direction. http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9039-The-New-Mapping-Guidelines

The engine is barely suitable for purpose. It was picked early on by a member of the team who thought it was suitable but didn't really know what they were looking at. By the time that person left and the problems with the engine were discovered it was too late to throw out all the work that had been done and start again. I reckon the game would have either been completed years ago or be finishing now with twice the cool new features if something like Unity had been picked. Goldhawk have been fighting the engine more than working with it for the last few years which makes what they have achieved quite spectacular really.

The closest you can get is to do a recolour run through something like photoshop and then use your new spritesheets to create a new in game armour. It works quite well for the basic and jackal armours because of their bold colours but the later ones are more difficult to make look distinct without manually adding elements.

If you are looking for rpg type games with turn based combat you could try Underrail. It isn't finished yet but has a promising Fallout feel to it. Jagged Alliance 2 is worth a try if you are more into the squad based combat.

Some of the xml files in Xenonauts are not true xml files so xml specific programs don't like them. As said above your best bet is just to edit them in notepad or a similar text editor. I usually try excel or the xml editor first because some of the smaller files or ones just containing data (like vehicles.xml) will open.

I would still like to see a good remake of a Syndicate style game. I know there is at least one of them in progress (Satellite Reign springs to mind) but the experience of making Xenonauts could really help make a new Syndicate with all of the great features intact and add some great new ones.

I love the first game but find TFTD is ruined by some tedious ground missions. That is a pity because otherwise it does have some nice features and slight improvements over the original and the difficulty is ramped up nicely. Both of these games can be great fun to play and are worth picking up eventually if you are fan of the genre. Both of them are fairly basic turn based squad games with dated graphics and barely visible UI but they both have so much immersion somehow. Apocalypse also has some really interesting features and improvements balanced out by some quite annoying flaws. I think the fun definitely wins out if you don't mind the 50's retro vibe to the human artwork and the vaguely excretion based alien artwork. It has much more advanced vehicle customisation, a choice between real time or turn based play, more control over soldier equipment, more meaningful diplomacy and so on. It does suffer a little from only being based in a single city but once you get into the game you see why it would struggle to work on a larger scale so it does make sense. Enforcer was not a good game when it was released and has dated badly. I would avoid picking that up unless you really just want to experience it, you will play it once for a few minutes and then forget about it. Interceptor had promise but was not very well made. If it was not an x-com universe game I would have only played it for five minutes but I dragged it out to 15. I have no intention of trying to get it to work again though. Overall I would definitely recommend the original, maybe with a few mods added in or consider openxcom. I would also recommend apocalypse if you want to try something a little different but with a similar feel. If you just want to try a squad based game I can also suggest Jagged Alliance 2 with the right mods and settings. It has a very different feel and play style to the x-com games but is also a great turn based squad tactic game.

Yeah the real Josh Eales is either cowering in a basement somewhere in fear at the strange people who seem to be worshipping him or preparing a compound for his growing cult of followers... Maybe we just found out how the Cult of Sirius begins?

I would just have liked to see alien morale tied to psi powers. As the leader becomes less mentally focused delicate powers like mind control become harder while it becomes easier to use things like fear as he just dumps his own growing panic into one of your soldiers heads.

I heard he flew away in an Evil Alien Shed vowing revenge.