Gauddlike

And you couldn't take a laptop?

That is a difficulty, I understand. To make them different in meaningful ways I was thinking of three things that go against the trend of most other aircraft. I was thinking they could be very slow. The top speed needs to match the equivalent tier dropship at most really, meaning they would be unlikely to ever catch anything by themselves so would be unsuited to the role of an interceptor. They could even be slower, trading off dropship speed for greater protection. They would need to be more powerful than a standard interceptor against fighters because if they are part of a squadron with a dropship they have to be able to fight 2v3 against air superiority missions with some chance of success. They do not necessarily need to be able to face off against enemy capital ships at all though so can have weapons purely set up to pick off enemy fighters. They would also likely need to be pretty tough to take a beating rather than relying on evading damage as most aircraft do. More of a floating fortress than a fast strike aircraft. I think this could set them apart from the faster, more offensively focused drones like the highwayman and privateer. With the massive range of the other drones I am not certain the close defence role would be essential but it would be easier than micro managing other squadrons to do the same job.

That happens quite regularly when making any mod Hopefully your problems are sorted for now though.

That is pretty obvious. It is a hand held scanning device with only two buttons, that makes it a Bi-Corder. I kind of see this as the SG teams from the Stargate series having to bring along scientists as the soldiers are not trained well enough to do things like hack door controls, disable complicated alien defence systems and so on. It would have been nice if there were some things only certain people could do to support that further within the game. For example capturing the UFO by holding the bridge would be quicker with an engineer along or some doors can only be opened by the scientist class. Getting into RPG territory a little maybe but no more than saying fences can only be cut by characters who have wire cutters or whatever.

Nice work Max. Are you looking at creating any other drone aircraft at the moment? I was thinking what we are missing is a very long range but slow set of drones specifically designed as close dropship support craft. They would be pretty rubbish as interceptors but good for covering that hole people keep complaining about where they cannot escort their troops past the relatively short interceptor range.

In your first section you don't have </sound> after </wave>, is this an error in posting to the forum or is that missing from the sounds_gc? If it is missing from the file that may explain why any sounds past that point are not functioning.

'Xenonauts needs you! To get back to work and save us all, incidentally here is less money.'

At the time of the UI redesign it was found that scaling issues in the way the engine was coded meant that the game just could not support both widescreen and non widescreen resolutions without significant time and money being dedicated to investigating the issue, and even then there was no guarantee of solving it. It wasn't a case of deciding that they didn't like 5:4 resolutions and just blocked them on a whim. The game could be made to work well with either wide or narrow displays but not both so which makes the most sense to focus on? If support for the Playground game engine was available from its creators then this likely could have been worked around but sadly that was never the case. There are many different hardware configurations available and not all games work perfectly on all rigs as you have probably noticed. This is a major downside to developing on the PC platform and reactions like yours may help to explain why many developers find console titles to be an easier path. Their games only have to be aimed at a very specific set of criteria without needing to worry about supporting unusual or outdated configurations. *edit* I also just edited your thread title to be more descriptive in case others are interested in reading the replies posted here.

It can be confusing the first time but after that it is barely more complicated than navigating to any other folder location. The method Vagabond suggests is maybe two mouse clicks more complicated than doing the same thing with any other shortcut. Remember as well that when you install a game through steam you can set the install location so you can remove even these minor hurdles with a bit of forethought. Just my two pennies worth

I am hopeful that turn based can be divorced from tile based as well for these games. They don't need to be the same thing.

I also enjoyed reading your thoughts on the development process from the other side. I enjoyed the process from the community side and think this and the final product definitely justifies getting in as early as I did. As for critiquing the writing I only noticed a couple of things:

Well you could look at the sticky post at the top of this forum entitled 'Tech Tree Overview' where the whole tech tree has been laid out in an image by a forum member. That will give you an overview of the tech tree but doesn't use the in game artwork. As kabill says the only way to see that at the moment is to go and look in the game files.

Well would you look at that... http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/11573-Upcoming-Projects-%28Very%29-Basic-Details

Both ideas sound good to me. Definitely going to be watching with interest.

More common base and terror missions change the feel of the game quite a lot so that is a start. As Ilunak says most of the alternative mission types that have been suggested before don't really fit well with the scope and focus of Xenonauts though.

My justification is: If I can pay for a whole new base with just a couple of manufactured items why do I even need to bother with the whole funding nations mechanic that is a core feature of the game?

No worries, glad you liked them

I also bought the pre order back before the standalone air combat was released and then picked up another copy on the kickstarter. The forum was moved at one point so that is probably why you had to re-register as details didn't carry over. You could try sending Chris a PM on the forum with the details you used to pre-order and see if he can help you.

We don't have any gaming shows on TV in the UK any more. At least if we do I haven't seen or heard of them...

Just removed the external link and added a zip file containing all of the images to the OP.

I tried this in an earlier version so the AI was probably not really up to the task of providing that level of risk.

No, if there is no door image to hover over then there is no icon displayed.

That is what the system is supposed to represent. Opening the door is a surprise move so the enemy doesn't get to immediately react and shoot you dead before you can do anything else. The scenario you describe is not without risk as shooting does cause a reaction check so would likely get you shot if the alien can see you. The problem there arises from squad sight. Because you know where the aliens are you can choose not to use the soldier who is most at risk of getting shot and instead use someone safer, like the machine gunner stood 15 tiles away that the alien cannot react to. The alternative is to get shot almost every time you open a door with someone on the other side of it. You can minimise your risk by only opening doors with pistol users who have not spent any TU yet but once you have bypassed that initial reaction check then you are back to the same situation you have now. Opening a door cost so few TU that you would almost never trigger a reaction shot.

Yeah it is an easy fix once you have doors that cannot be manually closed. At least there is some risk involved if they have to be opened. Removing them completely just lead to me levelling the entrance from range without needing to approach the UFO. Once you get past the very start of the game there isn't usually much in there to worry about saving. If the modular UFOs with breachable walls work out then leaving the doors as they currently are wouldn't make much sense. They would become the easiest and safest method of breaching the ship due to the open/close exploit while your freshly blasted doorway would remain open all of the time. New UFO designs might also make ranged bombardment more costly or less effective as well. It is a good time to be thinking about this.

They can't close it until the game decides to do that though. I believe it is at the start of the players next turn rather than before the aliens turn so the enemy get a nice set of free shots through an open door. At the moment you can close the door as soon as you have finished shooting and the enemy needs to approach the door and open it themselves, leaving them with reduced time units to actually defend the ship. I think that does achieve something over the current system. Removing the door completely also achieves very little if you want to view it like that. The player can fire into the UFO from any range without even needing to approach it. What would you suggest to completely solve whatever issue you have?