hawk66

That's good news. Anyways it would be cool to create mods in C#

Chris, may be this too early to answer but do you plan to make the Xenonauts 2 full moddable - that means having access to the Unity 3D content and scripts/code ?

Hi, do not know if this is the first review of the game: http://www.4players.de/4players.php/dispbericht/Allgemein/Test/30527/80510/0/Xenonauts.html (in German) It got 78%...I think it is pretty fair...it acknowledges that it is a true successor of the original one and that the groundcombat would be very good. Negative issues are that the AI of civilians and local forces (too random) is weak and for example the cover system (not transparent). The review would like to see more additional content to the original game but maybe the reviewer has not recognized the subtle changes. So, maybe the Devs can improve some issues here in future patches, especially make the cover system more transparent and make the friendly AI a little better?

Isn't the cover example given by eobet a bug ? Or can sbd explain it? I also do not understand it^^

ok, thanks guys for the info ^ ^

sees like a cool mod^^ but I want to first tryout vanilla. Does it make sense to use your AI improvements in vanilla ? I guess the AI changes are just the xml files in the groundcombat folder ? Thx

ok, thx...yes, I've meant the 1.13 patch

Jagged Alliance 2 looks cool...is it all scripted, that is if you restart do you have the same maps ?

Right...that's one the reasons I've bought not that game.

Ok if the AI is better than in the original game, than it is fine for me You mean they're cheating ? ....I've thought Fireaxis's game won an AI award ?

The title says it all...how's the AI in general in the current version (and I guess it will now not change a lot until the final release)...perhaps comparing it to the original game and also to fireaxis's version? Thx.

@shpeka: with unpredictablity I do not mean unlogic behavior....but using dynamic behavior and randomization ....that NPCs have strict patterns makes a game boring over the long run...

That sounds cool Another option might be that in some scenarios you are the supreme commander of the battlefield and give the friendly NPCs/squads high level orders (e.g. defend this sector, rescue civilians in that sector). I'd love such an option, although I understand that this would be not so easy to implement and has probably not a high priority. Anyways, what do you guys think about it from a feature point of view?

Hi, I've learned that the game will contain friendly, armed NPCs (law enforcement, other soldiers(?)). Is the design already finalized - so how does this feature influence game mechanics ? For example, do the friendly NPCs attack the aliens by themselves etc.? Anyways, I like the idea very much, since it adds more variety to the game. Thanks.

I'd be interested in: Can the aliens act as a squad? You are using a HFSM. How do you ensure that the AI is not predictable, since this seems to be a major flaw of FSMs? Thanks!

I've not the game, yet, so does the game or will it have hotkeys/shortkeys? This is really one of the major complaints I have about the old x-com enemy unknown. How good is keyboard handling in the game, anyways? The question may sound strange, but I prefer using keyboard - when it is reasonable. Thanks.

Chris, is it planned to have the 'better AI' in the beta?

Yes, sure it is not directly comparable. What I basically meant was that I do not wanna have an AI dumbed down, so just that I can win. This could be easily configured by an AI difficult level. @HWP Sure, AI coding is very tough. But it is not impossible to code a believable AI, it depends on the priority and since Xenonauts is a single player game, AI should have prio 1. I think nowadays it is not impossible to create a good tactical AI. As a side notice, even in the 80's on the C64 some tactical AIs are better than AIs from current AAA games. An example is RedStormRising, a nuclear submarine simulator, which has a very believable tactical AI. It even uses real life doctrines.

I think the AI 'stupidity' should be determined via the difficulty level. Personally, I do not want an AI that plays bad to give me a feeling of having success... Such an AI I'd expect from a typical AAA game but not from a serious X-COM remake. What I would expect is a goal-oriented AI...'goal: protect my ufo etc.'. And running away when it makes sense is perfectly fine. Also the AI should be capable to lay ambushes etc... The roguelike games have the famous saying 'Loosing is fun'. That says it all .

I've played now XCOM EU a bit. In general I like it, the atmosphere is great and it makes a lot of fun. But in the current state, it cannot be compared with the original...it is too scripted, and more or less nothing procedural generated. So, in the end it is a (very good) fire and forget game and maybe extended via DLCs but this will not change the replay ability problem itself. Maybe this changes if there is a SDK in the future, people can create their own maps etc....but in the end I think it will be very difficult to generate maps with the Unreal engine...although not impossible.

That's quite encouraging, Chris - that you plan to hire a guy with AI-knowledge. And, as suggested, I see a more squad-oriented approach also of the Aliens as a major improvement compared with x-com. It would also be more realistic.

Ok, then I ask a specific question: Is modding only possible via editing xml files or is there also access to the engine available, eg. scripting?

Ya, I think the original AI was not bad, considering when the game was developed. Room for improvement might be that also the aliens have more a squad-based approach?

With non-cheating I mean the AI has not unbelievable abilites, which are only there to mask its inability.

Hi, first of all, this project looks very encouraging, finally my hope is that there will be a worthy x-com successor now Also thinking to support you via pre-ordering. I have just one question: What kind of priority has a good AI in your development? Unfortunately, most - also strategic/tactical - games, have an inferior or quite static/boring AI. Do you plan to develop a dynamic/unpredictable AI (tactical ground combat), which also does not cheat?