Zolden

I must agree with Dranak. It's not just "don't have ot worry about", it just makes the game uncomparably funnier, if you forget about save/load.

it's april in my game, don't know what new year you are talking about

Max_Caine Yea, what you explained is simple and practical. My only concern is that stuff works unpredictable and unnatural in some cases becasue of the system choosen. And opening post wasn't mine. You think all nicknames look the same if they starting with Z letter?

Yea, accuracy formula is a bit artificial. I understand the intention to make it work closer to the XCOM, but there could be a better formula, that would imitate XCOM aiming in most situation, but in extreme cases it would work more realistic. If we look at a physically realistic picture, the projection of the far standing alien to the vision sphere is tiny, like 2-3 degrees of vision field. And it allows like 10% hit chance. So, dispersion of shooting is about 20-30 degrees. So, if alien is standing realy close in 1-3 squares from the soldier, its projection is about 30-60 degrees. Which is more than dispersion, and should give 100%. I can't say that I'm not satisfied with the actual aiming system, it feels rather dair. Bot sometimes it feels a bit not too realistic, especially on those short distances. Also, there's sometimes a strange situation happening: there's a barrier between my heavy weapon soldier and an alien. It blocks 100%. I aim alien, soldier starts bursting. First few shots destroy the barrier. So, all other bullets should fly further to the alien. But they all shoot the point where the barrier was. As if I would aim it. In physically realistic aiming mode they should have fly to alien direction. And sometimes they do fly to the alien. But sometimes don't (I think it usually work this way inside alien ships). And finally, the whole cover system. There's the same complaint as before: too artificial, not too realistic. Like in this situation: there are 3 barriers between soldier and alien. Why only one barrier gives that x% block? And usually it's not the one alien hiding behind (which supposed to cover like 80% of alien body, and therefore reduce accuracy by 80%). Anyway, I hope in the new games, which are meant to be 3d, aiming will be physically correct and thus realistic on all ranges. Unity physics engine has some nice instruments for that, those raycasts and stuff.

win xp isn't mentioned in the requirements, but it works there too

Xenonauts are indeed a pleasure for an xcom veteran.

Thanks for the maps, dude. Their presence in the game makes it much funnier.

Yes, it's seen clearly when a game made in sake of fun or to get some fast cash. Also, old games were made in a situation, where graphics were simle, so they had to concentrate on gameplay quality. Opposite, seems like most of modern game creators think graphics is everything players need. And different kind of jumping seem to be the ceiling of their imagination.. Also, abstract graphics of old games utilized imagination, which felt better than percepting realistic world of a modern game. And finally, games in the times of xcom and syndicate were oriented to smart people, cause pc users were coders and educated people. So, game creators weren't afraid of making complex stuff. Modern games targeting wide population, so look like made for retarded.

Yea, Syndicate was a good stuff. It has alot of similarities with xcom, except the fact that it's real time based. And these games could use some game design features from each other. For example, were there covering objects mechanics in first Syndicate? I don't remember. So, someone's making a remake too? Could you provide a link pls?

Fun fact: steam's russian initial price in roubles + fall in exchange made its price 8$. It was on sale a week ago, so, price was 5$. But it's not the reason to buy. Game's just too good to not to. In case it isn't enough: reading the summary of the whole development process Chris wrote may help to feel respect to the team. Was such a heroic feat to complete the whole thing, despite of undless problems.

Actually, I must take this back. Cause now somehow I do recognize each of music tracks, so they all have definitely played during the game.

Thanks. And what about xenonauts' stats rising? Is it based on number of missions or number of kills? What affects the distribution of bonuses amongst different stats? Can I focus on strength or accuracy for a dude, or it's all random?

Aliens in ground missions seem to have more hp and better armor, and better weapons, and maybe better other skills and AI. Does it depend on time or saucer size or my level of researches? So, if I invest alot in science and get good ammunition fast, will I have advantage, or aliens will get stronger too?

[edit: this post's contents have proven wrong] I checked music files, and noticed, that geoscape and day/night missions have 3 musical files each. But in game I only heard the first one of each three. Like if they never changed to the 2nd and 3rd variations. Isn't it a bug or I just didn't fit some conditions to have all musical files played? If it's a bug, is it fixed in that 1.5 branch thing?

Thanks, that was very interesting to read.

This question is to that Chris dude, unless there are more devs on forum. What took most of development time? Is there any diagram of how much time each part of development process consumed? What would you (under "you" I mean the dev team) recommend to yourself if you could send a message to 5 years ago when you just started. Like what major mistakes you made, or which practices proved to be best.

5 years? Wow. Lucky I acknowledged it when it was ready. Would be hard to wait that long.

Oh, I'd probably be interested in modding, if I didn't have my own games to work on. It's funnier to create new things, than to modify the existing ones. And the addition to the main feedback post: 5. The save/load style should be fixed. I'd like to play without, but stats of the troops still mean too much to just waste them to the randomness of hits. Even with greater role of weapons and armors, still TUs and accuracy mean too much. Theay are the main reason to go to missions, and soldiers die too easy to not use save/load. And the fixing idea is to make the soldiers to be learning robots. "Learning" so they gain stats after each missions as humans. And "robots", so they'd have an undestructible core of their personalities, that could be able to be retrieven after the battle even if the robot dies. So, at base the robot would be built again with the same core and a new body. So, no stats lose. And that would completely remove the necessity of save/load. Missions could be funnier then: soldiers would die one after another, and even if only one of them survives and kills the last enemy to win the mission, they all still get repaired at return. And without "save while on mission" option, the game would be more exciting. Player would have to take a risk to go into the dangerous mission with weak squad to get a valuable reward. And would have to pay more attention to the tactics. But the missions would feel more real and dangerous.

Hi, I'm Zolden. I'm not only a player, used to make games too. Created alot with SC2 Editor. But recently moved to Unity3D engine. I used to play the first two classical xcoms sometimes, as they are one of my favorite games. But this time I realized, that there's this new game, and tried it, because, man, someone had to true-remake xcom already, and that new 3d game made by big studio was a fail. Good graphics not worth simplifying gameplay. It's a strategy, should be complex! That Firaxis thing, though, a well known good game ruiner, they did bad things to HoMM, to Civ, and now XCOM ;/ But Xenonauts proved to be the remake I wanted. All good features of the original game kept with love, and so many inventive improvements! I was practically obsessed. Played 4 days in a row with only pauses to sleep and eat. Finally interrogated the praetor, and soon this going to end. I'm sure, the community has already expressed all their positive feelings about the game and every one of its features. So, I won't mention what exactly I liked about the game, it would be a long list. Well, probably criticism has been expressed too, so I think, I may not say something that hasn't been already said. But still I will. I understand, Xenonauts are already finished, so, this feedback may only affect future games. Cause, I see, the developers working on new games of the same genre, and I hope it may give them ideas of how to make those games better. So, there's a little list of gameplay issues that could be fixed. 1. The amount of tactical missions is too big. I've done about 50 during the game, and it was a bit too much, I almost got bored. For now I just want to see how the game ends, but I don't feel that much excited about each tactical operation. Why? Cause they rapidly get boring due to repetitiveness, and they are not that much rewarding. In classical xcom we used to gain alot of stuff per mission. Here we just get some cash and some alloys, and some levelup for the troops, which is capped by 100. So, I think, number of missions should be reduced. I mean, the game should be configured the way, that gaining enough of everything (cash, artifacts, materials, troop stats) should be doable through about 30 missions per game. But simply reducing isn't enough, missions must me more complex and interesting. AI should definitely be much stronger. It should surprize every game. The behaving shouldn't be just pre-scripted, enemies must analyse the surrounding situation and plan further actions, predict and counter player's actions, collaborate with enemies that happen to be nearby. Alos, scripted behavings should sometimes change. For example the guards of the ships, that sit inside usually have one active alien, and 2-3 passive ones. Active can open the door, and shoot, others always sit and wait. Why don't they group together and leave the ship to attack the xenonauts? Such unexpected maneurs would excite the player, force him to improvise evey time instead of using almost the sae approaching tactics. One more thing: the levels. They should be different. Best solution is random generation. By random generation I mean the smart one, where things self-organize alot to form a realistic environment instead of just chaotically spammed objects. Simplier solution is to create levels manually, but it's time consuming, I guess. Another ting: more different kinds of missions. I've seen 3 kinds: grounded ship, base, terror. Need more. Oh, btw. I only had a terror site once! It was a great battle, but dude, if I managed to play good and intercept ufos early, then no more terror missions for me? Is this rewarding? I want fun fights! To summarize: more rewarding missions of lower number. Missions must be more different by environment and objectives, more interesting and challenging. 2. Bad financial situation. It's a minor issue, just feels a bit imbalanced. I tried realy hard, built low amounts of buildiongs, visited all crashes to gather maximum money, but still had problems with cash in middlegame. There should be ways to generate income. Why can't I use my production facility to produce good for sale? Also, why all things are so money expensive? I'd prefer to spend more allenium/alloys, that I'd have to get from missions, instead of spending hugetons of cash. 3. Some weapons are imba. That shotgun branch, for example. My squad had like 2-3 assault soldiers with those low range 3-projectile carabins. They have 3 times more kills than other squad members. Because approaching an alien takes no problems, they almost never react fire, so it's so easy to come face to face and snap-shoot the beast with all 3 projectiles. In the meanwhile, sniper weapon is a ridicule. For objects block rifle shots with 45% chance. Why should it be 45% for the sniper gun again? It has the optics, to aim better and throw the plasm in lien flesh instead of wooden trash! Also, why rifleman with a rifle has the same 95% chance on aimed fire from the same distance as my sniper with higher accuracy stats and sniper rifle? It feels wrong. I want sniper to always have higher hit chance under the equal conditions compared to the rifleman. 4. Jumping suit engine sound sucks: harsh, unpleasant white noise. I'd recommend to re-record it. Example of good sound is a noble barely hearable bass spectrum engine sound of the hover tank. Ok, maybe I forgot something, will add later if remember.