Thann

I think that there is indeed some kind of revival for turn-based games at the moment. There are the X-Com like games (X-COM EU, Xenonauts, UFO:ET2), Master of Orion like games (M.O.R.E., Browser games (JA Online, UFO online), some other games in 2012 (Worms Revolution, Might&Magic Heroes VI), some games from 2011 (Frozen Synapse, Dungeons of Dredmor) and perhaps many other games I don't know of or I forgot. What I am missing is some kind of roleplaying game with turn based combat like Albion. Anyone know any?

Don't spoil the story

What if he was kidnapped by aliens, because he found out all about their attack plans?

I think I didn't have any heavy fighters yet. Played on veteran and only played till october because of the october savegame CTDs. Perhaps I'll look at insane difficulty if I have the time just to see how hard heavy fighters are.

There are numbers on the portraits and on the tokens. And it is implemented the other way around, so if you click on a token then the portrait is highlighted.

At the moment 3 fighters are not really better than 3 F-17. If you do your rolls at the right time, you shouldn't loose any planes (normally). I just tried to do some fights 2 F-17 vs. 3 fighters: 1. fight: 2 F-17 shot down, 1 fighter shot down (unlucky hit by a delayed fighter rocket destroyed one of the F-17) 2. fight: 3 fighters shot down, only few damage to the F-17 3. fight: 1 F-17 shot down, 3 fighters shot down, other F-17 half damaged 4. fight: 3 fighters shot down, both F-17 heavy damaged (18%, 35% health) 5. fight: 3 fighters shot down, F-17 damaged heavy and half (27%, 52% health) 6. fight: 3 fighters shot down, F-17 damaged heavy and half (38%, 61% health) 7. fight: 3 fighters shot down, F-17 damaged low and half (78%, 61% health) 8. fight: 3 fighters shot down, F-17 damaged low (93%, 78% health) 9. fight: 3 fighters shot down, F-17 damaged heavy and low (25%, 88% health) As you can see, you even can shoot down 3 fighters with 2 F-17 and with some experience you don't even loose one of your aircrafts. And I read from another thread, that at the moment there are too many fighters in the air. So I think in the release version there should be no problems to kill the fighters in this stage of the game (perhaps some more problems on higher difficulties). On the topic of aircraft squadron size. I think the squadron size should stay capped. Three is a good number given that you have three F-17 at the start of the game. I wouldn't like more, because if you could have more, then the enemies also would have more (or it wouldn't be a challenge). And then you would have to build more than 3 hangars in every interceptor base to be able to destroy all UFOs near each interceptor base. If you have more aircrafts in a fight then the enemy then the battle wouldn't be a challenge. You could always find a trick to conquer the enemy AI like using the attacked F-17s as a bait and letting them fly away from the UFOs while the other aircrafts pursuit them. And if the UFOs would change their target to counter this trick, then you could play some "turn the UFO" game. And if you increased the UFO turn speed to counter this trick, then you would find another trick (I already would have some ideas for that but it would depend on the situation). At the moment I like the 3 fighter vs. 3 F-17 fights because you have good chances to save all planes if you have few experience and you have a challenge to get as few damage as possible.

Do you mean the games overview in Desura with loadscreen? I also play on Desura and the first start of the game after starting Desura always needs a few minutes to load. Just try to press play and then wait some time. If this doesn't work, you should verify the game files in Desura or load the standalone from the Desura homepage (see here: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/739-How-to-download-Xenonauts-without-using-Desura!?highlight=standalone).

I like the idea. And there is a lot of possibilities to use it. You would use it to mark the weapons. Another one could use it to split his soldiers in different teams that stay together. Perhaps someone would mark his rookies with it. If this is implemented then you should also show the color at the hotkey bar in ground combat.

It is an ingame date. But it seems to be not only the 1st october alone, because if you didn't do anything till october, then the savegames in october works. But on the most normal played games, the savegames get corrupted in october (and sometimes they begin to work again). The marks on the radar are only the number of the plane on the side panel. That means 1 on radar is the interceptor on the top of the side panel and 2 on radar is the second interceptor on the side panel etc. The F17-1 is only the callsign of the aircraft (it is set when the aircraft is built). You can check that by sending the aircrafts in another order (just click on F17-3 first, when you choose your aircrafts to intercept, then F17-3 will be on the top of the side panel. If you roll it, then the fighter with radar number 1 rolls).

Do you play from Desura or did you download the standalone (and which one)?

Well ... too much information could be bad, thats right. Perhaps just the infos from the soldier screen with an added death date. But there should at least be the portrait and the rank of the soldier somewhere. I don't remember them, if I only see their names.

Like Gauddlike said, vehicles are expendable support platforms. At the moment I play UFO:Extraterrestrials and there I often use the vehicles to scout the area or to absorb some shots, that would hit soldiers if the vehicle wasn't there. And sometimes I didn't have enough not wounded soldiers for a full 8 soldier team, so I used 4 soldiers and a vehicle. And I lost the vehicles really fast sometimes. Average survival time: ~2 missions. Just bought a new one for the next mission.

I think when it is optimized, the hidden movements will not take much longer than they need because of their calculation. That means a combat log would not speed anything up in comparison to the hidden movements screen. I don't really understand what a "combat log of the hidden movement events" would show. You didn't see anything / Something happened somewhere / I think I heard an alien ... no it was the Chinook engine. Perhaps you could show the things, that are implemented by sound at the moment. A door opened / I heard a shot / Something burns here / That was a civilian screaming. But in this case I prefer the hidden movement screens and the sounds. It adds more tension and you really have to be attentive to hear something, that could help you (like burning fires or door sounds).

Perhaps there could be a screen like the mission end screen, where all the soldiers are listed. In addition to the things gnarly said, there should also be the portrait of the soldier and the type of dead (shot by [alien type] with a plasma rifle, bleed to death after being hit by a Rocket from [soldier name], died from an infection caused by a not fumigated injection in a buggy medpack).

In which situation do you need to move more than one soldier at once? I would never use something like that, even if it was implemented. If you overlooked just one alien, it could throw a grenade and kill most of your team. Weapon customization sounds nice, but I think it would be more work then gain. In this case I prefer to have some more weapons to choose from instead of less weapons and more customization.