Bletchley_Geek

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but I think Moxar would love that someone made variations on his maps as the ones you propose.

Thank you for this, especially for providing the novel in such a broad variety of e-book formats

That was very funny

On the other hand, certainly this Playground thing has some truly :facepalm: stuff in its C++ Coding Standards: That's quite hamstringing, for starters. From what I gather from other "suggestions", seems like the code goes through a third-party pre-processor which probably inserts OS-dependant #include directives and conditional compilation... this kind of big scale macro magic is bad, especially when the code generated gets mixed up with the code one writes (Qt, after 15 years, has got it almost right).

Well, but I guess you can get a hold on the documentation of the SDK, right? From what I gathered from the Reddit thread you're using the Playground SDK, which obscure or not, isn't as obscure as not warranting someone to upload the documentation to scribd http://www.scribd.com/doc/88352047/PlaygroundSDK-2#outer_page_30 Checking the Chapter "Playground Fundamentals" I quickly bump into this: If you have the SDK guys (headers, library binaries, and command line tools) you should be able to pack this stuff easily into these .pfp files. If anything, you might need to rewrite parts of code accessing sprites, etc. (which might not be a bad thing at all). Of course, this only applies to Playground 5.0.71. So cheer up Chris! :-)

Sounds like quite a plan to me, GJ :-) Godspeed to you and looking forward to that dev blog update!

Steps to replicate: 1) Set Reserve TU slider to Aimed 2) End Turn 3) Set Reserve TU slider to None Two slider knobs are visible, one on the 'Aimed' setting and another on the 'None' setting.

Really that. Back to the OP. It's hard to judge what I like/dislike from the game, since it's alpha status and no serious attempt has been made at balancing AP costs, damage, etc. I do however like a lot the tactical combat: it's just about perfect, taking the best features out of the original X-COM and Jagged Alliance 2 regarding the interface, weapons, etc. I also like the expanded air combat as well, it's a nice and welcome addition. The things I dislike are mostly buggy and/or unfinished features... so I can't really complain about them, other than just reporting them if I see them unreported

From the few missions I've seen before getting the farm crash, I'd say the aliens now run away when they're outnumbered.

In this, I agree with your post. I have some issues for the rest of it. Looking back at Xenonauts Kickstarter page I see the following "stretch goals" (which I think are what you refer as "features being held as hostage for Kickstarter money, link http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/69341191/xenonauts/posts/226254): The updated UI concept didn't ever make the cut of the polls. I found personally quite unnecessary - this is not Master of Orion 2. Some of the things on the list look to me as mere gold plating or chrome (tall grass, the memorial screen - I enjoy the bagpipes on X-COM:EU, but that's all I think it does add to the game, pilots portraits & callsigns, etc.). Other features I can see to be more interesting (such as the Motion Detector, the tile set specific allies, human psionics/blaster bombs, vehicle experience) but I can also see a few reasons for them being cut out on the grounds of balance concerns (human psionics on original X-Com were a bit unbalanced, in my opinion). The military base tileset not making the cut was sad, though - variety is extremely important in this kind of game and it's been one of the things which have marred most past attempts at rebooting X-COM (UFO: Aftershock for instance, where the "been there, done that" syndrome made me to walk away from the game). Indeed, X-COM:EU has little micromanagement, but attaching the adjective "tedious" to "micromanagement" can be quite of a problem, since what one gamer finds a chore, another sitting next to him finds to be extremely entertaining. For me, handling inventories on the previous X-COM could be a bit tedious indeed. But removing the soft constraints entailed by inventory "cells" and weight, by the main weapon/side arm/armor/special item thing, is a bit too much I think. Allowing soldiers to carry a frag grenade and medkit (for instance) would have hardly been a source of imbalance and/or "tedious micromanagement". And even with this "simplicity", there are other kinds of micromanagement which aren't obvious. When you get the squad assembling screen, the only way to browse between available soldiers (and their inventories) is via the add/clear unit buttons. The "detailed soldier view" that you can access from that screen doesn't allow you to navigate across soldiers, and you have to navigate back and forth between the two screens, say, to figure out who were the guys with the plasma rifles, put them back into the base inventory, and re-assign them to the soldiers you want to carry in that mission. Of course, you can Escape all the way to the base view and get to the barracks, where you can browse soldiers in a more comfortable way. But having to "backtrack" like this, is a bit odd, since I find, in general, X-COM:EU interface to be very refined. This makes me think that Firaxis playtesters didn't particularly rotate soldiers in squads quite often (which I think is one of the most important points in X-COM:EU and the original X-COM). And leaves me wondering why isn't the case that soldiers get their inventories emptied after a mission and pre-loaded with the best equipment that fits their "role" when selected. More so when "premium" equipment - i.e. that the player builds or loots - carried by injured soldiers goes back to the base inventory. If you mean, during the tactical combat, yes, it certainly makes each soldier more important. Not that in old X-COM every of your squad members could use properly equipment such as heavy cannons or autocannons because of poor strength/agility scores. On the other hand, if you mean that "premium" equipment carried by a dead soldier is lost, even when winning a mission, then I'm not amused (that's a quite arbitrary credits/alien alloys/weapon sink in place for the sake of game balancing). Could anyone tell me if this is the case? I have yet that to happen to me in my campaign. Here I don't see your point at all. Others have discussed this in depth. I don't see why having several "simultaneous" tactical missions in a game whose main component is, indeed, tactical combat can be tedious. If that's what you feel like, then I'd say: "Wrong game, mate". It's like complaining about Baldur's Gate II because it had too many "side quests". The choices related to the abduction sites seem to me more "strategic" than "tactical", to be honest. Do you go after the short-term reward given when finished a mission or you want to keep panic levels low in countries which are dishing a lot of dough on X-Com each month? On the original X-Com, there were quite a few mid-game moments where your resources where really stretched out and you had to make "hard choices", provided you hadn't prepared better. Most of the complaints about this new mechanic I think revolve about depriving people from trying to save everyone (and getting way, way better scores or accessing high-end high-tech equipment earlier than other players). That would have made an excellent storyline/plot device. It's a lost opportunity for Firaxis. Inded base design/foresight is important - you need to plan ahead, which is good - but the point is more about having the aliens feeling like more "intelligent". That is, if X-COM is the weapon and shield of Earthlings, it makes quite sense to target it directly, rather than just killing random humans (no matter how entertaining that might be for the Alien Hordes). To me it is more of making virtue out of necessity. Making big maps - the main reason for big squads - affects 'pacing' - it may be "tedious" for some to clear a big sized map -, involves a lot of artwork - since the real 3D nature of X-COM:EU makes quite hard to come by procedural techniques that produce big varied maps with a coherent "art direction". Here I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it's obvious to me that whoever designed that, played a lot of the original X-COM. I used to have similar "classes" defined and kept track of who was suited for what on a notebook On the other hand, it's a bit too random - in my current Classic Campaign half of my non-Rookie troops are Snipers, which is way too high but could be a random fluke, indeed -, roles such as Support are a bit too useless because of the limited inventory (my "support" roles in the original X-COM being more like a "jack of all trades" right, more like a "rifleman" than anything else) and roles such as Assault a bit too focused on tactics relying on very short range high damage weapons. However, the "skills" indeed do give your soldiers some more personality (and some of them really make a difference). Well, I used a lot the reserve AP function, and it was quite a limitation of the original X-COM UI that you couldn't check how many AP's you needed to get somewhere (something which was introduced by Jagged Alliance, if I recall correctly). As with the "classes", the way movement/fire is handled is clearly a sign of having people who have played a lot the original in the design team. The one-move + one tactical action (such as shooting or reserving AP's for reaction fire during Alien's turn) vs. "strategic movement", was indeed an structure implicit on the original X-COM. I totally agree with that. It's really strong. And it's fair. I hate AI's which are "boosted" by playing by rules different than mine (such as being able to spot stuff I can't spot, for instance). Seeing the AI getting "surprised" by a smart move of mine is quite rewarding I'd also like a lot that kind of "extra movement" thing happen to my soldiers when they first spot an alien (or it's maybe a skill?) to get them out of dodge if possible or necessary. On the other hand, I think it's a clever ploy to hide the fact that the enemy NPC's spawn in "parties" and appear in specific parts of the map. X-COM:EU AI is good, but is basically reacting rather than pro-active (i.e. actively seeking contact with the player units and modifying his units locations as it gathers more info on what the player is doing). I must say that the AI is much more pro-active than in countless titles - it does seem to attack when it has superior numbers, and then chooses between frontal or flanking attacks, these two things being a hallmark for me of intelligent behavior. I think it will compete. I see Chris is being able - finally - to put together an stable and reliable team. In outfits as small as Goldhawk, this can be quite hard, where losing a key member of team at the wrong moment is a catastrophe. Classic mode is indeed the way to go for me on X-COM:EU.

That sentence really says it all. I personally knew this as soon as I downloaded my first alpha of Xenonauts back in February this year and I read the interviews/previews, saw the teaser videos, etc. I am just signing off XCom Enemy Unknown after 4 hours playing straight, enought to get off the tutorial and having more freedom in the game, and I must say I like it. Perhaps the AAA title I've liked the most since Dragon Age: Origins. And I do think that the way Firaxis guys have "streamlined" AP's makes a lot of sense - more to those like me, who are always reserving AP's for an aimed shot if possible - although it does indeed remove substantial depth, or rather, alternative approaches to the tactical game. Regarding other changes that seem to be driving people nuts: I think most of those changes are due to having a much, much stronger storyline on X-Com:EU. X-Com had a "sandbox" appeal that isn't in Firaxis game. There's a lot of rail-roading going on for players, I can't say this goes on until the end of the game, or not.

On your second item I can't say anything, but regarding the first one I think that pressing Esc works for canceling actions (it did in the demo).

It's really funny That's very true. Although I can remember one guy - Lewis? - ranting for years about the StuG's not being modelled properly. Yep. The point is to get a system which is interesting in itself from a tactical perspective but not too detailed either (otherwise, air combat would need to be turn-based). We don't need anything like Hornet Leader. In this respect I think Chris got it essentially right from the very beginning. Here I'm a bit guilty of being off-topic For your own units, yes, of course. That should be hidden from us by Fog Of War, indeed. However, the part I highlighted is not an uncommon way of handling troopers in a XCom mission

Found about this quite amusing easter egg (or rather, cheat) con X-COM:EU http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2012/10/sidmeier.jpg He has "deep pockets"

I don't see on what leads you to conclude it wasn't sponsored just on the grounds of 1) being written by a Finland national and 2) being written badly. Finland is quite a relevant videogames market - small, yet extremely demanding and nerdy - and to be honest, I've come across countless "blogging sweatshops" on the Internet featuring very bad writing Other than that, yes, I do agree with you. I also see a bit of that "ranting for the sake of ranting" on quite a few reviews. Not that it was unexpected: X-Com is really a cult classic. I have yet to see the game - OZ doesn't get it until tomorrow - but I hope all this is just picking at nits, rather that the quite right on the spot criticism of the "reboot" - or I should say "hard crash" - of a well-loved franchise, such as Jagged Alliance.

Hahaha. I laugh because I was just checking Battlefront's forums. There you have people complaining about machine guns not being realistically effective (and maybe they aren't, judging from the videos people are making) since, well, ages. Let's not have that here. Not necessary at all, in my opinion, since Xenonauts isn't claiming to have a extremely accurate simulation of real world ballistics. I'm fine with a more boardgame-like approach to these things (which seems to be the way to go nonetheless). Regarding suppression/morale/etc. I actually think the current system to be as detailed as that of XCom, and that's good enough. The effects of being subject under fire (and here were talking about high energy plasma bolts able to melt brick walls away, not bullets, which are scary enough) as in being "pinned" - you lose one turn -, "panicked" - you lose 1+ turns, soldier possibly gets killed since it jumps out of cover, or "nuts" - lose 1 turn, side effects might involve hitting squad mates, seem to me adequately nuanced as to make reasonable believable and immersive what we see on the screen. Having these morale effects tied to nearby events such as the soldier seeing a fellow squaddie to have a very horrible death would be a neat thing as well. However I can see a case for "partial" AP reductions. Say that whenever a "disturbing" event - such as a plasma bolt flying so close to your face as to burn your eyelashes away - happens to a friendly unit, the game rolls some "dice", so the result of the dice modified by the unit attributes, needs to be above a certain threshold. If the check fails, then you get the pinned/panic/berserk effects, depending on how bad the roll has been. To accomodate Oathbreaker suggestion one just needs to add more levels of failure in a table like this: [table=width: 500, class:grid] [tr] [td]Difference between[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]roll+attribute modifiers[/td] [td]Effect[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]vs. difficulty check[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Greater than zero[/td] [td]None[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]-1 to -2[/td] [td]10% AP reduction[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]-3 to -4[/td] [td]25% AP reduction[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]-5 to -7[/td] [td]50% AP reduction[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] -8 to -20 [/td] [td] 100% AP reduction (Unit becomes pinned) [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] Less than -20 [/td] [td] Berserk or Panic (depending on perhaps a roll against a unit attribute) [/td] [/tr] [/table] The brackets indeed depend on the number of "sides" on the dice and the range of attributes. This is quite easy to implement (I'm assuming this is not too different from what Chris has in place), allows modding and I don't think it can affect players in a bad way (after all, this is a single player game, so min-maxing isn't an issue).

Well, the whole point - for me - of X-COM was to play "tactically", rather than approaching it as if it was a weird B-movie flick purchased from the Cash Converters trash DVD bin featuring an "Enemy At The Gates-like initial scene, changing Germans by Evil Aliens. I always keep rotating my troopers because - Valar Morghulis, indeed - they eventually die, even if very experienced. So it's better to be sure you manage to "train" a good number of troopers, otherwise you'll be reloading your games quite often (and that's something that deprives me from the fun). I do agree with the general feeling that squad size is quite small, that's also dependant on how big are the maps. In maps such as those in Xenonauts, a four-man squad is quite hopeless. Will see in a few hours, just pre-ordered XCOM:EU and will have a more informed opinion :-)

I just wonder how many Firaxis employees are closely watching this thread.

and immediately stands up again, spending AP's. Crouching works fine when using the UI button.

@Quartermaster, it's ok. I know about a few good papers of people who are trying to learn planning operators by figuring changes in the environment (state transitions). Just PM me if you're interested in some pointers. That's the point. Actually, the concept is pretty straightforward. Rather than programming by hand the whole control of the NPC's what you need to do is to program the atomic pieces of behavior (animations for shooting, walking, opening a door) and making appropiate calls to the game engine to set position, invoke fire resolution, etc. The planner - which is basically the same algorithm used for pathfinding, but rather than searching on the navigation graph, searches in a implicitly defined state and action graph - figures out what's the sequence of actions to attain the goal. You execute one action at a time, very much like you set running a FSM. When the action terminates - if the NPC is still alive of course - you check that the conditions for executing the next action still hold in the present game state. If so, you invoke the next low-level action. Otherwise, you get a new plan, which can be executed in the current conditions. It's also nice you can coordinate with other team-mates. The tricky part is what goals do you need to define, and what mechanism uses the NPC to select his goal. In the case of Xenonauts, I don't see it to be much of a problem, given how limited would be the aliens intentions (i.e. killing all human soldiers) and actions. Basic goals such as Scout Point/Area, Guard/Ambush and Kill would cover most of the bases for the most part of Xenonauts tactical missions. To put an example: 1. Aliens start without seeing any enemy. Then, a Scout goal - selecting some point or area in a clever way - is selected. 2. You make a random roll - or depending on the NPC state - to decide the stance Cautious or Gung-Ho. If the former is selected, then you only consider actions that take the NPC from cover to cover in the direction of the location to scout. Otherwise, you consider all possible move actions. 3. A plan consisting of pairs of Move To Tile, Look Around actions is computed. 4. These are executed. At each game tick, you check for conditions that might require the plan to be re-computed. Say the alien, after executing a Look Around locates a human squaddie. 5. Goals are re-evaluated and now a Kill goal is activated with the human squaddy as the target. 6. A random roll is made to select between Gung-Ho or Cautious. If Gung-Ho, then the Shoot Action can't be used unless the NPC is really close to the target. Otherwise, Shoot can only be done from cover and at long or mid range. Say the alien is cautious. 7. A plan consisting of actions Run to Covered Tile and Shoot At Target is computed. 8. The Shoot At Target action keeps executing until the target is dead (or the alien is out of ammo). Say he runs out of ammo. 9. This triggers a plan recomputation. Now the planner figures out that the only action capable of killing the target is Unarmed Attack, so a plan consisting of various Run To Tile actions and a Unarmed Attack action is computed. Some procedure could decide whether he has good chances of killing the target with a Unarmed Attack, and then select a Flee goal (or whatever our imagination and programming resources allow). 10. Either the alien is shoot down on his way to the target or he gets to an adjacent tile for his Unarmed Attack. 11. Unarmed attack keeps being executed until the target is down or the NPC is dead. It's a very flexible framework, in my opinion, that can generate credible behavior on NPC's.

Well, in Jagged Alliance 2 personnel management had some very nice twists. For instance, that thing of having to "fund" M.E.R.C. so they get the capital to attract those cool, cheaper than A.I.M., high-level mercs. The problem is that their first wave of mercs is a wild bunch of clowns or psychotics. So you have to "suffer" them - man, how I hated that Mel Gibson look-alike - for some time in order to access the actually good ones. Once the good ones were "unlocked" I always looked for a funny - for my twisted sense of humor - fate for Mel and his mate the knife-lover psychotic. Such as having them assaulting a southern SAM site with a couple grenades each and .38 revolvers. That was fun

I think you should really look into the pointer I gave a few posts above. If you already have simple FSM's in place and some pathfinding code, you already have 50% of what you need.

I should have said "alternate immediate past" I guess. And Johnny Rotten was notorious in 1979, nowadays seems I'm the only one on this thread to recognize the name. Regarding all these guys coming forward defending Firaxis... well, whatever rocks your boat, guys. Sulla's explained it very well back in the day: Civilization 5: What Went Wrong and he summarized it pretty well: Does this feeling sound familiar to anyone? Just change the games mentioned by other games you loved like Jagged Alliance and the like. I'm glad to see people who managed to get some enjoyment out of Civ 5, but that wasn't my case, and wasn't either the opinion of a substantial number of Civ players. New game mechanics - or rework of previously existing ones - is OK, as long as these new game mechanics work better as in "improving the game". Too often I see arguments put forward along the lines of "what was good gameplay in 1990s doesn't necessarily means to be good gameplay in 2010s", or "our QA people like it this way better", or "this way is better (without saying why it is better)". That's all bullshit to cover up for the fact that they invested too much revamping mechanics and then got too late to backtrack before the deadline. In the case of Civ 5, these new game mechanics just didn't. For a game such as Civ hexes weren't really the best idea, as Sulla points out with several very concrete examples (not just with wide generic and bland statements such as "I hate them"). Hexes in games are in there for a reason not for the sake of it. The utter failure of Civ 5 is fact, not fancy, and costed its job to the lead designer (which is, on the other hand, a handy scapegoat). Actually, what Xenonauts gets just about right is the principle of "if ain't broken, don't fix it" with respect to gameplay. I don't really think Chris has to bother much - or at all - about Firaxis (or any other big name studio who has failed to live up to its name, such as Bioware) reading about Xenonauts getting visibility and saying "oh crap! these amateurs are going to frack us!" and pulling together an internet PR campaign on subsidized media outlets.

Oh, also a wish. Since you have this "alternate present" setting, I don't think it'll be hard to leave to modders the ability to define geospace territories matching actual nations and introducing "in-character" events which match current events and personalities of the time. Stuff like "Mission: Terminate Johnny Rotten, he's actually a Sectoid sleeper agent" and other fun stuff like that

Hi everyone, Chris, I don't really see any cause for concern. If anything I'm surprised to see so many people over here saying "Firaxis does a good job" or "Firaxis is faithful to its franchises", etc. As if Civilization V and all the various clusterfucks of epic proportions surrounding the game itself, its forums and its DLC rip-offs never actually happened. As you said earlier in the thread: if anything this should keep you focused on your goal. So "keep the eyes on the prize" and away from five or six screenshots from what's seems to be a very early tech demo. Yeah, they seem as having "partial" cover (so what?) but I don't see any FOW on them... and yes that base is kind of cool... and I can well imagine that being the only thing you'll get from it, because mechanics will get "streamlined" so you'll just enjoy watching it as you get zoomed into the control room. They have the same backstory of X-COM... which let's be honest, was good enough for me when I was 16-years-old but now that I'm 33 it's just bland. Not to mention that it bursted a bit on the seams if you looked too close at it and how it influenced game mechanics. Yours has an alternate "present", which is richer and harks back - at least for me - to Alan Moore's works. That's genius, man, kudos on that. Keep up the good work, and let the word of mouth do its thing. Cheers and thank you for doing this project, Chris. Really. Thank you