ooey

See, I never think of a flying eye as a cliche! To me it represents reconnaissance/scouting (the mark 1 "eyeball" as pilots say). I suppose you could call the little disc in xen 1 a rece unit, but it also had a weapon.

I suppose you could have random bonuses appear each turn for both sides such as "one particular unit gets a surge of adrenaline" which adds 20% to their action points etc. This sort of thing should be infrequent though. I'm all for randomness on certain occasions - so much so that I'm building a lot of it into my game. Randomness = surprise, and I have to say that I love the fact that Chris and the team have made the tactical map generator truly random (this should add a lot to the gameplay). Not sure about cool aliens though, more weird aliens would suit better (since we associate aliens with weirdness). What are you thinking about, aliens wearing shades?! Perhaps an alien with a built in weapon would offer something a little different (then you couldn't harvest that weapon for use). There isn't really an alien rece unit in x1, which is why I would go for a flying eye (with great speed but no weaponry). Like I said somewhere else, these would be the eyes of those psi aliens hidden in alien bridges, as I think it's unfair that they can mind control your troops even though they have no line of sight through a comrade.

Sure does. Well, it looks like a post Christmas release date then. Considering all that's gone on in the world, that's a pretty good result. I somehow don't think people will be willing to wait for a Christmas 2021 release though (will there be anything left of the world by then?!).

Yes. I don't know how many Chris has got from kickstarter, but I spread the word by mouth myself. That is actually probably the most effective (and cheapest!) way to advertise. There are, of course, all those fans of X1 that want more and have stayed.

I think most us have factored in for the crisis we've been through and have added on 4 months development time grace . I'm sure it will be great when Chris says it's officially finished!

I think that you should be able to stun the civs and put them to sleep so they can be carried out of harms way. In X1, firing gas at them seemed to count as killing them! It might be good to have them holed up somewhere like a classroom, which you will then have to defend to save them. You can stop them running away by placing a man at the door. Civs are a nuisance aren't they?! They seem to run around like crazed sheep. Perhaps if they headed for the transport if in their vision more could be saved. It would be the logical thing for them to do in such a situation (rather than running into the arms of an alien).

Erh I have news for you. Things are not looking too good in the UK either, or the West as a whole really. But that's just my opinion. Stay put - you have more places to hide in the US :-)

I, like many others, am grateful for the beta testers because I'm doing the same thing I did with X1, which was to expose myself to x2 as little as possible because I want to be surprised and not have any spoilers for when it finally comes out so I can really enjoy it. The problem with that though is that if everyone did that, x2 would probably be full of bugs etc. so it's really a big compromise for those that do it. That said, those that do so have a certain degree of input to what the final game is going to look and play like, and I bet that gives some satisfaction too. So thank you. Your efforts are appreciated!

I did want to add some further options to this poll but it looks like I can't. The general consensus seems to by that everything major will be finished by around Christmas. I'm encouraged to see that everyone that has voted so far just seems to want GoldHawk to make a good job of it by giving them the time they need. There must be some of us that can't wait though!

May I just add a flying "eye" type alien?! I know it's a cliche but they look weird. They can be enemy scouts that work with Psi aliens mainly that don't carry weapons but get 'in your face' so you are susceptible to psi attacks. I liked the weirdness of the original XCom: Enemy Unknown. What a great company Microprose were. There are lots of good ideas in this thread actually.

Yes. Maybe a captured alien gets loose in your base and you have to hunt it down - something like that. It would certainly mean that base maps will be seen more, and it could add an alienesque feel to things. Of course if you had plenty of troopers in your base it would be a low risk scenario, but it may also give you more of an opportunity to use melee/stun weapons to put it back into isolation if you are studying it rather than having to kill it. Just food for thought though, as many may not find hunting down a single (unarmed) alien challenging enough. Though what if it was a Psi-ops alien or a tough Sebillian?

Talking about things being a bit 'dark', what about a stage where any captured aliens that aren't useful for study being used instead for target practice for your squaddies?! You release them into the environment without any weapons and your squaddies get to hunt them down . It might be a fun thing to do if things are going south in the main game!

Are you sure that wasn't just a programming error? Sure sounds like one! There was a bug where even if you started at superhuman level it actually started you at basic cadet level or something.

I just think the gaining of special items that can't be got at by any other means is a nice idea (see Xeroxth's post at the top of the page). If you want them you have to go the extra mile for them and perhaps do missions that you don't really want to do because they are tougher. It's a risk/reward thing. Perhaps they could be in a store room in a UFO or an alien base so that if you do have to retreat then at least you do so by gaining something positive out of the mission that you wouldn't get out of a less dangerous one. With regard to 'for construction', well that's a nice idea too - but it's less clear-cut than the above.

Would these be something like "special powers" that can't be got any other way? If so I think that would work very well. I like the idea of the mind-jogger. I remember that in Rebelstar on the ZX Spectrum (showing my age again here) if you took a coffee card to a machine and got a cup of coffee and used it it acted like a combat stimulant! In fact I can see good tactical uses for all those things you have mentioned. You've thought that through very well. I find jetpacks rather useless since you can't fire whilst hovering, so the Air Stabilizer is also a good idea.

This is the kind of thing that makes perfect sense! I remember a while back we were talking about doing so well that base defence missions would become unnecessary (thus their maps are not seen much, resulting in reduced gameplay variety). I would always avoid attacking a landed UFO if I could, because I knew it would have its full complement of Aliens. The risk of gaining more intact items just wasn't worth it. In solvers comment you have the solution to this. To ensure that you want to play Base defence missions for instance, perhaps the aliens bring along something rare and valuable with them that you can't get any other way. If you win, you get it (perhaps a powerful tank that shuts down if all the aliens are killed, or a "ticking" megabomb tank that is designed to blow up the whole base if the aliens win, that you can use on a mission to blow up a landed ufo if you need to abort the mission so it can't carry out its mission). Sometimes talking about one thing brings possible solutions to others!

I like it! Anything thad adds complexity is a good thing.

Good point. It probably needs toning down a bit too, since those psi-aliens on the bridge will have nothing to do except mind war a trooper one of their comrades can see. The defensive bonus for leftover TVs is a good thing too. It CAN feel very overpowered at times. I'm basing this on what happened in Xen1 of course. The severity of the psi-power should really be based on range from the Psi alien to the trooper too (the closer they are the more chance of being under alien control rather than just disillusioned etc.). If your soldier is under alien control, he should never stay under it indefinitely and be "lost for good" like the original UFO, but I don't think that was the case in Xenonauts anyway (i.e. it should be a temporary thing).

Yes, it really needs to be line of sight rules for mind war I would think. I don't mind an alien on the bridge being able to psi you as long as one of his comrades can see you. That's fair enough. knowing where one of your men is without actually seeing you is just a bit too powerful. It would probably be best to base its effectiveness on range too (the nearer you are to the psi-alien, the more likely you are to be mind controlled, whereas the further you are the less the chance of this but the chance to dissolution you into panicking is greater) - I don't think that is currently the case.

I do remember there was a deadline to get your creation in though. You're right, it WAS a long time ago!

I think that was an optional extra that you had to bay for eltharion (I did). Unfortunately it's no longer available and hasn't been for some time. When the game is released the character you made will be a starting soldier in your squad (put in by some mechanism Goldhawk have). Like I said though, all the slots for that were taken up.

So from a beta testers point of view you're saying it's only really the endgame that is looking sparse (and the air combat) and everything else is pretty much complete? That sounds all good for a Christmas release; if so that's fine with a lot of us I think. It's interesting to get a view on this from Chris and his team in the updates and also from the lads beta-testing to see what they think too. Hopefully the opinions of both converge - then we know we're getting somewhere :-).

I don't want to go too of topic but no that's not what I mean at all. The worst possible thing you can do in a multi-player game is throw disparate control systems together. If it causes you physical rage then how do you think I feel when you can turn a spitfire twice as fast as i can with a joystick even with simple controls?! Go ahead and try it if you have a joystick. The mouse and keyboard (and instructor) allows you to do things that aircraft just can't do (helicopter climb for instance). And with a joystick I can't do them either. I've used both control methods in the past and I'm afraid, yes, the mouse +KB does allow you to fly a WWII aircraft like a UFO. Put a joystick or even a pad in your hand though, and you can even feel the difference between a Spitfire and a Hurricane. Thank goodness we don't have any control issues here . But I don't want to get into an argument about that here. That's all over now, and I think Gaijin lost a lot of revenue over it. We were never trying to alter the gameplay for those wishing to use an alternative method of control to us, but sadly the mentality of many saw it as that and attacked us. If the boot were on the other foot and you couldn't compete in a game you liked playing then you would feel like that too would you not?

That is an admirable position, and one I tend to agree with. But like I said, many won't wait forever. The only reason I trust Chris is because he kept his promise in Xen1. And he does his best to involve the community as much as he can because in the end he's a games fan too. Remember that the project was supposed to be somewhat complete by the end of 2018, looking at the kickstarter page (maybe I misunderstood what was meant there). I never expected it to be so, but by the end of 2020 (+2 years) surely it must be in a state of completeness such that it will be able to be released. Any minor bugs can be ironed out in the usual way. This is not to put any pressure on any of the team. Rather to tell them that we are supportive of them and are quite happy to give them another six months or so. Considering they appear to be largely finished then surely this should be enough time, shouldn't it?! So what I think we are saying is this: Goldhawk appear to be close to a release, but if this is the case to be sure take your time, release around christmas instead. We can wait a bit longer. Am I right? Apologies for only running the poll for a day (I meant to set the end date for a month) and not offering more choices, but it seems that there is nothing I can do about it now unless max can fix this for me. It would be nice to hear others voice their opinions for and against, seeing as thousands have supported this project.

The problem with the reapers is I've noticed that they sometimes seem to appear from nowhere. I saw a reaper on a farm-scape way ahead of my soldiers in a dropship (no other entry point so it must have been the same one). I moved the soldier that saw him back to safety because I couldn't kill it. Then on the alien turn it somehow managed to come very close without five soldiers, who were facing in the same direction as its path with plenty of reserve fire, managing to see it until it was right upon them like it somehow 'warped' up! needless to say it wrecked my squad and I had to abort the mission. This was in Xen1 though, and I just hope this unfairness isn't carried over to xen 2. In reality it would have been taken down before it got anywhere near my squad (which all had reactions of over 60). All a little unfair.