Ninothree

Can't wait to play this half-finished games.

Dynamic music is important - I've recently been playing Zelda, that has different tunes depending on your location and the enemies you're facing. Whilst xenonauts is not aiming for the same niche as nintendo's flagship, that game does benefit from immersion and the urge to be played for longer sessions, in part, because of its reactive music. Changing the music depending on the biome would, I assume, be fairly easy in that the variable for the biome doesn't change much. It'd add a subtle bit of variety - ground combat can get stale and in that it is the main bit of the game, it needs what spice it can get. The creepy music for exploring is perfect, but I'd be hard pressed to argue what is appropriate music for the more strategic thinking bits of the game - combat is not exactly fast paced in xenonauts.

Wow, I've only just realised that I want reaper claws as a weapon that can be picked up from the field. Maybe leave that one in as an second wave setting This is the first time I've witnessed a project going from discussion to design - it is nice to see how ideas have evolved. Obviously seeing them in play should be better. But I'm patient enough to wait till the basics are ready, whilst fluid navigation/interface issues are easy enough to look past, there is no point in wasting every beta tester's time with tedious clicks. Might be worth sending out some kind of framework for feedback - it is quite easy to just ramble on when submitting impressions. With a given structure, it'll be easier to find things to focus on in the game. Also, there is a noticeable lack of screen shots in this update...

also, what is a realistic alien anyway? Something that looks like what other film/media/games imagine - that is familiar, not necessarily realistic. Although watching Alien the other day, I was struck by how much the aliens seem to drool all the time, I mean, where do they get all that liquid? Now that is some silly alien fiction, some very well-selling silly alien fiction.

Building the maps vertically adds another dimension to ground combat. Can't say it simpler than that. I did like apoc's real-feeling buildings but it was a bit of a pain to clear every room, made for a lot of clicking (although making those slums crash was hilarious). I think that the vertical allows you another way of thinking about choke points, more options for positioning is a good thing. If it runs into problems with line-of-sight issues, then that highlights those issues as ones which need fixing to complete what the game offers.

Nice to have an update with concept art. Pretty psyched for the beta. I wouldn't say there is anything wrong with making the aliens look more alien. They shouldn't all be carbon-based bipeds. It'll only lose the xenonauts charm if it goes down the route of a cartoon aesthetic.

Double tap - standard zombo protocol. Although a bunch of entrenched, self-reviving sebillians would be nigh on impossible to pacify. Maybe limit their second lives - they can regrow that arm but it wont shoot straight.

So you're saying that the player would unlock secondary objectives as the game goes on? I like that idea. The game Into the Breach allows you to jump to the boss after only completing 2/4 levels - OK, that whole game is more of a single-sitting arcade but I definitely like the choice of rushing a playthrough or stringing it out if you like how things are going. Thing is though, with Into the Breach your choice is influenced by the random weapons that you can receive. In Xenonauts, the game is not built to throw random stuff at you. To make that kind of feel, something really creative would need to be implemented into the research tree. Beyond that, I think it would be interesting to see how the community receives the challenge of taking on Endgame with only bullet weapons and rookies. It is a task for which I'd guess even the dev team wouldn't have the skill/patience. Personally, I get bored quite quickly with the lategame - I like the earlygame's sense of hopelessness and the midgame's sense of progression, but not so much the mopping up that you do toward the end. The excitement of top tier weapons eventually wears off. Sometimes I like to be one of those 100-percenters though, I always have at least one campaign that collects all the content. Given that there have been plans mentioned to shorten the campaign, I guess that the option to keep going will be something of a sore point if it is not included.

Locational damage (as distinct from regular HP) could tie into the specialty of each alien race: Sebillians regenerate so you need to shoot them in the heart for a kill Wraiths are best taken down with headshots because that stops them teleporting Androns need their arms taking out, otherwise they'll just keep shooting Reapers are melee so shoot out their legs from afar In terms of humans taking wounds, I think that locational damage could pave way for a softer 'death'. Say that your soldier gets hit somewhere that is not their head (because no one walks off a head shot), then that soldier either fights on with a penalty or sits the fight out. If a soldier receives one body part of damage then they're in the medbay for a month, if they take two then they die. This means that you can have many 'battle royale' style fights with only a single hero soldier making it out still standing, but that doesn't mean your soldier roster resets to one.

I think that this links into a concept one of the developers talking about, the idea of reducing UI bit by bit. For the experienced (or daring) player you wouldn't need anything. Just the map, the units and the cursor. No health bars, no accuracy indicator - just the cursor and some choice hotkeys to control everything, and a whole lot of guesswork to know what is going on.

I meant more that there was some attrition to your squad, some die, some are merely gravely wounded. Indeed, aliens just trying to kill you limb by limb would be weird. Survival isn't traditional in xcom, and it is not a game type that everyone can hack. The point is that it would eventually not be a survival when you unlock the alien-resurrection tech, but getting that tech is the challenge you have to beat. Kinda like how the base defence mission is a gate you have to pass to progress - except in this case, it would be a longer challenge than just a single mission. Most xcom games are fairly difficult but it is also fairly rare to lose outright. Allowing mid-game resurrection would give you a reason to push on through losses but also dangle the threat of a game over situation.

So that's what the kickstarter was really about...

It could be a very dark and harrowing game, where you send your soldiers out to fight and they gradually lose their limbs over the campaign, only to be rejuvenated using the alien technology they are sent out to steal. I like the idea that the game is test of survival until the next medical breakthrough. Instead of worrying about making it to next month's funding, you're more concerned with how many soldiers can stand and shoot, and how many spare arms you have in cold storage. The game could be divided into phases, the first with conventional human medicine, where you are losing soldiers and not able to replace them; then you get some healing factor so you can get damaged soldiers back in a matter of days not months; finally, you research augmentation and field superhuman ubermensch.

wow, this thread went dark. Okay, yea it is pretty fun.

I like this. But for the game, what would that service ribbon / medal do? If it gave a stat boost, you'd be giving a soldier a stat boost on top of them already getting good stats (proficiency). Maybe that is not so bad, say, the ribbons confer bonuses to stats you can't otherwise train (e.g. bravery in X1). The medals don't have to do anything, but I'd much rather have them than rank given that the game has no implementation of chain of command.

the campaign did alright to be fair, but yeah, there is always more marketing that can be done.

I'm actually quite torn between it being better for soldiers to earn medals through specific achievements, or for you as the 'commander' to pin the medals on them at your own choice. The former makes it a bit of a grind but the latter kinda devalues the medal if you just use it for the boost. Maybe something in between, where you unlock a medal for a particular mission and then assign it to the soldier you favour most. Or that the medal has a bonus based on the soldier's recent activity - so if you give it to them when they've just gone Rambo on a mothership then they get more +stats than if you give it to the rookie who was just holding the spare ammo.

Whoa, I think an achievement on that scale would merit a whole new hat. What about scars for soldiers who don't learn to duck? Or loss of hair for those who get caught in EM blasts.

Night missions: strategically a bad idea, thematically a great idea. I posted a while back about underground missions. These could be easily capitalise on the dark, claustrophobic feel and the player couldn't simply wait until dawn for the sunlight.

Maybe have the final step in line of movement cost an additional 1 TU, so the step-and-360spin technique would slow you down by up to 20%, equivalent to a more cautious trot than a blind sprint.

Airstrikes and artillery have been rebuked because they are OP. Kinda like the building that launches acid in Into the Breach. Obviously you really want them because they would solve the toughest aspects of a mission - but that is precisely why they'd make the game worse. Although if those airstrikes were limited to a narrow subset of missions, e.g. when they take place in a military base, then it wouldn't ruin all of ground combat.

imagine the gamer rage.

Dunno about any you but I always like to give those files a good read. Even the ones that aren't research reports but are available immediately to give the backstory. It sets the scene, creates immersion and ultimately tells the story of the game. However, a problem with them is that they're static and there's no reason to read them on your second time around. They're written in a very general manner without reference to any specifics; in effect, apart from the sequence of their reveal, they exist in isolation to the campaign. I feel that this really important element of the game would stand to gain from being able to include references to events or variables in the player's current playthrough. A few examples: Mentioning the names of soldiers or their actions on the field: Sergeant X will appreciate this new laser sniper, it is shiny and more accurate so even they wont be able to miss anymore. The outcome of first encounters with a new species: the Androns aren't very polite, they killed Sergeant X despite heavy fire from the laser sniper. The conditions of the Geoscape: disassembling that Andron was really tedious what with all those funding cutbacks. Try to avoid nuking any more of Europe, Commander. Ok, so those examples are a bit naff. But the direction I'm going with this is that the player can find the odd surprise or gain an achievement depending on their actions. Even something basic like having more detail in the xenopedia on higher skill settings, so when you step it up to Insane there is additional content. The writing is not bad at all in Xenonauts and this could really bring it to life. This idea could be taken even further in relation to the promised Geoscape Events. Say that clues are hidden within the xenopedia entries that relate to the better choices to make on Geoscape Events, but make those clues variable, changing with each new game. Another example: one of the backstory entries hints at an active nuclear silo near a small town in France, then, in a Geoscape Event you should try not to bomb that small town in France lest the mushroom cloud arise. But in your next play through, you can bomb the hell out of Carcassonne without worry of fallout.

Given that there is a drive to embed this game in the crossfire of the cold war, I think it would be highly appropriate to have the US, USSR and maybe a non-aligned representative (e.g. Sweden, a Pan-African Union) approach the Xenonauts with contracts or the like. And not just those Council Missions from XCOM either, there was no real choice in them because your actions didn't relate to supporting different factions. Having the global regions actually relate to one another would be cool.

Yeah I hate to dissent with the will of the Kickstarter vote, but I agree with Drages, the whole MARS thing is quite underwhelming. Just personal preference. But, I would be interested to see the potential for non-human characters, especially if they can be acquired through mission activities or something. It has always been hugely appealing to mind control aliens just to have a go at using them as units, especially when they've got very different actions/capabilities.