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And it helps to create atmosphere for the game, so that's a definitive plus for Xenonauts.

Let's just backup often. It's not the solution to every problem, but it helps a lot.

Congratulations! Xenonauts got a lot of supporters, and more than 300% funding is really a great achievement! Now you can continue working on Xenonauts, knowing the community is strongly supportive... I also hope that in a couple of weeks the new alpha is released, so that we can restart testing it. Today take a deep breath and rejoice!

Let's hope so! A new tileset is better than tileset specific friendly AI Solders... It would increase more the overall value of Xenonauts.

I agree if the civilian behaviour is automatic, i.e. it does not require the player interaction. In my opinion stunning a civilian that gets in the way should be the only interaction between soldier and civilians. In the original XCOM civilians sometimes stopped in the line of fire or just next to a door. My usual reaction was: 1) not to fire on them 2) if I needed to get into the house, I usually opened a new door in the wall. Plasma weapons ruled... I think there should not be a penalty for stunning civilians in Xenonauts. Civilians following a soldier would be a interesting nuisance every now and then.

Regarding sex in games/entertainment media: I think that it should be present if it fits the story/context. As an example of how it should not be treated, see the sex cards in The Witcher 1 (great game, by the way). The cards were completely out of context. The same devs released also The Witcher 2, were sex/romance is very well managed, as it fits nicely in the story. I believe CD Project Red studio, author of both games, is one of the best gaming company in these days. My opinion is that sex should not become the selling driver of the game. Generally speaking mature themes can be present in games, if used intelligently. Games are an expression of art.... The same concept applies for violence, albeit games today are on the opposite side of the scale. In many games there is too much violence and gore. Most of the times it is completely unneeded and out of context. Regarding base upgrades: I believe that just one build project could be sufficient to install upgraded defences in all the bases. Base defences are a minor aspect of the game. The micromanagement needed to upgrade base defences in every base does not add much to the game. I also imagine that in many bases there will not be a workshop. Many bases will be built only to increase the radar coverage or the interception capabilities.

In the end I do not think that the auto upgrading defenses are such a big deal... In the original X-Com I usually played without defences. I normally built the bases using the elevator as a chokepoint. Killing all the aliens in the elevator/hangars was quite fun, provided that I was able to manage the 80 items limit correctly. Build time of the defenses was too long! And they costed a lot.

Starting from Windows Vista not all the folders are avalable to the program. Some folders, especially the ones in the program files folder, require administrative privileges/elevation in order to write files. Xenonauts should not run in administrative mode. There is however a folder structure to save program data under the ProgramData folders, but that should not be used for savegames. As savegames are somehow user managed, they should be stored in a subfolder under MyDocuments\MyGames. I agree with the suggestion though. The folder used to saves games should be changeable, but the default one should be under MyDocuments\MyGames\Xenonauts (at least in Windows Vista\Windows 7) And yes, Chris is rather nice (even with the unhappy face in the xenonauts soldier mockup)

Also, if you have more than one base, the base with the nearest interceptors is at the top of the intercept list. So you can safely choose one interceptor from the top base in the list and it will attack the nearest alien craft.

I want to see how this works in a ground combat mission... Breaching through walls will give ground missions a lot more variety. I hope the AI, when fully developed, will use this ability a lot.

Either they do not have base defence missions or they have not decided yet. I think there are very high expectations for XCOM, so I believe the devs do not want to alienate their future customers in any way. Sometimes saying too much causes bad reactions among the gamers. Sometimes not saying anything at all raises even more doubts. In the end stating things clearly is probably the best thing to do...

I saw the video yesterday, it seems Firaxis is building an very good game. I'm still not convinced about the small squad sizes (4 at start, up to 6 near the end). Not everything shoud be designed to work on game consoles! In the end I will surely buy it (probably the pre-order version), let's hope they do not screw it up...

Unless a few gaming web sites write articles about Xenonauts, reaching all the Kickstarter goals will be difficult. Not that it was a bad idea: funding will be at least double the requested amount. I'm sure there are a lot of XCom players that still today do not know anything about Xenonauts...

I also agree. Civilian deaths in my opinion should not influence (at least not much) Xenonauts soldiers. These soldiers are hardened veterans, they know what they are fighting against. The number of dead civilians should only influence the final score of the battle and the money outcome, if any. I believe this aspect needs a little more balancing before the game goes RTM.

I'd say two games are better than one, and much better than none at all. There are far too many fps and mmo today. Firaxis XCom and Xenonauts will be two different games, so someone will like both, someone will like only one, someone else will not like any of them. I have not tried Firaxis XCom yet. On the other hand, I've played a bit with Xenonauts and I like what they did with a very small indie startup and limited funding. As for the music, Xenonauts is way better than the original XCom. I'm not saying the original game was bad, just very repetitive. And in the end it got boring. I usually turned it off while playing the original game. And rest assured that I played a lot with the original XCom. I still have the original box and floppy disks... I mean, it's so old that the game shop where I bought it does not exist any more...

If you look in the source files installed, in \xenonauts\assets\aircraft\UFOs, you will find references to some ufos I have not (yet) fought in air combat mode. I do not know if in the end they will be in the game. However I do not want to spoil the surprise, so I will not post the craft names here...

I also think playing as the aliens could be fun. Maybe next game in the series? It would be interesting to understand the motivation ot the invasion and its development, as days go by. However, if I were an alien commander, I think I would try to assess a preemptive strike, in order to wipe all resistance in a single hit. Something like the seven hour war in the HL universe.

Welcome aboard, Mr Lee. I'll gladly read your novel. I believe it will add context and depth to the game.

I used CTRL + Mouse Scroll Wheel. The new building rectangle must be on unbuilt base tiles where rotation is possible (i.e not in a corner).

I do not think it will be very soon. In these weeks Chris and the team are on the Hawaii islands searching for the new level designer...

I agree. When multiple crafts are all flying near each other, it is not easy to select the correct/desired one. Sometimes even zooming out does not solve the issue. An intermediate selection window with craft names (maybe also with icons) would help.

Chris, I'd also like a 'Restart Mission' button. It should essentially reload the autosave at the beginning of the ground combat, or something like that. Sometimes I screw up ground combat missions, especially the ones in terror sites.

I'm very sorry that hive mission won't be in the game (really liked the idea). But in the end more tileset and more map variety will surely be better for the game itself. I also do not think that DLC will be very successful with this type of game. In my opinion the only option to have hive missions would be: Tileset are community generated The engine is updated by Goldhawk to manage the infinite spawning/civilian rescue objectives I do not think that it will be an easiliy achievable objective.

I too had a very long first turn in a terror mission. It lasted several minutes, and my computer is quite powerful, surely much faster than the average pc. I think the engine is still not very optimized. When using the last version (10.21), do not terminate the Xenonauts process, but let it work and it will eventually end the hidden phase. Note that I have played a few terror missions, and only once the first turn took very long, so there must be something very specific going on here. I could not understand what was going on, because the hidden phase is well... hidden.... So basically I do not have a clue about what is going on.

When an aircraft is refueling or it is being repaired, in the Aircraft Equipment page no changes can be applied. It is not possible to switch weapons. If the Aircraft equipment screen is referring to a chinook, then the soldiers cannot even be repositioned in the plane! I find this feature a bit annoying, but it's no big deal. A few times I've tried to switch plane weapons or order chinook soldiers and nothing happened... Then I remembered that the plane had just returned from a mission and that it was not ready yet. A clearer indication that the plane is being rearmed/repaired coud make everything clearer. Xenonauts already overlays a big text when a plane is being built; I think the same approach could be used during plane repairs/refueling. Below there is a screenshot of a mig being built. Using similar hints could be useful: Unit is undergoing repairs Hours until completion: x Unit is being refueled Hours until completion: x Today the UI is a bit misleading. Nothing can be done on the page until repairs/refueling is complete. So the UI is not responding to clicks, but understanding why is not immediate.