Pave

--- Understandable. It's just more of that I for one am one those "control-freaks" who'd like to have as much control over "camera" as possible, especially when trying to do some screenshot-montages. So the "free-cam" would just have been an extra option. The 360-degree-rotating-camera is a huge improvement over a large amount of games alongside the extra zoom-levels certainly allow players to plan and otherwise make their "pathfinding" a lot less of a frustration. ---

--- ((I am not entire certain what this feature could be called in this case, hence the topic-title looks more of just collection of search-words.)) --- Originally this suggestion started as an off-tangent in regards to "free-camera"-question on this thread where was a request for more zoom-levels: https://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/index.php?/topic/20953-any-chance-of-being-able-to-zoom-in-at-least-slightly-closer-to-the-battlefield --- --- The main-text: Why there has been no replay-file features in any "campaign-strategy"-games especially the "4eX"-markets? ((If there is at least one, I am simply not aware this/these games.)) Like we have graphs and "event"-recording sure and maybe occasional battle-replay-files like say with (wonky) "Xcom 2 (2016)"-devkit. But no replay-files which would cover the whole campaign itself. Considering most games in non-real-time-strategy-games are already keeping records turn-by-turn-basis in form of (more or less) frequently written save-files, this really baffles me ((By "non-real-time", I basically mean the opposite of "actions-per-second"-based "real-time-strategy"-games of which majority of multiplayer-focused ones have replay-features)). In fact, "replays" basically should just be more detailed "reviews" of the completed / finished campaigns: Like for example: Instead of just showing "here in this maybe-general-area the aliens got a lot of points", it would show exactly what the "Team Alien" did and where and when ( here I am somewhat heavily referencing to "charts/score"-system in the Mythos Games-made "(Open)Xcom/-games" which certainly would be more enhanced with a replay-feature; like there is already a "thing" in background saying E.G. "the aliens are doing a scouting mission on this landmass" but so far there no way to have this "message" being "printed" for us players to read especially once the campaign is over). So maybe "Xenonauts 2" could be the revolutionary-title here; but not necessarily right from get-go. But especially with the help of evidently talented community-edition-coders, (or rather good coders in general) I'd say this should not be an impossibility to at least some sort of "save-log-file-parser" or something else which one could use go back-and-forth even during the "mid-gameplay" to analyze better what has happened; I mean this is also to consider that for example "Sheepy" did already code a "Battlescape-log-recording-prettifier" few years ago: https://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/index.php?/topic/14448-xenonauts-2-version-071-hotfix-released/&tab=comments#comment-161430 ---

--- Actually, that brings up a thought: How difficult would be to code a "free-cam"(-mode) ala like in various "first-person-shooter"-games in "v-clip"-mode alongside during the replay-modes? ---

In case the reverse-image-searching doesn't function to some of the readers there, the screenshots are / should be from "Star Trek Birth of the Federation" and "Master of Orion II" ---

--- Aye I personally had no losses either during the final mission in Xenonauts (1), sharing a similar story with Max_Caine for one. Yes, by many respect the ending might have been "bland" and such. But for me it was still more "realistic" than the ending of the "Xcom - Enemy Unknown / Within (2012)" which was far too over dramatic in my opinion. And as a saying goes: "Destination is just an end of an journey." And I certainly enjoyed most of the journey I had with Xenonauts back then, which certainly wants me to eventually replay the game with more mods and other enhancements (( which I certainly cannot say the same about the "Xcom (2012) since the "base" is fundamentally not good at for me no mod cannot make that game any better for me )). ((( I mean, it's kinda like say "One Piece": Luffy had a choice get a direct-map to Raftel (island) from Silvers Rayleigh. But this offer was denied with the exclamation "No fun in that!" A decade ago this series could have ended pretty much right there. ))) --- ---

--- If you want to use a bit more robust PrintScreen-tool, there is one called "Greenshot" which allows to screenshot in all the various ways ( aside occasionally not the "dropboxes" that get "auto-pulled-back" with any non-slection-inputs ). --- ---

--- Big difference still is that we're talking of a First-party-game. Hence why the exclusivity was justified even if that wasn't necessarily the most pro-consumer thing ( E.G. the case of Electronic Arts with their Origin-store which primarily means that EA is simply getting a much higher profit-cut due not needing to rely on 3rd-party storefront; but then again the "Origin Access"-subscription-service to play both EA-IPs and 3rd-party tittles is also pretty decent deal they couldn't offer otherwise without their own storefront ). Personally wish the AAA-storefronts could use the same option that for example GoG.com (not case of all games) and Desura used have in which the launcher-software was completely optional and you could download everything directly from the website itself. But of course this would require that the game itself wouldn't have any online-only DRMs or anything else in relation ( E.G. Online-multiplayer-database tied to the store-client or something similar ). --- ---

--- I shall elaborate a bit further: I for one think one wanting "all of the money" (and something about cakes) still is unsustainable business practice, which to some extend seems to be one of the (unfortunate) ulterior motives here. Granted, my way of thinking might be extremely old-fashioned since I still firmly believe that more vendors one is able to push their products into, the better the sales in general are. But then again the discussed situation in which "no sale" seemingly still creates a net-positive-income is peculiar new "fad" I cannot wrap my thoughts around... --- --- ---

--- See that's a thing here also: There store itself needs to get funds also; the "shelvespace" is not free either ( which in case of digital store primarily are the database and other server-costs ). "GoG.com" also are concluding their "Fair Price Package"-program because although they're still doing well enough, they want to have more funding for the future projects. And supposedly this "price-balancing"-service was making a quite big cut in their income. "Epic Games" certainly are riding with the "Fornite"-moneys to somewhat "strong-arming" with the 3rd-party exclusivity-deals; in essence they're trying to create their own (temporary) pool of exclusives from other titles since they themselves simply lack their very own tittles in comparison to "Electronic Arts" and "Ubisoft", both which have decades of time to also gather numerous "second party" tittles under their wings. (( Desura, when it existed, primarily competed being one of the very few small-developer-welcoming places before the "Steam Greenlight" and the "Early Access"-feature which certainly seemed to be heavily inspired by the "Alpha Funding"-program of Desura. )) It is true that Steam certainly should have a much "organic"-administration and otherwise have less exploitative systems. But just simply closing out a potential shopping-shelf is still not a smart choice, especially if there is simply no genuine financial gain from it ( well, at least in case of digital-products which don't cost any extra to produce per copy that is; but even then more places you would be able to showcase your product at the better the sales turns out to be most of cases anyways, saying this as a person who used to work in a (independent) video-game-store ). --- Now, to balance a little bit to not sound like a "bandwagoning-Epic-hater", I personally can see some non-marketing perks for the people choosing to be Epic Store-exclusive. Or at least having a choice as of writing this since this could change in the future: It's mainly because "Unreal Engine" belongs to Epic Games: They could possibly make it so in the future that all the the commercial-games made in Unreal Engine have to Epic Store-exclusive (and currently they're offering "discount" for the license if they're selling their Unreal Engine-powered game via Epic Store). On the relation of the engine, the infrastructure of Epic Store could offer some neat perks, especially for multiplayer-games: This is at least the case with game called "Dauntless" who are working to get their game work to be a multi-cross-platform-multiplayer-title ( as for the already existing cross-platform-multiplayer-tittles build on Unreal Engine such as "Rocket League" which have the infrastructure build within Valve's Steam, I doubt Epic Games will try to dismantle those). Being Epic Store-exclusive possibly also might have the chance of getting more in-depth help with game-engine itself also; even the customers are invited over the Unreal Engine Gifthub-page. --- Of course, I am simply going with my own personal assumptions in that above section, so there might be some misunderstood-information. --- --- ---

--- Out of curiosity: Since Xenonauts kinda made their start also on "Desura" as an "Alpha Funding"-tittle, were all the owners of the store also using the 70/30-share? (( By "owners", I am referencing to "DesuraNET / DBolical Pty Ltd", Linden Lab, "Bad Juju Games", and OnePlay )) And is "Humble (Bundle) Store" also using the same numbers? --- ---

Having some sort of "auto-licensing"-feature indeed would be very interesting ( since in this case you seemingly still hold the ownership-rights for the soundtrack as opposed to having done this as a "Work-For-Hire"-contract ). It's just unfortunate that currently video-uploaders themselves are pretty much completely "shafted" whenever there is even a slight hint of content that necessarily isn't fully made by the video-maker ( and of course the biggest extreme being the case some videos are outright stolen by a completely unrelated party ). Like if there there was like sharing system in which per content-creator used in the video the video uploader would get a slight majority that would be fine in my views. This would be of course if the uploader would opt-in to get their share; they could instead just let their own share go for the server-upkeeping if they'd choose to do so ( E.G. "Youtube-poopers" ). --- --- ---

--- It's not necessarily that the info here Youtube claims would be wrong; The music indeed is by Aleksi Aubry-Carlson and he is allowed to sell the soundtrack: https://aleksiaubrycarlson.bandcamp.com/album/xenonauts-soundtrack He seemingly also has a Youtube-page with the soundtrack-uploaded 3-days ago: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWOg7Yt0_hDgGCHTGgG04pw/featured?disable_polymer=1 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_ka0HEMZF-4JJ5BS75F34TabBiqzUed5H0 Of course whether or not the revenue gained via advertisements actually reach Aleksi is of course a different question, since this is all "Provided to YouTube by iMusician Digital AG"... --- In this regard having the Youtube auto-tagging the music-source accordingly to "fingerprints" is something I personally have been wishing more would happen with "meme"-things ( E.G. so we wouldn't always need to manually look for random answers to "music-source"-questions and such ) (( and yes, I wish this could be extended further than just music in the future )). --- Problem here again is just the usage of the "auto-guilty"-system where rather than just adding the meta-data publicly and so on, instead Youtube (also) decides to simply either restrict or even outright delete the content even if they have been uploaded for the archive-purposes. Like why they couldn't just add the meta-data and leave the video up is probably something only us "(rural) common sense"-folks are thinking... (( For the sake of clarification, "rural common sense" is a Finnish-expression to more practical(-heavier)-common-sense: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/maalaisjärki )) --- --- On a side-note: While intriguing I personally never have been looking for the "Youtube-moneys" so having a video being "de-monetised" wouldn't be a huge issue for me (after all, this would simply mean the money would go directly to Youtube to pay the server-bills and staff-salaries, right?..); I've personally just have been into passion of making content and uploading things rather than making it be a livelihood. Though granted, there was a time I was musing the idea of running a community around a registered brand and that way maybe have some income via advertisements. As for Youtube: I personally stopped "supporting" Youtube after I had "part 1" and "part 5" of the 1976 "Blue Bird"-upload (with Elisabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda) just suddenly being deleted by "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer" around 2015 after being online since 2008; there are still no other official DVDs or anything else relation that what the Russians outside-MGM-parties ("Ruscico") have put out, so at this point this was also a false copyright-claim... Afterwards there are nowadays more outside-Youtube full-uploads of this movie, so I goes I was the required "martyr" in this case to help reinvigorate the knowledge of this movie ( at least if all the "thank for the upload I've been looking for this movie"-comments are any indication, alongside the (Russian-)DVDs (with also English-audio) now being much more available for purchase nowadays ). --- --- ---

--- On a related topic, necessarily the personalised pilots wouldn't need to as in-depth like in say "Star Ixiom" in which all the allied-pilots also had specialities alien-race-wise ( primarily they were better flying against the alien-race they they had the biggest beef with ). But ti certainly could be nice if more experienced pilot could be able to "squeeze" a little more performance out of the planes they're piloting a lot. --- ---

More than likely you have already tried the "Forgot my Password"-route (especially if you used the "Facebook"-login to initially to make the Kickstarter-account), so gather up all rest of the info you have in hands and do send in the info via private-message over here on these forums (to Chris). Or alternatively send an email to Chris: chris(at)xenonauts.com (( Do say is this email-address is still correct those who might have have more up-to-date-info than I do. )) --- --- ---

Yes, the cost is +1-time-unit (from 4 to 5), as justified by "alienfood" who coded this feature: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=833.0 --- --- ---