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 --- --- ---

--- Alright, first run. And a crash-to-desktop once I tried to begin my first Ground-Combat-Mission. I'll keep it more simple and tell only the biggest "stabbing"-bug for now: The Geospace-timer pausing is very random. It's thankfully paused when player doesn't have "line-of-sight", like when viewing base-management-tabs and there is a menu-element obstructing the clock. But most importantly the timer keeps going forward in the whole ESC-menu. --- Oh, I suppose it's worth mentioning that you can't insert <SPACE> in the base-names; another stabber-bug. --- Anyways, here is also the output-log-file ( found at the bottom of this post ); as a reminder to others who might be unaware, this can be found via this place: C:\Users\<user>\Documents\My Games\Xenonauts 2\Logs Or as simplified on Windows 10: This PC > Docuement > My Games > Xenonauts 2 > Logs --- --- --- output.log

--- Before anyone gets overly-excited, do note this is just conceptualisation of the game in the title of this thread. But this is still something that been well enough "cooking" in my head for some while now and wroth sharing publicly. Anyways, here a link to the document I might keep writing in the future depending on *whateverthings*: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rHKkeTYkz3DBU5vVjMYdKPMrBrW1i5UPpvKJkemE5D8/edit?usp=sharing Even if the document itself would simply be indefinitely stalled, I do have though of various scenarios and solutions in my head; general "delivery" just has always been my weakness. Feel free to post anything relation (own thoughts, questions, you-name-it ). Some key-points to mention here for those who necessarily aren't into readings "walls-of-text": - BattleScape would truly cover the whole Tellus; not just partially. - Global-commanding possibilities instead of just a singular organization --- Generally speaking this thread is meant to be more of just another public "think-tank" or otherwise leaving some records for the sake of "consciousness" of multiple-discovery-folks. But hopefully this place can still offer inspiration and some other resources to pretty much everyone. --- --- ---

--- Some additional tips (alongside some repetition): - Avoid indoors and any other narrow places always until you have 100% confirmed all reapers being dead. -- And indeed stay outdoors and try to move in a "square / phalanx"-formation without having any blind-spot alongside having enough time-units left for reaction-shots / overwatch (naturally the more time-units you have left once ending the turn, the higher chance to actually taking a reaction-shot is) Worry little about the by-standers (both civilians and the local-armed-forced); if they refuse run to you for the safety, then it is all on them; mission-success with the least amount of collateral and corporal / bodily-damage is far more important. Oh, and one more important thing: "Gas" the whole map! Leave no spot un-gassed: This forces the all the gas-stun'able units to stop camping alongside might also help "herding" mobs moving through specific passages or otherwise waste their time-units. Here is one (classic) image showing one (foolish) Reaper who ended up getting stun-baton'ed: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=814382459 --- --- ---

--- Like it has been already hinted, becoming a "professional-beta-tester" especially nowadays isn't nowadays done all that "old-fashioned"-ways ( E.G. via public job-callings and such ). As far as i am aware all the (paid-)quality-assurance-folks have gotten into the business via word-of-mouth or otherwise making a "portfolio" by helping the developers making the games better. Obviously a lot of smaller game-development-studios either try their best at QA themselves or they rely completely on other players / their customers; usually the latter seemingly in the end still ends up being more reliable way to discover bugs and such anyways ( especially when you get "passion-coders" into your customer-list that are also willing to share their finding publicly or not ). So yeah, as "dream-crushing" as this may sound like, becoming a Quality-Assurance-personally nowadays has a lower chance than winning in a (Finnish) lotto (7+2 from the pool of 1-40-numbers). But who knows, maybe if you help around enough to get noticed, perhaps one day you might get hired into QA-job regardless how low of the chances nowadays are ( especially since the tools for debugging have gotten a lot more better; obviously a lot of time many simply choose to not use them, but they're still there. ) --- --- ---

--- Various mods I used have been already mentioned here. But here are some more not yet mentioned (even if most of these are simply some config / .xml-file tunings; they still saved the hassle of doing it myself): - Xenonauts X-pansion Pack Combines already various good mods alongside includes some improvement (especially for example making the stun-gas it be able to "stun" more than once in a turn). Links: https://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/index.php?/topic/14406-xce-0342-xenonauts-x-pansion-pack/ https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=877861459 - Vazl's Weapon Pack Combining the previous individual weapons and tweaks into a single package Link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1371753918 - BarleyTroops To get slightly better soldiers from the get go. Link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=493408818 - Larger Living Quarters It's only increase of five units. But it's still a huge increase in a long run. Link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=530616518 - No Click Sound I for the most part don’t like to have the click sound doubled. Link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=561448390 - Jackal Armour Profit Well this one was more fair than simply using a money-cheat at least. Link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=533101850 - psionyze this Colour for psionic-attacks (even if I ended completely removing the “hallucination / berzerk”-effect eventually) Link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=535546033 - Don't Forget to Bring a Shotgun Having the shotguns and “carbines” more effective. Link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=618850030 - Super Flares! Better flares! Link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=849656819 - Cover indicator overhaul Cover-indication being more clear Links: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=843148276 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=856888425 (minimalistic-version) - Increased Max Accuracy Simply removing the 95%-hit-chance-cap and make the point-blank-shots unmissable. Link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=892286206 - Minimalist Minipatch Various little tweaks to main gameplay Link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=760951580 --- --- ---

On somewhat staying on the topic, there are two majour "motives" also that can cause a similar end result: - Mismanagement Quite self-explanatory: It's simply not managing the expenses or otherwise "blowing-away" the money. But it all could also simply be: - "The Producers / Uwe Boll"-fraud / scam Not the official terminology (if there is any). But the end-result is still exploit any related loopholes in the whatever-system(s). In video-game world, you can make a very interesting and otherwise marketable title. Once you have enough of audience and funding, you simply sabotage your product to not be profitable anymore (I.E. introduce a game breaking bug you won't even bother to acknowledge, at least not in public); sort of like deliberately causing the "software / bit rot". Then suddenly at some point you simply announce to end the product or otherwise closing your studio; whatever you can think of. And then collect the "jackpot"; whoever gets kicked out with empty hands can simply be random. But at the very least you still keep the money customers and the "business-angels" gave you. (( Due the semi-legal reasons, I cannot name any particular games and/or studios that have pulled off this stunt. But if one does enough research, they can quite easily notice them via public-records (even if they don't contain any bank-transaction-notes or something else related; just reading through where the "betrayal" happens are usually the best indications of putting the "cashing-phase" into motion. )) --- --- So yeah, like in everything, some people are there to "just make money" disregarding ethics or otherwise practising all the possibly shady policies / whatnots. But thankfully it's not everyone; it's just unfortunately have become more common than before however... --- --- I personally would like to think that "Jagged Alliance 2" was mainly a flop due simply bad timing: Until 2005'ish personal-computer-games (and generally video-games) were very "niche". (plus having the markets limited to only small part of Europe and USA didn't help either, especially during 1999). (( Japan "indie"-industry in general had a huge advantage since pretty much everything-everything in that country was very "tight-knitted"-together. E.G. chances were that you were simply fan of "eveything" to begin with plus the access to internet other marketing avenues was quite abundant ( if the amount of single-developer and the "buddy-groups" even back then is to be believed ). Before 2005 the availability of affordable internet-connections were also non-existant; up until that point you'd had to pay at least 30€ per month here in Finland for a "256 kbit/s / 256 kbit/s" (b = bit) connections; middle-part of 2005 was the "breakthrough" point since the ADSL-connection-prices pretty much got halved (E.G: "1 Mbit/s / 512 kbit"-connections were 50€ before, and now they were ~25€) and "Fujitsu-Siemens" quite dominated the low-budget-pre-build-personal-computer-markets (ah the times when 80-gigabyte-hard-drives were more than enough). Today the internet is available for almost everyone in the world primarily also thanks to the wireless-connections (E.G. "4G) (as in there is no need for physical cables in bit more remote locations). Yes, "information-overload" is a thing. But at the very least we have much more possibilities to get the word published in the first place instead not at all. I'd like to still stick to the personal-saying: The good will sell by itself as long as all the obstacles are taken into account and then worked with. --- --- ---

Best way would simply to "re-install" Xenonauts on your system by "verifying" the files (if you're playing the game via either "Steam"-client of "GOG Galaxy" at least); this process should re-add the missing or or replace / repair corrupted files. (( Alternatively, you can simply also use the "installer.exe"-file to re-install the game, if you have the file. )) Make sure to back-up your game-save-files first though just in case! --- --- ---

Well, this is a vision of an end-product, and this is the most important thing about this whole process; it's only a failure if we wouldn't had any process at all to begin with (or worst, no documentations). Considering there was a lot things changes to begin with (especially the new game-engine from which you basically re-build the game "ground up" ), I personally am happy with the "Xenonauts - Re:Coded / Remake"-edition, since all the experiences can be now used for next project alongside with all the possible "think-tank" material. In a way, I have a feeling "Xenonauts 3" could possibly be the "Apocalypse of Xenonauts" (due the drastic changes / departure), while "Xenonauts 2" is possibly simply going to be "(Open)Xcom - Contact Playback" (mainly because no underwater-battlescape, which basically was a rather large expansion-map-pack to "(Open)Xcom", in my opinion) ((also jokingly saying "We kind of ended up doing the "Open Xenonauts" ourselves before you lot; semi-sorry")). --- --- ---

Well, bit a spoiler(s): Depending which version of the game you have installed, some of the local-military-forces do get their weaponry upgraded at some point of the game: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=850497449 This could possibly be a feature in the sequel-game inwhich the players could influence the "majour-powers" by providing secrets and thus fiving the local-forces some upgrades also. But this is just an idea-musing; nothing confirmed. --- --- ---

I think it's more of "realism" thing here, especially since Chris & co. are wanting to add some elements inspired from "Jagged Alliance"-games. I mean, what kind of sane man would join a "suicide-squad" to begin with, especially in case of "Xenonauts (2)" in which the team of more of smaller vigilante-group (at least intially, and most likely more incognito "on paper")? It's going to be interesting to see how much depth we are able to put into the mechanics; maybe it could only be "lore-fluff" also as in having some in-game-NPCs spreading rumours and so forth depending how you play the "shadow-war" ("I've heard of this group that abducts and sends these unlucky fellas right into the middle of military complexes strapped with belts of grenades" - murmurs heard or read in some of info-sources "Xenonauts" are reliant of, when the casualties are super-high). --- --- ---