Dagar

Yes, it is disabled, and yes, the explodymorphs are evil the first time your guys all stand in a circle around them trying to club them...

X-Division is not maintained anymore. That said, it recommends you to play through X:CE first at least once. Here you can find some starter tips: Be glad that you cannot have Androns as your first mission...

I can also think of many ways to make the monthly performance evaluation more thematic (whether it being orbital bombardment or something else). The thing for me is however how well it is integrated into the rest of the game, and this only partly means how the panic meter can be influenced. Does it align with the alien goal? How does it affect the cleaners? Do the aliens have missions to recon targets so the panic is higher? Do the Xenonauts have way to mitigate the bombardment damage globally and locally? Does it affect the tactical battlefield? Does it affect available missions from these regions? Mechanisms I could think of interacting with the orbital bombardment: Alien scout missions increase the panic for the next bombardment in the region(s) scouted Players can do research to show how hard a region / regions will be hit or decrease uncertainty about that Players can send troops to help build defenses against the bombardment into regions; the longer they are there and the more experienced, the better it works Aliens could have Sabotage / Abduction missions to undermine these efforts Cleaner presence should have something to do with that (e.g. they build transmitters letting the bombs home in on prime targets) Research to mitigate the damage / increase the efficiency of the defense building City / Industrial maps being increasingly devastated from bombardment in relation to how much panic from bombardment the region had to suffer. Damaged houses and roads, less civilians, less street lamps...

...and this relates to what I wrote how?

Glad to see that progress is being made on the game. The only thing that brushes me the wrong way is that you spend time on something that is barely even used in the game - I am talking about the sentry guns. Don't get me wrong, they might be a great addition to base defence missions, but especially from the state of Xenonauts 1 and the delays in the development of 2, I don't see why this would be something to spend time on. Just give us the vehicles in our local garage and call it a day. OTOH, if you were to find a way to include sentry guns as units into other mission forms in the game in an elegant way (e.g. as defence line on/next to the dropship, as alien units defending their bases, as neutral units to be captured on the map, creating a strong point, ...), I would be all over that.

Spam wave coming at the forum again. Question to the moderators: can it be altered so the first post or couple of posts of any new member have to be greenlit by some moderator? That should solve that problem.

Had the same problem. I had to record it and take screenshots of the recording. Even GIMPs taking pictures feature did not work.

Jup, sounds like the guy (most likely guy).

That's right. I got to admit that I sent the according person (I assume) to your YT page as they did not want to make a forum account, and I don't think you are reachable via Discord. Cheers

Hey @molivious, if you look at your manufacture menu, you will see that you need to capture the Xenomorphs alive to extract the material needed for melee weapons. So whack them with stun batons or use the stun weapons of your Caesan enemies against them.

Watched the video. From that, I think exposing new players to the different parts of the game in a staggered fashion could work well, possibly alongside some short challenges for ground and air combat that can teach you that through trial and error. For the former you could have the Geoscape and air games be run by the game itself (or "advisors") at the start, and you take over these tasks, like producing new equipment, choosing the loadout for your troops, hiring new staff, playing the air game and planning and building new bases over time. For seasoned players, that should be a choice, of course. In the concrete case of Xenonauts 2, I feel it is also important to look at the target audience and at the resources Goldhawk have available. I feel that with what the game looks like right now it targets Xenonauts 1 players (duh!), old X-COM fans and possibly FiraXCOM players looking for something new. With that in mind, I don't think the game has to be too hand-holdy for new players. Also, e.g. the challenges mentioned above have a high chance of being out of scope for Goldhawk as a developer due to time, staff and budget restrictions.

In X1, being brought to 0 HP critically wounds the soldier. Depending on the overdamage she has a chance of survival. Maybe the same here? Or were they blown to meat pieces?

Yup, same is true for operators.

Wow, what an elegant idea to just let idle specialists generate a bit of money! Whoever came up with that deserves a raise (at least a raise of beer mugs!). Hope you all are getting through the flu season well and quick.

Thanks for the update, as always, Chris! Can you tell us more about the mission types? How will they play and what exactly are the win/loss states? Also, when can you tell us more about the nations, the Cold War factions and the whole Geoscape workings?

FiraXCOM had a setting where it would randomize the money each nation gives you, altering the rationale to satellite coverage in the process (you did not build a base on a certain location there). Phoenix Point has you starting at a random (?) point in the world and secure territory from there. In Xenonauts 2, if they get their Cold War plans straight, you could alter the start by having only a few nations that support the Xenonauts organization from the start enough to allow you to build a base (or grant you an accordingly suited facility). That would mean that, to more of an extent than in FiraXCOM, each campaign start with a random seed has far reaching implications on how the campaign goes. If you have to first convince nations that the aliens are real, earn their trust and a good standing with them to build a base, that will also have an influence on where you want to do which missions. But to my knowledge, how exactly the strategy map is going to play and how the Cold War theme comes in is still in the concept stage (which also has me worried slightly that it might get dropped because of time and money constraints, which would be a shame).

You could check what is displayed if you pick two identical alien grenades up on the battlefield.

Apollo and you are right, I messed Corsair and Sonda up. Apologies. As for @Apollo: I invite you to change your tone. You are here because you want help, @Ruthless Reuban and me are here of our accord to give it. To then go around and post stuff like "Uhhh did you read my post?" and "When was the last time you played?" (the last one is even more hilarious as I have my active LP linked in my signature right there) and generally indicate that everyone else is wrong and you totally 100% did everything correctly with the installation is not very inviting to me personally to be constructive and helpful.

You must have a modified game. The normal Foxtrot also only has one Heavy Hardpoint. But from what I have seen in LPs, Lancers are a hard sell over Foxtrots anyway. The Cannons definitely are not in that order in the tech tree. Sonda is a replacement for the Asierus and should have two Cannon mounts. The thing with the first rocket being free is a vanilla game bug that is known for years and seems to be unfixable. The good thing about the shock weaponry is that they do not need consumables to be produced. They have their uses the same way batons have theirs. You still need to be close to the enemy at the start of your turn or suppress and shock it enough that it cannot resist to use them safely. You are right about shields, it is a viable way to play. All in all, it seems you have a scrambled research tree and altered planes.

Well, the only advice I can offer is to reinstall and do exactly as told in the instructions. The install process is very finicky and it is easy to miss a step, which you might not uncover until later in the campaign.

I am sure it has, but I don't know the remedy for that. Do you have a geoscape auto-save before the mission? Maybe the map is corrupted and breaks the game. That said I think the maps have all been fixed by now, but if you play on an older version of the mod, something like this seems reasonable.

From what I have gathered following the development of Xeno2 I am pretty sure that this is not in the scope of the development of the vanilla game, so instead I am going to ask whether the code is flexible enough and the mod tools will be powerful enough to realize something like this. Pitch: It is the Cold War, October 1st, 1979. Aliens have conquered the Earth Orbit. Only two countries, namely Soviet Russia and USA, are even aware of their presence, as next to no Earth observatories are sophisticated enough to spot the concealed Alien crafts, and these are in the hands of the two super powers. ESA and China have lost satellites in the process, but are not aware of the cause for now. Even the secret Xenonauts organization, formed by both powers after the Iceland incident in 1958 are not prepared for the sudden invasion. The Aliens know that they cannot risk an open war with Earth, if they want to assimilate humanity into their Empire, as their present forces are too weak. Instead, they will do everything in their power to covertly destabilize the delicate balance of power the Earthlings currently display. That means silencing whistleblowers and voices calling for an end to the Cold War, performing false flag attacks and pushing war mongers and other puppets to power. The Xenonauts are the counter insurgency force to the Aliens. Made and funded for this lone reason, their final goal is to prevent the alien invasion and getting them to abandon their attempt at subduing humanity. They try to stop any mission the aliens execute, but also to raise awareness of what is happening in the global community so the aliens are faced by a unified, strong humanity. USA and Russia both are aware of the threat the aliens pose and, ultimately, want to stop the aliens. At the same time, decades of conflict and mistrust have left their mark. The balance of powers on the planet is disturbed, and each of the super powers want to get the upper hand over each other. If the alien crafts sink some vessels or bomb military stations of the enemy, they will think twice to intervene. If they can get the extraterrestrials to focus on their enemy, they might just remain as the last power standing. What is more, the rapid technological advances of the coming months are all but guaranteed to catapult more nations into a position of power. Uniting a deeply divided humanity in times of terror and turmoil will not be an easy task for the Xenonauts. --------------------------------------------- What I would ideally want is to have a system where, in addition to the aliens and the Xenonauts, each country has their own set of goals depending on their awareness of the alien threat, the state of the invasion in their territory and the actions other countries (most notably the big two, but there might emerge more) or the Xenonauts take towards them. They would also have their politicans, form of government, military capability and so on as tools for their goals. Depending on what is happening to a country, they might be independent, allied with a super power or even subverted by the aliens and turned into their willing puppets, and their goals would adapt according to the situation they find themselves in. Is there a system for the behaviour of Earth's nations that modders could adapt? Do they have agency at all? Could it be possible somehow to integrate such a system?

Yeah, roof button should help you out. These UFOs are pretty iffy with sight.

As a rule of thumb, if you are going to win the mission, the only thing you need to collect is your own melee weapons on the ground and producable consumables (i.e. things like alenium grenades, stun rockets and so on). Also, if you want to salvage friendly AI weapons (e.g. the Laser Rifles Mk 1 some soldiers have later on), put them in your inventory (I think that worked for me, but that is such an edge case that I cannot even remember 100%). Basically, check your own downed soldiers for consumables you have to produce in your workshops, and for melee weapons you need to produce, and pick them up. Weapons, armour etc are automatically collected.

I have played neither PP nor WotC (not buying FiraXCOM ever again after the disaster that was XCOM 2 for me) or Long War 2 (but 1 I have played), but I feel that what you pointed out here is not exactly what I'd like to happen in a game. X-Division, since Charon brought it up, also does not exactly do that for me. Yes, you as player have access to a tech tree and it enables you to alter your tactics and perform operations you previously could not. But the enemy in all these games is pretty static. Yes, they gain stuff over time, sometimes even according to their success over you, but never in response to your actions. Basically, the aliens escalate pretty much with or without your interference. What they encounter on the battlefield does not matter, at most the outcome of a battle or of the overall campaign determines their progress. What I'd like to see is both their equipment and their tactics or maybe even strategy change according to what you do. Ideally not only on the battlefield, but also in the air, with your bases and with your tech. For example, in the beginning they only send scout UFOs to see what humanity is up to, and to scout areas for bases, bombing and terror attacks and so on. If you shoot down 90% of these, they should start scouting with escorted scouts or with bigger UFOs (that is the equipment side) or overwhelm an area with multiple scouts that you cannot all shoot down, or do multiple very short "dip into the atmosphere for a few minutes and get out quick" missions. Instead, what we get is heavier scout UFOs at some point, irrespective to our success in preventing scout missions. Instead, we get steady progression into generally stronger, bigger, better enemies (Long War, FiraXCOM) or leaps in progression (X-Division), which are disconnected from what happened before. Maybe some game does this, but if so, they fail to properly communicate that this is happening. I brought up PP, because from this game at least I know that the ground units "evolve" according to what you do (even though it seems to be a pretty abusable, broken system). I want an enemy that rushes AoE weapons, and concentrates on area denial and flanking hit-and-run type enemies if I always waltz over the map with a squad of close range shield bearers. I want the enemy to emphasize cover and teleporting into my backline if I have a strong sniper-and-scout combo going for some missions now.