Chris

As I wrote in the V17.9 Release thread, there's a bunch of stuff we're working on prior to the beta release. This is not an exhaustive list, but it'll give you some idea of what's going on and why V17.9 is the way that it is: 1) Maps: We've only got enough variation for Light Scout maps at the moment. We'll need about 50 for beta, including Terror Site and Alien Base maps. We may also use some of the tiles from the Soviet Town tileset such as the wooden cabin and rural roads to create a rural Tundra tileset for use in places like Canada and Siberia. Anyway, lack of maps is one of the major reasons why we didn't hit beta this time around. 2) AI: This is improved but needs more work. The code should be finished shortly, then we'll be paying much more attention to specific behaviours. Initially to stop the aliens being obviously stupid (at present some of them don't seem very keen to shoot your troops), then to make them do cool stuff and to differentiate the species. 3) Final Mission: This is blocked out but needs to be mechanically finished (detailed playtesting can happen in beta). 4) UFO Art: We still need to do the final art / layout for the biggest UFO, and then we need to do the damaged versions of all of the UFOs. 5) Overlay Tiles: We need a function to make ground tiles overlay on whatever tiles would appear beneath them. This means we can have the dropships placed anywhere on any map and still have shadows, rather than having the parking lot around them as currently happens. 6) Auto-Crash Site Generation: One of the balance problems in the game is that the UFOs have random behaviour, so it's not possible to guarantee that a player will encounter a UFO in the first two weeks of the game. This makes balancing a nightmare, because a player can be two weeks behind (or ahead) in the research tree through luck. I want a feature to auto-generate a couple of missions. I think this will be limited to two Light Scout crashes in the first 10 days of the game to ensure that the player has access to everything they need to get started, and then an alien base later in the game to ensure a player isn't punished for being too good at the game (it's possible they could be so good at shooting down the UFOs that the aliens can never get a base built, depriving the player of the technology inside). This means that we can increase the time between UFO waves so it's not so overwhelming as it is now, but also not be worried that the player won't be unable to start the tech tree as a result. 7) Hidden Movement Camera: At the moment this isn't showing all the projectiles, which means your guys can be killed without you seeing it. Obviously this needs to change. I think once those things are all sorted, we can go into beta. Yeah, there'll still be a lot of missing assets and plenty of balancing and probably even some new systems to add as a result of feedback - but it should be a game you can play from start to finish and therefore qualifying for the beta tag.

Version 17.9 of the Xenonauts Alpha has been released. The detailed status is below, which will be updated as it progresses through the various systems - I'm posting this now because there's about 6 hours of uploading to go and I'm going home: Windows Desura client versions are available on Desura Windows standalone versions are available on Desura Mac / Linux versions will be ported across when it is confirmed that the build is stable This build is NOT beta. It is a significant update but we're still missing a number of features before we can call it beta - I will list these features in another post so you know what we'll be working on. The changes and improvements are listed below: 1) Updated Launcher: We have put the new launcher in the game. This looks much more professional than our old one, and has a number of new features: Cross-Platform Compatible: All versions of the game will now have a launcher. Previously the poor Mac guys didn't get one (making it difficult to change resolutions). RSS Feed: You no longer have to keep checking our forums to see if a new release is out, as the launcher has an in-built RSS feed for this forum. Save Game Location: You can change the save game directory of the game using this button. Disable Stat Tracking: Xenonauts collates anonymous stats on all players so we can use it for balancing purposes. If you don't want it to do this, you can now opt-out with the tickbox. Crimson Dagger novella: Under the "Extras" tab, you can find Lee Stephen's prologue novella, Xenonauts: Crimson Dagger. AA disabled: Anti-aliasing used to be on by default in the old launcher, and it is now disabled. This has no real positive effect, but on small (laptop) screens it made the Geoscape look horrendous. If this affected you, it is now much sharper. Sweet Title Animation: The alien fleet orbiting menacingly above Earth is now animated. Feel the fear in real-time. 2) New UFOs: The game is still not fully balanced for you to play to late game, but we have final landed UFO graphics in place up to the sixth UFO type (although the hand-painted floor is not yet done for that one). The final UFO will follow in the next build, along with the first damaged versions. The later ones are seriously, seriously big. 3) Wall Transparency: There's now a 2-tile transparency aura around all Xenonauts and visible aliens, which should make it much easier to see enemies. It's not infallible as it doesn't work for props at the moment, but it should be much better than before. 4) Updated Research: There have been updates to the research tree: The Xenopedia is now a Geoscape pop-up rather than the full-screen thing it was before Jackal armour and Hunter armoured car are now researchable (Hunter at the same time as the MiG, Jackal from the Alien Plasma Pistol) A lot of the research descriptions have been updated. I think all the early-mid game projects have research descriptions now, the only ones that don't are those in danger of being merged. There's a number of new or updated Xenopedia images, including the first three autopsy images. These are proper guts everywhere stuff, just like the original. There's now a pop-up after each research project is completed, telling you about anything new unlocked and giving you a link to the research screen. There's also a pop-up when new workshop projects become available as a result of a research project finishing. 5) Improved AI: There's been some boost to the AI, so aliens should be better at taking cover now. We're not far from a big improvement, but GJ can't turn on the planning layer yet because there's a crash bug in it that he can't find. Hopefully in the next build the code will all be done and it'll just be ongoing behaviour tweaks. 6) Rendering: We've ripped out and replaced the previous rendering algorithm, which was struggling with multi-tile objects and would cause incorrect draw order in some cases. The new one should fix this. Took a while to sort that, sadly it's a sort of invisible thing but believe me when I say it's a big improvement. 7) New sprites: I've done a lot of rendering recently. We've added new civilians to the Soviet Town tileset, and added female civilians to both types of terror site. I've also re-rendered about 95% of all of the Caesans and put them in the game. Previously their sprites had inconsistent lighting from the different directions and had some setup issues; these should now be resolved. 8) Maps: Didn't make as much progress on this as I hoped, but I've added 2 new maps for the Light Scout to each tileset. There'll be many more in the next version / beta. Also, we've harmonised the dropship maps across all of the different tilesets. As a result, all the dropship maps are currently in a parking lot whatever the tileset. This is a temporary thing until we get some code in place to let us overlay the dropship shadows on whatever ground is underneath it, which will be in place in the next build. 9) Usability Improvements: We've made a lot of improvements to the usability of the game. This is not an exhaustive list, just what I can think of off the top of my head. Also, there will be plenty more of these before beta. Geoscape: Alien Invasion research is already in progress when you start the game Second tileset world mask in place, letting us have some randomisation of tileset even if UFOs are shot down in the same area each time "Go to XXXX" pop-up windows on completion of vehicles or aircraft Soldier Equip screen selects the dropship category rather than Unassigned by default The F-17, MiG-31 and Chinook aircraft have been renamed to their Condor, Foxtrot and Charlie designations respectively. This is consistent keeping with later technology designations. When an aircraft reaches a waypoint, the notification now also has a "Return To Base" button. Ground Combat: Reserved TUs can now be used to shoot with. This is an optional toggle in the options, but is set to allow shooting by default. The Alien Spotted graphics have been updated to look slightly better. Also, the icon for an alien that has been spotted by the team but is out of the current soldier's LOS is now orange, rather than 60% transparency red. This should make it clearer. Grenade Selector (right click on grenade quickslot) now closes correctly when you click on a grenade to select it, rather than having to right-click on the quickslot again to close it 10) Balance Changes: We've done quite a bit of balancing, though this is only limited to the first couple of months (there's been too many bugs or issues recently for me to get too far into it). More will follow next build. Geoscape: All difficulty settings are now identical. I don't want there to be any discrepancy in the game balance that could be caused by difficulty settings at this stage (we'll balance them later). Aforementioned Hunter / Jackal made researchable, so are no longer starting items. Starting cash reduced to $500,000 Starting soldier squad reduced to 10 men Monthly maintenance and salary costs reduced Starting monthly funding much reduced Workshop build costs and build times much reduced Workshops / Laboratories have 15 working space, Living Quarters now hold 35 people Bases are now 6x6 tiles instead of 7x7 Invasion / Air Combat: Longer between UFO waves Missiles achieve lock much faster, so they are effectively able to fire from longer range Cannons now correctly fire at anything that enters their fire arc, rather than having to achieve lock first Scout UFOs are now Small, while Light Scout UFOs are Very Small. Thus you can tell immediately whether to deploy a Condor or a Foxtrot against them. Foxtrot no longer made of glass. Cooldown reduced on evasive roll for both alien and human side, making alien fighters more adept at dodging missiles Scout UFOs slower than before, now the same speed as Condors (but a lone Condor will not defeat a Scout) Ground Combat: Accuracy penalty for moving and shooting with heavy weapons increased to 50% from 25%. This makes sniper rifles less overpowered as they are much less mobile than before. Machinegun ammo a lot heavier than before, 3kg instead of 1kg. Aliens have much better stats then before, with the Non-Combatants in particular getting a major boost. Should be more frequent spawning of aliens outside the UFOs now. 11) Bugfixes: We've fixed a few bugs too. Not an exhaustive list: Game no longer crashes if you're not connected to the internet. Wages / maintenance no longer deducted before your new funding arrives at month-end. Reaction fire should no longer interrupt actions / animations (so reaction fire should not stop burst fire after one shot etc) Soldier Roles now remember armour correctly. Base defence turrets upgrading correctly again Clicking on the Xenopedia description text no longer makes it turn orange I think that's it. We'll post up a list of what we're working on for the beta in a separate post. Enjoy!

Almost certainly mayo. Only a fool stands between me and mayo when I am in possession of chips.

In JA2 you generally only control 4 mercs a mission though, and the only management aspect is the mercs and their inventory. It is a smaller scale than Xenonauts, although that approach has merit too.

Sounds plausible. I hope it you found it enjoyable; I imagine that you mostly got 45 minutes of chomping noises as I shovelled chips into my face.

Haha, I'm sure I'll survive somehow

Welcome to the forums, Tony.

We'll do an updated demo in the new few months, you could always wait for that and try it then?

We'll consider it in beta but it's not planned at this point. So maybe, but don't get your hopes up

Still don't know exactly, we're still on track to release beta this month and we'll see how horribly broken it turns out to be when we do. That'll define how long until release It's been nearly 4 years since I started work on this game now, I don't think anyone else wants it to be done more than I do...

You're not meant to be able to play too far into the game pre-beta so this shouldn't be entirely unexpected!

Drawing a border around soldiers to show where they are behind walls is impossible, rather than transparency. Also, releases are useful because they give me a deadline stick to use to beat the rest of the team into working harder

OK, time for a quick update. We're still planning to make a release next week, though it's still up in the air as to whether it will be beta or not. If it is not beta, it will still probably be the biggest update we've made since we joined the Geoscape and Ground Combat together. The reason it may not be beta is I'm not sure we'll have time to get the final mission working properly and we probably won't have the final two UFOs in the game in time. Also there's a whole bunch of niggling things we need to do, but the coders are busy with more important things to do them. We'd like to have the following in the next build, whether it is beta or not: New launcher: will look much better and be platform independent (so it'll appear for Mac users too), have a built-in RSS feed for the forums, stat tracking disable, let you change save game location and will contain Crimson Dagger novella Improved AI: GJ should have another AI update for us. Wall Transparency: Humans and visible aliens should have an aura that turns nearby walls invisible so they no longer get "lost" behind them. Tile Rendering: This should fix those pesky rendering issues where things were incorrectly rendering on top of other things. UFOs: the UFO maps should be done for 2/3 of the UFOs, though this is just their undamaged landed state thus far. Research Tree: Most of the research descriptions (re)written, new research art added (including the first few autopsy images). Maps: I've added 2 new maps for the Light Scout for every tileset now, I'm hopefully going to add the same number for the Scout / Corvette by next week too. Usability Fixes: Too many of these to list here, but we've fixed a LOT of the little things that have been annoying people for months. Game Balancing: Again, too many to list here. The game will be heavily, heavily rebalanced in the next release. The meat of the update will be in the last two bullet points. The new features are all well and good, but from next release onwards we're going to be paying a lot of attention to the user experience rather than just saying "leave us alone, we'll fix that in beta". I'm not sure when the release will occur next week, but there will be one.

There's three songs for the Geoscape, all of which are in /xenonauts/assets/audio/music/. You might just have got a song that you didn't like

I'm not sure Cyrillic fonts will be supported by Xenonauts. Not because we don't want to, but because the developer has taken the engine and all the associated tools offline and it turns out the font importer isn't packaged with the installer (which we backed up). So we can't add any more fonts to the game, Cyrillic or otherwise (or even edit the existing ones). Which is a shame.

There is a psionic attack animation that shows when your guys are being psionic-ised (assuming the Hidden Movement screen deigns to show it).

My stance on this hasn't changed. Even if we wanted to change to a 3D Geoscape now, the time requirement would be prohibitive as it'd involve redoing pretty much all of the Geoscape code. As for realistic flight paths and radar ranges, they'd look really ugly and confuse as many people as they would impress through their realism. You do bring up valid points but the realities mean the cure would be worse than the problem.

Washbourne - yes, that's exactly what happens if you're not connected to the net unfortunately. The next build has the bug fixed and is due next week, I'm afraid in the meantime there's not much you can do except hope your net doesn't drop.

You're not meant to be that far in the game in the current version (and F-17s and MiGs certainly shouldn't be viable against Dreadnoughts / Interceptors, irrespective of their weapons). The upcoming version should be much better balanced and have working base defence upgrades.

The financial side of the game hasn't been balanced either. Have faith.

Yeah, try the standalone if you can't get anything working. That said, it is a bit concerning that the Desura download isn't working properly...

I don't think it's a direct %, but rather a relative figure - all the numbers are added together and the random number generator generates anything up to that number (as opposed to generating up to 100 as with a percentage).

The next build is due next week. Whether it will be beta or just a really feature complete predecessor to it, I don't know. Beta should be this month though.

I recommended The Forever War in the Crimson Dagger thread, but Dowly has beat me to it here. It's probably my favourite book, a really good blend of good ideas and just downright good near future military sci-fi storytelling. If you enjoyed the new Battlestar Galactica TV show you'll probably like it a lot. Another book that jumps out at me is Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan, which is much more cyberpunk but I really enjoyed it. I think if I ever remade a game like Syndicate I'd read it again before I did so. Other stuff that springs to mind - Ian M. Banks does really good books like Player of Games or Against a Dark Background which are incredibly intelligent, so much so that I often can't keep up with them. China Mieville also did Perdido Street Station, which is steampunk but very intelligent....not sure I'd read more of his work after that, but I'm glad I read it!

V17.6 (the current version) has a bug where it crashes if you're not connected to the internet. All previous and all future versions will work fine if you're offline.