Chris

What's the issue here? Are datacores being listed as destroyed in the mission end screen? They are only ever used once by the game, and are a trigger for the UFO research. They should only be listed on the mission-end screen the first time they are recovered.

Heh. Yes, Elydo, you're right - people have a perception of what radar does that fits neatly with what it does in the game, and I don't want to cause confusion. For the clips / mags, I think there was a sizeable third category of people (myself and Aaron included) who knew the difference and also didn't care. When it got to the point where people were literally drawing me pictures of the difference I thought getting the popcorn out was more amusing. Anyway, it's been updated now....except for the MAG clips, which do still look like magazines but are just called clips. I'm sure people that get that far in the game will forgive me though. The aircraft construction images were indeed a nice touch, I thought. Glad a few people have noticed them. Finally, yes, the differing dropship speeds have been updated already and that will be reflected in the next build when it comes out.

OK, I've just finished the Xenopedia research project descriptions and I'm now starting to write the descriptions for the starting equipment. I've also had a read of the current thread...or at least the points listed on the front page. Here goes: ARDA - No, it's a radar and it'll stay that way. People know what radar does. Changing it doesn't really give any benefit I see, but could cause confusion. Aircraft armour - the two conventional aircraft descriptions don't refer to armour. They just say that the airframe is built out of something resistant to alien weapons...for example building the airframe out of steel rather than glass isn't adding more armour, but still makes it more resistant to combat damage. Would happily have updated any actual reference to "armour" for the first two planes though. I've added the word "safely" to the roll description for the Foxtrot. I think explaining why it doesn't have a cannon even though the MiG-31 did is taking things too far, I don't see that as necessary. Missiles - these descriptions were both old and will be rewritten. I'm not planning to give specifics on range etc in the description because that's still subject to balance, I'll just write vague stuff like "short range" or whatever. Clips / Mags - I suppose at this point I should stop trolling everyone and just change this. Aaron and I both find it amusing quite how worked up people get about it, but with release coming up it's time to correct it. MAG weapons are still going to use "clips", though. I'm not letting the Xenonauts carry a "MAG mag" into battle.

OK - so here's the two fixed soldier name files. Just unzip this .zip to your /assets/ folder and overwrite the existing files: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26290309/names.zip This will be included in the next update, but is makes the missing nationalities appear and has rebalanced the national soldier distribution a bit so it's more even. Enjoy.

You guys are right, they're still not appearing. There seems to be something else at work, even once the rogue /Nation tags are removed. Let me look into it and hopefully get a fix up for it if possible.

Yes, the game could do with better signposting in that respect.

Where in the inventory is the pistol when this happens? Equipped in one of the hands?

Thanks.

i am a riter

You may not be alone, OP, but from the conversations I've had you are in the minority. Most people prefer the new look outright, and quite a few people prefer it now they've got used to it. You can put the old files back in if you want the old graphics, but you also need to update the old continent masks too otherwise they won't be in the correct place (the two maps don't match up exactly). That's why it's not super-simple just to have it in as an option to switch between the styles. But ultimately it is just image swapping. Of course, the old map doesn't really match the new UI style, and the old UI style collectively is quite a lot less appealing than the new one (even if the Geoscape map style is a bit more contentious).

It should be an 80% chance to stop a frontal shot already, from memory. That's certainly the intention.

We're uploading everything to Dropbox and getting it ready to update Desura / Humble Store at the moment. Expect it in the next couple of days, all being well.

Updated.

Thanks. We'll update accordingly. Can you have a look at the female names too?

I've not read the full thread yet, as it's the weekend, but I'm not keen on any idea that involves an auto-resolve using Xenonaut troops. I want a distinction between the Xenonauts doing the crash site and the other option. The ground combat is the most important part of the game and I don't want to have an auto-resolve for it in any guise. Money is useful in the game, but ultimately the researchable alien resources and soldier experience can only be gained through combat. Allowing that to be gained with no risk (or risk based on a calculation rather than gameplay) seems counter to the intended way of playing the game. I still think the local forces just airstriking the site and hoping there's something usable left over is a plausible option.

Out of interest, why do you assume the alien non-combatants are inherently bad at fighting rather than just being less well equipped (in terms of armour and better sensors etc)? The lore even states that they are all clones.

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/5958-Xenonauts-Experimental-Builds-Instructions The two builds are the same at the moment though.

Thanks for answering his questions, henri5!

I think the idea of explaining the "donated" crash-site as being dealt with by air strikes is a good idea, though I don't think we should imply it was the Xenonauts that have done it unless we actually want to have to send the interceptors there to perform the airstrikes. But it's certainly plausible we can have the local forces deal with the crashed UFO using excessive firepower, leaving nowhere near as much behind as would happen if the Xenonauts sent in a strike team. However, the money that the nation offers the Xenonauts in exchange for being able to do this still needs to be competitive against what the player would get from doing the mission themselves if this system is going to work...but that can be explained by the local nations just being incredibly keen to get their hands on any alien technology at all. There's also a possible solution where the player could use their aircraft to perform these strikes, so there's an element of clean-up after each UFO wave. This is more immediate and I think initially might be more enjoyable, but I don't think it'd be the best solution here - I think it'd get old fast, take quite a lot of time to implement and probably also require a degree of explanation for new players. So some form of airstrike on the downed craft is probably a good idea lorewise, I'm thinking. Framed in that language, it detracts less from the role of the Xenonauts as the only ones capable of really fighting the aliens on the ground.

To address the "vaporizing UFOs" point, it's an interesting idea but again I don't think it helps the issue. The issue is that it is preferable to do every single crash site possible, so if you make it easier to destroy smaller UFOs all it means is that the best course of action is for the players to shoot down those UFOs using more basic weapons and then do the crash site mission. It doesn't really address the problem that the player does not receive anything for NOT doing a crash site, so we're just banking on the boredom / laziness of the player to stop them doing every mission. It's just in this case we've added an extra layer of inconvenience in terms of re-arming fighters for them to deal with before they can get at the crash site. That's not to say that we won't put the overdamage back in before release, because it is quite a cool effect....just that I don't think it solves this particular problem.

@Xcomnaut - extending / randomising the time doesn't really fix underlying problem that you'll need more than 30 crashable UFOs across the course of the game to have an interesting strategic game. It would help, but it wouldn't reduce the problem enough that it would go away....and it'd make the strategy less interesting at the same time. It's better to have complete freedom in terms of number of UFOs in a wave and wave timing in terms of making a more exciting game, too. @dmz - I see what you're saying, but this is only for crash sites. The local forces can't shoot down UFOs in the first place or deal with terror sites or capture alien bases, but they might still be able to mop up the survivors of a crashed UFO. It's also not unfeasible that part of the world's agreement with the Xenonauts in the background story is that the Xenonauts have exclusive access to all crash sites of UFOs they've shot down. In the examples you've provided, I don't see 2) or 3) as being particularly awful. In both cases you still have to do the hard / interesting work of tackling a new UFO for the first one or two times, but after that you're not required to grind it endlessly unless you actually want to. Yes, there probably is a slight nudge based on what the optimum value gained from a crash site is - but that's far better than the current system, where the optimum is to do every single mission and the penalties for taking the "wrong" choice are quite a bit more severe than a nudge, as you get no benefit at all from skipping a mission. I didn't say the idea would be perfect, just it would be an improvement...although in your option 2), the one we're aiming for, there's a choice there that you're not giving credit to - the choice as to when your soldiers are actually adequately leveled up and geared up and thus don't need to go on more missions. That in itself is much more of a risk / reward than the current system offers.

Yes, we still want to solve the problem of there being too many Light Scout crash site missions. The solution is up for discussion here: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/7314-Doing-Every-Mission-Solution?p=84564#post84564

As we're thinking about V20 now and the features we want to put in it, it's time to discuss the largest balance problem in the game: the number of missions each player will complete. Players will generally fall into two camps: those who will do literally every mission that the game generates, and those who will do a couple of each type of crash-site and just leave the rest to rot. The idea is actually that the player does not do all the crash sites they generate. We're balancing the game around the assumption the player does 30-40 missions during a game, total. However, to make the Geoscape strategy challenging, there needs to be a LOT more than 30 UFOs appearing over the course of the game. Xenonauts has been specifically designed so a player is not penalised for not doing crash site missions. You don't receive any relations penalty for letting one time out. Yet some people still feel the need to do all of the missions, whilst simultaneously complaining that doing so many of each mission type rapidly became boring (I'm looking at you, Light Scouts). I thought this seemed odd and raised it on the forums - and people explained that the game actually DOES penalise you for not doing the missions. The reason is opportunity cost - you don't LOSE anything for not doing a crash site, but you also don't gain the soldier experience, funding boost and one-off equipment sales you'd get from doing the mission. Ultimately, this is a strategy game, and the best strategy is to do all the missions...even if the cost is boredom. "Fun" isn't a useful in-game commodity so it's bad design if we're relying on player boredom to prevent them doing all the missions. TL;DR - there has to be a gameplay benefit to not doing a crash site mission if many players are ever going to feel like they are allowed to let one time out. I would like to add a system into V20 where the player is able to "donate" a crash site to the local forces in exchange for an immediate funding boost or a relations boost (which translate to more monthly funding). We will remove the relations boost from the current crash site completion system, so the choice will become: Captured alien equipment / materials, soldier experience, funding boost from selling weapons, or Risk-free funding boost, probably larger than the one from the selling captured equipment in the first option I am hoping that this means most people will do a couple of crash sites for each UFO type, then will just take a funding boost for the remainder. There may be circumstances where they want to grind more, for example training up a rookie squad or turning their existing team into death machines, but that will be a genuine choice rather than 100% optimal. I'm pretty much set on introducing some kind of choice to the game for crash sites, but I'm still open to suggestions on what that choice may be. Funding seems the most obvious one, but I'm happy to listen to alternatives. Thoughts? EDIT - my conclusions after having read the thread can be found here: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/7314-Doing-Every-Mission-Solution?p=85735&viewfull=1#post85735

V19 Stable contains quite a serious bug with lockups on the Hidden Movement screen. As it's Saturday and the team are not all near a computer, fixing this bug today does not look realistic. We've therefore rolled back to Stable Candidate 3. The differences should be minor and hopefully should not break save games, but hopefully the hangs people were previously experiencing will now be fixed. We apologise for the inconvenience.