Chris

If you could host the save game somewhere or email it to me at chris@xenonauts.com then that'd be great. Matthew would find it useful, I'm sure! EDIT - I think we've got enough save files now, thanks to everyone that sent one in!

So the common thread seems to be the Arctic tileset? If it happens to anyone else, let us know in this thread. If it's only the Arctic crashing then it's likely an issue with the Arctic civilians or friendly AI units.

Yup, it's just placeholder stuff to test the layouts. We're working on the new models at the moment.

I don't particularly think Xenonauts should be a stick used to beat Firaxis with, we're doing different things. I rather like our graphic style too, but I can see why others wouldn't like it as much - not going to lose sleep over it though, I've made my decisions with regards to the art direction already. I think the final game will have graphics that at the very least don't break immersion, and at best you'll think they are very distinctive and unique.

This is a further update for Build V17.5, (hopefully) fixing most of the crash bugs in the game. It is available on Desura both with the standalone and the auto-updater. This build is in the process of being ported to Mac and Linux too, as it's been a while since either of those two versions have had an update. In terms of new features, there aren't really very many to speak of as it is primarily a stability build. Unfortunately, I was a bit of a moron last time around and didn't save the folder structure for the archive files I generated, so I've had to re-generate them again. This means you'll have to redownload them all again, making this update 3.3gb (I have saved the folder structure this time though so there won't be any further issues with this). We have made some good progress this week but we've not locked it down into a new build yet. Also, as we're doing a bit more internal testing on the builds, it takes longer to release them - so expect the build I scheduled for this weekend to arrive some time next week instead. We'll keep you posted on how it is coming along, but there'll be some cool new stuff in it like our updated launcher and the like.

Thanks for all the suggestions, I think "shock-jock" will do nicely.

So, I'm writing a research description for an upgraded stun weapon. One of the things I wanted to put in the description was a reference to how the other soldiers referred to the poor bastard who got given the stun baton and was expected to run up to the alien and hit him with it. An example - in WW2 there was a "tail-end Charlie" in British fighter squadrons whose job it was to fly at the back of the formation and watch for enemy planes (of course, being outside the rest of the formation, he was the most vulnerable man and naturally was the first pilot picked off by the Germans if they attacked). Therefore I want a generic and preferably amusing nickname for the unfortunate stun baton soldiers. Any suggestions?

It's better for all concerned if I write it all, basically because it's mcuh more cohesive that way and most of the narrative comes from it. It's also meant to include gameplay tips; sorta explaining how things should be used without resorting to talking about the rules of the game. Plus it's one of the things I really wanted to do when I started the project. The fact it's significantly less fun than I thought it would be is neither here nor there

OK - we're still busy at work. I was going to try and release a new build today which fixed all the major crashes in the last one but some of the upgrades to the ground combat have introduced a new bug that is causing issues with the aliens spawning. So that's not going to happen until that is fixed. We are planning to release a new build on Friday too, or perhaps over this weekend. It's the continuation of our last build, hopefully having all of the aliens in it by then and having a few extra maps. It will also have quite a lot more of the research tree in it (with research descriptions, but probably not much game balance), and hopefully an AI update. If we don't have a major update for the AI this week, I'll ask GJ to write a post explaining what's going on on that front and explain why it's taking so long (I imagine the post would involve the word "engine" followed by a lot of rude words). Over the past few days I've been working on the Research tree, writing research descriptions. This takes a LONG time; each one is 3-5 paragraphs of semi-plausible technobabble and it takes me up to two hours to get it right. There's a lot of them too, sadly. I think I've done about a third of them so far. I'll be working on this for the next few days too and hopefully can make good progress on it. It's one of the last missing things in the game. Today I was working on the new UI Stores screen - this screen is now about 75% finished, and looks very much like the concept. It's rather cool seeing the first of the new UI screens nearing completion, as I think they'll add a lot to the game. This is in a separate branch of the code, though, so you won't see any new screens for a while yet. But work is moving ahead on that. Same with the new launcher too, which should be done in the next couple of weeks. Aaron's been busy working on the Middle East tileset, and we're doing a few more ground tiles for that. It turned out that it wasn't that interesting with the existing tiles but we've got a few new props for it too now, so it should have a proper map in the update this weekend. We're now turning our attention to the Alien Base tileset, and once we have a stable enough build to test the UFO layouts in, we'll finalise them and start work on the final art for those too. So, should be an interesting week. Sorry for the ongoing stability issues, hopefully there'll be a big payoff this Friday / weekend.

STOP TRYING TO GAME THE SYSTEM! (I think presently command centres are immune to having the alien breaches around them, but I can't remember)

You can debate the autoresolve in the beta, we're not working on it at the moment so I've not really thought about it yet.

Neither works with Xenonauts, unfortunately. The only way to get screenshots is to play in a window. More problems with the engine.

I'd try deleting the game directory and redownloading it from Desura that way? The file compression build (V17.5) that fixes the Desura problems is so unstable it's basically unplayable; we'll port it across to Linux when we've confirmed we've squashed the majority of the crash bugs that currently afflict it. Hopefully it shouldn't be too long...

HoboRed - that's one solution, but the code shouldn't allow a unit's equipment to be destroyed unless it also takes enough damage to kill the unit. Thanks for the report.

Abode has released Photoshop CS2 (which is about 10 years old) for free. If you're planning on modding any of the images in Xenonauts, Photoshop is what we use and having a copy of your own might well help you out with it as we've included the raw PSD files for a lot of our art. If you want to download it, you can download it here: http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html We use CS5 but I assume our files are backwards compatible. I cut my teeth on CS3 and it's a genuinely incredibly useful program for image editing, so it's well worth getting if you have any interest in that at all. It also includes the rest of the Creative Suite - so Illustrator (vector image editing etc) and Premiere Pro (video editing).

I'll make GJ talk about the AI on the forum in a couple of weeks. It's the biggest missing puzzle piece and I'd rather he was working on it than writing about it at the moment.

What's causing the crash (what do you do just before it crashes)? Is it a bug that is already reported on this sub-forum? The saves not working is a known bug; we'll be releasing an update soon that should hopefully fix all the major crashes.

Is it replaced with a destroyed item on the ground? I suspect our item destruction code is not working properly...

Hi guys - been a few weeks since I posted an update (though the V17.5 changelog gives you an idea of what we've been working on recently). I'm just going to make a quick post on what we're working on at the moment: Firstly, we're working on stability. As always, releasing a build ends up in us getting sidetracked for ages trying to get it stable again, and sure enough that has happened with V17.5(1). V17.52 will come out in the near future and should fix up the crash bugs, so the game will be stable enough to play again. Once that is done, we'll be working towards beta again. This involves a few key things: The Geoscape is basically done. The remaining work is largely implementing the new UI, which we've now started work on, but that's on a branch on the code so you won't see the results of the work until it is done. Perhaps we'll drip-feed the new screens into the beta as they are done, or perhaps we'll release them all at once, we'll see. The other thing we may do is add in an autoresolve for the air combat. If we do so, it'll be during the beta. Other than those two things, I think the strategic stuff is largely complete where functionality is concerned. For the ground combat, we're working on a few things: GJ is working on the AI We're generating new maps; in the final game we plan to have six maps per tileset (two for small UFOs, two for medium UFOs and two for large UFOs), giving us a total of over fifty. Hopefully they'll be done for the beta. We can see how it affects replayability at that point. We need to add some code to specify "command rooms" where the elite aliens spawn; once that's complete all the code should be in place for big UFOs and alien bases. We're rendering out the last 5-6 alien weapon / armour combinations, so the aliens are nearly all done (it'll be done this week). I've just realised we don't have enough female civilians in the game so we're getting some of them modelled up too, but they're the last thing we need done (though I'm considering re-rendering the Caesans due to inconsistent lighting for the existing ones). Giovanni is working on our new launcher, which uses a library that can be ported to Mac. When we have our stability fix up, I'll release some new test levels for the Scout and Corvette UFOs. I'd like to start locking down some of the layouts so we can get the final art in place for them. I did a runthrough of the game before Christmas to check the tech tree is working properly and you can correctly unlock all of the research items and workshop projects. I'm going to try and repeat that this week - it's a big prerequisite for getting the game balanced up! So that's what we'll be working on in the next couple of weeks. I hope in about two weeks we'll be able to give you an ETA on the beta.

We're going to release another fix in the next few days that hopefully fixes most of the crash bugs.

Thanks for the report. The second two issues should be fixed when we update those UI screens, but the first one is something we need to look at and fix up as that screen is meant to be "final"...

Almost like it's not meant to be, Centiles

No, it's a trial layout. All the UFOs have been replaced with soil walls until we lock down the layouts, when we'll do the final art for them (we won't be able to change it at that point).

It's more than possible we'll add an auto-resolve feature for the air combat. I just don't think it has quite become what I wanted it to be (it's too repetitive), so I'm not sure we should be forcing people to play it if they don't want to.

In all likelihood you'll get both keys on release, but at worst you'll get to choose which.