Chris

Oh, actually, it seems the main branches have still not been approved. I was being a bit premature. Hopefully soon.

The Xenonauts demo had a bug with the aliens where they were able to reaction fire in any space they could see the previous turn. So if they'd turned around in the previous turn they had 360 degree reaction fire.

I'll be updating the Mac / Linux files within the next hour.

Orion, just wait a little longer. It'll pop-up a notification and an update option in the client when your copy of Desura realises there's an update to apply.

Build V16 has been uploaded to Desura now and should be approved. Sorry about the delay; I've had to clear out the 7 pages of posts in this thread because the delay was so long this thread basically wasn't about the build any more. The standalones should be up, and Linux / Mac versions are also being uploaded now. Hopefully all versions should be approved within the hour (I'll update this when they are, but my Desura contact is doing the approvals now). Build V16 contains the following: - AI model: This is the big improvement in V16. GJ's updated AI model now allows aliens to share information and LOS with each other. This means that aliens will now be able to fire on Xenonauts beyond the sight range of the shooting alien if it is in the LOS of another alien, and they will be harder to sneak up on without reaction fire if a Xenonaut unit has been spotted. They'll also try to avoid standing in each others' line of fire. There's also been some improvements with regard to psionics. The aliens should now use them (though you probably won't encounter psionic aliens in this build), but they're also limited to being used on humans in LOS of the alien team. General shooting priority for the aliens should be a bit more sensible now - they'll prioritise more dangerous units (Xenonauts) over harmless units like civilians etc. The AI model will continue to develop; we'll announce more about this in the coming days. - New tilesets: The way we're making our tilesets means that none of them are actually finished yet, but we have now made enough progress on the Arctic, Desert and Middle East tilesets that we can build basic maps out of them. I've not had time to add the maps for the Middle East tilesets yet, but I've put together a couple of maps for the Arctic and Desert tilesets. In both cases the tilesets are far from finished - they don't have their (waist high) cover props in place yet, and a lot of tiles haven't been painted over or fully set up in the game, and the UFO crash sites use the Industrial tileset art - but they should still be fun to spend a bit of time playing with. As I'll mention in our beta plans update in the next few days, I expect to make a lot of progress on the tilesets in the next month or so. - Soldier Role Badges: On the Soldier Equip screen, there are now some big red squares next to the soldier rank icons. These are placeholder icons for the soldier role badges, but the full functionality is there. Clicking (or maybe right-clicking) on the badge will let you equip a soldier with the default loadout for that role, or to change the default loadout for that role, or to change the soldier role. Please test this thoroughly; the coder thinks there's plenty of scope for it to be full of bugs. Unfortunately, there's a few things we were hoping to include that haven't made it into this build because of the wonders of time zones. We'll probably release V16.1 on Monday or Tuesday, which will include the following updates: - Overdamage: This system will set a HP threshold value for items. If it is ever exceeded from a single source of explosive or hypervelocity damage (it's all or nothing) to the alien carrying the items or the tile they are sitting on, the items will be destroyed. Basically, this means you can use tank cannons and missiles to kill aliens if you like, but there won't be much left to recover afterwards. Small arms fire shouldn't destroy any alien equipment. - Soldier Portraits: We should have 41 new soldier portraits to put in the game. They are the first 41 $200+ Kickstarter backers to send us their pictures. I think some of these are really cool, actually. - Improved Tilesets & Middle East Tileset: I'll put together a couple of maps for the Middle East tileset, and we'll have some updates and improvements on the Arctic and Desert tilesets too. - More animations: A bunch of things were rendered out when I was away, which are currently being processed. They should be done for the next build, which will have a load more civilian types for the Town tileset and should have sprites for the Xenonauts using the alien weapons too, with more to follow. Right, with that done, I'm going to go and try the new X-Com! Let me know if there's any critical bugs.

You missed powerstation-blind. That's important too.

It should still be coming tonight, but it seems that the Middle East maps, the overdamage system and the new soldier portraits might have to wait another few days. I've been putting together some basic Arctic and Desert tileset maps to make up for it.

Which one is that, Melkor?

Nice work, SoloA. Particularly so doing all the art yourself!

OK. We do have those image sets in the dev version so I'll try to update them in the next version.

Yeah, that's why I want to get V16 out fairly early tomorrow

In hindsight I'm not sure what I was smoking when I put the T-80 in the design document.

Just a quick note to say V16 isn't going to be arriving today as planned. I'm waiting on two important code commits from the coders and I've not had a productive couple of days thanks to the effort required in getting the office (and our associated computer hardware) set up today and yesterday. I still can't get the game to compile at the office for some reason, but I'm sure I'll fix that tomorrow. Anyway, the major improvements will be enhanced AI (to the point it can now use psionic powers etc) which I'll let GJ explain in more detail tomorrow, the item destructibility system that means using explosive or hypervelocity weapons can destroy the equipment held by units when they are killed or already dead (to give consequences for overkill) and *hopefully* some new maps. Some early test maps for the Desert and Arctic tilesets are a possibility. We're just creating some rock formations etc to make the maps less open and to give them more verticality. A bug in the terrain editor means we couldn't put them in the game today. Also, if all goes well, there'll be a bunch new soldier portraits courtesy of the Kickstarter backers. At some point this week we'll have 41 of the 80 done, but it remains to be seen if we can get all 41 into the build tomorrow. There'll certainly be more though. EDIT - oh, and the first draft of the soldier role system (with customisable one-click loadouts) is in too.

Thanks. Forwarded to the appropriate coder.

Only just seen this mod. Very nice Did you make the images yourself or find them online?

Trashman - heavy missile slots can carry normal missiles in them, but not vice versa, so just make all the missile slots Heavy and you're golden. It's just that you're limited to 4 weapon slots and a cannon fills two of them. AFIAK, you can also set missile weapons to have multiple ammo in aircraftweapons.xml too, if you want to create a Sidewinder "pod" for example. I've not tried it but I was under the impression it worked fine.

Might have been when we were updating the standalones to V15.1 (at last).

Hmm, I think we'll struggle to shed that label, simply because the changes that Firaxis have made in theirs always make the changes we have made pale in conmparison. Yes, it's not completely accurate but if we're getting fleeting mentions in the reviews of AAA games I think it's best to be thankful for that rather than annoyed they don't have their facts 100% straight. But yes, I'll be trying to get some more coverage around beta time (or alpha-plus time) and I'll be sure to talk about the changes in more detail then.

A few people have been asking me if the beta is arriving today as previously planned. Unfortunately, it is not. This has been known for some time, but unless you're a regular forum-goer and read the other announcement threads, perhaps this is not as obvious as it should be. This post is just a short announcement to ensure everyone is aware of this and can easily find the information if they come looking for it. There will be a release either tomorrow or Friday which will contain some new features and the first proper incarnation of the AI model, but it will not be a full beta yet. We'll release a more accurate timeline and details of what still needs to be done (and a revised ETA) along with that build too!

Nope, the Firaxis X-Com seems to be excellent by all accounts. Looking forward to it coming out in the UK now!

I'd hazard a guess it was written by Dan Stapleton then

Also, thinking about it, I guess the Left 4 Dead games might be fun too as they're specifically co-op rather than PvP games. Realm of the Mad God I enjoyed at the time, but that was a while ago and it was a bit limited then.

Uh, DOTA-likes are possibly the worst possible place you can go if you want a welcoming community, simply because a bad player in amongst competent players will lose his team the game (and they'll be angry about it). If you want to try one of them, try League of Legends because it's simpler than DOTA - but still don't expect a friendly welcome until you're at least average at the game. TF2 is a relatively nice multiplayer game if you're not super-skilled (or it used to be at least), and I'm finding Guild Wars 2 pretty decent too - although without much formal grouping going on. Though it probably counts as an MMO, I guess.

That's the thing I'm most actively considering. It's likely the Light Scout will be reduced to not being enterable in either case as it's too small as is, but that still leaves the Scout and Corvette (and possibly the Landing Ship) to play with. I'm undecided anyway. The factors are: 1) The Scout is a bloody stupid shape. If we redo it I can make it two slightly larger rooms that will be easier to see into as they won't have the walls around them, and link them with teleporters, as well as having alternate entry points (though I guess that's not needed as there's aready three doors). 2) We'll probably have to redo the floor of the Corvette if we leave it, and add in some custom-made internal walls. That's not a big thing but it means there won't be as much variation for the Corvette as for the larger UFOs.

I'm aware of this one because they came to me asking for help setting up the non-US Kickstarter. I hope they do well.