Chris

We've already signed a contract with Steam so I doubt we'll have to worry about this, but it's certainly a good thing to have there for the future,

Yeah, you can't transfer them from one base to another. Apparently this is very difficult to code as currently scientists / engineers are not treated as items, so we're probably just not going to include it.

I'll have a look at it later. The important thing is, is it fun? EDIT - actually, just looking at the stats, 60 mitigation AND 200 dmg is a bit excessive. I'll move it down to 120 dmg.

IceVamp, is your portrait not displaying?

The problem is not having access to the game's source code, so we don't have any say in how the sprites are imported and we're stuck with the stupid system. OK, maybe I won't remove the combat shield then. People seem to be quite keen on them.

Adding hypervelocity ammo to sniper rifle ammo should be very easy indeed, as it is an ammo property rather than a weapon property.

If everything is #### then it means the strings.xml hasn't downloaded properly. It might be worth checking with Desura support really, sounds like it's struggling with delivering the sheer number of files involved in our game...

Shouldn't be in the standard branch though. Strange. Maybe I compiled the wrong branch...

This is going to become more of an issue in beta. We're already cutting down the number of spritesheets in the game to save download time, but in beta they'll all be there. It'll take longer to download for that reason, and the sheer number of sprites and tiles means it'll take even longer to verify. Not fun.

Korval - it's only been set for a few windows so far. Maybe I'll update all the tiles and do another release tomorrow, we'll probably use the Quick Battle for the Rezzed Expo this weekend so I should really get it sorted before then.

So it's been a while since I posted up a major status update, beyond the changelog with each new build. Here's what's been going on a Goldhawk recently. The elephant in the room over the past few months was the Kickstarter - and to an extent, it still is. Has it been a success? We raised a lot of money. But it took us a good 6 weeks of planning, of which I think probably three weeks was time spent on other things than development, and then I probably lost a good two weeks during the Kickstarter itself to PR work, and it'll probably be another two weeks after the Kickstarter to deal with all the rewards. Was it worth the stress and diverted effort? I'd say it has been. It raised a lot of money, put us in touch with a new audience that would not otherwise have seen the game, and it's expanded the scope of the game a bit in several good ways (female soldiers, linux / mac ports that will allow us to do the Humble Bundle in future, adding a variety of in-game systems like suppression etc). There's also a lot to be said for milestones - they're hell at the time, but they're a great motivator. In a wider business context, it's also forced the issue of how the business is run. Previously I was operating as a sole trader but with the Kickstarter money arriving I've now formally transferred all the assets to Goldhawk Interactive Ltd. This means lots of admin, like opening a whole new set of bank accounts. Two bits of good news - this will let us back onto Paypal, and also we've now got a dollar denominated UK account too. This should save us a bit of money as lots of US people buy our game and we pay a lot of contractors in USD, but previously it always needed to go via GBP first. Foreign exchange fees can account for up to 5% of the value of the transaction every time you do a cross-currency trade, but that should be costing us far less in future. So that'll be nice. But needless to say, all the accounting admin associated with that has been a complete nightmare...but is now finished and is a load off my shoulders. I'm pleased to announce we're also hiring our first physical employee - our tile artist (he produces the 3D building / prop models that are painted over by the 2D artists). He'll be joining the team on a full-time basis once he's worked his three month notice period at his current job. His role on the team will obviously initially be to get the tilesets finished and populated with a good number of props, but in the long term he'll be taking some of the production and low-level design responsibilities off me. We're looking at the level designer vacancy at the moment, too. We have two people currently doing test maps for the role, and we'll make a decision as to which one to hire at the end of the week. Once they're hired they'll be in charge of generating new maps and getting the tile sprites etc set up properly and consistently. That's a big drain on my time, so generally I just don't do it. With someone else handling it, it should add a lot more variation to the game and get everything working much better. On the code front, the game is progressing well - you've probably seen we've added a lot of features to the game in the past two builds, which is always nice. We're currently in the middle of testing the medal system and the bleeding wounds system should be in the next build too. Looking beyond that, there's not a lot more work to do until we're feature complete. I'll post up a full list so people can point out where I've not included things I've promised I would, just so I don't miss anything! The rendering of the animated sprites is also going well. We've tweaked our render process and this ended up with a 300% render speed increase, so things are rattling along at quite a rate. There are 5 human armour suits that can use all the weapons, and we've done all the rendering for the first three tiers of normal weapons. We're in the middle of rendering out the final tier of guns, and then we'll be onto the more specialist weapons. The only issue here is the sheer size of the weapon sprites. Each weapon / armour combination is about 10 - 15mb, and the folder with the Xenonaut units in it is already over 1gb in size. I'm currently considering whether we'll want to cut out the Combat Shield and the Assault Shield, as each one of those needs to be rendered with 7 different weapons in the other hand for 5 different armour types, giving a total of 70 extra weapon / armour sets and nearly a 1gb increase to the size of the game to add effectively one item type. Particularly when we can add flashbangs instead. It'd save a bit of time on the coding front too. That'd mean we'd hopefully have all the Xenonaut units rendered and in the game by the end of the month. In the tile front we've started work on a couple of new tilesets. We started working on the Middle Eastern desert tilesets and then I figured it might be easier just to recolour some of the ground tiles into two desert sets. So we're going to have a Middle Eastern desert tileset (example) and a US / Africa style desert tileset (example). They will have some overlap but should look different enough for it to work. We've also been working on the UFO tiles, so now all the vital components of the UFOs that need to be captured have their tiles done. A lot of them are animated too. I'll be putting all them in the game for testing purposes shortly. There are two major things that may delay the game - the first are the tilesets, and the sheer scale of them. Our full-time tile artist will solve a lot of these problems when he joins up, but that's still three months away yet. My biggest concern, however, is the AI. Sadly we've just lost another AI coder, this one just disappearing off the face of the Earth entirely. This happened about five weeks ago now, but one of the difficulties with remote teams is it takes a while to work through. He reported in weekly anyway, so it took about two weeks for me to realise that there was a problem, then another week of enquiry emails asking what was going on before a final week of waiting to see if they respond to your ultimatum. Then there was an extra week of me being in denial, as AI's been such a thorn in our side recently. Anyway, I'm going to post the job up today along with our other vacancies and will also announce it on Kickstarter and Twitter in the hope of finding a new AI coder promptly. In our favour, I think we'll be able to build on the work done by the last guy rather then starting from scratch, and we can afford a good guy too. But still, it's something I could have done without... But overall, it's been a good few months. Posting up milestones should make things a bit clearer for everyone where we are too!

Bleh. That'll need a hotfix.

No need to apologise.

Julian Gollop is welcome to pay $100 and put his name in there, just like everyone else I get the impression he's fairly ambivalent about seeing other people cash in on the genre he created too, given that the companies he works for have never really let him have another tilt at it.

Enough mockery, chaps.

It's not been approved by Desura on either branch yet. I'll pester them when I see one of them online on Skype. Jimbo - no, not yet. Thanks for the reminder though, I'll put that on the to-do list for the next update. I'll write a longer post on general progress today, which will include ports and the wider issues.

Build V12.1 has been uploaded to Desura and has been released. It is not yet uploaded to the Desura client-free download links though. It takes them a while to clone and upload it. The new build adds a variety of new features and does some balancing of the suppression system. It should also fix the CTDs from the last build. A couple of important things to note - Matthew has been having computer problems so this build has not been very well tested internally. It's possible it might be extremely unstable. Secondly, things have got to the point where I'm only making very cursory efforts to sanitise the builds as every time I remove something to keep it "secret" it runs the risk of causing more stability issues in the build. I've just taken most of the art and research / manufacturing out, but you may well still be able to encounter parts of the game that are beyond the scope of the alpha if you play long enough. Obviously these won't work very well for you. I'll post up a seperate development update later today. And without further ado, the update notes are below: New Features: Animated Tiles: We’ve added support for animated tiles in the ground combat maps. This will initially mostly be used for alien technology (it’ll be a visual representation that something is valuable and should not be destroyed) but we’ll roll it out as widely as possible before release. The UFO Power Source tile inside Scout and Corvette UFOs is now animated. Morale System: The morale system has been expanded a bit, so when troops suffer a “morale event” they will either panic and lose all their Aps, drop their weapon and flee, or go berserk and fire off their weapon. The system can now be customised by modders. It’s been tweaked so troops should be a bit braver too, hopefully it’s not gone too far the other way. Pre-generated soldiers: All the Kickstarter soldiers have been added to the game and can be accessed by anyone. Instructions on how to do so here: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/2362-Pre-Generated-Soldier-List EMP Damage: We’ve added EMP damage to the game. This is a third type of damage (along with normal and stun damage) that can be set for weapons and it only affects robotic units and vehicles. The only early-game weapon that causes this is the stun baton but there will be dual stun / EMP grenades in the beta. Smoke Grenades: These have been added to the game. They are starting items and available in unlimited amounts, and when thrown they generate a cloud of smoke in the blast area. This smoke will reduce accuracy of anything firing through it. Smoke now only causes stun damage to a unit once per turn, instead of every tile they walk through causing a new stun damage attack. Hypervelocity Projectiles: if these projectiles strike an object, they will do enough damage to destroy it and will then continue down their flight path until their damage potential is exhausted (so you can potentially shoot through a building and out the other side). The first example of this is the AP rocket, which is a starting rocket launcher ammunition type, but more powerful weapons that use this will appear in the beta. Windows: There are now designated window tiles in the submap editor. Any projectile that strikes them is temporarily counted as a hypervelocity projectile, so it will do enough damage to shatter the window then keep flying along its flight path. So you can now shoot aliens through windows. Delete Save Button: There’s now a “Delete Save” button on the Load Game screen, so you don’t have to have old saves cluttering up your display! Female Soldier Spawn Rate: This is now customisable in gameconfig.xml (search “femaleSoldierChance” ) so if you want a team with more or less women you’re free to do so. Balance Tweaks: The suppression values for all the weapons have been tweaked so roughly 20% less suppression is caused by all weapons. We’ve added a check to the suppression formula to prevent friendly units close to the firing soldier getting suppressed (this “safe” radius around the shooter is the same width as suppression the radius of the weapon). Alien non-combatants have increased bravery to stop them getting suppressed far more easily than alien soldiers. Their lighter armour means they’ll still be a bit easier to suppress though. The Hunter / Ferret armoured car should now correctly cause suppression. The ballistic machinegun has a significantly higher burst fire cost now. Smoke and all gas types now only cause damage once per turn, either when the unit starts a turn in it or when they first enter it. Moving into further tiles of the same gas type will not cause additional damage. Moving into further tiles of a new gas type will apply damage from the new gas type though. Bugfixes: When shot, female soldiers should now have female injury / death sounds. Less CTDs, hopefully. Unfortunately Matthew is having computer problems so I don’t have a full bugfix list but I think we’ve fixed the major CTDs from the last build.

If there's no options in the dropdown it means the game is not picking up a graphics card. Do you have the drivers installed for your laptop's integrated card?

I'm still working on it. Matthew's having some computer problems so I'm not sure whether to release an untested build or wait till he's sorted out.

Nope. In game terms they're identical to normal soldiers.

If you have paid to have a pre-generated soldier in the game during the Kickstarter for Xenonauts 1, you can now access them. This post contains a list of all the pre-generated soldiers in the code and their respective numbers. To find your soldier, just do a Ctrl + F on the list and search for their name. To access your soldier in the game, go to the Options screen on the Main Menu. At the bottom of the screen is a "Force Soldier" box. If you type the number of a soldier into that box, that soldier will always appear in your starting squad when you begin a new game. You can force up to twelve soldiers; simply put a ";" after each number and then enter the next soldier number. Using this method you can fill your entire starting squad with pre-generated soldiers if you so desire. Feel free to trade soldier numbers with other forum members - I'm number 0 if people want me on their team! Please check your soldiers, as there are so many of them that we cannot check them ourselves. Email me at chris@xenonauts.com if a correction is needed. Also, numerous soldiers have been changed because the submitted information does not fit in the game - for instance, some people wanted regiments that did not exist in 1980 (when the game was set). If I've changed your info and you're not happy with it, email me and we can discuss the situation. Here's the list: //0 - Chris England //1 - Kris Thaler //2 - Brett Cronin //3 - Uzma Shera //4 - Igor Burdin //5 - James MacKinlay //6 - Mervyn Peake //7 - Jacob Bertelsen //8 - Hamish Livingstone //9 - Jim McKeon //10 - Alexander Bishop //11 - Mike Malette //12 - Mozto Beuleneumel //13 - Erik Banner //14 - Rob Evans //15 - Phillip Andersen //16 - Harry Yeo //17 - Felix Sargant //18 - John Thothkins //19 - Nobuhiro Fukamachi //20 - John Gabriel //21 - Tom Bitmead //22 - Nikko de Borja //23 - Markus Kittila //24 - Max Bell //25 - Jacob Aune //26 - Zed Sorin //27 - Pavel Beluh //28 - David Kaufman //29 - David Tran //30 - Katriina Anisimoff //31 - Elling C. Hauge //32 - Tor-Eilif Hargaut //33 - Vadim Sumin //34 - James Knight //35 - Rene Luking //36 - Mark Doherty //37 - Alex Thompson //38 - Joshua Northey //39 - Matt Leung //40 - Adam Rauh //41 - Jorn Grote //42 - Jonas Bergdahl //43 - Jatinder Singh //44 - Jakko Salomaa //45 - Eric Wier //46 - Colin Tate //47 - Markuz Voronin //48 - Lari Kukkonen //49 - David Conk //50 - Dennis Haug //51 - Stevan Barnes //52 - Alex Valero //53 - Andrew Panter-Brick //54 - Michael R. James //55 - Scott Carlsson //56 - Scott Anderson //57 - Andy Shum //58 - Ray Soderland //59 - Erik Marcille //60 - Nathaniel Ford //61 - Ben Tan //62 - Max Zettlmeissl //63 - Benjamin Glatt //64 - Henry Williams //65 - Irina Pinjaeva //66 - Blake Kiefer //67 - Alexey Kruglyakov //68 - Malek Annabi //69 - Mike Kullman //70 - Tommy Melchiore //71 - Julian Tschannen //72 - James Alaly //73 - Ray Barilaro //74 - Jeffry Fletcher //75 - Andrew Nagel //76 - Ryan Lord //77 - Jack England //78 - Lasse Sandstone //79 - Benjamin Wenker //80 - Nikolai Laneski //81 - Dan Masek //82 - Maxim Terletskiy //83 - James Young //84 - Simon Blackler //85 - Dave Lepley //86 - Frank Raskow //87 - Ryan Rousseau //88 - Alec Pearson //89 - Brian Sharp //90 - Erik Wilson //91 - Daniel Andersen //92 - Antti Blomberg //93 - Truls Borg //94 - Simon Gutteridge //95 - Keith Burnett //96 - Rob Holland //97 - Gustavo de Oliveira //98 - Malabrega Regalia //99 - Jonathon Scott //100 - David MacArthur //101 - Denis Bogdanas //102 - Jonathan Vessey //103 - Justin Jay //104 - Eric Wertzler //105 - Kevin Swindlehurst //106 - Charles Buschmann //107 - David Novak //108 - Jerry Fu //109 - Samuel Boham //110 - Viktor Petrov //111 - Lee Adams //112 - Thomas Melberg //113 - Daniel Compton //114 - Einar Gunnarsson //115 - Kevin Leach //116 - Zhanna Zhivanevskya //117 - Allan Sanseau //118 - Noel Hanson //119 - Pavel Galagan //120 - Phil Hartwich //121 - Ryan Quinn //122 - Jan Nortmeyer //123 - Seth Klenowski //124 - Vincent Ecuyer //125 - Andrew Spruce //126 - Adam Wick //127 - Goose Fishkin //128 - Robert Rudd //129 - Angus McQuarrie //130 - Francois Peens //131 - Jason Marcinko //132 - Nathaniel Drake //133 - Jon Hambrick //134 - James Miller //135 - Cory Cross //136 - Lazar Kaminski //137 - Eric Nielsen //138 - Lukasz Serbenski //139 - Jimmy Hsieh //140 - Andrey Ivanov //141 - Dag Sindre Bjugn //142 - Nick Hodgman //143 - Alexander Ruin //144 - Rory McBride //145 - Tom Minnick //146 - Ryan Clark //147 - Jens Wiechers //148 - Gregers Steffensen //149 - Mats Tonnehag //150 - Jon Shale //151 - Tristan Brianson //152 - Benzo Karino //153 - Josh Eales //154 - William Fitzgerald //155 - Nathan Fursa //156 - Marcel Kuipers //157 - Odin Stepp //158 - Lindsey Heaven //159 - Ken Orwin Paul //160 - Michael Pierzynski //161 - Jarryd Whittemore //162 - Kelvin Mui //163 - Griffin Fairchok //164 - Jasper T. Fernandes //165 - Doran Chamberlain //166 - Olivier Riedo //167 - Joni Turpeinen //168 - Johan Nielsen //169 - Jacob Rieck //170 - Charlie Walters //171 - Leonitus Higley //172 - Andrei Sokolov //173 - James Maleski //174 - Caela Hlinstead //175 - Gregg Re //176 - Ken Chang //177 - Steven Mohrbacher //178 - Benny McFrase //179 - Leendert Kollmer //180 - David Solch //181 - Mike Quach //182 - Chris L'Etoile //183 - Toni Harkonen //184 - David Diamant //185 - Talyn Majenkov //186 - David Stopple //187 - Peter Holthaus //188 - Sabra Marie //189 - Marcus Wishchik //190 - James McIntyre //191 - Ian McDonald //192 - Craig Dolan //193 - Thomas Kramer //194 - Norwyn Schultze //195 - Yrjo Peussa //196 - Taka Akita //197 - Alexandre Woelfle //198 - Mark Pulliam //199 - Jesse Serdante //200 - Ruiz Bennett //201 - Dereck Scott //202 - Matthew Byars //203 - Joe Chan //204 - Thomas Helms //205 - Steve Kelly //206 - Chad Redtorik //207 - Peter Cox //208 - Max Goldberg //209 - Maciej Lewandowski //210 - Carl Uebelhart //211 - James Siddle //212 - Reid M. Glanzer //213 - Charlie Tunoku //214 - Edmund Ward //215 - Sylvie Gautier //216 - David Finn //217 - Matt Geist //218 - Joshua Pense //219 -Motzko Beuleneumel //220 - Tass Chapman //221 - Kseniya Kirova //222 - Lee Stephen //223 - Aaron Ashbrooke //224 - Mikkel Due //225 - Curtis Sheu //226 - Jan Shoebel //227 - Steven Descoteaux //228 - Matthew Davis //229 - David Chien

There is minor transparency in place already, you can see it on the Chinook's walls when a mission starts. We'll just have to set all the walls in the game to do it properly in beta.

The difficulty would be reaction fire etc. I think it'd be better to offer options on how fast the civilians move etc so the player can change them to their own preferences.

Quartermaster - feel free to PM me with questions if you have any when we update things. I don't check the forums as much as I used to so that'll definitely get my attention. I think the isMelee command is the important one of the two, I'm not sure "melee" type does anything any more.

Nice. Did you do that yourself or just cut together the existing art?