Chris

We're aiming to have a basic AI model in place for Build V9. Unfortunately I'm not very good with AI so I just got a specialised AI programmer and told him to code it. I'll have to see what he comes out with, but fingers crossed it'll be something good. I know about it at a high level, but essentially the idea is that we'll hack some kind of basic multiplayer mode into the game and play a few games between the two of us with one person controlling the aliens and one person controlling the humans, and we'll base the AI model on how the humans play the aliens.

The Workshop being highlighted on the wall sign is just to show how the sign would look if you mouseovered it. By default it would not be highlighted. For Base 2, you'd be able to hire 8 soldiers as you've currently got 42/50 living space. But that does raise a valid point - the number on the right will have to show total Living Space at that base, minus the number of soldiers and technicians already there (rather than just the Living Space in that base). I'd not thought of that until just now.

Because I initially thought most of the V9 features would have to be included in it in order to fix the civilian bug, but then I managed to disable them.

The original air combat is pretty poor. It's very difficult to have multiple aircraft in a single battle, or indeed different types of weapon or different aircraft types with different abilities in it, because it's such a simplistic system. The only way to improve on the old system was to tear it out and start again, because X-Com had taken its air combat model as far as it will go. So no, we can't really go back to it I'm afraid. The air combat does require more work but it won't be making it less complex.

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Like most aliens, it makes holes in anything unlucky enough to be standing nearby.

This is just a quick update for the game, designed to fix the issues with all the civilians being hostile and all the aliens spawning as Androns (which meant they didn't have the correct sprites and didn't drop Plasma Pistols, which are an important part of the tech tree). Both these were effectively making the game unplayable. Changelog: Civilians will no longer appear as aliens on ground combat missions. Pressing the hotkey for crouching will no longer execute the action twice The combat GUI is raised from the bottom of the screen, allowing it to be used as scroll area. Xenonaut soldiers can now be healed even when standing on alien corpses

For clarification, it IS meant to be a speech bubble. It's just a question of presentation really. I'm still undecided. Straight edges are easier to do in game terms.

The reason the research projects are at the bottom is because: a) You're more likely to have a print out of current project status than you are of, say, small talk - so it's more logical to have that on a clipboard. b) The clipboard can be relatively unobtrusive if only a few projects are in progress. c) It's what people come to the screen to see - it needs to be accessible immediately on reaching the screen. There's less space on the clipboard than in the speech bubble so I don't really want to swop them around. Raising the clipboard obscures a lot more of the background and of the scientist too so isn't the ideal solution.

I think we've got it solved now actually, but thanks for the offer Okim

Ah yes, the Xenopedia slide needs an update. Thanks for spotting that.

The resolution thing is a massive pain in the ass to be honest with you. I have no idea why it's behaving like it is. Perhaps we can rip it all out and replace it in beta, but we'll see.

I'm just joking. I was hoping to get the same kind of reaction you get when you tell a Scot, Welshman or Irishman that "they're basically just English" (although perhaps less violent).

Yeah grenades probably need some more work. I think we'll polish up the grenade model a bit more in beta to be honest.

Basically the training system we had in mind didn't really add anything to the game, so we removed it. It was a fairly pointless layer of management that did nothing if it was not very powerful and replaced combat (which defeats the point of the game) if it was powerful enough to make a difference.

Hmmm, thought I'd replaced all references to the F4. Let me know if you find it and I'll update. Re: the MiG, it's actually meant to be the MiG-31 but they all basically look the same so I think the artist may have mixed his reference images up a bit.

Usually it's authorised within 6-24 hours. If you have a pre-order it should appear as a little symbol on your Play screen.

What? There's more than one country in Scandanavia? :0

Iron man mode is active by default on Veteran but can be turned off. On Insane it cannot be disabled.

I'm afraid that holds true. This is a nice shout out to the original X-Com too.

Sounds like you've turned on Iron Man mode, or forgotten to disable it.

I'll probably use the second one, to be honest. I like pretty things. Yes, some UFOs spawn with a single escort, but which one is the escort doesn't really matter all told. They're usually different craft so you can just remember.

Both, and yes. About the small talk option, it will unlock further into the game for this character. The other two will talk to you from the start, and basically it gives you some information on the characters background and life in the base. New dialogue options will unlock as more research is unlocked. The people on the Research, Workshop and Barracks screens (the Personnel screen is changing to be soldier focused and being renamed) are the only three people in the game you'll see in any detail, so it made sense to use them as method of giving the character interaction and improving immersion. If you're not a fan of that sorta thing, don't click on it. It won't affect the game in any way. The scientist is meant to be narky, obviously. The other two guys are much friendlier. He'll be more memorable this way, rather than completely generic. It's also possible we can move the clipboard up to show all ongoing research projects up to a cap of 5. No idea why anyone would want more than 5 ongoing at once...

I've added an extra image to the orginal post to show some nicer UFO art rather than the top-down view. Do people prefer that or is the top-down art better?

I want it to, depends on how much money we have and how fast we can get it done.