Chris

Sounds like the kind of thing I'd say. It probably is right now, but it may well get pared down during testing if it turns out a lot of it is useless filler. It shouldn't be, but as always I fight needless complexity whereever I see it.

Yes, it has been mentioned before. It's not a great use of resources though - in terms of programming and art assets it's a bit of a pain, but also lots of people play the game with regular saving to make sure they don't lose many of their best troops. These players would never see any of those zombie soldiers and that makes it a worse idea to implement an alien race like that rather than another conventional one that would appear in everyone's game.

Hi, it's not currently planned to have a Mac version. We're planning to wait till the game is launched on PC and then sit down and look in detail at the possibility of porting it to Mac and Linux. It's not going to be easy as the engine doesn't natively run there, but we could probably do it using wrappers. I understand the current build works in WINE, though I've not tested it myself.

I think the Xenonauts are probably more interested in shooting up aliens than producing glossy posters, but it's a nice idea. Although the font is quite retro, reminds me of the 1940s (which is sounds like you were trying to avoid).

Yes. I think we'll probably stop the research tree at Laser weapons, and you'll be able to build them too.

So, it's been a long time since we released a new build. This is mostly down to Paypal, I'm afraid, but we have Build V8 due out next weekend (12th / 13th Nov) to make up for it and to dovetail into our full Desura-powered relaunch. Build V7.5 was our first playable 'mission', and Build V8 is meant to be the first playable game of Xenonauts. It probably won't be particularly well balanced, but it will contain all the elements of the final game in at least basic form. It will be iterated several times, as it is intended to These are the improvements over Build V7.5 that will be in Build V8: - Geoscape Save / Load: You are now able to save and load the game on the Geoscape (not yet functional in the ground combat though). Small feature, big usability change. - Title Screen: We've also added the title screen to the game. This gives you 4 difficulty setting options when starting a new game, and also allows key remapping if you so desire. - Research: This has been in the development build for a while, but the next game will contain the first hour or two of the research tree for you to play with. - Interface fixes: largely related to ground combat. A lot of people have commented on V7.5 both online and at the Expo that some things were a bit clunky when controlling your soldiers. We've tried to address them all - there's a few too many to list here. - Fire Control system: If you were not shooting at terrain in an attempt to destroy it, it was previously very difficult to target a specific prop or cover wall because the game wouldn't let you aim at them. Now you can (and you get an accuracy boost because you're specifically shooting at them, not trying to shoot past them). - Vaulting / Mantling: Waist-high walls are no longer the impenetrable barrier they once were! Your soldiers can now vault / mantle over them. - New Cover System: there's been extensive debate on the forums over the merits of the previous cover system versus manual kneeling, as the two were not compatible. Long story short, we've updated the combat system so all kneeling is now manual (as in X-Com) and cover automatically provides a defence bonus when you are in a tile that offers cover. Kneeling increases that bonus, and both makes soldiers harder to hit and gives them an accuracy bonus. However it now also has an AP cost. - Level Editor updates: We've also updated the level editor to better reflect the fact that a crash site can have different types of UFO on it, and different types of dropship too. Essentially these are handled on seperate layers and there is better randomisation of start location. These are the improvements that will appear in build V8.x before it is sent to the press (ie, the stuff we'll be focusing all our development on over the next couple of weeks): - Ground Combat Save / Loading: Important feature for a lot of people. - Ground Combat Difficulty Setting: Currently the difficulty setting only affects the Geoscape. It should also affect the stats of the aliens and their weaponry in the ground combat too. - Correct map loading: With the changes to the level editor, I want to change the game so it correctly loads the UFO type shot down to initiate the map (so you can run both Scout and Corvette crash site missions). - New Animations: We've had to start rendering every single unit in the game again thanks to the changes to the cover system. We'll need all the basic troop animations for the basic weapons in the game before it goes to the press though. - Mission Map randomisation: While the game will still only support one map (the testmap in the Industrial tileset) at this point, I want to improve the map so it shows off the randomisation capacities of the engine. So the buildings won't be the same every time, and hopefully we can show off the UFO / dropship location randomisation too. - UFO tiles (hopefully): This one is still up in the air, but I'd like to get the UFO tiles in the game if possible. We've got a new tile artist who might be able to turn them around quite quickly - it's a bit strange capturing the Evil Alien Shed at the moment... There may be other things that I've forgotten about, but in short there's been some pretty major updates and hopefully the gameplay will be considerably better than before.

Well the actual alien technology tiles are recoverable, just like in X-Com. If you go into a UFO blazing away and destroy everything, you won't have an awful lot to recover. But if you capture it intact... We've gone further than X-Com in the sense that all the alien tiles have an Alien Alloys and Alenium content, so even destroying relatively pointless parts of the UFO still damages the amount of recoverable materials.

I've fixed up these issues now, except for the menu one - I'm not sure that can be easily fixed. If anyone sees any typos etc please let me know. The Chinook actually holds 12 soldiers, I just can't count.

This is normal, forum migration wiped the old accounts so you have to register a new one. The pre-orders will now be distributed via Desura rather than on our forums, and all pre-orderers should recieve a free key and instructions over the weekend. I've sent you a PM about helping us test the system though. If we can get a few people to try it now it should speed everything up a bit.

The medals idea is under consideration as a polishing thing. If we have time, cool. The good news is that our artist who did all the weapon art has returned after a long hiatus and might be up for doing the art for such a thing. No promises though.

The basic idea behind the secondary objectives is that you get bonuses to your score - and the mission score is added directly to (or subtracted from) the relations score of the nation where it occurs. This is distinct from the primary objectives, of which there can be multiple for each mission. These are mission critical and completion or failure of them will cause corresponding mission success or failure. Secondary objectives would be protecting VIP civilians etc. We've not formally implemented them yet. We're open to suggestions as to what they should be - but we can't have any long-term effects arising from these objectives. Relations with the nation in question, a cash sum, or perhaps even a global morale boost are possible, but I don't think a research boost (new projects) would be a good idea. Nor would stat boosts.

Apparently the most lethal animal in the world is the honey badger, which is apparently an unstoppable killing machine. As demonstrated here: Also I find it hilarious that Sathra has been awarded the 'Frequent Poster' award, which is a can of Spam. I knew I put this achievement system in for a reason.

I thought bad guys got green lasers and the good guys got red lasers? Anyway, fundamentally the problem is one of achievement vs. ease of play. We can either have a situation where losing a squad of experienced soldiers can be a real blow to your organisation and possibly ruin a game that is otherwise going badly, or have one where losing a squad of experienced soldiers isn't that bad because you can replace them with the high quality rookies coming in because it's the end of the game (high quality due to any number of systems that have been suggested). To me, we should be going with the former. The game's not meant to be easy, and if you totally screw up then you should be punished for it. It's a shame you got so close to the end of the game before you totally screwed up and lost, but you still screwed up. Really, the trick would be to balance it so that the experienced troops are much better than the rookies, but not so much better that the two are in completely different leagues. I much prefer a system where increased stats give diminishing returns to one where the base stat level of the rookie improves over time to compensate for tougher aliens.

True. Probably should change that. Although it's not compulsory to use my name in every single forum topic you make, I do read them all

You'd think the governments who are expecting them to save their asses might mention them, though.

I'll think about it. It means a lot more artwork, most likely, but I can definitely see the appeal. It won't go in until the beta at the earliest though.

Demo packs will be in the game, and they will have timers. We've got the art done for them, but not the coding. It's on the to-do list tho.

It'd be a nice addition but wouldn't warrant the time we'd have to spend developing it, I think. Frozen Synapse is a multiplayer game, so I think it suits that more.

Site's up now. Desura we're about 80% there (hopefully be up tomorrow), and we'll see what we can do about the Desura / forum integration by the end of the week.

BTW, the Xenonauts are only meant to be secret up until the point the alien invasion starts. After that, they're no longer secret - all the planes and helicopters flying around would give the game away...

Dan, has anyone told you you'd make an excellent Santa?

Everything is running horribly late. We were meant to soft-launch the site last weekend but it's taking longer than anticipated. The new site is now live, but we're still working on the Desura delivery (I think that's my incompetence rather than anything else tho...)

The site originally had image verification, but I changed that to captcha a couple of days back. It didn't seem to slow things down. We now have a question about what type of game Xenonauts is for anyone that wants to register. Hopefully that'll help.

(This news article is copied directly from the News blog on www.xenonauts.com - check it out!) It’s been nearly a month since Paypal shut us down, and the majority of those four weeks have been spent setting up the infrastructure required to take both Xenonauts and Goldhawk Interative forwards from this. The launch of the new Xenonauts website marks the end of this journey, allowing us to finally get back on track with development. Has the last month been wasted, then? I wouldn’t say so. It may seem that little progress has been made on the game, and to an extent it is true that we’ve probably been set back a couple of weeks of development thanks to this eating up all my time. However, there are several notable benefits that have arisen from our new infrastructure. For the community, the most notable of them are the the new forums we have set up at GoldhawkInteractive.com, our corporate site. These forums are powered by vBulletin rather than the integrated Joomla Agora systems we were using before. Consequently they are MUCH sleeker and more usable than before – and they’ll serve us better in the future too, as you won’t have to move forums to keep tracking any games we start producing after Xenonauts is done.We’ve also set up an official Xenonauts wiki, which should provide a valuable resource for anyone interested in modding the game or even just looking for some help understanding what’s going on in the current development builds of the game. The new Xenonauts site is here mostly just to sell the game – I don’t think the previous site did a good enough job of showing the world and the artwork of the game, and didn’t quite reflect the look the game is going for. We’re trying to make Xenonauts appealing to the mainstream as well as the strategy veterans, so the site has to reflect that. I think the previous one could be quite intimidating sometimes. Of course, convincing people to buy the game is useless if they can’t actually buy it – and we’ve now successfully launched our Desura pre-orders, so you can buy the game again! We’ve made a few changes to the pre-order system to mark the move to Desura – firstly, the price of a standard pre-order has fallen from $29.99 to $19.99 and we expect the final game to retail at this price. We’ve also got a Premium pre-order pack available for $29.99, which gets you a custom forum title and some other small goodies, but is mostly for people who want to help the project out as much as they can. If you’ve already pre-ordered the game, we are putting a system in place that will either let you claim a Premium pre-order or take a Standard pre-order and a $10 refund (details on how this will be returned are TBC). Finally, we’ve decided to open out the forums now that Desura are holding our pre-orders. This means the pre-orderers and normal community are no longer segregated, so everyone can participate in the discussions whether or not they’ve pre-ordered the game. I was never happy with effectively splitting the community in two, so now you should all be able to participate whether you’ve given us your money or not!

Mylar - yeah, go for it.