thothkins

Oddly, I always wanted to get to a crash site as quickly as possible, anticipating a game mechanic that wasn't actually there. 'Aliens terrorise Cairo': If you get there in a couple of hours then you get to rescue all of the 8 civilians. If you hang around for half a day, then half of them are already dead by the time you get there, costing you points.

When I typed "environments" I was thinking sea and then space for some reason. But rather than type"sea", which would have been shorter, I went with the confusing "environments." :-) I think everyone would be delighted with underwater missions. But I'd be very, very happy just to have a complete version of the main EU type game in the bag first. Anyway, it wasn't that TFTD was hard. It was that bits of it were dull. Even the OG thought as much. Although he did say that looking back he should have gone with the 6 months to turn TFTD around (which took 12 anyway) and then gone on to Apocalypse. Glad to hear about the different tilesets. What did the original have - Farm, terror town, jungle (darn mutons), desert, polar, their base, your base, cydonia. I seem to remember the sound of gravel or rock, but I didn't see any in my last game so could have been imagining that.

thanks for the toggle roof button reminder. How did I manage to not see that? It practically has dancing XCom soldiers on it. What a difference it makes too.

The thing about having only 1 main base is that it's really tough if it loses a base defence. If you have a second option, then it's not impossible to turn it round. I'd mainly have 1 main base for psionic training, 1 back up base for those who didn't make the psi grade, 1 research, 1 manufacturing and the reast as radar stations. I'd have a few troops stationed at each radar base, in case of attack. The more difficult the level though, then the more I'd have to be focused on making the most of a single base.

TFTD was tough going in places. That was with plenty of enthusiasm for it when it came out. Some of the missions seemed to drag. I remember having a wounded soldier die because his teammate couldn't reach him from across the incredibly long battlescape. A couple of endless hunt the last alien missions, after having already spent ages on the mission getting all the others. I also thought that the sea floor was just a bit..well..dull. COmpared to the barns and building of the first one, there just didn;t seem to be the same creepiness as the first one.

While I'd love to see a game where you have the option of fighting in a variety of environments, it really doesn't look feasible for this one. As already posted there must be a fair number of updates to the land based game that the developers want to do without having to create a whole new game to go along side it.

Hi, welcome to battleship pilot training. Right if you'd just like to sit next to the jar. It's easier for us to put your brain in it, when you're sitting close to it. Hey! Where are you going?

Jeez, imagine having to find space for every UFO that the retrieval team bring back. I guess there were a lot of high explosives used at the crash site to break it up for alloys. Or else there are a lot of Elerium Towers apartments springing up across the globe. Now I'm thinking about it, would it have been cool just to not bother with the Firestorms and Lightnings and just use a captured battleship against the aliens? Another reason why reverse engineering is important so as not to ruin game balance.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the roof bug vanish. Having said that, there are few enough aliens around that posting two guys in the 2 main buildings is fine. Getting into some of the UFOs is a real pain without racking up some injuries. Joe Capricorn: Hey, why is Jodrel Bamks standing on his head? Darwin Jones: Well, either the Ethereals are really working on their mind control or the dev team are mucking around with the 2d again.

still... it's either an accurate quote or it isn't....and ..um..it isn't. :-) Even if the article does support the quote and it's not at all like the movie reviews. "There are classic horror movies. This is definitely not one of them." becomes "There are classic horror movies. This is...one of them." :-) You mean the probes aren't always free? What's the point in joining an UFO forum if you can't get abducted for free probing...

I’d like to also see the base impacted by the type & frequency of alien mission likely in that funding nation, in addition to providing some basic changes. So, nipping back to EU UFOPedia:- Alien Research – Usually happens in larger Military/ Industrial areas, so high for the USA and low for Australasia. Alien Harvest – Usually happens in livestock areas, so high in Soviet Union/ Australasia and low for Central America. Alien Abduction – usually occurs in cities or built up areas apparently, so high for Europe and USA and low for Australasia/ Soviet Union. Alien Infiltration – Geopolitical in nature so High for Europe and Middle East, but low for Central America. Alien Base – Aliens feel safer in remote locations, so High for South America and Australasia but low for Europe. Alien Terror – Either occur in areas they don’t attract attention to their own base or in the larger funding nations to destabilise them. Alien Retaliation – Aliens would find it harder to attack bases tucked away in South America or under a major city. Any of the above funding nations used as examples could alter depending on your viewpoint/ balance considerations. But they would be good to have in addition to a number of the other variables, some mentioned above. These I’d like to see literally come with the territory, rather than being bonuses as such.:- Facility Construction time Mission Window Duration Soldier Cost Scientist Cost Technician Cost Aircraft/ Vehicle cost Weapons cost Equipment Cost Research times Workshop times Alien scoring (Propaganda)- reduces effects of alien activities on that nation’s funding. Espionage (Infiltration prevention) – your tireless little spies oust alien doppelgangers and rogue MIBs, keeping countries free for their own manipulations later. Other thoughts:- Tech Specialty – that nation either is the only one to be able to provide that equipment or research. With collaborative research, this could push players to have labs in more than one base. Spheres of influence – Each of the funding nations has ties to the others that will impact the funding of others should they come under attack, or for that matter be really pleased with your organisation. If either USA or Soviet Union sign a pact, you’re in real trouble. Black Market – All that stuff you sell is directed to one of the finding nations. They will use this to bolster their own defences and goals, and lessen their ties to your organisation. This will reduce player’s willingness to sell off everything they get. Anyway, my Chinook couldn’t make one of the crash sites, and I had to let the aliens have their wicked way with the livestock. So, I can see a need for a second Chinook.

I think it's easier to see all of the UFO impacts on shipping etc on the flat map. If it was on 3d I'd have a concern that the globe would swing round for every incident, while I'm trying to do something. I guess you could turn that off, but then you'd miss out on the incidents. The 2d one grew on me.

You know how it is. You're playing a tense tactical mission and one of the troops does something that will make him memorable in your eyes for the rest of the game. An amazing shot, cunningly using civilians as human shields or simply just a knack for always being the guy in the thick of it. Invariably the soldier gets some sort of nickname as a memento of their actions. While, you can change the call sign and technically can insert this, the field isn't long enough to put it between his name, particularly some of the Eastern European ones. Likewise, I generally assign equipment based on attributes. So, the guy with the highest strength gets the rocket launcher. Now, while the game remembers the equipment, I seem to lose mine whenever the soldier goes off to the infirmary. It would be nice to be able to insert something in there that specialises the soldier’s function, and keep the rank and full name. Again, this would either be an extension to the call sign field, or one just below it. A small request in the huge scheme of things, but one that I'd be really pleased with. I've read lots of war stories of players bonding with their little troops, so it may add something to the experience. The game already does things like soldier backgrounds and I see there are medals in the assets folder, but I'd like something that I could personalise for myself. A little text box to put in notes, or memorable moments would be nice too...

Europe, then USA and then Japan for me. More coverage and funding. although reading the above I could easily say Europe for where the base in the novel is/ USA for Area 51 and Japan for the very first pre-XCom anti alien forces.:-)

It's interesting being kept up with the development info. Thanks for that. I've plenty of 9.2 to keep me busy, but already looking forward to terror missions and base defences.

I agree with this. Ideally, there should be plenty of squad specialisations available, with each weapon type having it's place in the scheme of things.

Penny pinching on X-Com. That's me. I always recall pumping lots into facilities and mainly research, so that there wasn't much left to spare. I often didn't want to spend needlessly, when there were upgrades around the corner. I think I pretty much ordered three autocannons and that was about it. It made for some great standoffs against Cyberdiscs. >shakes fist in air< Bah! Cyberdiscs!

I could have sworn I just did that. Must have been really late last night. Perhaps the grounded UFO took off before I got there, but I thought I was at least allowed to redirect the Chinook. I distinctly remmeber wondering if the troops injured int he first battle would be out of the second one.

Hi, I honestly thought that the infinite rifles and clips was just for the alpha, and that it would cost when the game was further along :-) I do remember not being able to give everyone Autocannons early on in EU. Perhaps I was just being frugle. It did make a bifg difference to those early missions though. It's a fair point about a funded military operation rationing the rifle clips, but I saw the likes of the heavy cannon and Auto cannon as being advanced, if not alien, weaponry that came with a cost.

I liked the use of Psionics in EU. Particularly the first couple of months when the soldiers were trying it out. The problem was that the aliens lost their superiority as X-Com became just as proficient, if not more so. It also tapped into UFOlogy with the idea of Psychotronics. So long as the aliens would still be much better at it, I'd like to see the Xenonauts with the capability too. Say a small chance to panic aliens, while the aliens still have mind control, for example. Something that would make it worth specialising a xenonaut in to add some difference into the squad. I'd prefer that to what I thought was a cop out in Apocalypse by having so many of the critters immune to psionics.

Heh One of the posters also mentioned that there was silence before the first game, and then suddenly, like a UFO dropping out of hyperspace to terrorise cattle in Idaho, it was released. Actually, there's something nice about the lack of teasing with every magazine showing exactly the same information. I always thought an exclusive was something a single person or paper would have, not a press conference with all of them at the same time. If BMan's involvement was still going I can't see me not buying it immediately and enjoying it.

I really enjoyed the first one. I played it not long after the first mods were available, and they made a huge difference to the gameplay. It's well worth the pennies. There's a Godl edition available from Steam that incorporates a number of the mods and is a bit of a bargain at just under a tenner. It has plenty of technology teirs to research and manufacture, lots of weapon options and the tactical maps are X-Com like. There is a meta plot, although it's a lot more hidden than the X-COm games and it lacks those links to UFOlogy that I think are an essential backdrop. It also has the plot in reverse which makes it suffer a little. There are plenty of mods around for it, so it's a lot of fun tweaking. It does look as though not a lot is happening to the sequel. I was over at UFO scene earlier and there's no news there either that I saw. Fingers crossed it's because they are all so busy with the final touches. It really doesn't look like it though.

I downloaded a copy of the game from Desura (sp?) today. I'd been nosing around for a while so I just typed in "Xenonauts download". I didn't see the 9.1 version but a prominent link was to an 8.x one. I saw that before I saw the official site. Piracy is endemic despite the closure of a number of torrent sites. They just seem to have moved to Japan, Russia and China. It's almost inevitable that the games get leaked. Not that this is any excuse. I just wonder what the true balance is - all the people who get their first exposure to the game from that download and later versions and then support it longer term against all those who would have bought it now funding it's continued development and refinement. I'd rather have the cash in the bank. What if I had seen the link to the 9.1 download and thought "Hey, I'll try this one and see if I like it enough to buy it." Would I sink in my pennies after that or would I just wait until the next pirate release? I remember that the site of Titan's Quest basically blamed piracy for preventing the company from getting enough revenue to continue, let alone tweak it. By the time I discovered the game, it had already closed it's doors.

Hi everyone! Pleased to have finally made the jump into getting the game. I've been looking at it for quite a while now. I loaded up Steam X-Com last week and it's lost none of it's magic. I'm hoping that this will be a worthy successor to it. In the far distant past I played Rebelstar Raiders on my bouncy keyed Spectrum and most of it's successors. Then X-Com was reviewed in the Fortean Times and I picked that up for the Amiga, not knowing of the connection for number of years. A number of reimaginings/reboots/resets/sequels later and I'm still pretty much hooked by it. I'm looking forward to discussing the game with you all.