Snarks

It's all about the timing. Releasing cards now might be too early and get the game bad press. Releasing them at release might lose out on potential publicity once the novelty loses out. My hunch is that the majority of people are smart enough to recognize the early access status of a game although people have been known to be really stupid at times.

Is there no additional information on what kind of game will be developed? Could we submit a project proposal but not an application? If we submit a polished game design document and it gets a lot of support from the community, developer, potential new project lead, etc. would it at least get considered? This looks to be a golden opportunity, but I'm a busy student with a part time job that's preparing for graduate school which means I won't have the time to commit. I wouldn't want any of the profits, or even care about having my name on the credits. Just having an idea get turned into a game would be more than enough.

First off, I want to say that I'm not someone who really cares about the whole trading cards thing that Steam has going, but there are a few reasons why Xenonauts should do them anyways. 1) Steam trading cards seem easy to implement. From what I can gather, it's mostly just artwork and some fluff description. A lot games including those with small development teams seem to have been able to do it (e.g. Prison Architect). 2) It will help sell the game. Practically all of us here bought Xenonauts because we are fans of the tactical turn based shooter genre, so it doesn't apply to us. It will apply, however, to the people who do care about Steam trading cards. A little extra money and attention from those people probably won't hurt. 3) It doesn't have to be implemented now. The trading cards can probably be added later when the game is well polished. Although I think implementing the trading cards sooner rather than later will help more since there's a relatively small number of games that have them. Implementing the cards later will mean less of a spotlight for Xenonauts. Tl;dr Implement steam trading cards because it seems to be a cheap way to get extra attention and money.

I think the proper thing to do is to make the local forces' weapons unavailable as loot. Maybe flag it somehow so that it'll disappear after the mission. Also, doesn't it seem a bit strange that farmers and cops would have access to laser weapons? I figured that special forces and a few select normal armies would have access, but there wouldn't be enough mass manufactured to give to everyone, particularly civilians.

This realism/immersion problem could have been avoided if we didn't use ranks as measures of skill. If we really wanted to be realistic, then officers and enlisted troops would practically run on separate paths since in real life, it's rare for enlisted men to actually become officers. Maybe someone can mod the names and have something like: Recruit -> Grunt -> Agent -> Specialist -> Veteran -> Crack -> Elite -> Ace -> Legend On another note, I would actually like to see a mod where you have soldiers and officers as separate entities. Officers would give squad bonuses, but you could only take one (or maybe two with research or something) per transport.

I believe the eventual AI goal is to have the aliens work together as a team. The latest AI patch simply gave them rudimentary behaviors, but it still lacks the teamwork element. I do wonder how that'll affect balance and tactics when you have to contend with more aliens at a given time, from possibly different directions as well.

Hm, that's a really neat and immersive idea, but I'm not sure if Goldhawk even has plans to do DLCs or expansions.

I definitely agree. The only time I ever feel like I'm engaging in urban, door-to-door combat is when an alien is hiding inside a building (which makes sense), but all too often the urban combat is just the usual long range outdoors engagement on the streets with the alien hiding behind a concrete traffic slab. Some scenarios where space management is important can add some really fun variation to the usual.

I'm a little worried that this might lead to squad composition where 1 or 2 guys scout (probably with a pistol) while everyone else sits back and bombards the enemy with machine gun fire, sniper fire, and rocket launchers, making assault rifles and shotguns even less appealing than they are now. The idea should be that assault rifles and shotguns should be the most versatile and thus more prevalent on the battlefield to account for changing conditions. On another note, it does seem that LMGs boost stats more quickly than other weapons. I just ran a new game where the LMG troop had an increase in strength, TU, accuracy, and HP while everyone else only got accuracy and TU despite him not really doing that much more if any. This is a problem because our playtesting experience may be skewered by LMG troops being better baseline due to higher stat increases.

I would like for the unit order to be rearranged. It would be helpful for organizing my fireteams. I agree with Gizmo's rearrangement proposal on the equipment loadout screen.

It was a Kickstarter goal (that wasn't reached), but I don't think it would be that hard to implement. A basic memorial list with names and ranks would be all that's required, but additional features such as portrait, missions/kills counter, etc. would be greatly appreciated too.

Softening the border between tiles with sight and unexplored tiles like the way Buzu has it would help make the game look a lot better. I'm indifferent to whether or not there is an outline. The current contrast on the tile graphics just looks jarring. Honestly, I thought the current unexplored tiles were a placeholder. On a side note regarding the lore, aren't all the satellites destroyed by the aliens anyways?

Have another soldier equip the medkit (replacing their weapon), click on the medkit's picture on the UI, and then click on the wounded soldier (who needs to be adjacent to the medic).

If you're worried about content and polish, then wait until release or late beta. The game currently is very playable, but it is still a beta so certain features are missing and balance isn't refined. Personally, I think the game is worth every penny I put into it, and I'm a premium preorderer so I paid 30 bucks.

Here's my preliminary results from about 10 hours of play on Veteran. These are all ballistic weapons analysis. Assault Rifles They work well enough, but I feel they should cost less TU to fire. As of now, the mobility advantage of not having the "heavy" trait doesn't really come into play since I can't really shoot once I move into cover. If I could move into cover and fire, then it would make assault rifles worth getting over LMGs. In general, a LMG burst is typically superior to an AR burst. Shotguns Mostly useless. They're really good at close quarters, but very rarely do I engage in close quarters combat. If aliens hid inside buildings and their spacecraft more, then I could justify having them. In the few times that I have fought aliens in buildings, I found that the AI tends to just run away and out of the effective range of my shotgunners. LMGs These things are amazing at the moment. For some reason, my LMG troops gain stat points way too fast. I currently have a Colonel machinegunner who has the highest TU (90ish), highest accuracy (80ish), and highest strength (80-90ish?) of the entire Xenonauts force along with high (although possibly not the highest) resilience. She can move from behind a wall and fire 2 lethal and accurate bursts at the aliens before moving back. It seems odd that LMG troops improve their accuracy faster than Snipers. It seems the 5 round bursts results in a lot of "shooting" action resulting in more experience than using other weapons. The "heavy" trait isn't much of a negative considering the act of moving into cover usually depletes all my TUs anyways. The only exception is when my veteran LMG troops with ridiculously high TU suffer the penalty after moving, but the fact that they have such high TU is an issue on itself. Their combination of high mobility (as a result of high stats gain), their suppression capabilities, and high accurate and damage potential seem too powerful with no real drawbacks other than low strength troops cannot use them. I think LMGs should be less accurate (along with reducing the stats increase rate). They should be suppression tools primarily. They're also very unfriendly to new recruits because of their weight, resulting in a high base strength stat. Sniper Rifles They seem about right. Snipers are very useful as supports for when I creep up my Riflemen. Pistol I've rarely use them, but they're handy if you want to be able to throw two flares instead of one. Other than that, I don't really actually use it as a sidearm.

About 35 days in, on October 4th around 22:00 to 24:00 hours, my game suffers the same freeze on the Geoscape. I can't attach via the forum, so I'll upload here instead. http://www.gamefront.com/files/23366406/AutosaveIM2013-05-31_21.42.44.zip

I played the original XCom, a bit of Apoc, and Firaxis' XCOM. While I love tactical turn base gameplay, what's really important for me is polish. Apoc wasn't finished so it lacked the flow that the original game and the Firaxis remake had. I'd like to also include JA2 1.13 in here since it's got a bit of that XCom feel to it as well. I'm hoping that Xenonauts will deliver that same difficult gameplay experience while keeping that polish that makes you want to really finish a game to the end.

I'm loving the new XCom EU right now as evident by my 70 hours of play since release. It's really good, but in a different way compared to the original game. The emphasis on scarcity, and streamlined combat makes for a smooth and enjoyable experience. This is really weird coming from a person who would spend hours going over every minute detail of his squad inventory, but the limitations makes the game more desperate and intense, something that I applaud Firaxis for doing very well. Now if I had to rate the game, I would say it's definitely very polished which puts it above the original game. There hasn't been any game breaking bugs and aside from a few forgivable graphical mishaps, the game runs great and is very stable. The pacing is better than in the original which at a certain point, became too easy without forcing somekind of self-imposed handicap. Comparing XCom EU to Xenonauts or the original game is like comparing peaches to oranges though. Some days I want a peach and some days I want an orange. Some people hate peaches and prefer oranges and vice versa. For me, I enjoy both types of games, but admittedly, I think I like Firaxis's approach more.

How's the music in the game being handled? I watched a few LPs and noticed the more sinister tone of the music (especially when compared to UFO Defense's rather cheesy music). Xenonauts is certainly looking and sounding good. I'd like to know what's been done and if there's anything else coming.