irongamer

I get the same cut off box when warned about low fuel on the interceptor map. Resolution: 1440x900.

There are two items that I find annoying. 1. After firing on a target the camera returns to the character that made the attack. My initial response to this is that it should return to the target that I fired. I find myself scrolling back to the target to fire my other shot or clicking on the alien button again. If the alien dies it would make more sense for the camera to return to the character that made the shot. Currently if the alien does not die it feels like I'm micro managing the camera for my second shot. 2. Crouch Toggle. Maybe I'm just impatient but I double or multi-click this button when the character does not immediately crouch. This causes the character to crouch and then stand back up. A faster response in crouch would be nice.

This has made me jump quite a few times over this weekend. I'm playing the game in a window. On a terror mission I'll move my guys and hit end turn. Before the enemy turn is over I'll click outside the Xenonauts window in my other monitor and read something. The Xenonauts window loses focus at this point. When I click back on the Xenonauts window and the application once again has focus it sounds like many, if not all, of the sounds from the enemy turn play all at once.

I've been away a long time so I'm not posting this in the bug section. I tried searching for a thread about this and failed. I'm guessing this is an area that is still under construction. When aiming I often get 0% chance on long shots. The shot distance indicator line is interesting. Regardless of the line color I will get a 0% chance on very long shots or if the enemy is in cover. Most of these shots are with the base level sniper rifle. I still hit quite often when the 0% chance indicator shows. Some of these are on long shots and some are through cover. I don't mind pulling of some amazing shots, but the shot chance feedback indicator should still indicate there is some sort of chance.

Was going to post this behavior. Repeatable every time.

As many others have already stated, I'm just happy to see the game where it is at and that it is moving forward. Will be nice to have the faster d/l speed that Steam should deliver.

Windows 8 (Clean install) 1680x1050 Looks like the warped image. I would normally have a codec pack installed but haven't bothered with one since I installed Win8.

Thanks for the update. Hope the new year treats you and the gang well.

Love the softer colors especially in the workshop and stores. Are you using what the ambient light might look like given the background colors? The colors used fit the scene better.

Or some tension tamer tea perhaps?

Layout seems good. I'm liking some of the ease of use buttons, "Set Equipment as Default." I don't care for the white and light gray. I actually have used sunglasses to play games before, I don't like running an overhead light if I can get away with it. For any late night game sessions I'll be employing the sun glasses again. I understand the clipboard and theme though. Apart from room lighting and trying to match ambient light to reduce eye stress there seems to be some conflicting color themes with the new design. The top bar is running the old theme light text on dark background, while all the new parts are mostly dark text on white background. Maybe I am only noticing this because of previous designs. It just comes across as quite a stark contrast. Also a note on switching between the geoscape and other screens. It is going to be bit of work on the eyes due to the large change in contrast. Soft light in geoscape, hard light in other menus. Is the entire area clickable for buttons like "Manage Research" and "Hire/Fire Scientists", or is it just the text? There are a number of features in the interface that I can't tell if they are buttons or just text. Obviously rolling over them or the contents of the text itself will most likely resolve any questions. Just something I noticed.

Some nice sounding mods. After discussing tactics with some others in the steam forums a team of assaults with ghost armor and alloy cannons works well, almost too well. I'm still disappointed with the cover mechanic. It is pretty much pointless on classic and up. Yes, you can use full cover 1 tile in to completely block LOS. But you can't specifically target cover to destroy it. The whole cover system and movement system seems like a hobbled tactics engine, with the inability to target cover with any weapon and the inability to fire and drop back out of LOS. Would love to see something along the lines of Silent Storm... although with faster AI and path recalculation. The major difference I noticed after playing some XCOM:EU and then playing Xenonauts was that Xenonauts turns felt much faster, even though I was controlling more guys. It was refreshing.

Playing through a Classic Ironman game of XCOM:EU. What I find most disappointing with the game is making cover only a dice roll and not a physical object that has to be removed. What this leads to is only one tactic that is functionally viable, that is an overwatch line of fire which you either setup for the enemy walk into or pull them into with a runner. You can try to flank but you better not be in LOS as cover is almost meaningless in classic. Perhaps with ghost (20%) full cover would put you at 60% and flanking would become a real option. Tactical gameplay on classic feels very restrictive with no diversity.

Has the idea of possible random goals during a mission been discussed? I don't mean for every crash site or other alien activity missions. Just that it would be possible that there would be something more than a clean sweep. Maybe the aliens dragged some device away from their wreck and have enabled it. A goal would be to shut it off. The device could have effects on the mission, boosting alien shields, increasing alien offence, or randomly converting civilians to something else. Maybe the device is set to overload and creates a large explosion destroying a building after a certain amount of time (most likely lowering your mission score). The goals would not serve as a binary function for mission success or failure. The goals would be random elements that may or may not impact your mission score depending on how well you play. This would add more work and may stray too far from the original. However, it would allow for the possibility of more interesting missions than "sweep up the mess." Each crash site or other activity site could possibly have another layer to make it feel a little more unique and dynamic.

Great write up Chris. Perhaps the release of the new XCOM:EU has turned out to be a boon for Xenonauts. I'll be picking up the new XCOM on a sale at some point. I played the demo and it feels too consolized (not just the interface but the mechanics themselves) to pay full price.

Changes I noticed from 17 to 17.1 - Removal of alien trinkets for research, these were in my stores at the beginning of the game. - No more hidden citizen - No more alien base to discover right off the get go - More stable through the first 4 missions

I love the idea of tying it to research. After visiting a specific ship type crash site (or a few visits) a research option would be added with something like "ship type" structural study or "ship type" hull design.

It would be cheap and a quick build, but maybe that would not sit with lore. Another option may be related to the fighters themselves. Give them more range but penalize them in some manner for long distance interceptions. Although, most penalties I can think of seem just as odd at the bait idea. Perhaps nation fighters could also be shooting down ufo's early on. Maybe this could be tied some type of intelligence feature of a base. I seem to remember talk about nation fighters but I don't remember the outcome of that discussion. As larger ships begin showing up nation fighters are no match and only advanced technologies from the Xenonauts organization are a match. At this point there would be fewer nation fighters downing ufo's and the player hopefully has built up base and fighter coverage to engage more ufo's.

Is adding a percent chance of loosing everything add too much? Or is adding another roll too complicated for no reason? Example: Kill target with explosives, damage goes over limit, roll for a 2% chance of leaving something behind. The percent chance would be based on the weapon inflicting the damage OR a combination of the weapon inflicting damage and the alien taking the damage OR how much over damage was applied.

Going to toss out a weird bait/cloak idea... How about bait? Maybe a research item to figure out what areas or items the aliens seem to be drawn toward. Then build a base structure than increases the percent chance for alien ships will come snooping around the base radius. The facility would require scientists or engineers. Adding more scientists/engineers would increase the bait affect. Obviously there would need to be some hard cap. If the player runs this too long and too high there is a greater chance for base invasion. Later on, once you have base coverage the bait system could be reversed (again by some research, a cloak perhaps) to act as a percent chance that your base would not be found by the aliens, again affected by the number of researchers / engineers. Again a hard cap.

I'd have to agree. These are my opinions, what keeps me playing a game, and what I believe games should be about. I will always take gameplay and functional/interactive environments over scenery in a game. Scenery is great, but it is static and brings nothing to the longevity of a tile. Interactive environments can still be stylized to fit the surrounding atmosphere. Minecraft is a stunning example of gampelay/mechanics over scenery. zzz1010 has some nice examples of the grid inside the ships. My vote would be modify whatever to keep the indoor outdoor interaction of the previous game. Too much interaction would be lost imho by breaking the mission in two. Blowing out any section of the ship may add to many assets, but perhaps a middle ground would be allowing certain "weak points" to be blown away. A mix of a more stylized external ship assets and weak points may be the sweet spot.

I had a similar issue but a little different. I had two squadrons after two different alien ships. I moved the speed to the highest it can go and got a single engage box. I engaged the target but had two air combat music tracks running at the same time. The combat screen had one F-17 fighter on screen (didn't appear that they were stacked) but I had the controls for two on the right. The F-17 took down the ufo and combat ended. When the geoscape was revealed both squadrons were heading back to base and both UFO's had been shot down. The UFO's were in completely different locations on the map. I assume there was an air combat window open under another one?

The demo holds your hand too much to really get a feel for the game. It is basically the tutorial with 1 mission that is not the tutorial. That said, I don't know what to think about it at this point. I'm still looking forward to Xenonauts and I have not pre-ordered X-Com: EU. The tiny bit of the game you are allowed to see feels constricting for some reason. In some ways it feels like Silent Storm done wrong, don't ask me what that means, it is just the feel I get from it. Maybe a non tutorialized demo would allow one to get a better idea of how the game plays.

I'm thinking along the lines of a penalty on their accuracy when firing and/or reducing the chance of reaction fire.