irongamer

I didn't have time to read all the posts so maybe this view was already tossed in there but I"m going to add it anyhow. The idea of suppression is good and should add some more dynamics to the game. However, within a certain range I think suppression should drop off and damage should go back up. If I'm around 4 tiles (or whatever number works for balance) from an enemy and I unload three 3 into its chest I believe there should be more damage and less suppression at that point. Beyond X number of tiles from a target damage will drop off and suppression will ramp back up. Overall I like the idea of suppression. [Edit] Some other ideas would be replacing one of the more accurate shot or maybe snap shots on weapons that have suppression and make suppression fire one of the firing options on the gun. So for the rifle class that has burst fire the firing options would be: 1. Single shot - medium AP cost, high accuracy 2. Burst shot - high AP cost, low accuracy 3. Suppression - medium/low AP cost, low damage, low accuracy, high suppression

Yeah, I'm not working with anything above layer 0. Adding the other tiles has been challenging as they do not all follow the same layout mechanics as the tiles tiles in the ground folders. Many of the other "floor" (layer 0) sets cannot be "built" or "painted" in the same fashion as the ground sets. Also, the new ground tiles have completely different dimensions than previous "floor" tiles. Previous floor tiles seem to share the height of the unit selection 3d box while the new tiles do not. Anyhow, the additions are going to take a while. Sadly I could not finish up the next version before classes started (seemed like a very short spring break).

/close thread

While I like seeing the full size buildings, it is difficult to play without being able to see units behind them. Currently when no unit is in a building you see the entire outside of the building, regardless of camera level setting. When no unit is in a building it should only show the outside of the building up to the camera level you have set. Right now it feels like the camera doesn't do anything (I think that is because I'm expecting X-Com camera behavior). The image below has no units in any of the buildings. Each building appears to be viewed at a different camera level: 2,3, and 4. The camera setting is at 1. Here is where I have a disconnect with the camera, maybe it is just me. If the first outside level of each building was showing it would make more sense to me. In the image Red Ellipses - It is difficult to work with units behind buildings Red Square - Unexplored roof tiles are transparent, maybe they could be black instead.

While it sounds like units will be visible behind objects in a later patch I still found view direction odd. In the first three images If I face west, looking at the building, I see some of the upper level structure. I can see the first floor and much of it is covered. If I face the south I can see part of the front upper level structure, which blocks some of the first floor. If I face east the upper structure completely disappears (changing the camera elevation doesn't change this) and I can see the first floor best looking away from the building. In the last two images This occurs on most buildings. If you face a unit away from a building you see the ground floor. There are cases where the floor is completely black (or maybe the roof is completely black), but if I face away from the building parts of the floor becomes visible. Maybe this is related to not having object transparency working (or what Chris just mentioned above). Currently it is a bit confusing and seems backwards of how it should work.

Good summary by Gauddlike. I was also going to mention some of these items. The reserve level should have each entire row clickable (number, icon, slider bar, and name). Clicking on each bar for camera level does fit the design better. If the bars are not clickable just have a number instead, don't tempt us to click by having a bar which seem to indicate quick camera level change. In fact, if you are going to show each level as a bar you could remove the arrows altogether. Make the level bars a little taller and slap some text at the top like "Floor, Level, Elevation, Camera". If you are willing to increase the vertical size of the gui (or have less space between it and the bottom of the screen) you could have a unit's current TUs under the TU Reserve slide box. All the other elements could be slightly adjusted for the extra vertical space. The image below has the unit's time units below the TU reserve, larger click zones over each entire row of TU options, and a camera level selection without arrows. I do like the overall changes to the gui, good work.

Awesome. I'll most likely be able to update the program closer to spring break (couple weeks), this term of classes has kept me pretty busy.

Yep.

Since the term tileset is already in use, perhaps some other terminology would be better. I'm just going to use repeated set for this post, is there a specific name for a set of ground/floor tiles that repeat? The program is currently using the assets/tiles folder. It does not use the maps folder. Currently the program searches each folder in assets/tiles for any folder named "ground". It then adds each subfolder in the ground folder as a repeated set. When asked to locate your xenonauts folder just select the base "xenonauts" folder. It would be simple to divide the tiles into separate sections like industrial or farm. Right now all the subfolders in discovered "ground" folders are just added to the same drop down and sorted by name. I had not really looked at including crashsite or dropship tiles yet. The idea was a program to quickly setup the ground or maybe some floor which is then loaded into the real submap editor for building the rest of the map or making tweaks to the ground. Ground tiles inside the root tileset folders, like industrial, confuse me a little bit. Tiles like "GroundTarmacLightCornerE" and "GroundTarmacLightCornerS". The ground folders had a more defined structure so I ran with those first. Is the game making use of both ground/floor tiles in the ground folders and the "loose" ground tiles in the root of a tileset folder? I'll look at including other repeating ground/floor tiles (like those in the root folder of a tileset) with the next release and including/dividing them by their respective tile subfolder (industrial, farm). Since the UFO's have a different folder structure their name may be a composite (UFO-Scout-Undamaged) or something.

Update to Xenofloor. There is now a build radio button. The build radio button will build a single tile set from the tile you click. The tile you click places image 00-00 and then builds out from there. Usage: 1. Select tileset from drop down. 2. Click the build radio button. 3. Click a tile on the map to build the tile set. The post above this contains the download link.

Ok, hopefully this will help with making quick map fills and maybe some floor plans. You will have to stomach... Adobe Air. I know that can be hard for some. You will need to install Adobe Air. After installing XenoFloor: 1. First you will need to locate your Xenonauts folder. 2. Enter rows and columns for a map size and press build map (or press enter) 3. Choose a tileset from the drop down list. 4. With the paint radio button selected you can just start clicking (or click then drag) to fill in tiles on the map. Move the map around by holding down shift then click and drag. When no pick tile is selected the program tiles as if image 00-00 of the tileset was placed where you first click. The pick radio button allows you choose a specific tile from a tile set and a specific location on the map. Once you have selected a pick location (it will have a blue/green inner box on the tile) the program will tile based off that location and the tile you selected. You must click the paint radio button again to resume painting. Painting over tiles replaces the old tiles with the new one. The fill buttons will function off a pick tile. Fill will use image 00-00 from a tileset if no pick is selected. I'm not really familiar with tiling processes or what standard use should feel like. There is currently no way to place one specific tile at a time, unless you just keep changing the pick tile. There a few items I'd like to add or adjust when I have more time. I can't seem to manage file attachments on the forum so here is a link to the Air install file: http://www.irongamer.net/blog/xenonauts/Xenofloor.air

You could not rotate the map in X-Com: UFO Defense/Enemy Unknown. Supporting rotation would also require way more assets.

This is an interesting idea. It can often take fewer turns to just blast everything to little bits than to advance troops in a safe manner to building, setup guys for entry, enter building, and clear each room. I like the idea of property damage as it gives an incentive to be less destructive and play with more finesse. Aside from civilians possibly being in the building there is really no down side to just leveling the building in question. I think property damage should be calculated, within reason. I would expect only your teams fire or explosions trigger by your team would be calculated. Or just make adjustments to the formula to account for some collateral damage or damage done by the aliens themselves. [Edit] Oh, this could also have achievements and/or badge: Demolition Man.

G-Bee summed it up pretty good. Xenonauts plays much more like X-Com, it is modeled after it. I love the Silent Storm games. One day maybe we will see geoscape/base elements from X-Com, a ground combat engine similar to Silent Storm, and the character interactions from JA. Weeeeee! That is GoldHawk's next project right?

Great find. This fixed the saved game I had uploaded to the forums. It also made the aliens appear (since it could now find the sprite file).

Perhaps the QRF would be something you research and use alien technology to drop a small pod of 4 guys in a mission area. You would activate it within the battlefield. I would expect this would have very expensive upkeep, have a high construction cost, very slow refueling period, and maybe only limit it to having 1 shot per map or only 1 QRF across all bases. If it were implemented it would need a hanger like screen for choosing which guys are in the pod, to keep it similar to the rest of the game. Seems like a lot of work. I mean you could just have an extra drop down item for assigning guys to the QRF once it was built in a base, but it would lose some immersion. I'm not sure this would add much to the game. It is an interesting idea though.

Ok, before I go sinking any more of my time into a ground tiling program. Is this even needed? I built one so I wouldn't have to match ground tiles. Is the submap editor going to auto match the ground tiles down the road? Or is there another forum member already working on something that auto matches ground tiles? At any rate, I tossed a quick app together that loads in the various ground tile sets. You then select the tile set you want to work with from a drop down and start painting ground tiles. The program auto matches the tiles for you. You can also fill an entire map or fill only empty tiles. Currently it just dumps the map into a text box, which is then copied into a text editor and saved as an xml file. The xml map file loaded up fine in the submapeditor. If there is any need or interest for this? If so I'll clean up the interface, have it save to an xml file, and upload it to the forums.

Yikes, I ran into this today as well. Thanks for the tip on column/row, figured the suffix must be indicating something like that.

Top 5: Chrono Trigger (snes) XCom Diablo JA 2: Unfinished Business Fallout Not totally sure about the order other than Chrono Trigger. Here are others I have spent just as much time at or revisited a number of times. 1nsane Secret of Mana (snes) Warcraft 1 X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter Total Annihilation Oni Severance: Blade of Darkness Colonization Empire Earth Stalker Mass Effect Crystalis (nes) Baulders Gate Freelancer

Yeah, which is why I mentioned consolidation. If you have followed any forum for any length of time topics get asked again and again. Not many people take the time to search or want to feel ownership by creating a new thread. It is just how it goes.

Well this is a "Xenonauts Suggestions & Feature Requests" forum. Sure some subjects could be consolidated, but it is the nature of having a suggestion and feature request forum.

Is this something that could be added as a mod?

I had this horrible image of multiple chinoks converging at high speed on the same landing spot at the same moment, only to become a twisted metallic wrapper around a chewy human bubble gum mass.

I've always wanted a co-op Xcom/JA/Silent Storm style strategy game. The Aliens vs. Humans really doesn't hold any interest for me... but co-op. There would be a number of items that would need adjustment but I'd love to see it done. I don't expect Xenonauts to have it. Most likely the game would have to be a funky hybrid turn-based style. Don't have the time to research or submit my own ideas on it at this point. It is just something I would love to see made one day.

I wouldn't mind having the option of selecting more than one guy and issuing an order once. This would really speed up the process of sending out pairs (or more) of troops from the starting location.