Rodmar18

I don't know the other games, save Xenonauts, but I like the "Planetary Defence Simulator" setting and subtitle. This should inspire a balance between all game aspects. That's why I could only stand auto-resolving air combats instead of playing them, if there is still a true air campaign to play through. If it's not already lost, that is. That's why research shouldn't focus on tactical equipment only. That's why the campaign could be non-linear, in the sense where there could be both dire and glorious days alternating thorough the whole campaign duration, whatever the human technological advance is. Also a little bit of randomness, with allied and aliens both making tactical and strategical single errors (or the reverse).

I agree, as long as balance is not broken, that is the Alien are still a fearsome military force. I don't see this useful, as long as we accept that our rookies, who are special force veterans (or regular, able specialists), are just performing at the best of their capabilities when fighting the Aliens for the first time. Granted, accuracy could be better, except if we consider that they shoot very quickly. An accuracy bonus could be granted when they are not under fire (I figure that plasma projectiles over head are a very stressful experience) and have time to prepare (up to the point where a machine gunner cannot fire on the same turn he has moved, or even not before a full idle turn). On the other hand, scientists and engineers could perform better the more they work for the Organization, or rather (and more simply), their labs and workshop could upgrade one or twice during the campaign (not only cosmetically). Firstly, some player would be reluctant in defending huge bases for hours. Secondly, greater bases would mean better defences (provided money is plenty), and this would imply less or none base defence missions. However, I see a point here. Initial cost for new bases could be far less, which would make possible for the player to build outposts, radar bases, air bases, projection bases all over the world, for a more realistic coverage and strategy. When the player want to increase a given base, he would have to pay to enlarge the base grid and upgrade its Command Center. For example, we could have a 2x2 CC + 3 squares, a CC plus 6 squares, a 4x4 grid, and current 6x6 base grid. I'd say that the more customization and gimmick we need, we less attractive the game should be, or the more customization and gimmick we are offered, the more the designers have excuses to design poorly stand-alone exciting campaign and tactical modes. This shouldn't be a priority. See 4. Let modders have tools to complement the game. I'm not sure that heavy vehicles would fit to troop transports. Anyways, if the Terran put in the fight their heavy ordinance (and why not howitzers?), what would prevent the Alien to do the same? I'm not sure heavy tanks would not be sitting ducks, faced to cloaked armoured hovering beasts, for instance. Besides, isn't our Scimitar tank a smaller cousin to the M1? See 4. The initial equipment is not deemed to last for long anyways. Why not the Mi-24? Because it's a light assault chopper that would be torn apart by alien infantry weapons. It can take only 8 soldiers whereas our Charlie take... only 8 soldiers (say 12 with mods). What's the difference then? First read the data: CH-47 Chinook can take 22 soldiers or 9500 kg (as compared to 2500 kg for Mi-24) and has a one-way range of 2000 km (as compared to 750 km). Then read the Xenopedia: CH-47 was changed to CH-48 with added fuel tanks and heavy armour all over, in order to multiply by ten its autonomy, and to make it unto the immediate UFO vicinity and sustain a few infantry weapon hits. A modified version of MI-24 would only be useful if transports would be allowed to have a support fire feature in tactical mode, but the deployed team would be tiny (3 soldiers?) because of the added autonomy and armour. We could start by having more grenades and rockets (more simple to implement?). The point should be more clear if Xenonauts-2 is set in the 2000s. All those kinds of weapons exist in Xenonauts-1 (I can call "warper" the disruptor, aka Singularity Cannon, even if flamethrowers where not implemented in vanilla). So be patient! Again, play Xenonauts-1: some buildings upgrade automatically when technological advances are done: Defence Battery; some others upgrade automatically or are available when proper researches are done: Labs, Workshop, Communication decryption. Limited place buildings can be added: Medical Centre (8 beds each), Garage (3 places each), Hangar (1 place each). I agree. Should they be true, misguided humans, or alien puppets? Or both kind?

EDIT 2 would explain all, without departing too much from the Xenonauts-2 plot! High-rank Praetors are known for their perpetual struggle, and the huge technological differential between them and us, and relative isolation of our planet, would explain the lasting blindness of one of them, and then the fact that it would take time to openly recognize its errors when reality start destroying its dream. A typical human behaviour, though.

In the same topic, will there be animated props, such as wind-motioned signs, tree branches, flags, electrical cables, or dripping (reaper/sebillian den), or even moving, inert actors, like desert bush balls, papers, cloud of dust, etc? Also, what about localized sound emitters (doors, birds, water run, buzzing reactors, ...), on top of the general, random audio track? Another atmospheric component is the "gore" level (death animations, corpses, stains and biological remnants). What was most lacking in this topic (in my sense) was that there wasn't any atmospheric "props", only living and dead items, all counted as part of the various (alien, allied, civ.) teams. There could be dead cadavers everywhere on terror or battlefield missions. I don't know if limiting the number of all these small additions (when they are technically feasible) is just a way to keep the size of the assets under a limit, or the game running smoothly. But it certainly doesn't contribute the game's atmosphere. Speaking of atmosphere, it would, be nice by the way, that atmospheric sound effects have a separate setting than special effects, in game options. Numerous games don't. It's hard to fumble with ambience effects and this would allow to set them at a higher audio level (for immersion). On the other hand, special, shorter duration, technological effects (weapons, explosions, teleporters) would have a different setting, because they become often a nuisance, when you set them too high just to hear an atmospheric wind effect. Of course, music has already a separate setting. (I didn't play the dev combat build, nor Firaxis games)

Agreed, but at the condition that the alien army doesn't just scale "linearly" the same way Xenonauts' technology does, and that the player feels both the might of advanced units quite soon, and that there are distinctive classes of aliens, until the very end of the game: "pitiful" crew, armed crew, and (several flavors of) combat units. This was another flaw in Xenonauts-1: the moment you start being efficient, the enemy gets rid of all of its obsolete crews and replace them by better equipped and fitted units. Perhaps, all the non combatants, guards and soldiers were either stored, killed, eaten or recycled?

In term of killings, we have ground attacks (dozen to hundreds of casualties) and bombing runs (hundreds of casualties) as well. Bombing runs can be seen as virtually throwing little rocks at the surface. Not to speak about interception missions that can take away hundreds of people (shooting down civilian planes), and aerial terror missions. Hence, I agree that there should be a more specific goal than killing urban dwellers when they perform terror missions, but not a research purpose (they are not reported to "work" on their victims). Moreover, we know that local authorities don't hesitate to incinerate the whole urban district in order to avoid "biological contamination". Perhaps one of the goal could be to "sow a seed", to turn a number of human in reapers before leaving (with or without (most of) the reapers?). Or it could just be to collect bio-material on a larger scale as when during research missions (i.e. using reapers). As for the message they send us (if any), in order to lower the confidence in Xenonauts or to make locals thinking twice about fighting the aliens, it could be that a terror mission would left no body to recover (all civilians are either turns into reapers or overkilled), or would left a few reaper that would spread the contamination in the neighbourhood. That means that we would need reapers on every terror mission, or other likewise terror units (or just overkilling weapons). Let's not forget that reapers have a limited lifetime on Earth, just like any alien. Perhaps they could evolve into an adapted species, in which case, this could be one of the goal of the terror missions: to multiply the number of human-born reapers until one of them comes out fully adapted.

You are right if the projectile has a mass equivalent to traditional bullets. Even with a greater speed, I'd say that recoil could be same or even less in the case of MAG weapons, because you could reduce the projectile's mass for same or even greater kinetic energy. Using alien materials would give the "excuse" for an incredibly light, profiled, yet resistant projectile. In search for differentiating tiers (technologies), perhaps a way could be more complex accuracy and damage reduction laws. If law for tier 1's accuracy is linear, thus illustrated with a righ-angled triangle based on the ground (highest at short range, and regularly less the larger the range), then law for tier 3 could be linear but with a smaller decrease rate. Law for tier 2's damage could have a pyramid-like (half sandglass) shape, centered on the targeted range (less near the shooter and far away, maximal at target's location. The same for focused plasma and sonic weapons. It should be better if non-linear or more complex, and piece-wise (up to practical range, up to target, ...) laws are used.

Beware, sometimes, what can be baffling is speaking about damage dealt by a laser without taking into consideration the exposure duration, nor the adverse atmospheric properties. If a 500 mW laser deal "serious damage" at 500 feet (150 m), then why do all the special forces in the world wait for equipping themselves with combat lasers? A ballistic bullet delivers between 100 and 1000 J in a very short time. How would this translate in term of power? (granted some of this energy is wasted and absorbed by surrounding tissues). Nowadays cutting and welding industrial lasers have powers in the 1-2 kW range, by the way. Don't forget that focused lasers could be accurate at any range but always less efficient before and after the aimed target. This would be interesting but I don't know if the GC mechanic could implement this. Moreover, as other said, added realism would require that the GC mechanics takes care of the environmental factor and that the alien develop anti-laser counter measure such as broadband smoke emitters. Also, to focus a beam, you have to start with a rather broad beam. Perhaps with need of gravitons here. As for the particle beam / plasma weapons, I don't know how should truly behave graviton-guided plasma projectiles... so far for the range. But I agree that range would be a nice discriminator between tiers. In short, what could be interesting is having different accuracy and damage range-related rules for different technologies.

It looks like those two kind of missions would be the same, except that the aliens would use a different behaviour script: more aggressive in the"true" terror kind, and more defensive in the "secure-a-facility" kind. Initial placement would be different as well, and perhaps type of units deployed as well. Exploring the impact of changing scripts could lead to more diversity in gameplay while cheaply reusing the same assets. By the way, can an AI switch from a script to another, according to some dynamic conditions (number of turns elapsed, number of foes alive, percent of the map controlled, ...)? If yes, this could add even more diversity and unpredictability.

Hello, while I'm playing on [0.34.1] without any added Fix Pack, I'd have some comments. C4 Glitch No sarcasm meant, can you positively assert that there was no Wraith with plasma canon somewhere in the starting room, out of LOS? I guess not because you triggered the situation several times. Also, how about a door bug instead, the plasma bomb being fired from the other side, without destroying the door. In short was the C4 triggering really the reason why this explosion? Black, walkable tiles I've already encountered this bug. I'll try and hunt these very tiles (or map parts) from now on, in case they are an oversight in some terrain packs? Perhaps they are only not trackable corruption? On the other hand, I encounter them much more when environment was destroyed, certainly while map is generated, and perhaps while playing as well. They always are still walkable tiles, even when on a higher level (building store, UFO bridge). I play with "Fire in the Hole" and enhanced terrain resources mods, and included better crash site, and it looks like some Carrier maps are often bugged, when the UFO took heavy damage in the crash. I don't know if these tiles were deemed destroyed or otherwise. While several mods deal with crash sites and could be the cause, perhaps if so, they could also help to find the cause in case of normal terrain tiles (see screenshot). Hidden Cruiser bridge I've never encountered this bug so far (X:CE 0.34.1, Fire in the Hole, all the packaged terrain resources, embedded better crash sites). I read it has been reported several times, however.

Thanks for the development. I understand that things might be more complex than just writing, and that gaming experiences would (have to) be much different. As many game aspects would differ, it wouldn't be in my mind a simple "Play Humans / Play Zergs" choice on the main menu, but perhaps at least, all the Ground Combat aspects could be added (more a graphic work I think and limited scripting, with big pictures of weapons and Aliens, inventory, etc), so that a "Play Humans / Play Zergs" option for Skirmish mode would already be included in the released version (or as a DLC to earn some welcomed money, but I consider that all should be ready at release time). Lovers for Skirmish modes wouldn't complain about having limited technology, maps or diversity: they would simply access all the items designed in the Human campaign. Then only, a campaign on the Alien side could be envisioned, or at least a mod-friendly environment prepared, with all sorts of placeholders and "hooks" for fan coders to insert their own scripts and graphic models (watch for "locked" code designs: each time an object is created, same object should be created for the other side, etc). Of course, if Goldhawk go for such a DLC or addon (I still can't calling it a third full game), any new GC asset eventually designed for this campaign, including new map tiles and designs (with landed UFO), would benefit the already working Skirmish mode.

Terror secondary objectives that impact on the campaign: Likewise, you could add to this kind of one-time rewards, other, more common and less important rewards, like just a one-time boost to the current research, whatever its topic (or more like a free man-hour credit). In this case, don't forget to set a minimum time before activation so that the "Research Completed" doesn't pop up right upon returning to the Geoscape. If the whole research mechanic is to made more complex, The secured scientist/equipment could have a specific tag and could be useful only in a certain field (xenobiology, intelligence, nanotech, energy armament, ...). Securing civilians could be also a way to get free scientists and engineers. Nations would provide only a limited number of valuable scientists to hire, and saving someone's butt would either increase the recruiting pool, or directly earn you a hired man for free (with a monthly salary due as usual). A new "terror-like" mission: Exfiltration mission. Another ground mission without UFO. Optional mission (available for days or even weeks). Fully equipped alien opponents (like a Terror crew) in size ranging from Scout to Corvette (or according to a clever randomized table). The setting would be: the Xenonauts decide to go to a place to exfiltrate a number of civilians, and it's a covert operation. Limitation of equipment: no heavy weapon, no rifle (?), no advanced armour (?), so that they can be taken for normal operatives. Perhaps it would be easier to simply strip the soldiers from any forbidden item, at the beginning of the mission, instead of adding an option in the suitable base management equipment window. They land in the nearby wood, or in any likewise concealed position. They move to the lab/factory/residential compound... and they spot on and meet with the aliens on their way. Both parties have a same primary goal: to reach a marked room where a few civilians are. The Aliens' starting position is randomly chosen from suitable preset ones, and they have to walk as well to reach their objective. They prioritize Xenonauts less than in a Terror mission (they won't be bait out by purposely visible agents), but keep killing any civilian/local forces on their way. There could be a timer on this mission, because at turn 10 or 20, local forces arrive en masse, and the Xenonauts have to discretely retreat (i.e. the mission is aborted). In case the mission is successful, rewards are the usual spoil of war and one (or more) scientist/engineer/otherwise agent. In case the mission is cancelled, rewards are limited to the extraction zone, as per usual. In case the mission is aborted due to ran out time, rewards are the usual spoil of war only (less any alien corpses?). In any case, there are no diplomatic gain nor loss, and the mission is removed from the list. The design can accept both random missions and limited one-time missions (you win them or you lost them forever).

Not necessarily if you had limited resources and manpower, if you were no gods, and if you play a parallel story of Xenonauts-2's. Earthen atmosphere is highly toxic and you have to research how to stop fighting in cumbersome spacesuits. Also, a wounded is a dead. Earthen ecosystems is a nightmare for bio-engineered creatures who haven't seen a virus for millennia. You need to kill (abduct) hundreds of people to conduct intelligence and research projects, and yet you can't afford to loose a squadron of your precious spacecraft per mission. First missions are thus necessarily stealth and small scale. Your home world is so exotic that you can't use your spaceborne weapons in in/through the atmosphere, and even your hand held weapons react badly when fired in this atmosphere (particle beams?). Your are few in numbers, and they keep sending several platoons at you (well 20 special operatives or so). In short, researches have to be conducted in various fields such as weapons (including studying human weapons), aircraft, animals, plants, and microbiology, human societies, mindset and language... And yes, your priority is to build bases because Earth is your only hope. I agree that the RPG part of ranking soldiers could be minimal... unless you put aside the fact that aliens in Xenonauts seem to be designed in rigid casts (at least for Caesans), and until your run out of your original crew, and have to complement/replace it thanks to a new species you managed to engineer, though not so experimented. Some stats though could be increased by original troops mission after mission: a kind of empathy/lore for humanity, or a survival skill, to reflect that veterans fight better than unaware crewmen, the development of psionic capabilities, and perhaps also strength/fitness (for a low-gravity / spaceborne species). That said, I agree that a plain interchange (flip) of sides, in the same settings and story than Xenonauts would have little interest. But I still think that the difference would rely more on the writings than on the assets and game mechanisms to make an interesting "other side" game, so that much of the game could be reused.

How so? In my mind, assets would be quite the same or re-usable, except for all the base background pictures, xenopedia texts, and research and production tree. As well, there would be need for big pictures and fully animated alien models, and another strategic layer called "Spacescape". Xeno would grow more or less steadily, as if played by a human player. On the other side, the Alien campaign, background story, and incentives could be much different. They could have flown from a devastated world with only a limited fleet and resources, spacecraft (not 7,000!), and manpower. Their "mothership" could have crashed on the Moon, beyond all repairs, and lay grounded as a base. Think about beginning a game with 3 Praetors, 30 Wraiths, 100 Harridans, 600 Caesans (100 psionnic-able), and 600 Sebillians. Each fighter, each scout destroyed would mean 1-6 casualties! They could be deprived from very advanced heavy bio-technologies, and not be able to produce any more elite/high rank/officer troops, only robotic units and lesser clones, and that would be hardly enough to face late game Xenonauts. They could even have a limited power source, or a sickness requiring terran biomaterials, and thus a count-down timer (win Earth or die out on an asteroid). There are several way to either make them thriving for their very existence, or being only incredibly "feeble" at the beginning of the game. Player actions would be oriented toward resource gathering (planets, asteroid belt, power stations), bio-harvest on Earth, study of this strange bipedal species, subversion (diplomatic) operations, conversion of some priced spacecraft for atmospheric travel/fight, design of better suits weapons, atmospheric aircraft, and perhaps cheap bio-units. That would explain why he can't brutally invade a first world country and harvest openly everything he needs.

Other things to consider in order to differentiate different technology weapons would be the variety of armour types and the variety of wound types. Also, given some models used in game, I figure that the game designers have already peered at this website

I agree too. However, in this case, the UFO's fate could be made more clear. All the time the terror action develops, the UFO can't be intercepted because it is meant landed (in Xenonauts-1). When we land to rescue this part of the town, we don't find any UFO (I don't remember if we are credited the spoils, though (not being currently with the game)). Perhaps, the evenment chain should be more like: flying UFO -> landed UFO -> Terror Mission AND flying UFO leaving to orbit (let a little time to allow for an interception). Why is there no UFO flying back to the terror site to retrieve the terroristes? Because it's terminated (nuked) before its scheduled end. The other logical pitfall is that UFOs shouldn't have the same content if shot down before a mission begins, or after it has ended. Cases are precisely Terror missions: shouldn't the shot down UFO house the whole terrorrist team we would have encountered if the UFO had initiated a terror mission (plus the crew)? Likewise, some Supply missions could have variable crew (before/after) when they transport aliens to an existing base (less aliens in the return flight).

Developping terrain agents would complexify Geoscape's layer for sure. It's a good measure that they aren't anonymous (like scientists) and like "expendable cards" (getting X agents per region per month, spending Y agents to increase some numbers, keeping Z agents in store, in case something wrong arises with this region). Also they could gain develop their diplomatic skill, and this would contribute to their ranking (and increase of HP), the same way as other skill increases. Their addition would put in more life and be consistent with the current agents'activities (detecting alien bases, earning money when a crash site is raided by their region's air forces).They could have "origin" bonuses (e.g. Chinese soldiers more efficient in East Asian region), at least for intelligence missions, and survival chances. As for the territorial control mechanics, I don't mean actual gain or loss of territory, nor do I expect any "Xeno Republic"; I only means to shift what is currently taken care at the regional level down to sub-regional level: "loss" of funding territory, "retake" of lost funding territory (as examined by X:CE or X-Div mod). The only goal is to make things a little more complex to add interest to this part of the game. I figure that tailoring sub-regions so that they each get enough towns to be attacked should address somewhat your concern about having parts of the world not enough raided. Anyways, having less populated raided less often would also have logically less impact to regional funding, thus having less positive impact if kept allied instead of being lost. More raided areas would be the more populated (more towns) and would impact more negatively in case of loss. To be precise, the only difference in introducing sub-regions would be that the loss (and retaking) of allied regions would be more gradual: instead of having a regional funding degrading from 400 k$ down to 0 $, and loosing the whole region all of a sudden, you'd have this region loose sub-regions, with the ensuing degradation of funding. This could occur more or less quickly depending on whether given sub-regions would be heavily struck or not, but anyways, a completely undefended region would still be ultimately lost, even if the Aliens don't strike it in all of its sub-regions (except if you implement my point 3 above).

Thank you, it's exactly what I wished to know. I'll keep the same regional ratio of cities as in vanilla, but I won't refrain from placing cities beyond the usual radar coverage, and initial interception range, where appropriate.

Hello, In Xenonauts-1, there are 9 regions or "major powers". They are clearly assumed to not reflect any cultural, diplomatic or economical bonds, and just here to allow for a limited choice of action (where to take down an UFO, what mission to prioritize), and the possibility to gradually loose funding. However, we have the URSS (more a Eastern Block, actually), Oceania, and North America all making sense. Will this kind of arbitrary separation still be used in Xenonauts-2? As we all know, another X-COM game, UFO:AI, spends much efforts to justify a new world with several geographic blocks. But they have half a century of Sci-Fi politics to set this on (the other purpose of this is to better explain how alien tech can be harnessed, and how the initial stage of invasion is not a total disaster). If the Xenonauts-2's settings are a Second Cold War in present day, then we have to start from existing situation and then go fictional for a very short duration (say from 2010 or 2015 on). Regions (or major powers) should be more historically-sourced, and could, why not, by split between continents. "Middle East" could expand to North Africa and sub-Sahara (an Arab League?), Russia Federation would loose the Pact's countries. Europe would regain Greece, India and China wouldn't be in the same block (they would represent more than one third of the total population)... You tell: "That would come close to UFO:AI map!". Not necessarily: Mexico could stay tied to a Latin America, Russia would keep its Muslim republics and could ally with India, there could be a dispersed alliance in the Southern hemisphere (like there is a Commonwealth in UFO:AI, wherein India, Australia, and South Africa are allied). Also, the total number of regions could change upwards or downwards (UFO:AI has 7 regions instead of 9). Let's be imaginative but historically-sourced. Regions could be defined by the sum of their components or sub-regions. Not necessarily countries (except for some large geographical entities, nearly sub-continents, like India, Indonesia, China, Australia, and Brazil). For example, to begin with, Maghreb, Central America Isthmus, Western Africa, (real) Southern Africa could be candidates. To add distinctive flavors, some regions could be made of large components, while other would be made of a number of smaller components (again, without going down to country level). Moreover, regions wouldn't have to be a single geographical block, they could be split and interpenetrate (see point 1). Now, a region wouldn't succumb to the invasion as a whole, but chunk by chunk (or both way). Conversely, it would be retaken chunk by chunk. On the other hand, loosing a sub-region would be easier than loosing a whole region. The defeat condition should obviously be adapted (number of remaining sub-regions based on population, number of remaining formal regions, etc.). I think that this added level of complexity would help setting a feeling of a potential "mess" happening to the planet. More so, right at the beginning of the Campaign, several sub-regions could have already surrendered to the invaders, making it an excuse for an "imaginative", alternate, political map. Sub-regions could change their allegiance. This was already introduced in point 2 as regard to Alien subjugation. But things could be more interesting (or become less under control), as sub-regions could decide to leave their region and join another one (whatever they want, theoretically). The condition could be that a majority of the original region is too subverted (or makes wrong choices) and they want to remain free (or think differently), the neighbour region is already subverted and they opt for peace (because it looks like peace, and they suffered a lot), Xenonaut defends better a neighbour region (and they suffered a lot), or simply because of a revolution if all the neighbour sub-regions get crazy... As you can see, there's room to add a layer of strategy, without being too much unforgiving or over-complicated, as much of this would be transparent and so logical (you'd only reap the fruit of your actions, or your non-actions, plus a little bit of randomness). Perhaps, to add to the motivation of keeping defend whole regions, instead of waiting for them to disappear and seduce their remnant, there could be a flat funding bonus for each region, independently of the number of their components. As well, in a Europa Universalis way, when retaking a sub-region, you could decide to recreate a lost region or include your territorial "gain" in whatever remaining allied region (or simply let the game decide). ... (please, go on)

No need for an alternate past story, imho. See what's happening in real life... You could just tell that the invasion triggers off stiffer diplomatic relations, treaty revisions, alliance shifts, ... an go sci-fi. A world literally going nuke nut, falling to a Second Cold War. Just make sure you take into enough consideration the current day situation : hyper-connected world, manpower and urbanization in South America, Africa, and Asia, conventional supremacy of USA, actual political map, new weapons (thermobaric, FAE as alternative to nukes?, development of small pre-strategic nuclear weapon), perhaps a more integrated EU. The main difference could be the regional boundaries (don't put India and China in the same region: they would weight more than one third of the population). Also give "us" Greece back, and extend Middle East to Africa? I know that would come close to the regions in UFO:AI. But a Second Cold War scenario could well make a difference, and regions could be split (Russia together with India ?), adding a little political aspect to what is currently merely a matter of covering enough land mass with radar and bases. Out of topic: Thinking of this, the political map could be even more complex. See you in another thread.

Will X2 really need DirectX10-11? I'm currently with DirectX9.0c... I mean, I was always told to upgrade or rise the requirements only if they are useful enough (and used). Problem with Steam and Linux seems to be that most distros will only package what they consider stable applications as a whole, whatever the game you want to play on. The priority given to a gaming platform may also be relatively low. Hence, the result could still be suboptimal even if Goldhawk gave Steam all the balls. But it would be certainly better than doing nothing, though. I would advise Goldhawk to contact the PlayOnLInux team instead, or as well. I believe they know how to harness Wine when properly informed on games' functionality and API usages, and they are as user-friendly as Steam.

Hello, I wish to contribute and expand Axiomatic's Geographic Addition mod by adding even more cities, at least at the greater zoom levels. In short, the goal is to reflect a satellite view in the 1980s, whatever the zoom level, and not (only) to place missing capitals on a Risk-like board. In order to append the city list, I had a few questions. As I will work on population data, I would greatly benefit later from advice from everywhere on Earth about what location are/aren't pertinent in 1980s, and about critical assets (mostly military bases, research or economical centres) to add (such as Churchill in Canada, or Tiksi in Yakutia, mere "villages" at the planetary level). Is there a limit to the total number of cities in cities.xml the game can handle, besides visual cluttering considerations? For example, is 990 safe? Would you only place as many as cities per region as they initially (or potentially) contribute the funding, so that terror missions would impact more often the most important regions? (or do we have to adapt the boundaries, if we want to go realistic?) Are the population numbers ever used? There are the same throughout cities.xml. Are they a criteria to select a terror target? Does a nuking really alter them (it looks like it kills circa 20,000 hab)? Shouldn't a nuke strike, or a number of, remove a city (out of the scope of the mod)? By the way, I sent Axiomatic a PM a month ago. Does he still is in activity?

Okay. Let's say that I read "if the MODMERGEATTRIBUTE attribute is not used" where he only writes "if the attribute does not exist". But it was out of excitement.

Thank you for the mod. I just added a very small Safety in Numbers bonus, because it feels so realistic. I put 2 for COs and 1 for lower ranks, so that it shouldn't break your balance too much, save for the final assault of the Command room, when all the squad is close together, but even so, a +18 max bonus is welcome when several of them are half dead and near panicking, and 2 or 3 psi-able Aliens are still entrenched inside the room (playing with UFO and crew diversity as well).

Yes, "Show base" would be better in several languages, but we'd still have: "Centre on aircraft", "Centre on city", "Centre on event", "Centre on UFO"... why not: "Centre on base" (for an alien base)? All of these buttons trigger the same effect: centring on the location with slowest time speed. Note that I don't discuss the way the same label and string are used twice. It's fine in scripting as long as it's transparent for the user. It's just that as they are used in two different contexts, it's not so transparent and the user comes to think: "Hey, I've already seen this text elsewhere...".