local

I used SandytheSlinger's save and followed the instructions and get a repeatable crash after I click ok on the mission successful screen to end the mission.

I'm passing this along because lately the developers are trying to attract more people to be aware of the game/sim, and are having voting rounds (the Body Part Voting Competition Thingy or BPVCT) where you can vote on what sort of new creature body part you want to have in the game, a choice from four each round and you can suggest your own in the main area. Registration is free, no nonsense or anything, it's a fairly grassroots project like xenonauts, and download of the software is free at this early stage in development. This stage in development is part of improving looks of the creatures, among other things, you can subscribe to have the blog update right in your email when changes come along. What this thing is : Heard of Simlife, SimEarth, Spore, or other more obscure life simulators? Thinking along those lines, here is the website's description. "Species: Artificial Life, Real Evolution is a scientifically-accurate natural-selection video game. It allows you to experience evolution first-hand, simulated from the very first principles of evolutionary science: Variation (every creature is uniquely defined by it’s genes), Mutation (child creatures are randomly modified versions of their parents), and Natural Selection (the environment affects every creature in their struggle to survive). With these principles as it’s gameplay mechanics, Species recreates the same unguided pressures that drove the development of all life on earth over the last 4 billion years. Whether you just want to observe, watching and studying as the tree of life constructs itself from a single species, or you want to be an active influence on the development of the species in the game, is up to you. Check it out at : http://www.speciesgame.com/ Direct to the forums about BPVCT : http://speciesgame.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=24

I was going to suggest pretty much the same as GlyphGryph on page 5. As for rewards, I don't know if soldier progression is mostly done yet, but maybe these missions could be an opportunity to give big upgrades to soldiers. Something to have for fun early on ,since most soldiers are likely to be horribly killed anyway when you encounter new alien types you can't deal with very well. The boosts you'd get to soldiers could just be normal progression, but instead of the sort of uniform slow type, a solider could be predetermined to go heavily up in 1-3 stats during these. So they would also only go up in those 1-3 stats later on, to keep them focused instead of becoming eventually 'uber'. For those 1 to 3 stats they may get really high really fast, but nothing else would change, so you'd have some reasonable mini-chance, or at least hope of keeping some soldiers until late game, hopefully this would be an incentive to use them for their talents while you don't have very good technology instead of being prone to want to level up soldiers and sit them in the base for later, I have never liked the idea of doing that. I started thinking too that these sorts of missions are just what xenonauts needs to stay fun for years after release, if modders had ways to control what the alien/civilian/military or otherwise semi-alive thing on the map is doing AI-wise, objectivewise... either generally where all units start and exactly where if needed. Also conditions for this mission happening, frequency, sequence in the course of the game, tech requirements for it to happen, even monetary or resources requirements for it to happen, whether alien or standard items or base modules. Then, modders could make up all kinds of new mini scenarios to go along with custom maps made for them, or even multiple maps for the mini scenarios. Sort of off-topic, but related to new mission types , I haven't played base defense yet but I think this kind of thing would be cool : Aliens send a few aliens to do recon on your base layout. You might not even know they get there, and in that case no tactical combat happens. Increasing chance that you detect and attack those scouts the more soldiers you have on a particular base. After they scout the layout, they might invade wit the purpose of only destroying a specific facility or facility type. Imagine losing all stores, or instead all research labs, or instead all radars... But those kind would be a little easier to defend against and a little weaker, also the aliens would be at a disadvantage because they have to make themselves more vulnerable than usual , most of them going straight for the facilities they want to destroy. You might be able to pick up on which one or ones they're going after during the tactical combat. Different races would have different tactics for doing that, caesans might sacrifice themselves using large explosives. Maybe some kind of new tech to make a base safer against these kinds of attacks too, like a door/wall upgrade like in the game FTL. They could also protect more against bombing from the sky , so that you might only have to repair facilities instead of needing to build new ones. Facilities under repair wouldn't be able to be used but would be back up much faster and at lower cost. Other base defense variety : Aliens try to bomb your base without invading, giving your defenses more turns to fire. Aliens try to bomb a specific facility, giving your defenses the most time to fire. Aliens try to rush-kill all non-combat personnel in tactical combat (priority).

I really like the OP ideas. Games like this based on xcom have improved things either in the one-main-base plus minor bases or one base only plus facilities way (or standard xcom way), which definitely is simpler to manage, the other way people had been experimenting with in modding xcom 1 was to reduce available tiles to even as low as 4x4. I don't really like managing money especially in terms of trying to predict what monthly income will be. Instead I like knowing what resources I have (non-monetary) and having limits as to what I can focus on in a particular base. I don't know if the following way is more fun but it's similar, in UFO afterlight there was only a main base but there were facilities you could build and try to protect either with automated drone, defense emplacements or soldiers. Apocalypse used buildings with premade non-square layouts (much more often than square IIRC), so there was good variety between each base. I think future games like this could benefit from those ideas compared to standard xcom. I prefer afterlight's way at the moment but maybe some blend between apoc and afterlight would be fun too. Because if a single outside facility is lost, it's easier to know what you've lost and how to replace it or deal with that. With multiple large micromanged bases, for me losing bases can become non-fun to deal with. Maybe also bases could somehow be only partially raided/damaged in certain areas, though that seems to lean in the micromanagement area. I realize that micromanagement is subjective in some sense and that some players like more. I like firaxis xcom's abstracting of money value (soldiers costing "$"10, etc), because doing quick arithmetic on a few bucks is just more comfortable to do than semi-realistic amounts. Other thoughts..If going the more semi-standard xcom 1/2/3 base way - which is more flexible in a simulation sense - I don't know, maybe you could be allowed to choose the area size of the base, with some kind of penalty other than cost, maybe that larger bases would be easier to detect and/or destroy, or you could only have a limited amount of total area across all bases, used however you want. Or, a total max area across all bases, but only the main base would be able to build certain things, or it would have definite bonuses to certain project/building/research effectiveness. Maybe a downside of having a very large main base could be something like, if the base is ever detected, the aliens would be very likely to discover the location of other bases by trying to steal computer data while they raid, or later with some kind of external weapons launched from attacking UFOs. Edit : Oh, something else kind of related. I really liked how afterlight made all personnel important. Fewer to manage - a good idea and in the spirit of customizing characters, and also you had to choose between which to use for science or other skills instead of all combat, in the case that a character had both abilities , it could be a tough choice and that was fun. It could be a risk but a worthwhile one to use a scientist who had good combat ability on a combat mission, but if he died, you'd lose your research effectiveness unless someone else came along. The rookie-mill of original xcom games is something I wouldn't miss at all, because afterlight let us know that people are the most valuable "resource" in a more emphasized way. Apoc had limited number of hires per pseudo month, skills for each person.. I think those are very important ideas to keep for the geoscape portion of the whole genre.

That's interesting, I didn't think of the shockwave being even that big. And then as the bullet travels it would drop to subsonic speed and there would be no shockwave. Kind of sad how many people have died or been wounded by guns, but that's another dicussion..IMO the best place for them is in games like this - against the ultimate alien menace! (who don't play nice at all) It's a good thing too that xcom soldiers can jump 25 feet straight up like in the intro videos. Let's hope Xenonauts can do that too and maybe flip while landing into the condor pilot seat without getting their hair messed up. Edit: I'm interested to see how the suppression will turn out in Xenonauts 1.0+. There was a sort in firaxis's xcom, but as much as I wanted that to work it seemed less useful that other abilities, even though it was still cool to use.

I don't know how or if I can change the name of my thread. I didn't see the section for experimental bug reports until now. This was my first play of xenonauts in what seems like more than a year, I went to ironman for fun right away. Yeah, Non-ironman is more useful for bug catching. If any admin or moderator wants to move and rename my thread, please do.

One of my condors intercepted a ufo, went to combat, retreated, then tailed it until over land. It attacked the ufo again, got downed/destroyed so I tried to launch my other condor at the ufo. It was at something like 99% of being repaired, but still under repair. When I clicked for the condor (condor-1 IIRC) to intercept, the game crashed. Couldn't reproduce yet since I am using ironman mode.

I wanted to say a little more about why I would only like suppression to be limited to small (~20% max?) effects to available AP and/or to accuracy. About suppression for the game in general : It would make sense to me for a complicated suppression system to be used in a game with a larger map scale, where groups of troops move around in a large area, something more like civilization or a mech game like cyberstorm. The reason is because it would help to account for cover that isn't represented by the map, and movement that can't be done with the game's units on the (too large) map. But xenonauts already has a detailed map with plenty of stuff to move behind, take cover and IMO doesn't benefit much from a complicated suppression system, because the means to do that are already in the map and in the normal gameplay - ducking, running back, changing position, changing angle, changing firing mode, changing number of shots taken (due to tension). Effect on accuracy makes sense to me but only if it applies to the alien type, and I would prefer if the effect was hidden, meaning not at all in the GUI in the form of a readout bar or number, except in maybe a debug mode. About suppression for the player : A heavy or complicated suppression system isn't needed IMO especially for the player because the reasons for being suppressed - fear, tension, soldiers protecting themselves can maybe be done in a more fun way through a combination of the commander's feelings about what his troops are doing (the manager - you), and maybe some different grades of morale level or some other system of AI brain function which might be different between player units and alien units. Medium morale levels could result in uncertainty from soldiers, low morale could result in more of that, and more tendency to panic if the soldier was not brave, or berserk if the soldier was brave. If the soldier had medium bravery levels, they might do half and half, or only small amounts of either or both, but not use all AP doing that in a turn. Importantly too, I mean that these things could happen on the player's turn, so that the player could have more ability to deal with unit's own decisions. It could also happen on the other side's turn like in xcom. Panic and berserk could be a spectrum, where soldiers might try to keep themselves safe (small panic actions like automatically taking cover, or backing off) ,or small berserk actions like shooting more than necessary or at a target that they choose, or readying an alternate weapon without you telling them to. But almost all of the time they would follow orders and be stable. At the uncommon end of the spectrum soldiers could do the usual thing and shoot everything for multiple turns, try to grapple with a giant cyberdisc or run away while dropping their weapons, freeze in place for multiple turns, or even try to disarm a fellow soldier. About suppression for the AI : I don't think a -heavy suppression effect- would help for for AI either. Instead of their uncertainty, fear, decision making about what to duck behind, using suppression would tend to make their abilities less effective instead of their decisions. I know interesting AI would be harder to program, but to me it seems more versatile and more fun and could accomplish the same thing and more, and if there already is to be an AI like this, then I don't see suppression adding much except if it is a fairly light effect, to help missed cannon/rocket/large threat/multiple small arms fire from many angles/etc shots be more useful against some alien types.

It's hard for me to suggest what the disc shaped things could be called, without knowing what the scientist reports say about what makes each one different. I like Terror Disc though, for the largest one. I don't mind much what the sale values are for alloys since I don't know what the whole manufacturing balance and game balance is looking to be yet. UFO : ET (grayfiend's mod) and UFO : Afterlight did something that I liked about manufacturing. They made it so that if you wanted to put full effort into manufacturing, it could slow down research, limit your available money, or limit the amount of troops available. It worked similarly if you wanted to sacrifice effectiveness of the other things. I don't like managing money and to me this was more fun, though money was still a part in those.

Awesome. Bright colors, and authentic looking surfaces. It gives me the sense of activity between the battlescape missions. I like the small talk option. Maybe a good place for interested modders to add funny dialogue..or monologue..something.

Well, there's stuff I didn't think of yesterday. I'm not entirely opposed to some form of the idea. I was thinking too that the AP drain or other effects could be limited to percentiles. I hope moddable too in as many ways as possible. If only I could have suppressed a chrysalid just 20% or so, where it would stop inches from my soldier on the next turn! Might be occasionally viable to stun one up close!

I got the game today on desura and really like the folder and file structure. Looks very good for modding. Hmm! I realized I could make a summary of some of what's below : I would rather the suppression system not have effect on Action Points of any unit, but instead is part of behind the scenes AI decision making for aliens and other NPCs. Would it be possible instead for the AI to take notice of the size/obvious power of shots coming at or near it (relative to defense or bravery of it, or some other combination including morale) , and change its behavior according to that? I'm assuming the morale and AI would otherwise be similar to x-com. AI choices seem like they could solve a similar purpose as stat based suppression. It wasn't fun for me in JA2 to look at stats, units pinned in place by accumulating suppression , that sort of thing. I'm just seeing lots of neat obstacles in xenonauts already, and I wonder if the AI would react by : (all depending on 'personality' of the alien) If small number of rocket attacks : find a large solid wall between itself and the soldiers, go behind it If large number of rocket attacks : run into building or away to regroup with team aliens If large number of small arms fire : put itself behind obstacle between itself and soldiers, or use smoke screen If lots of fire from indoor area to outdoor area (and little or no flank fire), periodically peek at them and surround the building with teammates, then move in all at once. If some other situation i hadn't thought of : shoot a hole in a wall and jump through, blow a hole in the floor in a two story building and jump in, run back to the ufo and set traps, run into the chinook and set traps, feign death on first hit - then use melee or throw grenade when troops get close. I don't know what 's planned for morale, but to me the difference between this stuff and a 'demoralized' alien or troop is that a unit can't coordinate with any other unit when panicking, and a berserked unit can 't either and it could kill itself or teammates, or get lucky. I understand that suppression could work in addition to AI, but if it ends up mostly holding units in place, I would rather have other options if possible. What if a cannon could be used to possibly scare an alien out of a building and into an area you have an ambush waiting? IIRC, xenonauts uses or will use accuracy-reduced-by-range. If various heavy weapons had a high rate of fire, the enemy reacted to (but maybe they would not be fooled twice) ..to large numbers of missed shots, and these weapons only had terrible accuracy at medium and long range, then I guess they could serve the suppression purpose and more. edit : About accuracy of burst shots. I guess that the accuracy reduce by range stuff will help this, if burst is reduced most by range, possibly in addition to difference of this for each weapon. But maybe also weapons can have different damage-reduced-by-range amounts also. "Scout/sniper-ing" was a thing I didn't like in xcom. I ended up playing more often so that I only allowed units who could directly see another unit to use burst or snap shot on it. If they could only see it indirectly, only aimed shot could be used. It made mobility and cover more important and less like playing a weird game of tower defense with movable towers. Pistols were more useful, even without accuracy tweaking.