oldgamer

These kind of misses is something I always thought was immersion breaking. The soldiers should not be able to miss when they are so up close. It is better if the soldiers often hit but the aliens can take lots of damage. Rather than having weaker aliens and the soldiers miss even on close range.

Out of these I think trails or stains on ground, floor or walls, would add most to the game. I don't think aliens should panic, would just seem weak and silly. Hiding and calling for backup or fleeing towards the UFO would seem natural. I also agree that the blacked out map always felt a little unnatural. I think one reason to have it was that it was supposed to add some fun of discovering some of the graphic of the maps especially the UFO. But I agree that it should be removed. The solders should know the map, ahead and you as a player should be able to plan straight away were to move. It will make it much quicker to find the UFO, you wont have to run around and explore the map, but if the tempo was quicker it might also make it a little better. I rather the tempo is 25% higher and the game a couple of hours less, than the game being 25% longer to play but less fun. As for the soldiers I always felt that it was weird how important they were, it seems to me that if earth were to defend than they would be very expendable. What happens when they become better is mostly that one tend to save very often and reload if the die, it mostly slows down the pace of the game. Yet, in order to have the game exciting something have to be at stake when you do a mission.

Hi, I love Xenonauts and UFO enemy unknown. What I really enjoyed about Xenonauts apart from the game being a fun blend of turn based tactic story, research and base building, is that it feels "realistic". As in no comic book aliens, no weird future, but without plausible technology. Having it set during somehing looking like the cold war era, made it plausible that they did not have satellite images helping them on their missions etc. There is one thing that do break the immersion though and always make me feel it is a game design error and that is when the soldiers mess up and fire at each other or throw a grenade so close that it lands on their friends. Makes it feel like playing with toy soldiers instead of real soldiers. Especially when they fire at each other from very close range, it might even be that I as a player made a mistake and clicked wrong, not sure that happens but, it removes all the feeling of realism, immersion and feels just like a computer simulation throwing dices. I think the solders should be able to fire past each other at close range, without hitting their friends, just that they might get a penalty on their aim. But it feels very unrealistic that they would fire at a friend standing next to them especially if the soldier in front of them is sitting. Or when they throw a grenade into a wall just where they are standing. That is one of the few things I think really remove some from the game, and at times, when that happens it just feels ridiculous. Imagine in real world if a soldier fire at his own friend standing in front of him or just a few meters away, in really close range, that soldier would not be popular at all. When it happens it makes the solders feel lifeless and dumb. These are my 2 cents on how to improve the game. In what I feel would give most bang for the buck. Of course there are other things such as rain or snow/snow storm would make for a great mood enhancement. But those things would require way much work for what they give.