[Has anyone played JA2:Flashback, if so, what is your opinion?]

Anyone? "Bueller, Bueller"...

[[1.5 experimental steam 09/12/14 - Ground combat] alien shooting thru wall]

Thanks. Do you have the save game from where you took that screenshot? It'd be useful to see so we could try and work out what was happening there.

Sorry, I guess the save got overwritten. You can see into the landing ship second floor from one or two tiles on the outside left (N) side about 5 - 10 tiles away. I think I was on a military base map.

[What games disappointed you? :(]

SimAnt still resides on my HDD

I played a lot of SimAnt on the Commodore Amiga! That brings back some old memories! Speaking of the Amiga, I vaguely recall that the sound track for UFO Defense was much better on the Amiga. It was much more "creepy" and had real stereo sound.

[[1.5 experimental steam 09/12/14 - Ground combat] alien shooting thru wall]

Thanks. Do you have the save game from where you took that screenshot? It'd be useful to see so we could try and work out what was happening there.

I might be able to come up with one. Along with a save game for the trapped drone issue. I'll try to remember it tonight.

[Some thoughts on ground mission grind]

It wasn't killed too often, exactly because I learned to use it the way you suggest. I found the fact that its vision wasn't affected at night very useful. But, during the day when that didn't make the mission substantially easier, I didn't think it paid off. It costs as much as six soldiers, doesn't gain experience, replaces two soldiers and can't go into buildings. I don't know. I guess on the more open maps, such as arctic ones, it might make sense to bring it along even during the day.

In any case, the grind problem that I'm talking about is only mitigated if you bring a Hunter.

It should make the missions easier (at least it does for me.) The vehicle can spot aliens two tiles further away than your soldiers, so they should allow you to see the aliens before they see you and that is a big advantage since keeps your own troops from getting ambushed. It also allows you to take full advantage of your snipers.

[Some thoughts on ground mission grind]

In my current game, I'm waiting until I build a garage and a vehicle, until I've set up a proper air force. I have used the Hunter Scout Car before, and I found it very useful in night-time missions. In day time, though, it replace two soldiers, still gets killed with a few good shots, and has a steep cost.

As for going for the UFO, every time I did that, I ended up fighting aliens from two sides, and at least some soldiers were exposed. I really think that holding the UFO is a good option when you've safely moved towards it, killed everyone inside, and don't want to search for that last alien somewhere, or you know where it is, but you think it's too risky to kill it. But, going directly for the UFO is too risky for me, especially since you don't know where it is, and often times I do find it at the last bit of the map I check. Which means that I anyway have to sweep the whole map carefully first.

Your Hunter shouldn't be getting killed too often. I use mine like a scout soldier, it moves and looks around, but I make sure that it is back under cover if there is more than one alien that can shoot at it AND I make sure my soldiers are around to engage and kill anything it spots. You can't move it out into the open and leave it there between turns. The aliens LOVE to fire at vehicles because they know how dangerous they are. I avoid all night missions period (vehicle or not.) Only a terror mission is worth the risk and even then you can usually time it to arrive in the daytime.

[[1.5 experimental steam 09/12/14 - Ground combat] alien shooting thru wall]

Uploaded screenshot where alien above the mouse) shoot thru wall and did not broke it. A little bit unfair to my soldiers.

Also i've succeed in entering the bus from the roof using flysuit. Don't know is it supposed to be so or not. A little bit funny.

I've seen this too and have also hurt aliens on the back side of a closed UFO door. I was shooting at it to blast it open and could hear the aliens making the "wounded" noise. Also, there are still issues with the landing ship allowing you to see the inside of the upper deck including the aliens from the outside if you're in certain spots.

[[V1.5 ground combat] Glass provide cover only when broken]

But Chris, it's fixed in X:CE and works flawlessly!

Apparently, someone else had the time to fix it.

[Dead xenonaut]

I thought soldier equipment could be destroyed by explosions??

[[1.5 experimental steam 09/12/14 - Ground combat] game crashes to desctop]

I can add to this one. The problem appears to a big explosion when a drone in trapped in a room. In my case it was a medium trapped in the back room of a grocery store. The same drone being shot down by direct fire weapons does not crash the game. I've crashed the game to desktop every time tying to use C4 on outside wall of room that has the drone in it. I'll upload a save game tonight that should show the problem.

[Community Issues to Consider]

When I get back home, I will substantiate my comments with links to interaction between Chris and certain members of the Steam forums, although bear in mind the Steam forums are something that Chris has said previously that he's not keen on interacting with anyway (whether this has changed since he wrote that I cannot say) so I will also include links addressed to GH developers which did not get noticed. While I mention Steam specifically, I refer to more than just Steam. There is Kickstarter to consider, GOG and Goldhawk's own Humble store. GOG has its own forums which again inhabitants won't be keen to move from (although I do notice that people have). I'm not proposing a mini-forum with all the bells and whistles through the launcher, rather a window into the GH sub-fora which specifically deal with community input so people who would otherwise not get involved can see what's going on and be nudged towards getting involved.

If any developer would respond in a Steam forum it would be Chris, so I totally believe you. IMO having interested parties interacting in one place e.g. the Goldhawk forums is far more manageable and efficient than having Chris or anyone else from Goldhawk trying to scan every gaming forum out there. That could be a full time job for someone. If you have a way to steer people here with questions and suggestions that would be much better than the other way around. Your web portal is a worthy idea and there are probably other things that can be done. If a web portal is possible it should included as early as possible, so input can be received while the game is still in development. I feel the early and continuous input here during the development of Xenonauts was very good for the final product.

[Community Issues to Consider]

Community involvement outside of the Goldhawk forums

Something that became clear after Goldhawk had their Kickstarter and then moved to Early Access on Steam was an extreme reluctance on the part of particpants on the Steam and Kickstarter sites to move to the Goldhawk forums to have their say. There was an inherant expectation on the part of these people that the mountain would come to Muhammed... and... this is hard to say but they aren't wrong, you know? For a lot of people, the Steam forums are where they go to have their say, and to move to other forums is irritating and can become a lengthy business if there are several games they want to actively comment on. That beign said, the Goldhawk forums here are much better organised to handle community input. I have never seen sub-fora on any Steam game I own, and "Community Input" tends to be several stickied posts curated by dedicated members of the Steam-based community to help keep the useful comments from floating away in the daily wash of input.

It seems to me that there is very little going on on those forums but idle chatter and debate that does not involve any interaction with the actual developers. Am I wrong?

[A plea to the devs, or the community]

I know blaming the PG engine is kind of traditional here, but it really has nothing to do with lack of buttons in the UI (neither with many of the other things it gets blamed for, unless the blame is that it has nothing to do with them).

I was referring to the problems with windowing. Sorry I was very unspecific.

[Community Issues to Consider]

In order to change the inner workings of AI, vision and similar, it'd need a) be scriptable using e.g. LUA, which would quite possibly make things slow.

<-- This is along the lines of what I was thinking. You're right that it could slow things down, but without doing some experimenting it's hard to say for sure how much. Many things can be loaded into memory at startup, so the program doesn't have to hit the scripts every time it's looping through code. However, you know the code far better than I do obviously. We are talking about a new game though, so accommodations would be easier than dropping it into Xenonauts. Anyway, I know some of the newer games are making use of LUA for dynamic scenarios and other things.

[A plea to the devs, or the community]

IIRC much of the problem is due to the game engine that was chosen and can't be fixed. There are other threads about this somewhere.

[Community Issues to Consider]

Xenonauts actually gives you more or less what you can reasonably get there and what you'd be able to use (since you're not a coder, as otherwise you'd know). I fail to see what a modder would do with the ability to fully alter e.g. how vision works anyway. And I don't think anyone has ever used even half of what currently can be modded about Xenonauts' AI, so it seems there's no actual real interest (prove me wrong ... seriously).

We had a very long running "debate" about weapon ranges and how to-hit chances were calculated during the development. I'd love to able change the formula myself. I actually am a coder I just don't code Xenonauts, but there are certainly some things I'd like the AI to do differently and other I'd like to change too. While you're right that a lot can be done with weighting, etc... Some things can't be done that it would be nice to be able to change if one were so inclined. However, I'd be happy with just having access to some of the calculations.

[Ground Combat Guide For Beginners]

how does one shield btw? my shield carriers usually have a reserved bed in the medbay and a discount on coffins if you catch my drift...

It needs to be in one of the weapon slots (the soldiers left hand is where I put it.) You can't put in the backpack. To use it effectively the soldier must be crouched and facing the enemy weapon. If you're lucky it will stop 1-2 shots from most alien weapons. The soldier has to carry it the whole time or put it on the ground if he needs both hands free. I don't use shield bearers myself. I think with good planning, proper use of suppression (by MG fire or flash bangs) and shotguns you can take any small ship without them. However, I'm sure there are some that would disagree with my tactics.

[Some thoughts on ground mission grind]

@StellarRat As I said, I totally don't mind the "grind" when there's an an enemy somewhere. I do want to think through my moves, take cover, reaction fire, flank the enemy, etc., etc., etc.. The grind for me comes in situations where you advance carefully, but there's no enemy anywhere, most of the time. I'm still in the early stages of the game, so I can give an example from there...

You can greatly speed up your map search by using a vehicle. The Hunter is available early in the game and it's a great scout. I'll usually use C4 to blast a path right through the middle of map for my Hunter if there are obstacles that prevent it from moving easily (like the industrial maps.) Also, unless you're doing a terror mission, you can just go straight for the UFO and not trying to kill every alien on the map. If you don't get them all the reduction in score isn't very big. Just make sure that you position troops to cover the sides and rear of your squad as you advance in case a straggler tries to sneak up on you. I usually have the guy at the back turned to the rear at the end of every turn to make sure this doesn't happen.

[Some thoughts on strategic war mistakes, bad luck, and recovering from them]

You can win with two bases. I always set up three bases, so if I lose one it's not the end of the world. As far as recovering from strategic mistakes, well it's possible depending on how big the mistake is. Obviously if you lose your main base you're toast. I'm not sure I understand the OP comments about placing a base in the wrong spot when activity is else where. I've never failed by placing my bases to cover the most land possible. The UFO's seem to spread themselves out well enough that every region will get plenty of action therefore any well located base is not a waste of money. As far as sending a dropship out without an escort, well, that's easy to address, just don't send them anywhere while UFO's are on your radar or into places where you don't have radar coverage. I hardly ever use an escort I just wait until the UFO attack wave is over before I begin any recovery missions. You can just airstrike any sites created in the middle of a wave. Being patient and selective is one of the keys to success in Xenonauts.

[X:CE 0.32 Release Candidate]

Soldier "Killed" dialog. Just say, "So and so is DOWN!" That doesn't specify dead or alive, but it's pretty accurate and to the point. Until someone actually checked out a downed soldier you really wouldn't know if they were dead or just badly hurt. A different message would be appropriate if the soldier was blown into goo. Like "So and so has been DISINTERGRATED!" Or "GONE!"

[Community Issues to Consider]

Your next game should have all calculations (to-hit formulas, vision calculations, etc....) and AI code broken out and publicly accessible so that modding can be done on them (like Drages said.) Also, FLAMETHROWERS!

As far as the community interaction, I think this forum seems to work well. You guys are the most responsive game developers I've ever interacted with. I think that's one reason Xenonauts came out so well that (and your willingness to work your butts off to make it right.) The bug tracking/"to do" process introduced late in development seemed to work OK. I like the database that showed how things were prioritized.

[Some thoughts on ground mission grind]

IMO, Xenonauts is supposed to be chess like in ground combat. It's turn based and that gives you ample opportunity to make sure you aren't being stupid and careless with your moves. "The grind" of having to move slowly and carefully in ground combat is very realistic (this also applies to JA2.) I understand that it makes the game take longer to play, but I can't really think of a way to speed up the process without degrading the mental challenge of the game. I suppose some type of tactical AI could speed things up a bit. These are used in Rainbow 6 and the Combat Mission series to allow the playing to be a little more hands off, but mostly because both games are real time and there are simply too many things for one person to handle at once. I pretty much like Xenonauts the way it is. I should also point out that you don't have to do all the ground combats that are available. I airstrike probably 8 or 9 out of 10 missions available to me by mid-game.

BTW, props to whoever has been tweaking the AI between 1.0 and 1.5. I'm finding the aliens much sneaker and dangerous than the used to be. They are hiding and moving around behind my troops much more. I don't know if it's better initial placement of the aliens or better maneuvering or both. It's really upped the challenge.

[Ground Combat Guide For Beginners]

Hi I appreciate the beginners guide but the terminology does not match. Took me a while to realize that LMG is actually Heavy Machine Gun as there is no weapon that says Light Machine Gun.

I imagine HE is something that comes later in the game so bad for a beginners guide so I took that meaning right now fragment grenades. The difference in terminology really made it confusing some. Otherwise I found it useful thanks.

I put out a new version today that clarifies the naming problems you noted. Thank you for your input.

[Dealing with Reapers]

Reapers also fall pretty quickly under the withering gunfire of a Hunter Scout Car or other ground vehicles.

What he said. Vehicles can't be hurt by Reapers and can spot them at long ranges. In my book they are the best solution to the "Reaper problem".

[What games disappointed you? :(]

Spore and Sim City 5. Spore was just incredibly boring after the first run through, but it was an expensive and much hyped game. I pre-ordered it, big mistake. Sim City 5 was a game I was really, really looking forward to. I loved Sim City 4 and wanted so much to have a modernized version, but EA managed to ruin it completely and utterly. Like they've done with most of the companies they bought. Fortunately, having learned my lesson from Spore I didn't pre-order and when the deserved horrible reviews came out I decided not to get it, a no brainer at the time. It was/is probably the worst reviewed game in Amazon history. If you go out and look at the Amazon reviews you'll get a chuckle at some of stuff that was written.