dekamme
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Posts posted by dekamme
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When you fly to a mission, the chinook is loaded?
I had this issue as well, combined with the "unable to recruit new soldiers" bug. The new soldiers list should always contain the same amount (10). When I solved the soldier recruiting issue (by the "start a new game" idea I mentioned) I solved the Chinook issue as well.
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As this is a single player game, and the tech tree is essential to staying alive versus continuously evolving aliens, I think it is one of the most important tools to keep the game fresh and unique every play through. I see these points coming up:
Uniqueness: Every playthrough should offer some unique branches in the tech tree. This avoids people just rushing down the same path each time. Unique branches should offer something tangible, not gimmicky.
Examples: A special gas grenade, a laser variant to the RPG (firing one massive beam that eats up 2 magazines), armour with high plasma resistance but low fire/explosion resistance, +5% damage against a type of alien.
Choice: I like jimbobfury's suggestion. If there are more choices into the tree then there is time to research all of them, people will need to choose. And need to re-play to see how other choices affects their game. Not focussing on base defence forces you to keep fighter planes close. Skipping lasers in favour of plasma research makes for some very hard ground battles.
Story: Arislan may joke about it, but the research tree is, at this time, a good story telling medium. In other games, regular cutscenes and blobs of text interrupt gameplay. With the techtree we link a useful/needed game tool to a backstory tool. I'm thinking about the Civilization games, where research is tied into world history.
I like how usually the top part summarizes benefits in a bullet list, with a more fleshed out text explaining the back story below. People not interested in the story are free to skip it.
Are we missing any other relevant points for the research tree? I'm assuming the devs already have quite some of this in mind, and would just like to offer insight in our expectancy of it.
Gorlom: A possible use for a training modifier: research into an alien species that works as a hive-mind enables a one-time 5 day training for solders. This training improves their group cohesion, giving them a +5 increase to initiative.
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Ok, the Duke Nukem idea was over the top
The game's atmosphere is too dark for that kind of silly humour. I would like being able to bring special characters to our side, like help a human civilian soldier fend off aliens surrounding him - when you do so, he'll be available to recruit from the pool. Icons like Vasily Zaytsev (ok technically WW2 hero), Robert L. Howard, ... Not as characters with super stats, but with noticeable better stats then the average recruitee.As findable loot, I was thinking about the things we can find now (alien weapons) added with some civilian tech in labs. Can give us some other goals to walk around the map then shoot aliens every time. Eventually you should be able to get the tech automatically, but looking for it specifically and bringing back the item in your backpack enables you to research it faster. Bringing in more samples intact speeds up research. Something like that.
Why wouldn't Xenonauts be an Eastern Block organization? This comes up in the cold war weapons thread as well: why do most games and movies always take the Western/US point of view? This can be somewhat disappointing for players from the rest of the world. They might like playing a game where the US and USSR join forces against a common enemy. From their point of view, the Xenonauts may have roots in China.
You're right about referencing the setting, there were a lot of shadow organizations that reached their full height in the cold war. Nations began to realize it would pay off to keep an eye on possible enemies and gather intelligence and technology.
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In the screen where you can arrange the troops inside a dropship, you can see the available troops on the bottom. You should also be able to see what their primary weapon is, but that part falls just off the screen.
I'm playing in 1920*1080 on a 24" screen (I assume a default resolution for many widescreen 24" LCDs).
Full screen:
Zoom of section:
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Had this in a game yesterday. I killed all the aliens in the map, besides the ones inside the UFO. I bunched up a group of soldiers in front of the entrance, then threw an average of 2 smoke grenades per soldier into the UFO. Not all into the same location.
Most grenades spawned a cloud of smoke, but about 2 out of 9 exploded, and set parts of the UFO ablaze.
First exploding smokegrenade:
Second grenade (notice the entrance is now also in flames)
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In the first pic I highlighted the alien shadow. The next one targetting him, then his corpse. In the last one I had a soldier standing on top of him, so you can see what type of alien it is.
For those who don't know how to make a screenshot:
Ingame press "print screen" on your keyboard
ALT-TAB back to windows
open a picture editor (like Paint)
Paste (ctrl-v)
Save as jpg
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It all depends on how the tech tree branching is set up.
At the moment I've researched the basic stuff until I was able to produce laser weapons. After this I'm not offered any new choices into research. Not sure why this is, 2 months have passed without research.
Gameplay has slowed to intercepting hoards of fighters, downing an occasional UFO, killing everything, and getting no new weapons or research. I've tweaked the XML files so I could intercept better and my soldiers survive better (not increasing anystats to godlike), so I could review gameplay further along the line. Not much happening now.
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Put him down = kill or put him on the floor from backpack?
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Spawning in different locations is indeed different.
The 2 threads I linked are about invisible aliens with only a shadow showing.
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Mostly shooting own units or other obstacles in your line of sight happens when you crouch. Usually a green circle appears over the soldier that's in your line of sight.
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Did you fly over the Chinook from another base? Did you empty it before flying it over?
Have you tried saving, quitting the game, then reloading?
Have you tried saving, starting a new game, quitting the new game, then reloading?
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Elim,
Please check the known bugs sticky before posting, this is a known issue. Admiddetly the known bug list is long, took me a bit to find the links
Here are 2 threads on this topic:http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/2412-V12.1-Invisible-alien
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I don't get this behaviour. Although yesterday I had another strange issue with smoke grenades: 2 out of 8 thrown inside a UFO exploded and left some flames inside the UFO. Maybe they hit some sensitive UFO part that then exploded, but this seems odd behaviour for a grenade overall.
I've taken some screenshots, will upload them when I'm home.
I threw in 8 grenades because the aliens were just standing there in the smoke, they didn't drop down after one turn. Are you doing anything special to make them drop that fast? How many grenades of what type are you carrying? I was carrying about 3 regular and 3 smoke grenades per soldier.
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Not a big issue at all, but the use of "clip" for the ammo of many of the guns which obviously use a "mag".
Course that's just me being hyper aware of that particularly issue in a general sense after someone pointed out the difference to me in great detail.
I've heard people correcting others in the use of magazine versus clip, so I decided to look it up. Explained very well here:
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I didn't know it was possible to stun aliens with smoke grenades. I tried throwing some (one each round) into an UFO yesterday, but when the smoke cleared enough to see, and I ended my turn close to the entrance of the UFO, the ground combat ended.
One time I was able to move atop a body of an alien downed with smoke, but the descrition read it as a dead alien. Placing it in my soldier's inventory did not do anything different.
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Hmm, valid point.
Another idea to get rid of this issue: choose well performing rifles of the era, and give them a variant designation number, with the description saying "this weapon, based on X, was modified by the Xenonauts to have a small advantage against often better armoured alien forces. Although better performing then their vanilla counterparts, it still takes a lot to take one down."
Sililar to what they did with the F17. If they have the knowhow and logistics to roll out modified airplanes from the start, modifying ballistics should be a piece of cake.
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From the location of the screen. Perhaps show a "hidden movement" box, no longer full screen, so the player has situational awareness. It should be relative to the current view location.
For this to work the view location should not jump to where the (hidden) npcs are moving around.
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They're sometimes shooting me through walls, so I guess they already have better vision...
Maybe something for the late-game aliens, don't walk too close to walls or they'll lob a grenade at where you're hugging the wall.
For regular weapons it doesn't bother me too much:
- alien spots you through wall
- alien shoots hole in wall
- opened hole makes my soldier spot the alien
- my solder's initiative makes him interrupt and burst the alien to a pile of goo
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Hi thothkins, thanks!
I meant the load times of the website, not of the game. The game download was quite OK for me, about 20min.
The past 15 minutes the forum was all messed up for me, with all graphics replaced by text, links placed out of order etc.
Usually it takes between 10 to 30 seconds to load a page after clicking a link, and often my posts mention 'error' when nothing is wrong with the post (technically, not talking about content
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Oh that sounds nice! Seems I haven't reached the "dev blog/upcoming" section yet.
This site navigates way too slow for my info hunger.
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I think we should find some crawled under a desk. Cold war means "duck and cover" trainings.
Thothkins: I'm for the old Russian tactic of shooting any non-civvie that's running the wrong way. Deserters deserve to die. If they were too weak to take on aliens, they shouldn't have come to Xenonauts.
Name: When civvies flock your forces, you end up shooting them with stray bullets most of the time. I think too many of us have experienced NPC/follower bad line-of-sight behaviour in other games to repeat that. They should get behind your forces, not flock them. (hmm, perhaps using them as a meat shield isn't that bad an idea).
Mace: or in the bedroom? "Susie, it's the end of the world, you don't want to die a virgin do you?"...
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Oh that sounds nice! Seems I haven't reached the "dev blog/upcoming" section yet.
This site navigates way too slow for my info hunger.
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To my regret I have not played the original UFO games. When I was old enough to realize their importance, they were so outdated it wasn't fun to play any more for me. The newer incarnations didn't interest me that much.
I do count Jagged Alliance 2 and the 2 original Fallouts as my favourite games, so I'm no stranger to strategic turn-based gameplay. I also enjoyed MAX, the Civilization series... I think lovers of these games are also a target audience for Xenonauts, especially for the lively JA crowd. I think JA borrowed and improved much from/upon UFO gameplay, if Xenonauts can improve on the originals and some of JA mechanics, it's pure gold.
After 2 days of playing the alpha of Xenonauts, it is nice to see someone give solid general advice, much to the same idea I had before starting. The developers claim to re-use the good parts of the original and iron out their shortcomings. Posts such as Hardball's point out the shortcomings very well. I hope to give my first experience perspective well on your points here.
I also often toss around ideas and let my imagination work. The idea is to get other ideas and suggestions flowing, let's think solutions. I don't care if my ideas themselves make it to the game, if I was able to invoke a new thought or inspiration that's fine by me. Maybe some suggestions are stupid - as long as they get the ball rolling it's good. And you'll get a laugh from it as a side bonus
I've cropped out some parts of Harball's OP for improved readability.
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I would ask for as much realism as possible.
This means that there should be answers to questions like "Why do the Aliens send one saucer after another instead of bombarding the planet and picking up what's left with a grand scale invasion without such risks and high losses as are to be estimated by sending one after another after another?"
I'm also for realism, a stupid backstory could ruin it for some. What works in my mind now: The aliens faced a star eclipse in their galaxy, and had to abandon it in a rush with their entire flotilla. Earth was the first and only reachable planet they encountered that could support them. Their orbital weapons would leave it uninhabitable, thus they were forced to attack with ships that were never designed for atmospheric combat.
Their abductions, crop circles etc. are just steps in their terraforming plan. But, during terraforming research, they discovered some facts that were lost to / hidden from their culture over time, which will surprise all...
I don't know how the creative process of this aspect goes within Goldhawk. If you don't have a dedicated story writer, I'd suggest to search within existing fanfic realms. Maybe someone posted an intriguing backstory to the original UFO game. These kind of people are usually proud to see someone interested in their creation, honoured to see their IP used anywhere and might be very willing to donate it just to see their name in the credits. I won't be surprised if they're willing to edit and tailor it for you.
Same goes for graphics. Just browse Deviantart a bit. Although I think the graphics person did a splendid job on the world map and opening screen (with the generals at the C&C table).
The biggest mistakes that were made are in my opinion:
* boring and repetitive missions,
* periods without much felt progress in terms of research or new equipment especially in mid- to end-games,
* boring or ridiculous or comic-like aliens
* not enough different hostiles
* mostly shallow base management
* no diplomacy to speak of
* ineffectice and therefore unusable vehicles
* bad or repetitive tactical AI behaviour.
Repetitive missions is where the game's at in this state. Suggestions:
- give the player some random loot (s)he can only pick up from the combat map, both from aliens and civilians. Start out with lowly aliens in rural settings (low loot), advancing to better aliens in large cities (big loot)
- give some interaction with the civilians (eg save them from being dragged away alive by an alien), randomly having them give you bandages or their panties
- mission: disable a self destruct / repair a melting down power core in time for a few type of UFOs - not getting there in time gives a successful ending but you don't get points for capturing the UFO (not on all missions though, turn based means people love taking their time)
- put some (unique) loot in civilian buildings (cash!!!). Saving some civilians makes them open up a safe.
- alien base: give the player the choice to destroy it top-side after medium resistance for a standard reward, or to search its sub-level(s) with heavy resistance for goodies (capture research the aliens were doing there)
- Put some rare random events in there. Like in the original Fallout RPGs & JA2. There's a lot of lore and events to build on. Let a UFO crash in Roswell, and give that map 2 UFO's: one with crash graphics, and one fairly intact sitting in a hangar, with a unique bonus tech/weapon in it. Let one crash on Chernobyl, where you have a timer to kill the aliens and prevent a meltdown. Have a civilian appear resembling Duke Nukem that successfully helps you & that you can recruit.
Progress: Haven't reached mid to endgame yet, and as I haven't played the originals, can't comment that much there. I'd say the power of new weapons should be substantial and their actions noticeable (like in Fallout: scorched alien from laser as opposed to bleeding from ballistic, plasma makes them melt to goo). Don't just make weapon stats more powerful, make the player feel and see his research and development meant something. Let some pixels in the laser weapon on your soldier light up bright red. Make us feel cool walking around with it.
Perhaps let the player start in the first month with sidearms and shotguns, until the first downed ufo (with weak and confused aliens) makes some nations donate assault rifles. Spreading the pacing keeps boredom away.
The alien graphics could use some polishing up. It was unclear to me that some new alien I encountered was supposed to be a robot/cyborg, besides his heavier footstep sound. Make the sprite wider, more reflective/metallic, more distinct. Can't comment on later types of aliens yet.
I'm playing in a high resolution on a 24" screen, and I often can't make out details in the aliens or my own weapons.
Initial base manangement seems OK with the current options, might get a bit boring later on - the choices are limited. To save on development time but still offer depth and diversity, offer the player an upgrade choice for each building. Don't just auto-upgrade the missile defense to laser defence, make the player choose to research and develop it or wait it out until the next tech comes available. Give options, like combining defence with radar (boosting both stats slightly) or make dedicated buildings (sacrificing space but offering a higher stat increase).
Give benefits to some layouts, eg: building hangars close to lab boosts air research, workshop + lab boosts weapon research, workshop + hangar boosts building of planes, ...
With ample development time for this topic, adding a subterranean level or 2 with more advanced options sounds nice.
Diplomacy: might diversify, doesn't interest me too much. Nations want me to shoot down UFOs and give me cash when I do so, good. I'd rather have the devs focus on missions, aliens, research, base and story. If there's time left, diplomacy is OK, perhaps to get a bit more direct cash. Otherwise this could be nice for a mod/expansion?
Vehicles: I find the vehicle I've used quite good. Moves fast (lots of AP), sees far, quite a punch with the rockets. Nice tactical addition to the regular forces, I use it mostly as scout and support vehicle. Doesn't get experience, thus expendable. Costly, so not that expendable.
AI: I don't think devs are focusing on advanced AI now. If so, popping into an ufo, shooting an alien twice, then disappearing should alert them and those nearby. At my game level they are (as research suggests) not that intelligent, rather cocky, as they assume their advanced tech will overrun the puny earthlings. More advanced waves should use better tactics though.
In detail:
- AI: aliens should evolve
- social or political pressure -private defense organizations - Religious radicals or alien lovers
- personalisation and identification with your staff is a must
- hardball - a lot of firepower is needed to overcome the aliens resulting in great destruction of the surrounding area. And no, I do not want to kill any civilians in the process.
Cheers!
I removed the repeat topics here.
AI: In my limited playthrough I noticed already my ballistic weapons weren't that effective any more when I was researching lasers, that's spot-on pacing! It made me put more scientists on lasers, and rush more towards producing them, as they were immediately effective. That's an example of good pacing and progress.
Competing humans: I like this idea! Perhaps let you fight a shadow organization, give them some unique tech/loot. The same maps can be recycled, just without crashed UFO, more fleshed out civilian buildings, and no aliens. Killing them doesn't affect nation relations, but you can find loot there you won't find elsewhere (the result of their own research). Maybe give them items resulting from research paths the player did not take.
Staff: The possibility to assign colours to shirt and pants sounds nice. That way I can at least give some colour coding to my snipers, heavy hitters, breachers etc. Making the weapon sprites more distinct could help too. Or I'm playing at a too high resolution - can't tell the one from the other now, with the exception of RPG guys.
Hardball: Maybe an idea for the alien base, where you can take more explosive weapons (grenades, turrets?) from the scenery & blow the base sky-high. In urban settings you'd feel inclined to preserve the poor civvies city; the alien base can go boom.
*edit* added and removed some lines for improved quote readability. Because the forum was all messed up for me , I couldn't make heads or tails of my own post. And I had nothing to drink yet. Bad sign. - what's up with the slowness of the forum? Someone turn the bandwidth valve counter clockwise please.
- give the player some random loot (s)he can only pick up from the combat map, both from aliens and civilians. Start out with lowly aliens in rural settings (low loot), advancing to better aliens in large cities (big loot)
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I'm also not for having the devs spending a lot of time implementing and balancing different weapon types.
Perhaps a good alternative would be to keep the different roles (sidearm, rifle, sniper, suppression gun, rocket launcher) and stats but use different names and graphics based on the bases' location. US base keeps the m16, Europe gets the FN FAL, Soviets get the AK...
It just doesn't make sense for me if I start up a Xenonaut base in Soviet Russia, to see them rolling out m16s from the start. Once they downed a few UFO's and gotten credit with the US, they may start to receive some small arms shipments, but starting out with m16s is just plain odd.
This may be a good tradeoff - no balancing issues, but it increases realism and immersion. Many of that era's weapons are copies of each other anyway, same graphics, small difference in description. What do you think?
Base idea (not complete):
Soviets: AK47 assault rifle, SVD (Dragunov) sniper, RPG-7, PKM machine gun
China: Type 56 assault (using AK47 image, it's the same), Type 79 (SVD image)
US: m16 assault , m24 sniper, m870 shotgun, m72 law, m60 machine gun
Europe: FN FAL assault, FN MAG machine gun (= US m420),
South Africa: Rifle R1 assault (using FAL image, it's the same), RPG-7, FN MAG, R1 Scoped (FN FAL with scope
)The downside I see is that some base locations used very standardized weaponry (USSR, US, China), some others didn't (different European, Middle-East and African countries). Most time might go in reaching a consensus, but if this is something the devs would look in to, we could continue the discussion here. I'd gladly help research.
[v12.1] Smoke grenades are like chemical weapons against aliens
in Xenonauts Bug Reports / Troubleshooting
Posted
They did drop dead after 3 or 4 turns. I wanted them to drop unconscious so I could capture a live one and research it. And I was looking into the exploding smoke grenade issue (see my bug report on that).
The game summary screen showed I had live ones, but the status said "destroyed". Not sure if I was doing it right, will try to get one in my backpack next time. It didn't offer me new research options.
Maybe we're at different stages in the game - if my aliens are already more evolved; they may not drop from one grenade.