Vivisector 9999

That also! I'm hoping so hard for Xenonauts, because for someone to finally get a remake right after so long (and so many attempts) would be pretty mind-blowing.

That's my prediction, as well. They were a couple days past due when they rolled out v13, as I recall. Of course, given how long some of us have been waiting for Torchlight 2, that kind of delay is barely worth mentioning.

Yeah, all right, maybe my post came off as more hostile than was truly necessary. I just feel that it's in seriously poor taste to come onto an indie developer's forum and try to defend piracy. Chris England and his crew aren't one of those big, evil publishers who demand $60 for their latest bloated cookie-cutter game while they're cramming invasive DRM up your ass. He quit his job and put up his life savings for this project, and even though his kickstarter campaign was very successful, he's still one of the "little guys". I wouldn't steal Xenonauts even if I were a software pirate.

I agree, awarding it for panicking isn't the best way. Actually, a better method might be awarding it for killing an alien, rather than merely seeing one. That would reinforce your soldier's feelings of "They're not so tough" or "See, we CAN kill them" or "Welcome to Earth, motherfucker!" (and thus bravery). That would solve the exploit/1 point per alien problem, as well.

I agree, the bleeding message goes by WAY too fast. Yes, red tear drops and splattered tiles are good, but those still don't tell you HOW MUCH your guy is bleeding.

I also am curious about such a thing!

Not that it's really on topic anymore, but I thought the original Deus Ex's endings could've used more work. Yeah, there were three different endings and that was cool... but the choices that determined which ending you got were all in the last level. It would've been nice if it took your actions over the whole game into account. It's still one of my favorite games ever, but I couldn't help being a little disappointed by that aspect. Deus Ex 3's endgame, of course, was an even bigger step down. At least in the first one, you still had to replay most of the last level if you wanted to see the other endings. This time? Just reload the last room, turn 45 degrees, and push a different button...

All right, NOW my game updated. I guess Desura just likes to take a while...

Changelog? Go to your Games tab (in Desura), then right-click on Xenonauts Alpha. You should see "View Changelog" among the options.

Same here... my game hasn't updated yet. Desura never gave me any message about any update (unlike last time), and the Xenonauts changelog still stops at v13.01. Launching the game doesn't seem to trigger any updating, either. Help?

The files on that page are labelled v12.11, so I would surmise that no, they're not the latest.

And again with the stupid half-assed analogies! The game companies aren't the Sheriff of Nottingham, taxing and oppressing the shit out of us, and software pirates aren't Robin Hood and his merry fucking men standing up to them. Is DRM annoying? Sure. Are a lot of those big studio $60 games totally not worth the price? Again, sure. But you know something? If you don't like it when games do that, then you don't have to buy them. Wow. You dodged the bullet, and you didn't even have to deprive a creator of their rightful due in the process. Don't act self-righteous with that retarded "Nuh uh, moral good boy! It's free advertising! Think for yourself!" attitude if you choose otherwise.

And if you actually use the loader in battle, don't forget to quip "Get away from her, you BITCH!" (I'm a little shocked that someone didn't quote that within mere seconds of the power loader being referenced.)

Hot damn!

It's probably too late to put something like this into the game, but it's not a bad idea. In real life, detection dogs have been trained to find pest species, not just bombs/drugs. If they were put in, I would prefer that they were separate units that take up dropship space. Maybe you can direct where they go, but they can't move more than X spaces away from your human units. If they detect an alien, it would be an area thing - you wouldn't know exactly where the creature is, but the dog could face in the right general direction and bark or something. It shouldn't be 100% accurate - occasionally, it might lead you to a bystander or get distracted by the UFO (and all the alien corpses around it).

The infinite basic equipment doesn't really bother me. Most of the weapons have their use, and your troops can't lug the whole armory around on their back, so there's still decisions to be made even if you can have everything. Also, I can't even remember how many games there are where you're officially trying to save the world, either you win or everyone dies, and you still have to pay for even the most basic shit. Usually you see this in RPGs, but it happens in these squad-level strategy games, too. That Xenonauts doesn't pull this on you was a pleasant surprise to me.

After reading that article, I was more worried to read about the UI and gamepads. I've just plain passed up games that looked great, because I saw too many comments like "Using a keyboard/mouse is too awkward in this game, you need a gamepad". I really hope the Firaxis game doesn't end up like that. As for Xenonauts, I think the "impact" on planes is about where it needs to be. The planes are expensive enough that losing one hurts, and you can't keep throwing hordes of them at the UFOs attrition-style. At the same time, the loss isn't so horrible that one mistake is the end of the game. Which is good, because players who don't expect that a "very small" UFO could be dangerous are in for a rude awakening.

I too am glad to see the new map-maker working hard.

Actually, believe it or not, I would. I can be absent-minded at times, and if I'm in the middle of something when the notice pops up, that makes it all the more likely that I'll fail to remember to assign a new project in a timely manner if I don't do it immediately. Also, doesn't the geoscape pause when you're doing stuff in your base? So it's not like your fighters would get blasted out of the sky while you're pondering which project to do next. I wouldn't worry, anyway. Even if the developers saw my post up there, I doubt they'd make that particular change. It's a very minor thing, and while I might prefer it that way, your post shows that it might annoy others.

I don't know if it'd have to be live aliens, wouldn't corpses work just as well? Either way, the aliens would probably have an unearthly smell that you could train a dog with. Of course, if you could train your alien-sniffing dogs to be attack dogs as well, that would be even more efficient. Even the goddamned Batman has trouble fending off a big dog pack.

I've been running into this as well, unfortunately.

Teen would be reasonable. The violence isn't graphic, the game isn't really scary in a horror movie way, the player is penalized for killing innocent bystanders, and there's no profanity or sex or drugs or anything else that might offend a parent who doesn't subscribe to the Ned Flanders school of childraising.

I never play MMO's, and for those exact reasons. Oh, and the subscription fees! I like paying for a game once and then it's done. I've replayed Civilization 4 and most of the Fallout games so many times that when I look at the original cost (compared to the thousands of hours of entertainment), I almost feel bad for the developer. So for a game to keep hitting me up for money every month, it needs to be at least that damn good. But I don't enjoy MMO's enough for that to ever happen. I'll admit I used to be into Kingdom of Loathing for a while. That one is free (although I eventually donated) and the player interaction is downplayed to the point where it feels like a single-player game most of the time (also good). But even that got too grindy in the end. I grew up on pen and paper games, but those have their own obstacles. When you're an adult and so are most of your friends, it can be tough to get everyone together for long enough (and often enough) to keep a campaign going. Or like me, you might move to a new area where you don't know any gamers, leaving you to play with new people who might be douchebags (if you can even find anyone who's into RPGs at all).

That's good, stay calm. To answer your question, not everyone is having the issue that you are. I certainly am not. Actually, for me the game has been remarkably stable for something labeled as an "alpha". So it's not like the developer is blowing this off... it's more likely that you're dealing with a bug that only affects your computer (and an unknown number of others). The point of this kind of beta-testing is (like Jean-Luc said) to help the developer learn about these things so that they can be fixed. The best thing to do would to post about your problem (as you've already done) and answer any questions you might get, so they have some clue about what what might be causing the bug. Or if that sounds too tedious, you could - yes - just wait for the next patch/build. You've already helped their funding by pre-ordering the game anyway. The chance to be a tester for them is simply a bonus.

Games aren't cars, dude. Ugh. First piracy advocates are like "Games aren't physical products! Taking them isn't stealing!" Now it's "Loaning or even giving away your physical product doesn't hurt anyone! We should treat games the same way!" Can't have it both ways.