Skitso

@Solver Yeah, I think the issues are mainly related to unity licenses. What I've gathered, @Chris is well aware of the issue of the game having too few maps ATM. I'm sure they are doing at least something to make it better, but the amount of work required there is huge, to be frank. I would probably be able to produce maybe 2-3 maps per week after learning the tools. If I remember correctly, it took maybe 3-5 hours per level in X1

I have offered my help to Chris and would be willing to map few dozen high quality maps for X2, but it seems there are a few technical and legal hurdles that I think are unsolvable to make it happen unfortunately.

Very good point about the exploration and tension! Couldn't agree more.

In general, the mission seems a tad too tough, especially the turrets. But you could have managed by playing a more carefully for example by moving all units behind a door, end turn and open it at the beginning of the next turn, maximizing your firepower.

Took a quick look of your Cleaner base mission... with such rushing and poor tactics, you should lose IMO. Even if the game balance is clearly a bit off, you can't just blame the game if you are playing like that.

I think it's more that the starter medkit is way too powerful in the first place. It should take most of a turn for one to patch a wounded unit. It also shouldn't give so much health back (if at all? Maybe just stop bleeding?) IMO.

I'd love to give it a go @Chris

@Chris, regarding suppression discussion, I agree with @Solver. It worked nice enough in X1 and would be quite easy to tweak the balance from there. Artificially limiting suppression to flashbangs (and similar) just feels too gamey and something I'd expect to see in a more board game styled games like Firaxis' Xcom. I'd also argue that changing starting dropship's unit capacity from 10 to 8 would lessen the "suppress to win" situations as player wouldn't have superiority regarding unit numbers quite so often.

Also, C4 is much stronger flair wise compared to an obscure "demolition grenade"...

*sigh* I'm not talking about real life combat - just this game. 2-3 units moving together, checking each others backs and using concentrated fire. Something to make them feel more like a team and hive mind instead of a bunch of individuals.

@Chris Testing X2 Demo left me really satisfied. It's visually a huge step from the first game and the level of polish is already amazing, considering it's still probably more than 6 months away. The new UI is spot on, gameplay is smooth and fast, performance is great, destruction effects, fire and smoke were superb... everything just feels right. Splendid job! 10/10 Regarding this demo, the only things I wish could be improved on were sound balance and AI. Weapon SFX were really soft, while some wall destruction SFX were extremely loud. AI on the other hand... well, there's always room for improvement, but at least for now, I saw too much odd and stupid behaviour. I'd love to see some group tactics, flanking, grouping, retreating, ambushing and stuff like that. But that's stuff for another thread. You are making a timeless classic. Thank you for that. Whish I could throw some money in your direction to get my hands on the full game. Edit: One more thing... You should be able to cancel first aid kit with right click.

Building roofs and especially Xenonaut's beautufully rendered troop carrier tops have a big impact on overall visuals and flair, so I personally would prefer everything to be visible as much as possible. So maybe disable roofs only when: 1. enemy units are seen inside 2. own units are inside 3. mouse cursor is inside If any of the above is true, roofs could still be visible if the building in question is close to screen edges.

Even if I disable controls information from the options, they are visible in gameplay

As seen in the image below, roofs are always disabled, even when no one sees inside the building. Also, just noticed the wall shadows are bugged...

Disable roof -toggle doesn't seem to work as intended. As it's stated in the tool tip, on default it should be automatic so roofs are disabled only if player can see tiles inside the building. As it's now, roofs are always disabled, even if no interiors are visible. I would also argue the default should be so roof is disabled only if UNITS are visible inside a building. Xenonauts CE had this nailed to perfection IMO.

I just watched a gameplay video of the latest version and the AI made so unbelievably stupid moves I just had to come here and ask, what's happening here: (@16:57 forward) Youtube video The Andron south of the Chinook and two Sebillians north of it, all make completely mindless moves on their turn and failed to shoot even a single shot where the situation should have ended in at least one or two Xenonaut casaulties . @Chris @Gijs-Jan

While it doesn't look visually equally interesting, moving TU's and health below the middle portrait could make things more easy to read. This would also free some space under the weapons so you could move attack mode, reload, grenade etc icons there so they wouldn't float on top of the main playfield area.

Hey guys! I've been away for ages and this is my first experience of X2 since the last demo years ago, so naturally a lot has changed since. I'll start playing and just type random things here as soon as I find something to report: - Nice looking main menu! I'd love the geoscape to look in-game like the green screen back here. I like the new subtle background scrolling effect - Love the music - A bit low resolution images for my 27" 1440p screen. (main menu and loading screen) - quite a long loading time... you shouldn't have the loading bar stay at 100% and have the game still load for 15 more seconds. Feels like the game has crashed. - Ooh, the game looks nice! Really sharp! And performance is top notch too! Nice job here! - UI looks nice and modern overall. Soldier portraits look amazing. Things I don't like UI wise: I'm not quite sure I like how the TU and health bars are dispayed below weapons. Attack style buttons and top right menu buttons are too big and obtrusive. For my playstyle, I don't need them at all. Hopefully this will be customizable in the final build. (See my second post below for my quick UI idea) - I'd like to open inventory with "i" - I'd like to be able to switch soldiers when inventory is open (from top portraits or number keys). Inventory close button is ugly. - Music is still awesome! - AI turn is bit of a visual mess: camera jumps around too much, hidden movement screen blinks annoyingly again and again. You should try to make it so that the AI turn starts by showing all the visible activities first, and only after that, fade the screen darker, display the hidden movement image and THEN run all activities that happen out of sight back to back without blinking in and out of hidden movement. Right now it looks a bit broken and way too erratic. - AI turn ends with a camera centered to a completely black screen. Annoying... should center to my troops at the beginning of my turn instead. - Trying to order a unit to move into the fog of war... and the cursor (the square pulsating one on the ground) vanishes under the black shroud. That doesn't feel right... - Hmm, a civilian got killed somewhere, I think. human injury/death sound effects seem to be same bad ones as in X1? - Roofs on/off should have an additional "automatic" setting which should also be on as a default. Meaning that helicopter roof should be always visible as long as there are no troops inside. You have really nice visuals here, don't hide them if you don't need to. This is also true to all tree tops, building roofs etc. They should always be visible unless there're troops or aliens in/behind and in Xenonauts' sight. EDIT: Related a bit to the roof thing above, (going by the youtube videos, as you don't have ufo's in this demo), you should have similar cut-out look with the UFO's as you have with the helicopter. Removing the hull completely has always looked a bit odd and unfinished to my eyes. The cut-out look you've done with the Chinook looks so much cooler! - Hmmm, info pop ups are starting to annoy me already on turn three. I know already what the end turn button does. Give me an option to turn these off or at least up the time it takes to appear. - Got an alien overwatch shot from the fog of war. The unit was revealed though - the alien just stood alone there in the middle of blackness. It was on top of a container i presume. Looked odd nevertheless. - Targeting line made of small green squares looks really dated. Disappointed seeing it's taken directly from X1 - should be something a lot nicer looking. - There's something odd going on when selecting units... It's not as intuitive or easy as it could and should be. Firstly, the target reticle cursor should be clearly different looking when you have nothing selected. Now it's pretty much the same with only a bit of a different color. Second, you can select the tile where the unit stands without actually selecting the unit and that makes targeting feel a bit messy. THIS IS A HIGH PRIORITY TO GET RIGHT! - Hah, a lonely alien seemed to run away. If so, nice AI. - Huh, MARS went through a concrete wall. Doesn't feel right for such a small machine? - Storage room with tons of shelves with cardboard boxes looks bland. Should have more detail and variation. - Still really pleased how good and smooth this game looks. Top notch animation. - LMG feels overpowered - I have my sniper on top of a container. When I select him, clicking the portrait, the camera won't center to him but just rise to a correct level. A second click to a portrait centers correctly. (is this intended behavior?) - Would like to reload with "r" - Smoke and fire animations looks ace. Broken ground after explosion - not so much. A grid of red/brown squares look terrible to be frank. - SFX balance is a bit off I think. Some sounds are too soft, others too loud. (Breaking a prop with explosion almost made me deaf!) - Cool looking blood particles when troops are hit! - Man the alien overwatch is deadly - Alien reserved everything to overwatch while it had two of my troops in sight. Should have been more aggressive, move to a cover and shoot? - A camera zoom could be nice. - Uh oh, I just realized one of my troops was bleeding. It's told at the beginning of the turn in a pop-up, but the effect icons could be more visible... Maybe have them on top portrait icon and left side of the big portrait, under the kneel icon? The current location seems a bit random... - Had one alien standing in a corner of two containers doing nothing for several turns until I killed it. Overall a really nice demo with great visuals, music and SFX. I love the overall polish and you are clearly going in the right direction! Keep it up. And @Chris, I'm still available for mapping if needed.

I hope a visual redesign for geoscape will look something like that new art in the @Chris' post above. Striking green background, big bold yellow pulsating rings for missions and slowly fading long yellow lines behind ufo's and aircraft. I'd love to see visual flavor like that! Looks exactly like a strategic map some military organization would use. Good luck with the baby and congratulations!

I'm quite disappointed with how simplistic, empty and sterile the maps are looking AGAIN, with too few claustrophobic close quarters opportunities, height differences and larger buildings. Most maps that are in at the moment look like game maps, not lived spaces... and it's the same issue X1 had back in the days. Especially FARM maps don't look like real places at all, but more like shooting galleries with random props sprinkled here and there with no rhyme or reason. I'm still available for additional mapping if the new engine and editor makes it possible and@Chris still wants me. The other thing that really bugs me are the new tile based UFO's. I love the gameplay benefits it grants, mind you, but at least at the moment they just look silly sheet metal rooms that are standing in the middle of a map. There are two main issues: The most important is that they don't have any hull what so ever - only thin metal walls. Where are the engines, cannons and stuff? In X1 the black area between outer and inner walls created just enough hull space that they felt believable aircrafts. Now the UFO's seem like just flying rooms. Second is that the UFO's don't look like they've landed/crashed there only moments ago. I'd love to see a difference between crashed and landed UFO's: landed UFO's should not be flat on a ground level, but rest on their landing gears above ground on level 1. Crashed UFO's should be on level 0 without landing gears with tons of smoke, fire and debris around them. I really, REALLY hope Goldhawk can do something about the UFO's on tactical maps as ATM they just don't look that hot. On my opinion raiding the UFO's is the number one thing in XCOM- styled games and to make them feel alien, imposing, mysterious and threatening, you really need to put some effort in it. EDIT: uhhh, after writing this rant, I realised this might not have been exactly the right thread to put this in, but...

Yeah, one of the biggest issues I had with the original was how sterile everything looked, sounded and felt. I'd love to see crashed ufos surrounded with fire, smoke, broken houses, fallen and cut trees, debris, alien corpses and random bits and pieces scattered around. Also, landed ufos (at least at the moment) look like stationary buildings that are part of the scenery rather than some otherworldly space craft landed there... It might help to rise the landed ufo half a tile up and add some landing gear beneath them maybe? Landed ufos could also have some alien machinery set up around them or something to differentiate them from crash sites as if the aliens are performing some tests and calculations or what not. While I don't miss full voice over for the marines, I agree that their death screams need to be brutal and varied. I find the old FPS game called Blood has pretty much the right idea on it's cultist voice over how it should be done:

Great to see you again kabill. Hope to mod with you once again.

Congrats! Havea great honeymoon!

Yeah, I hear you. Turn based geoscape could be a solution to force people to take night missions. (Missions could expire before morning/day turn)

Because of suspense? This is kinda same subject as view cones. I just like the additional horror element it gives me...