forever rookie

Glad you like it

You have to use the smoke grenades. If I really hadto "fix" those empty spaces, instead of objects I'd have slopes, like these from the original: http://lparchive.org/X-COM-UFO-Defense/Update%2016/15-xcom213.png I have a question about xenonauts maps (tought it was ok to post it there): are they randomly generated (again like to original) or not?

Don't agree much with the "successful" part: the simplification takes away depth and a ton of player involvement, and the level design is excessively contrived as it needs to be littered with covers to support the "binary" way the movement and positioning work. I don't find the interface that good, and the destruction is done way better in other games (Apocalypse, Silent Storm).

Problem is, the X-COM label is there.

Come on... In the original you can equip a rookie with any combination of the following equipment, until you have space an strength enough: - Pistol - Rifle - Heavy Cannon (different sets of ammo) - Auto-cannon (different sets of ammo) - Rocket Launcher (different sets of ammo) - Grenades - Smoke grenades - High Explosives - Proximity grenades - Stun rod - Electro-flares (Left out the researched items on purpose.) A rocket launcher equipped rookie fills a different role than an auto-canno+IN ammo equipped one, or than a pistol+stun rod+lots of grenades one, or simply than a Rifle equipped one. If you don't care or just use everything in the same way, doesn't negate the fact it lets you personalize a lot the loadout. Equipping options for rookies in the new game: - Assault rifle - ONE frag grenade. About Apocalype: that's the way the game is balanced; but you're not required to play like that, play it as you enjoy it of course.

I don't think the classic inventory is complex. At all. The grid system with the items of various sizes, is an intelligent and intuitive design to give a player the ability to personalyze the loadout while keeping the balance. And tinkering with it is among the (fun) things that make X-COM different (special that is) from the other TBS games. The new inventory is: "you can carry ONE extra item; choose a- wait, actually you can't choose, rookies can carry only a frag grenade". Wtf?! So worse then the grid. The rookies stats are fixed: HP 3+1 Aim 65 Will 40 Defense 0 Also I did an Apocalypse campaign in Turn mode too.. but it isn't good because the game is balanced for realtime play. The damage of the weapons is set low because it is normal in realtime to be hit a lot of times; but when you switch in turn mode you get hit a lot less, making most of the weapons simply not threatening. It's in the numbers. The way the damage work in ufo/apocalypse is the same, but the weapons damage values are different (way lower in apocalypse) and they also reduced the damage random factor (0-200% in ufo to 0-150, or 50-150 I don't remember exactly, in apocalypse) to further allow the units to bear multiple hits. With a balance like that a lot of the tension in turn mode is gone. The only threats remaining are the insta-kill ones, like brainsuckers and poppers.

I was hyped for the game, I even pre-ordered too despite the obvious simplifications (they are no matter what the developer said/says). But the demo just killed it. I like both the original and Apocalypse (that I play realtime) so the lack of TUs is not the lone issue here. The issue is that they force on me too much stuff, preventing me to do the tweaks that I want to do: why are the weapons class restricted (so stupid)? Why is the inventory so limited? And also why are all the rookies identical, are they clones? If on top of that you add the TUs removal, the final result is so rigid, feels so pre-built. There are a lot of good "fixed" turn based games, like Advance Wars and Final Fantasy Tactics, but they aren't X-COM for a reason. (Also the combat system leaves me perplexed, but that's another story.) So disappointed. They chose to make this AAA budget game and had to narrow the design potential to sell.. why? Just make a low budget game and keep the good stuff (and improve it). Man it hurts.

I only hope Xenonauts comes out soon because I tried the XCOMEU demo and I didn't like it, I already know it won't be able to give me my X-COM fix. So, Xenonauts I choose you.

Good interrogative. X-Com Apocalypse, if I remember correctly, scored you normally when killing other corporations operatives. (If the corporation was already hostile the only drawback was a worsening in the relationships with its eventual affiliated corporations, iirc). Giving - points is an interesting and meaningful idea. But I think that without expanding properly the aspect, like giving the player the power to "break" the country alliance with the aliens or sort of making "desert" part of its military* (or at least to significantly avoid human killing, like: the humans invade the map after the 20th turn, so you can avoid them if you act speedy), it would become a little punitive, because the player is sort of bound of getting scored negatively since in most of the cases he can't help but kill those people. So, synthesizing, if the presence of hostile humans forces is kept in a very simple form like the one I suggested, then I think a + scoring would be more appropriate, game-wise, even if it isn't meaningful as a - scoring. * for example turning them into agents if (stunned and) brought back alive.. but that would make sense only with limited recruiting, like in X-Com Apocalypse.

Shadow organizations and Coldest war are super-cool yet HUGE stuff I wouldn't even think of suggesting. What I'm proposing is really very simple: they're already (provided I understood correctly) adding friendly AI soldiers in some maps, so they should/could just add unfriendly (alien-allied) AI soldiers in some other maps (some of the maps from missions inside alien-allied countries that is; even a fixed % would be fine). There is no need for sprites differentiation as the world countries are fixed: if they are friendly then their soldiers are friendly, if they're unfriendly then the very same soldiers are unfriendly. There won't be confusion because unfriendly soldiers are marked as enemies, with the enemy indicator, just like aliens. X-Com Apocalypse used the same sprites for a corporation, either it was friendly or enemy to X-Com, and it was fine. About explaining it to the player: when the game shows the message "country x made a pact with the aliens", you'd just need to add a warning about the chance of finding hostile military when doing missions in those territories. And since you're already encountering friendly troops, it isn't unexpected. Done. Even in this simplistic form it's enough to give that little touch of variety that is fun, and also peculiar since the original didin't have it and the new firaxis's one doesn't seem to have it too. Indeed however the final decision is up to the developers.

That summarizes why I proposed this. If the units sprites weren't there, it would of course be out of question; but they're already being made, so the bigger and costly (at least by my "programming-noob" point of view) part of implementing this feature should be already covered.

I see you're preparing friendly AI soldiers So I have the following suggestion, that to me seems a cheap way of varying/spicing things a bit: How about having a probability of encountering unfriendly (aliens allied) soldiers when doing any kind of mission inside a territory of a country controlled by aliens? It is just normal to expect that an alien-allied country, sends help for their extraterrestrial fellows when they're in trouble. It could be a raw 50% possibility to keep it simple, but ideally for ufo recoveries the probability of enemy soldiers appearing should increase with time: the more late you get to the ufo, the higer the possibility that the "alien rescue squad" is there. Alien bases instead (when they are placed in an alien-controlled territory, of course), could always have enemy soldiers; but this may conflict with the flavor you want the alien bases to have. (Missions in those territories would then be more difficult/dangerous, it is a wanted thing). Aaaand If you want to exaggerate, you could have human-only base raids: basically an alien-controlled country sends an airship full of soldiers to invade one of the player bases, instead of having the usual ufo full of aliens. Sort of like in X-Com Apocalypse, where the corporations could autonomously attack a player base. Though I don't know how Xenonauts works with the matter of base invasions, and this last portion sounds way less cheap to implement than the other one. Thanks for the attention.