[Xenonauts V1.65 Experimental Released!]

The rendering stuff is pretty complex work and if we missed a sprite in our final pass back in 2014 then it's unlikely ever to be fixed; it's too much work for a rather small issue

Damn, I was hoping you still have the files. I check the bug report I did and it was suggested that:

(..)it may be possible to make one by cannibalising the laser.precision burst animation for NW.(..)

Maybe this would be a reasonable solution to the issue.

[Xenonauts V1.65 Experimental Released!]

Thanks a lot, great to see the game still updated. There is one bug I requested back in 2014 and was still not addressed, mainly the missing crouchsingleshoot_nw.png in /armour.jackal/weapon.laserprecision - this is something that community cannot fix. Also could you update the Skitso's Ultimate Megamix Map Pack to V1.09? The one bundled with Xenonauts is V1.05.

[Xenonauts: Community Edition 0.26]

I did give this release a try and after doing first ground mission, one soldier #3 disappeared from the Dropship. No one died during the mission, Casualty List is empty. I did play on Iron Man setting, therefore I have only a save game after the mission.

[Feature Suggestion: Choose your portraits.]

malthaussen, you could ask about this feature the team behind Community Edition of Xenonauts. It is very unlikely Goldhawk Interactive will add new features to Xenonauts. I assume they are more focused on fixing bugs and future project(s). Chris did mention a V1.1 patch that could add new content to the game, but it's not an 100% promise and even if, probably it won't be released very soon.

[Xenonauts V1.09 Released!]

Works like a charm so far. crouchsingleshoot_nw.jpg is still missing in armour.jackal\weapon.laserprecision.

[Do you plan a new major version of the game?]

Fixing bugs and polishing existing content would be the best thing for Xenonauts. There are still bugs, missing animation and LOS problems. I still look forward to the mentioned by Chris V1.1 patch but then again, I wouldn't expect anything radical. Destructible UFO walls, or more believable looking Crash Sites, since except for number of Aliens there is little difference between crashed and landed UFO.

[Artist (or "artist") wanted - GC panel modifications for 'select next soldier']

Since you are working on this, do you plan do keyboard shortcuts as well? There are plenty of keys not used in Ground Combat. Q & E keys could be good for that, since WASD is used for map scrolling.

[[V1.7 - Ground Combat] Missing Firing Animation Jackal Armour+ Laser Precision]

Soldiers equipped with Jackal Armour have no firing animation when crouching and facing North West. I did check armour.jackal\weapon.laserprecision directory and apparently crouchsingleshoot_nw.jpg is missing.

[Xenonauts: Community Edition discussion]

Good to hear that, I really like the speed control of Air Combat and optional features. Thanks and keep up the good work guys. Is there an approximate ETA for 0.24?

[Xenonauts V1.07 HF Released!]

That just doesn't make any sense at all. I can't really see a reason why such change was made.

[Edit]

Solver, it would be cool if you change this in CE.

[Xenonauts - the game that left me wanting]

This topic is a can of worms indeed, since two different views are presented. Anyway, I do really enjoy Xenonauts in the current form and it's much better then any other game released after OG. Great thanks to Goldhawk Interactive for that. Yet, there are things done more interesting in Geoscape to make it more memorable and engaging.

Let's look at Missile Battery. Currently after doing the right research it gets straight away upgraded, in a split of second. What could make it more interesting instead, is need for doing an upgrade of turrets that would take certain time, making them unusable. After research each battery could have upgrade option. Player can decide, if he risks upgrading all at the same time and by that making base vulnerable or upgrade one after another, thus taking longer time to get the upgrades.

Other building that could bring some decision making is Medical Center. Player could decide which wounded soldiers go there to speed up recovery but under condition of not being able to send chosen soldiers to missions, until they recover completely.

I think those two examples are hardly unnecessary micromanagement.

[Xenonauts V1.07 HF Released!]

have to since when? As i know you can do as much missions as u have fuel in the dropship and all your soldierss are not wounded, casue you have max supy beetwen missions without going back to base. I disagree with that so hope somone will eather fix this or mod.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but clips don't resupply after mission unless you go back to base? Another reason to return before going for second mission could be to replace wounded/dead soldiers with different ones. Or to take a vehicle instead.

No, I mean that you can give the soldiers a very low amount that's completely unrealistic, like 2 flares. In which case, there is value in the individual flares, but it's from a very artificial limit. Or, you give them a higher amount like 5, in which case there are enough flares anyway to comfortably play, so they might as well be unlimited.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. What I wrote before was just an example. Personally I would prefer flares that could be added to soldiers inventory, like rest of equipment before the mission. It just makes more sense and if you don't take enough, it can lead to situation when player needs to improvise. Something I really enjoyed when took place in OG, but miss in Xenonauts.

[Xenonauts V1.07 HF Released!]

Unlimited flares aren't really the problem. Either you limit them artificially to a very low number, or you have enough anyway.

They are, because there is no need for strategic deployment of them, since soldiers have unlimited supply. By artificial limit you mean pretending to have limited amount?

The problem is that you

can do mission during the day by timing your dropship launch correctly. Actually crash sites don't even have to disappear with the dropship on the way, but let's say if the launch window was 6-8 hours. That would mean you sometimes either do night missions, or the crash site will disappear before you launch.

Take into consideration situation, when there are multiple Crash Sites and player has only one Dropship. He wants to ground attack them all, but needs to return to base for supplies first. Decreasing time will take away this option. I don't see sense in enforcing night missions. Even if you decrease the time, players who don't like them will Airstrike Crash Sites anyway.

[Xenonauts V1.07 HF Released!]

Thanks for uploading the patch, Chris.

I also avoid night missions because of the significant extra difficulty, and they should be more difficult of course. They should make you want to move even more carefully, deploying flares everywhere and so on.

But this is how it works now during the night missions. Flares are unlimited, so you can spam them as much you like. I find this anticlimatic. It would make much more sense if each soldier had between 5 or 10 flares, that could be picked up and throw again. This could make the role of Scout more important as well, I think.

[Xenonauts V1.07 HF Released!]

Desura won't get V1.07HF until it's actually out properly on Steam. This build is currently only out on the Experimental branch of Steam.

You could still upload it here to the forum, for those who would be interested in trying it out. Or there is a difference between Steam build and Desura?

[Edit]

My game was playing fine, it was really fun, then loading up and playing this afternoon I find we are back to the aliens stupid fire from miles away in the FOW, that kill my men in one shot.

I maybe wrong, but doesn't that happen in 1.07 as well? I had twice a similar situation.

[Xenonauts: Community Edition discussion]

It works now. Thanks for your work Solver (and Chris for making it happen), CE changelog looks impressing.

Is CE compatible with previous saves from vanilla or new game is required?

[Xenonauts V1.07 HF Released!]

Chris, could you upload hotfixes to forum as well, like in the past? So GOG/Desura users don't have to wait.

[Xenonauts: Community Edition discussion]

I do have the same situation as Eugus, the only difference is that I did download the game from Desura, which is 1.07 as well. I did run cleanfolder.bat and colours.xml is in right place. Without CE, Xenonauts runs just fine.

[Xenonauts V1.07 Released!]

As I've mentioned before, we may do a V1.1 patch at some point in the future that adds more content. We'll wait for things to settle down a bit post-launch if we do, though.

Looking forward to it. Are save games from 1.06 be compatible with the 1.07 version or starting a new game will be required?

(underwater missions anyone?)!

Yeah, I was thinking the same when reading this news, although I would prefer destructible UFO walls and roofs in Ground Missions.

[Oh god, what a waste this game is]

I can't remember your suggestion off the top of my head, but I seriously doubt you had a solution for flares that everyone who plays this game would think was the perfect way of handling flares. Is your opinion more valid than that of Crusherven, who likes them? If so, why?

If not, then you can't say that I am wrong about flares. You can just say you'd have done it differently in my position - which is fine. But in all likelihood if I'd followed your idea there'd still be someone somewhere objecting to the flares system (it just wouldn't be you).

My suggestion was to make it as an optional feature, available in options menu, altogether with enabling/disabling indestructible interceptors and unlimited weapons/ammunition. Pop-up message could be added, warning that those changes will make Xenonauts a more difficult game. I think this is the most reasonable solution which maybe you could consider, Chris.

[Oh god, what a waste this game is]

You tend to find people only want change if it's going to be exactly the change they personally would put in the game. If any change is not to their exact personal specifications, then they are "clearly poor" etc.

To use some examples in this thread, read the OP, the reply of Rutger (above) and the post made by DamianAyre on page 2. All three agree that we've got it wrong, but for completely contradictory and largely mutually exclusive reasons.

Post written by DamianAyre represents a very extreme view and I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't play or enjoy OG. I don't even think more then few people would agree with him.

Whatever we'd done differently, there's no possible scenario where all three people would think we have an excellent game. I'm not annoyed or even necessarily complaining here, of course - people are entitled to their opinions and I'm only picking those three examples because they are close to hand.

I didn't mean to annoy you in any way with my post. I appreciate that you reply, even if I don't necessarily agree with you.

But when you write a post pointing out where the devs got it wrong, you're pointing out things that would make the game a subjectively great game in your opinion (i.e. great to you) rather than objectively a great game (i.e. great to everyone). There's really nothing concrete that suggests us making those decisions differently would have increased the sales, appeal or review scores of the game because clearly everyone thinks totally differently.

Sorry Chris, but you are wrong. In a different thread I did explain why making Flares infinite was a bad decision and even make a simple suggestion, that would please both groups of people. It was ignored in the end.

[Oh god, what a waste this game is]

If I knew that I would need to mod certain aspects of Xenonauts from the beginning, I certainly wouldn't preorder it. I can't really understand how someone can you excuse developers by suggesting mods or by saying " doesn't have the manpower of a AAA developer". It seems Indie developers get way too much free ride nowadays then they should.

omglaserspewpew is right in certain aspects, but I think it is also worth to mention that some changes from original show that Goldhawk doesn't necessarily understand what made OG a memorable game. Infinite Flares completely ruined night missions, one of the coolest things about OG.

There are many great things about Xenonauts and it's not a bad game, just the certain design decisions (to appeal casual players) are plainly poor and make Xenonauts a less memorable experience.

[Why the infinite ammo thing?]

It's not a simple task to allow the player to enable / disable various options as you ask. If we include those options in the game when it is released, we'll need to make sure the player has an enjoyable and balanced game if they select those options. If it's a checkbox in the game, we're implicitly endorsing the player playing the game with those modes active...and I don't think it's possible to make the game as enjoyable with them enabled. So it's really not simple at all.

I’m aware of that. One of solutions could be giving a pop-up warning saying “This is a feature for to make Xenonauts more challenging and may lead to unbalanced game.” so people who decide to use it will be aware of risks it brings. Xenonauts would have updates after release and since you already get a feedback on already existing features, there would be probably a bunch of people giving feedback about extra options as well. Some equipment could be useful in mid-game or even later if it's done properly. One such item in OG is Proximity Grenade, since Aliens didn’t have resembling technology and it was useful to secure entrances. In Xenonauts it could be Flamethrower (if it wasn’t cut out?) since like in case of Proximity Grenades, aliens don’t have similar weapon. Simple example I just thought of now.

However, all of those things can be modded into the game by anyone with a text editor, destructible interceptors being as simple as a true / false switch. They'll have to figure out the balancing themselves, though. Most people seem to think it's only a small change, as you do, so I'm sure you guys can handle the balancing too

Indeed but I think would be much easier if it could be done in collaboration with community like other features are. This would at least assure there will be no situation of being stuck just because some changes may require source code.

EDIT - and for the flares, we've made them unlimited because they cost more AP to throw. AP is the main resource in combat so it's not really making the game easier to give the player as many as they want but make them spend a bunch of AP every time they want to use them, it's just making the game less arbitrary.

I think this is where to problems lays. One of great thing about OG is not just fighting aliens but how ruthles and unforgivable is when you make mistakes. This is what made it so memorable, when you either get away victorious from a tense situation or lose everything in unexpected events.

How it does have anything to do with flares? Imagine situation in OG where you don’t have enough flares or you throw all the ones you had already. It means either going back for more to ship beucase soldiers couldn't cary more or picking already thrown ones. Sometimes it can lead to a risk of being shot by something you can’t see or not. The awareness itself of having something limited leads to more tensions and require more careful preparations. Now when you have flares unlimited like in Xenonauts it all disappears and in the end leads to a forgettable experience.

To llunak: Not in a single post of mine I wrote that OG has done it right. I did spoke about Xenonauts doing it better, therefore your response is nothing but a strawman.

And BTW I think you'll find enough people who'll claim that will all the air combat and so on Geoscape is actually more important in Xenonauts than in the OG.

While it is more advanced and tactical, the importance is the very same: Taking out UFOs as soon as possible.

[Why the infinite ammo thing?]

Chris, let’s forget the poll part and focus on what I did ask for in my first post.

Secondly, it's not a change we're going to roll back as we made a decision on it a long time ago and playetesting has just solidified our view that the ammo change was an improvement. You can't expect us to update and improve the original game but then question our judgement when we make a change you don't like on paper; if you're not a regular playtester of the game and don't experience the results of the changes firsthand you've just got to trust us to make a game where the final sum of the parts is an improvement over the original.

At no point I did ask for a feature rollback, what I did ask on beginning is option allowing disabling/enabling: indestructible aircrafts, auto research, unlimited ammunition. Both sides would be pleased and it shouldn’t be that hard to implement in game, but this rather reasonable solution was ignored, like my question about unlimited flares.

I may not be a regular playtester, yet I do give a try to the builds uploaded on Desura. I don’t see how cutting features or simplifying them is improvement in this case. Currently the Geoscape part of game is forgivable with indestructible planes and less engaging - I don’t have to spend money on equipment. Since there are still features to be implemented or not finished (and balance), I prefer to wait with commenting more how the game feels overall. There are many features I do like and look forward to play Xenonauts after a proper release.

Speaking of veterans players, when I read their older post, I do get impression they are just interested only in Ground Combat or played too much Firaxis XCOM. Calling purchasing ammunition an unnecessary micromanagement is just ridiculous. It’s nothing when compared to Civilization series. I don’t mean the Geoscape should be a major part of game, but making it less relevant just because some of regular posters prefer Ground Combat above is not a wise decision. In past you had an interesting idea of buildings upgrade taking few days but it was quickly scraped just because few people in same thread didn’t like it. That doesn't look good at all.

[Why the infinite ammo thing?]

And for the infinite ammo, I can understand why people may not like the idea and there were a lot of complaints on the forums when we first suggested it...but the vast majority of players said it was an improvement once they'd actually tried it.

Chris, do you remember when during Kickstarter campaign some people demanded female soldiers in game? You did an e-mail survey back then and in results majority of people voted No. Silent majority, as you called them back then. Since such poll was possible to do back then, maybe it’s worth trying again? Infinite ammo is a rather drastic change in the design and I’m sure people would respond to it. Not everyone is following forums regularly, including me. I didn’t know about the ammo thing until I tried previous stable build.

[EDIT]

Since we are on topic of infinite things, what about the flares in inventory? I see it as another bad decision. not only it makes equipment preparation less significant, the night missions are less tense now in result, since soldiers may light whole maps.