Scrimpton

I used to frequent these forums on an hourly basis, waiting oh so patiently for beta to happen and to have more to do within the game. Somewhat fortunately my mind convinced me to forget about the game and just wait a while. I heard someone mention the game today whilst i was taking a train journey. It set me off thinking.. "Hey.. didn't i buy that game?" well, i downloaded Desura again and i'm so pleased that i did indeed pre-order it! On Desura, the game is still listed as "Xenonauts Alpha", is it safe to presume that's just a small error and that the 4.5 gb download is indeed up to date?

what the fk am i reading? a pc user complaining about using keyboard hotkeys? Here's some advice, put your non mouse hand on the keyboard.

New xcom is fun. Interesting that wherever i go online people talk as if they've figured all it's depth out etc, and yet still only 0.3% manage to beat it "properly"

Thanks Chris. Much appreciated,. time to give this a whirl! edit: notepad worked fine for me

Update running fine for me! time to find some crashes (hurr hurr)

Absolutely Can't wait!

Unlocked firaxis rooty tooty alien third person shooty via VPN and have put about 20 hours into it so far. Prefer the cleaner feel of xenonauts so far, mentioning of the 1 click customization loadouts sounds like a very slick feature. I also prefer how you're leaving the options for overkill, but with consequences. Unlike firaxis who just arbitrarily limit choices and claim it's too hard to balance otherwise. V16 looks like it'll be a lot of fun!

Lel. good luck.

Well, so far there isn't much in the way of alien tactics to show. Feel free to check out the AI dev diaries!

Battle load times for me are under 10 seconds on an old SSD.

like 5 new posts a day..

I bought Xenonauts. I won't be ...buying.. xcom EU, at least not at first.

I really like the idea of having the coloured borders to the portraits. That's great.

Congratulations, wishing good things for you and your wife. Enjoy the process!

As long as the options don't confer an obvious otherwise unattainable advantage. I'd assume some people don't even see any of this as a problem, and are happy with memorizing their squads abilities and their placing within the skyranger, wish i was one of them!

1 thread 8 posts 3 people that wish they were mods. THIS SUMMER. A NEW ADVENTURE DEEP IN THE HEART OF THE FORUMLANDS

Camera rotation is consolized, no fidelity to it just "press Q or E to turn by the amount we will allow" Half the buttons didn't even respond to mouse clicks, every action had to be confirmed. Obviously not a UI designed for PC (despite them talking about how they had a different team design it) The action camera can be turned off in the options though, so try it with that off to see if you prefer it. The strategy layer is almost turn based now. You wait for events to happen, and pick one of them. No more possibility of sending out interceptors on pre planned patrols to try to catch UFO's outside of radar range. I actually quite liked the borderlands-but-not graphical style, it felt very clean cut. Unfortunately the scope of gameplay just feels completely neutered with a lot of the management taken out. I'm sure i'll run it through its paces a good few times, but i don't imagine i'll be watching let's plays of it 20 years from now. It also made me appreciate how much more fun and challenging xenonauts can/will be, you simply don't know how good your cover is or how much health the alien has left. It forces me to play more organically, to prefer the overkill to keep my men safe. Rather than making easy decisions. XCOM EU Has too many easy decisions. group of enemie son 3hp? throw a grenade, there's no better option. Free scientists or 200 simoleans? The scientists obviously etc etc etc. Overall, disappointing but probably still get more out of it than anything else in the last 5 years. Ohhhh also, my personal biggest gripe is that there's no way to choose to shoot at a piece of cover. I.e if you know an alien is behind a wall, you can't shoot it to pieces to get to them. You only seem to be able to destroy scenery by missing shots.

I think it makes sense to encourage the usage of efficient hotkeys. First stage of that, is knowing what you'll get when you press them. One of the many reasons broodwar is harder to get into than sc2 for newer gamers, you simply can't tell which units or buildings are assigned to which hotkeys without hours of rote memorization. IMO, at 1920x1200 or higher, there is so much empty space and such a lack of basic information such as "whos that guy", but i can understand why you'd like it to be that way. Thus the word optional in the title

Yeah, glad it makes sense to someone else!

This is pretty much what i mean. Currently if you hover over the hotbar, the unit portrait shows up. I think it'd be good to have an option to always have these portraits displayed. So you know which soldier is on which hotkey at a glance. It's something for the newer players primarily. @Gorlom regarding "isn't it recognizable who is who for the second point after you select them and get to see the weapon in their hand in the box between the portrait and the AP reserve slider?" This is kind of my point, currently you have to select them just to know who they are. So if you've got 14 guys, you have a potential situation of clicking through 13 different men before finding the one you actually wanted. with portraits/names information on the hotbar/on the battlescape, you'd know this information at all times. At the moment it's hard to know exactly who "3" is, a little portrait would go a long way, and since it's already half implemented.. it seems like an easy option to implement. Sorry for the mess/bad explanations of the first post. My first draft of it was much clearer, but got lost when uploading the image..

OH god, just lost a huge writeup. hopefully the image is self explanatory. Long deleted post short: toggled options. Problem/solution 1 difficult to remember which squad member is assigned to which hotkey (especially for new gamers like wife and children!) Facial recognition = easy for unfamiliar players to know which soldier is on which hotkey. (this is semi implemented already, easy change?) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_perception) One of the most widely accepted theories of face perception argues that understanding faces involves several stages *...* derive details about the person *...* to being able to recall meaningful details such as their name and any relevant past experiences of the individual. Recognizing your soldiers by their faces also has the possibility of enhancing that classic xcom notion of losing much loved soldiers. Know more than their names, know their faces. Remember them. ;_; Problem/solution 2 - No quick and clear indication of who's who, when looking at any tactical situation. Soldier names above/below sprite = at a glance knowledge of who's who with no need to dig through the UI. If you've kitted out Alex Brown as your go to "breacher" you want to be able to see where he is in relation to the rest of your breach team. 'At a glance information' can vastly speed up the tactical decision making/execution. And imo, improve the flow of the game. This information is already available to players willing/capable of remembering abstract soldier statistics and their positioning within the skyranger. These small optional changes would simply help the non-savants more readily access the basic information required to manage a battle. Shame i lost my original post. silly me. Hope this makes sense and is useful.

Excellent, lots of respect!

Bah humbug! Having the same issue on every continent.

Saved games don't seem to work on load either. Only just pre-ordered so perhaps it's an existing bug, google has pretty limited info either way though.