Jean-Luc

The new recruits lower the stat average of your "army" with their rookie-tier stats. The same way that bad students lower a school's grade average for example.

We agree on whatever Chris decides in the end. Fired soldiers going back to the pool and displacing existing recruits would feel a bit weird but if that's what's needed to avoid stat penalties on recruits and prevent "stat fishing" I'll take it. I don't do the hire/fire thing anyway.

I don't know Gazz, wouldn't it basically create two slippery slopes? The strong player (with lots of veterans) gets stronger and the weaker player gets even weaker. It slides towards extremes. Maybe you're assuming an early to late game progression where the player is supposed to become gradually more and more powerful (like in most games) but in X-Com-like games the amount and quality of manpower tends to fluctuate (sometimes wildly), at least for players who don't reload after every loss. From a purely gameplay perspective (all rationalizations aside), why should the well off player get even better recruits when he's less likely to need them than someone in a worse position? One might argue that it's realistic and if you screw up you deserve what you get and vice versa but I don't think the game should push the player towards success or failure in such an artificial way. Yes, the strong player will lower his average by hiring a lot thus preventing uber-rookie spam but the weak player has no such rubber band in this case and spirals further down the drain.

I'm not sure if waypoint functionality can actually be modded in. It'd be a whole new game mechanic and Xenonauts isn't that moddable afaik but who knows.

Not sure but I think you misunderstood Chris' post. It's 4 guys before the penalty kicks in. Edit: Oh wait, I get it. Four replacements + twelve starting ones = 16. The main idea was for the pool to get depleted to prevent the hiring/firing lottery. The size of the pool could be adjusted to whatever Chris deems to be balanced.

How do you expect people to take you seriously? You speak like a raving madman, you posts are chaotic and illiterate, no capitalization, random spaces and paragraphs, random rows of "........", incomplete punctuation. You're inconsiderate and insulting. You show no consideration or willingness to understand aspects of game design that make things as they are. Most of the things you say make no sense, let's see: Why? There is no standard or armour piercing ammo in Xenonauts. These ammo properties are inherent to the weapons themselves which, among other things, provides each weapon with a role. Some have higher armour penetration like the sniper while others are average or weaker in this regard like the assault rifle or pistol. The shotgun fills the role of a high damage, short range weapon. It does this by having high damage and short effective range. Why isn't this good enough for you? What's missing? If you thing the shotgun is too weak make a suggestion to increase it damage and/or armour penetration. The game is still in alpha after all and balance issues can be corrected. This is a different game. Properties from X-Com aren't magically going to transfer to Xenonauts. You can't use alleged balance issues of one game to comment on balance in another. You need to not argue for things just for the sake of your ego and you need to think things through more carefully before you speak. Game design is a lot more delicate than most people realize and making assumptions with insufficient information (shotgun doesn't work, flamethrower is too weak) doesn't lead to viable ideas. Your insult is out of place because many adjustments have been made based on community feedback and "criticism". The issue lies in your behavior and presentation. I've made quite a few suggestions myself that were either shot down or just plain ignored (not commented upon) but you don't see me going into fits of rage, do you? So, you know, try to be a bit more calculated and constructive.

Normally I'd be in favor of a system that would discourage "scorched man" tactics but SmilePic is right I think. There are periods that see a spike in recruitment that is unrelated to mission fatalities like the above mentioned base defense or when a new base is established and needs to be staffed (the two are closely related obviously). I think I have a thing that would work and is even simpler. Have a 12 soldier pool, like you said, but let it be finite for the given month (no insta-replacements upon hiring). So one could hire as many guys as they like (up to 12) with no penalties but the pool would get depleted and the player would have to make do with what he's offered that month (take it or leave it). When a new month begins a new batch of fresh recruits would appear to refill the recruitment pool. The depleting pool would also remove the exploit of spam-hiring soldiers in order to get new ones. If you want to be extra cruel the unhired soldiers could remain with only the empty slots being refilled.

I'm pretty sure it's "save & quit" a la Diablo, applicable to both geo and battlescape. It really is the best and simplest way to do this but I could be wrong. Not being able to save at all (during specific game stages) would mean you have to leave the game running if you need to suddenly leave or be forced to play out the battle even if you don't feel like doing it at that time. It's an unnecessary inconvenience.

Thanks, this will make ironman mode a lot more enjoyable I think. Having 10 guys wiped out in a disastrous mission is one thing but loosing a drop ship along with all hands and equipment due to an aerial fluke could really kill the mood. I'd a suggest a small survival rate for aquatic crashes as well (75% death, 25% injury, no one gets out unscathed). Arguably a drop ship would be equipped with things like parachutes, inflatable rafts (or at least life vests), emergency rations, radios and such and a mayday before the crash is very likely as well. Getting stuck in the middle of the Atlantic is definitely nasty even under the best of circumstances but the military or civilian authorities would likely assist in these situations. It needn't be certain death.

If something like this were implemented it wouldn't even need a rescue mission imo. Whenever a dropship goes down there could be a virtual dice roll where anywhere between 10 - 50% of soldiers survive and return to base (after significant down time). After all we're fighting on home turf so it can be assumed governments would assist any downed troopers. We can also assume dropships would have parachutes and possibly other safety measures. It could be something like this: -Shot down over a friendly country with X+ approval rating - up to 50% of soldiers may survive -Shot down over a not-as-friendly country with "less-than-X" approval rating - up to 30% survivors -Shot down over sea - up to 20% survivors -Shot down over a hostile zone (lost to aliens) - up to 10% with there always being a possibility of at least one guy coming back It needn't be percentage based if that's too awkward. Since the maximum numbers of guys per mission is 16 iirc (excluding vehicles) it could also go like this: -Friendly territory - up to 10 soldiers "roll" for survival (a separate roll for each guy), each roll has 50% chance of going either way. More advanced dropships could tip the scales in favor of survival. -Less friendly territory - up to 6 -Water/hostile zone - up to 3 Pretty simple imo.

1. The release will surely be this year but we're not sure when. A summer release is almost surely out of the question. The Fall period seems most likely unless things get delayed or Chris decides that a Christmas release is better from a financial angle. 2. There's supposed to be a 4th weapon tier after plasma but it's a bit of a secret so we probably won't know what it is before release. As you saw Xenonauts has more weapon types compared to X-Com (shotgun, sniper, flamethrower, combat shield...) so it should hold up better in the long run. Not really sure about vehicles, only one has been revealed so far afaik. Instead of having a rocket tank, gun tank, laser tank, etc. Xenonauts will have vehicle chassis upon which you can install whichever weapon you have available (you can exchange it later on). This will give the appearance of there being less vehicles though that's not really true. I expect there will be at least the same amount of vehicles we saw in X-Com if not more (which is likely I think).

This couldn't be further from the truth. Air combat is actually based on a turn based game (Steambirds) and allows for pausing and issuing orders. While it's a relatively simple system it'd definitely not "arcade" in the sense that it's nothing like Tyrion or Raptor. It's no more reaction/twitch based than Baldurs Gate or Dragon Age are (pausable real time).

I haven't yet played the alpha but from what I see in this screenshot there is wall transparency to reveal the obscured areas and red alien icons pointing to spotted aliens. I don't see what the problem is.

This is s 2D game so no rotation. Not sure about see-through walls, is it really necessary? If you spot an alien you're always notified so you won't be surprised due to visual obstruction.

Portraits not sticking out on top of the UI really helps I think. From a purely aesthetic point of view I'd prefer it if the stat bars became greyed out instead of sinking down to avoid the UI looking almost like castle crenelations after several deaths. Like so: Just to preserve the visual unity and consistency and what not. What about the rocket launcher? Afaik it is the only weapon with multiple ammo types. Will the quick button only reload rockets of the same type as previous or will there be a sub menu like that of the grenades? All in all the UI's ready to go I'd say.

I totally agree. And what's with that ground combat too? A real commander doesn't manually shoot and reload the gun of each individual soldier. A true ufologist doesn't throw shiny flares at arcadey bug eyed aliens. The only player input there should be is passive, standard, aggressive which opens up a grim auto resolve window like in Jagged Alliance 2 with flashing soldier portraits shooting it out in brutal fashion while you stare tensely at the screen waiting for resolution. Also everything should be like in a submarine and stuff. Anyone read Tom Clancy's "Operational Center"? Yeah well, that's how a real ufo commander guy does it.

There will be stun grenades for "immobilizing" aliens.

The small fighters (escorts) don't generate crash sites. They're assumed to be blown to bits or something, they're quite small after all.

Having actual gameplay and control in air combat is one of Xenonauts' major improvements over X-Com, one that's been almost universally anticipated since the original came out. X-Com's air combat was so lacking in player input it might as well have used Aftermath's auto-resolve system. I don't know if some kind of auto-resolve is planned for Xenonauts interceptions but this is one example where basic gameplay won't be changed.

You can't have different portraits for rookies and veterans since any given soldier uses the same portrait throughout the game. Having them change with rank simply isn't in the code. Modding portraits in Xenonauts is pretty tricky sadly. You can't just get a bunch of photos from google images, resize them and throw them in. If you change the portrait you need to change the paper doll as well and it needs to follow the hand drawn art style and also fit the armour overlays. There's no way to do a good job with this without significant 2D art skills. A nice way to increase portrait variety might be to take existing portraits and add different facial hair, hair/eye/skin colour, etc. Mix it up a little. Much easier than drawing and setting up new paper dolls and could probably be done by anyone who knows their way around Photoshop.

The top down view allows for easier recognition since, as AD said, that's how the UFO looks in combat. However I'm a sucker for aesthetics so my vote goes to the lower option. It looks better on the gray background, doesn't sting the eyes, is more immersive and gets more value out of the great concept art you have. People will learn to associate concept art with top down views easily enough.

The "small talk" option and the head scientist's attitude both seem out of place and unnecessary to me. Might be better to keep things more formal or at least respectable (no mouthing off to the commander). Other than the above, everything looks great.

The Six-Day War is also viable for previous combat experience I think.

The machine gun is basically the auto cannon sans incendiary rounds. We got flamethrowers for fiery fun now. And incendiary rockets of course.

For now...mostly. But this thing could easily spread, best to smother it at infancy. And a lot of e-media that we take for granted like Google or Youtube are basically American businesses and what affects them will likely affect anyone who uses them regardless of where they live.