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The premise here is that you would be able to get by on money made from manufacturing if you have a dry spell of UFO ground missions. As I understand it, to actually manufacture something worthwhile, you need alien materials. Materials which you get from UFO ground missions. How exactly do you expect to profit from manufacturing if you don't have said materials? Perhaps this problem could be mitigated otherwise? Make first-month UFOs appear only in the region where your base is, slowly (or quickly, depending on difficulty) expanding across the world? Maybe force the random spawn algorithm to take into account the locations in which UFOs spawned recently to make these locations better spread out?

Well, it doesn't make sense if you put it that way :-) And it didn't make sense in the original version of the game (the one that had 4 CDs, but the CDs were of the type that fit only 512 MBs on each, forcing the editors to remove unnecessary content from the game. Too bad the content they removed was actually crucial to the game proceeding (come to think of it, they should have cut the romantic path out of the game and kept the things important to, you know, the whole friggin' story ;-) Nonetheless, the game did carry the message home that aliens were superior and that humanity was fighting a losing war. The last missions were a longshot based on certain theories that proved true. But it was a real Cydonia or Bust type of mission (except that in EU94, the 'or Bust' part was very badly explained and I still don't understand why an aborted or failed Cydonia mission caused you to lose the game.)

I didn't think of that. I like it. I really disliked EU94 for there not being much to do at some point when you had eight bases and an Avenger in each of them, psionicists that were able to pick off aliens as they come. Basically, you have won as the aliens never had enough resource flow (assuming you diligently destroyed their bases) to allow them to destroy you. Alien Infiltration was the only thing that could have thrown a spanner in the works, but if you diligently destroyed the first scouts that came for that mission, you had nothing to fear. I don't know if you ever played Wing Commander 3. The first two games showed that we were able to go toe to toe with the Kilrathi, but in WC3, they turned out to have been stronger than anticipated and we were losing badly. Yeah, the game is old, but I'll use spoiler tags in case you never played it and you want to now. So yeah, it does strike the right chords with me.

I may have one suggestion (other than made in UFO:AI suggestions for psionic warfare). If humans develop technology to block psionic attacks by aliens (maybe as form of headgear or implants), why not make something that would be unpleasant for the alien that attempts to use psi against one of us? Like for example, they try to mind control a human soldier equipped with a psionic suppressor, the alien's brain explodes -- you catch the drift ;-) Maybe not as drastic, but it would be a nice addition that would prevent aliens from overusing their psi advantage and would fit in the theme well -- alien weapons are overwhelming in the beginning, but humans adapt and close the gap. In fact, if I understand correctly, we go a step above and make our versions superior in some regards, but I may be wrong. Same could go for psionics.

I don't think any military enforces suicide pills. I realize I am much ingrained in the X-COM way of thinking, where all aliens were expendable, including commanders. Therefore, having them carry suicide pills and never hesitating to use them makes a lot of sense. I realize now that it might not make sense in Xenonauts if aliens (at least commanders) are individuals. But still, this is war, not a casual stroll where the alien general is unexpectedly kidnapped. I guess it's down to choice of words and perhaps 'viable' was not the most viable choice. You're right about human brains just being receivers (hence original X-COM had psi-amps which were transmitters), but I'm really curious about the story behind how alien psionicists ever developed their brains into transmitters themselves, what was the evolutionary path that led to it and what ecological niche did it serve.

Come to think of it, developers wouldn't need to work on the tactical part of the game too much then. You know, they wouldn't need to work on pretty much anything. PROFIT. Of course you're right. The only thing I was wondering about was that the backstory doesn't match the game. Not that it ever stopped anyone from developing an awesome game (the original UFO EU intro never happens in the game, but it never was put against the game as more than just a remark). However, having a UFO or two blow up in your face during a game would really make the player feel less secure about his or her own situation. Suicidal commanders could also happen once -- maybe not a suicide pill, but a fail-deadly armor which needs to be disabled within one hour or the alien gets it -- research a topic "Why did the stunned commander die" and know it in the next mission :-) This is more about pacing the game right than anything else -- what I really disliked about X-COM is that you had the chance of developing a lot of stuff very quickly and then everything dried up and you basically spent time to stun a commander and to develop your psionicists enough to be effective against all aliens for the assault on Cydonia. However, TFTD blew it all up by introducing artificial difficulty into research and a series of non sequuntur when it came to research (why did you need alien 'x' to research 'y', or why did the alien 'z' need to be alive for research 'n', or why did alien 'a' need to be dead for research 'b', and why couldn't you just execute the live aliens to perform autopsy), worst of all, making parts of it game-breaking. I suppose we have grown way beyond those times and limitations, so artificial difficulty is not needed, but introducing real difficulty (at least on high difficulty levels, as expected) would help the feeling of fighting a losing war. But I get your point.

Wow, a lowly forum denizen like me and I already got a reply from Chris, I'm really proud of myself Obviously, not having preordered (yet), it'll take a while to read the novella. Chris, you really piqued my interest. Please, pretty please, could you PM me the reason for this? The following is only a wild speculation, but I'm marking it as a spoiler in case I'm right on the money here More on the topic: Fail-deadly. Is there any reason why alien commanders don't carry suicide pills or any devices that would kill them if they are stunned and not revived in an hour? I would make a nice move (maybe just on higher difficulties) to prevent players from getting commanders too quickly (additional research required how to prevent it). I think it's a question of balance, and maybe it's just my impression, but if interceptors are replaced with alien tech relatively quickly, it makes them irrelevant for the rest of the game, I guess. I would have made it differently -- hybrid tech -- replace delicate construction of the aircraft with light and durable alien alloy, replace engines and very heavy fuel with alien power sources and a few grams of fuel, these kinds of changes -- which would then be replaced with ultimate constructions based heavily on UFOs. Will there be an option to capture an intact UFO and repurpose it as a Xenonaut craft? It would save on the manufacturing effort after all? Modding the game... No thanks. I don't like modding games -- either I play straight or I cheat outright -- modding the game with just one weapon that has 1000% accuracy and costs 0.1% TUs to use, has unlimited ammunition and can be set to stun, explode or armor piercing unbalances the game and as I said -- there's cheating for that. It's great that Xenonauts allows a squadron to attack a UFO and that there are multiple aircraft fighting at once, but a real life squadron can be 30 aircraft and I would really like if it was possible to attack UFOs with dozens of aircraft if ever needed. Obviously, if three of them can down a huge UFO (that would have been hardly possible in original X-COM games), then the point is moot. About psionic warfare. I wrote the original psionic warfare suggestion page for UFO:AI (here: http://ufoai.org/wiki/Gameplay_Proposals/Psionic_warfare). Basically, I'm for one of two possibilities -- either include all capabilities both for humans and aliens or not include it in the game at all. There is no viable explanation why aliens can mind control humans and this doesn't work the other way around. Will there be a way to protect a soldier against mind control, however? Will Xenonauts allow psionic combat to go both ways, not just by being susceptible to the attacks?

Heck, this is one thing that really sucks in the original. Earth is actually quite flat, except for mountains (but then again, there wouldn't be much to scoop from a UFO crashed into the side of a mountain). The hilly terrain in X-COM featured ridiculous grades. The basic box around a soldier was about 1×1×2 meters (the proportions are the important bit here). There, for a three meter run, you have a 2 meter rise (66% grade, ~34° incline) -- running around in that kind of terrain would quickly cause your soldiers to drop of exhaustion. 10% grade is already considered steep and that's below 6°. There can be a lot of variety in flat maps, too, so I wouldn't hold this against Xenonauts. And one thing I remember from X-COM is that the absolute majority of missions were on flat terrain. The only hilly terrain types were deserts, mountains and forests, and aside from Russia and Canada, there weren't that many forests around (at least when compared to farmland). It's nevertheless surprising that Xenonauts engine doesn't support slopes. Does this affect stairs in any way? Is all vertical movement done through elevators? I didn't play the game yet, so I'm not sure what to think of that.

I missed the Kickstarter campaign (and I'm kicking myself for it) and I didn't play the game, sorry, I just got hooked on descriptions recently. As for Avalanche being nuclear-tipped, that comes from the original X-COM games -- the flavor text for Avalanche (normally invisible, but could be viewed in geoscape.exe and if the game crapped out on the screen since it was essentially due to palette -- black text on black background -- a quick and dirty way to obstruct the text on the page). I'll check out the novella to understand the world a bit more, I guess it will stop bugging me

Hi, This is my first post and I'd like to discuss something that has been bugging me about the setting. Basically, Iceland Incident is a single isolated occurrence that has absolutely no bearing on the rest of the game. Sort of like in original UFO:EU, the intro featured a red-armored Muton and a dropship which never appeared in the game. Reading it, I assumed that the explosion was caused by weaponizing the reactor and setting it to auto destruct the ship and the surroundings. I'd like to ask why the aliens do not repeat the incident. I presume they have limitless resources, and even if they don't, aliens should understand the notion of denying the enemy access to their material. If Xenonauts never discover the secrets of how alien reactors work, they can never hope to achieve air superiority or progress beyond Earth orbit, hence they never become a threat. Even if they are arrogant about their capabilities, they should still have the reactors wired to be fail-deadly and if the alien detachment loses combat, the reactor should automatically explode to deny us access to their power source (if they care) or just wipe out the squad that killed them out of spite. I suppose this would be seen as a very annoying kick in the teeth, but at the same time, it would fit the theme much better. In time, you would be able to determine the causes of the explosion and learn how to recognize that it's going to go off (to at least allow you a few minutes to a few hours to evacuate your troops), then how to suppress or even prevent it, but until then, you would be at the mercy of aliens never allowing you victory. Some would probably see it as artificial difficulty, but I never understood the original X-COM games in that aliens never denied you opportunity to gather their artifacts. Whereas by simply blowing up the power core with a single pistol shot would deny you one UFO Power Source and 49 Elerium. Not even on Superhuman difficulty. Same goes for intact ships landing and being assaulted. They should hear an incoming Skyranger, load up in the UFO, take off and shoot down the transport ship. If they had enough time to set up positions before you landed, they would have had more than enough time to get back in the UFO. If some of them couldn't board the ship for whatever reason, leave them outside, after all, they are expendable. After shooting down the X-COM aircraft, land again. Yeah, it would really be a dick move, but it would be far more realistic than just allowing you to take whatever you please. For Xenonauts, I would suggest one of two things: add alien scorched earth tactics or rewrite the Iceland Incident. Maybe explain why they can't repeat it. Still on the topic, it bugged me how easy it was in UFO:EU to blow up the power source (it exploded after being hit with a single pistol shot), and yet how impossible it was to take down a UFO -- one missile explosion near the UFO would have been more than enough, especially if the explosion was nuclear. Which brings me to the topic of Avalanche -- a supposedly nuclear missile. This also bugged me for different reasons -- you shoot down a UFO using six nuclear warheads and then land and soldiers run around in coveralls? This should be a high-radiation zone and even if aliens are very resistant, I don't think they could survive being hit with six nuclear warheads. There's nothing concerning EMP either. I really hope Xenonauts did not go into this nonsense. On a final note, I was surprised about MiG-31 and F-16 being used as basis for human interceptors. I know you wanted to have more-or-less equal representation of USA and USSR in the game, but I would suggest that incorrect aircraft were used and for the wrong reasons. MiG-31 is indeed one of the fastest interceptors ever in active service, which makes it an okay choice for a heavy fighter, but it didn't have enough lifting capability. More on that in a moment. F-16 is (relatively) cheap, first and foremost. But if price is no object, then it's a far less capable fighter than F-15, F-14 or F/A-18 which date from around the same era. F-16XL would have been a more viable competitor against F-15, but as it stands, if Xenonauts are supposed to be equipped with best fighters there are, F-16 would have never been my first choice. French Mirage 4000, which was in development from Mirage 2000, itself a very capable fighter aircraft, and/or Israeli Kfir, were also good candidates for being included. When it comes to a maneuverable fighter, however, I would suggest that MiG-29 would have been a better choice than F-16. Su-27 would have made a nice choice alongside F-15. I guess what bugged me the most about the peculiar choices made by developers is that the aircraft are really much less capable than their counterparts if money is of no object. Another important detail -- their range was much, much worse than comparable aircraft (Su-27 and F-15 have a lot better range than these). However, Americans had their own high-speed interceptors. YF-12 (related to A-12 Oxcart, itself related to SR-71) was a Mach 3+ capable aircraft. SR-71 itself was capable of sustained (this is very important) Mach 3.3 flight and it could carry a payload of 1.6 tons, which is three Phoenix missiles, eighteen Sidewinders, seven Sparrows or ten AMRAAMs. With less fuel onboard, it could probably carry more and it would be a more viable choice for a high-speed interceptor. When it comes to heavy fighters, bombers can be made into them (like the proposed B-1R), which would allow incredible payloads (20 times more than SR-71) and very high range. True, they would have nonexistent maneuverability, but if you wanted to deliver as many missiles as you could to a target, it would be the vehicle of my choice. XB-70 Valkyrie had Mach 3 capability, which would make it a good candidate for a fictional basis for a high speed heavy interceptor. My suggestion would be to increase the number of aircraft you can operate to 4 and change them to: 1. Hypersonic very heavy interceptor (developed from a supersonic bomber). Low survivability would ensure that they are used only when they are really needed. 2. Hypersonic heavy interceptor (developed from SR-71). Better survivability thanks to smaller size, but much less ordnance. 3. Ordinary heavy fighter based on Su-27. 4. Multirole fighter based on F-15 (or Mirage 2000/4000). Good luck on the project, I'll be sure to watch it closely!