Zimdictive

I think you need to inform yourself as to the nature of a rocket, and how it is an entirely different thing to an air-breathing jet aircraft.

If the Xenonauts have materials that can make a plane salvageable after spiralling half-wingless into rocky ground at 600kmph, with a quantity of munitions and fuel that would certainly explode on impact, then they really ought to be fitting in on the soldiers, too. Or do the UFOs use firecrackers as their air-to-air weapons of choice? Not to mention, the platoon of people necessary to pick up the bits of a plane - from anywhere in the world - or, feasibly, as I understand it, the bottom of the ocean, and to ship it back to base - and it's all free? Please tell me this immersion-crippling feature can be disabled? EDIT: And don't tell me they performed an "emergency landing". Please. These are fighter jets, not commercial airliners. Without their engines, they fall pretty much straight down.

Yeah, I stopped playing too.

History is full of armies giving their own names to recognise enemy technology based upon shape, capabilities, etc. Such as "Flanker" for the Su-27. We don't need to go up and check the nameplate to figure out it's a "light scout".

Is this an AI downgrade or does it retain AI advancements from 18.5?

Friendly fire amongst the aliens would be considerably less of an issue if they left their UFO instead of trying to shoot through it. Then they wouldn't be crowded together. I don't see a problem in the chance of friendly fire as is amongst Xenonauts - I think it's acceptable when a unit lets off a round on a reflex (read: low investment of TUs) and hits a buddy standing roughly in the line of fire.

What about the AI thinking they can shoot through invincible objects? I've watched a cop standing in the open dutifully shooting at aliens while facing down incoming fire from aliens doing the same. Only thing was, there was a closed UFO door between them. The battle persisted until I managed to get between them and get the door open.

I'm not advocating we find burned out husks all the time, I was just trying to illustrate why the aliens shouldn't sit in their UFO and wait to be killed. Though it would certainly make things more interesting (and dare I say, realistic) if the aliens were to plant explosives on their downed craft that would detonate if the Xenonauts did not clear the crash site in, say, 15 or so turns - introducing some time pressure. Anyway, IMHO, the absolute priority for the next build should be fixing these horrendous line-of-sight bugs which have every AI convinced they can shoot not just through solid objects - but solid objects that CAN NOT BE DESTROYED - i.e. UFO walls. The AI might very well have improved thousand-fold in 18.5, but until the AI stops shooting up the UFO interior we aren't going to be able to witness whatever wonders they are newly capable of! Please, I can hardly wait to play this! EDIT: I should add that I was having immense fun on 18.4 - can't say there are many games I'd happily sit through half-hourly CTDs to play.

AI is far worse than in 18.4, IMHO. This is unplayable - not because it crashes often - no, for me, it's been stable as a rock, which was nice - but because the AI is absolutely no danger to my troops. They sit in their UFO and shoot the walls... and any armed Civ sits outside shooting at the UFO. Those AI that spawned outside will stand where they are waiting to reaction-fire. Or, stand up when my troops are near and run out of cover. I've just stopped playing 18.5 for good; I have run 20 missions, and have three bases (and am making a fortune). I've lost two troops, both to my own recklessness because I wasn't expecting an alien to actually get a reaction shot in when they did. Missions are now an annoyance; a bughunt. And I have to sit through HIDDEN MOVEMENT while I listen to aliens firing into UFO walls and each other, and a lone Civ firing back. It goes the same: move up to UFO (always in the same places), killing the two static aliens with a death wish outside, move up to the UFO door. Surviving aliens inside who haven't killed each other in their desperation to shoot up their own UFO run outside (which is the OPPOSITE of what anyone sensible would do when trapped in a corner - they should set up an ambush inside when their enemy comes through the perfect bottleneck which is the FRONT DOOR), and are gunned down in short order by my troops. Win - get more cash - repeat. Oh, yeah, and the game crashes if the last alien that dies does so because they run through fire. On 18.4 I regularly lost troops with better tactics than I employed in 18.5 to pretty perfect effect. If shooting aliens in a barrel (read: their own ship) with zero risk is perfection. Oh, and a suggestion: when a military aircraft crashes in reality the crew do NOT remain inside. That giant plume of smoke is a pretty big indicator that something interesting is happening (and the craft may very well explode - indeed the crew will generally destroy the downed craft themselves to stop it falling into interested enemy hands), and if they crashed in enemy territory, it's guaranteed that the people that come looking probably won't be very friendly. It should be the first priority of the aliens to leave their downed death-trap ship and set up a command post in a nearby structure to await rescue. When they crash they should not have offensive priorities especially if they aren't idiot reptiles.

Which mirrors do you get? I always get EU11 or 15... and it's the same problem on both. I can't be bothered to set up a proxy to get another mirror... not being able to manually select it is another reason why Desura is terrible. (And before anyone says otherwise: yes, you CAN set your mirror manually using Steam.)

The premium standalone on Desura is screwed. Expected file size is never correct, and it's always a corrupt zip.

I've noticed that any mission that I start that is near the date line; i.e. near the transition into or out of night, the mission will crash while loading without fail. Attached is a save that should demonstrate this: accept the mission when prompted... https://www.dropbox.com/s/51bqp8ofuwqfmbg/Zim_crash_on_mission_load.zip

And how do you suggest I provide that? As stated above: ... Doesn't work for me. ALT+TAB usually kills the game. I just restart as soon as I see white non-textures.

On loading a ground attack mission I quite frequently experience varying degrees of missing textures - usually mainly the ground, which simply presents as solid white, and occasionally buildings too, which are largely invisible and I only know they're there because of xenonaut pathing around and through them. It appears that it is more likely there will be missing textures the longer I have been playing a game without restarting (30-40 minutes+; not too common, as CTDs are themselves hugely abundant). This generally indicates that a CTD is incoming in short order, and saving and quitting, then reloading fixes the textures.