thixotrop

Only some ideas: - graffitti on the walls (though I don't know if this happened in the 70's) - more vehicles: cars, VW bus, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, police cars - I now that the game cannot do heights, but trick it with stone paved stairs and platforms like the Trocadero in Paris. So you can fight from level 1 to level zero, but not inside a building. - elevated walkways - graveyard "equipment" - playground "equipment" - more trees, bushes, sculptures - phone booth (it IS pre-mobile era), public WC (no its not the same) and so on...

And I thought to have read the quickbattle doesn't work anymore...my fault, reading more threads at once got me confused. thx Skitso

@kabill Thanks, I can copy everything. So the XML file of the map goes into the assets/maps/[MAP TYPE] and the submaps go into buildings, ground, props and walls. Ok, though I have not fully grasped that submap idea, but I guess I come to this once my level editor shows something else than blackness.

If I would be better in blender I would do props myself. The only thing I guess will be something to babble about is the paint-over, so that it fits to the style of the game. I don't know if there exist some guideline for this. Btw.: Don't know if you have seen this here and here.

Ok, I am about to start mapping. I have read the three stickies (Stinky's tutorial is extremely helpful, thx btw) and also the wiki. And I have downloaded the unpacked tiles. Now I have read some time ago in some post, that I can't find anymore, that somebody mentioned to save everything somewhere not connected to the original Xenonauts folder. Phew, what a sentence. With that you are not in danger an auto-update by steam will destroy your work. So now my noob questions: What folders I have to clone? Do I have to clone the two Editors (exe) too? Will the Editors use my cloned folder system or go back to Xenonauts and hence mess up with later map back-copy? Where do I copy my finished maps back to the original to test-play them? And what do I copy? (Tiles and everything should be there, or not, because uf the "mapatlas"? So it's only map and submaps?) How do I test-play them as I have read that this feature is no more? I have more questions but will hold back. Maybe this reveals itself while doing. If not: "I will be back"

@StellarRat Yes I have the same impression and fears. Have you heard about all the cars Toyota had to call back in the recent time? The cause is that they have changed management and it had cut down quality control drastically. What deaths this all (among others: gas pedal problems) has caused, was not in the news though. During my study one of professor told me about his time in silicon valley as "time to market" changed into "time to money". It took some time to arrive elsewhere, but today no one seems to be interested in the results of this: Broken, unfinished..ok, next year I buy the new model that will "definitely" fix these issues.

What? Are you serious about that? "You can expect bugs on a triple A+ game....but not with a game like this (=Xenonauts)..." So you expect and/or accept bugs on a game that is expensive to buy? But an indie game should not be allowed to have that? Wrong. Totally wrong! If there is money involved (that's what triple A means) there should be a quality department/division involved. Period. If its code verification, game testing on many different machines or intensive alpha and beta testing with some community behind, that doesn't matter. That would be as if you buy a Porsche and only one of five gears is accessible and the left back tyre is half the size. But this is ok, you have paid loads of money to it and can't drive properly, but its Porsche. And your neighbour has a small Skoda, man what a wreck, the digital clock is not working. How could he drive with this around to Northpole to Southpole and be content for the 10 month he owns it. Gahh!!!! It seems that people nowadays expect to have unfinished products delivered and be content with it. Yes, and software is a product too! Not only things you can touch. For me as an engineer this is total failure and even some part of disrespect. Money at all costs and instantly. Who gives a f... if the product is working as long as we have the money in our pocket soon enough. Don't get me wrong, they should get money, but not for junk. But customers can do something against this behaviour. That is why I did not and will not buy Enemy Within addon. ...phew...furious rage dimishes....phew... Sorry if this was to enthusiastic, but I simply detest such attitude.

I don't know if it applies to your system. The same error happened to me with Civilization V. I thought a game error or my arrow keys were broken or stuck triggered. I found out that my Joystick was causing this problem. Although calibrated to center for Arma2 (and it worked splendid there) a slight off-center was present. Plugging out solved this. So if you have other hardware attached; mouse, game pad, joystick, tablet, whatever, check if this is causing this. Either unplug or deactivate.

Yes, I would also love to do maps, and am also afraid of the steep learning curve, the noob questions that will arise and that I have to fire into threads like this. A beginners guide would be helpful. The "how to map..." sticky scares me actually, it looks so complicated.

I am not playing at the moment, so I haven't seen this in the game (yet). But looking at the pictures, I think the ground is too evenly coloured. And it looks like greenish snow. I like all the rest. I don't know how to mod and definitley can't tell you how to do it, but would it be possible to randomly change the snow tiles with a mask of brown, green, rock-grey colour filter. So the ground tiles will be colour-changed before trees and other stuff is "plugged on". If not random have a couple of predefined colour masks for each map size and this will be rotated for each load. So you easily have four different masks with each mask. If this is all stupid or not possible, nevermind.

So many people are criticising the game for the lack of this, the unoptimized feature here or the wrong behavior of that. That's ok, everybody can have their own opinion. But it is just a game. An indie game with limited budget and manpower. Your view of the game is valid, but it is not the only counting opinion. And "drama queen behavior" (waste of time...stupid game...no true successor...) is just a cry for attention in my view. Enjoy the game, maybe only partly, or not. You don't always get what YOU want...(maybe some day you get what you need. Spot the song and artist?) If you have your own idea how the game should be, do your own game or at least a mod to this with all changes you want. This game allows a lot of this. And maybe a lot of people (including yourself) will enjoy the game even more. The modding guys here are so amazing and especially for weapons there are a lot of mods that people do enjoy. In my view I don't think the weapon tiers are boring, that is part of the game. And for me, I immensely enjoy the tactical ground combat. Sure, I could see how different weapons would spice the game. A plasma weapon that has a high possibility to inflame the near vicinity of the hit target? Certainly a powerful but also tricky weapon to manage. Lasers that diminsih over space, proximity grenades, flamethrower, incenderay rockets...why not, the game will change with it. Better? Maybe, but the current game is still great. (Flames were mostly deleated from the game, because the certain manpower has left the project. This is a good example for limitation of an indie game here.) If I could wish for features to implement it would be: - purely random maps - maps with height levels, i.e. hills, valleys - maps with more animated objects: traffic lights, flickering neon lights, cars passing by, animals, animated water (to be able to cross)... - maps with more usable items: cars, tanks, lifts...bicyces? ah why not. - throwing anything around: ammo clips, weapons, medikit... - random continents (like the Civilization series) - team definition; alpha team, UFO breach team, alien base assault team - more complicated wounding with consistent wounds for soldiers (deaf on one ear, leg partly stiffened...) - .... You see I could go on. For me the immersion is more relevant than weapon tiers. If I would be so picky, the game would be a really really bad. But then I will never find a game (or anything else) that suits me. If I could mod I would try do such implementation. Or would try and fail, because it will be hugely time consuming until it works flawlessly. Telling your opinion is ok and helpful for the devs, but stay objective. Have you ever listed good and bad, maybe with an objective emphasis factor? Which side is the winning?

Commissar, you picked the video right of a waaaay old thread having the same theme like this one. Well done! And it prooves that everything comes back, repetitively.

Dreamcatcher, though only a small intersecting area, but still, Morgan Freemans military group doing exactly X-Com work.

Yes you are right, it was the second time and I will not do that again. Sorry if it bugged you. It was just a sort of joke. I see a lot of people like these mods and I don't want to spoil their joy with it. I just think it is funny that "more boom and bang" is always something that people appreciate.

Reaaally? Yeah I got it. Maybe I should have added that you can start advertising right away. Because: There are zombies in the game already!!!

I may be a little confused here ( I admit), as I did some german translation. But I am very sure I have read something about the colours of alien uniforms during my games (v18 to v21). It may have been only for some units and not as thoroughly realized as in Lore+ and it also may have been changed in the Xenopedia. I am not sure about that, as I am currently not playing and waiting for final version. If there are no colour indications everything is fine for you. Just wanted to give you a little hint for completeness sake. And before you ask, no I doubt that I will use this mod, as it feels like one of these "Michael-Bay-style-mods" with more boom and bang, like others here. And I don't need that.

Thank you dpelectric. I guess, nowadays everybody tries to scream to be noticed. But in general I am quite surprised that this forum is so well mannered, which is great. Despite the "drama queens" I haven't come across insulations, foul words and aggressive self-staging. And let me remind you on the "This game sucks..." thread, it was great.

Just for your information: If you change the colours of alien units the xenopedia for those units will not match anymore. Maybe you are not interest in reading the xenopedia and just play along "experiencing" the colors of the units, but if someone does he/she will be confused.

There are zombies in the game already!!!

Oh, I didn't know that it was your text. I am helping Selgald with the Lore+ translation (I know it is your mod ), but I thought that you copied the texts from the research as Lore+ will be a sort of replacement for alien unit stuff. Yes I have to admit then that I couldn't remember all the original text from the game. Thus I am sorry for this Max. (By the way, very good text, had some laughs.)

Yes you read correct, or how do you understand this text from the research of the advanced Caesan analysis: I know a lot has changed since this text was typed, and there will be no such gadget, but it was planned once. I don't know if there is some remaining code in the game, but the modders will be over-enthusiaistic to hear about and get their hands on it.

Strange, I have reported that in V21 here. I thought it was fixed already.

I played the original (UFO: Enemy Unknown (in EU) or X-COM: UFO Defense (US), see here for more name details) back then on my Amiga 500 and loved it immensly. It was the first turn based strategy game for me. The later X-COM: Apocalypse was even better in my eyes. I also, played the "clone" UFO: Aftermath (by Altar Games), which was quite good but also quite unfair after some time. I could not dig the other Altar Games UFO-parts. As Firaxis announced their rebbot XCOM: Enemy Unknown I was eager getting my hands on this. They said they want to do a real game true to the original, they even mentioned that all development staff in their company should have to play the original before coding. Marketing gag or not, the will was there to do it. As it was released I got it, and tons of bugs too. They stopped me playing for months. Remember that game is a A+ title, but it was a ridiculous buggy alpha release. I was furiously angry. After lot of patches I played it through and was very dissappointed. The game was sort of fun for a time but it was not the game I was looking for. It was not a true reboot, more an arcade game, with some low level strategy behind. I liked in that version: ground combat optics (style & modern look, not so much the comic-book colors), ground combat tactical play (although limited to two actions only, so no retreat possible), base design concept, research, special missions, immersion of story. I disliked: no real air combat, ground combat (triggered aliens instead of AI), camera and grenade throwing behaviour in ground combat, hugely repetitive maps, no soldier stats and K.O.-skill tree, money shortage for everything, one ground team only to choose one out of three missions ...and others. All this dislikes are coming from the reduction content to make the game more streamlined, polished and in general "good looking" without some real backbone to last for a want of re-play. Believe me I tried it but stopped it early. Therefore no, I did not get the "Enemy Within" version. Directly after that I found UFO:Extraterrestials (by Tristar Synergy) on Steam, and played it for some time, but could not dig into the blocky graphics anymore. Same happend for me as I installed the old X-COM: Apocalypse via Dos-box....ugly to my eye nowadays. Xenonauts now was the first game that I ever have bought prior to release. Playing it since V18 and it is much fun since then. Despite the bugs, because I knew there where some, it was not an expensive A+ game. And you know what? The bugs where not stopping me for months. The graphics are not fancy in todays standard but very atmospheric, though comic-book because drawn over but more mature. BUt much more relevant, there is backbone, air combat, ground combat where you have to decide what to do and the results have affect on each other. So you have to wage what to do and how to do it. How many soldiers, what weapons, what euqipment, what jets, what researtch first, what to build, and so on. Example: In ground combat you can choose different actions for one "problem". Shooting aliens, precision, normal or burst shot, do I have to save time for reaction fire? Do I use smoke, frag, flashbang or stun gas grenade? Can I retreat? All this can be combined in any way you like, not as the game wants you to. Damn this is longer than I wanted it, so I stop here. I hope you see what I mean: Some part "want the old game experience back" and some part "want to have a real turn based game and no shiny polished foam bubble". FYI, I played XCOM: Enemy Unknown for 57 h (one play through, next stopped ) and Xenonaust now for more than 250 h (4 games in total, one completely through). ...maybe I am crazy.

1: All captured aliens that are not "asked for" by the scientists, i.e. for research, will be destroyed after the mission. You only need one of the requested aliens one time only. And you can only get them when this is anounced by the scientists and as a small reminder on the Geoscape. 2: Soldiers can be shot down but still have a chance to survive when ground combat is over. I guess this is when they receive damage not more than 20HP below zero. Edit: The Captain was quicker....Merde.

Kevin, sit! Don't make the head of a cult angry.