Dear Xenonauts makers,
Wow! Just wow!
I read a thread on these forums a while back saying this game doesn’t have the wow factor but really they are way off mark in my opinion. I’m an avid gamer, I remember playing the playable demo of x-com: Enemy Unknown (as it was known in the UK at the time) and played that terror mission perhaps 50 times as a kid. I played the full game when I eventually got a PC that could run it (more times through than I can remember), and then Terror from the deep and loved it too (though, in my opinion it was way inferior to the original). I literally have not been so fixated with a game in the intervening 19 years until I found Xenonauts; furthermore, it’s this good whilst it’s still in Beta!
There are still some big bugs, but if it didn’t have these, it wouldn’t be in Beta right? For people who want gloss this really isn’t the game for you but log onto Steam and you can choose from dozens of games that are just gloss on top of gloss with little actual content sandwiched between, (there are other good games but I’m sick of some glossy titles... though i still end up buying them, a game > no game to play). For me the ‘wow factor’ comes from the hours of game play and situations that arise naturally due to evolving situations within the game environment, rather than pre-scripted events: Xenonauts has this in spades! I’ve put in over 30 hours on the Steam release and many hours previous on the Desura version I first started with (build v.15 or something). Some of the situations that have a arisen through the game-play could never be properly emulated with a scripted event.
The first build I tried frustrated me somewhat, reaction fire was king, and although you could counter the AI using a bit of strategy and a bit of metagaming, it was playable, for me at least. After a few frustrations and lost save games due to new patches I decided to leave it alone a while.
I came back just before the Steam release and I love this build. As I said before, there are number of things that are bugging me and I’m sure you’re aware of the majority but since I’ve clocked quite a few hours now, some may not be well reported:
1. Door bug, this occurs in alien bases in particular if a door gets damaged at all it then won’t open. I can see this being a deliberate thing, as in the opening mechanism is damaged, (that’s the way I’m in game rationalising it) but I’m not sure if it’s intended.
2. Shooting through solid objects: I’ve noticed some posts mentioning this before, but I thought I’d mention a few places I’ve noticed it.
Aliens in the control room (2nd floor) of the cruiser, shooting into the two side rooms of the lower floor; the shots do not hit the wall and have killed members of my party before. (I rationalise it by thinking of it instead as a automated weapon system to repel invaders!)
Alien bases, they seem to always know exactly here I am in their base and shoot at me irrespective of 50ft of wall between us. (I can rationalise them knowing where I am but letting fly full auto, often into the back of their friends really needs to be fixed).
Whenever i seem to be positioned next to a wall, they can see me through it and if they happen to auto from a rifle, chances are one shot will take the wall away and then several more have the opportunity to take me out.
3. Psionics: do they work? I’ve just recently done my first 2 missions against psionic caseans and so far I have no fear of them. Nothing has happening so far, I got a message once saying something like they know the location of one of my team and then he was shot at from half the map away, but after that and several more gold rings highlighting my players (I assume this is the psionic attack) nothing happened.
4. Airplane locked in combat. This has happened once to me, i ‘escaped’ about 8-9 times then gave up and destroyed my planes and reloaded.
5. Alien stuck in doors and walls, this happens a lot in base missions.
6. Not sure if intended but in January 1980 I had 4 assaults on my main base in the first 10 days. (2 months later I’m up to about 6 attacked on this base and 3 on my other). Whilst I guess Jan is the month in which the aliens evolved this ability, they sure were persistent. I bagged about 1.4mil from their futile attempts in January (who needs funding nations?), so no complaints here, but I do wonder if it’s not a bug.
7. Do the base defence work? I’ve got my second base with 5 plasma defense (I don’t have a good xenonaut team there, they are in training). Even when it reported them all as having hit, it did not prevent a base mission. In fact in the 9 base defences I’ve done, not once have the defence actually done anything (that I can tell). I’m on the point of removing them all and perhaps building a landing pad and welcome sign for them, as it’s a major form of income for my team at the moment. As a side note, is it intentional we can see the aliens entry points, as soon as I realised this, base defence went from a nail biting ‘holy ****’ moment to, ‘wooo i could to with another 350k right now, and I don’t even have to risk my planes for it’.
8. A couple times I’ve not been able to select a troop by clicking on him, and other players can walk through him. Selecting him by any other method (portrait, hotkey) works fine.
9. Invisible, indestructible, wormhole-shields. IIWS as I like to call them. The aliens only seem to employ them when attacking my base, (I’ve seen them in the hanger and med lab adjacent to where the aliens enter). When you move your mouse over the area it gets the two red circles, one above the other, like when you target and enemy, or like the green ones when you select a team member. If you shoot through them, sometimes the shot warps somewhere else, sometimes not, explosive shots just hit it and explode, but thankfully (and this has saved me many times) grenades go straight through. I’m guessing this is a bug rather than a powerful and devious alien device that they only seem to employ in very selective situations.
10. Finally on the same farm map, with both a landing ship and a carrier (both had landed rather than being shot down if i remember correctly) I’ve had crashes on the ‘hidden movement screen’ about 3-7 turns into it. With repeated reloads the same occurs. The first time I had to call off the mission, the second time i beat the bug by rather than dispersing, I charged all my team straight to the carrier (it’s within spitting distance of the dropship) and occupied the carrier for 5 turns for the win. I don’t know if this means the crash is caused with AI doing something within the ship which i managed to disrupt with my headlong charge. The map is the one that, as you exit the drop ship, to the right of the team, north on the map there is a concrete wall, with a gap in it about 10-15 squares away. Behind which is a huge barn and tractors+ hay in the courtyard. To the south are fields and directly opposite the exit of the drop ship (north/west) is a field then a hedgerow.
As of now I can’t think of any others, but I’ll be happy to add to them later if/when i remember. If you would like further details on any of these bugs please let me know and I’ll try my best to describe them.
Balance issues
I think money is fine (on normal) but air-combat is hard, and I like it hard, but it seems a little too much. I understand we can never keep on top of the alien invasion, and it would break the immersion if we could. But at the moment i just don’t dare leave the base, for 2 or 3 waves at a time (April 1980 I think). I just made my first marauder and wow, how cool. But still, with 1 corsair, 1 foxtrot and 1 marauder with 2 condors back-up (all in my main base), i still have to very carefully pick my fights, more marauders are on the shopping list at the moment, but they really take too long to make. I read a thread about indestructible planes, I can see why this would be good but in honesty i like destructible planes and I think if they were indestructible it would take something away from the game.
I think having some kind of evasive manoeuvre such as ‘hit the deck’ would help balance things. It takes a second or two to carry out, but the plane escapes from combat (not to re-enter.. perhaps it takes some damage too) and runs at high speed at a low altitude at which alien space ships can’t target or manoeuvre well (can create some sci-fi lore as to why). This would improve survivability whilst making air-combat not without big risks. I read somewhere that air combat isn’t meant to be a huge part of the game but something on my wish list would be to gain experience for pilots. Perhaps if the plane does crash land you can get a ground mission where you can go into recover the wreckage (which you can then ‘repair’) and rescue the pilot who is surrounded by enemy forces and sporting just his sidearm. The pilot could have an experience tree which could perhaps increase manoeuvrability of the planes, improve his combat skills/equipment or add an extra ability in combat, (e.g. roll for foxtrot pilots, hit the deck etc). You’ve got plenty of things to do I’m sure, but I would like to feel the same connection to the planes and their pilots as I do to my troops and bases.
Again I put the bugs there in case they might help not to criticise. I can’t state enough how much I like the game you’ve made. It’s the best game I’ve played for a long time, and the best game of its type since X-com; which quite frankly it advances on. However I won’t say it’s better as it’s impossible to compare 2 games that are nearly 20 years apart.
Thank you all who have contributed to this game, it’s a huge pleasure and genuine excitement to play, it’s great to see the constructive attitude (generally speaking) of the responses on these forums from the makers and the users and I hope it’s a great success financially and you all get very rich and fat on the profits! You deserve it.
Thanks
