Telparion

Dear Xenonauts fans, Note: I contacted Chris about my intent to introduce this content here, in the Off-topic section. I hope you will like it! I have been, like you, following Xenonauts for some time! And had been working myself on XCOM-inspired games for years. We all know how we've been overjoyed to see the 1994 original experience taking life again on our computers. That addressed my need for computers. But not the one for other media... UFO Defense Protocol : A cooperative board game UFO Defense Protocol is a board game set in a XCOM (1994)-inspired universe. Players can play as aliens or humans. They invade, or defend the planet. The game features squad combat, air battles, funding, research and construction; everything you can expect to reproduce the experience we are fond of. It is a very big game, as I take this theme seriously. It took me several years to have the right experience in a single game session. Disclaimer: The game isn't related to Xenonauts or Goldhawk Interactive, nor is it related, supported or associated with XCOM license original developers (Firaxis) or publishers (Take Two Interactive), or the original "UFO: Enemy Unknown" developers and publishers (Microprose). All rights are reserved to their respective owners. "UFO Defense Protocol" is a complete indie game, strongly inspired by these references, but with its own design and story. Want to know more? The game is currently available on kickstarter with plenty of bonus materials! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dreamship/ufo-defense-protocol I would love to talk with xenonauts/ufo fans who like this project!

Greetings to all the staff and community! Congratulations on a job well done, as always! "Well done", but there are things I would like to express. According to me, the latest V19 has also made a number of small regressions on a few gameplay aspects. Overall, the "coloring" of this regression adequates to three words : "less mystery around"! I will put four small items here on this subject. Maybe only these items exist on this matter. 1) In tactical combat : The "hidden combat movement" that filled the screen before, is now taking only part of it. Albeit a very small change, it translates into a setback to me. Two reasons : XCOM (94), and ambiance. It is a matter of ambiance; fear, and being 'uncomfortable' to the player at this step, may seem quite non regular but is fully part of the tactical combat gameplay here. Having sounds with a picture hiding the whole screen (an interesting picture, as well) fits a purpose, the same way the sounds, and music fits an artistic purpose. It gives the 'fear' to the player. Having a small picture, instead of a fullscreen one, makes it become more technical and less ambient. Like "yes, this movement is hidden". Of course the camera doesn't move to the target, but for some reason we still have the impression that we still see something. I discovered that the "One More Turn" effect was much stronger with the fear and ambiance being stronger. Of course, this may seem maniacal to some people, but I believe I expressed how it felt and why it felt so to the best of my (french) ability. Solution : Please make the "hidden movement" picture fullscreen again! 2) In research screen: The summary of a technology (the short line describing it when it isn't researched) now seems to always provide a direct description of "what we will be able to do with it". Meaning: what other research it does unlock. While being practical to the player, the strong accuracy of it makes the choice of a topic to research being even more a "strategic" choice more, than an "ambient" choice or "choice by heart". A good example of the resulting gameplay comparison would be the following : In MOO2, when you researched a tech, you did not know which new tech of this item will be available next. It was random. I believed it contributed to the fun of MOO2, with many other things. In other games, you have to explore the whole tech tree, and see/calculate what it unlocks next. While it still makes the game fun, it's a different fun (and guess which ones ended up as cult titles ). To go back on topic with our wonderful game, providing more, and more accurate information before making a decision, is nice but you must never forget how the "mystery/discovery" of a research contributes to the gameplay, more than the strategic aspect of a given decision. I believe this accurate description has a hit on the gameplay and ambiance. Again, what I mean by this isn't the fact that we have a short description (it's wonderful and I want as many descriptions, and as long and unique ones as possible!) but the fact that it announces the next techs it will allow. I no longer do this or this because I want to know what will be revealed (as description, flavor, upgrade...) since what will be revealed is already "announced" or rather, "summarized". So, researching item #1 only becomes a way to reach the item #2 that was announced. In my player mind, I'll have item #2 then as a focus. Overall, I believe it makes research more strategic, but also contributes less to the "I want to play this game until I discover this item #1", since I kept the next topic #2 on head, and also contributes less to the "wow now that I had discovered item #1, I see I can now do this and this! nice surprise !". Overall, this means I leave the game earlier and shorten my game session. Yes, truly. Maybe I sound as an odd player, but that's my two coppers Waiting to receive the brief about a research discovery is really a nice gameplay feature, so announcing the next strategic component before making that choice, is forcing the player to make another kind of decision. You know, if in Civilization you did not have these "black unknown tiles to explore", the game just works differently, but the gameplay isn't the same. Making a step just to target the further one is just never the same thing, gameplay-wise. Gameplay-wise, the "one more turn effect" often relies on "a thing we want to wait to discover", more than a planned series of events. I believe these short lines need more to focus on flavour (or vague references) than on "accurate techs" to unlock next. 3) The new geoscape is really nice and "gamey" but has a bit less of this fear and ambiance aspect to it. But I don't believe this should be changed. Rather, we players should evolve along with it ; the new geoscape is a nice component. But if changes are to be made on the geoscape again, just keep ambiance as a priority ! 4) By fixing a number of oddities, the tactical combat is more accurate, but also sound to me more easy. I had no problem to avoid any disastrous event. Soldiers fire according to plan, there is less friendly fire even when I risk it, and the situation is "clean". But again, as such, I also end up having less funny things to tell to my friends about my Xenonauts mission. I don't think anything is to be changed here (I mean, it can't ?) but people must be careful with such changes ; having players "suffer" from a few situations, is also part of the stress when playing, and the pleasure of it. So removing some random situations will remove some things, and bring less flavour. With more and more things like this, the risk (overall) might be to lead people to think that "doing a mission" could translate into a chore, more than willing to see what will happen out there. I played on Ironman / Veteran, but on this second test run, I still haven't explored much of the features I explored a few months ago.

I agree about ground missions being challenging, but air missions being harder, and currently unbalanced and too hard. Although, I have to say I don't mind air missions being too hard. This puts me under heavy pressure and with a goal to keep a strong fighter budget ; and with pressure when I want to send fighters to down something. Were I be able to down every UFO around, I would have the opportunity to loiter around and would become just bored and with no possible way to replay the game with satisfaction (since I would have beaten it) and to have some great fun with new attempts. That's the reason why I actually would have wanted to avoid the pieces of advice dropped here or there, telling us which strategy will be a perfect WIN situation. Also, I have to say that having the opportunity to risk a Chinook and its men being downed in the air by aliens (happened to me once !) is great fun. I escorted it actually, but the escort was underequipped; it fought hard but got wasted (quite the epic way!). On an Ironman game, seeing your Chinook and men downed is actually a fun, memorable experience, since I still managed to recover and keep the fight after that. Again, I agree about some points regarding balancing of costs and build time, but nowhere close to tripling damage etc. I place this not to oppose your own experience and suggestions, but for the devs to also notice we care about the gain and great advantages this difficulty causes. If Xenonauts became an easy / average challenging game on Veteran, its value will drop and even more will the goodness of Ironman. But now that I have said all this... we still all underline the problem of air combat unbalancing status! Right now, I think its more on the funds parts that we might lack to address the possible fighter hardships, and that the construction times might be too long. I think construction times shall be reduced less than currently when we add engineers over and over (diminishing gains) but that global time may be shorter too, and of course global cost of fighters ; maybe by about 30 % Also maybe increase the possibilities for the player to have "air bases" with an affordable maintenance costs? Or maybe not, as it could allow players who dominate the air to just dominate the entire Earth ? The devs know. And yes : It's XCOM, Baby ! Moreover, it's Xenonauts, and it's so wonderful. (although, I have to admit, the name still has to fight me to stick)

I understand they did not bring the "balance modifications", but as my self-observation, I find things (mostly, not always) "as they should be", meaning with difficulties but balanced for most things. I play on Hard difficulty, and played with steam V18 version The game looked to me with lots of hardships but fine as it is. It increases replayability a great lot. And with less difficulty, the Ironman mode would be of almost no value. I agree on Misterlock observations about prices, build times and starting money though. Slight adjustments could be useful.

I think I've been looking for a 'congratulations thread' but I did not easily find one. You made an awesome job with Xenonauts. Eight months ago, when I first checked the game, I found something in the gameplay was already there, but whole parts were also still missing. Now that I came back with Steam V18, I am impressed. Impressed by the quality and awesome job on the textures. Impressed by the nice output of the sound ambiance. Impressed by the tension, the way we move and hide, the way level design helps improving missions. Impressed also by the nice ideas you put into the game. You managed to continue in a direction while removing everything that was flawing the game experience. I believe the community played also a part in all this, although I joined it only recently (and only to misplace a bug report myself, sadly ). Back to topic. As a game developer, I always had a UFO: XXX build and game somewhere, with Geoscape and all. I still have a boardgame also near publishing step. But now eventually, I can rest and say : "They got it right!" You got everything right and I can't do anything but encouraging you to continue this way and continue making of this game the perfect, not only remake, but rebirth of our 1993 UFO Defense. Rebirth with shiny new things and adapted game concepts and ambiance, that work just well. I will now also be more delving into modding options for the game; I had UFO builds and game experiments that I would like to convert to a full mod sometime later. Congratulations again, and good luck in the last improvements you are making. I think other people could also use this thread to say everything they like! On a technical point of view, it is of no use to get congratulations, but game development is also matter of engagement and willpower, some good words can also help them.

I can testify that it always works when it writes : .. and that you can launch the fix and it will make its miracle.

Thanks a ton for that

It's really bad to bring out this "base missions bugged or not" subject into a "Where are ze rockets" topic. Let's keep the topic to the rockets one.

Actually, once we are stuck on this, the reload only brings out back the Hidden Movement screen and its never-ending loop. This is because I played this one on Ironman mode, so I cannot load before it happens. However : The thread's fix totally worked ! It removes the bug. Sometimes we end again on it (because of a Reapear, as it seems, indeed) but the fix then again can allow us to get through. Also, I have to shamefully report that I made a mistake and am playing this with v18 Stable version, instead of experimental one. Shame on me. I should end like the horse under svidangel callsign for this.

@ BeornBlackClaw IMPRESSIVE. You impress me, and I can tell you I am rarely so much impressed. Your fix totally worked. I applied it to a v19 Experimental Steam which had a problem during a terror mission. We can suspect a Reaper to have caused this. Further explanation about how to run it : - Download it from first post. (careful about the file host, that would spawn also a wrong download button) - Deploy it in your game root folder. - You may launch the tool EXE even while playing. - You'll see a "Found the Xenonauts process" message. Click "Apply fix" once you are in the Hidden Movement loop. And here, it will work. Wonderful job. You just saved a number of Ironman save games, and also helped reduce of the pressure on the bugs, and made the whole Xenonauts dev team more able to deal with things.

Thank you GizmoGomez. I just saw this thread : http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/5587-Infinite-Hidden-Movement-temporary-fix About infinite Hidden Movement. I'll try the fix tool provided with it, and will report success or not here.

Here is the SAV file : http://www.gamer-galaxy.net/transfert/AutosaveIM2013-06-03_22.41.02.sav It was the one in MyDocuments/Xenonauts folder. And just in case, the other file that gets generated once I launch the game: http://www.gamer-galaxy.net/transfert/__newGameSave__ Please tell me if you have this problem ! The terror mission occurs in Melbourne, Australia.

Note that I had months of successful missions, including terror ones, and had three successful turns on this mission before this problem occurred. The game doesn't leave the "Hidden Movement" phase, as if some alien was thinking indefinitely. I can still press Escape and have the menu, or hear sounds when I click. Leaving game and resuming the save game (which is on ironman mode) reproduces the problem 100 % of the time on this computer. Save game would be attached if I had permission to put attachments here!