Sherelian

Frist question: Yes! Second question: the linearity of the economic system: You had to make more missions, to make more money / aleminum, etc. There was no other way to influence your income. I never had the feeling to have a choice, but to switch into the ground combat. The impact of such an economy on the tactical game is to singular. I missed really any kind of human resource development for soldiers, maybe even for other staff. it is a bad thing, that the only way to progress a soldier was the participation on ground combats. The tactical combats were way to much repetitive. The plasma MG was the same a the frist one, same for the pistols. etc. There never was a need to change tactics, to develop, to adept, to evolve or to explore different ways of preparations. Technological progress never influenced the tactical behavior. That is bad. Another thing on the strategic layer: You never can take action, you always have to sit and wait. That becomes boring after the third month, but it also locks every ability to be creative. You're never forced to take action into something by our own, like infiltrating or recapturing lost aries while you have time and ressources.

Hello Chris, Hello Devs and Hello everybody! I've been following the debate for some time and enjoyed the thought very much, to gain another xenonauts. Right now there has been announced X-Com 2, which maybe is going to have all the stuff, Firaxis advertised vor the first game. We shell see. For now xenonauts has been far more a game for me. That is why I would buy a xenonauts sequel right away. In such a sequel I'd appreciate very much to one thing, I saw almost 20 years ago in X-Com Apocalypse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-COM:_Apocalypse): Aliens, which are infiltrating human organizations as companies, military, police and governments. If you let them to do so, thos organizsations grew hostile towards you. In cases of governments your income was reduzed, in cases of companies you were not able to purchase their products as arms, planes, and so on. And in cases of police you got hostile human NPCs, which acted against you in the tactical combat as well in the geoscape (which was a bis city). All in all it is some more plot, which made your decisions to act much more interesting. You had to watch exactly, what the UFOs where doin and if they had been 'pumping' stuff into a building, you had to check, what exactly they were doing. Even if there wern't any aliens seen, no base build, and so on. Check for that the linke above, especially the part of the geo-scape of Primus-City. In other words, I'd like to see a more complex economy like in Apokalypse, and a more complex political landscape with different impacts. So, I'm curious to see you making your dev-descision and I'll be glad to join the outcome. cheers Sherelian

Are there any information about the ability, to play the game on mac with steam? When i open steam, it does show me only empty folders and tells me: "Failed to start the game (missing executable)". I'd like to play it on steam and the last time I loaded a version with desura I got a stable version, which had a really bad resolution. So I've been playing on windows yet, but it causes me some trouble to do so. I'd really like to play it on mac!

Hello, I tried to run the new experimental version but the game crashes before it starts. any ideas, what I can do? cheers sherelian

save game is lost but it worked, thanks!

Hello, thanks for the work! Sadly, i got a CTD after the latest patch. After that the game wount work properly: every line is replaced by "###'#' and if I try to start a new game, every letter is repaced by the same "#####". Any Ideas ?

I used a car as cover, put some flashbangs and smoke onto it. Three rounds later I was able to ran with all my soldiers through the car. The car was not hit by any bullets.

I have 2 soldiers sitting one by another at two adjecent tiles. The first shot on an alien downward diagonal with a burst. All 3 bullets hit the adjecent soldiers, who died instantly. He was not in the line of the shot, there was no hint, no obstacle, no breaking the line of targeting, no evidence that the line of sight and line of shot was blocked by the neighbor. That is a kind of friendly fire which is most annoying and there was no chance, that the soldier could have hit him. Is that a bug or just an issue with the targeting?

And a second bug: I use a car as cover, put some flashbangs and smoke onto it. After that I can run through the car.

I have 2 soldiers sitting one by another at two adjecent tiles. One shot on an alien with a burst and all 3 bullets hit the adjecent soldiers, who died at once. there was no hint, no obstacle, no targeting that the line of sight and line of shot was blocked by the neighbor. That is a kind of friendly fire which is most annoying and there was no chance, that the soldier could have hit him. Is that a bug or just an issue with the targeting?

Have there been any changes on the comabshields?

Henri, none of the things you wrote do answer to my issues. I tried to point where the trouble with the shield is: it does not help against most of the common shots, either the shot passes the shield or the shield does not show exactly in the direction of the fire. The latter will occure in UFOs, because the reaction-fire will be as well frontal as edgewise. It does not matter, who opens the door, as the opening itself does not trigger any reaction-fire. Threwing granedes on the other hand does and the shieldguys will suck the damage either when they stay there or when they move in.

I have been trying around with the V19.7 and the approach to an and into an UFO. I always use 2 guys with combatshields, covered in smoke. In my squad the combatshield is the job with a 100% casualties -- in v.7 they are always hit, I have not seen the shield helping them in any way. There are 3 ways how they die: Either they move in front with the shield and are shot, which the shield does not deflect, but the shot passes the shield and hits the soldier directly. Or they turn around and are hit on the side, where no shield is, i.e. at points where they have to turn left/right in a corner. Or they move in the smoke and although there should not be any LOS they are hit by reactionfire and die. So I am looking for some answers, how to approach anything without making some crude manoevers. At least I have to watch beside a corner to get any sight, but it almost always costs me a soldiers.

Intercepters still lose all fuel as soon they trag a landed UFO. Very annoying if an UFO lands just a second before the can shot it and they have to fly back due lack of fuel, altough it was on 80%.

agreeed with that. the idea of a combat shield is to put somebody preferential into the enemy fire, i.e. while you enter a door. if there is any good chance, that the reaction- and barrage will surepass the shield, it is competley useless. you cant plan not to be hit, if there is a chance to be in a situation, where at least 5 aliens will shot with 3 shots each. I am missing the ability to upgrade the shield. We have some some pretty cool stuff from the foreigners visiting, we made armor and vehicles out of it; but we are not able to make a plate out of the same material, which may replace the old shield?

I have some trouble with the grenades. There was an Andron, which I wanted somewhow to disable. I threw 8 emp-grenades on him and they hardly bothered him. Is that supposed to be that way?

I always have guys with the shields on the field. As scouts they are fine. As soon I try to enter an UFO they tend to dies, as 50% of the reaction fire passes the shield and hits the soldier. And it is a pretty hard chioce to equip somebody with a 10kg shield, as he cant be armed very well after that. And the pistols arnt worth the trouble, neither are the laser-pistols. So I love the idea of the shield, but it is mostly useless, as it does roll the same dices as every other hit does -- and you need only 1-time-fail to lose the soldier.

I am looking for a button, which will let every soldiers crouch automatically at the end of the turn. And I'd am looking for the ability to switch the rockets in the launcher before the combat starts.

Recently I got the second time a most annyoing thing: In an alienbase I was in a corridor, which I filled up with smoke-grenades and stungrenades too. Suddenly one of the smokegrenades trigged an great explosion, which killed at least 2 xenonauts and injured the whole squad. As it was an alienbase, it was my elite-squad and I lost due to a strange kind of friendly fire. Does somebody know, why such an explosion occured?

ah, thx. I clicked always on the icon, never on the letters.

How can I switch the loaded weapons on new build aircrafts? I have two Mig-32 which where build after I researched the new explosives and they dont equiped the new torpedos.

Thanks for the check! I've have been trying the mac-version and was very supprised to see how pixelated everything is. Has somebody an idea why that is so?

I see, that my Topic has changed somehow. I'd like to recall, that I am not asking for changes in the mechanics, but in the story and aesthetic. The player should feel what the story is about to tell him. The feeling right now is a mix of nostalgia in retrospective to xcom and an faszination for the mix of tactics, strategy, economics and research. A game should not be a slave to the reality. So after some reconsideration I'd like to make another suggestion, how to alter the story and the feeling in the game: First change the open warfare beetween humankind and aliens to a kind of silence war. The public should not exactly know, what is going on. The nations on the other side do exactly know. They lost some crucial parts of their airforce to the aliens -- there is not to much left. But the public may be thinking, that the cold war has become hot. Second slow down the pace. The game is far to fast for nearly everything. Such a pace kill every ambiente. Slow down. Let the first months be some rare encounter with scouts. At the moment there are more UFOS to stock up the funds. The problem can be easily solved by stretching the progress over a long time. Side effects will be a reasonable time to research all the new stuff, to build new prototypes, to train new soldiers, etc. etc. etc. The first majore encounter shoudl be months after the first dogfights. Third vary the tasks. A nice way might be some stealth-missions to repell infiltrations by aliens. X-Com apocalypse showed a very neat story for this: the aliens tried to infiltrate different companies and the gouverment. If let untouched, they would turn over. So an infiltrated company should be a valid target, a compromised para-military camp, etc. Fourth Give the love you put into the air-combat more story. I dont know, what kind of decisions you made on pilots. But that is on of the most vital and innovative points xenonauts offers; as it is the very one things, which allowed the xenonautproject to shot down an UFO, where everybody else failed. So put some effort into the explanation for this, i.e. in a special training for pilots with some extraordinary skill, trained for 20 years to reach some incredibly maneuvers. The experiences of those pilots demanded changes on the airplanes, which made new maneuvers and tactics possible, which made again new demands toward the planes, and so on.... So make the air-superiority feel-able to the player. He has much less crafts, low funds, is outgunned in the air and on the ground but has the most advanced piloting skills, an alien ever encountered. Fith Give some love to details, i.e. the base-design. Let the player design his first base, instead of delivering a ready meal. Sixth Alter the advantages and disadvantages from the different nations. If a nation is happy, she may do something more than just offering more money. If a nation is unhappy, she might cut off some ressources. That is what x-com apocalypse did: if you missed to repell an infiltration to company, you wount be able to buy their guns. So, that's for the beginning, some ideas and thought on the topic. cheers sherelian

Hello everybody, I am from germany (Berlin), finished my doctor thesis in philosophies and working as coach and consult. One major part of my thesis and work is to build up stories, i.e. for a story-based management or reconciliation beetween the the objectives and the people. Thats why I like to see the background story of xenonauts and to adjust in a way, which eradicates the contradictions.

I use the 2. Dropship in the 2. month to catch landed UFOs, before they do some strange stuff. Therefor a fast approach is needed.