Monifix

Well, do they only spawn near your bases or do they spawn all across the globe? If they spawn all across the globe then you would miss a lot of UFOs early game anyway. It's kind of frustrating that you constantly have to airstrike crash sites simply because you shot down 3 or more UFOs at the same time when you haven't got multiple teams operating yet. The same amount of UFOs but more spread out would also still manage to do the same amount of damage to your aircraft after all, so you'd still get situations where you lost a fighter or two taking down a tough target and then having to let some UFOs go, so I think it is a strange reason for choosing to clump them up. I really liked that you got the sense that there was always a UFO around somewhere making trouble in the original games. It made the globe seem more alive with activity, and you could send out aircraft to scout in order to try to seek out a kill if you really wanted those extra alien materials. It gave more choices. Now it seems like 75% of the time there is nothing at all going on, and you can't go looking for a UFO when it's not "go time."

That would be awesome. Also, in the final room in both UFOs and alien bases, the aliens will camp in the same spot not moving an inch, even if they are not in cover. This is beyond retarded. Why would they be gimped like that even AFTER you enter the room??! *sigh*

Why do they have to appear all at once in big waves though? I mean I guess it makes sense in a tactical sense, but for game play I would like it more if the UFOs appeared individually, and perhaps sometimes in a big wave, but not always in a big wave as it seems to be now.

This is perhaps my biggest gripe with the game. It depresses me that we are approaching release with the AI in the state that it is. I was really hoping that this remake would keep and improve the things we loved from the original X-com games, not barely try to live up to them. I know it sounds harsh but having recently replayed Terror from the Deep, the ground combat in the original just feels so much more dynamic. The Aliens in that game will regularly check the outside of their USO's, they will migrate around in their USO or hunker down in 1 location, only to then spring to life at the most inopportune moment. They feel like a real menace, almost like a thinking enemy. In Xenonauts they feel like anonymous AI in the worst sense, just waiting to be exploited. The fact that the UFO's aren't destructible just adds to this by the way. I feel like I've played the same missions 20 times over already. A feeling I never got to that extent in the original games. I'm not saying they were perfect games either (aliens terrorizing a shipping lane was pure torture of the soul for instance), but they are still better games in many respects despite being so old which is kind of sad.

So much save scumming in this thread. Pffffffft. Casuals.

If you read the novel that is in the launcher under extras it explains that the alien weapons cauterize the wound, and basically kills people by frying them.

I don't mind the new system, there is only one tiny annoyance though... With the static time unit cost it was really easy to reserve time units for a snap shot, since you knew it was always 20 TU's, so you didn't have to use the reserve TU toggle switch painstakingly for every soldier at the start of each mission (and fiddle with it throughout when you preferred running that little extra distance)

Well, I think the cover system is very well made, possibly the best innovation of them all in this game compared to the originals. I find it both intuitive and fair (with a few exceptions like the one Chris mentioned above.)

Wait a second... you mean... One sec, brb. *Starts spamming V, V, V, V* Ahahahaha! I AM THE GREATEST XENONAUTS PLAYER OF THEM ALL! Suck it, Aliens!

Have you ever seen Independence Day? Maybe the autoresolver lures the UFO's into canyons and makes them crash into a cliff But no, it's very odd the results you get from autoresolve quite often. Winning with no ammo usage at all, winning with 1 second of combat fuel, and on the negative side aircraft taking damage when if you'd done it manually you could simply fire your missiles and destroy the UFO without it being able to damage you at all.

I'm pretty sure the only ways the game can end is if: 1. You run out of funding and go bankrupt. 2. The aliens wipe out all your bases 3. You win.

@Quiescat: Yes you are correct about there being dead zones with no coverage with the 3 base setup i use, I'd say it covers roughly 80% of the land mass. I think that's basically enough though, as you don't need to intercept every single UFO to beat the game at all, and it's a cost effective setup that does the job, so I don't see much reason to get more bases beyond that. This is just my experience though, and my opinion, It's not necessarily the truth, which is why I appreciate the discussion

This has been happening a lot to me as well, I just finished a ground mission where 4 aliens spent 5 turns all shooting at the same crouched civillian who was completely out in the open and despite all 4 aliens spending all of their time units blasting away at the civillian every turn they didn't hit once. Has to be the most extreme example of this that I've encountered. It almost seems like there are "invincibility tiles" scattered about the map, where if a unit sits in that specific spot it can't be hit. I've had situations as well where multiple xenonauts missed all of their shots with 80-95% hit chances when trying to hit an alien just a few squares away, and i'm talking a lot of shots since i keep my men grouped still as the aliens don't have grenades yet. It just seems beyond the realm of RNG.

Hi everyone, So I've been thinking, how do people feel about current radar range you get from having a fully equipped base with 3 radar arrays? It seems to me that it might be a little too convenient that you're basically able to cover most of the landmass with just 3 fully equipped bases, one in the middle east, one around Cuba and one in eastern China. Going above 3 bases doesn't add much benefit as far as radar coverage goes. Wouldn't it be more fun and challenging if there was a slight reduction in the radar range? Even just a slight reduction would make a big difference in how you'd have to approach the geoscape. Your thoughts?

Hey, I can't help with the medal thing, but i know that soldiers who panic gain bravery stats after the mission if they make it. I'm not 100% sure if getting medals and panicking are the only ways to improve the stat, someone else might have a better answer (This is why I recruit soldiers based primarily on their initial bravery stat)

Aaah, I see. Well I feel a little dumb now, haha - Thanks for the info

Hey, I'm not sure if this first one is a bug or not, but during my first alien base assault of my current playthrough I cleaned out the base (or so i thought) only to discover to my surprise that the mission didn't end upon killing what I thought were the last aliens in the command room. Turns out there was one of those red doors that don't open in the first room I entered when assaulting the base, which led to another room with an alien in it. The only access to the room was destroying the door, something that took quite some effort given that i had already almost spent the few grenades my guys could carry. I'm not sure if this is intended or not? It sure had me confused for a while and fearing that would not be able to finish the mission. The second thing I'm sure is a bug, In the alien command room one of those half wall, half computer display tiles appeared to be "floating" above the ground, sorta half crunched into the one next to it... It's kinda hard to explain given that the perspective is 2d.. But it wasn't where it was supposed to be. It was a small Andron base if that matters. EDIT: I figured out how to upload a screenshot of the floating wall: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=239662980

@Gauddlike: Thank you for the long reply and trying to explain things to me As far as "giving it a go myself" I'm afraid that I'm pretty useless though, I'm just a consumer on the low end of the tech-savvy scale, I have no idea about editing files or using tools with any kind of complexity (even photoshop is beyond me, just to give you an idea.) I can understand the problem with getting lots of different submaps to work with each other in random configurations though, especially since the maps are more rich in diversity than the original games. Things like buildings weren't randomly generated in the original game either, just randomly placed to some extent, so I'd never expect something like buildings to be randomly generated of course. What I am hearing from your reply, and from what Chris wrote below is that it WOULD be possible to implement truly random map generation, but that it would be a lot of work, and that the current system is a pretty good compromise with some advantages and disadvantages. I can also tell that it's been a much debated subject, so I really do appreciate you guys answering my naive questions even though you have probably said it all 1000 times! The only thing I'd like to say in closing is that I really hope that given the fact that it IS possible, I really hope that we might get a true random maps DLC at some point in the future, because I do think that despite how many hand crafted maps you make, the thousands of hours I sink into games like this over many years (I will probably be playing this still 5-10 years from now, i love these games!) will lead to a loss of enjoyment over time because given enough play time you're bound to get to know all the map variations very well, even if there are thousands. So, I'd be happy to pay another 5-10 dollars down the line for a random map ad-on to the game.

What I don't understand is if they were able to make the random maps work in the original, why is it so impossible to make it work for this title? What is the fundamental difference that makes the random map generation worse? I mean, I can tell that the maps in the original were to some extent more "simple", in terror from the deep it was basically just all ocean floor and coral reefs, some hills here or there and some kelp, and Xenonauts maps have a lot more different elements going on. But given how much value and replay-ability it ads i just think that maps would have to look pretty awkward and crappy before i'd consider the randomness a negative. Are there any examples of horribly deformed and retarded maps that one could look at in order to convince one self that the developers are making the right choice here?

The only issue i see would be if all the defensive aliens would peek out one by one over time, thus allowing the player to simply wait outside and pick them off one by one, so perhaps it would be necessary to make it so only a few of them peek outside, and having the other aliens start sniping from inside the UFO if possible when they open the doors would be awesome, so the ones opening the doors to peek would have to be the first of the aliens to move i guess. Not knowing how the game is coded i have no idea if this is even feasible though, especially given how close you are to release. Edit: Oh, and they would have to be able to close the doors, or the doors should close automatically after 1 turn if you still want to maintain that cool moment of tension that is actually opening the UFO door once you are in position to do so. Otherwise we'd just find the doors always open with this change i guess.

Please make the effort to add this, the Alien behavior is noticeably more predictable than it was in the original as it stands. Aliens having only semi random spawn locations, not being able to spawn on the second story of buildings or other "tricky" spots, along with the sharp division between offensive and defensive aliens basically allowing you to deal with them one half at a time all contributes to making the ground missions feel more predictable than they need to. I think allowing the defensive aliens to occasionally peek outside would go a long way towards bridging that gap, and making the aliens feel like a coordinated force, whilst adding more constant tension throughout the missions. As it is now missions feel the most dangerous at the start, then the danger drops off as you kill off the aliens on the map, dropping down to no tension or danger at all when they are all dead only to then spike to perhaps the most dangerous moment at all, opening that UFO door and facing the reaction fire. Why have that drop in tension instead of maintaining it throughout the missions with one effective change to the AI?

I hope you guys are planning a nice party for when you release, because you have every reason to be proud of this game

Caaygun: Well the lore of the game kinda dictates that the organization has been around since the so called "iceland incident", so not having an equipped starting base at all kinda seems to contradict everything. I guess I can see how it would be interesting with total freedom to design your initial base from a gameplay perspective (not really tho), but from the lore perspective it makes no sense. Where has this organization been preparing all these years? Would they only start to construct their base once the anticipated alien invasion fleet arrives? I mean from that perspective it's sorta strange enough that you get to pick the location of the base at all...

Yeah it is by no means a big deal. It's cool that the devs respond to questions like this at all

...But I'd love an "oh shit" moment like that, haha Guess I'm in the minority here though and that's fine. EDIT: I wonder what the reason is for not placing spawn locations on the second story of buildings tho? Coding limitations?