FireStorm1010

I dont know if you are replying to my post but in case you do: Dont even know what this sentence means. 1-I never said it takes alot of time, i said it it isnt trivial and takes highly trained specialists. 2- You still havent answered to my biggest point meaning who pays them/what do they get out of it or are they doing it just pro publico bono?

One thing i would like to point out: Somebody takes the time to crack those games and make the pirate copies. Most of the time it isnt a trivial thing. Now think about 2 things: 1-Why a highly trained specialist would waste his time on doing something liek this for free? In other words, where do the money comes from ?(I do beleive in some passionate fanatics, but i dont believe on the scale where every game is pirated) 2- What bad stuff can happen when you install executables of unkown orginis on your computer?Not many things are free, and i dont beleive you can install a pirate game without paying by installing whatever somebody put inside those executables. When i was a poor student i also used to pirate games so , altough i admit its wrong , i wont take a morale highground. But really if you got a choice, installing pirate games to try before buying seems like a damn risky move to me. Most of the times you can get demos or watch playtroughs on youtube. Without compromising your computer.

Oh , actually that much easier, thanks.

I dont know if anyone also is constantly annoyed by sentinel jump pack sound, its to loud and ear hurting.If you feel like me, i managed to change it by replacing sentinel_jump_pack_loop.ogg, by another ogg file (i used simply the walking ogg but one could decrease the volume of the file or whatever one wants.)

Sorry if you think its over the line,I am not very angry, merely ironic. Anyway its my last post in this thread, said all i wanted to say.

I have an idea here, why wont Tonysmight and Navi1982 create a company and make a perfect ufo remake in 9-12 months? They seem to know eveyrthign about the bussiness, will be a cake walk.And since they pinpointed the most important weaknesses of the game (lack of 3d geoscape ) im sure it will sell like hot cakes.

Yea it seems small , but i actually never run out of ammo . Maybe its the way i use the tank, its only to locate targets or blow cover, rest is taken care by snipers from the back.So 12 shots to blow cover or obstacles is enough for me. For sure you cant just reckleslly blow everything, you got to look for that 1-2 objects blocking your path.

Will check when i get back from work , you might have gained a deeply grateful soul:)

I did. On other end , i remember not rarely ultra veterans in flyign suits were one shotted by aleins in late game.

(Some of my favourite games from old to new, to show what kind of games i like : Master Of Orion, Privateer, UFO:Enemy Unkown, Xcom:Apocalypse,Privateer 2: The Darkening,Galactic Civilization 2, Sword of the Stars1, Sword of the Stars2, StarDrive, Eve Online,Empire total war, Shogun 2 Total War , XCom : Enemy Unkown, Sang Froid, ,Stardrive) I am atm after ~100 hours on veteran difficulty in 2 games: with 1 abandoned game in middle stage, and my current near finish (marauders, praetor captured, situation stable) So here is my personal review/opinion in points : 1-A funny thing, altough i appreciate in theory the unconventional setting of Xenonauts in Cold War era, me personally i was a bit put off by it. All the washed out colours, never smiling soldiers, grey cities, it all evoked a kind of sad emotions in me. I really appreciated the joke about the never smilign soldiers in one of the research reports:). So i liked the realism overall but the "sadness" not so much. 2-First impression : alot of similarities with UFO Enemy Unkown. 3- Upon first waiting for action, the ufo events start popping on the map. I was realliy impressed, instantly it drawed me into the game 2 times more, great stuff. 4- I was a bit scared that the ground combat will be same old from Ufo Enemy Unkown but upon playing abit i breathed easier, the changes made it much better: The limited range of guns : small , basic thing but in the orginal game i used to sit with soldiers far far away safely with 1-2 tank scouting, and the soldiers sniped everythign , even from opposite side of maps. It made for a bit cheesy experience.The surpression mechanic : great. I like this much better then surpression in Firaxis Xcom. It makes it much more natural. Altough initially i kept on supressing my whole squad with lmg:).Various weapons types and their differences: great. 5-Cover system: initally i had to get used to it after Firaxis Xcom , but the fact that you dont have to stand next to cover to get cover from enemy fire makes much more sense. One thing imho Firaxis made better was the fact that soldiers on edge of full cover had full los, it was assumed they could peak from the edge. It seemed much more natural to me, i still miss it in Xenonauts. One big negative for ground combat in Xenoanuts , often mentioned, the unability to rotate the map. The mechanic of the transparent objects when you near them saves it , but its still quite inconvenient at times. 6-One thign that drove me mad in UI departement is the fact you cant assign soldiers to dropship on the same screen that you equip them, it really annoys me everytime i play. 7-Airstrike mechanic: great idea, reduces the grind factor. 8-Air combat : funny thing, one thing that draw me to buy it was seeing videos of air combat, and during my ~100 hours of gameplay i still ahvent really learned it. I nearly alwys auto it, fought manually maybe 3 times. I still thing its a much improved part of the game, that i might look into eventually. 9- Geoascape strategic game: very good overall. I like the fact that there is so many ufos, the above mentioned ufo events, the casualty numbers in each country.The base placing/radar ranges/ fight for funding was a challenge for me and forced me to think. Also i like the Condor/Foxtrot long time situation , where there is no one clear "better" interceptor: condor with laser gun has very good firepower and is cheap , while foxtrot faster but has very limited ammo. Its a bit unforgiving in the fact that if you get to much behind in air superiority you might have to restart, liek i did after my first game. I got my corsairs to late, and couldnt build new corsairs without money which i couldnt get without shooting ufos for which i needed new corsairs:). On other hand i had quite a satisfaction for playing it right the second time.I guess its part of the charm of these kind of games, learning mechanics and restarting. 10- The inital ground combats werent bad but werent that interesting, the aliens seemed static.It changed for a much better experience with Terror site and bigger ufos. Maybe the AI needs more aliens for some more coordinated attacks. 11 -Aliens attack my base : great experience, great idea that they are trashing the place, so you got to hurry to defend. Overall it was quite a fun unique experience , as it was the only place of the game where i had 20-30 aliens charging from one direction , focused, not spread out. 12- The ufopeadia/research: great stuff.I really liek the writing and the narrative style by the egocentric head scientist. It saves it from being dry, adds personality. Also in some way the whole story/research impressed me as "reasonable" (as much as it sound funny in a game about alien invasion) which added immensely to the feeling.Somehow i had much more fun from reading the entries and the pics then much higher budget animated / voiced of Firaxis. 13- The mind control : its one mechanic that for me is really imbalanced.The early psionic attacks are quite ok in my book, they give you time to react and arent overpowered: my soldiers one turn got moarale hit, and usually the next panicked/berserked.The late mind control attacks tough are just a "i kill you" dice roll. On my second playtrough i had handpciked soldiers with high bravery , didnt seem to matter much, 1-2 times during a mission usually they got mced. What i think is fundamentally wrong abotu such a mechanic , that for me enjoayment in such a game comes from the fact of learning the mechanics , devising tactics and counters, building up of your forces. And upon all this comes a mechanic wich just laughs at all your strategizing and preperations and just roll dices on the life of your 30 missions developed soldiers.It just feels wrong and infuriating.Me personally , im dealign with it atm by: a- Not assualting if possible any mind controlling caesian big ufos. b- If i must,by dropping weapons by all soldiers at the end of turn, and picking up on the begining of next. Silly and micromanagment hell, but i refuse to loose my top soliders in a second due to unlcuky dice roll which i cant do nothign about. And imho, from this and steam forums, many feel just like me. I wanted to finish for once the game as it was designed, but i will prolly try to edit mc off if i play again. 14-The weapons damage spread seems excessive to me: 50%-150% is a huge spread, making it more random then I like. 15- Not enough maps. That was a bit of a dissopintement for me. After the limited Firaxis map numbers , i was sure Xenonauts got enough with its partly generation. Somehow they begin to repeat very fast. 16- Grapaphics/art: Overall nice enough for me. Sure it isnt an AAA game, but overall they are aesthicly pleasing, specially the ufopedia entries 17- Music , quite nice, suitably eerie in tactical combat. One thign i missed from Firaxis game and that i woudl add here is prolly "action" music when you encounter aliens, it was imho a great little touch by Firaxis , you can instantly feel your blood flowing faster:). Another thing, maybe some soldier talking or at least texts in a small window , to add drama and action : " I got him !!!"," Im hit", "Incomign fire" etc. 18- Civilians on normal ufo crash missions, local defence forces. As i write it , it seems such a small thing, but in game it really adds a lot to the mood of the missions, makes it more real and alive. Overall imho its a great evolved UFO game, I had lots of fun with it, even with my reluctance to the cold war setting:).I would give it 7-8/10.(Well you probably guessed it after i wrote i played ~100 hours ).Thanks for the game.

On other hand , remeber its cold war, if US withdrew funding, go to USSR and take them on their pride, that the dirty capitalists of US are gone and its up to the communist heroes to save the world:)

I actually didnt buy any condors apart from the starting ones. They are just to damn slow , eveyrthing escaped from them while they were doing circles pursuing ufos then coming to base empty handed when fuel run out. I just built enough foxtrots and used with missiles, imho the fact they could catch nearly everything payed back fast the construction costs in increased funding and airstriked ufos. So then pairing a corsair with 2 foxtrots is a pretty soldi combo , same speed, and able to tackle anything for long time, just refit foxtrots with torps or missiles.

Fair enough, lets agree to disagree.To me your flaws seem pretty minor. You make it sound like the game is a epic disaster, while it seems to be a success, i just checked steam forums and I dont see anwyhere cries for refund, i see mostly positive posts or passionate posts about gameplay meaning poeple are playing with enthusiasm. By now I have played a fair bit of Xenonauts and for me its major improvement over the original . Sure the orignal will be only one since it was first and magic, but i see plenty of smart improvements (some of which i pointed in my previous posts , wont be repeating ) in Xenonauts.

k thanks

So i just researched mag wepaons and wondering if i should build them.Their stats are impressive but what worries me is the damage type : kinetic. Arent most of aliens highly resistant to kinetic weapons? Will i see a noticeable boost in dmg if i switch from plasma?

Did you even read 1 reply to you orginal post? And you say you read the dev diary but you didnt understand that it was self published , no publisher invloved, which is pretty clearly described there.

I dont find it abig deal , but i would kinda agree with op. Putting just before you start a new game a short summary of the story, maybe even same as wikipedia, or make it more like an offical order from authorities to take control of the Xenonauts project, with some pics, shouldnt be to big a drain on resources and would imho be nice. You really cant expect poeple to read a short story that they have to download frome smwhere else before they play a game. All in all Xenonauts mood is strong enough it gets to you quickly, even without this.

@op altough your points are well written and i can agree to some extent to most of them,your authoritative stance and judgement iritate me. First of all its your opinion. Second you point all these negative points, but dont write any of the postives. For example about the Geoscape,i dont care that its not a globe. For me the innovation with the ufo events popping up makes up for such a great mood, its for me better geoscape then in original. 2,3 - imho nitpicking, didnt notice any real impact on my gameplay 4- Yeah its annoying.Ideally there should be turning around the camera.But i beleive it was explained its the best they could do with the engine they had. 5- There are lots of improvements in shooting mechanics over the orginal.The fact that guns have finite range (even sniper rifles tough quite long),great supression mechincs, shotguns... 6- Would eb nice, nothing really that important. Not mentioning superior air combat, airstrikes mechanics, no overpowered psi on earth side etc... All in all imho you are nitpicking some mostly not important flaws, not mentioning any postives, and judgeing with a authoritative tone.

you still can clear your path with good old firepower:)

I used a bit tanks thourough my gameplay, from relying solely on them to not using them at all, and here are my impressions: 1-From early till middle early game tanks rocks, they can take a few hits, have great area of effect firepower. 2-From middle middle game till late game when you discover hyperion the scimitar starts to loose a lot of its usefulness: as aliens become armed with more and more powerful weapons, it becomes to fragile with its 45 armor, you will start loosing them or use them with extreme caution. 3-Upon discovery of hyperion, they start again to rock: with 90 armor, hyperion is the only thing able to take at least 1 maybe more blaster/grenade hits and live (i had 3 instances when it got hit by balster laumchers, all survived, once even without dmg), and as alwys is immune to reapers.Its really good. 4- Finally brigning a tank doesnt replace shield scouts, as you got only 1 tank and there are plenty of places a tank cant reach. But certianly you might bring 1-2 less of those.

I see thanks

Out of curiosity can you actually stun adrons?I presume they are immune to gas, but maybe with batons/grenades?

I had smae zero result experience with c4, but strangely enough tanks laser cannon or missiles seem to blow the door just fine.

Imho all in all what the Xcom EU bashers really are appaled at is not really lack of depth or thinking , but the fact it deosnt try to simulate reality even to the extend of UFO EU, Xenonauts.They just have trouble putting it into words. Putting firing missile as skill doesnt make the game any less tought requiring , but of course is a pretty high abstraction opposed to just equipiing it as weapon in barracks.On other hand , its one of the things that allows Xcom Eu to be so finely balanced.

Imho in Xcom on impossible ironman level rushing the base or sattellites isnt the opitmal way to win. You throw to much of your resources to achieve these gooals, making your unequipped ground battles that much harder to win in early game , when its hardest. Imho the optimal way to win is just going slow, 1 sat first month, then 2-3 each month, pouring all the extra money into ground combat research/equipement. Yes you will loose some countries, not abig problem. Its what will give you the best odds of consistently beating ironman impossible , not restart 10 times to get that one win with all countries saved. To thw hoel post i kinda agree: the amount of choice in base choosing both in Xenonuauts and Xcom is similar, tough imho in both games it can be important, but you shoudl able to win the game with each choice.