Kordanor

You also always have to take into consideration that saving+loading can screw any balance. Playing on ironman mustn't require that you aren't allowed to do any mistakes at all.

We just need to help to make this game so damn successful, that Goldhawk feels obliged to continue patching this game. Also while you (Chris) mentioned there won't be steam achievements I hope you don't forget to include steam cards. It's not just cool to have these cards, it's also little efford and generates additional revenue as each trade of such a card gives you a penny or two.

The fraps codec is almost uncompressed, like most other recording codecs. With DXTory you would record in lagarith lossless codec which isn't much of a difference. Not sure what you mean with different audio sources. You can record your windows sound and a sound input for forever. If you mean that you only want to record a secondary soundcard which is not set as windows standard - then yes, that is not possible. It is also not possible to record both tracks (microphone and game sound) in separate channels. I also bought DXtory but it just didn't work as reliable as fraps. @tacticaldragon: Fraps is not a free program. It costs 27€ though I think I paid less like 9 years ago. ^^

If you do that in general, it would be necessary to get a lot more funding though. As replacing aircrafts in the past was quite cheap.

I played Heroes 3 a lot, and also Jagged Alliance Deadly Games. But these were times when my friend brought his pc over so that we could play via LAN. I don't think it quite works that way as well nowadays. I spent a lot of time thinking about "how could you make a good multiplayer jagged alliance"? But honestly I think it's incredible hard to make anything which is more than a skirmish battle you can have in JA 1.13 or in XCom:EU - which I find absolutely pointless. These game's strength is the campaign and how stuff develops and I want to have that in multiplayer as well. Besides of playing Coop I think that the way JA DG did it, is almost the only way you can do it. A guided campaign with mission after mission where all players have to participate in each combat. And while you can lose a mission, after each mission the support for both teams gets higher, so that it mitigates previous losses while not making them obsolete. I think it is very possible to make a good campaign with like 10-15h out of it. It should probably not be much longer. I think it's also possible to do something with that with Xenonauts, but in this case it would be limited to two players and both players would need to participate in all ground missions. But the game would need to be designed exactly for that - and this appeals to a very, very limited playerbase. So I am quite sure that it is not worth the effort.

Well, not everything in JA2 is better (at least from the vanilla version). E.g. the suppression mechanics work quite good in Xenonauts. But Suppression also isn't anything I know the Original Game for either. ^^ Also Reaction Fire instead of interruptions is fine (automatic shots instead of custom turns) but I think the game could still profit from learning JA2 mechanics in terms of interruptions. Besides of being turn based which comes with some abstraction itself, some mechanics here are rather artificial. Of course not as artificial as in XCom EU - which is as artificial as it gets and has more in common with a Board Game than with JA2. Bottom line is: I think that: -Reactionfire should be based on a fixed character attribute if conditions for both parties are the same (seeing each other at same time meaning characters face each other). I think that is already in though I didn't understand the example with the used up initiative. -If the target does not see you either because you are out of range or not in the facing direction and you shoot at it should have a lowered chance of reaction fire based on his initiative<>your initiative -Every "visible" action should have a chance to trigger reaction fire. Running, Open a Door, whatnot -Reactionfire should not be limited to the target who caused the reactionfire -once the enemies are detected they should lose their "stay in ship" restriction, they might stay in because it's safer but they don't have to I think if these mechanics were in place it would just feel natural. Of course there would be tactics against it, but it wouldn't feel like exploiting a dumb AI / weird game mechanic.

Wow...first I have to say that I only played for 26 hours now, first on insane (a month or so to get a picture) and then on easy to get an idea about techs to be able to plan ahead when the game releases and I'll play on insane again. My experience so far (V21): On Insane first I always positioned all my crew infront of the door, then opened it. Grenade and go. Until the 10th mission or so when one alien came out opening the door...which wasn't healthy for the dudes waiting there. From there on I kept my troops in some distance, and shot the door open. Just in range to throw grenades into it. But after reading this thread... -I did not know that opnening a door does not trigger reaction fire -I did not know that only people in the aliens LOS could trigger reaction fire -I did not know that only the unit which triggered reaction fire can be the target of reaction fire. Now I am wondering...why do you build up on the Original UFO/XCom at all? Imho the combat was far superior in the Jagged Alliance games over the XCom games as it just felt far more realistic. And the whole discussion here feels extremely absurd being a JA disciple. Just for those who don't know: In JA2 you don't have reaction fire but interruptions where you can chose your target but it's for the same purpose. When does the opponent get reaction fire there? It's a mixture of several modifiers. The "reflex value" of the character is the Character level. This gives a bonus to the check but is not the most important factor. Let's assume the opponent is standing on a Window in the other side of the room. 1. If he is looking out of the window (to you) his chances are much higher to get a reaction when you do an action and get spotted. 2. If you run past him, not looking to the window , he will have much higher chances 3. If you go past him, not looking to the window, he will still have higher chances 4. If you sidestep towars the window, meaning you move into his view while facing him, the chances of him gettin an interruption sink rapidly. 5. If you shoot at him while not in his range of view it might trigger an interruption if he didn't see you before. This is because you can actually see shooting people immediately after the shot is fired if they are not perfectly concealed. Like you can see the muzzle flash of a sniper, especially at night. In addition, when he gets a interruption he is free to do whatever he likes. He could just run away. Or he could attack someone completely else. Well, I know that sneaking and sidestepping are not a feature of Xenonauts and it doesn't want as much depth as Jagged Alliance. But it's already going a long way from the Original XCom further into the direction of Jagged Alliance. So I am wondering why it jusn't take mechanics out of Jagged Alliance 2, which already proved that they work? What would happen with Jagged Alliance mechanics in this situation of your soldiers opening a door? If an alien looks into your direction it would immediatly trigger a check of your Initative against their initiative. If yours is higher, nothing happens. If their's is higher, you would get shot. And not just the guy openeing the door. All aliens who got an interruption/reactionfire would shoot at whatever they can reach, might even go to cover. So it becomes mandatory to open the door from range or with TNT to make sure they don't have a chance to reactionfire-wipe you. It's already pretty easy to open the door with a Vehicle, RPG or even with an MG or a couple of rifle bursts, so that is not actually a big deal. The aliens would most likely not get a reaction shot or interruption but might if some of your dudes is standing in his viewing range (remember when the muzzle flash was there, the door was still closed, the bullets impacted later). And then when you attack him he might get an reaction fire as he would be aware of your presence when you shoot. But of course you would also need someone near enough to spot him, so you should try to get one at a time into view. Your main advantage? Cover when opening the door. It's a delicate situation, but the most realistic and imho the most fun one. Would it be frustrating? Probably for newbies. But then again you can just drastically reduce reaction chance of the opponents. But this would basically completely eliminate all chances of "exploiting the system" as it's simulating reality very closely instead of "gamey"/artificial mechanics, which need "gamey"/artificial resolutions like making the door not closable again... Sorry for the long excurse and what might sound like Fanboydom. But I am kinda shocked about these mechanics in Xenonauts now. ^^

So why should Fraps be the worst? It might not have tons of features and settings. But it's good in getting the job done.

Guess the most popular program atm is DXTory. However it made problems on my machine and added small delays to the sound ending up at a 1 sek sound delay after 30 Minutes. I am using Fraps, which is extremely reliable. The files are then compressed with VirtualDub (codec: x264vfw.dll H.264) If you are using a new NVIDIA Card you can also use Shadowplay to record stuff.

If you happen to find an alien assault plasma first, which doesn't have any influence on Plasma weapons and 2 of the other plasma weapons you just locked plasma weapons and are only 80 or 160 research points away from MAG weapons instead of plasma. So I guess it's very well possible. In that case it wouldn't make too much sense to put all the research into plasma if you can just take MAG Weapons instead as Plasma does not unlock anything which won't get outdated by MAG anyways.

Yep, that would be a solution.

Hey there, I just realized that you get the full money back on decomissioning an aircraft, which is a big balancing issue with the first interceptors which you can just buy for 100k, and a the end of the month, you just sell most of them again to avoid paying the upkeep. Then after you got the results of the month, you just order them again. So there is absolutely no reason against filling your bases up with hangars, which just keep 6250$ upkeep and filling them with Interecptors. While this wont work in the later game due to the weakness of the early fighters it will give a significant push in the first couple of months. Where you can basically clear all the sky and gain additional income without big costs. Or you could say that for 90% uptime during a month you pay only 6% of the cost instead of paying 100% for 100% uptime.

Thanks again! Corrected

Cheers! Corrected the Dropship background and moved one of the small texts a bit which was partially on dark background. But these texts are really just for making it complete and not of big relevance.

First of all, this is obviously a spoiler. So if you want to find out the techtree yourself, don't read further. When I looked in the net for a tech tree all I found was the wiki entry over here: http://xenonauts.wikia.com/wiki/Tech_Trees But without already knowing all the technologies this overview doesn't really help too much. I was missing a structure and clear indication about what triggers it and what I get for it. So I sat down and made my own diagram, which you can find over here: http://ndnw.net/no-hp-stuff/Research.png I hope that it's of use to some folks. The main challenge, and the most time-consuming aspect was to make it fit into one screen. ^^ Things to mention: I did not play the very last steps myself yet, and dragged some information from the research.xml which comes with the game. But at some stuff I wasn't sure if they are in the game at all, and therefore left them out. e.g. Researches.ScuttlerDisassembly, as I could not find an entry in the Xenopedia. It's also the only Autopsy/Disassembly which actually gives a damage boost. Guess this is leftover from old data. Also the singularity stuff didn't make too much sense to me. The research for the singularity requires to start: the research for the singularity. Maybe that's an easteregg, but I don't see how you can reach that in the game normally. ^^ Anyways, all relevant info should be in this tech tree. The Legend can be found on the right. All UFOs are at the top. All Corpses are at the bottom. All Interrogations are nearly at the bottom. And the time runs from left to right, meaning on the right you find the highest techs (roughly, Base upgrades didn't fit further left). The Red Numers in the corner represent the effort value needed to research the item. Have fun.