Shadow86

How about a simple function allowing us to decommission bases, perhaps getting a fraction of the setup cost?

Fantastic, Solver! I'll be following this like a hawk.

The UFO wave system needs a fundamental rework, but I very much doubt it'll get one via official means at this point. The trick is to increase player agency without diminishing challenge too much. Closer to the original X-COM, random UFO appearances wouldn't be so crippling if all ground missions increased relations, and if such standing naturally increased after a certain period of time of no alien activity over a given region. I'm not sure if Xenonauts' moddability would allow for such changes, but with proper balancing, it would be a good way to stop the strategic layer from feeling so luck-based during the first few months without depriving it of difficulty.

Hmm. The manual says destroying an alien base is supposed to give a funding boost. But in my experience, it doesn't.

There's something wonky about map reveals. I hit an alien base the other day, and before long the map was revealed, along with the implied positions of three aliens (spotted with orange icon). Everything was covered in fog of war, but I could see the entire layout of the base. According to the briefing, it's a bonus I'm supposed to get once I reach a special room (the command room?), but my soldiers were very far from it when it happened. They were barely through the corridors connecting the entry elevator to the rest of the facility.

So far, no post-1.0 patch has broken savegames.

Terror missions tend to be quite hard, and if there's no loss nor reward related to them if they happen within a forsaken country, I'm not about to risk valuable soldiers for them. Not for the paltry 35-50k I'd get from selling alien things I'd salvage from it. Overall, they're rather pointless, but I'm not sure the possibility needs to be removed. Unlike in the original, nations which abandon the funding council don't necessarily sign a pact with the invaders, so their continued attack makes sense. It'd be a newbie trap, though, I suppose, if they expect significant gains or significant losses from ignoring it. Counter-intuitive, at least.

If you'll pardon the harshness, the problem is Xenonauts largely has one geoscape strategy, with minor variations. Stray too far from the optimal and you lose. Funding's too tight to have any reasonable kind of freedom. At least perhaps before the late game. Haven't made it there yet on my first playthrough (Veteran).

Sure, if you want to read the post that way. But there was no such moderation in it. He seemed to be more strongly advocating no accordance to reality whatsoever, if nothing is "real" except what we have experienced (or determined) ourselves directly and all that matters is connecting different experiences. Pointlessly philosophical. It's so out there it equates all fiction (and therefore all games) to whimsical fantasy, completely disregarding pretty much everything.

That's right. I haven't encountered large UFOs yet (landing ship is the latest class), but so far all I've needed to know to determine which type I'm dealing with is size and speed. And you can tell which contacts are fighters simply because they have a unique icon on the geoscape.

This post is just a mess. "This is just a game" and "This is fiction" are monumental non-arguments liberally used to handwave just about anything and dismiss any piece of criticism. Might as well just add sparkling rainbow unicorns to every game and work of fiction if nothing matters and there's no implicit rules anywhere. That said, Chris understood Hobbes' point, and that's all that matters.

Ultimately you're complaining about something really minor, a very rare situation with no definite solution. Even if you had an extra 1% of fuel to pull off that kind of maneuver, the same scenario would repeat itself whenever that extra percent isn't enough. It sucks when you can't shoot down a UFO due to fuel concerns, sure, but you have to draw the line somewhere, and that somewhere is not always going to be enough.

The effect isn't constant. Check this out, from gameconfig.xml. <!-- GEOSCAPE EVENTS PENALTY --><!-- Penalties applied to the region relations of the continent (or nearest continent, if over sea) when one of the following events happens --> <eventsPenalty><Abduction land="12" sea="12"/><AirlinerShotdown land="15" sea="15" /><MinorCivilianAttack land="15" sea="15" /><MajorCivilianAttack land="35" sea="35" /><MajorMilitaryAttack land="40" sea="40" /> </eventsPenalty> In theory, adding a minus to any of those values would make the effect negative damage, and therefore a positive impact on funding forecast. In theory. Needs testing.

Negative relations damage = relations boost. Unless the game doesn't like it and crashes instead. But the intent of my last post was to ask about the possibility of UFO-unrelated events boosting relations/funding (via scripts, if nothing else), mentioned only in the event log as opposed to spots on the map. For example, after several days without alien attacks, "Clear skies over South America. Local governments pleased with Xenonauts." Local forces doing things to deter UFOs wouldn't really be something that'd encourage governments to fund Xenonauts further.

There is perhaps something wrong with the funding system in that random events tend to be negative (exclusively so for Veteran and Insane, apparently), and you can only reverse that damage actively inflicting losses upon the aliens. However, in the original X-COM, countries were also happy simply not having UFO activity in their airspace, and I can't see why that couldn't be the case in Xenonauts as well. It's probably too late to implement something like that officially, but would it be possible, through modding, to create positive events which provide a funding forecast boost in a given continent periodically, every X days of no incidents? I mean, just like alien attacks are blamed on Xenonauts' ineffectiveness, a lack of them in a given region over a certain period of time could improve the local government's opinion of the organization. Even if they aren't explicitly seeing Condors shooting down UFOs over their territory. No news is good news, right?

It's complicated. I agree that the European base should've been placed further south, even though Southern Africa is hanging in there for now. As for the others, I regret not placing the Far East Division pretty much on the Chinese coast, and abandon Australasia from the get-go. The Soviet Union is a pain to cover, and the aliens have plenty of fun over Siberia. The Bering Strait is also a hotspot of activity sometimes, which leads us to North America. Frankly, NORAX isn't really badly placed: I've seen fairly frequent activity along nothern Canada, as well as UFOs flying north from the Amazon. I suppose I've been lucky with South America, though: their funding level is close to $500k due to a mix of sparse alien presence and a successful terror defense in Asunción. But frankly, it's impossible to cover the Americas with a single base without missing large chunks of land. And the problem is exacerbated by the fact UFOs can hurt continents attacking (sometimes questionably placed) sea assets. There's oil rigs even in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, apparently... Here's the situation in December '79. I expect a big boost in North America from tackling the alien base before New Year's Eve, right on time for payday. I really need it for radar construction and aircraft procurement. Maybe even a Corsair or two. Condors and Foxtrots have been handling things so far, but I fear the aliens will give me the big, extraterrestrial finger one of these days and send something I can't reasonably counter. Not to mention the possibility of my defenseless secondary bases being spotted and destroyed in terrible brevity.

He reminds me of Otacon, from the Metal Gear Solid series. At least in appearance.

According to a loading screen tip, I believe defense batteries can reduce the alien assault complement down to a minimum of 50%. I figure they'd attack in significant numbers, so even at half strength they could pose a significant threat to a small/ill-equipped garrison. Alternatively: tanks. They're cheap to maintain but expensive to build post-Hunter, so not a perfect solution either.

So does anyone know more or less how many batteries I need to reliably protect a base from hostile UFOs? Defense emplacements seem like the only reasonable choice to protect secondary bases, given how expensive it is to maintain and properly outfit even a modest garrison.

Yes, it should. When you click YES, the plane immediately turns around and flies in a straight line out of the combat zone and back to base. If you click NO, you remain in control of the aircraft, but you sacrifice returning to base since you start spending fuel critically needed to head home to remain in the fight instead. And since you've eaten up at least a small portion of those reserves, you can't go back. I don't understand what's the point you're trying to make. When you agree to retreat, the aircraft commits to returning to base, which is the only thing it should be doing with its remaining fuel. It's not a reserve you can use for anything else if you want to make it back to the runway.

Well, no. The pop-up comes up at the last possible moment before the aircraft reaches bingo fuel. That is, the amount of fuel required to return to base from the current position. Not heading back once said point is reached means the plane just can't make it back without running dry along the way. It's a bit simplified, but 0% fuel doesn't mean an empty tank. Just that the plane has the precise amount to return safely.

Yeah. It's probably a bug. You might as well report it.

You're right, Hobbes. Xenonauts' attempts at realism are inconsistent and not really well-researched. It irks me from time to time, but it's overall a good game and I'd recommend you give it a shot if you enjoyed X-COM. PS: You're Hobbes from StrategyCore, right? I'm ShadowBlade there.

You can "heal" any square for 5 HP with a medkit though. It's rather bizarre and probably doesn't do anything, but it might be confusing people when they try to use a kit on the spot a Xenonaut fell. If you pay close attention, however, you'll see it's the ground which lights up green, and not the body.

eobet has a valid point in that the window which pops up after you click on Launch Interceptors (which yes, should be called Launch Aircraft), can block the actual UFO icon. It's annoying, but it's a minor thing as you can send fighters by clicking on UFOs directly, without ever resorting to Launch Interceptors. Alternatively, I suppose you can use the arrow keys to pan the map left and right, to get the pop-up out of the way. Launch Interceptors is not a useless button, however, as it enables you to send aircraft to empty spots on the map.