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A few people have already found it (highfive), but I started up a play-through of Xenonauts in its current state several days ago. I've been doing update videos for a while but haven't had much time to really play it until recently, so it's effectively a blind play-through if you're into that sort of thing. I look at it as a way of seeing how intuitive and balanced it is for an X-Com veteran. I'm not very far in it and I need to restart already (Hotfix 1), but I hope some people are willing to come along for the ride. I'll likely accept volunteered soldier names later on; for now I'm sort of enjoying the defaults. I could use some help tip-wise as far as research paths and all that goes, but try to keep the backseat gaming to a minimum I intend to keep it going throughout beta. Some updates will probably break the save but that's fine. It depends on what the update does, but I may just get back to where I was off-camera if nothing in the early-game was modified heavily. Chances are I'll try to continue where I was and just refer to an update video for the details. Edit: Celebrating Steam release; started over due to popular demand:

I really wanted to support this game because I loved the original Xcom series but don't think I'll like the new one, and want to support indie developers. So far there is quite a bit to like but I'm concerned about the fact that V18 is apparently a beta candidate as I think there is still a hell of a lot to do to make it what it should be, not just leftover bugs but essential game mechanics that look likely to be left out altogether. In my current game I have shot down 12 alien craft, researched the early vehicle, heavy fighter and a couple of alien techs. I started my first game on hard but due to a few game breaking bugs and my own incompetence am currently on easy. As I'm not that far through some of my gripes may turn out to be neutralised by more research (or more updates), but having read through various forum posts I'm concerned and wanted to register my current impressions. I also have to admit that I have little or no idea of how to make some of the improvents I consider neccessary. I also don't feel I've yet seen enough to comment on AI etc. Things I like: Geoscape - looks and feels good, with enough to make it important but not the core of the game. Air combat - I'm pleased that this has been included (so far I suck) and think it's about the right complexity/simplicity balance. I don't feel any need for pilots. Base management - looks nice, interested to see how my first base defence works. Things I don't like: Ground combat - Personally I feel that psionics should have a mid to late game role, I understand that badly implemented they can totally unbalance the whole thing but this is ultimately just a matter if designing them right. For example psi agents could be made slow and physically weak and in need of protection while also having a tendency to catastrophic blowback in some circumstances from using their powers - inexperienced psi agents could trigger booby traps in the minds of some aliens causing soldiers near the psi agent to become stunned, revealed through the fog of war, go beserk or suffer other deleterious effects. This would leave the player with the conundrum of a fragile unit that needs protection from a distance. Fair enough if the dev team have concluded that psi powers should not have a role in order to focus on the combat, but this leads me to my biggest gripe as the rest of combat is either bady bugged or seriously substandard. My current save is at the start of my second terror mission (I made it through the first one by saving every turn and many reloads), this time around my dropship has landed such that 4 (I think) aliens are visible by the time my troops have stepped out the doors and many more seem able to shoot me due to the nearby ones acting as spotters, or over long alien LOS/tendency to shoot through objects. This means that even when I tested what would happen if my troops cowered in the relative shelter of the chinook one had died and another was critical after the first alien turn. When I took a more traditional tactic of fanning out to the nearest points of mutually supportive cover I managed to take out one alien but 3 of my 8 troops died on the first alien turn, most of them due to fire from the still FOW enemies. I want the game to be hard but this is on easy. Apparently the inability of troops to take cover at and fire from corners is unlikely to be changed - this is absurd, given that cover is at the core of the game, I can't find it now but I read a post suggesting that calculating LOS from each corner of tile A to each corner of tile B might resolve this. Equally absurd is the fact that all maps are flat. Not that I have personal experience of a combat zone but surely varied terrain is fundamental to a game based around different teams shooting each other with guns. Grenades are still broken but I appreciate that this will be fixed. I get the impression that weapon variety may be limited to tiers (ballistic, laser, plasma etc) of more effective but otherwise functionally identical choices i.e shotgun type with short range and poor accuracy but high power, sniper type with long range and good accuracy but low fire rate. I am hoping that further research will prove me wrong and lead to more variety, such as mines, flamethrowers, grenade launchers and something to reveal distant areas like binoculars or aerial surveillance. Suggestions (some of which may render others unnessecary): - Cover at corners. - Variable terrain. - More cover. - less accurate aliens or tougher troops. - more map variation. - flares on night missions should illuminate more ground. - More plausible missed shot trajectories - a shot from near point blank range should not miss by a full 45 degrees. Suggestions for geoscape: - Governments could interact more than I've seen so far with Xenonauts and each other. - A bit more starter cash, lower costs, more forgiving governments, or a slightly slower ticker - I only have one base so far and already two cities have been nuked as dropships from my mid east base (chosen as a base there covers all its own region plus significant chunks of several others, base 2 will likely be Central America for similar reasons) just couldn't get to S America or New Zealand in time. I want to like this game and I'm sure a lots of hard work has gone in already but bugs aside there are still several deficiencies, that if left unremedied will lead to me giving up and feeling glad I only paid standard pre order. Please don't make excuses about the engine not permitting varied terrain or over features fundamental to a game such as this one. I'm sure it's true but it simply means a poor choice of engine was made in the first place Platypus

With the Ground Combat Balance list currently on page 16, and the Geoscape balance list now on page 10, it can be a little difficult to keep up with everything that has been discussed so far. Therefore! I've made up a bullet-pointed list of what has been discussed in both threads, and present them here for your persual. These lists are as accurate as I can make them, but they will as off necessity lag behind the actual discussion itself. Ground Combat Balance Discussion (Up to page 20, top of page) Make flares more accurate (Page 1) Allow flares to be picked up (Page 1) Grenade arc need polishing (Page 1) Grenades hit cover they should fly over too often (Page 1) Pre-prepared crash mission too far from base (Page 1) Possbility to throw medkits+other items to soliders (Page 1) Give borders of map 1/8 black border of nothingness (Page 1) Aliens seem to be able to shoot a lot+have APs for reaction fire (Page 1) Autotarget aliens spotted within visual during night mission (Page 2) Sebillians feel too much like tanky Caesans (Page 3) Give Sebillians either poor accuracy or smaller sight range (Page 3) Make Sebillians more aggressive (Page 4/5) Buzzard armour: Vertical movement too restricted (Page 4) Buzzard armour: Make horizontal movement cheaper? (Page 4) Scimitar perhaps too strong (Page 5) Alien placement fairly predictable (Page 5) Better synergy between different racial types (Page 5/6) 8 troops in Chinook or 6+1 vehicle don't seem enough for Terror missions (Page 6) Heavy plasma too long range and too accurate for research description (Page 6/7) Plasma Cannon too accurate for an instant death weapon (Page 6/13) Tie grenade range to strength (Page 6/7/8) Improve grenade accuracy (Page 6/7/8) Too easy to skillup soliders (Page 7) Really easy to skillup soliders carrying LMGs (Page 7) Aliens all huddle in control room in base assault mission (Page 8) You get flares in a base assault mission at night, but not during the day? (Page 8) Demo charges underpowered (Page 8/9/10) Alien Alloys+Alienium should be loot from completed alien base (Page 8) Rocket launcher always has normal rocket even after upgrading rockets C4 seems to work with: 145 damage, 1.5 tiles radius, 5 tiles range, 80 accuracy. (Page 10) Predator armour dissapointing (not nearly protective enough) (Page 10/11) Teleporting wraiths a real PITA - very hard to track down. (Page 10) Rifles seem to be pea-shooters (Page 11) Increase effectiveness of stun grenades (Page 12) Decrease effective of stun effect of smoke grenades (Page 12) Smoke should apply damage for each tile walked into (Page 12) C4 should be incediary provided fire/smoke is set to 0% (Page 14) Solider survived after being turned into zombie (Page 14) Ammo usage quite low (Page 15) Androns feel the same as Sebillians (when at tier 2), but with more Plasma Cannons (Page 15) Researched Plasma weapons (tier 3) before lasers (tier 2)! (Page 16) Aliens seem to have unlimited sight range, constantly superior reactions and flawless accuracy (Page 16) Sentinel armour doesn’t seem to give superior sight range (Page 16) Aliens feel too accurate (Page 17/18) 8 different changes possible to adjust alien superiority (# aliens, weapon damage, hit points, vision range, weapon TU costs, weapon accuracy, shooting skills, dumb AI) (Page 17) Benefits of heavy weapons far outweigh cons. (Page 17) Increase weight of MG/RPG (Page 17) Updated accuracy formulae proposed to address extreme range/short range issues (Page 18/19) Aliens will shoot regardless of whether they can hit, regardless of what the percent chance to hit is (Page 19) If an alien can see one squaddie, they can see all squaddies (Page 19) Resisted reaction check, target reaction score verses shooter reaction (see Mutual Surprise and You!) (Page 20) Some expectation that aliens would reaction fire more because they are in a defensive role most missions (Page 20) Certain groups of aliens to attack in aggressive groups on dropship landing (Page 20) Geoscape Balance Discussion (Up to page 13, top of page) Adjust ticker so we see more smaller middle-sized craft (Page 1) Adjust alien waves so they appear more frequently (Page 1) Increase number of cities present on Geoscape (Page 2) Alien bases perhaps TOO influential on if you loose a country or not (Page 3) Air combat: Too many battles forgone conclusion (e.g. Scout vs. Foxtrot, light scout vs. anything) (Page 3) Air combat: Reduce hp or overkill on light scout to encourage use of autocannon (Page 3) Air combat: Introduce evade function to light scout (Page 3) Air combat: Improve AI on UFOs to incorporate more tactical thought (Page 3) Air combat: Boost speed and length of evade (fighters can't evade missiles) (Page 3) Air combat: Give heavy fighter missiles more fuel so they can complete a second pass (Page 4) Nation funding not significant enough to justify a second base (Page 4) Cruisers give too much alienium and alloys (Page 5) Smaller terror missions to start with (Page 6) Radar range shortened a little (Page 7) More global attrition (Page 7) Alien should be able to work where Xenonaut bases are from external sources rather than just flying over it (Page 7) More reasons to build bases elsewhere (Page 8) Escort fighters to keep current range (Page 8) Research times too short (Page 8) Ramp up terror missions later in game (Page 9) Crashed UFOs to generate "crashed UFO" events (Page 9) Missions to occur simultaneously more often (i.e. one base cant cover them all) (Page 9) Increase number of air superiority missions (Page 9) Squadrons to follow behind dropships rather than directly attached (Page 9) Slower speed when aircraft hits "outer band" of aircraft range (Page 9) Have multiple missions on occasion (not all the time) (Page 10) A single team should not be able to cover everywhere (Page 10) Allow instead of global range, aircraft to refuel at stopping points across map (Page 10) It should be more efficient to have multiple strike bases than just one (Page 11) By the time additional bases become available, aliens are much tougher than starting aliens. Squaddies in new bases are not as strong, or well equipped as first base. (Page 11) Decrease production time for advanced aircraft (Page 12)

please welcome new member among us - myself ! Just pre-ordered and have a question. If I'll start playing current build (14.1.1) how will be my experience affected by it's current alpha stage? I mean for someone who just got possibility to play it now, isn't it better to wait till Beta? Or even Release? Or now unexperienced Xenonaut (but experienced X-commer will not notice unfinished stuff? Thanks