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Creating this thread for posting of correct co-ordinates and names of various cities, as well as any border corrections. Don't derail it or start random discussions about minutiae. Try to keep it focused.

-*Remove* The Quick Reload Slot, there is no reason for it; if a player wants they could empty their soldier's weapon, move that magazine to the ground space (costing their soldier NO Time Units), select a magazine from the soldier's inventory to load into their weapon, and in the end it has the same results as the Quick Reload Slot with the added benefits of NOT LOSING the magazine that was in the weapon to start with and to load another magazine of the PLAYER's CHOOSING; it will also simplify in solving one of the bugs in the game, my other post explaining the bug can be found here in my other post: (Reloading weapons in Ground Combat bugs/ http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/13555-Reloading-weapons-in-Ground-Combat-bugs) -*Remove* the "Snapping" feature when the mouse cursor to objects when a soldier is being ordered to attack (shoot, throw grenade, etc.) something (to the enemy ship, to the player's transport, an object on the field, the alien craft door, etc.), let any tile on the map be target-able (only if the tile cannot be attacked for any reason is a player not able to attack that tile, not because the game wouldn't simply let the player attack there) -Make a separate class edit menu; this is the (only) place classes can be created, renamed, edited (loadout wise), and deleted; this will help make sure classes are not altered by mistake when assigning them to soldiers *Add a cancel button to when creating a new class *Add a delete class option -When a weapon/item/grenade/armor/soldier stat is being hovered over let their description be shown (a rule of thumb to followed that can help for most cases, if hovering over a weapon/item/grenade/armor/soldier stat shows their name it should also show everything else about, not JUST its name) [*In Ground Combat let the descriptions of weapons and items be shown when hovered over with the mouse cursor while looking through a soldiers inventory [*In Ground Combat descriptions of a grenade are shown when INSIDE the quick grenade slot, otherwise the quick grenade slot remains the same only showing the description of the slot itself [*In Ground Combat at the bottom panel where it shows the weapons/items a soldier is currently holding let their descriptions be shown when hovered over with the mouse cursor [*In Ground Combat when in a soldier's inventory, if the player hovers over the soldier's stats let the description of the stat being hovered over be shown [*In the Base when changing the loadout of aircraft or a soldier's weapon or armor let the description of the weapon/armor be shown -Add to the Xenopedia: *A 'Geoscope' tab which explains how the Geoscope works and how to work it *A 'Ground Combat' tab which explains to players how to work Ground Combat altogether; adding to this tab a 'Time Unit' cost chart to show the cost of: -Opening/closing a door -Turning (how much cost per 1 turn (degree)) -Moving (to an adjacent tile connected by its side versus to a diagonal tile) -Croughing/Un-croughing -Vaulting low-barriers -Inventory management (between weapons slots, backpack, belt, ground, and to other soldiers) -etc. -Magazines should NOT be equip-able to a soldier's weapon slot, it makes no sense/reason to be able to do so -Moving a weapon/item/grenade FROM a soldier's BELT TO that soldier's Backpack/Weapon slot should be HALF the Time Units it costs to move a weapon/item/grenade FROM a soldier's BACKPACK TO that soldier's Belt/Weapon slot, and moving a weapon/item/grenade FROM a soldier's WEAPON slot TO that soldier's Belt/Backpack should a THIRD of what it costs in Time Units to move weapon/item/grenade FROM a soldiers BACKPACK; this will REALLY make it more beneficial to have weapon/item/grenade on a soldier's belt rather than in their backpack -Unloading then reloading/ reloading then unloading a soldier's weapon should NOT cost any Time Units as it does not cost any Time Units to move a weapon/item/grenade and then to move it back to where it was before; a rule of thumb should be that undoing ANY action (as if nothing happened) in a soldier's inventory should not cost any Time Units for that soldier -In Ground Combat rework how a soldier's inventory looks to include: *Adding that soldier's class name next to their class emblem *Adding what armor that soldier has equipped *Make it so that a 'Accept' & 'Cancel' option is given to a player to select, this is to REPLACE the current 'Close' button that is only given; this is to help players quickly close a soldier's inventory without needing to undo any changes the player may have made in that soldier's inventory and does not want the changes to save **A crude edited JPEG has been attached to show what a soldier's inventory should more or less look like; OF COURSE, it goes without saying, that the actual rework of a soldier's inventory should be redone by someone who has an understanding and ability to remake the art in this game's regard!** -In Ground Combat when hovering the mouse cursor over the soldier's portrait it should show the soldiers background info (i.e. age, nationality, previous regiment, combat experience, kills, missions, and any other information along those lines) -In Ground Combat, on the bottom panel, a soldier's class (class name & emblem) should be shown, maybe somewhere near (OR even on) the soldier's portrait -For aircraft in the Geoscope make it so aircraft that have already launched can be made into squadrons (if other aircraft are near-by)/ separate from a squadron (granted they are in one to begin with); this will help players in UFO engagements by having more aircraft available per engagement/ retreat certain aircraft (because they are low on fuel/health/ammo, or any other reason) without needing to send the whole squadron back, respectively -When in Air Combat, let there be a clickable option for an aircraft to either evade left or right; this option is already available via hotkey but is NOT available for the player to click; this is useful if the player is a non-hotkey type of player, why not give them the option to play as they want in this regard? -In Ground Combat show an image of a magazine on the ground if there is a magazine(s) on that ground tile; currently there is an image of a weapon/item/grenade if they are on the ground, but not a magazine; this makes it difficult for players to pick-up dropped magazines if they don't remember exactly where they had their soldier drop it -In Ground Combat let soldiers be able to trade weapons/items/grenades with other soldiers, how this works is that the player selects a soldier they want to have trade and then the player (can ONLY) select another soldier that is in an ADJESTANT tile (diagonal tiles count), a screen then pops up that shows the inventory (as it currently does WITHOUT the ground portion) of the first soldier (the soldier that was selected first) on the left and the inventory of the second soldier (as it currently does) on the right so that the inventory of the second soldier replaces the ground portion that would normally show in a soldier's inventory; from here TWO soldiers (ONLY) at a time can trade weapons/items/grenades one or the other may have with each other, BE SURE to add a neutral space to the bottom of the trade screen that can hold ALL the weapons/items/grenades BOTH soldiers can carry so that when soldiers are trading there isn't a conflict because one or both do not have free space to make the trade but do have space to hold the weapon/item/grenade though (total space=[(backpack:25+belt:8+largest weapon shield:~21+secondary to shield:6)*2]=120 tiles), the player can NOT click accept on a trade if there are ANY weapons/items/grenades left in the neutral space (the player would need to either change the trade to fit all weapons/items/grenades into both soldier's inventory, cancel the trade and drop some weapons/items/grenades, or just cancel the trade altogether), the reason a trade cannot be completed if there is a weapon(s)/item(s)/grenade(s) in the neutral space rather than allowing a trade to be completed and all weapon(s)/item(s)/grenade(s) left in the neutral space are just dropped on the ground of the first soldier is to ensure that nothing is accidentally overlooked by the player and ending up being a problem for the player in anyway; the reason for a trade feature altogether is so the player does not need to waste time/ the Time Units of soldiers by having them drop their weapon(s)/item(s)/grenade(s), moving that soldier, moving another soldier onto that same tile, picking up the weapon(s)/item(s)/grenade(s) on that tile, and then maybe redoing the process if the player wants that soldier to drop weapon(s)/item(s)/grenade(s) for the first soldier; when a trade occurs ONLY the first soldier needs to face the second soldier; the cost of a trade can be the same as when a soldier is giving/taking from the ground, soldier giving directly to the other soldier's inventory or to the neutral space costs nothing, but a soldier receiving from the other soldier directly or from the neutral space costs as much if taking from the ground depending where the weapon(s)/item(s)/grenade(s) goes (either to that soldier's backpack, belt, or weapon slot(s)), Time Unit costs are calculated for EACH soldier respectively according to what they give/take

So, in this thread I would like to have a discussion with you on how we can change certain aspects of the AI behavior you found strange, faulty, or would like to suggest alternative behavior for. The primary reason for this thread is to present the bug reports / suggestions in such a way that I can easily replicate the situation from my end. In my experience, when dealing with bugs for the AI most time (if not all) was spent in trying to replicate the scenario locally. So the speed of bug fixing / tweaking of behavior will increase tremendously if you can help me in this! I will give preference to those that post saves, and are using the latest version! I therefore would like to suggest the following style: Save & (optional) Screenshot Link to a save and a screenshot which shows me what situation I'm dealing with (if applicable). You can post the save to the forum, and the screenshot to imgur.com (See example) Tech. Info Which version of Xenonauts are you using and which mods. (essentially everything I need to replicate it on my end) Observed Behavior Explain what behavior the AI shows, what it is doing wrong according to you. (or shouldn't be doing) Desired Behavior (Optional) Explain what behavior you think the AI should show. An example, based on Ol' Stinkys post: Save & Screenshot Save Link Tech Info Xenonauts v20 Balance Patch 2, Stinky's Map Pack 2 Observed Units try to enter the center, going through enemy fire. I think they are trying to get to the civilians inside on which they should have no knowledge. Desired The aliens should confront the Xenonaut units in front of the building and/or retreat to safety.

I tried to find a thread about little improvements the community has come up for the games ground combat ai, but couldn't find any. So if you find out anything that could improve ai, post it here. Let's make G-J's life easy! (or hard, whatever) I'll go first: When an alien unit dies in a spot that AI thinks is a good cover, other nearby aliens tend to move to that same position and take cover. If I happen to have a good line of fire in that sqaure, this often leads to a pile of bodies in same spot. So I think a dead unit should signal the AI that this isn't a safe spot for other units, so they would move somewhere else, even though this seems the safest place.

Hi everybody My first post here. I pre-ordered the game a few weeks ago and think the game has a HUGE potential. I didn’t play it a very long time yet, so I know my opinion is sometimes just impressions and not facts. I’m an UFO-Enemy Unknow fan and have played most remake-followers, so please bear with my typicall « it was better in the old time » First, the good points: « TU » mechanism intact (greatest disapointment with Firaxis XCOM). HD graphics (already tried to play XCOM 94 on a 1920x1080 screen ?). User-Interface is clean and neat, not the « sexiest » thing I have ever seen, but functional and easy to learn. A game for the fan by the fan. Crowdfunded. No producers/publisher(?), no console downgrading (interface). One word to sumarise it : « passion ». Now, the things that could be improved (IMHO) No 3D ? I’m not asking for CryEngine implementation, I love the « old » Isometric 3D, but with the possibility to see the battlefield from north, east, south and west. Same isometric/sprite principle as already in the game now. I find it very disturbing sometimes not to see aliens and soldiers when behind some walls/objects. Manipulating them (med., grenade) is also very hard in those situations. The maps are very boring : empty and always the same, especially buildings and alien spaceships ! Is a user map editor planned ? This way the community could create a huge amount of original maps and share them with other players. Is there a « giant » final mission ? Must have too (also a great disapointment in Firaxis XCOM) ! Probably only a difficulty balance problem, but my guys need about 20 shots to hit something… this is frustrating. I would prefer them to hit 80-90% of the time, but with less damage if you really need this to balance the game difficulty against a weak AI. Aliens are very static. Mostly they do nothing, just stand around (and shoot at you when you come near them). It would be more interesting to have them do something, going from A to B, scanning buildings, hunting you... like the human player. Interception : Foxtrot has 2 torpedo (or sidewinder) and nothing more ? Both missile will nearly always miss even the slowest smallest alien ship. I don’t like this kind of difficuly. In autoresolve mode a Foxtrot has no chance against even the smallest alien ship. Is this normal ?? Screens graphic style (for example « enemy movement » picture or initial main game menu) are … not very nice. The overall feeling is weird and kind of childish. I found the original UFO had much more « graphical personality and harmony ». Too late to change that ? Perhaps at least a few « enemy movement/turn » pictures (displayed randomly) ? I can’t watch this picture anymore. I hate it. Sorry. Sounds (and music) are not good (yet ?). Not enough ambiance music , not enough immersion and tension. The alien screams (and sounds) are laughable… at best. Another very personal opinion here : I always find it quit dissapointing when seeing the mission end summary screen. Don’t know why, but I remember this screen was much more rewarding after a very difficult mission in the original game. Need perhaps more info, more « loot » ? You are developping the game way too slowly !! Just kidding, take your time, do it right ! I understand this is not a AAA product with billions $ funding and unlimited talent resources. Just saying what I think, IMHO, should/could be improved to make this game the best possible. I pre-ordered Xenonauts knowing it was not perfect (and it won’t be at release). No complain here, just constructive thinking/sharing ! P.S. No, I’m not a 7 year old dyslexic, english is just not my mother tongue.

Chris posted this on the old forum and it covers a lot of points that come up... repeatedly. (to put it mildly) As we've been around for a while now, a lot of questions keep poppoing up. In this thread, we've compiled a list of the most popular questions and our answers to them. Please check it before you post! Features from X-Com: Will there be blaster bombs in the game? Will there be Chryssalids in the game? Will there be psionic powers in the game? Will I still be able to sell manufactured items at a profit? Will there be night missions? Will there be underwater missions? Soldiers: Will I still be able to rename soldiers? Why are there no female soldiers in the game? Will soldiers equipment loadout be stored from mission to mission? Can I customise the position of the soldiers in the dropship? How do soldiers increase their attributes? How do soldiers increase their ranks? Does the player start with a team of well-trained soldiers? Vehicles & Aircraft: Will vehicles gain battlefield experience? Will vehicles be customizable? Will interceptor pilots gain experience or have stats? Weapons: Your choice of gun for (insert gun type here) is wrong! This is unrealistic! Will there be different variants on the starting weapons (eg. will there be a choice between AK47s and M16s for the assault rifle)? Will there be unique special weapons dropped by the aliens? Will there be melee weapons and melee attacks? Game Mechanics: What’s the thinking behind the different tiers of weapons? How does the cover system work? Will you tell me about armour and the health system? Morale. What’s the point? Will the player be able to call in off-map fire support (artillery, gunships etc)? Will there be weapon emplacements/defences in the base-defence missions? Can bases collaborate with research and manufacturing? Misc. Questions: Will you sell via digital distribution (ie. Steam)? How did you decide on the price of $29.99? Can you play as the aliens? Will there be multiplayer? Can the map be rotated? Will you have a beta test? Will there be a demo? How can I help out Xenonauts? ________________________________________ Features from X-Com: Q. I really liked Blaster Bombs in the original X-Com! They were so cool! Will they be in Xenonauts? A. No, we consider them to unbalanced a weapon to include. Being able to fire without LOS allows the player to hide his units away from danger, which enormously reduces the tension and fear in the game. They are also very frustrating to play against, as there is no real defence against blaster bombs and having to rely on luck in a mission is not good game design. Q. I really liked Chryssalids in the original X-Com! They were so cool! Will they be in Xenonauts? A. Something very much like them will appear in the game, except even worse. You’ll have to wait till you actually play the game to find out how though! Q. Will psionic powers be making a return? A. For the alien side, yes. For the human side, no. Psionics inspire tension and terror that conventional weapons do not, and for that reason it would be foolish of us to leave them out. However, they will not be available for the human side as they don't really fit with the style of game we're going for. Additionally, we feel powers like Mind Control vastly unbalanced the original X-Com. Q. Will we still be able to sell manufactured items for a profit? A. No, the player will be able to sell them but only at a loss. You will be reliant on monthly funding tried to your performance, or from selling captured items. Q. Will there be day and night missions? A. Yes, there will be. Similarly we intend to implement flares etc in a manner similar to the original. Q. Will there be underwater missions? A. No, but with a a showerhead and a little indoor plumbing, you should be able to enjoy the desired game experience. ________________________________________ Soldiers: Q. Will I still be able to rename soldiers? A. Yes, you can. Q. Will there be female soldiers in the game? A. No, I’m afraid not. This is not because of deep-seated prejudices amongst women, but because we’re using sprites. We already have to render every armour type with every weapon from 8 different directions, which is in the region of 100,000 frames of animation. If we had female soldiers, we’d have to double that. There will however be female civilians. This is the same reason why all the soldiers on the battlefield are white – there are ethnic soldiers in the art, but adding non-white soldiers would also double the number of animation frames required. *Update* Female soldiers are now present in the game! The developers decided that the differences between male and female soldiers in most armour types was negligible so the same sprites could be used on the ground. Different images are used where the differences would be noticeable, for example the basic armour and in the base screens. Q. Will soldiers' equipment loadout be stored from mission to mission? A. Yes. You won't have to re-equip them every mission. Q. Will we be able to arrange soldiers in the dropship in any order we want? A. Yes. If you want your toughest (or perhaps most expendable) guy to be the closest to the exit ramp, you can set him to start there. Q. How do soldiers improve their attributes? A. Soldiers learn and improve their skills by using them. A soldier who fires his weapon enough times on the battlefield will gain bonuses to Accuracy, while a soldier who has taken sufficient numbers of morale checks will earn a bonus to their Bravery (and so on for the other stats). These are running totals; the shots or morale checks could be earned across multiple missions. However, there is a cap on how many points can be earned on any one mission so ‘training’ your skills is not possible. One thing is for certain though – soldiers who get left behind in the dropship every mission won’t be gaining any experience! Q. How do soldiers increase in rank, and what attributes does it offer? A. Soldiers are promoted once they have earned a set number of attribute increases on the battlefield (in any statistic), with later ranks requiring more attribute increases to attain promotion. Rank is not tied to the number of soldiers the player has – you can have a team entirely comprised of Commanders if you are skilful enough! Increased rank provides a bonus to the morale of the rest of the team (and therefore psionic defence). This also works in reverse, so bringing newly recruited Rookies along to the fight actually provides a morale penalty to the team, at least until they have earned their stripes in battle and been promoted to Corporals. Q. Does the player start with a team of experienced soldiers? A. The Xenonauts have existed as an organisation for over twenty years before the alien invasion fleet arrived, so the player takes control of a team of twelve highly-trained soldiers. These soldiers, consisting of eleven Corporals and one Sergeant, have significantly higher statistics than new recruits and therefore will provide the core of the player’s strike team in the early stages of the game. They are not expendable - try not to get them killed! ________________________________________ Vehicles & Aircraft: Q. Will vehicles gain experience and improved stats on the battlefield? A. Nope. Only soldiers will gain experience on the battlefield. Though vehicles technically have drivers and gunners etc, the player does not need to manage these staff or even provide them living quarters. This is to streamline the game and avoid feature bloat, and to encourage players to use their soldiers rather than relying on vehicles. Q. Will I be able to customise my vehicles? A. Yes. The player will be able to choose what weapons to equip their vehicles with (though there are some limitations on what chassis types can carry what weapon types). You will therefore be able to upgrade your vehicles, and equip them for specific missions, without having to research a whole new vehicle. Q. Will interceptor pilots gain experience and have stats? A. No. Air combat is meant to be streamlined and quick, as you'll be doing it countless times during the course of a game and it should not feel like a chore. Therefore we don't want to overcomplicate the process, and we think adding pilots would do that. ________________________________________ Weapons: Q. Your choice of gun for (insert gun type here) is wrong! This is unrealistic! A. This is technically not a question, but it crops up a lot. The starting weapons have been chosen to fill specific battlefield roles, and are based on stereotypes in gaming culture. In reality a shotgun may not be of much use against body armour, but anyone who plays games regularly intuitively knows that shotguns are excellent close-quarter weapons. The weapons chosen to fill these roles are reasonably historically accurate, but if there are elements of unrealism in their stats/battlefield role then it has been done for the sake of game balance, which we consider far more important. Q. I notice most of the starting weaponry is NATO weaponry - will there be Soviet weaponry like the AK47 in the game too? Also, why is there only one type of assault rifle etc - why can't we have 3 or 4 different types to allow greater customisation? A. There will not be other ballistic weaponry available beyond the basic starting gear. The reason for this is that there are already large numbers of weapons in the game at various tech levels, and we don't see the need to pad out the starting weapon selection unnecessarily. Additionally, all the starting weapons have a set battlefield 'role' that is in keeping with the perception of that weapon (the shotgun is a superb close-range weapon, for instance). It could confuse new players if they had to choose between several slightly different variants of an assault rifle with only cosmetic differences between them. Players will be free to mod in their own weapon choices/artwork after release, but we do not see it as worth development time. *update* Goldhawk have released some additional weapon images for use by modders and have added a second assault rifle using the AK47 artwork for use by Soviet military NPC's. This is currently only obtainable from the ground missions. Q. Will there be unique, one off, items in the game like special weapon drops? A. No. The game isn't about 'loot' so we don't think it's fitting with the spirit of X-Com. Q. Will there be melee weapons and melee attacks? A. Yes, the starting stun baton will be melee only and will be used for subduing aliens in the same way as the stun rod in X-Com. There will also be a default melee attack using whatever weapon the soldier has equipped, the damage done based on the strength of the soldier (and possibly modified by the weight of the weapon equipped). There will not be any specialist melee weapons or attachments beyond this, however, as melee weapons don't make sense to the dev team in an environment where there are extremely powerful projectile weapons around - melee should definitely be a last resort only! ________________________________________ Game Mechanics: Q. What’s the thinking behind the different tiers of weapons? A. The starting weapons allow a player to equip his troops for whatever role he wants to use them in. Rifles are general purpose weapons and pistols are good for scouts, while shotguns excel up close and the precision rifle is a superb sniping weapon. Higher ‘tiers’ of weapons (ie, laser and plasma weapons in the original X-Com) will also have different variants for different roles, although the details of the ‘tiers’ have not yet been released. This is to stop ‘Give every soldier a Heavy Plasma’ syndrome that rather afflicted the original X-Com. In general, each weapon will be superior to its equivalent in the tier below, but be heavier, harder to aim and more costly to build and maintain. There are also a number of specialist items and heavy weapons that exist outside the general model listed above, for example the flamethrower and rocket launcher in the starting weapons. Q. How does the cover system work? A. Xenonauts uses a directional cover system. In an isometric grid, each unit has eight surrounding tiles. Each of the eight tiles provides a cover value to that soldier, and provides a measure of protection against damage coming from that direction (if a shot comes from between two tiles, a hybrid value is used). Thus a soldier hiding behind a stone wall will receive good protection from immediately in front of him, but if a soldier flanks him and shoots him from the side (or lobs a grenade over the wall so it lands behind him), he will receive no protection. Q. Will you tell me about armour and the health system? A. Each soldier has a HP value, and being injured reduces both the soldier’s current HP and maximum HP. The former can be healed on the battlefield using medipacks, but the latter can only be healed with recuperation time on the Geoscape after the battle is over. Soldiers can be sent into battle injured (up to a point), but suffer AP penalties for doing so. A soldier is considered ‘dead’ for the purposes of the mission if they reach 0HP, but they are not necessarily dead in game terms. A soldier has a chance of surviving the mission with a long injury lay-off, but this chance is reduced the more damage they have taken below 0HP, and after a certain amount of damage this falls to zero. Armour works by mitigating the damage received by a soldier, reducing the damage taken by a set amount. However, weapons also have armour mitigation values, which reduce the armour mitigation by a corresponding amount. An assault rifle and a precision rifle would do fairly similar damage against unarmoured targets, but the precision rifle would do substantially more against an armoured target due to its superior armour mitigation value. Q. Morale. What’s the point? A. Morale provides a measure of how likely a soldier is to panic and lose all his APs for the turn, or panic and start running away or firing his weapons in random directions. Morale also provides a soldier’s defence against alien psionic attack, as a frightened soldier is more likely to succumb to mental attacks. Morale is initially derived from a combination of their Bravery statistic and the ranks of the soldiers in the team. Once the battle begins it is affected positively by killing aliens and proximity to fellow soldiers, and affected negatively by injury and the loss of civilians and teammates (with a higher penalty for the loss of more experienced soldiers). Q. Will the player be able to call in off-map fire support (artillery, gunships etc)? A. No, for the same reason why the blaster bombs have been removed. Any weapons that don’t require line-of-sight (excepting a couple of alien psionic powers) remove a lot of the tension from the game because they reduce the danger that the player is exposing his men to, so we’re avoiding them. Q. Will there be weapon emplacements/defences in the base-defence missions? A. No. We want the focus to be on infantry combat, and besides it would be a lot of additional coding to implement. But mostly we don’t want to overcomplicate things. Q. Can bases collaborate with research and manufacturing? A. They can collaborate between bases on research, but not manufacturing. We found this is the best blend of convenience and realism. ________________________________________ Misc. Questions: Q. Will the game be sold over Steam or any other method of digital distribution? A. Yes, we intend to get the game on Steam if at all humanly possible. If not, then we'll look at alternative methods of digital distribution, such as Impulse from Stardock etc. Assuming the Steam contract is non-exclusive, we will also have non-Steam digital distribution alternatives for those of you who hate Valve for whatever reason. Q. How did you decide on the price of $29.99? A. We believe that Xenonauts is a large project comparable to many AAA titles in scope, and hopefully also in quality. Given that many AAA games are released at prices closer to $50 than $30 nowadays, we believe $29.99 is a fair price for the game. Also, much as we’d like to operate as a charity, members of the team have taken on significant amounts of financial risk to produce the game, so it would be wrong to operate the company as anything other than a business. We believe $29.99 represents a reasonable return on our investment without being so expensive it would price people out of buying it. Q. Can you play as the aliens? A. No, we’ve only got enough time to create one game. Plus it'd be far too easy. Q. Will there be multiplayer functionality? A. No. We’d have liked to, but unfortunately we don’t have the time or budget to make it a reality. Q. I have a new idea for an alien monster, why don't you put it in your game? A. Because all of the aliens have been concepted and are in the process of being modelled and animated, so it’s a bit late in the day to add new aliens to the game (no matter how exciting they may be). You could always mod them in after release though! Q. Can the map be rotated? A. No, all tiles are pre-rendered and touched up for that retro "painted" look. Q. Will you have a beta test? A. Yes, everyone who pre-orders the game will be eligible for beta testing. See the pre-order page for details. Q. Will there be a demo? A. Yes, we will make a demo available after the game is released. It will be the same content-limited (ie, it won’t feature the full tech tree) version of the game that had previously been used for the beta testing, but of course you won’t have a chance to influence the direction and balancing of the game with your opinions. Q. How can I help out Xenonauts and the dev team? A. The two most helpful things you can do are to participate in the community on our forums, and to pre-order the game when we make it available. We’d hugely appreciate both of those. If you want to join the team, see what roles we have available on our Vacancies page.

Some of us would like to have more than 10 characters for our planes, people, and vehicles. Special characters would be nice, too!

So sometimes the movement engine gets a bit wonky. It'd be nice if you could shift-click (or combination of your choice) to force the make a straight line. Teleporters and obstacles seem to confuse the pathing...a lot.

I would really like to be able to hol ctrl and mutli-select all the troops I want to go in an aircraft at once. Or the reverse. That'd be awesome.

When launching multiple flights of fighters, sometimes with differing speeds, it would be nice to be able to control the speed of the squadrons. I would like to be able to launch a set of condors to strip fighters off a ship, then follow up with two Foxtrots to take down the main ship. Doing this right now takes an excessive amount of micromanagement.

So I noticed that if an alien is shooting at some civie with a shotgun (or nothing), he won't stop shooting his primary target until it's dead. Even if I shoot him in the face. It doesn't seem like there's any priority switching. Or if there is, it needs to be tweaked. Having him turn around and shoot me in the face would probably make more sense.

Since clicking on the solider portrait doesn't do anything currently, it would be awesome if that centered the view on the currently selected soldier.

Just thinking about the top ten things I'd like to see off the top of my head. SOme may be on their way, but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway... Increased Map variations – Arctic, desert etc. up to the number of XCom ones Enhanced Geoscape events, in parallel with UFO activity, showing the panic, or cooperation, within the funding nations as the invasion progresses. Training to be enhanced to ensure that you don’t spend the last third of the game with cookie cutter soldiers. Variation between funding nations – with geography, expertise and cold war influence affecting various facilities, buying & selling A more detailed Geoscape with more cities on it. Female soldiers, if only in the base pictures – coming with $200 000 I see Enhanced solder screen enabling room for call signs, character roles, and possibly player notes. Enhanced alien artefacts – more to their culture/goodies than just power sources and alloys. Can be looped into research Being able to track alien influence on funding nations – colours on Geoscape or enhanced funding nation info Remove soldier from selection and force onto next soldier when going through soldiers on Battlescape Oh, and to help for post release... Mod – Ticker & events to be moddable Mod – Psionics to be moddable preferably with a graphic of a Psi Amp & Psi Lab to be handy Mod – weapon effects to be added beyond what is there – electrical arcing for example? Alas tech, pilot and engineering skills are probably huge, but enhanced training would almost be the same as Soldier skills. What would make everyone else's list?

September Strategy Saving Money for additional bases looked to work well in previous builds, so going for that again. By the end of September I have two bases. On the 1st October I started a third base. This leaves no money for equipment or for vehicles. Bugs Talyn Majenkov is invisible in soldier screen. Head and hands and portrait images didn’t load. Also affects Battlescape portrait. Medkits don’t always seem to work? This turned out to only be from one soldier in the first mission. Odd. Can see grass through floor of UFO when door is opened. Sebillian suppressed through hull of light scout. Scared by noises on the hull? New charred damaged ground effect may be preventing sniper fire 0% through it. Desert Map. Issues Greece in Middle East (known) UFO door stays open. Is this on purpose? It takes 10 days to build a hanger, meaning that you have to wait 6 days or so once Foxtrot is researched. Solution: Add a third hanger to starting base, and deduct cost from starting amount. First 2 stun grenades stunned 2 Sebillians. I feel it’s better that the stun gas works over time. Promotion continues to be too fast (known) Suggestions When ordered items arrive at base, it would be nice to know which items. Roles in the Personnel screen would be great. Having captured listed alongside missions & kills would be nice (particularly considering usage of stun weapons currently) Knowing what rocket is in the launcher, & being able to easily change it before combat, would be nice. Things I’m using/ Not using Shotguns get more use due to lower cost. However, they are relegated steadily once stun grenades come into play. Stun – A single grenade has taken out most aliens. Both grenades and rockets are immediately very useful. Apart from being over powerful, it’s also due to always meeting the aliens head on, either in the map or in the UFO. There’s not much room for snaking round to use the shotgun or stun baton. Partly it’s the complete wiping out of the aliens when using conventional rockets and grenades. This makes the stun options more appealing. So stun quickly become a key tactic. Sniper Rifle Fairly useful so far, although I did switch them out for a few missions. This is due to the small light scout maps being more useful for other weapons. Hypervelocity is back in by the looks of it. C4, Flash Bangs, Vehicles & Smoke Grenades are all not being used, although I’ll probably use smoke in larger maps. Reasons same as before. Aircraft Cannon Used once in September, which is earlier than usual. Light Scouts seemed a bit tougher this build. Manufacturing & Stores Remain broken and practically obsolete. Research Plenty to start with, but became linear towards end of the month, and have now all been completed. Timeline 1/9 – Europe base 1/9 – built hanger & medical centre 1/9 – ordered 5 scientists 1/9 – started 2nd N America Base. Built radar and 1 hanger Funds =0 1/9 - UFO 1 – Light Scout – Lands - Ground Mission – Caesians - breaching is now trickier Note: Seeing the roles on the Battlescape is very useful. Note: Used shotgun. Twice! 1/9 -UFO 2 – Light Scout – Ground Combat – Sebillians Note: Aliens more aggressive when inside UFOs, coming out to attack. 6/9 – UFO 3 – Light Scout - Ground Combat – Sebillians! Note: Combat shield destroyed by alien fire! 3 Sebillians rush from UFO. Yikes! 6/9 – UFO 4 – Air Combat. Crashes into sea 11/9 – start Foxtrot Construction. Funds =2k 8/9 – UFO 5 – Light Scout - Ground Combat. Sebillians 11/9 – start alien interrogation research 16/9 – UFO 6 – Light Scout - Ground Combat 22/9 – UFO 9 – Light Scout Ground Mission – 1st of 3 consecutive missions. Caesians 22/9 – UFO 7 - Light Scout Ground Mission. Sebillians 22/9 – UFO 8- - Light Scout Ground Mission. Sebillians 24/9 - build 2nd hanger in N America Base. Tferred Foxtrot to N American Base. Began building 2nd Foxtrot in Europe Base Funds =4k 25/9 – UFO 10 - Light Scout Ground Mission – Caesians 26/9 – UFO 11 – Air Combat – Crashed at Sea Note: 2 interceptions and 1 Ground combat have come from 2nd base within 1st month. So helping funding in month 1. Note: All research dries up on 28th Funding - September N America: -7k, S America:-10k, Europe: +15k, C America:0, N Africa:+48k M East:0, Indochina:0, S Africa:0, Soviet:+1k, Australasia:-7k Overall: +41k UFO Summary Light Scouts: 11 – Ground Combat: 9 Crash at Sea: 2

Suggestions: higher damage more radius on advance granades and a 1 round delay for the Grenades so that the AI will move from a cover or empty a room incase it senses a grenade that is in radius. Then you can use your troops to make them attack with reflexes while enemies are moving. Armor shows the what kind of defence its showing, Rear, Front and back just like the tanks do. i guess this will be available when the armor value is known to be set. If not implemented? that the AI will have less Reflexes while not facing you and viceversa. Training facility for late game troops ( saw this somewhere as a suggestion though just want to remind ) Medic facility to be a research option first because i often build the facility as a must option in any case. a cheap scout plane with more fuel and radius that is used to spot a UFO when a event happens. Maybe could fit in a garage instead of a hangar also and that the garage will be cheaper. the problem to send you normal planes to a event is that they will probaly not reach or have fuel left to fight if its far away. If you do so anyway there is a high chanse that a Ufo will get spotted close to your base just when you sended your ship far away or is home fueling up. if you have your last base selected it will show the fuel levels of your plane in a corner or so to se when your planes are fueled up and ready to send out instead of constant clicking to see when they are at 100% Remove stun grenades/missiles and Save stun baton and add a crossbow with tranquilizer darts or a short range stun pistol. Indoor Aliens? MORE accessories like mines, night vision, short range scanners, Enemy mines, mine sweeping tools, Door blocker, Door passing detector, Mini Grenade Launcher, Laser Spotting device for greater aim, guile suit Camuflage ( while crunched down and not moving you will not be seen before shooting). Combat Knife or rifle but attack animation while closeup All this must be implemented or i will kill myself.

So I've compiled this list of the features I like and what I think could do with some improvement for Xenonauts (Alpha version). While I know Xenonauts is still in development and is all subject to change, I surely hope that this grabs the attention of Goldhawk Interactive and that this help contribute to the final product. So without further a do here is my list: Likes: Art style: At first I felt a little lost with the absence of 'Guile' styled jump-suited Rookies running out of the transport vehicle, but this is obviously your own franchise doing it's own thing and X-COM is it's own franchise and doing it's own thing. I really like how it's cel-shaded to create a cartoony effect even though the game has darker undertones. In a way it's doing what old X-COM done back in it's day (feeling a lot like a late 80s/early 90s cartoon!). The troopers look miserable and that emphasizes their lives could be over on the next mission, which they should be dreading. The pixel art is really well done and is looks great, obviously with some of the Alien portaits missing the pixel art really gives me some great imagining of what the enemies look like. Sebilian's (Pardon me if I spelled the name wrong) look like giant lizards, and it'd be pretty hard to mess up a portrait considering their sprite art is so well done! UFO Design: Great work on creating the UFO's I absolutely love the design on them where there is often multiple compartments to breach. The UFO's remind me of Halo's Covenant ships which were well designed and not your average flying saucers which create a different tone from the regular Science Fiction B-Movie putting it on par with some of the more modern and darker toned films. Audio: The music finds the middle ground between Halo Reach and the first Deus Ex. This is a great thing! I was pretty fond of the music so far but I do have concerns at the same time about the soundtrack. (I'll state that in my dislikes) The sound design is generally well done, with gunfire going off and sounding loud. Civilians dying can be a bit odd at times with them just letting out a petty sigh rather than a painful scream. Battle: Battling feels remarkably similar to X-COM, obviously with some changes however most of the core elements are there. Troopers do feel more agile in that they can vault over objects. Tiles can still be destroyed and troopers left out in the open will often die horribly due to sneaky Alien snipers! Which is another thing I like which is part of the Battling system: That no trooper is truly safe. Difficulty scaling: From a medium standpoint I really like how the first battles can feel quite easy to walkthrough and later on the battles can become a real pain in the kneck. My battles right now have been mostly Sebilians (which I can only guess are the grunts of this game). My first battle started with one enemy soon I was facing up to five of the blighters! I can speculate there will be more and from the Quick Battles I have played I have faced very unequal odds! (Quick battle is awesome by the way and I do hope it stays in the final game because sometimes it's good to kickback and just play some quick battles rather than worry if I'll have enough money to pay my troopers at the end of the month) This is also how I have met some of the other Alien forces! Improvements: Reaction Fire: At times reaction fire can feel a bit unfair. In the Original X-COM reactions were limited to where the operatives/enemy were facing however in Xenonauts I could send my troops behind the Alien and as quick as they begin to move they are gunned down by the Alien threat. Sometimes it feels a little unbalanced which, while the game is supposed to be unbalanced technology wise (which I am for), the reaction fire when the enemy isn't facing your troops makes the rules feel a little broken. Geoscape: The geoscape is okay; it has a pretty cool style to it similar to DEFCON II's. However when there are the messages popping up it makes you feel pretty cautious because you may miss the messages popping up (If you are zooming past), Night and Day is nice seeing the shade move over the world but with the sea being represented by such empty black space it can be a little confusing. Also I think UFO's need a different icon to represent whether they are grounded or not. Too many times I have sent my Chinook into a battle and recover a fully intact UFO only to realise that the UFO is still moving (even though it reads as being grounded) and my Chinook is taken down by a very (Pardon my language) pissed off Alien ship! And as you can possibly imagine it can cause great frustration. Audio: Like I said I'm mostly impressed by the audio effects with explosions and gunfire sounding loud and the soundtrack finding the middle ground between both Halo and Deus Ex. However right now the soundtrack is very limited, with only three tracks I have heard and some similarities between two out of the three, I found myself hoping for more variety. I do hope to hear more when newer builds land (as X-COM did have a lot of quite catchy tracks) but again I do believe that the soundtrack so far does well at creating a good atmosphere for a game of this nature. Research: The tech-tree is a bit confusing when I research a gun I do hope that it would be usable once it's been researched. This also ties with the current problem in most cases (I.E. when trying to get better armour) that Alien UFO's are mostly busted up pretty bad that nothing is really worth salvaging for the research team and is really just better to sell off for the extra money. This is slightly annoying because materials are often hoarded so that I can build better things (like better armour). But with technology being locked away in such away it can feel utterly pointless to hoard items. Controls/Laptop friendly: Right now I am having a little bit of trouble due to my mouse pad having the lack of a designated scroll pad, when I'm on the Personel Screen I often find myself thinking a mouse would be better for this due to the scroll wheel as without the ability to scroll I can't check out and assign my troops to where and what they need to be doing. (I.E. If I have a large amount of Rookies I can't send them all to training without great hassle.) I did check the options to see if I could designate a scroll up/down button. However I could not seem to meet great success in my search. Obviously I could use a mouse but it's a bit of a hassle considering I'm using a laptop. So in short, I'm loving the game so far. I do hope that this contribution helps Goldhawk with ironing out the small creases and influences them in creating a fantastic game! Keep up the good work Goldhawk!

I finally tried playing the alpha yesterday and was incredibly impressed! The interceptor combat is really cool and the geoscape has an amazing feel. Also very impressed with the amount of detail in the writing. Love the tileset details etc. I have a few suggestions though. 1. When buying/selling/assigning researchers, it would be great to have a movable bar. It takes a long time to click the arrow to sell 80 piece of alien alloy for example. It would best, as in Apocalypse, where you can slide the bar to quickly sell everything. Assigning many scientists to a project would also help a great deal. 2. Slow down the smoke animation. It's too fast! I'd recommend even redoing it so its more dispersed less detailed as the details enhance the tiling effect so it doesn't look so good and scary. There also needs to be some more lighter smoke variations so that the smoke fades out over an area. 3. Lower alpha of walls that are in front of soldiers. 4. Make the fog of war much scarier by having more of a falloff effect like in the first two games. There absolutely must be a library available that can filter tile set colors/contrasts to get the right look, simply darkening them would definitely be good enough though. 5. Have civilians running away from the aliens. They seem to run randomly, and often towards them. As panicked as people can get, they never run towards the source of the panic. 6. Soldeirs should sometimes survive being "killed", if they don't already...

When research is finished have a button to go straight to the research tab. Instead of making forcing flares on units when it is night time, have a flare dispenser on the transport. In the personnel tab having the ability to dismiss soldiers. Instead on only via soldier tab. When training new soldiers making it so the slider does not go to the top every time you train. Make hunters have more health or more armour, since they can only take 2 shots from plasma rifles which is the same as a soldier. Kind of makes them useless. Or make them have more optionality as in another slot for bonuses, aka extra armour, faster, 2 weapons. In personal tab have total slots available for personal. Aka if you start with 32 people you have 18 slots available. Allow for new buildings to be built beside buildings that are currently being built. But if you want to destroy them you must insure they are connected to the rest of the base.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmVkgBb7vC0 1. Reading the text doesn't make much sense (alien invasion research). It needs to be read over by an editor or something. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lirKkcTHwkI 2. The name of the weapon should be shown somewhere when you click on it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcEMBFkG-Bo 3. Oh. I wasn't aware that what it has is what it gets http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcHODlzhP2Y 4. The Aircraft equipment screen shows service ceiling in feet, but the geoscape is in meters. I figured a video would be much more precise, so I just did that instead. Only took me a couple minutes. Easier than trying to describe something without a picture. lol.

Like the last thread, this is for all the minor things that aren't actual bugs. You can also suggest improvements here rather than have them scattered across the forums and hidden in various bug reports.

In no particular order, here's what I think (1) Tanks should have a bit more HP. One of the good things about them in the X-com games was that they could take a few hits before dying. Right now they die in 2 hits. I think it should be 3-4 hits instead. (2) Right now the MG tank is vastly more powerful than the rocket tank. I've never had it fail to kill an alien in one hit, and that's after taking it on several missions. It can also take 3 shots per turn, or more realistically 1-2 after moving, whereas the rocket tank frequently doesn't have enough AP. (3) You should be able to scroll down by putting your mouse anywhere along the bottom edge of the screen. It's annoying to have to move your mouse into the corners before you can do this. (4) Moving things around into or out of your inventory is too easy I think. X-com punished you for rummaging around in your backpack during a firefight, but this game lets you swap weapons, ammo, etc, quite easily. (5) Were pistols intended to have autofire? (6) I would like my guys to be able to move a few more squares per turn with snap fire reserve on. Otherwise battles slow to a crawl, since you can't really advance at all with snap fire reserve on. (7) If I turn snapfire reserve on for a unit, it should remain on in subsequent turns, I should not have to turn it back on every turn. (8) If I give a shoot order while snap fire reserve is on, this should override the reserve. I'm okay with the reserve telling me I can't move any farther, but it's clear that if I'm telling my unit to shoot this turn, this takes precedence over shooting next turn.

Sorry haven't seen this anywhere else yet, please combine if it is somewhere else. 1. When saving the most recent game should go to the top of the list (be the most recent)

What's the likelihood we'll see suits of armor that project rechargeable energy shields on soldiers or armored cars in xenonauts? Alternatively, what about energy shield generators as special equipment, like a handheld device your soldiers could drop somewhere to project directional cover in a small area around it? Or perhaps a researchable landing craft that, as part of its design, projects a small energy field around itself that acts like directional cover in a small perimeter around the landing site?