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I've said this before. 1) They serve no purpose other than to ruin the game\ 2) They're not even fun 3) they chain-lock you (I've lost a foxtrot and a condor just now because of chain-locking... couldn't escape them) which is possibly a bug

SO I've been playing the demo for the last few hours while the steam beta downloads, this game will obviously be amazing. Quick question, When shooting down ufo's, is their a chance for them to be destroyed? or is this based on the amount of damage you do? the last 5 or so run in's I have had with the enemy have all ended in ufo destruction and I am itching for some ground combat. Apologies if this is answered somewhere.

It's good to see that evade has been added to the light scout. However, evade needs beefing up. At the moment, UFOs which can make the evade maneouvre don't move either far or fast enough to evade missiles. I would suggest both increasing the evasion speed and the evasion distance. They don't have to be very much, just enough so it's adequate to evade a missile. I'd also suggest improving the turn speed of a light scout. Because of its long body, the light scout cannot complete a turn to face an interceptor before a pair of sidewinders add a custom window to the cockpit, so it evades and the sidewinders crash into the long body. By increasing the turn speed, the light scout can turn to face an interceptor and actually evade a missile. I find it interesting that the corvette has a point defence turret but you can't see the weapon arc, the weapon range, nor can the turret engage missiles. As it is, all a MiG verses a corvette has to do is launch missiles then flee. Perhaps it would be better if the point defence turret had a visible arc, could target missiles, but fix its firing arc to, say, 180, so if you want to bring the thing down, you have to get behind it.

Hi guys!New here.Just picked the game up yesterday and enjoying every little bit of it. But there is a problem that I've ran into...The corvette. As I've seen some of you guys talking about some alienium missle that can take down Ufo's the size of the corvette. Problem is I didn't get that far.I only have 3 F-17 and 1 Mig. I tried engaging with the Mig in the center and the 2 F-17 on the side but I get pulberized.And to make it more harder...the corvette has a escort of 2 fighters. So my F-17 are forced to deal with them while the bombs from the Mig aren't sufficient to even make the corvette fall back. Any tips please?

It would be nice if we had an indicator for missiles like the one for the gatling gun in air combat. Perhaps just another green arc in a darker or lighter green below the gatling indicator.

I used two mig and two f-17 to throw down a corvette but without success, what do I need?

So I was wondering if you could get a missile lock with your interceptors while evading? The only way I can seem to get a lock is by flying right at them. Also, I just established a new base in china, and I have a chinook and 8 xenonauts ready to go. Or they would be, but I can only load 4 onto the chinook despite it appearing identical to the one in my original base that could carry 8. Is there something I need to do or someway to increase the carrying capacity of a chinook?

I never had crashlanded Fighter UFO - not in v17.6 nor in 17.9 No matter what I try (missiles, machineguns), they all were destroyed. Did I miss some branch of technology tree? Or it's normal and fighters just self-destruct to avoid capture?

Having just taken down a Cruiser, with less than optimal aircraft I felt a moment of smugness. Only a moment, as on the way back to the base, my squadron had to go through 8 interceptions from a heavy fighter squadron. It would have been more, but my squadron ran out of fuel and were all shot down. There's no way to avoid these combats. The completion of one leads directly into the next. So, you can turn and fight, with no weapons and get destroyed. Or try and run, go through seven further battles, and get destroyed. The only way out, is to take out the squadron before going on your main mission. It's a little frustrating. To be honest, I'd rather have a screen come up and just tell me that the squadron were shot down on the way back to the base, than have to go through eight combats to achieve the same effect. I seem to recall this being an issue in an earlier build, but can't recall what, if anything, was done about it. There is a logic to the aliens taking on a returning squadron. Much in the same way they used to target lonely Chinooks and transport planes.

Hi all! Just wondering if it just me or happening to others. After playing the first month or so I started getting groups(3) small scouts together and corvettes showing up repeatedly. I only have the f-17s and Mig-31s at my disposal at this point and have researched every thing. The groups and corvettes seem to like to eat these craft for breakfast. With cost and rebuild times it seems a bit overpowering at this stage of the game. I have tried the distraction method and various evasions , but in the end I lose all my craft to the corvettes and most to the groups. Also, destroying the crafts as a group does not even leave me a ground mission. Getting a little frustrated. Thanks, Tom

I understand for weapons green is ready, red is off, what does grey mean? I need this info to update the wepons. Thanks all!

I've noticed that at air combat screen we can see UFO's damage level but not it's current speed. From my observations it looks like they are always flying with max speed Spoiler white font: Fighter 1800 km/h Scout 2300 km/h Corvette 850 km/h Now I do not know if more advanced AI will allow UFO's to change speed during combat or if some advanced crafts will have some kind of afterburners, but it would be nice to be able to see their current speed.

It rely bugs me when my carefully planed UFO intercept go out the window cos the pilots apparently cant shoot as something coming towards them. Any chance you can change it so the fighter wings only need to get in a certain range for the intercept to take place?

On the last dev update you mentioned you might be implementing an auto-resolve for air combat. I agree with the idea, since at some point engaging trivial combats is just annoying and pointless. Or if not, there might still be need for it. If not, then not. However, I also have an idea regarding the auto-resolve to take the player's skill into account, and thought I'd post it here regardless of it an auto-resolve mechanisms will ever be implemented or not. Make the success chance of the auto-resolve based on the ratio of how successful the player is in downing UFO's. Start the ratio at 50% for example and for each downed ufo increase it by 1% (up to 100%) and for each lost aircraft decrease it by 1% down to, let's say 5 or 10%. Then use this percentage to multiply a base auto-resolve chance for the final chance of a successful auto-resolve. E.g. let's say the win/lose ratio is 75% and the base resolve chance of a light scout would be 110%, then the chance of successful auto-resolve mission would be (75% * 110%) = ~83%. Now let's say the player has a bad streak and loses 10 air crafts in a row, decreasing the win/lose ratio to 65%. Now the auto-resolve chance against the same craft would be 72%. You could also assign auto-resolve chance modifiers based on aircraft type and weaponry. Max chance could be capped at, say 90-95% while there might not be need for a minimum chance. I believe this would be a nice way to make player skill have an effect on auto-resolve. To make it harsher, each lost aircraft could have more than 1%-unit impact on auto-resolve chance. The win/lose ration can be called pilot morale or something, in order for it to make more sense than some ratio.

So after a few months away from the game (due to Desura issues). I decided to come back at it hopefully with a fresh view on everything. The first thing that struck me was how boring Air Combat was/is (something which when I previously played I quite enjoyed). I realised that in every engagement, the only way to actually win is to move your aircraft towards the enemy. I don't mean that you can't do all sorts of different manoeuvres during the combat but in order to actually shoot the enemy down you have to physically stop whatever you are doing and actually reselect and move toward the enemy. The effect of this is that instead of having two fighters pass by on either side of an enemy aircraft - they have to physically play chicken with it (with no contact obviously). Would it not be possible and desirable to have one button for selecting move orders and the other for selecting targeting orders. This would allow you to move in the rough general direction of the enemy and still target them without actually having to vector in directly towards them? Now I know some of you will argue that you can do this manually, but really you can't because of the current missile locking system. As soon as you deselect the target your missiles will revert to their locking cool down times. This means you are actually at a tactical disadvantage as soon as you try and do something other than directly move towards and target the enemy. A slightly modified targeting/move order combination would open up a whole host of new opportunities. For example, the MiG could actually be useful as a stand-off fighter, speeding around the edge of the main engagement and dispatching avalances and other long range missiles. I would propose that the targeting system have the same locking cool-down system etc but be wholly independent of your aircrafts movement and a function of direction only (perhaps a 120 degree arc to the front) - with the missiles failing to lock outside of this front arc. Does anyone else agree? Is there anything physically stopping such a system from being in place?

3 fighters? Ya lets get into how you and the aliens could have 10 craft or more in a fked up dog fight x = Craft -> = Direction of travel Trail Formation (normal with helicopters) xxxx-----> Very simple formation one follows the other 1. Tactical formation for speed and low visibility 2. Trail element will break off into multiple independent groups during air combat 3. Tends to cause staggered missile lock and impact (meaning one guy locks fires, then a second or two later, the second fighters locks and fires, then a second later the third) V formation used with (3,5,7 etc craft) Can be used to cover a wide area or have waves (every V is a wave) of fighters x .x------> x 1. Offensive Formation that covers a wide area 2. can Immediately bring all weapons to bear on target 3. Good for responding to threads from in-front Diamond Formation ..x x...x-----> ..x 1. Escort formation 2. Good for responding to threats from in-front, the left, and the right Staggered trail left xx .xx ---> Staggered Trail Right .xx----> xx Both options above are used by both fighters and choppers IRL this brings two craft to bear on target followed by the trail element again staggering weapon lock and impact a few seconds as the lead element fires and breaks off then the trail element fires and breaks off, from this point the dog fight is left with your two air teams dealing with the new situation you created. Heavy Left x ...x .......x-----> .....x heavy right .....x .......x----> ...x x Another Offensive formation that is a modification of the V Good for bringing offensive fire to targets in front of you, the trailing element again will get staggered missile lock Echelon Left x ...x ......x .........x-----> Echelon Right .........x-----> ......x ...x x Adaptive Offensive Formation, easy to bring staggered lock/fire on targets to the front, left, or right NOTE If we can bring air to ground weapons on jets/choppers then when you have them do gun runs or missile runs on targets ID's with smoke (later in game with laser) the formation you pick will define how fire power is brought to bear on the marked targets (in short they will shoot down at the area in that pattern) SECOND NOTE if we can bring a troop transport, 3 fighters for air escort, and 3 little birds (air to ground attack helicopters) to a mission this opens up new game play UFO Fighters can come down to assist their buddies on the ground meaning at the start of one of you turns you may go straight into air combat to resolve this new threat, your little birds will scatter (and if you win take 5 turns to return) and if you lose or have no air cover, the aliens fighters can shoot at your people on the ground doing gun runs same as you would do to them. This makes it so you need air support on every mission to prevent the aliens from wiping you out with air to ground fire power (Craft should never be seen as they are too high up, simple spawn the rounds fired at the highest level (4-6 i believe) in game coming down at a sharp angle onto target area) Input welcome as always : )

This is by far not a post being negative about this game. I love it. And I know it's still in Alpha. I've intentionally, by some miracle of patience, been able to keep myself from playing several builds of this game until it was in a more playable state, so I could enjoy it without a lot of the beginning issues it had and also to really get a good look at the structure of it in order to give feedback. This build looked like the one to hop back in on and give it another go. While it's vastly in a better state than it was a few months ago and I'm really loving the changes/additions/updates the team has got in so far, I'm still finding it incredibly difficult. I've played the original X-Com quite a bit and although I was never amazing at it, I get it and what I'm supposed to be building/prioritizing/managing in Xenonauts. I'm not having issues with Ground combat (The little bit I played of it) but it's the Air combat that seems broken. I could be completely wrong, of course, but here's what's happening. Also, I'm playing on Normal. Everything can shoot down 1 starting Jet. I find it a bit odd that a Jet can't take down a light scout but if that's a design choice, then I'm fine with it. It seemed like the second I bought a MIG, which was the first month, they started showing up in groups of three. Three MIGS could maybe down 1 enemy fighter before they all were destroyed. This put me in a spot, in the first month, where I couldn't do anything. I had MIGS, which I figured would give me an advantage, but instead ended my game because I couldn't down anything at that point. I can only think the solution would be to buy more Hangers/MIGs but that seems like bad design if I have to invest in so much in the first month, especially when you start with an already seemingly generous 3 Hangers. Again, I'm well aware this is in Alpha, I just thought I would post and hear if I'm doing something wrong, or if this is useful feedback. Just a few points to how this went down in my two month long campaign. 1)Built MIGS, which I assume triggered UFO squads of 3, making it impossible to down anything. 2)This resulted in me not once getting to send the Chinook out. 3)Every Terror mission that popped up was well beyond the fuel and speed range of a Chinook, not to mention there was no way to escort it even if I wanted too. 4)In summary, before the end of month two, I ended up just watching UFO's fly over helplessly because I could literally do nothing but watch. On Normal difficulty. 5)Not as relevant but is there a way, or a way going to be implemented, to increase the speed of the air battles? It gets tedious waiting for my Jets to retreat 3-4 times in a row when Fighters are chasing them. *On a positive side note, I'm loving the Ground combat. It's coming along awesome and the Class/Role system is fantastic. It also seems like there is a cover system but honestly, it's hard to tell if that's what the icon's are that highlight when you want to move someone next to a chest-high wall.

during the first month it was easy peesy then better alien aircraft came even my migs have trouble catchin up (?!) then the figthers and their stupid missles BUT IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!! (yes I know fighters are glitch at the moment)

Well so I thought... maybe I'm requested to capture a live commander and interrogate it in order to access certain techs, and then I realised commanders and such wont be flying aboard a scout or fighter, they will be definitely aboard a major ship. What if I wanted to neutralize the ship without damaging it? Why if we can mount some EMP weapons as MG to just damage the UFO thrusters? why not give this tech to soldiers as well to fight the enemy robots? I know the UFO will be still damaged if it falls from the sky, but it will suffer much less damage than if we shot it down with both rockets and mg's. So? what do you pals thinks? has this been brought already? Cheers

I just encountered a strange Glitch in the Air Combat. I stupidly sent one F17 against a group of three small fighters. When it arrived there were two of my planes on the air combat screen, but only one on the right where the status is displayed. When the aliens got close to my plane suddenly more aliens appeared close to the "phantom plane". after they destroyed my plane the game froze, task manager reported it to have stopped working. I don't have screenshots or a means of reproducing it, when i find this bug again i will make some screenshots an try to fond a safegame.

I find it quite annoying that my fighters unload all of their missiles on a target that really doesnt need one. Is it possible to have fighters only use the required amount of missiles. Have only had the game a day so far so dont know if there is specific research on UFOs, but maybe link UFO health to weapon damage once researched so that extra ammunition is only spent when required rather than leaving the aircraft with nothing and vulnerable to enemy fighter interceptions.

Skip to 0:20. Played this game (Taikou5) long time ago, and really enjoyed the combat system. The air combat in Xenonauts is a large step forward from EU, but since it is a turn based strategy game, a mini turn based air combat similar to <Taikou5> would fit better to the rest of the game in my opinion.

After making a bit of a mistake on a game last night, I ended up having an escorted Chinook get engaged in combat pretty much right over my base. Despite managing to utterly destroy a wing of fighters, I was engaged by another wing within a few seconds. This was not a fight I could win with two lightly damaged F17's that had no missiles left, so I chose to disengage. This is where a massively frustrating problem began in the shape of the game flipping back to the Geoscape once the F17's exited the map, only to be immediately be returned to the aircombat for a second round. Retreat again -> re-engage. Repeat ad-infinitum. I feel if the option to retreat from combat is going to be there, there needs to be some check put into the engagement code in order to create a delay between the UFO's re-engaging so that things can happen on the Geoscape. I didn't even have time to order the squadron to retreat, such is the speed in which you're thrown back into aircombat. This was made doubly annoying by the fact that just before the first engagement I'd ordered a full set of F17's in the air, but due to the way the game functions they were essentially stuck. Having a small delay introduced (only between UFO's and squadrons that have just engaged each other, if another set come along at the same time, they should be able to engage/be engaged), will actually allow options like scrambling fighter squadrons to be effective but providing there's enough distance from the base to the dropship/retreating squadron, still make them the retreating set a target and a potential loss as they will be re-engaged if you can't come to their aid. What do you think?

So, I had a team of 3 F-17s returning from a mission, and an alien fighter kept initiating combat with them, (I was low on fuel, so I was trying to ignore them.) The problem being, it was a lone alien fighter, so every time it started combat, it would run. So it kept starting combat because that's what alien fighters do, and then it kept running once it got into the actual battle, because it was out-numbered. It repeated this until my fighters returned to base. I haven't seen this particular bug mentioned yet, so here it is. v16.1 October 16th

Hi there, what about a little information pop window when my f17 is out of ammo? I think is very usefull. I lost 3 jets because they only have 2 rockets on board. The other thing is the when my f17 dont have any rockets i found out the autocannon is useless. Im down before the autocannon can hit the ufo. Anyone have the same problem? greetz