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Personally and firstly a big thanks to you for getting this game going and out there. Having played the original XCOM games, all those many years back and having played every half decent version since, I had to have your Xeno version and it dragged me back into the fun filled days of 94. But, to your game. Firstly...terror attacks! OMG...having encountered a handful of these I just have to ask...is it intended for me to land surrounded by nasties and have my squad obliterated in three turns? If this is the case, might I bring up an old idea me and my friends had when playing the original. Calling in Artillery cover. Or better still we had the idea of a mini game where you pick your landing site and have the option to bomb a given landing site before landing and thus clearing it and enabling your troops to secure a perimeter. Even smoke rounds would help! Secondly...research in the steam version is waaaay slower than in the demo. A few more shinies would make up for the slow progress. This is more important when you start getting corvette class UFO's which your planes don't even scratch. Troop characterisation. All I can say is MORE. The great thing about all the XCOM games (yes I know this isn't XCOM, but you get my meaning) was the fun and odd sense of loss attached to having a certain element personalisation. Love the aerial combat mini game btw. So much better than the standard linear exchange of fire from the XCOM games. Gameplay and LOS. I'm guessing that the latest version hasn't had this sorted yet. The fact that a soldier behind cover when firing will simply shoot the cover in front of him most of the time must be on your 'to do' list. Please. The same goes for cover and throwing grenades, which as above, just explode in the soldiers face. Come on guys, they're trained soldiers, I think throwing over things is on page one of the combat manual. I would moan a little about friendly fire, but on retrospection, it makes you pay attention and so fine. Vehicles. Think they need to be a little tougher. Well, a lot tougher in fact. A soldier in upgraded combat armour seems to be able to take more damage than an armoured car. I'm sure the vehicles get better, but as with planes, without the research being sped up a little, they are just sitting ducks. Maybe an option to upgrade their armour, while keeping weapons. Maybe with a movement restriction or something. This would also enable them early on to be used as troop carriers to get your soldiers out of sticky landing sites and to somewhere safe before heading out into combat. Well, thats it for now. Ive only played the steam version for a day, so will update this as I go. like I said, awesome to play the game and thanks you for making it happen

Just want to add +1 to how good this game is. Can't wait for the final version. I'm always commenting on how new games these days are all flash and no substance. Xenonauts just proves how good old games were, with the focus on the game mechanics.

I was looking on Video Streams for stuff about the early release - I don't have any affiliation with these streams, but thought some developers may take a gander. Also, this - Keep up to good work developers this game has huge potential...

I think I've been looking for a 'congratulations thread' but I did not easily find one. You made an awesome job with Xenonauts. Eight months ago, when I first checked the game, I found something in the gameplay was already there, but whole parts were also still missing. Now that I came back with Steam V18, I am impressed. Impressed by the quality and awesome job on the textures. Impressed by the nice output of the sound ambiance. Impressed by the tension, the way we move and hide, the way level design helps improving missions. Impressed also by the nice ideas you put into the game. You managed to continue in a direction while removing everything that was flawing the game experience. I believe the community played also a part in all this, although I joined it only recently (and only to misplace a bug report myself, sadly ). Back to topic. As a game developer, I always had a UFO: XXX build and game somewhere, with Geoscape and all. I still have a boardgame also near publishing step. But now eventually, I can rest and say : "They got it right!" You got everything right and I can't do anything but encouraging you to continue this way and continue making of this game the perfect, not only remake, but rebirth of our 1993 UFO Defense. Rebirth with shiny new things and adapted game concepts and ambiance, that work just well. I will now also be more delving into modding options for the game; I had UFO builds and game experiments that I would like to convert to a full mod sometime later. Congratulations again, and good luck in the last improvements you are making. I think other people could also use this thread to say everything they like! On a technical point of view, it is of no use to get congratulations, but game development is also matter of engagement and willpower, some good words can also help them.

the game setup is looking really good. i just wanted to say that you know how to make a real strategy games so my hope is that you wont wander to far away from what you are onto now, Evan the the flight mini game is good it gives you a good overview of the fight and give you a really strategy feeling onto it because you need the right load out on the aircrafts and know when to to use the right weapons. ohh yeah i am new here so just gotta say TY for making the game i never though i would see the day someone understood why the x-com game were so good as it was. the other games made in the memory's of x-com have tried to simplify things to much or made em to fancy, fancy aint bad but they seem to lose the point of what the game is about.

Hello, guys! The game is terribly good. Having some fresh impressions and ideas. 1. Alien assault on 3rd base. They were terrible. We had 4 laser rifles and one machine gun, but several grenades. The 3 of 8 soldiers had only rifles. Aliens were fighting hard. We used their guns from killed foes. We fought through every room, leaving fire and ashes. That was 3rd mission for folks. The base was not very big. 5 hangars, defense, barracks, store and radar. The hardest base defense mission I ever had in XCOM and XCOM-like games. Good Job! If they continue in this way, the game is outstanding. 2. The Alien terror missions. I definitely sure it is better to assault the landed UFO rather than fighting in cities.It is easier for we can not shoot civils and they do not run as fools in crossfire. 3. I'd like to know if there is chance of shooting down (not destroying) fighters and interceptors of invaders? I'd like a closer view. Could be great. 4. The rest will be later

So I've been playing this off and on for a while, but since it came onto Steam and stopped going so badly wrong I've tried to stick out a few games, and here's my thinking on it so far. 1. It's been mentioned before, I expect people will mention it again, the whole interceptor element of the game is superb. However it begs a few questions: - Could there be more of it? - Could there be more planes? I've seen there's a mod for extra planes, but it would be great to add even more. Also it seems like it's quite difficult to get more active aircraft into the game, because of the need for hangars and whatnot. More expendable aircraft and more places to deploy them for less money would be really cool. The satisfaction of putting down an enemy machine with cannons is great, but all too rare because it's too costly to lose a plane. It feels like the early game ought to be more weight of numbers focussed, relying on crumby, ill-suited, yet numerous local aircraft. 2. Numbers of troops. I miss the mob-handed approach of the original X-Com and I think it's a big loss. The thing with Xenonauts is every mission matters, you can't afford to lose a terror mission, they'll nuke the town. Players should have the option to pour manpower into missions for the simple reason that this means you will probably be more successful. The trade off is of course that more troops means more casualties, it means more equipment costs, it means less experience to go around. Quite simply for me the small team size feels unrealistic, artificial and immersion breaking. It's not the end of the world but it's pretty disappointing. I gather that it increases with later ships, but I think it should be in the game from a lot earlier on. Add more aliens to balance if necessary. 3. I love that the game is mod-friendly. I hope to do some work with it myself in that regard. There's scope for so much to be added from weapons to creatures to maps and so on, can't wait to see what people come up with. 4. The alien spacecraft are devious swine, employing escorts, intercepting my planes, generally going way above and beyond what the first game did. This is not reflected on the ground, where the aliens scatter across the map waiting to be murdered. There's no logical explanation for them splitting up like that, and it strikes me that the missions would be tougher, faster, but more realistic if the aliens clumped up. Especially if there were more of them and the player had a bigger team. So maybe instead of spawning one alien on a given random spawn, spawn a defined team of aliens on that spot, and maybe have different types of team. 5. There should be more rewards for shooting down any UFO that comes in. I'm playing a game where the vast majority of alien ships are corvettes, they float around off the coast, killing ships and making a nuisance of themselves, they don't ever come to land, plus there's a lot of other stuff going on. So I blow them out of the sky, but as a result I suffer. Shooting down an alien craft over the sea should, in my opinion, be a best case scenario in the eyes of the nearest nation. That is what they want, it's what they would be most pleased with. I mean in my capacity as X-Com Top Kahuna, I want to grab that ship, drop it on the land, club the crew and sell their guns. But if I'm a civilian leader, I'm much, much, happier to see those enemy aircraft plummet into the sea out of sight, out of mind. It's bizarre that you can lose the support of a country when you're not letting aliens ever set foot on it. 6. If you guys do an expansion and it would be amazing if you could do Terror From The Deep but not as a sequel, but as a concurrent element to the current game. This isn't the turn of the last century, we have the hardware, and the idea of combining the nautical and aeronautical game elements in one big pile makes me squee. It wouldn't have to have the scale of the original TFTD, but even if you just had the capacity to recover down enemy ships at sea, and for the enemy to set up bases and so on under the sea that'd be enough in the context of the current campaign. 7. I think the money system is odd. The way I see it money should be no object but that doesn't mean you've got the resources of the world at your fingertips. The aliens are out there and every government and corporation is going to be trying to be the hero. How much is money really worth in the face of an existential threat to the species? I think a substitute for money, something maybe just called credits, or something similar, would be better. A name like credits would be a good general representation of how much clout you have to get what you want, be it personnel or equipment. Also seems odd that soldiers, scientists and workshop staff cost money. Most scientists would be paying X-Com for the opportunity to get their hands on genuine alien technology never before seen by man. And soldiers and techies would probably sign up to help in huge numbers free of charge if you asked nicely. Feels like a trick was missed in that whole part of the game. All that said though, I think this is a brilliant game and I cannot wait to see how it develops with mods and later versions. I think this is the definitive game of the genre.

Kind of sad/frustrating to see some of the comments on the Steam page. Admittingly, I am often a bit skeptical and cynical towards some of the games posted (although I never post negative comments). But, in this case, I've seen the 'behind the scenes', seeing the project being developed (through these forums here), seeing the dedication and obvious love for the project and openness to the community, so it was very frustrating seeing some of the negative (and sometimes moronic) responses... especially after Chris was so careful to get the build stable and worthy of a Steam Early Access release (to avoid such reactions). It seems that the generalization I've been reading about the Steam forums is pretty accurate. Just kind of speaking my mind here, and wishing the project and the crew all the best.

I want to buy this but i just dont all know what im getting into. so can some one sell me this game. i love xcom EU and ufo extraterrestrials. i just need to know how much i can squeeze out of it. Steam forums is useless for help already tried. Hope you guys are better.

Hi all. Fist-time poster here. I just purchased Xenonauts yesterday. It is a game that I have been keeping an eye on for about a year. I am very excited to hear that it is near completion and will be on Steam. While I have the original X-Com, I never played it (I bought it about a year ago). I have played Firaxis' re-imagining of it, however. I am looking forward to the increased depth of Xenonauts (I have watched a bunch of LPs of the original X-Com and they are fun to watch). However, since I am NOT an X-Com vet, I find that I will need some instruction on how to get started. I started my first mission last night and I noted a few things; mostly concerning the UI. This post is not meant to be 'nitpicky', but instead just to point out what I have noted. I know that 'Beta is beta' and I am sure that many of the things I will bring up may be addressed in the final release (fingers crossed). I did check the FAQ on the forum, but I did not see anything that addressed my concerns. 1) The font is kinda small (I was playing on 1920x1080). 2)Mouseover tooltips were sparse or non-existent. For example, what does TU mean? I know it stands for 'Time Units', but new(er) players (I'm still a newbie) may not know that. What is a TU reserve? Why would I want to reserve them? Etc. Tooltips would help with that. 3)There did not seem to be any confirmation notification after initiating an action (like research of manufacturing items). An 'OK' button would instill greater confidence that orders have been acknowledged. 4)I did not notice a 'Help/Encyclopedia' section. 5)There was no tutorial mission. I find that some games (Hearts of Iron, for example) are so complex that even going through the tutorial still makes it hard to play, but people who love HOI know that and have probably prepared themselves for the fact there won't be any hand holding. That said, I think that accessibility will be much greater if there is a free demo and tutorial mission. These are a few of my observations after about 30 mins of play (I wanted to play more, but I had to wait an inordinately long time to download the game from Desura, so I was tired by the time I was able to start playing). All in all, I am excited and I can't wait for the final or for the community mods. I hope you guys do well enough to make an X2 in a couple years. Thanks for reading.

Hi I am really interested in this game being a fan of x-com Eu and ufo extraterrestrials so I have some concerns. 1.Is there enough content in the game right now to enjoy it. Im all about random maps and different experience everytime. 2.Is the tech tree/Research tree a good size? 3.Can I customize my soldiers a lot? 4.How long would you say a run in this game lasts, I know its beta so might not be to long yet? 5.Is the game a challenge? 6.How much post launch support will it get? 7.How is base building/management? Thanks to all who answer. I really want to get it but just concerned is all.

Been watching this game for years ... am SO glad you finally have a version on steam ... Just been waiting so long for a good release ... Already bought it, so thought i would post a HUGE THANKS for a good remake, unlike that latest XCOM Junk i wasted money on .... THANK YOU! and keep up the awesome work!

Was playing on the laptop on the couch next to the wife last night when SHE noticed I was wincing every time I took incoming fire from unseen enemies. I didn't notice until she pointed it out and I had a pretty good laugh. Only other game that ever made me do that was the original X-COM. Well done, and thank you, Goldhawk.

Who is? Hello I'm Badger. I haven't been around since way back when the game first started taking preorders. I followed the project quite heavily back then. Due to assorted reasons, including an admitted desire to ignore the project until it was more feature complete, I have not been paying much attention sense. Merely biding my time with every intention to enjoy myself later. Thus, I think I can provide some interesting feedback. My perspective includes dim memories of feature discussions and expectations. While my present contains what is in front of me in the build. I will be posting my thoughts as they come to me during this initial playthrough of Xenonauts. Initial Impressions of Menus and Music Xenonauts has some nice strong ambient music and I really like the menu system in person. It looks a little less awesome in screenshot or youtube form. In play it loads fast, has good visual direction, and is pleasant to work with. I'm not having too much problem locating what I want to find initially. Stuff to purchase/hire to tweak my initial set up! I started in North America and hired an extra 5 rookies. I then bought an extra plane. The manual indicated 3 can fly together and I figure I'd be best off maxing that out ASAP. Continuing to mess with the Aircraft menu I hit the dropship button. Once I was on this screen it was immediatly obvious what I could do! Tweaking the formation of my soldiers was easy and I appear to have all the information I need. My set up includes 2 Soldiers to sweep out the sides, 2 soldiers on the corners of the front, and 2 soldiers making a Y with the front corners as response to any of the three directions. Thus far my only complaint was on the soldier hire screen. The color difference between different grades of stats is very minor and it's a bit hard to read. It takes a little while to process who in the hireable pool has good stats and who does not. Besides that I feel that the color choices for menus is solid and readable. It's only when comparing those stats is important that it was noticeable. The base layout itself somewhat surprised me as I did not fully realize it was going to be an external base rather then underground. The load time on tooltips seems a bit slow. I'd like to see them load 50% faster. As I am still learning what each ammo box or grenade is meant to be this is noticeable. Though it's generally easy to tell what each equipment is based on picture. Noticed the soldier past experience stuff. It's a nice touch. I think it helps offset some of the simplicity in other areas of the visual design. Imply something more complex that can't be fully shown. The soldiers themselves have a good variety to face/skin color though for obvious reasons they have the same body type. Happy to see female soldiers made it in. I expect they fully have the same model as their male counterparts which is fine. The icons for each part of the base menu are sensible but not guessable. Not an issue since you can just click on them. Pretty easy to remember IMO. Game Options menu could be more robust. Key Bindings could stand being supcategoried. Even if it's just having a bold bit between groups to denote "Geoscape Hotkeys" "Aircraft Hotkeys" ETC. I would like to see a game option to tweak menu colors. Likely complicated to hook up but this would allow players to solve many/most color related issues themselves. Good for any color blind users. Happy to see cancel current movement hotkey. Knowing that's an option is quite neat. Saves are not as robust as I wish they where. Playing through the newer Xcom I noted that their save system was annoying to work with in extended careful games where trying to sort through multiple save files could get annoying. I'm happy to see that Xenonauts saves can be named but, the current character limit would require shorthand to explain the save state. Allowing a "Note" sub field in Saves to attach a tooltip to a save file would likely skirt the issue by allowing players to maintain a more robust explanation of their saves. I am happy that Xenonauts saves provide info on the time/date of save in game and out of game alongside funds. I somewhat wish there was more relevant information automatically displayed but cannot think of anything to suggest. Xenopedia seems to need more art assets. I hope there will be a general Xenopedia splash to fill in for categories (Xenonaut Aircraft, Xenonaut Aircraft Weapons, ETC). Custom splashes for categories showing, say, a bunch of aircraft weapons next to eachother, would be nice but, I can see them as a luxury. Xenopedia menu is a little hard to work through. I wish the selection area was larger and each entry had more vertical height. I think there is a double space in the condor entry. "This has been used to give the Condor a reinforced airframe".. Hahaha if I lose my transport I get to yell "Charlie Down!" and it sounds like a good thing. Xenopedia seems to be a major WIP area. Though I like the direction of it. ------------------- Getting the ball rolling. Speed up time! UFO appears and a very familiar looking screen shows up. Feedback on Interceptor selection - While what is selected and isn't changes colors. The highlight color does not. I have to remove my mouse from an aircraft to see if it's been enabled for the sortie. The feedback on selecting an aircraft is thus a bit delayed. For polish reasons this could stand a tweak. I'd also say that it isn't immediately obvious if highlighted means going or not. A small checkbox field on top of the highlight would be really clear. Noticed the "tail until overland" option but couldn't see the interception. Immediately tried to drag the window...and it worked! Excellent. Condor 1 is my #2 plane and Condor 2 is my #1 plane. Well that was a confusing couple of seconds. I'll be taking the time to rename my planes from now on but, this seems to be a bur worth smoothing. I'd suggest adjusting the labeling of interceptors within air combat. With only three values A, B, C instead of 1, 2, 3 seems an easy fix. Light scout was easily destroyed...though it appears he was over the sea! I suppose that's why the option to tail until over land was there. If that's the only feedback on the target being over water it might be worth considering adjustment to make it more clear. A mistake I'll attempt to avoid moving forward but, a mistake made due to poor UI feedback is never good. First Research and more Xenopedia Finished my first research. I wish there was a button to blow up a section of this interface. I'd really like to increase the size of the text entree when I'm reading it. While assigning my research I found another area worth polishing. One thing I noticed (after quite some time not realizing it was possible) in Xcom EU was that while highlighting a Grey Market field for selling I could use arrow keys to increase or decrease the amount. The click and hold interface in xenonauts is fine but it could be amplified by allowing arrowkeys to adjust values too. Who knows, maybe someone will expect it? Back to intercepting Two UFOs at once? Lovely... I have now noticed that below the UFO itself it says the terrain. This is getting covered by the white text under my interceptors and isn't readable. Now that I know to look for it I see what's going on. If they are over sea the "Tail until over land" option is available but, when over land it is greyed out. This really isn't immediately obvious. If a minor a minor tweak could raise clarity it could help the new player experience. I'd suggest changing "Tail until over land" to "Tail until not over water" when they are over water and also modify the text to read "Target over land" when it is greyed out due to target being over land. No pause button available in Geoscape mode. I have to enter a base or hit Esc. Seems like there should be one. One Geoscape issue I see is that zooming in with scroll wheel zooms in on the center of my screen. Instead of where my mouse is. My personal preference is for it to zoom on mouse. More aircombat Tool tip for evasive roll has a misspelled roll as role. Again tooltips feel like they pop up sluggishly. I feel like the right mouse button is under used in air combat. Just a general feeling since it doesn't do anything. I also cannot currently tell if adjusting aircraft speed overwrites an AI thing and if so, how to make it auto again.

Haven't played Xenonauts for awhile, and now that it's closer to beta, there's one thing I'm wondering. If you've played the latest version, have you had any tense or frightening game moments? One of the best parts of X-Com was the feeling of not knowing what was around the corner. Few games kept me on edge like X-Com, and I'm hoping Xenonauts captures that feeling. Some specific examples: Do you worry the first Xenonaut to leave the chopper will get immediately sniped? Do you fear for the xenonaut that you send into a dark corner, or a downed UFO? And maybe the most important question: Do you actually get mad or upset when one of your best guys die even though you know they're not real, but it seems like it? Oh yeah, and does the music lend to the tension too? Cause that was another thing that added a lot to X-Com.

I just played the game for the first time in a while, and it is so much better! Super awesome! Just thought I should congratulate the team behind it all, and give them a big Thank You!

I should point out that right now I have no suggestions. I havent really played enought as of yet to say "this should be done". However. I have been following Xenonauts since Eurogamer(?) 2011, when Totalbiscuit covered the gaem for his WTF Is series. I finally preordered it the other day and mostly that's due to the new XCOM by Firaxis. It's quickly become my favourite game yet, as I don't particularly enjoy the original XCOM for it's steep learning curve and lack of tutorials (or even tooltips). With Firaxis' game I've currently logged 100+ hours and several Ironman runs, none on Impossible. With Xenonauts I was expecting the same frustration I had with the original XCOM, and it's still there a bit, but I hoenstly think the new look the game has sort of made up for it alone. The move to real weaponry, neat animations, and a very nice Geoscape are some of the reasons I think I like Xenonauts. I've played some ground battles, and of course currently their arent a huge number of maps, so once I did them a few times it became easy to corner aliens, and then wipe them. Especially since I have access to a bunch of useful weapon types rather than one awful rifle or pistol. The game does have frustrations. It seems that by the time UFOs become too fast for my MIGs or F17s I need to build another base, but it doesn't feel like I've done enough or got enough funds to do so. So I'm left with a Europe base that's let nearly 15 UFOs escape because of range and fuel, and another base that will take a while to even reach combat readiness on basic UFOs. Reasearch of course isn't fully realised, and my biggest frustrations have been not knowing what to research to get something specific. So I'm left reasearching at random until I hit what I need. Of course not all of the research options have descriptions yet but I feel it shoudl still be clear what research leads to what. How do I know what leads to Anti-matter whatever for Plasma weapons? My opinion is overwhelmingly positive, and I didn't think it would be. Most of my issues are based in the fact the game is in Alpha, but that still feels like a cop out, I don't intend to treat is as such everywhere, because many of the main mechanics are in place and work. Overall, I enjoy Xenonauts, and no doubt It'll become a staple of my YT channel alongside Firaxis' XCOM, but for now, I feel like my enjoyment is being hampered ever so slightly by the base issue. I feel like myabe the game needs to recommend when to build a base so I know, maybe as an option that can be turned off.

Hello all! I hope this section is okay for an intro, I don't think I saw a subforum for that. Anyway, I am a long time XCOM fan, but somehow I hadn't heard of this project until recently. I have played only a little bit of the game, but it is looking very good. I will provide more thorough feedback after I have played a bit more. Just a little bit about myself - I am a programmer, I love TBS games, Necromunda, warhammer 40k, etc... Looking forward to getting to know everyone! Take care, -gf

Yes, as the thread title says, I have now played XCOM:EU, and done it for several hours. And as I am of the old XCOM school (having played through all the two first games from the nineties and a greater part of the third) and also own the two first games. So what are my verdict? This: In short: The game of XCOM:EU is very appealing to the eye, have the kind of graphics you've grown accustomed to these days. And it's certainly nice bling bling compared to the old games. But (and this is a BIG BUT): the game lacks the general atmosphere of the old games. Take the music* for instance, it's got nowhere near the suspenceful air of the music you had playing on the Geomap as well as on the menues and in building the base/ministering the XCOM soldiers. And the classic "burp" when you change the screens is important! Though, I have not yet played for long, this general lack of dark feeling IS DISTURBING. I already get a "plastic" feeling from all the personas talking onscreen, before and between missions. The also look very artificial. No, I actually had to stop playing from getting nauseous. I don't know if I am in the mood of playing for a while now... Disappointed! I will try it out some more though. Not giving up yet. But this makes me look forward to Xenonauts! *The kind of music I'd like is more this: Or this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URtn78-kzFg&NR Or the more modern version:

I am really digging this game. Going to go pre-order now! But one quick question I have about this game: Does it contain futuristic weapon, armor and vehicle upgrades? I remember in original X-Com you started out with modern tech stuff but then you got these balls out crazy weapons and research that pimped you out in alien gear. From the looks of the screen shots...I only see SWAT armor. No offense to SWAT teams and modern military's around the world, if aliens did come we gonna need more than MIGs and Raptors to fight these bastards off. Not to mention a riot shield would do shit against these baddies. So I am hoping that there are "better" weapons. Is this true or false? Thanks!

Hi all, another xcom/tftd/apocalypse veteran, wanting to jot his thoughts down for both reference and for anyone else who wants to read. It will meander a bit as I do enjoy the drink, but feel free to ignore! First off, I did play almost 100 hours of the new XCOM EU, and while I was amped about the whole thing at the beginning, I hadn't actually played any of the demos (busy with Guild Wars 2 and Borderlands 2) so I was actually hoping for something more like Xenonauts. I might have even gotten the two confused. Nevertheless, at 100 hours I imagine I've gotten my money's worth, even if I did end up just blasting through impossible to be sure I could do it and be sure there were no surprises. Ended up with a partial normal game where I got my ass kicked because I didn't appreciate the 20 day build time on satellites or just how important satellites were in general, and then wrecked normal, classic, and impossible in turn (though I lost two countries on impossible, sadface). A lot of what I'm including has been said before, but I'm adding it all in as a summary for my personal impressions. I don't think I'll feel any need to revisit it so many times like I did the original and TFTD. I enjoyed the game for what it was. Not XCOM in the classic sense, but a fun enough quasi tactical game that took a lot of elements from the original XCOM and used them in a more "mass appeal" sort of game. I started out with high hopes, and managed to enjoy some aspects of the game, although that largely involved turning the whole thing into a drinking game. I found the graphics to be fine, I didn't need super realistic graphics for a strategy game like this. The music droned on nicely. Nothing edgy or amazing, but I also felt no need to mute it and turn on a playlist most of the time. And the game itself... well it was a decent game. It kept me interested. The AI was shit, the forced choices were a rather blatant gating system after years of playing MMOs, and the removal of large amounts of control from the play in order to force the choices and gating system grated on my nerved, but I found an easy counter to that. I took a drink every time something reminded me that this wasn't really XCOM any more. So... basically every time tactical combat was interrupted by an unskippable cutscene or I wished I could blast a hole in the side of anything without using a rocket or a grenade. I definitely feel I got my 50$ or so out of it, but I was also disappointed by what it ended up being. 1. Difficulty level = how deep of a hole will we start you in. Honestly, after the first 3 months, none of the difficulties felt too terribly different. Once I was up to a squad of 6 and had at least laser weapons and a few promotions under everyone's respective belts, well it was mostly just mowing down aliens as they magically popped into existence. 2. Squad size: worked very well for what the game was. In order to make the streamlined squad size work, however, they had to linearize all the maps, and replace randomly (or cleverly if the AI was up to it) wandering enemies with "spawns" that just happened to be in your way. Terror missions were actually some of my favorite missions simply because it actually felt like the aliens were THERE before I actually triggered them. Most of the time. If I drank enough. 3. Soldier promotions, skill trees. I actually really liked these and felt this was an improvement over the original XCOM. Admittedly, with the squad size of 6 and dynamically spawning enemies it felt something like Dragon Ages 2 of XCOM (and don't forget to take cover!), but I liked the flavor that it gave to the game, and the utility it gave to individual soldiers. 4. *B#@^ing: I wish to hell I had found out I could mute soldiers earlier. I swear "I've got my eyes on" is going to haunt me. At least they had that option for the people who found it, and disabling SOME of the action cam scenes. However the inability to skip the voiceovers after the first game (YES explosions destroy gear, THANKS, can I shoot them now please?) or the silly animations whenever you spawn an enemy was irritating. 5. Given that you could only have one Skyranger, thus forcing artificial choices into the game (I really do wonder how much I might have enjoyed the game if I hadn't played XCOM, or if it hadn't been named something related to it), I actually didn't mind having only one base. Until I started playing the Xenonauts preorder. Sigh. The fact that you could intercept or get a Skyranger to anything you could intercept was just one of many things that made the game feel like a collection of mini-games, and not a "world." 6. Ruining the immersion. Well, in addition to the single Skyranger (lets see, the first thing they said was that the aliens were testing our defenses... no one figured it might be a good idea to build a second and third skyranger for this?) being able to reach anything that landed or crashed, and interceptors simply reaching anything that appeared over their continent (or in the case of the firestorm, reach the overseer... anywhere), there were several other things that bothered me even through my stupor. Credits? I can sell an alien propulsion source for 75 credits? Has the world come to a massive recession? Too many zeros scare people away now? Oh, and the ground combat. Oh god the ground combat. I've already seen the complaints of animations failing and soldiers firing backwards (worth a drink), or a crouched alien firing through an entire semi truck, a wall of a building, and its roof to hit my squaddie! At least that I could forgive eventually since for me it always worked both ways, but the fact that shots couldn't miss and hit any other alien kind of ruined the immersion and made it feel like a bunch of dice rolls. This terrible resolution of shots in combat was fine once I got used to it (that's the game, may as well beat it!) but it ruined any kind of feeling like there was an actual world there, not just a bunch of percentages getting played out. Hell I could shoot the soldier right in front of me multiple times... and do no damage since it was just a miss on the alien I was aiming for. But again, that combat resolution worked both ways so I was willing to put up with it in the end. It just felt more like a card or dice game than a much much older game had managed to do already. Add to that the AI dropping enemies WITHIN your squad when it decides to spawn something... (and I'm talking about crash landed ships here, not the "incoming waves of XRAYS" from some missions). It really felt like a game. A game for drinking, and that was how I played it! 7. Research and the foundry. Like the solider perks and leveling, a big +++ from me. Making the interrogation of live aliens have a real and tangible impact on the progress of the game, and not to mention making all of the alien autopsies potentially useful in some way was fantastic. How many times had I just not bothered to dissect a snakeman because... well, fkit. Who needs a ufopaedia entry the 15th time they are playing the game. Aside from the one base one Skyranger limit they did to force "choices" I found a lot of the levelling and research changes to be quite nice. 8. On that note, pure opinion, but where the @#$^ were snakemen. Really? Thin men? Get #@$^ed. 9. Soldier inventory. More unrealistic dumbing down in the name of forcing "choices." Wait, we could have spawned 5 or even 6 enemies at once if we'd given them an expanded inventory? nowai. 10. Item use for the interceptor fights was nice, although the limited number of interceptions and limited ways you could engage kinda took the punch out of how nifty I found it. Nice to see similar things in what little Xenonauts I have played. 11. Bugs vs Ironman. I haven't actually given an actual ironman game a try due to the bugs I encountered on normal. Too many turns stuck on alien activity that I had to reload and force the AI to change it's procedures (easy enough to do once you've seen enough) to avoid the bug becoming a problem, or autosaves just plain not happening before a CTD. I'm sure it's possible, I just don't feel like risking it vs playing with saves. I was very happy to see the ability to name saved games in Xenonauts! I'll blame consoles for the lack in EU. 12. Story. I actually liked the story in EU, and while I hated most of the characters and the voice acting, I felt like it tied the whole thing together fairly well, for what it was. It also helped explain the complete lack of a morale/panicking mechanic in the aliens, which annoyed me at first. 13. Inability to sell gear you crafted or found via stunning aliens... well, I could sell those laser rifles for 300ish credits to a country IF IT ASKS. But heaven forbid I try to pawn them off to anyone who wants them for less. It may have fit the way they balanced the game, but with all the balancing and forced choices they used to create "the game" it became less of a game and more of a set of structured hoops to jump through. Speaking of hoops to jump through, I don't think I ever felt any more obviously than when I was trying to shoot down my first Overseer UFO. 14. On the upside I liked the way the council assigned missions mixed things up. Especially on impossible it was fun racing to disable the bomb or covering the path out for the VIP. Such mission options definitely added to the game, and it would be great to see something similar in Xenonauts! Really looking forward to xenonauts, it's nice to feel my excitement growing for the game as I play, not my alcohol tolerance. So far the base interface and the aerial combat have been great! Ground combat... well, aside from the game crashing very frequently, a couple more keybindings would be nice! Especially "Next soldier" and an option to set a key to any given TU setting. It would be great to just hit a key upon selecting a soldier the first time to reserve snap shot! Or another to go back to "none" so you could take a shot without clicking off. Or maybe I am missing something, I have only explored about 4-5 CTDs worth.

Late 70's setting. Pretty close to perfect, I had set it a couple of years later in history for some more computing power, but that's really minor and no immersion breaker. Additional tiers of weapons plus laser not being available from the start. Really great. This with that giant alien fleet in orbit and just the starting screen with those super serious generals makes me feel like I lost the war already. It feels more threatening than the original xcom. Overwhelming alien force, no simple research project to bring your troops immediatly on an almost equal level of firepower with the invaders, it just feels great. Secondary victory conditions are a pretty neat addition as well, keeps you from searching the map for that last alien hiding somewhere. Brilliant! Alien fighters and the air combat do their part as well, makes the whole game feel more "round". On the bad/meh/not sure what to think of it side: A lot of alien fighters, but no air presence of earths military. I would appreciate more of the fightercraft and in addition to that, AI air combat from the rest of the world. In my head that sounds pretty immersive, feeling like you're in the middle of a fight. Gameplaywise... dunno, might be too hard to balance and maybe too random. Planned multi stage levels I really don't know what to think about it. Keeping those to only the biggest alien craft might actually be fun, given they only come once in a while. Elsewise it might slow the progress of the game down too much, breaking the flow of things. So, these are my thoughts so far. I havn't played into the game too much, as the unfinished state would spoil my first playthrough. It looks pretty awesome though, can't wait for the finished thing.

Xcom was an amazing game, but it had it's fair share of issues. From round one it felt like you, the appointed last hope of the world, are given some duct tape and a couple of sticks and asked to MacGyver your way out of an alien invasion. I often ended up editing myself a better start to nail how I have always felt this kind of game should feel from round one. Xenonauts starts you generously. Your freshly dug base is well stocked with tanks, aircraft and men. You have plenty of cash and teams standing by to develop further tools. Life is good. The beauty of this kind of start is that it gives you a false sense of security that I believe accentuates the true gravity of the situation. As humanity looks on in horror as our skies are darkened with bizarre and hostile ships; 3000 years of military development wakes up in a world well stocked for fighting itself. Xenonauts deserves to give the player the feel that a freighted world really wants to leverage it's full might against the encroaching hostiles. And then, after we initially repel the first alien craft to descend into our atmosphere, it starts. Slowly but surely greater and greater forces descend to wreak havoc with humanity. An initial cautious optimism is replaced by the horror that our best weapons are quickly becoming irrelevant, and no matter how many 21st century guns and planes we can leverage against the invaders, the longer it takes us to adapt their own tools against them, the quicker the noose tightens around our necks. Because of how hopeful our initial start is, we become all the more aware of the severity of the situation as fighters shred through our aircraft, and larger more powerful aliens chew through our ground forces like paper. To me, the original Xcom felt like the noose was already around your neck, your hands bound, and one false move from day one dropped you to your doom. Xenonauts gives you hope before it takes it away, and that lends the game an even greater feel of urgency and a more suffocating tension. I hope this feel remains in the final version. If not I will probably mod it in .

Playing the kickstarter demo now. Everything is impressive but I especially enjoy the music. Really great stuff

Hi, just found out about this game, as I used to play UFO: Enemy unknown and was hooked way back in the 90s. As far as I'm concerned there hasn't been a single game that has matched the atmosphere or depth of UFO, and the sequels I found very disappointing. I fully support this remake, if you can call it that. I have a few suggestions though: With research results you might want to trim the text down a bit. I noticed that, within research pages, things are repeated a few times. For example with the Greys (can't remember the name in this game but you know what i mean) it says in the same autopsy report that they are frail compared to humans, at least twice. I'm not opposed to text, infact I love the research reports, it's just the repetition with details is unnecessary. More maps, or maybe even randomized maps with different tile sets. I have gone to alot of crash sites and all but one of them, which was in a farm, looked exactly the same (a few buildings in a street). I realise that it's alpha though, maybe you haven't gotten around to making more maps, which is understandable. Thought I'd raise that point anyway. Eventually different maps being added which spawn depending on the biome in which the UFO crash lands, would be awesome. I haven't played this for alot of time as of yet but so far it seems like alien ships tend to evolve very rapidly into larger ones, much quicker than I can keep up with my research. As a player of UFO, one of my main gripes was that the game puts pressure on you to hurry. While I understand that it's important to keep the pace going, one of the best things about UFO was always to investiage and unravel the mystery piece by piece. The research seems a bit slow and I haven't been able to capture an alien alive yet. I seem to remember in UFO (though I might be mistaken as it's been a long time since I played it) that you start off with cattle prods or something? Something like that early on would be great. Anyway I'm just a fan of the UFO franchise putting my 2 cents in. This has great potential and I will be pre-ordering soon as I can't wait to see this project unravels and wish to support you. I will add more to this thread as I play more. Well done so far and good luck!