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Just went to the Rezzed computer show and just wanted to say that I thought Xenonauts was game of the show! I'm so fed up with fps, mmo's and all of the other kind of games on show there. The only other game I thought looked promising was Borderlands 2 because that's trying to do something a bit different too. Prison Architect is a good original idea, but felt the implementation was lacking. However, I thought Xenonauts captured the feel of X-Com brilliantly and can't wait for it to come out. Best of luck with the game
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Tell me what you think! Also, please let me know if this kind of thing is supposed to be posted in another section! Hope you enjoy!
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Hi guys, every once in a while I search the interweb for news on my favorite game of all times (guess what -> X-Com ). I'm not really a gamer so I tend to not get the latest news... This time I was really glad to see that so much is going on in the X-Com-Sphere: Two official games, UFO:AI gaining traction again ... and then I found Xenonauts! I think I had this on my radar a while back but now this had become a real playable game... And with a successful kickstarter (will support asap ) there's a real chance of actually getting a fully playable game. So much for the introduction, now here's my 2 cents on the kickstarter demo: 1) It's fun to play Sounds strange, but I think that's one of the most important things. I just plain enjoyed playing the game, which I can't say for every X-Com "successor" or "clone" out there. While I understand that you only stuck with the tile-based architecture due to engine limitations, I think it captures the whole X-Com experience rather fantastic. The graphics aren't too realistic but they have their own style and imo are very well done. You don't need a high-res polygon 3d model to get attached to your soldiers. Sure, the AI needs some improvement, so does the interface, but even in the current state it's fun to play (specially the tactical). 2) Underwater missions would be fun I started X-Com with TFTD when I was a kid so I'm a bit biased, but I would love to see underwater missions. I saw that there was a heated discussion about this and I fully understand that it might be out of scope for (the first release ) of Xenonauts. Noone says that there can't be a Xenonauts: TFTD though . 3) Add some suspense One of the great thing about X-COM was that some missions were borderline horror shows. You'd only see a few tiles because it was deep underwater or night and then along comes a Lobster Man and cuts you in half... 4) The "hidden movement" screens tend to be a bit too lenghty for my taste 5) Air combat It's already a great improvement over the original, however imo it's not using the full potential... Would be nice to have more control over how your planes fly/attack and have more fighters in the air (e.g. 5 vs 3). I'm still in the beginning stages of the demo, however most fights just tend to be "fly to alien vessel and shoot your rockets". 6) Civilians I would love it if the civilians could get a bit more "realistic" ai... E.g. a typical unarmed civilian would run towards the nearing Xenonauts and then seek shelter near the helicopter. And while they're running by, Xenonauts could "question" them, which would result in approximate positions of the aliens that the questioned civi saw while he was running for his life. Soldiers could fire around for no reason (cause they panicked). Some other things I loved How you can move your soldiers from cover to cover How your soldiers "jump" over fences The jeeps The animation of fire bursts The animation of explosions The graphics of crashed ufos and the landing helicopter I might throw in a few more ideas/suggestions/comments when I played a bit longer, for now just keep on the great work!
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First off, not sure if this belongs here, but couldn't find anywhere else that it ought to be, so I'll just go ahead. Now, I've been keeping my eyes on Xenonauts from time to time, once even signed up on the forums, just before they relocated. I never did feel convinced though, as a lot of games that try to follow in the footsteps of X-COM always fall flat on some account. My favorite was always UFO: Alien Invasion, but when the Xenonauts demo found its way onto my computer I had to change my mind. Anyway, to avoid a massive wall of text I'll just list down cons and pros that I found about the game (yes, starting with cons). And I know that the demo isn't the final release and stuff will be overhauled, so I'll skip the stuff I know will be fixed. Anyway, stuff I think could use a tune-up. - Heavy Fighters seem to act like Scouts to me, they just go around having a looksee before heading out into orbit again, as opposed to regular fighters who seek out my interceptors and try to shoot them down. - Alienum Missiles are (kinda) infinite. I produced 8 of them, and shot down well over 20 fighters and still had 5 left. - It's kinda hard to see aliens and Xenonauts through walls. A shadow-thingy to show what's there or something perhaps? - ... And well, that's just it really. The rest seems to be stuff that Chris & Co. are aware of and are on the to-do list. One final question remains, is the demo supposed to end by the end of September (in game)? I keep getting annihilated at that point, so either I have the worst timing ever, or I'm just reading it wrong. Now, onto the good stuff! What I liked about Xenonauts, and what might be enough to put UFO: Alien Invasion off the throne. - The game looks great! The animations are nice, the sprites are nice, the level of detail on your troops is also very nice. - Troops have character. I'm a fluff nerd, I'll admit, but knowing that Ivan Kalashnikov is from Russia and former Spetsnaz is the kind of stuff that makes me more attached to them. - Artwork. The artwork is, to my eyes, great. It conveys they feeling of the game, and I actually feel a tad guilty when that general points at me at the end of each month. - The combat feels X-COMsih, in lack of a better term. It's tense, deadly and entertaining. If a tad predictable, but once the AI gets done proper, I think it should mix things up a bit. - Air combat. Something I missed in UFO: AI, and to a lesser degree, in X-COM. I actually think it's enjoyable (save for the occasional one-shotted F-17/MiG32) and it hasn't gotten tedious yet. TL;DR: I like Xenonauts, it isn't perfect yet, but I have high hopes for it to become the one X-COM spiritual successor to rule them all. On a side note, I am very easy to please, but loose interest fast. If I'm around by release, you've done pretty good in my book!
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Generally favorable comments, though a few people are grippling. http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=58869&page=14 I've tried to explain (as i understand) the confusion over stretch goals and how/why it works. I hope i didnt make it worse. FYI I'm davidf there I do think that this project has some extra challanges that most others dont, in that some people think this is simpply a reskinned X-Com and dont understand its a completely seperate game! I think in this way Xenonauts has been a victim of its own success. To some (and even me) it feels so much like the original, its hard to aknowledge that their is actually a delta.
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playing the kickstarter demo shows a game that still needs a lot of work but is coming together nicely and shows some serious potential. If I tried to play it any longer though, I probably would have thrown my laptop out the window. enemies can apparently shoot through closed doors. trying to right click anything in the combat UI menu will cause you soldier to look towards the spot on the map behind the menu spawning reaction fire and getting him killed. I did have an enemy fire at one of my soldiers and miss, hitting a the now dead soldier i just mentioned causing him to scream "Argh!" as if he was still alive. It was awesome. Biggest gameplay issue: the unarmed chinook should not be able to attempt to intercept a ufo. if you send it out towards a grounded ufo and it takes off, it should lose it's target, stopping time and prompting the player to select new orders. otherwise when you send it out and hit the fast time button the ufo will take off and the chopper still intercepts and is instantly destroyed and you've lost your whole strike team. game over. I hope the final game will be much harder. You should be getting slaughtered initially. after several missions on veteran i had only lost soldiers due to issues i mentioned earlier. I am glad to see you guys using kickstarter. I have a feeling this game will be very successful there. as i'm writing this it is very close to being funded already. Any idea what will be considered if you raise, say, 100k? 250k? 1,000,000? people will want to know these things if you want them to fund past 100 percent. keep up the good work and good luck in your kickstarter quest!
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I know this will likely be taken poorly, as I am 'new' to you and forums have an unspoken protocol that new visitors should speak when spoken to and keep their opinions to themselves until they have read everything... I am one of those, the x-com junkies from the 80's, who played that game more than any other in my life. What was it about that game, that made it so unique? It was a number of things, which I will list. 1. Atmosphere. The game had it in spades. It is the only game I have ever turned off the lights on at 2 in the morning to find some greys in a farmer's field in the middle of the night, and it creeped me out. Signs captured this with the midnight cornfield scene. 2. Multiple levels of game. From the strategic world fighter interception interface, to the squad level battlefield, which was made extra fun because it was destructable, this game had so many facets that were unique. Base building, customization, and a super nice geo-globe to rotate around. 3. Backstory. X-Com drew on the wealth of alien knowledge and literature, some amusing, some real, that made it so interesting. From cattle mutilations to alien abduction to moth men, it was in there. I have been waiting for years for it's rebirth. Terror from the deep was pathetic in comparison (I'm not sure who thinks they can throw hand grenades under water but apparently x-com programmers do...) And 3 need not even be mentioned, as it was an abomination. Finally you guys are bringing it back! Fantastic, I am excited. My ultimate dream (as for many others here) was that one would come out that allowed you to play the alien invaders. Go try Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds as an example of this. Brilliant artwork, story, and plot make it believable. Some lines for you to draw inspiration from: (taking place shortly after the military hunta stages a coup d'tat on Mars, taking over the peaceful government and setting the path to war with Earth...) [video=youtube;Mfd95Lo_Ni4] Your comments on an alien version are misguided. It would not be 'too easy', that is what game design is for. You would be forced to carry out numerous complicated missions while under attack from hostile humans and the x-com interception team and fighters. It would, in short, be awesome. But that can wait for a future date and future project. Now on to what you have built so far here. You seem to be trying to carbon copy x-com enemy unknown. Except for the blaster bombs, which you judge 'unbalanced' even though they come in late in the game and are used against incredible powerful aliens. They were also incredibly fun to use. Simply upping the cost into prohibitive levels would balance the weapon. No, I think you didn't want to bother designing the pathing tool for directing the missile in flight. Your comments about not including women are valid, given the complexity of the chore you see it as. I am glad you have finally relented to overwhelming pressure from the people paying for this project and are including them. The strategic map is ok. I understand again the programming limitations you are fighting with. A 3-D engine would have been far better but far costlier. The interception game appears broken in the demo. It is extremely frustrating to have fighters follow a ufo all day and finally run out of fuel, even when a head on pass interception is not rewarded with an engagement (as it was in the original) this should be fixed. Alternatively and a much better idea, which is straying into where I'm going next, USE YOUR IMAGINATION, STOP COPYING X-COM!!! Allow the player to research slight mods to various pieces of equipment in the game, starting with the fighter engines, armour and weapons and fuel range, as well as the chinook. (setting the game in 1970 poses obvious problems solved by the near future setting of x-com which allowed a believable jet powered drop ship able to travel vast distances. A chinook just doesn't cut it...) Another item you seem to have left out is the fact that the ufo's were doing something. They were not just wandering aimlessly and then generating some random (insert weather disruption, train strafe, ship attack here) they actually LANDED, and performed missions. This needs to be added back in, it all goes into creativity and believability. The UFO's need to slow down when they get over land, begin their scout mission, start hunting for juicy ripe cattle, whatever. Right now they are flying around doing laps out at sea pretty much wandering aimlessly. It get's boring after an hour, and this is trying to copy a game I would literally stare at FOR HOURS, with the clock in real-time (yes, I am that insane...) Secondly, you appear to be either carbon-copying x-com, or are at a loss for creative writing. There is a WEALTH of UFO knowledge out there, a lot of it since X-Com came out! Why are you not drawing on it? Do you even know about Whitley Strieber's dedicated site 'Out There' on this? Which contains hundreds of articles for your creative genius? Did you know he wrote The Day After Tomorrow disaster movie, from a conversation he had with an alien/angel/demon/robot...thing he met in a Toronto hotel room? The message from the aliens is that we offed too many scientists in the Holocaust, and now rather than inventing anti-gravity atmosphere vehicles (which is what UFO's are) we are stuck with jets in a gravity well on a planet that is dying and about to experience a rapid onset new ice age. Not to mention some of the aliens coming here like to grow alien-human hybrid thingys, just for the shits and giggles. Or that Close Encounters of the Third Kind is pretty much historical fact. Two of the transferred humans chose to remain on the alien homeworld, btw. All of this stuff is out there, just waiting for you to draw on for inspiration! It's ok! You CAN change the tech tree too! We don't really need to make laser rifles, just 'cause! Add a whole schwack of new stuff!! You can do it! It just takes some imagination! Not a lot of programming really! Just CREATIVE WRITING. I'd love to help you out with that, but I detect a kind of arrogant tone to your responses, in short, you'll take these fine folks' money but you won't listen too much cause you know what the game is your designing, and that's what your building. I offer an alternative. Use your imagination and draw on the creative talents of the fine people who have generously given you their hard earned cash. Make this game more than X-Com. And bring it into the modern era of UFOlogy, where so much more is now known. Apparently most of our souls do not die, for example! Neat. I have downloaded the demo and played it all night. In order to play it a second time I am already forced to hack the fighter stats to make it possible for them to overtake a ufo. This should be just another research arm, as there is a shortage of cool things to research in the beginning anyway. If the player chooses to simply make earth completely impregnable from UFO's but never goes after the main base (please don't tell me it's at Cygdonia again!!!) then so be it! Perhaps make the ending more along the lines of Day After Tomorrow, and we will all die unless we find a way to get to the stars.
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Just finished the terror mission. Very well done! Tau-like drones, destroyed APC and actually fighting military guys - that`s just great! I wonder if that APC was alive at the start of the mission or is it just a decoration? My soldier was unable to see anything from rooftop (a known issue IIRC, but i still wanted to note that). That terror mission got a very nice scene when a very annoying drone (who pinned my men at gas station) was killed by alien reaction fire And sniper rifle is indeed a must have weapon...
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I pre-ordered via Paypal due to RPS coverage, and have played some previous builds, but it's meatier now. Thoughts follow: * Assault Rifles aren't really clicking with me (oddly, I'm usually a total rifle guy). I tend towards two groups of 2x shotgun and 1x sniper w/ a heavy seems likes a better starting balance. Subjective, yes. * Add in a grenade launcher to replace the classic auto-cannon? Make the RPG a little more accurate / higher range and have the grenade launcher be a gamble in terms of results, but toss out 3 40mm grenades or something. I <3 autocannon! * Weapon stats on the soldier screen are too small on a 1680x1050 monitor. Also burst details would be good. * Female soldiers please (portrait/name/scream), I'm fine with no ground combat sprite changes until post-release. Soldiers in armor are soldiers in armor. * I like the weight balance between weapons and armor, also infinite non-researched items. Being able to assign roles (sniper, assault, support, etc) and have pre-built kits of gear would be great to further streamline the process as people die. Having some kind of smart weight response (i.e. this is my core kit, if it doesn't overload stick in these optional items - extra ammo, grenades, etc) system would be great but perhaps a little too handholdy? * Is reaction time bugged or do all enemies just have much better reactions than my soldiers? Even explicitly saving time units and clicking the appropriate shot, I can never seem to get a shot off. Had an enemy walk right past a soldiers face and fire on comrades. If it's not bugged I'd tweak it so reflexes are a bit more useful. * I like the little events you have that show the world beyond radar range (or the effects of letting a UFO go), but on fastest speed they often blip by before I can read them. Perhaps a little tickbox to sticky them so they stack up? A longer lasting presence on the map, maybe have them fade over time. These will get repetitive over time in terms of content, but I like the impact they make. * Tooltips/descriptions that make it clear alenium aircraft weapons don't need to be reloaded from crafted materials. * Perhaps a little too late, but while I like the idea of getting information from but not being able to use alien tech directly, the plasma weapons look a little too unexotic - make them more organic/alien seeming, not just futuristic. * Description of power core = alenium is good, power core around it is useless. Yet I couldn't just research alenium on its own before that. Odd. * Posting some bug reports now. Great work, and I do truly hope you find a solid niche and a boost in sales due to the Firaxis relaunch - people wondering what the real xcom was like and buying xenonauts because they can't go back to DOS graphics etc. The new tileset changes are very nice! Going to restart now that I know of the save/load bug... wants progression.
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So I know that not all the things are in the game and I know Chris will work on this more. That being said... In my current game I just finished up a Terror Mission set in St Petersburg. I got wtf pwned for one basic reason. There was no cover on the map haha. It was just a huge, flat open grassy plain. I know Chris and crew will add in the random map features and all that but I wanted to bring this up in case anyone else sees a Terror Mission pop up during the "Play Full Demo" option. I'm not sure if it's just incomplete or bugged to appear this way so I put it in GD. What made it really tough is that the aliens could just one shot any of my troops (don't have better armor yet so...) but to kill one of them takes 2 - 4 guys using all their AP. I lost 3 guys just getting out of the Chinook. Basically - it was great! I really enjoyed it. Only 3 guys (and 1 NPC soldier) survived that mission out of 8 soldiers and 1 tank. I lost 33 nation rating points overall. Then I had to laugh more when after the geoscape loaded back up it says something like "The world hails the Xenonaut team as heroes after their defense of St Petersburg!" I was rolling I was laughing so much. I mean like EVERYONE died. Not to mention that for numerous turns all my "rookies" (I had just lost 4 guys - 3 in the hospital and one dead from a prior mission) anyway - the newbies spent the first 5 turns in a state of total panic as seasoned xenonauts and NPCs died all around in waves of fiery plasma. It was gloriously amusing!! It was like in Sathra's LP almost - the whole darn place was leveled and destroyed in the defense of that area and they said Good Job! I seriously.... it's just funny Anyway... continue on good forum goers! Have any of you had crazy things like this happen you? Feel free to share your tales.
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After having only played the most recent build for no more than 15 minutes, without having played any previous build, I just wanted to sincerely congratulate everyone involved in this project. Your work has already wildly exceeded my expectations. Like I said in the title, ultimately, this post is unnecessary and its contents have likely been repeated time and time again on this board I am sure. But I have already seen a return in my investment. I was sorry to read that you were ineligible for kickstarter, but you have the support of at least one American gamer. Keep up the good work. I look forward to contributing what little I can to the general discussion and provide some hopefully more useful encouragement than this vacuous praise.
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Hi I had this game for a while now, but due to some bugs i was never able to get the really new technology like laser or wolf armour. Now in 9.5 it was finally possible again to get to those things and seeing them made me a lot more happy about the game. The excitement in Ufo was great, learning about the aliens a little bit more and a little bit more and gaining new cool weapons. Seeing that this is greatly the case in xenonauts too is really reliving and i think the idea, that you don't just start using alien weapons and armor, but rather research their stuff and build your own is really awesome. It makes you really psyched to unlock new things, were in ufo you allready had the best weapon, after you researched the heavy plasma. So great job you guys, i hope the kickstarter fund will be a great success.
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This is a full video of the game before it stopped working. It has been prob 6 months since I last played this game, but I updated it just yesterday and this is my experience, including a couple bugs and/or suggestions. 00:20 00:25 02:48 08:52 12:30 (note: I was right-clicking on that button, and my soldier began looking in that direction. It'll likely be fixed before beta rolls around, but just an FYI) 13:44 17:45 (note: excuse the language... it was the second time in a row the game stopped responding while I was in battle)
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Hey all, I just pre-ordered yesterday had my eye on this project for a while and finally had the chance to support it, very exciting stuff! So I just had a runthrough, and I'm trying to talk about things which I haven't seen so much in the forums. ----------- - LOVE the Geoscape, the aesthetic theme that's going on there was fantastic. - Air combat seems like it could be interesting once developed a little more, but for now I basically just sit there and watch the fight like in the original. - Chinook got shot down the second after I finished a ground mission, there were no (detectable) alien craft nearby. It just died. - Current building transparency situation has been talked about quite a lot, it's really difficult to co-ordinate troops behind buildings you are not inside. - I'd love to see a 'select next soldier and remove this one from queue' button like in X-com, that thing was marvelous! - Alien running animation looks super rad. - I built a new base and all my money disappeared! I guess they were more expensive than I thought. - The kneeling animation feels a bit unresponsive. - I'm assuming the basic assault rifle has no burst capability? - Soldier advancement screen is pretty cool. - Does the camera height thing have no real function at the moment? it only seems to affect the chinook. Buildings do not change at all. - I fired a rocket at an alien and the soldier just blew himself up ... : ( - Music is great, very fitting, love the sounds too. Overall super excited about this! Just thought I'd share my thoughts.
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GOOD JOB SO FAR ON XENONAUTS ... i was unsure at first so dled the alpha from somewhere ... and saw tht it was good! so bought keep up good effort~
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Well, the humans in-battle sprites don't fit at all with some of the scenery's style. And the aliens and civilians too. While they are a weirdish 3D type thing, MOST of the scenery is 2D. As for my idea, just sort of make it look less weird Sound: The aliens screech sounds odd, not bad, but odd. And it's really loud, but that may just be my computer.
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Hello all, I've spent a few hours with the game and overall I'm quite impressed. Like Rock Paper Shotgun claimed, it really does feel like Xcom with a modern interface. I also like some of the changes that are made to the formula. Initially I was not very excited about the art style and the setting/time period but both are growing on me. It seems like I have the same basic combat map each time so far and I'm really looking forward to having some new/different environments. Also don't seem to see many civilians. Visual effects are nice, really like the fire and the smoke. SFX is much better than I had expected, so far I dig the weapon sounds that I've heard. My favorite audio element is the radio chatter during/after air combat, that's really well done and works great with the music. The music sometimes is great, other times it kicks me out of the immersion more than anything else. One of the best parts of the original Xcom, for me, was the music. Melodic strings/pianos etc. have no place in the soundtrack, imho. Almost everything should be synth/sample based. The music in the combat missions is much closer to where it needs to be, I only recall hearing the problem in the geoscape. Perhaps most importantly, I love how true you guys are staying to the formula but I sometimes have a feeling that you're doing that at a cost. Some examples off the top of my head - moving up stairs feels slow so I avoid it. It seems like the ui should know I'm trying to go up the stairs when I click on them and move the camera along with my solider intelligently. - I'd love to see scouting/briefing segments before ground missions. I think this is realistic because a location of the crash would be generally known and intelligence would precede a mission if real 'special forces' type of soldiers are involved. It would likely happen on the plane and would involve simple things like day/night but also expected number of civilians, perhaps expected alien numbers based on ship type. This doesn't have to be verbose or anything beyond a text window. - i imagine this is in the pipe but all of my missions are in an urban environment and my base was in Greenland and all the crash sites were local. Realistic locations for the the map would be awesome and would add interesting variety if some missions are in the snow in the middle of the woods and others would be in larger city/town. - lastly, and the idea that I think is most important is to expand the richness of the ground combat by adding what would be 'sense rolls' in a table rpg. I've only had one or two missions where trying to find the last alien was annoying. The idea I had would involve things like, say, "Corporal Bob Fred hears something to the southwest". this would give you hints about enemy locations, if your soldier was capable enough to hear/see/smell something. maps could be bigger and combat would be more interesting and quicker. again though, I think you're doing great work and really happy that you're trying to make this game. I plan to purchase a few gift copies for friends. Which reminds me, have you considered a KickStarter project for this game? It seems to work well for Tim Schafer...
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Hi, I preordered a couple of days ago and have only 4-5 play sessions under my belt but I thought I'd post my first impressions from plaing this game so far anyway. I played the original X-Com a lot back in the days and I also have spent a lot of time with more recent games in this genre: Jagged Alliance 2 and Silent Storm. I enjoyed both JA2 and S2 as they improved a lot upon the gameplay in X-Com. Summary: My overall impression is that Xenonauts looks promising but IMO it seems to be too much of a "clone" of X-Com and overlook improvements over X-Com found in later games in the same genre such as JA2 and S2. The Geoscape feels close to "done" but the tactical fighting game needs more features. Things I like: Geoscape: - Map-like geoscape is better then a globe as it gives you a better overview of all areas at the same time. - The overall menus are ok. Didn't take too long to find my way around. - I like that the research part is in with projects that you unlock and so on. - Aircraft combat minigame. This was a nice suprise. Combat: - Nice isometric tile based graphics! yay! No pointless 3D! - Can destroy buildings! Very important! - Support vehicles are fun! - Auto-sell of "loot" at the end of the mission is nice and timesaving. Overall I have not noticed any bugs or issues. Almost all features seems to work and it's mostly content that's missing like artwork. Main issues and areas that annoys me, missing features: Geoscape: - I'm kindorf missing a Economics screen... mayber there is one but I have not found it. Would be nice to get a more detailed look at incomes and expenses. - I'm somewhat confused regarding how my troops and aircraft rearms. Do they automatically buy ammo and missiles to rearm after missions. It seems like they do.... but in my last UFO interception one of my fighters did not have any missiles loaded. I have not find a "shopping" screen like in the original X-Com. Automatically re-stocking ammo is nice but I would actually like to manually purchase weapons and such for my soldiers. - The air-combat minigame is very easy. I always let my fighters fly in groups of at least two. The combat only plays out in two different ways each time: A. The UFO runs and It's just a matter of chasing it down before it reach edge of screen. It seems the only way a UFO can get away is if you forget to give the afterburner command to your fighters. B. The UFO attacks your first fighter. You simply do a 90 degree turn with the first fighter and let all other fighters attack. The UFO keeps going for the first fighter but can never get in range. The rest of your fighters engage the UFO until it runs and your first fighter can join in. The UFOs have never been able to get a shot of at any of my fighters. The only way I have lost a interception was in my first play session when I had not noticed the afterburner buttons and the UFO could escape. UFO AI need to improve. They should switch target if they can't chase down the current one and is under attack from other fighters. Combat: - No realtime when there are no enemies in sight. This is a big issue that all games I've played after X-Com improved on. You reduce downtime between alien encounters A LOT by allowing real-time movement when there is no enemies in sight. Not allowing this is a big step backwards and makes missions a real pain in the ass. Critical feature IMO. - No save during tactical combat? - Only one terrain type (city)? I assume this is just lack of artwork at this point. Every crash site is that urban setting no matter where the UFO crashed. - The reserve snap/auto shot feature resets each turn for all soldiers. I assume this is a bug. - Aliens don't seem to move around very much. They are mostly just waiting for you to find them. - I miss aiming for individual body-parts. - I miss prone positions for my soldiers. Especially for my machinegunners it feels weird not being able to go prone. - I miss gadgets and weapon upgrades / modifications. - I miss aliens reacting to combat. Gunfire on the other side of the building? Maybe the alien should head there to see if his buddy needs help. - View distance seems a little short during daytime given the range of the weapons. I often engage targets found by my front soldiers very successfully with soldiers in the rear of my squad. Pretty much 1,5 times view distance range. I think view distance could pretty much be doubled during daytime missions. In general the tactical combat part have a lot to learn from later games. I miss a lot of fidelity regarding soldier orders that you find in games like JA2 and S2. I'm sure most of these questions have been discussed earlier but I'm still writing them down here as they affect my overall impression of the game. I'm sorry if my impressions seems negative but I have HIGH expectations of a game in this genre.
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I played for about 2 hours at this release and I want to express you my impressions. I have not read much in the forum, only the titles of the tread due to lack of time, so if some arguments were to be repeated I apologize in advance. I have divided my impressions into classes, to facilitate both my understanding and your. My english is not good so if something is not clear I' ll try to give you a better explanation START MENU - Words are too small in the initial screen (new Commence operation etc. ..) This is an aesthetic opinion. I do not think it makes sense to have words so small. This also applies to the description of the equipment in the troops menu. Slightly increase the character. - Game options: Divide the various options for audio, video, games, etc. as in many common games - Iron Man mode: First I would like to know what is the actual difference between veteran and insane. If the difference is only in this option, then the insane level can be removed and leave the choice of this option for those who want it. If there are differences I have a proposal. In this mode saves are created only in special events. This may be ok at the beginning where the missions are relatively simple, but going forward things get complicated, and the unexpected increase. I would suggest putting a limit of saves, for example 1 (maybe 2 are too many) in the tactical map so you do not have to go crazy if something goes wrong at the last alien. Another important thing: it would be better that there are at least two or three autosaves, not to benefit the player, but to prevent data loss. Try to think if, arrived at mid-game, after going mad in every mission, suddenly the game crashes and the only autosave is corrupt ... I think that the keyboard and the monitor would fly out the window. An even more insane option: create 2 / 3 copies of the same savegame, so that a player can not use the previous autosave if he makes a mistake. GEOSCAPE - Spherical Geoscape: I still think that a spherical Geoscape is the best solution. In fact, allows you to have more screen space to place the various buttons and put them larger. Also missing the two most important regions: the North Pole and South Pole Have 2 bases at those positions allow you to cover a large part of the airspace from different continents, which translates into more money per month, for the most interceptions in the area. -Some islands are absent: Another thing I've always liked is the ability to build bases on remote islands, but in strategic positions, because having a base in an island far away from civilization is very addictive -Add more capital: Whether for a more realistic visual effect (It may also be instructive) and for another thing I have in mind: Terror mission. In the old UFO these missions were very difficult, but that could be fruity much money and items for the research. I do not know if this kind of mission is already implemented but if it were not it would be a great loss. At most you can put an option like for the iron man mode. - Mouse cursor: I really do not like. I would prefer something like triangle, and it more accurately BASE -Possibility to choose the layout of the buildings in the first base: This is not really a problem but an aesthetic and functional factor. I like to have all the hangar on the one hand and residential areas from another and not all mixed up. Also I do not know if it is the case with this game but in X-com Apocalypse, for example, you had to keep a 2x2 space for advanced lab and other construction. - More slots of construction: This idea is part of a larger project. I thought it would be nice to build defensive installations against both aliens and UFOs, just like in X-COM Apocalypse. It would also be useful to build missiles stations in base, which directly attack the UFOs that are in the radar beam (of course, the missiles will have cost both of maintenance and production). This is because I thought that you could insert the squadrons of UFOs (6-7 or +). This way you can give support to aircraft TATTICS - Increase the size of the HUD tactics: I have seen the V2 and is very nice. The only thing I would tend to expand it to the sides because the keys are too small - Use the wheel to zoom and not to change soldiers -Soldiers lying: I do not think descriptions serve. It is simply a feature that increases the realism and increases your chances of hitting and not to be hit - If there is no line of fire prevent to shoot : This thing is quite annoying. I'd rather appear a message that says "no line of fire" instead of misfire - If there is a mate in the line of fire I would like to know the probability of hit: If I have to risk I prefer to know how much. -A box to select the soldiers: I have found some difficulty in selecting the troops and this seems like a good solution for resolve the problem - Zoom and rotation of the map: This feature seems very useful. Being able to zoom and rotate around an enemy trying to guess what is his line of fire and what is ours, to see if a soldier is effectively covered or not. - Being able to throw objects to soldiers: this concerns mainly the grenades. You need a grenade and the soldier does not have it. No problem, a mate throw you, pick up and you're done. Increase the realism and also the tactical possibilities in impossible situations. -Cancel the selection of an action by right-clicking on a random point of the map: I think it's really necessary - The grenades have a percentage of stun: It seems to me to be realistic - Unit bleeding: The medkit has never been used because the soldiers die with one shot or because no one bleeds to death after a stroke. I believe it is critical for the realism. - Being able to see the shooting percentages after first making a move: This is useful for control of the situation. An alien is located. There are 3 units that may attack it, but they must move. It would be nice to be able to see over the alien which is the percentage of fire and if after the movement can affect. That way if you can hit, you go out into the open, if not go into cover. AIRCRAFT - Experience of the pilots: The damage and the ability to deflect shots depends on the experience of pilots - The mig can use 2 machineguns: It seems absurd that this aircraft should mount only missiles. The use of machineguns could be less damaging UFOs and allowing a greater recovery of objects - Possible slot for adding objects: Without copying the strange objects of X-COM Apocalypse could use additional fuel, additional machinegun or more ammunition. Maybe going on in the game you can add shields or other devices. UFOs - Squadrons: UFOs moving in squadrons and go to bomb cities or other areas. Ballistic missiles become an excellent resource against these events and also you have more tactical missions and may have cash rewards if the whole squad is shot down, vice versa, if the squadron accomplishes its goal. - UFO landing: This is another important element in my opinion. In the old UFO this was the best way to get technology and not risk the aircraft even if the tactical mission was in hell. This refers to the possibility of damaging the UFO at different levels. - Damage to buildings, UFOs, the ground during the crash: seems to me realistic and it was already implemented in ufo old. Here I have not seen it but I do not know if it's because it's an alpha version. In my opinion, essential. Choose to use machine guns to hurt less UFOs and have more technology, however, risking aircraft. - Alien Bases: I wonder why the aliens can not have bases on earth. Maybe the same could be UFO landing. Increase the realism, the number of missions and technology we can capture. TROOPS AND WEAPONS -Adding weapons mods: (silencers, scopes etc.): a little difficult to implement, but which would give a great realism. It would also increase the number of researches to be done to develop weapons mod. -Slot for helmet mods: night vision, infrared, anti psy more. For example, in the missions in the dark the night vision device can be much more useful than the flare that I have ever used. - Shoulder slots: 2 slots for add grenades for each shoulder ( 4 granades in total) and decrease the weight of HE to 0.5 kg or less. -Add a button to remove all the equipment of a soldier or to all soldiers: -Add the ability to give everyone the same equipment -Being able to mount the type of ammunition chosen: I do not know if it's a bug, but I can not load the launcher with the anti-tank ammunition BUGS - The tactical map does not scroll down if you move the mouse - You cannot overwrite saves in the Geoscape - Soldiers sometimes do not get stuck when it detects an enemy -The last alien alive never moves from his position ( must search for it and kill) I hope I was understandable and not to have wasted your time in reading this long post. Let me know what you think.
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Just wanted to chime in and say thank you for Xenonauts. After what feels like a lifetime of disappointment and heartache waiting for that real "X-Com feeling", this game captures it perfectly. I'm certainly enjoying the rush of terror when your trooper rounds that corner into enemy reaction fire Couple of things I'd like to applaud Goldhawk for: - Artwork and music is beautiful, and captures the mood perfectly. - Loving the new Intercept mini-game (although my pilots all suck at downing UFO's ) - The news ticker that appears is a thing of genius. I see a report and WANT to send out a crew to investigate it. Whether it leads to anything isn't the point. The fact it exists lends the feeling that you're not in a bubble. Cheers!
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Hey everyone, I'm really glad I found out about this game, I've been waiting for something like this for years and after a good few hours playtime I can see that I'm not going to be disappointed. As much as I love the game, I do just have a couple of initial questions and thoughts, primarily regarding the tactical combat in the game; Sight range - As it is the sight radius for your soldiers seems oddly limited. It appears to be the equivelent of a soldier only being able to see about 15ft in front of them. Are there any plans to change this at all? I wondered if it was just a temporary measure until the Aliens have some proper AI. I appreciate that a large part of the game is that you have to get out and hunt down the aliens but I think that terrain and directional line of site do enough to make sure you're not aware of the location of an enemy too easily. The short sight range seems detrimental to actions such as setting some troops on overwatch while others move, as at the short ranges you can engage, this is rendered a little pointless. Action points - Are the values for action points liable to be tweaked for later versions of the game? At the moment even reserving for a snap shot limits you to a very short movement limit. I don't want a soldier to be able to leg it half a screen and still have time to pull of a perfect aimed shot, but a snap shot, to my mind, should be a sort of last resort, just to make sure you're not completely helpless at the end of a mid distance move. This brings me onto the next point... Accuracy of attacks - One of the things I used to love about UFO:Enemy Unknown was the tension as shot after shot of mine just whistled past an alien, and just as all hope seemed lost, one round would thud home, right between his eyes! At present, most of the shots I've fired, even if they only list a 30 - 40% hit chance, have been on target. Is this working as intended? Again, I guess once the AI is programmed to take advantage of cover etc then all accuracy values may be looked at. I'm just curious really. And finally, just a question as to whether something I noticed is a bug or working as intended. A soldier of mine positioned right next to a window, shooting out at an alien in open ground had a lower hit chance than a second soldier who was also firing on the alien from a completely open position. The soldier at the window was closer and had a higher accuracy rating, so I can only assume that the window he was firing from was having a negative effect on his accuracy. Is this correct? It seems counterintuitive that taking a tactical position in cover would hinder you in this way. Thanks in advance to anybody who can shed any light on the above. jim
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Hi everyone! First of, thanks for the Awesome game! It's still alpha, but already it has great promise! My first EVER pre-order (commercial or indie) and i like it! Nice to see how much you guys have planted since i bought it (about three weeks ago..) I noticed the civilians are bugged (show as aliens) but that has been addressed here already. Otherwise game is coming on nicely! Can't wait to play other maps too! What i specially like is: -locals spot ufos too (you just get small text from these) -now my guys are starting to get XP from mission! YAY! <3 -Overall graphics suit the game really nicely. Theres lot to be done, but im have utmost confidence that you guys pull this off! I hope this makes sense, im from Finland after all
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Greeting stuff: I am blastergasted by this game and can't wait to see it in final form! Been playing all the x-com games worth of mention and i'm still a addict player from the original UFO, ennemy unknow (like soooo many of us in here i beleive). I know this is a Alpha in development. This post is intended to point out stuff to get informed and inform you guys on some some feedback, I really enjoy the fact that you show us the goods instead of just telling us "we know whats good for you". When in get to the restaurant ordering steak ... i expect steak! Same thing with X-com based games! Soo, you give me steak guys!! Love it!!!! Interesting stuff: I like to put my base in the middle of the mediteranean ... no luck here! Can't seem to find an Island that a base can fit on even if some show in green. Pistol take 6 squares. I would loved it smaller, weight seems ok. Why not 2 suare vertical like in X-Com? Is there anyway to have a holster space on hips or something similar? Sure a pistol weight a lot for it's size, but it's part of it's usefullness, being small, easy to carry as a secondary weapon. Character fonts for in base tabs seems a little small. Not intuitive at first. Love the Jets Hangars size, just a little smaller for these extra buildings! Why the budjet is on the right size of the base map? There too much info displayed there IMO. Also, for the purist, putting base tabs there might suit them(me) better. Why there is no basic earth research? I don't know, like a smaller pistol, bullet variety in shotgun, Auto-Shotgun. I don't think that putting a lot a variety in weapons is good but not enough neither is. I always carried around some basic explosive ammo, fire ammo in the squads, sometimes past mid game to dislogge pesky snipers or to burn up targets weak to heat weapons. Inciendary missile guys? Basic heavy explosives. ... damn can't play a game of blast the whole place up? FOUND INFO Proximity mines where one of my all times favorites. Even if the damage was low in end game, they keep me informed if something is moving in a place I cleared before. Always had one on every guys in a squad. Mines are a must for me in a Crysalisk situation (loved and hated these guys). More to come. Thanks for everything your are doing with this game!
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First of all, I want to say that this looks like a fantastic game. A well done, proper x-com-type game has been a long time coming and it looks like you guys are really on top of it. Hats off to the ones with the vision, and the ones in the trenches. I have hunted down everything writen about this game online, read these forums, and watched a bunch of youtube videos. However, I have NOT actually played the game. Although it is tempting, I think I'll wait a while. At least until it's a little ways to BETA until I spoil the surprise. Here are some things I thought: -Can you reload early? The addition of the shotgun got me thinkin that, the ammo is probably actually a magazine. And since there isn't different types of ammo, I don't see a remove ammo button. but you wouldn't want to walk into a room with 1 or 2 shells in your slow to reload shotgun. -The 2 handed weapon filling both slots thing has got to go. otherwise what are you gonna do if you wanna throw a grenade or a flare, put the rifle in your backpack? drop it? that's terrible. Or maybe you don't even plan on firing the weapon? maybe you just want to pick up a fallen soldier's testicle evaporator rifle and run/toss it over to someone else. To keep players from going Rambo, just make 2 handed weapons wildly inaccurate if something is in the other hand. -still looking for interesting grenade ideas? how about a flashbang grenade that reduces enemy AP stored for reaction fire? pretty good idea, i know. -MORE INVENTORY SLOTS!!!!! we need the tactical vest style shoulder slots back for grenades and flares and the like. I am the kind of player that takes a lot of time equiping my soldiers for the worst case scenario. with the belt only, if you give you're soldier a backup pistol, you are basically out of easily accessible space for extra ammo for 2 weapons, a couple grenades, smoke, flares, whatever else. I guess that's about all. I really hope the research/ tech tree is given some serious attention. that was always a big thing for me back in the day. even some deadend research would be a pleasant dissapointment. or fully functional devices that you discover simply suck (Heavy laser, anyone?). Also, if you're going with the file folder look, how about a coffee stain or two? Keep up the good work. I can't wait for this game to be completed!
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Hello everybody. Just bought the game and played it for a couple of hours. I have to say that although the game is obviously in a early stage beta (same maps over and over, silly alien models, no initial research, bugs...) the ideas and the development I've seen so far is without doubt the work of someone with TASTE. Finally! A X-Com based game developed by someone with taste... Almost couldn't believe it when I tried it. Anyway, keep up the good work, and I hope you can make a more stable version soon so I can play a bit more continuously and report proper bugs (not constant crashes , no pun intended). Thanks again for developing a worthy successor of the X-COM spirit, with such a good taste.