Jump to content

Search the Community

Showing results for tags 'suggestion'.

  • Search By Tags

    Type tags separated by commas.
  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • XENONAUTS 2
    • Monthly Development Updates
    • Xenonauts-2 Releases & Patch Notes
    • Xenonauts-2 General Discussion
    • Xenonauts-2 Bug Reports
  • XENONAUTS 1
    • Xenonauts General Discussion
    • Xenonauts: Community Edition
    • Xenonauts Mods / Maps / Translations
    • Xenonauts Bug Reports / Troubleshooting

Calendars

  • Community Calendar

Categories

  • Complete Mods
  • Xenonauts: Community Edition

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start

    End


Last Updated

  • Start

    End


Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End


Group


About Me


Biography


Location


Interests


Occupation

  1. Lower diffilculties shotgun feedback look like this: 34 23 MISS! Higher difficulty removes the red hp counts so it looks like this : MISS! Two shots which hit, has no feeddbaack. It means, only negative feedback is passed to player >> the miss word. That is not pretty nor creates positive feeling. I believe that game should give player the positive information. In some form. Like this : Hit Hit Miss! As you can see, player gets nice positive feedback he made two hits. Information value is the same as in current system, but two red words Hit! are the positive feedback. On top, when player shoot a Machine-gun batch to the flock of opponents, the red word Hit above various opponents gives a clue who is hit, or not. Which is not available in the current system. Omiting possive feedback game loosing motivation for player and feel confusing. Satisfaction moment is missing ! On top of this, I would recommend to ad Holywood type of Hit (it is just a scratch) Graze. Graze is hit for (0 to 3hp) then it start nicely communicate with player when armour comes into the game. Look at this feedback of machine-gun long batch. Miss! Graze Miss! Graze Graze Miss! Miss! Miss! Hit Hit The player clearly see that 3 first hits made some scratches, probably bounce of armour, then last two bullets actually made some damage. Which is very good for emphasise powerfull enemies. In current system it might look like player shoot but nothing happens, no feedback, player is lost. My advice is, add possitive feedback of Hit and Grace to improve general motivation of the player. All this by three colored words. :-]
  2. Spoiler Alert! Don't read below if you don't want potentially to have content spoiled. So, I noticed I just achieved 50% clean network progress in milestone 2 which surprised me because I feel like I have barely done anything yet. I did the atlas base mission, captured instead of killed the General and some cleaners. researched cleaner corpse and interrogated a cleaner. I rescued two of the three soldiers in a mission, and just finished an ambush mission. I think I completed maybe one release hostage mission. It's 21 days in so far. I am just kind of surprised I've already got half the network finished when I haven't even made it to the end of my first month yet. I feel like that progress is really fast and somehow it should be expanded a bit or something. I am currently working on a engineering project to test weapons on cleaners, but I am now worried it was a waste of time as the network will be shut down before it's any use. Also they are already fairly easy to drop (which is okay at the start, I did lose a soldier or two so far). By the way I am playing on soldier (what I consider normal) difficulty. One other note. I felt like the ambush missions was interesting but to easy. I literally murdered them all and destroyed no trucks in turn one, still with one more soldier left unused with full tu's. I think an option would be to push the ambush deployment zone a bit further away from them to reduce accuracy and possibly add one or two more cleaners. I would expect to have at least a few cleaners survive to turn two of the ambush. Posting this for feedback to the dev's related to the recent changes in milestone 2
  3. About me: First game ever purchased was xcom:tftd in 1995 so yah, I am an older player, been playing a lot of games, also a programmer now by trade. First impressions of Xenonauts 2: I am really enjoying it and the direction, however I would caution to not get to hung up on restricting yourselves to what came before (Xenonauts 1, xcom etc.). They were great games but I would challenge you to use this game to not just reskin those games but to expand on them. Suggestion 1: Soldier Rescue Mission: I just did this for the first time and had a helicopter filled with 9/9 guys sent out. Mission didn't warn me until I arrived to start it that I needed 3 slots open to rescue them. I land, look at my helicopter and it visually appears to be half empty. Okay, I should be good to go I think. Nope, did the whole mission, post wrap up, shows my new guys etc it seems. But they don't appear when I am back at base. I think you need a pop up warning before launching the mission that three slots in the helicopter should be left open for rescue. AND a pop up after returning that person x, y... couldn't be rescued because there was not enough room on the helicopter or something. I like the idea of the mission though. Just doesn't feel intuitive. Also, what happens if you don't have room for the new guys in your base living quarters? Praise 1: I am enjoying the missions with time limits, rescue captives etc. I am glad there are not TOO many of them, but they feel exactly the right timing for turns etc. I often find I need to push my troops a bit faster than I kinda want to try and reach all objectives on the map before the deadline shows up or the enemies start spawning more etc. I wouldn't want it any shorter for turns, but don't feel the need for longer either. (I am playing on normal / soldier difficulty) Suggestion 2: Strategy layer changes: I realize the way the game is set up (and this harkens back to prior games of this nature) Building "wide" (multiple bases) was always an excellent strategy to maintain control over the spread out area's of the planet. I'd like to see an alternative strategy supported as well however. Building "tall" (one single larger base) There have always been a few issues with the nature of the game design that prevents this. Mostly, problem 1: UFO's are detected by radar which has a range, problem 2: fighters have a limited range for fuel, problem 3: base is limited in size. Problem 1 might be addressed by allowing the building of a specialized radar plane that can fly out to a player designated spot and hold station for an extended period of time providing radar coverage in that area, before returning for fuel. Problem 2 could be resolved by building some form of either in flight refueling or more slots as you've already added for extended fuel tanks perhaps. Problem 3 is a bit more difficult, but perhaps there can be a base expansion addon that can be purchased or a special mission that gives the player the option to expand the size of a single base they have or start a second base location as a reward. (perhaps that one off mission is the ONLY way to get the larger base in the game) If you can find enough balance between the two strategies it would add more replayability depth to the game encouraging players to try different options on later play throughs. Suggestion 3: Helicopter feels empty: I don't like the fact half my helicopter is always empty but I cannot add more troops to it (at least at the start of the game). I like the variable upgrade slots to the jets, let's add something like that with the helicopter's as well. Perhaps one upgrade could be extra jump seats to allow a few extra soldier slots or something. Suggestion 4: zoom in/zoom out of camera: sometimes I feel like I cannot see enough detail and would like the option to zoom the camera in a bit, or maybe out a bit from the base zoom of the game. To go along with this, I'd love to have the camera be able to change angle to more of a top down view at times as well. Sometimes all four directions don't give a good sight on an area. Suggestion 5: Fully customize soldiers: I often enjoy creating one soldier as "me" in the game. Giving them my name, etc. off the start of the campaign and then see if I can advance them and keep them alive. I also sometimes create other soldiers as well. I am happy we can change their names, but I'd love to also be able to change their country of origin, age, and picture. For picture you could give the option to pick from one of the other games portraits that matches a sprite. Or have them pick a sprite, then upload their own portrait image to go along with it. Suggestion 6: Multiplayer co-op: This I realize is pie in the sky big ask... But I have to try. When I first bought the xcom game, my friend and I would take turns at my house playing missions on the same computer. We ended up each making our own squad. I would love to have a coop option in the game. One way to do this is to have the players each control a base in the game at the start. Funds could be split, or ufo frequency could be scaled up with two players (or maybe a bit of both). When missions happen, one player would control part of the soldier and the other would control the other part. The players could choose who controls which (maybe player that controls that helicopter/squad could "gift" control of some units to the other player during the mission). Both players take turns simultaneously, then when both end a turn, the aliens go, then back to players etc. I really feel making it co-op would really up the interest in the game. Suggestion 7: button to reserve set amount of time units. (like in the old xcom days) maybe allow the player to set how many time units they want reserved. Suggestion 8: Allow me to jump into a soldiers specific "armory screen" by clicking on their side portrait in the soldier screen. I feel like I am constantly needing to navigate between these two screens when making decisions about my squad. Who's healthy or not, which soldiers should be in which roles by comparing the squads stats, as a result what gear I want them to have, or maybe I just want to change their names, but I cannot from the soldier screen. Suggestion 9: Soldier assignments (to helicopters from unassigned) feels clunky and slow for some reason. I don't know if I want the option to just click drag their names and drop them onto the helicopter or what. Removing from a helicopter feels fast and easy, but adding them to a helicopter doesn't feel as clean for some reason. Also, finding the screen to change their location in the helicopter seems like it should have a quicker option from the armory screen or something to modify. Suggestion 10: Magnetic weapons seem like a waste of time: Xcom had this problem I recall. You start game, you get option of lasers, you barely get lasers built and you use them maybe two missions and then they are essentially outdated by plasma weapons. In this game it feels like magnetic weapons are falling into the same trap. It feels like a actual waste of resources and time to invest into them at all, as you almost should always just skip over them to the next weapon type. Now, I haven't seen if milestone 2 stretches this time frame out more yet. But, what if you added more tradeoff's between them. Give magnetic weapons more of their own niche area where they are better than other weapons enough that you might want to still have at least one equipped in your squad, or have a backup pistol of it or something. Maybe they are really good at taking down a certain type of enemy that's hard to beat as they have some sort of natural resistance to the better typical weapons the squad would use later in the game. It's possible this is already the case and I just haven't reached that point to discover it yet. Thanks for an enjoyable game!
  4. AI Adjustments Suggestion Not sure how feasible it might be, but wanted to suggest three things in regards to friendly AI Could we get an occasional special/rare civilian? Maybe a doctor or paramedic running around who will notice your troops and heal them if they're wounded, and back off a couple tiles afterwards. Or maybe a mechanic/engineer type who will try to repair the MARV. ALSO we could add local politicians/senators/governors as secondary objectives! If they survive or you escort them back to a certain point of the map, have it reduce panic for that region (I really like this idea, given that reducing panic feels mostly based around shooting down UFOs and that's it) Could also open up a lot of fun room for Easter Egg characters like a cowboy with a revolver, neckbeard with a katana, MI6 operative in a suit with a silenced pistol. Another thing that I think is much more important and would love to see. Maybe add a command system for friendlies? Make it cost 4 AP to direct a friendly to hunker down, follow me, or head to shelter. Give the Squad lead or everyone a green flare they can throw to 'designate' the shelter point to the AI, and once you're in a certain range you can send them to safety. Could also make it a dice roll against your soldiers bravery stat, braver meaning more trustworthy and likely to be listened to, maybe local military and police will actually join up with your squad if you have a VERY brave soldier command them to. (Not suggesting that you recruit them after the fact, but that could be a cool idea, more interested in just being able to command them for the duration of a mission) Lastly, dunno how feasible it would be, but would be cool to see local military fighting more coherently, instead of just scattered with the rest of the civvies all alone. Maybe spawn them in a pod of 3-5 and tether them to a certain point or their own squad leader. Would be cool to see them acting cohesively and trying to hold down a position while sticking together. So far my experience with local military is them standing in the middle of the street, refusing to use any form of cover, and generally just being bait,
  5. Hi everyone, I was thinking it would be cool to have general AI as end game research to give a comprehensive boost to the player. Something like: lower upkeep costs for the base, better AP efficiency for troops, more efficient material use in construction, better dodging capabilities for aircraft and a significant boost to research speed. Would this work in Xenonauts 2 or would it be a bad addition. Thoughts?
  6. I don't think the abduction missions (rescue civilians from tubes) should end after the turn timer runs out— it really feels like cheesing to have the aliens just disappear after, and not having to fight your way out. Shouldn't it be necessary to clear the map?
  7. I like current game heading and speed of development. However, I see a systemic gap in the setting. Issue Combat is set the way, soldiers die a lot >> good think. Game should highlight the desperate situation of human race, so soldiers give their lives for future generations of humans. It means, a soldier would last about 5 missions, as average number of dead soldiers is about 20% per mission. Mathematics of this setting means, that improving player combat power is mostly done by reserach&production. It is proper style, but it also means: 1. RPG factor of better base stats of the soldiers is somewhat weak 2. it might bring feeling that soldiers are just human resource - expendable ( life is cheap feeling ) Solution Honour is a moral value we give to fallen soldiers. We treat them with respect and care about their bodies. As result, when Xenonaut organization has higher Honour stats, then volunteers with military experience ask for a membership. Ruleset of Honour - Xenonaut organzation has Honour equal 100 points at beginning of the game - higher Honour means better soldier at recruit screen. Lower Honour means worst soldiers at recruit screen - Honour is lost by failed mission, dead soldier, dead civilian, some controversial research, .... - Honour is gained by completed mission, bring dead soldier body back, saved civilian, major research breakthrough, ... Basically, Honour is a stat evaluating player gameplay by moral standards and give reward in form of better recruits. Examples of values: Dead soldier : minus 3 Honour Bring Dead soldier body back: plus 1 Honour Completed mission: plus 10 Honour Failed mission : minus 5 honour Honour value 105 means, that some soldiers on recruit screen has 105% base stat,
  8. I suggest to transfer surviving soldiers from the Prologue (training mission) to the main game to get more immersion and player involvement in the game's plot (as done in XCom1 and 2; or Phoenix Point).
  9. When all soldiers use same armour then it is a bit bleak and boring to see. On top it is confusing to determine who is who. Recently I watched some vids from actual war, and get idea - lets use coloured tapes on fixed places to differentiate soldiers. Lets say, one tape around helmet, and two tapes on each biceps. In the screen Base-armoury player can set a colour for each load-out. 2 Colours can be set separately for helmet and the arms. e.i. I can have a "Assault" load-out who use green tapes. then "Assault+" with medpack who has greeen tapees on arms but red tape on helmet. Color selection uses familiar dialog tool like this : Here are examples of tapes usage : ( photos are used for illustration only, I dont know which side they belong, or I am not involved in any propaganda) https://cdn.punchng.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/27193050/rsz_1img_20220227_182428.jpg https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/AP23086795783477-e1680208730850.jpg?resize=770%2C513&quality=80 https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/000_32JU8ZG.jpg?resize=770%2C513&quality=80 I believe that coloured tapes on armour are engine-doable and would be nice QoL for all players.
  10. I had a few ideas for achievements. Maybe others have more that can be posted below? "Higher Education" - Research every tech in the game "Apes Together Strong" - Complete the game having researched nothing but the story research "Immovable Object" - Complete the game having lost 0 Xenonauts "1%" - Have $10,000,000 "Garage Sale" - Sell $1,000,000 worth of items "Zookeeper" - Capture 1 of every alien "Purging Squad" - Deploy a squad in which every member is wearing Colossus power armour
  11. Hi. I "finished" Xeno2 three times. I am a big fan of the X-COM series and Xenonauts is a proud successor of this game. I am apologice in advance for a long read, but I have many ideas. The following text is order important, so the later paragraphs may apply to some ideas described in former ones 1. Starting base layout makes me crazy, is it possible to: - make it flexible, so we can fit it to our strategy - add medic and training module at start. Medic module is very important. 2. Deployment craft arsenal. It would be nice to have an arsenal at the deployment craft, so solder can change equipment (and his role) at the mission. It is also required when two or more deployment done during the flight. Size of the arsenal should be enough to carry 3 shields, 6 primary weapons, 4 secondary weapons, 20 clips and grenades. Soldier equipment can be selected before deployment craft departure in armory at base, but also can be updated before mission start using the equipment in craft arsenal. By the way this process can hide mission loading time. 3. Deployment team size - 9 solder team is good for cleaner missions since you can separate whole troop in two teams (2 fighters, sharpshooter and machine gun), but there is a problem with UFO capture mission when you need a third team to operate inside the alien craft. Only one soldier left for shields and it is not enough. especially when you need to collect 2 UFOs without returning to base. After the first mission the shield is gone or almost destroyed. Shields are vital inside, but almost useless outside. Problem can get a workaround using arsenal described above. 4. Soldier stats 4.1 Stamina/Energy may be an additional mechanic to be used 4.2 Health may affect accuracy and recoil (and throwing range ?) 4.2 Morale may affect accuracy too. Moral should be more affected by combat situation as: 4.2.1 other soldiers proximity 4.2.2 enemies detected 4.2.3 mission progress - enemies killed, ufo located, amount of mission objectives completed 4.2.4 allies killed 4.2.5 supression state 4.2.6 stun state 4.3 May strength affect damage of stun rodes? 5. Tactical combat 5.1 it would be nice to keep soldier order to the next turn in case it was not completed during current one. It is especially good when retreating in the cleaners missions. 5.2 It would be nice so the main UFO entrance will be locked for humans. It should be breached only by dedicated explosives. This approach also provides an opportunity to make UFO capture as time based - UFO must be captured withing a limited amount of turns once main entrance is breached. 5.3 Defense of the deployment craft. Deployment craft should play more important role in the ground combat. It may not be abandoned. It must require protection. Aliens should seek to capture and destroy it. Once craft destroyed - there may be some penalties - no items recovered from crush, delay in returning to base, new craft should be constructed. 5.4 Aliens AI - For my taste closing distance with enemies is too easy. Lightly weaponed aliens should retaliate only at distance when hit is almost guaranteed. Hand-grenade throwing range should be cut to pistol-shot distance. Shock grenade - to guaranteed snap shot distance. (Shock grenade radius may be decreased?) 5.5 Capturing aliens. Capturing aliens should be a task himself. It must require planning and rewarded as a kill or even more. May be there should be a medal for it?! By my taste player should plan that in this specific mission a very special alien should be captured, for example - scientist or reaper. It may be required for research or as a bounty request from some country. 6 Team work. There would be nice to dedicate soldiers in the deployment troop to teams. For my taste a single team should be of 4 soldiers. Deployment craft should be capable to carry 2/3/4 teams. As far as I think about it - this is a tough proposition with a great potential to bring a special identity for the Xenonauts series. To expose the potential the following can be done: 6.1 Create team roles, according to the role team can have a goal. Completing a goal provide team member with experience can be invested into stats during training at base: 6.1.1 - common fight. Team goal is to kill aliens. In my vision it should contain two rifleman that keep frontline, gunner that suppress and soften targets and sharpshooter that finishes them. 6.1.2 - reconnaissance team. Team goal is to detect aliens, mission objects (collect mission objects?), save civilians. This team will require some equipment not yet exist in the game in addition to shields and secondary weapons 6.1.3 - UFO capture team. Team goal is to breach UFO and capture it. Team consists of shield carriers and shotgun fighters. Shock grenades and explosives are welcome. 6.1.4 - abductor team. Team goal is to capture specific alien (that is usually require clearing hostiles around it). Lot of stun grenade usage. 6.2 This feature will require screen in already existing layout [geoscape][base][research][manufacture][soldiers][store][armory][aircraft][archives] to manipulate with team organization and training there. 6.3 Team should be created as at the newly proposed screen. "Creation" of a team will require some time, otherwise teammate will get morale debuff. Teammates can recieve morale bonus from team leader in addition to the troop leader 6.4 This feature will require refactoring of the base armory screen to choose teams and not soldiers 6.5 Team role can either be selected at base armory screen or before mission at newly created craft arsenal screen 6.6 Team role (and equipment) can be changed from newly created craft arsenal screen (if all the teammates appear in the arsenal?) 6.7 This feature may require redesign of the deployment craft to use team structure in an optimal way. For example, Skyhawk. It is of 3x6 size and has wide door at back and narrow ones at sides. Can we change be of 2x4 size with narrow exits at sides? (Dead zone can be solved by last proposition) So the Dragonfly will be 2x6 with ide door at back and narrow ones at sides. And the ultimate will be 4x4 with exits to all sides? 7. Medals - good thing, but looks raw, here are my propositions: 7.1 following medals may have degrees - service medal, golden star, award for bravery 7.2 following medals may provide a greater bonuses - award for valor, award for courage, crux solaris, crimson heart 8 Training. It would be nice to have a separate training screen where training process may be visible and guided. For example, some soldier stats may be selected as primary and receive greater improvement then others. it would be also nice to select soldiers for training when there is no enough training room capacity instead of decreasing training efficiency. Anyway, in my eyes soldier progress should relate to its activity on the battlefield, but it be accrued at the base during training. It means that rookie never participated in the battle should progress slower then veteran that completed many mission goals. On the other hand it is difficult to explain why solder became stronger after exhausting combat. 9. Weapons. 9.1 Grenade launcher is funny, but I found it useless. Is it possible to replace it underbarrel grenade launcher? It also would be nice to have different types of shots for it - explosive, shrapnel (same effect as shotgun), phosphorous and shock. Laser rifles can lack of it, but it can be a good reason to use the accelerated rifle instead. (AFAIK there is a problem to convince player to run into this development branch) 9.2 It would be nice to have a reconissance drone (we are in XXI century, right?), same as Teledyne FLIR Black Hornet 3, sorry for advertisment. It should consist of control pad (secondary weapon) and some grenade size drones. Soldier can either move by himself, launch the drone, or control the drone (when drone moves TUs consumed for the operator too). Drone may have a limited amount for TUs (40-60). It cannot open dors, but can bypass windows (should the window be already brocken?) Can there be a larger drone with explosives/shock/smoke? Only a single drone can be controlled at once. There can also be a limit on turn the drone can be in air. 9.3 What about toxic gaz and fire grenade? 9.4 Can we get a law rocket? I hate those big drones. 10. Soldier inventory. 10.1 Idea of the belt is so attractive!!!! Belt should be able to carry a single secondary weapon (in addition to the secondary slot under the main weapon slot), pair of ammo clips (except machine gun ones). There should be an option to swap secondary weapons between belt and one being used. Manipulations with this slot should not take time, except of dropping item that should take a minimal. 10.2 Hemet slot. It would be nice to equip helmet with different accesories as long range visor/night visor/ rebreather. Any such module should not weight a lot. 10.3 Backpack slots. Maipulation with items in this slot should take a lot of time. Let say there can be 3 of them. Any one can be of following type: 10.3.1 Regular backpack. Should be able to carry a main weapon. Two (or three) slots of this type should be united in a single backpack of relevant size. Two slots should be enough to carry a body. 10.3.2 Armor plate - should be a heavy one 10.3.3 Jetpack 10.3.4 Special module for reconnaissance drones, it should carry 2 small ones and drone recharge device. Launching drone from this module should take less time. Soldier may be able to carry drones in a regular backpack and load them to this module. 11. Combat vehicle. For my taste X-Com and all its successor had poor mechanics related to combat droids. It is always better to bring a soldier instead, but can we get it in addition? If the craft was able to carry it outside and deploy it just before landing? My best regards
  12. When I start a new base, I always remove some rooms and rebuild them in another place. A great way to get around that would be to give the players the option to build a custom base themself. In that case the very first buildings (that are part of the preset) should be free. There could be something like "Do you want to use the standard preset base or do you want to build a custom base?"
  13. Noted this by mistake during a tactical mission - not sure if this is a bug, but if a weapon has certain weight including the ammo when you equip it before mission, then unloading the weapon during tactical mission ADDS the weight of the ammo to the inventory! It should not, as the clip/ammo is already carried one would say... but it does! And it actually applies to all weapons... Example: While in inventory, the HEVY has a weight of 40 during tactical mission it has the same weight loaded - so the weight probably includes the ammo (even if some rounds are already fired).... BUT, as soon as the ammo is unloaded, the ammo weight is ADDED to the overal carried weight of the soldier, resulting in TU penalty, which is totally impossible. Moreover the whole weight of the ammo (16) is added to the inventory, even if half is already "gone." It seems to me as a mistake, the initial clip is likely not included in the calculation of the total weapon weight, therefore if unloaded, its weight is added to the inventory... I would like to suggest therefore, that the weight of the weapons is reduced for the weight of the ammo (empty rifle weight of 16, clip weight of 4, weight of loaded rifle = 20). HEVY weight of 24, loaded weight of 40 (or 32 if loaded with smoke grenades) and/or calculated by each item.
  14. I'd like to suggest the addition of a dedicated spy plane, and a camera/recon attachment that can be put on an existing airplane. What I envision this doing would, if you were to fly the plane over a crashed UFO site or some other aboveground mission site, you would start with the terrain revealed. Not the enemy locations, just the terrain. To work, the plane would have to go out and return before sending out the attack squad, and would need to overfly the mission site during the day. (The in-universe explanation would be that the recon photos would be used in the pre-mission briefing, so the soldiers would know what the terrain is. Out of universe, this would be to prevent you from having the recon flight go over the mission site right before the transport arrives.) For UFO crash sites, this could also tell the player what some of the aliens present at that crash site are, before the player gets the Quantum Array. To balance this, if the plane attachment is used, then the hostiles would know you are coming. This would result in a UFO crash site expiring sooner, potentially preventing you from waiting for daybreak, meaning that you would have to decide to go in blind during the day, or go in with more info, but risk needing to do a night mission (this is why needing to go back to base with the pictures before sending the transport out is important), and maybe adding the risk of Cleaner presence at the crash site. For Cleaner bases, them knowing you are coming could mean additional Cleaner troops present at mission start, or fewer turns before reinforcements start coming. If the player instead builds a dedicated spy plane, I'd say that would give a far lower chance of the plane being noticed, resulting in a lowered chance of the negative effects. In turn though, the player would be instead paying for this with money, resources, and a hanger slot being used for a non-combat aircraft.
  15. I wonder if it would be possible and more interesting to approach the aftermath of cleaner base mission differently. After the base is taken, Xenonaut forces would occupy the cleaner base - it triggers some research, which is fine, but it would make a lot of sense to defend it until the research is complete... the player would have to hire scientists and start the research. The remnants of the cleaners could try to re-take it several times, which would give the player a lot of fun as well defending it. As the base is an external one, the units protecting it would have to be brought and kept/rotated there. After all research would be completed, the base attacks from the cleaners would subside and the base would remain as an external installation for the player to use as an installation for research, enhanced workshop effectivity and/or income generation. The base itself would remain as is. It has some storage capacity, upgraded lab and workshop, a quantum device, a generator, living quarters and no hangar. No additional facilities could be built. What do you think guys?
  16. So, 100 hours in and hitting the wall. I'll be giving my advise and suggestions about the game so far! Starting off, I loved Xenonauts 1 as it held that simplicity of classic Fallout games with an in depth calculation and effect system to stats. 1. Panic system. It felt a bit difficult to cover other parts of the planet that were having anomalies or abduction reports. not actual missions. And these were adding to the panic level that effects the funding. ... in suggestion, the further away these UFO anomalies and sightings are from a City landmark, the lesser the panic. This will better effect late game when theres upwards of 3+ UFO groups on the map at the same time. 2. Cleaners. These guys are kinda, unexplained. Itd be best to have them maybe as a 3rd party encounter in one of the other missions, rather than the first mission being that you bust into their Regional HQ to grab some flashdrives. They are also very tough, very accurate, and deal lot of damage. they have accelerator rifles. something i dont get till a little later, but they all have them. At the first Clearers mission, i dont have these weapons yet or they are hard to build due to a lack of resources. Even in the easiest mode. In suggestion, itd be best if these guys were better scaled to events. 3. Air combat. I hear is being refined still. 4. Ground Combat. The penalties for blocked shots is too harsh. with a sniper rifle, shooting over a 3 foot box is -40%. this is when nether I nor the enemy is taking cover behind it. Same with guard rails. Point blank is overly harsh. I hear that its being looked into. Bring back overwatch point usage. Before in Xeno 1 it made the remaining of your TU yellow indicating that those points are reserved for overwatch. The chances of shooting things RIGHT infront of you that you dont want to hit is too high. This is more that theres too many thing blocking shots when they shouldnt be. Burst fire is just about useless as the % is not per bullet in the burst but the entire attack. Shields feel to be very underwhelming as I used to basically run shields for cover back in Xeno 1. 5. Prep system/Base/assets. I like the prep system carry over from Xeno 1, but I feel that some things are too heavy. Steel Ballistic plates are between 5 and 10lbs irl. As for the Deploy aircraft, id addon that there should be better different tiers of deploy aircraft. You have the ability to deploy as many as the aircraft can load, rather than having that extra space. I suggest the FIRST deployment aircraft to be something like a UH-1. The UH-1D can carry 10 troops and will deploy out the sides. the UH-60 can carry 12. Theres the CH-46, 47, and 53 to pick from when increasing tier, deploy the back and sides. So forth. just a bit of extra depth before hitting the sci-fi stuff This is really all I have in mind and I look forward to what the endgame of the development will bring! ========Edit addition 6. General pricing. So, the general pricing of everything seems to be placeholder I'm guessing. a Radar Array being 400,000 the 2nd jet aircraft being 500,000, MARS costs 250,000. Some armors costing upwards of 25,000, as the stun gun costs 20,000, the laser turret defense upgrade costing 250,000. Alot of these things dont feel quite right. Specially not with the funding provided.
  17. The lore and narrative aspects of Xenonauts are some of it's strong suits (see game setting and research tree posts). One way to enhance this aspect would be through the existing archive. I have various suggestions, that range from simple (I hope) UI improvement to more daring and ressources consuming ideas. I will try to list them from the most simple ones to the most "complicated" or ressource consuming looking. Before exposing the list of ideas, I have to point out that, even if people invested in the game and on this forum do like the lore aspect of it, it's very probable that most people will not care as much. So, all of what follows really are flavour and polish features. They could enhance the game, but they might also not be noticed if people just are not inclined or incentivised to engage with them. A lot has already been done here, such as giving an interesting story as well as "operation" relevant info in the reports. The "better ending if you pay attention" option and the music also need a mention. I also have to point out a bias on my part : I'm an history student and love stories, lore and history. I am thus a necrophiliac pervert and my opinion regarding the literal archive in the game that has the lore stuff might not be the more bankable way of doing things. I also have to point out that all this data saved could not be good for the save files, but I leave it to the tech wizards. I'm just worried and try to be good. 1. Classification system in the archive. Have subfolders for the different items in the archive, such as technical reports, autopsies, etc. This is the "first step" for most of the following ideas. A research tool for titles and or content of documents could be nice, but it will probably be a luxury and not really necessary if the classification system is done right (there is not THAT much reports). 2. Add files for the existing technologies and facilities at the start of the game. When the player takes over the Xenonauts organization, they do so in medias res. The war is already ongoing, even if in its first stage. But the organization has a long history. Such files could give a basic tutorial for the player who bothered to take the time AND give him some basic understanding of the setting. They don't have to be long or numerous, they could even be grouped into two or three synthetic files. Below, a few examples of the info that could be handed out. - Document on the barracks ; explain the way stuff and recruitment go on. Expand on the multinational aspect of the organisation with reference to multiple language signs, and so on. Could be grouped with the hangar and barracks under "logistics". - New document on the training facility could be handed out when built and give some more background on the old days when the xenonauts had funding and the world was not yet perhaps doomed. - Document on the radar and it's fancy UFO spotting technology. Could be grouped with the lab : it's about tech. - Document on the hangar that would give basic info on how aircraft delivery, rearm, refuel and repair work. - New document on the medical center when built could give basic info on how injuries work. Could also give trivia and data about the daily life of the base. - Document on the workshop could give out good info on resource management, especially if ideas brought up here are implemented. Could be merged with the hangar and the barracks I suppose, due to the logistic aspect of it all. Logistics could even be the name of the file. - Document on the labs could flesh out the Gaius Baltar like guy that is competent and really smug about it when he files the reports, or when he sees you at the coffee machine and does not replenish the water. What a jerk. Background story and tech priority advice too (meaning : give some tips on how the player could engage with the tech system, he does not have to stress about this or that, autopsy reports will come in automatically, etc.). Could be grouped with radar : it's about tech. 3. Mission reports and history. Give the feeling of an organisation that crunch data and allow the player to review what they are doing. Could give a more palpable feel of the work already done… and help the player depress or keep it's head high, depending on the amount of WIN vs LOSS registered, or the daunting cost of victories. - A list of all interceptions, planes and UFOs involved, equipment involved, and the result. The battle reports, but neatly filed, if you want. - Same thing, but for ground operations. - A list of all orbital bombardment that happened, with casualties and effects on terror - It would allow the devs to put in some custom reports… regarding certain previous incidents long before the current war or at the very start of said war. 4. Soldiers files or lists. For maximum paperwork effect and immersion. Shortcuts could be placed in the barracks menu. It sounds like busy work for the devs however. - Automatically generated list or individual files of soldier on duty and performance (medals, kills, whatever is pertinent) -> thing is, the barrack already kinda does this, so the devs might not want to bother. - Automatically generated list or individual files of soldiers that died on duty and performance (medals, kills, whatever is pertinent) -> again, barrack... - Give previous service of soldiers like it was done in Xenonauts 1. Not necessarly archive related, but desserve a mention. -> barrack again... so... why do I feel like the barrack compete with the archive ? 5. A function in the archive, for each tech or report in order for you to rubber stamp the technology or data dissemination (or an info to say it's under way, if you did it when the tech popped up, or if it is automatic). The idea of it being a choice could be that, if one of your allies is compromised by aliens, you might not want to keep them in the loop. It might be more relevant in the Geoscape however. Another way to play it would be to have a panel of info, somewhere (or reports in the archive) that give updates on the current state of technology dissemination. The lab could also be a candidate. 6. Give the archive a literal physical building as well as… its own document about the archive in the archive of course ! - It could help to give more personality to your first base, more lore input, background, old sweet deliciously dusty stuff, that could give more of an HQ feel to your first base, as well as gravitas, because paper ALWAYS adds gravitas. - That would require art, however, for the archive building… and it would probably be a unique building. So… remember about my bias ? - I'm not saying that this building could also act as a strategic place in the base, some kind of last stand bunker to protect precious data and make the player engage with the history of the Xenonauts by the fact that the concrete walls of the archive protect the soldiers in dire situation, and it's deep knowledge help for the sake of Humankind, but, yeah. Praise be to the archive, may it's documents be plentiful and it's walls everlasting without humidity. 7. Add an archivist. A flavour thing, and the lady that is the (I suppose, I do not know her exact function) strategic assistant/officer could fill in just as well. 8. As you complete projects for them, you could have access to data about the forces and data that your founders have or had. That sounds like a lot of work and would probably be better one the geoscape, but, again, I love the archive (even in it's bland state) and want it to be loved by everyone. So here it is. I hope some of these ideas are good, and I hope the motivation behind it is also good.
  18. Other than the first time you capture an enemy unit/commander (like in X1) , is there any bonus for capturing enemies? I think it'd be cool to get extra money for styling on the enemy sorta like how it is with not blowing them up doesn't destroy their guns you can sell. If there isn't anything like that right now, maybe it could be attributed as organ harvesting and selling. What do you guys think?
  19. Maxim 56. Infantry exists to paint targets for people with real guns. I've played many games like Xenonaughts (X-com, UFO:After-whatever, Phoenix Point) and one thing that has always annoyed me is that there is no off-map support. Like, we're fighting off an invasion by a technologically superior enemy, and we are LOSING, and the powers-that-be can't be bothered to give us fire support? We got aircraft, why can't one of them strafe the enemy lines? Or have our transport stop a kilometer from the fight, and drop off two guys with a mortar? Calling out for people to rain hell down on the enemy positions have been a staple of human combat since WW1! Why aren't we doing that now? (salt) Now I know that this would shift the balance in the player's favor, but if the xenos are beating the regular armies of earth, they should be showing it. Give the xenos a CIWS, either deployed or mounted to a robot or something. Have the ufo's weapon systems be operational, and shoot back at the air support. If we want to be able to call in artillery from a nearby base, it would take time for them to get set up, which the xenos could use to fortify their position or destroy valuable artifacts.
  20. It would be a great addition to the game devs: air support, like air strike, bombing, drone reconissance during missions. what do you think?
  21. So this came to mind when listening to this album while catching sebillians, but what are the odds of letting the Sebillian Leaders regenerate past death unless pasted like a dang T-1000?
  22. I honestly had no idea what to call this suggestion when I was making the thread. So, when playing games like this you basically have to make a choice of how much you want to "save-scum". Some choose the ironman approach, which has even become an official setting in newer games, while others choose to reload missions and even turns if things don't go as planned. So I've been thinking -- how about an option to allow the player to save the game, but to regenerate certain things each time they do so? I'm primarily thinking of ground attack missions here -- you would be able to save the game, but each time you load the save game, the placement of aliens, civilians, and so on in the fog of war is generated again. This means that you would be able to "save-scum" by loading a mission if it goes badly, but that you couldn't do this to "learn the scenario by heart" to perfect your approach. Each time you reload, you're playing the scenario for the first time, especially if you were only allowed to save at the beginning of a ground assault mission when playing with this system. The map itself would be the same, but Of course players could use this system to repeatedly generate missions to make things easier for them by for example reloading if they find an alien in a good position, kinda like how you can start new games of Civ to get that perfect city spot with the exact resources you want and whatnot, but I think that it could also present a nice challenge to players who use it seriously, so to speak .
  23. With the expanding emphasis on plot in X2, I decided that I'd voice an opinion about the returning Aliens: I, for one, would prefer to see a larger emphasis on new alien types. Whiles I do quite like the look of the Praetors and Androns, none of the other Aliens stood out for me. I'm not saying that the old Aliens should not return; I think that the Caesans and Sebillians should stay, as they are the more iconic of the Aliens. I think that, with the new emphasis on plot, there is an opportunity to make truly unique and distinct alien types. I would like like to finish this statement by saying that I do love the artwork made for the games and that I am not saying that I wouldn't buy the game over something so trivial, just that I would prefer different enemies.
  24. This may be a popular or unpopular opinion, I'd like to hear you guys opinion. So psi has been quite an important part of the Xenonauts, X-COM and XCOM games and have added mystery and unpredictability and overall improved the story. My problem is it featuring in combat. Start mission with well equipped squad. Let's do this! MG in the back spontaneously gun down the two in front of him. Move across the map making no tactical errors. Enemies are taken by surprise and barely have time to fire back. Two experienced soldiers run around cowering in corners. Make good use of my best shield guy in open area. Confidently holding his ground defending comrade behind him. Drop shield, stand up and both get shot. Finally at the UFO, all stacked up and almost ready, just have to reload. Rifleman fires at a wall pinning two of his mates. Allright that's solved and everyone is doing good. Shotgun wielding god who basically carried the mission so far get scared by a lizard or cloud or something and drops his weapon, runs into the ufo and is evenly distributed over the walls by reaction fire. I save the game and consider savescumming. End up just playing some other game instead. This is why I've stopped playing Xenonauts and most Xcoms. Psi for me just makes the combat arbitrary and unfair. When I get my own magic spells it doesn't get much more fun because both sides just kill themselves. It is in my opinion a game mechanic that punish you without a previous error or foolish move on your part. In chess it's not allowed to flick elastic bands at the oposite player's pieces, just like I don't like bs magic spells interfering in a TACTICAL combat SIMULATOR. Let me know what you think. Do I have a point or should I just git gud?
  25. Played free demo, and have some things to say about that. I hope you devs will make a great game, but if it will have the same state on release, and same weaknesses like Xenonauts 1 had, I won't buy it. I know that game is in development right now, so I estimate what I saw it game right now and, especially, what I don't like in it for now. 1) Really bad displaying of UI, battlefield, and fonts on small resolutions. Made some post with screenshot about that. 2) No immersion. Operatives dressed like some american police team assaulting drug dealer's home (blue uniform, helmets only on assaulters with shotguns), not like some special military forces. No voice acting except death screaming. Pretty empty landscape, no decorative objects, no decorative hummocks or|and pits. Operatives have weird movement mechanics, can't lean out of cover without standing up in front of enemy. 3) Weird crouch and movement mechanics. Only one crouch button, but absolutely no any other advanced movement, and operative can't even walk in crouch. If you played JA2, you should know how advanced movement should look in that type of games, but if you want to remove that element at all, you should make some automatic positioning according to cover, like it made in firaxis' XCOM. 4) Blackness instead of the fog of war on the borders of the map breaks the immersion. And there are no differences between map boundaries and unexplored zone on battlefield for now, which is confusing. 5) No zoom. I can't look closer at anything for now. Would be really nice to have it. 6) Stepped operative-to-enemy aiming line with every obstacle written on it, which looks weird in full 3D game, where player expexts to see straight line. 7) No way to see how good your operative sees the enemy he aims at. In Firaxis' XCOM game shows you something like line of sight when you aims at enemy, which gives you idea of how well the operative sees the enemy. There is nothing like that in that game for now. 8) Operative can't shoot at things at 90 degrees standing behind the wall. Like in 2d-games, yeah, but I hope you'll teach them that they can shoot without going out of cover full-length. n) Forum logged me off exactly on submitting this post first time without any caching, thanks to that guy who made me lose 2 hrs. So that's why this post written in some angry way, I apologize for that (but not much). Thanks for reading. I hope that you'll make a great game, but you don't really need to make the same Xenonauts 1 second time in 3d with careful transferring of all limitations of 2d-engine to a new game.
×
×
  • Create New...