Recovering lost nations? Also, advice of stopping nations from leaving.

[obsidian_razor]

Hi guys, old X-Com vet here.

While I tried a bit the beta version of Xenonauts, it was still when it had horrid balance issues, so I put it away and now I've jumped right in.

I have been playing it mostly as I used to play my X-Com games, and results in missions have been good. Keeping my dudes alive (for the most part) scavenging tech, getting green results all around.

However, after my 3 month, I got a massive funding drop and lost 2 nations in a row. I've checked their map and noticed that their attitude is "bad". I imagine this is because of UFO activity in the vicinity, but at month 3 I was setting up my 2nd base and starting my 3rd, funds were waaaaay bellow tackling the whole globe.

Admittedly, I assumed that things would be like in the original x-com, where while as long as you keep shooting down ufos and doing positive score missions, most nations stay with you, even if you've never flown an interceptor over them. Here they seem to be more picking, but my interceptors don't even have enough air-time to reach this places (my first base was in central Europe so I could cover EU + Soviet Bloc, my second in lower USA so I could cover USA, Mexico and most of Canada. I lost Indochina and South Africa).

This has basically been a massive blow to my game, funding is so tight right now I cannot afford new interceptors, and the old F-17 are starting to be outdated (just discovered the Corsair).

So what are my options? If this is like classic X-com, I should probably scrap and start again (not looking forward to that). I was wondering if I could get those nations to fund me back and if not, how to stop this from happening in other games.

Cheers!

[Sandyxx]

the problem is in fact, that game spawns ufos randomly. and easily outside of maximal range of interceptors.

basicaly it's punish player for bad luck instead of bad skills\decisions.

i'm think, that for an first months game should spawn ufos inside 1200 bases radius and extends borders with time.

e.g. first month 90% that ufo will be spawned inside player radar range. second 60%, third 30% fourth - all planet.

(more correctly here would be descripe base radar range as standart deviation)

and problem is that you can't predict where would ufos strike next time. with reloading from 25th october to end of the month, i've achieved results from -600k and two nations leave to +400 k and allmost all are happy.

in original ufo you could look at graphs and see where aliens has begun their activity, and build base correspondingly to counter them.

also you should know, that sea is counted as nations territory.

[Gavinrad]

In the Long War mod for Enemy Within, they tied enemy base assaults to recapturing lost countries (you automatically lose one country in the first month to serve as the mandatory base assault target needed to advance the plot). I wonder if it might be possible to mod something similar for Xenonauts, where a special base assault mission could bring a country back into the fold.

[Chris]

One thing I've noticed is that in V1.03 alien bases are only detected on average 25 days after they are set up (it was meant to be less than a week).

They cause significant funding damage to the nation they are in each day, so it's possible that one of those invisibly wrecked a funding nation in month 3. Also, Bombers appear about that time and they need to be dealt with quickly or will do a lot of relations damage.

[llunak]

One thing I've noticed is that in V1.03 alien bases are only detected on average 25 days after they are set up (it was meant to be less than a week).

I don't think this matters much in practice for a skilled player who'll very quickly notice the consistent decrease in funding that makes finding any alien base rather easy.

[Caaygun]

Yeah I'd actually prefer them not being automatically detected so easily, or at least be difficulty based.