Suggestions

[Ron-Damon]

Hi, I've been playing Xenonauts for the last coupple of days, after the Steam release. Great Work!

Anyways, so far I have a coupple of suggetions:

1) Idle Animations: I would really like it to be some kind of idle animations for characters, just to feel the game a little bit more "alive" all the time. I think the graphics are very good, so it is necessary to give this feature to the game. Thank you

2) Quicksave: Most modern games has this option, original X-COM didn't but almost no games had it on 94 (if any).

Cheers!

[Commissar Pancakes]

Idle Animations:

While this would be lovely...it's just way too much work due to the art-style chosen...

Example: Idle animations for the basic jumpsuit

(however many frames the animation takes) x Number of weapons/items x 8(directional facings) x 2 (for crouching)

Then multiply this by all the different armor sets available to the Xenonauts.

And then there's the aliens...

Quicksaves:

Iron man mode? (saves every turn)

Don't know if this is possible to implement. Would be useful but I kinda prefer the full saves (this is coming from a guy that plays STALKER on Master difficulty quite often).

[Ron-Damon]

Idle Animations:

While this would be lovely...it's just way too much work due to the art-style chosen...

Example: Idle animations for the basic jumpsuit[/u][/b]

(however many frames the animation takes) x Number of weapons/items x 8(directional facings) x 2 (for crouching)

Then multiply this by all the different armor sets available to the Xenonauts.

And then there's the aliens...

Of course it would consider some work, but if you think about it you already have animations on every direction for the shooting and dying and other actions. Also, I think it is really worth the effort because it would look much better and would also be an improvement from the original games (wich also had some idle animations on the form of floating and stuff like that, was very basic of course).

Quicksaves:

Iron man mode? (saves every turn)

Don't know if this is possible to implement. Would be useful but I kinda prefer the full saves (this is coming from a guy that plays STALKER on Master difficulty quite often).

Of course the option of whether to use it all the time or not depends on the user, but it is preciselly why I'm asking for it... I sometimes like to use it, some other time not. Also, I don't lik playing on Iron man mode (even on the original UFO).

[Gauddlike]

Of course it would consider some work, but if you think about it you already have animations on every direction for the shooting and dying and other actions. Also, I think it is really worth the effort because it would look much better and would also be an improvement from the original games (wich also had some idle animations on the form of floating and stuff like that, was very basic of course).

Remember that all animations used in the game require a 3D model to be animated then rendered into several individual sprites, sometimes as many as 30 for the more complicated animations.

Those sprites then need to be painted over in photoshop to match the art style of the rest of the game and any borders, tidying, or resizing done.

The sprites are then combined into an animation spritesheet which can be read by the game and any problems like animation speed etc ironed out.

That gives you a single facing animation for a single armour type using a single weapon.

Now you need to repeat the process for every other facing with every other armour type carrying every other weapon.

Basic armour alone has around 84 different weapon combinations, multiplied by 8 facings.

Then double that number if you want kneeling idle animations as well as standing.

Six of the other suits of armour have around the same number while predator has a lot less.

That looks like around 6800 idle animations.

Assuming a short, basic repeating breathing animation over maybe 5 frames you are looking at 34000 frames of animation to be generated using the above process.

Unless of course you want a more complicated system where they occasionally look around, adjust their armour, check their weapon etc.

That may need a lot more work.

[Chris]

Idle animations aren't really feasible, but a quicksave button certainly might be a worthwhile addition.