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Xenonauts follow-on?


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Hi all,

I am new to this forum but have been playing Xenonauts for a while. I'd logged up over 1,800 hours with the new XCOM and got bored. Xenonauts is a refreshing change and I think on the whole I like it more - the dev team has nailed the flavour of the old XCOM and also nailed the creepyness and the 1970's atmosphere.

One thing I ESPECIALLY like is that the Terrans cannot use psionics. I really hope that this does not change - the aliens need to keep SOMETHING that we cannot ever copy.

But, looking to the future, I think the "game engine" would be a great vehicle for resurrecting a game I loved to play years ago, the Avalon Hill board game of STARSHIP TROOPERS. If you have only ever seen the movie, forget that. The movie was junk. The original book and the AH board game were really excellent.

I have already suggested the idea to Chris E, but I think his hands are full just now and he has no plans to take it on. BUT, if anyone else thinks a turn-based ST - where two-player games would pit the Terrans against the Bugs in a PBEM mode - would be a good idea, say so here. If the Dev Team sees enough interested people then it MAY get a slot in the future "games list", and that would be enough for me.

cheers

Kim

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The problems with the game engine for Xenonauts are legion; check the dev diary for details of how they spent much of the development time fighting the damn thing. For a Starship Troopers game one major issue you will find is lack of support for tall units i.e. units that expand upwards into the cube above themselves.

Bombrik; the game is considered feature complete now, so there is some bug-fixing going on. A lot of access has been granted to the modding community though, and that is where the new updates will be coming from.

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For the follow-on game I was imagining something along the lines of X-COM:Apocalypse together with War of the Worlds. You'd be defending a single city, as in Apocalypse, since that's about all you'd be able to cover with such things as the Vickers Vimy and Sopwith Camel. It might be interesting to combine Apocalypse-like technical development, such as stargate technology and alien-toxic ammunition with historical inventions like the assault rifle and rocketry, since you're starting sixty years earlier. I'm thinking a cool endgame type would be "Nuke the bastards" (a line from Independence Day), and have your own Manhattan Engineer District ...only to find out that they know that trick already and you need to try something different (mostly because I hate nukes. Powerplants, aye. Bombs, big nay.)

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  • 1 month later...

Goldhawk's next big game has been confirmed as very much not Xenonauts (but still TBS). I think Chris has said in the past he would rather do a total remake based on the Xenonauts concept with the lessons learned from making it than a sequel, but that's still a long way from that comment to any possible future plans.

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Enemy Unknown was a 10 out of 10 game that you can still play 20 years later. Xenonauts gets a 7 from me.

I'd rather just have Xenonauts 2. The same again but with added features, triple the scenery, more guns/tech, gameplay tweaks, and the obvious flaws fixed.

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It simply isn't possible to make a 10 / 10 X-Com game today. The improvements that people expect in order to make a 10 / 10 game in the modern age require changes to the XCom formula, and if you change the formula you get accused of not making a faithful remake. The original game existed in a time period where the flaws in the formula were tolerated because games weren't so advanced back then - the same isn't true today.

Not to say that Xenonauts couldn't have been done better but using better tech would only really add 10% or so to the review scores due to the improved presentation and performance. If your issue with the game isn't due to our crappy engine or occasionally dubious UI choices then Xenonauts 2 is unlikely to fix your issues. I'd just suggest installing Skitso's map pack and updating to X:CE.

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As a venerable sage of the forums, I can say with certainty that remaking TFTD is the number one "follow on to Xenonauts?" that gets asked. I don't think it'll ever get done. Underwater games are a bit of a hard sell.

So. How far CAN you throw a grenade underwater?

:)

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So. How far CAN you throw a grenade underwater?

:)

I think one would have to omit "grenades" in an underwater combat environment. :P

To be honest, I can't think of many underwater style turn-based games out there. I don't recall when the last one was, actually...

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in those years of after completing UFO EU and TFTD, i always fantasize about hows the world (our earth) going to be.

with hell load of laser rifles gets manufactured and sold in the market (to make income during UFO EU time), certain factions in the world (definitely not the current one you think about!) could start a rebellion using these laser rifles as well as other advance equipments, plus, some of the veteran XCOM Colonels, TFTD Captains might go rogue under some hidden agenda ... and the story starts from here.

(at the end, those rogue Colonels and Captains were actually trying to save the world from a greater alien menace!)

Chris, look! lobsters are getting out of control!!!

lobster-man1.jpg

lobster-man1.jpg

lobster-man1.jpg.3f2d79dab9d09f3c2c0e50a

Edited by sectoid
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I think a cool follow on would be a game that takes the attack up to the huge alien fleet orbiting Earth.

Your mission would be to go up and assault the huge ships that orbit the earth with some kind of breacher space craft.

I did briefly consider doing a rip-off of Space Hulk (a la Alien Assault) using Predator teams vs Reapers in that exact setting.

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  • 3 weeks later...
It simply isn't possible to make a 10 / 10 X-Com game today. The improvements that people expect in order to make a 10 / 10 game in the modern age require changes to the XCom formula, and if you change the formula you get accused of not making a faithful remake. The original game existed in a time period where the flaws in the formula were tolerated because games weren't so advanced back then - the same isn't true today.

Not to say that Xenonauts couldn't have been done better but using better tech would only really add 10% or so to the review scores due to the improved presentation and performance. If your issue with the game isn't due to our crappy engine or occasionally dubious UI choices then Xenonauts 2 is unlikely to fix your issues. I'd just suggest installing Skitso's map pack and updating to X:CE.

I agree with what you say. I think the other person's scrore of 7 is a little low - most of the professional and user reviews hover closer to 8 for a start! However, what I would say is that somewhere in there there is scope for most people to find changes to the XCom formula that the vast majority would see as an improvement. You yourself added the removal of psychic capabilities for a start.

I think that there is an opportunity here on multiple fronts:

1) I think these forums can be changed to support another sub-forum for requested enhancements and changes. Small changes to the game that either were annoying in the original, has no place in today's UI or simply an improvement. Ideally voting buttons should be available on the top post so that people can vote with their feet so you can gauge the popularity of the idea by the masses.

2) There is a huge fan base and modding community out there - but rather than people downloading mods that might seem out of place or unbalance the game, to have some resource in place to add these bits to the main game. One of the problems of the clones like Afterlight is that the missions became too samey. The other problems with modding communities have often been that their additions don't fit in properly or don't work quite right or your average Joe simply doesn't want to download them incase it tarnishes the game. I play a game called Freelancer and there are huge mods out there, but a lot of people like myself don't use them because we're never sure of what issues it causes and may corrupt / unbalance the main game. But it is a resource to draw upon for development studios.

3) There are running commentary reviews like IGN:

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/08/07/xenonauts-review

They like many of the reviews out there do summarise the game as being 100% faithful keeping the good, the bad and the ugly into today's version of the game. They make some quite good points on what they'd have expected today - changes which would be seen as an improvement by over 99% of the XCom fans and people new coming into the game.

My only concern is how a lot of this gets funded. I am happy to pay for expansion packs - although I'd recommend lots of small enhancement packs that are well targeted in what they do. Steam in particular is well suited to supporting these (look at games like Talisman).

I also think that the Xenonauts project has been lengthy and tiring for the development team and there is a bit of fatigue on this game and looking forwards to making a different game. I'd suggest running with that but within 5 years, a lot of mods, feedback and the hunger to improve this game will have returned as it has time and time again with the old XCom and a few small enhancement packs to please the fans could possibly be targeted. The advantage with this approach is that the major bugs would have been fixed by then so that fixes to multiple code streams are less likely to be an issue and more focus on improvement can be made.

Just my thoughts. Thanks again for a great product. :)

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As a venerable sage of the forums, I can say with certainty that remaking TFTD is the number one "follow on to Xenonauts?" that gets asked. I don't think it'll ever get done. Underwater games are a bit of a hard sell.

In all fairness, I think its just fans commenting off the top of their head as the next natural progression.

Terror From the Deep added very little value to the original game. People don't really talk about TFTD.

Any XCom fan that has played TFTD will know that it is largely a lazy sequel to generate money. If you look at the skill trees for example, they are a clone of the original game. Most fans won't even remember the names of the weapons and just remember - oh yes, its the laser equivalent or the plasma equivalent.

The only 2 games that were really worth their salt were UFO: Enemy Unknown and XCom: Apocolypse.

I do think that there is scope for the development team to create their own ideas for underwater missions - but there is little to get from TFTD.

However, it is good to get inspiration from other games. For example, in Apocolypse, enemies had energy shields which required a change in strategy. If you shot at an enemy with an energy shield repeatedly until it failed and then killed the alien, there would be no energy shield research because it was broken. However, if you gas grenaded everything onscreen, you'd capture at least one alien with a working energy shield which you could then start the energy shield research tree. Absolutely fantastic element of the game which required a change in thinking.

Kalten~!!!

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Earth won the battle, but not the war. The praetors are not happy about the setback, and are planning to return in full force; this time for total annihilation. It is simply a matter of time. Realizing this, the Xenonauts calculate that Earth's only chance for survival is to launch a pre-emptive strike directly at the praetor homeworld.

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I think I mentioned this already, but I played far, far more of tftd than I did the original. The idea of playing on the bottom of the ocean really sold it. Fighting in wheat fields is old and tired, buy fighting amongst sunken ships and alien ruins? Yes please!

It just added a new layer. UFO was surface only, but tftd had both surface and underwater missions. Some weapons couldn't function out of the water, I loved that.

In today's gaming world, there is just so much more you can do with this style of game. Look at UFO: ET. There are like 8 tiers of weapons and armor, compares to the three in UFO/tftd. So many techs can be added, expanded upon. New alien types. New places to fight (I.e. both in and out of the water, maybe space stations, on the moon?) Yes, it is all basically just changing maps and not really doing much beyond that, but it really boosts the immersion factor. Why WOULDN'T an invading alien species build bases on the moon, underwater, or set up orbit? Why wouldn't they continue to create or at least carry with them more than 4-5 species? Why wouldn't they continue to advance their technology to better defeat us with, as we advance ours?

To all the people saying tftd was basically worthless, what specifically do you have against fighting underwater? If it was added to Xeno of EU, would it make you stop playing?

Or, go the Sword of the Stars route. Several different layers of tech, but not available in every game. Have like 20 species of aliens that unlock unique tech, but only allow say 10 of them per game. Or 10 different tech levels of weapons and armor, but allow different ones each game. Keep it random, no game would ever feel the same.

Have an expansion where WE actually go to THEIR planet to best them into oblivion. Go on the offensive.

I'm sorry, when I play these types of games, I'm in for the long haul. In EU I currently have some soldiers that have over 900 kills and over 600 missions completed. It sucks that the game is basically stagnant at that point, no new tech coming in, but we are talking about a full out war against an alien invasion of near infinite strength. It blows my mins that people complete the game in only a few months. The only time you really struggle is at the start of the game, and whenever a new tier of aliens/tech is introduced. Is it too much to expect more?

Every xcom game to date does the same thing. Really great start, and peters out about halfway through. You get the highest tier tech, your veterans are basically gods, and every mission is the same. You have the maps and alien spawn points memorized, so you dread having to do a mission, but you do it because you don't want to lose the region. You max out tech in a couple of months, research something that gets the ball rolling for the final mission, steamroll through it, then watch the credits roll. Then do it again and again, the same thing over and over.

Don't get me wrong, xcom style games are bar none my favorite. But you'd think, 20 years since the first one, we would figure out how to take the base game and run with it. Instead of changing it, just add to it. More aliens. More ships. More tech. Make it all random. Mix and match. I would throw gobs and gobs of money at a game that could do this. But everyone seems to have these strange ideas on how to 'reimagine' the original idea, and we end up with shit like the UFO series, or the new xcom, where they have changed so much that it is nothing like the original. At least Xeno got that part right, and I applaud them for it.

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