Newest release -- my impressions

[Safe-Keeper]

Overall -- I have to say, again, that I love this game so much. The graphics, background artwork, music and all the little touches like the news feed at the bottom of the geoscape screen, it all comes together to create one of the most immersive games I've ever played. Immersion seems to be a bit of a "lost art" these days, and I love it when I get to play a game that actually scares me or creeps me out, or makes me feel emotionally invested in what's going on. I find myself jumping every single time I hear a shot fired during Hidden Movement, and I get this "grim" feeling when playing the game, no matter if I'm watching the geoscape, managing my base or forces, or fighting in the air or on the ground.

Tactical combat

1. I feel very strongly there should be some way of interacting with civilians to get them out of harm's way, if only simply receiving direct control of them when you are within x tiles. Just makes very little sense to me that operatives would just leave innocents to run around and get shot when they could perfectly well just have brought them into the cover of a building and secured them with handcuffs, per standard police procedure.

A compromise of sorts would be the game giving you control of a civilian when a soldier or vehicle has visual contact and is within x tiles. The only thing you could do with the civilian, however, would be to move him. You would not be able to make him pick up weapons, and you would not see what he saw. If you ordered him to move into an area outside your visual range, you would lose control of him and he would disappear from view. In addition to this, any soldier next to a civilian could cuff him (you would do this by simply selecting the soldier, then right-clicking the civilian -- no cuff item or anything needed), making him crouch and stay in place until told to move by the player (or perhaps unless he came under direct fire). Civilians would also be subject to "low morale panic mode" when under player control, making them run off or refuse to comply, like your soldiers in X-Com UFO Defense when their morale dropped too low.

2. I like the idea of having the game automatically switch to showing walls and ceilings, and the interiors of buildings, depending on your visibility. Took a little to get used to, but I love it now. Only... I wish there was an option to override it and see the interiors of buildings (and your dropship and whatnot) for "battle planning" purposes.

3. Could you experiment with not "lighting up" tiles near the troops, but just keep all tiles the same bright/dark (depending on time of day/light level) lighting? I find that when I play games that do this, such as Ground Control and World in Conflict, I don't really miss the "fog of war" because it's really a matter of common sense what you can and can't see anyhow. What Ground Control did back in the day was letting you press the "R" button while hovering your mouse over a unit to see two circles denoting that unit's line of sight/weapon ranges. Xenonauts could do the same thing, where you could, for example, hold a button to "light up" the tiles your troops could see, whenever you were uncertain if certain tiles were covered by your men.

Dogfights

Really like the "twist" of having an actual tactical system for dogfights, rather than just the old X-Com style system where winning or losing was pretty much just a matter of who had the biggest gun. They're not realistic in any way, of course, because in reality fighters are engaged from beyond-visual-range, not in close-quarter dogfights, WWII style, but I find that doesn't bother me, the system works so well I'm very, very glad it's in. Couple thoughts, though:

1. I'm not really sure what I feel about the red-green colour scheme, to be honest. I know it's meant to look like a radar display, but I feel it looks a bit "simple" and clashes with the rest of the game. Maybe you could try shades of grey for the grid and UI instead, and leave the aircraft and whatnot green?

2. As it is, each aircraft has its own set of buttons, so that the "roll" buttons are a distance apart. Could the UI be rearranged somehow so that the various command buttons are right next to one another, if you know what I mean?

Edited March 18, 2012 by Safe-Keeper
Added shading idea

[Gauddlike]

Generally some nice suggestions there .

The only one I will disagree with is controlling civilians.

I really hated having to run scientists out of harms way in Apoc and I feel that adding a similar feature here would be a mistake.

If civilians near your troops were to head to safety automatically (assuming there is a safe spot on the map) then that might work but please don't make us have to direct them manually.

[Szabtom]

hold a button to "light up" the tiles your troops could see, whenever you were uncertain if certain tiles were covered by your men.

+1

With a click or a hotkey button we could check which tiles are visible for the units. Would be great to have two views: one view to see all tiles visible/spotted by the team, so we can know which areas are covered. And another one to see what the selected soldier can see while giving orders.

[zzz]

Only really needed is ability to move civilians from doorway. Beating them with batons, or especially to shoot it is inhumane i think.

[Gauddlike]

Civilian AI is to be set to make them run from your troops as well as aliens.

If you open a door to find it blocked then you know the civvie will be running for cover when it can anyway.

+1

With a click or a hotkey button we could check which tiles are visible for the units. Would be great to have two views: one view to see all tiles visible/spotted by the team, so we can know which areas are covered. And another one to see what the selected soldier can see while giving orders.

I am not really sure what you mean by this suggestion.

You can already see which tiles are visible can't you?

[Safe-Keeper]

It was a reply to one of the suggestions in my OP.

[Gauddlike]

I understood that, I just wasn't sure how that would be of benefit over the current system.

Or for that matter how it was any different to the current implementation.

If tiles are currently lit up what is the advantage of darkening them until you press a button to light them up?

I think I played ground control a bit when it was released but it hasn't stuck in my mind well enough for the reference to help me follow the logic

[Safe-Keeper]

If tiles are currently lit up what is the advantage of darkening them until you press a button to light them up?

It does a lot for immersion, same as with GC and WiC. The classic RTS approach of darkening tiles you can't see and brightening the ones you can see, as if your units glow in the dark works, sure, but WiC's approach does wonders for immersion and doesn't sacrifice any gameplay.

[Chris]

A couple of these points have been addressed in the new build, but here's my responses in brief:

1) Possibly something to put in the beta but I'm still not convinced that allowing the player to control civilians is worthwhile. They will run from both aliens and Xenonaut troops at present so I'm not sure I see the value.

2) We're looking at making this more intuitive, but there is a Toggle Roof button in the new build.

3) This would not be trivial to start playing about with and we have other things to work on. At the moment I think if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

4) It should be prettier now, although it is still red / green.

5) We're hoping to add a right-click contextual menu for each interceptor which should make that easier. Also the buttons are bigger and clearer on the new UI.

[Safe-Keeper]

Couple more ideas:

- "Launch when ready" command for refuelling/damaged aircraft in the Intercept window?

- The ability to press Esc to quit the Research screen

- Perhaps a higher grade of transparency for the windows that have 2D art behind them. It's a bit difficult to see the backgruond sometimes, which is a shame given their quality .