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Convince me to buy Xenonauts.


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I have been messing around in the demo version of xenonauts for a bit, what reasons are there to buy the full version? What's been changed since v10.2? Anything added? Functionalities changed? Is it worth my 25 dollars, or is there not enough new content to merit the purchase?

Edit: That sounded rudely terse, didn't it? Sorry.

Edit2: probably should say hello or something since I'm new to the forums.

Edited by NotAXeno
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Uhhh honestly it's not a very good "game." The midgame in particular is very repetitive and if you play right you can basically smack down all the dramatic events like terror missions by intercepting. Basically interceptors are way OP and ground battles your troops are way under powered. And the alien psyche attacks are more griefing than fun. I still appreciate the effort but yeah the game is not as good as the original xcom even with the new graphics.

Hopefully mods like XNT will continue getting worked on towards making the good mechanics of the game actually fun

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There are two ways you can use your interceptors, You can : 1. Send them to auto battle, and watch them be destroyed 1/3rd of the time, or do it yourself, and watch them obliterate everything in a fifty mile radious.

Ground battles are really fun if you know what you're doing, and you're cautious, If you absolutely have too much trouble, exploit the save/load function a lot, be conservative, treat this game like chess.

If chess held the fate of mankind in the balance.

I love this game, even the tedious bits, the few things I could think of that down the experience is the hidden move waiting times, And the aim of the AI being nigh godly at some points, but eh, If you plan right, Its beatable.

Just...don't ignore reports, or fights are not gonna be your issue, It'll be funding.

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I have watched a series, but I can't differentiate between what's a mod and what's part of the updates. That's actually where I found the game.

Scott Manley's video series is pretty good and uses Xenonauts: Community Edition, which is pretty similar to how the game will look when we release our final V1.5 update to everyone in the next few weeks.

The demo is well over two years old now, so the game was only around 50% of the way through development then. It wasn't even really a game at that stage.

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I still appreciate the effort but yeah the game is not as good as the original xcom even with the new graphics.

huh. I remember the original, some of the serious bugs it had, and the repetitive gameplay in and of itself. the easy ways to exploit some of the game features... a LOT of that has been fixed in this game. Plus, this game is easy to mod, and already has a number of good mods and maps out there as add ons, let alone being able to tweak just about every aspect of the game yourself.

frankly, I have the exact reverse opinion; this is a BETTER game than the original, considerably so in fact, and continues to be improved upon. The original had the "unique" tag to boost it, and so many turn based strategy games that were similar have come and gone since, that it takes extra work to produce a game that can hold interest in this genre. This game did that for me. Even had good "creepy" factor still. Loved night missions. I was really sold on it when during one night mission, I saw my first reaper in my peripheral vision run past during the alien turn. On my turn... it was not visible. Then I turned around. It was right behind me. literally breathing on my neck. It missed getting me by ONE step. that was frankly, awesome. An experience I never got playing the triple A remake of Xcom.

looking forward to the final polishing of the next 1.5x release, so I can play it all over again.

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It's a well programmed game its just not very fun. It's good at the beginning but by mid-tier every battle is literally exactly the same and if you play well (shoot down most aliens) literally you will fight THE EXACT SAME MISSION 10 TEN TIMES IN A ROW. Also despite your soldiers improving to max they can still get one shotted if you don't grind out one cover jump at a time, over and over. The cool thing about the original xcom (and the new xcom long war mod) is that while your enemy got exponentially harder so did your soldiers, so it was a true survival of the fittest genocidal war. Xenonauts its like, congrats on your pew pew laser upgrade, enjoy grinding through 5000 androns over 50 missions.

XNT will hopefully keep getting developed cause it breaks the "linearity" of the game and really makes more about guerilla/all out warfare against a vicious foe :)

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but by mid-tier every battle is literally exactly the same

which is why I downloaded a map pack from the mods page, and why they added the ability to airstrike crashes if you don't want to spend the time grinding them.

I never did more than 4 or 5 crashes a month.

while your enemy got exponentially harder so did your soldiers

uh, don't know what game you were playing, but by the end, my soldiers were one shotting aliens, had armor that could stop a truck, and had more ways to kill things than Elmer Fudd ever dreamed.

I don't see the difference between this game and the original on that score. In fact, you can prove it to yourself: after 6 months, take the best rookie you can find, and equip it with the first level armor and weapons, and then take your best soldier, and equip it with the stuff you have researched up to that point.

which one does better on a mission?

Edited by Ichthyic
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  • 3 weeks later...
Uhhh honestly it's not a very good "game." The midgame in particular is very repetitive and if you play right you can basically smack down all the dramatic events like terror missions by intercepting. Basically interceptors are way OP and ground battles your troops are way under powered. And the alien psyche attacks are more griefing than fun. I still appreciate the effort but yeah the game is not as good as the original xcom even with the new graphics.

To be fair, all of those things were also true in the original UFO. It took a little longer to get to the point where you could knock down terror ships so you'd have to do some terror missions, but once you could, and you had hyperwave decoders up and running you could effectively halt basically anything the aliens tried to do, and the mid to late game was equally static.

And the in-battle strategies are really very similar. Exactly the same core tactics of not advancing into the unknown without TUs to deal with what you find, moving in groups so that you can confirm killing anything you find without it getting a turn back, managing who and what the aliens use their reaction fire on, etc. The repetition is an inherent part of the game, once you've killed one battleship full of Mutons you've killed them all, with the only slight variation being where the guy with the blaster launcher will be standing this time.

Really, Xenonauts plays a hell of a lot like UFO with a lot of quality of life changes.

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I actually enjoyed some of the changes that added more streamlining (you can get basic equipment for free, don't have to worry about manufacturing/buying ammo, grenades etc), the air combat is improved (even if I haven't quite gotten the hang of it yet and let it autoresolve most times), and lots of other small changes.

The only thing I don't like so much is the increased difficulty curve from the original. I find this to be a very common phenomenon when small/indie devs do 'remakes' of popular games. They get carried away with the difficulty and make them too 'hardcore' in an attempt to please the veterans, so much so that they aren't fun for new or casual players anymore. In this particular case, the psi attacks are even more annoying than in the original because there's no defense against them, there are too many UFOs, and the game is far too stingy with money, making you feel poor all the time. Not only is it no longer profitable to manufacture things for sale, but the amount of money you get from missions is frankly pathetic. I recently cleared out my first alien base, a reason for celebration in the original game, while here it gave me about as much money as assaulting a medium UFO. Seriously?

It's okay if you like a challenge and constant tension, I guess, but for someone who likes to relax and have fun with their games, I wouldn't recommend it.

Edited by Johnny_B
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Uhhh honestly it's not a very good "game." The midgame in particular is very repetitive and if you play right you can basically smack down all the dramatic events like terror missions by intercepting. Basically interceptors are way OP and ground battles your troops are way under powered. And the alien psyche attacks are more griefing than fun. I still appreciate the effort but yeah the game is not as good as the original xcom even with the new graphics.

Hopefully mods like XNT will continue getting worked on towards making the good mechanics of the game actually fun

So with that regard you dont think that ufo is a very good ''game'' as well.Once you get plasma and power/flying armor the game becomes a breeze,untill you get in contact with ethereals that keep mindcontrolling you and silacoids that kill you in 2 hits,you wont have to worry about nothing really.Add in the hyperwave decoders and put them in all of your bases and you basicaly can detect every terror and battleship in the world.Sure it may have taken alot longer than xenonauts which is personaly for me the part you get wolf armor and completed lazer technology,but atleast by then you havent discovered every kind of alien and you havent yet met a single battleship by that point of the game.In conclusion xenonauts is based on the original ufo defense,expecting some flaws of the original game to not appear in this wishfull thinking.

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  • 2 weeks later...

In answer to the original question, if you have played and liked almost any TBS? Give this a try. It takes a little time to get into, but it is easily one of those games that has "one more turn" in spades. I know what is being said about the game being repetitive, which it can be to a degree, but it has one-button clicks to minimise this if you choose, and unexpected things happen a lot.

Last mission my top sniper ended up exposed as I'd sent him too far ahead, and a Reaper I never saw came running out of nowhere behind him. An NPC policeman hiding behind a crate, who I also never saw, emptied his pistol (weakest gun in the game) into it when it was 1 tile away from my Sniper, and killed it.

Next mission the sniper died anyway when an Andron simply walked straight through the wall he was hiding behind and shot him point-blank.

It's one of those games where unexpected, unscripted events have a way of ruining your day. Or making it. But they are never truly unfair - there's always something you could have done differently to have a different outcome.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Fun fact: steam's russian initial price in roubles + fall in exchange made its price 8$. It was on sale a week ago, so, price was 5$.

But it's not the reason to buy. Game's just too good to not to. In case it isn't enough: reading the summary of the whole development process Chris wrote may help to feel respect to the team. Was such a heroic feat to complete the whole thing, despite of undless problems.

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I can only say: That´s what X-Com should have done in most things. If you play Xenonauts with Community Edition and on of the Big Mods you love it. :D

I played it normal, with CE and now with Xnt-Modifikation. And I haven´t enough from this game. If you buy it, take the Steam Version and setting CE so you just have to install a Mod (I recomend you a big Mod).

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I recomend you a big Mod.

I don't, not if you're new to the game.

I think it's not a good idea for a new player to start with a mod that alters the stock gameplay. While an experienced player may find the increased complexity/difficulty/whatever of such a mod interesting, a new player may have a hard enough time with the stock game (and many apparently do). The stock game (possibly with X:CE and some light mods that do not alter the gameplay) should be the best option for a starting player, as it's the most played and tested setup. After new players gain some experience with the game, they're much better suited to judging what mods they want to play with. If such a player will want more from the game than the stock setup offers, they can try a big mod, but if they start outright with such a mod, it's much more likely they'll dismiss the game as a whole if the mod doesn't suit them.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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