Debating Xenonauts 2

[fishhead]

Admittedly I just skimmed what has been posted but I will put in a couple of my opinions:

Coming into the game having never played X-Com, there definitely needs to be more of a tutorial. This is a wonderful game and can stand on its own without a direct comparison (or necessity of) having played X-com. What is intuitive for X-Com vets comes at a steep learning curve for newbies like myself.

Going 3D - tough one. I'm old school and like the current look. That said maybe even just going to a "90º-4x rotation" style to get better camera angles which get a little wonky sometimes would be nice.

Air-combat - I like the radar style look to it, which also adds to the "fighting from a command center" feel-kinda reminds me of the old missile defense game. Any major changes I think would be in going into 3D as well which by extension is starting to get well away from the overall sense of what the game is.

RnD - I did read another comment on buildable/unique weapons which I think is cool. Let me see if i can piece together some new kind splatter gun - or maybe have it blow up my lab

It would be nice to customize some uniforms by color/base style. I would like to be able to have badges/insignias to specify which of my bases a soldier at least started at. Also maybe officer/rank difference in appearance.

UI - tutorial would help this. I have no problem with the mechanics or functionality

Modding - n/a for me. Although i do want to learn how to build an implement mods myself

[flegmatical]

I can't get enough Xcom, and am all for making a 'perfect' version

I would like to see 3d if you pull it off in a stylish manner, and there are random generated maps. I see a lot of the guys here are afraid that it won't have that 'xcom feel' to it. I understand, I had that same feeling when starcraft 2 went 3d, but they managed to pull it off beautifully. 3D gives more room for visualizing the equipment on the soldier. I think that would be cool.

One thing I found lacking in Xenonauts were the aliens themselves. I find their design to be a bit "timid", and I wouldn't feel intimidated by them when I first encountered them. Though I would learn to fear them simply because they tore into my troops. And I couldn't decide if I thought the star trek-ish shirts were silly or not.

I would like the art direction/scenery to be a bit more bold. I'm not saying you should go crazy and make cartoony battles on top of mount everest... But I think part of why I like Terror from the Deep, is because there is this feeling of 'epicness' there with all these atmospheric locations you can relate to. Deep under the sea with Atlantis-like structures, on some exotic Easter Island-like location with tourists caught in the mix. On a big cruise ship (the tactical nightmare). I really like that there feels like there is some story/soul to each location you go to, and not just some bland place in the middle of nowhere. Xenonauts did some nice things here, I really liked some of the arctic settings (gave me some of that The Thing feel), a good example of how they did it better than Xcom1. Same with some of the desert locations, where there were actual houses.

And. I just want to add another voice to bringing in some elements from Xcom: Apocalypse. I really liked the factions/corporation part of Apoc, where the aliens could infiltrate even the supplier of your armament/interceptors. And I liked how you could raid them, even if there weren't any aliens there (of course they would be pissed). Applied to a Xenonaut setting, you could for example raid the governments that have flipped and are cooperating with the aliens. This could be some random government target. They in turn could gradually be supplied by the aliens to fight against you. Just throwing out thoughts.

There weren't infinite amounts of the stock equipment to be bought either. I remember having a shortage of magazines for my machine guns. But that might be silly, I don't know. It made a logistical challenge for me until I got better equipment though.

One more thing: I really like lots of stats when I finish/resign a game. How many kills total / missions/ types / lost troops / civilians / UFOS / Interceptors / Bases, by month / year, etc. Does Xenonauts have this? It's been a while since I played. My Iron Man game is brutal, so I haven't finished Any way, I really think this adds a lot of polish to a game. And I always loved this when I finished a civilization game. A score would be awesome as well.

[Davion Fuxa]

Greetings to Chris, and by extension everyone else on the Xenonauts Forum.

Very recently I completed a Let's Play series for Xenonauts on my YouTube Channel. I was quite happy with the game and primarily the reason why I came looking towards the Goldhawk Interactive site was to see if there would be any plans for a sequel (remake or continuation).

Anyhow, I'd be for seeing Xenonauts 2. Some of what I said might have been mentioned - I'm not exactly keen on reading through 10-11 pages of posts. Maybe there be something worthy of note though:

Full 3D - We'd make the game in full 3D with a (90-degree) rotatable camera. I'd also want to replace soldier paperdolls and painted screen backgrounds etc on the strategy layer with 3D models.

Making everything 3D sounds like a good step in the right direction for a remake of the game. I assume this would also better simulate some things as well such as shot travel; so maybe there won't be some of the graphic errors that occurred in the original game.

Aliens - I'd like to add some more aliens, rework some of the existing ones mechanically to be more interesting and also redesign them so they look more striking and "alien" in the ground combat.

Personally I don't care how the units look. You could have an invading alien army of Mickey Mouses and Donald Ducks and I would be fine. What's important is what sort of strategy the alien units bring to the party for the player to react too.

Research / Development - I want to add the concept of 'development' to the research tree, allowing you to continue researching "hub" technologies (like laser weapons etc) to increase their effectiveness if you choose. Choosing whether to improve existing tech or research new stuff should add more choice to the research tree.

Research was definitely a bit lacking in the game - where you basically just researched to the next tier of development. It could be interesting as well if your research could also be used by the rest of the Earth as well; and vice versa because I'm sure the Earth isn't putting all their 'eggs' into the Xenonaut basket.

Destructible UFOs - the UFO outer hulls should be destructible, which means we'll have to redesign them visually too.

A question - what would it take to compromise the Alien Hull? Would Xenonauts be able to eventually do it with developed weapons and how much force would it take to beat down the destructible elements?

Vertical Terrain - we should have hills etc in the game, rather than purely flat maps with buildings offering the only verticality.

As a note I think it would be interesting if perhaps we had things like Pedways, Underground Subway Systems, Canals, Sewers, and what have you. Go All Out!

XCOM Cover System - I think the cover system in XCOM was very easy to understand and also integrated 'leaning' in an intuitive way, whereas our cover system was a bit of a mess. I think we'd probably switch to their cover system.

I've not played any other X-Com styled games but this one, but I had no trouble with understanding the basics of cover. The only real problem was understanding when your soldiers were in cover due to how objects might be placed between your soldiers and the aliens. It could help if you could somehow see what a soldiers cover was like .

Soldier Colour Customisation - I want to redesign the armours so they are more recognisable from silhouette, allowing people to customise their colours of their troops (including having role-specific colour schemes).

Not against the color customization, but I think it might be easier to customize troops if you could see an Icon next to the units which displays their roll. This could both appear on the map just above your soldiers and/or next to their portrait displays and offer a much easier recognition factor.

UI - the existing UI is a bit of a mess, particularly with regards to the strategy layer, so we'd redo that.

The UI reminded me a lot of the Dwarf Fortress. Anyhow, making the UI less intimidating would certainly help new players.

Air Combat - I'm not sure exactly how I'd redesign this yet, but I think it could do with further improvement.

I might be in the minority for suggesting this but I will suggest it all the same - change it so that the player no longer directly controls the fighters. Maybe make it so that the player can suggest a sort of attack pattern for his aircraft to pursue and then letting the AI handle the behavior of how the aircraft goes about following that pattern to attack/evade the enemy.

Additionally, it might be cool if you could have a sort of mid-air battle dropship raid where you don't have to specifically down the UFO to begin the tactical battle phase - you just have to land your dropship on the UFO in the air. This might make more sense when factoring in the larger UFOs, with perhaps the Battleships just being impossible for the Xenonauts to shoot down anyways.

I'm not exactly sure how the UFO landing would work, but maybe your jets could shoot off battle armaments so your dropship can approach, and then your dropship slams through the hanger door or something.

Tutorial - the game should use the Iceland Incident as a playable tutorial that explains the setting and the basic game mechanics.

You definitely need a tutorial - EVERY strategy game needs a tutorial!

Modding Tools - we've been working on some pretty cool game editors and level editors, so the modding / translation / level creation tools will be much better than in Xenonauts 1 and will handle the "modular mod" stuff automatically.

I don't deal with mods so no comment here.

Two questions - one, would you buy an improved version of Xenonauts again if we made it?

Yes - though I wouldn't buy it for full price.

Secondly, what annoyed you about the first game and what do you think we should improve?

Honestly, the aliens being sort of cheap was a bit annoying. Having grenades lobbed at you from aliens behind a wall, or stray shots being fired long distances from aliens off screen that are clearly outside both your soldiers sight radius and the aliens sight radius gets a tad frustrating.

The lack of melee options was also a bit of a let down - basically it was limited to Reapers, Zombies, and Stun Batons; I think the use of fists or the butts of rifles could be employed somewhat.

Also to note it, the lack of items to help fallen soldiers was a bit annoying. While I'm not necessarily saying you should be able to defibrillator your soldiers back up, I would like it if perhaps it was possible to at least try to have it so you could try to stabilize your fallen soldiers so that they have improved odds of surviving upon either completing, or if dragged backed to the dropzone Forrest Gump style, abandoning the mission.

[flegmatical]

It would be interesting if the player could choose to go a route of "human" tech through much of the game, with their own strengths and weaknesses versus alien tech. As it has been now, and in Xcom games, you basically replace everything with alien tech or you die.

But in reality, I think humans would try to adapt tech to face the new threat in a much bigger degree - an example here is kevlar, probably not much use against plasma, but surely we must have something to could provide better protection? Ballistic guns/ammo that could be researched for better effectiveness against the aliens?

(I know there is laser weapons, but they're pretty much just the tier before plasma)

Edit: I saw now that Chris has mentioned some of this in his "rethinking the strategic layer" post. I like

Edited August 6, 2015 by flegmatical

[Scanner]

Just in the round...

What´s about accoustic weapons that stun the enemys with light damage like those grenades?

A heavy weapon for vehicles with a wide range (20-30) and a conical area of effect. The germans developed some engines on this base in wwII but without success. Why not 35 years later? As tech i would set it after Buzzard and Corsair, 2 techs who works with accoustic in widest mind.

In addition for balancing, the aliens should use "pods of death", spraying toxical gases around the Battlefield who kills everyone earthborn. Like fire wanders, this gas should wanders through map.

Without a good armor, the gas will potential deadly, but I think its in the techtree for later UFO´s, all above medium, so it will hurt a soldier slightly per round inside the gas (not the run through).

Further... what´s about the use of little drones, smaller and unarmed like the tanks, with levitation and a lightsource.

Ok. My english isn´t perfect, just laugh about it or use your brain for the content

[XenoMask]

I have posted my opinions on stuff on sub forum already, but figured out I could post some general thoughts here

So first, I'm really surprised by this thread since I figured out you guys wouldn't even think of sequel before you have finished other projects you are planning

Secondly, I'm in the "Prefers sprites to 3d models" camp, but I do consider it acceptable sacrifice in this case since 3d models could allow stuff like juggernaut, scuttler, less humanoid aliens, reaper hives, etc features in the game and adding features to be easier.

[qman14]

To me the 4 things that would improve upon the Xenonauts experience would be:

1. A Jagged Alliance 2 style real-time/turn-based system. It allows for larger maps and more dynamic tactical gameplay. For those who don't know, the system is real time until the player turns it off or an enemy is sighted. There is also a pause button. It also allows for Standing/crouched/prone positions. Soldiers can move in run/walk/crouched walk or crawl. (It is silly for a soldier not be able to 'hit the dirt'.) Also an attempt to be stealthy button is there. For example you could attempt to stealthy crawl to the back of the 'destructible UFO' with a squad. Set a charge to blow a hole in the back. For the player this takes only a 20 seconds despite maybe 20 turns passing. It would also allow further specialization for soldiers. A stealth team might need to limit their weight to half of what they can carry. It also opens the possibility of attacks out of stealth giving bonuses. Maybe melee weapons would have a purpose as silent killers.

2. Ways for 'maxed out' human soldiers to progress. I really like the developing a team part of Xenonauts and I understand the need to limit human stats. But I think there needs to be a way to take a soldier who has maxed out in 40 missions to gain something in the next 40. The improvement should be small. I was thinking something like two trait/perk slots. A soldier that X number of kills with a sniper rifle could pick a trait like heart-beat slowdown that gives a 3 point accuracy bonus with a sniper weapon only. Or maybe superior low-light vision. Not as good as the aliens but one or two spaces better than the average elite soldier. I don't like the fixed soldier classes like the new XCOM game. I like that all soldiers are just a soldier. But a soldier that has used a shotgun-style weapon for 200 kills should be better with it than an elite sniper just picking up the shotgun.

3. Air Combat-One part of making the air combat more dynamic would be to make the pilots characters who progress just like the soldiers. Advanced pilots learn better dodging moves? Maybe researching specific UFO designs can add a damage modifier as weaknesses of the UFOs are found. I think making your interceptors always repairable is still good. I don't know how to do the dogfights. Turn-based?

4. I don't know how implement this but Xcom Apocalyse dynamic factions was a great thing. Attacking the same street gangs over and over again for money was awesome. Even more awesome was when they tried to counter attack and my turrets wasted them. Maybe countries that have been subverted would send interceptors against Xenonaut aircraft? Or shot down UFO's in that area will have local armed support during missions? Nations that love Xenonauts might provide extra local support over and above money? Say the USA loves you and agrees to split the cost of beginning a new base in their close ally England?

Oh and finally if my soldier reaches a civilian is there a way to tell them go hide there? Or run away that way?

[Eldgrim]

Whoa, i just stumbled on xenonauts, re-installed it and i see this in the news. Sounds great and i would buy your xenonauts 2 no problem.

[Sherelian]

Hello Chris, Hello Devs and Hello everybody!

I've been following the debate for some time and enjoyed the thought very much, to gain another xenonauts. Right now there has been announced X-Com 2, which maybe is going to have all the stuff, Firaxis advertised vor the first game. We shell see. For now xenonauts has been far more a game for me.

That is why I would buy a xenonauts sequel right away. In such a sequel I'd appreciate very much to one thing, I saw almost 20 years ago in X-Com Apocalypse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-COM:_Apocalypse):

Aliens, which are infiltrating human organizations as companies, military, police and governments. If you let them to do so, thos organizsations grew hostile towards you. In cases of governments your income was reduzed, in cases of companies you were not able to purchase their products as arms, planes, and so on. And in cases of police you got hostile human NPCs, which acted against you in the tactical combat as well in the geoscape (which was a bis city).

All in all it is some more plot, which made your decisions to act much more interesting. You had to watch exactly, what the UFOs where doin and if they had been 'pumping' stuff into a building, you had to check, what exactly they were doing. Even if there wern't any aliens seen, no base build, and so on. Check for that the linke above, especially the part of the geo-scape of Primus-City.

In other words, I'd like to see a more complex economy like in Apokalypse, and a more complex political landscape with different impacts.

So, I'm curious to see you making your dev-descision and I'll be glad to join the outcome.

cheers

Sherelian

Edited August 9, 2015 by Sherelian

[Sherelian]

Two questions - one, would you buy an improved version of Xenonauts again if we made it? Secondly, what annoyed you about the first game and what do you think we should improve?

Frist question: Yes!

Second question:

1. the linearity of the economic system: You had to make more missions, to make more money / aleminum, etc. There was no other way to influence your income. I never had the feeling to have a choice, but to switch into the ground combat. The impact of such an economy on the tactical game is to singular.

2. I missed really any kind of human resource development for soldiers, maybe even for other staff. it is a bad thing, that the only way to progress a soldier was the participation on ground combats.

3. The tactical combats were way to much repetitive. The plasma MG was the same a the frist one, same for the pistols. etc. There never was a need to change tactics, to develop, to adept, to evolve or to explore different ways of preparations. Technological progress never influenced the tactical behavior. That is bad.

4. Another thing on the strategic layer: You never can take action, you always have to sit and wait. That becomes boring after the third month, but it also locks every ability to be creative. You're never forced to take action into something by our own, like infiltrating or recapturing lost aries while you have time and ressources.

Edited August 9, 2015 by Sherelian

[ZoSo]

Hello there!

I have to say, this thread made me pretty excited. Naturally, I wanted to share my thoughts, too.

As I'm only playing Xenonauts for a few weeks now, I might be wrong here and there due to not having seen it all.

I will probably switch over to the X2 discussion forum, but here are my general ideas.

First of all, the two questions:

Yes, I would definetely buy an improved/enhanced version of Xenonauts!

What I disliked about it: The Ground Combat got a bit repetitive after a while.

As a previous poster said, I too wouldn't mind aussaulting UFOs over and over again. The maps are a bit too monotonous or repeat themselves to often though. A random map generator or just a larger number of maps would help that of course. A few more settings like green, forest maps of different urban parts besides industrial like parks, market places, pedestrian zones, specific bigger structures like a theatre/opera with lots of parking space in front, power plants or gas stations.

Different kind of missions would certainly also do the trick.

The aliens might target infrastructure or military bases around the world, maybe nuclear manufacturing sites/storage!

Hence, you might have to defuse a bomb, stop an outright alien attack on a building of interest or might even have to target psi-controlled humans, like Mr. X and his crew/defending aliens have initiated a nuclear attack or just took control of nueclear operating systems yet and you have X amount of time to stop him.

Maybe even hostage situations caused by (non-controlled) crazies who got a hold on alien weaponry, thus justifying Xenonaut assistence.

Those kind of missions randomly appearing around the globe might also help a bit with the under-appreciation of australia in terms of radar coverage.

Full 3D: Just wanted to point out, that I have the same worries as most of the posters here. Huge fan of the Baldur's Gate series!

A 90 degree rotatable camera (4 angles) for ground combat would be fine, but please try to keep the look of the "control room". I really like the style of the main menu, loading save games, soldier looks etc.

Additionally to the rotatable camera, the possibility to get a first person view of a soldiers line of sight would be cool!

XCOM Cover System: While easy to learn, the system was also very dull and flawed in a few aspects. On harder difficulties it was basically: take full cover (and spam overwatch) or die. An indication, how much of an cover you get would be helpful though.

Soldier Colour Customisation: Yes!

Also, placing your soldiers in order from 1 to 8 - if not already possible? - would be very convenient. Maybe the possibility of assigning squads, not only a place in your dropship. A few more countries, names, faces and a KIA list/memorial.

More importantly I would like to emphasise the emotional attachment to your soldiers. The badges should be kept, maybe even appear on the soldiers uniform?

Some soldiers might have "random" (maybe tied to minimum stats) quirks. For example, being able to throw grenades farther (base strength 55+) or better eyesight.

I'd like to be able to hire pilots, too.

This would make the loss of an interceptor much worse. There should be a chance for the pilot to survive though, via ejector seats.

Stats might include reaction/reflexes for dodging, accuracy and like infantry, stamina to counter combat fatigue. You have to rotate your soldiers more often.

Enough rambling here for now.

Keep up the good work, Chris and colleagues!

[TacticalDragon]

Hello there!

I have to say, this thread made me pretty excited. Naturally, I wanted to share my thoughts, too.

As I'm only playing Xenonauts for a few weeks now, I might be wrong here and there due to not having seen it all.

I will probably switch over to the X2 discussion forum, but here are my general ideas.

First of all, the two questions:

Yes, I would definetely buy an improved/enhanced version of Xenonauts!

What I disliked about it: The Ground Combat got a bit repetitive after a while.

As a previous poster said, I too wouldn't mind aussaulting UFOs over and over again. The maps are a bit too monotonous or repeat themselves to often though. A random map generator or just a larger number of maps would help that of course. A few more settings like green, forest maps of different urban parts besides industrial like parks, market places, pedestrian zones, specific bigger structures like a theatre/opera with lots of parking space in front, power plants or gas stations.

Different kind of missions would certainly also do the trick.

The aliens might target infrastructure or military bases around the world, maybe nuclear manufacturing sites/storage!

Hence, you might have to defuse a bomb, stop an outright alien attack on a building of interest or might even have to target psi-controlled humans, like Mr. X and his crew/defending aliens have initiated a nuclear attack or just took control of nueclear operating systems yet and you have X amount of time to stop him.

Maybe even hostage situations caused by (non-controlled) crazies who got a hold on alien weaponry, thus justifying Xenonaut assistence.

Those kind of missions randomly appearing around the globe might also help a bit with the under-appreciation of australia in terms of radar coverage.

Full 3D: Just wanted to point out, that I have the same worries as most of the posters here. Huge fan of the Baldur's Gate series!

A 90 degree rotatable camera (4 angles) for ground combat would be fine, but please try to keep the look of the "control room". I really like the style of the main menu, loading save games, soldier looks etc.

Additionally to the rotatable camera, the possibility to get a first person view of a soldiers line of sight would be cool!

XCOM Cover System: While easy to learn, the system was also very dull and flawed in a few aspects. On harder difficulties it was basically: take full cover (and spam overwatch) or die. An indication, how much of an cover you get would be helpful though.

Soldier Colour Customisation: Yes!

Also, placing your soldiers in order from 1 to 8 - if not already possible? - would be very convenient. Maybe the possibility of assigning squads, not only a place in your dropship. A few more countries, names, faces and a KIA list/memorial.

More importantly I would like to emphasise the emotional attachment to your soldiers. The badges should be kept, maybe even appear on the soldiers uniform?

Some soldiers might have "random" (maybe tied to minimum stats) quirks. For example, being able to throw grenades farther (base strength 55+) or better eyesight.

I'd like to be able to hire pilots, too.

This would make the loss of an interceptor much worse. There should be a chance for the pilot to survive though, via ejector seats.

Stats might include reaction/reflexes for dodging, accuracy and like infantry, stamina to counter combat fatigue. You have to rotate your soldiers more often.

Enough rambling here for now.

Keep up the good work, Chris and colleagues!

+1!

I also love the Baldur's Gate series!

I really agree with your vision of xenonauts.

[Jebah]

I greatly enjoyed the Jagged Alliance 2 way of handling interrupts, and letting the player make the choices about reaction fire, and what to do when they are interrupting an alien/enemy action.

This automatic shoot only reaction fire does end up with a lot of my soldiers taking poor actions, like shooting at a distant lizard man rather than the reaver I know is just on the other side of that cargo container... I would like it if the interrupt system worked more like the old game of Jagged Alliance 2....

[Chris]

Thanks for all the thoughts, everyone - we've obviously been developing the idea for the game in the Xenonauts 2 section of the forum for a couple of weeks now and the feedback from the community has been very helpful.

I'm still not formally confirming that we will be making a Xenonauts 2, but I think the idea we have is something I'd be interested in making and it is looking much more likely that we'll make a sequel than it did a few weeks ago.

We're doing some art tests etc at the moment to see how well the Xenonauts 1 style translates into 3D and there are still other potential pitfalls that might devour the project in its infancy ... but the idea is under serious consideration and we'll let you guys know one way or another within the four to six weeks.

[Skitso]

...With some concept art to show us too?

[DaProf]

just a random list of things that I think would be cool: multiple warring alien factions, an alien supporting human faction, damage in aerial combat directly affecting ufo layout, air support during ground combat, naval combat, more cinematic aerial combat, more varied vehicles, cutscenes, voice performances, space combat, physics, more weapons, more armor, individual countries, staff with stats, traits, story missions (special soldiers, attacks on famous places, escorting diplomats across land, air and sea, hostages, unique vehicals, unique artifacts, unique weapons and whatever more you can think of), human weilded psionics and an even longer campaign. I am sorry that I have asked for so much but this prospect excites me so much, also sorry for being a bit late with my post, i hadn't played for a while and hadn't heard the news

Edited August 12, 2015 by DaProf
forgot some stuff

[Akavit]

2D isn't going to save anyone time or money unless a lot of the animations are removed and those remaining are reverted to X-Com choppiness. Xenonauts 1 was handicapped by its 2D engine and the need to build endless sprites. In fact, I believe a lot of good content was cut out because every new weapon and armor added meant creating a huge number of sprites to support them. Smoothing out the animations would exponentially increase the number of sprites required and burden the development team with even more work.

3D models are much, much simpler to work with once they're created. Want to change the color of combat fatigues depending upon terrain? Just re-texture a single model with six new camo patterns and it's done. A good graphics artist could wrap it up in a day. Try doing that in sprites and you'll end up rendering tens of thousands of new 2D images then entering the data for each image into sprite sheets.

Last thing I'd want to see is the staff occupied by the need to focus on labor-intensive sprites instead of working on new and improved gameplay features.

[Damocleas]

Ive played the original Xcom ones and the altair ones and the xcom remakes and all have elements i liked and all had elements i didnt like.

The early Xcom had the weird abduction events and it felt a lot like you were stumbling in the dark trying to work out what was going off, somehow those feelings haven't come through much in all subsequent games. I didnt like the last xcom expansion as it tried to force you to rush missions which generally is a bad idea.

I loved the destructible scenery in the apocalypse but i hated the fact you were stuck to one city. I liked the corn fields you could burn to flush out enemy in the first one, and i liked fighting in the tankers in the second one.

What i'd like to see is a true multiplayer campaign where the aliens player has to achieve x amount of intelligence gathering,resource gathering etc to build more ships to complete the invasion.

Think of a sleeper ship with crew on ice, sent over distance and have enough gear to set up the basics of colony, maybe it would be fine but in the years they have been traveling the planet has evolved complex life and the resources arnt sufficient to fight a war. They have technology but struggle for resources the humans have the basic resources but technology is way below.

Aliens will try everything to take the planet, They have many types of missions. ( Food gathering.. Associated missions .. setting up fattening stations to bulk up the foodstock.. Infiltration by Aliens dressed up as colonel sanders to get the process started.. lol ), Taking over food production or additives to pacify population. Taking over politics, taking over media, many options to infiltrate and the human player gets lots and lots of events/news and they choose what to investigate. Some abductions may turn out to be kids off playing or human murder just to throw things. Have you seen dark skies? That's the period, post war and the political missions.

Asteroid mining and moon bases would be required to refine 'specialist resources' so aliens would start with limited weapons to start with and be forced to work hard to develop their war machine.

That would make the overall world campaign vary and add elements of human strategy on both sides.

[errant904]

I'd really like to see xenonauts carried into space. Maybe campaign style where you take planets from the aliens. Most of the mechanics could stay similar - radar in a solar system, bases built in a system. Intercepting aliens that are already there and stopping new ships from entering and re-supplying the system. Taking a planet can be a series of raids on bases or attacks on defenses. Perhaps allied aliens or indigenous aliens in a planet/system/multiple system. Hostile planets - need to research new armor, ground survival equipment and techniques, new weapons for dealing with hostile plants, animals, etc. Maybe space battles with multiple ships.

Personally I'm interested in the game for what it is now, graphics won't make me want to buy a new version.

[medved]

Hello, dear sirs. I do not play games for 10 years, but being an tftd&ufo veteran, couldn't pass by Xenonauts.

I can say, that absolute requirement for new version is to be not buggy. I tried to start over 3 times and every time in about 2-3 months of gametime it stops transferring aircrafts. In base stats I see for example 3 occupied hangars and zero hangars total (that's ridiculous). Game doesn't allow to demolish them, even after transferring aircrafts off the base. And it disallows to transfer any aircraft back. Thats showstopper on veteran difficulty.

Also I disliked very much how destructable objects are done. The bush/tree/wall is not destroyed by rocket, but can be destroyed by couple of sniper's bullets. If it is the game engine's limitation, than the poor choice of technologies is to blame.

In general, the game could be called best of ufo, ufo2012 (yeah, played for couple of hours it too for curiosity), xenonauts, but if it wasn't alfa-beta quality.

If I have payed for it, I would be VERY disappointed (yeah, I prefer to pay post factum. So, no good game, no reward).

Edited August 14, 2015 by medved

[Deniecu]

1. I would defenitly purchase an upgraded version of Xenonauts.

2. The only thing of the top of my head that "annoyed" me was that there wasn't enough content, so by simply adding more content and giving the game an upgrade, eh, that'd make it a close to perfect xcom game from my perspective.

[jedgold]

I would be cool if it would follow borderlands style of 3d

[corund]

I'm happy that you want to make Xenonauts 2 and i will buy it for sure. But if you switch game engines it may take another 5 years to develop sequel.

[Drengor]

[*]Research / Development - I want to add the concept of 'development' to the research tree, allowing you to continue researching "hub" technologies (like laser weapons etc) to increase their effectiveness if you choose. Choosing whether to improve existing tech or research new stuff should add more choice to the research tree.

Two questions - one, would you buy an improved version of Xenonauts again if we made it? Secondly, what annoyed you about the first game and what do you think we should improve?

First, I would humbly suggest that gauss weaponry would possibly make a better R&D tree than lasers. It also allows for very early tech tree development, as the tech exists, and has for quite some time, portable energy sources are the limitation. However, much more research and customization can be done for gauss weaponry... from basic ammunition (armor, or cover penetrating rounds vs hollow point/fragmenting rounds), to flechettes, exploding rounds, guided rounds etc.

In answer to your questions:

I would most definitely buy another xenonauts game.

Two things top the annoyance list...

1. Some of the bases were setup so that the walls had enough thickness that they broke line of sight when standing at the end of a hall... somehow only for the guy with advantageous position at the doorway, not for the guy in the middle of the hall.

2. The far too frequent 95% chance to hit, missing 4 or even 5 shots in a row.

Some other potential ideas...

Customized training for troops...

Stealth training for scouts giving them a chance not to be detected for a few squares based on range/how much they moved.

Tracking/Perception training to better locate enemies.

Explosives/throwing training allowing grenades to be thrown further/more accurate/do better damage.

Sniper training possibly allowing a shift in the damage calc when using 'sniper' weaponry. (IE: instead of .5 - 1.5 it shifts to .75 - 1.75)

Training for dual pistols... allowing both to be shot at the same target at minor time cost increase.

Combat Medic training... either more effective use of medkits, or possibly stabilizing wounded/dying giving increased odds of survival if the mission is completed.

Leadership training... might give boost to morale and/or accuracy for nearby squadmates...

The training would require significant balancing... possibly only one training per soldier, unavailable for missions for duration of training... possibly require training facilities...

[kozferatu]

Thanks for considering a sequel/expansion/improvement as an option and asking for feedback/opinions from the players! I'm mostly happy with the way you made the game but if you were to ask for my 'wish list', the four most wanted features would be:

#1 - Playable alien side (also allowing 2 for player campaign of alien vs Xenonauts). I really liked where UFO: The Two Sides was going in this regard and had a few fun games sneakily infiltrating countries, conducting terror missions etc and generally trying to stay in the shadows and wreak havoc, slowly preparing for all-out invasion.

I think there needs to be a greater emphasis on alien infiltration and subversion of civil government and infrastructure, particularly in the earlier stages of the game. I would like to see governments that fall to the aliens be involved in the fight against the Xenonauts, human troops possibly augmented with alien tech and weaponry. As well as a Xenonauts version of the Cult of Sirius, perhaps.

And this would mean...

#2 - Expanded political mechanics (for both sides) where not only do you need to keep various states/factions happy in order for funding, but also keep them free of infiltration and alien influence. Again, with a nod to Xcom Apocalypse and where they intended, but did not end up going, I like I idea of surveillance missions on leaders suspected to have been compromised, assassination missions, perhaps some sort of mechanics for replacing world leaders through coups etc (with dire consequences for getting it wrong) - maybe some sort of traits for leaders...

#3 - Air crew experience Have air crew as separate Xenonaut type with own barracks, who also gain experience for aircraft combat etc. Rescue missions to retrieve downed crew.

#4 - Strategic aircraft types and missions - reconnaissance flights to try and locate bases, AWACS to give radar coverage in areas otherwise 'dark', logistic and transport flights.

I think the tactical element to the game is fine so I would rather see a greater depth in the strategic element overall.