Looking good at first and second glance. Some issues.

[Oathbreaker]

Hi.

Oathbreaker (Coldbear back in my WoW days, made movies etc.) here. Been playing X-Com and Chaos Gate forever, looking forward to Xenonauts and the XCOMEU reboot.

1. No female sprites and asian/african sprite facial colours is a bit of a letdown - here's to hoping you can let someone mod it in.

2. Love the addition of the small, easy, simple tactical air intercept stuff. I wish you'd have an option to "Remain in the fight despite not enough fuel to return to base." - In the real world people have that choice to make and if there's international cooperation you may be able to land at a friendly air base. Then again, might make things too complicated.

2.5 I'm sure it's way too late in the development for this, but here's some easy, simple and realistic immersion-driven things for the current iteration of the tactical air combat stuff: A) as above, button to click saying "screw the fuel restriction, I'm chancing it" with a severe risk of having to eject (very likely over an ocean) and lose the pilot, or getting the plane stuck at an unfriendly airport, or crashing the plane; B) when a modern fighter aircraft takes damage, it's usually not incremental - you take damage and the plane is done, or you might be able to take a little bit more and then you're done and have to eject - the whole 1% increments of damage with enemy attacks taking a certain percentage or "aircraft health points" is a game-driven, imaginary UI, solution that's just fine but hardly immersive. Oh well, it's just a game after all and not a simulation.

3. Carrying big huge heavy stuff in backpacks. Ok, this was done in the original X-Com. But ...really? Stuffing an alien body in your backpack in the same amount of time that it takes you to run 20 feet or fire off your gun on full auto? I have never carried aliens but I have carried other people plenty in the military - they don't stuff into backpacks, generally speaking.

Finally, huge props for the tactical air combat innovation and the "hey this building has taken so much damage it should fall down" innovation. Thanks, and I'm looking forward to the finished product. As soon as I've finished building a PC I'll get in on the beta.

[Gorlom]

1. Would you mind elaborating in which way the facial colours are letting you down?

2. I thought you could currently finish the aircombat when your aircraft didn't have enough fuel to return to base, but that your craft would crash at the end of the aircombat? It did in earlier builds at least.

2-3. You seem to be dissapointed in some cases about insufficient realism. Would realism in these cases hurt or improve gameplay? Gameplay > realism imo. Besides carrying around dead aliens is rather fun if you are in the mood =P

[thothkins]

2. It got a mention in 9.5 I didn't pursue it as I'm not nuts and it was only a fighter.

3. I always thought that you were just carrying the alien/ comrade on your back. Sort of over your backpack, rather than in it. What's the weight of such a thing in Xenonauts. It should make a difference.

[Gauddlike]

1, This can probably be modded if Chris can add a way to tie different animations to a flag on the soldier.

The way the engine works you have to have new images for every alteration you make, the game cannot make them on the fly.

You need a new facial colour on every image of every spritesheet, for every weapon/armour combination.

If you were to add female sprites then you would need to duplicate every single animation in the game.

Assuming around 5000 images per armour type, which is a little conservative I think.

The current number, for basic armour alone, is around 2,500 but most of the weapons are not yet in the game.

For each variation you would have to remake ALL of the image files.

We would need the original 5000 males, plus 5000 for Asian male faces, 5000 for African male faces, then 5000 white females, 5000 Asian females and 5000 African females.

That is just for the basic armour.

2, you get an option to leave but you don't have to.

If you choose to stay and finish the fight there is a very good chance you will lose the fighter on the flight home.

2.5, One hit kills are not a fun mechanic for a game.

Maybe in a simulator or a game where you can just try the mission again if you fail.

3, Carrying alien bodies around is not something you will do often, possibly if you want to capture an enemy while fleeing?.

It wouldn't make sense to add a whole new set of carrying mechanics and features for something there is no real reason to do.

If it makes you feel better you can think of it as dropping your pack and putting the body over your shoulder.

It is a game representation after all.

Carrying a heavy item like a body will reduce your AP's to represent being slowed by your burden.