General V 8.0 Suggestions for improvement.

[Sathra]

Lacking anywhere else to really put it, let's use this thread for various minor improvement suggestions for V8.0.

Basically any minor niggle that isn't a bug, or likely to result in 8 pages of argument about different methods to do something.

I'll start:

-Loading a game by double-clicking on it. Saves time.

-The button/checkbox to load a save is really tiny and almost out of the way. Make it bigger and/or more obvious? Or a signature line instead of a checkbox to keep with the theme.

-Being able to save a game by pressing enter (as part of, or after pressing enter to set the name).

-There doesn't seem to be a hotkey for kneeling anymore either...

Edited November 15, 2011 by Sathra

[hosser]

No idea if the title screen is finished, but I really feel it's missing the game's title in big letters in the top-left corner...

[Chris]

Valid points. Putting these on the 'to-do' list.

[Chris]

Title screen isn't done. If we have the logo on it, it'll be on the screens behind the officers.

[GrumpySage]

Not sure if it is a bug or intended, but the alien icon does not become opaque when a soldier has LOS to an already discovered alien, while it it outside his range of vision (the 13 tiles or so?). Makes it harder to judge if a soldier can fire on a faraway alien.

Edited November 15, 2011 by GrumpySage

[GrumpySage]

Suggestion: Being able to press 'i' at the inventory screen (during ground combat) to exit it.

[ApathyTrigger]

Not sure if this has been mentioned to death or not, I didn't see it in the stickies anyway, but when any of my soldiers go to shoot their rifles they fire their pistols instead, and then the rifle reappears in their hands.

[Sathra]

Basic assault rifles while wearing Jackal armour? That happened a few times in the older builds, due to messed up sprites, but it really shouldn't happen if kitted out in Jackal with an assault rifle.

[iamkyon]

A minor detail that threw me off a bit: As one of my planes was engaging a scout ship, it began to run out of fuel, prompting me to choose whether I'd like it to continue the fight or head back to home base. When I selected the latter option, the F-17 changed its course accordingly, but I spent the next thirty-ish seconds staring at the screen, thinking that the game had frozen, while it was, in fact, paused.

[ApathyTrigger]

I don't know if they had jackal armor or not, I'd check but I'm currently updating. It was on the first ground mission i played, unfortunately the game crashed after i took the evil barn so I didn't get to check if it persisted.

[Chris]

Sounds like a sprite issue to me. I'll have a look at it. Keep the suggestions coming if anyone has them - these are the little things that are really useful for polishing up the builds.

[anotherdevil]

Apathy, from what you said (ala currently updating) it sounds like you were playing v7.5. This is the v8.0 suggestion forum. Just FYI

[Moonie]

1 - One niggle that can wait, but still niggles is moment and shot speed. With no way to slow them down things happen way to fast.

2 - Even when 1920x1080 resolution was working a section of the right hand side of the picture was off the screen, meaning I couldn't see all of the text on that side.

[jem]

Couple of things, don't know if the have been brought up before and to lazy to check.

1. Something that lets me change the gamma level without fiddling with my monitor. Extremely simple to add and often forgotten in modern games...

2. A function that allows me to go to the next soldier/vehicle that have yet to act this round.

3. Ill second the checkbox thing above, but maybe just allow clicking on the label as well as on the box is enough.

4. If planes and ufos are overlapping, allow me to choose which one I am clicking on. Don't force me to zoom to get the right one.

5. On stat up, show the change as well as the new value.

[hosser]

4. If planes and ufos are overlapping, allow me to choose which one I am clicking on. Don't force me to zoom to get the right one.

This.

Something X-COM handled perfectly in my opinion. I remember when I first played it, thinking "Oh no - how will the game know which object I want to click?" and then that little selection overlay popped up. Genius.

[kakita]

First up I'd like to say that I'm a long time fan and have been waiting for Xenonauts to be released on Desura for a long time (was one of those guys who was going to order when paypal decided to be stupid).

That being said, I've some issue that I'm not sure are bugs or issues being worked on, so here goes...

1) I'm not sure how to switch my guys around in the chopper. I know it was mentioned somewhere...

2) When I select a gun to shoot, I can't seem to deselect it without going to a different xenonauts member and then returning to the first one.

3) Also, mousewheel up and down cycles between xenonauts members when a gun is not selected, but when it is, it cycles between the gun options (ie TUs used). Is this as intended?

4) It's kind of hard for me to figure out where a person is when he's standing behind chest high obstacles. IE when a group of people are behind an obstacle, I always seem to select the wrong person. Any chance these obstacles can be grayed out when people are behind it? Or to grey in their silhouette?

5) Would like an option to rotate the map 90 degrees clockwise/counterclockwise.

6) Also, walls don't show up unless they are 'Seen'. This leads to phantom wall syndrome where it looks like a building is missing a wall until someone literally SEES the wall. Any chance a 'placeholder wall' sprite or some sort of fog of war type method to indicate that a wall SHOULD be there even though we haven't seen it yet? This would help for obstacles as well: for example in Xcom you could see the silhouette of various objects even though there were still under the fog of war.

7) The transition from geoscape to ground combat seems very long.

Thanks for listening!

[Moonie]

4. If planes and ufos are overlapping, allow me to choose which one I am clicking on. Don't force me to zoom to get the right one.

Yeah this is pretty bad, you really have to struggle sometimes to get the game to recognize which you want to select.

[iamkyon]

1) I'm not sure how to switch my guys around in the chopper. I know it was mentioned somewhere...

Go to Bases-Aircraft and open the tab labelled "Dropships" in the Aircraft Selector window.

2) When I select a gun to shoot, I can't seem to deselect it without going to a different xenonauts member and then returning to the first one.

Press Esc to exit aim mode.

3) Also, mousewheel up and down cycles between xenonauts members when a gun is not selected, but when it is, it cycles between the gun options (ie TUs used). Is this as intended?

I would think so, yes.

[GrumpySage]

After having clicked on the insane difficulty, going to another difficulty does not remove the check mark in the 'Iron Man Mode' check box. Choosing Iron Man should be a deliberate choice and shouldn't catch some players who doesn't look at that box before clicking "commence operation'.

[GrumpySage]

Would be nice if you could tell when constructing a new building if you already have a building and how many.

Either in the list of available buildings:

Hangar (4)

Living Quarters (1)

etc.

This may be seen as how many are in 'stock' however, unless some more text is added, the space for it is there. It could also be above the list, in the info box for each building.

[Sathra]

@jem

2 and 4 are both heavily requested additions. I assume they'll be added eventually. As for 5, there's some space limitations, but it might be possible. 1 has never been requested as far as I know.

@katika

Kyon has the first 3 broadly correct. There was some discussion about changing the fire mode selection previously though. As for the rest.

4) Having the soldiers glow on mouseover would also be good. You do get used to it though.

5) Not going to happen. Its due to the engine.

6)Yeah, LOS is a bit funny. As for seeing objects under the shroud, it was also used for cheating...

7)Yeah...*shrug*

[GrumpySage]

Didn't want to report this as a bug, but the picture of the building you have selected is scaled to fit a square, even if it is a 1x2 building. It may not be worth it to spend time fixing it, as it doesn't look that bad.

[GrumpySage]

When clicking on a crashsite the popup window says 'launch interception'. May want to change the word interception (though I can't think of a better one..).

[GrumpySage]

Suggestion: During the aliens turn, don't show when an alien shoots a civilian in an area outside of vision range (all you see is a black screen anyway, you just hear the shooting sound plus possibly a civilian scream). Though I can see the argument that the soldiers are able to hear the shot and scream, but it doesn't provide me with much information, I just think my troops are being shot at.

Plus, if you have a minimap you might be able to pinpoint the location of the aliens.

[GrumpySage]

Being able to close doors again.