Why was the God-awful orbital bombardment brought back?

[Emily_F]

Seriously, I really wonder what goes thru the dev's minds sometimes.  The orbital bombardment mechanic was tried, was pants, and rightly dropped. Now it's reared its ugly head again. Please kill it for good.  You wasted time building this but refused point blank to make going prone a thing, with decent improvements to accuracy and even more reduced chance of getting hit, which would have made combat mission tactics much more interesting, but a recurring wanky increase of 20% panic made the cut?  SMH

[Chris]

The reasons for the change were outlined in brief here: https://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/index.php?/topic/21887-xenonauts-2-march-2022-update/

If you've got specific complaints about it then by all means bring them up for discussion, but I don't really see how the gameplay would be so much better if I took the Orbital Bombardment out and made shooting down UFOs reduce Panic by a smaller amount. It would just mean the players have less information available to them and that it takes much longer for the game to end if the player is losing.

[Ruggerman]

I concur with Emily_F The orbital bombardment should be an option for a harder level of the game, and not be the starting point for new players.

At a higher level of game play it would be great!!

[Emily_F]

Tbh, I've kinda lost interest in the game now. It's actually going backwards in some places, thou gh the new story arc with the cleaners has made it a bit less monotonous.  The orbital bombardment mechanic is just plain annoying. 

[Alienkiller]

I instead love it. We have to look what the direct Competitor, the UFO ET-Row, bring in. Thats the Benchmark, nothing else. And there is much it bring in with the new 10 to 12 Years availible Programming-Technology for Games.

Play it, then you see the Difference and what Xenonauts 2 needs to get on an similar Level in that Points and completely differnt in other Points. The Panic- and Stresslevel must be high in both Games, with more difficulty Step by Step. The UFO ET-Row makes it very good to raise the Difficulty Step by Step with the link to R & D-Progress from the Player, UFO-Shootdowns and done Ground-Combat Missions [Crashsites, Terror, Abduction etc.]. Evtl. one more thing I have forgotten.

Sadly the UFO ET-Row haven´t many of such cool similar Potential from Xenonauts 2 in the Basegame UFO 2 ET "Battle for Mercury" incl. an big Mod for it atm. Some of the Potential from the upgraded first Game (UFO 1 ET Gold) the Mod integrates after an adjustment for the new 10 to 12 Years aviailible Computer-Games-Technology, others have to integrated with the WIP-DLC "Shadows over Earth".

We all know that many Content for Xenonauts 2 is still missing and the Balance for the Game can be done first finalised, after all is integrated. There the cool Alien-Space-Station which get revealed themself will be more balanced then later. I have done an Test-Game with the new Version yet and played the first Month fully. The Game get much cool Refits in Ground Combat, Air Combat as well as R & D and Storyline-Content.

The Refit from the Alien-Space-Station I haven´t seen so far (about 40 Ingame-Days of Playing). If the Devs have balanced it it will show up first after 3 Month (90+ Ingame-Days of Playing), which is more then Fair. And fires the Town-Destruction-Laser all 2 Month (about 60 Ingame-Days of Playing) or so.

And the orbital Bombardement is not unfair for the more Balance of UFOs, Geoscape-Missions and so on, which is linked to it. In 90 % of Strategy-Games you have that as Opinion (in Hoi 4 for example you can use your big Ships to Bombard the Coasts; in Star Wars the Star Destroyers and similar from the Rebells can Bombard the Planets from Orbit; in Command & Conquer and StarCraft you have an similar Option). That is only small Part of Examples in similar Games, which make them Great.

It´s a nice Feature and bring in more pep to the Game, in our Case Xenonauts 2. An similar Pep is the Mothership in the UFO-ET-Row. Both pushes the Player in differnt ways.

 

@Emily_FTo have an stable Interesst in the Games I have I make the following trick. Pause them for a Time [like here some Hotfixes] out and then make an new try with an later Hotfix. Or wait for the next big Version and play something else [like the direct Competitor from Xenonauts 2, Hoi 4 or whatever]. What I do instead is reading the monthly Updates and Release-Informations for an new Hotfix / big Version from Xenonauts 2.

With that new Energy an fully Test can be startet again. In that Case I look that all Info-Boxes are Working, the Game is stable, the R & D is correct and so on incl. all doable Ground-Missions, Airfights etc.

I suggest you make an Break from Testing, get new Energy for it and come back for V.24 or V.25, when the Game get more Features back in / new Features get in, more Balances and so on.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Alienkiller

[Chris]

5 hours ago, Emily_F said:

Tbh, I've kinda lost interest in the game now. It's actually going backwards in some places, thou gh the new story arc with the cleaners has made it a bit less monotonous.  The orbital bombardment mechanic is just plain annoying. 

If you feel like that, it's probably best if you just come back to X2 when the game is done. There's more of a chance you'll like the final incarnation of the game that way.

What you're currently posting isn't constructive criticism that will help us improve things - even if you're right with your criticisms of the design choices, your posts are just rants with very little in the way of explanation. Doesn't seem like you're getting anything out of this and I'm certainly not, so it seems like a negative experience for everyone that is best avoided.

Thanks for your help with bug reports and the like over the past few years.

13 hours ago, Ruggerman said:

I concur with Emily_F The orbital bombardment should be an option for a harder level of the game, and not be the starting point for new players.

At a higher level of game play it would be great!!

Yeah, we're likely to change the amount of damage inflicted by the bombardment based on difficulty settings - it's a good way of controlling how hard the strategy layer is.

I'm not sure removing it entirely at lower difficulty settings is a good idea though, because then there's very little threat on the Geoscape.

[ApolloZani]

On 4/13/2022 at 6:36 AM, Chris said:

I'm not sure removing it entirely at lower difficulty settings is a good idea though, because then there's very little threat on the Geoscape.

The easiest difficulty of a game isn't there to provide threat or incentive, it's there to minimize the risk of loss in a player's mind and make it accessible to the widest net of people. But maybe it would be better to think of it like a cheat option. Along with soldiers who can never die and god-mode for panic conditions letting you ignore the rising state of things if a given player really couldn't handle the pressure. If you put a little button next to difficult that says, "cheats," then you aren't obligated to balance the game for them. You'd be intentionally saying, "this is not what the game was designed to handle, but we understand some players may prefer these options anyways."

[odizzido]

Could always make the orbital bombardment an option you can uncheck much like redhook did with corpses in Darkest Dungeon. Then it's up to the player to decide what they enjoy. I don't think you need to worry about balance for anyone who unchecks it.

Edited April 18, 2022 by odizzido

[Chris]

Yes, I think we're likely to make a bunch of the changes I've made to X2 compared to X1 on by default, but optional. I think that's the easiest way to allow us to make changes to the formula without setting off those people who have very strong feelings about specific aspects of the game.

[Chris]

17 hours ago, ApolloZani said:

The easiest difficulty of a game isn't there to provide threat or incentive, it's there to minimize the risk of loss in a player's mind and make it accessible to the widest net of people. But maybe it would be better to think of it like a cheat option. Along with soldiers who can never die and god-mode for panic conditions letting you ignore the rising state of things if a given player really couldn't handle the pressure. If you put a little button next to difficult that says, "cheats," then you aren't obligated to balance the game for them. You'd be intentionally saying, "this is not what the game was designed to handle, but we understand some players may prefer these options anyways."

This is a bit of a diversion from the topic, but that's up for debate. You can view easy mode as "cheat mode" where it's impossible to lose the game, or you can just view it as a game that is less challenging than normal. I see it as the latter.

But yes, if we're giving people the option to turn systems off entirely then that's pretty much analagous to your cheat mode but just using a different name.

[Alienkiller]

The easyest Way to handle that is to link it with the Difficulty. An simlar Way the Devs from the direct competitor are going. I have played it with both linked Storylines (UFO-ET-Series). More fairness you cant have. In our Beta-Perfectionation / Early-Access-Perfectionation the cool Alien-Orbit-Gun and Storylinepart to with several Ways to Win the Game is linked to the Difficulty-Setting:

1. Easy: 9 Monthes no activation from the Alien-Orbit-Gun (about 270 Gameplay-Days)

2. Normal: 7 Monthes no activation from the Alien-Orbit-Gun (about 210 Gameplay-Days)

3. Veteran: 5 Monthes no activation from the Alien-Orbit-Gun (about 150 Gameplay-Days)

4. General / Admiral: 3 Monthes no activation from the Alien-Orbit-Gun (about 90 Gameplay-Days)

That are the the Main-Settings. To make it more interessting when it show up it get linked with the R & D-Part and the Geoscape-Results too. Means: When the Aliens see that you shoot down too many UFOs / get the Invasion-Army and their helpers to bussy (Geoscape-Results) and R & D get to fast much better to fight them, then in the first 3 Difficulty-Settings the Alien-Gun show up faster (about 20% Shorter).

Everything else is totaly nonsene, esp. Cheats or such.

 

[odizzido]

I am a big fan of letting people enjoy the game in the way they enjoy it.

[Kamehamehayes]

On 4/18/2022 at 1:00 PM, Chris said:

This is a bit of a diversion from the topic, but that's up for debate. You can view easy mode as "cheat mode" where it's impossible to lose the game, or you can just view it as a game that is less challenging than normal. I see it as the latter.

But yes, if we're giving people the option to turn systems off entirely then that's pretty much analagous to your cheat mode but just using a different name.

Perhaps there should be an extra option to make ufos and terror missions to have more panic for those people who want to remove the orbital bombardment while still wanting a decent challenge on the geoscape. I know that there are a decent chunk of people who might find the game too easy, yet will still continue to hate the bombardment mechanic, so buffing the panic caused by other sources might be a great idea to satisfy the needs of those people (and satisfy the needs of crazy people who somehow find the hardest difficult in the main game too easy, with new mechanics and all). 

[Ruggerman]

I have won every ground battle and air engagement, and although it tells me to get the cleaners, There is no clear plan on how that can be achieved ?

[Alienkiller]

I have to remember you all, that you haven´t an Indicator for the old X-COM-Series for the first 3 Games (from Gameplay-Timeline Apocalypse is the last one):

1. in old X-COM (Enemy Unknown): Sadly you don´t have an indicator, what is raising Panic etc. After the Sequence of an Threaty-Sign is comming, you lost the Game.

2. in old X-COM (Terror from the Deep): Sadly you don´t have an indicator there too, what is raising Panic etc. After the Sequence of the Raising form the Alien-Mothership from the deepest of the deepest Waterground show up, you lost.

3. in old X-COM (Apocalypse): Sadly you don´t have an indicator there too, what is raising Panic etc. After the Sequence of the full opening from the Special-Dimension-Portals show up, you lost.

Means: You give your Best and didn´t know why you loose this Games.

 

The first Indicator come with the last good Game from the old X-COM-Row (the Game in Timline before Apocalypse) more bad then good (Interceptor):

1. in old X-COM (Interceptor): the 4 Vid-Sequenzeces after the Research where the Aliens are planing something. If you don´t get the Black hole found and the Sequenze from the Earth-Destruction show up, you lost.

 

The great indicators for Panic and give the Player something to move his / her rear come with the new UFO-ET-Row [UFO 1 ET Standard / Gold] the first time, then with the new XCOM-Row [esp. in XCOM 2 / XCOM 2 WotC] and as the latest finished Game with Phoenix-Point:

1. in new XCOM (Enemy Unknown / Enemy Within): with the Panic-Status and the Choise to reduce Panic here or there. If you lost to much Countrys you lost the Game. [in the Storyline the World-Council signed the Human-Alien-Threaty]

2. in new XCOM (XCOM 2 / War of the Chosen and all smaller DLCs): with the AVATAR-Project, the real fun beginns first. So you have to stop it as Long-Time-Goal or Humanity get lost forever!

3. in Phoenix-Point (Phoenix Point with or without the cool DLCs): there the AVATAR-Project is an Nebula, which have to be stoped as an long time Goal; as well as the 3 Main-Factions with her Colonys are not friendly among each others, which have to be handeld as an second long time Goal

4. and the first one (as direct Opponent, which is the Benchmark for the Xenonauts-Row): 2007 it brought already in the Mothership, which keep you realy bussy. You know it is there, but you can´t do anything with underdog Human-Technology and esp. Weapons. Your Homeplanet [Earth] can´t be saved from the Invasion, so the reamaining Humanity have to flee after the Mothership beginns to do something. Haven´t found out what exactly. The Result: You have to flee like in Battlestar Galactica to your new Homeplanet Esperanza. This Planet isn´t save from the Aliens too, because they find the remaining Humanity there. If the Motership can get fully Power Up again, Humantiy is totaly lost.

Such little Pushes with Countermeasures makes this Games interresting, not shoot down thousends of UFOs with nothing happen.

And here the Morale-System comes in too from XCOM 2 / Phoenx Point and esp. here in Xenonauts 2, which is fully combined with the Geoscape and Missions. You have to decide to make tertiary Missions (only UFOs) with no Soldiers for the very important and secondary ones later on, which means you loose.

Or the important Missions (Terror-Sites, Base-Defeneses, Base-Attacks, Special-Missions, big UFOs with more following) with some secondary ones (medium and big UFOs later on) with Breakes for your Troopers to regenerate. What is very interessting too in the UFO-ET-Row and Xenonauts 2, that the Soldiers with an Rank-Upgrade get more Money. That´s like in Reality.

Short said: Since the move your Rear-Features get in such Games the get very interessting. Without such move your Rear-Features they were Dead-End. In the 1980s / 1990s it was fully OK, today everyone ywap about such old Features where nothing happen as an backlash from the Aliens / Humans.

The fast End of unfinished old X-Com-Storyline is /  was an Mercy. That Xenonauts 1 / UFO 1 ET had some of such Dead-Ends was an Mercy too. With that the important and interesting Features (undestroyable Mothership from Outside in UFO ET-Series / undestroyable and cloacked Space-Station in Xenonauts 2, AVATAR-Project in new XCOM, death Nebula in Phoenix Point and what XCOM 3 as well as the UFO-ET-Row / Xenonauts 2 is more of that bringing in).

Edited April 20, 2022 by Alienkiller

[Emily_F]

On 4/13/2022 at 12:36 PM, Chris said:

If you feel like that, it's probably best if you just come back to X2 when the game is done. There's more of a chance you'll like the final incarnation of the game that way.

What you're currently posting isn't constructive criticism that will help us improve things - even if you're right with your criticisms of the design choices, your posts are just rants with very little in the way of explanation. Doesn't seem like you're getting anything out of this and I'm certainly not, so it seems like a negative experience for everyone that is best avoided.

Hang on, Chris. I've been nothing but supportive of this project from its inception. I have one "rant"  (and, trust me, that wasn't a rant) about a particularly poor part of the game which, for me, makes it particularly unenjoyable. There is literally no rhyme or reason to its inclusion in the game. It wouldn't be so bad if there was, with a given research pathway, you could at least mitigate its effect. 

Plenty of people have been far more critical than I've ever been. And have done so in far less diplomatic terms (particularly those who, with some measure of justification, complain that the game is X1 with a very thin lick of new paint). Those of us who have tested this game for many, many hours throughout the many iterations of the game have done so because we love the franchise and the specific game genera. Many really good suggestions throughout development have been ignored. 

I feel that you taking offence at what I said, and your response to it, falls short of what is appropriate. Frankly, I'm disappointed by you throwing your toys into a low earth orbit rather than engaging with someone who has been one of the main testers and contributers to the project. 

At the end of the day, it's your project and your game. You have to deliver it to the people who are still waiting for the realisation of the project they invested in many years ago. It's your reputation as a game developer, not mine. I've tried very hard to be a positive influence on that, but if you want to throw that back in my face, that's up to you. 

 

 

[Chris]

1 hour ago, Emily_F said:

Hang on, Chris. I've been nothing but supportive of this project from its inception. I have one "rant"  (and, trust me, that wasn't a rant) about a particularly poor part of the game which, for me, makes it particularly unenjoyable. There is literally no rhyme or reason to its inclusion in the game. It wouldn't be so bad if there was, with a given research pathway, you could at least mitigate its effect. 

Plenty of people have been far more critical than I've ever been. And have done so in far less diplomatic terms (particularly those who, with some measure of justification, complain that the game is X1 with a very thin lick of new paint). Those of us who have tested this game for many, many hours throughout the many iterations of the game have done so because we love the franchise and the specific game genera. Many really good suggestions throughout development have been ignored. 

I feel that you taking offence at what I said, and your response to it, falls short of what is appropriate. Frankly, I'm disappointed by you throwing your toys into a low earth orbit rather than engaging with someone who has been one of the main testers and contributers to the project. 

At the end of the day, it's your project and your game. You have to deliver it to the people who are still waiting for the realisation of the project they invested in many years ago. It's your reputation as a game developer, not mine. I've tried very hard to be a positive influence on that, but if you want to throw that back in my face, that's up to you. 

I'm not throwing anything back in your face. I appreciate the time and effort you've put into testing the game over the years and I just feel that anyone who is repeatedly playing an unfinished game is going to eventually burn out on it. There's not been any new maps for a while, for instance, so the core gameplay is naturally going to start to feel repetitive.

But the fact you're burned out on a game will colour your perceptions of it. If you feel the game is monotonous then that's very likely because you're sick of the gameplay loop due to overplaying rather than because there is something fundamentally wrong with the gameplay loop itself. I'm just suggesting you take a break and come back when the game is done, because there's no changes the team can make that are going to satisfy a player who is burned out on the minute-to-minute experience of playing the game. Maybe if you take a break there'll be enough new stuff that you'll actually enjoy the final product when it arrives - and ultimately I want you to enjoy the final game.

I'm surprised you're claiming I'm not engaging in the discussion. You asked for the reasons why the mechanic was added (not in a particularly polite way) and I linked you to where it was explained, and asked you to expand on the reason why you dislike the mechanic in question - and you just replied by saying you were bored of the game, the project going backwards, and the orbital bombardment mechanic is bad without providing any extra information as to why. It looks to me like I'm the one engaging and you're not.

Anyway, it's entirely your choice what you do next. I'm just suggesting you take a break based on seeing what happened when long-term testers burned out on X1.

[Alienkiller]

1 hour ago, Emily_F said:

Hang on, Chris. I've been nothing but supportive of this project from its inception. I have one "rant"  (and, trust me, that wasn't a rant) about a particularly poor part of the game which, for me, makes it particularly unenjoyable. There is literally no rhyme or reason to its inclusion in the game. It wouldn't be so bad if there was, with a given research pathway, you could at least mitigate its effect. 

Plenty of people have been far more critical than I've ever been. And have done so in far less diplomatic terms (particularly those who, with some measure of justification, complain that the game is X1 with a very thin lick of new paint). Those of us who have tested this game for many, many hours throughout the many iterations of the game have done so because we love the franchise and the specific game genera. Many really good suggestions throughout development have been ignored. 

I feel that you taking offence at what I said, and your response to it, falls short of what is appropriate. Frankly, I'm disappointed by you throwing your toys into a low earth orbit rather than engaging with someone who has been one of the main testers and contributers to the project. 

At the end of the day, it's your project and your game. You have to deliver it to the people who are still waiting for the realisation of the project they invested in many years ago. It's your reputation as a game developer, not mine. I've tried very hard to be a positive influence on that, but if you want to throw that back in my face, that's up to you. 

 

 

Emely, in some Points I give you right. Some Guys which have only the Thinking form 1980 / 1990 and don´t accept new useable Features in the Game can´t get helped anymore. They are not watching for the small Details and Steps the Game is making in its WIP-Progress like we Testers are doing.

Where I give you right is the Fact, that many testet Parts of the Game were not good and will come with an big Refit / Rework back in the Game. We will see how they work, if the full ballancing can get startet. And the Game isn´t finished yet, there are Parts of our Beta-Test-Ideas which surely will come. Not all, but some. Like the better Airfighting-System, that Interceptors from other Bases can assist, more Enemys with secret Orders f. e.

And sometimes it´s better not to integrate everything which get as Ideas directly in the Basegame. Sometimes it´s better to bring them in an DLC to make the Game Longtime-Playable. There are many Examples which are doing that. And Xenonauts 2 is such an Candidate for 1 or 2 DLC-Upgrades with more Content, Integrations etc. later on.

There we have to trust on the Devs. An similar Discussion is currently for an FIA-Game-Licenced Manager for the F1, which get called "F1 Manager 2022" after 22 Years of idel lie Licence.

 

Chris is right in make the Suggestion to make a Break. To prevent such an Burn Out I have some ways like reading a Book in the Sun, making Sports and so on. That gives me the Energy to make deep Tests and watching Things where others easy oversee (like working all Tooltips, is the Xenopedia fully and similar). Therefore the others are doing an deeper Gameplay.

Edited April 20, 2022 by Alienkiller

[Chris]

6 hours ago, Ruggerman said:

I have won every ground battle and air engagement, and although it tells me to get the cleaners, There is no clear plan on how that can be achieved ?

Have you done the various research projects with "Cleaner" in the title? Each one of those unlocks a new tactical mission to complete.

[Chris]

2 hours ago, Emily_F said:

Hang on, Chris. I've been nothing but supportive of this project from its inception. I have one "rant"  (and, trust me, that wasn't a rant) about a particularly poor part of the game which, for me, makes it particularly unenjoyable. There is literally no rhyme or reason to its inclusion in the game. It wouldn't be so bad if there was, with a given research pathway, you could at least mitigate its effect. 

Plenty of people have been far more critical than I've ever been. And have done so in far less diplomatic terms (particularly those who, with some measure of justification, complain that the game is X1 with a very thin lick of new paint). Those of us who have tested this game for many, many hours throughout the many iterations of the game have done so because we love the franchise and the specific game genera. Many really good suggestions throughout development have been ignored. 

I feel that you taking offence at what I said, and your response to it, falls short of what is appropriate. Frankly, I'm disappointed by you throwing your toys into a low earth orbit rather than engaging with someone who has been one of the main testers and contributers to the project. 

At the end of the day, it's your project and your game. You have to deliver it to the people who are still waiting for the realisation of the project they invested in many years ago. It's your reputation as a game developer, not mine. I've tried very hard to be a positive influence on that, but if you want to throw that back in my face, that's up to you. 

By the way, I skimmed back through your post history recently while I waited for some code to compile and I'll admit I was a bit unfair in my initial post. 95% of your posts are bug reports which are obviously a very useful contribution to the project, and there is indeed not much criticism there.

You made on the v20 builds about 18 months ago where you said you were angry at the direction the game was going because it was just turning into X1, and since I've not seen you post anything about the project since then I guess that's stuck in my head as what your feelings are about the project. But obviously that was a long time ago now so that was an unfair assumption on my part; it's not unreasonable for you to have a grumble every couple of years.

As you've been repeatedly asking about prone for a very long time and I've probably never responded to you about it, I'll give you a quick explanation as to why it's not in the game. Note I'm not ignoring you specifically on this topic either, it's just something that has been suggested repeatedly by fans of JA2 ever since Xenonauts 1 was announced and I'm kinda bored of writing out the same response so I tend to just skim over it whenever anyone mentions it.

Basically while I enjoy JA2 very much I think there's a trend to assume the mechanics in that game would transplant over into an X-Com game and work equally well, but that's not really the case - while their genesis is the same, JA2 is a more detailed combat simulator than X-Com ever was and the emphasis in X-Com is on larger squads and arguably on the equipment rather than the soldiers themselves (i.e. building a strategic war machine to defeat the aliens despite regular casualties). JA2 is the reverse, where the main attraction is the mercs and the really detailed tactical combat, and the equipment used and the strategic layer while important are secondary to that.

Adding prone to the game is just going to slow the tactical combat down imo, and I don't think it'd actually improve the gameplay, because it implies making the tactical combat even more simulationy than it already is - and I think Xenonauts is already quite possibly the most complex turn-based tactical simulation game in the last decade, and is already at the boundaries of what the average strategy gamer can comprehend.

It's also an enormous amount of work - far more than you might think. The art requirements alone are enormous, as we need a new set of prone / prone move / transition animations for every unit and weapon combination in the game. The code requirements are also enormous. It obviously has huge implications for the line of sight system (as presumably it'd need to affect sight lines) and the shooting system and the AI etc, but also loads of systems you wouldn't think of. For example, a prone unit won't fit in a single tile so we'd need to implement support for non-square (rectangular) multitile combatants - but also for units changing their footprint dynamically during a mission rather than it being set at the start of combat, which is a whole other can of worms.

I'm not exaggerating when I say the changes required are fundamental enough it'd be months of work to implement, and I'd need to be really confident that the feature was going to improve things if we were going to start work on that - and I'm just not convinced prone would actually improve the game.

[Emily_F]

On 4/13/2022 at 12:36 PM, Chris said:

Adding prone to the game is just going to slow the tactical combat down imo, and I don't think it'd actually improve the gameplay, because it implies making the tactical combat even more simulationy than it already is - and I think Xenonauts is already quite possibly the most complex turn-based tactical simulation game in the last decade, and is already at the boundaries of what the average strategy gamer can comprehend.

 

It's also an enormous amount of work - far more than you might think. The art requirements alone are enormous, as we need a new set of prone / prone move / transition animations for every unit and weapon combination in the game. The code requirements are also enormous. It obviously has huge implications for the line of sight system (as presumably it'd need to affect sight lines) and the shooting system and the AI etc, but also loads of systems you wouldn't think of. For example, a prone unit won't fit in a single tile so we'd need to implement support for non-square (rectangular) multitile combatants - but also for units changing their footprint dynamically during a mission rather than it being set at the start of combat, which is a whole other can of worms.

 

I'm not exaggerating when I say the changes required are fundamental enough it'd be months of work to implement, and I'd need to be really confident that the feature was going to improve things if we were going to start work on that - and I'm just not convinced prone would actually improve the game.

Thank you for taking the time to explain that. And I'm sorry that I was a bit of a bitch the other day; I didn't mean it in a horrible way but I can see now that I was a bit OTT. I'm just really passionate about the game because this genre is the only type of game I like other that Skyrim-style RPGs. I didn't realise how difficult the coding would be to add the prone mechanic; I know nothing about coding and just assumed it wouldn't be that much of a big deal. I just remembered that X-Com Apocalypse had it and, for me, it made a huge difference to the gameplay. 

But, again, I'm sorry for my original stroppy-mare post x

 

[Emily_F]

Here is the constructive version:

The problem for me with the OB mechanic is that a) it occurs for no apparent reason and just adds panic, b) you can't undo the panic with special operatives like you could before, which I thought was actually a good idea, but would have been better if they were kinda like small scale combat missions that needed different tactics and therefore different kinds of troops, and c) there was no way thru the tech tree or in the gameplay to ameliorate the effects. 

I just wonder if, for example, when you manage to save a load of civilians or something, that you get a bigger boost to panic reduction or something (because, right now, there is no benefit to saving people). 

Or maybe it you sell a certain amount of weapons or armour you've made (or has become obsolete) you get a reduction in panic. Though that would mean selling it to specific regions, which would probably be a ball-ache to implement. 

Or maybe you get some sort of bonus when you upgrade to the quantum radar thingy that means you can intercept the signal that is coming and warn people to take shelter so reducing the effects of the panic a bit. 

 

[Dagar]

I can also think of many ways to make the monthly performance evaluation more thematic (whether it being orbital bombardment or something else). The thing for me is however how well it is integrated into the rest of the game, and this only partly means how the panic meter can be influenced. Does it align with the alien goal? How does it affect the cleaners? Do the aliens have missions to recon targets so the panic is higher? Do the Xenonauts have way to mitigate the bombardment damage globally and locally? Does it affect the tactical battlefield? Does it affect available missions from these regions?

Mechanisms I could think of interacting with the orbital bombardment:

• Alien scout missions increase the panic for the next bombardment in the region(s) scouted
• Players can do research to show how hard a region / regions will be hit or decrease uncertainty about that
• Players can send troops to help build defenses against the bombardment into regions; the longer they are there and the more experienced, the better it works
• Aliens could have Sabotage / Abduction missions to undermine these efforts
• Cleaner presence should have something to do with that (e.g. they build transmitters letting the bombs home in on prime targets)
• Research to mitigate the damage / increase the efficiency of the defense building
• City / Industrial maps being increasingly devastated from bombardment in relation to how much panic from bombardment the region had to suffer. Damaged houses and roads, less civilians, less street lamps...

[Emily_F]

@Dagargreat suggestions. 

[Alienkiller]

It is linked with something more as we know from the first Test-Versions, so much is for sure. The Cleaners aren´t integrated without reasons and the announced hidden Aliens too.

With what it´s at the Gamestart directly linked we know already from the first Tests [an Idea you get when you read the first UFO-Pedia-Entry correctly with the Icland-Accident]. After that we will get more Information after advanced Testversions come out [V.24+].

The Alien-Orbit-Cannon and Home-Base for the Central-Brain (like in Xenonauts 1 [there it couldn´t brought in]; old X-COM [Mars-Base / big UFO underwater in TftD]; new XCOM [Mothership / Alien-Base in Atlantik] and UFO ET-Row [Mothership]) is not there for nothing.

 

The suggestions are great and give the Game more Pepper. Such similar Suggestions I and others brought in too in an other Threat here in the Froum already (Return of the Outposts, Agents, Airforce from the Founder-States and similar.). The Devs bring in much and bring refited / upgraded / reworked tested Things back in. But that comes Step by Step, now after the biggest Problems get solved more or less [Groundfighting-Map-CTDs for several Reasons; not working Basemangement-Things and so on].

The Refit from the Original Plan to the more or less stable Status we have now in our Beta-Test-Version is more then we can wish. And it´s not finished yet. Now the Integration Work is in Progress [more and better R & D, Basemangement, Fightermangement, Groundbattlemangement, Airfightmanagement, Special Operations and so on]. And if not everything from our Ideas come in the Basegame, for what it gives DLC-and Modding-Options for Xenonauts 2.

Other Companys can cut a slice off that what the Devs here and Chaos Concept [UFO-ET-Row] are doing. We are doing our Job [Founding and Betatesting] and the Devs with Freelancers theirs [everything what a Gameproduction is going to need to make an good to perfect Game]. Something similar happens to UFO 2 ET "Battle for Mercury". There the missing Ideas from the Betatesters and unfinished already testet Features will come in with and DLC and the already Testable Options-Mod [which only have to be adjustet from UFO 1 ET Gold to UFO 2 ET Basegame] is there already too. Sadly not Multilanguage, but fully useable, if you play in English.

 

I know some Gaming-Companys [played Games from them], were such an Gameoptimisation is more then needed. The Devs from Chaos Concept said too after Release of the UFO 2 ET Basegame, that the Betatest and Integration would have need 2 more Years.

 

That we get an complete Refit of the Originalplan from Xenonauts 2 to the Status we have now in only "3 Years" is more then great. And the Game workes more or less stable in the Betas now after the big Problems from V.17 to V.22.6 could be solved from what I can see so far.

 

Edited April 21, 2022 by Alienkiller