Build V17.6 Hotfix released!

[Fire Water Gasoline]

Nope, the crashes are still there. One crashsite was denied because it would crash there everytime. Autosaves also get corrupted. Mostly happens after returning to geoscape after a mission or after loading a game. I'm saving diligently so I can avoid totally messing the campaign up by going back one save file. That way it works for now.

[TrashMan]

ALL of my saves got corrupted...

[Fire Water Gasoline]

Quick question, y'all! Trying to hire soldiers, press hire, gives an empty popup and tells me to choose soldiers from a list. There are no soldiers there. Is this a bug or am I not getting something?

[Gorlom]

Bug that has been with the alpha a long time. There is a workaround that lets you duplicate soldiers but it will cause other bugs down the line.

[Fire Water Gasoline]

Bug that has been with the alpha a long time. There is a workaround that lets you duplicate soldiers but it will cause other bugs down the line.

Thank you.

Found the workaround. Took the risk. Awaiting the punishment.

[Khall]

Another way to get soldiers is to wait until october, the list refreshes normally at the start of each month, but it will be empty after the first week, at which point you'll have to wait until next month (so stock up on some soldiers )

The good thing about this method is it's less likely to cause bugs down the line (I haven't had any bugs or duplicate soldiers with this solution)

[Fire Water Gasoline]

Another way to get soldiers is to wait until october, the list refreshes normally at the start of each month, but it will be empty after the first week, at which point you'll have to wait until next month (so stock up on some soldiers )

The good thing about this method is it's less likely to cause bugs down the line (I haven't had any bugs or duplicate soldiers with this solution)

Is there a reason beyond an aesthetic concern to be weary of duplicate soldiers?

[Khall]

Duplicate soldiers tend to be really buggy, e.g. you'll have 12 soldiers listed in personnel, which you'll be paying for, but 2 of them are duplicates, and when you put them on a dropship they'll take up 2 spaces but only 1 soldier will be on the battlescape. You could have the same soldier across multiple bases. I crash if one gets killed in battle. They basically become unusable. And if you try to fire them your game will crash.

Generally, it's a bad idea

[Fire Water Gasoline]

Duplicate soldiers tend to be really buggy, e.g. you'll have 12 soldiers listed in personnel, which you'll be paying for, but 2 of them are duplicates, and when you put them on a dropship they'll take up 2 spaces but only 1 soldier will be on the battlescape. You could have the same soldier across multiple bases. I crash if one gets killed in battle. They basically become unusable. And if you try to fire them your game will crash.

Generally, it's a bad idea

Sounds grim. I'll report back on the scale of grimness when it occurs.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Fire Water Gasoline

[thothkins]

good person! I thought it sounded very grim. but you have faced the grimness. The grimness that seemed almost too grim. Grimness that goes off the chart of grim. We salute you and your surviving relatives.

[Fire Water Gasoline]

Just had the most epic crash. Base invasion, aliens stand next to entry points (what else could they possibly be doing?), I roll in a tank, tank gets shot with something blue and big and as it explodes the game crashes. Talk about permadeath : )

[thothkins]

grim indeed

[Fire Water Gasoline]

Another quick question. I did that research that grants you stun rods (xeno/alien biology?) and it mentioned being able to build an alien containment facility but that option never came up in the construction list. Is this a bug or is it supposed to be this way? And on a related issue, does the tech tree exist anywhere as a diagram/list?

[Max_Caine]

FWG, the tech tree doesn't exist as a list yet as Chris hasn't finalised it. To quote from his 19th Feb Dev update (emphasis added):

I've also continued my work on the research tree. There is a description in place for pretty much every research project that I'm confident will be in the final game (there's about 60 of them) and there's about 10-15 more liable to be shifted around. I've created images for about half of them, and we're starting work on the remaining stuff like the autopsy art for the aliens too.

[Fire Water Gasoline]

FWG, the tech tree doesn't exist as a list yet as Chris hasn't finalised it. To quote from his 19th Feb Dev update (emphasis added):

Cool. Thank you. I've read that too back then. I was just wondering if anyone has documented the tech tree that is implemented in the current build. And also that question about the alien containment : )

[mercy]

During dogfights:

One UFO should beat the crap out of our (multiple) fighter(s). Multiple UFOs are unnecessary. Make a bigger UFO as a Bigger Threat instead. A new, never before seen bigger UFO is much more exciting and stirs up our Hunter Instincts = okay it destroyed my fighters, but I will get the sucker later for sure!! Awaken the many thousands of years old feelings of Revenge in the player. Make human drama. Emphasize that humans are basically SANDWICH-es to Aliens.

Our fighters chasing a herd of smaller UFOs are unrealistic and looks ridiculous, also from design standpoint it feels a forced, lame, cheap, uncreative, not very clever decision. If you can't change anything - e.g. your hands are tied - you will make this game BLEH.

Make clever design decisions that slaps the players in the face so they are stunned from the blow and the icy cold of fear creeps along their spine into their hearts. UFOs possess super-technology, we are neanderthal humanoid-chickens compared to them. UFOs are able to speed across your FOV in a fraction of a second as you can see on some specially slowed down video recording frames, they are visible as a blurred streak on 3-4 frames top. Those recordings are really disturbing, because of UFO speed and displayed supremacy.

You could send the player "to sleep" by generating regular encounters THEN make a strange, rare, strong UFO appear an Interceptor Butcher, in different sprite color, maybe having a slowly blinking insidious glow around it, like the unknown & frightening alien ship in Privateer 1. Sort of like a Predator Ship but specialized to be Interceptor Hunter Class, that can be shot down VERY RARELY and if the player succeeds, they encounter a new human-hunter alien species with the strength/shooting & death dealing skills of Predators.

You could defend your already built in elements - that you could make existing aliens tough for example -, but you also could relax the player with a regular UFO game experience, then suddenly create an unexpected TWIST that turns around everything players have seen up to that point and have gotten used to in XCOM1-2/EU like games and create a totally unique experience in Xenonauts never before seen anywhere else!!

Only if you really wish to break the ice in this genre. Firaxis said they are working on something totally new and awesome compared to the usual content ending with their Slingshot DLC.

Do you want to release a just another UFO game "Oh yeah and there is Xenonauts as well.. nothing exceptional, okay lets talk about the new Call of Duty where the action is.." or

Would you like UFO fans talk about Xenonauts for years and have a lot of new converts MODding the hell out of your game?

Do something exceptional that gets their attention!

[GizmoGomez]

Huh. Well, that was interesting.

Only if you really wish to break the ice in this genre. Firaxis said they are working on something totally new and awesome compared to the usual content ending with their Slingshot DLC.

Do you want to release a just another UFO game "Oh yeah and there is Xenonauts as well.. nothing exceptional, okay lets talk about the new Call of Duty where the action is.." or

Would you like UFO fans talk about Xenonauts for years and have a lot of new converts MODding the hell out of your game?

Do something exceptional that gets their attention!

I seriously doubt that this game will be compared to CoD when it comes to unexceptional gameplay. Actually, if I were the one of the devs I might be a tad offended by that statement, comparing their baby (you know it's true, they love this game) to the re-re-re-re-released games Activision pumps out. Also, who are you to determine what will make the game memorable? I don't mean to sound rude, but why would you know better than the entire team, plus everyone else that's contributed on the forums to what the game is currently? They'd have to rewrite so much code (I don't even want to think about it) to create, imo, a sub-par product. There really isn't anything else out there besides UFO (and its sequels) and Xenonauts. Of course they're going to be talking about this game for years to come, it's the only thing out there that's actually anything like the original UFO:EU. (The Firaxis is okay, but not the greatest. Takes a lot away from the original experience.)

One UFO should beat the crap out of our (multiple) fighter(s). Multiple UFOs are unnecessary. Make a bigger UFO as a Bigger Threat instead. A new, never before seen bigger UFO is much more exciting and stirs up our Hunter Instincts = okay it destroyed my fighters, but I will get the sucker later for sure!! Awaken the many thousands of years old feelings of Revenge in the player. Make human drama. Emphasize that humans are basically SANDWICH-es to Aliens.

Our fighters chasing a herd of smaller UFOs are unrealistic and looks ridiculous, also from design standpoint it feels a forced, lame, cheap, uncreative, not very clever decision. If you can't change anything - e.g. your hands are tied - you will make this game BLEH.

I don't see any problems with multiple UFOs. In fact, multiple targets make life more hell-ish for the pilots, because they have to worry about multiple hostiles instead of just keeping out of the way of one enemy. One enemy is easier to kill then many, even if it's one big one and lots of little ones. Keep in mind, there are only so many hardpoints on a F17 or a Mig. With one enemy, you could just pump everything you have into that one guy, when you'd have to be more careful with multiple enemies. In fact, if there was just one enemy, it would in fact be more like UFO:EU, as they didn't have multiple planes in one battle (you were saying make it less like the OG to switch it up, right?)

Also, why would you feel the need for vengeance on a group of UFOs less than a single larger one?

Make clever design decisions that slaps the players in the face so they are stunned from the blow and the icy cold of fear creeps along their spine into their hearts. UFOs possess super-technology, we are neanderthal humanoid-chickens compared to them. UFOs are able to speed across your FOV in a fraction of a second as you can see on some specially slowed down video recording frames, they are visible as a blurred streak on 3-4 frames top. Those recordings are really disturbing, because of UFO speed and displayed supremacy.

You realize that jet fighters can streak by in a fraction of a second, too, right? It's not as "HOLY ****" as it would be to, say, actual neanderthal chickens. It's not all that impressive. If I were to see an incredibly fast UFO fly by, I'd just make faster missiles. No worries there. In fact, the heat build up due to air resistance would make the UFO easier to detect, giving us an advantage. No amount of "super-tech" can defeat us humans, anyway. More on that later.

You could defend your already built in elements - that you could make existing aliens tough for example -, but you also could relax the player with a regular UFO game experience, then suddenly create an unexpected TWIST that turns around everything players have seen up to that point and have gotten used to in XCOM1-2/EU like games and create a totally unique experience in Xenonauts never before seen anywhere else!!

I doubt that the devs havn't made the aliens "tough" already. If you've played the game and are thinking it's too easy, wait until balancing happens. You'll piss your pants. And I'm pretty sure this is a very unique game. Like I said before, there's really no other games like it. It's based on UFO:EU, sure, but the devs have made it their own, and it's going to be great, just wait.

During dogfights:

You could send the player "to sleep" by generating regular encounters THEN make a strange, rare, strong UFO appear an Interceptor Butcher, in different sprite color, maybe having a slowly blinking insidious glow around it, like the unknown & frightening alien ship in Privateer 1. Sort of like a Predator Ship but specialized to be Interceptor Hunter Class, that can be shot down VERY RARELY and if the player succeeds, they encounter a new human-hunter alien species with the strength/shooting & death dealing skills of Predators.

So... Put Predators into the game, is what you're saying here. Okay, I'm sure the devs would like to be original and shake up the genre by replicating ...Predators...

About the whole "puny humans can't possibly match aliens tech" mentality, I disagree probably the most with that. Humans can't be beat. Even if it's impossible, we'd never give up. We'd win a war with aliens, if with nothing else, sheer tenacity, perseverance and force of will. Who cares if the aliens have better tech? We're still going to kill every last one of those sons of, eh, guns, and then we're going to use their guts to grease the treads (wheels?) of our hunters! We're going to kill those poor aliens by the bushel!

(I'm taking cues from Patton's speech to the third army, in case anyone was wondering what that was about. With extensive censorship, of course.)

Screw their high-tech gizmos and gadgets, they still gonna die.

[Max_Caine]

mercy, when was the last time you played this game? I mean, take this:

chasing a herd of smaller UFOs

I'm sorry? Since when did small fightercraft do anything but turn around and attack head on? Or do you mean that it's unrealistic that an advancing alien armada would send scout craft ahead of it's larger craft? I mean, oh no, they should bulldoze through right away, yeah? And hang on a second. When fightercraft are introduced they start chasing after your own fighters and dropships. In fact, they are SO aggressive they will wait hovering around your base for a dropship or fightercraft to come out! This situation has so many complaints that Chris has in fact tuned down the number of aggressive aircraft! So where's this crap about chasing "herds of small UFOs" coming from?

And your idea of spicing things up in the air combat isn't to introduce novel alien techniques that take some learning to beat and help mix up strategies, but to jack the difficulty of the UFO up to level 99 while my level 5 scrubs impotently ping against it's mighty thews with peashooters?

Let me ask you a question. How much does it cost to get a fightercraft? Not one that you have to build - oh no. How much for a basic F-17? Let me tell you: $200,000 and three days before I get it. What does it cost in terms of funding if a base looses all its interceptors for three days and can't defend its territories? If this Super-Awesome Interceptor Butcher comes along and twats my fightercraft, I'm not going to feel the ICY COLD DARK of FEAR. Oh no. I'm going to feel the HOT RAGE of IMPOTENT FURY. I'm going to be shouting "Son of a b*h. I'm on Iron Man and that base covers three territories! My income is f*d!". And if that ULTIMATE INTERCEPTOR F*R is random as get all out, then I'll be treating every encounter as "oh my god, I can't afford another $600,000, three days and terribad losses to my funding! RUN AWAY!". Where's the hunter instinct there?

[Fire Water Gasoline]

Chill out, mercy. It's a great game and getting better with every build. Turn based strategies are not meant to compete with FPSs in popularity. And what you offer is neither more realistic, nor more exciting.

Also, I very much doubt that Firaxis is going to blow are minds away with their next DLC. Unless they'll finally fix the freaking MP bugs. That would blow my mind away. That's how low the bar is by now : )

[Gorlom]

There really isn't anything else out there besides UFO (and its sequels) and Xenonauts. It's the only thing out there that's actually anything like the original UFO:EU. (The Firaxis is okay, but not the greatest. Takes a lot away from the original experience.)

.

If we don't count Jagged Alliance and Silent storm (that are somewhat similar in the gameplay but on a different theme) there is also the AfterX series and Extraterrestrials. There are a few others I can't recall atm as well.

Here's the wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-com#Spiritual_successors

You might want to check them out if you like X-com?

Edited February 27, 2013 by Gorlom

[GizmoGomez]

To be honest, I didn't know about those others. I didn't quite do my research when I stated that; I apologize.

[Gorlom]

No need to apologize. I just thought you'd be interested in one or two of them

Edit: bnah I phrased the first post a bit more aggressive than it needs to be. I'll change that.

[GizmoGomez]

No, it wasn't aggressive, rather, that wasn't why I apologized. I got after someone earlier for not doing their research before posting (granted I was a tad angry at the time, but whatever), and I don't want to be a hypocrite. Thanks for the wiki article, though!

[targetbsp]

Silent Storm is an amazing game btw. The only* XCOM style game with actually better tactical combat than the original IMO. But it lacks the strategic layer.

Also... I now want Predators in the game.

*I haven't played Xenonauts enough to know where to place it in this respect. I only played the kickstarter demo enough to realise its the first XCOM clone that 'feels right' and then I bought it and planned to wait until its finished to play.

Edited February 28, 2013 by targetbsp

[windex]

Silent Storm was the $hi! for sure. Loved that game too bad it didn't last. Very good tactical AI. Good use of fog of war and destructive cover or uncover. Beautiful and tactically functional map designs and graphics. That game deserved more support.