Kindly remove (QUICKLY) all alien 'interceptor squads' from the game.

[GizmoGomez]

Well, the developers do know about, and are working on a solution to fix, the fact that air combat is the most punishing part of the game. It will get better, don't worry. We're just saying that removing the air superiority squadrons isn't the best idea; fixing the whole system is. Also, there will be an air combat auto-resolve button, so you don't need to do every one. You can let the computer handle the too-easy ones for you, if you'd like.

Personally, I really enjoy the air combat, and micromanaging every little thing about it, so I won't be using that button much, I don't think.

[StellarRat]

#1 - It was shallow in the OG, but it still adds an interesting break to the normal action in the game. Which is all ground combat. Also, shooting down lots of UFOs can and hopefully does slow down the progress of the alien invasion. In the OG, if you downed their larger ships they couldn't establish bases and you could thwart terror missions by shooting down the terror ships. I think that works here too.

#2 - See one.

#3 - This is realistic. A lot more realistic than planes that never die. Now that plane costs have been lowered for the starting planes I don't feel this is much of an issue.

#4 - OK

[Solver]

The thing about minigames is, they are a losing proposition. A design trap.

First, let me offer anecdotal experience. Bioshock and Deus Ex: HR both have minigames. I loved both games. At the beginning, minigames seemed really interesting. In the middle of the game, I was good at them, and reached the point where I would always succeed. By the end of the game, the minigames had gotten really tiring. In my second playthrough? Hated them with a passion.

Now on to the design trap. Minigames are, by their very nature, simple. They have to be. Something like air combat in Xenonauts is fairly complicated for a minigame, but still simple. Fundamentally this is because of the design niche that minigames fill. They are there to provide some quick aspect of gameplay without seriously interrupting the rest of the game. By their nature, minigames must be possible to resolve in no more than a minute. This means that players eventually get very good at them because they don't offer so much complexity. This is where things get hairy. Once a player is good enough, the minigame becomes a mere annoyance. The player knows exactly what to do, and he'll win every time. The minigame is nothing more than a chore then.

That is where auto-resolve comes in. Except a pretty big snag once again. The auto-resolve may actually be less favourable than the player's own skill. Consider this made-up example. I figure out how to take a fighter squadron with 2 Corsairs and no losses. I get good enough to do it every time. However, auto-resolve does not consider the situation so favourable, so auto-resolving such a fight leads to 1 Corsair lost. Thus I feel forced to manually play it out every time, which will piss me off sooner or later. The opposite is also true - if auto-resolve consistently offers better results than what can be gained by playing the mini-game, then auto-resolving becomes the way to go.

This is a problem I have encountered in numerous designs, and one that is extremely hard to mitigate.

[StellarRat]

The thing about minigames is, they are a losing proposition. A design trap.

First, let me offer anecdotal experience. Bioshock and Deus Ex: HR both have minigames. I loved both games. At the beginning, minigames seemed really interesting. In the middle of the game, I was good at them, and reached the point where I would always succeed. By the end of the game, the minigames had gotten really tiring. In my second playthrough? Hated them with a passion.

Now on to the design trap. Minigames are, by their very nature, simple. They have to be. Something like air combat in Xenonauts is fairly complicated for a minigame, but still simple. Fundamentally this is because of the design niche that minigames fill. They are there to provide some quick aspect of gameplay without seriously interrupting the rest of the game. By their nature, minigames must be possible to resolve in no more than a minute. This means that players eventually get very good at them because they don't offer so much complexity. This is where things get hairy. Once a player is good enough, the minigame becomes a mere annoyance. The player knows exactly what to do, and he'll win every time. The minigame is nothing more than a chore then.

That is where auto-resolve comes in. Except a pretty big snag once again. The auto-resolve may actually be less favourable than the player's own skill. Consider this made-up example. I figure out how to take a fighter squadron with 2 Corsairs and no losses. I get good enough to do it every time. However, auto-resolve does not consider the situation so favourable, so auto-resolving such a fight leads to 1 Corsair lost. Thus I feel forced to manually play it out every time, which will piss me off sooner or later. The opposite is also true - if auto-resolve consistently offers better results than what can be gained by playing the mini-game, then auto-resolving becomes the way to go.

This is a problem I have encountered in numerous designs, and one that is extremely hard to mitigate.

So why not just have an auto resolve ground combat and an auto resolve geoscape then?

[Solver]

Your flippant response misses the point. I've seen enough of your posts to know that you know better.

When you add a minigame to the design, you almost certainly fall into the trap I described. The key weakness here being duration. Anything can get old, but for a fully-fledged well designed system it may take years to do so. Not so for a minigame, which is again necessarily simpler due to the constraints placed on its design.

[StellarRat]

Your flippant response misses the point. I've seen enough of your posts to know that you know better.

When you add a minigame to the design, you almost certainly fall into the trap I described. The key weakness here being duration. Anything can get old, but for a fully-fledged well designed system it may take years to do so. Not so for a minigame, which is again necessarily simpler due to the constraints placed on its design.

OK, but the air game is, IMO, a critical part of the system. It can make a difference in your ultimate victory. We are going to get auto resolve for it. I like it. It gives you reasons to build more bases. And to me, it's a welcome break from ground combat and playing with the economic stuff at the base. Maybe I'm crazy, but ground combat isn't the only reason I liked the OG or Xenonauts. How would you change the air game to make it more interesting if it were possible?

[Solver]

Oh, sure, you're right there. I like air combat as a break, and that is what it should be. And I like how air combat is actually a bigger part of the game than in the OG, where it was nearly entirely passive. I think the air combat now is quite well done, except maybe the fact that the nimble fighter squadrons represent a bigger escalation in difficulty than anything else, like bigger ships.

But I like the minigame because I am still learning, and because quite frankly I still suck at it. The point is, that will stop being the case long before I tire of the rest of the game. I will figure out how to do air combat correctly, and I will start winning every, or very close to that, air battle that happens, and then the minigame will just get boring.

Does that apply to other aspects? Well, in a way. You could say I will also get very good at ground combat at some point. But due to ground combat being far more complicated (because it's not a minigame), it will take me a far longer time to do so. Let's say that I will get really good at air combat after a month, good enough to render it irrelevant, but it would at the same rate take me a couple of years to no longer be challenged by the ground combat. And the main threat with auto resolve is, like I said, that it might not be good enough for the higher difficulty battles which would still be repetitive manually.

This is an issue I have faced before. I do not have a good solution. I just want to put this out there so the point is understood.

[StellarRat]

From what I've seen air combat is always going to be a challenge, specially when the aliens upgrade their craft and you aren't prepared. There is also the challenge of taking down a superior alien through super good air combat play. I've pulled that off a time or two and it's quite rewarding, IMO. Remember that damage on alien ships is cumulative. So you can utilize multiple sorties to bring down ships that you can't kill with one flight. I would definitely recommend you use the space bar a lot!

Edited June 4, 2013 by StellarRat

[Lightzy]

The minigame here is definitely deeper than most minigames i've seen, but still falls into that trap, yes.

I thought actually that adding just one more layer of complexity would have made it really come into it's own, and feel more like land combat where u can do infinity missions, and, as long as the game design is good and feels fair (like in JA2), you can just go on

[Solver]

Stellar, that is the point. You will reach your ceiling where you take on everything that can be killed. I, for instance, discovered that Cruisers are easily killable with two sorties from a Foxtrot. So now Cruiser appearances are boring, I just send out a Foxtrot, hit, RTB to rearm, hit again. Boom.

[StellarRat]

Stellar, that is the point. You will reach your ceiling where you take on everything that can be killed. I, for instance, discovered that Cruisers are easily killable with two sorties from a Foxtrot. So now Cruiser appearances are boring, I just send out a Foxtrot, hit, RTB to rearm, hit again. Boom.

Sounds more like balance issue to me.

[Spyda665]

I like the mini-game although I cant say i totally understand it, My planes were managing to shoot down anything without me touching any of the side options .. but now, Ill have to start a new game, because I lost two foxtrots and my last original fighter to an alien fighter once i started using the options .. I don't know, no sense to me ... but now, I've not made enough money to build anymore ... so that's sad lol

[Andeerz]

I dislike the air combat mini game but I do like the idea of the air superiority missions.

I would avoid the invisible unavoidable version though, that feels like blind luck that you cannot plan for so removing the strategic aspect from the player.

If you cannot see them then you cannot decide how to handle them, you can never risk sending out a weak squadron to take on a small craft because they could get a random ambush on the way.

If you see an air superiority squadron you can either try to avoid it if you don't have the available craft or attack it directly.

I see what you mean. But but but... They wouldn't always be stealthy (there would be detection chances as they exist now), and with the fixing of the chaining interception bug or whatever it is called, you could still escape (provided the plane isn't too slow). And though it might be blind luck in a way, it is blind luck that can be mitigated through good resource and risk management (building more radars, perhaps some hypothetical radar upgrades on aircraft, not trying to intercept stuff with damaged aircraft...) and, if balanced properly, the threats would scale well with time and not become game breakers. Also, if you send out aircraft to take out a weak squadron but then get intercepted as you mentioned, ruining your plans, I like that. It throws you a wrench so you don't always feel comfortable. Still, though, I see what you mean...

I just have a problem with things being so darned deterministic with the mini game right now. I always win with tier 1 aircraft against even advanced foes, and I always feel like I have the upper hand against my foes in this regard.

[Lightzy]

True, I can generally take down anything with 3 gatling laser fighters.. shoot all the missles, then have one flee the ufo with the other 2 spraying it from behind until dead..

landing ships may require an additional dose of plasma torpedoes though... wayyyyyy too much armor, a lot more than cruisers I think

And I really like interceptors as escorts to larger alien ships, but I seriously dislike the only-interceptor squads because they serve no purpose

[Gr3y]

Yeah the intercepter UFO squads can make you game-over on ironman.

I lost all my planes except 1 condor the first time I ran into them and I can't afford new planes.

[StellarRat]

Sounds like Aaron is going to change the game so all shoot downs will help increase your nation funding. That will make shooting down fighters actually count for something.

[Lightzy]

Giving funding benefits for downing them is good, but it doesn't help that shooting them down increases funding if there is any chance that you will lose all your fighters like I imagine almost anyone new to the game would (like posted just above, and which I am absolutely sure happened to each and every one here on his first encounter with an all fighter, especially all heavy fighter, squadron).

Hell, even losing just 1 condor to them has already made any such dogfight a drain on your resources. not to mention any more expensive craft, unless you get more nation support for downing an interceptor squad than u get for clearing a couple of terror sites and downing several medium/large ships.

it simply doesn't work, the concept of alien interceptors the way the game is currently designed. no chocolate covering would really help.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Lightzy

[StellarRat]

I think its going to stay in. You can ignore fighter sweeps without penalty unless they are closing on friendlies.

[Hadrian]

I think its going to stay in. You can ignore fighter sweeps without penalty unless they are closing on friendlies.

Not after the new year you cant. The interceptors are so fast that unless you have t2 or t3 aircraft in abundance you simply cannot ignore them. I have had to lead them a merry dance with a fast fighter away from target ufos, so that my other air units can engage. This is compounded by the fact that if you dont get electronics early enough you wont have your own interceptors in time to manage the upswing in spawns.

I think the 3 fighter sweeps should be reduced to 2 fighter units max, unless its a cruiser or larger with escorts. Its really the 3 fighter wings that cause the most issues since in a 1v1 situation unless your up to tech your aircraft with get shot down easily. 2 alien fighters max would make it leader and wingman, and give the player the edge they require to keep up since you can send 3 units a time. Larger ships with escorts are fine as is.

[StellarRat]

Not after the new year you cant. The interceptors are so fast that unless you have t2 or t3 aircraft in abundance you simply cannot ignore them.

That's good to know. I haven't got past December yet because I've always gotten a new update to install before I had a chance OR I ran out of money and could tell I was going to lose.