Newbie Observations & Suggestion

[akmatov]

* I notice that I can destroy a wall (the gray cement things) nicely and walk right through the gap. However, while I can also destroy a hedge and shoot through the gap, I can not walk through it. Surely this is an opps. I would like to walk through destroyed gaps in hedges in a later version.

* Should I get taking fire, but totally unable to see the shooter? I can see this argued several ways, just wondering if it was intentional.

* Back at Base, I should be able to see the Health of my unassigned troops in the Squad Screen. As it is, I have to go to the Personnel Screen and back. I mention this although I later realized I can assign troops in or out of the active squad in the Personnel Screen.

* Three out of five ground actions were on the same, or very similar map, but the location of the aliens were not the same. Early days, of course. Just thought I'd mention it.

* I just finished a clinic in my base. Should I see something about this in my troops healing? I would think that moving them to a proper clinic from wherever they have been stuffed on their own with self-administered morphine and bandages should result in faster healing. BTB, I had one troop evac at 1% Health! Is slowly healing and even got medal.

* I did not see any of the previously reported alien shooting through blank wall when my troops were right beside the wall. In one mission there was a very clear situation where I could see an alien on one side and my troops directly on the other side right by the wall and taking no fire. So I guess you guys fixed that one.

* When installing via Steam, the desktop link lacks an icon.

* The weights for items needs to be relooked, a pistol or rifle magazine does not weight a kilo. Adding a realistic number of mags gets heavy much too quickly.

* The 'Belt' has far too few slots. I can carry a pistol and two mags. In reality, a pistol, four mags and two grenades would be kind of minimal.

* The number of troop slots located at the bottom of the screen Base/AC Equipment/Dropships should be 12 instead of 6. There is plenty of space available, why not avoid unnecessary scrolling?

* Really minor point, but it looks like the three guys in the first screen are all corporals, ie low ranking enlisted troops as opposed to the high ranking officers one would assume would be in charge of defending Earth. Looks weird or probably modeled on an army whose uniforms I'm not familiar. But then all the weapons that all the bases start out with are US issue weapons - which is also odd, somehow I don't see the Chinese using M16s. Maybe in later versions there will be regional weapons for the various regions?

+++ Really like the fact that the game includes such an easy to use gameconfig.xml for making player tweaks. The idea that 40% of the combat soldiers available in any military in 1979 were female is beyond ludicrous.

??? In game the rank between Major and Colonel is Commander. Lieutenant Colonel is the rank I would have expected with a Commander being the naval equivalent of an army Lieutenant Colonel. Perhaps I'm being US-centric.

Very early days at this saving of an ungrateful humanity. Seem to be having a lot of troops getting chewed up. Have had to take some missions with a Squad of only four troops, everyone else was back at base shooting morphine and applying their own bandages waiting for the union shop guys to get around to finishing the clinic. Having fun with this one.

Edited June 5, 2013 by akmatov

[Veneke]

* I notice that I can destroy a wall (the gray cement things) nicely and walk right through the gap. However, while I can also destroy a hedge and shoot through the gap, I can not walk through it. Surely this is an opps. I would like to walk through destroyed gaps in hedges in a later version.

Never noticed this but yes, you should be able to walk through destroyed terrain.

* Should I get taking fire, but totally unable to see the shooter? I can see this argued several ways, just wondering if it was intentional.

The short answer is yes; aliens have longer sight ranges and better weapons. You should have a general idea of where the shooter is though based on the path of the shot.

* Back at Base, I should be able to see the Health of my unassigned troops in the Squad Screen. As it is, I have to go to the Personnel Screen and back. I mention this although I later realized I can assign troops in or out of the active squad in the Personnel Screen.

I have also noticed this and really hope something is done to remedy it.

* Three out of five ground actions were on the same, or very similar map, but the location of the aliens were not the same. Early days, of course. Just thought I'd mention it.

More maps are being added, though there is already a selection of ~50. In my experience you'll get a better selection of maps in Europe/Asia than you will in the Americas (esp. N. America) but I suspect that this will get better as the game progresses through to official release.

* I just finished a clinic in my base. Should I see something about this in my troops healing? I would think that moving them to a proper clinic from wherever they have been stuffed on their own with self-administered morphine and bandages should result in faster healing. BTB, I had one troop evac at 1% Health! Is slowly healing and even got medal.

Yeah, the clinic (isn't it called medbay or something? Maybe not) speeds up soldier recovery rate. There isn't anything to really show this though in action. Grats on the medal.

* I did not see any of the previously reported alien shooting through blank wall when my troops were right beside the wall. In one mission there was a very clear situation where I could see an alien on one side and my troops directly on the other side right by the wall and taking no fire. So I guess you guys fixed that one.

Very early days at this saving of an ungrateful humanity. Seem to be having a lot of troops getting chewed up. Have had to take some missions with a Squad of only four troops, everyone else was back at base shooting morphine and applying their own bandages waiting for the union shop guys to get around to finishing the clinic. Having fun with this one.

Some times you have to take wounded soldiers, though I've come across a number of situations where I simply didn't have a full crew. Those were times I wished I had a Hunter scout car. Two soldiers may be better than it in the long run but if you're tight on manpower the vehicles are very handy.

[Steelpoint]

As noted by Veneke if you play initially in North America your selection of maps is mostly limited to one or two maps. Set your base up in Asia or Europe and you will get a greater variety of maps to play. Also as you have discovered you should always build a Medical Clinic in your base since it massively reduced you soldiers recovery times from a month to a few days.

About the three people you see in the first screen, I would assume the reason why they are low ranked is because they are subordinate to you, the commander of the Xenonauts.

[StellarRat]

I think the hedgerow has to be blasted down to ground level before you can walk through it. Remember, it actually is a large mound with plants growing from the top.