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[Mytheos]

I've been experienced the air battle a little and I'm not quite sure what to think about it.

Xenonauts Condor :

They are the 1st ship you have and they are ok if the missile hit. If the missile fail to hit they are dead. The auto-cannon is too bad because your ship is too fragile.

Foxtrot Now only have 2 long range missile. They are useful but once again, if they fail to hit or to kill the target, your plane is going to get destroy.

Yes they are "invulnerable" but 3 days in the hangar is game breaking.

Also, what's the point in intercepting the fighters ? They are always destroyed and you risk to lose your aircraft.

My conclusion is as follow :

If the game stay like this , you have to be able to load more missile and you should be able to change the missile type on your plane. The plane will have to cost less and maybe having multi plane per hangar. At Veteran, In few days, I've seen around 12 to 15 fighters and a couple of medium at the beginning of the 2nd month ! It's impossible to get them all, because you will lack fuel or your plane will be in reparation.

Alien fighter should gives you a small amount of materials.

The dodge should be a side move on a side then immediate side move the face the target again.

So far I think that's about it.

Read my comment from http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/6259-Aircraft-combat-lacks-balance

Sorry for not linking it easier, but it will give you a better understanding.

[Selvhan]

Yeah but that's a little boring to say the truth. But It's a nice tactic.

[Mytheos]

Yeah but that's a little boring to say the truth. But It's a nice tactic.

Yeah but I guess the devs thought something was better than nothing...which at this point they probably regret lol.

And by nothing I mean a trivial Air Combat system like XCOM94.

[ThunderGr]

Yeah but I guess the devs thought something was better than nothing...which at this point they probably regret lol.

And by nothing I mean a trivial Air Combat system like XCOM94.

Or even more trivial like XCOM2012 .

[Aziphos]

I like the Idea of thoskins, but I would add a nessesity of some modifications by the engineers.

The engineers are far to unimportant in the current versions, because everything they can build is either quite expensive or only needed in very limited quantity... if the aircrafts were cheaper (or free), but would need a great part of engineer time there could be a decision like "do I need more manufactoring capacity or will I invest in more hangars, another base, etc"

Raw material and normal human technology could really be provided by the council members, while advanced technology has to be captured.

ps: I thing a great problem of the discussion is that there isn't enough differentiation between game mechanics and storyexplanations...I think the game mechanic works quite well....but it feels quite wrong if the aliens arent enabled to destroy your aircrafts

Edited July 7, 2013 by Aziphos

[Selvhan]

Aziphos as a point. If the alien can't shut down Xenonauts crafts, it's sound really bizarre.

As I mentionned in the suggestion thread, there should be more research at the beginning and a lot more things to produce by your Engineers. Upgrade part for your interceptor to catch the alien and to try to outmanoeuvre them.

More option as how you want to equip your plane would also be nice.

[thothkins]

but I would a nessesity of some modifications by the engineers.

thinking around that, as I do agree. The number of freebies, autoupdates and infinite quantities has made them suffer. Saving it for another thread.

Raw material and normal human technology could really be provided by the council members, while advanced technology has to be captured.

The game has numerous examples of that advanced alien technology already falling into the freebies, autoupdate and infinite categories that to mandate it for this is jarring.

I think the game mechanic works quite well....but it feels quite wrong if the aliens arent enabled to destroy your aircrafts

Under the way the game has gone, I can see the need to have lower cost aircraft that don't cripple the game when you lose the interception. I don;t think I'm ever going to be happy with there being no actual risk to the pilots, whether through mechanic or back story or both. Hopefully the above provides the same effects - not crippling the game when losing air interceptions - with the same time delays.

[Tryphikik]

Hmm... I don't think that's an accurate description Lightzy. I would avoid blatantly insulting people by literally calling them cry-babies, it's not the best way to present an argument. Besides, it antagonizes people, and that should be avoided.

How is calling people against indestructible planes cry babies any more antagonistic than calling those for it casuals or saying that indestructible planes is what the "hardcore" players want. Yea, forget that some of us play ironman veteran/insanity only, the hardest difficulties on every game we get ahold on, are completionists... but we don't care about the air combat minigame being a big deal so we're casuals.

Not liking the minigame being important isn't a casual view, it's a difference in philosophy. The philosophy being on whether you think air combat should be very important or not important. I personally view Xenonauts as a strategy/tactics game, I play it for a -hardcore- strategy and tactics experience. The air combat minigame is not strategy or tactics, it is a repetitive somewhat reflex somewhat pattern based minigame that has the potential to be -extremely- game altering for no good reason...

Edited July 7, 2013 by Tryphikik

[Lightzy]

I cant even tell if you are being sarcastic or serious. I assume serious as you previous said this was a good change before...

You really think UFOs wouldnt be as fast or agile under atmospheric conditions? Based on what? Our planes are a rockets with wings and navigate by changing air flow with flaps.

Theirs use anti gravity technology.

Have you noticed that you can intercept, outrun and fly circles around pretty much every ufo?

have you played the game?

[Tryphikik]

I would liken it to say every time you build a new facility in your base you have to play 20 rounds of tetris, if you don't win every round your building implodes and you lose the money. Wow, now doing that would be HARDCORE, any "hardcore" player worth their salt would master it and not let it hurt their playthrough... but should they have to? Should they have to master and play a random minigame that has extremely little to do with why the majority of the playerbase plays the game. Why is nobody arguing for the addition of even more random minigames to make the game sooo "hardcore"?

Because that isn't the point of the game, nobody is that delusional to think that would make the game better. It would be random and distracting from the actual point of the game(strategy/tactics), much like having the flight minigame be extremely important would be. If you want the game to be more hardcore come up with more immersive elements that impact your strategy choices in what you build at your base and what you do on the tactical level during missions. Those are the places where the game should be as hardcore as possible.

[Mytheos]

Or even more trivial like XCOM2012 .

I'm being completely serious on this.

I played XCOM2012 on impossible ironman, blah blah...So I spent a good amount of time playing it, even tho it ultimately was rather fail.

But I honestly dont even remember Air Combat in XCOM2012

[alienman]

Am I alone in liking the air to air combat mini-game? Seems most people here dislike it, no matter if you like immortal interceptors or not.

And on that subject. I don't understand why loosing a plane is so terrible? The old games had the same mechanic, and people "survived" that game. Take a look at X-com Apocalypse. Planes and other vehicles was expensive as hell, but they still could be destroyed. And that game had very unforgiving air to air combat. Part of the challenge and fun in my opinion - you know the whole, fighting a uphill battle from the get go.

[Mytheos]

Have you noticed that you can intercept, outrun and fly circles around pretty much every ufo?

have you played the game?

Lightzy could you make it through a day without being insulting?

Seriously this isnt gamefaqs where being a constant ass is an achievement.

Yes I have, and I have also chased certain class UFOs around until the point I ran out of fuel. across from the top to the bottom of Africa nearly.

I however am speaking from a realism point. Do you think it makes sense that we could so easily out maneuver a UFO?

And also last I checked wings of UFO fighters could catch and engage you, if you were SO much faster and more maneuverable that would be nearly impossible.

[Mytheos]

Am I alone in liking the air to air combat mini-game? Seems most people here dislike it, no matter if you like immortal interceptors or not.

And on that subject. I don't understand why loosing a plane is so terrible? The old games had the same mechanic, and people "survived" that game. Take a look at X-com Apocalypse. Planes and other vehicles was expensive as hell, but they still could be destroyed. And that game had very unforgiving air to air combat. Part of the challenge and fun in my opinion - you know the whole, fighting a uphill battle from the get go.

Well honestly all it would take is a youtube tutorial video and all the Air Craft Combat complaints would vanish, mostly anyways.

But yeah I think the Air Combat is great and I was glad to see the added depth of it.

I does take awhile to learn to do perfectly, probably too long really. And yeah it is an overly severe loss.

But I think the best option is to find a reasonable solution instead of going for the most simple, quick and easy one.

This might be a topic revisited later, but I think for now the devs want to throw a band-aid at it and move on to other stuff.

I imagine the steam release has them feeling a bit pressured.

Edited July 8, 2013 by Mytheos

[DNK]

Cross posting the hell out of this since this is all over the forums.

I've said all I have to say here:

1. Allow fuel/speed/AB management in the geoscape to allow Xeno craft to outrun or catch up to alien craft.
   
2. Allow Xeno craft to 'ditch stores' for increased fuel efficiency and speed.
   
3. Rebalance aircraft abilities, including a much reduced roll distance for all craft (but especially aliens'). Examples (missile ranges/speeds/aircraftspeeds/maximum angle for target lock(increase to real-world standards of ~45deg).
   
4. Greatly increase mission rewards.
   
5. Allow for resource-limited profitable production.
   
6. Increase nation funding.
   
7. Reduce ease of losing nations to aliens.
   
8. Allow off-base landings (similar to "patrol", but you are invisible to enemies and get refueled - simulates friendly airfields you can land at throughout the world).
   

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/6286-Balancing-Campaign-Difficulty-without-Magic-Interceptors

[Aaron]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Regarding hidden movement - as Chris has said it's not an easy fix. There is no unified system in the code that controls the camera, instead pretty much any action that might want to affect the camera has it's own unique little bit of code to do it. This is not a great implementation, but it's almost certainly easier to fix it than it is to rip it all out and start over. The real trick is because each piece of camera code is unique, then pretty much any instance of the camera misbehaving is unique too - this means the only way to fix problematic camera behaviour is to have a saved game from before the problem appeared, so Sergey can reproduce the problem in debug mode and fix the code. I am in the process of doing this, but given I can only play one game at a time it is slow. As such I have created a new thread in the bug forum specifically to collect reports and saved games on the alien turn camera behaviour - so please post any you find here, it will help us fix this quickly.

Some of you do have interesting suggestions about the the air combat, but to be honest most of them came up internally when we were thinking about this change, and we decided against them for various reasons. It might surprise you to learn we considered simply removing the current air combat entirely, and replacing it with the auto-resolve function we will implement shortly. Keep that in mind too - any changes to the air combat/interceptor recovery will also need to work nicely with auto-resolve; if we added some micro-management system of ordering your interceptors to escape when they were damaged, how would that work with auto-resolve? We would have to put in little gamey systems to "guess" how good the player would be at withdrawing their interceptors.

[alienman]

"considered simply removing the current air combat entirely"

So you guys considered it, but came to the solution to keep it or is it still being discussed? Because I would miss it, and honestly it would make the game... lackluster in a way. Getting featured removed is not good. And one more thing. Is the decision to have this auto-recovery thing final, as in that it's set in stone and that the game will ship with this "feature" now?

[Aaron]

We came to the conclusion to keep it, but also to reduce its impact on the game and to introduce the auto-resolve system to let players skip it if they find it tedious.

And nothing is set in stone, of course not, but the fact that we have spent a fair chunk of our limited programmer time to implement the new system should suggest to you we are quite invested in making it work one way or another; if that means tweaks and small changes down the line, then those are things we will do.

[lightgemini]

Im still interested in knowing if the interceptor recovey feature can be toggled off entirely. Theres not going to be a better moment to put he on off switch than now. It may be regarded as secondary right now but it is very important for the future and longevity of the game that all the new feature changes be reverted back with a simple config edit. If the code stucture makes it a pain in the ass to keep both versions of the interceptors feature or the hidden movement screen etc. , then its understandable to just go for the better solution.

But if its not then limiting options to customize the game to both likings will reduce the games appeal no matter what, since controversial changes like this will always have strong favorable and unfavorable opinions and will not settle.

[Tryphikik]

We came to the conclusion to keep it, but also to reduce its impact on the game and to introduce the auto-resolve system to let players skip it if they find it tedious.

Thanks for the info, this makes me very happy. I can spend more time doing the things I love about Xenonauts. Not to mention the air combat gave me more crashes than anything else in the game, so I can't wait for the skip feature to just skip through it and get more quality time with my squad.

[CellNav]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Regarding hidden movement - as Chris has said it's not an easy fix. There is no unified system in the code that controls the camera, instead pretty much any action that might want to affect the camera has it's own unique little bit of code to do it. This is not a great implementation, but it's almost certainly easier to fix it than it is to rip it all out and start over.

I'm glad to hear news that you're working on the camera issue. I apologize for my earlier uneducated comment about "how easy" it is to code a camera. I sometimes cross that line when resolving problems when I should leave it up to professionals. I blame my job for this attitude and thank you for reminding me about how complicated a problem really is.

Keep that in mind too - any changes to the air combat/interceptor recovery will also need to work nicely with auto-resolve; if we added some micro-management system of ordering your interceptors to escape when they were damaged, how would that work with auto-resolve? We would have to put in little gamey systems to "guess" how good the player would be at withdrawing their interceptors.

Might I suggest adding "pilot attributes" to the formula. You don't need to create a new pilot roster, we can use our soldiers from the barracks. Any soldier who has attained an Officer Rank is eligible to be assigned to an aircraft. Assigning a pilot to the aircraft uses the same UI as assigning a soldier to the transport.

A pilot's (soldier) attributes are used to add bonuses to the formula, such as ... Accuracy to cause more damage, Reflexes reduce damage, Bravery determines when to "knock it off" (phraseology that means stop fighting), Strength and Resilience affects fatigue between sorties (if a shaken pilot flies a sortie it will reduce his other attributes during the dogfight).

If I might coin a phrase from Chuck Yeager ... "It's the man, not the machine". Pilot skill determines the majority of outcomes from air combat. Vietnam comes to mind ... When the early model F4 Phantoms engaged the MiG's, the F4 had no cannon only missle's under the theory that they can shoot the MiG's down at long range. Reality ... they were fighting MiG's in an old fashion close range dogfight (furball). A US Navy officer (the name escapes me right now) started a retraining program that continues today called BFM and ACM, Basic Fighter Maneuvers and Air Combat Maneuvers. They also added a cannon to the F4 (F4e model I think?).

Thanks for listening! ....... I hope I can help to add more suggestions based on my life experiences in the military and my current job experience (En Route Air Traffic Controller).

EDIT : Forgot to mention "Special Abilities" ...

When a pilot "levels up" you can give him/her a random special ability (insert GizmoGomez's "Emergency Disengage"). I'm sure there are other abilities players can add since there are hundreds of pages of great ideas already posted around the forum!

Edited July 8, 2013 by CellNav
Forgot Special Abilities

[ThunderGr]

Regarding hidden movement - as Chris has said it's not an easy fix. There is no unified system in the code that controls the camera, instead pretty much any action that might want to affect the camera has it's own unique little bit of code to do it. This is not a great implementation, but it's almost certainly easier to fix it than it is to rip it all out and start over. The real trick is because each piece of camera code is unique, then pretty much any instance of the camera misbehaving is unique too - this means the only way to fix problematic camera behaviour is to have a saved game from before the problem appeared, so Sergey can reproduce the problem in debug mode and fix the code. I am in the process of doing this, but given I can only play one game at a time it is slow. As such I have created a new thread in the bug forum specifically to collect reports and saved games on the alien turn camera behaviour - so please post any you find here, it will help us fix this quickly.

The complains I have read, are about the fact that the hidden movement splash does not remove itself when action takes place in visible(or near visible) areas.

Some of you do have interesting suggestions about the the air combat, but to be honest most of them came up internally when we were thinking about this change, and we decided against them for various reasons. It might surprise you to learn we considered simply removing the current air combat entirely, and replacing it with the auto-resolve function we will implement shortly. Keep that in mind too - any changes to the air combat/interceptor recovery will also need to work nicely with auto-resolve; if we added some micro-management system of ordering your interceptors to escape when they were damaged, how would that work with auto-resolve? We would have to put in little gamey systems to "guess" how good the player would be at withdrawing their interceptors.

I do not think the autoresolve should care about how good is the player at doing anything. It is my opinion that the autoresolve can have its own reasonable calculation algorithms and be independent from the actual minigame. I guess you think to implement the autoresolve in a AI vs AI manner. I would suggest to implement it in a more mathematical and less tactical way.

[Went]

It might surprise you to learn we considered simply removing the current air combat entirely, and replacing it with the auto-resolve function we will implement shortly.

Are you plan to remove air combat entirely or it will be game option do skip battle in auto-mode (like auto-combat in HMM3)?

[Xenomorph]

I just wonder if it wouldn't be easier to implement some basic chase and shoot air combat like in the 1994, instead of an auto resolve, and keep them both, one as simple air combat the other, as it is, advanced air combat, optional.

My 2c, instead of removing already functional features, make them all optional, don't throw work away. That will add a LOT more appeal to the game.

[targetbsp]

Been away for a few days so out of touch! I presume cheaper planes offset by more expensive hangars has been considered at some point?