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[GizmoGomez]

Yeah, Greece was. It seems they're homogenizing the geoscape for balancing, and making all of the territories the same size and funding value. Once they start balancing that more in depth, I'd expect those inconsistencies to change.

As far as Yugoslavia, and the other Warsaw Pact countries, would those be better put in Europe, then? Or would it be better, logic wise, for Western Europe and Eastern Europe to be split up? Or maybe Europe and Warsaw Pact? What makes the most sense, historically speaking?

[thothkins]

Why does Yugoslavia belong to USSR ?

That's very odd and weird

It's not so much belonging to the USSR as in the funding bloc with it, if that makes it any easier at all

There are no non aligned nations in Xenonauts. Every country is in a bloc. There are a number of lumpy inconsistencies with the way the Geoscape has funding nations. Partly, this is to make funding bloc sizes a little more equal.

With the current thinking, Yugoslavia could well have been in the middle east along with Greece.

[GizmoGomez]

Thothkins has a point. It's not really a grouping according anything political, or anything. It's just a region of the world that the funding comes from.

[Dragosh]

Well Yugoslavia in the 60's was a big force and had a good budget, was funded by both USSR and US (Tito had tricks up his sleeves).

If the CIA didn't destroy it we would have a space program up till now, but anyway don't know where it should belong, would make sense to belong to EU and not USSR.

So looking at it historically and combine that with EU invasion YU would most likely be funded by EU due to YU being a powerful force in the southern continent of Europe, so YU + Money = WIN

[Went]

Fist, base defense bug (aliens create invisible borders behind themselves) still unfixed

Second, three identical maps in terror missions in row. XCom-1 had random map generator in early 90-s, Xenonauts hasn't it in 2013. Lol.

Third, we still have transparent UFO-s with paper walls. It's really cool.

Fourth, enemies have no AI at all. They just stand still and firing around. Random-moving enemies will play smarter, I guess

Fifth, my Charlie has enough fuel to reach any terrorizing city, but unable to reach enemy base. If I try to relocate it to other base, it flies without crew and then becomes unusable at all: dropship capacity permanently reduces to one man.

Sixth, I am unable to equip my Condor-3 with galtling laser from my storage room. Condor-1 and condor-2 was equipped well.

Seventh, assault guns same unusable junk, as they were in 18-th version.

Eighth, enemies, which invade my base, just wonder near base entrance and don't want to attack me at all.

Ninth, my Hunter Car was exploded three times, but successfully returned to my garage. After fourth time, it didn't. Is car has 3 lives?

And tenth. Game becomes dull as ditch-water after 3-rd month of game time. Same monsters, same maps, same ships, most of them just explode in air and I can't loot them (fighters and bombers). Game process looks just as hard work, but not as entertainment or challenge. There is no way to play fast and good - I must choose something one. I have to pick out the monster for a monster in same manner - slowly and laboriously. I am unable to flank or ambush them - they observe all map through and sometime even behind the walls.

Conclusion: it is too early to look for new projects. You have to earn the trust of people who bought the game on alpha stage and not rush to release it "as is".

Edited July 13, 2013 by Went

[Dragosh]

Bugs should go here bro

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/forumdisplay.php/12-Xenonauts-Bug-Reports

[thothkins]

I agree with you Dragosh, that it would fall towards the EU side much more by 1979.

Just think of the power struggles as each nation has to decide which Xenonauts funding bloc it wants to be a part of

Who knew Greece had been infiltrated so much?

[Went]

Bugs should go here bro

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/forumdisplay.php/12-Xenonauts-Bug-Reports

They all are there from 18-th version

[Went]

Oh, my troubles again ended by the saving bug. City terror (sektoids). Game frozen when I open Fog Of War (cursor still moves, but anything else not). Then I reloaded, and all walls and aliens respawned from scratch. I killed them, and game frozen again. And again... and again... This bug described so much time ago, but still actual.

[4Aces]

Second, three identical maps in terror missions in row. XCom-1 had random map generator in early 90-s, Xenonauts hasn't it in 2013. Lol.

Different engine = different rules. The original did not really have procedural maps as you would constantly find the same large blocks in the same arrangements. What the originals did have was random placements so you never knew where the enemies were.

Third, we still have transparent UFO-s with paper walls. It's really cool.

It is known to be tied to the transparency, so if you stay one square away from the walls, then the shots will not go through it. Note that the shots from above are another issue, and will not be effected by this workaround.

Fourth, enemies have no AI at all. They just stand still and firing around. Random-moving enemies will play smarter, I guess

PM me for a link to my AI file, and you can see if that improves your experience.

Seventh, assault guns same unusable junk, as they were in 18-th version.

If you right click while targeting you get to spend more TUs per shot, with a higher chance of hitting. The assault weapons start with a much higher accuracy at close range, so a single right click will give you a very high chance of each shot being a hit. These weapons are meant for move out of cover, shoot, and move back into cover engagements. Decent damage, and higher hit % = good in my book.

And tenth. Game becomes dull as ditch-water after 3-rd month of game time.

Development is still in the early-middle of the Beta phase. It is currently being re-balanced, and the unimplemented features are being added with each build. The game is not fun right now, because it is not done. This type of game really hinges on the curves (alien progression, research, combat difficulty, ufo difficulty, etc.) and that is why the balancing is being carried out. As more elements are added/implemented, it will still need to be tweaked. Perhaps the initial screen should warn that this is not for fun (yet), but to help the Devs track and squash all the bugs.

Conclusion: it is too early to look for new projects. You have to earn the trust of people who bought the game on alpha stage and not rush to release it "as is".

You assume because they are looking forward, that development will stop. G.I. Chris has clearly stated that Xenonauts will not be rushed out the door. That it will only be released when it is finished. So keep doing your part to help kill those pesky bugs, and the game will continue to be developed.

That link is to the Bug Report Section of the board. All bug reports go there, not just 18.x. Check out the area above the Post New Thread button (Upper Left of the window) to see the board's path and for easier navigating.

Edited July 13, 2013 by 4Aces

[Went]

Different engine = different rules. The original did not really have procedural maps as you would constantly find the same large blocks in the same arrangements. What the originals did have was random placements so you never knew where the enemies were.

Certainly. Original have macro-constructor, which generate pretty unique and unpredictable maps. In this game we have boring repetitive maps. First is good, and second is bad. Nuff said

It is known to be tied to the transparency, so if you stay one square away from the walls, then the shots will not go through it. Note that the shots from above are another issue, and will not be effected by this workaround.

Thank you for workaround, but I will better wait when this bug will be fixed. In fact, UFO wall can be shoot trough from long distance and after penetration projectile flies many tiles too.

If you right click while targeting you get to spend more TUs per shot, with a higher chance of hitting. The assault weapons start with a much higher accuracy at close range, so a single right click will give you a very high chance of each shot being a hit. These weapons are meant for move out of cover, shoot, and move back into cover engagements. Decent damage, and higher hit % = good in my book.

Shotgun misses even in adjacent tile, and have no such big damage rate. Moreover, there is almost no map locations where close combat can take place. Even inside the bases.

[Max_Caine]

I'm only going to say this one more time, because I'm fed up with saying it on the various sub-forums. Random Submap functionality is present, has been present since the start, will be present up to the point where it's taken away which is not likely because taking it away might break the game in new ways. Now, while Goldhawk prefers to hand-make maps, it's entirely possible to craft a whole bunch of different submaps and have the game randomly distribute them. Hell, Stinky actually did this. I'm currently trying and failing to make random submaps work well, as opposed to work poorly. There's issues where parts of a random submap can be wiped out by other submaps. But it can be done. Okay? Okay????? oKaY???????????????????

[GizmoGomez]

I wish people would just get the message already.

Also, I'd rather there be a bunch of pre-built maps that I replay occasionally than a random map generator that makes broken, unplayable maps consistently (even if they are all different, if any of them are unplayable then that's not acceptable).

[ThunderGr]

I'm only going to say this one more time, because I'm fed up with saying it on the various sub-forums. Random Submap functionality is present, has been present since the start, will be present up to the point where it's taken away which is not likely because taking it away might break the game in new ways. Now, while Goldhawk prefers to hand-make maps, it's entirely possible to craft a whole bunch of different submaps and have the game randomly distribute them. Hell, Stinky actually did this. I'm currently trying and failing to make random submaps work well, as opposed to work poorly. There's issues where parts of a random submap can be wiped out by other submaps. But it can be done. Okay? Okay????? oKaY???????????????????

Remember UFO: ET. Just because the functionality for things may be there, this does not mean people appreciate paying for a game they will have to improve on their own. The game people paid for was a failure and a total crap. Modders made it good enough, after release. Still the game has been registered as a failure. The judgement is based on the released game, not on the modded game.

Okay? Okay???? OKAY?????????????????????????????????

[Max_Caine]

Well, it's a good job the game isn't released yet, isn't it? To say "wot no random maps lol" is to ignore the fact that they are there and were there and have been left aside for a reason which I am coming to appreciate, as I am trying to make a decent set of random submaps that work well with each other. That there aren't many maps is a legititmate complaint. It's one people make, and I agree with it.

[ThunderGr]

Well, it's a good job the game isn't released yet, isn't it? To say "wot no random maps lol" is to ignore the fact that they are there and were there and have been left aside for a reason which I am coming to appreciate, as I am trying to make a decent set of random submaps that work well with each other. That there aren't many maps is a legititmate complaint. It's one people make, and I agree with it.

Just because they have failed to program an effective random map creator, does not mean it cannot be done. You are confined to using what they have programmed for. They are not. They can change the code in order to make an efficient random-map creator. They are not going to do it, as they have stated. So, no random maps on release. Just FYI.

As for some posters mocking people when they say "A 1994 game had random maps but Xenonauts in 2013 does not" feeling obliged to defend the developers and replying in a range from "You are stupid and have no idea what you are talking about" to "different engine = Different rules", I have to say the argument is sound. The developers picked their engine. If they cannot do it with said engine, it is their fault(Bad development decision). Back then there were no game engines. The programers were making the game from scratch, meaning they had to program the game engine, first, continue with the rest of the game, then. Modern developers only have to program the game itself.

So, who is the "stupid one" and "has no idea what he is talking about"? Some people need to take special courses in social behavior before they start posting on a forum.

[Max_Caine]

ThunderGr, are you addressing me in that last paragraph? Please say you aren't. I hope you're talking about someone else, the context suggests you're addressing me and that I have written things that I actually haven't and I am hoping the context is wrong.

When I refer to difficulties with making random maps, I'm not actually talking too much about physical constraints put upon me by the way the game handles random maps (although there are physical constraints that I do run up against). I am talking about making random maps themselves. In my (limited) experience, the level editor is actually quite good with handling the issues of totally random maps. Please let me show you some examples of problems with random maps that result from making a random map, that are not related to physical constraints that the engine puts on random mapping.

Some of the things I have learnt so far about making a random map

1) A random map can block off vehicles. This is bad because vehicles are an expensive investment in terms of money, time and people sacrifice to make room for the vehicle. The way around it is to make submaps of a reduced prop density or with designated lanes that click together so a vehicles can pass through. If you make too many submaps of a reduced prop density, there isn't enough cover for people to use. If you make designated lanes, the random submaps start to feel samey as the designated lanes have to work to allow the vehicle to pass. There is nothing more frustrating than watching $100,000 worth of vehicle idle because your troops can pass but it can't and yes, while this is realistic, it does make a player question why they brought the damn thing in the first place.

2) A random map can spawn all the aliens next to a dropship, which becomes a problem with higher-level aliens and in particular higher-level dropships (esp. the Valkyrie). As a mapper, you used to have no control over where aliens spawn if you had random submaps, as spawns were pegged to a submap. Now you place spawn points using the level editor, but if you do that, aliens can get stuck in props because props can appear (quite literally) under the aliens' feet (this was a problem with the dropships a while back - if the wrong submap turned up, squaddies would get trapped in a prop). The way around that is to make a set of "nospawn" submaps to ring the dropship so troopers aren't blasted on their way out, and to make submaps with regular properties so you know where to place spawn points. Problems that arise from that are that submaps then can become samey because of the regular way you have to make the submaps to accomodate aliens, or you can make spawn submaps, but that isn't really a good idea because spawn submaps are tagged to specific zones, which players can learn.

3) Random submaps are pointless in industrial zones which feature more than one building. Oh, the insides might look different, but that's not what a player sees from the outside. They see what appears to be the same building.

4) Having lots of building random submaps in a map is a bad idea. I tried making a variety of buildings and incorporating them into the farm submaps I was making. A building almost always blocks off a vehicle, and if you're not careful, it is quite easy to block off vehicles through a combination of ground submap and building.

5) It's possible to make maps where aliens/humans can draw lines of sight over almost the whole map, and scout/sniper squadsight rules. This doesn't happen that often, but random submaps can combine in wierd ways to link up so that lines of sight can be drawn much further than you see in most of the hand-crafted maps mappers make. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if sniper rifles weren't so awesome as they are already, and if aliens weren't so trigger happy. It has happened in one test (for me) that an alien guard which spawned in the middle of the map acted as a spotter for his buddies right across the map (a scene straight from the bad old days). Of course, the solution there is to plonk down a building. Say... in the middle. And to have other blocking terrain to prevent long-range sniperfest. If you do that though, the map becomes more samey, which is what you're trying to prevent.

Each problem in isolation has its solution - don't have many buildings, include lanes/reduce density, be aware of spawn points etc. but it's the combination of these issues that make it difficult to produce good random submaps that (haha oh the irony I am splitting my sides) don't feel samey. That's what I'm getting at when I say I can appreciate the difficulties in making random submaps, and I take my hat off to Stinky for his efforts. Being in the process of making a randomised map, I can see how much easier it is to hand-craft a map, because you have so much more control over what goes where, and testing it is so much easier than with a totally random map. The easiest maps to random submap for are farm, desert and the artic, because in farm you can make fields which look slightly different but are fairly open (although you get incongruities like fences right next to hedges), and desert and artic have the same kinds of benefits (although with artic you have to be very careful about water, or you can cut sections of a map off completely). Industrial is hard to make it look random. Yards can look random, but because industrial is generally quite well built up, the internal submaps aren't felt half as much as they are on a farm map.

I hope this has given you some idea of the issues that at least I have experienced while making random maps. That doesn't excuse the lack of hand-crafted maps though.

[ThunderGr]

ThunderGr, are you addressing me in that last paragraph? Please say you aren't. I hope you're talking about someone else, the context suggests you're addressing me and that I have written things that I actually haven't and I am hoping the context is wrong.

No, of course not. I am addressing those that have made such(condescending and insulting) comments, of course. The reference to your post stopped at the "FYI" paragraph .

All this trouble you are having with random maps have the root, as I have already said, to the poor implementation of the random-map creation code. All the restrains you refer to had to be included there.

EDIT: To be a bit more technical, all random-mag creators have to include a "map validation" step. At that point, the generated map is checked against constrains that have to be applied in order for it to be playable. If the constrains are not met, the creator will have to choose between (1)Reject the map and try another one or (2)Modify the generated map in order to comply with the constrains.

Remember, the UFO series had random maps.

As a sidenote, Who says that tanks can go everywhere? Ask anyone in the military. There are areas that are inaccessible to vehicles on Earth.

Edited July 14, 2013 by ThunderGr

[Max_Caine]

I don't think that EU1994 actually had a map validator as you describe it. I've looked at the EU1994 battlescape map generation process, and discussion on it and everything points to EU1994 taking map modules and randomly strewing them across the battlefield. The only validation it seems to do re map modules it to make sure the ufo and the dropship modules aren't overwritten by map modules. Unless you can see something that I can't?

[ThunderGr]

I don't think that EU1994 actually had a map validator as you describe it. I've looked at the EU1994 battlescape map generation process, and discussion on it and everything points to EU1994 taking map modules and randomly strewing them across the battlefield. The only validation it seems to do re map modules it to make sure the ufo and the dropship modules aren't overwritten by map modules. Unless you can see something that I can't?

So, you can see the only validation the developers needed for their maps to be playable. The fact that it remapped modules, it means it validated the map to see if a remap was required.

The validation process can be part of the generator or you can create a separate module. This is an implementation detail. The complexity of the validation process depends on the complexity of the generation parameters and the constrains.

[DNK]

1) A random map can block off vehicles.

So can reality.

2) A random map can spawn all the aliens next to a dropship, which becomes a problem with higher-level aliens and in particular higher-level dropships (esp. the Valkyrie).

This needs to be fixed by the devs.

4) A building almost always blocks off a vehicle

See (1).

5) It's possible to make maps where aliens/humans can draw lines of sight over almost the whole map, and scout/sniper squadsight rules.

Sounds more like "diversity of tactics" and "devs can't fix broken OP weapons" than "random map problems".

Almost all the reasons I've heard boil down to: (1) my poor tanks can't go everywhere (deal with it, it's called a "curveball" and makes things more challenging), (2) the devs haven't fixed some broken/unbalanced things, (3) I want to have the same tactical experience and limitations on every map (boring as hell).

[Tryphikik]

If you find that there are too few maps and you are getting repeat maps, I would suggest downloading the community map pack and possibly other maps if you are so inclined(though I haven't). I had the same complaint and after downloading that i feel the variety is plenty and the game is much more enjoyable. Plus, on the positive side that type of stuff will only continue to grow so even if the developers didn't add random maps or as many maps as you would like, there is no limit to what you can get via custom maps as time goes.

Personally, I don't mind set maps, I just mind repetition. I think we have an awesome community that will get only more awesome and help alleviate any potential repetition that might become bothersome. Even random maps can be repetitious because they often use the same buildings and stuff and it becomes well where is the same damn barn this time, so I think the way it is right now has about equal opportunity to avoid that feeling with the help from awesome fans and the additional maps devs will be adding themselves.

Edited July 14, 2013 by Tryphikik

[Rsix]

Back then there were no game engines. The programers were making the game from scratch, meaning they had to program the game engine, first, continue with the rest of the game, then. Modern developers only have to program the game itself.

So true!Thats why 10 MB games offered so much!Well said ρε ThunderGr.

[Max_Caine]

Hm, interesting.

DNK

In response to:

1) Oh, people will deal with it. If a vehicle is going to be of less value than a solider, they just won't take vehicles. Pretty easy option to deal with, really, and it's something people are doing now.

2) I do go on in that same paragraph to elaborate how alien spawning is dealt with currently, as opposed to previously.

3) Scout/sniper rather than being "diversity of tactics" is "the only show in town worth seeing" if you can see across the whole map. And it's broken/OP for a sniper weapon to be good at being long range?

ThunderGr I had a lovely post for you, something with examples that we could discuss. The computer has eaten it, so I'll have to get back to you.

[Chris]

The original X-Com had very basic graphics, and if we used very basic graphics and had no logic in our map generation then we'd be able to use fully randomised maps.

In terms of ground tiles, fully-randomised maps generally need one repeating tile for each terrain type (like grass or concrete etc) which allows you to make areas of any size - which you can see in this early screenshot of our game. These tiles can't have much detail on them, or they look awful when they tile.

This works fine for a 90s game, but unless we wanted the game to look like the original X-Com then we couldn't do that. Our ground tiles have to be made up of larger tiles (say 5x5) to allow for more detail, and there needs blending between them - so when grass meets dirt, there has to be a joining tile with a soft edge, rather than just having the grass abruptly stop and the dirt start.

Also, creating realistic-looking buildings and even map layouts using randomisation is very difficult. Humans don't tend to build urban areas at random, they have a reasonably consistent internal logic to them. I remember the guys are Firaxis also tried randomised maps early in their development too, but they couldn't get it to work either with a significantly larger budget and more expertise than we have. The results rarely look realistic.

So it's relatively trivial to come up with randomised tile-based maps using 90's graphics, but it's a lot harder to do it with modern graphics.

We will at some point add a script on map loading that prevents a map that has already been used in that game being selected again if there is an alternative map that can be used instead.