Pacing?

[thothkins]

I really enjoy the air combat. I just think it's set at a level quite a bit beyond the Normal level I'm playing it at. I'd much rather have this though than the simplified versions.

Looking back through the builds, I think a lot of my frustrations with it were simply in not knowing too many of the basics. Missile locks, afterburners, speed adjustments etc all had to be learned. That usually meant quite a lot of destroyed aircraft ([moan] back when they could be[/moan])

A decent guide to it would have made a fairly large difference.

[TheTuninator]

I really enjoy the air combat. I just think it's set at a level quite a bit beyond the Normal level I'm playing it at. I'd much rather have this though than the simplified versions.

I agree, which is why I would like a separate difficulty slider for the air combat. Saves Chris the headache of balancing UFO strength within the overall Geoscape balance and also largely alleviates the problem of air combat being too hard; if you're getting your ass handed to you and you feel like you cannot progress, you have the ability to weaken the UFOs to a level where you feel you can compete. A separate UFO difficulty slider is a win-win as far as I am concerned, and I can't imagine it would be too difficult to implement, right? All it'd need to do is tweak UFO weapons damage and HP.

Xenonauts' air battles are far more enjoyable than those of the original X-COM; it's simply a matter of giving the player the ability to select how much of a challenge he wants to face in the air.

[thothkins]

I'd have settled for it varying along with the difficulty, with what we see now being a couple of notches up. But hey, why stick to those limitations, if there's a hope of a separate slider.

Just think. Easy ground combat, so you can get toys to play on Insane air combat.

[smoitessier]

The problem as I see it isn't necessarily the difficulty of an air encounter for say, rather the "to the razor" fast paced invasion timeline the devs decided to go with. Because while your grounded 4 days waiting for repairs, the set back in troop training compounded with the speedup of the ticker for letting the alien waves do their thing sounds really unforgiving.

Well I don't know if it's 4 days to retrieve/fix/refuel a bird, feels like longer, but your out for a wave, I wonder how many waves you can miss before it really hurts you later.

Edited July 30, 2013 by smoitessier

[thothkins]

Well I don't know if it's 4 days to retrieve/fix/refuel a bird, feels like longer, but your out for a wave, I wonder how many waves you can miss before it really hurts you later.

It's one reason I posted about having free aircraft, based on Xenonauts sharing research findings with funding nations as well as all the craft that crash into funding nations providing raw materials. It should be a bit quicker than retrieving it form the pacific.

I think that all of those early waves are important. In 19.5 I've twice been down to having just enough to build the next Foxtrot. Without each wave up until the start of November I would have lost a couple of weeks. That has a knock on effect of me not being able to take out the first Corvettes, which then leads... and so on.

It would be interesting to think about the game as an Invasion story in say 50 missions. How would that be split up across the period of September 1979 - whenever?

[Ishantil]

The pacing of the game is very aggressive, and missing the UFO, as it were, really hurts you. I didn't see a Standard Scout until I started seeing Corvettes and Heavy Fighters. Imagine my surprise. So when the Mediums started setting off terror missions, I hadn't seen a speck of Alenium. I went straight from shooting down Light scouts will all ballistic weapons to Corvettes, Landing Ships, and Standard Scouts. The standard Scouts I could beat, the rest annihilated me. When I got my first standard Scout, I finally got some Alenium, plasma rifles, etc.

Each wave, I could only manage to shoot down the light ones, and thus, everything turned to pot. I've basically abandoned the 19.5 air combat at this point. I don't have the energy to play it anymore unmodified. So I'm waiting for 19.6 or 20.0 or whatever.

I'm toying with making some light modifications to the aircraft just so I can play more of the game.

Edited July 31, 2013 by Ishantil

[Queamin]

The pacing of the game is very aggressive, and missing the UFO, as it were, really hurts you. I didn't see a Standard Scout until I started seeing Corvettes and Heavy Fighters. Imagine my surprise. So when the Mediums started setting off terror missions, I hadn't seen a speck of Alenium. I went straight from shooting down Light scouts will all ballistic weapons to Corvettes, Landing Ships, and Standard Scouts. The standard Scouts I could beat, the rest annihilated me. When I got my first standard Scout, I finally got some Alenium, plasma rifles, etc.

Each wave, I could only manage to shoot down the light ones, and thus, everything turned to pot. I've basically abandoned the 19.5 air combat at this point. I don't have the energy to play it anymore unmodified. So I'm waiting for 19.6 or 20.0 or whatever.

I'm toying with making some light modifications to the aircraft just so I can play more of the game.

I agree with this air combat effects to much of the game and worried at the pace of the game with air combat i don't want it like xcom2012 where everything is fast paced and game over in under a year or so.

I like the idea that you always on the edge but able to manage it, at moment once you get behind the curve of the invasion it is very hard to claw your way back( yes i remember that sometimes in xcom94 you would have to let a battleship go because your planes were damaged or you didn't have good enough weapons but at least there were enough of the smaller craft to get by).

To be honest if you were bad at air combat in xcom94 it didn't matter as much because the air combat learning curve wasn't that great and you had enough small alien craft to get by to collect loot from ground missions or you had the option to make items and sell them so the air combat wasn't that import if you were bad at it at least you had other means to make money, but at moment in xenonaunts if you fail in air combat almost all your income is tied to how you in it.

For me I would like easier air combat and harder ground combat and then at least it would put the focus back on ground combat making armour ,weapons a priority

Edited July 31, 2013 by Queamin
typo

[Dranak]

The devs have stated in the past their goal was for a playthrough to run about a year.

Edit: Maybe if I get a chance, I'll try my hand at a video guide to air combat (or at least Fraps some encounters).

[Ishantil]

that would be awesome

[Queamin]

If we get around 40 or 50 ground combat missions i am fine with about a year, I really hope we can get back countries that have left it would make for a much interesting game and give us different options and if this is in the final game I think I could forgive almost anything but not having a hyperwave decoder I will find Chris and give him to the alien myself.

[Dranak]

There's been talk of a hyperwave decoder equivalent, but I think it's not currently working (I could be wrong on that one though).

[Queamin]

For me the hyperwave decoder was one of the high spots of the game for me, just knowing what the aliens were up and what their intentions were made the invasion more interesting and real for me it just felt like they were work towards a goal.

[thothkins]

there is indeed something, but it is currently "nulled"