Just a handful of suggestions from an old xcom fan

[Thaeric]

Take 'em or leave 'em, just figured I'd share a few ideas after having spent quite a few hours in Xenonauts.

1) Allow more info and a visual on soldiers when hiring.

- I know this sounds silly and not all that important, but I know I can't be the only one who likes to hand select my recruits. I spent an ungodly amount of time (and funds) hiring recruits in the old xcom trying to get soldiers that looked a certain way or had stats I was looking for, and it seems I'm back to my old routine here in Xenonauts.

It would be great if when looking at the list of soldiers we could see what the soldier looks like, it's nation/unit and all that stuff by hovering over or right clicking. I think this would be a good compromise for others who have asked for the ability to customize soldiers they hired in other threads. This way, there's not customization involved, just picking and choosing from whats available.

2) Tweak recruits accuracy just a touch? (Or remove the back-story stuff about the soldiers being combat vets.)

- I'm an old school xcom player, and I love the difficulty, but sometimes it's just silly. I can't tell you how many times I have had an alien surrounded by an entire squad and every single one of these guys miss by a mile. I mean... these aren't supposed to be fresh recruits that were never in the military, their dossiers clearly indicate combat experience, I would expect them to be able to hit the broad side of a barn once in a while.

Let me clarify, I'm not talking about the RNG, I'm talking about their actual predicted accuracy for shots that are only 3-6 squares away. Had a recruit earlier with a 65 accuracy armed with a rifle take aim and fire a single shot at an alien that was 3 squares away. 4% chance to hit. Alien was not in cover of any kind, and the soldier had a clear line of sight.

Any soldier worth a damn would at least have a 30% chance of hitting a target a few feet away, but a US Airborne ranger? He would have never made it into ranger school. lol

So please, either help the not-so-green recruits remember how to aim, or adjust their background to reflect that they are in fact raw recruits.

3) Customize base design at start

- Another trivial concern that's more about preference/aesthetics than actual game play, but one that I feel makes sense and would probably make a lot of people happy. After all, you are in charge of the operation, why shouldn't you be given the ability to design your base as you want/need?

When placing the initial base, allow the option to use a default base layout or to customize it. If custom is chosen, it takes you to the building screen where you're given the default number of buildings to place as you see fit.

4) Some of the buttons don't highlight in hovering over them.

- I've noticed a handful of buttons, particularly in the troop screens, that don't highlight or change in any way when your mouse is over them. Normally that wouldn't be much of an issue I guess, but the alignment of the text and the actual button sometimes seems off by just a hair and it makes it difficult to find where to click on the first try. An outline for the buttons, or a highlighting mode like most buttons already have would be perfect.

That's all I've got for now, going to go eat dinner and then play some more. Thanks for reading! (and thanks, Devs, for making Xenonauts!)

[Elydo]

I've wanted your third option to be a feature from the very beginning. Even in these builds one of the firs things I do is begin building a few facilities in different places and demolish the old ones when they complete. Just for a layout that's more intuitive for me, as opposed to any defensive benefit (as there's less to be gained from gaming the base layout here as far as I can tell)

Costs me a lot of money and time right off the bat though.

[GizmoGomez]

I agree with all points.

[thothkins]

1) this would look lovely. But I'm aware that what we have is the result of changes, so it could be this is as updated as it gets. Seeing their little portraits would be lovely.

2) I don't know what level of backstory changes would have to be done to reflect the Xenonaut combat issues.

Earth is in crisis! Aliens are slaughtering all the proper armies! We are what's left! We are...The Unemployable!

This Year. Earth has new protectors. They will save your planet. And keep your shopping pleasant. Xenonauts: Mall-Cops.

There are still going to be a number of posts about it. There have been previous threads where the Xenonaut attributes start at nearly optimal. This is added to by exposure to alien technology, tactics and combat situations. The aliens are suitably buffed to make those starting missions a little tougher (but not brutally so) to compensate for the increased stats.

3) I can see the advantages for a new player not having to bother about building key parts of the base. As it stands, you can intercept and research and build things (eventually). Would a button saying reorganise base modules on the starting base work, for more experienced players?

Since the aliens attack in a different way in Xenonauts, there's not quite the same need to have the access lift at a choke point, with the hangers at the top.

4) I was hoping that it would just be tweaked a little. I've not done anything silly as a result yet.

[EchoFourDelta]

The second one is something I always have issue with in games, even ones like this. If we're controlling extremely high-level specfor... depict them as such, and make their dangerous enemies all the more fearsome.

If you're depicting two sides in a conflict, one human (our "control" here), and the other, somewhat more advanced aliens, show us that the aliens are winning because of their tougher troops/greater numbers/more advanced tech/whatever, not by biasing the humans to a hilariously unbelievable shit-tier.

Grunts in Western militaries can bust targets at 500 meters, carry a hundred pounds of weapons, armor, and ammo for hours, call down air and missile strikes by the dozens, and the weapon systems on our armored vehicles are good (in many cases) for literally miles. I understand that not all of this can be depicted, but come on. Instead of taking away from that, show us what the aliens do better on the ground war, because as both this and a lot of stuff in the OG stand, there's (no joke) not much on the aliens' side that couldn't be stopped by the local hunting club and some deer rifles.

Edited September 8, 2013 by EchoFourDelta

[thothkins]

Back in the mists of early builds:-

It took me setting up a decent crossfire and 3 soldiers to kill a Sebillian over a couple of rounds. Nearly all of the Xenonaut shots hit. Result: Memorable encounter.

I had Caesians chasing down my soldiers who had to drop back across the map and regroup before being able to take it out. It used cover better than I had bothered doing, and used the edges of buildings too. Result: Memorable Encounter.

In both situations accuracy wasn't an issue. Having smarter/ tougher aliens made all the difference.

So having better Xenonauts can give realism without spoiling the game. This doesn't have to correspond to health. You could always freeze health or increase it as the game does now (all those injections form Sebillian corpses)

These days, I'm always disappointed with the Sebillians. They aren't that much tougher or more aggressive particularly to take down, so they've lost something there.

[EchoFourDelta]

That. Exactly that. The idea that plausibility in depiction of content and game balance/fun are completely contradictory/unblendable elements is hilariously fallacious, and is a crutch of bad writing and effort, or symbolic of a lack of creativity in depiction. There are other ways to balance a game than by making both sides equally crappy, or making one side incredibly crappy and telling us they're super elite Ricky Recon Green SEAL Beret Force Recon Spetsnaz... who can't hit a target 5 meters from where they're standing with a medium machine gun.

Balance doesn't have to mean everything is perfectly equal, or set up so that both sides are on exactly the same footing, or that nothing can ever be too useful. Asymmetry has a fun all its own, but give us asymmetry in the right direction. It's not because we're utterly crappy; it's because the aliens are more advanced.

If the only reason the aliens can win is because you balance it so that human troops can't hit the broad side of a barn from inside of the barn... maybe you need better aliens and a stronger AI.

As an aside, this would probably make it easier to swallow terror missions that would likely better be handled by the local SWAT team and a few cops on patrol. Or the local gun store owner/outfitter and the usual customers. As it stands, everyone present sees like... half a dozen Navy SEALs, etc. scramble out of a helicopter that took four hours to get there, presumably trip on their way down the ramp, ineffectually spray gunfire for two or three minutes, kill half of their own number with misthrown grenades that travel roughly five or six paces and rocket fire at ninety degree angles from five meters away, with the remainder cut down seconds later under a hail of plasma fire because they ran out of the 80 rounds they could carry without falling over in an asthmatic spaz attack.

Edited September 8, 2013 by EchoFourDelta

[Elydo]

Having a good day Delta? [grin]

I'd agree about the disconnect between lore and gameplay; I've mentioned before that I'd prefer accurate soldiers that didn't do damage as a better alternative than soldiers that can do damage, but can't hit a damn thing. One is frightening, the other is dis-empowering. If you know you could be doing something but you're not being allowed to (hit), that's annoying. If you are doing something, but it's just not working, that's both scary and a challenge to overcome.

Something to keep in mind though, is that the horrific accuracy is one of the hallmarks of the OG, and Chris has been explicit about his desire to recapture the feel of the original. Xenonauts has fixed some of the mistakes of the original, some of the needless hassles, but it hasn't set out to improve upon the formula.

[EchoFourDelta]

That's the thing though; we're told both things.

"We're re-creating the original feel," and "Just because it was in the old one is no reason to hold ourselves to the formula."

I mean, pick one, or create your own original spin and a more palatable version. If you want to play X-COM without the hassle, play OpenXcom. That, or give us some believable writing to fall in line with what's depicted in-game.

And yeah, I'm having a great day. Twelve-hour shift with nothing to do but play Steam games.

Edited September 8, 2013 by EchoFourDelta

[thothkins]

And yeah, I'm having a great day. Twelve-hour shift with nothing to do but play Steam games.

thothkins couldn't quite place when the bitterness towards E4D started...

Xenonauts has fixed some of the mistakes of the original, some of the needless hassles, but it hasn't set out to improve upon the formula.

I think that Xenonauts has made some improvements over flaws in the original. But that's hindsight for you. The Gollop's practically seamless product made a lot of things under the bonnet look a lot easier than it was. I think all X-Clones have blundered into various issues because of this.

[Tobbzn]

I disagree - inherently accurate low-damage soldiers reduce the impact of positioning. If I run up to an enemy and blast him with the close-range aim bonus I feel like I've done something clever with my positioning, whereas grinding an enemy down with rifle shots across the map is comparatively boring, and you should have to invest in sniper rifles to do it effectively. If you're choosing to take shots with low accuracy, you're choosing to take a risk, whereas knowing you're going to hit and fail to kill the sebillian because you know it always takes ten shots is just predictable.

Besides, even missed shots can suppress and destroy cover - it's a very useful tactic.

It comes down to realism vs gameplay - if everyone is realistically shooting accurately from 500m away, desert fights would usually involve one side being slaughtered before even seeing their enemy, and it'd take ages to move across the battlefield in any meaningful way.

[Elydo]

Yeah, the more people try and fail, with larger teams, higher budgets and better technology, to match the original, the more visionary the Gollop brothers become. I think they've reached the point now that they're on my list of people I just want to shake the hand of, and hope that indicates my respect because doing anything else seems paltry. Chris has done a great job, Jake Solomon has done a great job, but nothing yet has managed to do everything the original did, even if they manage to do some things better.

I choose to interpret that E4D hates Steam and it's entire catalogue, and thus is deeply unhappy to be spending 12 hours with literally nothing to do but inure himself to that activity, even if he's getting paid. He deserves our pity.

Quick now, send him your pity. As fast and as accurately as you can, by way of physical objects if necessary.

@ Tobbzn - Highly accurate, low-damage soldiers make innovative tactics important. Instead of taking a risk by shooting at an enemy you might not hit, you need to figure out how to survive the risk of maximizing the opportunity to hurt him. Do you close and try to get better penetration, load up with heavy weapons that you'll really need to use well to benefit from, set up killzones and try to manipulate the enemy (and hope they don't catch on). And plenty of moments in media demonstrate this premise.

Off the top of my head: Battle LA showed professional soldiers being ineffective for the most part, and really captured part of the unique feel of playing X-COM to my mind. Crysis (the first one) had that glorious level where you had to leg it from the crab tank as it sneered at everything that could be thrown at it, but still was slowed down by the ineffective fire, allowing evacuation. Halo games on legendary, Elites and Brutes become total bastards to kill (The first battle with Elites in Reach is a nightmare in my opinion, heh. Bullets are so ineffective against Ultra shields). Plinking the enemy to death should be the resort of the amateur, and ineffective compared to playing better.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Elydo

[EchoFourDelta]

That's the thing, though. You don't need 1:1 parity; you can pull off "believable" without turning something into ARMA.

And you interpret wrongly, good fellow! Getting paid to play Xenonauts and X-COM? That's boss as hell.

But yeah, seriously though. Try this:

1) Expand units' vision by 50%

2) Double the range of pistols, and triple everything else, aliens included

Give it a shot.

Edited September 8, 2013 by EchoFourDelta

[thothkins]

Yeah, the more people try and fail, with larger teams, higher budgets and better technology, to match the original, the more visionary the Gollop brothers become.

I echo these sentiments.

Yeah, the more people try and fail, with larger teams, higher budgets and better technology, to match the original, the more visionary the Gollop brothers become.

See? echoed...echoed...echoed...

[Ishantil]

E4D, that sounds like a great mod. Hmm....

[EchoFourDelta]

E4D, that sounds like a great mod. Hmm....

I've been playing with it like that since the Steam release. It's great, and takes like 5 minutes to change up.

[Ishantil]

I used shotguns with 5-shot bursts and a basegrenade range of 4. I refuse to accept I can't throw a grenade more than 35 feet.

[Josip Broz Tito]

While I do like how the game is and can accept it: changes like the above would make it harder. I like difficult games and would prefer Xenonauts to be on the scale of Dark Souls where you get punished for not thinking.

Accuracy with reduced dmg vs the aliens would be great.

[EchoFourDelta]

I used shotguns with 5-shot bursts and a basegrenade range of 4. I refuse to accept I can't throw a grenade more than 35 feet.

I generally set that to about 3/ or 4/5 of the pistol's maximum effective range. Aliens'll get the same when that drops.

[Chris]

OP - thanks for your thoughts. 3 and 4 we're looking at, 2 we're thinking about. 1 is too much of a UI change, I'm afraid.

E4D - I suggest you put together a mod with your improved ranges and better accuracy, with buffed alien health etc. I've pretty much set my stall out at this point about how I think the game is best played, so the only thing that would convince me to change it would be actually playing a version that contains all of the changes you're suggesting - longer range, more accuracy, tougher aliens etc.

I'm sure after a few iterations you would either be able to come up with something well-balanced or you'd run into so many problems it wouldn't work. If it's the former, maybe it'll inspire us to change it. But even if not, it might get bundled with the game and it sounds like the sort of thing a number of people on this forum would appreciate.

[thothkins]

I've pretty much set my stall out at this point

It's good to see Goldhawk out there after Steam and Kickstarter, selling the game from a stall. "Git your Beta Xenonauts here! Two fer twenty quid! Git them here!"

And a decent shout for the balance mods to pitch in too.

[Thaeric]

OP - thanks for your thoughts. 3 and 4 we're looking at, 2 we're thinking about. 1 is too much of a UI change, I'm afraid.

<snip>

Thanks for the response Chris!

Very glad to hear that the custom base design is something you're looking at, as that's a huge one for me. It would be nice not to have to waste funds on redesigning it

Slightly disappointed with #1 not being possible, though I understand that it could be difficult or even impossible. Having thought about it after your response, I realized the only place that actually lets you see the character is in the armory/preparation screen, so it would likely be a lot of work adding such a feature, if it's even possible with the ui/engine.