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xenonauts

Discussion in 'Strategy Gaming' started by likaq, Apr 16, 2010.

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likaq Learned

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Apr 16, 2010 Stats Ignoring

#1

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Fuck yeah

http://www.xenonauts.com/

1 October, 1979: Extraterrestrial forces begin their invasion of Earth. Panic spreads across the globe, and nations struggle in vain to organise their ill-equipped militaries against the alien threat. A clandestine organisation dubbed the 'Xenonauts' surfaces, claiming to have been preparing to defend the planet against alien incursion since its inception twenty years ago. Though distrustful, the major global powers reluctantly give their agents authority to operate in their territory and airspace.

Xenonauts puts the player in control of an organisation tasked with defending the planet against extraterrestrial invasion. Battle the aliens with your interceptors in the skies above Earth, or attack them on the ground with your elite strike teams in tense turn-based squad combat. Build up your bases and manage your budgets carefully to keep your men and vehicles well-equipped and the aliens at bay, buying yourself enough time to research and unlock the secrets of the extraterrestrial technology. This is strategy on a grand scale; tactician, commander and quartermaster - you must master them all if you are to succeed in defeating the alien menace. Humanity's very survival rests on your shoulders.

There will be limitless replayability on offer. Advanced AI will keep the player challenged at every stage of the game, and with randomly generated battlefields for every mission and numerous distinctive alien races it will be impossible to guess what lies around a corner or on the other side of a door. A battlefield cover system and fully destructible scenery means that every battle will unfold differently, while providing the player endless tactical possibilities. Missions will be interesting and varied too, with multiple victory conditions and occasional secondary objectives keeping the combat from becoming stale and repetitive.

The game is heavily inspired by the classic X-Com series of strategy games that arrived in the mid-90s courtesy of the now-defunct Microprose. It is a labour of love for many of the team, all of whom are big X-Com fans, but we have decided to try and reinvent the game rather than recreate it. The result is a game that is neither a sequel to X-Com nor a remake. We have taken our franchise in a different direction, retaining the core mechanics that made the original so compelling but updating the settings and features of the game to fit in with the modern age. Gone are the near-future stylings of Xenonauts' forerunners, replaced by a militaristic Cold War setting and a retro-inspired art style.

Xenonauts will be single-player only and is presently only in development only for the PC. Ports will be considered closer to release date, which is currently slated for Christmas 2010.

Xenonauts is divided into three main sections; the Geoscape, the Base Viewer and the Combat Viewer.

The Geoscape is the strategic command and control window, where the battle for the skies takes place. Xenonaut bases monitor alien activity and detect UFOs in the atmosphere, and the player is able to scramble interceptors to engage them in real-time strategic air combat. The player also launches ground missions and constructs new bases from the Geoscape, and it acts as a central 'hub' for all the other screens in the game.

The Base Viewer is the collection of screens where the player manages his bases and everything associated with them. These allow a player to do everything from building and demolishing base structures, managing research and manufacturing projects, purchasing/selling of equipment and setting the combat loadout of soldiers, vehicles and aircraft.

The Combat Viewer is where the isometric turn-based combat takes place. This takes place at squad-level, with the game supporting up to 16 soldiers and 4 vehicles at any one time. The battlefields will be randomly generated for every mission and will feature fully destructible terrain. The addition of a cover system, secondary victory objectives and friendly AI-controlled human forces should make battles even more tactical and exciting than before.

Ground battles in Xenonauts take place at squad level, with the player leading a team of up to 16 soldiers and 4 vehicles in turn based-combat against alien ground forces. The battlefields are tile-based and viewed from an isometric perspective, much like in the original X-Com games. Each unit has a set amount of Action Points to use each turn (governed by their statistics), which are spent performing actions during the player turn. However, it is not neccessarily desirable to expend all available Action Points in the player's turn - any Action Points unspent at the end of the turn are available for 'reflex' actions during the alien turn, which can range from reaction fire when an alien moves into the soldier's line of sight to 'reflex moves' that allow a soldier to evade incoming grenades or heavy weapon fire.

A huge variety of battlefield equipment is available, each with its own unique strengths and weaknesses. You can equip your soldiers for almost any battlefield role, from dedicated heavy assault troops to scouts and snipers. With each soldier having limited carrying capacity, the choice of equipment is an important one. Weapons adapted for short-range combat fire faster (using less APs per shot), but are less accurate over range than their larger counterparts, making weapon selection an important choice. Similarly, it is not the case that the heaviest armour is automatically the best - though it offers more protection, heavier armour is more constrictive and will reduce both the visual cone and the available APs of a soldier. Alien soldiers are configured in a similar way, so recognise the different types of soldier and learning their strengths and weaknesses gives you a huge avantage on the battlefield.

The largest innovation over our game's predecessors (aside from updated graphics), however, is the cover system, which adds a new tacical dimension to the game. The battlefield cover system allows soldiers to use the scenery to their advantage, giving the player the opportunity to protect his soldiers rather than simply praying that incoming enemy fire misses its target. With extraterrestrial weapons often powerful enough to kill human soldiers outright, this allows a player to even the odds through intelligent use of the his surroundings. Players will find the extraterrestrials equally adept at utlising the avaiable cover, so they will need to find ways to deal with dug-in extraterrestrial forces. As cover is directional rather than offering 360-degree protection, flanking maneuvers are one of the simplest methods to flush enemies out of their hiding places, but there are numerous other ways to deal with fortified positions. Equipment has been designed from the ground-up to work with the cover system, so everything from ballistic shields, flamethrowers and grenades to mechanised assault walkers will be available to ensure that dug-in troops can be shifted.

Another major feature of the ground battles will be the destructable terrain. Every piece of scenery in the game can be destroyed if sufficient damage is inflicted upon it, opening a myriad of tactical possibilities. Need to get inside a building but worried the doors are guarded? Blast a hole in the wall with grenades or a heavy weapon, and make your own door! Need to get over a fence or through a wall without walking the long way round? Shoot your way through, or just flatten it under the tracks of vehicle. A group of aliens holed up in a building giving you trouble? Use enough firepower and you can collapse the whole thing, killing everything inside. Careful, though - the aliens forces are just as capable of doing the same to you!

:receive

Kz3r0 Brofists this.
Darth Roxor Wielder of the Huegpenis

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Apr 16, 2010 Stats Ignoring

#2

Sounds like an utterly shameless X-Com clone.

...

I'm sold.

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entertainer Barely Literate

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Apr 16, 2010 Stats Ignoring

#3

i wish them good luck

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qt3 said:

I really wish there was an option to turn off the slo-mo gore. It got old really fast, and it felt tacked on to appease the NMA crowd.
WhiskeyWolf RPG Codex Polish Plumber

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#4

Gahahaha, let's play Sengoku Rance! (NSFW)
It's natural for a hero like me to fuck many women...

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Awor Szurkrarz Arcane

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#5

Darth Roxor said:

Sounds like an utterly shameless X-Com clone.

...

I'm sold.

Clockwork Knight said: ↑

Sometimes I wonder if GD isn't just a social engineering project in order to get Awor to snap and strangle the mailman or something.

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Time has come to bury you all in a sea of fire
That is about to rise

And consumed shall be man"
Haba Harbinger of Decline

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#6

The battlefields will be randomly generated for every mission and will feature fully destructible terrain.

Cant... stop... cumming
entertainer Barely Literate

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#7

Don't worry, it will become vaporware in a year anyway. Have to give credit for them for picking this date to annouce it though after all the xcom fps shit.

Pete Hines: I'm not really a story whore

Pete Hines: The one game that had the best story, that i was so into was Oblivion

qt3 said:

I really wish there was an option to turn off the slo-mo gore. It got old really fast, and it felt tacked on to appease the NMA crowd.
Gondolin Liturgist

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Apr 16, 2010 Stats Ignoring

#8

entertainer said:

Don't worry, it will become vaporware in a year anyway. Have to give credit for them for picking this date to annouce it though after all the xcom fps shit.

I'll take the right kind of vaporware over the wrong kind of AAA title any day.

i wish them good luck

Seconded.

Take your gold, you greedy old son-of-a-bitch. Take all of it, no need to say thank you. Because this is for every developer's decision based on market research. This is for every unasked-for innovation. This is for every piece of marketing bullshit that claims human beings are all too stupid to understand basic maths and that removing core elements isn't dumbing down. This is for every excuse, every lie, every justification for making bad games, bad RPGs, and getting rich off the profits from them. - grotsnik
laclongquan Liturgist

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#9

I will refrain to get a hard on until they release at least beta. Too many time get disappointed before.

Are you man enough to spank this bitch?
Overweight Manatee Barely Literate

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#10

Haba said:

The battlefields will be randomly generated for every mission and will feature fully destructible terrain.

Cant... stop... cumming

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXfHLUlZf4&feature=related
Phelot RPG Codex Staff

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#11

That soldier equip screen looks slick as hell.

Had no idea about this, but it certainly sounds good. Nothing wrong with ripping off great games like X-COM.

"I agree that two times two makes four is an excellent thing; but if we are dispensing praise, then two times two makes five is sometimes a most charming little thing as well."
Overweight Manatee Barely Literate

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#12

The largest innovation over our game's predecessors (aside from updated graphics), however, is the cover system, which adds a new tacical dimension to the game. The battlefield cover system allows soldiers to use the scenery to their advantage, giving the player the opportunity to protect his soldiers rather than simply praying that incoming enemy fire misses its target.

These guys didn't realize that the original X-Com already did this, though?

I hope by 'cover system' they don't mean 'TBS popamole'. But everything else looks spot on, so I'm guessing its going to be a decent implementation.

Not all experience need be gained on the battlefield, however. Though it is expensive and time-consuming compared to simply throwing green troops into battle, classroom training is obviously far less dangerous than actual combat. Basic training is available to all soldiers joining the Xenonauts, completion of which provides various stat boosts and elevation in rank. It is highly likely that study of our alien foes by our scientists will yield important knowledge that can be used to create new training courses in the future, allowing us to improve the battlefield performance of even our hardened veterans.

Awesome idea. Research aliens to give your troops a bit of extra starting experience against them. Much better then simply getting some background flavor text before.
Phelot RPG Codex Staff

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#13

I thought researching aliens in X-COM did the same thing? You would get a damage bonus against them, no?

"I agree that two times two makes four is an excellent thing; but if we are dispensing praise, then two times two makes five is sometimes a most charming little thing as well."
Fez Barely Literate

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#14

I am excited by this and wish them the best of luck, but in my heart I know that it is but another cruel tease and will end up vapourware because it is too good to be possibly true.

The battlefields will be randomly generated for every mission and will feature fully destructible terrain.

This part pleased me greatly too. The XCOM games got away with a limited map set thanks to them being quite well designed and the variety of ways you could use them. Will all the maps be entirely random or will there be some pre-designed element? Let's hope the random generator is good. If it is it will give it all the more replay value and stop the battles from getting dull towards the end or giving the player the added advantage of knowing where the likely spawn points are after playing a map a few times.

phelot said:

I thought researching aliens in X-COM did the same thing? You would get a damage bonus against them, no?

It did? It's too long for me to remember details, but I don't think it mentioned this in the research results for them. Was this only in the first one or was it in TFTD and Apocalypse?

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Phelot RPG Codex Staff

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#15

Fez said:

It did? It's too long for me to remember details, but I don't think it mentioned this in the research results for them. Was this only in the first one or was it in TFTD and Apocalypse?

My mistake, I don't think it did anything other then give you info on them. I can't find any mention of it, though I could have sworn the autopsy would say something like "You should now be able to kill sectoids easier now" but I just checked and it doesn't.

Guess I need to play again!

"I agree that two times two makes four is an excellent thing; but if we are dispensing praise, then two times two makes five is sometimes a most charming little thing as well."
Jack █▓▒░

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#16

Too bad that it will never be released though.
LazyD Educated

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#17

please elaborate mr.2010
Jack █▓▒░

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#18

Several things made me believe that this project is doomed to never see the light of the sun.

First off it is their first game.
This means that they barely have any experience with this kind of projects.

They have also aimed too high.

PC exclusive.
Self funded.
"randomly generated battlefields for every mission"
"fully destructible scenery"

Yeah right.
Even so I wish that they succeed because that sounds like a hell of a game.
I don't even care if they don't live up to the hype.
Alexandros Arbiter

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#19

My positive thoughts are with them, as they may be the only hope of getting a good X-Com clone. I'll be very, very sad if this turns out to be vaporware.
Burning Bridges Tacticular Staff

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#20

Is this another project by a student who currently has semester breaks? The screen looks like game of the decade (it's really great), but is the developer aware how much work this is?

Simply watch the site if there is weekly news for one and a half months, then nothing except half-yearly announcements that "we were busy because of examinations", and so on, and you know what's going on.

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#21

slated for Christmas 2010.

No fucking way. Vaporware. Please prove me wrong.

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#22

xenonauts news post said:

However, while fast for a helicopter, the CH-48 is slow compared to interceptors or alien UFOs. This, coupled with the fact it is completely unarmed, means that even the lightest alien vessels are capable of destroying it. As the loss of a CH-48 in combat also results in the loss of all those aboard, it is highly recommended that the CH-48 is sent out with an interceptor escort – especially in regions where the aliens have historically been aggressively trying to assert air superiority. Xenonaut resources are already stretched thin enough without losing entire tactical teams in transit.

The feature list keeps getting better and better. I really hope they can pull it off.

x
Orgasm Barely Literate

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#23

I can write design documents too.

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in der Wir euch kriegen!
Weiß sind die Männer,
die für Deutschland siegen!
Rot is das Blut,
auf dem Asphalt!

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oscar Tacticular Staff

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#24

Mean, Foxtrots and Condors. I wonder if the soldiers will use NATO or Warsaw Pact equipment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVDDnDzpoHM

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#25

East and west will join hands.

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