Xenonauts Previewing & Interviewing

[Jason]

<strong>[ Interview ]</strong>

The gents at Taktikzone offer up <a href="http://www.taktikzone.de/index.php?GameID=117&content=interview2" target="_blank">this interview</a> with Chris England on the state of the next big X-Comalike, <a href="http://xenonauts.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Xenonauts</strong></a>.
<blockquote>In terms of totally-new stuff, we've tried to expand the game and bring in mechanics from more modern games where we thought it would help. We've added an entirely new air combat model to replace the one-dimensional air combat in X-Com, and bring some extra skill and strategy (and variety) into the game. In the ground combat, we've added a cover system so it's a bit less luck-based about whether your troops will be shot dead at the end of any turn. We've also incorporated the Jagged Alliance 2 aiming system into the game (ie, right click to make a shot more accurate at the cost of more APs) as I thought that was a significant improvement.

We've also made lots of small tweaks across the board - UFOs will attack in waves, so the game won't be so stop-start as it was at the end of X-Com. You can customise what weapons your vehicles carry into battle. Aliens now come in multiple 'ranks', as well as different species. There are alternate victory conditions on most missions, so you can win a battle by capturing the enemy UFO and holding it for a number of turns, instead of having to hunt down every last alien. There's probably more that I've missed, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.
</blockquote>There are also previews to peruse at <a href="http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/116/1164344p1.html" target="_blank">IGN</a> and <a href="http://www.howtoplayblog.co.uk/2011/xenonauts/" target="_blank">How To Play</a>. Expect screenshots of the ground combat in an upcoming issue of PC Gamer.

 

[villain of the story]

Oh good, they are not dead. Also good that they have finally realised that squad based tactical games have evolved after X-Com. Somebody should make them play 1.13 too. But this is still too far from release.

 

[Malakal]

Oh yes yes yes, please, no more hunting of the last damn alien. But cover? I sense popamole.

 

[Lightknight]

Hmm, looks like it will be an advertisement of shitty US military tech. Everyone knows that USians are the only ones who can save the world.

 

[GarfunkeL]

"They couldn't have done me a bigger favour if they tried," says Chris England, head of Goldhawk Interactive. "I was pretty damn happy when I heard. I was sitting there thinking that's good news.

"But as an X-Com fan I was pretty appalled."

YEEEHAW

Lightknight, the airplanes are F-17 and Mig-32, the vehicle platforms are completely made-up (AFAIK) but yeah, the small arms so-far use Western (mostly US) appearance.

 

[Haba]

Hmm, looks like it will be an advertisement of shitty US military tech. Everyone knows that USians are the only ones who can save the world.

US military tech in the game is shitty poopoo that you try to replace as fast as possible. Butthurt much?

They didn't add AK's and whatnot since the fucker is trying to cut corners to reduce costs. Hence no female models etc.

 

[zeitgeist]

no female models

Seriously? Any official quote or anything? Haven't been paying attention lately.

 

[Haba]

no female models

Seriously? Any official quote or anything? Haven't been paying attention lately.

Yes. Too lazy to look it up. There are female civilian models, but none for the X-Co... Xenonauts. Nor is the race of the soldier reflected on tactical mode model. Who knows, maybe this will change if they get a massive influx of $$$€€€, but yeah - none at the moment.

Also:

--we've successfully merged the ground combat with the rest of the game - this means all the connections are working that weren't before. Soldier names, equipment, stats and attributes are all successfully imported into ground missions. The soldier inventory screen now works on the battlefield. The positioning of soldiers and vehicles in the dropship is reflected on the battlefield. Basic soldier experience tracking is in place (well, mostly). All starting soldiers now have a default loadout that is intelligently assigned when a game begins based on their stats (ie, your best shot is given a sniper rifle) to streamline the startup process.

But:

What does this mean for our pre-order community? Well, as nobody is allowed to play the ground combat for another month, unfortunately we can't release any of our builds in their present state for another few weeks.

Fucking PC Gamer

 

[korenzel]

Re: Xenonauts Previewing & Interviewing

We've added an entirely new air combat model to replace the one-dimensional air combat in X-Com, and bring some extra skill and strategy (and variety) into the game.

Like what, a flight sim ? If it boils down to choosing the right craft and the right weapon, then X-Com already did it.

In the ground combat, we've added a cover system so it's a bit less luck-based about whether your troops will be shot dead at the end of any turn.

There's already a cover system in X-Com, it's called hiding behind a wall or a door, out of sight. No need to add chest-high walls.

We've also incorporated the Jagged Alliance 2 aiming system into the game (ie, right click to make a shot more accurate at the cost of more APs) as I thought that was a significant improvement.

Already in X-Com with the multiple shooting modes of every weapon.

We've also made lots of small tweaks across the board - UFOs will attack in waves, so the game won't be so stop-start as it was at the end of X-Com.

Bman's mod in UFO:ET did that and I don't think it improved the game much, since the recovery window is limited anyway.

You can customize what weapons your vehicles carry into battle.

Just like you can choose which tank to take in X-Com ?

Aliens now come in multiple 'ranks', as well as different species.

X-Com had that as well.

There are alternate victory conditions on most missions.

That's a the only "new" thing I've seen so far. TFTD already included that for base and terror mission, but it would be good to be generalized and help with the tedium of repeating the same mission over and over.

 

[Burning Bridges]

They are really trying. Kudos.

But we still need to see working turnbased combat. Everything else is just eyewash.

Hopefully they can bring that on too.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I wish they would add a mode where you can play it as a pure strategy or pure skirmish wargame.

 

[saenz]

Hmm, looks like it will be an advertisement of shitty US military tech. Everyone knows that USians are the only ones who can save the world.

"How do you like the taste of my bullets?!?"

"EDF! EDF! EDF!"

 

[DakaSha]

I want some fanboy ass and i think ive found it

 

[Sitra Achara]

Some updates on the site:

http://www.xenonauts.com/forum/topic?id=632

You should expect to see screenshots of the ground combat in about two weeks. In the meantime, we’re working on a couple more tilesets – a desert and an industrial one (even though the farm one still needs some more touching up). We’ve doubled the size of the team working on this, as we’ve let it slip a bit over the last couple of months. It’ll be important to keep consistency between the new artists, but I have high hopes.

 

[zeitgeist]

We’re presently working on finishing up the morale system, so soldiers panic and flee correctly, and we’re reworking the terrain generation system to make it only semi-randomly generated. This basically means each mission level will be drawn from a pre-created map, but each sub-map (for example, a barn or a carrot field) would have several different variations that might appear. That way, even if you get the same map twice, it’ll look different and will have a slightly different layout even if the overall position of everything is roughly the same. We’re doing this because sadly having purely randomly-generated maps really wasn’t giving us the quality we wanted in the mission levels.

I wonder how this will work, it sounds similar to the map generation in ufo2000, but less randomized. Ufo2000 generated maps from random segments of varying sizes, with some restrictions (the road in a city would always go from one end of the map to another, for example), and you could choose the size and type of the map and refresh the generator until it generated something you were pleased with. Admittedly there were some illogical segment placements (nothing game-breaking, only somewhat immersion-breaking - stuff along the lines of putting a house behind a warehouse instead of facing the street and such) that could have been improved with additional rules and restrictions but overall it worked rather well for multiplayer. Additionally there were many user-made maps to install. Haven't played it in a while though so I don't know if this has been updated in any way lately.

Also:

 

[Rabidredneck]

Has anyone tried that UFO:AI game? I tried it a long time ago, ok but it was lacking something. They seem to have made serious progress since.

http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/News

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Did they finally add destructible environment?

 

[Haba]

Did they finally add destructible environment?

Yes.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Did they finally add destructible environment?

Yes.

They didn't .

I'd regret wasting time downloading it but I have discovered that they have added an autoresolve feature for skirmish battles which allows playing it as a strategic game, not a strategic/skirmish hybrid .

 

[villain of the story]

Re: Xenonauts Previewing & Interviewing

We've added an entirely new air combat model to replace the one-dimensional air combat in X-Com, and bring some extra skill and strategy (and variety) into the game.

Like what, a flight sim ? If it boils down to choosing the right craft and the right weapon, then X-Com already did it.

In the ground combat, we've added a cover system so it's a bit less luck-based about whether your troops will be shot dead at the end of any turn.

There's already a cover system in X-Com, it's called hiding behind a wall or a door, out of sight. No need to add chest-high walls.

We've also incorporated the Jagged Alliance 2 aiming system into the game (ie, right click to make a shot more accurate at the cost of more APs) as I thought that was a significant improvement.

Already in X-Com with the multiple shooting modes of every weapon.

You can customize what weapons your vehicles carry into battle.

Just like you can choose which tank to take in X-Com ?

Aliens now come in multiple 'ranks', as well as different species.

X-Com had that as well.

You're trying too hard.

 

[engy]

Did they finally add destructible environment?

Yes.

They didn't .

I'd regret wasting time downloading it but I have discovered that they have added an autoresolve feature for skirmish battles which allows playing it as a strategic game, not a strategic/skirmish hybrid .

They did add a few destructible items, barrels and such but no it isn't destructible. And it will never be unless they rewrite the entire engine, which they aren't going to.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Did they finally add destructible environment?

Yes.

They didn't .

I'd regret wasting time downloading it but I have discovered that they have added an autoresolve feature for skirmish battles which allows playing it as a strategic game, not a strategic/skirmish hybrid .

They did add a few destructible items, barrels and such but no it isn't destructible. And it will never be unless they rewrite the entire engine, which they aren't going to.

I know. I've read the FAQ before. It was meant as a barb. I don't see a point of making a UFO remake with inferior skirmish combat and graphics.

Damn, I've tried playing with "auto mission" and it fucking sucks. It's an unfinished feature but no one bothered to warn about it. It's impossible to lose soldiers or get items in that mode, hell, I've lost many times on terror sites and still haven't lost any soldier. Jesus fucking Christ, what a messy game.

 

[korenzel]

UFO:AI combat has potential but it really needs destructible environment, fog of war and more than 8 soldiers per mission. Some multi level maps are pretty good and would be fun to explore and blow up.

If they already added destructible items like barrels and such, it's already handled in the engine. I suppose each map would have to be reworked to make walls and such destroyable as well, but that can be done one at a time.

 

[villain of the story]

Show/Hide :: Click here to show/hide the hidden post made by korenzel.

 

[Haba]

Did they finally add destructible environment?

Yes.

They didn't .

I'd regret wasting time downloading it but I have discovered that they have added an autoresolve feature for skirmish battles which allows playing it as a strategic game, not a strategic/skirmish hybrid .

They did add a few destructible items, barrels and such but no it isn't destructible. And it will never be unless they rewrite the entire engine, which they aren't going to.

Stop with the lies.

Yes, we will have collapsing buildings in the game - or at least we plan to, it's not yet implemented yet although the terrain is fully destrubtible otherwise. Likely it'll be as simple as the entire building collapsing if you shoot out a set % of the supporting wall tiles on a lower level.

http://www.xenonauts.com/forum/topic?id=412&p=1#p5399

Jan-03-11

The other important mechanic that has been retained is that of destructible terrain. Almost every piece of scenery on the battlefield can be destroyed, allowing players to blow away cover to expose the aliens hiding behind it or to make their own ‘doors’ in the walls of buildings. This creates a believable battlefield environment that rewards intelligent use of the scenery.

http://www.xenonauts.com/combat