Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/69341191/xenonauts-2-strategic-planetary-defence-simulator
https://www.xenonauts.com
https://af.gog.com/game/xenonauts_2?as=1649904300
https://www.xenonauts.com
https://af.gog.com/game/xenonauts_2?as=1649904300
So the guys at Goldhawk may be gearing up for Xenonauts 2 and this time they're going to deviate from the formula.
At the moment they're gathering ideas in a new section of the forum, so get over there.
Heres one thing from there.
At the moment they're gathering ideas in a new section of the forum, so get over there.
Heres one thing from there.
Xenonauts 2 - Rethinking the Strategy Layer
We had a big internal meeting on the possibility of doing Xenonauts 2 yesterday, as it happened to be one of the rare occasions where all of the permanent members of the team were together in one room. We discussed a number of the points raised by the community along with the ideas that the rest of the team had and we've come up with what we think could be a good setup for the strategy layer.
This is a long post as this is a significant re-imagining of how the strategy layer works. I believe that Xenonauts took the Geoscape idea as far as it could, so we've had to dial it back to something conceptually simpler and then develop the idea to add new types of complexity.
We think this strategy layer idea is equally complex as the one in Xenonauts, but be warned in advance that it is rather different. Some areas are more simplistic and some areas are correspondingly more complex, so please try to view the systems as a whole rather than focusing on specific areas that have been simplified.
Objectives:
- Make the ground combat more important to your overall success than the air combat
- Allow the player more viable strategic expansion strategies (rather than "always put a base in the Middle East and USA" etc)
- Make the Cold War setting a key part of the game mechanics
- Increase the ground combat mission variety (even if the player is doing really well)
- Introduce more choice and strategy into the research tree
Explanation:
There's a number of issues with Xenonauts 1 in terms of the strategy map. The biggest was probably the fact that your chance of winning the game was defined more by your skill at the air combat than it was the ground combat, as those skilled at the air war would receive far more funding and could even "get ahead" of the alien invasion and prevent the aliens building bases, launching terror attacks or attacking Xenonaut bases.
This was a major balance issue, a major thematic issue (the ground combat is meant to be the "core" of the game) and also a major enjoyment issue. Playing endless air combat missions and then never getting other than UFO crash site combat missions gets really boring really fast.
It also did not help that the way radar detection works meant that there were "good" places to put bases (i.e. the Middle East) and "bad" places (e.g. Australia) simply because some areas will cover far more territory than others. We tried to balance this a little by making some regions give more funding than others, but there's only so far you can go to counterbalance the annoying shape of the world and the distribution of wealthy countries within it.
Similarly, the research tree was identical every time and was effectively just a straight line of progression, gated by class of UFO. Weapons were straightforward upgrades on their predecessors that did increased damage, which was necessary but again a bit tedious. Anyway, the net result of it wall was people ended up playing the strategy game the same way every time, which hurts the replayability significantly.
Finally, the Cold War setting for the game was a rich and interesting setting that we did literally nothing with. This was mostly because I felt adding a political aspect to a game that was specifically intended to be a "remake" of X-Com would be going beyond my remit. Xenonauts 2 is free from those obligations and we want to make much more use of the time period within the game mechanics.
Overall Strategic Summary:
- The aliens no longer have the capability to win an outright war with humanity - instead, they are secretly infiltrating our society and attempting to trigger nuclear war between NATO and the USSR.
- The world will be divided into 10 regions, as it is in Xenonauts. However they will all be assigned to either the NATO, USSR or Non-Aligned sphere of influence.
- There are DEFCON counters for NATO and the USSR. Alien activity in the respective territories will increase the appropriate DEFCON counter, and activity in non-aligned states is split between the two.
- Alien activity sparks Geoscape "events", which consist of a potentially dangerous event and several solutions for the player to choose from (each choice will spawn a different ground combat mission or have an associated strategic resource cost, etc).
- UFOs are intercepted as they try to escape Earth after having sparked an "event". Successfully shooting them down opens a ground combat mission that may unlock new alien technology and resources, but does not prevent ground missions occurring.
These "events" will be the main way ground missions are given to the player. Because we can write the events to be whatever we want, we can mix the missions up a lot more than in Xeno 1 and also we can introduce human vs. human combat. Example event below.
Aircraft are relegated to the role of resource generation - unlocking research possibilities and allowing you to gain construction materials. This is still a vital role, but less important than the ground combat.
It is still possible to prevent Events, but it done via the research tree rather than the aircraft. Once you learn enough about a specific type of UFO and the type of crews it carries, you can unlock a project that will allow the local forces to deal with that type of UFO automatically. Instead of generating an Event, that type of UFO instead just generates a newspaper clip celebrating another victory by the plucky local forces against the alien menace.
Events will increase in severity as the invasion goes on, but your research should also be reducing the number of them.
It's possible each "batch" of events across the world could resolve at once, like the "waves" of UFOs in Xenonauts 1. Since the most beneficial way of resolving many of them will be a ground combat mission, this would force you to split and divide your forces and equipment across different missions taking place at the same time. That could be an interesting dynamic that mixes up the squad size and composition of each strike force, and makes you prioritise certain events and outcomes over others.
Example Event:
RENEGADE LOCAL FORCES
We have been monitoring a four-man special forces team within the local military in this region, as we believe they are under direct alien control. We are expecting the infiltrators controlling the team to meet with them shortly.
Our agents have informed us that they have recently acquired unmarked uniforms and a shipment of NATO-issue weapons and ammunition. They appear to be planning an attack on local military infrastructure and we expect local tensions to increase significantly if they are successful.
A - Eliminate the infiltrators!
Despatch a strike team to eliminate the alien infiltrators at the meeting. The local forces will be hostile until the infiltrators have been terminated, but killing Soviet soldiers will only serve to raise tensions - either subdue them using non-lethal means, or ignore them and terminate the infiltrators quickly.
This operation is deep inside enemy territory and we can only deploy a small number of soldiers, making facing extraterrestrial foes extremely dangerous prospect.
Xenonaut Soldiers Deployable: 4
Local Infiltration Score: -20
DEFCON: +1 Alert Soviet for each local soldier killed
B - Eliminate team!
Despatch a strike team to eliminate the special ops team en-route to their target, once the alien infiltrators have departed. The deaths of Soviet soldiers will raise local tensions far less than if they are allowed to carry out their mission.
Night Mission
Xenonaut Soldiers Deployable: 4
DEFCON: +1 Alert Soviet for each local soldier killed
C - Airstrike!
Eliminate the infiltrators and their controlled allies with a precision airstrike from an interceptor squadron. Our aircraft can conduct this strike and escape before local forces can react, but they will be detected. Expect serious political ramifications.
Local Infiltration Score: -20
DEFCON: +8 Alert Soviet
This is a very quick example of an event written simply to illustrate how the different choices may lead to different missions and how we can control the variables like the number of troops you can take along and the enemies you might be facing.
Strategic Map and Bases:
Given the stated objectives of the strategy layer, we've decided to replace the Xenonaut bases with local installations. These installations are requisitioned and brought under direct Xenonaut command using political capital (the currency in the game).
Each region on the map will have a certain number of installations on it:
- Airbase - provides a squadron of fighters that can be used within the region. Three per region.
- Research Lab - provides a research boost. One per region, each has a unique bonus.
- Industrial Centre - provides a production boost. One per region, each has a unique bonus.
These have most of the same functions as the base structures in Xenonauts, but they allow more strategy. In Xenonauts you can only protect the area immediately around your base, but your starting strategy in Xenonauts 2 with your starting funds could be to concentrate your resources in a few territories or spread yourself thinly over the entire world.
Each region will have its own Infiltration Score. If a region is fully infiltrated by the aliens, all installations in that region are lost (this will be an important mechanic).
Research Tree
There are two main innovations with the research tree, the first of which is the "development" aspect of the research tree. This allows you to spend research time upgrading pre-existing technology to make it more effective rather than researching new stuff.
For example, at the start of the game you may want to spend your time researching laser weapons. Alternatively, you could spend time upgrading and refining your existing ballistic weapons instead. This gives you more of a choice - perhaps it would be viable to use upgraded ballistic weapons long enough to skip lasers entirely and make it to plasmas? Do you want to move down the research tree, or spend time making what you already have work better?
This can also tie into other parts of the research tree. If you research a new type of alien metal, it might unlock a brand new type of armour for you to research...but it also might unlock an additional development project for the basic armour you already have. Thus not all of the development projects will be available immediately, and there's plenty of scope for retrofitting old designs with new gear.
The second innovation would be the addition of some randomisation. We don't want the tech tree to be totally predictable and therefore we might only have 50-70% of the tree appear in each game. This would make the player adapt their tactics in combat (as they might have a different mix of equipment) and also on the strategy layer (the unique bonuses for installation in a specific region may be more useful in one game than another).
I like the concept that, even for experienced players, the research tree is actually about trying to work out what technology and capabilities the aliens have and how you can best turn it to your advantage.
Air Combat
We want to make the air combat simpler and faster, but also more strategically interesting. To do this we're planning to change it from a dogfight into an actual interception.
The scenario for each interception is that the UFO has landed and spawned its event, having descended too fast for the air forces to be able to have any chance of stopping it. As it takes off and tries to escape into the atmosphere, the local Xenonaut fighter squadrons plot an intersecting course and attempt an attack run before the UFO makes its escape.
Air combat only occurs if the interception attempt is successful. The chance of success is defined by the type of UFO and how upgraded certain components (probably radar / engines) of the local fighter squadrons are. If interception fails, the UFO escapes and nothing happens.
However, if successful then the two sides face each other in combat. The combat takes the form of a single attack run by up to three squadrons of interceptors, with the UFO returning fire as they pass. If the UFO is not destroyed, it escapes to orbit and the player receives no reward.
Each squadron contains five planes and is treated as a single unit. Unlike in Xeno 1, the player does not manually control their flight path but instead issues them a specific flight path or order. This could be an order to fire misses from max range and immediately disengage, or to close right up and fire at point-blank range. One squadron could be ordered to draw fire away from the other squadrons. Each possible order will show the player the estimated damage range inflicted on the UFO and the estimated chance of the planes in each squadron being destroyed.
Once you've chosen the orders you want, you click "Resolve" and the combat takes place automatically. Initially this will just show the random rolls and the outcome of the combat, but in the final game I'd like a nice 3D animation to play out showing the squadrons performing their attack run and firing off all their weapons / getting melted by the UFO.
To add a bit more tactics to this part of the game, we could have the squadrons level up with combat experience and possibly get passive bonuses or unlock new manoeuvres. Similarly, you could be able to use engineer hours to upgrade specific squadrons with new technologies so each one is not totally interchangeable with the others and you may need to rethink your tactics if, for example, the squadron with the upgraded missiles has taken damage and only has two fighters in it.
This may sound like a simplification, but air combat in Xenonauts was too fiddly and time consuming for the niche it was meant to fill. I think this idea will be faster and present more interesting choices to the player ... as well as just being more naturally accessible to strategy gamers (plus the 3d animation of the combat could be really awesome to watch).
Conclusion:
What we've done here is dismantle the existing strategy layer and tried to build one that does the same thing in a totally different (but equally complex) way. I understand that some people may miss specific features from X-Com and Xenonauts 1, but the intention with Xenonauts 2 is not to remake the same game and we want the player to have a fresh experience.
I think this version of the strategy game will allow much more diverse strategies for playing the strategic game, will allow us to create a more interesting world for the game, and will present the player with far more varied combat missions.
I think the Events in particular could be a real game-changer, if you'll pardon the pun.
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except unity.
