KickStarter Xenonauts 2 - now available on Early Access

[Alienman]

Gray hair would be nice too

So I can make:

Edit:

You can see that the "five o clock" shadow goes outside the face on PhantasmaNL picture.

 

[Raghar]

Wait is this a remake? Like, a group of developers made something, and now they are doing remake? I don't hold it against developers like Vogel, or disabled, or freeware makers... But an established commercial group is something different. What about some skill and courage of making new stuff?

And I don't like what I seen on kickstarter. Even UFO:ET had locational damage.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

I think the devs should try to innovate - and by that I mean GOOD innovation, like more complex systems, not streamlining - because competition is tougher than ever. Especially when you see stuff like OpenX-COM Mods - Piratez being the foremost example.

For example, one feature I think that Xenonauts got beat compared to OpenX-COM, is the air game. One of the problems of the X-COM airgame is that its pretty much a UFO shooting gallery. To the UFOs, your vessels might as well not even exist - which makes sense in the early game where they probably laugh at your puny jets while they zoom around with Elerium engines that enable them to go up to Mach 7. But later on, it makes no sense that the UFOs are letting your vessels stroll around. They can only hurt you in the Geoscape in three ways - taking down your intercepting planes, base attacks and country infiltration.

They can't, for example, decide to mount a Combat Air Patrol around a mission site and then shoot down any X-COM aircraft that get near. Or mount a Counter-Air Patrol over an area they suspect has X-COM bases, in order to shoot down your aircraft at the start of their path. They can't counter-intercept you. Alien UFOs can totally attack you in Xeno, althrough I think Xeno does a mistake when it seems that alien UFOs can always be detected - they should be able to hide.

Also the air combat in Xeno is more fun.

Another feature I like is being able to bombard UFO sites, which is pretty much a way to get rid of shitty scouts and small saucers that are more hassle than it is worth.

 

[Arctrax]

Looks nice, funded!

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...gic-planetary-defence-simulator/posts/2223103

Portrait Generator Update Preview & Stretch Goal Update!

With one day left of stretch goal voting to go, we've now had 1650 votes for our Stretch Goals. The order remains unchanged from our last update three days ago:

• #1 Modular Weapons (£50,000 - UNLOCKED!)
• #2 Geoscape Situations (£75,000 - UNLOCKED!)
• #3 Locational Injuries (£100,000 - UNLOCKED!)
• #4 MARS Weapon Platform & Sentry Guns (£150,000)
• #5 Additional Community Edition & Modding Support (£200,000)
• #6 Weather Conditions (£250,000)

With 24 days left to go and £115,400 currently pledged, we could potentially still hit all of these stretch goals! As pledges usually tail off after the first (and last) three days of a Kickstarter, it's really great to see that we're still raising a strong amount of funding each day.

We'll be locking down the final stretch goal order tomorrow, so remember to vote here if you still haven't voted!

Portrait Generator Update:
As mentioned in the last update, we've been taking some suggestions for additional art for the Portrait Generator - well over a thousand people have signed up to put a custom soldier in the game now!

The first batch of suggestions were decided to paint up were additional eyewear variants, a few variants of facial hair longer than stubble but shorter than a full beard, and some hair versions that add some longer hairstyles and some additional versions of receding hair.

You can see a preview of some of these new layers below. It'll take a few more days for us to get these sorted out so they support all the different skin tones and hair colours etc. We'll post up an update when the new version of the Editor is ready - in the meantime, if you have more suggestions for new facial variants feel free to post them up in the comments!

 

[Goldhawk]

So, a question for you guys - one I thought I'd ask here because this forum tends to cater to the more hardcore side of the strategy community.

When you guys play Xenonauts and / or 1994 X-Com, to what extent and for what purpose do you make use of secondary bases in both games? Do you set up secondary teams of soldiers when you play, or was that something you experimented with a couple of times and then stopped doing, or never tried? Do you build up secondary manufacturing bases in X-Com to fund your entire organisation by mass-producing Laser Cannons and not do that in Xenonauts? Are they just interceptor bases? Do you station troops at them to defend them, or use defence batteries? Anything else you can think of that might be relevant too.

 

[Kem0sabe]

So, a question for you guys - one I thought I'd ask here because this forum tends to cater to the more hardcore side of the strategy community.

When you guys play Xenonauts and / or 1994 X-Com, to what extent and for what purpose do you make use of secondary bases in both games? Do you set up secondary teams of soldiers when you play, or was that something you experimented with a couple of times and then stopped doing, or never tried? Do you build up secondary manufacturing bases in X-Com to fund your entire organisation by mass-producing Laser Cannons and not do that in Xenonauts? Are they just interceptor bases? Do you station troops at them to defend them, or use defence batteries? Anything else you can think of that might be relevant too.

I use secondary bases to extend reach and response time, as important as the first/main base.

 

[ArchAngel]

So, a question for you guys - one I thought I'd ask here because this forum tends to cater to the more hardcore side of the strategy community.

When you guys play Xenonauts and / or 1994 X-Com, to what extent and for what purpose do you make use of secondary bases in both games? Do you set up secondary teams of soldiers when you play, or was that something you experimented with a couple of times and then stopped doing, or never tried? Do you build up secondary manufacturing bases in X-Com to fund your entire organisation by mass-producing Laser Cannons and not do that in Xenonauts? Are they just interceptor bases? Do you station troops at them to defend them, or use defence batteries? Anything else you can think of that might be relevant too.

In UFO 1994 I made all you said here. I did radar/interceptor only bases and I did manufacture/research only bases. UFO 1994 has a nice "trick". Aliens only look for your bases when you intercept their craft in that area.
So you could place your manufacture/research bases with just radar in areas where you mostly don't touch alien craft and you didn't need to have any troops or batteries there as aliens would not find them except by pure luck.

As for Xenonauts I don't know the logic behind that game, but I mostly tried to do something similar. I also dominated aliens in airgame so completely they never got a chance to attack anything so I didn't really bother with base defenses much, I just made more aircraft to shoot down any and all UFOs. But I did keep at least two teams for ground missions in two different bases.

EDIT: Let me also add I like to play on harder difficulties and on ironman.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I usually build a secondary base which will be built to have full capabilities like primary base, rest tend be interceptor/radar facilities with token defensive force.

 

[Cyberarmy]

I usually build a secondary base which will be built to have full capabilities like primary base, rest tend be interceptor/radar facilities with token defensive force.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I make a second base and staff it fully, deluding myself that I'll develop it into a full fledged secondary HQ competing with the main one, and then I end up using only the A-team anyway.

Other bases I set up with hangars + radars + lots of defence guns + token defensive force (usually tanks and like 4 dudes) in case anything somehow manages to get through.

i dont think i've ever had to mass-produce lazers

 

[Goldhawk]

I guess the final question I should have asked is - and why do you choose to do that? Is it because you can't fit that functionality into your main base, or for a specific strategic reason? Or is it because it's just kinda fun to build a big second base even though you don't strictly need to do so?

 

[Alienman]

So, a question for you guys - one I thought I'd ask here because this forum tends to cater to the more hardcore side of the strategy community.

When you guys play Xenonauts and / or 1994 X-Com, to what extent and for what purpose do you make use of secondary bases in both games? Do you set up secondary teams of soldiers when you play, or was that something you experimented with a couple of times and then stopped doing, or never tried? Do you build up secondary manufacturing bases in X-Com to fund your entire organisation by mass-producing Laser Cannons and not do that in Xenonauts? Are they just interceptor bases? Do you station troops at them to defend them, or use defence batteries? Anything else you can think of that might be relevant too.

I usually build second bases because of larp reasons. Like building up a b-team on Base 2 that fight the a-team on Base 1 for glory. I imagine b-team laughs when a-team is taking causalities. B-team is such bastards

I also build smaller radar like bases, but I do keep a couple of soldiers there with older type of weapons, weapons no longer used by a or b-team. Always exciting when the aliens raid one of those outposts and you get to fight off high-tech aliens with a bunch of rookies and older equipment. Survivors might even get a chance to enlist in the a or b team

 

[ArchAngel]

I guess the final question I should have asked is - and why do you choose to do that? Is it because you can't fit that functionality into your main base, or for a specific strategic reason? Or is it because it's just kinda fun to build a big second base even though you don't strictly need to do so?

I see what you are trying to do here with that second question.. trying to get us the hardcore players to cover for your one base choice in Xeno 2 and you come into this by already having your mind made up.

Well I am not an expert in your Xeno 1 but UFO on hardest difficulty and ironman was designed well enough that you needed to get an edge wherever you could get one and that meant making manufacturing bases and being rich enough to get to make more new bases faster and have enough money to be able to buy new troops and equipment for them as well as recovery from bad missions. So making more bases was not something "you don't strictly need to do", it was the best play and best way to guarantee success.
Also base defense missions could always go sideways fast and having another one with troops and equipment ready to take over immediately was also a smart play.

 

[PanteraNera]

as I haven't played Xeno 1 enough I can't comment on it. I played UFO:EU since its release every now and than.
Well I had a main-base with my A-Team and a second-base with my B-Team, also a researcher base and an crafting base. Never bothered doing a C-Team base as two teams with enough spare member are enough. A couple of interception bases and rest radar bases.

The reasons:
- Two bases with two teams on different places on earth: quick response time, also a backup team if a missions ends really terrible, also easier to recover if one base is lost
- research / crafting base: I like to have specialized bases, easier to manage, also if one or both main-bases get destroyed I still can research and craft for money
- Interception bases: quick response time and to cover countries I could not with my two main bases

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

Yeah, backup base with full functionality was really good to have in UFO, if you weren't using reload spell.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

So, a question for you guys - one I thought I'd ask here because this forum tends to cater to the more hardcore side of the strategy community.

When you guys play Xenonauts and / or 1994 X-Com, to what extent and for what purpose do you make use of secondary bases in both games? Do you set up secondary teams of soldiers when you play, or was that something you experimented with a couple of times and then stopped doing, or never tried? Do you build up secondary manufacturing bases in X-Com to fund your entire organisation by mass-producing Laser Cannons and not do that in Xenonauts? Are they just interceptor bases? Do you station troops at them to defend them, or use defence batteries? Anything else you can think of that might be relevant too.

The most important use of a secondary base in the original was to prevent game-over from base attacks. I have actually lost my primary base once in the first month and had to restart with a secondary that was still under construction.

Specialization is also important, as bases have limited space and at some point its better to specialize in research/manufracture bases to pump out greater income and faster research.

So, generally:

- Primary Base
- Secondary Base
- Production Base
- Research Base
With the rest being a mix of interception/radar and storage.

I guess the final question I should have asked is - and why do you choose to do that? Is it because you can't fit that functionality into your main base, or for a specific strategic reason? Or is it because it's just kinda fun to build a big second base even though you don't strictly need to do so?

Can't fit. Its also strategic and keeps things simple and logical. Its also fun to be a secret organization with worldwide bases, and fallback bases in case mine fall down to enemy attacks.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

I don't mind getting rid or changing the base system, but do remember that the design philosophy of the original X-COM was all about simulationism. Substituting it with a arcadey single-base system is dumb. Always ask yourself: What happens if the aliens come in and blow up my base - you know, the one with all the officers, soldiers, the retrieved tech, etc? If you can't provide a in-game answer beyond "You die lol" and no ways to address it, you need to change the design.

The FiraxisCOM system failed because it made base attacks not happen (except a scripted event), it made you have a secret organization with a single base worldwide, and led to a passive geoscape where you just press on a button and wait to get new missions. Compare to the original's, where its necessary to look at the charts to see where alien activity is, and use aircraft to spot enemy UFOs. The whole concept of sattelites is laughable, who the fuck thinks putting detection on orbit is a good idea? Aliens have defacto control of orbit and can take down your sattelites anytime they feel like.

One difference between Xeno and X-COM is that all UFO activity in Xeno is pretty public, can always be detected and comes in waves, so a well-run air campaign can intercept almost if not all the UFOs. In X-COM, the aliens are pretty stealthy, your rate of UFOs defeated/not defeated is usually like 1:10 through most of the game, until you either cover the world with radar and aircraft, or you get Hyperwave Decoders.

 

[Goldhawk]

I see what you are trying to do here with that second question.. trying to get us the hardcore players to cover for your one base choice in Xeno 2 and you come into this by already having your mind made up.

Heh. Is it difficult being that cynical all the time? I don't need any PR cover for any of my game design decisions; probably less than 1% of the people that play the final game will ever read one of my messages on any forum anywhere. Judging from the questions I get sent on Kickstarter, half the people giving me money can't even be bothered to read the page let alone drum up a revolution against a one-base system. No, what matters to me (and my bank balance) is making a game people can have fun playing when I release it.

My logic is actually the reverse of what you've assumed - if even the hardcore players are doing something that's largely sub-optimal simply because it's kinda fun ... well, then it might not be a good idea to remove that from the game. No amount of tinkering with the game balance is going to be able to bring that feeling back.

 

[Bigg Boss]

I see what you are trying to do here with that second question.. trying to get us the hardcore players to cover for your one base choice in Xeno 2 and you come into this by already having your mind made up.

Heh. Is it difficult being that cynical all the time? I don't need any PR cover for any of my game design decisions; probably less than 1% of the people that play the final game will ever read one of my messages on any forum anywhere. Judging from the questions I get sent on Kickstarter, half the people giving me money can't even be bothered to read the page let alone drum up a revolution against a one-base system. No, what matters to me (and my bank balance) is making a game people can have fun playing when I release it.

My logic is actually the reverse of what you've assumed - if even the hardcore players are doing something that's largely sub-optimal simply because it's kinda fun ... well, then it might not be a good idea to remove that from the game. No amount of tinkering with the game balance is going to be able to bring that feeling back.

It's just a shame to see one of the games that was supposed to be like X-Com deciding to go with the remakes shitty base system. Granted you might be doing something amazing with it for all I know. Realistically what branch of government puts all it's members in one facility anyway? Makes no sense.

In before: Not discussing realism in a game about aliens and psychic powers.

 

[Endemic]

I'd rather the effort going into the Atlas base went into making a spherical geoscape instead. There's no real reason to downgrade the capabilities of secondary bases either (I wouldn't mind if they cost more instead).

 

[Galdred]

Actually, I agree that having the ability to build several bases adds to the simulation aspect. That said, there are several examples of organizations with a single base of operation:
It is implied that the fall of Camelot and the destruction of the round table would be a big deal in Arthurian legends.
The Teutonic knights had a lot of fortresses, but they got KOed when their main base of operation was taken (but it was a direct consequence of losing their A and B-teams in a prior engagenement).
So you can probably find a compelling reason for the main base to be unique.

 

[Bigg Boss]

I tried to play NuXcom after playing OpenXcom, and it's really hard to get into now. Almost like I evolved into a more superior being. I know I like running out of bullets in old X-Com. I am a masochist like that.

Hey! If we give you more money will you go ahead and do the multiple base thing anyway? Nah, we will mod it in. Carry on.

 

[ArchAngel]

I see what you are trying to do here with that second question.. trying to get us the hardcore players to cover for your one base choice in Xeno 2 and you come into this by already having your mind made up.

Heh. Is it difficult being that cynical all the time? I don't need any PR cover for any of my game design decisions; probably less than 1% of the people that play the final game will ever read one of my messages on any forum anywhere. Judging from the questions I get sent on Kickstarter, half the people giving me money can't even be bothered to read the page let alone drum up a revolution against a one-base system. No, what matters to me (and my bank balance) is making a game people can have fun playing when I release it.

My logic is actually the reverse of what you've assumed - if even the hardcore players are doing something that's largely sub-optimal simply because it's kinda fun ... well, then it might not be a good idea to remove that from the game. No amount of tinkering with the game balance is going to be able to bring that feeling back.

Ok if fun is your goal then deciding on positions, planning and seeing your bases grow around the world is way more fun than making one and placing liaisons and interceptors into continents. Your ant hill base system is cool but let players find such bases in other places as well and be able to get them running as well. They don't even need to be all of same size. It could be a choice kind of system where players could make decisions between putting money into a bigger secondary base early that costs more to maintain of make smaller ones first and expand to bigger ones later.

 

[Haba]

The whole base issue is kind of tricky.

If there are multiple bases, there should be a significant risk of losing them. But then you'd have to design your game around that. Base losses should be recoverable and building bases and managing staff should be simple, not tedious.

But in the end, only a small minority would suffer through a base loss, most would simply reload their game.

On the other hand, most players tend to heavily invest into a single base (design and resource wise). So if you make the lives of base-splitters easier, you end up reducing the fun for those that like to play Sims with their "megabase".

Now, if you only have one massive base, that base might never be exposed to any risk. Your game becomes making sure aliens never figure out where you are coming from. Realistic, once your base is exposed, it should be under constant attack (and basically force a game over). Which is again, not much fun.

What I would try:

- expose the main base to different kinds of threats. Think Lobotomy Corporation. You have managed to contain an unknown alien. Before you can manage to figure out what kind abilities it has, maybe it can escape or influence your base. Works really well in a single campaign, but repetitiveness becomes an issue. Basically have base missions and events that don't stem from full blown alien attack (and without revealing the location to aliens)

- make satellite locations necessary for specific purposes. Maybe some facilities need to be built at specific locations, maybe some research needs to be done outside of the main base. Maybe the first crashed large UFO need to have a research facility built around it (one which the aliens will try to actively destroy before you finish the site). This way you can diversify the base building and still let the players try figure out clever defensive strategies, while keeping the main base as the priority for normal base building.

- put a bit more emphasis on your key scientists and engineers. If they have to occasionally leave the safety of the main base to do research at satellites, that'd give opportunities for new mission types. Could your support staff get injured? Tired? Go insane under the pressure (of you pushing the research intensity slider to max)? Maybe to simplify it, limit it to having generic staff and then appointed specialists/department heads that become requirements for unlocking certain tech trees.

- if you can't have more than one real base, that one base must have something special to it. Some layer to build upon / explore, and preferably one that can carry through several playthroughs.

But yeah, not a simple thing to balance. Definitely plenty of opportunities there. Opportunities to do interesting things and opportunities to go all X-Com Apocalypse.