KickStarter Xenonauts 2 - now available on Early Access

[ArchAngel]

I enjoyed blowing the floor under the feet of aliens in Xcom 2. I want Xeno2 to have that as well

 

[Khorne]

Can you queue unit orders in xenonauts2, like when a soldier is moving can you select another soldier and move him at the same time before the animation completes?
Can the camera not follow the moving unit when another unit is selected but rather keep the focus on currently selected unit?

 

[Grotesque]

going for 3D was a bad move

 

[anus_pounder]

It was grotesque.

 

[thesheeep]

Can you queue unit orders in xenonauts2, like when a soldier is moving can you select another soldier and move him at the same time before the animation completes?
Can the camera not follow the moving unit when another unit is selected but rather keep the focus on currently selected unit?

I agree that would be a good thing to have.

 

[laclongquan]

Silent Storm, S3, and Hammer Sickle, has destructible terrain.

The bare ground level is not. But if you are on second floor, you totally can destroy the place you are standing on and fall to the ground.

 

[Mazisky]

Silent Storm, S3, and Hammer Sickle, has destructible terrain.

The bare ground level is not. But if you are on second floor, you totally can destroy the place you are standing on and fall to the ground.

That's because a 0,5 meters ceiling is less tough than kilometers of earth surface.

 

[SmartCheetah]

IIRC you could fall down to the basement as well, provided there was a basement level below the building. SS,S3,H&S nailed the destruction in turn based game IMO.
I'm almost sure they used some kind of "weight" attribute to wall parts, so after destroying some chunks of it, others would basicly fall because of not enough support.
Also, shooting thru' materials was working great as well.

 

[LESS T_T]

There will be Xenonauts 2 talk at EGX Rezzed in April: https://www.egx.net/rezzed/2017/developer-sessions-2017

Saturday 1st April
2pm: Xenonauts-2. Chris England from Goldhawk Interactive joins Eurogamer's Chris "Strategy King" Bratt to chat about the latest Xenonauts-2 developments.

It will be livestreamed via Twitch.

 

[laclongquan]

When you know somebody is moving on the other side of this wooden wall, and here we have in our hands just a few highly penetrative-caliber rifle and machinegun... Shooting up the wall is kinda satisfying.

 

[Goldhawk]

A quick update for you guys (sadly it's less of a news story for you guys than elsewhere), but we've started actively publicizing our free builds now - essentially they're a lot more polished these days, and actually feel like a small slice of a game. You can download them here: https://af.gog.com/game/xenonauts_2_demo?as=1649904300

They're going to remain free until we get the strategy layer operational and linked in with the ground combat; that's at least a month away but probably a bit longer. Until then there's new releases every two weeks, the next one being due on 28th Feb (i.e. Tuesday next week).

There's been a bunch of general improvements to the game, but the biggest for me is that the map has been switched up. You're no longer playing the same map every time, and all the maps we make can be switched into six different "biomes" with a few clicks, so even playing the same map repeatedly is much less dull than before. There's only one map in the current build but that's because we're hoping to get UFOs in relatively soon (which will mean throwing away our previous maps); in future there will be quite a few more and when coupled with the biome-swapping tech it should keep the play experience fresh right the way through development.

Here's an example of a map swapped into two different biomes, shots taken in-engine. Full gallery showing the other biomes is available here: http://www.xenonauts.com/xenonauts-2-media/

 

[Darth Roxor]

Lookin' good there.

 

[Alienman]

I want to try the new version but I have no idea how. It says I already own this item and I can't seem to find it anywhere to install in gog galaxy.

Oops, I had it hidden

 

[Alienman]

Okay, tried a quick battle. Some impressions and feedback:

• The animations are much smoother and responsive! Damn it felt good moving around the soldiers and I'm glad you removed auto-crouch.
• Shooting also felt much better. Bullets travel faster and shooting with the machine-gun actually felt like the guy shooting was laying down covering fire.
• I don't like that the ragdoll-effect was removed from your own soldiers. Looks silly that everyone falls the same, and ragdoll is one of the greatest thing with a 3D-engine!
• Why do the soldiers stand up when shooting? It feels like everyone is just taking random potshots instead of stabilizing their rifle on the cover. I know it's just a visual thing, but looks odd - to me at least.
• Now that you have a 3D-engine I really miss going prone. Getting caught in the open I so wanted my guy to just hit the deck, instead of casually taking a knee and shooting back.
• Graphics is really nice and clean, but the character need some anti-aliasing. What is also impressive was how fast the map loaded on my old machine. Ran well and looks good.
• We need blood and horrific plasma wounds!

 

[Jimmious]

This looks really beautiful

 

[orcinator]

That blocky terrain reminds me of some HD mods for old games. Hope those aren't final models.

 

[thesheeep]

That blocky terrain reminds me of some HD mods for old games. Hope those aren't final models.

Graphics whore detected.

Those screens look perfectly fine. Better focus on other things than making edges more round

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

Well the perfectly rectandular 90° rocks do look somewhat funny, probably done just to fit the grid. :D The environment in general is pretty sweet though.

 

[Visperas]

Blocky terrain works perfectly for this kind of game. Clarity above all.

 

[orcinator]

Those screens look perfectly fine. Better focus on other things than making edges more round

It's not incline unless your hills clash with everything else around them.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

even x-com had slopes...

 

[Goldhawk]

Thanks for the comments and to Alienman specifically for his feedback.

The cliffs are blocky mostly because you don't want them intruding too far onto the tiles otherwise units start clipping through them when they perform certain animations. Being cautious on this front isn't necessarily a bad thing though - once you start to break up the battlefield and make it look more natural (more irregular cliffs, more ground plants, etc) then it actually gets quite hard for a player to see at a glance where a tile (and by extension a possible move location) is with a single glance, which makes gameplay more frustrating than it should be. We had some negative feedback on that point for our very first public build.

We'll test the crouching fire animations in the game and see how they look, and we're also planning to give the ragdolls another pass at some point to see if we can get them looking good. The original ones looked pretty silly but hadn't had an artist look at them.

 

[ArchAngel]

Thanks for the comments and to Alienman specifically for his feedback.

The cliffs are blocky mostly because you don't want them intruding too far onto the tiles otherwise units start clipping through them when they perform certain animations. Being cautious on this front isn't necessarily a bad thing though - once you start to break up the battlefield and make it look more natural (more irregular cliffs, more ground plants, etc) then it actually gets quite hard for a player to see at a glance where a tile (and by extension a possible move location) is with a single glance, which makes gameplay more frustrating than it should be. We had some negative feedback on that point for our very first public build.

We'll test the crouching fire animations in the game and see how they look, and we're also planning to give the ragdolls another pass at some point to see if we can get them looking good. The original ones looked pretty silly but hadn't had an artist look at them.

Even with those few people wanting blocky rocks, the most will notice it and it will bother them after so many hours spent playing it. Try to find something in the middle, atm they look terrible and really stick out.

 

[Naraya]

I don't have a problem with blocky rocks but they remind me of nuXCOM a lot (not necessarily a bad thing and FWIW I think yours look better).

I have a different question - will the game be based in the same time period as the original Xenonauts?

 

[Alienman]

Thanks for the comments and to Alienman specifically for his feedback.

The cliffs are blocky mostly because you don't want them intruding too far onto the tiles otherwise units start clipping through them when they perform certain animations. Being cautious on this front isn't necessarily a bad thing though - once you start to break up the battlefield and make it look more natural (more irregular cliffs, more ground plants, etc) then it actually gets quite hard for a player to see at a glance where a tile (and by extension a possible move location) is with a single glance, which makes gameplay more frustrating than it should be. We had some negative feedback on that point for our very first public build.

We'll test the crouching fire animations in the game and see how they look, and we're also planning to give the ragdolls another pass at some point to see if we can get them looking good. The original ones looked pretty silly but hadn't had an artist look at them.

Ragdoll is a must! I mean if my guys have to die, at least you can make it hilarious