KickStarter Xenonauts 2 - now available on Early Access

[rezaf]

Try to find something in the middle, atm they look terrible and really stick out.

Yeah, they look pretty bad. I can almost hear the sound of the Korobeiniki playing in my head when looking at the screenshots...

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

Those hills are giving me NWN1 flashbacks. Looks fucking horrible. Those who are praising are cock-slurpers and their opinion should be disregarded entirely.

 

[thesheeep]

Spoiler

Yes, I'm sure all the people being perfectly fine with XCOM 2's blockiness will suddenly revolt at the sight of blocks in Xenonauts

Yes, they do stick out more in Xenonauts, but come on. You guys are being even more ridiculous than usually.

 

[lightbane]

Tried the super-alpha demo. Surprisingly it works even with toaster/outdated PC. Suffered no bugs and the game played quite fluidly, perhaps more so than the original. However, the part in which every soldier decides to stop crouching in order to shoot seems a bit silly. Also, energy and wound mechanics are not implemented, but that's understandable. Too bad there are no explosives available for this demo, such as grenades.

Following X-COM tradition, soldiers still have trouble hitting aliens even with firing a full-auto burst and being placed next to the damn target.

I'll wait for more information, but so far it seems good.

 

[Goldhawk]

We might have another look at the cliffs in a future build, but right now we've got more important gameplay issues to deal with. I think the graphical improvement over X1 has been big enough that the community probably won't get the pitchforks out about blocky cliffs for a few months yet

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

We're not yet decided on that; it's either going to be the same time period (1979) or the early 2000s in an alternate time period where the USSR never fell. Making a realistic world set in the late 70s involves clothes and computers that are so ugly that we kinda balked at doing it properly in X1. But that's an aside; the main point is that not that much will change irrespective of what date we stick on the game. It'll still be modern-ish Cold War.

Tried the super-alpha demo. Surprisingly it works even with toaster/outdated PC. Suffered no bugs and the game played quite fluidly, perhaps more so than the original. However, the part in which every soldier decides to stop crouching in order to shoot seems a bit silly. Also, energy and wound mechanics are not implemented, but that's understandable. Too bad there are no explosives available for this demo, such as grenades..

Glad to hear performance is good on old machines. We've actually disabled all the fancy graphics stuff in the current build because of an issue with one of our shaders, so it's currently running at the lowest graphics settings for everyone ... but it's good to know it scales down well. Auto-uncrouching should be fixed soon and grenades will hopefully be in either two or four weeks time.

Anyway, I'll disappear for now. Glad that you guys think we're broadly on the right track.

 

[ArchAngel]

I am wondering if X2 will have fixed these issues I had with X1:
1. Not enough maps
2. Too small squads from the start, lack of horror from your troops dying like crazy but you still managing to finish missions like in 1994 UFO.
3. Only able to enter UFOs through main door, rarely through side ones. Not being able to make your own opening in UFO walls
4. Only enemy having PSI. Players not even having access to PSI defense.
5. No crazy weapons like Blaster Launchers (not even in lesser form) or those flame autocannons you start with in 1994 UFO.

All these issues prevented me from playing X1 more than once, Open Xcom was released at similar time and I just continued with that game.

 

[Norfleet]

We're not yet decided on that; it's either going to be the same time period (1979) or the early 2000s in an alternate time period where the USSR never fell.

Is it absolutely necessary to anachronistically retain the USSR? It's not as if Russia isn't still a thing...the end of the Cold War has done nothing to end the squabbles and may very well simply have made them worse, if less likely to explode into open war.

3. Only able to enter UFOs through main door, rarely through side ones. Not being able to make your own opening in UFO walls

To be fair, UFO hulls are able to withstand crashing out of orbit after being shot down with some seriously heavy weapons mostly intact. It would seem unlikely that anything you could carry on your person would succeed in doing much damage to it.

4. Only enemy having PSI. Players not even having access to PSI defense.

It'd be funny if tinfoil hats were in the game.

 

[Cudgel]

To me these types of games are the ultimate incline, I can not wait for the sequel.

Now I have some ideas, but they may be unrealistic (time consuming); I think that it would be neat to be able to interact with the aliens in more indepth ways i.e. liberating one of the races so that you can recruit aliens or having double-agents sabotage a base before you hit it.

Having the aliens with more then one possible end goal would be interesting as well. In one game they could be drilling to the center of the planet for a macguffin, or they are trying to stop us from making A.I. and are targeting Earths universities, or they are coming from another dimension and need to stop Rowdy Roddy Piper from organizing the poor.

I wouldn't mind seeing vehicles expanded a little bit, say motorbikes/hoverbikes for fast flanking.

Weaponized animals, stick a bomb on a dog.

If you have a base in the region the ability to call in an airstrike/tank drop. The ability to HALO jump.

3d is good, looking forward to the next update and watching the game grow.

 

[Naraya]

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

We're not yet decided on that; it's either going to be the same time period (1979) or the early 2000s in an alternate time period where the USSR never fell. Making a realistic world set in the late 70s involves clothes and computers that are so ugly that we kinda balked at doing it properly in X1. But that's an aside; the main point is that not that much will change irrespective of what date we stick on the game. It'll still be modern-ish Cold War.

Thanks for the response. I didn't play Xenonauts because I couldn't stand the theme. I loved original UFO:Enemy Unknown though. From what you are saying, Xenonauts 2 theme seems to be much better fitting Good luck!

 

[Space Satan]

Why aliens want to devastate a planet they want to capture so much? To start a nuclear war and rule irradiated wasteland? Waste huge biological resources?
Infiltration plot worked well in original X-Com, why not use it as a main\sub-main plot again? More various missions, maybe expenses to cover up alien activity as additional money sink etc.

 

[Togukawa]

Does the game trace the bullet trajectories against the environment to check for hits, or is it the same diceroll decline as in nucom and xenonauts 1?

 

[Latro]

We might have another look at the cliffs in a future build, but right now we've got more important gameplay issues to deal with. I think the graphical improvement over X1 has been big enough that the community probably won't get the pitchforks out about blocky cliffs for a few months yet

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

the early 2000s in an alternate time period where the USSR never fell

2000-2001 era world where instead of 9/11 we got alien attacks would be pretty cool.

 

[Norfleet]

Does the game trace the bullet trajectories against the environment to check for hits, or is it the same diceroll decline as in nucom and xenonauts 1?

Given that people are reporting crappy accuracy at point blank, probably diceroll decline. In X-Com 1, you DON'T see bafflingly bad accuracy at point blank range because even if the dice roll is a miss, an enemy blocking your entire field of view will get hit anyway because there is nowhere else for the bullets to go. Umodded Xeno 1 would FORCE the shot to ALWAYS miss, with the result that it would fly off in utterly ludicrous directions. The Community Fix pack removed this behavior and shots started to fly somewhat more sensibly as a result.

In X-Com 1, the accuracy at range is absolutely wretched, but "eating the gun muzzle" range gave you the results you'd expect.

 

[ArchAngel]

Does the game trace the bullet trajectories against the environment to check for hits, or is it the same diceroll decline as in nucom and xenonauts 1?

Given that people are reporting crappy accuracy at point blank, probably diceroll decline. In X-Com 1, you DON'T see bafflingly bad accuracy at point blank range because even if the dice roll is a miss, an enemy blocking your entire field of view will get hit anyway because there is nowhere else for the bullets to go. Umodded Xeno 1 would FORCE the shot to ALWAYS miss, with the result that it would fly off in utterly ludicrous directions. The Community Fix pack removed this behavior and shots started to fly somewhat more sensibly as a result.

In X-Com 1, the accuracy at range is absolutely wretched, but "eating the gun muzzle" range gave you the results you'd expect.

God, I hope Xeno2 fixes this shit. Even nuXcom understood that pointblank shots need to have 100% accuracy.

 

[Norfleet]

It's easy to "fix", since the community already fixed it in Xeno 1. The catch is that it skews the reported to-hit percentages, because the odds of actually striking your target are higher than displayed, as you can hit the target either intentionally or on accident. Some see this as a problem.

 

[Goldhawk]

God, I hope Xeno2 fixes this shit. Even nuXcom understood that pointblank shots need to have 100% accuracy.

I've reappeared because I'll take literally any opportunity to post this picture. XCOM most certainly does not give all pointblank shots 100% accuracy.

Norfleet I believe the changes you are referring to were that "miss" shots can go through the target tile without hitting the alien in it. It doesn't increase the accuracy of the shot but it did stop the stupid visual effect that you mentioned above where a unit would fire at a 45 degree angle just so they could miss the target. I thought we changed to that system before release but I might be wrong about that; it was quite a long time ago. In any case, it's retained in X2 but I feel that the shot accuracy % shown should accurately represent your chance of hitting, so having an invisible accuracy bonus for proximity doesn't really sit right for me.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

I've reappeared because I'll take literally any opportunity to post this picture. XCOM most certainly does not give all pointblank shots 100% accuracy.

because xcom sucks horribly and whatever tries to mimic it is doomed to fail before beginning.

it's the call of duty of tactics. it can net you money but will never net you respect.
unfortunately nobody on this planet eats respect.

 

[Norfleet]

I believe the changes you are referring to were that "miss" shots can go through the target tile without hitting the alien in it.

Nah, not only that, but that missed shots would strike the target anyway by chance. It was REALLY apparent when letting loose machine gun bursts at close range. With Vanilla, the shots would go ALL OVER THE PLACE, hitting everything EXCEPT the target. With Community Edition, the shots would mostly go through the target, many more hitting the target, and generally forming a decidedly dangerous health hazard to anything immediately downrange, with far less spray as the target seemed to no longer emanate a deflector shield that forced all bullets to the sides.

I assure you it wasn't merely visual...those bullets had to go SOMEWHERE, after all. The Deflector Shield Effect of Enforced Missing was very obvious.

but I feel that the shot accuracy % shown should accurately represent your chance of hitting, so having an invisible accuracy bonus for proximity doesn't really sit right for me.

Well, in that case, you'd have to display the accuracy bonus by some kind of semi-statistical sampling where, having determined the chance that your aimed shot does not strike the target, you must now multiply the chance you miss * the chance of successfully hitting the target from unaimed fire and add that in.

Otherwise you can very easily create a very silly situation where an unaimed shot, that is, a shot at an invisible target with 100% miss chance in the general direction of your REAL target, will hit the intended target, with greater odds than actually aiming at your target. Humans have a generally intuitive understanding of this situation and very quickly notice when this appears to be the case. This becomes EXTREMELY apparent when the goal actually IS unaimed fire, where the player desires to simply aim his machine gun into a crowd of enemies and spray indiscriminately, not caring if he actually hits the designated target as long as something is hit and everything ducks: You hit everything EXCEPT what you aimed at!

 

[ArchAngel]

God, I hope Xeno2 fixes this shit. Even nuXcom understood that pointblank shots need to have 100% accuracy.

I've reappeared because I'll take literally any opportunity to post this picture. XCOM most certainly does not give all pointblank shots 100% accuracy.

Norfleet I believe the changes you are referring to were that "miss" shots can go through the target tile without hitting the alien in it. It doesn't increase the accuracy of the shot but it did stop the stupid visual effect that you mentioned above where a unit would fire at a 45 degree angle just so they could miss the target. I thought we changed to that system before release but I might be wrong about that; it was quite a long time ago. In any case, it's retained in X2 but I feel that the shot accuracy % shown should accurately represent your chance of hitting, so having an invisible accuracy bonus for proximity doesn't really sit right for me.

I knew someone would bring this up.
Rookie shots mean nothing. When it matters (mid+lategame) moving your troops next to enemy units (without special feats that give them bonus defense) means 100% or near 100% hit chance.
Big part of hit chance in Xcom 2 are weapon mods and as a result base hit chance is lower. Rookie and starting troops don't have accuracy weapon mods.

 

[Norfleet]

They do mean something, though. That's just a broken CTH system tacked on with bonii. Your chance to miss in this case, even if you are blindfolded, should be 0 because he is EATING THE GUN MUZZLE. This, of course, is not a problem if a missed round is assigned some deviation and then goes merrily on its way to paste whoever is in range, which, in this case, is the rest of the alien's face, and thus it is pretty much impossible for the alien to avoid even a missed round.

 

[ArchAngel]

They do mean something, though. That's just a broken CTH system tacked on with bonii. Your chance to miss in this case, even if you are blindfolded, should be 0 because he is EATING THE GUN MUZZLE. This, of course, is not a problem if a missed round is assigned some deviation and then goes merrily on its way to paste whoever is in range, which, in this case, is the rest of the alien's face, and thus it is pretty much impossible for the alien to avoid even a missed round.

But you are misunderstanding the intent. You are talking about realism, nuXcom decided to allow 100% hit chance because of gamist reasons. My point was that even they understood how frustrating would be if the game had less than 100% hit chances from that range during the whole game.
Long war 2 has some units that have such big defense bonuses that shotgun specialist from adjacent squares have 70% hit chances and there is already a lot of complaining on the forums about it (and devs are probably going to change it).

 

[Norfleet]

nuXcom decided to allow 100% hit chance because of gamist reasons.

I'm not following this argument here. Why is it a "gamist" reason to allow 100% hit chances for things that are eating the gun muzzle? For it to be a "gamist" reason would somehow imply that it is in conflict with OTHER reasons. Is there a narrativist or simulationist argument AGAINST allowing things that are eating the gun muzzle to always be hit?

 

[thesheeep]

Norfleet actually, wouldn't it be more realistic to lower the hit chance with ranged weapons in melee?
After all, it kind of represents being "entangled" in melee combat, which would actually make it harder to hit anything.

I don't really care if being in melee drastically lowers or increases the hit chance, both can be justified, but I think it is required to do something to show that this is indeed a special situation.

 

[ArchAngel]

Norfleet actually, wouldn't it be more realistic to lower the hit chance with ranged weapons in melee?
After all, it kind of represents being "entangled" in melee combat, which would actually make it harder to hit anything.

I don't really care if being in melee drastically lowers or increases the hit chance, both can be justified, but I think it is required to do something to show that this is indeed a special situation.

In LW2 using snipers or Heavy weapons too close to enemy lowers your hit chance. Using SMG, Shotguns and Rifles increases it.

 

[Norfleet]

Norfleet actually, wouldn't it be more realistic to lower the hit chance with ranged weapons in melee?

That assumes there is a melee. X-Com does not have melee grappling, however, and Xeno 1 had no melee of any kind. Assuming there WAS a melee combat system, IF you were engaged in a melee, you would have to actually take some kind of melee combat move to bring your firearm to bear against a grappling opponent. In the scene we see above, no melee is occurring as the alien does not have any melee weapons and simply has a gun in his face.

In LW2 using snipers or Heavy weapons too close to enemy lowers your hit chance. Using SMG, Shotguns and Rifles increases it.

This seems like a rather arbitrary imposition. The only drawback to using a sniper rifle on a target that is relatively close to you is that you obviously will not derive any benefit from having a scope. But just because the weapon has a scope doesn't mean you have to actually aim through it, you can just fire it normally. It is not really any worse off than the same rife, sans scope. The drawbacks of using a heavy weapon up close varies somewhat by the heavy weapon involved. Using a rocket launcher upclose doesn't require an arbitary penalty of any kind, it is already its own penalty. A machinegun up close works perfectly fine, and I can tell you this from experience! The main drawbacks of using a machine gun up close is that, as a heavy weapon, it is clumsy to bring to bear on the target. But if you already have it braced and ready to fire, your target being right in front of you is no problem!