Xenonauts - the REAL successor to X-Com?

Agreed. Although I suppose you could take his expression not as bored but rather depressed about the prospect of being sent out to become fodder for alien laser fire.

That’ where the game definitely gets dinged. I was surprised how good the game felt in play otherwise, I was initially worried it would feel too outdated/retro, but its actually came together quite well. I also liked the personal shields for the soldiers, always have one of those on my team, and use flash bang a lot to suppress aliens so I can run up on them and take them out even after I researched the newer EMP grenades.

Yeah, having a lot of fun with this too. I’m surprised at how in-sync this game is with Firaxis’ vision – I’m guessing that’s not incidental. It’s obviously a lot more adherent to the nitty gritty details of old school gaming, but a lot of the streamlining on top feels a lot similar. I like the new Enemy Unknown just fine, and I feel pretty much exactly the same about Xenonauts. I miss some of the technical advancements and sexyness from Firaxis’ design, but overall I’m enjoying both the overarching strategic part and the tactical combat. I love how big the maps are, and how relentless and humiliating losses feel. Firaxis sugar coated and glorified all that with fancy camera movement, zooming and slow motion effects. Here, your guys just fall to the ground like a bag of shit. End of discussion. Next turn.

Haha. That’s a delightfully depressing image to go with Capt. SadSack’s unheroic appearance.

Also, I admit in shame that I never played the original XCom (except a demo for Apocalypse). So I’m curious: How well does Xenonauts balance the (apparently) inevitable losses and attrition you take on missions?

I was looking forward to that aspect in XCom:EU, but I never really saw it take shape. I like the idea in theory: That I’m fighting a brutal war where I’m outgunned and barely hanging on, but in practice I always worry that individual losses could be too severe so I’d feel forced to reload or restart too quickly. If it’s possible to suffer terrible (and meaningful) losses without completely ruining your chances to keep pace with alien development, that sounds great. But it seems like a tough thing to balance without also making the losses seem meaningless and the game seeming too easy.

Apocalypse was quite different from original X-com (the hyphen matters), and go play OpenXcom right now (it’s free), that’s an order soldier! (tasked with protecting mankind from alien invasion)

http://openxcom.org/

Some dude has already a pack of hundreds of randomized maps
http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9760-(Sort-of)-Random-Maps!

The map editor was functional the best part of two years ago. (I was one of several people who competed for their post-KS mapping work, as I recall)

Anyway, I’ve hit a really odd accuracy bug (at least, I think it is), so I’ve reported it and I’ll wait for the bugfix patch in a few weeks.

You can disregard part of my previous complaints

I downloaded the game from Desura. But I learned today that the Desura Key is redeemable in Steam, I just did it and downloaded the game there… and the build is more recent in Steam. It has more tooltips, and more entries on the Xenopedia.

It’s still a game where you have to learn by doing and failing. The research tree grows exponentially after a while, so you’re never really sure if the branches you pick are going to pay off in the long run. You have to be adamant in where you draw the lines too. The most frustrating thing is the council report, because the rules that govern your economic growth are generally way too obtuse. A couple of bad reports usually result in a downward spiral for me. The rule is, an experienced player knows the benefits and consequences from research and investments, while a smart one knows how to mitigate bad decisions and get rid of unneeded assets and monetary sink holes. I’m still working on that last part.

As for ground missions, I guess the consequences depend. I usually only have one main force, so any complete losses in that regard are detrimental to the games I play. I barely mange to hold on financially with my current play style, so there’s no way I can manage more full teams with state of the art gear. I should probably experiment more though, I think that’s my biggest weakness thus far.

It’s all a balancing act, and a really hard and unforgiving one at that.

Screenies inside.

I found a bug that crashes my game to desktop every time I enter the soldier outfit screen immediately after a mission. It’s really annoying.

Yea. I’m really not sure why this is “1.0”, when there’s a big bugfix patch due this month.

You’re right, it should be bug free like all the other games that are released.

Lol lol.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if the release version is “1.05” instead of “1.0”. Who cares about the number in a corner.

That is awesome, more mod stuff can only help in the long run.

yeah i just read a remark from the Lead guy Chris that until the 16th it will only be the Steam version that gets the latest patches. But the other versions will get there eventually.

Air Superiority UFO missions are temporarily disabled, as we think they may be causing some of the Soldier Equip crashes.

That’s worrying, seems they don’t really understand their code base and are grasping at straws ? Why would some air combat mission cause a crash in the ground soldier equip screen … ?

Lol, if having a bug and not finding the why and how immediately means that they “don’t understand their code base”, then no coder in the entire world knows their code base.

Trust me, weird things can happen.

So quick expansion is really important in this. I’m on game two and doing a better job, but I already see wher eI made a few mistakes. I’m at 3 bases (NA, SA, Europe) but I’m out of cash and it’s only October 12th ish. Europe can’t intercept (which is the most important function) yet, but a hangar is almost done and I could split up my squadron in NA (I can’t afford a new jet). I rushed to make SA my “science” base (have 30 there now) but I have made a mistake there. In game 1, 15 scientists did a good job covering all of the important early techs I think. I should have left the 10 guys in NA and added 5 more and just lived iwth that until I had quality interceptor coverage of at least 3 regions (I define quality coverage as “I might need more than 1”).

Really enjoying this though.

What version are you playing? They are doing important changes in balance in the last patches.

Whatever Steam is. I don’t know how quickly their changes are getting to Steam right now. I started game 2 yesterday evening at like 6pm.