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They're still here. It's up to you for how long.

Xenonauts 2, the sequel to one of the most celebrated alien-crashing strategy games, is coming soon, DRM-free to GOG.com.
If you're eager to make new enemies, grab your squad and engage them now in the free Demo. Then go ahead and check out the game's Kickstarter campaign.

The aliens clearly cheated. They must have taken an extra turn while we weren't looking and pulled off a successful invasion during this alternate-timeline Cold War period. Now humanity must again start from scratch, establish a fully-equipped base of operations, and push back the unsportsmanlike invaders across the globe.
Don't expect this to be easy, though: the aliens will hunt you through fully destructible 3D battlefields, while you try to balance your funds, adapt to the emergent conditions of the campaign, and keep your soldiers alive so that they improve with each rank.
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gamesfreak64: tried the demo .... that was a hot experience

windowed at 800 x 600 and fastet setting meaning average graphics and still the heat is on....

I know its alpha but they won't be able to get it running okay on old systems like mine

i guess a new i5 and a GPU > my poor GTX 750 ti will run the game okay at average settings....

an i7 will run it very well i guess
and a min. of 2.4 or 2.8GHz ( younger then 2014 stuff) aswell

My 2 cents after a very brief play:

at first sight the demo looks good, but

too many settings,
too many options
and too many controls to get the team going,

i guess they overdid the ease of use a little , i mean i got familiar with jagged alliance game pretty fast and knew how to control and deploy my team.

i dont know what the final keyboard shortcuts will do but for the movement it would be wise to nick the way the jagged characters moved: use page up and down to cycle between the crawl and stand up.

Afteral i guess its not forbidden to copy keyboard shortcuts in a game to control your characters like the jagged alliance game i mentioned, commandos had easy controls aswell.

Finally there is too much text, and the screen is cluttered so forget the settings > 1280 , cause they wil NOT work, not at a 17 inch at 1280 or higher

This will be a game that will shine on 1920 x1080 and up.... the demo does not play well on smaller unless you can read pixel fonts that are not only tiny but also blurry.

Conlusion: its a helluva game IF
you own a good PC and no dinojunk i have too play with
1920 x1080 or up (screen)
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Djaron: i am confused here

i tried the demo on my "office"/jack'of'all'trade daily computer which has only an Intel Dualcore G4400 skylake CPU and a Gforce 750ti, the demo was set on max settings on 1080p and it ran fine...

only notable "issue" i could spot was the CPU and GPU heat rising rather high (but it's a common behavior i saw on many games made with unity engine, such as hard west, battletech, or others...)
while a game like the Xcom Enemy Unknown/Within recently released here on GOG would run fine on max settings too with at least 10°C less heating on both CPU and GPU than the unity games mentionned above (Xcom used Unreal Engine 3)

so, no, the requirements are not that high, but given your experience and your testimony, i would seriously try to inquire about your computer's installation and background process of running apps, and check for any problem there, because it seems you have at least a CPU that is on par with mine, or better, and the same GPU. If we both get that different a behavior from the current Xenonauts 2 demo under such circumstances, the problem may not be lying on the game itself.

As for "too many options", maybe people nowadays are used to downgraded poor pc ports of console games that obfuscate any kind of technical tinkering or just remove any "choice" to the player; auto detection of the host machine had greatly improved this last years so that people craving for simplicity wouldnt have to even bother going into an option / settings menu at all, but it is nice - for people interested in it - that such settings and options would exist nonetheless for them (it practically saved me from having some games run badly, just because i prefer do some educated tinkering of a few options). So, no, i dont think there was too many options on the demo, they are just there for people who want the choice of using them, and the game already does a now standard job at autodetecting your configuration and do the job unattended if that is a concern...
Thanks for the reply, i have no tech training or skills but when it comes to playing games i have loads of experience by playing 1000s of games in the past 40 years, i started with a small LCD handheld those tiny ugly 'games'
as a kid, and then it was atari 2600 c64 amiga all up to PC.
I played many unity games and most perform bad (regarding cpu ) seems my GPU is installed for show it hardly gets to do anything while the CPU is breaking a sweat its buddy GPU lies in its hammock and relax , it enjoys its buddies workout....

Pc is installed by a capable person so every thing is done properly, so thats not the issue of the pc setup, if the code is so well developed it must be my dino hardware i guess which is also untrue cause if it was a hardware issue ALL of my unitygames should run bad... but they don't , the majority runs bad so this proves that some devs probably handle their code better then others.

I disabled everything possible in the GPU settings vsync on /of threaded , etc etc etc nothing works.

The low resolutions dont show up properly: text is tiny and blurred on a resolution lower then 1280
so the 800x600 and 1024 are redundant... my guess is that it will run a charm on an i7 a new GPU not the 750 but the 1000's range like the 1070 but thats too expensive.

Anyway i stopped playing and buying games i have to run at minimum recc. i grew tired of it so i only want and buy games i can run at recommended, i have game i can run on minimum requirements because my pc is not up to it but those games were like 1 or 3 euros :D
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Socratatus: These are questioning thoughts. I don`t see any insults.

I like GOG. A lot. I came to this because I loved the ethos and the mesage GOG brought which was unique to the standard mainstream of games. Being DRM free was what I loved about gaming, so every small attempt to make it a client like Steam/Origin and UPlay, will always have my thinking and critical thoughts pop up.

I don`t want GOG to forget that.

But, hey, I have some business advice, treat your customers like you like them, listen to their concerns when they make it. Customers complain, perhaps rudely, in your view, but honestly. Which do you want, pretended politeness or sheer honesty?

That`s good business practise. You fail that at your peril.
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Lodium: The moderator/blue one is correct.
Imm able to download the demo just fine withouth Galaxy, Just tested. so your basicly trolling in hope to get some emotional responses. In other words being rude.
I agree 100% on that... i have the game downloaded and no galaxy installed or files that need galaxy so GOG is honest on that.

I also agree with:

" But, hey, I have some business advice, treat your customers like you like them, listen to their concerns when they make it. Customers complain, perhaps rudely, in your view, but honestly. Which do you want, pretended politeness or sheer honesty? "
i love to have people to tell what's up, and whats on their minds, a healthy discussion should be possible, its better then dozens of gamers/customers who always agree, never argue, never tell what is up... i mean we do live in a democracy.
If people do cross a certain line its good to have a mod correct that but keep the discussion open please, do not favour the people who always smile and nod yes sir, no sir, you are so right sir... i would not dream of anything like that sir... anything else i can do sir !....

Certain tv shows have paid audience to applaude , a show should be real, no clapping cattle, no voting cattle, but people who have an opinion, thats democracy.
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Djaron: only notable "issue" i could spot was the CPU and GPU heat rising rather high (but it's a common behavior i saw on many games made with unity engine, such as hard west, battletech, or others...)
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timppu: Is there an option to enable vsync?

I've had similar issues with many games, e.g. Age of Empires 3, which started to overheat the system (fans on the laptop start screaming in full power etc.). Enabling vsync in the game options usually seems to fix this, so I presume it was only because vsync was off, the game was using 100% of GPU (and CPU) power to calculate extra frames, unnecessarily so. Even with older games with simple graphics, like Age of Empires 3, or some Quake mod I tried a couple of years ago (where it was calculating thousands of frames per second, just because vsync was not enabled).

Enabling vsync in those games locked the framerate to the refresh rate (in my case 60 Hz/fps), fixing the problem.
vsync used from the GPU settings in my nvidia seldom work, usually a build in vsync option set to 0 1 or 2 i think it was might help if yo launch it from the game itself ( in the menu), it all depends on how a game was build, so unity is not bad by definition it can make games that run run like a charm,the vsync option in the demo didn't change a thing.

Its obvious it does depend on who codes the game using unity otherwise all the unitygames would perform bad and thats not the case, so basically my setup (PC) is not to blame.

Anyway as for the high number of degrees in celcius during play i assumed everyone knows that temps are 'relative'
let me explain:

if the pc starts up at at 20 degrees celcius and windows is loaded you will start with a nice cool and low temp so it would be a bad configuration if the game would end op at 70 or even higher degrees celsius: it would rise by 50 degrees.

Average pc in average surrounding ( ambient temps) ae around 33 to 44 depending on how well ventillated the room is: if you have 3 air coolers in the room and 2 open windows that line up you will get a a nice cool draft making the temp lower ad lots of coolers inside your PC case and voila you have a nice temp while playing.

If it starts at 45 or 50 (idle)because its freaking hot ( 30 degrees outside) and every floor you go up in the house/appartment or flat temps will rise so yes the temps should not damage things but toy cannot have control on the temps outside ( the waether that is) that rise your ambient temps, you can try to vetilate the room by adding more external fans .... or wait till fall or winter starts and then play that game :D
Post edited June 21, 2018 by gamesfreak64
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Lodium: The moderator/blue one is correct.
Imm able to download the demo just fine withouth Galaxy, Just tested. so your basicly trolling in hope to get some emotional responses. In other words being rude.
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gamesfreak64: I agree 100% on that... i have the game downloaded and no galaxy installed or files that need galaxy so GOG is honest on that.

I also agree with:

" But, hey, I have some business advice, treat your customers like you like them, listen to their concerns when they make it. Customers complain, perhaps rudely, in your view, but honestly. Which do you want, pretended politeness or sheer honesty? "
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gamesfreak64: i love to have people to tell what's up, and whats on their minds, a healthy discussion should be possible, its better then dozens of gamers/customers who always agree, never argue, never tell what is up... i mean we do live in a democracy.
If people do cross a certain line its good to have a mod correct that but keep the discussion open please, do not favour the people who always smile and nod yes sir, no sir, you are so right sir... i would not dream of anything like that sir... anything else i can do sir !....

Certain tv shows have paid audience to applaude , a show should be real, no clapping cattle, no voting cattle, but people who have an opinion, thats democracy.
I agree that debate and arguments can be good from time to time as long it doesnt lead to insults and name calling but including conspiracy in the argument is a bit strecthing it. The Demo will be removed from the store because the Dev wants it removed and not because of some other conspiricy theory.

If People really want to keep the current demo on GoG, then people can ask the dev politly for it.
If the dev dont want to have the current demo on gog then they shoud respect it and not blame gog and come up with conspiracy theorys. As to why the dev dont want the demo up on gog after a certain time period it can be a number of reasons.
Post edited June 21, 2018 by Lodium
The best demos, those that played like a prologue to the story and contributed to it. Like the one for the original Starcraft did.

Again, kudos for making a demo at all.
Post edited June 21, 2018 by Carradice
Played a little with the demo. No problems at all so far on Windows 7 64. With Vsync on, it never got too hot. I did not try without.

The feeling is of an updated X-Com: Ufo Defense, exactly as advertised. The animations are fine and the art looks better than the one used in the promo images for the first Xenonauts (never got to play that one so far, probably will soon).

The icons for selecting the squad members are not very informative. Only the silouette of an automatic rifle and the stats. Made me miss the way X-Com: Apocalypse managed to make you emotionally attached to your squaddies.

Anyway, so far, so good.
Post edited June 22, 2018 by Carradice
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Djaron: thank you much for the tip
i will try that
however, i got this issue on games that were barely working at 30fps at all, so i dont know if it would help or not.

strange that one engine like unity causes such behavior, while older games (like, some created before unity ever was used... like "in UE3" - are behaving like charm on same computer)
Shot in the dark: are you running Windows 10, and could it be because of Windows 10's slow and emulated(?) full-screen mode?

Then again if this was the reason, I'd expect more Windows 10 users to see it, and since the game is new, I would have expected them to take special interest that this doesn't happen to Win10 users.

The reason I say this is because I used to get complaint from one relative that his favorite game, Geometry Dash (2014), was running jerkily on his new Windows 10 laptop, while it ran smooth as butter on his old Windows 7 laptop.

Turned out this was apparently about this "Windows 10 feature": if you run Geometry Dash in the "full screen mode", it runs jerkily on Windows 10 (because that display mode is apparently emulated in Win10), while switching the game to either windowed mode or "borderless fullscreen window"-mode (which IIRC looks the same as full-screen mode), it runs butter-smooth on Windows 10 too.

GD has very simple 2D graphics so it wasn't about the system not having high enough specs for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K73lfmxDVR0


Also make sure you have up to date graphics drives. I recall this mattering a lot, both for game performance AND compatiblity, with integrated Intel HD Graphics drivers, in case you have that (on a laptop etc.). On many laptops I've seen, at least from HP and Acer, the Intel HD drivers are many years old, and the PC vendor (HP or Acer) isn't offering any newer Intel HD drivers on their homepage.

When you try to install the latest drivers downloaded from Intel's homepage, they refuse to install because you have the "vendor-modified" Intel drivers already, so it gives an error and asks you to check your PC vendor's homepages for the latest drivers.

The fix for this is to first uninstall the existing vendor Intel HD drivers from your PC, and then install the Intel's vanilla HD drivers. I had to do this on both a HP and Acer laptop.
Post edited June 22, 2018 by timppu
Back to Unity games :D

bought this game yesterday : a small casual game developed with Unity ofcourse this one is a 'beauty' cause this one uses 70 to 80% cpu even when showing the intro logo

it has a unity .dll file like many others but every game seems to have a different version, so it also seems to depend on which build a dev used :D

Screenshot is from the main menu loaded with particles and other effects and at 74% cpu usage

check attachment: dlpt.jpg

Anyway, this shows how different unity builds can be some are 20% many are 60 or > % cpu usage, i got it at summersale so its not a disaster but it shows that not all unity games perform well ( so it does seem to depend on who builds the game )

You can never safely assume all unity games will run without heavy cpu usage because previous one did.... this is another game that proves it.
Attachments:
dlpt.jpg (204 Kb)
Post edited June 23, 2018 by gamesfreak64
So is the Xenonauts 2 free demo available for all eternity or is it something we have to snork up like consumer pigz at a trough right now OMG! before it's too late?
Looking forward to this one. Their are many discussions on the website, the game will go through a good deal of optimization prior to release.
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White_Barry: So is the Xenonauts 2 free demo available for all eternity or is it something we have to snork up like consumer pigz at a trough right now OMG! before it's too late?
This is what it says on the demo card: This demo will NOT grant a copy of the final game (it will be deleted once the game moves into the paid alpha stage.
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Andrzejef: That's all fine and well, but I can't help but wonder - will my soldiers finally stop scoring point-blank misses?
Yes and no.
No if you want (supposed) realism and possibly want to go with the game-design
(I.E. have slight uncertainty).

And yes if you want to make the point-blanks to hit 100% either modding yourself or using the work of someone else like this one to increase the max-hit-chance:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=892286206

"Xenonauts 2" has a high likelihood to have much better / easier modding support than previous game.
So customizing the game to your liking hopefully will be even more easier than before.

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Needs more tactical depth, no improvement over first game so far.
But it's an early demo, hope it gets better in future.
And, unity engine... optimiztion is terrible and i do not expect it will get much better.
Post edited July 03, 2018 by Sten_MkIIs
Bought it on Steam, but donwloaded it from GOG for free. Not doubt I'll be buying Xenonauts 2 when it's released!

Keep up the great work!
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Sten_MkIIs: Needs more tactical depth, no improvement over first game so far.
But it's an early demo, hope it gets better in future.
And, unity engine... optimiztion is terrible and i do not expect it will get much better.
It can be much better, but it depends on the devs.
Some devs arent really that great when it comes to optimizing games, no matter what engine they use.