Why is this game set in 2009?

[robbie.price]

What part of this game other than the audio/text in the introduction sets this game in 2009?

The people look 1980, the base is supposedly 1960, but the planes still work, 20 years later that would be hard, 49 years of neglect and a plane doesn't fly.

There is something in orbit the xenonauts can't reach... maybe in 1980 but in 2009, how? where? if it's important (stopping an alien invasion for example) tech in 2009 could get it done

The only thing in game that seams to say 2009 and not 1980 is the monitors on the desks of the lab and cleaner's offices.

Even the Dialog referrers to Soviet more than Russian.

Is there some in game lore reason that I am totally missing that makes setting this game in the early nauties a better fit for the aesthetics and mood than 1970 - 1980?

[cswiger]

Take out the Cleaner HQ and you will get some lore about the timing.

But this is a game placed in an alternate history; the dates in the game are fictional.

[Lakel]

Just commenting on the plane thing, but planes last quite a long time if they were stored even half right, and on top of that, even in our modern times the Mig-25 is still being used by the Syrian airforce.

[Catsander]

Good question. I don't get it either. -MAYBE- it would be better if it was a history I could relate to? Alternate history is a bit alienating actually. Not that I am complaining. I just hope there is a (plot) point, or a reason to it so it is not just cosmetical.

[robbie.price]

Maintained, certainly. but that requires maintenance, flight hours, maybe that's been being done on the 49+ year old fighter plane in case the first base is destroyed. . . . but at $100k/month to maintain them?


Ya I know it's alternative timeline, but we have no alien tech speeding up our development, they had a crashed alien ship in a glacier if anything the timeline should be spead up an argument could be made to pushing it back to 1970, more tech more quickly, purely based on the divergence.


I just don't see how the verisimilitude doesn't improve by pushing the canonical calendar back some 30 years. Alternative history or not. very little of the game 'looks/feels/resonates' 2009.

[Lakel]

Originally posted by robbie.price:

Maintained, certainly. but that requires maintenance, flight hours, maybe that's been being done on the 49+ year old fighter plane in case the first base is destroyed. . . . but at $100k/month to maintain them?

Literally look up aircraft boneyards, would be far from the first case of old retired airframes being brought back. Plus its not like we dont fly literally 100 year old airframes. Lot of those ancient ones were thrown in storage or neglected for some time before being restored at private expense usually.

Ultimately, there are countries still maintaining and flying the Mig-25 all the way up to 2022 though, so its not as if you need to raid the boneyards for them.

[karel2501]

First of all: the game does take place in 2009, but not our 2009. It's an alternate history, where humanity has been systematically sabotaged by the aliens (or more specifically, by the alien-affiliated Cleaners) for nearly 50 years. That is why the Cold War never ended in this settings - bigger powers have been manipulating humanity to remain paranoid and on edge the whole time.
Second of all, while the bunker you use is from the 60's, the airplanes are not. Xenonauts in this settings have existed for decades already, long before the game itself started. You only gain control over the organization because the alien activity reaches a certain threshold - but decades before that, Xenonauts were already collecting data, forming cells, preparing.
The airplanes themselves are not something you just randomly found in that bunker. These planes were refurbished by the Xeno engineers and scientists before the game even started. The game does not state this explicitly, but it's pretty safe to assume that the planes came from illegal weapon's traders, before the xeno engineers ripped out most of their electronics and fixed them up to be immune to the electromagnetic fields the aliens use to protect themselves from airforces.
They are old planes, but not a part of the bunker's original inventory, and have been worked on by engineers for a while.

[Greb]

Is there a reason the date isn't displayed on the Geoscape? I've been watching a few LPs and I noticed it just has "Day X" and the time. Unless I'm blind and it has been hidden behind their facecams or whatever.

Xenonauts 1 had the date, if I recall, and even showed the day / night cycle changing based on the time of year, which was a nice touch. Does that still happen? Is the date visible anywhere at all?

Might seem like a stupid question but those kind of little details mean quite a bit to me, lol.

[robbie.price]

The day night cycle seams to be fixed currently. but the world is also flat currently. (planes don't speed up east west motion near the poles).

As far as I can see it's always Day X. and months are all exactly 30 days, "30 days has every month don't need a lymric so get stuffed" :- P

[Shrinkshooter]

Originally posted by Lakel:

Plus its not like we dont fly literally 100 year old airframes.

What? In what context? No way are we flying aircraft made in 1923 into combat. Or anything else aside from seeing a biplane whizz by at an airshow. I'm asking specifically because you said "literally." Literally which ones and for what?

[robbie.price]

Originally posted by karel2501:

First of all: the game does take place in 2009, but not our 2009.

Then all the more reason why the date chosen is ... arbitrary. if it's not our 2009 and doesn't feel like 2009, they could just as easily say 2229 and the exact same argument could be used. or 1009.

So if the number is ... meaningless within the context, why not choose a number that 'feels' more right to the intended audience or even more 'wrong'. Set it in 2229, and then reveal that their timeline diverged from ours in 19XY, as a plot point. lean into the 'being slowed down by aliens' thing.

Making it only slightly wrong.... just is the uncanny valley of verisimilitude.

[Greb]

Originally posted by robbie.price:

As far as I can see it's always Day X. and months are all exactly 30 days, "30 days has every month don't need a lymric so get stuffed" :- P

Wonder why they decided to go with that

Maybe it's just a placeholder for now?

[Amogus]

i don't know about people looking 1980s, they look like 2009 people to me.

[Lakel]

Originally posted by Shrinkshooter:

Originally posted by Lakel:

Plus its not like we dont fly literally 100 year old airframes.

What? In what context? No way are we flying aircraft made in 1923 into combat. Or anything else aside from seeing a biplane whizz by at an airshow. I'm asking specifically because you said "literally." Literally which ones and for what?

Thats all I was talking about, the restored biplanes.
Though the B-52s are pushing 60 years these days, some of the original airframes are still flying. 50-60 years seems the main range on old airframes still flying from looking into a few others.

[LilyanaKabal]

England pulled a honest-to-god Spitfire out of storage for Captain Tom's funeral. We can absolutely fly old planes with a bit of TLC.

[Cuddlefission]

Originally posted by Shrinkshooter:

Originally posted by Lakel:

Plus its not like we dont fly literally 100 year old airframes.

What? In what context? No way are we flying aircraft made in 1923 into combat. Or anything else aside from seeing a biplane whizz by at an airshow. I'm asking specifically because you said "literally." Literally which ones and for what?

One thing I'll note in terms of lore / 'in-world' explanation is that it's stated the UFOs have a very strong electromagnetic interference capability, able to ruin modern electronics casually - 'entire squadrons' of modern jets are described as 'falling out of the sky' when trying to intercept, presumably because the fly-by-wire etc avionics are out of control.

Meanwhile, the modified MIG-25s are described as useful because they were the only thing with both the straight line sprinting speed to get into combat range, and obsolete vacuum tube electronics that were less vulnerable to interference. Any fighter aircraft of a later era would be useless, and I think even its western contemporaries probably would as well, not to mention the near certainty they'd have been modernized in their avionics / electronics (and thus made useless in these conditions).