Bibidibop

Their equivalent could lead to new research, or maybe a bunch of sectoids jump out and start a base invasion.

I didn't realize how important the dissection scenes are until I didn't see good ones in XCOM: Enemy Unknown. What about being able to capture an alien tampered cow, and performing an autopsy on it?

Make cut scenes in-engine, with SCUMM style text above characters.

Short of a major improvement, I would prefer no hidden movement screen, with a 'WAITING' bar at the top and bottom of the screen to show the non-player turns are running. Instead, I think having the camera focus on the movement location, regardless of visibility, as it used to do early on, would be better; it incorporates sound based detection without it having to fit into the actual detection system. Alternatively, the camera could go into a free mode, and slide to the furthest visible tile; it makes the journey only given a long enough sound, so if the sound cuts short, then camera doesn't it make it all the way. Taking it further, the camera could move from the player units only if something making noise is within noise range, so the player doesn't get audio cues from across the map.

I believe the current methods of getting into, and especially out of, firing mode are quite irritating and clumsy. No idea is too stupid, expensive, or off the wall, as long as you know it doesn't suck; just throw ideas and see what sticks in an attempt at improving the ergonomics of fire mode. 1. Right click to dismiss the firing reticule. 2. Right click any tile, or unit to bring up a context menu. The context menu lists all firing modes. To dismiss firing, right click again and a dismiss command will appear. Scroll wheel only changes characters, and does not change functions. Clicking the weapon icon in the tray still works as always. The previous fire mode of a given unit becomes the persistent manual fire mode until changed, while the automatic fire mode for reflex is separate. 3. Middle click to change mode. 4. ??? 5. Steel underwear.

Currently, in ground combat, the first click places the the series of squares the unit will follow, and if you click a second time, the soldier moves along that path. But, if you place the path, and switch characters before executing the movement, then go back to the previous soldier, the tentative movement series will be erased. I suggest making it so the tentative movement lines stay in place, regardless of switching units, but become 50%, or more, transparent so they are constantly visible. This way, it would be possible to arrange an entire squad's movements simultaneously, see how they line up, then execute them sequentially, without any guess work, or gradual execution.

What about my idea for only slowing those who are suppressed, and forcing a crouch, but without actually allowing them to be frozen? Suppression could also get pretty detailed, with more suppression being generated from tiles which have overflying and landing shots. That way, accuracy does play some part, but only in how finely you can control where suppression is laid, not its strength. The idea of a suppression radius, or width, could still be very useful for this. With each round having a suppression width, for the whole bullet path, the tiles with the most overlap get the most suppression. The strength of each bullet determines its suppression strength. This way, the machine gun potentially gives the most suppression, because it has the most most powerful bullets coming out within a turn. I also had the chance to mess around with a few machine guns recently, although, I didn't fire anything. They really are a pain to hold standing, and only easy when on the ground. I still think it makes sense for them being only good at suppression while standing, and deadly accurate when crouched. And, maybe it should cost more to change from stand to crouch while holding a machine gun, because the weapon is unusually heavy and cumbersome. Same for the rocket launcher.

I like the idea of normal civilian sprites being used for cultists. I think the way combating them should work is, killing them should cost extra, and taking them alive should earn extra, but adjusted for the fact that you were called in to specifically fight civilians. With the former, the government looks bad and is forced by the public to dislike you, and the latter makes the government look good, so they reward you. The risk could be offset by the cultists mostly being normal people armed with basic weapons. An occasional wild card might have a military or law enforcement background, even rarer cultists might use alien pistols without handicaps, and occasionally a well armed alien might be present.

I like this a lot. It also wouldn't prevent a player from selecting the zero AP soldiers, because their tabs still work. It only makes scrolling faster, which would be a huge benefit. On the same matter of moving things along, I think the AP reserve needs to block only movement, not manual weapons fire. I actively use the reserve to make sure I don't over walk, and lose out on a shot during my turn. I generally don't use it defensively for between-turn activity, but occasionally I do use it that way. So, without switching the reserve off, I think I should still be able to fire whatever I want, and if it messes with reaction fire, so be it.

What I've found with research is each tech requires a different amount of scientists to reach Excellent status, so they do seem to have different costs. Scientists also seem to give diminishing returns, as each level of research quality requires more and more scientists. I like the vague research pace, too.

Does anyone know where the research and completion text descriptions for technologies are stored? I was able to find the popup images in Desura\Common\xenonauts\assets\xenopediaimages under 'new' and 'popup' but when I look elsewhere in 'Research', I see nothing in the folder. I had expected the text to be there. I even checked to make sure I have "Show hidden files and folders" turned on, but no luck.

That seems to have even worse muzzle velocity than the rifles I posted, but much better range than the FAL. It must be much more accurate. The real life weapons can inform decisions on balancing. I think the weapons, as they are, may already be better balanced to reality than in other games. The OP specifically mentions suppression as a way to balance the machine gun and Ferret machine gun turret, so their damage can be lowered without making them bad.

I think the suppression system might work better if it can't completely kill a unit's ability to fight across multiple turns. Instead, suppression could add cost to every action type through a multiplier with a cap. Units don't become frozen, they become sluggish. Instead of being able to move 10 squares, you might only move 3 with max AP. Whatever the degree of suppression, it should allow at least one shot with a rifle or pistol. It will give attackers a much better chance of safely approaching and flanking an enemy, but doesn't make it a sure bet. On the reverse, it lets the player setup a defense, escape, or use a sharpshooter to kill an enemy who has a suppressive weapon. Bravery could counter the rate of accumulation, as translated through moral, and someone near breaking would have no ability to counter suppression point accumulation. However, as in the OP, suppression itself would have no effect on bravery nor moral, it only works through those stats. Crouching could also reduce the accumulation of suppression, because being smaller makes you less likely to be hit. Since crouching should have movement penalties, but firing bonuses, it is something of a trade off. Suppression would wear off after a single turn, so you have to maintain suppression very carefully. Everyone switching magazines at once could reduce the amount of available suppression by too much, so you might need to preserve shots for when the machine gun will stop, to take up the slack. I think giving the machine gun, a strong Suppression score as a balance tool is smart, but I feel it cuts into the raw ability of the weapons. What if the machine gun were even less accurate when standing, but gains its full accuracy only when crouched? Also, the magazines aren't the correct weights, I'm sure they'll be changed, but I feel like proposing weights anyway. Going with the idea that the weapon is the M60, its ammo was 7.62, and at 50 rounds per mag, should be 1.6 kg, but probably higher because of the weight of the box, and the precision rifle ammo should be 0.9 kg including the magazine. The M-16 magazine should weight .45 kg loaded, if I'm not mistaken. Another thing I noticed is, the rifle's range and damage are lower than that of the machine gun. Correct me if I'm wrong, the damage is per shot? If anything the individual shot of both weapons should be equal, as they use the same type of ammunition, coming out barrels of similar length. The M60 and M21 both have muzzle velocities of 853m/s. Secondly, while the machine gun's effective range is listed as much longer in the game and real life, I'm guessing the effective range of the rifle should be longer, because it's easier to handle, and has the proper scope. The machine gun is harder to handle, probably even prone, and lacks long range sites. Mounted and with the right scope, I bet the machine gun could probably pull off better range. Or, maybe it is a matter of its volume of fire. I'm guessing the game's reason for the long range is the poor accuracy of 60%? With uniquely better accuracy when crouched, the standing accuracy could actually be decreased even further, and the range could be left alone. That way, while the total firepower is higher for the machine gun, and it gets the best suppressive fire, the precision rifle would have the best all around effective range, and per shot damage second only to the rocket launcher. Hopefully, players would use the machine gun and precision rifle together when doing counter fire. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M60_machine_gun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M21_Sniper_Weapon_System [edit] I just realized the precision rifle is the FN FAL. It's range is a lot worse than the M21, and it has less muzzle velocity, but not by much. Maybe with a scope it could compare to the M21. The FAL was really a battle rifle, and was full auto. With the scope in the art, maybe it would be a lot more similar to the M21 to the extent that you could use the 21's real life stats. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_FAL

Depending on how later vehicles look, it would be trivial to describe a vehicle as artificially intelligent, with no new art required. However, unless computers are a tech captured intact, then I don't feel right about having drones in the 70's, even though we're talking about 70's guys with laser and plasma weapon. Personally, I think vehicle crews and pilots should gain experience, and that drones shouldn't be bothered with. I think the crew stats should be fixed to the particular vehicles, in order to avoid crew management. I also feel like computer tech is the one thing which shouldn't get super advanced. I can see its pace accelerating, but not exceeding what we have now, unless they capture intact alien computers, and reverse engineer all of their functions. In that case, it would remain almost a black box device, where you know and can predict the inputs and outputs, but have no idea of the intermediary operations. At that point they could jury rig human computers using alien parts. Maybe the Research screen art would change, the reel to reel storage would disappear, leaving the one mainframe computer, and the dumb console would gain a holographic crystal slot beside the screen? The practical effect of integrating alien computers might be fly by wire for advanced aircraft and weapons.

I was just playing and two things struck me. The tech screen would be easier if I could select the techs by double clicking them in the list on the right, in addition to the START key in the lower left. Secondly, it would also be handy if the newly started research would automatically take the maximum amount of researchers available. By taking the max researchers automatically, it saves with several seconds of holding the selector. A slider, or the ability to type the number in would help, but I think auto-maxing the researchers may be the most convenient on both ends. Also, I usually want the max amount of researchers anyway, and if I'm going to research two techs at once, or if I already have multiple ones going, the remaining amount of researchers is probably the amount I want anyway. Alternatively, the default amount of researchers given to a new project could max out at whatever it takes to give "Excellent" progress, and go down from there depending on what's available.