s300pmu1

Right. Particularly the US, Europe and Russia, which cover a large percentage of the map, have little electricity and poor TV coverage. And of course, civilians will always have trouble identifying friend-or-foe, given a human soldier and an alien monster to choose between... Seriously people... The organization was not very public prior to alien invasion, but afterwards it was nothing but, according to the game story. It got funding from various nations; and don't you think building bases, operating aircraft, conducting ground missions in countries around the world would require certain coordination with local governments, which assumes informing the military, law enforcement, etc about "those nice people in blue uniforms who ride in chinooks? Any reason for secrecy and preventing this knowledge from spreading by word of mouth even in places with no mass media (and you'd be surprised how few such places exist; dissemination of news may not be instantaneous as in developed countries, but it goes pretty fast even without TV)? The SOP for quakes is to get outside of the building and as far away from anything that can fall on top of you as possible. Not in the doorway, by no means. And yes, sure, the first place a civilian hides from aliens and nasty human soldiers (who are so much more frightening) is doorways, windows, open ground. A civilian will never do such a dishonorable thing as run AWAY from the aliens and shooting in the direction where the soldiers came from - it would just make too much sense, and civilians don't have brains, just like the sergeant told us in basic.

I'd like to thank everyone for giving detailed answers to my questions. As for the securing UFO thing, the following issues make me believe something's wrong: - at mission end screen, "UFOs secured" shows "0" - I have no alien alloys or any such thing in my stores having successfully completed over 10 ground missions - no new research items have become available since downing the first UFO I assume it may be the old build, will try a newer one once I have time for that.

Always good to have Russki weapons, even despite the strange affection you Westerners hold for AK-47. Too bad the variety is severely limited. Yes, I agree that gameplay-wise just a few weapons may be sufficient, filling several "roles" such as precision fire, suppression, area effect weapons, stun weapons, PDW, etc. However, for an example of how various weapons make gameplay even more fun, take a look at a wonderful game "7.62 High Calibre" (list of guns used there is mind-boggling: http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/7.62_High_Calibre). Every weapon has pros and cons there - furthermore, having the stock folded or unfolded affects gun performance in several ways, not to mention suppressors, sights, double mags, etc. I'm not suggesting implementing it in Xenonauts - that would supplant the game's atmosphere, but that gives an idea how one can substantially enhance gameplay. It also gives food for thought, e.g. as the game progresses, newer weapons may become available, such as ballistic weapons but with use of advanced tech thanks to research of alien materials. Such future weapons may have benefits compared to direct energy weapons, but the choice should be hard for the player, otherwise it'd be no fun (e.g. advanced ballistic gun heavier, but more shots as direct energy weapons's batteries would be depleted relatively fast, ammo easier to manufacture, cheaper to purchase, but less accurate); then again, further development of direct energy weapons may make even such guns outdated. One could get very creative, I do envy gamedevs...

The obvious and classic model for civilians could be taken from SWAT3 game. Basically, the following states for a civilian: 1. Panic - the good old "running in circles regardless of environment" 2. Flee whatever you see (flees the closest unit no matter whether friendly and foe) 3. Freeze 4. Normal behavior (flee from aliens, do not flee from friendlies, flee if shooting ensues) 4. Secure (cuffed by the officer in SWAT3) - in Xenonauts, the logical solution would be for the PC to spend a couple of TUs directing the civilian to the dropship. Very realistic, particularly if: - civilians not in panic state tend to go to the dropship if the have it in their LOS, to go in the direction of PCs if the have them in their LOS - civilians in panic state have a 50/50 chance to be directed to the dropship or to ignore player's direction, in which case the only way to protect them is to stun them (or cuff them - a new cool item in the inventory - cuffs for immobilizing panicking civilians) PS Race and nation have NO bearing whatsoever on behavior of civs in respect to the PCs. Remember, player chars are members of a SUPRANATIONAL organisation created to repel an all-out ALIEN INVASION. People in ALL countries including SU and USA watch the news and know who's good and who's bad. Directing to the dropship can be done by hand signals, you know )

Maybe as a weapon mode for sniper rifle, costing a bit more TUs?

I'm playing alpha v 9.1, if any of the things 've been implemented since then and I don't know about it, sorry. Here are my humble suggestions: 1. Securing a ufo after tactical mission. I read here that you have to hold a unit "in" the UFO for several turns (I assume the number specified on the splash screen for tactical mission, i.e. 5 turns). However: - if I hold a unit there and kill all the aliens, the mission ends and the ufo is not secured - if I hold the unit there and intently do NOT kill any aliens, aliens escape, and the ufo is not secured The ufo crash-lands, a supra-governmental military body moves in, kills all aliens; now that'd pretty much assume they can "secure" the ufo and do whatever they want with it, just like in the original x-com and in clones such as ufo:ai, ufo afterlight etc. 2. Unlike the original, there's no way to see "behind the buildings" when you have a soldier there. Unlike clones, map can't be rotated. So if there's a building obstructing the view, and I have both a soldier and an alien behind it, I can't target, although the soldier has LOS to the enemy. The only workaround is to have another soldier _enter_ the first floor of the building in question and approach a door to the "showdown", if available, then the building becomes "transparent" and I can finally see what's going on and target the enemy with the original soldier. Very unplayable in this respect, less of a problem now while there's generally a single tactical map, more so when there'll be more maps... 3. "Corpse destroyed" - isn't it overly simplistic? Yes, the thing is not alive, but something tells me that unloading a pistol\AR\shotgun into an alien would render a pretty much intact and researchable corpse. I'd guess the alternative approach where researching corpses give access to certain tech, while researching\interrogating live specimens gives access to even more tech. 4. Furthermore, wouldn't it be possible to capture a live alien before developing ranged stun weapons by e.g. approaching the alien with e.g. 2 or more units which would "overpower" it? This would introduce an element of high risk\high reward early in the game. You either lose these guys, or have them overpower the alien together if you plan correctly. Neat idea, no? 5. "Hidden movement" between turns - I'd assume the aliens in LOS of soldiers would move without this sign and their movement would be visible to the player, not only their end state. This is logical, no? Only truly hidden movement (i.e., of the units not in the LOS of PC's) should be hidden. 7. Any chance to enhance civilians' behavior? Two obvious choices: introduce panic mode where they move uncontrollably, and allow soldiers to direct them to the dropship, so that they would not get in the way. Directing them would cost TUs, but still, realistic, no?[/b]

Hey, I'd love to chip in as another FNG. 1. Have a bit of a problem: never seem to secure a ufo after tactical mission. I read here that you have to hold a unit "in" the UFO for several turns (I assume the number specified on the splash screen for tactical mission, i.e. 5 turns). However: - if I hold a unit there and kill all the aliens, the mission ends and the ufo is not secured - if I hold the unit there and intently do NOT kill any aliens, aliens escape, and the ufo is not secured Pretty much stuck with this. Now seriously, people, how do you imagine that situation? The ufo crash-lands, a supra-governmental military body moves in, kills all aliens; now that'd pretty much assume they can "secure" the ufo and do whatever they want with it, just like in the original x-com and in clones such as ufo:ai, ufo afterlight etc. 2. Aliens do not appear to show any hostile intent towards civs\PCs. Assume it's an early version (alpha v9.1) bug\WIP. 3. Unlike the original, there's no way to see "behind the buildings" when you have a soldier there. Unlike clones, map can't be rotated. So if there's a building obstructing the view, and I have both a soldier and an alien behind it, I can't target, although the soldier has LOS to the enemy. The only workaround is to have another soldier _enter_ the first floor of the building in question and approach a door to the "showdown", if available, then the building becomes "transparent" and I can finally see what's going on and target the enemy with the original soldier. Very unplayable in this respect, less of a problem now while there's generally a single tactical map, more so when there'll be more maps... 4. "Corpse destroyed" - isn't it overly simplistic? Yes, the thing is not alive, but something tells me that unloading a pistol\AR\shotgun into an alien would render a pretty much intact and researchable corpse. I'd guess the alternative approach where researching corpses give access to certain tech, while researching\interrogating live specimens gives access to even more tech. 5. Furthermore, wouldn't it be possible to capture a live alien before developing ranged stun weapons by e.g. approaching the alien with e.g. 2 or more units? This would introduce an element of high risk\high reward early in the game. You either lose these guys, or have them overpower the alien together if you plan correctly. Neat idea, no? 6. "Hidden movement" between turns - I'd assume the aliens in LOS of soldiers would move without this sign and their movement would be visible to the player, not only their end state. This is logical, no? Only truly hidden movement (i.e., of the units not in the LOS of PC's) should be hidden. 7. Any chance to enhance civilians' behavior? Two obvious choices: introduce panic mode where they move uncontrollably, and allow soldiers to direct them to the dropship, so that they would not get in the way. Directing them would cost TUs, but still, realistic, no? Now I've written this I realise some of it belongs to feature request, so I'll repost the relevant part there.