LeftyRighty

the articles I've seen say they're not making any particularly big changes to the overall campaign structure, and the final mission is the same, just with the new aliens included etc. ... Like the new troops and weapons, having something that can take on mutons/berzerkers head on would be handy... but i don't think i'm going to pick this up until it's a bargain sale...

oh, btw.... it's out... hit steam today... what's with the stealth release? had a little trawl over the web and unfortunately most of the "reviews" (or random opinions since there aren't any gaming press reviews yet i guess) is that "it's fun, but needs some polish".

and it's gone to kickstarter: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/06/28/official-satellite-reign-makes-true-syndicate-successor/

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/06/28/synindicate-right-first-satellite-reign-images/

They're randomised based on a template (some sort of field goes here, some sort of building goes here etc.), and there is a map builder included so people can build their own templates. Whilst there might not be a vast amount of levels whilst the game is being made (it's not finished yet!) you can expect there to be quite a lot either included in the final product or available from the community as people use the tools etc.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/01/space-hulk-preview/

Hicks made it out of "Aliens" with an acid splash (from getting to the elevator and nailing an alien in the doorway with his shotgun) and was put into a cryosleep tube for treatment when they got home; at the beginning of "Alien 3" the cryotubes are put into the escape pod and jettisoned at Fury 161. When Ripley goes back to the escape pod the doctor says Hicks was impaled on a support beam in the crash, and there is a very bloody cryotube towards the back... that's where she sees the acid burn. And yeah Hudson gets dragged into the floor during his "gets some! oh you want some too!?" last stand bit...

Snow... I haven't looked at the Artic tiles yet, but maybe snow you can trudge through which also provides some cover gives the opportunity to have bleak open areas without opening them to too much of a sniper's gallery?

I'm very confused by people coming up with the whole "alien spawns don't move" thing... I must be playing a different game because I seem to run into alien patrols all the time on classic. Maybe I'm just good at picking the patrol node locations to setup recoop and ambush spots... re alien free move in general: have you unlocked the Sniper's Battle Scanner yet? it's very handy to see how alien patrols actually work. (we'll skip over the fact that the games shows you this despite you being able to see the non activated aliens is likely a bug...) The game doesn't path them at all, they just "teleport" from one location to the next (hence the patrol teleporting into the middle of the xcom squad bug on a couple of maps it's missing the intersect of the patrol route and the player's view). The teleport solves quite a few AI issues or at least stops hidden aliens working out what cover to use each turn chewing up processing resources and slowing down their turn needlessly; but as you say, it leaves them "open" a fair amount of the time (it looks like the units are just "dropped" around a patrol node). Having the aliens react with their generic AI (ie floaters and chrysallids charge in) when detected is problematic, an across the board "run for the nearest cover" might work... but then does it make sense for a patrolling chrysallid to wander into view, run to some cover, then charge out into the open (they don't use cover anyway)? try a game on impossible... the aliens do pretty much this, the first spawn you see will "call in" the nearest spawns. You're fighting every alien on the map in next to no time unless it's one of the larger ones. Last attempt I made saw my last 4 rookies fighting 15 sectoids through the bar map by the end of turn 3 (last one got nailed dashing for the skyranger... may they rest in peace the world fell soon after).

it's been bug reported a couple of times: it appears to be an issue with the save/reload... there's a workaround posted here: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/3187-v15-1-Geoscape-time-frozen-after-load not the first threads, but the first one I found

didn't Altar's ufo series handle the ufos in the same way? It worked there, with the exception of only ever having a single entry point and really cramped interiors... If it's a landed ufo would this system support putting a hole somewhere else in the hull giving us another entry point? later in the game when we're toting blasterbomb type weapons it'll be nice to have the option. I really like the idea of having some overlap with an interior room showing at the breach point as the "access point" when you're clearing the outside, and a area of outside as a "escape zone" whilst you're fighting inside, if you can get that to work it'll help with the continuity.

*runs and hides*

right there with you ... and a strange sense of dejavu looking at this board... weren't you lot just... over... nevermind...

from the blog linked in OP:

The TUTORIAL is a sequence of scripted events, and was given out to the press for the initial hands on. So a lot of the gameplay reviews as of a month or so ago have been based on that. Which, I'd agree, probably give a bad impression of the gameplay. It was also the handson version that you could play if you attended the recent gaming events like PAX and GamesCom. The tutorial is completely optional. Outside of that the game is random ufos to be shot down yielding ufo missions, terror sites and they've hinted at but not explicitly confirmed alien bases. They've said on several occasions that the AIs used for the alien actions on the strategic and tactical layers are independent of player actions, and their options are only limited by the difficulty setting. So it is the same sandbox model. Recent screen shots and vids have shown there are "objectives", for example the game tells you at one point to research and build a stun weapon to capture a live alien. This is similar to the original game requiring you to capture a commander and build an avenger to progress to cydonia, except instead of burying it in the research descriptions it's explicitly stated (and given the modern games culture it's a familiar mechanic for general gamers). They really need to released more about the strategic gameplay, they've concentrated far too much on the tactical for the press release and sneak peeks... it'd probably help with the impressions of gameplay.