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#1 Base expansion/building. This is very much related to Chris' "Difficulty Curve" thread but is of general interest as well. The idea is to make the expense of base building more gradual and enable establishing of smaller, specialized bases that can later be expanded depending on need. Each base consists of 49 squares (7x7). For the sake of discussion let's say that establishing a new base costs 980.000$ which is 20k per square. Instead of paying close to a million to make a new base why not pay 80k for a small 2x2 base with command center + 3 squares for whatever you want. Hangar + chinook + living quarters for a deployment base for example. Early game this could work in tandem with Chris' proposal to have crash sites randomly generated by npc air forces as it would allow you to more easily cheaply spread your soldiers across the globe and reach those minor mission sites. In general it would provide a more gradual increase of base building costs and allow for specialized bases without having to pay for space you're never gonna use. Why pay full price and end up with wasted space when all you want is a 2x4 interception base (CC + radar + 3 hangars) for example. Should the demands for space increase one would be able to mark a set of square to be dug into (dungeon keeper style) for 20k per square. See image below. Red square is the "starting area", blue squares can be built in, gray squares can be dug into. Problem with map generation for base defence? There could be 3 pre-set base sizes allowing smaller bases to be converted into larger ones. #2 Air combat - directional rolls. -Nevermind. The idea is simply to allow players to choose the direction in which the interceptor rolls when performing the maneuver. Instead of one roll button have two for the different directions. I've watched quite a few LPs there were many situations where I thought this would be useful. It could make air battles a bit more involved and allow for a bit more "player skill" without making them longer or more tedious. Not sure how the AI would handle it though. Example below. #3 Early game UFOs and map sizes. With the recent announcement that alien fighters will also, almost certainly, generate crash sites but be unenterable (along with light scouts) and the fact that these minor crash sites typically have 2-3 aliens (often just 1 or 2) it might not be a bad idea to reduce map size for these early missions (maybe even up to 50%). - With so few aliens (do higher difficulties have more?) there's really no point in sneaking around and exploring all those buildings. Let these early missions be quick shootouts that introduce players into the game and don't take more time than they really need. - It would make small missions less of a chore and would lessen "player fatigue" later on when larger, more difficult and more time consuming missions start appearing. - A more gradual curve from the smallest of maps/missions to largest.

I've just spent most of the first month chasing ufos around with F17s... never actually catching any, just running out of fuel and returning to base, or having them escape to space. It's all very benny hill. By the time I've researched and built some migs, I'm now getting wings of fighters, which the Migs aren't too brilliant against since the fighters dodge missiles and the migs don't have cannons... To my mind the early game is quite formative and never actually catching a ufo to bring it down to get a tac mission to get the matertials, xp and research opportunities seems a little ... off. Thoughts?

Playing a game on normal, I was surprised by the staggering number of UFOs present in just the first month of game time, in the North American zone alone. I haven't played enough separate games, from scratch, to be able to determine if this is always the case... but in simply attempting to get some research done, after the first dozen ground missions I started sending up MiG-32's with 4x Avalanche loads to vaporize UFOs simply to attempt to stem the onslaught. At any given time, there could be up to 3 UFOs in the air over North America alone. By the time the first month ended, there'd be more than 40 UFOs, and close to 30 of those were non-fighters. The sheer size of the alien armada required to field such a force would signify imminent invasion on a massive scale. It seems rather absurd that, armed with the damning evidence of such activity, that ones funding would be based upon such trivial details as "aliens escaped" during a mission. You: "Gentlemen, as you can see here... we are facing the gravest threat mankind has ever faced..." US Chief of Staff: "Ermm... I'm reading here that 2 aliens escaped from downed UFO #129?" You: "Uh... I would need further clarification as to the specific mission, since we are literally being overrun, but aliens routinely escape from crash sites as our Combat Boots Mk. 1 are not always sufficient in speedy apprehension of..." US Chief of Staff: "It shows here that over one hundred alien craft were detected and yet no intercepted..." You: "Sir... we have lost 8 interceptors in the past 30 days... because they are faster, and are armed with technology we haven't yet been able to even..." AU Chief of Staff: "Oy! We 'ad a bugga lan' in the North'est Terror Tree an' you dinna even respon' to im!" You: "... Sir, we have one base. It's located in Colorado. We are unable to cover even the entire North American continent, let alone..." USSR Chief of Staff: "Yes, this is good point! Why is base in middle of capitalist pig land when glorious people's army sends best troops from Afghanistan front to fight?! You have Boris Pavlov, Boris Pavlov, Yuri Pavlov, Maxim Kozlov, Nikolai Romanov, and Anton Novikov! If solider name end with "OV" Soviet Union sends them to fight alien menace, but we see nothing of this!" You: "You know what? Eff this. Eff all of you. Enjoy your anal probes, I'm out." French Chief of Staff: "Sheet guys... they're firing missiles at us..." I am 100% all over this new creation... I just don't think the whole "grading system" jives with what is at hand let alone what is at stake. I know this is in keeping with the the legacy of the ancestral roots, but in its current iteration it just doesn't seem to fit. This opinion isn't from Xenonauts alones... the premise that a given government will, based on your inability to protect them, cut your funding... eventually joining the enemy... flies in the face of logic. Aliens terrorizing Beijing? Get em on the phone, tell them we are ready to deal!! Don't get me wrong, I get the whole premise behind it, and it's not that it's too difficult per se, it just doesn't make solid sense when it is all put together. If crime rises, do you cut funding to law enforcement? You aren't competing with any other organizations, so it isn't as if there is any alternative... "Xenonauts, you suck, we're going with XenoSquad!" So... suggestion wise... I guess: 1. Scale the initial engagements down to a level where "Do we really need these new "Xenonauts"/Proving yourself becomes legitimate. And/or 2. Scale funding appropriately with the threat level. The media, regardless of government attempts, even in 1979, would be absolutely ignited with stories and images of the dozens of craft shot down all over a country in this kind of conflict. No government caught nickel diming the only defense initiative in such an unprecedented crisis would be in power for any appreciable length of time. And/or 3. Change the criteria for a "successful" mission. Obliterating an invading craft in the sky is a big win. Killing X aliens while Y aliens escape (How is this even tracked? If big brother can grade us on this minute level, how about sharing this kind of intel during the mission?) being given a "poor" score seems a bit lopsided... you're fighting a vastly superior enemy. And/or 4. Flesh out the backstory/ongoing news reports, etc in a way that seeks to explain these various points. How are these cold-war era countries getting along, in light of the shared enemy? Is there alien propaganda? Are there any bleeding heart movements portraying Xenonauts as the "bad guy", wantonly slaying these visitors from across the galaxy? Any wacky religious movements causing problems? I really like the changes the dev team is making in regard to the deficiencies in the ancestral title... I just think the move toward making things more realistic is leaving some plot holes.