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Firstly, if you do not know how to access the experimental branch on Steam, please read the instructions (and warnings!) in this thread. All saved games from earlier versions (including experimental versions) are incompatible, attempting to load them will cause problems. This new build focuses on fixes, content build out and usability improvements. The major new feature is the introduction of interceptor recovery - this is a new system intended to reduce the sting of aircraft loss during the air combat phase of the game, and is described more fully in the change log below and in this thread; we know this one is a bit of a controversial change, but please give it time. If you want to discuss it in any great depth please do so in the Geoscape balance thread in the Beta forum. Here are is the changelog: Fixes - Removed duplicate reaction fire modifiers on some weapons - Updated continent masks on Geoscape to match ground and remove graphical artifacts at high zoom - Geoscape cities updated, existing cities repositioned where needed and new ones added - Air combat missiles now have extra fuel so they can catch retreating/turning UFOs more reliably - Animated sprites will now display properly after loading a saved game - Alien Crew is picked on creation of UFO, rather than on GC mission start, to avoid save/load exploit - Fixed UFO sometimes flying away from a ground combat mission in which the aliens were defeated - Fixed F-17 missile and gun arrangement of the aircraft screen Additions - When Quantum Cryptology Center is built the player can now see more detailled information about UFOs - Crashed Carrier and Battleship art added (all UFOs now have damaged art) - Updated Harridan autopsy art - Added GUI images for vehicles laser/plasma/mag weapons - All research projects now have preview text (first draft) - Human base attacks no longer require a scout mission locating a human base to target it; instead a random base is picked with a bias towards the older bases (older bases are more likely to be attacked) - New game system: Interceptors which are shot down in air combat are no longer outright destroyed, they instead perform a crash landing and are recovered to their base 72 hours later (at which point they must be still repaired) - Soldier inventory management screen has been redesigned to be a non-fullscreen window - Expanded Ground Combat damage numbers, now colour coded and also display healing (green) and stun (blue) damage - Soldiers wil now use burst fire in reaction shots. If they have both single and burst modes, they will use a burst if the target is within 10 tiles - New Alien base tiles for both Sebillian and Andron themed rooms (work in progress, only partially implemented and still need new floors etc...) - Many new Alien props (most not implemented yet) - Few new props for Soviet archive buildings - Various new and tweaked tiles for the final mission Balance - Aircraft now repair/refuel using a percentage instead of a static value; interceptors with more HP/fuel will no longer take longer to repair/refuel than ones with less - Burst fire now only causes stat advancement at the same rate as single fire (previously it was double the rate) - Grenades can now have negative or positive modifiers to throwing range; flares can be thrown 5 tiles further and C4 5 tiles shorter - Grenade throw cost reduced to 20 TU, Flares down to 10 TU - Alien Heavy Plasma changed to single shot only, damage increased to 100 and range reduced to 10 - Layout of final mission tweaked and improved Please post your comments on the build here. If you encounter any bugs please post them in the experimental build sub-forum of the bugs forum. I will post new threads in the beta forum shortly for in-depth discussion of the current Geoscape and Ground Combat balance, but feel free to post brief opinions here too.

Though there haven't been many major changes to the Geoscape and Air Combat balance since the last experimental build, I think the introduction of the interceptor recovery is probably a big enough change to warrant a new thread to discuss it and its consequences. There have also been some tweaks aside from that - percentage based repair/refuelling for interceptors, and extra fuel for aircraft missiles. So let's get down to business.

The new experimental build contains a few new tweaks and improvements for the Ground Combat portion of the game, so I thought I would refresh this thread for some new feedback. New additions include expanded damage numbers (they now also show stun damage and healing), reduced grenade TU costs, tweaks to some throwing ranges (flares can be thrown further, C4 shorter) and the alien heavy plasma rifle is now a short range high damage weapon instead of a burst firing suppression weapon. I imagine the changes to the Geoscape balance will probably also have had an impact on the kind of encounters in the ground combat too. Fire away.

First of all thank you for continuing game development! But I'd like mention several points which look not good. 1. In Strategy map. I'm not sure but it looks like I can not send fighters to patrol clean terrain. Just to search for alien activity outside my radar circles. 2. In Strategy map. What about sending fighters and drop ships back to combat without full fuel tanks? Is it possible? If not I'd ask to bring that ability back! 3. In Strategy map. Geoscape color. In 18th build it was better! Can you bring it back? Now it seem to be too funny. 4. In Strategy map. In Air Combat. No it is very unstable. Usually comes to game freeze and falling down to desktop. 5. In General. Is it seriously, 2 missiles per Foxtrot? WTF? :-) 6. In Tactical map. Now I can not see Alien movements which are not hidden. All is covered by 'Hidden movement' screen, which does not cover all the screen... but. I hope it is possible to do something. 7. In Tactical map. Can you bring back in mission inventory screen? In 18th build that was very good! Now I can see it is too small on my 1920x1080 screen! Thank you.