skaianDestiny

For disadvantages, perhaps it only has the dexterity for heavier weapons? So you'll still need lighter armor for utility stuff or things that don't require an HMG.

I also think this is a great suggestion!

Fusion is the final tier, right? Does feel a bit weird to skip over plasma weapons in an X-Com game, but I won't argue too much about it.

FUCK no. Console is not the fucking home for an X-Com-style tactics game at the complexity Xenonauts is trying to have. There's a reason why console ports have always been second-class citizens for any XCOM game. Lobotomizing the complexity of even the aerial combat minigame just to shoehorn in console support is shooting yourself in the foot for nothing.

God I absolutely agree with this wholeheartedly. It's incredibly annoying how some people keep throwing out shit like "BUT REAL SOLDIERS CAN CARRY 50 KITCHEN SINKS AS PART OF BASIC TRAINING" or inflating the soldier count to some absurd number like 3 dozen and never actually give out how exactly it would improve the game and or result in meaningful choices by the player. It's always some vague high minded concept about "being more real" when all it results in actuality is tedium or flat player choice.

You could add it as an option on game start up, for the people who want a more consistent start/roleplay reasons.

Given it loops in on itself and we can't shortcut using the poles, I instead suggest it's a cylinder.

Absolutely agree with this.

Angels have 3 slots instead of 4 to let there be a more immediately visible upgrade to Phantoms having 4 slots.

I don't want to spend my time searching through those. Just write up what the issues are.

That's not how game balance works.

Here's the save file with that. auto_strategy_before_combat-14.json

Initial playtesting for a couple mission impressions: Definitely loving the new variety in missions for the Cleaners! Although I did find a bug with the convoy interception where after placing all my troops and pressing end turn it just immediately completed?? No idea what caused that but it was funny. Heavy armor toggle is good! Definitely more variety for armor going forward. It also makes it more obvious each tier of armor is a direct improvement on the previous one. Interceptor changes are looking promising! Definitely a lot of room for improvement but I think overall it's got more potential for future development. I'd say yes to restricting the Angel to 3 slots. It makes the Phantom having 4 slots a more immediately visible upgrade. I'd personally try to balance the weight and damage values for weapons such that an Angel can carry 2 missiles and 1 gun (with the obvious downside of having poor range and survivability) or 2 torpedoes and no other weapon, with both options being viable for different UFO types. You could probably also play around with the lances weighing more than the miniguns? I haven't gotten far enough into the prototype but I assume there is or will be things such as improved engines as a module for Angels? Which would make them a bit more capable of intercepting the later game faster UFOs at the cost of survivability and weaponry.

Sooo if anyone's been paying attention to game development or gaming in general for the past few days, I'm pretty sure you'd know the bullshit that Unity is pulling regarding payment and purchasing. If you haven't, the tl;dr is that the Unity company is planning to change their licensing so that game developers have to pay them for each and every install of a game developed in Unity above a threshold of 200,000 installs. In some cases, especially with free or very cheap games, this can end up with developers owing more than they actually made with the game. If that wasn't bad enough, Unity wants to make this apply retroactively, and if someone reinstalls a game, they're counting the original and new install as separate installs for pricing. Needless, this is causing an uproar in the indie game development sphere and gaming sphere in general, with many devs making plans to migrate to other engines such as Godot or Unreal. Given that Xenonauts 2 is being created in Unity, I'm wondering what @Chris's plans are regarding this in the worst case that Unity goes forward with these plans regarding not only Xenonauts 2 but any future games Goldhawk develops.

Just, more missions with Cleaner presence in them, for one? We only have the 3 or 4 bespoke missions with them. The suggestion that leaving crash sites for long periods of time results in more Cleaner presence (for example, replacing each civilian spawn with a Cleaner one) on the tactical map is a good one; it provides incentive for the player to do a crash site quick and weigh having soldiers rested up/certain equipment or tech unlocked or manufactured vs more enemy presence in the early game. I made a thread with some Cleaner ideas here, with varied mission ideas that could also be adapted for the more alien-focused late game: I feel the tetris sort of thing that the Milestone 1 modules encouraged was really neat and I'm not sure I'll like the changes. The extra armor toggle mentioned is fine and means it has continuity with the MARS's "heavy armor" toggle, but making modules exclusive from a dropdown feels like a downgrade. I'd actually suggest the opposite and lean far more into the tetris juggling thing and make every module have a unique shape on the inventory box instead of just having a 2x2 box. Have modules of the same type but different sizes, letting you choose between having more inventory space for ammo, grenades, etc. or getting a really good buff from the large module. For example, make the exoskeleton take up a 3x4 space in the inventory, which means the player now has to ask "is the extra strength worth losing so much inventory space?" instead of the no brainer of of "can my soldier carry 5 more grenades and heavy armor for the low price of a tiny 2x2 box?" Maybe there's a small 1x2 medical module that consumes itself to give a minor heal to your soldiers (perhaps only healing wounds), with the Milestone 1 medical module taking up a full 2x5 space, providing the full suite of automatic healing and wound treatment. This easily lends to a fun bit of tech progression where you eventually replace the older, very clunky module that takes up a 4x3 space with the sleeker, more technologically advanced successor that takes up a 3x2 space. This system also implicitly means certain modules will be mutually exclusive with each other, which adds to the element of tradeoffs and makes module choices much more meaningful. For example, the big medical module and exoskeleton would still fit in the current 5x5 grid together, but you're barely left with 3 spaces for the rest of your soldier's equipment like grenades or magazines. Maybe the aiming module takes up a 4x2 space, meaning you cannot mount both it and the medical module at all. You could argue the drop down menu accomplishes the same sort of thing, but you have a grid inventory system, it's much more fun to actually use it and let the player wrack their brain trying to fit every module they can while keeping their soldiers with a reasonable amount of ammo and equipment. Otherwise you might as well scrap the whole inventory grid and just make the entire inventory system a list or drop down menu. There's a reason the Resident Evil 4 attache case inventory system was a thing people fell in love with (and even inspired some indie games that entirely revolved around it) while basically every other inventory system is mostly forgettable or barely worth mentioning.