Which version and mod is recommended to start with?

Hi. New player here. I've never played any XCOM game in my life (though I've watched a let's play for both Xenonauts and XCOM: EW).

So there is the standardversion and the Community Edition. Also, when starting Xenonauts there's this 'Skitsos mappack' you can activate.

I want to play the way the developers intended it and I don't know if they think the X:CE is better than the standard version. Like, how much does it change?

Do Skitsos mappack change too much of the original experience?

I'm skeptical of mods and tend to avoid them.

If you want to play it the way the developers intended, then play the standard version. Just that. That's Chris's (founder and lead) vision for Xenonauts.

(Disclaimer: I'm a developer of X:CE and so I'm obviously biased.)

What Max_Caine said is true, but I'd still recommend playing X:CE (with the mods it activates by default), even for your first game.

I want to play the way the developers intended it and I don't know if they think the X:CE is better than the standard version. Like, how much does it change?

X:CE changes a number of things, but in small ways and it tries to keep the style. There's a number of bugfixes, some new features and a selection of mods is included. It also includes two mods called xcesettings and xcebalance, which mostly control X:CE's new features, and if you disable both, you should get a game that is very close (but not exactly) to the official version with bugfixes. The recommended X:CE setup is having the mods enabled though (xcebalance enables X:CE features and tweaks that affect balance, xcesettings is for mostly UI things). Note that X:CE (with or without xcebalance) makes the game a little bit harder (not in the sense of giving aliens more brute force in the form of e.g. hitpoints, but rather by fixing some AI problems or making some cheesy techniques less powerful), but that generally shouldn't be a problem for the "right" kind (thoughtful, patient, paying attention to detail) of Xenonauts player.

As for what the developers of the offical game think of X:CE, the current version of the official game is in fact mostly based on a year's old X:CE version, but not including all of X:CE's changes. So you could perhaps say (my interpretation) that X:CE is an improved version that doesn't exactly match the official vision but is close.

There is not a single list of all X:CE changes (too many of them and new releases add new ones), but you can check release announcements (http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/forumdisplay.php/32-X-CE-Release-Announcements). That's a lot to read, but main releases (0.30, 0.31, 0.32, etc.) have a "Changes Summary" section that lists the highlights.

See also http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/11882-What-is-Xenonauts-Community-Edition-how-do-I-get-it .

Do Skitsos mappack change too much of the original experience?

No, they are high quality maps, and in fact some of Skitso's maps even made it into the vanilla game. So it's a very good idea to enable them, as the official game suffers from a relatively low number of maps and the map pack helps somewhat (I can recognize the vast majority of official and Skitso maps the moment the ground combat starts, just from the surroundings of the dropship). X:CE includes several additional map packs which include a much larger number of maps (some of them are not as high quality as official/Skitso maps, but they are still good, and you can disable the mods if wanted).

I'm skeptical of mods and tend to avoid them.

X:CE includes and activates by default a selection of mods that should improve the game in various ways. These should be of good quality and shouldn't alter the game style or balance.

For the first play, I generally do not recommend installing any other mods, as e.g. mods adding new weapons sometimes seriously break the game balance. So blindly including everything included in Steam Workshop is definitely not a good idea, I suggest considering adding mods for later playthroughts, when it's much easier to evaluate how a mod affects the game. As an exception, mods that do not affect game balance should generally be fine (there are e.g. mods changing the look and style of armours or soldiers).

You can enable Skitso's map pack mid-way through a game if you find the maps start repeating for you, but they're pretty good maps and any issues with them should have been ironed out by now.

Most experienced players seem to prefer X:CE over the vanilla game - whether it is ideal for the first playthrough is up to you. Maybe give the game a go on vanilla first and then enable X:CE once you've played a few hours, as that way you'll be able to see the changes and judge whether you like the improvements or not.

(Disclaimer: I'm a developer of X:CE and so I'm obviously biased.)

What Max_Caine said is true, but I'd still recommend playing X:CE (with the mods it activates by default), even for your first game.

Perfect answer. This is the best answer I've ever gotten in a forum. Thanks

I'm convinced. X:CE with included mods activated it is.