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Crazy ass mf-ers. Both of you.

You sick bastard, making it look way too easy. All my careful designed strategies look less impressive now ><. Well, at least we know now that there are multiple possibilities to beat that matchup. Btw, the technique @Pandi uses is called "Wagging", its when you "wag" with the tail of your aircraft to have some increased benefits like Max rotation speed ( rotation normally has a startup acceleration to up to 0.5 seconds ) less speed ( can be noted that this can be postive as well as negative ) UFO AI trickery ( UFOs will get slowed down too because they try to match you wagging a bit ) projectile trickery I would rather put these technique under the advanced tab for players. @Phoenix1x+52

Well, what can i say, not all of us can fly, someone has to keep the boot on the ground. Aaa, np, knighting me would suit just fine. I feel modest today.

Btw, @Phoenix1x+52 we give you a seat among the council, but we do not grant you the rank of a master yet.

There you go @Phoenix1x+52. You hear the words of the master. Now go and write your aircombat tutorial and dont forget the words of the high council ><.

Exactly. It's hard to overestimate the ability to turn with full speed right at the moment when it really needed, especially on not-agile ships.

It's interesting that training has been brought up in this thread, because training was something that was hashed over again and again during the development of X1, and it's something that has been tried in a variety of ways in other X-Com-a-likes. The fundamental assumption behind training appears to be: "I put X solider(s) into training. They are unavailable for Y period of time. Once Y period of time has expired,, they acquire Z bonuses". There are often things built upon that. Soldiers may need to acquire some form of resource before they may take training (experience points, training points, yogi master points, etc.). There are often rules about when they can take training (not wounded, not dead, not host to a bioweapon, etc.). There may be conditions to meet for certain kinds of bonuses, and requirements to meet to get training in the first place, but strip away all the surface layer stuff and each time training has been tried in an X-Com-a-like you have the same three postulates - take solider X, remove them from the game for time Y, acquire Z bonus at the end of time Y. X-Com Apocalypse's training only required the player to build a training room. When a solider was sent away from training, they improved their stats. As the bar to entry was so low, a decent strategy was to make a training base. Recruit soldiers directly to the training base and have them train all the time. They would improve their stats without the risk of losing them in battle. What training did in effect was to speed up the time needed to have soldiers with good stats and provide a pool of soldiers which had good stats without having to grind missions to do so. Depending on your perspective as a player, that could be good or bad. If you didn't do well, or experienced a party wipe (and party wipes in a game like Apocalypse are serious, when you can control 30+ soldiers in a fight!), then having a ready pool of soldiers with good stats and having the capacity to take more soldiers and prepare them without grinding missions is a good thing. On the other hand, if you're doing well, then having a pool of soldiers which can have comparable stats to the soldiers who you do missions with is a slap in the face of the player - what's the point of playing well and preserving your soldiers when you can just train a bunch of guys up for no risk? The AfterX series took training in the opposite direction. Training required three resources. Experience points, which were traded in for levels, which granted two other resources - stat increases and training points. Both stats and training points were necessary to acquire skills. In Aftershock, you selected a profession for your solider, based upon the stat requirements and the training points available. In Afterlight, you picked skills based upon the research you had carried out. Skills were mostly based around unlocking. Combat training did not usually provide stat increases. Instead they permitted to soldier access to something they couldn't do before, whether it was a special ability, a physical action, or something else. In Afterlight, for example, you could not crouch in a spacesuit without the appropriate spacesuit training. In Aftershock, you could not get access to entire weapon categories without training in the appropriate profession. Some skills in the AfterX games were considered mandatory. In Aftershock, if you wanted to heal someone in battle you almost always needed a solider who had the medic profession. In Afterlight, in order to perform certain basic movement actions, such as crouching or running, you had to have spacesuit training. Aftershock's system of training was closer to XCOM's system of class-based leveling up, in that without the appropriate profession, you did not have access to certain weapons, nor did you have access to certain special skills unique to the profession. Unlike XCOM, professions were not locked in from the word go, and a character could be trained in three different professions at once. This was a complicated system, First you took your soldiers into battle. Then if they earnt enough experience points, they levelled up. Then, if they had enough training points AND the appropriate stats AND the correct research you could select a skill for them to train in. Compare this to XCOM - earn enough experience points, get a level, get a skill. XCOM's system of getting skills is much more accessible than the After series, but the AfterX series created greater investment in the character. You had to work to get skills for a soldier, so every skill gained was that much more appreciated for it. In the Apocalypse model, training exists to get recruits up to speed quickly. Soldiers in Apocalypse are considered very replaceable. While it's good to keep soldiers between missions, it's not necessary as each solider is defined only by their stats and if you have a mechanism outside of running missions to improve stats, then loosing a solider is not that big of a deal in the cosmic scheme of things. In the AfterX model, training exists to act as a speed bump and a means of personalizing and investing a player in their soldiers. Each time a solider is able to train, they can then do something that they cannot before - run faster, jump quicker, use weapons they didn't have access to.....and crouch. At the same time, XCOM showed that it wasn't necessary to jump through the hoops that AfterX set up, by disposing of training and just allowing soliders to get something each time they levelled up. The feedback loop in XCOM is shorter because the intermediate stage of training is removed. What would the Xenonauts model be? Well, one must ask all sorts of questions. For example, where will the bulk of effort in improving soldiers come from? Does it come from completing missions? Ground combat is the meat of Xenonauts. The strategy section exists to serve ground combat, so it would make sense to put the most rewards into ground combat. However, if ground combat is where soldiers will progress, then the most effective strategy to improve soldiers is to delay the progression of the game while grinding out as many missions as possible and to behave in ground combat as conservatively as possible to preserve soldiers. That was seen during the development of X1 even though the grinding was boring, because people tend to prioritise the most optimal strategy to win over the most fun. Training then might be a tool to lessen the desire to grind out as much as possible by making alternate routes to progression available as in the Apocalypse model, rather than acting as a gatekeeper to progression as in the AfterX model. What kind of progression is there going to be? I can't find the post, but Chris has previously said that progression is going to be small increments to specific stats and equipment. E.g. getting a +bonus to shooting with rifle-class weapons, for example. If that's as far as progression is going to go, is it necessary to have a training mechanism at all? And another question to ask might be, is the accepted model of training (solider X goes away for Y days to get Z bonus) an appropriate model for Xenonauts? Would a different model better suit the game? Perhaps a more interactive model, such as a minigame? But would a minigame become tiresome? Would it be better to turn the training trope on it's head? Instead of sending a solider away, you bring a training officer to the solider. Perhaps you have to hire and schedule a training officer to turn up at home base. When the training officer turns up, any solider who stays as home base gets some training. Anyone who has to go out on a mission doesn't. That would work pretty well in a turn based strategy environment. What do you think? What would a good model for training in Xenonauts be? Should there even be one?

Heh, I've been explaining this concept for almost a decade now and I don't think I've ever managed to express it as succinctly or as effectively as you did there

Close air support would be very hard to balance, gameplay-wise. That's because close air support is designed to be completely unfair and unbalanced.

About terror missions rationale, take a look at the X-COM UFO Defense TVTropes entry, "headscratcher" session of http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Headscratchers/XComUFODefense One troper suggested the following: I got the impression that the Terror Missions were deliberate traps by the aliens for X-COM. They land and start shooting up civilians, forcing an X-COM response. X-COM arrives and runs headlong into the best the aliens have in the form of their terror units, in tight urban terrain, with civilians all around them that limits X-COM's ability to employ heavy weapons. The aliens are forcing X-COM to send in troops and potentially wipe them out or send them scurrying away in defeat. Either way ends with X-COM suffering casualties and bad PR if the aliens are able to force a victory.

Meh, really the only thing that the US gets over the Soviets is the starting weapons being American. There's an American jet, a Soviet jet and a British armoured car, whilst the Scientist doesn't have a visible nationality. The people that do have visible nationalities (soldiers) are spread fairly evenly across NATO and Soviet nations, which logically should imply there's a similar split across the science and engineering divisions too. I think the fundamental issue is actually that many people assume the default origin of anyone / anything to be American unless specifically marked otherwise. I suppose it could be suggested that the engineer saying "comrade" implies by omission that the scientist is not of Soviet origin (because otherwise he too would be calling everyone "comrade"), but if he didn't say that then it's equally easy for people to assume there are no literally Soviets in the organisation at all.

Are you a Xenonauts developer? You have quite a bit of insight into the thing. And that series of books you mentioned look like amazing literature, and an incredible foundation for games with aliens. It's curious, but both the first book (Worldwar: In the Balance) and the first X-Com came out in 1996. I wonder if one influenced the other. Your idea to demote the player to a part of the invasion, instead of the highest authority, makes it more manageable, developer-wise, although losing the protagonism of the thing sounds lame. Also, undeniable work must be put into building a dynamic between the player and other alien generals. There would be politics at play. Picture this: You, the Player, choose to commit your forces in South America; General Ackbar will work in North America, and both of you meet at the middle, within 100 solar cycles (days). News from the front: General Ackbar asks for reinforcements pronto! Earthlings show superb resistance there! Do you send aid or not? Siding with him could make the Americas a single powerful fortress, a beachhead for further attacks beyond both the Atlantic and the Pacific. But maybe Mister Ackbar should be released from his theatre of command, forcibly, where you'd certainly deal with things more competently. Heh of course I have troublesome suggestions for the devs, it won't be me doing the hardwork! edit: this politics idea came from the 15 minutes I played Decisive Victories Operation Barbarossa. It's a operational level wargame where decisions must be made at every turn, catering to generals, and to Hitler himself. It's curious that being a Nazi or not is a important character trait to consider in your dealings.

We're not planning any sort of multiplayer or alien campaign until we've released the game and we're looking at DLC options - and sadly even then it's rather unlikely. There's an immense amount of work required for multiplayer functionality even if the game code supports it at the fundamental level (which I believe ours does), and I'm really not sure the game mechanics and campaign structure would work that well if you're playing as the aliens ... although admittedly I've never given it that much thought. So maybe you'll be able to tempt me into some kind of alien campaign DLC post-release, but I'm not even going to consider it until then