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Closed Beta Build V7 has now been released and has substantially changed the balance of the game. This is the place to comment on the changes that have been made, and make suggestions about what else should be changed. The balance is still at a fairly primitive stage but it gets better with each new round of changes, so feel free to wade and give your thoughts even if it your opinions might seem obvious. In addition to the specific balance changes made below, I want to pick out a few additional features from the (very long) full V7 changelog that are particularly likely to affect gameplay. Relevant Features: The fire path is now much better at correctly tagging intervening cover, which means cover now offers protection in a significantly wider arc than in previous builds. Soldiers are now capped at gaining +30 in any attribute. A soldier with high starting stats will always be better than a soldier with bad starting stats (although the difference will be relatively smaller at higher level), which means those soldiers are now a more valuable commodity than before. Balance Changelog: Balance - you now have 12 soldiers at the start of a campaign, and the new starting dropship can carry 10 of them. Balance - starting base Living Capacity is now 24. Balance - starting funds on the Geoscape are now reduced to $2.5m, and the monthly funding per region has also been reduced by about 30%. Balance - All weapons now have fire costs based on a % of max TU, rather than flat costs. The flat costs were an error on my part, as they were left over from some semi-related gameplay testing I did (X-Com and Xenonauts 1 both use %TU fire costs). Balance - % TU fire costs are now always rounded down, rather than rounded up. In X1 you sometimes did not want your soldier to gain TU because it would actually cause them to be able to fire fewer shots in some circumstances. Balance - Soldier training is now MUCH slower. Coupled with the change further down the page about stats being capped at +30 above starting values, your soldiers should no longer be superhuman killing machines about three missions in. Balance - Soldiers can now gain strength in combat by spending TU while carrying over 80% of their max carry capacity. Balance - Mind War is now squadsight for the aliens, rather than requiring no LOS. Balance - Mind War success chance is now Psionic Strength vs Bravery, with 0-50 random roll added to both (previously it was 0-100 random) Balance - the Mind Shield item boosts the Bravery (and therefore Psi-Defence) of a soldier by 25 when equipped in their Secondary. Balance - due to one of the bugfixes below, UFO hulls are now much harder to destroy with small arms fire. Bring C4 if you want to easily breach a UFO!

Closed Beta Build V7 has now been released on Steam and GOG. Note that this build is only available on our new Experimental branch so you'll need to switch over to get this update (instructions on how to do that here). As this is still a highly experimental build (see below) we're not releasing it on Xsolla, because Xsolla doesn't support opt-in branches like Steam and GOG do and this build is definitely not ready to be pushed out to all of our backers yet. Hopefully it'll be on Xsolla within a week or so. This build is defintely an Experimental build and comes with lots of features but also lots of caveats - basically, a lot of these systems aren't fully finished. I'd stay on the Stable branch for now if that's going to bother you. The changes we've made to various important systems have probably introduced some fairly significant bugs too. So don't say you weren't warned! That said, there's a lot of big upgrades and improvements in here. We've appreciate people checking the build out and spotting any obvious issues, and also giving your thoughts on how we should set up some game systems to make the player experience as smooth as possible. You can read a more detailed general progress update and see the linked threads in the development update here: (EDIT - coming tomorrow!) Key Features: New Dropship Layout: we're testing a new layout for the starting dropship that carries 10 soldiers, has side walls and a tail ramp. The art is currently placeholder but if community feedback is good then we'll get a proper model and 2D artwork done. "Classic" Base Mechanics: we've now reverted the base mechanics back to the classic X1 sytem where you can build multiple bases and their radar ranges are driven by the radar structures at that base. The art is placeholder (it is literally just the X1 art right now) but please test out the functionality! Updated Aircraft Mechanics: aircraft are now stationed at Hangars built in the new base system, and we've had to add some new UI to allow you to buy new aircraft in an empty Hangar (on the Aircraft screen). Dropships also now fly around the map again rather than teleporting to mission sites, but at present the game still only supports a single dropship. Improved Shot Path Sensitivity: The shot paths in the game now subdivide tiles into 9 smaller cells so it can trace a more accurate path for the shot. This is basically the X1 system now but with some further upgrades that fix some of the X1 problems related to corners and walls incorrectly getting in the way of shots. X1 Camera / Fog of War / Shroud: We're now using a true orthographic camera and have switched the fog of war / shroud back to being purely tile-based rather than having a fadeout gradient around the edge, which looks uglier but is necessary to support night missions. Please report any problems you see with the vision! This also fixes the issue where you can see the far side of a wall (e.g. a building interior) once you see the exterior side of the wall. Autosaves: The game now autosaves far more regularly, including at the end of every turn of combat and before each mission. Please attach saves to bug reports where possible! Tooltips: We've added the first set of tooltips to the game that explain the functionality of the various buttons on the screen, and give stats / details on the various items in the game. We only finished this system yesterday so only a few of them are set up so far, but the remainder will follow in upcoming builds. One nice feature is that these tooltips are linked to the actual weapon values, so they'll always be up-to-date no matter what balance changes I (or modders!) make. Iron Man / Save Upgrades: we've implemented Iron Man mode, and also set the game up to autosave MUCH more frequently than before. These changes require you to name each new campaign (so the autosaves don't overwrite each other) so we've added a new UI panel when you start a new campaign; this will be rolled into the difficulty settings panel when that is implemented in the next major build but for now it has its own pop-up! Gameplay: The game now autosaves more regularly than before, including before every mission and at the end of every turn in the ground combat. If you're making bug reports, those saves would be very useful to include in the report! Autosaves are now handled on a per-campaign basis rather than overwriting earlier campaigns, hence why naming campaigns is now required. Iron man has been implemented, but has not yet been tested. Use at your own risk! If you press Enter after typing in a save game name, this now actually saves the game (rather than just shutting down the save panel). Melee attacks now display "MISS" if they miss the target. There's now an option in the graphics settings for people who want to limit their framerate to a certain number. Balance - you now have 12 soldiers at the start of a campaign, and the new starting dropship can carry 10 of them. Balance - starting base Living Capacity is now 24. Balance - starting funds on the Geoscape are now reduced to $2.5m, and the monthly funding per region has also been reduced by about 30%. Balance - All weapons now have fire costs based on a % of max TU, rather than flat costs. The flat costs were an error on my part, as they were left over from some semi-related gameplay testing I did (X-Com and Xenonauts 1 both use %TU fire costs). Balance - % TU fire costs are now always rounded down, rather than rounded up. In X1 you sometimes did not want your soldier to gain TU because it would actually cause them to be able to fire fewer shots in some circumstances. Balance - Soldier training is now MUCH slower. Coupled with the change further down the page about stats being capped at +30 above starting values, your soldiers should no longer be superhuman killing machines about three missions in. Balance - Soldiers can now gain strength in combat by spending TU while carrying over 80% of their max carry capacity. Balance - Mind War is now squadsight for the aliens, rather than requiring no LOS. Balance - Mind War success chance is now Psionic Strength vs Bravery, with 0-50 random roll added to both (previously it was 0-100 random) Balance - the Mind Shield item boosts the Bravery (and therefore Psi-Defence) of a soldier by 25 when equipped in their Secondary. Balance - due to one of the bugfixes below, UFO hulls are now much harder to destroy with small arms fire. Bring C4 if you want to easily breach a UFO! Strategy: Dropships now once again fly to and from missions on the Geoscape like any other aircraft. They are precluded from initiating air combat, but they can be shot down by aggressive alien UFOs. The pathing of interceptors has been updated so they still fly correct intercept paths when the game is on maximum time acceleration, rather than overshooting their targets. They also now tail their target correctly rather than flying back and forth over the target. Alien Bases now occasionally spawn Resupply UFOs that fly to their location and land, then later re-appear and fly away. As alien bases start hidden, this is a bit of a giveaway that there is an alien base nearby! Loadouts / Roles are now set on soldiers directly, rather than on dropship slots. This means a soldier will retain their role even when unassigned from the dropship. As in X1, "dead" soldiers now have a post-battle survival chance dependent on how far their HP has dropped below zero, with certain weapons (e.g. Reaper claws) automatically reducing this to 0%. In future having a Medical Center in your base will increase this chance. Soldiers are now limited to gaining +30 in each stat, as I'd like the starting stats of a soldier to remain somewhat relevant throughout their career. Starting stats range from 35-65 so a maxed soldier can have 65-95 in an attribute (before any equipment modifiers are applied). The game seed is now randomised every game, which means everything should be randomised correctly each time you start a new campaign. Strategic Operation soldier assignment list now displays which soldiers are already assigned to that strategic operation. If your interceptors shoot down a UFO that attacks them (e.g. a Fighter UFO), they will no longer automatically return to base afterwards if they were originally trying to intercept a different UFO. Fixed a bug where interceptors were not having their position cleared when returning to base, causing identical interceptors to have different ETAs to the same target on the Launch Aircraft screen. Fixed a bug where interceptors could still miss the UFOs they were trying to intercept if you set the Geoscape to max speed. Fixed a bug where soldier portraits would be generated in sequences, giving you lots of similar-looking soldiers. Ground Combat: The roof hiding method has been reverted to the system used in X1, so there should no longer be annoying moments where you're moving the camera around trying to get the roof of a building to hide. The fog of war / shroud no longer uses a fadeout gradient, making it a more accurate (if uglier) representation of what's actually happening on the battlefield. Camera now uses true orthographic rather than a faux-orthographic perspective camera. We've now fully implemented the corpse item functionality in the ground combat. This operates the same as X-Com and Xenonauts 1, which means: Dead / stunned units spawn an item in their tile that carries the name and appearance of that unit. This item can be picked up and moved by your soldiers, and picking the item up will remove the 3d model on the ground and respawn it when dropped. Whether a stunned soldier is recovered from a mission (or a dead soldier has a survival chance) is dependent on where they finish the mission, and whether you win or not. If you're going to abort, you have to carry a dead / stunned soldier back to the dropship if you want them to potentially survive. Stunned units can be killed by explosions if they are on the ground. We've added new armour-appropriate corpse images for the Psyons and Wraiths. There's a new crosshair cursor in the ground combat designed to obscure the target less than the previous ones did. There's now a weapon icon under each soldier mini-portrait at the top of the screen, which makes identifying soldiers much easier. The game now supports randomisation of weapon fire sounds, and seperate sounds for burst and single shots (previously burst fire just repeatedly played the single shot sound) - this means there's quite a bit more variety in the sound made when a weapon is fired, and this will continue to improve as development continues. Aliens can now be killed before a mission begins if a UFO is shot down, and the power cores of a UFO can also be destroyed (this is just a % chance like it was in X1). We've made some general improvements to the camera tracking of actions. Damage resistance now correctly supports a minimum value below which it can never fall, no matter how much armour destruction is inflicted on it. Previously extremely tough objects like UFO hulls would lose much of their resistance after a few shots, so even weak weapons could easily blow holes in UFOs (this may also make armoured enemies a bit tougher). The Plasma Grenade weapon has now been added to the game. Grenades have seen a number of fixes / updates: Grenades are no longer able to hit directly adjacent cover when they throw a grenade. Grenades and other explosives now have the same 50-150% damage randomisation that other weapons have. Non-explosive grenades (smokes / flashbangs / etc) now detonate correctly if they land beyond their max range when thrown. Units with the crushing ability can actually now smash through crushable objects, and no longer smash up crushable items in adjacent tiles as they move. Although Base Defence missions are not in this build, we've fixed a whole bunch of problems with them: The game no longer hangs when a base defence mission starts. You now get an actual underground base rather than a random map, and in future this map will mirror the layout of the base being attacked. You can freely set your soldiers up anywhere in the deployment zone before the mission begins. The aliens then get the first turn. New sounds in the game for the laser weapons. Done a pass over the animations and inverse kinematics, so the aiming and shoot animations should work better Fixed a bug where units would sometimes get stuck if they stood on the corpse of another unit. Fixed a bug where aliens could become untargetable after loading a save game, but were actually still alive. Fixed a bug where you were unable to fire at building walls directly adjacent to your soldiers. Fixed a bug where the Cruiser UFO did not have functional teleporters. Fixed a bug where the water in the jungle would be pink. Fixed a bug where the 3D models of the ammos loaded into all of the weapons in a mission would appear at the corner of the map. Reduced / fixed the heavy slowdown that could sometimes occur as you scrolled around the map. There's now a visual effect when you heal a unit. When killed, units no longer incorrectly play their injury animation before their death animation is triggered. The Mantids now has much more red skin, so their armour is more obvious (if they have any). Grenades no longer create a bullet impact decal and disappear halfway into the ground when they hit the floor. Androns now have visually integrated weapons rather than having a plasma rifle awkwardly bolted on at their elbow.

I haven't played V7 yet, but from the description and the visuals, a few points. The overall layout seems much improved. It should mostly address the previous dropship's main problem of being very exposed. It might be nice to have a bit of empty space also to allow for more movement initially. The frontmost two soldiers should perhaps be a tile away from the ramp and not directly in front of it. Or consider making the side doors be a 1-tile corridor, so a soldiers steps through one tile on the way out. The sides should in my opinion be either completely solid (like X1 Charlie), or if they have windows like now, then the windows should be breakable (though probably not too easily). Indestructible windows are not immersive, and are inconsistent with the rest of the game. I really don't like the idea of increasing it to 10 soldiers. Let that be an upgrade, the starting dropship being 8 soldiers is more than fine. Increasing it to 10 means a 25% increase in your firepower, which doesn't feel remotely necessary based on V6, and I don't think the game calls for an increased number of enemies to compensate either. 8 soldiers has always felt like a sweet spot for early missions in terms of unit management as well - I remember that some pre-release X1 builds tried 6 and 10, and both of those options definitely felt worse than 8.

Bad. Good. But windows are not solid walls. If they are windows they should be smashable. Maybe make them extra hard military glass ones ? Good. Good. Good. Extra suggestions: Not having at least one empty row to move soldiers around is bad (inside). I think you can make the visual design a lot cooler than that. The placement of the tires and its mechanical design is far removed from realistic military reality. Remember, players will be staring at that model for a looooooooooooooooooooong time.

If it has been released on steam, please advise as to how I can get the new revision, as it is not updating here in Australia!!