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Isn't that what we've got airstrikes for? The downsides of using artillery and using airstrikes is that explosives also destroy the alien gear with the aliens. Gear that you need unharmed, either so you can sell or study it. Also, why would you use artillery in the same area as your soldiers? Fights tend to happen in a small radius around the UFO, a radius that both the aliens and your men will be in. I'm fine with fire support coming from MGs, tanks, and rocket launchers. I think infantry rocket launchers are a lot more effective then artillery would be, because they're more manueverable/selective, less destructive to alien technology, and a lot faster to call in despite their low ammo capacity. I guess you could bombard the area around the UFO before sending your men in, but why wouldn't the aliens just hide in their UFO? Also there's the matter of property destruction and civilian casualties.

It'd also take a few turns for the artillery to come in, turns that the aliens could use to either move away or shoot at you, when you could just fire a rocket at them from a tank or handheld launcher. Ammo capacity is a problem, but artillery in XCOM seems like it'd be too slow to come in during a very fast-paced firefight, run the risk of friendly fire, and destroy alien tech.

Well what is a 2 game supposed to be? It is supposed to be similar to the first game. So of course Xenonauts 2 should be very similar to Xenonauts 1. It should have been a continuation of the story in Xenonauts 1 with new features and gameplay arising naturally from that continuation of the story. Instead the original plan for Xenonauts 2 looked like a really bad version of Xcom: EU. But people got behind Xenonauts 1 in the first place because it wasn't like Xcom: EU. So really the problem was that Xenonauts 2 wasn't originally a continuation of Xenonauts 1! From what I saw of the original changes it was Xcom: EU with worse graphics and worse gameplay. When they made Xcom: EU they decided to heavily focus on making the game a turn based squad game and so creating things like an action cam, soldier abilities, awesome graphics, etc. Xenonauts 2 however would have none of that. It would only have the superficial changes everyone hated about Xcom: EU. Specifically the change to a single base being constructed anthill style and air combat that boiled down to RNG. A good upgrade from Xenonauts that would make satellite bases useful is to allow satellite bases to hold troop units that be used to auto resolve ground combat and create heavier restrictions on the ability of Xenonaut crews to run back to back missions. This would require the player to maintain multiple units ideally in multiple locations to combat the multiple downed aircraft. And since most of the battles will be resolved via an automated system the player won't get bored and tired of resolving the multiple downed UFOs. Nor will they feel they are missing out if they auto resolve the UFOs and therefore feel like they have to play through every single one. This was a huge fault in Xenonauts 1.

Artillery is a way to avoid having to go in and fight close-quarters combat. In real life, that's great, because when you're the soldier, you don't want to risk your life unnecessarily. It's not great for a game where the whole point is to fight close-quarters combat.

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. You clearly haven't played PP. The enemy AI can run and hide from my Scarab (the starting vehicle you get that's equipped with a long-range indirect-fire weapon) but it's so easy to crack a building with it. In fact, PP is another example of just how unfair artillery is, and that's artillery that's on the map instead of off it.

You're saying this as if an improved Xenonauts is a bad thing and it has to be something completely different.

Personally, I've pretty much given up with this game now. It really is X1 in 3D. Lots of good suggestions along the way have been ignored or batted away by the devs. Such a shame, because it could have been a fab game. I wouldn't contribute to another kickstarter project based on this experience.