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For what it is worth, I enjoy the real time of the mini game. I'd even be happy with real time in ground combat - that is how I used to play Apocalypse. And you're right about the vocal subsets of the community who hate on seemingly any option for air combat. You can't please everyone. My reasoning is that you please the most people when the style of air combat fits in with the rest of the game. In my [inevitably biased] opinion, the best fit is something that tests similar skills to the rest of the game. So, for instance, putting in a first person perspective flight simulator would be jarring (not that I'd mind). However, I can see your point: converse to my reasoning, there is a rationale for making the mini game something that tests an entirely different skill set so as to break up the pace of the regular game. But I feel fairly confident that my logic stands, you don't want to break up the monotony with something too incongruous. On balance, I guess I just sympathise with the vocal minority who don't like to test their reactions by spamming the pause button. I hadn't thought of the thematic relationship in this way. Sure, mapping the flurry of aerial combat onto a more chill turn-based system does have a thematic mismatch. But I think the priority of good gameplay trumps all. Look Firaxis XCOM, that had a good thematic fit for the air game, remember that? Felt exactly like you were a commander in the base watching the interception on a scanner. Great thematic immersion, but it was dreadful gameplay. Overall, I think I just don't buy into your argument that the mini game has to be 'fast, short and easy to autoresolve'. Sure, even @Chris has said that the air combat shouldn't detract from ground combat. Still, I'm not sold on that (well, logically I'm not sold; financially, I have already bought the game). Air combat only needs to have an autoresolve if the mini game is not interesting enough justify making the player go through each and every battle. My reaction there is to make it less tedious or occur less frequently. X1 had the issue that you were swamped by air combat. Lots of instances of the mini game. That undermines it being a short and fast distraction from 'monotony'. As OP says, air combat in this genre of games has been a mess. XCOM2 was smart/timid enough to sidestep it entirely. Looking beyond issues of mechanics and design, I can think of three points that that part of the game addresses (apart from adding diversity): To spawn ground combat missions To test your R&D To force you to expand (maybe: to demonstrate the invasion and its increasing intensity??) The first and second points don't require air combat. There are other ways to spawn missions and the gear you can give your troopers is test enough of your R&D. XCOM2 had its own mechanic for territory expansion which is why it could make its sidestep. Indeed, for Xenonauts, it really is that third point that matters most. The bulk of the challenge of the air war is getting your interceptors there in the first place (and to a lesser extent, making sure they're well armed). As such, most of the air war is determined before the air battles even begin. So where does that leave the air combat mini game? Well, I think the design should be tailored so that air combat is better at addressing the first two points. So, the decisions you can choose in air combat are a reflection of your R&D pathway, and the goal you're working towards is the type of ground combat mission you want to spawn. With that in mind, your suggestions about diverse equipment for interceptors and locational damage for UFOs are solid. Real time or turn based; I couldn't care less. Thematic matching; meh, would be nice but is not essential. But I reckon the core of air combat should be on an ability basis, and that for me the real immersion breaker is that your fleet of a dozen condors can rule the skies.

I think it would be a good idea if whenever a transport is deployed to a mission there is a opportunity to review the squad before it is despatched, either automatically or with a pop up (similar to what happens in the new XCOM games). Ideally this would enable a player to quickly check the squad that has been selected and adjust the soldiers selected, their loadouts, position in the dropship etc. I think this would be very helpful in making sure that a mission is not launched with an incomplete or wrongly equipped squad epically in ironman games where the player can simply reload a saved game if they discover they have sent someone on a mission without the latest weapons available( or any weapons) by mistake.

I used to think that too when I first saw the kickstarter campaign. Then during the first few versions of the new air game, the implementation was not only slow, boring but to me somehow is even simpler than the real time air game of X1. Rather than the actual finessed controls with actual maneuvers like the ground combat, the thing is lane-based which only see planes chasing UFOs by the tail with extremely simplistic graphics that even the X1 air game can go well beyond with the X-Division mod. My point is that an actual working turn-based air game is entirely possible, but to just make it half way is not. It would have to be as complex as the tabletop X-Wing or Aeronautica Imperialis to be compelling, something that would not only take center stage over the main game of tactical ground combat but something Goldhawk doesn't have the enough resource and time to do. The reality of implementation has already disproven this point. The first implementation of lane turn-based air game is worse than X1 minigame in every single conceivable way, what makes anyone think that it will be better when the start was such a trainwreck is beyond me. On the comparison the Firaxis, I have to dissagree. The air game is actually slower and less exciting than the turn based system of X2, it's a glorified version of Mechanicus room choices or FTL dialogue decision making. The alien UFO doesn't fight back more than just continue flying in the same direction while you can't even control the movement of your interceptors. You just spam the same pattern of buttons again and again. This point I agree with wholeheartedly. Diversifying the equipment of the aircraft is key. This have to include much more movement, defensive and evasion options than just more weapons with more damage than the first game. As I suggested in the last few threads on this subject should follow the same variety of equipment as games like FTL that can be put on any aircraft to reconfigure them as needed. Different or more advance aircraft frames should have different number of euquiment slots so that you could see a progression of R&D of the Xenonauts as the war go on. The first aircrafts could be in two variety silimar to the condor and the MiG: Both having 5 equipment slots for the engine, weapons, armor, cockpit (condor having more weapon slots while the MiG having two engine slots). Later planes should have a total of 10 slots with more advanced weapons and exoteric equipment like teleporter, laser point defense, energy shields, cryoshell cockpit, EMP bursts, cloaking, boosters,...

Sorry for the slow reply. Are there major gamebreaking bugs (rather than missing content) that still need to be fixed in V13.2? I must admit I've been knee-deep in the new map stuff so I've not really been paying too much attention. I'm not entirely sure when the next major build is coming yet, as the maps are undergoing major surgery at the moment and we've made some big changes that should make the game much better but are gonna take a bit of time to work through the system. Realistically I guess about 4 weeks from now we should hopefully have enough assets and maps to put out a new release with the new UFOs and visuals?

Yeah, so the plan is to add in tier 1 stun weapons which are the stun baton, the stun gas grenade and probably a relatively weak taser pistol, and then later on in the game you get the Electroshock (or just Shock) weapons which would be a grenade, a pistol and a rifle that all do stun / EMP damage. The reason why I want to add pistols is because the new secondary slot makes them quite a handy thing to carry alongside a "proper" gun.