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On my first game, with my first base. And the Cleaner's HQ was only revealed to me after going through the missions to get their data like you're supposed to. I can only assume that they've also been wholly unaware that our HQs were right next door to each other all along.

Looking at my day-180 bases, alenium reactors (which I did in fact research) mean I need three reactors instead of four in my main base, and one instead of two in my two satellite bases. That's $600k build costs saved at the cost of $500k + 50 alenium on the upgrade - effectively I'm 'selling' 50 alenium for $100k. Given that minimum sales price is $4k per unit, that's a pretty bad deal - I'd get twice the return for just selling the alenium even at the minimum price, and more if I hadn't sold much before that. Saving a few slots is... not really that big a deal. I haven't even filled my primary base completely yet, although I'm very close. Satellite bases literally have half their space still open, so I can just keep throwing down hangars there. Phantoms have the range to provide support to the main base from the satellites if necessary, and worst case I have to let one or two UFOs survive for once. So overall, I'm going to have to go with @bonerstorm on this one. It's borderline - I'd only need a few more generators before the cost-benefit equation flips - but as things stand right now it would have been more efficient for me to just build extra basic generators than to upgrade. A side benefit there is that I don't need to spend workshop time on the upgrade, so the engineers can keep working on aircraft or gear instead.

I never found a good use of the grenade launcher in X2, considering that I already had the satchel charges for breaching entry and the MARs to smash past walls as a cheaper alternative. I used it to reveal enemies from buildings and break obstacles, but the inaccuracy fails in that area. As a direct fire weapon it deals considerably worse damage than grenades, and its range is terrible, leaving its utility questionable. I would like to know if anyone else finds the grenadier role effective in their game. Also, its the only weapon that does not scale with the soldier's Turn units(stays at 24/34 TU)? Is that a feature or a bug? I played GOG v1.19 for reference The rocket launcher in Xenonauts 1 served as a long-range can opener, able to deal explosive destruction from afar with the drawbacks of a single shot. I wonder why its replaced by this?

Regular crashed UFO site. Some civilian with a rifle was super gung ho and actually managed to live and inflict a ton of damage on a couple aliens within a couple turns. But then he ran right into the crashed UFO, knowing there were 3 aliens in it. He died right away. Anyhow, maybe they should try and preserve their life more... and their time units. They usually just run around, back and forth. Priority should be to take cover and camp. And the civilians that are unarmed should take cover near the Xenonauts transport vehicle and ideally pick up a weapon on the way if they can find one (but that sounds like a bit of coding that could be "unnecessary").

So, just completed Build 1 and I liked it a lot! Obviously still has work to do but in great shape. So I'm going to be posting some ideas. All are free to use, I don't want any rights or credits, etc. etc. Anyway, I love research from capturing aliens. It was so fun in XCOM, it was fun in the Firaxis games, it's just fun! It's a little bit of flavor. Obviously there's the advanced medkits and regen module, and the mentarch, but here's some more ideas. Mantid - Compound Eye Module Engineering project, tactical module grants 180 (or 120 or 270) degree vision. Cool, flavorful, fun. Not sure it's great, but hey that's where this should be. Secton - Squadsight Module Allows anyone with a Tactical Module to fire at anyone in LOS of another person with a tactical module without penalty. Could be hard to code, just my idea based off their ability. Alternatively, +3 accuracy if within 5 spaces of another person with a Secton upgraded module. Psion - Mesmer Grenades Small radius, cause non-robotics to stand up, lose all time units, and walk a few squares in a random direction. Reaper - Reaper Claws Absolutely deadly close range weapon. Like really super high damage. Bonus if it uses the idea at the end Servitor (requires EMP to allow capture) - Heal Beam Secondary weapon, lets vehicles carry a 3 range medkit that can heal other vehicles too. Cyberdrone - Cyberdisk Vehicle Floating/hovering version of the Mars rover. Bonus idea - Rather than unlocking everything for manufacturing, manufacturing the upgraded modules requires captured aliens. So more Stalker or Healing modules requires more captured Stalkers/Sebillians, Reaper Claws need Reapers, etc. Gives a good minigame for capturing, and makes capture stuff more enticing to bring. Anyway, great game. Want ot post more thoughts after I have more time to digest.

I've already got to day 180 on Veteran and have started a new campaign, on commander, and have reached day 87, I am really struggling for cash, which in itself is good, as it really forces me to choose what I want to spend money on. Difficult choices make for good games! I think the balance is about right in tactical - commander definitely feels like a big step up from Veteran. Overall tactical missions are tough, and require focus. Any mistake can easily lead to a death (or multiple deaths), and deaths are expensive in lost skills and equipment. The 2 cleaner missions are very tough, but make a nice change of pace from the normal downed UFO missions, so I'm happy with their difficulty. On both of them I succeeded in assassinating the VIP, but lost half my squad doing so, including MARS, which I haven't rebuilt. Next time I'll probably skip Mars altogether. $250k to (re)build is a lot. Maybe this needs to be brought down a bit? $150k maybe, and $75k to replace if you save the wreck? Smoke maybe a little too effective at stun damage, but that could just be because the AI does not seem to account for it, and will run through it and then stay in the smoke rather than moving out or around it. I'm not even sure its considering it when shooting. Whilst I'm on it, the AI isn't good at exploiting cover, and if it has a target will just run forwards, leaving itself in the open. Sometimes the AI soldiers don't seem to move at all, which seems odd. Even if they are in 'guard' mode I'd expect them to wander a little bit, especially if they've been shot at. Grenadiers feel underpowered. First couple of missions (before the Mars) they felt like a reasonable substitute, but I think I'll be better off just carrying grenades and no launcher. Maybe a pistol and/or baton too. This run I skipped Mag Weapons, and went straight to lasers. Cash is so tight, next time I'll go accelerated weapons... they are just as good at half the price. My only hesitation is how much money do I 'waste' on accelerated weapons when I switch to advanced. Probably worth having one set of accelerated, then if they are lost, replacing with lasers. I do have Heavy Lasers on my interceptors, and that has made a big difference in their ability to take down UFOs. The two Angels or one Phantom can take out a medium. I suspect Accelerated Cannons don't have enough ammo to do the job, and would therefore research Lasers just to get to Heavy Lasers. Other than keeping a viable assault team, top of the list for my money is more interceptors, and radar/bases to put them in. I'm going to need at least 12 Phantoms, and to build enough bases/radar to give me coverage of at least 5 sectors, and realistically I'd want all 6. That's going to suck up all my cash, probably right up to day 180. With that in mind, I'm thinking my upgrades are going to be very limited and very focussed. Right now, I'm thinking Advanced Lasers, maybe Alenium Grenades. Gauss weapons when I've got the tech. I can't image much else getting prioritised before I hit the 180 day 'end'. From the tech there is quite a lot that isn't really needed and could be skipped. Not because the tech isn't interesting or useful but, by and large, its allowing me to upgrade things I don't have the money to upgrade. Its actually making me think once I've got Phantoms, Heavy lasers, Warden Armour and all the cash tech, the most important research may be the interrogation to get the additional damage and training without having to spend money elsewhere, or maybe just let the scientists make money. Plasma Weapons Alenium Explosives and Gauss Weapons will be 'must have' when I can research them. I went to 3 fully occupied labs in the 2nd month, and I'm thinking that was a mistake, and maybe I can get through with 2.

Devs said it is in a very rough state at the moment (V1.28) and they will overhaul/balance it in a future patch.

The Germans have both weapons the same name but they look different. In English a weapon is called Accelerated Rifel(Cleaner) This is missing in the German version.

Clandestine Icelandic military operations in a nutshell.

Well, you don't need to teach your father how to fuck: I know very well how to play Xenonauts. What I mean is that they are the MOST accurate enemy in the game along with wraiths; and contrary to them, Cleaners are the enemy type you fight against almost instantly when the game starts. And that's just not in any way an optimal way to introduce your game to new players. And for the more experienced players, you also need to take into account the difficulty modifier (veteran +120%) which again, make them incredibly accurate enemies to fight against on the second mission of the game. IMO

I think it would be great, if the grenade launcher had an arch for indirect fire support for explosive rounds (also timed rounds with explosion in the next turn would be cool) and direct fire for flechette rounds. Also the game could have an RPG/RL (like in X1 and in the UFO/XCOM series) with direct fire and multiple types of rockets (basic HE with kinetic, incendiary and advanced with thermal damage)

IRL nobody would point the thing so that it goes off to 3KM away instead of hitting the stall. It's still the most useless weapon in the game aside from the obvious meme stuff like knifes. I'm amazed that it survived until now with no changes. I hope the design team isn't happy with how it works.

This is a video game, not IRL. Give the thing an arc. I find myself not using the thing at all and just having a high strength guy filled up with grenades. I get much more use out of that trooper over a grenade launcher.

If the launcher actually arcs I would have said "Oh yeah, this actually doesn't suck", a utility gun that needs the finesse of being able to hit things while behind cover would be nice. Then again, grenades do their jobs equally well, I only see the static 24/34 TU as a benefit to the launcher(if the newest updates didn't change it), and I still am an advocate to return the X1's rocket launcher, at least it serves a purpose of clearing obstacles safely from distance.

The big thing that jumps out at me there is the 48 aim on that soldier - that's middle-to-low for a brand-now rookie. Part of your problem is that that guy's just not a very good shot.

@kingsword Real-life infantry tactics in the present day are almost entirely cover-based don't-get-hit combat, and the available evidence suggests we're going to move further in that direction rather than away. In the constant weapons-vs-armour arms race, weapons are winning right now - and the proposals for improved weapons are currently more promising than the proposals for improved armour. We know what lasers and railguns look like, and there are working prototypes out there (at a bigger-than-man-portable scale, but still). Armour that's better than kevlar and ceramic inserts is still mostly at the handwave stage. The 'realistic' version of near-future infantry combat is 'if you take a solid hit it's probably gonna mess you up pretty bad, and the job of your armour is mostly to help you survive to evac rather than actually keep you in the fight'. The one case where shields do get used is the SWAT teams you mentioned, and they're used in one specific niche - short, explosive close-quarters breaches. That's more the equivalent of having your shield soldier chill in the backline till you're actually breaching the UFO, not having them take point the entire way. Even then, it basically seems to be a police thing rather than a military thing - I suspect that it's at least partly about minimising collateral damage in a civilian environment. For a military storming a hostile UFO, the breach protocol would be less 'shields first' and more 'grenades first, point man needs a real gun in case anything's still moving'. As for realism in the damage model, we have numerical HP without a red-fog mechanic, powerful and very fast on-the-field healing, and complete recovery from major wounds in a matter of weeks. We're so far into gameplay-over-realism with this stuff that nit-picking details just seems like cherry-picking - the fact that the soldiers have a boolean instant-failure-at-zero-hp is massively more unrealistic than the fact that shields do. It's actually somewhat plausible to have a shield block 100% of the damage from a shot but get mangled in the process. Finally, the devs' have been fairly clear about their reasoning for the change. At the risk of putting words in other people's mouths: the majority of players didn't like the new shields, and many didn't understand them either. It seemed clear that the new shields were overall decreasing the enjoyment of the playerbase, so they made the choice that would make the game feel better for the largest number of players.

Even at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I have to once again criticize tactical maps we currently have in X2. Many of them still feel like shooting galleries instead of real places. Maps need more: Verticality Visual story telling. Have the map itself say something about what has happened. Does this place feel like a real place or a map in a game? Larger, more interesting buildings with many floors. More urban maps. (tends to be more interesting than a random jungle) Variable pacing: large open areas -> tight close quarters. Better "paths" through an area with sense of progress. Need of surveying the area -> Seeing an alien in a third floor window - how can I get there? Completely different map layout styles within a single biome so they wouldn't feel so samey. Having more complex maps will really benefit the game by giving players more interesting scenarios to play through. I checked the old X1 maps I made back in the day. You can maybe see and feel the vibe in these screenshots I'm looking for:

I just confirmed that the original structures come up whit a can not be demolished message. I can only think this is due to the (spoiler alert) - Base attack mission. Hopefully @Chris will read this and let us redesign the initial base to be more defensible (if we want to spend all that cash)

It's not even a grenade launcher, its a lousy rocket launcher disguised as a grenade launcher. What kind of grenade launcher doesn't arc?

Wow, thanks for being so detailed. "..the hit-chances seem all fine to me considering the covers and the situation.." Really all of them? I mean Wraiths and furniture objetcs in the way, okay. But this: 65%, two steps away with nothing in between, and then missing a lot (over a couple of reloads) was what made me to experiment here with soldier stacking. Your remarks: demolition charges - I don't use them at the moment. Just a choice of playstyle. pistols - had them for a time but they didn't do it for me. I had Snipers with pistols to go in the UFO, but it wasn't worth it. Wraiths - my first encounter in X2 here. Did read about the shield thing in the autopsy. I did not want to use grenades due to damge to loot. entry stack - like I said, I don't do that normally, it was a test because of the missing shots. MARS - ok I did not know that it can break the UFO doors too by driving through it. Tazers - I have build them recently and used them the first time in this mission. And yes I have seen that they don't work properly and have too small range. Batons are on their way. Your suggestions: I have not yet tried to uncloak with frag grenades, due to this being my first encounter. Will glady use that. Yes I always position my soldiers properly before opening the doors. (Not like i did here in the entry room, though. But fate (RNG) was against me that whole day I guess, so I went to extremes.) I refrained form selling stock right now, as I don't know if future research projects reveal to us something of it, like Sebillian corpse for "insert future gadget here" Again thanks for tackling this. I will try to change my approach here and see what will wortk better. Thus said, I am still not convinced that displayed hit chances and actually hit/miss is directly related. Their seems to be some other hidden factor here, but I am no one for meta-gaming.

If you keep saying things that are demonstrably wrong then no one’s going to listen to your suggestions about what to change.

From what I can see there is no kill tally on the mission debriefing. I miss that.

Add tutorial or graphic on soldier equip Screen prior to launch explaining where Soldier in slot 1, etc. will be positioned in the dropship. I did not even know you could change order until I went to this forum. A pop-up Dialog Box on the first UFO mission prior to launch would be an easy addition to add to the game. ======================== Another thing. Some research is marked as plot. I assume this means that researching this accelerates you to the next stop of the game. So if I don't want to progress so fast does that mean I should hold off on researching that? (Just a point of confusion I noticed)

I'll have to agree that the tread has served its purpose. The requested change has been made and the recent series of posts here is anything but constructive, so a lock it is.

Please lock this thread @Chris

Amen. I'm so sick and tired of the constant whining about european politics, that Ukraine and Russia can nuke themselves into oblivion for all i care.

all soldiers have the same body model (male) in the soldier screen. It becomes very apparent after researching the stalker armor. Female soldiers with male body look weird.. Also, legs of the soldiers up to stalker seem short (they seem to be in a "semi crouched" position)

I think others have said this before, but I want to repeat that the knife really needs a weight decrease I think. While I find the idea hilarious to bayonet-charge at advanced aliens really hilarious, the weight-cost is far too high considering it goes in the secondary slot instead of a medi-kit or a pistol. Personally I don't mind going to the storage menu and sell things when I need the cash, in some primitive caveman way it is satisfying to me to actually hit buttons and the "you sell alien kidneys to shady dudes for cash and can afford stuff! again"-counter goes up with each click, it kinda makes loot feel more "real" to me beyond the pure cash increase. To be fair, I am trying to think of a reason get they money right away but I can't think of one, maybe they are considering making loot into crafting materials, e.g. spend engineering time to bypass the DNA lock of an alien rifle, grind up Reptilians into health-goo-injection-kits or something? That being said I am not sure I would like loot-based crafting, because the alien types you fight are random and if you are unlucky you will not get the corpses you need. But yeah kinda odd at the moment that there isn't even any indication if you can sell something safely or not.

OK, hit day 180 myself now, so some thoughts (playing on Veteran difficulty): Accelerated weapons research is in a better spot than the forum gives it credit for. I rushed one accelerated rifle for the first cleaner mission (delayed starting it slightly for the project to complete), then built two more for subsequent missions. Never felt the need to build any of the other accelerated weapons - three accelerated rifles and a bunch of ballistics carried me through to ~day 100, at which point I started upgrading to improved lasers and then gauss. Key here was hitting the 40-damage breakpoint to oneshot cleaners with an average damage roll. Panic is controllable using the old Xenonauts 1 strategy: get extra hangar/radar bases and planes to fill them ASAP, and then everything else is just about keeping pace. I researched Phantoms early-ish (did two or three other techs first, so not a hard rush), but didn't particularly push any other air techs. Skipped the upgraded dropship completely as a test, and didn't really feel the loss. Finished the current content with all regions below 30 panic and two on single digits. The triple-interceptor wing that has been discussed may have been a problem if I'd faced one before getting gauss blasters (it was fine with them), but everything else was a comfortable fight on alenium rockets and accelerated cannons. I don't understand why mission loot doesn't auto-sell the way it did in X1. Is there any situation where it ever makes sense to keep corpses etc in storage? If not, why is the player being forced to go through dozens of extra clicks every mission on a false choice? I want a 'light airframe' upgrade/module for Angels in the mid/late game. I still want one in most of my intercept squadrons as an armour-breaker (it can bring three torps vs the Phantom's two), but it drags down the speed and range of the Phantoms. I'd be happy with literally reducing it to zero armour and 1hp if I could bring it up to the speed/range of the Phantoms in exchange - all it's doing is volleying the torpedoes and GTFOing anyway.

Same here user_hm-17.json

I would request the Admins lock this thread, so we can discuss the game - political views have other forums to be voiced in.

I'm not a person who often talks polticics and I'm pretty neutral on many subjects, but this is not about money or about paying for anyone's defence. It's about standing beside the weaker and against the bully. It's about a world order where being bigger, wealthier and stronger is no reason to invade a smaller, poorer and weaker. It's about the priviledged always supporting the disadvantaged in every area of life - no matter how big or small the cause. I personally do it, and IMO everybody should. Turning your back when you see something bad happening is not the way to make this planet a better place. If I was homeless, hungry or poor, I would hope people gave me shelter, food or money If I was bullied in school, I would hope teachers or older students stood against the bullies. And if my country was attacked by a criminal terrorist country, I sure as hell would hope all friendy, civilized nations around the world rushed to help.

That system was useless, since you always took damage with your shield users. I don't understand the positives at all tbh, I just don't see. Not then, and not now.

flechette rounds for the grenade launcher would be nice as well, to have another usage option for the grenadier - CQC combat (single shot, a little more effective than shotgun, with range of 16 tiles)

I was defending my base, and I stopped to get in a little extra target practice at the training facility when I noticed something about the firing range...

This is an update for the default Steam / GOG / Epic branches that contains all the fixes from versions 1.26 to 1.28 which have been tested on the Experimental build. The combined changelogs are shown below: Gameplay: Using shot preview move (Ctrl+Shift) no longer causes significant performance problems. Various smaller performance updates to both strategy and tactical layer (although these are unlikely to be noticable in an Experimental build due to the extra logging reducing overall performance) Added a "mission briefing" button to the Geoscape info panel for a tactical mission, which shows you the mission briefing on the strategy layer. Cleaner SMGs and Cleaner Accelerated Rifles are now recoverable and usable (by popular demand). The intro cinematic and the game mechanic popups are now enabled at the start of each campaign, regardless of whether the tutorial is enabled or not. Xenonaut Sentry Guns can now open doors, but are unable to crush objects. Reduced the spawn rate of Cleaner anomalies at the start of the game. Tooltips have been added for the various stat columns on the Soldier Recruitment panel. Snowmobiles should now explode when destroyed. Stalker Stealth Armour now displays as Gas Immune in Xenopedia. When hovering the cursor over the base icons in the top right, the base name is now displayed instantly rather than after a short delay. When hovering the cursor over a soldier in the vertical list on the dropship soldier arrangement screen, the popup showing their face / equipment is now show instantly rather than after a short delay. Key Fixes: Fixed a bug where the day 180 "Content Complete" popup was not being shown, and the game loss conditions were not triggering if you lost enough regions. Fixed a crash that could occur if you tried to begin a crash site mission when there was a wreckage site also present on the Geoscape. Fixed a bug that could cause multiple popups to spawn when intercepting UFOs or sending a dropship to a tactical mission. In both cases this could cause crashes. Fixed a crash that could sometimes occur during the alien turn if the aliens were using hovering units like Servitors. Fixed two rare crashes that could occur in the Soldier Equip pool due to corrupted Kickstarter backer soldiers. Fixed a rare crash that could occur if you built over 50 planes. General Fixes: It's no longer possible to find undiscovered Cleaner Cells / Bases / etc by clicking on a UFO or mission that has spawned near to where they are hidden. Fixed grenades / aircraft missiles not properly upgrading if you skip the Alenium project and go straight for Fusion. Aircraft will now start to immediately repair Armour after being upgraded. Fixed the tactical soldier inventory incorrectly charging TU for you to pick an item up and then put it back in the same spot. Fixed the tactical soldier inventory incorrectly forgetting to charge TU if you moved the same item multiple times. TU costs for abilities are now rounded up rather than down. This fixed some odd situations where it was occasionally better to have fewer TU. It should no longer be possible to use a jetpack to fly between rooms in the Alien Base, or to jetpack through the roof of the Dragonfly dropship. Fixed an issue where it was not possible to redirect a dropship in flight to a landed UFO site. MARS vehicles now correctly display their names in the tactical combat. Disabled the day 300 Orbital Bombardment research report (which wasn't supposed to be in the game). Psyon VIP on Cleaner Cell missions no longer reports recovering both a Stunned Psyon and a Cleaner VIP if captured alive. Stalker Stealth Armour no longer shows the hair of soldiers floating inside their helmet. Dead Cyberdrones should no longer appear to be alive again after loading a save. Fixed some terrain objects in the Xenonaut base showing a bright pink error texture when destroyed. Fixed the Boreal sawmill building roofs so they correctly disappear if destroyed. Fixed typos in the strategy tutorial, Frag Grenade tooltip, and Ballistic Weapons and Fighter Datacore research text. Fixed the Engineering recruit panel having tooltips referring to scientists instead of engineers. Fixed a text overflow issue in the soldier memorial screen. Cleaner ballistic rifles no longer have an additional 5-round burst. Bomber UFO no longer incorrectly referred to as "medum-size" in Xenopedia. HEVY now displays its damage type as Thermal on tooltips. Tactical Inventory no longer incorrectly refers to the Tactical Vest as the Belt. Rush replace on aircraft now correctly costs the listed amount of money. Fixed an issue where you could drag any type of ammo onto any weapon on the Soldier Equip screen and it would accept it. MARS now correctly displays its name in the tactical combat. Fixed some Xenopedia / tooltip typos.

I suppose I got severely out-classed in this battle of knowledge. Well then, is it too much to ask to put a bit more science in the text? Most of us don't have biology degrees and therefor should arrive at a similar conclusion as I did. Thanks for setting me straight.

In todays economy, a UFO trashing your field is a death sentence for a farmer. No insurance will cover that and by next season, the bank will take his land and everything that's on it. He had nothing to lose. Only revenge to take.

here you go quick-38.json

Now that I've played the milestone 1 through, I have a better view of the maps we have at the moment and here's what I think: DESERT: Not my favorite at the moment Too samey maps with too many construction yards Needs more open wilderness maps with just sand, rocks, shrubbery and cliffs for elevation changes. More shack village and trailer park style maps ARID: I like these maps quite a lot visually. Nice theme Submaps need more variation with some higher buildings and other elevation changes Needs some elements to restrict movement but not visibility like chain link fences POLAR: I like the vibe of these. The Thing movie styled science bases are nice, but again, not every maps needs to be like that. Many polar maps could maybe be more sparse with longer LOS to differentiate them more More wilderness maps with no or very few buildings. More trees, lakes and cliffs. DOCKS: I like these maps too. One of the better looking biomes. Too many containers. Needs some other elements to break LOS. More water and for example narrow bridges to split maps and make it more difficult to close up on enemies. Two story buildings Both cleaner cell missions are too samey with identical main buildings. JUNGLE: Nice to look but needs something more to spice it up. Maybe make them more dense with even more trees and tight cliff crevices with shorter LOS Too many ancient ruins. Might also have some shack villages or similar More elevation changes with 2 or 3 story cliffs. Water areas looks bad. It should be more lush around water: more shrubbery, grass and rocks to make ponds more grounded. BOREAL: Nice theme and visually pleasing biome. Lots of large but empty feeling buildings with only outer walls. Needs more smaller rooms and props inside. Also more shacks and other smal buildings. Some areas suffer a lot from asset overuse. Like, I understand it's an area to store piles of logs, but does there need to be 9 of those similar piles side by side? Could a few of them be a small storage shack maybe instead?...or, nice there's a cool looking fork lift. Does there need to be 3 of them side by side? Could you switch one of them to like oil barrel and pile of boxes? Train rails? Very nice, but do we need 10 rails side by side? You get the point. FARM: My least favorite biome. Boring, formulaic maps with long straight roads and hedges, empty fields. Large concrete tiled areas with concrete walls look ugly and boring. Desperately needs more interesting and multi story buildings, trees etc. Needs more variation to block FOV other than hedges and concrete walls, like trees, tall wooden fences, small buildings, shacks etc. Too much same props side by side here too. WESTERN TOWN: Cleaner intel mission map is my favorite map in the whole game: It's excellent and feels like a real office building. Tight close quarters battles, multiple optional paths and lots of cool visual detail. I wish I got the same feeling from more maps. The few terror maps we have atm are also pretty good, but they need more higher buildings, tighter side alleys and more complex interiors with smaller rooms and corridors. Terror maps could be made more "terrory" by adding more chaos. More aliens, more civilians, more local forces. Aliens wrecking places, burning houses and cars etc. Also ambiance sounds like people screaming, explosions, warning sirens etc. More indentifiable places like gas station, restaurant and grocery store. With some imagination, you can probably do a lot with existing assets already. Some apartments, bars and and maybe an arcade or barber shop. Many buildings feel too much like a general approximation or a movie set. Restaurants don't have toilets, Gas station doesn't have a storage room or any back areas for staff etc. Everything feels too empty and sterile. GENERAL: Most maps feel too flat. More verticality is my number 1 thing that needs improvement. Having more movement blocking areas like water or chain link fences, higher ground areas and two or three story buildings are super important, as it forces the player to think more how to deal with the threat more than just run next to a target with a high TU unit and shotgunning them away. This route planning gameplay is something X2 is currently missing a bit. If I see an alien sniper in a third floor window, I need to infiltrate the building, find stairs and fight my way to the upper floors to kill the sniper or try to shoot it from afar. This kind of map design also gives more reason for jetpack which is currently pretty useless on flat maps we have. Maps lack light sources like street lamps to illuminate night missions. Many maps suffer from asset overuse where same prop is used multiple times inside a small area. Many maps could use a bit of ambiance effects. (rain in jungle, dust clouds in desert, snowing in polar, seagulls in docks) As the UFO's grow larger, maps could be made smaller. Largest ufo's could be almost the whole map and you wouldn't need to make so many maps for them. Many buildings are too simple with just outer walls. More complex buildings with tight spaces, corridors with lots of doors and small rooms with good ambush locations. I'll put this in general too: many buildings feel too much like a general approximation or a movie set. Restaurants don't have toilets, Gas station doesn't have a storage room or any back areas for staff etc. Everything feels too empty and sterile. Many things look and feel they are just randomly thrown there for player to have something to crouch behind.

The whole research simplification is bad. Can only hire scientists within your current research limit. Can only have 1 research project going on with all your scientists in it. Can't pause a project to resume it later, all progress is lost if you decide another research is the priority at the moment.

We actually had such a talk with Goldhawk (thank you @Chris for giving the opportunity!) this spring, but I soon realised that it requires so much time and effort that I simply couldn't manage it in my current life/work/family situation any more. :/

@Skitso Given the images of the maps you showed in the OP, I think Goldhawk should employ you as THE map designer. You obviously know what you're doing and it would take a big dev headache off their plate!!

One of my favorite moments so far playing X2, was when a farmer with a shotgun charged into a downed alien ship (a Destroyer or Cruiser I think) and managed to blow his way through the defenders and reach the command room before getting gunned down. Absolute Mad-Lad and I hope I can still see things like that in the future hahahaha! Never posted on the forum before but much love and support to you and the team for sticking through with the development of this!