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Sounds like a good idea to me. Maybe make it an option to replenish ammo and other consumables in the drop ship? Perhaps controlled by an option. I would say that it possibly would encourage players to take a lot longer over missions without a timer (constantly going back & forth to replenish) which some may be happy with and others consider abusive. IRL I think the drop ship ought to be able to carry a lot of spares so it feels more realistic to me.

I love UFO games from the "original" UFO. Xenonauts was the 1st sequel that gave back most of the same experience that I got from that old game 20 years ago - and with improvements! Now I am thinking about a limitation that wasn't in the original UFO - keeping and using the alien equipment. On one hand, in the scenario I can still pick up, and use alien equipment. But when the mission is over, the equipment is "taken away" from the soldier, the only thing I can do with it is to sell it for scraps. SERIOUSLY???!??? Please decide between: - Alien weapons and equipment is just not for humans. There is no trigger, you need psi to activate it, too heavy to even lift... whatever, but then I should not be able to use it in the scenario. I would not be happy, but would understood. - Alien weapons and equipment can be used by humans - but maybe less effective. You can still pull the trigger, but the scope is not for human eyes. You can prime the grenade, but throwing it is a feat, as it weights 10kg. The whole storage system (witch was way more sophisticated in that original UFO game 20 years ago) makes way more sense if you can use the loot. Not to mention, it makes the whole game more interesting. (On the picture: note that pile of pixels at the exit of the transport. That is the transport storage - extra equipment you could haul in, and loot from previous sites that hadn't been transferred to the base yet.)

Dear Devs, Some feedback from a new player after a playthrough. I have never played the original Ufo/X-Com games in the 90s nor Xenonauts 1 but both Firaxis X-Coms. And I absolutely love Xenonauts 2 already in its current state and I think that it has huge potential to become a truly amazing game. However, here are some observations/impressions/suggestions as to what could be improved going forward in my opinion: • Use of verticality could be extended (there are four vertical stages but most maps only use 1 or 2 of them) in terms of map design. • Cleaners require more background story and should “do” something • Certainly we need more “story” in the mid and late game • More versatility in terms of mission types (e.g. search and rescue, escort whatever) would be very beneficial • Obviously air combat needs a lot of love (but you know that already) • More versatility for weapons or introduction of weapon upgrades (e.g. scopes, bigger ammo magazines, more damage whatever) • More difference between soldier types and soldiers should promote more slowly • Perhaps have more than one research slot • UI: Improvements to the soldier bar would be fantastic (once I get to use 12 soldiers in the tactical battles due to the Dragonfly, it becomes very tedious to identify the soldiers. Please show small portraits or use color codes or role icons. • Civilian AI definitely needs improvement; usually it makes no sense what the civilians do • Some AI improvements in particular in terms of Alien cooperation/flanking/communication would be appreciated • There is a lot a friendly fire even if the soldiers are standing right next to each other. Perhaps that should be reduced a bit. • Money – I really like how there is never enough money to finance everything and that I need to prioritize things. However, some fine-tuning is still required. • There should be (more) ways to reduce panic levels. • I am not sure what soldier training actually does (at least I see no progress from training). Perhaps, it would be possible to choose having a solider train specific skills? • The Grenadier should be able to use RPGs or an “actual” grenade launcher (that fires in an arc) • Using a “normal” calendar rather than counting days? • Is there a way to transfer equipment/scientists/engineers between bases? • Fog of war could be improved • Perhaps I could choose on arrival of the dropship when the actual tactical battle starts (day or night)? • For night missions, there should be some additional gear such as night vision goggles I am really looking forward to how this game develops going forward. Thanks for making this great game. BR, titan1770

I love base defense missions - in theory at least. They are tough, tense and offer nice variation between offense oriented missions. However, current X2 base defense missions are somewhat dull and one note assaults where the bulk of the conflict is often resolved in one huge, non tactical firefight in on one or two of the hangars. Here's few thoughts to improve them: Add a command room to defend like in X1 Aliens should have other objectives than to just kill all Xenonaut units like destroy rooms to disable them so the player needs to repair them later, assault command room for direct loss, kill scientists etc. to force player to be active defending them. Aliens should have few free turns at the start to better spread out. AI improvements needed of course. Room design is a bit dull and repetitive. Especially with adjacency bonuses, you often have three or four identical rooms side by side which looks fake and makes gameplay boring. On geoscape, UFO's on the base attack mission should spawn later in the wave to be more of a threat and be possibly companied with air superiority UFO's. (Same with terror and base build missions which spawn too infrequently) Thoughts?

Currently the medals system is a bit barebones -- every medal received adds one to each statistic. I think it would be neat if this was expanded a bit, maybe giving small but different bonuses for each medal. Similarly, the rank system has slightly more going on (the highest ranking Xenonaut imparts bravery bonuses) but feels underdeveloped. Wouldn't it be better if your troops gained more interesting abilities as they progressed? I've had an initial crack at some suggestions as to what these bonuses could look like, but inspiration is hard to come by. Maybe a bright mind reading this can improve on my ideas? Note I haven't thought too much about balance. That could come later. MEDALS Award For Bravery | Completed a UFO Crashsite mission +3 Bravery Award For Courage | Completed a Terror Site mission Nearby aliens have reduced Bravery. Award For Valor | Completed an Alien Base mission Couching / uncrouching costs 0 TUs. Crimson Heart | Suffered 30 HP damage during a mission +10% effectiveness when using medikits Crux Solaris | Eliminated 4 hostile units during the same mission Wearing armour incurs no accuracy penalty. Distinguished Service Medal | Completed 10 missions +1 to all stats Gallantry Citation | Completed a mission where 50% soldiers were casualties Increased chance of surviving a mission and making it back to HQ even when reduced to 0HP. Golden Star | Eliminated 5 hostile units One “free” grenade throw per turn (i.e. 0 TUs). If that's OP, maybe changing direction costs 0 TUs. RANKS Private - Corporal Nearby Xenonauts have boosted reflexes Sergeant Nearby Xenonauts gain +2 accuracy Sergeant Major Can control nearby civilian NPCs Lieutenant Nearby Xenonauts gain some suppression resistance Captain Can control nearby armed NPCs Major Nearby Xenonauts gain +5 TU Colonel Nearby Xenonauts gain +20 Bravery These buffs should only be applied once, i.e. two Colonels would give nearby Xenonuts +20 Bravery, not +40. And I guess each rank would keep all the bonuses they gained as they climbed the ladder! In general I think that the medals should impart a small but interesting bonus to the recipient; and the ranks should give buffs to nearby teammates. For more powerful buffs, I think the ideas in this thread are very good:

Some observations that I think would effect an Early access impression of the game. I am playing within the current 16.2b panic and economic system so no Cheats to get unlimited funds, etc. Panic The panic level goes up 20 per month starting with the 2nd month in every region. If you don't do anything about it you loose after that happens 4 times. Because you can't cover the Globe from one base there are random UFO "incident reports" that look to raise panic 1 point for each so you might not get "4 times" above in every region. So what can you do? The command sites you can develop (for $250,000 each) reduce the panic 1 time by 10 (and gives you some extra income and recruit-able scientists/engineers). You have to do this as it looks like when panic get over 50 your funding from that region goes down by 1/3, over 75 down by half. There are only 5 sites per region so you get another 2 months from this. There was at least one Research topic that gave you a 10 panic reduction across all regions so maybe + 3 months delay all totaled. Then there are Agents each one reduces panic by 10 in one region where they are deployed. These Agents "appear" (recruited) by some under the hood mechanic, so never know when you will have them available. There are no other ways of mitigating Panic that I can see. Deploy a Base in a region, panic untouched. Shoot down UFO's in a region Panic untouched. Stop a raid, terror mission, destroy an alien base in a region and panic is untouched. Under the current system you will "panic out" in about 12 months at best from what I can tell. and lose 1-2 regions well before that. This leads into the next part which is the economics. Economics So in typical X-com/Xenonauts style we are an after thought when being funded. OK, to an extent, that is what these games are about. There are the funding regions that if you don't manage their Panic levels will dry up quickly. However to mange their Panic requires you to spend $250,000 close to 25% of your monthly funding on a command center, after expenses at start, to just take down one region 10 Panic. You will need to do roughly 2 regions a month in cycle to keep the regions under 50 panic as much as possible, otherwise their funding goes down. To get more coverage you need to build more bases which cost $1,000,000 to just get the Access space built. You will need to build about another approx. $500,000 in structures, for just an air base with two hangers, Radar, Generator, 2 more Aircraft at 250,000 each(starting interceptors cost). So to get to being truly functional maybe about $2,000,000. You can generate some of this from taking the cash from shot down UFO's, but then you will be resource short for all the Weapons, Aircraft, Armor, Defenses, Detection upgrades you need to get done. (Side note the Access shaft has a $250,000 maintenance cost while it looks like all other structures run at 10% of original cost so maybe that should be reduced to be consistent - it would help the economics a bit too). Additionally it costs you time to build those extra interceptors etc. so another drain on resources, i.e. things not being built so you can take down UFOs and containing Raid/Terror/Alien Base missions, oh and the odd UFO mission. Sources of income are Funding Regions (panic management required), and shot down UFOs you delegate out. Selling the odd collection of Alien corpses. There is no "economic engine" you can get going (Original X-Com you could sell Laser cannons for a decent profit once you got the bases set-up and going). We have nothing like that here. So you end up spending Cash to mitigate Panic, to generate Cash that let's you mitigate Panic, and you never can invest properly in upgrades to weapons etc. to the extent that you can control the Alien invasion. If this is the way it will be in Early Access - I think you will get a negative response. The narrative after the first orbital bombardment talks about success vs Aliens mitigating the Panic, but none of your successes do that, only you spending money to activate Command centers and deploying randomly gained "agents". I think that while the Panic mechanic is a good "goad" it seems way to much of a "win now" (4 months) or die. And you don't have the resources or research speed to win in 4 months. The idea that your successes in shooting down UFOs, ending Raids, Terror sites and destroying Alien Bases does not reduce the panic in a region/globally makes the game seem unwinnable. We want Early access folks to feel that can win the end product, Right now if I was not a veteran of Strategic games (I go back to Avalon Hill board games) I would try this out and quit and never play again after 4 months of the Game. To many constraints and now way to relieve them. Something to think about, we want lots of people to want to play this right? My initial thought would be tweak economics (reduce the access shaft maintenance), maybe have some way to get "one time cash" for research projects (we published!)?. Panic: Maybe build in a scaling of the Panic mechanic, Lower at first (governments saying "working on it") and if you don't get a handle on it it starts to go up faster every few months. Here's a basis for Panic for discussion: Instead of 20 globally (all regions) go 15 for the region where city is and 5 in the other 4. Make the choice of region truly random so we can't pattern a response (i.e. well that one is lowest/highest so it will be hit next or some other pattern) Being purely random (well as random as a computer can be) in the bombardment means we need to react and maybe even then it won't matter (3 months of just your cities going down will make a region rather cranky, and despite our best efforts may have them give up). Also give us a reduction of Panic something like this (half or maybe less) of what the panic would go up, if we failed, for successful Raid and Terror missions. For Shot down UFOs, 1 point reduction for each $100,000 (round down) of what the delegation value is and we delegate. (if we get greedy and want all the tech for ourselves the public won't see their "government at work" - I call it the "Men in Black effect"). I would think a one time reduction of say 5 or 10 when you build a base in a region (they cost enough so you should get a minor boost from the area). Just some thoughts on trying to look at this from the perspective of the first time user or the gamer that wants to see a possibility of winning. Currently it seems impossible just doing the mathematics, we don't want that perception.

So, a lot of people are saying "skip mag weapons for lasers", and I'm not seeing it myself. For a few reasons actually. First, at least currently, before upgrade laser weapons have the same base damage as the mag weapons, but they don't have the bonus penetration value. I'm actually thinking that means they are slightly worse against armored opponents unless/until you hit 3+ shots on the same target, which is where the laser's low ammo matters a bit more. After the upgrade that changes, but I think the after upgrade version is currently the human version of plasma weapons given the requirements. Second is the cost, which is where I am thinking that the trick is that you can sell the mag weapons when you do upgrade to lasers for a good chunk of what the lasers are going to cost you in terms of money, and both have fairly low resource costs when you start getting regular UFO missions. Compared to the other projects available the resource cost doesn't seem that big to add in. Third is a relatively recent change to let you capture Cleaner mag weapons... which kind of works against my argument because you can in fact just do that instead of building them yourself and get lighter versions as well. Still using those to fill out your mag rifles while you just build mag versions of shotguns or machine guns seems like a way to tide you over until the laser upgrade. Now, as for downsides I currently see: - The mag sniper seems a bit more dubious. The sniper class has a base 10 penetration already, even the laser version, while the mag only has 12. Going straight to laser here isn't as strange of an option to me as the other variants. - You will be losing some research time to unlock these, and as noted above the Cleaner options can fill out a big role without that. I'm not sure they are really in the right spot at the moment, but I don't think I will be going to instantly skipping them just yet.

I agree. I propose to make two modes of assigning soldiers to transport: 1: By profession. 2: The old way. (There should be two destination modes) 1 - A soldier with a certain specialty (for example, a machine gunner) can only be assigned to a seat on an airplane reserved for the role of a "machine gunner". If such a place is occupied, then the list of vacancies "by profession a machine gunner" for such a soldier will be empty. 2 - The old way.

Am not a fan of the overtaking as I think by going with the tanks there must be a weight difference and never have tryd this again my playsytle must differ but a do think there should be a weight allowance to make players have to strategyse there squad equipment also if they could put a weapons locker in craft then it should just be equipment like ammo grenades stun batons or knifes n maybe stunnguns n shields not over compensating on weapons maybe even have 1 or 2 extra seats for a couple of reserve troups in plane who only can be used if squad is defeated as player option of continue fight or retreat the injured soldiers

I routinely overstock. I don't need to adjust every soldier's backpack every mission, as they always launch with a full backback and then I drop items that put them over their weight limit. It makes swapping in/out soldiers much simpler to manage. In practice I'd run back to replace shields and, especially with lasers, magazines. It would be a rare mission I'd go back for more grenades.

Color-coded soldiers on the battlefield - would significantly improve the management of soldiers and would save the player from having to repeatedly view each soldier, trying to find the right soldier.

Can u rotate the items that u wana put in like u do with the base building

I don't know what the specifics should be, about whether healing should be limited or heavy or have trade-offs or anything, but I just think it'd be more interesting if it was not so possible for every soldier to be able to bring their own healing.

On the subject of the Reapers, I’d like to bring up the issue of their coloring. The reaper color palette is far too similar to the color palette used by the robot drones that the aliens have. When I first saw a reaper, I thought I was up against this game’s version of an andron, not a reaper thanks to that.

What if you started a mission controlling local forces. You're badly outgunned, but you have one objective: hold the landing site for x turns. If you do that, then the Xenonaut dropship arrives with your regular forces, and you take the fight to the aliens. Maybe a bit different from what you're suggesting, but it's what sprang to mind when you said "area defense".

Having played 1.28b and 1.29 to the bitter end I think I am entitled to offer an opinon. First. with the common enemy being the aliens, there could be a few more options. For example area defense. Say, for example that you are in Morocco and those pesky aliens invade. The local army will fight them to the ends of their toelerance and ammo. Then xenonauts are asked to defend the eastern end or southern end or whatnot for say 17 rounds until reinfrorcements from northern morocco arrive.

I don't think it's particularly useful to declare that a system is perfect so shouldn't be changed. That doesn't really encourage innovative thinking.

I don't know, just having EA access, but I'd be amazed if human plasma weapons weren't the next level tech available after Gauss weapons. I think an accuracy penalty for weapons the soldier isn't trained in would be fair, and/or higher TU cost to fire and reload. So at a pinch you can pick up the alien weapon you've never used before, but you won't be as good with it as your own weapon.

I've been doing some analysis on the economic of engineers I wanted to share, to see if there is significant hole in the logic, and maybe help others optimise their gameplay. TLDR; its not worth having Engineers just to make money Initially engineers generate $50 per hour, or $36k per 30 days. Once you have the nanotech workshops this jumps to $75 p/h, or $54k p/m. However the setup costs of buildings and recruitment mean that the payback period is too long to be worthwhile in the scope of the game. Each engineer cost $25k to hire, and $25k in wages p/m. We do need to factor in the costs of workshops and living quarters too. With 4 workshops in a 2x2 grid you can employ 28 engineers. which also require 2 living quarters (maybe slightly more, depending on adjacency bonuses). 6 workshops/living quarters costs $1.5m to build and $60k p/m in maintenance. Across 28 engineers that means $2.2m to build/hire, and $760k p/m in recurring costs, for a net profit of $248k p/m. That takes 8.8 months to repay the initial investment, and I've ignored how long it takes to build/hire and power costs, so the figure is worse. i.e. in the scope of the game building engineers to make money isn't worth it and you are better off spending money elsewhere. Once you've got Nanotech workshops, which is an additional $500k project, Engineers make 50% more profit, or $54k p/m each. Across our 28 engineer example above, that means the monthly profit is now $752k for an investment of $2.7m, and the payback period is down to 3.6 months. Nanotech research itself pays back in the first month. I've only got early access, so I'm not sure how much longer after the 180 days the game is expected to last. If a game is ~270 days, or 9 months. That would mean all your engineering needs to be fully online by day 160, anything you add after that will not generate any overall profit, so in practice probably around day 100-120 you are better off investing money on things that make it more profitable to take on UFOs (i.e. better air defences to shoot down more of them, better soldiers to suffer fewer losses when taking them on). I think that means strategically there isn't really the time to invest in a long term payback by having excess engineering capacity just to generate income. Strategically you have to have engineers, but the economics would seem to point to keeping that to minimum level you need to actually build the items and upgrades you do want in the campaign.

Medkits should not heal, only stop bleeding. Considering how slow soldier heal back in base with the proper structure for that it feels very unrealistic to heal a lot of HP from a single medkit use. Or at least the initial medkit shouldn't and that could be unlocked later using alien tech. But then again, if you can create a medkit that does that, the same tech should totally allow soldiers to be healed instantly in base, which I think is not the goal.

Currently (as of V1.29d), when you go to send out a combat team, you are presented with the armory screen, where you can select who will be going on the mission, and what they are carrying. At the top of the screen there is a button to launch the dropship, and a button to abort the launch. I would like to suggest a third button be added, that would say something along the lines of "Prepare dropship". Clicking this button would bring you to the aircraft screen (or a slight variant, like how the screen where you launch the dropship from is a variant of the armory), with the chosen dropship selected. This is the screen that normally allows you to position where each of your soldiers is standing in the dropship at the start of the mission. The purpose of this suggestion is to give easy access to this screen when you are about to launch a mission, so if you change who is assigned to the dropship from the Launch Dropship armory screen, you don't need to back out of the mission prep to make sure everyone is in the desired starting positions.

This could be a hidden gem of an idea. Let me expand on it how I think it could work well. Once you reach 100% of Operation Endgame, you've built your own spaceship and could blast off to the aliens' homeworld for the final mission. But you can continue the game, completing five special missions (or completing extra research) that each unlocks a different special module you can build for your spaceship. There could be five possible modules, but your spaceship can only accommodate three. So, you've got to choose. Ideas include: * Crew space. Allows you to take an extra two Xenonauts. * Medbay. Confers some healing ability between missions part #1 and #2 (it's a two-parter, right?) * Cargo bay. Increases the total equipment weight your spaceship can carry. Without this you might not be able to equip everyone in the best, heaviest armour for example. * Bombardment cannon. Represents blasting the alien base as you arrive, meaning some of the defenders are injured / dead upon your arrival (like a crashed UFO mission). * Extra fuel tank. Without this, your soldiers are on a one-way suicide mission. With it, the survivors can return. Makes no difference to the actual final mission, but if you choose this module then you get the best ending -- your team have a ticker-tape parade when they return, rather than all dying! You might have to launch with zero modules if the aliens are close to winning by the time you reach 100% of Operation Endgame. But you've got a better chance of winning if you can make some of these modules. There's form already for this kind of thinking: the two Cleaner missions with the data drives. Completing those has an influence on the enemy forces you face in the Cleaner HQ mission, right? This could help spice up the late-game and give the player some impactful choices to make.

Yeah, the XCOM style side-base system just isn't a good match for a game like classic X-Com. Multiple bases and a top-down view (which means you can create layouts you can fight within in base defence missions) work much better. I appreciate not everyone was happy with the decision, but 90% of people who voted were willing to support the change. I don't think there's anything unrealistic about those numbers though - even if only 10% of people dislike the change, that's still 500+ of our Kickstarter backers and tens of thousands of our potential Steam players who feel that way. It's possible that you will see the game move a few of the mechanics out of the bases and onto the Geoscape itself during Early Access, but we'd need to test those and see how people feel about them before making any final decisions there.

One particular category I'd like to be able to filter for when selecting soldiers to add to the dropship is medals. As it is, it's very annoying to manually bring up each soldier to figure out who hasn't gone on a UFO/Terror/Base Assault mission so that I can ensure that they pick up those medals for the extra stat boost.

I also find the soldier selection and assignment part not very streamlined. Maybe it would be better to look into the issues from the "slots in dropship" point of view. We could assign specific roles to each slot of a dropship, incl. vehicle, and simply select the soldier from all available soldiers with this role. This has some benefits: 1) You only have to assign a role to a solider once. 2) The number of soldiers for each slot is limited by the number of soldiers with the role. That means if the game wants to know which soldiers goes to a dropship slot, it first presents you only the ones with the selected role. This makes it easy to distinguish between them by states and status, since you only have 2-4 of each type. For the case that no solider is available for a slot with a dedicated role, have a "allow any role" filter during the solider selection.

So I don't particularly want to add extra benefits to different ranks because they're really just a quick way to signify how much stat progression a given soldier has earned, but I think there's scope to make medals more interesting in terms of the stats they grant. In fact, I think it's basically already supported in the game. Having "chunkier" abilities like you've outlined for some of the medals (like a free grenade throw or crouch / uncrouch each turn) kinda ends up in XCOM superpower territory for me, though, and I'd rather not go down that route (plus it would take longer to implement). So if we can come up with 8 interesting medals that offer varying stats instead of all just being +1 to all stats, that would be great. Particularly if the way they earn the medal is somewhat tied to the stat(s) that they grant.

I still can't understand this post, because the whole thread seems magically forgot and ignore the fact that USSR still exist in the game lore. And also the fact that real life politics is not something should be brought up routinely to a game, especially when we have an independent Taipei ingame and a 50/50 of male and female soldier spawns, which are bigger political issues than an USSR-era spelling if someone ever brought this up to the devs.

Having scientists / engineers being the civilians running amok and getting killed (and needing to rehire if they die) would be nice flavour. Do bases actually take damage from the attack? That also could make it more interesting - destroy a lab with HE and you have to repair it. So deciding whether to use laser weapons and carry a higher repair bill for every missed shot would add to the decision making.

What if the dropship storage was something that needs to be manufactured and then it would be available in your soldier list the same way as MARS. Then you could replace one soldier (or wehicle?) with it and equip how you please.

I don't know if anyone reads other Lists on this game, I just reviewed a few threads on Steam and there seems to be a general backlash to the idea of the orbital station/"doom timer" concept. Is there a real reason to have that be the driving factor?? As one poster put it They view this as a clandestine war vs the aliens. So we would expect it to be building up to something. If you are blowing up cities from orbit no government is going to back "clandestine" efforts. It's a shooting war and based on the Lore you have in Game we can't win it with our best technology. So they would be spending all their resources on finding solutions, not funding some Clandestine organization. The story just doesn't mesh together, massive global destruction from an untouchable weapon in Orbit and we are sniping at the odd alien ship flying around? Why would the aliens even bother, Wait until you have the world in a state of total anarchy and then come down and grab whatever you want, as there will be no organized resistance. I much preferred the original premise of Aliens interfering in the Cold war and we are the "men in black" trying to keep the world from self destructing as we deal with the Aliens. That had great story possibilities. With the orbital bombardment/panic mechanic we have now it is just a "race" that short of playing perfectly and down a prescribed path we just loose. That is not a game that allows repeatability and not much enjoyment of discovery, as as soon as the "path" is discovered no one will do anything else, if you don't discover it right away you won't bother playing anymore as it just won't be fun. I'm a backer, high enough so that I'm supposed to have a "character" in the soldier pool. With the current path the overview story is taking I'm not sure I would bother playing it. Being tied to a specific story line with a strict time limit is not the kind of game that sounds fun. Story line - yes - but let the player have the time and flexibility to solve it in numerous ways. Right now it feels like there will be one way to "win" and the rest is just wasted time. Maybe as a timer you just ramp up the alien activity in response to your success - The Original X-Com did this so that at some point you had to "finish the game" as you were being overwhelmed by the number of alien UFO's/Missons/Terror sites etc. Thus if you fumble around early the aliens aren't automatically escalating, as long as they "score more" than you they are "winning". Since the story seems to be not one of conquest (if it were we would have already lost based on the lore in game already) you need to find out what they are after and then force them to not get it. For that you need to allow the players to explore the game and that means giving them adequate time. Sorry for the "Rant" but it seems tied into the Balance of Panic/Economics. It seems that there are a lot of Games in this Genre that have this timer mechanic. Why does Goldhawk have to follow the crowd? From what I'm reading elsewhere there is a sizable audience that won't bother knowing that mechanic is in the game. Hope someone Reads this and explains why we abandoned the whole "Cold War" story line, and/or why this Timer mechanic has to be a part of the game in such a prominent way.

I agree. The sale of manufactured laser, MAG and plasma weapons and bulletproof vests, etc. should be at a higher price than the cost of their manufacture. As well as accelerated rifles and shotguns.

The old base mechanics were OK, but you were limited to a set number of blocks to build the base, I would have like it to be more flexible. I was wondering just how they were going to have the base layout, with alien attacks with the side view?

When it comes to alien weaponry I really like the system X1 X-Division mod have. Each tier of weaponry have not just one but actually TWO types of weaponry. One of energy type and one of ballistics type. And just like X-Division operatives can and should use both types of weapons, so do the aliens. And they also have weapons resistances depending from it. Caesans, Wraths and Harridans use energy-based weaponry like phasers and plasma guns and heavily rely on energy shields for protections which are good against energy-based weapons. However they are poorly armoured and can be easily downed by ballistic weaponry. Sebilians however are very tought and armoured, extremily resistant to concusive force and ballistics but energy-based weaponry can make a short work of them. They also use a little better variant of firearms initialy because they are too dumb to be trusted more complicated and deliciate weaponry anyway. Their less intelligent friends like xenomorphs and reapers follow the same rule in inverse: reapers assisting sebilians are very resistant to lasers but are vulnerable to their handler's ballistic weapons. Sounds really reasonable in case your war pet suddenly turns on you, huh? I think X2 could use similar system - sure, you can pick up and use alien plasma rifle (though poor ergonomics and unfamilar design will make it unconvenient), but the alien type using it will be very likely wearing armour designed to protect from it, so you are not getting much. However, the same plasma rifle could be useful against other aliens or against brainwashed humans/collaborationist forces. Actualy if I remember correctly in original X-COM laser weaponry were more useful against sectopod then plasma weaponry, because the latter had extremely high resistance to plasma guns which make sense. It might also actually make sense for humans to use completely different weapon technology then aliens do. While aliens focus on energy weaponry, humans will focus on ballistics and maybe melee weaponry. Because the latter works better in Earth atmosphere or something like that. Humans are already incapable of psionics but field combat shields and batons that aliens do not - why dont we make humans even more different in their weaponry too? That will make aliens even more different and huh... alien to us and will allow for some more unique gameplay then original xcom. X-Division also made it that instead of being sold enemy weaponry is taken apart for materials to be used in constructing the human counterparts. You take apart fancy alloy ballistic rifles - you assemble the brand new human alloy ballistic gun using the barrel and internal parts you got from them.

Just thinking this one through and it feel artificial to prevent the use of alien weapons entirely. Instead I suggest a system that allows their use but with a significant accuracy penalty and actively promotes their collection by using them as a resource item later in the game. Under the guise of the weapons not being ergonomically designed for humans we could give them a -50% accuracy penalty (offset by the alien stats being 50% higher so their accuracy is unaffected from current) and perhaps some damage penalty as suggested above with alien armor being designed for their plasma weapons. This would mean using alien tech early on to plug the weapon damage defect is almost encouraged but it is a glass hammer and may result in you missing some critical shots or not being able to stay as far from the enemy and snipe like you can in Xcom. Finally to make human built/designed plasma weapons still desirable we can make the human weapons not have the accuracy and alien armor resistance, meaning that in human hands a human plasma rifle is as effective as the alien one in alien hands. To prevent the alien weapons just becoming junk you sell late in the game I suggest that we have 2 ways to manufacture a human plasma rifle: 1. the total new rifle method, pretty much the same as xenonauts 1 and 2. the re-manufactured alien rifle, requiring 2 alien rifles to produce 1 human rifle. The logic being that it takes less resources for the technicians to refit an alien rifle for a human to use than to make one from scratch. This would make all those plasma weapons you collect a useful resource. Canonical reasons for these things: Alien weapons are not correctly designed for a human to use, grips are too big/small, sights are awkward, the balance is wrong etc etc, perhaps the hand holds are designed for 3 fingers making using them with 5 always awkward and uncomfortable. Aliens would build armor to suit the type of damage they expect (as above) Human rifles use a slightly different type of plasma, maybe a different element being turned into plasma, perhaps something that works in our atmosphere but not in a vacuum or other atmosphere so aliens are not adapted to deal with it Once alien plasma weapons have been researched we have enough understanding of how they work to modify them without catastrophic failures and techs getting fried while doing it.

On the subject of attack vectors that the alien armor doesn't cover, anyone remember that the endgame weapon in X-COM: Apocalypse is a glorified paintball, in part because it doesn't trigger the alien shields the way bullets or energy weapons or explosions do, and in part because it's a chemical weapon engineered to disrupt them specifically? Some kind of "It kills them much more than it kills us" gas, dust, smoke, or aerosol-based weapon makes sense at the point in the weapons tech above the equal-quality weapons, or even as a prerequisite for a mission to fill an alien base with the stuff. (Obviously it can't just finish all of the missions, because that would be boring).

This was very likely covered and probably even brought up and explained at one point or another, so I apologise upfront. It's been very long since I followed development closely and I couldn't find it, hence I ask here. Is Atlas base concept, scrapped up for good? It won't change anything for me but I did find that approach interesting, versus X1 all, familiar covert bases approach. Will it come back or be introduced in some form? Edit: ah, never mind I found it But I gotta say that this poll seems to be be diehard multiple bases players and unrealistic because I was hoping for more of Atlas approach to strategic layer in X2, shame. Based on response afterwards, I can see that I am not alone thinking this but it's too late to change it I guess.