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For the record, this is an observation first, complaint second. If the devs decided to make xenonauts 2 easier to cater to the lower skill players, that's fine by me, It's a good decision. You're gonna upset a lot of players by making a game uncompromisingly difficult, and most of the time, to appease the """hardcore""" playerbase you just need to make the game appear difficult. The skilled players are probably just gonna make a overhaul mod that caters to them, it's a compromise FiraXCOM went with, and it's a good compromise. I've recently replayed xenonauts 1 on insane, and it hit like a whiplash. The game is so much harder it's really hard to compare. Seriously, playing X2 on Commander is like playing x1 on normal. There are so, so many important mechanical changes between the titles that I've felt like were overlooked, I'm gonna try to list the most important ones from most impactful to least: 1. LOS distance This is by far the biggest fundamental change. Both games have an average effective weapon range of 20, but while in xenonauts 2 the soldier view range is 26, in xenonauts 1 it's 17. On top of that, in xenonauts 1 most of the alien sight range is 18, higher than xenonauts and well within the rifle range. This is massive, especially since the AI often abuses that fact. In x1, getting accurately shot from line of sight is very common, to the point where you have to paranoically smoke every possible angle the enemy can shoot you through. In xenonauts 2, it's switched. unless the aliens came out of a building, you will see them before they become a threat, and now YOU out-LOS them, because of sniper rifles. That makes overwatching in an open field a really effective strategy, especially since SR's no longer have a reaction fire penalty. The longer LOS is a good change, but it heavily benefits xenonauts. 2. LOS Symmetry In xenonauts 1, there were some corners where a unit could see a different unit, but not the other way around. This could be used by both sides, but heavily benefited the aliens, first because of longer LOS, and second because catching an experienced soldier off-guard is a lot more rewarding than catching an alien off guard. In x2 sight is symmetric, which again, makes the game easier. 3. Alien AI I mentioned earlier that in x1 aliens abused the hell out of their LOS advantages, but in general they were a lot more defensive. Alien AI in x1 makes you sometimes think they're cheating (they're not, but their sight advantages make them look like they do), and in general they camp a lot more, making them a lot more difficult to kill. in x2 they practically run in the open. X1 aliens sometimes were suicidal too, but only if they were sure that they could kill at least 1 of your soldiers. This is already in a roadmap to be changed, but it's still currently a significant factor towards a difficulty decrease 4. Alien damage in xenonauts 1, on insane the first enemy you fight deals 66 average damage. In xenonauts 2, the first enemy you fight deals 25 damage. Granted, armor values in xenonauts 1 are higher, but not that much higher. While in xenonauts 2 a soldier can still be one shot, in xenonauts 1 a soldier is usually one shot. Also, alien rifle does not currently have a burst function, meaning that they rarely suppress your soldiers outside of servitors, and making parking ballistic shields at melee range towards them a viable strategy. But even if they had it, burst in x1 is a lot better than burst in x2, but that's another topic. 5. Air game That's a huge topic on its own, but to avoid making an even bigger wall of text, let's just say that with the newest version x1 air game is significantly harder than x2, despite the foxtrot nonsense. UFOS damage your funding a lot more, they outspeed your basic interceptors much faster, and you have to actually sometimes maybe do some maneuvering. In x2 you can just facetank almost everything now with basic angels. 6. Cover destruction It's a lot easier to destroy cover in x2 than it is in x1. Too easily in my opinion, the aliens just can't hide from you at all. This is also a good place to mention that throwables in this game cost less to throw, and can be thrown further, and more accurately. 7. Training center Xenonauts 1 units were deceptively not that replaceable. If your soldier died, you had to replace it with a private, and privates freaking sucked, sometimes weren't even able to carry the full gear. (until you get predator armor, which is a win condition) In xeno 2, you can easily train your soldiers up so they catch up to your own guys. Too easily too be honest, I think the training is too effective at its job, by mid game you have many 90-100 TU monsters. I think the diminishing returns from the training center should be increased. 8. Shot preview This can appear as just a QOL, but being able to triangulate reliably if a shot from that position has clear LOS or not makes you significantly more lethal against aliens, In xenonauts 1 you had to practically guess, and a lot of times you were wrong, and when you were wrong you paid for it dearly. Sometimes you thought you were safe behind cover when it turned out the alien had a flanked shot, and sometimes you thought that position was a flank, when it actually wasn't. Now you don't have to take a risk like that. 9. Vehicles Xeno 1 vehicles sucked, MARS is amazing, and you can have TWO of them mid game. Enough said. 10. Alien abilities I know that xeno 2 has a lot more alien abilities, but nothing it has compares to xenonauts 1 psionics, not even the new wraiths. To make it fair, there are areas where xeno 2 is harder: 1. Higher enemy count In xeno 1 the first mission contains 3-5 aliens, it's much more in xeno 2, but it doesn't compensate for the difficulty because they are a LOT less threatening individually. 2. Timed missions A common complaint, but once you get used to it, the significantly longer LOS distance allows you to move quicker without being shot to death, so they're still more than manageable. It's also worth noting that just because a game is more difficult, it doesn't mean that it's better. Xenonauts 2 is an overall better title than Xeno 1 despite the major difficulty drop, a lot of difficulty Xeno1 wasn't designed that well, and made the game tedious to play on insane. Xeno 2 is a lot more fun in its gameplay, it's just that a lack of challenge takes away a lot of spice from the game. A lot of the changes that make the game easier make the game better, but if the game is intended to be about as hard as xeno 1, It should have a bunch of balance passes.

Giving First aid doesn't currently have much gameplay depth and lacks interesting choices to make. There's two main issues: -Firstly, first aid kits are too small, weight too little and have infinite capacity, so almost everyone can carry one into a battle and heal as much as needed with it. -Secondly, TU cost of giving first aid is set too low, so even critically wounded units can be healed quickly while surrounded by enemies. My suggestions: -Make first aid kits heavier and larger so carrying one is a clear choice. I'd love to have to make a separate medic role. -Make stabilizing bleeding more demanding. Like 30TU per bleed wound or similar. (It'd be cool to have like multiple medics trying to stabilize a badly wounded soldier before bleeding to death.) -Make healing and stabilizing bleeding wounds separate actions. -Make healing cost more TU's. Like 1HP per 1TU. -Let me choose how much I want to spend TU's when healing. (If I remember correctly X1 had this already) -Receiving first aid should cost the same amount of TU's that giving it takes. -First aid kits shouldn't be infinite. (Another good reason for a medic role that could pack multiple first aid kits. One first aid kit should be enough for healing like 120HP. Removing one bleed wound would cost 30HP. So with one first aid kit one could for example remove 2 bleed wounds and still heal 60HP. Or remove 1 bleed wound and then heal 90HP. -Maybe add a separate small medkit that can only be used to remove one bleeding wound. (Single use)

Having higher ground is one of the most basic advantages one can have in combat. As far as I know, it's not simulated in this game at all. As you can see in the (amazing) image below, the unit on the roof has 50% cover just by being higher, while at the same time having a 100% vision to the unit on the ground level. Being higher up should also reduce the amount of cover smaller props like rocks and fences provide on lower levels.

Yeah. I don't actually think it's very realistic, because shooting up / down at people mostly makes the intervening objects more or less of a problem rather making the actual target easier or harder to hit - but ultimately you're not the only person who thinks the game doesn't model height levels in the shooting calculation, so the current system probably isn't the best choice.

I like those 2 ideas

HI I know that the Laser weapons is a main topic here but we could see larger picture. All weapons should be customizable: by adding/changind scope, gun barrel, weapon magazine, weapons battery. For ballistic weapon I would like to see in the first place research which allow me to install scope on rifle, or laser scope on pistol ... but I the second think is ammo, AP munition for armored alliens, dum - dum munition for non armored alliens. The next think should be increasing the muzzle velocity of the bullet to provide more damage and range. Laser weapon should be huge step ahead, so first we could have prototype laser weapon, they would be clunky and primitive with no additional feactures, this stage ends when weapon will be used in combat conditions, next step should increasing laser weapon battery so we can fire more shots, next will you give access to customization of weapons by replacing its basic parts. Next step give us additional possibilities by replacing the barrel and battery with ones that generate additional damage, e.g. from fire or increase armor penetration or other ... . Final step leading to maximizing the damage of a given weapon, in the case of laser weapons, they cause the laser color to change to a more energetic color from red through green to blue ? (I don't know which color of light is more energetic, so the order is probably different). The laser should be replaced by a phaser, i.e. a multi-frequency laser.

Feedback for 2.07c day 152 A wall of text Gameplay related issues Early game SMG destroy shields like it's made out of butter on burst from cleaners/security suits Rifle burst only gives 30% hit chance when next to the alien (early game, all shots went missing) Cleaners have a bigger view radius/range at night than xenos, i kept getting hit by someone from the shadows outside my range at night on the roof (at night) Xenonauts being too easily hit on roofs with cover and at large inclinations (image 1) Camera following civilians is very annoying, they just keep going where my xenos are and they jump through windows a lot UI alien icon (orange/red) have a larger click box than the icon itself, so i accidentally clicked it a lot when targeting the ground tiles Targeting a enemy when the magazine is empty shows no targeting reticule, a popup to reload would be helpful so that its not confusing to what is suddenly wrong Hangar doors have huge click boxes, so turning next to a door inadvertently makes you open the door by accident Cyberdrone took about 5 thermal packs and 4 grenades to the face before dying ( a bit too tough to det packs and grenades ?) Wraith grenades oneshot a mars platform without armour (a bit absurd) Bug Related Typing sound was looping on some text in the tutorial conversation with the general Click and dragging the geo map while zoomed in will try to place the base where your cursor is (this is after the tutorial) Atlas bunker mission, soldier somehow managed to throw his grenade next to his feet when targeted 10 tiles away (i believe it was100% hit chance) Fiddling with equipped x25 with 2 sidewinders and minigun made their equipment disappear (already equipped items cant be removed or replaced, clicking them just destroys them and disallows me to equip anything else) (really a game breaking bug i cant play further without massive handicap) Sentry bot respawned when destroyed (visually) General feedback and others Stunning the general was cool, too bad it only gives 10% to base location (would be cool if he had extra info on maybe a supply cache or a weapons cache or something along those lines), also the general really took a lot of stun damage The cleaner autopsy was a bit lacklustre, i was hoping for more alien involvement, something weird or freaky (you find that out later EXDEF but the early part is a bit bland) Cleaners dropping smg's that you can equip is neat ( too bad there isn't any accelerated or other laser/gauss ones available Soldier extraction is cool, too bad you have to make room for them in the helicopter It's weird that the pistol is lighter than the tazer pistol Grenade launcher is kind sharing the use with grenades, launcher has longer range but grenades are more practical as you can toss over obstacles with much more accuracy, i wish the grenade launcher actually did more damage to sentries and in general to seperate the them from grenades, maybe add a different grenade type that does mure damage to targets ? Ambush mission is really nice, the setup phase is nice Corpse "analysis" in the workshop is interesting, they really put the corpses through their paces haha Alloy combat shields were a bit late maybe, dependant on downed ship It's a bit silly that base sentries count towards winning the mission on cleaner HQ ( i got a couple of wrecked sentries i could repair later but still annoying to find every last on Cleaner HQ) Acquiring cleaner accelerated rifles is nice, too bad they don't have any other weapon accelerated that you get when taking over their HQ (like pistols or smg's, would be a nice reward) In base defence (or in general), moving a lot of soldiers at once is really a pain, would be nice if we could do it so we could order all soldiers to move to x destination settings - would be nice to be able to select audio output device Tactical screen can be a bit laggy when panning around (was base defence) Barely any ships till day 70, 3 probes, 2 scouts (one escaped cause it was too tough for 2 x-25), [75 day] then after that suddenly base attack and escorted ships 3 of them Soldier jumping over this in medical bay (image 2) when loading a game it puts the camera in a weird location (base defence), moving it a bit resets it where your guys are A shot went through the cabinet and hit my soldier, when all cabinets were in mint condition and not destroyed (image 3) Loading a game resets the music Destroyed generators are non walkable tiles (image 4) Reloading the tactical save makes the smoke not see through (image 5) Observer ufo is painful to deal with, shoots missile/drones and with the UI barrage of minigun pings its almost visually impossible to see , on tof of that Observer hunter drones are weird, sometimes they hit close and sometimes they detonate from a way larger radius Camera turn buttons are kind of swapped (clicking the turn right button turns the camera left) Crouching keyboard shortcut isn't working to que crouch while soldier is moving unlike the ui button wraith killed a brain pilot(mentarch) and i got kill alien with energy weapon achievement Cliff walls produce an odd shadows (image 6) Have the tile that you click to move your guy to have a highlight icon that stays visiible during his walking so that if you move someone in quick succession you know the tile is assigned to someone before he steps on it