Leaderboard

I don't think the abduction missions (rescue civilians from tubes) should end after the turn timer runs out— it really feels like cheesing to have the aliens just disappear after, and not having to fight your way out. Shouldn't it be necessary to clear the map?

I love to see my units panic, drop their weapons, run away or go berserk. Morale system seem quite bare bones at the moment and I've never even used the new morale boost action. What I've experienced is that my units tend to have panic reactions only when half of the team is dead or they receive critical wounds. What could be improved: New recruits bravery stat should be lower (battle hardened guys should always stand out!) Training center should not improve bravery (not sure if it does?) Dfficulty level could change morale rules. (Harder difficulty, higher morale damage) Surviving critical wounds (crimson heart) could add permanent morale damage. There should be a lot more things affecting morale like: "Did I see something in the shadows?" (Night missions should have constant morale penalty) "This place is scary..." (Alien bases and ufo interiors should have constant moral penalty) "Those things will kill us!!" (Add reaper a special ability of morale area damage around it) "This is too much for me!" (suppression, missed shots and nearby explosions should cause morale damage) "What's that?!" (Seeing new alien types for the first time could cause a morale damage) "There's too many of them!!" (Seeing there's a lot more alien units nearby than own units should cause morale damage) "Why is everybody screaming?!" (Seeing others panic should cause morale damage - chain reactions are always funny!) Also, It'd be great to have soldiers screaming and crying when having a panic attack.

1. not per-se, ignorance can be a bliss when it comes to the horrors of war..or in this case an alien invasion, you could say the soldier is simply too stupid to be scared. this is often detrimental to the soldiers health though, thinking McNamara's morons here from the vietnam era 2. don't know if it does, but again, it makes sense to be prepared when trained for it, we use training to prevent police horses from panicking when they hear loud noises. it doesn't make you brave per se, but certain "scary" things have much less impact if you expect them to happen. 3. better to use total war like rules here, rather then improve morale damage on your troops make it harder to affect alien morale as the difficulty increases, the battle changes drastically if you can't suppress targets reliably. but I have to be honest here...neither option is particularity appealing, either my troops run for the hills as soon as they hear a stiff breeze, or the enemy is tanking flashbangs to the face. (ignoring the fact that robotic enemies already ignore morale effects) 4. maybe, being critically wounded or KO'd in a battle is sure to cause some trauma. 5. when it comes to troops crapping their pants you could say fighting enemies with futuristic weapons powerful enough to blast a hole straight through a brick wall even if they miss, seeing your allies..or well..any human... being evicerated by a man sized bug and then instantly birthing new ones, frigging invisible "terminators" trying to take potshots at you and/or you being inside a dark alien architecture would certainly create dread. but point 3 sort of applies here...morale damage should certainly have impact..but its very easy to overdo..and its a negative spiral effect. aka it hits you when you are already on the receiving end of punches. so before the trooper drops his gun and decides to inspect the business end of the alien plasma cannon with his face, there should be a moment the player gets the opportunity to use said morale recovering action instead of trying to shoot. this is also the current problem, as long as you have the whole squad alive and not one trooper is getting seriously blasted, you barely take morale damage, but once you already have a massive action deficit because of multiple men down or gravely wounded, they start losing turns and moving to suicidal positions. Its actually quite binary, there is either no need or no time for the recover action to be executed. while its completely logical that morale goes down the gutter when half the squad is down, I think it would be beneficial to have a "sweet spot" where having troopers take a moment to get their head on straight is the optimal action, and blasting at the enemy is at the players own risk.