relative to the previous stable build:
air combat changes up to abductor and up to laser lance/alenium explosives tech:
-general access to missiles and cannon systems feels much better, also doesn't drown out engineering anymore.
-still needs some sort of reward if the AA battery takes down an invading ship, rather then winning the tactical battle in base defense
base building changes:
so far, doesn't feel that much different, the costs of structures is higher and that delays building extra bases, but the early game is delayed relative to the previous build as well.
tactical up to abductor:
-melee changes, on the fence about this. melee is risky as you have to get into point blank range and many enemies have relatively high reflex scores to start with, so much so that even 100 reflex troops cannot reliably hit all enemies. on top of that, the enemies most vulnerable to getting hit in melee are explosive robots that cannot be suppressed. in the old system the risk was offset by its reliability, in the current system, I still find it hard to justify melee weapons against anything.
-close range accuracy changes on the AR, pistol, MG, overall seems to be a good change. makes the AR's automatic function slightly better up close. shotguns are still way better at the close range then the AR (as they should), but at least the automatic function has improved...slightly..
-HEVY changes, indirect fire is great on it, makes the weapon much more useful. however if it misses it seems like the soldier tripped or something...the round almost veers off to a completely new zipcode. missing targets with 15-20 tiles..a miss the size of a whole building, gives a new meaning to "can't hit the broad side of a barn"
-still needs some indicator for weapons with a "no move" bonus, this is a big part of the sniper and a minor part of the MG gameplay. but unless you pay attention to the hit breakdown, you will never know its there.
-advanced stun weapons is unchanged, but may need a tune up. advanced stungun is harder to aim, and loses out against armor compered to the 25 armpen basic, and all of the EMP damage caused is low and barely competes just hitting the enemy with equal tier guns. now the strength of the weapon is that it can stun..but its EMP gimmick is a little weak. the exception to that is the flashbang upgrade, as that upgrade is extremely powerful...turning the 1-trick utility grenade into a swiss army knife that is useful against every target, and inflicts the most EMP damage of all grenade types