Belmakor

Interesting. When engaged by a single fighter I would say that about 70% of the time they are facing away and the other times facing towards you. Once you come up against groups of 3 fighters they are nearly always facing you when you engage.

Chris, Wondered if it would be possible to have the screen aligned according to the enemy's directional facing during a firing action. This way you can see where the enemy is shooting (instead of the current experience when it often has aliens firing at your men who are off screen). Cheers Mike

Deleted

I would like to point out that this bug is still present in V9.5. I had expenses of $1.6m, expected income of $2.4m and only 70k in the bank before month ended. It also has more serious repercussions in that after it happens a 2nd time the game ends in defeat! So make sure you have enough in the bank BEFORE the month ends even if you are running a profit.

Hunter was destroyed in one mission. On following mission at the immediate beginning of the ground combat the sound effect for the hunter being destroyed was played. Minor bug I know!

After being intercepted by an enemy fighter, it was facing away from me. This has happened on 3 occasions with configurations of both 1 and 2 of my own F-17s. Needless to say instead of it getting the jump on me I was able to get the jump on it! This is a bug surely?

On groundscape, the shot that kills an enemy unit is not animated like normal shots (only in some instances). I think perhaps it does not show for instance when you kill the enemy just on the edge of your visual range. Normally you see the shot from the rifle to the target, but in this bug you only hear the shot but do not see it go from the rifle to the target. Anyone else experienced this?

In reality, suppression doesn't really lock you in the exact same place - it usually just stops you moving quickly (as you have to crawl). In addition it definitely stops you from firing back accurately as you will only be able to take token shots at the aggressor in an attempt to stop their suppression. Certainly you will not be as aware of what is going on around you so maybe this should be something that was implemented (a reduction in view range) as this is the real reason for suppression - while you wait for your flanking unit to make the kill. If you are suppressed, your not going to be sitting behind the only rock in the world. You're going to have all sorts of other obstacles that you can hide behind or can use to block a direct line of fire not to mention the difference even small undulations in the terrain can make. As long as the unit in suppression they should still have some ability to respond. Lying still when you are being suppressed is a guaranteed way of getting killed. You are always supposed to move backwards and sideways on the deck. So yeah, basically there should be an accuracy reduction and perhaps a movement penalty such as double cost movement actions (not an AP reduction).

First of all, fantastic. This will stop me having to mode the weapons file with every new incarnation just because I like the idea of chewing through ammo and the tactical level it adds. Regarding your earlier comment. Not sure targets should remain suppressed for a fixed period of time. Perhaps only for one turn passed the one in which they were suppressed. It might get quite frustrating to have your unit unable to do anything for so many turns. What about instead of paralysing or reducing AP like some others suggest you simply reduce the accuracy of the unit by an amount appropriate to their level of suppression and bravery. This negative accuracy modifier would increase each turn the unit remains under suppression. This would allow you to potentially move your unit out of the suppression zone but still make suppression a useful took for limiting combat effectiveness. In addition, it almost forces units out of cover. If you have a unit in cover under suppression, then each turn they stay there they are going to become less effective. This means they have to move - which means you could almost corridor enemy forces into kill-zones (a real-life used tactic). In theory you could move into a suppression zone if it is active, but would suffer the same firing accuracy penalty. This means you can use burst fire to deny areas of the map to enemy units or at-least mean that if they enter that spot then they are going to be largely ineffective. I'm thinking a MG gunner suppressing a corridor here. Most soldiers know to keep their head down when they are being shot at, but they also know that if they don't fire back in at-least token gesture they are very soon going to be flanked and get a grenade up their behinds. Soldiers under suppression should not be able to fire suppression however. This would stop 1v1 situations where both are under suppression and neither one can hit anything. Also, I think if you are talking about suppression areas, it should be more like a cone or corridor that extends to the front of the unit doing the firing. This stops enemy units simply walking forward two or three spaces and then opening fire completely unhindered.

Having taken a break from playing the game at the start of the year I decided to jump back in and see what had changed and then reflect. Dog fights 1. Like the new look of the dog fight GUI. 2. Really love being able to change the speed of my aircraft (+) 3. Being able to change the speed of my aircraft makes dog fights really easy (-). About this third point. I have heard mention of improved AI for more advanced tactics however I'm not sure how this will really help the situation. I suspect that as the game progresses and you end up with fighter wings vs mixed ufos things will get interesting and hectic. However at the moment, engagements are quite boring. Now this isn't an issue if the ticker does (as has been stated) drop low enough that you are only fighting once every few days. But if your like me and fast forward most of the time you will end up fighting against single aircraft so often and punctuated with only occasional ground combat against pitiful forces of 1 or 2 aliens that things get boring quickly. Now I understand the need for getting new players into the game gently and have no qualms about this (it is also more lore friendly). But the question is how to make the game more interesting for other players. Could you give us the option of a quick resolve button for dogfights? *dodges bottles* The interface is already there for the intercept on the geoscape. How about giving another button for Auto-resolve with a percentage next to it of the chance of success. I think I would probably prefer this to fighting single scouts or fighters as I find the combat at present just too easy (1 vs 1) or too boring (when 3 vs 1). The percentage need only take into account the type of aircraft and number on each side and perhaps a random seed for the UFO craft which determines its pilots ability (to make things slightly less obvious). Either that or maybe an easy way to drop some tactics into the mix is to start the dogfight with a deployment zone. It doesn't have to be big and could be restricted to one or two sides of the screen but would allow you to essentially drop your aircraft into the engagement tactically (perhaps having one come in from an angle). It would add some variety to engagements. This would give you the option of deploying 1 or more aircraft together (as standard) or splitting them for a hair raising flanking afterburn while one of your aircraft plays bait. Deployment zones aren't the only idea but they do get around the fact that at present it is really difficult to manoeuvre around the smaller enemy ufos. On a different note. I still have some qualms about the Ufo Sighted pop-up screen. Often it pops up and blocks the location of the UFO in question. It makes it kind of difficult to work out whether you should be launching from you Indochina base or Europe from example. Why not either make this pop up have a very small transparency so you can just make out the UFO or say "Ufo Spotted (Europe)" etc.

You could justify the MiG research as "Review of current aircraft" or such like. Basically we have access to the F17 but we need something better, this research clarifies that the MiG is that aircraft and it is not some other European or US aircraft. Then what happens is you get a one-time only option to replace one of your two starting F17s with a MiG free of charge. A tit-for-tat exchange with the Russians of technology. After that you are in agreement that you can purchase future MiGs from the Russians. This would remove the need for a 4th hangar which I think will limit needlessly limit player base building options and give potential for 3 aircraft too early. It also makes the transfer smooth as opposed to relying on the player to take the initiative to sell one F-17 and replace it which they might not know how to do.

Did you just take existing sprites to make these? Would like to play around with the map editor but just don't even know where to begin!

I have edited the original post to form a slightly better argument. I was pretty tired (and writing on my phone) when I thought the original one up.

EDITED Chris, Interested in hearing your opinion on the possibility of occasional events/missions. I can't remember if somewhere in the recess of the forum this has already been discussed and decided on so I will lay it down anyway! These would be pop ups (like the UFO intercept screen) which would have a world government make a request or demand of you. These would be very occasional (one a month or less - probably ticker based) and be things like; North America requests 200 laser rifles. Completion of this mission will enable the North American's to automatically deal with all future fighter/scout crash-sites. Time Limit: None. (Obviously these missions would only occur after the correct tech had been unlocked but might be a nice alternative to clicking away lower value missions in the mid-late game). Europe requests increased XCOM patrols above their territory due to increased alien activity. Completion of this mission will lead to +10 approval rating - Time Limit: 1 Month Africa demands immediate XCOM assistance with a terror site in Cape Town (I believe this is already in the game anyway!) Asia demands 3 alien power sources to alleviate severe power shortages across the continent. Completion of this mission will lead to increased funding from Asia; 100,000 p.m. Time Limit: 2 Months. I understand that this suggestion may be unworkable but I thought it might open an interesting discussion as to how you could make manufacturing useful (while not wholly profitable) and also alleviate some issues with the monotony of clearing small crash sites in the mid-late game. It would also give people a reason to send out Aircraft on patrols other than to try and find enemy bases.

Its a non-combatant sporting an incredibly destructive laser rifle. Sneaky aliens!

If there is a part of the UFO you cant seem to get in then try using the rocket launcher or the vehicle (hunter) with rockets to blast the place to pieces and in doing so generally kill any aliens inside.

Impressive! I thought the Chinook shot down was a bug that caused instant CTD. It has for me on several occasions...

Its definately playable. I think key for the moment is actually the fact that there is only one groundscape map. I don't know how many maps will be in the final game but I do know that even the same map (say an urban environment) should in theory generate fairly differently each time. In other words, there is going to be an essentially whole new game available once the game goes into beta and release. There is also a unique chance to help mould the development process with the devs keen to get opinions and ideas from the community (which can only be a plus).

Well done to the devs for coming up with an incredibly promising formula! Hopefully this will generate some more interest, and indeed I notice there around 20 more folk currently viewing the forums...

I'd be happy with that. It would need to tell you the AP cost on mouse-over though.

The more options the better imho. Personally, I don't feel the need for portraits anywhere on my GUI and would much prefer small numbered tabs along the top. I tend to manually select soldiers anyway but sometimes use the numbered keys to go between soldiers - it sure would be nice to know what number I was currently on. Of course, I might warm to portraits as long as it was unlikely that a case of more than 2 identical portraits occurred? In this case, my preference is to have them on the left. Regarding grenades, why not just have the quick action slots the 2 (single slot) points on the belt (as opposed to the 3? double slots). Soldiers should definately NOT drop their weapon. I like the solution of having the weapon icon greyed out and it taking X AP to recover it. In reality, rifles/snipers/launchers are slung, pistols holstered so there is never a case of a weapon leaving the soldiers person in a battlefield situation. Having it appear in your pack is needless I would suggest. Also, I like the idea of the quick reload icon. However, this should only be active providing you have clips in your belt. Ammo in backpacks should be deliberately high in the AP stakes to access as it is only for use in lengthy engagements. This would also mean that belt real-estate has more utility and strategic use. Anyone else agree? AP reservations look fine the way they are. Not sure there is a requirement for additional notches to account for kneeling/turning. It is likely that some of the time you will end up with 2 or 3 AP spare anyway. Prefer a click-able map icon as opposed to a minimap.

Like it! This will make balancing much easier

Liking this! I'm a strong believer in lowered AP shots, but with several hits required to kill a standard alien even if this means lowering its damage. If you balance it right the average damage per AP should not actually be any lower than it is currently so although it is taking more shots to kill the alien, it should still be possible over the same amount of AP providing the accuracy is the same for both. Now of course if you take a single 90% to hit shot and replace it with 3x90% to hit shots that both equate to the same damage then the second option on average should do lower damage over X amount of shots so it does need some work. I'm going to think on this some more. Lastly, @ AD. Surely the purpose of a scout by definition is merely to find out where the aliens/UFO are and not to actually engage the enemy (unless under extreme circumstances). If they are being used as assault troops then they should be getting slaughtered when facing alien solders and quite rightly too.

Research is not the same as manufacture.

AD, you can have a look at the AIprops.xml It has a list of the parameters for 7 alien races; Caesan, Praetor, Reaper, Wraith, Harridan, Andron, Sebillian. I know that these have probably just been put in as placeholders, but none have outrageous stats though they appear to have been demarcated to a degree. With regard to reaction shots. What seems to happen is you come into contact with an alien. They have a chance to react fire based on their reaction stat. If they pass they shoot, if they fail they don't. Now if that alien normally takes 30AP to shoot, then you need to use 30AP yourself before the alien has a chance to shoot again. Obviously if you have 60AP and use them all during a turn then that alien has 3 chances to shoot (probably at around a 30-40% chance each time - not sure how this is calculated!) I may be wrong on this I have expanded slightly on Chris' post. So actually, having 6 shots at 10AP shouldn't be any different than 2 x 30AP shots from a reaction fire point of view.