Belmakor

Did you redraw the soldier corpse sprites? They look different somehow apart from the blood.

That would be annoying, truly (well the odd occasion would be rather unexpected and enjoyable!). Maybe passive aliens should have lower shot % thresholds so that they tend to fire more from further back? That way they are not going to run away or sit around but might contribute a little (read: healthily) without crowding the dropship? AND Could you have a small chance each Alien turn of a passive alien becoming aggressive. Perhaps this chance would increase the higher the available shot chances. This would allow the AI two emergent game-plays; * an Alien that has suddenly come into close combat has a high chance of behaving aggressively (i.e. spending all TU's on shooting). Whereas now they might take a pot shot then run away only to be shot in the back on the Xenonaut turn. * occasionally a passive alien sitting at the edge of the current battle might decide to wade in unexpectedly.

Well done Chris (and team) for your passion and hard work all these years. This game will be long remembered I am sure! =)

Observed: On the new terror map, Casean with plasma rifle was on my flank (within sight) and I had 3 guys there in a bad way, 1 on less than 50% health, one who had been mind controlled. Uninjured Alien ran away and ended up being the last AI alive, hiding in the corner of a convenience store. Desired: If Aliens are engaged in Combat and there are other Aliens (even passive ones) within sight of the combat they should make an effort to move forwards and engage. Just now it seems that if they don't have line of sight to shoot they will just run around doing their own thing or sit still.

This seems partly true, do you mean when you are sat right next to the door. I had a frightening few turns in an Andron Medium base when I had about 7 guys moving up a corridor apparently safe and as they got to the corner over the next 3 turns 5 Andron guards came charging out a door next to it. Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day.

I don't know if its possible but instead of toning down morale penalties for taking damage, could you make them weapon dependent? It strikes me that being hit and pinned down by a sniper is more fear inducing than a guy firing his little pew pew pistol. I know its tied to suppression, but the (IMHO) scariest weapons don't always have the most suppression. I'm not against higher chances of panic, as long as its deserved.

I can't comment on the costs as of yet, but certainly dropping the amount of alenium and charging alloy instead is a good move. At the end of January I have over 100 alloys but only about 20 alenium after building a Corsair and a Marauder. I think the problem is that its really tough to get your interceptors upgraded while building weapons and armour, decomissioning craft at important times (or having extra hangars). Then usually you can't afford to build more than 1 or 2 of them so you end up with these flight wings with say a condor, corsair and foxtrot that fly at the slowest speed (condor) and struggles to catch some of the alien craft. That can be fun for a time I suppose but maybe less so if your stuck with very little cash and can't ever actually upgrade your fleet fully as the invasion progresses. I might point out that my last play-through on V5 (without Chris's balance patches) I was doing a bit of save scumming (on veteran) with more than 2.0m in the bank, 1 full base, 1 half full and 1 basic two hangar base - and doing every single mission including about 6 small andron bases. I was still out of Alenium and cash by the time I had 1 corsair and 1 maurauder.

Yeah that's my only issue. I don't know what the next upgrade is but my foxtrots and condors have had plasma weapons for about two months now and can do well in excess of 1000 damage. My corsair on the other hand can only do 120 * 8. I can go into an autoresolve with a condor against a scout at 100% but my corsair is like 89%. Go figure...

Oh man that was a big disappointment. First time i've ever built a Corsair (and i've been playing since v14 or something) and it has two cannons instead of any missile hardpoints... Is that a bug? The lore says its supposed to be a direct upgrade of the Condor.

Yeah that's true I guess and probably better from a gameplay perspective. However, the Androns seem too tough in base maps simply because out of the two weapons that can really damage them, neither can really move and shoot in same turn. Also because of the way reaction fire now works, with them being able to fire off all their saved TU's they are really deadly. All it takes is you firing once (which will never ever kill an Andron unless you hit it with 6 rounds of MG) and you will get double reaction fire with one shot being enough to kill someone in Jackal/wolf armour.

What happened to the two ammo types for the starting launcher. Explosive and armour piercing? I think if you made the armour piercing rounds available it would really help with one more choice to deal with androns with good armour mitigation (maybe it could have a cone blast radius that extends three squares in front?). Then I would have no problem with you nerfing the explosive rounds. As it stands how do we deal with Androns in a tight base map?

Also is there a chain affect to panic. I.e does having a panicked soldier in close proximity increase a guys chances of panicking? Maybe that needs to be toned down a little.

I think suppression is about right at the moment. However, I think if you've got a Captain or Major in full armour taking 20hp damage (which you would probably liken to a grazing wound) who can then panic or even break then its quite punishing. Is it possible to change chances of each type of panic action occuring for different ranks? i.e. a new recruit might have equal chances of panicking, breaking, bezerking. Whereas a Lt might have less chance of panicking or breaking but the same chance of bezerking with the probabilities reducing as you go up the ranks? I can't remember if its still included or not but do soldiers gain morale from having others in close proximity. If so could that proximity be increased slightly so that guys who are still in mutually supporting positions still count towards it even if by a lesser degree?

Is this a balance issue or a bug I don't know... I am getting really frustrated by the inconsistencies of corners. I means sometimes I can shoot round them but most times I can't. However, the aliens seem capable of pulling off a head-shot from half way across the map around a corner which I am not able to shoot around. Either make corners universally able to be shot around and through, or don't. Don't apply different rules to aliens and humans...

On my recent play through of V21E6 I have come to suspect that the morale system currently in place is a little bit too punishing. On my first terror site I went into it fully equipped with laser weapons and wolf armour - against Cas. Apart from the fact that they surrounded me from turn 2 and started laying down the hurt I was finding that nearly every turn 2 of my Xenonauts would be panicked. They were all rank Major or Captain! I would expect privates to wilt under fire, but I don't like seeing an experienced Captain or Major panic just because some rounds landed in the same square as them and took off perhaps 20hp. Anyway the whole mission became a disaster with nearly every one in the squad panicking, even though they outnumbered the enemy and if they had just held onto their weapons would have been fine. I feel strongly that as you up the ranks the chances of panicking should really drop down. Bezerk yes, but drop your weapon and run away? no. Also talking of running, why do they always run towards the aliens!??

Max_Caine for commissioning Xenonaut art and sharing it with us! =)

I get a freeze after the last alien is killed which varies from 16 to 70 seconds.

I am getting this crash also. I have a feeling its a corrupt save?

I get the crash on every type of mission now. Not sure what's changed? Loading a saved game maybe? Incidentally, this is on a clean install.

1. I am against a system that can still punish a player for having the 'perfect' game. The player should always have a chance, no matter how small of stopping terror or alien bases from popping up. The best solution as others have suggested is to allow alien ships to land faster after spawning, thereby lowering the interception chance and making terror sites, or bases much more likely. If you did go down your 50% route. Why not put the attack in a region with the highest funding. This would be sound tactics by the Aliens points of view, is likely in a location you can easily respond to and won't cause a death spiral if you lose it. 2. This basically makes Terror sites the be-all and end-all of the game then? I can't for-see how you could avoid a death spiral if you start to miss one or two terror sites in the early months? Either you make Terror sites punishing as you said but move them till month 3 or 4, OR you make them have a smaller impact but happen more often. I happen to think that if I somehow managed to shoot down every aircraft in a wave, and clear every crash site that I should not be punished so much by a single terror site. 3/4. This sounds like its getting on the right track, but the two strikes system is really harsh. I mean sometimes a nation only drops its funding by $5,000. That nation probably only had one or two aliens flying over it and yet it leaves after 2 months? I'd rather see faster drops in funding from nations you are not covering BUT compensated by faster rising funding from the nations you are covering well. Nations should only leave the program when they hit $0. 5. Interested to test this. The AI on the Geoscape doesn't appear to have any plan which is part of the issue. I would say a plan would be to spend the first months scouting as they do followed by an air war against one country followed by another. I'd also like to see a country chosen at random that the Aliens pretty much beat the **** out of from month 2/3. If somewhere like South America, South Africa, Indonesia, Indochina or Australia was under the cosh I might consider putting my second base there. The understanding being that only then could you stop the negative spiral of funding AND you would also want to stop the Aliens planting a base there. There should also be more deception. I like the way alien interceptors wait until you launch before appearing. I would also like to see UFOs acting as decoys (running around before escaping to space) to stop me intercepting a Terror Site or base plant. I remember in the original game, sometimes you would see a UFO literally streaking across the sky so fast that you couldn't hope to keep up. They always flew in a direct path, instead of a zig zag and I remember always been excited/worried at the thought of its seeming purpose. Was it going to base that already existed? Was it just escaping to space? Had it just abducted the president of the United States?

American/European workers being replaced with Scientists and Technicians in Indo-China... (and in the game).

I agree that different funding levels are a must. I think they are planned.

Using funding as a method of encouraging base siting might not be so easy. For example Russia pretty much extends right into the Baltic which is just as good as a base in Egypt/Greece. A base in North America is only marginally worse than a base in Central America due to the geography. I think funding should be a little more gamey. Maybe random each time you play through? Although this should certainly be an option that can be turned on or off. I'd imagine most people on their first play through want to play in their traditional style. Things really would be shaken up if the RNG gives you Indochina and Australasia as your key funders at game start.

The thing is, if you lengthen the time then you lengthen the events. However we have time compression on the Geoscape, so the game isn't going to get any longer. The only difference is what month the game says it is - which matters how? If you are arguing for some sort of realism, I think an Alien invasion would probably be over in a matter of weeks don't you? If you are arguing for more UFOs to shoot down then that is a matter of preference and should be readily moddable.

I don't see why mods like this couldn't just be bundled with vanilla (with the acceptance of Skitso) and an option was made available in the graphics options for "oppressive" or "normal" UI?