Charon

From a programming point of view i think it would be good to implement something that can set the selling prices for items after the fact. While i mostly think that this would be useful for modding purposes, the broader idea is that you could stimulate an economy which based on [events]. For instance you could introduce an alloy scarcity worldwide and let alloys become insanely valuable to sell. Additionally you could attach a % chance to such [events] ( like researches ) and bundle such researches thematically together. You could either have each individidual [event] have an individual chance to trigger an [effect] or have bundled [events] share an [effect], which altogether have a 100% chance to trigger. Mix and match for best results. This should mean minimal programming work ( although save games will have to save that information ) while increasing replayability and dynamic elements in the game. While this thread is not about it, this could also be the beginning of a dynamic black market concept for the game. I want to stress that this thread is not about including a black market element in the game, i just want to point out that such element would be easy to expand on as a follow up of this technical suggestion.

Wanted to inform people that http no longer works as a link. Example: http://www.xenonauts.com/modfiles/X-Division 1.00.01 Update.zip will produce an error, but https://www.xenonauts.com/modfiles/X-Division 1.00.01 Update.zip works. This might mean a lot of old links could be dead.

@MaskI would ask you to stop inquiring on this topic any further. We know when Chris is dead-set on to trying out something new, any further arguing will only put him into a more and more defensive position - and that when people dont even have a testversion to give him feedback on. The thing that you have to understand that a game is not only the property of the community, it is also the creative property of the creator. And as the creative creator of something you enjoy making never before seen content, and enjoy taking responsibility for its outcome - in the same way a child enjoys building a jenga tower, and then drive an matchbox automobile through it. They just wanna see what happens, its an important core step of "learning" something. Nobody can tell a child about how the world works - it has to see that for itself. All we can do is to be on standby when it asks for help. For this reason Goldenhawk Interactive sometimes appears to not listen to the forum, but that is not the case. The discrepancy comes from the time frame in which a suggestion is made, and a working build is released. Sometimes that can literally take months, or half a year, where literally nothing seems to move, but the main thing is it just that it takes time to build a game. I do understand that most people dont live on this forum, and therefore dont know "when" the best time to give feedback on something is. In this case i would ask to keep the arguments on this topic, and write them out after a reasonable amount of time after a version with these features is released. That is usually the best time to give feedback on. Another word on the initial post on this topic and why it only got 8 replies. It didnt go over the head of the more experienced users of this forum. But the proposed changes were so bad that they were literally beyond discussion. 80% of the feedback on this system received negative and sparsly worded feedback, but we all know when Goldenhawk Interactive is dead set on trying something out, and we keep our feedback for when the time is right. At least thats my oppinion and read on the situation.

Ok ok, i think everbody is getting a bit heated here. Lets relax all a bit and take a deep breath. Well, reality doesnt care about tech level. And that a weapon like a shotgun which works like a big sledgehammer on targets is only effective against soft targets is intended behaviour. If you look at ballistic warfare from a physical side you want to transfer as much kinetic energy as possible into the targets body. Im sure you are aware that water stops kinetic bullets quite effectiviely. The reason for that is that water molecules have a big cohesion factor, and therefore take in a lot of the bullets kinetic energy very quickly. You can experience that effect when you hit water with your hand - the faster ( more kinetic energy ) your hand is, the more you feel like hitting a hard surface. The least resistance you will feel when you gently put your hand into a body of water. The first advice when you potentially will get into a firefight is "Empty your bladder". If a bullet hits your bladder in a firefight and it happens to contain a lot of fluid it will take in an excessive amount of kinetic energy, and then disperse it through your body. You basically build a grenade in your body, with a bullet as the trigger. If such thing should happen you are unsafeable dead. On the other hand if a bullet just shoots through your body ( little amount of transfered kinetic energy ) especially with a small caliber you have a high chance to make it, it could literally just be a scratch. Why am i writing this out ? Well, i want you to put your focus on the fact that Weapons having little effect isnt a Xenonauts only problem - most of militaristic research focuses on how to effectively transfer energy, not restricted to kinetic, into the target body. Lets first get the defensive definitions out of the way. Target Body - This is the body you want to transfer energy into. Transfer enough energy and the material of the body will cease to function and transform. This is your goal. Armour - A protective measure usually in the form of material in close proximity to the targets body. The key to understanding armour is to understand that the function of armour is to disperse the energy intended for the target body over a maximum amount of area. An assault vest doesnt negate bullets - all it does is increasing the area of effect for the impact, transforming a deadly amount of energy for an area into a withstandable amount of energy for the area. The function of ceramic plates against a plasma bolt is to be a material which has very bad thermal energy transfering properties. Shield - A measure to stop the energy intended for the target body to even reach the armour. Common examples of this are riot shields, missiles which target other missiles, and recently i have also been informed that the german military has implemented lasers which cut and trigger missiles intended for vehicles right before the missile hits the vehicle. Because of this 3 definitions we usually split the offensive measures into 3 categories. Anti-Personel Ammunition - The problem of your average bullet could be that it passes through the target body transfering very little energy into it, still having most of its energy after exiting. This kind of ammuniton focuses on transfering as much energy as possible into the target body at all costs. Take a look at the following example: >>> For slightly worse aerodynamic this bullet increases its impact area in the moment enough resistance is encountered, transfering most if not all of its energy into the target body. On soft targets this usually leaves behind a fistbig hole. The drawbacks of this kind of ammunition are usually that they have a shorter range than better aerodynamic models. Also the lethality of this ammunition could be a drawback if you want to do anything else than kill. If this kind of ammunition encounters enough resistance to trigger the impact area widening effect on the target body lethality is mostly guaranteed. This kind of ammunition is also ineffective against armour because it basically does what the armour should be doing in the first place, helping the armour in its use. Normal Ammunition - Your standard bullet, not very lethal, not very far range, but cheap and your first choice if you want to pierce medium grade armour. Depending on the caliber and the weapon range you get what you pay for. AP, Armour Piercing Ammunition - The answer to better normal bullets is better armour, and the answer to better armour is armourpiercing bullets. Did you ever hit a wall with your fists, and it hurt ? From the physical side it doesnt really matter if you hit hit a wall, or the wall hits you. If two objects collide and an impact occurs what matters is the relative kinetic energy to each other. You take all of the relative energy and ask "Which object is softer ?", and then transfer most energy on the softer target. The reason why your hand hurts when hitting a wall is usually becaise the wall is a lot harder than your hand, thuse more energy gets transfered into your hand. If you can make your fist hard enough you can hit walls and the walls would get damaged instead. Armour Piercing rounds focus on decreasing resistance and impact area, in order to transfer as little energy as possible into the armour, so that some remaining energy reaches the target body. The armour piercing rounds make a full circle of where we started, which was trying to get as much energy as possible into the target body, while armour piercing rounds try to decrease resistance and energy transfer into armour in order to increase the chance of armour not stopping all the energy intended for the target body. The downside of armour piercing is that it is less effective against soft targets, and that it usually carries a higher production cost. The upside is that the impact philosophy usually means it can afford a good aerodynamic, and with it a better range. Now ofcourse how you transfer such a system into a game is another question. If we try to simulate it as close as possible than "damage" for its possible energy transfer into the target body, and "mitigation" for its penetration properties is propably as close as it can get. Mitigation only negating armour and not increasing damage is realistic, since you cant decrease the lost energy to armour to less than zero. Mitigation also negates shred, because shred only applies if armour absrobs damage, which it doesnt if armour gets mitigated. Shred is also a completely valid battlefield factor. Try to roll up a piece of paper. When you are rolling up a piece of paper you induce energy into it. Afterwards it will try to assume its original state, but depending on the amount of energy you induced it cant quite get back to its original form. Now, in order to get the piece of paper 'almsot' back into its original form you have to induce the same energy - by rolling it up the other way. As far as i am aware armour is only supposed to get punched from one side, and with it will inevitably get closer to a failure as more energy is induced into it. Not quite as much as 10%, but maybe more in the direction of 2% - 3%. "Damage" "Mitigation" and "Shred" are propably the most realistic concepts put into a military simulation game. Now you mentioned a problem with Shotguns not being effective against heavily armoured units - well thats the point, or is it ? The realistic approach to a similar problem in the real world would be to design ammunition for each purpose. If we take an andron with 30 armour as a "haevily" armoured unit as our example. Anti Personal Ammunition: 30 damage. In total zero damage. Normal Pellets: 25 damage 10 mitigation. In total 5 damage. Piercing Rounds: 20 damage and 25 mitigation. 15 total damage (per bullet) As far as i can see it all you need to have is proper mitigation values balanced against proper armour values. In the above example you can also see that Piercing Rounds against targets with no armour are worse than Anti-Personel Ammunition. Ofcourse this would be if somebody would want to flesh out a diverse ammunition system. If you confine weapon viability to weapons alone ... than you will always end up with a weapon either being a very good anti-personal, normal or piercing weapon. But if you think of weapons as delivery platforms instead of damage platforms, you could make very interesting weapon-ammunition combinations. This would mean that certain delivery platforms could have certain advantages, but also being able to be used in different scenarios, with less efficiency. Hm ... --- I agree. Isnt the definition of at least being somewhat useful that you just need more rounds to achieve the same goal ? less damage and more mitigation would have done wonders in that case. The less damage it has the less armour it can shred. Props shouldnt be affected by shred, including UFO walls. more mitigation, less damage. So what you are saying is that "this means that literally any unit can be destroyed by any weapon if you shoot it enough times". Wink just joking. (Clears throat) Anyway. We all support you in the journey you want to make <3.

So it doesnt matter if it is the Xenonauts ending, FiraComs ending, or X-Coms ending, i dislike them all their final mission design. You successfully or unsuccessfully do the final mission and then the game tells you "Game`s over. Cya til next next time. Now leave !" It doesnt let you take a last look at your soldiers. Inbase or in a mission. It doesnt let your savor the people who survived the last mission. It doesnt let you do some more missions if you wish so. It doesnt let you do some more aircombat, if you wish so. It has a lot of this 1990-style games when at a certain point in your game you will get a "Game Over" screen and then the credits roll. But since we are already some decades past that and i feel like the "Edngame" missions are purely held onto for legacy reasons i would like to suggest the following. [] Transform the final mission from a do or die mission into a challenge mission players can attempt multiple times, and fail-until-they-succeed in it. This suggestion obviously means you cant stop time as you did in X1. [] Let the player normally continue the game, justifying it by "strangler UFOs and independent alien activity" after the final mission. This way players can savor the game for some additional gameplay if they wish to go onto a few more missions. Mechanically nothing would change after the final mission, unless you want to implement some post Endgame changes like a stopped timer, or removing relatiomnnhip damage from alien activity. But the basic idea is to continue the game after the final mission as it would be without it. Releasing the player into an unrestrained adventure and showing off some more of the game.

Congrats.

I think we can all agree that when we are in a subtab we want: To have information about ALL available equipment. To be able to equipt ALL avilable equipment, eg. all equipment that is not used in the current subtab. If a grenade is stored in the storage room or "on" a soldier is irrelevant. Im not against option 3 per se, but i fear the implementation looks ugly. I would want to have a visual distinction between a "template soldier" and a soldier carrying "real" equipment. The go-to solution would be less transparency for template items, which looks less good than a simple "storage" on soldiers. I have a different problem that i frequently run into. I look at my rooster, trying out some new builds and combinations, changing up loads and equipment on individual soldiers ... once everything is done i realise that for that loadout a different class name would be more fitting, so i change the class. Guess what happens when you change the class, the default equipment for that class gets equipted ... all my carefully, and individually equipted loadout is gone ... . Because of this workflow i suggest that changing class doesnt automatically equipt soldier loadout, but that it only occurs when pressing the corresponding button. Usually you experiment with loadouts before you know what kinda class category that fits into, and this prevents having to reset your loadouts over and over again, just because you want to change the class name and icon.

Thx to everybody for sharing their oppinion.

One of the things which X1 had that it was almost always better to have LOS cover, eg. if the aliens cant see you, they cant shoot you. This gave snipers a hard time, since any good position to shoot from, was also a good position to get shoot at. So how about adding a concealment mechanic to the game ? The proposed mechanic is pretty simple. some armor can have an active ability which makes them able to conceal themself in the surrounding environment. This means an enemy unit will have to get 25% closer in able to see the unit wearing camouflage armour. The unit with the active ability needs to have environmental props near it to activate said ability, and moving breaks the concelment ofcourse. This would give snipers and soldiers in stationary positions better protection. Maybe it fits into the guerrilla warfare style of things ? Units can only go camouflage when the environmental props allow it. With this new gameplay mechanic you could also add countermeasures, like infrarot vision sensors, maybe some anti-camouflage equipment for the droid, sensory grenades etc ... . Different armour can camouflage differently well, always cutting a % of the sight of other units until they are discovered.

Suggestion 2. I cant follow this argument. >but this means it can be difficult keeping track of your equipment - e.g. you might have a spare Laser Rifle on one of your unassigned soldiers somewhere without realising it, and you'd have to search through them to check that isn't the cas Counter example: This means I have 3 sniper rifles available in total. 2 sniper rifles in store, and 1 combined sniper rifle eqipped on soldiers in other subtabs. Even better, if i want to, i can equipt all 3 snipers, where one gets automatically deequipt from the soldier in other subtab(s). I dont know if that is functionality that XCE introduced, but thats how X-Division works currently. This formula should be followed for all gear components: [available gear in store] + [available gear equipped on other soldiers in other subtabs]. As well as the automatic unequiping if you wish to equipt it on soldiers in the current subtab.

All shredding damage types shred all shreddable armour types. Now quickly say that ten times in a row. The armour system in Xenonauts is split into two categories. One which contains damage and armour which can shred and be shredded: Kinetic, Energy, and the other contains damage and armour which cant shred or be shredded: Chemical, Incendiary. Here are a few facts to think about: All shredding damage types shred all shreddable armour types equally for each prevented damage point. That means kinetic damage reduces kinetic and energy armour, and visus verca. This simulates armour getting more worn out over time. Chemical and Incendiary damage not reducing armour makes them types which are only good against enemies they are good against. Spamming doesnt help. Chemical and Incendiary armour not getting reduced means that if some armour has a good protection against those damage types it stays for the whole mission. No need to worry about battlefield effects. Kinetic and Energy damage shredding both armour types means that a mixed setup is more viable than a single damage setup, as both damage types help each other out. Spamming weapon fire is encouraged. Because of point number 1 you can have a unit with different shreddable armour values. Both shreddable armour types will get shredded, but the absolute difference in armour value stays the same. This is not explained properly anywhere, but thats how Xenonauts works, an underused and underexplained mechanic.

Depends on how much you have already played. I would like to say that XCE is totally like vanilla, just better, but that is simply not true. A lot of mechanics get changed, and XCE removes a lot of broken mechanics which are 100% in favour of the player. Teleporter blocking is one of the most broken things, XCE makes it into telefragging. Opening doors is a very "convenient" way for ... simple minded players to get a peak inside. In vanilla you cant get punished for that, no reaction fire, but in XCE you do. AI becomes more intelligent, Reapers one shot vehicles, Reapers get a better AI, aircraft UFOs get a "thinking" chance, the list is endless ... . XCE is an absolutely good game for it being a community edition. Maybe even the best community edition ever made. But despite this you have to deal with reality. And the reality with Community Editions is that they change a lot of stuff, but never see a full development cycle. Basically they never make the round of getting tested whether or not all that added/reinstated/like-the-original-intended-content/removed mechanics/content on their fun factor. Mods which are based on Community Editions usually make the missing part of a full development cycle again, as people usually actually play mods, and therefore the full incentive comes with a lot of people testing the game on their fun factor again. Balancing out all the new mechanics and content with additional content. And so making a full circle again. CEs and Mods are both 50% of a full development circle. Long story short. 1. Play vanilla, if you like what you see then 2. Get XCE and mods for XCE. Experience all that unbalanced gaming content. If you still want more then 3. Play a proper gameplay experience with X-Division. If at any point you dont like what you see just stop and switch to a different game. There is no use in forcing yourself above what you like.

XCE IS NOT A MOD. In the same way Xenonauts is not a mod, and Dawn of War is not a mod and plants vs zombies is not a mod. It is its own game, with its own executeable, its own data, and its own rules. Most Community Editions for games change source code, and become a program in its own right. Mods change content. if you change source code you become a different program. Apart from that it is a prerequesite for X-Division as it doesnt run on anything else .

None of the other non-cosmetic mods are compatible out of the box. They might break your game right away, or you might realise you are playing a completely broken game after 10 hours. That said, good content is this: Xenophobia. With the additions of AND_Great. I think i have a fixed XNT version lying on my pc. There is the X-Pansion pack, but i wouldnt recommend it. Stability wise. All of aajs´s content. XMC. Axiomatic s content, but its mostly geographical. There is also Armored assault, and the Dreadnaught mod, which might or might not work. Looking through the mod box in Xenonauts is mostly like walking through a broken toy factory. Nothing works, but everything is really interesting in its own right. If you just wanna look install whatever you see and then look what it does with your game, just dont expect a proper game afterwards. X-Division and the XNT version on my pc are propably the only slightly bigger mods that is geared towards the convenience of the player. Given a proper installation everything just works.

Use the reaction button on posts. This way less posts get produced, and positive feedback accumulates.

gameconfig.xml

Thats what i am saying, the only question is whether or not you will find the same behaviour in vanilla.

Unless you switch to the community version ? As far as i know in XCE you gain reflexes if you take a reaction shoot, or trigger one. I just dont know if that is not the case in the vanilla version. <reflexesProgress pointsToProgress="1" maxPointsInSingleBattle="1" globalMaxProgress="98" comment="A progress point is gained when a soldier performs a Reaction Fire test (it doesn't matter whether he passes or fails it)" />

I didnt decide that X2s airgame would be a topdown shooter. Chris did. All i am pointing out is that its ridicoulus to discuss solutions which fundamentally go against the inherent strenghts of topdown shooter, as X2 airgame is a topdown shooter in development. Yes, i agree that X1s aircraft speed added little to the overall vanilla experience. But all you are arguing for is to decrease the options for the player. Why ? Because somebody else might get a better result. It is "confusing" for less competent players and "empowering" for better players. Solver once stated that he disliked that other people could get better results in the airgame because they were better at it. Thats exactly what i am writing . I dont see an "improvement" in removing an option to please less competent players, except for the pleasure they get when other players dont have the option to make more out of a situation. I am not arguing for a slider. But since its already there and its usefull we should keep it. If it wouldnt be there, and nobody made the suggestion people wouldnt miss it. But if you remove it up front from the development than that closes down the paths to make a deeper system. I made a 9gb mod in order to demonstrate am interesting airgame. It uses the slider featuer extensively. Thousand of airgame hours have been played. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d3piT0zxhg&t=366s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCSPkjvAOoE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0fSkEA6A8o A button to match the speed of the locked on UFO. Now thats a good thing. Now we are getting somewhere. You might not know this, but if you select a UFO in X1, and the aircraft gets sufficiently close, it automatically decreases its speed so it doesnt overtake it. This ofcourse has its downfalls because the deceleration is depending on the aircraft, but the distance is not. You might also not know this, but you can already use hotkeys for the airgame. "Q" for a left role , "E" for a right role, "A" for afterburner ( the latest CE implemented that, thx @Solver), "1" "2" "3" "4" for weapon avtivation, "5" for firing all deactivated missiles, "F1" "F2" "F3" for individual aicraft selection, "F4" for selection of all aircraft. The only action that still requires clicking is LMB for target. No hotkey can replace that. And RMB for lock on. Propably the easiest solution to click on something you can visually see, as a hotkey solution would only cycle through all available targets. The only thing i feel is missing is to be able to add aircraft to an exisiting selection with "Shift". So "F1" "Shift" "F2". There is no command without a hotkey in X1. Not saying we cant improve on the slider. A visual increment of 10% with a - would be nice. Maybe a % sign of how much of the top speed is getting used. Also nice. None of those include removing the slider. A lot of people didnt like it and i dont know why. Maybe because there was no pause button. I think a possible improvement would have been to make it semi-turn based. Do you know what semi-turn based is ? One of the semi-turn based games i really like is Child of Light. Semi-turn based basically means that every unit has an individual speed value. Once the speed cooldown reaches zero, the game pauses and you have all the time in the world to make a tactical decision. Unit A could have 100 speed cd, Unit B 50, and Unit C 33. Unit B can attack twice as fast as Unit A, and Unit C can attack three times in the time Unit A makes one attack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbAylGrN-MM Different actions can have different time cooldown values. A normal attack could have 25 RT, a heavy one 50. Special abilities could make your turn faster or slower. Unit A with 100 RT and a normal attack would have a total of 125 RT for the cd. Unit C with a heavy swing would have 33 + 50 = 88 RT, and would still be quicker than Unit A. Tactics Ogre: Let Us Clink Together makes a very good strategic turn based system with that, as do a lot of other JRPGs. https://youtu.be/0B_XpO7bFZU?t=1933 The more i think about it, the more i think that Chris should scrap the airgame and make a semi-turn based minigame alá Child of Light, where units and actions have different speed cooldowns, with lots and lot of interesting options like "use main cannon" ( low damage, low cd) "use missiles" ( medium damage, medium cd, chance to miss) and "Denfesive", "Evasive" and "Aggressive" stances. Additionally aircraft would be able to use special abilities depending on their equipment, like a strong shield, that only lasts 200 RT, or an overclocked afterburner with a bonus to evasion. Child of Light is already a 3 vs 3, just replace the combatants with aircraft and UFOs and you have the perfect solution. I think this is what most people would be satisfied with. Finally some good suggestions. Now we are getting somewhere.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/497039581?t=01h57m04s One who likes the airgame.

Indeed. Its like making the intersection between people who like spaghetti and aborigines. Not saying they dont exist, but it wouldnt be the biggest group of people. Edt: Here is another guy who cant play the airgame Doesnt somebody think he would appreciate a thought out autoresolve system ? Or literally anything else ? Maybe something that is depending on equipment and luck ? Or i mean replace it with your generic Final Fantasy system, that has been a guaranteed success for fun for decades. Replace the characters with interceptors, and the whatever-it-is with up to 3 UFOs. BAM. Problem solved. Golden Sun is also a good example.

Even if it means to alienate all players who are on the opposite site of your liking, and like topdown shooters for what they are ? There is no solution which everybody likes, you are just advocating to morph a genre into something which it is not. The way better solution for you would have been a round based one, no ? But that chance has come and is gone. Maybe it comes again, but for now we are stuck with a topdown shooter, and removing elements which makes them fun isnt the solution. Skim through your own suggestions and you will see thats all they are doing. Yes, better suggestions all the way. But you are sharing the bed with other people who have something in common. They like Xenonauts Ground Combat and Geoscape. Only in how the they want the airgame to be they differ. Now you are saying "Get all the people who dont have the same taste off the bed." Yes ... if we could just find a solution which pleases everyone ... do you realise it might not exist ? Because no matter how you turn it, people have likes and dislikes. Somebody who doesnt like sports doesnt like most sports. There is no "sports for people who dont like sports". Every genre comes with its basic requirements. And topdown shooter have them too. You cant make a topdown shooter for people who dont like topdown shooter, and still preserve the features for the people who like topdown shooters. Phrase: "This is the best cheese, it contains 0% cheese." Yes, other people have different tastes. They might actually like it. Consider it. Your mindset is that of the strategic one, consider that other people have different tastes. Like 100% of Starcraft 2 players. They appreciate more control over less control. You are judging this based on the X1 meta. But all you are doing is limiting the meta down to rock-paper-scissor and closing the competence level down to your own. Consider that some people actually might do something with it. Something you might have never thought of. The fundamental part of topdownshooters is that you have controll over your plane. Thats where the fun factor comes in. Its the same fun factor a child has when it drive a mini automobil over the carpet. Seeing somebody else doing it isnt quite the same. If this would be a turn based game i wouldnt say something. In fact, i wouldnt even be here. I would leave it up to the people who like turn based aircraft games. But our current direction is that of a topdown shooter, and i dont see the solution in cutting away the things which make a topdown shooter fun and call it a solution. I rather say, ok, a topdown shooter is the current plan, but lets also get the people who dont like it onboard. And the common ground are the effects of aircombat onto the Geoscape. Does anybody notice i want a big discussion about the different kind of results of aircombat ?

I think all of this gets past the point. People like Xenonauts/X-Com because of the Ground Combat. People like Xenonauts/X-Com because of the stratgical decisions on the Geopscape. People dont like Xenonauts because it has a good airgame. If people want a good topdown shooter they buy Nova Drift or Space Pirates and Zombies 1/2 or other games, which make a lot more out of that concept. So why try to bake a medium solution for the part of the game which just acts as an interlink to the content people really want to get to. 2 systems so a maximum amount of people can get to the gaming content for which they are really there. Which is why i am advocating to not put too much emphasis on either the autoresolve system, or the aircombat one, but on the effects these can have on the Geoscape.

Nope i mean 1 button and lots and lots of interesting results. Maybe add a nice video. Thats exactly your suggestion, just that im not forced to watch a 1 minute unskippable cutscene. There is already a autoresolve system in X1. How much work is it to recreate the same function and apply it to a button ? Not saying thats a good solution, i am saying Chris should improve on that system. The work of that system would consist in simulating correctly, in which case we need to know WHAT the possible results are. Which is why i am advocating for an improved system which goes beyond Victory-Defeat. --- Im making the statement that a genre which is fundamentally dexterity based is impossible to make attractive for people who dont like fast mini decisions with time and timing pressure --- The only thing we get if we ask people who dont like topdown shooters is a system without all features that people who enjoy topdown shooters enjoy. You are trying to feed carrots to wolfs. Also, does nobody of you have any fantasy what you could do with an autoresolve system ? I mean look. I have been thinking about this topic for 5 minutes, and you could come up with procedural generated text events and decisions for the player to make. Like "Roll left (45% chance of success 110% total damage) Roll right (80% success), etc ... . Risk - Reward decisions in text form. The freed up resources would come from the fact that Chris doesnt have to make the airgame attractive to people who fundamentally dont like the genre of topdown shooters. People who make suggestions like Yes, take away more control of the player. No hate, just making a case. Love you kabill.

Read the point in the post above about twitch based dexterity skills being fundamentally different to slow strategic decision making. Your paragraphs prove my point better than i could have.