ooey

Thing is, the HMG is supposed to be an suppressive weapon by its nature (which is a good thing as it is another weapon type). Allowing it to be aimed between 2 points would be a good way to represent this. Putting both aiming points on the same point would satisfy the accuracy part for a trooper with high accuracy. I suppose what I'm saying is should the HMG have the ability to aim between 2 points if you want to supress a group of aliens that are close to each other? Sure, a flashbang will do the same thing, but at shorter range.

That would be the opposite of what I was saying, but in favour of the aliens! You could look at it either way I suppose. Take this example. General Montgomery was known as a cautious commander. You could give him an 80% chance that this is the way he will treat his units if an AI in a war game. For each battle a die is rolled. If <80 he behaves as assumed. But on occasion it will be >80, meaning perhaps he throws caution to the wind and goes "all in", as Gen. Patton would do. Most if not all randomisations work using the internal clock as a seed. AI is so very very difficult and time consuming to get right, and there isn't any right way to do it I suppose. Depends on your point of view. But getting it 'right' makes for a far better game. Making the AI omnipotent is actually an easy thing to do, but feels very unfair (and it is). You feel you are constantly being cheated. I would suggest that it would be in the interests of the player to try to succeed in the mission rather than fail for the initial reason given, which may mean failing it, but then a mixture of mine and your suggestion may indeed be better.

For most games, the "right balance" seems to be that if you reach a certain milestone (i.e. advance a tech milestone from, say basic ballistic weapons to lasers) the enemy jumps to the next level with more powerful weapons. I'm not saying this is the right way to balance difficulty, but it seems to be what Xen1 did. Perhaps this is something to do with the set objectives in Xen2 (i.e. the aliens hit you harder if you complete the current given research objective). Perhaps if you shy away from doing that the ailens won't hit you as hard until you complete it. I would say a good way to do this would be that if you kill all the aliens in a mission, word cannot get back to the enemy that you are using new advanced weapons against them. However, if you fail a mission they can report back about the weaponry used against them and deploy more destructive weapons against you, for instance. But again, that has its own caveats doesn't it (i.e. if you keep winning the aliens will fall badly behind your capabilities)?!

Hmm. I wouldn't like to be pushed to a quick ending. I would like to savour the game for a while, and be in a position to strike if need be. It seems that if you do badly initially then you won't have much of a chance at the end (and people always make mistakes). Perhaps the research of a particular artefact activates it and sets a countdown for a significant ramping up of alien activity, the object also benefiting your aim (so you have to research it). That's a difficult balance to get right.

Perhaps the closest Wraith to your man heard a noise and the one at the top took a chance that your man was out of sight behind the wall? If so then the AI is pretty clever, but I doubt it :-). Good (realistic) AI is probably the hardest thing to do.

Some good ideas here. Like the sound of a "find the Impostor" mission the most! If not found perhaps he can try to run amok in your base.

As usual, mass protesting will get companies to realise that if they go down an unpopular path then they will die at some point (look at what's happening to a 'wokeafied' Disney/Marvel at the minute - making films no one wanted which are destroying franchises etc...). Also, look at how all soft drinks (apart from Coca-Cola) taste rubbish now that they have had the sugar taken out of them (I'd rather drink water thanks). Mind you, with coke, people told them they wouldn't be buying it anymore when they changed the taste of it in the 1980's, and they had to bring the original recipe back (thank goodness).

Perhaps an idea might be an alien robotic artefact that, if you keep it for too long, comes alive and triggers a (mini) base invasion scenario. That might be another way to get one of these/trigger such a mission early in the game. Perhaps an easy mission, but a good way to trigger such a scenario (in Xen1 I made sure my key bases were well defended against an external alien attack).

Heh heh. Serves him right!

Since you can't designate between 2 points to fire at a group of aliens, Is it better to give a heavy MG to someone with a high accuracy rating (which means rounds will be directed down a tighter cone, more chance of killing individual aliens) or a low one (meaning that you are more likely to hit more of the group/cause them to be suppressed, which is what the MG is really for)?

Not grants, but maybe loans, which have to be paid back by a certain date (i.e. may force you to take missions you might otherwise not want to). Fail to do this and you will be forced to sell stuff up to the amount needed to repay the loan (artefacts, base structures etc). Not sure if this is a thing, but the more Ailen bodies you have for research, is it the quicker it researches or do you just need one?

Yep. I think most of us are happy enough with what we've seen already (which make us want the finished product even more unfortunately) and we know you've got a small but dedicated team. I'm happy to wait up to another year. Hope there's no WWIII (or an alien invasion!) until then at least. If you need to tweak things with the new unity go ahead with that too if it makes things better. Patient lot aren't we?!

A starting empty base? Well this could be achieved simply by giving the player the money for the starting components and no initial build time for them. But it's a good thing that the starting base is already built because it has one inherent flaw - it's rather vulnerable to attack if left 'as is' (if aliens attack through hangers/lift shaft) which either means a forced redesign or the necessity of building missile defences in case of attack. Perhaps allow a free-build on the easier levels? When building a new base I always make them so that the aliens are forced into a 1-way path "kill-zone" if they try to get into the heart of the base (of course this trades build-time for a more defendable base). Time-limited missions add to the variation of the tactical missions and so are really a good thing. It may also be a good thing if landed UFO missions are also timed so you have to get to them before they take off and capture them (or at least blow one of their outer doors off so they can't take off or something). Peaking around corners may be just too powerful unless the aliens get that feature too (essentially the ability to see an enemy without them being able to fire at you since you don't present much of a target). That opens a whole new kettle of worms!

I think I've also seen this happen. When I went to recruit some soldiers the button wasn't there. But it may have been because I had no living quarter slots left so I'm not sure (didn't notice at the time).

Yep. Chris said in another thread that every milestone update will break game saves. If you think about it this is logical (unless you know every variable you are going to have in advance, and the ones not yet implemented can have null values for now). This is virtually impossible to predict though when adding new ideas/features to the game and so is inevitable. Sadly It's what's stopping me from playing the game for now (I've played about a month of game time and have been impressed with what I have seen so far). He did say though that whatever version you are currently playing will be kept on the servers (probably until final release) so you can play through to the end game for that version (just don't update if you want to do this ;-)).

This is true Alienkiller. I would have thought that we'd have at least 2 years to fight the aliens. 1 year seems a bit too short to do everything in. I think a shallower curve is needed (sounds like the game is in a bit of a rush). I'd much rather have a longer campaign to sink my teeth into than play the it twice over. Do you think it's that if you are doing too well you find the aliens exert more pressure, or is it just the case either way? Is it not based on the tech level you have researched to? I would hope that, like xen1, there are still basic scout ships to intercept well into the game if you are not doing so well. If this is something a large chunk of the community don't like, I'm sure they will think about changing it.

Ha. I think Insane on Xen1 was just too insane! I always played it on ironman though. I don't think it ever got easy per sae. A campaign will always have its ups and downs.

I didn't realise the game ends after one year. Is that all you get? That's a bit of a bummer.

Hmm. I don't know about this. Perhaps play on ironman mode if you find it easier or something? I've only played about a month of the campaign (ironman + middle difficulty setting) and find it pretty challenging. I think they said the Aliens will have smarter AI (along with the NPC friendlies) in successive updates, so maybe things will get tougher. I'm sure they will get the balance right in the end.

If implemented, better keep your best troops near it just in case :-). I had an idea a way back which is relevant to a mixed squad of men/women based on Sirens & He-men. If male troopers see females it halves their action points (and vice versa) as they would hesitate to kill beings of such beauty, but would have no effect on a woman trooper! This way you could hedge your bets by making your squad half/half. Perhaps troops left on a failed mission are used by the aliens to this effect. I like to have a reason for everything! I'd certainly think twice about killing a woman. Incidentally, are there rescue missions for troops left behind on a failed mission? That would vary tactical combat even more (i.e. agents have info. that a captured xenonaut/s are being held at a facility and you have to rescue them). Find them, free them and GET TO THE CHOPPER!

maybe the recoil advantage could be offset by taking a longer time to charge to fire (i.e. equivalent to more TV or action points). Or maybe a weight penalty over ballistic weapons (heavy charge coils/cooling fins or something). Or maybe both. There's always a way! Perhaps lasers are no good against armoured targets and cause less damage than ballistic weaponry, but more accurate (as many have said). Xen 2 has to avoid the Heavy Plasma trap in UFO: EU because once you got these you didn't really need anything else. From what I have seen so far, Chris seems to have taken this into account.

Mine clearing? Nice! I would make the mines large though, so that only a few could be carried (perhaps C4 charge-sized). Their only use really could be to block off routes and such, or place them on corners so that a unit coming around the corner gets clobbered (obviously of no use against flying enemy). I suppose you could throw an object at them to set them off, so that they wouldn't be so omnipotent. The problem in UFO EU was that they could be over used (you could often win a tactical battle just by laying loads of proxy grenades). Mines basically have the effect of slowing things down, so it would be a good addition (another gameplay element). Unlike real mines though, I suppose they would have to be just a visible deterrent (no time to bury them on a tactical battlefield).

Which begs the question "do you have a final release date in sight yet where it wont?" . I think I'll wait then (and just keep grinding in war thunder)! Thanks for your reply Chris, considering you must be so busy right now. I've played about a month of Xen2 and what I've seen so far is fantastic. Thank you for doing your best to give us varied tactical missions (I've done a collect the USB sticks one so far). The variation really adds to things (I assume somewhere there will be assassination missions where you have to kill cleaner leaders etc. - there was a mission like this in the classic Laser Squad to kill Sterner Renix I think ). It is this kind of thing that was missing from the original (although you did your best there too). Actually, if it will delay things some more setting the game up with the new and improved Unity, I'd say go for it!

I want to start playing this properly now, but do you envisage anything being added from now on that would break current saved games from this point? Or are save-breaking changes just a part of the development until final release?

The Xenopedia is now accessible in tactical combat (from the Esc menu) if you want to check enemy stats or abilities. This, of course, is a BIG improvement on Xen 1! It shows you that the small developers tend to listen to their fan base more than the big ones. Well done for this Chris, as something as simple as this kind of accessibility enhances the gameplay greatly (if only companies like Gaijin would listen to players with regards to War Thunder like this...).