Safe-Keeper

I prefer for it to be a one-way thing myself. Gives the whole game far more of a grim feel. It's like when films and games kill of main characters; it only really affects you if he or she doesn't somehow come back to life.

Minecraft with a Feed the Beast modpack, War Thunder, and of course Xenonauts.

Yes, squadrons should definitely be able to merge and split. Just as importantly, I want the ability to send up fighters to fly escort for a dropship that's already in flight, or for a squadron to keep going if one or more of the aircraft runs out of fuel, rather than the whole squadron needing to return to base. Pity if it won't be added.

First I got an "Items arriving at base" message and then when I went to the base screen I got the "dropship landing at crashed UFO" message (while still at the base screen) and hit "Engage". When the ground mission loaded, the background was the base info screen. Can upload screenshot if you want.

I "de facto" play Ironman, in that I don't activate that option, but never revert to an earlier save game because of things that go wrong. "Save-scumming" just feels like cheating to me now. If I'm losing horribly, I quit and start a new game from scratched.

This.

Personally, I find the main "problem" with sniper rifles is that the maps simply aren't big enough for me to need them; machine guns and other medium-range weapons can hit aliens just fine, and I find shotguns tremendously useful at close range, and I try not to spam grenades because they destroy bodies and equipment I need for money and research. That, and nadespam just doesn't work as a strategy for me because, as you've discovered, it makes everything way too easy.Shields, never used them. Mostly because I think of them more as a police/riot control asset and it always felt silly to me to bring them to an alien invasion battlefield. Agree with you that you could be offered slightly more info at the beginning of UFO recovery missions, but then again I like the suspense of moving into "total darkness", not knowing what lies around the next corner. I do miss an in-game "mega map" like in the original games, though, or at the very least the ability to zoom out quite a bit more than I can right now. As for grenades, the obvious problem with doing too much to nerf them is that you risk that all of a sudden they're not "fun" to use anymore. Don't know quite how to balance them myself, to be honest I think it's up to the players, whether they want to succeed through "nadespam" or force themselves to use more diverse tactics and weapons.

I hear Silent Hunter 5 isn't that bad with all the patches and a couple good mods, but then again, I haven't bothered to pick it up again to find out since I bought it, briefly tried it, and left it to gather dust, so why should I talk .

As Chris says, I'd rather the crashes be fixed. I don't experience frequent lock-ups or crashes myself, which logically means it's a "local" problem only experienced by some people. I've got no problem understanding that it must be incredibly frustrating to those people, but still, it's something that should be fixed by release, and either way, as was said, you can just manually save your game whenever you want to.

Soldiers should be immune to blindingly bright lights and unbearably loud bangs because... they come from a friendly source?Er, no.

The way I see it, as another poster said, a projectile is a projectile. When a soldier is "suppressed", he is experiencing munitions flying past so close to his head that he's finding it wisest to keep his head down. I suppose I understand the logic of a slight reduction from "friendly fire", but at the same time, I don't have a problem with the current approach.

This applies to all aircraft? Wonderful. I hate how you so often don't have much combat time even though you're intercepting a UFO very close to your base. Thumbs up !Also agree with Spike, ground crews should be able to refuel and rearm planes simultaneously. This would also make it easier to know when exactly an interceptor will be ready for launch. If that imbalances things, just make the Repair+Rearm procedure take a little longer. Would also be interesting if UFOs could react to their surroundings more, for example pick a new target if they feel a given interceptor would be an easier catch than the one they currently chase.

Haven't unlocked the later landing craft, but at least the Chinook has three exits, so you shouldn't be "pinned" inside your craft unless you pretty much decide to. Be glad it's not the OG and its bottleneck dropships that basically meant you were doomed if you had three Cyberdisks outside of your one exit ; .

So streamlining is bad because it might makes people ask for more stremlining? I don't agree with that. I don't follow, and I think you might have misunderstood my original post. I'm not proposing that we make interceptors automated, I'm proposing that you be able to, for example, click on a UFO, choose "Launch interceptors", select three Interceptors in the interceptors window, and hit the "Launch when able" button. Then, once all three are refuelled and rearmed, they go after the UFO as ordered. If another more urgent threat then appears I will cancel the order and give new orders accordingly. Don't see how that will be a problem, to be honest. Hours, not minutes. It's still a hit-or-miss when you open the window, and it'd be far more conventient to be able to give launch orders even though the fighters are not ready.Anyone else want to weight in?

I'm not sure if I understand your point. The game is doing nothing for me, I'm still opening the intercept window, choosing planes, and selecting a target. The only difference is I only need to do so once, rather than several times, because I don't know exactly when planes will be ready. Open the window too early, and the plane is still refuelling. Open it too late, and you waste valuable time because there's a plane sitting there ready to launch and a UFO potentially getting away. All I'm suggesting is that the game carries out the intercept order when the planes are ready. Don't see how that has anything to do with "the game playing for me".

Just a suggestion, is it possible to add an "Intercept when able" command to the game? That is, that I pick three interceptors, and they launch simultaneously when all three are done refuelling, repairing, etc.? I find it a bit cumbersome to have to keep opening the interception window to see if all the planes are ready to fly. Also, if there could be some sort of row of icons, one for each interceptor, in the top of the geoscape view, to show at a glance which fighters and dropships are ready to go, that'd be incredibly convenient as well. Green could indicate a plane that's ready to fly, grey could be a plane that's refuelling or rearming, and red could be a plane being recovered. Would save me from having to hit the "Launch interceptors" button for then to click some random point on earth to see which interceptors can fly .

Only read four pages, but support Chris' idea as it stand so far. In fact, I find it ingenious. Either try to do a crash site and get research items, points, experience and so on, or skip it and get money instead. Will do a lot for gameplay. Don't like the idea of having to tie up a chopper, though, half the point of this is that it's an option for when you don't have a helicopter available in the first place . Maybe you should re-read the OP. Chris clearly states he wants two different options with two different rewards. No one is penaltizing anything, nor do I see how this will lead to players "auto-resolving everything". Fact of the matter is, even as a completionist you won't get to do every crash site, either due to range issues, enemy air superiority, or other problems.

Actually, I like the idea of this kind of cautionary messages. For example, if you're building too much and at risk of suffering economically due to high upkeep costs, or if you're at risk of hitting a friendly due to friendly fire, or when you consider launching a chopper without fighter escorts. Of course you only make these mistakes once, but they are frustrating that first time and can even be game-breaking in worst-case scenarios.This doesn't even have to be popup messages, just a subtle "You are at risk of hitting your own men" text in red or orange appearing somewhere out of the way would cut it. Would save beginners some frustration.

Agree the Command Centre should be placeable. Yes, this leads to "better" placements, but well, that's kinda the whole idea. Well, yes, there are things you figure out quickly. Doesn't mean they shouldn't be in the game.

That's your answer right there. "Beta", or "not done" means "lacking features and placeholders, and various quirks in terms of gameplay and balance". If it was finished and polished, the game by definition wouldn't be "not done" in the first place. Balance feature. Likewise. Please explain.

Again, you seem to be taking your own impression and applying it to "everyone else". You lump "newer players" into one homogenous group and expect them to dislike this feature. For some perspective, in the original X-Com game you never knew what was around the corner either. There was no way for a new player to know that researching alien alloys would unlock research for better armour, or that interrogating an alien engineer (if I recall correctly) would give you info on a certain type of UFO. If there was something specific I wanted to know, such as how to get mind reading technology or a certain aircraft, I looked it up in the strategy guide (this was in the "old says" before you could just Google stuff). X-Com sold well and got good reviews, and, as Chris said, this research model is an integral part of the X-Com experience. Personally, I love that the tech tree is obscured in Xenonauts (as it was in the original X-Com). I love playing through the game not knowing what to expect, to the point where I hate to have techs and whatnot spoiled for me. To me, Xeno has the right balance of surprises and planning. You can't exactly make "wrong" research choices to any degree either, it's not as if you are penaltized if you research X instead of Y. Thinking of it, this is pretty much exactly how research works in reality, too (think of how the space programme gave us non-stick frying pans ).

I hate to say this, but: please don't assume everyone else thinks the way you do. I personally liked the "mystery" of the X-Com tech tree, and how you didn't know what was around the next corner when you assigned stuff to research. Also, as you yourself say, you can just look things up online nowadays, so if you really can't stand uncertainty, the answer is a google search away. Well, duh. That goes for all unknowns, in all media. Not a reason against having them in. FTFY.

Absolutely a good point, but but even so, the first terror missions come at a time when the player has zero chance of having such coverage.

I think he knows that and is asking the question because he wants to know if anyone can mod these things in .

The UFO in the first picture looks a bit "static", perhaps you could try to give it a bit of motion blur or something ? Second image looks absolutely stunning, though!