Lightzy

I think the game overall is so far from any kind of basic balance that discussing balance right now might be premature

But building one corsair takes 30 days if you have one full workshop full of workers... By the time it builds, I cannot take on anything flying at you anymore, and then it's just 1 corsair.. And so the question remains: how are you supposed to deal with the mediums+2 heavy fighters that show up around month 3-4 ? there's nothing that can come close to defeating them unless you have 6 hangars with 4 condors and 2 foxtrots and do double-wave on them... I'm clueless!

I don't get it, maybe i suck at air combat but there's no way for a condor to defeat a heavy fighter, even it has alenium missiles. it takes like 3-4 to down the fighter.. So it's essentially impossible for me to intercept any craft that has 2 heavy fighter escorts. Also, how would you defeat the light scout if it can evade missiles and you only have 2 missiles on the condor and need both to crash it? If enemies could effectively dodge missiles it's basically game over for me Hell, it's game over for me anyway around month 3-4 because there's no way to down those damned landships with their two heavy fighter escorts and from then on the map just fills up with large ships which don't go down even to 8 alenium torps and a whole blitz of heavy fighter squads (which I cannot at all intercept) how do u win air combat like this?

OOPS ))))) you're absolutely correct. It's very confusing though, as the condor is the only thing in this game which is ever bought and it is unclear through the interface...

There's also slightly wrong grammar in the Corsair fighter description

No, it also chain-locks (keeps initiating combat) that's heavy fighter vs 1 condor Also I did not realize I can drag and scroll the map actually, I simply zoomed out as far as possible. I think it might be better if zooming out all the way really zoomed out all the way then, because this is not very intuitive.. I did try to scroll using the arrow keys and it did nothing so I assumed there is no scrolling

I have a save-game if you want, where to mail?

I hate to say it but unless you know magic, I think you might seriously want to consider waiting for build 19 or later before release on steam. This I believe to be at once the most fun game I ever played and easily the most bug-rich game I ever played :> If you release at anything resembling it's current condition you might be regretting that decision later on when reviews and steam-forum talk starts kicking in

ACK I WROTE WRONG IN THE THREAD NAME AND CANNOT EDIT IT! it's the CONDOR that is not available for manufacture once the corsair is researched. this is fine, except that the corsair costs 400k and the condor costs 50k, meaning that if you cannot afford the corsair, and lost your condor, you are now stuck without fighters and it's game-over

and I noticed that with heavy fighters, combat lasts even after both your escaping fighter AND the alien fighter are no longer even on the screen.. It's really silly and also I lost a fighter this way, without being able to see what's going on:) for sanity's sake end combat as soon as ur planes are off-screen

meaning I actually get hit by enemy missiles a few seconds after both my airplane and the missile are well off-screen... lost a foxtrot to a 1hit like that! ironman! damnable bugs

right next to the terror mission. also trying to start terror missions usually CTDs, sometimes not

What I think needs to change in ground combat according to importance: 1) hit chances on targets out in the open should be much reduced (so that not every single reaction shot by aliens have 70%+ chances of hitting a person who's advancing out in the open, which is the only way to advance in many maps. At 60 aim score, a soldier (or enemy) should have max 60% chances of hitting a target within its gun operational range and with no cover at all. A 60 score is the way soldiers start, after all. conversely, hit chances on targets behind cover would be raised slightly, so that you don't need a whole team of 4 expert snipers to sit and spend all their points on shooting a single guy behind cover, destroying his cover slowly and then getting 90% chances of hitting him when the cover is gone, which is what I do now if I don't feel like just using a rocket, which would take care of the problem easily. 2) weapon ranges should be reduced significantly (the current 'yellow' range should be the area where the bullet does not even travel that far and hit chances are 0%), so that you and the aliens don't completely abuse reaction fire to all shoot from across the entire map and have to at least advance on the target to a point where you might be in some danger, and your team remains coherent. This also prevents abuse of sqad-sight to some degree. having 0% chance to hit beyond the guns 'green' range means a more sensible ground combat game without shots from the edge of the map 3) all sight ranges need to be uniform, regardless of armor and regardless of anything. everyone spot each other at the same range (this is something which really breaks the game.. currently you actually need to have your point-men unarmored expendible rookies in order for them to have *better* survivability! ... otherwise they get too close to aliens, which spot them first and kill them) 4) aliens should not always sit at the same place so that I can fire rockets at them without ever even trying to get a visual on them (currently when I start a map I know exactly where to shoot rockets at even if I can't see that place yet..) 5) rockets need some costs involved with them and weren't the only way to go, and were much more inaccurate as well as hard to fire (perhaps requiring 50, 55 TUs). Personally I would remove them from the game completely or make them so inaccurate that firing them is a pointless misadventure 6) The AI needs to be improved in several ways but I don't really count this as a necessary change because it's something that's going to be done anyway and is not a 'balance' issue so much 7) maps... with the game already 4.5gigs (HOW??), maps remain very repetitive and you can't have random ones apparently so I dunno about this one.. are map files expensive to draw? can you randomize anything in them? like the ufo position etc? random maps are definitely the way to go 8) grenades should have sane ranges, and be used for close combat to remove enemies from cover (currently this is completely pointless because if you get that close to an alien, ur already dead (because being shot at in the open means you get hit maybe 75% of the time

Happened to me sometimes too

trying to aim (right click) with the hunter car CTDs the game

Any starting soldier sniper who shoots an enemy within his weapon effective range with no interruption between will get 95% chance to hit if he aims a little On the flipside, if there's any cover or hinderance in the way, then forget about hitting at all. Which is why my playstyle is thus: Spot an enemy with a soldier, and run away (the enemy will almost always be waiting in cover) Since you can't really kill anyone in cover, I have 2 rocket guys waiting to shoot at it (and they can shoot across the map pretty accurately too), either killing it or destroying any cover. If it's not dead, then my snipers then shoot (across the map) at the now uncovered enemy until it dies. Basically I never engage an enemy with riflemen because it's suicide (reaction fire one hit kills). I only take 2 anyway to use as spotters, and now that I think about it, it would be better to give them RPGs or sniper rifles too, then I could use them however I like... I suppose I only took the rifles out of some internal 'logic' that balance should be geared towards a mostly-rifle team with snipers and other specialized roles... well, for more specialized needs. You don't need rifles in this game currently because using them is pretty much suicide

u never get the 100 points when loading a save it seems

the tabs don't work, so i enter base management by clicking on the base on the map. but then some text is missing, replaced by #### (this time it was the 'send soldiers to training) button.. exiting the personnel screen then CTDs the game

to reproduce: load save, fly the chinook to the small crash-site (on the right) and start the mission... crash. I have the save file I can send if you want to check

1) When going into the equipment window for soldiers in ground combat, their picture is missing (replaced by large white rectangle) 2) A night mission in a city map had no roofs for buildings (rather, weird rectangle things) 3) no aim cursor for throwing grenades/flares etc or for the medkit (previously medkits cost time units and didn't work if you aimed them at the body of the soldier, but only if you aimed them at his feet.... now there is no aim cursor for the feet, but only for the body)... the aim cursor is replaced by just highlighting the tile green. 4) no 'cover' indicating graphics Also, the game crashed on exit, requiring a forced shutdown

It has to do with the overall balance of the game too, many systems feed in on each other and it's an interconnected analogue system like nature and society :> If there are slightly too many ufos so it feels inconvenient, and if it takes slightly too long for purchased items to arrive/manufacture, etc, then it's suddenly really annoying to have to purchase ammo for your airplanes.. also the other way around; if say you have too much storage space or too much money, then likewise it's an annoying chore because there's no trade-off or strategic consideration. I think the game should be masterfully balanced so that every choice has tradeoffs and is a strategic planning move. That said I really like the idea of charging you after the mission or interception for ammunition used:) It doesn't add anything to "do" really, but does add some, if not actual need for thrift, at least the consideration of the need for thrift in the back of ur mind. It's enough that you ask yourself for half a second "hmm, maybe I can save some by not using this rocket right now?" before you do the inevitable and fire the rocket, so to have a deeper feeling of being the commander in charge of all aspects of the xcom mission

gun ranges are just too long! 1) it removes much of the thrill in the ground combat game when you can shoot across the map with 95% accuracy with a rookie sniper with the starting sniper rifle. I don't know what the accuracy score is even for if you always hit. 2) the fact that you can shoot beyond max range for the gun means that you get shot from all across the map and I think aliens even shoot at you when there are walls in the way I think. I think the formula should be that the guns max range means THE BULLET TRAVELS NO MORE, and that accuracy should start falling towards the guns max range, and not after. that way even the current gun ranges are 'ok' for a more thrilling combat game (units have to be a bit closer to each other, everyone is a little more at risk and tactics is more than sighting and then bombarding from a safe distance

Ok now I'm sure what it is. If guns had 0% of hitting beyond their max range, ground combat would be fixed. :0)

I dunno infinitum, I understand what you mean about pointless choice and I dislike pointless clicking too but I think if it worked well for me in the OG then there must be a reason... so if I think why I liked it in the OG (and why it's even an issue for people now that this is a 9 page thread): 1) Like lightgemini mentioned, you only have so much room in your store-rooms so it adds to that part of the game 2) You need to choose if you want to have an exra supply in case your base gets attacked, or possibly get attacked sorta defenseless (happened to me a few times in the OG, it was actually real fun.. I had soldiers running to bodies to scavenge arms for defense) 3) You only have so much storage and weapons cost money. It might be hard to afford an all rocket/sniper team, you may need to go for cheaper weapons en masse and only a few specialized powerful ones. Also, rockets are more expensive and take up more storage space than rifle bullets, for example. 4) making weapons and ammo takes time which is a managable resource as well as production workers/space and money, which in turn affects how you approach ground missions. Cuz u might want to conserve those alenium rockets (currently infinite/free) to where they're really necessary, etc. All in all having something finite rather than infinite in this case adds some worry to the back of your mind which is exactly the best thing for a strategy/management game in my opinion :> I know that others may disagree, but we are all brother xenonauts here

1) The pace of the game is a bit too quick in my opinion. It's not really like x-com that I can recall.. 3 months in and you've gone to crazy ships. Even towards the end of x-com you'd still be getting normal ships, and the real large ones would be rare. losing funding would also be a slower process and one which is reversible if you take care 2) Even the tiniest mistake in air combat can cost you a plane or more, especially after a couple of game months, where you start getting alien fighters. and aircraft are FREAKIN EXPENSIVE. Air combat against more dangerous enemies still shouldn't be game over if you lose one single engagement. The whole balance of the game leans on air combat. In ground combat you have lots of options, lots of luck involved, you can lose soldiers and still win, with the gains offsetting the losses. it's ok to lose missions even. no loss is too expensive. So in my game i noticed that and went straight for hangars full of planes and replacement planes.. You can still win ground combat even with starting weapons, but if ur a tad behind on air combat tech and strength then it's game over