Chris

Thanks. I'll need a save to reproduce this though - there's a UI section that should be hidden that's being displayed there, and I can't tell why from a screenshot.

Good job with this, it's always impressive to see the lengths people are willing to go to to make mods work! In this case though it's a little unneccessary, as we're actually working on a native mod loader ourselves which is nearly complete already. What we're talking to the community about at the moment is the creation of the actual mod tools themselves, as reading and editing the game files would be much more straightforward if handled via a standalone editor that people could use. I'm not quite sure whether Solver is looking for help on the editor right now but if all goes well it's intended to be community-owned so it can be iterated on and improved by anyone who wants to devote the time to assisting the mod community.

Thanks, I'll check those out!

Thanks. Hmmm, that's annoying. A save game would be great here, because I'm wondering if this is actually a different bug where the interior and exterior walls aren't being destroyed together. Do you know if the problem goes away if you save / load?

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although note they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain! Gameplay / Balance Changes: Added a campaign difficulty option that allows you to modify the mission duration / reinforcement timers (this doesn't yet update the numbers in the mission briefing text). Added new artwork for Cleaner Origins, Wraith Interrogation and Tissue Regeneration research projects. Terror missions now grant -10 Panic reduction if you win. The cost text for a project on the Engineering screen now displays in red if you lack the funds to afford it. Flares no longer become far louder if you have more than one on-screen at the same time. Added proper silhouette images for all the weapons for use in the soldier minitabs at the top of the tactical UI. You can no longer throw grenades into UFOs through their roof. Bugfixes: Fixed the issue where grenades could miss even when showing 100% hit chance. Fixed air combat autoresolve failing to fire torpedoes at UFOs with escorts and therefore giving a much worse result than the manual air combat does in those instances. Fixed a bug where all Accelerated Rifles would turn into Cleaner Accelerated Rifles if you recovered one and were playing in a non-English language. Fixed soldiers sometimes rotating to face the wrong direction when throwing a grenade.

This is an update for the default Steam / GOG / Epic branches that contains all the fixes from the various iterations of version 1.29 which have been tested on the Experimental build. The changelog for the original 1.29 is shown below, as all the other iterations were simply ironing out various bugs introduced by these new features. Gameplay / Balance Changes: It is now possible to redirect aircraft squadrons that are already in flight via the Launch Aircraft panel (this also allows you to split aircraft out of airborne squadrons). Updated the AI so it will only perform attacks on units that an alien unit has seen that turn, as it was apparently previously ignoring the vision rules. This could lead to some rather unfair situations where enemies were shooting beyond vision range or throwing grenades over walls at units they had never seen. Cleaner units reduced in Accuracy from 65 down to 55 for the suited guys (Agents) and 60 for the hazmat guys (Soldiers). Accuracy for enemies on Recruit difficulty has been dropped from 85% of normal values down to 80% of normal values. Stun Gun has been buffed a little - it now does slightly more Stun Damage, has improved accuracy and holds 4 shots rather than 3. UFO Armour and Health are now shown at maximum zoom level in the air combat. Updated a number of translation languages files to incorporate various changes and fixes. Pressing Esc on the soldier memorial screen now correctly returns you to the Geoscape. Bugfixes: Fixed a couple of memory leaks that triggered each time you saved the game. Fixed players being unable to demolish base structures. Actually fixed the Geoscape multi-select dialog revealing hidden missions like the Cleaner Base. Fixed the opening cutscene and several buttons on the tactical UI ignoring the settings volume sliders. Fixed units being able to shoot through floor tiles in the Alien Base maps if they had taken damage. Fixed a calculation issue that was causing the game to generate female soldiers at a higher rate than intended. Fixed aircraft callsigns repeating before all available names had been exhausted. Fixed "War Machine" achievement triggering off the Exosuit, rather than the Colossus (which isn't yet in the game). Fixed one of the barn window types not correctly shattering. Achievements are now disabled during the tutorial. Servitor Wreckage is no longer incorrectly called Gun Drone Wreckage. Fixed various hitbox issues around the edges of the Geoscape regions so they now better match the highlighted areas.

No, this isn't something that's supported by Steam unfortunately. We do have a Steam Experimental Legacy branch which let's you revert to the previous Experimental build but I've not kept that updated recently (as the previous builds had crashes in them too). Anyway, 1.29 is patched again so hopefully it works now. But you can always revert to the non-Experimental version if you want a more stable experience!

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although note they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain! Milestone 1.29 is proving to be a bit of a pain, as allowing aircraft to be redirected in flight and the fixes to the selection detection (so you can't reveal hidden missions by accident) have exposed existing bugs or generated new ones. Hopefully this is the final fix for these issues! Gameplay / Balance Changes: Fixed a crash that could occur when you tried to begin air combat. Fixed a crash that could occur when a UFO spawns onto the Geoscape. Fixed an issue where aircraft at the same base would sometimes not be allowed to form a squadron with one another.

The fix hasn't hit the main branches yet. Once 1.29 is out for everyone the spawn rate for female soldiers should be ~30% across the board. Right now it's ~45%.

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although note they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain! This is a very small update for 1.29 that fixes a couple more issues encountered by the playtesters. Gameplay / Balance Changes: Fixed an air combat crash that could occur if you redirected an airborne aircraft that was leading a squadron. Fixed the UFO-spawned Terror mission being unselectable on the Geoscape.

Yup. As others have said, that's the intent of the system - it's just so that your staff aren't dead weight in the idle periods where they're not working, but they're not actually meant to generate substantial profits. I appreciate that's not necessarily the point you're making with your post but I feel like it's worth making that clear anyway.

Thanks for the detailed feedback. I'm glad you like the game so far! I'm guessing from reading this and your posts elsewhere that you're manually fighting every crash site you generate, right? Also, did I read elsewhere that you were aiming for 12 Phantoms or so in the midgame?

None of the balance is set in stone - if people think the MARS is overpowered then we'll tone it down. But I haven't seen it raised very often. By contrast, here's a player who beat the game on Commander saying he thinks the MARS just isn't good enough to be worth bothering with at its current price tag. What does everyone else reading this post think about the topic? Bear in mind that the MARS is meant to be better than the average soldier - it's a lot more expensive than a soldier, it doesn't gain experience, and you can only have one of them per squad. Plus you need to invest in specialised research / engineering projects to keep it up to date. So whatever happens balance-wise, it does still need to be worth the investment. Either way I don't think adding multi-tile tanks is the correct answer to the issue. Them being too big to use effectively in a lot of situations isn't really fun gameplay, and adding them to the game involves creating multi-tile pathfinding and a bunch of new UI because right now the MARS can be treated largely like a soldier because it follows most of the same rules (being a 1x1 unit). If the MARS is overpowered then we should just balance that instead.

The previous mechanics are still in the game; they're still used by the frontal "armour" on the Cyberdrone (which is effectively just a combat shield). Once the mod tools are set up it'll be very easy to switch the X2 human shields back to the old mechanics if you want to play with them instead. It's just a single value on the shields (it might even be possible with text editor editing right now). We changed the shields back because they were very badly received by players - I think you're the first person I've seen complaining about them switching back, and we got a LOT of complaints about the previous set of mechanics for them.

Ah, thanks. We'll make sure that gets fixed!

Aha - yes, that works for me too. Thanks for the extra info!

Yeah, the XCOM style side-base system just isn't a good match for a game like classic X-Com. Multiple bases and a top-down view (which means you can create layouts you can fight within in base defence missions) work much better. I appreciate not everyone was happy with the decision, but 90% of people who voted were willing to support the change. I don't think there's anything unrealistic about those numbers though - even if only 10% of people dislike the change, that's still 500+ of our Kickstarter backers and tens of thousands of our potential Steam players who feel that way. It's possible that you will see the game move a few of the mechanics out of the bases and onto the Geoscape itself during Early Access, but we'd need to test those and see how people feel about them before making any final decisions there.

Thanks. Yeah, we can get it fixed.

Out of interest, if you load that save again, is the UFO still visible? When I load it the tiles remain hidden. Although I have certainly seen the issue happening before.

Ah, yeah, thanks. Those gables are set to act like full sized walls so they're blocking vision and shooting, whereas they shouldn't be doing that. I'll get that fixed.

Thanks, I've fixed this now!

Thanks!

Thanks. Hmmm - without an earlier save that shows what the missing projects are, it's a bit hard to fix this. Do you have one/

Thanks. Yeah, this is a bug - I'm not sure why, but the torpedoes aren't firing in autoresolve. We'll take a look.

Thanks, we'll check it out.