Conductiv

never had idle researchers unless I was well past the current content cutoff point, but even then, should this ever occur, what should this repeatable research actually do?

tips for finances, but even with this, you will have enough money to fight, not to splash. -plot mission researches almost always add a monthly pay increase -finishing off the cleaner base mission chain will drastically increase monthly funding. -corpses can be sold, its the money or advancing quickly on the + damage tech in the workshop -enemy guns, grenades and utilities that drop can be sold -captives can be sold. -cleaner interrogations (soldier and agent) both add a single flat cash injection when done while in previous milestones a squad of 3 aircraft was affordable and useful most of the time, now you can get way with 2 for most of the game. as aircraft upkeep and equipment cost has increased considerably..its pretty much a must to field less aircraft overall you can mass capture enemies and gain better funds that way (roughly double the income over corpses), but this should not be required

agreed on the levers, provided they don't thread on the function of current weapons. all such tools need to have an identity of their own. about the "too much ammo" bit, I sort of disagree with rifles and to a lesser extend on pistols, I'm not saying you are wrong..far from it. a trooper with good aim can single shot its way through the mission easily on a single rifle magazine more because I feel those weapons should be effective in their burst fire mode, and ammo goes down a lot faster when spamming shots like that. now they can be...once the soldier hits like 80 or so accuracy and with decent strength the burst fire mode has a fair chance to hit twice on close range. and pistols can be spammed fairly well (while they have lower damage, with 60% accuracy on a 20% TU shot, they have a fairly reliable snapshot)...but again it requires extremely high stats to make the "spam with a chance to miss" work better then the single shot practically guaranteed rifle hit that occurs at mid range when the soldier is in the 70's with its accuracy. (raw math wise, this breakpoint occurs reasonably quick, especially up close..however missing an average 40% burst over guaranteed hitting an aimed shot often favors the aimed shot in practical situations, even if the average damage output of the burst would be higher) on top of that 20 and 15 are more realistic numbers then 5 for an assault rifle and pistol, there just needs to be a better incentive to use the more ammo intensive approaches. now, if you miss on close range..you generally get reaction shot in the face unless you flashbanged it beforehand and rifles are not great supression weapons in their burst mode...not even on the "skittish" mantid. while I'm not opposed to the suggestion, I do feel the need to piont out that while we can make suggestions..I really doubt that the devs would paint themselves in a corner by having a vote for implementation. I think its most likely the'll make those decisions on their side.

the current MARS Base accuracy of 50, can be increased by the rangefinder up to 60, the rangefinder allows the cannon to hit 100% of the time if the target is exposed, medium sized and within 8 tiles. its damage is greater then any rifle available at the same tier and shreds considerable armor. the rockets will never have a 100% chance to hit, nor will the cannon if anything other then the rangefinder is equipped. it can fire twice with the cannon, but only if you are willing to sacrifice chance to hit. at 20 rounds it will generally last the entire fight. smoke launcher can also be used as it has grenade spread, and as such doesn't miss by a country mile unlike the launcher. while it is a stable platform for automatic fire using its AR sidearm its extremely unreliable with that weapon. health is always 100, armor depends if you have the heavy armor tag set or not, but its generally slightly tougher then equal tier troops in the armor department, even so..it can only take 2 sometimes 3 shots/bursts from most enemies (it can take more from cleaners)..especially once plasma becomes available. unlike troops it cannot crouch..meaning it is a preferred target for most enemies if your troops are crouched and behind cover. it can get laser and gauss weapon upgrades for the cannon and AR sidearm, alenium explosives and fusion explosives for the rocket, these are completely seperate upgrades, effectively increasing the vehicle cost. and grows along with the armor upgrades from aircraft (seperate upgrades, but the techs become available at the same time). does not benifit or gain medals. expendable only really in name as its repair cost is half the build cost, usually taking almost all monetary gain from a mission, unless you go heavy capture (ignoring material gain here, as those are generally not sold). but if damaged, will always instantly repair once back to base..it needs no time to heal unlike troops. so there is no need to ever have more then 2 per available dropship. relative to experienced troops, its less accurate unless equipped with the cannon+rangefinder combo. and much less flexible, can't be healed in combat, can't carry alternate grenades (smoke launcher is the only option) it does have headlights for the night missions and that is better then the flares, but this is pointless if one times its arrival as to avoid night missions. can't use any roofs that have to be accessed by ladders relative to the troop weapons its closely related to, the cannon more powerful then a sniper, but the sniper can strike reliably much further out, and gets a bonus if the unit didn't move. despite the cannons long range, it isn't all that reliable against targets in cover, and even though it can fire twice unlike the sniper its unlikely to hit with that outside of point blank range relative to the shield, now the advanced shield has been moved down to the basic alloy tier, the shield users are more suitable to soak shots then the mars is. the mars has no secondairy HP pool to soak shots on and 100HP goes down fast. However, the MARS extremely powerful ability to instantly repair post mission actually allows it to somewhat compete..as it can combine being a reliable soak with a powerful cannon without awkward juggling (like a pocket sniper would require) the AR sidearm is always worse then the most novice rifleman, its benifit on burst fire is lost because of the MARS low base accuracy and the rocket and smoke are more akin to HEVY.. the MARS rocket systems are more likely to connect at mid and long range up to about 70 ish trooper accuracy, and have a better range at 25 relative to 15 tiles. and the smoke launchers spread is much more preferable over the HEVY wide miss. I have used MARS many times, the cannon build is the best killer, and very useful against robotic enemies (especially turrets). the rocket setup with rangefinder gives you a quasi-accurate shield+HEVY trooper putting it the support role. rocket + smoke is basically an instantly switching HEVY..but less accurate then the rangefinder equivalent with the rockets. any build using the AR just felt weaker compared to the rangefinder or smoke equivalent. run wise, you can completely ignore MARS alltogether and perform similar actions with troopers, its by no means a must have tool.

while I generally defend the HEVY as a tool, it has a very high reliability problem as its the only weapon that doesn't apply its close range accuracy bonus all over its range, completely relying on the troopers base accuracy. and with a multiplier of 1.05...you need a trooper that is sniper material to fire it reliably at range. its range is also quite short and its a direct fire weapon, so it can't remove cover from any safe position. all explosive weapons suffer from the loot destruction problem, and HEVY is a primary weapon. I have no problem with a heavy weapon taking effort to use, but there must be a suitable reward at the end of that effort, and at the moment I don't see that, there are only a few rare instances where the HEVY would be better then a different strategy or cover destroyer. I don't see the wiggle room really..its not like anyone would find it useful if it took 2 demo charges to blow up a basic fence or wall.. but that aside I too would love to see both HEVY and C4 shine...I just think they fail at their job rather then being overshadowed by the demo, the HEVY is a long range rocket to destroy cover and walls... if fails the long range job right out of the gate and then also asks top dollar stats to use on top of the most valuable inventory slot and a large chunk of weightcapacity. C4 well you read the breaching comment...its just not a tool used for cover removal or quickly doing much of anything...its a setup tool for a situation that hardly if ever occurs. MARS wallbreaking is powerful, but I can't say that I'm wowed that much by the 250K investment being able to cruise through walls (at least not @Skitso 95% TU level wowed)

yes, walls or UFO doors are pretty much the only thing C4 would be good to destroy with, cover...most certainly not, this is also one of the reasons why C4 isn't all that useful. hell who prepares to destroy cover by first running up to it, then placing the charge, create distance and then blow it up..hoping that in that time, the enemy didn't move or simply kill the soldier. on top of that...if you are running up to it anyway...just shoot over it. for dealing with enemies in cover, grenades are a much better option. I would also find it somewhat ironic if a demolition charge would be useless at destroying battlefield terrain, it would be like a smoke grenade that doesn't create smoke. its armor damage increases its flexibility..but really the destruction of terrain is practically in the name. the ideal grenade for enemies in cover should be the fragmentation grenade, but the game punishes you for killing enemies with explosive damage by destruction of loot and as such attacking your economy. so you end up with either destroying the cover or applying a non-lethal grenade...the demo destroys cover, the smoke can be used to gas the enemy if need be, even though its not really intended for that purpose. or the flashbang for its suppressed approach followed by a rush. personally I don't find smoke spam or flashbang shotgun lobotomies more skillful then using the demo charge. Rockets and mortars would also have been good, the problem with the 2 launchers in the game (MARS and HEVY) is that they use the accuracy stat making the mars unreliable and forcing a very accurate trooper on the HEVY... and the HEVY has a few more problems on top of that. the game doesn't have a proper grenade launcher or mortar. if you feel cover is too fragile because lasers can simply burn it down, well that is more a problem with lasers. as similar damage ballistic weapons cannot cause anywhere near as much collateral damage on cover items as lasers can C4 would be a much..much better tool if explosive breeching was something you did more often, right now UFO's are breeched through the door you can simply open for 4 TU..seems the advanced aliens don't know the concept of a lock, same for bases. there is no real option to create a new door, nor are we dealing with a locked door. being able to explode a entrypoint for 15 TU rather then having to use a grenade, cannon or rocket for 50%+ TU of the trooper is an advantage...however, as you already have to get close to the door to place the C4...just opening it at the start of the next turn is cheaper. C4's idea is solid and I'd love to use it...but every time I do I just get so disappointed by it

I disagree with the sentiment on grenades, mainly that the argument you made against them was that heavy weapons should be used so nerf grenades as they can fill heavy weapon jobs. when it comes to heavy weapons, the MG is actually in a solid spot as it can deal huge damage with its fire modes, and its not as heavy to carry around as you might think. but its damage..nor its supression is reliable. the HEVY still has problems, what it sets out to do it can do well provided the operator is accurate, but its not a good general purpose weapon as you get punished with "no loot" when you explode a corpse or enemy. so you are preferably not killing, aiming at the floor away from anything you have already killed and hoping to hit as the weapons accuracy bonus only kicks in on the last 8 or so tiles and otherwise is a 1.05 multiplier of your aim stat, and its supposed to be a longer range launcher...even though its max effective range is only like 15 tiles. as such is behaves like a secondairy weapon on the grenadier, and the high accuracy needed to wield it half decent is mostly used to make the pistol shine. C4 cross over between a weapon and a grenade..its heavy and clunky to use, C4 is also overspecialized, as a low TU option for an explosive breech. since UFO doors can be operated for 4 TU, a close range breech is often best performed by opening the door that way...if getting close to the door is the problem...C4 is also not going to cut it...and breeching is pretty much the only thing C4 is good for. when it comes to air combat, please no RNG here. sidewinders have a low payload weight and hardpoint slot cost for a long range damage option, as a long range damage option, it tends to work better combined with other long range options. battle outcomes based on loadouts arn't always guaranteed, but your statement is mostly true with regards to missile builds, cannon oriented fighters tend to have better impact of manual control with dodging and the fact even the lowest tier cannon can take down any UFO in the first 180 days given enough time. personally I'm on the fence with regards to the new air combat. 1.it removes the identity of some planes by replacing the dedicated slots with the hardpoint/payload system 2. planes are insanely expensive now , even basic angles come in at 575K 3. upgraded and tiered up gear is insane in price..every single full tier 2 plane, costs around 1.2million +a fair amount of alloys and alenium, you are covering 6 zones...even if every zone has just 1 fighter dedicated to it..a tier 2 setup would cost 7.4 million, excluding the costs for bases hangars radars and whatever you use to defend and power the bases. and assuming you have a set in stone mind with regard to loadouts as every single T2 weapon or equipment piece costs 100K, so experimenting with different pieces of equipment can be extremely costly 4. feul tank is near useless 15% on the angel is barely noticable, and the phantom that has like 10X the angels reach and 50% more speed its redundant. being able to build is fun, and I have no quals with building parts individiually...but I do find the prices to be too high

jokes aside, that was what made the Angel unique in the previous milestone, as it was much more fragile and didn't have the extra cannon slot compared to the phantom, its loadout was almost always 2 missiles and a cannon..and it really relied on those missiles to do most of the work. it could also employ a 3 missile setup...but even with 3 interceptors loaded like this, you would usually end up just shy of being able to kill the UFO. the current milestone actually allows for up to 6 missiles per Angel because of the double rack, and make it even more of a glass cannon as it lost its ability to get innate armor through tech. But if the phantom can do exactly the same with much better geoscape stats, it removes the angels identity completely. the styles do remain, you can set up brawlers (relying on the armor and cannons) or missile focused builds.

I'll try to explain it better, as you seem to think I'm trying to attack your suggestion...I'm not. but I'm very hesitant to grab the nerf bat and cripple stat progression when people are highlighting a problem that I think they are trying to solve in a way that doesn't actually solve the problem...just moves it to a later stage in the campaign. because heavy armor is the best, and carry capacity allows you to use the best and everything else. there is no reason to use the light armor if you can carry the heavy and still use everything else, there is no meaningful choice here because light armor is categorically worse then heavy. if you take the long road to get the stats or the short one like the current progression, the endpoint is exactly the same..there is no meaningful choice. slowing the progression, just makes the vet more valuable as it takes longer to reach his statline note that I don't look at just the fact that more strength = carry more, carry more by itself doesn't do anything..its what you can do with that extra capacity, and how it works together..and why having more and the best armor is always the best choice..if the best armor limits your choices the lighter variant becomes a viable choice. slowing the progression would indeed require more time for a full loadout...but that is effectively milestone 1 guardian for a midlevel trooper. with the problem of troopers being able to overload and throw things on the ground once in the mission, weight can be focused on armor...as its the one thing you can't swap out. other choices like armaments and grenades can...but are limited primarily by slots. this is the primary reason I focus on these 2. this does not mean that stat gains are currently extremely quick and allow troops to be loaded up after even a few missions, the main problem here is that it apparently isn't even much of a choice about what to pick...you just pick everything eventually. this is why I focus on a suggestion outside of the stat progression, now there are other things to highlight with regards as to why fast stat progression on new troops isn't a bad idea per-se.. but it also depends a lot on where this game wants to go, and it may even be way better off with your exponential scaling suggestion. but strength in particular has a few problems in the choice department.

you are correct, and that part of the strength growth is actually something that might affect the choices players make...why ever use light as even a 4 battle rookie can carry pretty much anything, hence the suggestions to look at outside of nerfing strength stat progression, like managing the slots system or making the heavy variant armor eat into carry capacity a lot more..as you can only move str up to a cap.

yes shots in yellow range are outside of the weapons effective range, and get both an accuracy and damage penalty, this is explained in the game toturial

the current system does so doing.. devaluate veterans... as its not exponential. you just have to let it sit in training long enough your exponential growth suggestion would mitigate that as getting the high stats, but my comment wasn't based around your suggestion..but on the general sentiment that rapid stat growth is bad. your suggestion definitely has merit, as becoming adequate at a skill is much easier then becoming a master, but this does require drawing lines at up to what limit stats grow quickly (60, 80...)..or we could look at this merely from the base hiring stats (stat 70 hire goes up to 80 fast, stat 50 hire goes to 60 fast) both have their pro's and cons. but as the OP specifically mentions being able to load up his troops to the gills the rest of the post was mainly focused on carry capacity.

stat progression is indeed very fast, but I don't know if that is a bad thing per-se. it has a number of advantages, it devaleus veterans as its easier to get to their stat levels. as such losing high level troops is less of a deathspiral. it also hits the weapon breakpoints much faster, making weapons that at the start of the game have to be shoved into an alien face to have a 50-50 shot actually useful. and it makes compensating for suboptimal stats easier as the growth of most stats is almost equal across the board. equipment weights could be adapted based on the cap (aka 100 str) with regards to really heavy armor. to limit the amount of extra carry-able gear. or use the slots system to make limitations. (rather then the current 1-size fits all backpack, you could give lighter armor more slots as an example). but I'm not sure if any of these solutions wouldn't simply create more problems then its worth.

I havn't actually finished building phantoms in the current stable build, but so far...I'm kind of disappointed about what the new system brought. twin rack missiles are good rather then the single one, torpedo is also obviously buffed, gas tank ...15% isn't going to help it much, no engine option to increase its speed so far, so its still going to be obsolete fairly quick as the reach increase is too small, and it simply won't be able to keep up Angels are now extremely expensive, basic angel effectively costs 575000 (plane, ablative, missile rack for 2 basic sidewinders, and a cannon) since the cost of a plane now goes up as the tech level increases (boosting the cannon to accelerated tier boosts the cost by another 75000) it makes it even more questionable to invest into early interceptors. granted you have more "builds" but if there is no meaningful way to keep some of the core statistics up (most notable..geoscape speed and range) you will be forced to tier up to at least a base plane that can. the new system also basically removes the missile spam unique nature of the angel, because if other planes use the same system with the same number of slots, you could do exactly the same with them.note that I havn't gotten any phantoms yet...may change my opinion if the limits or slot count on the phantom is different.

interesting, having the same problem pop up in the live build and reloading does fix it..but reloading is annoying..pressing shift a few times is less immersion breaking and a lot quicker.