Conductiv

I think you mean power supply and excavation (rather then adjacency) are only there to slow the players down. I do not think these and other delaying tactics in games are in there to be a bad thing...I think they are mainly there to provide a smoother player progression or economics curve. but if they only serve that purpose, they just aren't that interesting an aspect to play with from a players perspective Taking Ninothree's suggestion to heart would make adjacency bonuses notably more interesting, I'm very curious in what sort of facility combo's you guys will come up with, and how you guys are going to hint these combo's to the players. (if atoll)

training allows for a wide range of applications, but it should, in my opinion at least..never change the potency of the weapon or tool...aka not the X-com training that allowed your grenades to deal more damage or have a larger blast radius. upgrading grenades is something your technology does, not the soldiers training or experience. this means that training is focused on what the soldier influences when operating the gun, how fast he can acquire targets with accuracy (TU cost reduction, trained by racing through gauntlets like a kill-house) how accurate the person can shoot (ranges, increases operators accuracy rating for the used gun type) when training for different purposes, like a medic..the medkit doesn't actually heal more, battlefield medicine in these games can be seen more like quickly putting on a band aid and fixing the actual problem later..combat medics would be trained to do that faster, but they won't have magically improved tools. training for thrown grenades is actually worthwhile, throwing something is a remarkably undervalued skill. grenades need to be thrown far, and accurate and often over obstacles like walls. there are many games that show that throwing an object accurately can already be a reasonable challenge (darts, jeu de boule, faire can's), and distance alone proves to be Olympic (javelin, disc and cannonball) fast and reasonably accurate all attract prime atletes (soft and baseball, basketball) imagine having to hit a stack of cans 50 meters away from behind a screen, that is roughly what a soldier has to do when seeing the top of a window over a wall. yet in the newer X-coms even the base rookies can throw grenades with pinpoint accuracy.

it is a solid way of making the base, hence I said it did work when firaxis did it almost the exact same way. -excavation is, not always a logical thing to add to the game, while it does allow for base growth throughout a run. it only makes thematically sense when you use a old mine, a derelict base or you are building it from scratch (old spaceship from Xcom2 for completions sake). even then construction usually compasses some sort of "excavation"...so its a okay, but not really super interesting addition. in that aspect the top-down-tetris-planner used in X1 wasn't half bad. -adjacency bonuses make sense, for identical facilities and in many cases also facilities that have a close relation to one another (no person in their right mind would design a restaurant, with the dining area between the kitchen and the fridge, or for a more related example, making a aircraft hanger in the middle of the base with no direct access to a runway) the Xcom reboot only did the former, maybe X2 will surprise me and mind the latter as well. -power system management can be a great addition, but it can also be a system that is only there to block off building space with a facility that does nothing but exist for gameplay purposes. in the old RTS games they had a function as they powered the defenses, enemies could target them resulting in the need of abundance and protective placement. in the Xcom reboots they seem to act much more like hurdles to delay player progression a bit, preventing the player from going on a rampage too early on...but I have to note here that the Xcom reboots never put that much thought in the base, it was generally a build-and-forget approach, X2 seems to want to do more with the base and this could be used in a interesting fashion...but that fashion has to extend beyond EU/EW..adjacency bonuses and thermal vent placement (or X2's staffing)

its firaxis X-coms base with a missile in the elevator shaft, combined with firaxis X-com style of base expansion using the excavate>build system, and its system limiter of using powerplants...it even copied its adjacency bonus system. enfin that worked fine for firaxis when they revived the franchise. personnel slots, well all the information so far seems to indicate a minor boost in structure effect when personnel is placed in it, we'll see how it pans out as it depends greatly on how many people we can hire and maintain. ofc the amount of structures and what they actually do is also important, from the outdated screenshot in the OP, you have 18 slots to work with after excavation, labs, workshops, power plants, medbays and storage capacity is already going to eat roughly 1/3th the total logistics has been made tedious, backpack inventory management in the topic of soldiers was apparently too much of a hassle, but instead we have to reserve enough storage space for beancans and bags of rice (rations) to feed people while also keeping space for construction equipment, the odd drone and much needed research subjects. this is either a non-isseu as you have enough space for the monthly groceries, or its going to be a major PITA that, from my current perspective adds practically nothing to the tactical and strategical gameplay of the game (other then frustrate the deployments as you really have to blow readiness for a trip to the proverbial supermarket) meal, storage capacity and supply run management is a staple in games where the goal is just survival...I don't think it is going to mesh well in a turn based tactical.

drones works much better then actual vehicles when keeping game balance in check, however they can also quickly feel like a gimmick/resource sink/useless addition when not properly done. more HP and being mobile cover/ battering ram doesn't help a lot if they are expensive, require additional facilities and research,easy to hit and still die at the drop of a hat. since they gain no experience and replace a soldier, they need a niche to operate in that isn't possible to do with a standard trooper...and it has to be better then it can drive through fences and flimsy walls. I am however very satisfied by the willingness to add these units, provided the stretch goal is reached.

love these updates, and this one is chopped up in so many small posts that its difficult to pay proper attention to all of it. -weapon familiarity, okay skill system for soldiers. but the value of it of coarse depends on the value of the relevant weapons within the proficiency bracket. since you seem to have more different weapon classes this time around, it may be prudent to stick them to 1 class regardless of the tech tier of the weapon looking at the backpack system change, this limits loadouts....rifle+rockets, SMG+shotty or whatever build you want to make. if this causes balance problems because the weapon system adds bonus TU/MS (stuff that can be used without actually operating the weapon or tool), these specific changes might be what throws the balance out of wack...not so much the ability to load up on multiple (heavy) weapons. the backpack system also allowed soldiers to carry a lot of small stuff, something that having just the belt and a sidearm slot specifically prohibits. the X1 belt was an oddity, they where extra inventory slots but it didn't seem to do a whole lot...this may be because if you wanted to use something from the belt, you technically still had to stow your main weapon in the backpack (unless you already had a free hand, a rare occurance) but what I did like is that it had a 6 tile gap that allowed the stowage of sidearms (pistol/baton) for better use of the belt, a item like the sling could be added, preventing the need to stow/drop the 2-handed-weapon the sling is attached to when operating belt drawn items (grenades, ammo, explosive charges and sidearms) giving belt stowed items a more noticeable TU-saving property. stress, I'm okay with using a fatigue system to bypass the A-team saves the world problem. just make sure that it doesn't become a rimworld stress management simulator when doing the atlas base operations. how large will the teams be? X1's 8>10>12 or has the squad size been changed drastically?

MAG has a few up and downsides, now assuming a MAG weapon fires a bullet sized slug at extreme speed using a miniature version of currently in development naval railguns, while maintaining compactness and the capability to rapidly reload. in effect it is a standard ballistic gun, but the propulsion of the projectile is no longer supplied chemically by powder..but electrically by the "gun" itself. benifit, because of alien tech you would have the energy to propel the projectile at extreme speed...no need for the whole casing, just the bullet. the slug goes much faster, so atmosphere and gravity have less impact. disadvantage, need added recoil compensation...because all the energy put into the fired slug is also pushed backwards. and as more speed is added the friction factor increases proportionally..as such for the slug more and more energy is wasted...for the shooter, this energy is still used to propel said gun into the shooters arm. and unlike lasers, and depending on the source..plasma...you still actually need physical ammo.

well shot chance to hit is basically comprised out of 2 factors, the weapons user and the weapon itself. weapon wise, lasers have no travel time over distance (lasers would be much faster then bullets, plasma bolts* or railgun slugs) , so provided the laser is actually powerful enough* you would require no lead nor would you have to account for drop or most other environmental factors(2). this would make then notably easier to aim beyond point blank range. *suspension of disbelief needed, as laser/plasma tech have rather difficult hurdles to take when it comes to effectively weaponizing them. notably that they dissipate quickly over distance and it often takes time for the heat to stack up sufficiently to cause damage. this on top of the ludicrous amounts of energy required for these weapons 2. lasers don't actually have a solid piercing projectile, meaning that smoke or fog would rapidly dissipate the beam, in effect a smoke grenade would completely neuter laser based weapons. certain hot and cold based optical effects might also distort the weapon. when it comes to the user, well unless the gun itself has an aim assist computer the gunman is not going to be any more accurate..and while the game is turn based enemy combatants are not actually standing still. it is certainly still possible to miss. this leads me to 3 conclusions -laser weapon accuracy should still depend on the gunner, but may have a bonus to-hit for targets at medium range and beyond -laser weapon range is effectively hard, beyond the listed range they simply won't have enough juice-per-shot to effect a target. unlike a ballistic weapons damage that starts tapering off. -laser weapon could interact much harsher with concealment effects like smoke and shrubbery

ah well...maybe we get some alenium powered gizmo that facilitates (safe) movement a bit more. varied mission types a fine idea but please do avoid general turn timers, that particular part of Xcom 2 (the feeling of being rushed to dash your squad halfway across the map to an objective, lest I lose squad-members and/or fail) was definitely not something I was enjoying. it was too much stick too little carrot

what I am wondering about is most of all the changes that speed up the gameplay on the tactical layer, X1 was a good game but the tactical layer was very slow to play...it always sorta ended up being a slow creep to the ship followed by a slow creep through the dahm thing trying to weed out every corner hugging alien in there. not things that make me literally play the game faster, no things that makes it less like a "overwatch creep" for lack of a better term. personally I really do like the firaxis Xcom's, naturally with their higher budget they can afford much better graphical fidelity to improve immersion during cutscenes, better animations etc etc. (X1 actually did a solid job with its immersion through audio..keep that up..) battles are more volatile because they use squads rather then single aliens and its recent iteration stealth system really speeds up the pace (but it is also borderline broken with how easy it can be used to exploit the AI) now it does have downsides, most of all the Xcom squads are dinky and have little battlefield support (its only 6 guys and they have no vehicles) and the troops turn into gods as they rank up (breaking the turn system with bonus shots and actions) to top it off the loadout and class system was restrictive (X1's weight based system was much better) and especially during the mid and late game aliens practically never use their main weapons. they just melee/psi-power/rocket/nade/spit etc effectively rendering their whole cover system moot...half of them don't even use cover they just stand in the open with mythical defense bonuses and a metric ton of HP. (in X1 aliens shoot...and later on...they still shoot and they didn't get excessively tanky) late game players in Xcom just take cover out of habit more then actual necessity.

from the information shared by the developer so far, what you fear seems to be the direction they want to go into. -the secret organisation direction is chosen because it makes it lore wise more logical that you have innately limited resources, rather then being a globally funded anti-alien organisation that somehow has to come by with a pittance of money, low skilled recruits and a handful of planes. a discrepancy that apparently bothered the developer. -since a secret organisation doesn't fight all out wars he also wants to change the alien strategy from war/geneharvesting to an infiltrator style combat where the aliens control humans and manipulate governments on a path of selfdestruction. while the dev didn't state that terror missions will be gone, it is highly unlikely given the setting that aliens will perform a high profile action that is hard to covered up. -the developer has apparently stated that he dislikes multi-tile units like vehicles as they cause all sorts of issues when moving around, and that he would much rather not have them in the game because of it. -the dev has stated that he wants to lean more towards a gameplay mix of the current firaxis Xcom and a mercenary management game called jagged alliance 2, taking elements from both franchises. in particular the covert ops from war of the chosen, a guerrilla missions pick-1-of-3 style (so you can't do every mission) from Xcom2, and a limited roster of specific personnel with various costs depending on their skills from jagged alliance. about Xcom having vehicles, the original one in the 90's did...the firaxis reboot does not

it is something that happens in games where the weapon has a range greater then the users LOS, for gameplay reasons LOS is restricted..but in order to give some long range weapons the correct feel, they have a range longer then a soldiers sight IRL people can see quite a bit further then the ranges shown in this game...actually, barring a obstruction or lack of light, we can see all the way to the horizon..beyond a certain distance our vision blurs and things become practically unidentifiable, but they don't just vanish. (in order to assist with long range optical indentification, various optics like scopes and binoculars can be used, turning a dot on a hill into a lighthouse) now when firing at something far away that isn't identifiable (but has an unobstructed straight line of sight to it) it is definitely still possible to aim your weapon. so I can't say I agree with your reason you should only be able to snap/burst at it

first option is more intuitive, it also allows the player to set up his own teams and doesn't get straight jacketed into "must hire these guys to get a workable team" scenario. the multi-class problem is what I'm most worried about...as the most common solution would be to make specialist classes barely more effective then a jack-of-all-trades resulting in the optimum being a team macguyver. needless to say..I want specialists to be worth it. this can be partially solved by not strictly dividing jobs into combat/science/engineering jobs..a dedicated combat medic might be leaning more to science (as he will be adept in autopsies and studies with regards to compounds/techniques used for disabling) meaning that doing science would also boost the medic stat (it is notable that the medic stat does not increase a troopers killing potential...and hence does not thread on the more combat training based day-jobs) this can be done with various side tasks (hacking/sabotage) bullet trajectories etc are distinctly soldier tasks, however finding the nice pieces of loot etc are the engineers suits (material properties, construction methods, suitable stuff to reverse engineer), while hacking panels might be more science-y (cryptology, sifting data for useful numbers or coordinates) improved loot and intel gains might be a suitable benefit of fielding these people...however, they should have a few more utility added benefits (as having just economical benefits to fielding the units makes little sense) . this is mostly difficult with regards to the engineering job, as building stuff mid-combat seems unlikely, so far the only plausible option I can come up with is sabotage an action that might disable some aspects of a ship/base without actually damaging that component (blowing it up would probably be faster..but loud and obvious). point is that if a commander wants to field these people he should have another job for them in mind then shooting/blowing up aliens/collaborators (this is extremely important, if a scientist becomes better then a soldier at killing, soldiers become moot so the benefits of these disciplines should not involve weapons handling or improvements) . medics, hackers, spies, saboteurs etc...and on the base these relevant skills should be trained in the science, communication or engineering discipline.

love the idea, but you need to have some suspension of disbelief with regards to penetrating laser beams etc. now gameplay wise you could play around with it, having "special shots" by carrying mags of special munitions or draining more battery charge (when using plasma/laser tech) for shots with different damage, range and penetration statistsics. this can be used partially, the environment affecting behavior might be more demanding.

I'm on the fence, while I do like these kinds of systems they usually add very little with regards to the gameplay. -gamebalance wise, in many cases where players can bypass cover/defences it is designed in such a way that it doesn't really matter in the end (the defense can be bypassed, but this particular unit is either extremely numerous, has a failsafe or has a very high HP pool to offset its weakness) -enemy AI wise, they either always go for the center off mass, resulting in a sort of RNG what limb is going to get hit, or they go for the bypass..making armor either useless or unreliable. (random 1-shot scenario) -while limbshots might sound great, in most cases players either go for highest chance to hit or highest damage per shot. rarely...if ever...has a game made disabling the opponent by shooting arms a worthwhile endeavor. -there are rumors about that X2 will not feature any multi-tile playable units (aka vehicles) so even if the bypass would be made interesting...it would likely only apply to humanoids. so in the end you end with a system and a lot of work to set that up...that really doesn't really do much for this type of game