Conductiv

the proposed changes: current (basic cover 40%) 0.6 * (current kneel 10%) 0.9 = 54% of enemy accuracy applied. basic wraith at 70 *1.2 (rifle aimed shot) =84 means approximatly 44-45% chance of getting hit to proposal: (basic cover 40%) 0.6* (improved kneel 20%) 0.8= 48% of enemy accuracy applied basic wraith at 70*1.2 (rifle aimed shot) =84 means approximatly 40-42% chance of getting hit absolute difference is less then 5% so will occur in less then 1:20 circumstances, my hypothesis here is that you simply wouldn't notice the proposed change. I propose an alternate: when crouching and facing the direction of enemy fire, adjacent cover bonus is magnified by 50% my proposal (basic cover 40%, magnified to 60%) 0.4* (current kneel) 0.9 =36% of enemy accuracy applied basic wraith at 70*1.2 (rifle aimed shot = 84 means approximatly 29-31% chance of getting hit. can be recalculated with the other cover numbers 10 and 60, none will give absolute immunity to getting shot like full cover, but the 60% cover items will give a very noticable advantage (enemy hit rates <10%). and with an absolute difference greater then 10% on the most common covers, it will at least be noticeable there. like the OP's suggestion, just crouching in the open provides no additional benifits. my suggestion does not magnify the offensive capabilities of crouching

-varied alien weapons could be a thing, shotguns, SMG's and more servitor machinegun like tools would be good additions, the servitor MG version with its high suppression value would be a real pain in the rear end. I would pick these rather then heavy MG, grenade launchers, cannons or rifle bursts because of the extreme lethality the latter would have. personally..I feel you want some RNG as to make things not completely predictable, but you also want some tactical certainty..like not being instantly killed from halfway across the map by a plasma burst that happened to hit 2 shots. shotguns with very short ranges at least have some counterplay..despite the extreme lethality they have. with these things survivable in the heavy armors, it would make it even harder to promote not pressing that "heavy armor" button in the loadout screen about the downplay, its a +10%/-10% multiplicative bonus and it is fairly impactful, a player being hit by wraiths would go from 56 to 61% through 40% cover, while the accuracy needed for a player to hit would go up. so you are right the effect is not to be downplayed. but other then aliens move squatting their way through the map, would this change gameplay much? how much would you fiddle with the routine as to get a satisfactory crouch to stand ratio. that is where I don't see much change, it wouldn't actually do much in how you approach the alien. Now aliens avoiding friendly fire would be a thing as it would make the game feel more serious, however aliens being reckless gun-ho characters can also add tactical depth by trying to bait them into performing such actions. UFO's tend to be fairly empty I agree, maybe a better balance between defensive and aggressive aliens can be struck, but I think most players don't like having to walk down a single chokepoint knowing camping aliens are going to reaction fire them. as there is currently no way to breach a UFO wall to bypass a chokepoint

-automed is too powerful, I agree to an extend, its power is twofold, it no longer clogs up a secondary slot and it doesn't cost an action. its function as a medical tool to stop bleeds is however critical to its actual use...if it doesn't stop sufficient bleeds, I'd have to pack medkits regardless and that would undo the use of the automed to begin with, its actual heal value is much less important for it to be useful, and can so doing be toned down. the weight of the module can also increase as its much lighter then the medkit is. -a medkit that would act like a 100% hit melee weapon but is a consumable rather then a kit, I'd be totally fine with that. -from one side, it makes sense these actions (hacking/ opening abduction tubes) take time. however the TU costs would drastically change the way low level troops (read low TU troops) can handle these types of missions. -teleporters, 1 way would make base command rooms a 1 side bum rush while making them costs more TU would just get the same cheese but with less performed actions and so doing a greater need for cheese. so I'm on the fence about this. -don't these actions already have a greater TU cost compared to standard movement? -grenades being accurate isn't that bad, for gameplay purposes it allows for solid use of this consumable pool, and damage grenade spam is discouraged by the broken loot system. if flashbangs became inaccurate their use would plummet as they are very dangerous for the troopers themselves, imagine flashbanging your own troops and then catching a volly of reaction fire after that followed by a full enemy turn. hell even just missing and getting nailed by reaction fire would be a massive problem. since losing a soldier is a greater loss then simply not performing an action like that unless it was already safe to do so..its far more likely most players would simply not use grenades when the enemy is facing them. From a realism standpoint I agree, throwing stuff accurately is a learned skill and there is no way grenade throws...especially blind ones would be that accurate by novice troops that can barely hit enemies at mid ranges. but from a gameplay perspective, I think dropping the accuracy would do more harm then good -smoke allows for a 100% miss screen in front of your troops for anything that is 5 tiles or further, provided you can get them to shoot through 5 tiles of smoke. the 100% chance to miss is for both mechanical as well as biological enemies, adds minor stun damage to biological enemies in it on hit, every tile they move through it or if they end their turn in it. Smoke has no upgrades atoll but is a half decent gas grenade and barrier tool. granted, the barrier is double edged and can hinder your troops as much as the enemies but its not weak. -clustered abduction tubes would be great if the player knew where the cluster was from the getgo in order to get the priority feeling. otherwise you just get the "I was RNG'd over" feeling because the cluster decided to spawn in the furthest corner away from your troops in a mission that took longer then expected to shoot through the resistance. or it just spawns them next to the dropship and its like..meh...because no feeling of luck, skill or priority occurs if that happens. -alien plasma and fusion rifles don't have burst fire options I think, not that they really need it as those weapons are plenty deadly as is. and aliens don't ever kneel unless suppressed. how the aliens routine doesn't use it, as they generally move for about half their TU and then stand still in order to still have enough to react, and if a players soldier or neutral trooper is in their range when they have full TU they simply blow everything on attacks or chuck a grenade. they could crouch making them slightly harder to hit and them slightly more accurate, but other then that..I barely see any merit in it. -corner camp death corridors, you sure you want that? its probably easy enough for chris to change the number of aliens that go from their offensive routine to a defensive one. but the result is likely going to be aliens hugging the corners of the UFO and point blanking your troops with reaction fire or creating a plasma grenade surprise. more aliens also increase threat, but can be equally devastating as even now high end UFO's can have a couple of dozen aliens in it.

if you see the unit with a grenade the turn before, by suppression is the best method (aside from straight up killing/KO-ing) as throwing a grenade costs 51% TU, they can't when suppressed. the other method is long range, forcing the grenadier to drain TU to get into range, and hopefully not have enough TU to actually throw and move into range. the final method is using every building you get into, the roofs can block some of the grenade angles if you are not in the window opening, and the aliens don't seem to go for splash hits by deliberately throwing a few tiles off. in many cases hugging high cover (walls, dense jungle, farmland hedges) can have the same effect other then that, spread out and wear the heaviest armor you can get. as thrown grenades ignore smoke penalties and are extremely accurate even when thrown through cover

based on what happens to troops that sit in a base with the training station, where troops perform no actions that boost stat increases but do gain stat increases over time and..most notable..gain ranks as well I think rank is a function of stat progression. aka after every X stat progress points earned, a trooper increases in rank. as such it would be extremely unlikely there will be a private with stats exceeding that of a colonel. this however doesn't make @Token's idea bad, I would like to have a rank sort as well and use lower rank soldiers on more dangerous positions, as the game does have a mission commander bravery bonus, where the highest rank soldier alive on the squad provides a squad wide bravery boost.

-the game has a lot of missions over the coarse of a run, many of them being UFO missions, I agree there are huge empty spaces in a month where nothing happens, but more UFO missions might not be the solution. -the shotgun is a brutal weapon, and I think the only weapon that uses accuracy that can actually be used with competence by low (sub 50) accuracy troops. but other then being devastating up close..as its supposed to be..I don't really see a reason to nerf it. -terror missions seem to be hit or miss, I swear I had one where I landed between every single enemy on the map and others where I could patiently pick enemies off. terror missions tend to have more enemies on it and the enemies tend to be of the highest "tech" available to the aliens, so they are harder then a standard UFO, but they are less intimidating then alien bases. -the basic stun gun you get from xenobiology is solid in my book when it comes to stunning, with 25 units of penetration it applies full stun when it hits, and with 100% accuracy multiplier on a 30% TU cost it can be used fairly well by a competent trooper. its EMP damage of 22 is rather pathetic, so its alternate function as a bot killer weapon is moot. this is even more pronounced with the advanced stun weapons, the advanced stun pistol has more then twice the average stun damage, but no penetration, a lower close range accuracy bonus and a worse accuracy multiplier its EMP damage is also pathetic, the rifle requires the primary weapon slot..that is a big ask, especially for a gun that has the same firing profile as a sniper rifle but roughly 1/3th the range. now the strength of these weapons is that they can capture targets, so I understand the lower range and tiny magazines. but they are also the primary source of EMP damage, a damage type specifically intended to kill off robots, and I was hoping that they would be a lot better at that then they currently are. I propose the same stun to EMP rate that the electrogrenade has (a factor of 2, meaning that the 35 stun damage advanced stun pistol would deal a whopping 70 armor bypassing EMP damage, allowing it to at least compete with gauss against robots) this would also make the electroshock rifle a notably more attractive pick when you are facing robotic enemies, maybe attractive enough to use the primary weapon slot for it. but against biological enemies, their stun damage would allow captures at the cost of drastically lowering effective damage output (and as such, amount of troops needed to down enemies). making the weapons a worthwhile tradeoff. -wraiths are offensive nightmares, high accuracy grenade spam, and if they aren't spamming grenades incredibly accurate shooters. tempering their grenade spam would help a lot. -aggressive AI: don't know if that is a bad thing per se. -intel gather is a timed mission and its early in the game, overall I can't say I find it too easy...as the times pushes you into taking risks with your early game squad that generally isn't that powerful yet to steamroll through the mission.

they are dangerous in offense mainly, they have solid reflexes, decent TU so good speed, good accuracy and they spam grenades over a good distance, rendering cover and smoke moot but counter wise they have the most straightforward option, any explosive damage on them will break the cloak, removing their long range defense, and..depending on the explosive ..any cover they might have had, and grenades/rockets launched/thrown at the ground near them conveniently ignore the cloak defenses and tend to work well on their unarmored bodies usually softening them up to within 1 shot range. if encountered up close the cloak becomes a non-issue, so shotgun rushes with or without flashbang support are an option as well. guardian armor might need an upgrade to it that allows it to endure fusion weapons though, as the first power armor tech you get isn't viable for every squad member. and fusion weapons have high 1 shot potential even on veteran soldiers in heavy guardian armor. and once cruisers start appearing, guardian tech will already be several months old. personally I feel electroshock grenades are already extremely strong and don't need another niche use, its a flashbang, stungrenade and botkiller grenade in one.

savegame of the ignore suppression: auto_groundcombat_turn_11_start-204.json sequence of events: move camila Gomez (rifleman) up the teleporter she is closest to, she will be facing the UFO wall. turn her 180 degrees, she will see an officer and a secton move her 1 tile away from the officer, hugging the UFO wall. throw electro grenade at the base of the central computer hitting herself, the secton and officer, suppressing all. move Jie Tailin (assault) up the same teleporter, switch to knife (not turning the soldier) knife the officer (again not turning the soldier before) after knifing the officer, knife the secton. I repeated this exact set of actions from this save, managed to recreate the ignore on the 7th try. did also get a similar outcome when the secton went berzerk after knifing the officer. but the notable thing here is that the attack triggers on the move towards the secton, rather then on the mental break. as I did the exact same thing 7 times to get a single repeat, its as consistent as the weapon damage/attack rolls on that officer. hope this helps find the cause

relative to the previous stable build: air combat changes up to abductor and up to laser lance/alenium explosives tech: -general access to missiles and cannon systems feels much better, also doesn't drown out engineering anymore. -still needs some sort of reward if the AA battery takes down an invading ship, rather then winning the tactical battle in base defense base building changes: so far, doesn't feel that much different, the costs of structures is higher and that delays building extra bases, but the early game is delayed relative to the previous build as well. tactical up to abductor: -melee changes, on the fence about this. melee is risky as you have to get into point blank range and many enemies have relatively high reflex scores to start with, so much so that even 100 reflex troops cannot reliably hit all enemies. on top of that, the enemies most vulnerable to getting hit in melee are explosive robots that cannot be suppressed. in the old system the risk was offset by its reliability, in the current system, I still find it hard to justify melee weapons against anything. -close range accuracy changes on the AR, pistol, MG, overall seems to be a good change. makes the AR's automatic function slightly better up close. shotguns are still way better at the close range then the AR (as they should), but at least the automatic function has improved...slightly.. -HEVY changes, indirect fire is great on it, makes the weapon much more useful. however if it misses it seems like the soldier tripped or something...the round almost veers off to a completely new zipcode. missing targets with 15-20 tiles..a miss the size of a whole building, gives a new meaning to "can't hit the broad side of a barn" -still needs some indicator for weapons with a "no move" bonus, this is a big part of the sniper and a minor part of the MG gameplay. but unless you pay attention to the hit breakdown, you will never know its there. -advanced stun weapons is unchanged, but may need a tune up. advanced stungun is harder to aim, and loses out against armor compered to the 25 armpen basic, and all of the EMP damage caused is low and barely competes just hitting the enemy with equal tier guns. now the strength of the weapon is that it can stun..but its EMP gimmick is a little weak. the exception to that is the flashbang upgrade, as that upgrade is extremely powerful...turning the 1-trick utility grenade into a swiss army knife that is useful against every target, and inflicts the most EMP damage of all grenade types

out of bounds: small non-command room top floor in the alien base had a broken wall that allowed the MARS to drive out of the map. in some sort of black void alien activity during player turn. crashed UFO missions Secton engineer moved during the players turn, triggered on reveal by a soldier occurance is rare, no idea how to reproduce. happened only once so far, but I have seen this bug in video's of the experimental build crashed UFO missions Sectons ignore the suppressed condition, performing overwatch fire while the suppressed icon is above its head. happened while the soldier was moving after a knife attack command on the bridge of a abductor. also occured in the engine room of a destroyer while ging a shotgunner a attack command and he had to turn 180 degrees occurance is rare, no idea how to reproduce

smoke can reduce accuracy to 0% in the current stable build, its a separate multiplier adding a cumulative 20% accuracy drop per tile of smoke from a smoke grenade that the shot is aimed through. smoke from grenade and rocket impacts (aka not smoke grenades) have a 10% accuracy drop per tile, and are significantly less effective as a defense I don't know if there is the possibility of errant hits on other soldiers then the target of the initial attack. wraiths are very accurate and generally have a 80-100% chance of connecting a shot on an exposed target, so 4 tiles of smoke on a crouched trooper will have roughly a 16-20% chance to connect, this is still significant.

in the current released stable build, you do not get any money if you decommission a plane or dropship. this may be different on the experimental branche.

what I'd like as a quality of life feature would be the suppression damage values of the various guns, while it does state that the AR and other guns besides the machinegun can be used to supress aliens, it does so unreliably. as such suppression is practically always done using either the 10 round MG burst, or the flashbang. knowing how "good" a particular gun is at making the enemy piss their pants when firing, can help out with that.

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.