Conductiv

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.

I made this topic a day before the announcement of milestone 2.0, a milestone that will apparently drastically change how the air combat works, and most importantly adds more options to the planes. so I don't know if the Angel will still be as horribly outclassed like it was on the stable branche (the example of the feul tank as an upgrade could solve one of the major problems that the angel had, its low operational range relative to the tier 2 fighter). I'll play a run there and come back to this topic after. the topic is more about how to keep lower tech with a relatively unique function that the player gets upgrades for useful rather then reducing the number of crash sites, and crash sites are optimally dealt with by a tactical missions as they provide a lot of resources. but if the player doesn't want to, they could simply claim the bounty...and I assume this is still the case in milestone 2.0.

as I play the non-experimental released version I'm very curious if these conclusions are relative to the non-experimental branch, or relative to previous experimental iterations. I know the comment is about the experimental branch. this is my view based on the current non-experimental release, looking at the same topics as much as possible. 1. the early game cleaner missions can be a real pain, especially as..in my opinion.. this game isn't build for quick rush-in-and-out style tactics. and 3 of the 4 cleaner missions are timed with infinite reinforcements. the base is not..but its an early game mission where at month 2 the enemies have access to plasma weaponry (55 or so damage average per shot) and actually use their plasma grenades...on top of that the base has like 24+ enemies in it. on every run I do...those missions are serious speedbumps 2. yes, and no...losses will have to be replaced, and past a certain point the rookie statline just won't do...training centers allow for a reserve to be build up. on top of that many weapons and tools actually need a fairly high set of stats to hit their breakpoint. but on the other hand...it takes like 4 missions to get almost +8 or so on most stats between medals, promotions and experience gains, and I agree that is very quick. 3. agreed to the extent that they almost always grow equally across all their stats, this makes higher level troops almost interchangeable. 4. cannot compare that, don't have rescue missions 5. cannot compare that, don't have convoy missions 6. alloys are abundant, but the bottleneck is cash and alloys themselves don't give the player any major advantage. if you have the alloys and a strong economy combined you can build whatever you want. both the latter and the former however are strongly dependent on how well you are doing and how many missions you can take on, and that in turn is tied again to how many resources you can use to get the tools needed. as such..if the player falls behind in cash or alloys (or alenium for that matter), it will be harder to get more of them. be careful about constricting access to resources or you will force only 1 way..the "optimal way"..to play. (bit over-dramatic, but I hope you get what I'm going for) 7. agreed, even though the pop up after clicking usually makes it clear if you missed the icon or not..it would definitely be better to get some indication that you are actually going to click on the right spot. 8. in my opinion, you can do away with survival rate altogether. its not what I count on, build around or select the medical facility for. its just ah..oh..he lived...kind of moment if it does trigger

love most of the stuff, am wondering why there was a need to add an offensive buff to crouching and lowering its defensive utility.

having played a number of runs in the current early access build, I notice that there are a lot of upgrades available for your angel fighter, but that despite these upgrades, the angel becomes horribly outclassed by the next fighter tier. and as you are going to ditch the jet anyway...why get these upgrades atoll? what I do like about the 2 planes, is that they have a very distinct role, the angel is an alpha striker with dedicated missile slots. it relies heavily on its missiles to cripple the UFO before engaging as its made of paper and held together by duct tape, as the missiles can be dodged and the angels aren't great up close the angel does much better against capital ships then it does against agile fighters. the upgrades you get throughout the run for your missiles, can be used on the tier 2 jet, its generally...not worth it, as cannons are generally much better damage per slot wise. the tier 2 jet on the other hand is much sturdier and comes with less slots but both slots can use the high DPS cannons, compared to the angel its a brawler, it trades..and generally ensures that it trades well on close range. as such its much better against fighters...provided you dodge their missiles. the problem is actually in the geoscape capabilities of the angel, even though its missiles and bombs keep it somewhat in play. its low range and speed really hurt it chasing down stuff to actually get into the air combat. this eventually almost necessitates just ditching the angel and going full brawler, a real pity as the angel plays different. as such, I hope that the air tech, rather then being a straight upgrade path from angel>tier2> ultimate, develops into parallel tech lines between 3 different fighter systems. allowing the angel to remain a viable fighter even in the late game. a requirement for this would be however, that besides missile, torpedo, cannon and armor upgrades..it also gets engine upgrades to boost its geoscape speed and range. note that being your earliest tech..it should never be good at everything..but if it manages to maintain its niche it can still stand out. I have similar thoughts regarding the weapon paths (energy vs ballistic lines) and the drone support (Mars vs troops) I might eventually make separate topics regarding these.

I must have misunderstood the OP, I though the questions was: "is the MG better on high or low accuracy troops" with the reasoning for low accuracy being a larger suppression area. I didn't read a suggestion asking for a suppression cone on an MG. (reading "set 2 points" as the sides of the cone) personally, if adding field suppression like that, I would have a pre-set cone and not allow the player to set it...it would also be the only fire mode on 10 rounds the weapon would have. with the reasoning being that most players wouldn't know why you wouldn't simply make the largest cone possible and then complain that the suppression doesn't actually suppress (as with an immense cone, you simply wouldn't have enough density of fire to trigger the suppression) personally, with how this game does its best to avoid setting stuff like cones, I wouldn't add this in atoll.

I fail to see the dilemma, currently the zombie occurs upon soldier death, the zombie is hostile and AI controlled, if 3 turns pass or the zombie is killed a new reaper appears. in most missions where reapers occur, you will have to kill your former comrade. your suggestion would allow the player to use the dead soldier like a kamikazi, instead of the soldier being a hostile combatant, for a duration of 3 turns. with the addition of a tech suggestion that would allow you to save the trooper outright. if he's dead anyway...being a suicide bomber is a better use then being an enemy. if he can be saved, the threat of the reaper is significantly reduced. I can't see any downsides that would make it a dilemma

I don't think low accuracy has any advantage here, as I don't think the spread bullets will have enough of an extra area to increase the number of suppressed targets, rendering the low accuracy line of thought moot. high accuracy is helpful, even though the gun has a 0.4 multiplier it does increase its killing power and turns it into a "delete 1 thing" like bonerstorm states. for its use, its a fairly reliable suppressing weapon with its 10 round burst on close to medium range, as such you can gamble on attempted kills in area's like UFO's and if it fails to kill, it often suppresses the target allowing others to follow up without requiring the use of a flashbang.

1. starting funds are difficulty dependent, free build at the start is a possibility as you get to choose the location of your starting base, it wouldn't be a big stretch for it to thematically have the desired layout. tactical: 1. time limits are part of this mission type, as you are sort of racing the clock as to prevent the aliens from beaming up the abductees. 2. agreed, I think they are already working on this. 3. doubt you'll get to control them, but other then that, probably the same as point 2 4. I think it already does...I'm not sure. but in general a bullet that hits also gets within a models proximity, so should apply its suppress damage..just keep in mind that it will likely take more shots to suppress the alien then it takes hits to simply kill the alien. aka if you hit everything..the alien is probably just dead...or you've been bouncing off their armor all the time. 5. since lines of fire can completely block shots fairly easily in this game, lean out mechanics are going to cause more issues then they would be worth. 6. on the fence on this one, your starting weapons are ballistic and the tutorial has you blast a wooden crate with a shotgun to remove it, terrain destruction is a key part of the games mechanics. but I'd also like each damage type to have its effective niche, and currently anti material damage is clearly in the thermal damage corner, point is thermal damage is also very effective at shredding armor, and just killing enemies...as such it might be a good idea to give ballistic weapons their own niche aside from doing significantly reduced damage to terrain (well, normal damage as thermal deals double) 7. makes sense, just keep in mind that will make it harder for your troops as well if shit hits the fan. negative spiral effects tend to result in most missions either going down flawless...or your team died. personally I prefer a more back-and-forth effect where you don't absolutely have to hard CC every enemy you don't outright kill 8. cover already has a significant impact, and its actually quite well thought of in the fact that its protection isn't absolute...but the most common cover (40%) combines very well with the crouches stance (20%) meaning 2 individual multipliers reducing the enemy CTH to 48% relative to you being in the open (so if they had a 50% CTH, they would now hit you 24% of the time) you can further reduce enemy CTH in various other ways.

its a significantly sized box and about 75% of the weight of a assault rifle or roughly the weight of 2 pistols, its not a full on doctors kit but its also not the easy first aid kits that tend to be kept in a cars dashboard. also what is in it? bandages and burn cream, maybe an antiseptic...its definitely not there to be used for the serious injuries as those are dealt with back at base. realistically, first aid would be extremely time consuming, so I can understand high TU costs, first aid is rarely done in a hot zone...preferably the person requiring first aid is first moved to a safer location where he can be bandaged up without the soldier doing the bandaging getting shot. it also makes sense that the advanced medkit-spray would be able to do so much faster. capacity wise, you can keep a hell of a lot of cream and bandages in a box with that size and weight, its not limitless...but if you would use as much in the field as would fit in such a box, half the team would have multiple holes in them that shouldn't be there. The primary goal of field bandages are to stop bleeds and the most dire problems, with heavy internal bleeding you will need a medevac ASAP as first aid will not save you...just give you a little more time to get the actual medical assistance. as such..it makes little sense for me to create a premium costs for HP recovery over stopping bleeds, the actual problem is represented in this game by HP you cannot recover by lowering the max HP until the soldier had time to completely recover at the base, you can increase the % of unrecoverable HP in the field if you fear soldiers being endlessly patched up. I don't see much use for a dedicated medic either for that reason, the ingame medicine action is in my book a first aid action, slap a pressure bandage on it and keep going. not a "my guts are spilling out of my abdomen can you please place them back and stitch me up" level of medical action. logically, you don't heal vehicles with a medkit, for the MARS you could carry along a few extra armor plates and a kit-gun to glue them over a few holes, this however is extremely heavy as armor grade metal plates are not exactly light, and you don't have time to weld in the field either. kit also doesn't keep it in place very well so the plate will likely catch the hit and fall off again. but hey if you have a party strong guy with an exosuit...maybe he can have a few. in game therms this would max out the vehicles armor rating and hardness again, but wouldn't actually affect its HP all that much (you don't have time to check the wiring and all that either)

1. not per-se, ignorance can be a bliss when it comes to the horrors of war..or in this case an alien invasion, you could say the soldier is simply too stupid to be scared. this is often detrimental to the soldiers health though, thinking McNamara's morons here from the vietnam era 2. don't know if it does, but again, it makes sense to be prepared when trained for it, we use training to prevent police horses from panicking when they hear loud noises. it doesn't make you brave per se, but certain "scary" things have much less impact if you expect them to happen. 3. better to use total war like rules here, rather then improve morale damage on your troops make it harder to affect alien morale as the difficulty increases, the battle changes drastically if you can't suppress targets reliably. but I have to be honest here...neither option is particularity appealing, either my troops run for the hills as soon as they hear a stiff breeze, or the enemy is tanking flashbangs to the face. (ignoring the fact that robotic enemies already ignore morale effects) 4. maybe, being critically wounded or KO'd in a battle is sure to cause some trauma. 5. when it comes to troops crapping their pants you could say fighting enemies with futuristic weapons powerful enough to blast a hole straight through a brick wall even if they miss, seeing your allies..or well..any human... being evicerated by a man sized bug and then instantly birthing new ones, frigging invisible "terminators" trying to take potshots at you and/or you being inside a dark alien architecture would certainly create dread. but point 3 sort of applies here...morale damage should certainly have impact..but its very easy to overdo..and its a negative spiral effect. aka it hits you when you are already on the receiving end of punches. so before the trooper drops his gun and decides to inspect the business end of the alien plasma cannon with his face, there should be a moment the player gets the opportunity to use said morale recovering action instead of trying to shoot. this is also the current problem, as long as you have the whole squad alive and not one trooper is getting seriously blasted, you barely take morale damage, but once you already have a massive action deficit because of multiple men down or gravely wounded, they start losing turns and moving to suicidal positions. Its actually quite binary, there is either no need or no time for the recover action to be executed. while its completely logical that morale goes down the gutter when half the squad is down, I think it would be beneficial to have a "sweet spot" where having troopers take a moment to get their head on straight is the optimal action, and blasting at the enemy is at the players own risk.

Initially you wouldn't know if they are effective, but both the autopsies and the xenobiology research could pretty quickly unlock new toys to work with. but a problem you would run into would be the effectiveness and threading into the abilities of other weapons, I personally thought teargas would be pretty good, a gas that would apply a vision impeding status without blocking sight like smoke. but...thinking a little deeper you end up with it A. being broken as all hell (preventing the enemy from hitting atoll), B. threading on the flashbang or C. being woefully unreliable (the enemy has a % reduction to hit akin to (heavy) cover) beanbag shotgun would have a similar problem, if the idea is to apply stun you are effectively making something like advanced stun weapons

night missions can definitely can be exciting, and I'm not opposed to them, but I am opposed to being forced to do them because a mission that currently has both a day and night option only spawns with night modifiers. I prefer the carrot over the stick...give me a reason to do a mission by night rather then by day without forcing the night modifier on the mission. I take the constricted vision and the risk of getting fired at from the fog of war when attacking at night, what strategical or tactical advantage would this grant me? your suggestion of there being generators ..available only at night...that grant bonus resources can definitely be an enticing enough reason for me to take a shot at it. extra resources can be a great strategic asset and worth taking extra risk for. but that is a completely different suggestion compared to "all terror missions should only be at night". same deal with enemies being weaker at night (when talking about the mantid, lets say the mantid had a 50% increased LOS during the day...but 75% of its current LOS at night), that is a tactical advantage that has to be weighed against the disadvantage of not being able to see them from a significantly longer distance. important here..I can still do the mission by day in both cases...the night however gives me something more that somewhat offsets the risk. the other bit is equipment and tool based, when nightvision was introduced..nations that had that technology moved to preferring nighttime ops against less developed enemies. as they got an advantage. if the player gets access to specific pieces of equipment that grant it benefit during the night, you might very well have a squad that prefers fighting in those conditions. example could be that for instance the wraith tech is more effective by night, this would work both for the wraith alien and my own troops, but I can employ it against psyons when I have that tech and opt to fight at night. this can also be trade offs, having thermal goggles for example could negate the negative effect of smoke at the cost of vastly increasing the suppression value of enemy fire as a shot now has a flashbang like effect on the trooper. smoke will still be heavily enticed as it will protect you and you're not impeded by it, but you don't really want to get shot at. in effect, make it so that fighting during the daytime isn't always the best option. (the night battle soundtrack is good, so I'd really like to have a good reason to fight night battles)

reapers are cascade/snowball enemies, basically when they start causing problems the problems only get bigger. not only do you lose a trooper, the enemy also increases in number. this means one needs to exercise some caution in buffing them, if the standard is that they can close and execute a melee its very likely they will become regular run enders. personally I have a healthy amount of respect for them, their melee is very strong and capable of 1 shotting low health units, they can also move a fair distance and still execute said melee. this brings risks when the area you are in has a lot of blind corners and small rooms. if you catch them in the open, like is often the case in daytime terror missions they are easy to deal with as they are squishy and can't close the entire FOV in 1 dash, but within an alien base with its myriad of doors and tiny rooms to teleport in its a different kettle of fish. note that..as they are melee smoke doesn't protect you if you can't kill it, and they are outright immune to being suppressed. This means staying out of range or killing/stunning it immediately are your 2 options.

I have to disagree, the activation after they have been suppressed: they can move and shoot, but they cannot move very far if they do so, we are talking 2 maybe 3 tiles if armed with a pistol. they can basically never shoot twice as the AI greatly prefers the firing options that it can only perform twice per turn tops. they can't use grenades atoll in the turn after they have been suppressed. if they can't get a shot on the player with that puny amount of movement, they generally just sit there and save their TU for a reaction the main benefit from suppression is that it stops enemy reactions, all enemies that can be suppressed lose all their TU the moment they get suppressed. this allows you to run up and perform a shotgun lobotomy without much resistance. it also allows ready-and-waiting machineguns to reflex suppress enemies and basically trap them in the open. the exact same goes for the player, if the player gets suppressed..he loses all TU and cannot react until its next activation, at the next activation you have half TU..so your movement is limited if you still want to land a accurate shot.

this is not the player choosing to do a night mission, this is forcing the player to do a night mission because the mission is only active during the night, or generates a night like condition. and it creates problems it then generates solutions for. my personal view on this is that there must be a reason I would want to prefer to do a mission by night rather then by day...do I have equipment that gives me specific advantages over the alien at night, do some materials become more obvious to scavenge at night etc. at the moment there really is no reason to do a mission by night as it only increases the risk with no real reward...I don't have specific gear that would work well hunting enemies at night, and night missions do not become more appealing if the only thing I get out of them is solutions to the very problems night missions have

I agree C4 is actually quite hard to use, its heavy at 15 weight units per charge and even though it does give a significant TU advantage with breech and clear tactics if you let the turn roll over...its just insanely heavy and hard to fit in. I'll see if I can employ them a bit more on the next run...but the main detriment is really that they take up 2,5 grenades worth of weight knife I rarely use as well, but I don't think its bad. near guaranteed damage ..especially early game when it feels like your men are cross-eyed..is very valuable...I think it just gets out-done by the stun baton the moment it becomes available. plates I did use once accuracy is a high level, but the magnitude of effect is nowhere near as noticeable then armor upgrades, there are very few instances where a armor insert actually saved a trooper. I did employ a lot of missile batteries, but...its a massive money sink (in order to get significant defense you are looking at 600-800 grand ignoring upgrade techs) and unlike base defense missions, when a battery actually destroys an invading ship...something that is rare as the ships rarely attack a base, you get nothing. for that amount of money you can build like 12-16 machinegun trollies to defend the base instead. Angel weapons scale quite well into the late game, the plane itself though is made of paper and has pathetic endurance (feul range and speed wise) its also a pity that its alpha strike capability with missiles just lags behind the target durability. phantom is a brawler and very good at that, it also helps the phantom that the top air weapon at the moment is a brawling weapon compared the standoff lance that I feel works much better on the angel

Build several MARS vehicles, all using heavy plating. used the missile launcher for a bit but mostly stuck to the cannon...the cannon makes it look and feel more like a tank as then it has significant ooph to punch through opposing armor, even though I wanted to use the MG as a coaxial gun the rangefinder just made the vehicle so much more reliable its extremely expensive to run for what you get, and for the investment not really worth it despite the fun that they bring. mars can take 3-6 hits before it goes down, a shield soldier at 10K using a free shield takes about 2 before the shield goes down, then another 1 to be wounded. so durability wise it isn't that impressive...the benefit it has here though is its instant repair at base, as long as it doesn't kick the bucket it can be brought back in the field the next mission. but is that worth 25X!! the price and a unique upgrade path to keep it up to date. while I can't say they are useless, the ability to basically create their own entry point into a building, instantly heal upon mission completion, ignore gas, morale and psionic effects, can't bleed and the ability to carry more powerful weaponry then equal tier soldiers while being generally more durable is definitely an advantage..just not a 240.000 dollars advantage

started a new run a few days back to employ the HEVY 1. the larger destructive blast radius for terrain is actually very useful when compared to the satchel charge. it can often catch multiple instances of cover or both the cover and the target in its blast 2. the weapon is one of the most economical as it is free and never needs to be build as an upgrade, the ammunition increases in power with the grenade upgrades even though only the ammunition text box really changes, the ammo art is not notably different, if its different atoll. 3. since the primary target of the weapon is battlefield terrain, the trooper using it will hardly advance in accuracy even if you catch targets within the blast radius. 4. the weapon has a range of 15 tiles and a very high close range accuracy bonus in his stats chart, but this bonus does not apply unless you are within 5 tiles or so (this is different from any other weapon, where the accuracy bonus from getting closer applies the moment you are closer then the weapons maximum range). and since the weapon has a maximum accuracy multiplier of 1.05 it needs a very accurate trooper to make the shots reliably land on longer distances. 5. it being a flat cost weapon, its one of the few that can actually be fired more often as the trooper levels TU, it also allows high TU grenadiers to move long distances and still fire. 6. obvious, it looks like a grenade launcher, the ammo looks like 40mm grenades, even though the description states it is a rocket launcher. this obviously causes confusion about its lack of an indirect fire mode of everyone that assumes its a grenade launcher. 7. extremely heavy at 40 weight units, for its weight cost and a single reload (40+16= 56, 8 shots) one can take along 9 other grenade types (6X9= 54), the advantage of the weapon is more that it can carry a lot of terrain destruction in few backpack slots (its compact compared to the large satchel charges) but you'd need extremely strong troops for backpack space to be a problem. having given it a chance I do see the use of this weapon, compared to the mars its much..much cheaper to run, compared to lugging around many satchels its compact. the problem is that, since it doesn't have grenade scatter, its prone to wild misses and it needs an ace shot trooper wielding it to get any sort of reliability out of it. while a modicum of strength on any other soldier will get you fairly accurate grenade throws that can be executed much safer.

at the moment, C4 cannot breach the UFO on any other point then the front door.

It is unlikely to be changed back as many people really seemed to prefer the X1 shields. personally, I feel both systems have their benefits. in the current system: being able to soak 1-2 hits without taking any damage is a fairly large benefit, especially in a game where an unarmored soldier is routinely 1 shot and an armored one might get 1-shot based on an RNG roll. its also unlikely one won't get shot atoll as the opponents love hiding around corners and frequently reserve TU for reaction fire. in the end, its a sort of temporary HP stack that acts like a hard wall because as long as the shield has at least 1 HP it will eat the full damage of any non explosive attack (that dahm tank drone). this means the power of the attack doesn't matter as much The beta system had a system most akin to the MARS now, the ability to stack large amounts of armor so you could take multiple hits with very little damage. It benifited most from stacking all the armor boosts together as to get the maximum reduction. instead of the mars instant repair however, you simply rotated shield tanks. the benefit here is that its extremely effective against small hits that fail to penetrate the stacked DR..but gets one chunked or killed the second heavy weapons or unlucky enemy damage roll RNG decides to screw you over. I don't think shields where useless in either system

good to know, as stated I thought downed soldiers where supposed to stay down during the combat mission, so I never attempted to revive any.

I don't think reviving soldiers is intentional, I think a downed or unconscious soldier is supposed to remain down. hence the odd behavior you listed.