Conductiv

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.

that is a solid reason and I get that some abilities are preferably not performed twice by the same soldier on the same turn. when talking about common 50%TU abilities I was mainly referring to the triple burst ability, so far the tooltip of every assault rifle and machinegun triple burst states that it costs 50% TU, the costs of these would then have to be changed in order to avoid the "+1 AP made me unable to do this twice..while I could before" problem that the roundup would cause. the ability would benefit from being used twice against enemies that failed their initial shot as a single burst from an AR is unlikely to suppress the enemy

would this not create more frustrating situations then solve solutions, as you have common abilities that take exactly 50%...that means those abilities could not be executed twice in a turn if the total TU on the soldier is an odd number (also a common situation) I don't play on experimental, but since experimental will eventually seep into the early access.

I never really got much mileage out of the HEVY, as stated in previous comments by others, its the accuracy that hurts me most of all... cover clearing you can use the MARS missiles or demolition charges, both are effective tools, and the mars can take shots with a much lower chance of instantly exploding then a grenadier can. for safely hitting enemies with explosives well the basic frag grenade line is actually quite good...for the weight of the HEVY you have 6 frags on any of your strong soldiers that have 100% chance to connect up to a decent distance, and unlike the heavy they can be deployed indirectly making it much safer to explode target with them.

accelerated suffers from the dead end tech problem, as it doesn't seem to be needed to aquire its bigger brother gauss tech. accelerated does open up a aircraft upgrade for a high DPS gun upgrade that works very well on the tier 2 intercepters (as they can mount 2) relative to basic lasers weapons accelerated is roughly equal in performance. but laser is more expensive and with a smaller mag, while gaining a more useful damage type (I have yet to see any alien resistant to any damage type, but terrain is definitly weak to thermal) and accuracy bonuses for novice troops. upgrade wise its also better as it give a aircraft upgrade with the lance (a longer range, moderate DPS option.), has advanced lasers that is a damage and utility upgrade and has 2 upgrades specific for the mars (while the mars is fun to use, its upgrades are very expensive for something that you can only field 2 of..at most...in the current EA, as such that utility is..meh ) the only real reason I see lasers being better would be the advanced lasers upgrade, as its a power increase between weapon tiers. in the end I used both basic lasers and accelerated weapons up to the moment I acquired gauss. used the mars laser cannon upgrade and the lance, while using accelerated cannons on most tier 2 fighters

there is a shield upgrade later in the game, but it is close to the piont where you unlock gauss weapons and alike. so it does grow along with your tech progression, but it doesn't seem to have too many "improvement steps" so to say.

if it still has the same stats as it did in the demo, and UFO doors havn't changed... it does not blow off UFO doors with a single charge. when I wrote my feedback regarding grenades, all grenades save the basic frag where considdered good. (suppression was strong in the demo, smoke could be used as an ad-hoc stun grenade on top of its defensive ability and the satchel could destroy most battlefield cover and did fairly okay against alien armor. while the satchels relatively low damage made sure you didn't end up destroying your loot) because the demo had a very limited day count...and I read people getting close to half a year in the current beta's...I was wondering whether the support grenades got upgrades, much like the frag so they could actually keep up with the aliens rising stats. and "demolition satchels" not simply got replaced by a single primairy weapon shot to remove the same level ...or more...of cover or armor.

only played the demo, so I didn't actually see any upgrades of the HEVY. the grenade launcher is stated to be mostly a utility weapon, as such relying to much on the damage output of the weapon would be counter to its intended function. I didn't really use it a lot, as its heavy, inaccurate and could not befired indirectly from a safe position. handgrenades could be used to mimic its function with much higher reliability, safety and with more available options at the cost of potential range and greater overall weight cost if lots of grenades where to be hauled around. accuracy really is the major concern, smoke and demo charges have to be placed with good accuracy to get decent effect out of them. it needs to hit a specific wall or smoke a specific area. if it can't do that with good reliability its better to get closer and use the far more accurate and safer grenades, especially since the HEVY fires from an exposed position with direct fire..so its liable to get hit with reaction fire..or worse...hit a nearby obstacle and blow up himself or his squad members

I don't think smoke will work on every enemy (enemy automated or robotic units, as they are immune to stun damage), and from X1 I know the sebillians ignored the smoke accuracy penalty. and as smoke stun is rather low it will work early on as a "gas grenade" to clear UFO's, but will eventually become less usefull in this function as enemy stun tresholds increase. as such I think it lacks the versitality and oomph needed to actually do a pacifist run. but this doesn't mean that it isn't a good method in the early game to get captives and clear UFO's by smoking the inhabitants untill they lose consiousness by oxygen starvation.

overall for the 40 days that the demo lasts I'm fairly happy. though my major concerns are in the weapon upgrade paths and how troops develop, something I couldn't really see in the early game. like its predecessor, the dread lies in the games exploration during tactical combat. this is magnified during night missions where vision is reduced and the fact that most aliens during the early game seem overwatch happy. this makes the early game very slow as low TU units are constantly moving around checking every corner and reserving TU for overwatches. it gives just the right vibe to the game. also the maps seem to be designed to maximize the amount of corners stuff can hide in. this is however terrible when you play missions with infinite reinforcements or turn timers as this doesn't jive well with the slow methodical approach of the game. about the equipment that I employed. -frag grenade being an odd one, extremely effective but the game really doesn't like you using them as it tanks your economy by destroying loot. it also fails to destroy even the most basic cover and it shreds practically no armor when facing the 20 armor guys. explosive does punch through doors and walls, allowing it to kill or hurt enemies on the other side while leaving the obstruction intact. because of the economical setback...I ended up barely employing them, but they are solid tools. -other support grenades (smoke, flash and demolition) all extremely effective in what they are supposed to do..at least for the first 40 days.. smoke even acts very well as an ad-hoc stun grenade as the lower level aliens can be effectively "gassed" by them. flash suppressed every target I used it on, in X1 its effectiveness dropped during the later stages..so I still have that to worry about. and the demo grenade destroys practically all battlefield cover with a single grenade and shreds armor quite well, while leaving the enemy alive so you can still get loot. it however fails against UFO doors. this being a "new" grenade type I hope it has upgrades to it as well, but its unusually large in the backpack at 4 tiles. -MARS at 250K and a research a rather expensive investment. I ended up using the heavy plating on it making it slower, but it pretty much needs the armor even at the early stages of the game. in the demo..it instantly repairs post mission. I did not manage to upgrade its plating in time to see the impact of vehicle upgrades. -player armor seems to scale really fast from 12>25 because it acts like a flat reduction and there is a large damage spread its pretty much a must have. it is also a definitive must have on units that are likely exposed to enemy fire while not relying on smoke. (notably shields) now...if this scaling continues its ether nigh on invulnerable if you manage to be ahead in armor and a 1 shot kill if you don't. -inserts, don't know their scaling but both the armor and accuracy one are great. it is odd though that they don't have a dedicated slot in the UI to slot them in. -stun weapons and melee, only really used the baton as its reliable stun. and even though I didn't use the knife, I am happy with the melee inclusion. -did not use C4...was rather surprised a C4 block was 6 tiles large and heavier then most grenades. because its a placement only explosive I didn't see much use for it in the early game. but being smaller and lighter would certainly promote its use more weapons: as suppression is a mechanic and the suppression value apparently depends on the weapon used, it would be great to see this in the weapon chart. coilgun upgrade: the only upgrade I managed to complete lists a general armor penetration of 5 points, its a pity this doesn't apply to the shotgun (listed at 3) or stacks upon the rifle (listed at 13?) but I have to say that I like that the different weapon tiers now get an extra trait on top of a generic damage buff. the 10% damage scaling is great...as this doesn't cause damage numbers to explode every time you move up a weapon tier. -HEVY launcher, because it looks like a grenade launcher I actually tried using it like an indirect fire weapon...it is not and it tells you in the flavor text. but it is a pity as it fills almost the same job as a demo grenade. while being a direct fire weapon and less accurate while also being notably heavier limits its potential -assault rifles I frequently employ because they are supposed to be a concession between a close range and long range automatic weapon, it performs its long range function very well. however it would benefit from a better close range bonus for its close range function. suppression function was not reliable, probably to prevent threading on the machinegun. -snipers have a "didn't move" accuracy bonus, but this bonus is not listed anywhere in the weapon description while this makes the weapon a lot better at hitting stuff. -machineguns, pistols and shotguns seem to fill their functions well. but I have no idea why the chart damage from the pistol is lower then that of the AR, even though it states that it acts like a AR without an automatic function at close range. -shield functions well if the trooper is heavily armored, but is extremely heavy on its own maybe a tad too heavy this early in the game? air combat: -used autoresolve almost exclusively. -aircraft take long to repair, and aircraft modules are very expensive. its a good thing they can't "die". in the demo though, you can speed up the recovery..it states that this costs something like 250K, but if used...doesn't substract this cost.

the way I see it, you only have 1 shot at the first impression. jumping the gun and having something unbalanced, buggy and/or unstable will pursue it after its polished, limiting the reach of the game. so in effect, the game is "done" when the game is complete, the balancing is reasonable, it is stable and there are no major bugs. perfection is not required at that point but you should already be proud of the product you put out, and make sure that what you promised would be in it..is actually in it. if for whatever reason you would have to drop support, the game should still be able to effectively stand on its own. I am not really worried that you will choose the right time to pull the trigger, and even though I am not a backer and don't play the beta builds I'm fairly certain the final product will be a joy to play. I'm looking forwards to see the evolution of the xenonauts franchise.

when its done, you have 1 chance at the first impression I'd vote for not mucking that up with jumping the gun. that doesn't mean that support should drop the second it hits the stores...but it beats early release and having to fix a lot of stuff in the first few months after.

I'm actually the dead opposite to the OP, I generally don't like it that all weapons of a previous generation become completely useless once you have a new tech. and tend to really like systems that allow players to exploit specific weaknesses in the type of armor an opponent uses. from my perspective it having a weakness system attempts to avoid the lategame problem that every squad is equipped with 1 weapon...because "its the best", even though in most tactical games a meta will develop anyway.

I have to echo the bit about not being able to heal MARS robots with medkits...if this is the case they need humans to bolt extra plates on them mid-fight, its imperative the robot cannot do so himself and its a separate tool from what is used to heal humans. they should be relatively easy to take a shot at, they should not be able to adapt their profile to cover, so can't lean or crouch. AI does need a general answer to yolo-tactics (realistically its pretty hard to close with a armed combatant that isn't disabled in some way, turn based tactical games do have the problem that high speed shotgun rushing is often a totally viable and usually quite safe strategy, especially if the unit closing is essentially a disposable robot) They do need to mesh well with human operators, being a mechanical meatshield is totally fine. but they should lack in versitality..if a player is tempted to just replace all soldiers with MARS platforms because of "much damage" other consumables have too little or no value (C4, grenades etc. things that the mars cannot use). capping can limit the problem, but it can also hide a simple "the big gun is always best" problem