sixgunninja

I know that I need to keep Alenium to make higher-tier weapons, but what about the Alien weapons, ammo and alloys? Are those things I can sell without worry or are they needed for something else later too?

Probably a silly question, but is there a reason to keep Scientists and Engineers around when they're not researching or building something? Does it cost money when you hire them or only at the end of the Month?

In playing the Kickstarter Demo I've run into two main bug: 1. Scientists: On the Research Panel, despite only having 1 Lab and therefor limited to 50 Scientists I found I could assign 76. When I had finished all my possible Research Projects I then switched to the Personnel Panel to fire all my Scientists so I didn't have to pay them. But the Personnel Panel said I only had 38, which was the number I thought I should've had. And when I went to fire them I was able to set my Scienists all the way down to Negative 38. So I'm not sure what happened there. 2. Monthly Maintenance & Wages: Like clockwork every month I get a pop up saying I don't have enough funds to pay monthly wages when my monthly income is greater (almost twice than) what my Upkeep is listed as in the upper right. Is this a bug or do I need to have that money on hand at the end of the month? (ie what happens first income from the finance countries or paying upkeep?) 3. Also, even when I know there are AI Local Soldiers still alive on the Ground Mission the Debrief Screen always says 0, is that a known bug?

I'm glad to hear it, thanks for letting us know! (To be a bit of an jerk) I was thinking something that you didnt have to mouse over so it was more of an At-A-Glance thing, but you are the man with the plan. The other thing I want to suggest again is being able to put soldiers into Color coded groups. Its standard practice in Real Time Strategy games like StarCraft to be able to group your soldiers, I'm not suggesting that you command multiple soldiers as a group. What I'd like to be able to do (during the Ground Mission) is say "These 3 guys are going here so they're Red Team." and "Those four go that way so theyre Blue Team" and then later on grab two guys from and make them Green Team. I suggest this because in playing the Kickstarter Demo I've found that split my troops up into different groups going different directions, but who goes where depends on the map. But then its hard to keep track of who is with who at a glance because they're all just Numbers on the quickbar. I think Color Coding would solve this issue pretty easily.

I started playing the Kickstarter build the other day and while good I had a hard time remembering which soldier was equipped with which weapon. Something that I think could greatly improve your ability to asses what you have left to do on your turn is to have a customizable icon for each soldier next to their Number where they're listed at the top of the UI element at the bottom of the screen during ground combat. If there were say a dozen or so Icons that indicated a Sniper with a Crosshair, Anti-Tank with a little rocket that you could set on the Soldier screen then at a glance you could see that your sniper and one of your rifleman has moved, but your shotgunners and anti-tank still have AP left. This would be further improved if you could choose the color of those Icons, red for Entry Teams, Green for overwatch, or whatever you wanted the colors to mean. I think this would make it much easier to manage your squads in combat. This is also a problem in the Dropship screen, Icons would help to put the guys you want at the front where you want them without having to refer back to the Soldier screen to see who has what. PS: What about turning a portion of the little Green AP bar next to the Soldier's number yellow when you've set it to be saved for reaction fire?

Absolutely! Each loss is a much bigger blow when you have half the squad size. I'm the sort that spends 3 turns healing up in the middle of a mission and reloads if I lose a guy, so take the fact that I dont have a problem with the smaller size as you will. I would point to Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition combat as an example of a Tactical game with a small number of Player Character that still scales well when facing dozens of creatures that take numerous hits to kill each. And if you look at the Men At War series you'll see that when they limited the number of soldiers in Assault Squad compared to earlier versions it allowed you to make much better use of each soldier, despite no significant changes in what you could do with those soldiers. So I'm not worried, you can do great tactical games with 6 or few guys. Julian Gollop's recent Ghost Recon Shadow Wars is a good example of this. (No Permadeath or keeping track of ammo for small arms either )

But its not as much fun if it isnt heresy!Really I was just surprised at they ways some posters assumed the roster and ammo would work in the new Enemy Unknown, but correcting people on the internet can be dangerous. Especially if you try to use facts.

I've got high hopes too, everything ive read and seen makes it look well designed and well made. I would simply rather play the finished product than troubleshoot it now. But I'll right at the front of the line when the Kickstarter posts to try the demo and give Goldhawk their tribute.

Hello all! I'm Chuck from the US, I was a bit late to play X-Com when it was out but I'm a big fan of turn based tactical games. Having been burned by games in Beta in the past I'm excited to what the Demo Chris is going to put up for the Kickstarter looks like. And I've probably already poke the bear by saying nice things about Firaxis's X-Com in the Off-Topic section.

I just saw X-Com: EU in person at PAX East earlier this month and am really excited for it. I realize that many people here are looking for a game that is more old school in its conventions (and I want to play BOTH), but there are some weird assumptions in this thread, two big ones really. Ammo: It isn't like when you used the Infinite Ammo cheat code in DOOM and you BFG never stops firing. Each weapon DOES have a limited magazine size, and certain actions like Burst Fire, Overwatch and Suppressing Fire will take more rounds out of that magazine than a Standard Shot. When that magazine is empty you will have to reload it, Small Arms like Assault Rifles and Shotguns etc will have an unlimited number of spare magazines, but Heavy Weapons like the Rocket Launcher will have a limited number of rounds that can be taken on a mission. Sure you don't have to spend 10 minutes each time to make sure that your guys are decked out with enough spare magazines like the old game but is that really the Commander of X-Com's job? Or do they have Quartermasters for that? Limited Troops: Yes, you will be limited to taking 4 to 6 Soldiers on any given mission (X-Com:EU's Sky Ranger is smaller than Xenonauts Chinook), but that does not mean you are limited to the same 4 to 6 Soldiers for the entirety of the game. In EU Soldiers can be Injured (still available for missions but not as effective as healthy troops) and Wounded (laid up in the Base Infirmary for a certain number of days) and Killed which like the X-Com of old means they are gone, forever. That is what the Developers mean when they say "Permadeath", when your guys are dead they're dead. To replace these hurt of dead Soldiers you have the ability to recruit more Rookies and a Barracks that can house a roster of up to 99 Soldiers (theoretical limit, from a rockpapershotgun.com interview) that you have recruited, trained and equipped to be ready when you want to switch that Russian Assault guy with a Shotgun for your Belgian Sniper. I realize this isn't quite the place to be excited about Firaxis's X-Com: Enemy Unknown, but honestly it looks really good and anyone who's assuming that its bunk because it isn't adhering religiously to the original is doing themselves a disservice by not giving it a fair shot.

The most cost effective thing I can think of would be to have everything that needs to go to Europe put on a pallet or better yet if it fills a shipping container and send that to the UK or Continental Europe by ocean freight. As for discount, I don't know since I'm on the retail end of things. The Postal Service doesn't do anything like that that I am aware of but both UPS and DHL do, in which case you'd want to go online to their website, create an account and then contact customer support and explain the volume you're expecting and see what they'll give you.

llhht is correct about the approximate cost of shipping domestically within the United States. But international is an entirely different story. I work in the retail shipping business I have to say $10-$15 for international postage is a really lowball. I priced up a package (roughly what I'd expect the T-Shirt to look like) going from the East Coast of the US to Postal Code in downtown London; weight 2 lbs, exterior dimensions 13x10x4 in inches. Here are the cheapest options for various carriers; UPS Expedited: 3 Business Days, $134 DHL Express Worldwide: 2 Business Days, $132 US Postal Priority Mail: 6-10 Business Days, $41 US Postal 1st Class International: 10-20 Business Days, $18. So if someone quotes you less than $15 for International Shipping, they're sending it 1st Class (or equivalent thereof) and chances are they're not even covering the cost of that shipping. (Remember we haven't even talked about the cost of Packaging which people tend to overlook). I wanted to make sure you guys knew what you would be getting into with International Shipping, I think it would behoove have options that are purely digital even at the middle and high level price points for that reason.