Max_Caine

Yeah, locking this. It's as clear to me now as when it was first posted that this was a failed attempt at spam using an eye-catching title.

I'm surprised that no-one has brought up training. X-Com: Apocalypse is a real-world example of how training could mitigate a TPK. Because recruits were cheap as chips, and residence and training modules were also very cheap, you could have scores of troops doing nothing but training so when troops inevitably bought the farm you could pull troops from the training pool and slot them straight in. However, training is a very hot-button issue in Xenonauts. Training in Apocalypse meant that combat experience was pretty much worthless, and Chris has said before he would prefer experience, progression and general leveling up to be associated with doing things, rather than a training spreadsheet. Another way to mitigate a TPK is to make progression less valuable than the tech tree. In X-Com original, your kit was far more important than the stats of the soldier, especially when you got your hands on things like blaster launchers which didn't need pesky aiming stats. In X2 the weapon and armor systems are modular so you can mitigate human stats with the right equipment mods. However, if Chris is still going ahead with alien adaptive technology, then the tech tree only has so much value and those modded weapons are lost with a TPK. It might be the case that if you suffer a TPK, you might be able to pay a fee to recover the bodies and kit of the dead, so you can transfer that valuable kit to a new recruit ("just ignore that scorch mark, it'll come out in the wash"). But is it right to make progression less valuable than kit? FiraXCOM showed us how engaging progression could be. Is it fair to make that play second fiddle to the tech tree?

A second reminder, discussion regarding ATLAS and general base mechanics already moved to another thread: here

This forum supports robust debate. It doesn't support drama. Everything that can be said in the lore topic has been said, and now we're dipping into playground behavior. Please can I ask that the lore topic of discussion re. PALU and Charon in this thread be dropped.

Here's a quote from the OP in the Xenonuats 2 Ground Combat thread. Rodmar, is that close to the kind of thing you envision?

Fox, please do not spam multiple popular threads with questions that are only slightly related in an effort to get answers for your own mod. If you continue to do this, the spam will be deleted and merged into a new thread.

I honestly think there's a dichotomy of design with PD. The game offers me a lot of options for fighting. All of the characters you hire come with a starting weapon, you get heavy-to-light weapons right from the get go, two thirds of the equipment you can build from the start is related to combat, your agents perks are slated towards combat, their trained skills are all to do with combat and ALL of the stuff you loot in a mission is either weapons or armour. But, if I start a fight in a mission I've done something wrong. Straight away reinforcements will pile in. Then either more reinforcements are queued up, or an air strike is queued up, and this will continue to happen until my team either escapes or are all killed. As you always hit your target, weight of numbers matters more in this game than it does in a game where there's a chance to miss and guess what? The enemy outnumbers you. I completed a mission recently where I spent three quarters of a tedious hour getting agents into position to ko as many mooks as possible in a simultaneous strike so I could then take out the remaining agents as rapidly as I can. PD gives me all these options for fighting, but it slaps me down if I then use the tools it gives me.

There will be a closed beta stage. Those backers who selected that as part of their reward will participate in that. Then there will be an Early Access stage. Everyone else will get to participate in that. We have not entered the closed beta stage yet.

Unlike most X-Com-a-likes, X1 put as much emphasis on the strategic map as it does on the ground combat. X1 was a game of two halves, and it would appear that X2 is going to continue in that vein. A reasonably fast, turn-based minigame with interesting strategic choices slots into that philosophy, and segues smoothly into ground combat. EDIT: From a modding perspective, something like the air combat proposed for X2 is a godsend, as there are more variables to play with when modding UFO fights.

Having played PD a bit more now, the strategic map has some important lessons for X2. While there are things you can do on the map, Most of them are progress bars. Because almost every action you can take on the map is a non-interactive progress bar, time on the strategic map is sped up so as little time as possible is spent on the strategic map. If time wasn't sped up, then it would get boring fast. In X1, you spent a LOT of time looking at the strategic map. I don't imagine this is going to change significantly for X2, but if agents are going to play a meaningful role on the strategic map then there are going to have to be ways to distract from little agent progress bars filling up.

To add to Akrakorn, the impression I get from it is that it's been tested by people who knew the mechanics, therefore they never needed it to be explained to them and the game has been shaped by people who are used to its oddities, so they don't push for things that a fresh face would ask for. This is a possible pitfall for X2, I hope that we get a steady stream of fresh faces trying different things so that the game doesn't fit an insider's idea of how the game should work.

The most fun you'll have in the tactical missions is when you aren't fighting. It plays out a lot like Invisible Inc. The game encourages you to sneak around and slip past patrols as there's only so many people you can ko or kill before enemy agents come looking for you. It's a lot of fun working out patrol routes and slipping past mooks. Actual combat feels like MGS, where you're punished for not successfully sneaking.

The ground combat in Phantom Doctrine doesn't make any really fundamental changes to the way combat is handled, other than perhaps the way that shooting is handled. Most of the changes are on the more abstract layer - the way the the game handled such things as off-table support, team actions, etc. etc.