Max_Caine

If you proceed along that route, then in terms of game mechanics you see-saw between a mechanic being OP, and a mechanic being utterly useless, the periods of usefulness and uselessness being as long as the designers see fit. I'd prefer a mechanic that I can use consistently throughout the lifespan of the game.

Regarding camouflage: it's an interesting concept, but I can see it being horribly abused. As Charon so rightly notes, LOS is more important than cover so switching everyone to camo as soon as possible would be the obvious choice. If the counter to camouflage is to produce abilities that neutralise camouflage then the counter to that would be to kill any neutralising agents first then you have free reign of the map. I think if something like camouflage were to work, it would have to be unstable, in a similar way to the way that Reapers' camouflage in XCOM2 is unstable so you can't consistently be camouflaged.

Needs more Dakka?

When the MARS was first introduced, it became clear pretty quickly that the MARS was a bit OP when deployed in multiples, especially when people sang the praises of the MARS and told stories of how their 4-team of MARS roflstomped the opposition. So now it's a hard cap of 1. You get a juicy bit of tech on the field without facerolling the aliens.

On the armoury screen on the bottom left hand section, you have a list of soldiers. There's a tab for soldiers in the skyhawk and a tab for all other soldiers. Try clicking between the tabs to get a feel for it.

This is probably better directed at Chris rather than me, and I'd love to see your opinions on other things Chris wants to introduce over on the Geoscape Strategic War thread. The only thing I'll say is that we're in a time of crisis right now, and the opinions of the hoi polloi have definitely shaped the thinking of our illustrious leaders.

Let me rephrase myself, and let's work through your example. Let us say that one starts with a maximum Panic score of 100 per region. Let us say that when deploying an agent you have two choices. Choice A is twice as effective as Choice B but when using Choice A, you reduce capacity by 10. So, if a particular region has a score of 59/100 and you have the choice for that to be reduced to either 39/90, or 49/100 (a drop of 20/10 or 10/0 respectively), equilibrium would be maintained, both being 51 points away. The impact of Choice A is to see the panic bar maximum drop for that region in contrast to all other regions and to permanently have less capacity in that region in comparison to all other regions. Ergo, there's no short term benefit and the long term effect is damaging due to a reduction of capacity, which would always be clear as you can compare both current panic and maximum panic capacity for all regions at a glance from the main screen. Therefore, using your example, Choice A is worse than Choice B, so Choice A should never be chosen and my suggestion is terrible. To make my suggestion work, Choice A would have to be a much more significant drop that Choice B. If Choice A were three times more effective than Choice B then, using the prior example, 59/100 is 29/90 and 49/100, 61 and 51 points away respectively. To really make Choice A work, I would say that it would have to be four times as effective, so 59/100 becomes 19/90 and 49/100, 71 and 51 points respectively. It would seem that Choice A would then be an automatic choice, but the reduction in capacity can creep up very quickly.

I'd like to see more mission variety as well, but missions have to be more than play differently - they also have to tie into the strategic map. Shooting down UFOs grants on the strategic level tech for research, materials for building and panic reduction. Completing Terror Sites/Raids prevents big jumps in panic. Destroying alien bases prevents a slow buildup of panic, grants tech for research and materials for building. What would these suggested mission types do on the strategic level, and why are they any different to the current mission types?

Are you having the same issues in v12.1?

Well, that would depend upon the psychological feel you want to give to the game. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I get the impression that you want to give the player the sensation that at the start of the game, for every fire s/he stomps on, two more spring up. If there's a real sense of urgency, then that 49/90 could go to 49/80, or 49/70 very quickly.

The War of the Worlds strategy/hybrid RTS have the kind of sensation that you want to invoke, Ninothree. Scotland and the North are hammered in the first few strategic turns by Martian landings. The human defenders don't have the manpower or industrial base to fight back, so you have surrender the North and draw a defensive line in the Midlands, bunkering down and fending off Martian forays until you've built up a sizable industrial and technical base and can lead an invasion into Martian held lands. This is quite cleverly done - when playing as the Martians, the Martian landings ensure that you grab a good sized portion of the map immediately, but your units land without any kind of support infrastructure AT ALL, so you can make a few quick grabs in the first 2 or 3 turns, but by then you have so many units without support you spend all your time nursing sick units until the infrastructure to support them is there.

Well, locational damage as presented is a framework on which a more complex system can be built. However, I've personally never been keen on any locational damage system where you can deliberately choose a location than earns significantly more damage than other locations, because then that becomes the only location worth choosing. PP did this right - there is normally no spot on an enemy which which is a damage multiplier, but all that did was then change the focus to shooting off enemy locations that could do damage.

Regarding Art Design of UFOs: https://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/index.php?/topic/20140-ufo-design/&tab=comments#comment-174487 Regarding stances (esp. going prone): https://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/index.php?/topic/19551-going-prone/&tab=comments#comment-169767 Regarding locational damage: https://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/index.php?/topic/20979-new-damage-armour-system/

I think there's more that could be done with Agents, especially with reference to War Events. One could spend an Agent to mitigate (not neutralise, just mitigate) a War Event, and then you don't have that Agent to improve Panic in a region later. EDIT: Context sensitive flowery text would also go a long way to making the agent button more engaging. You're not just pressing a button, you're "deploying to co-ordinate local relief efforts", or "hosting a summit on known infiltration techniques" or perhaps more sinisterly "silencing a vocal critic permanently". EDIT 2: Heck, thinking about it, you could have two flavours of Panic reduction. "Positive" Panic reduction which is plain vanilla as described in the OP, which simulates things like PR, working with leaders, etc. etc., and "Negative" Panic reduction, which provides a bigger Panic drop but permanently reduces the max Panic score. That simulates the darker side of the coin which includes things like smearing or assassinating vocal critics, suppressing information, clearing black sites, etc. etc.

A quick question on the Aerial Terror Mission. Is a special kind of UFO going to spawn, or is it going to be more of a steambirds-esque grand melee with several classes of UFO swirling around?