Coffee Potato

Ok, I'll find the clip later, but it's basically this: House is explored, ambush happens, so you attempt to run inside. At some point, an NPC decided to take a panic nap on the doorstep. So you click inside, and the unit starts to run, but realizes that someone is in the way. Instead if stopping, they re-route automatically the best way they see how. The example for this is the small scout farm map (UFO on top right, facing a house, open area with troughs to it's left). If the window had been shot open on the right, they immediately go and try to jump through it. If not, they try to run around the left side of the house, right into the UFO's doors. This happened a ton on industrial maps. X2 does not seem to have this so far. Please don't bring it back is all I'm saying.

So far this seems to be the case, but you know how in X1, when you'd path into an area, but say...discover an npc in the way, your unit would panic, and go run back out of cover to get around them the long way? Please don't do that again. Please? Sincerely, Someone who saw too many low TU rookies die to this feature.

Or just stay on the model for consistancy

I agree that would be iffy, but it would be nice to have some more random moments of levity, like the scouts with only one snake man on board from UFO, or sectoid raids in EU, or ground support showing up in WOTC. Or, XDiv locals doing awesome every now and then. I guess the main thing the game seemed to lack, in my opinion, is a short break from the dread aside from the science reports. It's probably why I latched onto the cop npcs, their pistol antics gave some hope.

I should point out that the grenade launcher kinda fires faster than any burst weapon right now, which is funny. Can lay some serious waste to a UFO entrance like never before (grenade auto cannon comes to mind)

Kinda looks like it, figured they hadn't implemented the scaling yet.

Halved accuracy past LoS sounds perfect.

I say this a lot, but I liked the XDiv approach. They have much higher success rates for things like grenades, but lower hit rates globally for guns. Shooting costs a bit less, so their stats are the same, but grow faster, and basic tasks will succeed unless something interferes, such as range, obstacles, and view obstruction. It feels like they're better, while an XDiv Rookie would likely lose a gunfight to a Xenonaut Rookie.

Original Xeno was the same way. If I were to guess a logic, it's due to the ability to suppress enemy units, which then creates a situation of splitting your team into covering fire and advancing roles. X-Division, the massive mod for Xeno, increased TU, in order to have the ability to scout more, apparently. Personally, I love the higher TUs, BUT, bear in mind scaling isn't working right yet. The original had a scaling where a rifle or shotgun could move and shoot, while snipers and heavies had to set up first. Right now it's just a flat score across the board. Lower TUs work nicely with the amount of firepower vs limited units you have compared to the original XCOM, while the higher TU version functions better in something like XDiv, where you might need to scout a dozen or more enemies per turn. Plus, each battle can give up to 2 TUs extra at the moment, that can be a lot. Just leave the low TU guys as snipers.

The only things not destructible are the deep ships and walls of the UFOs. The doors are still destructible. Base walls are also indestructible, but have destructible elements, such as the vents for ambushes.

X-Div is pretty friggin amazing.

I was kinda annoyed at first when XDiv added robot dog enemies, but didn't allow for the creation of Doggo Force to fight them. What do you mean a dog with a battleaxe isn't an awesome idea?

I missed the explodey walls myself. Xeno 1 UFOs looked dang pretty, but those hallways were the dang Vietnam of that game.

Personally I'd wonder if it could be tiered as time went on. Like an AoE rocket boom or 3x HMG situation over an area to start, which could become Alenium/lasers later, becoming a space laser/cannons by the end. Just thinking that design-wise, it would give region relations another use, and should only take some off map attack unit, plus a limited UI element to target it.

Actually, was just cleaning, and was wondering how in depth the side missions might be. What are the odds of being able to either auto resolve, or manually do those? Mentally, I'm picturing, and hoping for something like FFT: A2 on this. Like there already seems to be signs of this, and I read a post hinting that it might be this way, but I really hope there will be some stuff in there that might catch people off guard. Random ideas no one asked for, and might already exist: -Sending someone out to compete against other "elite" branches, giving you some extra recruits for the month if they win. -Send units to learn an area, providing off-map sniper cover for the next fight there. -Let a unit serve as a dimplomat, or let scientists/engineers attend a conference, attempting to improve relations with an area. Maybe they could crit success a faster research dealie? -Send a squad to go train locals, giving an extra couple units in case of a terror mission. -Send a soldier, scientist, and engineer to fortify an area, making it less likely to get a terror mission. Other random thought...can we get radar boats this time?

So with a good number of nice things coming into the game now, I wanted to see what the future of the chaos element might be for this one. The best example I can think of for this would be WOTC at this point, with random aspects leading to some wild mission variety. I had some ideas, and was curious if any were either already in the books, or had been discounted (I've been reading through posts here, but haven't come across these yet) -Random Competence in Guest AI- While AI isn't quite there yet, I was curious if it was possible to somewhat randomize how civvies perform. For example, maybe some random guy happens to have a bat with him, and decides to go bumrush a sebillian. Maybe one of the cops there just happens to be the John Wick of their particular county. I know running into one rando unit completely decimating a ton of the mission by sheer chance always made me giddy in the original, it just made the world feel alive. Or, a recent XDiv stream, where a bunch of soldiers around a base competently held their own against a bunch of ceseans, pinning them down until we could push through. Is there a way to have more randomness to how they behave? (In the future, again, I know it's not in there yet). Maybe they could want to join in the end? -AI Reloads/Bleed- I always mentally note to check this out, but never saw the AI reloading...and I guess we wouldn't see that happen. One gripe I personally had about the original, even if it was understandable from a design perspective, was that cannons never needed reloading. The other stuff, sure, hand wave, etc, but for the longest time, I thought they had cheat TUs or something. Will they be reloading, or at least not rapid firing rocket launchers? Will the bleed mechanic apply to them? -Odds of Ambush/Movement Speed- A UI thing I'd love to see is some indication of where your reaction %s lie when moving. It would help a lot in determining what might be a safer run. Would it be possible to have a faster, or more evasive run mode? (Visually, it would be awesome to see something like Silent Storm, where their position while running froze, and determined their hit box during an Interrupt Attack.) -Armor Mechanics- I just hope that when Insane mode or some such rolls around, armor actually still matters. I felt like a lot of the armors were a bit of a waste at times, since being ambushed usually resulted in instant death anyhow. It looks like the Dodge mechanic will be the answer to this, will there be a chance to have a Deflect roll for heavier armors? -Friendly Suppression- I read that your remaining TUs determined bravery when being psionically attacked. Will this apply to situations where you want to lay down some HMG down a hall before sending everyone else in? -Landing Craft- Will there be any landing craft gadgets or props? Like...deployable cover, turrets, landing smoke, etc? Maybe sacrifice a crew slot for that? -Unusual Situations- I saw a post about multiple UFO landings and such, got me thinking about other stuff I always wanted to see in the genre. Pacification of Mind Controlled Populace (Coming in with Stun batons, while trying to hunt down the Psyons controlling them) PR Battle (Defend some civilian camera crews while filling an episode of SPACE COPS) Base Saving (Save some locals from a base raid or some such. See someone else getting raided for once, maybe they're a decoy base?) Arm Locals (Something akin to Jagged Alliance here, but maybe you could ship some weapons to a region, where they would use them for a couple battles or so in that region) Joint Invasion (Maybe if your relations were like...75 or higher, a neighboring region could deploy a few extra units either with you or on the other side of the map?) Air Support (Maybe 1-2 times per that round, probably based on region relationship, it could throw down some AoE fire in an area? Like say the equivalent of a couple rockets, or some 30 shots scattering in an area? Seems like a way to allow air support, and limit it at the same time, presumably no one can afford to lose planes. Or hell, just make it available, but have accuracy based on relations, so maybe 10 would suppress your own people instead.) Sorry for the long post, but I was curious. Also I talk too much. Also I Love this dang game. Thank You in advance!

Personally, I'm just glad to be able to break the things again. Maybe they could use a little more health, though, since I kinda doubt a shotgun would be much help in breaking down a wall (otherwise, can we attach rotating auto shotguns to the interceptors?). I've been loving the grenade launcher for just utterly wiping out landings. Inefficient? Yes. Fun? Also yes.

To be fair, XDiv raised their competence a ton, but even then misfires could happen. Like one time where I was about to pull back a really iffy run, and lost the entire squad to a rocket misfire, no idea how that even hit where it did.

I haven't seen 3 yet personally, and I'm glad to say I haven't yet randomly died to an invisible shot from a corner I had someone watching. I guess glasses tech improved by 2018.

Weird, no idea what happened, then. I do know that whatever happened, my folks aren't dying nearly as much when standing in cover. It's likely the sight angles getting fixed, I E those death tiles where apparently the whole map sees one guy, but they can never see who shot them.

Yes sir, and sorry, I'll hold off on that for now. But yeah, absolutely loving it so far, and really hope that cover stays this way, having viable and understandable defense mechanics always does it for me (Such as the two covers in the way still effectively counting as cover for a crouching guy, aside from the whole 50% chance thing. Even if unintentional, it feels great!

Dunno man, there's some pretty woefully under-qualified people that get themselves into disturbingly high positions in life. Maybe they were one of those cases where they got ultra-promoted due to rich parents, but then when the aliens showed up, it's the first time they had to justify their position as some sort of extraterrestrial extermination specialist that no one ever saw fight before.

I always saw it as the militaries having all of the real air power, while the Xenonauts, XCOM, XDiv, etc, was supposed to be the proving ground or Stark-esque situation that pivots the war. I'd like to see it addressed at some point as a "your goal is to research and test this stuff, not to single handedly win with war with a dozen people". There would definitely be a better way to put that, but being in a sort of business or development role would definitely explain why they don't get access to do much more than help the military when they're losing. Speaking of, I hope TMs get more friendlies this time around. Even if they suck, it's great when they do stuff. Like this one time one of the Supercops, as I call them, took out a bunch of reapers outside of a UFO, as well as a couple sebillians before bleeding out. So, we get there, wonder where everyone was, and there's just this pile of corpses in front of a cop with an empty pistol. WHat a legend.

Personally, I'm loving the subtle new changes so far. Namely the ability to train folks passively and with the side missions, while keeping the general deadliness. I would say the sponginess can be fine if it goes both ways, like how XDiv handled everything hiding behind layers of armor that deflected certain things, but did almost nothing against others. While resistances are nice, that feeling of "I know this guy's armor WILL take those low penetration shots, but would break to that heavy MG over there" was really nice. So far, Xeno 2 has been accomplishing a similar thing by just fixing cover to the point where you can be relatively sure of someone's safety by how much stuff is in the way.

That game is great times, thanks for the share man!