Coffee Potato

I will say, in defense of XDiv's system, while it did go a bit overboard, it generally did something the game needed, IE keep the engineers doing something more than just warming the bench for the majority of the run. Usually I never bothered getting more engineers, even on Insane, as you said, cost was the real limiter on engineering. In terms of their purpose, the way I see it, it adds another layer to the manufacturing, since components are needed to craft most projects. This adds a nice hunting factor where capturing more of a certain UFO type unlocks a couple more fighters or Focus Lenses, or what have you every time, The leftovers can also come in handy in a pinch later. It just gives that constant feeling of needing more parts. That being said, the part that was kind of just filler was the Fibers, in my opinion. Most of the bodies could be processed into fibers, and while this adds some tension to early game, once I started mass producing Shock Rockets and capturing dang near everything, we were just swimming in them. Even then, there was enough variety with materials that it kinda feels like digging through an old attic for missing treasures. I think it's a big part of what's kept my current campaign providing something new every time, despite the fact that it's been going on for months. It's just that constant reward loop that keeps things sweet.

I loved pistols in Xeno 1. Yes, they were statistically worse, but there's nothing better for training reactions. Also, if they were truly awful, I never would have constantly run into scenes of a single Cop surrounded by 4-5 alien bodies.

Truth be told, I want something like that again. The closest I've seen to Cannon Fodder is probably the XCOM 2 poster system at this point.

It should definitely be. Before, with scaling being % based, you were limited to a certain number of shots per round, but TU was still useful for doing more inventory shuffling, scouting, and so on. Now I have guys with 150 TUs wiping Battleships while never even being scratched...or shot at most of that time. They can fire an LMG 5 times and still move crazy far. Once Exo Armor and Plasma Casters came into play, even Terror Missions were taking 2-3 rounds on average. I like the scaling idea, but would like to see more of a downside to the absurd turn utility you get right now. I should point out that I haven't even needed to take these guys on that many outings, they've just been doing rando assignments and training most of the time, while we sit around. The only missions I did that whole campaign were New UFOs, Bases, Raids, and Terror Missions.

Hopefully. Random note, I wonder if it's a meta commentary that the game just kinda stops when you reach current day.

Launching Endgame seems to just end the game literally. Makes sense, just a little weird. output.log output.log_1.e8dfa77d2f3f907e7493d62dfadab4e3 recording_1.rec Autosave01.json Autosave02.json Autosave03.json

I have units with bravery over 100, and with half their TUs or more left(60-90/120+), a few steps out of the dropship, morale through the roof from taking out 6 dudes in one round, and still wind up with up to 5 Mind controlled without many issues. I'm pretty sure something's bugged out of control with it. You can just reload the save, though. Mind War turns off entirely, teleporters turn off, and you can't target any units until your next turn for...some reason.

The way TUs are handled right now makes me think a lot of Vagrant Story, and I'd love to see something similar done if we're talking about a theoretically near infinite attack situation. Namely, why not have accuracy scale down with TU useage? If someone attacks 7 times per round, it should absolutely make sense for them to be hitting near nothing by the third attack, unless at point blank range.

This sounds awesome. If the napalm works like the incendiary from XDiv, it could be pretty balanced. I'd love to see it work as a massive flashbang as well, or maybe a chaff variant to suppress Androns. Like I'd prefer to see it either do nothing or mass suppression, rather than raw damage. Then again, everything has other uses. Xeno 1 wanted the Hunter to be a scout, I used it as a long range cheap plasma sniper.

Pretty sure it could only add 2, but that one that replaces most of the hit sounds with Oblivion guards is priceless XD.

After thinking it over, I can only think of two possible ways it could work. 1- Just some scattered MG fire or smoke once per map in an area with maxed Relations. 2- Same as the above, but they don't actually hit anything, it just suppresses an entire area.

Mind war also currently breaks if you save and reload. This also possibly breaks teleporters.

Definitely would prefer effects over voices. As much as they seem nice at first, in a genre with so many restarts, they are one of the features that fall off the fastest. Personally, I can't even play EU with the voices anymore. Xcom 2 did a bit better, but they had a CRAPLOAD of voices+mods. On the other hand, I will always remember my original xcom rookie that nailed a cross map snipe, or that time a mind controlled one whiffed a c4 toss and won me a doomed mission on accident, or that time in Xeno when a guy saved a base raid by battleaxing a xenomorph queen. On the other hand, I really remember how awesome the ambient noise mods in XDiv boosted the atmosphere (Maybe minus that one guy in the desert that keeps falling off of cliffs). My vote's for FX, your mind can fill in voices, it can't do the same for noises as well. Being surprised by sound immersion really takes things up a notch or 12.

When a save is reloaded, everything related to Mind War seems to stop triggering. This happened on 3 separate occasions so far: 1- Several units were affected by Mind War when I had to step away. When I reloaded the quick save, they still had the little logo, and I had forgotten about their notice, but they never had any effect. This happened twice on different maps. 2- I forgot to quicksave, but was getting ruined by Mind War during an undermanned UFO raid. I ran into the overwatch loop glitch, and restarted, resulting in a similar situation, except no one was even psyonically (Which I assume is the correct new spelling in this particular instance?) attacked.

Less random on brain scramblage would be nice. The other day I had 3 80+BR Colonels with half TUs mind controlled on the same turn, and it resulted in a full wipe (Seems backpacking weapons doesn't work anymore).

Random thought here, but what about a Jam mechanic if a weapon is used too many times in a turn? Like there's an increasing risk of needing to unjam the thing from going full Rambo?

Oh hell yea, that's some Dwarf Fortess stuff right there. The most memorable thing I've ever seen from that game is when a militia guy was hanging out with his carpenter friend and monkeys attacked. He couldn't reach the armory, so the guy picks up an Oak Door, and starts beating down zombie chimps like a boss. XD P.s. That door was later used for the throne room, still covered in monkey furs.

That could work a bit like Silent Storm. They had little question marks moving around areas where they were seen or heard. Having to call in the helicopter would also be a neat mechanic, but I doubt either can go in. Keeping revealed tiles is already an improvement, though.

For reference, I was talking about the thing where your IM save would corrupt itself under some rare circumstances. Generally I like playing on IM, and in most cases everything is saved well. X1 had several bugs, including one which killed my first ever campaign, where it crashed mid alien turn, but saved, giving them two turns in a row and pretty much wiping out the best of the bunch with no chance to fight back.

As the joke goes, the aliens' best hope is sometimes to make sure the next turn never comes. Well, they did. Not sure what's causing it, but here are the saves and logs. output.log output.log_1.8f4781adb90963ccd4db47cde0c7be7d Quicksave.json

Everyone survived unharmed, courtesy of comical amounts of dakka, but yeah, I can only assume he was trying to land on them, after getting sick of his 0 kill count.

Just noticed my phrasing sucked, I meant that it made better maps with cool crash sites happen. Never really checked that particular detail between the two versions.

I have a bug on a Harvester UFO where a certain Civilian seems to be running out of places in the UFO to hang out in, and just stops the game while he thinks about it forever. Quicksave attached also, It's the turn after this one that it happens. I was trying to wait out the captured UFO in this case. output.log output.log_1.0e5d753e6c8ab511d8790d98cead59ce recording_2.rec Quicksave.json

I appreciate that our landing is so loud the lizards face away, but will the new dropship come with a more sober pilot? I almost wonder he was trying to land on top of them GTA style on this one.

While I don't know this for absolutely certain, Mind War tells you the turn before it takes effect, giving time to disarm the unit, but I think it can also chain to some degree. It's not ideal, but probably doesn't have a LoS limiter yet.