Dren608

To add to the above, one thing I find sort of underwhelming is my operations officer, and lack of a chief of engineering. The later one might be too late to implement, but a chief engineer giving you some "color" or description of what he is doing might be a bit more immersive. The one I'd like to throw out there is the operations officer, she is there already but really doesn't do much. If during those "stretches" of time passing on the global stage, she could have "missions", more like strategic decisions - example might be, An influencial official in a region would help reduce panic if given a certain amount of alien tech/corpses. Stuff like that. Maybe she sends a delegation to negotiate such a deal that later generates an Extract mission (because they failed, etc.). The idea is to give the player a more "lived in" scenario, where stuff is going on all around the world besides the "main event". I don't know the code or structure so maybe this is prohibitive, but would (especially if randomly generated every game) the player more choices and fell more involved in the entire planetary crisis. Just my 2 cents worth. So far it is still fun to play, just feels like there is so much more that can be done with it.

When I bring up the Aircraft sction and look at the angel Interceptor it sys 3/4 slots used but there are only 3 lots actually available. Minor thing but for brand new players not knowing this has been changed might have erroneous "bug" Reports generated.

I notice that it does in "raw" amount of money coming in, it is just that you are usually adding Expenses in more buildings, bases, Aircraft, Soldiers, Scientists and Engineers, so it doesn't seem to ever increase. IT does not go up enough to do all you want to do, so it is forced decision making on the player. From a lore POV I can only asume the Alien infiltration is wide enoug hthat the amounts you get from regions is all they can "sneak" past. This an alternate reality world after all.

I liked the original X-com from the 1990's scoring charts. IT let you know how the "world" perceived you actions as you progressed. It showed enemy score and Your Score, as long as yours was higher or equal to the Aliens panic wouldn't go up. They had story elements to let you know when you got to the point of "ending" the game. I would prefer that, the Story elements can be preserved in the Xenopedia, The counter on screen just seems to be telling me I'm not smart enough to know what's happening. You can always have the Scientist giving you percentage chances of progress in dialogues, etc. When I see those percentages I fell like I'm playing a fight game from Nintendo, or X-Box. Just doesn't seem the right kind of feel for a game like this. Just my 2 cents worth.

So this on the Main/Public Early release now? IF so I would want to put out some videos highlighting the changes in a play through (I did that for Milestone 1)

I don't know that balance works that way in a computer game like this. IT is a matter of the Computer MI (Mechanical Intelligence I refuse to use the term Artificial Intelligence) needs to give the player a challenge. So the more experienced the player, they can up the difficulty and the Routines used in program can be more "intelligent" on using their own assets. That's a lot harder to program than to say The point I brought up earlier was on "story path". Once I played X-1 I knew what was expected and it soon devolved into a not fun experience after a couple of plays because there was no variation on the story being told, or the events sequences. Having the MI have different goals from Game to Game in order to get it's "WIN' condition, makes it a challenge for the player to figure out which "set of rules" this game is using, and thus having to come up with alternative solutions. The Best option would be that those conditions can be influenced by player action, thus forcing the Game to change the path forward. The Original Game from back in the 90's sort of did this. There were several "Mission Types" that generated a score for the computer side and as long as they scored points they pretty much kept doing those. I thing depending on difficulty it would try up 3 times and if it didn't "score" positive in x tires it randomly chose another mission type. This led every game to being a different experience even if you had the "meta" down pat, because it could still choose the mission type that just "failed", I distinctly remembering a game where there was something like 8 or 9 "terror missions" in a row. IF the computer opponent had run one more I likely could not have stopped it, and their score would have soared leading to more of the same. A mechanic like that would prevent the "prefect build" procedure since you have to have enough versatility to mach the opponent's possible objectives. Wish I had the experience in modern Game engine coding to create a game like that. Also my 49+ years of coding was in other areas of IT...

Not really just build in if you win say 3 in a row, the up their tech a step, so you can't completely out strip them, but might be able to keep a little ahead of them for a time.

Thing is you have to remember to build all that as we have to build each Missile/Torpedo individually now

"Up Close and Personal" - Kill an alien using Melee weapon "Knife Master" - Kill one of every Alien race using only Melee weapon (not sure if this can be done to some of the mechanical ones without an improved melee weapon)

I don't see why we can not have new playable missions, You have the biomes (with more coming I believe), need to change the Enemies to Cleaners. Editing on the Mission objectives and it should be playable just like any other Tactical mission. That is not a huge hurdle to give people more variety of tactical missions and rewards for success (and penalties for failure).

The Squad size in the original X-com and in X-1 x-2 was always based on the Assault ship Technology, that was one of the biggest things to get that Tech up and build a bigger more diverse Assault team. The research, which is in question here, was allowed to progress down multiple paths in the Earlier game. It encouraged extra Scientists and even different Bases so you could hose them all. Even if the Ultimate design is just on project at a time in X-2, I would at least like to "queue" several projects so I don't lose time because I forgot to assign a new Research project (because of Missions and New Toys I want to build). The Engineer screen allows for that I don't see why the Scientists can't have a to-do list of projects.

I was a Programmer/Analyst as my livelihood for 40 years, I'd love to see what you need, programming language, thoughts on how we need to integrate to main game, etc. Making sure we have knowledge of the underlying program language(s) the most important so we get people that know how to use it as we create such a tool.

I noticed the iron man save game as well, Somewhere in the code it emulated the key combo of Alt+F11. This ended my streaming twice (that is my end Stream hot key. Can't seem to find it in key settings but will look again.

Set the aliens to have different goals for their end game. For instance, annihilation (orbital bombardment) that's what we have now. "You are good lab rats" - more abduction missions, maybe something like a Harvester mission where rescuing Civilians out of a Space craft before it lifts off. And the Rescue mission in OP. "You are the slave race we need to exploit the planet" - more emphasis on base building, abductions, seeing Civilians turning on Your troops as they are "programmed" by the aliens, with probably a resurgence of the "cleaners" with better weapons. "Fear Us and Obey" - the aliens concentrate on Terror type missions to force panic to rise in regions so they can Control us through fear. How do you tell which "end game mission" the game is working on? We add research hints to the "interviews", maybe a special mission type for intel gathering to discern their plans. Put something like this in place and you will have the desire to do another play through to see "what happens this time". About copied and edited a bit from another post of mine.

Because the Panic will rise ridiculously due to the orbital bombardment you can do well and suddenly just get overwhelmed, and you have no other choices to end the game you must go do the "end scenario attack" - I would prefer to have a better delaying choice to allow all the tech to get up to speed. Those out there that are not well versed in this game and ones like it are going to have a very bad experience when that happens. Now have the aliens have different goals for their end game. For instance, annihilation (orbital bombardment), "you are good lab rats" more abduction missions, maybe something like a Harvester mission where rescuing Civilians out of a Space craft before it lifts off, "You are the slave race we need to exploit the planet", more emphasis on base building, abductions, seeing Civilians turning on Your troops as they are "programmed" by the aliens, with probably a resurgence of the "cleaners" with better weapons, And then "Fear Us and Obey" the aliens concentrate on Terror type missions to force panic to rise in regions so they can Control us through fear. How do you tell which "mission" the game is working on, we add research hints to the "interviews" maybe a special mission type for intel gathering to discern their plans. Put something like this in place and you will have the desire to do another play through to see "what happens this time". Currently you have to play nearly perfect to have enough leeway in panic and tech upgrades to complete the final mission. The above could all lead to the final mission, but getting there would be a different journey and story line each time. You could even have the final mission have alternate defender types based on how you controlled their "plan" i.e. adding in cleaners, or civilians with guns, Local forces type etc. The possibilities for a truly epic game abound, and what it takes is alternate pathing through various mission types, etc. My son put it to me a few days ago, He doesn't much care if the Graphics are "snazy" and so on. He Asks is there a branching or alternate story where you actions will affect the game as you progress. I think just having the aliens acting differently based on "plans" like above would do wonders for the immersion factor. Not truly an "open world" obviously, but it would be nice to be able to be "misled" as to their true purpose in coming to earth. Just my dreams I know but maybe someday...

+3

Do you have more than two bases? If so then it's a bug and they will need saved files to recreate. IF you only have 2 bases then it shows the one other base as a destination, it doesn't show the originating Base. I got messages on transferred personnel and items but it does take a couple/three game days to arrive - up through 1.29.

So do well you still lose, do poorly you lose sooner? Don't like those choices from a Game Play perspective. I like the concept of increasing alien missions - not just terror missions but throw in abductions, base building, etc. ones as well. The Original X-COM (90's version) worked that way, you got to a point you HAD to do the final Mission because you were getting Swarmed. In Xenonauts have all those UFOs escorted and some roving Alien fighter groups hunting you and you won't be able to handle them all. That is when you realize you have to take down their main HQ/Base. Orbital Bombardment doesn't make sense if they are trying to "conquer" the planet. That is just going to Destroy some cities and then one "madman" will decide if we can't have the earth then the aliens can't either and start a total Nuclear War destroying the planet. There needs to be some more thought into "endings" as The Orbital Bombardment thing Always felt Artificial, just a way to force the end of the game. There should be more ways to force the player to decide it is time to end this. Once Orbital Bombardment starts, you know you have to go do the final mission whether your Tech tree is where you want or not. I want to play an individual Campaign Longer, rather that playing the Campaign More times. The Best solution (which probably can't be implemented at this late Stage) would be have different Alien "Plans" one involved Orbital Bombardment, Another is subversion (trying to take over Regions, until they control enough of the earth for their purposes), another could be outright occupation, Several landings across the globe (unable to stop by Xenonauts) disables All nuclear weapons, then the "swarm" mechanic starts to kick in. There are probably a couple more I can't think of ATM. Something like this with the various Alien Researches helping to Reveal what the Alien Goal is. It would add Massive Replay-ability as you are never sure what the Enemy is up to until near the end. I don't know the code hurdles involved but I would help to have something like this

It would be nice to be able to build a defensible Base from the beginning, I have been known to drop a chunk of Funds to do that, as long as Dismantling works

I think the idea is Main weapon/secondary. I actual combat soldier would hold shield in non prominent hand and Gun in the prominent one. It's to prevent you from carrying a two handed weapon and the shield both at the ready. @Chris Can we have some Left handed soldiers? I haven't seen any in the animations so far, it would be an interesting touch and I figure ask now because that is another animation sequence for shooting/throwing etc.

Supposedly the STR training is supposed to be fixed or maybe it is still upcoming, they do know about it, So take Soldiers out whose goal in life is to move as many TUs they can with a full load out, I always try to have the lower STR folks do that whenever it looks safe enough gets them a ton of progression points

Well for "11" they are talking with the community programmers from X1 and are planning on having Modding tools built it, so there is that...

For those "older Games, one Word DOSBox (I use D-Fend Reloaded as it's front end). You can play all sorts of those old classics using it

I believe that Reapers and Wraiths can spawn further inside your base, there is something on that in the tool tips. What does your Base Layout look like? No sure this is a "bug" but seems excessive that many Aliens can get there.

I think the Early game needs a bit of a tweak, For me the Smoke Grenades should not stun the aliens (they have different biologies after all) Have the Smoke become Stunning to aliens after your Research the One that gives Stun Baton and Stun Gun. Now you have a reason to do that research even more. So initially smoke Obscures sight lines and will stun damage humans (dang civilians). Later we get the "improved" Smoke that will Stun aliens like it does Humans. What ya think?