[Community Discussion - Air Combat]

Is chaff or flares going to be an equipment option? It might make an interesting tactical option for combat if planes/ufo's had a limited quantity of decoys they could deploy against homing attacks. Maybe have an options slot that is configurable for a range of equipment. You could put extra weapons/missles in there,  extra fuel tank, improved afterburner for a bigger bump in tactical speed, or ECM, ECCM packages. Would be a way to add more variety to the planes, as you could configure them differently for different sorts of missions. Having consumables for ECM, might give the player some tactical considerations. Do you want to decoy the small fast moving missle that you have less chance of avoiding otherwise but will do less damage or the big, slow moving torpedo that you can probably outrun if you turn away from, but will obliterate you if it hits?

[Changing The Weapon Firing methods]

Pistols mostly exist because of the possibility of primary weapon malfunction, reload times and as a personal defense backup for scoped or heavy weapons. They could be made useful by introducing the possibility of malfunctions on primary weapons. Also firing a scoped weapon at close range should have an accuracy penalty (really it should be TU but that could be hard to implement) at close range targets, making switching to pistols a better option.

Single aimed shots for rifles should stay. It's useful if a soldier needs to conserve ammo or doesn't want to accidently hit/suppress a friendly close to the line of fire. 

It'd be interesting if for some weapons they added an alternate attack type, like the ability to launch a grenade from an underslung grenade launcher on an assault rifle, or maybe use an attached bayonette or the rifle butt if a hostile got into melee range.

 

[Injecting some extra charisma into the game]

More atmospherics would definately be appreciated. I do get a little bit too much of a sterile feeling from xenonauts at the moment. Sometimes small touches make a big difference. Doesn't have to be anything crazy in terms of fancy new systems. Though I suspect that really isn't going to be their focus until all core gameplay mechanisms are where they want them. Definitely hope they do put in a few things in the atmospheric arena though. Maybe they could do some whether effects on maps as well.... some that's non-functional mechanically and just change the visuals and perhaps others that have some actual mechanical effect. They already have day/night and smoke effects, so it sounds like they would have the core technical systems in place to handle some of those. Maybe for some biomes a random chance of dense fog or sandstorm.... could be like smoke that blankets the map but doesn't dissipate...... maybe rain or snow, that reduces the amount of time that fire will burn or spread, etc.

Also an upvote to a bit more rubble and debris on the crash site (and terror attack) maps.... things not even neccesarily caused by the UFO's crashing but by the mayhem and panic experienced by the local civilian populace (e.g. crashed cars, broken windows, things dropped or abandoned on the street, etc).

 

[The best things of X1 are abandoned]

Yeah, I'd probably prefer some sort of turn based gameplay for air combat over the X1 system but the X1 system wasn't that terrible. The main thing you'd want to avoid (IMO) in  a turn based gamed is any sort of gameplay that relied upon twitch based skill. The two are oil and water. The X1 system was palatable for me because the resolution was slow enough (and had a pause feature) that the twitch factor wasn't that high. Would have preferred a turn based option though.

Perhaps something like turn based with simultaneous execution would work well. You issue a general order/manuver to each of your planes for your turn, the A.I. does the same and the computer executes both sides orders simultaneously and plots the results for the turn. One thing that could also be neat if the game moved to a less arcade style system would be the possibility of actually recruiting pilots and assigning them to your planes (like you assign soldiers to your transports). Better/more experienced pilots could execute their orders more effectively or possibly even open up whole new manuvers that the player had access to order the plane to do when flown by that pilot.  Just a thought.

 

 

[Dropship layout]

Not that I expect this to be implemented, but theoretically shouldn't the birds be taking off within a round or two of dropping off the troops? That's an awful big and expensive target to be sitting on the ground in the middle of a fire zone for an extended period of time?

Personally, I'd like the idea of having gunners on the transport that could provide support fire while the troops debarked and then force the transport to take off by the third or 4th round regardless of whether the troops were fully debarked or not. I'd also like the transport to be targetable and damageable by the Aliens.

All that's probably a little more hardcore then what the Dev's are interested in however.

 

Alternatively, if these really are clandestine, low intensity missions.... shouldn't the troops be getting dropped off some safe distance away...and enter the mission zone on foot?  Maybe enter the mission Xcom2 style?

I know that's probably not as popular a choice as having the transport on the map, but thematically it might make more sense for covert style missions.

 

 

[[V5 General] Rank Structure]

Personally I'd just be fine with replacing the current rank system with a level number that represented experience or something like raw recruit, green, seasoned, veteran, etc. Maybe if they wanted to go the extra mile just add in an extra field similar to character name that the player could edit. People could use it for call signs, ranks, squad assignments or whatever other purpose they like,

[Will there be bigger transport vehicles?]

In regards CAS, I'm assuming there is some impetus to minimize collateral damage (including damage to recoverable objects from the Aliens) and also keep the operational footprint low. Otherwise why deploy small units of infantry at all?

Basically from a game lore perspective. There has to be some reason why both sides are using limited forces and limited firepower and are engaged in low intensity operations for the game to make sense at all.

I for one would definitely be interested, from a gameplay perspective, in being able to have more troops on a mission.... something like around 30 max (platoon size) would be fun for me....assuming the proper size maps  and opposition. That is still a pretty small level of deployment troopwise when you think about it. I've also played plenty of other turn based games with that many units or more to manage (panzer general, WH40K Santctus Reach, etc) it's not at all unmanigable. It's just a little different style.

 

[X2 Base Mechanics - Community Poll]

On 6/18/2019 at 2:42 AM, Max_Caine said:

There’s been considerable discussion about the possibility of several dropships, but I don’t believe that everyone is reading from the same playbook. From a mechanic and (if I understand correctly) a narrative perspective, the current model is that the dropship is teleported close to where the crash site lands, then the pilot lands the dropship and we proceed directly to ground combat. This instantaneous transportation of troops knocks the legs out from several reasons for having more than one dropship. If the time spent travelling between a base and the crash site is trivial, then the only limit on getting to all the crash sites are wounded soldiers and any accumulated stress and fatigue on both soldiers and the dropship. You don’t need several dropships to visit all the sites when you can teleport effortlessly backu-and-forth, picking up a fresh load of troops between each site. Currently there are no mechanics to prevent this from happening (no stress/fatigue or at least none that I have experienced). The dropship doesn’t have to worry about being intercepted (teleportation) and doesn’t have to worry about being late to crash sites (teleportation). The only value a new dropship would bring is increased capacity. To make using more than one dropship viable, there would have to be a deliberate effort to sabotage the teleporter, either through the introduction of mechanics that make the teleporter less and less valuable, or by scrapping the mechanic all together. Is that really what people want?  

Big vote in favor of dropping the teleportation mechanic altogether from me. Vastly prefer having multiple bases and dropships, having range limitations on them and requiring them to travel to mission sites on the strategic map. Just my personal opinion but I think that makes for deeper more meaningful gameplay decisions.

Where do you place your assets. What territory do you try to defend.

 

[X2 Base Mechanics - Community Poll]

I personally like multiple bases, but there has to be some strategic play behind it.

My ideal would be to have to manage multiple squads of soldiers, each deployed from a different base. Multiple dropships as well. Have squads assigned to individual bases....and have the distance a squad/dropship has to deploy from a base actually make a difference.

It adds more strategic play to the game...and I like that. I do understand that it would require alot more work to support. I'm just talking about my ideal.

As an alternative, if we can't have that....I'd at least like to have soldiers require some downtime rest/rearm etc before they can be sent out on a mission again..... forcing the player to create and manage multiple squads.

 

 

[Xenonauts-2 Closed Beta Build V1 Released!]

CTD on Geoscape when Falcon1 returns to base after shooting down first UFO.  I was able to investigate the crash site with a ground team, complete the tactical mission and had the skyranger return to base, so it looks like it was something with the interceptor.

[Xenonauts-2 Closed Beta Build V1 Released!]

Just 1 minor bug noticed so far. Time Units not sorting correctly in the soldiers screen. The other values seem to sort correctly.