Bluddy

Jagged Alliance 2 had 2 keys that were added in one of the later patches. One of them provided an overlay that colored the map from green to red showing cover given known enemy locations. The other I believe colored the map green to red based on a specific cursor position, showing you LOS to potential target locations. I could be a little wrong on the specifics, but that's the gist of it. Translating this to the Firaxcom system, you'd want the cover indicator to possibly have more gradations: maybe 4 levels of cover? And you'd want to indicate, based on movement to the current cursor position, what the LOS is to each enemy, perhaps with icons there as well.

I'd like to have a good reason to play at night. For example, a crashed UFO could have several stages: Stage 1: you get there in the minimal amount of time -- all aliens and artifacts are recovered. Stage 2: you get there a little late. Some artifacts have been stashed by the aliens or the locals, and some aliens may have escaped. Stage 3: only the bare essentials are left. Stage 4: UFO gone. This would encourage committing to the engagement ASAP, or possibly nuking the site in fear that the alien could infiltrate the local government.

Artillery is a way to avoid having to go in and fight close-quarters combat. In real life, that's great, because when you're the soldier, you don't want to risk your life unnecessarily. It's not great for a game where the whole point is to fight close-quarters combat.

If a few alien units had just one smoke grenade to use, it wouldn't be bad. For example, if a unit is hit once, it might want to use a smoke grenade to prevent being hit again, or prevent having its nearby friend hit. It would also give away the general location of the aliens.

I would really love to see some elements of X-Com Apocalypse in *some game* out there. Xenonauts 2 seems like a good target. Specifically, I'm referring to a deep strategic simulation. For example: Aside from having multiple countries to satisfy, different companies could be located around the world, and so could different factions, which could have relationships with each other. The companies could be ones from which you buy your gear at affordable levels, and if their factories get destroyed, prices would go up. If you piss off certain companies, they won't sell to you at all. The companies could also be taken over by aliens. Basically, take what Apocalypse did with one city, and apply it to the globe to make a more interesting simulation. Since it seems like a lot of effort is going into just making the tactical combat good, it might even be worthwhile to make this into a DLC. But somebody needs to do this, and Phoenix Point doesn't quite cut it IMO.