Shahadem

This is why options are always a good thing. Especially with the impossibly huge breadth of customization the devs made available in Xenonauts 1! I definitely modified my game so that alien guns were one shot kills up until Wolf armor, wolf armor let the soldiers take a few shots, and then the final tier turned the soldiers into walking tanks. That's absolutely the most fun for me. I also changed the hp values for the aliens with unarmored and lightly armored units being easily killable while heavily armored aliens would take a pounding to bring down. Especially the robots who I felt should really take a lot to bring down at all research tiers since the alien circuitry is able to reroute processes around damaged chips and the robot should have ridiculous armor (and aim) because that's the point and benefit of sending in a robot verse an organic alien. I also doubled the hp value of the starter shield and upped the value of the alien metal shield up the whazzoo because it's made of the best toughest alien alloy and was about 2 inches or more thick of solid material so it should really have been way better than it was originally statted because only having double the hp value of the original steel shield just didn't make any sense at all. I also thought there should have been an intermediary shield using the alien metals or special ceramic alloys. As for realism, that's really open to interpretation here. We have no way of knowing exactly what the properties of the alien alloys are, how much energy the plasma weapons could deliver, whether we'd be able to find a way to defend against that using modern day magnets or some such, etc. Plus in the first game I remember that one of the research notes mentioned that the plasma weapons were prone to having their plasmas being expended on rain droplets, so possibly some form of water spraying defense would be effective as silly as that sounds. I was surprised that nothing more ever came of that. Maybe because it would just feel too silly to put in game.

Oh stop your minging about how the game doesn't constantly punch the player in the face. Most people who play this game are not masochists. The cost of replacing lost aircraft is reflecting in the high monthly upkeep cost.

Panic is a horrible nonsensical mechanic. In a time of crisis like an alien invasion, the panic of the public wouldn't mean jack. Your soldiers, scientists and engineers aren't going to just stop working because some people are panicking. This is like the AngryJoe review of Xcom: Noah: "I regret to inform you that Naru, Palau, Belize and Papa New Guinea cut their funding and withdrawn from the Xcom project." AngryJoe: "God I really should have paid attention more in history class. Where the hell are these countries? Uh that's unfortunate sir. But it's hard to defend the entire planet. I'm losing men left and right. I have what like 30 guys left. but at least the major countries that everybody knows is still with us and frankly sir we're the best hope that you have." Noah: "That may be so Commander but we have decided that you failed to combat the alien threat." AngryJoe: "But you don't understand, there will be nothing left." Noah: "We've heard enough Commander Joe." AngryJoe: "No, no. That doesn't make any sense. Who will protect you?" Noah: "We're taking away your toys and then we're letting the aliens have their way with us." AngryJoe: "But. But." Noah: "Oh yes, in the butt. The Counsel has spoken." Panic should be replaced by a type of beleaguered status tracking the state of the war against the aliens. The less you do the more that the militaries of the war get attacked by aliens and have to fight back themselves. By shooting down UFOs, launching attacks against UFOs in orbit, launching strikes on strategic defensive or production or logistical points in territory controlled by the aliens you would reduce the ability of the aliens to engage in warfare on Earth's surface. This would also mean that the aliens are launching fewer or even no missions on Earth. Maybe there are even other planets facing the same predicament or a secret rebel alien faction that disagrees with the leadership constantly invading and destroying other species. The better you do at combating the alien menace the higher the chance that these rebelling groups will try to contact you.

Armor should be ablative AND reductive. Not one or the other. No more false dichotomies.

Well what is a 2 game supposed to be? It is supposed to be similar to the first game. So of course Xenonauts 2 should be very similar to Xenonauts 1. It should have been a continuation of the story in Xenonauts 1 with new features and gameplay arising naturally from that continuation of the story. Instead the original plan for Xenonauts 2 looked like a really bad version of Xcom: EU. But people got behind Xenonauts 1 in the first place because it wasn't like Xcom: EU. So really the problem was that Xenonauts 2 wasn't originally a continuation of Xenonauts 1! From what I saw of the original changes it was Xcom: EU with worse graphics and worse gameplay. When they made Xcom: EU they decided to heavily focus on making the game a turn based squad game and so creating things like an action cam, soldier abilities, awesome graphics, etc. Xenonauts 2 however would have none of that. It would only have the superficial changes everyone hated about Xcom: EU. Specifically the change to a single base being constructed anthill style and air combat that boiled down to RNG. A good upgrade from Xenonauts that would make satellite bases useful is to allow satellite bases to hold troop units that be used to auto resolve ground combat and create heavier restrictions on the ability of Xenonaut crews to run back to back missions. This would require the player to maintain multiple units ideally in multiple locations to combat the multiple downed aircraft. And since most of the battles will be resolved via an automated system the player won't get bored and tired of resolving the multiple downed UFOs. Nor will they feel they are missing out if they auto resolve the UFOs and therefore feel like they have to play through every single one. This was a huge fault in Xenonauts 1.