Shadeth

This is actually really good. If you plan your base, and you know the transfer time of hiring a scientist, then you can get them to arrive when it is completed, vs having an empty lab doing nothing while you wait for their slow asses to get there.

The civilian shotgunners remind me of drunk Texas rednecks. I kin of think it is funny how fearless they are.

Speaking of this, exactly why didn't they make the map a globe? Don't tell me the technology isn't there... they made it work in the 90's, certainly we could have a 3d sphere map in this game? Do some people not like it? I actually prefer the globe map as it is more realistic.

Nice catch, and yes, they should fix this, to be more tactically realistic.

Yeah it is really weird, and may explain why the buildings seem flat inside. real buildings have stairs, if these do not, that limits the design of the levels a lot.

Hey @Chris I just thought of a potentially interesting idea for the medal, Gallantry Citation | Completed a mission where 50% soldiers were casualties I posted my criticism of that objective a couple days ago, but no real suggestions as to what else it could be! I was thinking on it while going to bed and I have what I feel is a good idea. What if the objective was "Complete a mission with only 4 soldiers deployed"? Or maybe 5-6 on lower difficulties? That would be a challenge, one for experienced soldiers for sure, and it doesn't allow someone to cheese it just killing people on purpose like you can do for the Gallantry objective right now. Might rename it to "Alpha Team" or something too, but I really don't care about the name so much as the objective and mechanics to earn it. Doing a mission with only 4 dudes and winning would feel awesome. Going in, killing half the team on purpose, and winning to get the medal on your select soldiers, would feel dirty.

yeah, I mean, if they don't even have a gun, WTF are they doing running INTO the alien ship? I have seen it happen. Makes zero sense. Hope the civilian logic is improved a little.

I personally have a big issue with the objective of this one: Gallantry Citation | Completed a mission where 50% soldiers were casualties If you are a min/maxer and trying to build the BEST soldiers, you'd want you A-team to get all the medals. Yet, the best way to ensure your best soliders get this is simply to go on an easy mission like a small craft shot down with 50% of the team as rookies, intentionally get them killed or kill them at the start, then complete it with your veterans. Boom, easy medal. But for killing your team on purpose, it seems like it might as well be a psychopath medal. I don't really care for it. I would rather almost any other objective than this since if you want to get all the medals, this encourages you to kill soldiers to complete it. Some people might get it on accident on a tough mission, but overall it would make sense just to sacrifice some noob units on purpose, which is just weird.

I am down with ship missions, as long as it isn't a 2-part mission! Those missions were brutal in TFTD, going into the second half with whatever ammo you had left, and some soldiers already AFU, and clearing the ship holds all the hallways and rooms and engine rooms, ugh. Those missions were honestly a little too hard and long.

I was also very confused by that (plot research game effects) and I still am. It says it gives you more funding, which is great, but does it mean bigger UFOs will start coming right after (that I might not be able to shoot down), so I should wait to research it?? Or is that more depending on how many calendar days have passed? Anyone who knows, please let me know! Thanks.

Honestly all of your ideas are pretty cool, but THAT ^^^ I would LOVE to have! Something like the Drill or Thermal Lance in X-COM 2 terror from the deep. I love having at least one melee dude on my team. New weapon could maybe be called "The Jaws of Death", a play on "The Jaws of Life" EMS tool.

Just wanted to add my opinion. I think the shield should have a fixed amount of health (maybe buffed with research), so that it could take multiple small weak shots, or maybe just one or two massive damage shots. Vanishing after two of any shots does not make any sense and is not a good experience, nor is it even remotely realistic. I didn't even realize it worked like this until reading this post, no wonder the mechanics of it are not intuitive.

I have not played through enough multi-layer maps to know, but what happens with this game engine if you, say blow out all the walls of a subfloor? Does the rest of the building remain standing floating in mid-air or does it all collapse, damaging anyone who was in it? Just wondering since that might make for an interesting strategy if some stubborn or hard to kill aliens were at the top of a tall building and you could effectively demolish it to kill them.

I mean, I get there are a lot of things that could be added to the base defense. Technically a whole new game could be built around elaborate base defense mechanics and traps and objectives to defend. But, I think they have a lot of other more pressing matters to add first. I had one base attack in the current build on steam, and I saw it coming and actually let it attack my base just to see what would happen. It wasn't too bad, but they had some big eye looking tank that was hard to deal with because of its reaction fire and immense health compared to my weapon damage output. About the only thing I found annoying is that it is supposed to be a "defense", but the aliens basically just stay in one place and make me attack them. Would be more interesting without any major upgrades if they just had the aliens try to push more rather than just camp the hangers.

I don't know about some of these ideas, it would piss me off greatly if my so-called smart scientists died running around like they have an IQ of 60, and it delays my research. So I am opposed to that, unless the scientist AI is way better and they actually hide or run the hell away from danger and not run around like a chicken with its head cut off. Same with base rooms getting damaged. If the base attack is too costly / risky, I think the optimal strategy will just to be to build a lot of base defenses, and then most people who know what they are doing will never even need to fight in the base at all, negating the dev work on this except to punish newbies.

That would be sweet (a drone you control on the map, not a UAV high up like in Modern Warefare). Would not help for buildings, but for outside could help a lot, an could get shot down, so not entirely OP or without risk to use.

Curious what you mean by "overly harsh" for point blank? I found firing point blank to be not as accurate as I would expect from other games where it was usually a sure hit, and I made a thread about that topic in the general forum. Had 3 round burst shot miss all 3 shots point blank which leads into... Burst fire is just about useless as the % is not per bullet in the burst but the entire attack. Is that so? I didn't know that, but that explains some of the frustrating misses I have experienced! That doesn't make a lot of sense, it should calculate each shot in the bust I would think. Shields feel to be very underwhelming as I used to basically run shields for cover back in Xeno 1. I haven't played enough to reach the end of current content. Is there any way to upgrade the shields? If not, maybe a shield upgrade research could solve for this, as it would give them more armor/health later in the game. I like the prep system carry over from Xeno 1, but I feel that some things are too heavy. Steel Ballistic plates are between 5 and 10lbs irl. I agree with that, and 3 armor isn't even that much. I think those plates could probably be a little lighter?

On one of the cleaner missions I did, I noticed they had an MP5 gun, but for some reason I didn't think to pick it up to see if I could use it. Can you use them? What happens if you bring one back, do you get it as a gun option?

It would even be cool if you could destroy a roof tile and breach it from above... assuming there is some way to get on top? I am not far enough into the game to know if you get jet packs or anything yet. But I remember fondly in the original X-COM using that football launcher to blow a 1x1 hole in the roof of huge alien ships, and sending in flying dudes in armor to take them out the commanders on their top deck directly without going through all the floors of the vehicle. Of course, that was kind of end-game game play, not something you could do until you got all that tech, so it seemed balanced to me.

I think 3x3 (and even 2x2) enemy and friendly units would be fun for variety, but I can understand why they might be hard to add and balance from a programming point of view. they'd be easier to hit, so would have to be more tanky, but too tanky and it's OP. not to mention the movement mechanics and other issues of map interactions.

Oh shoot really? I didn't know you'd lose progress if you switched, that is not good. Glad I never learned that one the hard way, not sure if it warns you or not.

There is another thread where someone suggested that they should give you SOME HINT as to where the leader is on this mission, and I totally agree. Right now it encourages just exploring haphazardly until you find him, then reloading so you can bee-line to him to make it out in time. I did it on normal and reloading once to the start I knew where he was is the ONLY way I could complete it. I do also find it strange that the turn limit for this mission is the same on the easiest game mode. Should have one extra turn at least I would think.

I would understand if the devs don't want to make accelerated weapons free upgrades to all guns, if it might affect game balance too abruptly, but they should at the least, make them cheap to produce. Right now in my game, my finances are way too tight to be making guns that hardly do a few points more damage than what I got. The Warden armor is nice and clearly worth making but these guns, I don't feel like they are.

I agree, given the importance of money for building more bases and such, this really needs to be fixed. It isn't explained anywhere that this price drop will happen if you sell one of something, and punishes players who don't understand the sell mechanics where you could horde and bulk sell for a lot more money. It just feels bad, like a mistake you are punished for just for playing the game without reading up on it beforehand. The price should either just not go down, or if it does, it should go back up after a certain point as doubleskulls mentioned. If it must stay as-is, before you sell there should be a message notifying you that the price may go down at the least.

Dude, I totally agree 100%. If there was no time limit, then sure, you can just figure it out... but with the time limit and NO CLUE where the VIP is, it boils down to sheer luck, OR you figure it out through messing up and then have to reload or likely fail if you went the wrong way, which isn't a great experience. So yes, I think there should be some kind of "direction" or hint as to where he is. Even something like a "hot / cold" message such as "you're getting closer" or "you are getting farther away" on one unit that has to carry a sensor or something would make it a lot more balanced.