doubleskulls

Have you upgraded to Phantoms? On auto-resolve, 3 with laser lances, seem to take out most things without a lot of damage, and will win without loss even with a pair of escort fighters.

None of us know what the gender politics of a fictional 2007 would be, or why Xenonauts would follow gender bias. It's hardly recruiting thousands of soldiers.

I think its intentional so you don't have to wait for the generator to come on line before ordering the construction of additional buildings. I've not checked, but I think generators are one of the fastest buildings, so you can't inadvertently go over.

Longest week of you life? The hours you and the team must have put in is incredible and much appreciated.

I'm pretty sure its all just random with no gender bias. I think it ought to stay that way.

Tornis does a good video which may help - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmaQDfUSlQE&t=2079s with understanding cover. Also about 4 hours into this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOhwAOlPxlw&t=31597s he does the mission too. The video pacing is quite slow, but he's very good at explaining why he's doing things and what he's worried about. This is on the hardest difficulty and he manages to assassinate the VIP.

did you save it? Once you do that it ought to automatically update. I normally end up creating a new type (e.g. Rifle Gauss) for each weapon tech, so if I've a mix of tech I can easily spot who's got what.

Flashbangs are crucial to reducing losses, as is smoke. Much more so than 3 points of armour. That would rarely ever make the difference between surviving or not. Moving soldiers into vulnerable positions late in your turn often costs lives. You need to think about where the enemy could move and how well protected your soldiers are if they do. If you can don't leave soldiers where they can be shot at all, and always move MARS/Shield units first - they can soak up the reaction shot, revealing the enemy to be killed.

The numbers are pretty marginal. Looking at 2 shot kills, 5 points of penetration is better than 6 more points of destruction until you get to armour 44, or 13 armour for a 3 shot kill. So for most of the game accelerated weapons are doing marginally more damage per shot, require reloading less frequently, Lasers do give the accuracy bonus, are better at terrain clearance and MGs have better range too. Lower weight is offset by having to carry additional ammo. Accelerated weapons use fewer resources (alenium) and less money to build. From a research perspective magnetic weapons also gives an upgrade for interceptor weapons, but is otherwise a dead end. Lasers are upgradeable later. I think the research aspect probably tips the balance, therefore best strategy as things are is to decide which you want. If you want accelerator weapons then you can delay laser research a bit, or if you go lasers just skip alien magnetic weapons altogether.

It will be interesting to see if there is some definite case, but I think the problem is that there isn't 'clear water' between lasers and accelerated weapons. The differences are marginal, but mainly sit with the accelerated weapons in spite of it being earlier tech. The biggest pro for laser weapons is that you need them to get advanced lasers, which are clearly better than either, so arguable its 'cheaper' as you need to build the laser weapons but don't need the accelerated ones. I can see viable strategy to go accelerated (and get a 'free' tech for interceptor weapons too) so you can focus research elsewhere, and wait for lasers until you are close Alien Plasma Weapons research OR whether its better to go straight to lasers and skip accelerated altogether.

I think that numbers would suggest that, generally speaking, Accelerated weapons are marginally better than Lasers. Even on Veteran. Once you've got advanced lasers, then they are clearly better. I think the primary discussion is whether, for research purposes, skipping accelerated is better as it is a dead-end tech, and living with the slightly worse lasers until the plasma upgrade is tolerable or not.

I think it is working correctly. The reason you didn't see a $240k increase is because a random element and rising panic also changes the contributions, and the some amount. Where I think the game can improve is by making that more transparent so it isn't just arbitrary numbers which bear no immediate relationship to what you may be expecting to see.

From a game balance perspective mag weapons do give quite a big boost over starter weapons, 6 more damage and 5 penetration on the Rifle, MG and Pistol. That's very significant for most enemy types - crucially reducing the 'average hits to kill' number for a lot of early game aliens. I'm not certain sound & visuals, are either the same or very similar to starter weapons which may account for the perception that they aren't significant upgrade. Comparatively advanced lasers (the next tech for lasers) gives 6 more damage and unlimited ammo, so is pretty similar to the gap between regular & accelerated kinetic weapons. I agree, for new players the differences are relatively small and having two different weapon techs, with similar capabilities, at very similar points in the early game is confusing. Lasers have different sound and visual effects, and because of the increased damage to terrain feel like a big upgrade (compared to accelerated) but aren't. Personally, from a design perspective I'd push lasers a bit further up the tree and make them a bit more powerful so its an unambiguous upgrade that comes later. Maybe having Basic -> Accelerated -> Lasers -> Advanced Lasers each give relatively consistent damage increases plus 'secondary' features stay the same, would work. So for a rifle a 4 point upgrade in damage on each level, with accelerated giving penetration, and laser more destruction, would more clearly differentiate that lasers are better, and make more sense. In conjunction maybe tying laser tech to the UFO Destroyer, rather than the Scout, so its available a bit later?

Accelerated weapons are at least equal to, if not marginally better than the starting laser weapons. They generally do more damage (because until the later game penetration is better than destruction), cost less and have more ammo. Lasers accuracy bonus is useful if you are trying to skill up lower accuracy soldiers, and the MG has better range. I'm increasingly of the view that until you are ready for advanced lasers (which are better) you may as well stick to accelerated weapons.

I think that 'Unfriendly Fire' isn't working either. I've definitely had friendly fire deaths and it hasn't triggered for me.

Personal taste I guess. I like it. A bit of humour is good in games that don't have a lot of it otherwise.

I just meant something so I could understand what unlocks each piece of Tech, it doesn't need to be pretty or in-game

It can be hilarious as they decide to sprint into the UFO or run up to an alien. It makes me think of Mars Attacks when people are trying to be friendly to the invaders, but get shot. Or when they decide they are the ones to stop the alien invasion with their shotgun

Latest version of the tech tree - Xenonauts 2 Tech Tree v2.pdf

TBH I'm not sure why we just don't have a proper calendar (i.e. 1st Jan). I think that for Rifles and Pistols magnetic weapons are useful. They are cheaper ($$$ and resources), have more ammo, and most importantly do more damage over 2 shots right up to armour 44. You also get "free" research for an improved interceptor weapon. That does more DPS than the laser cannon (it fires 4 shots per second, instead of 1), but I've had a least one instance where it ran out of ammo before shooting down the UFO. Accelerated shotguns and sniper rifles get less penetration, which I think tips the balance in their favour, and MGs get better range with lasers. Also, I'll generally only build the laser weapons I need for regular dropship missions. Therefore Accelerated weapons I'm not using regularly are still handy if you get a base defence mission as they are not that much worse than lasers. I don't want anyone doing base defence with a starting weapon!

True. As the rifle has a single shot mode its not as much as a problem, you are never in a situation where you can't fire at all even if you've got ammo. I'd be happy with some visual indicator there isn't enough ammo - maybe even just updating the x10 (or x3) to show the number of rounds that will be fired and colouring it amber or red for emphasis.

Its the cloaking field messing up the numbers... targeting them directly gets the -39 penalty in the 2nd screen shot, which doesn't apply if you don't target them. It feels a bit cheesy to by-pass the cloaking field effect by targeting the ground next to the Wraith. If it was an AoE is more tolerable, but IMO it shouldn't let the MG have a better hit chance.

If you go to hangar, click on the dropship, you can set them where you like. I basically have a standard pattern which I then make sure the squad numbers match the setup so I don't need to think about it again.

When shooting a machine gun it seems to check there is enough ammo to make all the shots, and won't let you fire if there aren't enough. That means I could have 9 shots left and it won't let me do a 10 round burst. That isn't great, but even worse if I'd got 2 rounds left and not enough TU to reload and shoot. Please provide a warning but let me use all the ammo up!

I suspect this is because the Early Access does not yet have the endgame... I've not got that far myself.