Novadea

Without spoiling anything... on a side note you do get the guns in your storage and can then sell them to fund the guns you can use.

Since we're on the topic might as well give out another tidbit... currently you can take down observers with just one interceptor with laser cannon, they'll be heading one direction eg. right, in which case just start from the left, afterburner until you get close enough for your weapons to reach but still outside of the observers range, drop speed to 1500kph, ???, profit.

As another munchkin let me tell you, you're trying to micromanage the game way too hard, you can easily get all the current content researches etc. by the current "cutoff" date with just being sensible, three days to get the new scientists isn't going to ruin your world ;).

Anyone that can operate a shotgun should have pretty much 100% hit chance at "point-blank" range. That's kinda the point of the weapon, just point in the general direction of the threat and shoot.

E: Drunken post that might have had a point somewhere but can't remember it for my life so you'll have to do with this lame ass apology instead, sorry.

I do have to agree with this statement partially, there're few more "trap" sciences that aren't worth it _at least for how I was playing_. If I'd start again now I'd totally skip a bunch of researches because they'll get obsolete the moment you have them produced.

I've literally arranged the soldiers three times in the dropship. First when I started, second when I got the skyhawk, third when I decided to ditch MARS. As such were your request of having the layout screen as an extra step to confirm implemented, would just be an 100% useless screen for me (and I'd assume many others who'd set up the spots on the ship and then move people around in the roster etc). E: Since the arrangement can be changed mid flight, then adding the button of launch and rearrange shouldn't be more than the current launch + switch to the aircraft screen for the rearrangement?

It's not lying to you, it's telling you that you have 9% chance to hit the floor with the first shot and then less than that due to recoil, which means you have 91% and increasing chance to hit something around it, including the cloaked wraith. Now if you instead target the cloaked wraith, well it's cloaked and at that distance you'll get a huge penalty, you'll probably hit everything else but it (almost like the floor tile). The secret of heavy weapons is to think past a single opponent and aim three down .

The same issue applies to any attack that consumes multiple ammo, eg. MARS trying to fire 3 rocket burst with only two rockets left, and I agree that the correct solution would be to fire whatever ammo is left in the weapon instead of not firing at all/being able to only fire one.

Yes the point blank aiming calculation could do with some work, standing next to the target with a shotgun and getting ~80% chance is just BS when in reality you couldn't miss without divine intervention... overall the current 45 degree misses etc. are kinda off putting and could be solved with a bit more refinement on the aiming calculations. And yes I also agree that kneeling down should increase accuracy, I also found it very strange that the only use for it is for cover, or in special case you can shoot over a crouched dude if the shooter is behind him and standing. Regarding that I'd like to add that not being able to shoot past teammates in adjacent squares freely regardless of stance seems kinda dumb. The squares are 1x1m or so at least, the soldiers have training, they should tell the teammate to get down etc. and not shoot before it's clear. No instead in this game they'll fire the whole burst straight at the back of the teammate standing next to them "you were in the line of fire" and not hit anything that was aimed at, after which the shot in the back character gets suppressed and kneels down out of the way.

JA3 real time exploration to turn based combat switch is just nightmare to try set up any kind of sensible ambush etc., mostly because you can't initiate the combat turn mode yourself etc... realtime is horrible for tactics that require coordination since you can't realtime shoot all the targets even thou the characters could shoot all on the same call. For JA3 the RT exploration is needed because people will want to scour every nook and cranny of every map node, it's still total garbage for trying to set up overwatch etc., because you're not six persons acting on a plan. Here where the only tactical map is a) an landed/crashed UFO b) a base, and you'll from the start have ~90% idea where the "end" is, which you could reach in three turns running straight. I've at no point wished I could have the tactical maps run RT in any way. As an option for those that want it sure if it's easy enough to implement, personally I think there isn't time in this game for "real- time" aside from geoscape (as in I'd never use it).

I didn't mind it, just the usual mumbo jumbo to get the game started and personally if your experience of this game is ruined because of some bad writing then you might be playing the wrong game. It's not like X-COM in any form has ever been a marvel of story telling etc., it's always been about turning aliens into goop with grenades, which this game captures perfectly.

Personally I think it's fine, you'll usually need most of your team to chuck smoke at a single alien to try get it to pass out since it only does like 4 stun damage on explosion (+N on their turn if they move through it, if they just decide to blast your face and stand still not that much). Sure you can try make it easier by shooting/nading them first but at least for myself that'd more often than not mean they'll be dead or I'd be risking the percentages way too much. I think it works as a nice alternative for capturing some of the early aliens, "hotbox the UFO" .

At least on the default difficulty I've had no issues keeping the panic under control, you just need to hunt down the UFOs aggressively before they cause a ton of anomalies. That being said I wouldn't mind having some more mission variety, some of which could lower panic in the sector etc., maybe something like "rescue civilians from alien holding facility" (which would also allow more than three sets of "completed an alien base" stars).

Played through to 180 days and eagerly waiting for more. Good: * Scratched the X-COM itch pretty much perfectly, only missing three story buildings to blow up. * For an EA game I had absolutely zero game breaking bugs, actually no bugs that I can recall. Neutral: * Non meaningful research objectives, eg. magnetic vs laser weapons seems kinda pointless to get the former before you're up to gauss cannons etc at which point you'll need it to upgrade your interceptors, others just not being finished yet (interrogations). Bad: * Lack of mission variety, there're essentially three kinds: Eliminate all hostiles, Eliminate all hostiles (but you can also just take the UFO), Go next to and touch enough things + make it out alive Nitpicks: * Missing a shot by 45 degrees or more is just BS, like no matter how bad the chances to hit are missing shouldn't mean the character shoots 45 degrees away from where they aimed or they wouldn't have passed any kind of weapons handling test to be considered for recruitment. Same goes for MARS shooting missiles way off target thou it's pretty hilarious when it misses a wall that is in front of it to hit a bus that's way off to the side. * Loading times between geoscape and tactical missions. I wouldn't mind the load times if they were mostly when loading a save, having to wait about 1-2 minutes to start a tactical battle from the geoscape and then another to get back seems to have a lot of room for improvement. * Some Achievements that probably should work but don't seem to yet: Future Warfare (assuming laser counts as energy weapon), Counterfire (assuming based on the description any reaction fire should count and not returning fire), Ultimate Power (12 colonel team cleaning out an UFO didn't trigger it)

I agree thou personally I've just found it hilarious, the best one was when I was setting up my team for entry into an UFO, few random civilian running around like headless chicken near it, laughing and thinking "one of them is going to run in to the UFO". Yup, beelines straight past 12 power armored xenonauts into the UFO, promptly getting shot to pieces. I thanked him for his service to the country in revealing the enemy positions. Just take them as usually helpful indicators of where enemies might be. The only times I wanted to shoot them is when they decide to block a door/window I was planning to make an entry through, so far I've managed to resist the urge as walls are merely an hinderance when you're armed with more explosives than you have targets for and you've MARS that eats them for breakfast.

Missiles seem pretty useless overall, just set up phantoms with best cannons you have access to and they'll do much better. Also better to do the air battles yourself, selecting where your interceptors start from (I find the from sides to be most effective usually) and using the maneuvers. I've been able to take down every UFO in the game, even with escorts with two phantoms with gauss (granted one of them got destroyed when taking down bomber + two interceptors). Eg. If you attack with two interceptors (I1 & I2) from the sides a single UFO the combat for me goes usually like this: 1. The UFO will start to turn towards one of interceptors eg. I1 2. Activate afterburners on I2 to close in faster 3. After a bit the UFO switches target to I2 and starts turning back 4. Turn on afterburner on I1 and turn it off on I2 5. After a bit the UFO should switch direction again 6. Usually the UFO will now stick to I1 as the target so start spamming dodge maneuver away from the front of the UFO 7. Keep dodging on I1 as it engages first 8. As soon as I2 is in range stop afterburners so it starts shooting 9. Keep dodging with I1 Something like that should allow you to take down even the largest UFO's in the game with minimal damage to your interceptors as you can avoid the main front facing weapons almost completely. E: As for auto resolving battles against UFO's with escorts/three interceptors, nope, not even three phantoms with gauss resolves in victory, but they're easily handled manually with said three interceptors. So in that sense yes the auto resolve could probably use a bit more fine tuning for people that'd prefer to skip the air battle (me included, I just do it since the auto resolve results are far inferior to what I can accomplish myself, which surely is part of the point but the gap is just too large).

Thanks for the fast response. For anyone else wondering when Steam will do the rollback, just reinstall the game to get back to 1.22.

After a bit more testing I can confirm that loading into tactical mission works, loading any save for geoscape where the cleaner main base has been found or taken out seems to crash, at least from the saves I've around the time when it appeared.

Same here, was playing, quit the game to eat, came back to an update and now loading any save crashes at 90%. Removing the saves I've just played twenty plus hours for isn't a valid solution.