Raffik

I had a very similar feelings when I played version 3.2.0 recently (got no time yet to try 3.3.0 and 3.4.0) - last time I played the whole 200 days was 2.0.9. Played at veteran. I agree with all of what Skitso wrote. A few remarks below: Cleaners - at the start it is very interesting to have a "human" opponent with some alien missions, but I would like to see the Cleaners interfering with the alien missions, like "cleaning" parties, say after turn 10, cleaner reinforcements would show up and try to destroy the human player to "protect the secret and clean the area" and the destrction of cleaners could be postponed to later in the game. The combined threat of cleaners and aliens at once would be intimidating. The air combat feels different - more demanding now with the homing drones and defensive turrets on some of the UFO´s. Angels are almost no use after day 90 or so, Phantoms are a must, but very expensive. Also to be able to comfortably win every air combat, at least 3 fighters were necessary, in later stages even 3 phantoms with fusion weaponry (2 with missiles and lances, third with torpedoes and missile) What I disliked about the air combat is the new interceptor model - Genesis. The model looks ridiculous (resembling a dragon drawn by a kid... sorry if I am being too honest here, but the model from X1 was really cool with the forward swept wings - now the game uses the same icon during combat, but the model (picture and model in hangar) just looks terrible and small. Pleeeeease, change it.... The previous model resembling su47 was much better. If you added some alien features to the same model it would look just fine... Same goes to the advanced transport Pegasus - a flying box - the model seems too small to the carrying capacity, i kind of feel they should be bigger to fill the space in the hangar a bit more to feel more robust.. It would be perhaps cool if the Pegasus had an upper level - soldiers in the upper level with the tanks on the bottom level. Soldiers with jetpacks could exit the ship from the upper level or there would be the big door on the lower level. Or perhaps a ramp that would descent downwards (similar to skyranger in UFO: EU) Just a thougt.. Economy is also tighter than before - most of the times I had to think what to build and what to skip as the money were very tight - building a solid airforce and good equipped ground force was challenging. 6 bases were a dream never coming true. 2 bases with troops with another one with planes was all I could manage to build until end of the scenario (last UFO appeared around day 380 or so) In general, the game feels solid, there was a lag in the jungle missions, some minor bugs here and there (may be my old PC having hard time only), but the overal feeling was good. The loading times improved a bit as well I believe. The repetition of the missions is a bit annoying. The maps need more levels (high buildings, undeground levels etc). There couls be more mission variety - search and rescue of downed planes (in case UFO downs a military plane or defense of a military base/installation would be nice for example) Well done devs, Looking forward to the next build! P.S. pleeeeease again, better genesis model...

hi, the game updated itself through steam. Haven't been around for some time (since v2.09). The auto update in steam usually resolves all issues for me. When I think about it, I used the same save game since 3.0.0., so the bug could be there because of it. I'll start a new game and see.

after completing the soldier rescue mission, the rescued soldiers are shown in the armory as "on mission" and their loadout cannot be altered. user_3_0_0_save-8.json

the soldier extraction mission completion triggers 2 outcomes for me: 1. the mission completes, the dropship returns home, but tjere are no extra soldiers in my squad (although there is enough living capacity) 2. the game crashes upon accepting the debrief screen after the mission.

encountered the same

Hmmm... I believe the other weapons are balanced quite nicely, the damage output is enough to kill the early aliens in 1 shot or 2 with ballistic weapons, the later techs are similarly effective against the later aliens, thats pretty realistic imo. Agree, that if there were no demo charges, the HEVY would be the main tool to remove cover, but it has much more (currently wasted) potential (curved trajectory, stun gas, various explosive rounds, even buckshot rounds) Correct, 4 are usually enough. Each grenade round is lighter than a hand grenade, so the damage of 25 each makes sense actually. Perhaps the aim is, that the alenium, plasma and fusion grenades later in the game will be much stronger(?). The launcher is very heavy, that is also a factor, why it is not very useful imo. If there would be some ragdoll physics implemented, where the alliens would be thrown away by the blast or supressed at least, that would be nice. Never played X1, only saw videos, the RL was pretty nice, with long range and different ammo types. I´d love to see that in X2 as well.

Agree. Alrhough if you split the actions (stop bleeding, then heal), the usage cost of the medkit is a problem. The TU cost would have to be much less, which kind of breaks the advanced medkit logic. Or, the adv. medkit would have to have more uses for example. To not overcomplicate things, perhaps it would be enough if a medkit would be limited to 5 uses before it is depleted. And a tech kit for repairing the vehicles during combat woukd be nice as well.

well, if you see it thisxway. yes. But HEVY should have more usage, not only to remove obstacles, it should damage the enemies, not it even does almost anything to armour. You end up with a weapon, that is more than two times the weight of a rifle (56) with 4 shots and the soldier carrying it is basically spent. Demo charges and laser weapons should be the main removers of cover, HEVY should also be usable to lay down smoke (which it does), destroy enemies in larger area, destroy cover/walls etc. It could also have a buckshot round to resemble the shotgun. Or it should have a curved trajectory to retain some tactical usage. I know the HEVY has been a topic in many discussions before, but since it got nerfed, it is not worth using, as smoke grenades and demo charges do the job pretty well. I assume that there will be multiple new ammo types in the future (as there were in X1), but my point is, that the player needs a heavy explosive weapon for direct and indirect fire support, ideally rocket launcher and/or the HEVY. Ideally the RL would have direct fire trajectory and the HEVY a curved trajectory.

Just finished my test run on the version 2.08B. Here my observations during the 450 days. Overal the game feels easier, especially the air war, which felt very easy (almost too easy) until interceptors arrived. Economy wise, the lower costs for starting a base and reduced costs of aircraft allow to build up relatively quickly, but the higher upkeep cost limit the expansion and coverage of rhe globe. I was able to build 3 main bases (with fighters and drophips) in the northern hemisphere and 3 radar only bases in the southern, before the funding became negative around day 440. I believe, that the funding in the later stage should not go into negative, but rather stop, as the player in that stage can fund his operations by himself easily. There could be a new building avalable perhaps - Alien containment, to store alive and dead aliens. The base stores are getting full pretty fast if you have to stack up all the dead alien bodies to perform the corpse analyses. The alien containment unit could be also a secondary goal for the aliens during base attack, where they would try to free the captives ans escort them back to hangar or to arm them to make the attack stronger. The pattern in which the UFOs appear on the globe seems to be random. Aside of the supply missions to alien bases and retribution missions, most of the UFOs just seem to fly around, not even causing much damage (a few airliners destroyed, some damage on the ground). Out of 75 UFOs I encountered, the panic levels never got over 30 (tested on soldier diff). Last UFO appeared around day 300. Start of the game: Atlas base is in Africa. The extraction of the soldiers/survivors from the ATLAS base attack was in Canada. I was wondering, how 3 unequipped soldiers got so far...? The mission would make sense closer to Africa. The Air war - UFO nerf the initial UFO is supposed to be an easy oponent, and it is. To my surprise though, an Angel interceptor can now wreck a flight of 3 mimics at once, the scout has been an adversary not to be taken lightly for the Angel, now even with escort it does not stand a chance. Destroyer, if attacked cleverly comes down pretty easily as well. Even later combos like destroyer+mimic and destroyer+fighter fall victim to Angels as well. After the larger UFO arrive and you do have a phantom or two or combination of an Angel an a Phantom, you cannot be stopped, abductor can be taken straight on without any tactics.Abductor also comes with no sort of escort at all. The only worthy adversary are the 3 Interceptors popping out every now and then after about day 200. Weight system on the fighters: While Angel can have a load of 10, which allows for a solid loadout with 2 missiles and a cannon or a lance, the Phantom has 13, which would be plenty to carry 4 missiles in 4 hardpoints, but no. There are limitations to what is allowed to be carried, either 2 cannons/lances or a combination of a lance, 2 missiles and armour. so in the end you end up with almost the same loadouts for both fighter types, the only diff is the extra armour. There are multiple options there as well of course. Ground combat: the HEVY seesms to be useless tactically still, as the damage output is ridiculously low at 25 only. stun gun being available from the start feels good, so you have a relatively effective weapon to stun enemies. The armour values could be slightly higher by the warden armour. The rebreather was more logical to be helmet mount, than being put to the backpack imo. Research: might be just me, but I thought, that phantoms come after researching alenium power. In this playthrough I saw it popping out after UFO hull plating research. But I might be mistaken after which research it comes. Nothing that important, but it sucked for a while, as my first phantom was build around day 150 only. Lost base: If you loose a base to UFO attack and want to build it again, the game does not allow to build the new one in the same location, as if the base was still there. Assume that is a bug. It would be a nice touch, if the game actually offered you to rebuild that base in the same location for less money for example. The latest update 2.08C breaks the previous saves it seems. Thats about it. Good work devs, keep it up. Looking forward to see more content.

Once the air combat window initiates, the UFO is not shown and the game crashes to desktop. The UFO is shown for half asecond, then disappears and the game crashes edit: the CTD can be avoided by autoresolve user_2_08_day_123-13.json auto_strategy_before_intercept-69.json

Yeah exactly my thoughts at every start of a new game. But I still do agree with @BrotherErmak, that getting the same squad of soldiers from the prologue/tutorial would be great and help immersion

Wow, thats... odd at least. I would be interested to know why, as the air combat design makes the game stand out. Yes and I must admit I was surprised, that a single Angel interceptor can now dispatch 2 mimics singlehandedly, a scout / mimic combo as well, even destroyer is no match for it. edit: single Angel can destroy 3 mimics, with a good strategy also mimic / destroyer combo and mimic /fighter combo

Agree. I believe that it would it make sense to change the laser MG to heavy laser gun. Instead of firing a burst of 3 or 10, it could fire either a single shot (slightly higher damage - 46 and armor destruction - 12) than laser rifle or a continuous beam (with much more damage - 56 and armor destruction - 20) The whole concept of LMG makes more sense with kinetic weapons than laser weaponry imo..

In armory, unassigned soldiers are shown without bodies and equipment. Reloading the game repeats the bug. Soldiers assigned to dropship are shown normally. user_2_08_day_58-7.json

Hi Kouki, just downloaded 2.08 today and its working. It still looks odd though, as the inventory and weapon slots are greyed out. But its working.

Soldiers in the armory, not assigned to a dropship, cannot be equipped nor their loadout customized. It is only possible in the dropship. user_day_1_manual_save-1.json

I believe, that laser mg should be called heavy laser and instead of firing a burst, it should fire a larger continuous beam with greater damage and more recoil and ammo drain. As an example laser rifle has dmg of 40, the heavy laser should have 46 in the regular beam fire mode (could be still burst x3) and 55-60 in the continuous beam fire mode. The ammo drainage should remain the same (10) and the accuracy could be less, but for strong soldiers perhaps even the same as with the rifle. Also, it’s range could be again 25 tiles

Is there any particular reason behind the player not being able to customize the soldier roles and loadout in the armory, but only in the chopper? Or is this a bug?

After researching Heavy lasers and completing the engineering project of laser lance (which is unique), tha laser lance cannot be either equipped or manufactured. user_day_52_manual_save-19.json user_day_52_manual_save-19.json

Agree with almost everything written above. I have played just about 18 days of 2.06, here my observations so far: The turorial is nicely overwritten and provides more wholesome picture, there is a small typo though - in the dialogue between the traitor general and the main characters before the attack on atlas base begins. Perhaps the team of soldiers used in the tutorial could be also the starting team after the tutorial? The soldiers in the tutorial and at the game start seem to be different, although the xenonaut forces managed to retreat. As the cleaner agents are now normal humans, there could be a chance to persuade some of them to join xenonauts as a side quest perhaps (captured agents for example) Not sure if my understanding is correct - are the cleaners still EXDEF or now just Xenonaut traitors? Some other observations from the first 18 days of V2.06 playthrough: Weapon weight is shown without ammo in the armory now, but unloading and loading the weapon still seems to add the weight to soldiers inventory (loading the clip again after unloading reduces the weight carried actually). HEVY has been nerfed from 35 dmg to 25, which renders it tactically almost useless, as the dmg output is the same as demo charge. Having a GL with loaded weight of 56 and only 4 shots is nonsense. The same soldier could carry 4 demo charges, a rifle and a grenade on top of it for 54 weight and be therefore tactically much better equipped. The HEVY should fire in a shallow arc with longer range so that it can provide at least some advantage to the player. Or additional types of ammo for close range combat (buckshot f.e.) LMG range reduced to 20 from 25. Perhaps it would be worth it reducing the 3-round burst TU cost, so that 2 could be fired in a turn? Its a shame, that the Angel interceptors do not have 4 slots anymore, that seemed to be an interresting feature worth exploring more.

The turorial is nicely overwritten, there is a small typo though - in the dialogue between the traitor general and the main characters. Perhaps the team of soldiers used in the tutorial could be also part of starting team of soldiers? The ones in the tutorial and at the game start seem to be different. As the cleaner agents are now normal humans, there could be a chance to persuade some of them to join xenonauts as a side quest perhaps (captured agents for example) Some other observations from first 18 days of V2.06 playthrough: Weapon weight is shown without ammo in the armory now, but unloading and loading the weapon still seems to add the weight to soldiers inventory. HEVY has been nerfed from 35 dmg to 25, which renders it tactically almost useless, as the dmg output is the same as demo charge. Having a GL with loaded weight of 56 and only 4 shots is nonsense. The same soldier could carry 4 demo charges, a rifle and a grenade on top of it for 54 weight and be therefore tactically much better equipped. The HEVY should fire in a shallow arc fot a longer range, so that it can provide at least some advantage to the player. LMG range reduced to 20 from 25 Its a shame, that the Angel interceptors do not have 4 slots anymore, that seemed to be an interresting fearure worth exploring more.

I like some of the ideas, however everything you put on a plane extra would reduce its speed, not increase it, especially dead weight like plating or extra fuel. That should reduce the max speed by about 10-15%. The extra radar detection would be nice, it would make scouting for ufo around geoscape anomalies more effective. There could be a targetting unit enabling torpedoes to roll for example. An ECM unit could be cool as well, its effect being reducing the dodge capability or hit chance of the UFO by some %.

Alrernatively you could try something like 5/10 for tactical/defender, 10/20 for warden, 20/30 for Guardian and keep 9/18 for Stalker and the weights could stay as they are now. I like the idea of the upgraded armours being the same def value as the heavy armour of the previous tier. The idea from Grobo also sounds reasonable. For the planes, I would keep the fourth slot, but play with the weights of the armament a bit, allowing more loadout combinations.

Agree. The warden is a bit too ineffective currently, 13 points of armour against 46 (and potentially even more later with plasma and fusion) damage does not feel effective enough for alien alloys reinforced armour. No it´s not about the manufacture time - the accelerated weapons did not feel to be necessary to research, as lasers were pretty fast available, so acc were skipped - even more so after the cleaner accelerated weapons were made equippable by the players (as the cleaner acc were lighter). Providing acc weapons as upgrades to ballistic was a good way how to push them into the game naturally (with cleaner guns still having slight edge, but were to be collected individually). I liked that more, as to loot the cleaner guns was an interesting objective during tactical combat. If the game pace slows down, there would be more time to research accelerated weapons and equip them, before the lasers even come into research tree. Then it would make sense to build acc weapons individually. The game did not feel boring with the upgrade to acc weapons, but I can speak only for myself. By the way, just realized about the Corpses section in engineering - ballistic tests on corpses of killed enemies - seems to be a bit brutal, doesn´t it? Good thing cleaners and aliens are not subject to Geneva Conventions

This is prhaps not a real bug, but just an inconsistency, that will be removed in the future. Once the cleaner agent autopsy report is researched, the artwork of a cleaner soldier autopsy is shown. But agents and soldiers are different kinds of cleaners, aren´t they.. The agents are supposedly normal humans as per the attached text (I think this text is new in V2.05) and the soldiers are irreversibly altered via implants. The agents stats in ground combat are somewhat lower than the soldiers (agents have health of 45, soldiers of 70 if I am not mistaken), so I believe, the cleaner agents and soldiers hould have 2 different autopsy researches/reports?