Serious Sponge

On a side note: I also kinda think the visual design of the Reapers is a bit of a downgrade from Xenonauts 1. In my honest opinion, the Reapers in this game kinda just look like they're some dude in a suit rather than being a biological weapon of terror. The Reapers from the first game looked way more terrifying. That being said, it does also feel like they're going for making them look similar to to the original Chrysalids from X-COM so I guess that's nice for the throwback/reference.

The Reapers from the first Xenonauts were absolutely terrifying and just like the Chrysalids from classic XCOM, they did have a crap load of TU and could one-shot any soldier no matter what armor they had on. They definitely are not nearly as strong right now in this game, where I've had more than one soldier survive being hit by one and they barely cross distances that the leveled up player soldiers could breeze past by the end of the current content.

The flashbang inflicted a small amount of stun in X1 and, with enough of them you could knock an enemy out on the very first mission. In this game, the flashbang doesn't deal any stun damage but regular smoke grenades now are your game start/first mission stun option as now units take stun damage when passing through the smoke and they take more if they end their turn inside smoke.

Yeah, after thinking about it some more I guess it really is fair, but I don't know. Something about the difference from the first game feels like it favors the aliens more than it favors the player here. Where the AI from X1 generally chose to either shoot or move and more often than not they would retreat further back after being suppressed. Strictly comparing this from the original, it seems on paper that there may not be any huge differences but there's definitely something different. Playing both games side by side, suppression feels like it punishes the aliens more in X1 than in X2 and it's the same level of bad for your soldiers in both games. I am playing on Veteran difficulty, which does say it confers an accuracy bonus to enemies which can explain why they can take a crap shot and it succeeds more often...Maybe the aliens should lose their difficulty-specific accuracy bonus when suppressed to equalize it better?

To be clear, I'm not saying that this kind of suppression is bad, I quite like the idea. What I am saying is that I think there's an unfairly disproportionate effect when it comes to the player being suppressed. The aliens don't have to put nearly as much effort to exploit my guys being suppressed as I have to in order to exploit them being suppressed. If anything gets suppressed, it should be, well, suppressed. And something like this I feel should be consistent across everything.

I know that it blocks reaction fire but that's half of the battle in trying to suppress the enemy. There's been too many times where I've had situations where I took advantage of them not being able to reaction fire, only for them to take a those 'few steps' and get off a shot that kills the guy I just moved into position. I like to consider myself a more cautious player too, and my guys were not like exposed or way out of position. If they can just push out anyway and get success, I feel that makes trying to suppress them not worth it in a great many cases.

I mean, I guess? I suppose I'm just used to X1 where suppression was far more punishing for both sides, or at least it certainly felt like it. Where it was almost like getting that unit's turn skipped in terms of what they could do. Rarely did I see aliens being able to move and shoot at the same time after getting suppressed and being able to get off consistent shots that could hit at the same time.

I feel like suppression is a bit too one-sided against the player. When my soldiers get suppressed, they pretty much can't do anything on their turn. They have only enough Time Units to either move a few tiles or shoot a single shot. When I suppress alien units, they act like it means nothing and they often move several tiles and then take a shot that often hits, which feels like the effort to suppress them with like a flashbang could have better been diverted to simply trying to shoot them or throw a regular grenade in order to deal damage. In my opinion, if a unit, friendly or enemy, isn't going to meaningfully suffer from being "suppressed", then they probably shouldn't be able to be suppressed in the first place because it otherwise will give a false sense that the player can hinder them so.

I feel like the MARS is distinct enough in style that I personally wouldn't even call it a tank. It's design is very much reminiscent of the SWORDS TALON in real life where it's supposed to be closer to being an infantry soldier than a tank. I like the prospect of having this and I also like the idea of having light tanks like in Xenonauts 1, maaaaybe we could have both potentially? You have the choice between a bigger, more armored but slower tank that's more cumbersome or you could have a little remote infantry drone like the current MARS that's more maneuverable but doesn't have as much firepower. Though maaaybe not, since it was mentioned already how having a bigger, multi-tiled tank could make it more difficult to design the movement for.

If the MARS is meant to be better than the average Soldier, I do think it's a little underpowered. In particular, I feel that it should be able to withstand more punishment than it currently can as even when you slap the heavy plating onto it, it barely is able to take more than two shots from ballistic and magnetic weapons...which isn't much better than my soldiers, whom also can barely survive that much in some cases even when I give them Warden Armor.

Grenades right now are restricted by the vertical space in the area, since they need a big arc to throw far. The HEVY's straight trajectory allows you to launch grenades at its max range no matter if there's a ceiling above you or not. And then the HEVY is restricted by the fact that it can't arc basically, so you can't get enemies that are behind full cover as easily. But yeah, it should also probably at least take a soldier with max strength to compare with the distance the HEVY can launch as well, since all it takes to beat the HEVY in terms of distance is 70 Strength, which allows you to throw a hand grenade exactly 1 tile further.

The trade off vs. grenades should basically be the HEVY can shoot much farther but grenades can be arced better and land direct hits on enemies behind full cover.

The HEVY's effective range is barely longer than a 70 strength soldier can throw a grenade. One of the reasons to have a grenade launcher is so you can shoot explosive or smoke grenades at a significantly farther distance than a human could just throw. The main downside should really only be that you can't arc the HEVY's projectile over close by terrain like how you can toss a grenade over a wall you're next to. I'd suggest that a soldier with maxed out strength should probably still not be able to compare with the HEVY in terms of sheer distance. Otherwise, it feels slightly not worthwhile to load a soldier down with that when you can just give them a regular rifle and some hand grenades.

On my first game, with my first base. And the Cleaner's HQ was only revealed to me after going through the missions to get their data like you're supposed to. I can only assume that they've also been wholly unaware that our HQs were right next door to each other all along.

I was defending my base, and I stopped to get in a little extra target practice at the training facility when I noticed something about the firing range...