gG-Unknown

After X turns for abduction mission, people in tubes are abducted. They are beamed up to the alien ship. Same with aliens, they are beamed up to the alien ship. There nothing left player could fight. Perhaps some missions could have a outro, animation or single screenshot. Where player get a visual reward in form of static hand made picture of happy saved people meeting relatives ( or not, a picture of beams of energy with am alien ship, in case of largely failed mission then eventually a picture of vivisection table with a sound of screaming in background ) To give player visually and sound feedback how is the result of the mission.

Add white colour for top numbers would work. 90 - 100 should be bright white

The damage inflicted by UFO weapons in air combat (both manual and autoresolve) is now modified by the difficulty setting make dmg done based on difficlty is dumb design solution. Rather consider, higher difficulty means: - UFOs are faster - pause air combat is not possible - UFO use smarter AI moves 2. Manipulation with Abduction Tubes or Computers(data stick) should cost 4 TU

Civilian template should spawn body item as usual. It looks better when we see dead bodyes, and it allows some other interesting missions. Strike alien (cleaner) base to save civilians live or dead. (dont allow aliens take/keep even dead body for processing)

Beam me up, Scotty.

Thanks Criss to enlighten us internal game mechanic. What about : person on the roof is considered having low cover (same as low box or similar items) against oponent on any lower level ? (opponent would have a chance to hit corner of the building-wall with all destruction consequences)

1. by splitting Emergency status removal (bleed, stun, unconscious, shock, etc.) from HP heal will make usage of medkit more TU hungry, that is right. On the other side, it adds new level of strategy - do I press the task (release abduction tube, capture VIP, etc.) OR do I take care of healt of soldiers ? Currently medkits are lightweight and endless usage, which means everyone (nearly) can have it. Perhaps make change in few steps. 1st phase : - add medkit more weight - add medkit capacity - add medkit feature of: "weight is based on capacity" (basicaly same as weapons should use with ammo clip, weapons should get lighter after every bullet shot) - add 1 medkit capacity = 1 HP - add one emergency status removal (bleed, stun, etc.) costs 20 medkit capacity - TU usage stay as now Example: New Medkit has capacity 200 HP weight 25 units. When depleted to 100/200 capacity it weights 13 units. Idea is, giving Medkit large capacity but make it heavy means, player will make dedicated Class Medic with lighter weapons loadout. >> Weight management in action.<< Current status when every soldier is basicaly his own medic wierd. After proposed update above, lets beta playtest. Based on feedback then 2nd phase : - split actions Emergency status removal and heal HP - make heal HP gradual, heal over time. After heal several rounds healing effect is applyed. Avoid Dungeon&dragon instant heal spell. 2) after tuning of medkit for organic soliders, then add a medkit for robotic soldiers, with same game mechanics Make things complicated is easy, but makes it fun to use is a challenge.

1) by settiing MedKit heavier you basically created the dedicated Medic already. Lets use weight management to let player create a role. I would not recomend to add skills like : medic, sniper, runner. Adding more skills means soldiers are less versatile AND player have to keep attention to more numbers. I would rather see Xenonauts 2 be a number low system but interesting choices&consequences. 2) yes, the emergency status ( bleeding, poisoning, burning, acid, shock, ... ) removal should be one action. Then healing HP should be another one. However, for sake of simplicity lets make it so, that Medic always remove emergency status first. It is also logical, that medic takes care about critical status first like artery bleeding , then takes care about blister on your little finger. Regarding healing HP it should rather be "healing over time" than an instant spell. For sake of reality feeling, apply HP heal, then each round soldier gets 5HP until healing effect is depleted. 3) Althou it sounds reasonable it would require additional dialogue in the combat UI. Combat is turn-based and slow already, adding such level of control would make it overly complicated. So not recommend. Simple UI is key to success. Check gamee : Trader 40K by Owlcat games. They made so precise and overcomplicated battle UI that is unbearable. 4) Medic should be able to resolve various emergency statuses AND shock statuses (low blood pressure, shell shock, hazard inhalation, unconscious, ...) these shock statuses means, target is TU limited or even zero. So Medic emergency action can only consume medics own TU. However, medic healing HP action could require coordination. So target will consume same TU as medic. Which means, target can not shoot while he is receiving HP healing, that makes sense. 5) yes, Medkit should have a capacity. Similar to shield mechanic. So Medkit 82/120 HP capacity means it has 82 points of 120 maximum. Also, weight management is important - each point of healing capacity has certain weight. So Medkit 60/120HP has half of the original weight.

You are saying the same, I said few post above. Then some excited forum member got seizure. Advantage of lasers having no recoil have to be offset by other disadvantage. In case of lazy game dev, you make weapon balancing by simply keep all ballistic mechanic (recoil) just change graphical&sound effects from boom-boom to pew-pew. When applying physicaly correct no-recoil advantage, it should be correct to apply physically correct disadvantage - lasers lose energy by range, a lot faster than ballistic. Lets take ballistic range of a weapon ( for example pistol) then apply damage range reduction 10% per tile. It means, on the last tile of the weapon range, laser pistol delivers only 10% dmg of the base dmg. So laser weapons have the same range, technically, but their DPS at range is low. On top of this, laser are physically very susceptible to smoke > every tile of smoke reduces dmg by 30%. When two soldiers stand face to face in smoke and shoot lasers, it counts as 1 tile of smoke. Add rain or mist to some maps, then rain counts as smoke regarding laser weapons range reduction. Result is, lasers are great in short range and clean environment.

double post, delete me

double double post - delete me

I like current game heading and speed of development. However, I see a systemic gap in the setting. Issue Combat is set the way, soldiers die a lot >> good think. Game should highlight the desperate situation of human race, so soldiers give their lives for future generations of humans. It means, a soldier would last about 5 missions, as average number of dead soldiers is about 20% per mission. Mathematics of this setting means, that improving player combat power is mostly done by reserach&production. It is proper style, but it also means: 1. RPG factor of better base stats of the soldiers is somewhat weak 2. it might bring feeling that soldiers are just human resource - expendable ( life is cheap feeling ) Solution Honour is a moral value we give to fallen soldiers. We treat them with respect and care about their bodies. As result, when Xenonaut organization has higher Honour stats, then volunteers with military experience ask for a membership. Ruleset of Honour - Xenonaut organzation has Honour equal 100 points at beginning of the game - higher Honour means better soldier at recruit screen. Lower Honour means worst soldiers at recruit screen - Honour is lost by failed mission, dead soldier, dead civilian, some controversial research, .... - Honour is gained by completed mission, bring dead soldier body back, saved civilian, major research breakthrough, ... Basically, Honour is a stat evaluating player gameplay by moral standards and give reward in form of better recruits. Examples of values: Dead soldier : minus 3 Honour Bring Dead soldier body back: plus 1 Honour Completed mission: plus 10 Honour Failed mission : minus 5 honour Honour value 105 means, that some soldiers on recruit screen has 105% base stat,

Advika - sort of agree. Laser pistol should work as strong flash-light - blind the target in range up to 5 tiles. Laser MG - should be rather beam - even it is only graphical difference - I would like to see continuous beam rather than pew-pew. Becouse of beam gives great feedback of aiming at target - longer the burst makes it more precise. add full burst mode consuming 90% of TU which is not useble in overwatch - fire 20 bulets. However, laser weapons should loose dmg by range and can be blocked by smoke.

Game designer have to create manageable situations with interesting series of dilemmas. Create massive battles which are not manageable for majority of potentiation costumers, is wrong game design. Idea of 50 opponents is possible: Lets make 6 aliens with plazma guns, 4 psionics who control 10 human civilians each. Civilians act like zombies, slow hand-to-hand attack. Falls unconscious when alien psionic is killed. Such scenario creates many interesting situations. 6 vs 50 scenario. Regarding your assumptions about my approach, you are wrong. I have finished Terror from the deep on year of release on highest difficulty in form of Iron man. No save-load.

I think that 6 xenonauts for first mission is aproachable. Then make an research (feeling of progress) to add more. Most of game play time should be around 6 - 8. The endgame (only few customers can get there, ususaly its about 20%, Steam stats says.) can offer another research to 10. The final mission should be special so lets say Two drops ships with 10 soldiers each = theoreticaly 20 soldiers in on mission. But lets make it bloody landing. Only 13 will survive landing. Others will be killed in animation of shooting against drop ships. Wraps is arouund : Less soldiers makes it more dinamic. Progress thru whole game fromm 6 to 10 let feel improvement, and it let player get habit to control wast army. Final epic battle with 13 soldiers makes it exceptional experience.

Here is my last response to your message. When I say last I mean it. Do not make any more reply to my posts, answer will not come. Thank you.

Agree, but here is also moment of the "main_hero", which worked in Darkest Dungeon. Two heroes is passed to player always the same. There are also achievements focused at "surviving initial heroes". Perhaps you could use this effect to your advantage. Keep two soldiers of fixed names and stats thru prologue to the game. Coincidentally you could use names Reynauld and Dismas :-] so the player somewhat expect the grim future.

Easy for few but also difficult for most. see bellow. :-] Many soldiers option in action is wrong design solution. More soldiers means, that plan one turrn is more diffcult for player. Keep status of all soldiers in your head, keep in mind all possibilities of ally-ways, all possibilities of overwatch cover can make game too diifficul. On top of that, more soldiers means that one turn takes longer to finish, which means one combat mission will takes longer to finish. If the combat mission takes more than 30 minutes to finish its feels tedious. (usual school lesson takes 45 minute for a reason - humans are able keep focus for limited time) I would even recommend limit number of soldiers (combat units - robots included) to 10. (or even less, as we will see below, 10 is exactly double the recommended size for RPG games) 1. we all have ten fingers, it is natural number we can maintain in our heads. 2. shortcuts keys on units can work better - press number 0 - 9 get focus on combat unit. 3. RPG games passed a long route of iterations. (Eye of the beholder, NeverwinterNights, Pathfinder, Original sin) They found out that human brain accept best about 5 base attributes for a hero. And also 4-5 heroess in a group. When designer add 6 or more heroes to the party game became tedious and difficult to maintain that only few (gifted) players could enjoy the result. Gauss curve of cognitive functions is real. Althou some people could handle more characters in a group/combat team, for average customer >> rule of thumb >> less is more. Install easy/natural approach whenever possible. Two transport per mission idea could be used as special (final?) mission, where most of soldiers die. Perhaps in the mission start, AA defence canon will hit transports, so mission briefing starts with report of few dead and few wounded, ... and that is just beginning.

It is wrong Ideology which do not mirror real world or even game practice. I told you that before, now even Chris confirms that. Deal with it.

Laaser mg has two burst modes: Burst fire x3 Burst fire 2 x10 Issue is: the second one has a bit cryptic naming convention because it looks like : Burst mode (2x10) like it would fire ten bullets two times. Solution is: I think that fire modes must not use numbers in their text, so it removes misunderstandings. Better use another word description lie this: Burst fire x3 Long Burst fire x10 ==== Optional solution, use colors for highlight the meaning of text and numbers : Burst fire x3 Burst fire 2 x10

Make defence& acc bonus equals in value. It is easyer to remember for average human. I think OpenXCom has crouching cost 4TU and uncrouching cost 6TU. please don't repeat same mistake. These things have to be easy to remember. When you need an article of 10 sentences to explain how kneel works, then it is bad design. Up/Down should costs the same. I don't care how much but THE same. ----- However, I see different problem. In case kneel add bonus for attack AND defence for all soldiers , it means, that all soldiers will do fallowing loop in every situation (attacking or defending): Begin of round stand up, change location, kneel, optionally fire End of round. It means, every soldier will be kneeling at the end off turn always. I have also seen a request here on forum for a button to auto-mass kneel for all soldiers. That is sick & tired. Think to consider: 1. Make both defence & acc bonus same number. 2. acc bonus is applied only for certain weapon types: sniper, machine-gun (those two weapons are known for use a bipod. As long as X2 dont allow prone, then kneel is equivalent of a "stable_position" ) 3. melee weapon attacks while kneeling gets defence & acc bonus value as negative (penalty) for simple reason - melee fight always prefer higher position and mobility. Kneeling is considered as low&stable_position therefore it is disadvantage in melee. Perhaps some melee attacks could even cause kneeling on targets. ;-] to get bonus on subsequent melee attacks. 4. weapons with bipod (sniper,mg) do not get acc bonus while kneel in melee This way, assault soldiers (assault gun, shield, shotgun, ... ) will often stand, but specialists (sniper,mg) will kneel almost always. All this bring interesting decisions: Some alien crab-like melee monster is incoming - Do you kneel your machinegun specialist to get better accuracy or you better stand to keep defence ? Proper Dilemma. Variety with just ONE number to remember !

Oh, thank you for the possitive response. Even Ninja Turtles would agree that coloured tapes are great.

Loading times are disturbing, becouse player have to do exatctly : Nothing. You could try to shorten them, but short disturbing is still discomfort. There is another point of view : mask loading time by some player's activity. Give player something to do while it is loading. Here is example : On the mission end, player have to wait for loading globe screen. Then he is allowed to see after-battle report. Make a masking of loading time as fallows: Show After battle report immediately after the battle. Then loading screen is a background for after-battle report. Make sure that player interaction with after-battle report gets top proccessing priority (loading could be few scodns slower, but player who is playing with the report do not feel loading time as discomfort becouse he has something to do). Also make sure that The after battle report survives as top window while the background changes from battle to loading screen to globe screen. Similar could be done for loading into mission: Show mission briefing immediately when loading time starts. (player can read briefing meanwhile mission is loading) Show landing ship (hangar interface), so player could check soldiers equipmpent or re-shufle positions of soldiers.(or even re arm)

This is good one. Soldiers use a uniform which fit the era, also "Icon of load-out" is attached. All has the same boots, same trousers, same 4 point-seatbelts, same jacket and hat. Difference is that few parts of uniform (or accessories in case of hat and jacket) is colour coded. In my first idea, I recommended tape on helmet (one colour) and 2 tapes on biceps (second colour). That is easy to do in engine. If your Photoshop skill is high enough, you could take screenshot from the armoury screen and mark-by-colour certain parts of uniform-armour which can be colour coded. I believe our work could help developers to narrow the idea. Important is, - - it should be easy for user to set those colours, so I anticipated that 2 different colours is the right amount of complexity. So when you mark specific colour-coded armour parts, they should be split to two groups, so player always choose two colours per load-out. Lets not turn it into a Warhammer paint simulator. - - current the main colour of armour should remain the main. Colour coded marks should stay in the bracket of detailing not full over-paint. 1. RP reason : Lets assume majority of aliens use optical sensors, so an bright coloured jumpsuit would make a perfect target. Lets say, we admit the power of military camouflage, but we need coloured details for identification. 2. Styling responsibility : game designer should be still responsible for differentiate armours by look, ei. player can not over-paint the main armour theme designed by devs.

I dont care what you can or you can not. I just did it. :-] Power rangers - a comic which become a beacon of ga<cenzored_by_Twigg> culture. I really do not like Xenonauts twisted into a band of derailed individuals, like you see on photo above. I hope Xeno 2 will be more dark, bloody and desperate experience, when brave few are dying to save silent majority. Even thou majority might not know they are on the edge of genocide. Therfore simple coloured bands on armour which reminds biggest bloody brother-to-brother war in resent century might fit the setting better.