Hi folks.
Late to the party. I kickstarter'd, but have not played until now as I was waiting to see what happened and more content before spolier'ing myself by playing too much.
Cleaners are an interesting arc that does need more side missions. "Kill the boss," and "steal the data" are good starts, but how about "Stop the payload?" Whether the payload is a bomb (boring) or an terror mech that is being powered up but delays when you blow up an alenium reactor, do them all in 10 turns and then you get a free "stopped terror invasion" reward, if not, you have a terror site shortly after. Or defend against a base invasion. Something like that. Variable based on your performance. Things that are region specific - panic or undermining your budget.
Would be nice to be able to manufacture and send aircraft, rather than having to have an empty hangar (at 100k+operating expenses) just for that.
Slightly disappointed at the lack of varied stat differences between weapons other than damage. The accuracy perk on laser weapons quickly becomes moot unless you're treating your troops as disposable. Glad there is a bit more of a time gap between laser and plasma research, but lasers still quickly become useless. However, my biggest gripe is that the stun weapons are awful. Not too fussed about not getting gas grenades straight away (I overused those in Apocalypse,) but a pistol with 6 range, terrible stun, and terrible accuracy? A melee stick which requires 3 hits? Risk vs reward, please.
Still can't deal with the base box room with shelves costing 100k and taking 15 days Also upgrading to Ele, sorry, Alienium reactors I'd like to have a minor upgrade the base's stock energy cap so at least you can fit in a decent defence battery.
Aircraft cannons are lacking a rate of fire or DPS stat (e.g. laser lance) for us to be able to decide whether a weapon is worth the effort or not.
The alloy plate upgrade should be single, cheap, but require you to refit some equipment, e.g. aircraft. Warden was an alloy upgrade to defender anyway.
"Friendly" NPC AI really needs to stop running into UFOs and getting turned into gibs. And stop trying to cuddle those nasty green orbs on terror bomb missions. They literally make a beeline for them. Unsettling.
Except from my time in the original UFO series, it wasn't immediately clear that corpses and weapon parts can be sold after research is complete. Newer games required you to hold onto weapon parts (or bodies) to make things - please pick one, and let us know clearly.
Would still like aimed accuracy at adjacent enemies in the case of weapons designed for it to be an almost guaranteed hit, regardless of accuracy stat. Watching two out of three shotgun pellets, or pistol fire, missing something next to you, which still happens a lot at 80+ percent, is still a "why?" moment.
Like UFO, I would like to recruit scientists/engineers into the base to coincide with the opening of the labs/workshops, and not have to wait 3 extra (unproductive) days after it is complete.
The bleed notification happens twice. Once when the soldier is hit, once when the turn starts. Second one only would be my preference. Also, how can we tell if a soldier just got wounded rather than killed (35%)? An armour perk (or module) that has a chance of invoking incapacitate/slow bleedout, so giving you a chance of rescuing them from death with a medkit. Which you might research into a capped HP regen perk later.
The amount of ankle or knee high structures that cause 40% or more block are...well, there's just a lot of them. Big stuff like cars? 60%, is fine. Waist high? Sure, 40%. Not ideal for cover, but there we go. Lower? should be 20%. Not sure if crouching behind each cover height is already factored in? Speaking of which seems crouching no longer affects accuracy? Does it still affect reducing hit chance
Financial balance seems okay if the aim is to stop you having too many bases too early. Unlike the original, there aren't huge spates of 5 UFOs every couple of days that mean you lose regions for reasons that, even if you shot them all down and airstrike'd the wrecks you didn't recover, are unclear.
Not sure how it affects the late endgame - at the moment I'm loathe to play through too much of the game as doing that spoiled Phoenix Point for me.
Still, sometimes keyboard snappingly frustrating accuracy lies nothwithstanding, it is looking good so far. Keep up the good work!
