Serben

i've just started playing and haven't lost any continents yet but i was wondering if it's possible to re-take a lost continent once it signs an alien pact. for example by assaulting the alien base or something.

Well said spinaljack. I can't believe the massive whining this simple feature request has caused. If you don't want to use auto-resolve then DON'T!! But don't ruin it for the rest of us who want it. Also, if anyone here who wants this feature hasn't voted in my poll yet, please do so, so that the devs will hopefully be encouraged to implement this most vital of features.

Which is exactly why i and many others want this feature. To make the game more enjoyable.

Since my previous thread on this topic derailed and was basically just filled with back and forth arguing, i decided to make a poll to finally get to the bottom of this issue. Why would anyone want such a feature, some may ask? Maybe it's a really easy battle and you don't feel like wasting your energy on it, or maybe you just played 10 battles in a row and are tired of combat and want to play around some more on the geo-scape? Maybe you just shot down a lot of UFO's simultaneously, or the aliens decided to launch loads of terror missions, and you don't want to play so many battles in a row? Whatever your reason, i think an auto-resolve feature would be greatly appreciated by a majority of players. Sometimes you just don't want to play a particular battle for any number of reasons. And in those situations an auto-resolve feature would be really great. So, dear community, do you want an option to auto-resolve battles if you just can't be bothered to play a particular battle?

EXACTLY! I can't be the only one who wants an option to auto-resolve battles. Imagine if you've just got done playing a huge battle that took over an hour to finish, and then you go back to the geoscape, and then another huge battle occurs 5 minutes later, wouldn't anyone else want the option to skip it? Or is it just me?

For anyone who thinks i want to remove combat from the game: re-read all my posts.

Read what i wrote. Then read it again. Then read it a third time. Then edit your post to accurately reflect what i actually wrote, not what you imagine i wrote.

Seriously? HALF the game is non-combat (geo-scape, research, base construction, financial management etc.). Just because i don't like the combat doesn't mean i don't like the game. I love everything related to the geo-scape, and that's what i want to focus on. Not moving a guy 10 meters, then clicking end turn, waiting 5 minutes, moving him another 10 meters, click end turn, wait 5 minutes and ON AND ON FOREVER.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT LOOK WHAT I JUST FOUND!!!!!1111111ELEVEN It's a program that adds auto resolvable combats to both the original xcom and terror from the deep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111 It's called xcomutil (google it). Time to reinstall my good old x-com collector's edition!

Because when i bought it back in 2010 or whenever it didn't even have combat yet. It only had a geoscape map that you couldn't even do anything with. It was in VERY early alpha basically. I bought it because i've always loved "x-com: apocalypse" (i never could get into the older ones due to the shitty turn based combat) which had real time combat, and because i ASSUMED that since this was 2010 and not 1978 it wouldn't have exclusively turn based combat. The least they could do is add the option to switch to real time combat like "x-com: apocalypse", or let players skip it for those who can't stand turn based combat.

Fine, Max Caine, get ready for a wall of text. The short answer for why i want an auto resolve feature is that the ground combat as it currently stands is boring, as i mentioned in my first post. It's as simple as that. That's why i want an auto resolve feature to be able to skip as much of it as possible. The long answer is that the many issues i have with ground combat would take far to much time and effort to resolve on the part of the devs to ever get done. A few examples: Turn based. I think turn based combat is more boring than watching paint dry. This is 2012, and i don't want to play "chess with guns". It's too slow paced, and i would much rather have either a real-time combat mode or a hybrid real time/turn based like in the game "7.62: high caliber" (if anyone's ever heard of or played it). This is hardly going to happen. My second issue is that currently, it takes AGES to process a turn. This is strange seeing as there are never more than 20-30 PC's or NPC's on a map at once, and it can't possibly take that long to process their turns with modern CPU's. My guess is that the game plays their animations "behind the scenes" while processing their turns, which hold the game up. This will probably (hopefully) get fixed in the future. My third issue is with weapons. I LOVE gun porn and would really like MUCH more attention being paid to the guns. Currently you only have 1 weapon of each type as far as i can tell (1 shotung, 1 AR, 1 MG and so on) and there is absolutely no weapon customization what so ever. I would like to be able to customize each weapon to suit different roles, by adding various scopes, laser sights, foreward grips, under-barrel grenade launchers, different stocks, longer barrels and so on which would have an effect on each of the weapon's statistics and its ease of use. For example adding a holographic sight would make snap shots more accurate, and ading a telescopic sight would increase the accuracy of long ranged and aimed shots. The argument could be made that there are already normal AR's and sniper rifles in the game that fit these roles, but i want each weapon to be able to fit multiple roles, like in real life. A dedicated sniper rifle is good for long range sniping, sure, but it's worthless in short or medium range combat. An AR with a medium power scope could bridge this gap between the current sniper rifle and unscoped AR. And besides, gun porn is AWESOME, so they should add it just for that reason. Another issue i have is a lack of different ammo types. In real life there are typically 3 types types used, at least for smaller calibers. These are: Hollow points, which have low penetration but expand upon impact causing massive internal soft tissue damage. Armour piercing, which is a fully jacketed round with a penetrator made typically of solid steel which offers maximum armour penetration. And finally you have an "in between" round which isn't a hollow point but also not a full AP round, for example the U.S. m885 which is a semi jacketed round with a steel tip and a lead core. It offers better penetration than a hollow point, but not as good as an AP round, and also better soft tissue damage than an AP round, but not as good as a hollow point, since it tends to fragment on impact sending fragments flying everywhere inside the body of your foe. There are also more "exotic" types in the larger calibers. For example, the .50cal comes in the standard varieties but also with explosive and incindiary tips. Same goes for shotgun shells. There are more types there than you can shake a stick at. And as i mentioned previously in regards to the turn based combat, this is also not likely to change. So to summarize the long answer as to why i don't like the combat: It's turn based, it's slow, and there is no gun porn. And since most, or even some of these things are very unlikely to change, a much simpler and better solution would be to be able to skip combat entirely. It would seriously only take a few lines of code to implement. You start by assigning a "combat value" to each soldier and piece of equipment based on its stats. Then you basically just sum up the combat value of your own forces by adding up stuff like the number of soldiers you have, their skills and equipment and do the same for the enemy. Then you divide your own combat value by that of the enemy. If the ratio comes out as 1, then you're evenly matched and there is a 50% chance of success. If the ratio comes out as <1 then the enemy is more powerful and the chance of success decreases linearly until the ratio reaches say 0.5 which means the enemy is twice as powerful and the chance of success equals zero. Likewise, the chance of success will increase lineraly when you outmatch the enemy, until the ratio reaches 2, which means you're twice as powerful as the enemy and the chance of success is 100%. Then after you have the chance of success you apply it to each squad member before displaying the final battle result. The chance of success then determines if that squad member survives the mission or gets wounded. The chance of death/ injury should be 1-(chance of success). So if the chance of success is 49%, we get (1-0.49)=0.51. There is a 51% chance that a given soldier will die/be injured. This "roll" will be applied to each soldier after the battle to determine who dies/gets injured. The first roll determines whether a soldier will die. If he survives the first roll, the second roll will determine if he gets injured or not. And if he "wins" this second roll he gets out unscathed. Pretty simple if i do say so myself.

Why do you care? What difference does it make to you why i want an auto resolve feature? If you don't want to use it, don't. I'm not asking the devs to scrap combat entirely, just give those of us who want to skip certain battles a choice. I want it because i like the geo-scape aspect of the game a whole lot more than combat. That's what i want to focus on, not boring battles. That's why i want an auto resolve feature so i can skip the small insignificant battles that occur every 5 seconds and only concentrate on the big, important ones.

I am personally bored to tears by the mind numbingly slow and dull ground combat that takes ages to finish, and the air combat is kind of neat but it could also get annoying after a while, so PLEASE add an option to auto resolve combats. You could have a percentage counter telling you the chances of the combat being successful, and the higher it is the less casualties you suffer and the more loot you recover. That way you can skip easy battles that you have a high chance of wiinning and concentrate on the really hard battles where your direct participation can be crucial to the outcome.