StellarRat

Yeah, and with upgraded explosives they can take down any ship in the game for the entire game. They really never become obsolete.

I hope he's wearing earplugs!

I don't think that's very realistic or balanced. They wouldn't be able to obey any orders except verbal and universally recognized hand signals (assuming you could even speak their language.) Who's to say they'd recognize your authority? I doubt many would disregard orders from their own commanders to follow orders from a bunch of strangers. It doesn't seem realistic or balanced to me. If anything you'd have better luck telling the unarmed civilians what to do.

The interface doesn't really show the "lean" LOS. That's the downside and it causes confusion for new users.

The main problem with a secondary weapon is that the Ground Combat interface doesn't support two different weapons. There is only ONE fire button. Maybe the Community Coders can add the appropriate control(s) at some point. That would actually be very useful for infantry weapons also, as it would allow you to add stuff like an under the barrel grenade launcher to your assault rifle (203), etc... Some people have successfully modded in a vehicle secondary weapon, but I believe that actually telling it to fire is a bit funky.

Test away Captain!

I don't think that is correct. I believe the soldier behind the kneeler can also kneel without hitting the guy in front. It's the THIRD soldier either standing or kneeling that can accidently hit the front guy.

I don't want the civvies to be under my control. I just want them to act semi-intelligently. If they were totally under my control that would be a bit OP IMO. Having them run and fight intelligently is just fine. It's more fun to see what they will or won't do for you than to control them.

Yes, other weapons work too, but why waste precious tank rounds or rockets on a door? C4 is a smarter choice.

The three biggest controversies I remember were: Indestructible aircraft, % TU for firing, and the implementation of psionics. I still don't like how those were done, but, hey, the game is still fun.

Possibly...but there are sound tactical reasons for blowing up the door vs. just opening it. Basically, you can open up a firing lane that will allow you to kill any aliens down the middle of the UFO without a lot of trouble due to superior firepower THEN you can move your assault guys in to finish off the stragglers. Of course, this doesn't work nearly as well in upper floors of large UFOs, but it works real well on the initial entry.

It really wouldn't change the balance much. In fact, I would argue it might make it easier on the humans.

May I make a couple of suggestions (I will anyway, LOL)?Why don't you just have the aliens become aggressive using a random number instead of when the humans get close? That will solve the omnipresence problem. It's fairly logical that they'd run out and look around every once in a while just to make sure someone isn't skulking about in their area. Just like human armies do when they send out patrols. Maybe there is a 20% chance on any given turn that they'll go aggressive. As far as the aliens being able to detect you when you are close to their UFO or in their bases, absolutely! In fact, I'd just give them the exact location of the humans at all times when you're in their UFO or base. Maybe give the aliens your locations whenever your within 5 or 10 tiles of their UFOs on the outside too (or cause them to become aggressive like you do now.) However, if you do that, I think it's only fair that the humans know where all aliens are when they're defending an XCom base.

Three reasons: 1. Kills anyone standing near the door. 2. After the door is blown up you have full TUs to fire your LMG at anyone that newly visible with the door gone. If you use the LMG to eliminate the door then it's done for that turn instead of slaughtering aliens or being ready to reaction fire (if you're close enough.) 3. It's fun to blow stuff up!

Just blow the door and quit worrying about the whole situation.

You could just toss a C4 charge in front of the door with a two or three turn fuse sitting then back away and take up covered firing positions. The door will be eliminated and you can just massacre any aliens you see near the door with longer range fire. This technique works for me and gets rid of the "surprise" alien attack coming through the door. Also, with the door gone you can use your LMG and sniper effectively from the outside.

There was a bug that caused that one, but it's been fixed supposedly. I know this because I had something similar happen and I sent in a bug report. How long ago did this happen?

I have a Sgt. Thothkins in my squad right now. Amazingly he is still alive after several missions and he hasn't killed any friendlies, yet....hmmm...I wonder if something has gone astray with the laws of probability....

That would be the exception. I agree with you in this case.

By rights, the aliens should know where all your soldiers are 100% of the time while you're in their bases or ships. If anything the AI knows too little about your positions, so if the AI receives an update once every 10 turns about your location I certainly wouldn't say it's cheating. Generally speaking, the AI really doesn't have enough information about a lot of things that you can derive in your mind.

LOL. You have no idea what you're in for.

I think you lost. A couple other regions probably pulled out at month end.

The Holy Spear of Alien Smiting

Damn, that throws my whole mind control theory out the window!

Wise man.