[Dropship Mission Storage]

Overloading is easy to avoid by adding a weight limit to the landingship, where every weapon, magazine, grenade etc adds to it. If the carrier weight limit exceeds, it won't lift off.

[[1.29d]The good old destroyed walls not updating it's visuals are still present unfortunately.]

Here's another similar case where it's easy to reproduce:

Just load the save and drive MARS through the wall. 

BEFORE:

AFTER:

user_damagebug1-8.json

[[1.29d]The good old destroyed walls not updating it's visuals are still present unfortunately.]

2 hours ago, Chris said:

Thanks. Hmmm, that's annoying.

A save game would be great here, because I'm wondering if this is actually a different bug where the interior and exterior walls aren't being destroyed together. Do you know if the problem goes away if you save / load?

Ok, with further testing, I got a save before and after with images:

This is the starting situation. Just load the first save and force fire a machine gun burst with unit nro. 9 and target the bookself like in this image:

It might take few tries with the 'reset save seed' checked to get the bullets to hit just right. Here's an image of the end result when it bugs: 

As you can see, the room behind the wall is visible and walls are still intact. Sometimes you can walk through the walls, sometimes not. Hopefully this helps you track the issue down.

user_wall_bug-6.json user_wall_bug_2-7.json

[[1.29d]The good old destroyed walls not updating it's visuals are still present unfortunately.]

1 hour ago, Chris said:

Do you know if the problem goes away if you save / load?

I tried the intelligence hub mission again as it seems to generate this issue with my playstyle quite often. I saved the game (save game attached) as soon as I noticed the issue.

Here's an image of the situation after I loaded the save. As you can see, reloading the save removes the issue. There was a damaged wall and a bookself at the point of the yellow arrow. 

I tend to start this mission with MARS shooting two rockets at the main door. This time I had 2 machine gunners both fire full bursts to suppress. Could it be that tiles that break outside of FOV causes this?    

 

user_destroyed_wall_bug-2.json

[[1.29d]The good old destroyed walls not updating it's visuals are still present unfortunately.]

44 minutes ago, Chris said:

Thanks. Hmmm, that's annoying.

A save game would be great here, because I'm wondering if this is actually a different bug where the interior and exterior walls aren't being destroyed together. Do you know if the problem goes away if you save / load?

I tested the stable branch, so no saves unfortunately.

[Civilians seem to love jumping through windows]

Jumping through windows should cost considerably more TU's to prevent this from happening. It's cool to be able to do it, but it's way too easy atm. Same with MARS. It's cool that it can bash through walls, but there should be a bit more TU cost from doing so. 

[[1.29d]The good old destroyed walls not updating it's visuals are still present unfortunately.]

I've seen it every now and then, last time just now with the 1.29d stable version in the intel gather mission where the building's grey interior walls didn't provide cover. Can't point you in the right direction what caused it unfortunately- just a heads up it's still not fixed. 

[[1.29d Tactical] rock corner block shooting but not vision]

Corner piece of rock formations block 100% shooting but doesn't block vision. Is this intended? Seems strange you can see the target but can't shoot it. 

[Reapers are so weak]

1 hour ago, Wont Tell said:

That makes precious little sense as Reapers will be encountered where their UFO got downed when they were intercepted while flying to their intended mission area - and "only interior space" would also make them unavailable for Terror missions, which is their main purpose in the game.

I concur with the suggestion that their TU should be increased to make them more dangerous. Zombified humans move a bit too fast/far though for their zombie-shambling animation

You are saying there's no interior spaces in crash or terror sites? 

[[1.29d tactical] Losing a mission still gets a "MISSION COMPLETED" at the end.]

Sure, it's semantics what you perceive as a completed mission. I can understand it's completed in a way that it's run it's course just by the game mechanics, but for a player the mission is failed if you lose all your units.

[[1.28B Tactical] If all soldiers die in Cleaner HQ mission, some of them are revived.]

On 8/3/2023 at 5:54 PM, Chris said:

Do you have a save game we can look at?

This bug seems to happen in any mission. I tested this now with a random abduction mission and killed all my own units. Still someone seems to get revived in mission debriefing screen.

Load the save and just end the turn so MARS is destroyed.

user_bug_test-1.json

[[1.29d tactical] Force firing doesn't always register clicking the target.]

Force fire (holding CTRL) often requires multiple clicks to register and feels unresponsive. Haven't been able to pinpoint what causes it, but it happens quite often.

[Small issues that are not bugs]

Death animations need more variation. Maybe weapon specific animations? (See Fallout2 for reference) Maybe a bit of ragdoll physics? (Didn't the first demo already have ragdolls?)

[[1.29d Tactical] Roof visibility blocked by walls]

This part of the wall blocks visibility to roof. I've seen it in other building types too. 

[[1.29d Tactical] Driving MARS through a wall with window doesn't break the wall]

Further inspecting the situation: driving MARS through these red walls doesn't change the visual damage state but they are broken (units can walk through etc) Walls do break with other methods just fine as you can see.

[[1.29d Tactical] Driving MARS through a wall with window doesn't break the wall]

Here I just drove my MARS through the wall with a window. Just the window broke.

[[1.29d Tactical] Box can be walked through]

EDIT: While testing this, I also noticed there's no damaged state for it. Related?

[Reapers are so weak]

It's also about maps. Reapers should only be found around tight claustrophobic interior spaces and not on open desert.

[Suggestion. As paid expansion, Special Forces of each NATO and even Warsaw Pact country or countries like India and Yugoslavia forming a "Xenonaut" team of their own.]

On 8/3/2023 at 11:19 PM, happystrawberry1 said:

It's almost like insulting someone's country and their language has consequences, idiot. For someone who claims that English is an important language, you sure are fucking terrible at it.

 

This be the last time I engage with that moron.

Edit: never mind. Let's just ignore the resident village fool

[Night missions]

On 7/16/2023 at 4:29 PM, Chris said:

I'm also not really interested in ways to force the player to do more night missions - I'm interested in ways to encourage the player to want to do more night missions. At the moment night missions are significantly harder than day missions and there's no real reason why you'd ever voluntarily choose to do one.

If you are going to push Cleaners to be more significant part of the game, making them come and clean UFO crash sites after certain time period would also be a nice and organic way to make player choose between night and extra cleaners and also give a tangible reason for their existence.

First few cleaners could be added to crash site after 5(?) hours and a couple more after 10(?) hours. Crash sites could also be "cleaned away" from geoscape instead of player being to sell it to local forces until Cleaner HQ is finally destroyed. This kind of additional organic layer of gameplay and choise would IMO add a lot to the game.

[Night missions]

18 minutes ago, FLIR said:

Exactly - what many people remember from the original X-Com are those experiences and the atmosphere. Everyone of my colleagues and friends, who played the original X-Com, first talk about the creepy corn fields at night. And when it comes to X-Com: TFTD it is something like that: 

"The music + late night playing with no lights + alien base missions + high volume sonic cannon shots and aquanaut screams + tentaculats = the definition of terrifying"

 

It is also the atmosphere and the "experience" that attracts a lot of people when it comes to games; not perfect gameplay mechanisms and balancing down to the smallest detail. It is about how it "feels" to play.

The graphical presentation is a part of this: I love the sober mil-sim look of X2, but more darkness and things like fog could greatly increase how the game feels. For example: the alien bases would be much more atmospheric if they would be dark and maybe filled with fog (the alien creatures having their own atmosphere in there).  "Darkwood" or  "Aliens: Dark Descent" (aka X-Com: Colonial Marines) do it nice, albeit a little bit too much of everything. A more "sober" approach like in X2 would be better. 

And equally much can be achieved with game features: keeping the enemy creatures as "unknown" as possible (no status messages for the creatures: HP, "suppressed" etc.). A nice little, immersive gadget: a separate "motion sensor" (very atmospheric to have to use it and draw conclusions), presenting a motion sensor with overlay UI (something flashes on the virtual battlefield), on the other hand, is not atmospheric at all. This creates memorable experiences and is immersive/atmospheric ("What moves there in the darkness/inside the barn/house etc.):

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/File:Xenomorphs.png

What players often remember most about games, the most memorable experiences, seem to be the "levels"/"missions"/etc. that they had to go through despite being hard (and dark and scary): Everyone talks about the "Tower of Latria" or having to climb down into the "Valley of Defilement" in Demons Souls, or "Blighttown" in Dark Souls. Same for the original X-Com: those atmospheric night missions, going through the cornfields...

X2 is a game about alien creatures and the "unknown" (and not something like "Jagged Alliance") - so darkness and creating an overall eerie atmosphere would really fit imho.

 

 

Well said. I've tried my best to get this thinking through with Goldhawk multiple times. Hopefully Chris will give in if enough people raise the issue.

[BUG - Percent of female recruits]

As far as I know, starting crew has hard coded 4 women. Other than those 4, it's a 25% chance. This has been fixed in experimental version 1.29.

[Improvements with regards to night battles]

17 minutes ago, FLIR said:

BTW: I am new to the forum. Is there a way to contact the developers and discuss such ideas/suggestions/requests with them?

Goldhawk's project lead @Chris is very active on these boards and refreshingly transparent on how he sees the game and in which direction he wants to take it in the fututre.

[Improvements with regards to night battles]

16 minutes ago, doubleskulls said:

I think the problem is that its pretty easy to avoid night battles, I know I'll often time my missions to ensure they are in daytime to avoid having to muck about with flares. Atmosphere may help encourage people to play them anyway, but anything that makes them tougher is actually a waste of developer resources. The tougher night battles, the more people will avoid them, and the less those mechanics get used. 

Yeah, not tougher but better looking and more moodier and oppressive.

[Improvements with regards to night battles]

If I remember correctly, In TFTD at least, UFO interiors were all played with night visuals and rules too