Skitso

One more LOS issue: General moved out of my LOS in enemy turn but was left visible: user_los_bug_2-3.json

Second LOS issue that might be related or not: user_los_bug-2.json

Some walls in room corners outside of my LOS are visible:

There are multiple visual issues in the facility tileset: (these have been there always) Also, props that are attached to the wall shouldn't cast shadows as it looks odd. (things like locker doors, TV screens, computer panels etc.)

I hope to read at least a 5 pages long patch notes too.

Yeah, a simplified version would work too, but it wouldn't make the player think their choices and you could still easily play the same optimal way every time. With the system I proposed, the player would need to adapt and think on the fly as the base layout would be different on every playthrough. The changes in difficulty it would present, would be easy to balance with construction prices. So the game would provide similar difficulty, but with more player agency and variation.

I hear you, but the starting point of my feedback is not so much about the difficulty level, but rather changes to the game mechanics so that it would support the most interesting and fun gaming experience possible. Naturally, balancing difficulty levels should be at least partially reconsidered if any of my proposed changes were made. (For example, why wouldn't you want the base building to have more interesting choices, meaninful options and variety, if the difficulty was balanced with that in mind?) About the economy: did you ever run out of exotic materials? For me, I never had to even think about alenium or alloys. I had more than plenty of both all the way through the game and that's a bad game balance if I've even seen one.

@ChrisThis is my very first proper playthrough of Xenonauts 2. (milestone 5 - stable) I've previously played only until day 150 or so (like maybe 100 times), so there were a lot of new things to experience. In general, I thought the game looked and felt really good and polished, but the balance, especially economics was off by a mile. I played on veteran, ironman. Combat difficulty curve was a bit inverted, starting tough and then getting gradually easier with few tougher difficulty spikes here and there. Geoscape balance was more off: I could skip like 3-4 terror sites and raided alien bases pretty much just for the change of pace as the panic was so easy to keep in check. Here are my detailed thoughts about the playthrough and also some suggestions to make the game even better in Milestones 6-7. GEOSCAPE GAMEPLAY ECONOMY I only did 2 crash sites per UFO type (that's how the game is meant to be played as far as I know, until tbe UFO delegation system makes it's way back), and the only limiting resource for me was MONEY. Alien materials are WAY WAY too plentiful and if I had money, I could manufacture pretty much everything I ever wanted and more. This is a huge balance issue and sours the awe of building new alien tech. The game really needs to push me to grind UFO crash sites to earn the materials. Currently I don't have any pressure to do crash sites or even think about alenium and alloys. I didn't even research the nano fabricator, cause why would I? The abundance of exotic materials make every technological leap feel somehow trivial. I feel like you need to at least double every the material costs. Exotic materials should feel very valuable - especially at the first 4-5 months of the game. This is a priority fix #1 GENERAL INVASION PROGRESSION Invasion progression still feels quite a bit too fast and in general a bit too easy from phase 2 forward for my tastes. There's long stretches of nothing happening and I can just complete bunch of researches I've never get a chance to use properly. We need more UFOs, more alien bases and more missions in general. And more time to enjoy our newly researched toys. If the game forced me to grind more of the alien materials (the economy issue I wrote about above), I'd have more missions to enjoy my new tech and the invasion would feel more substantial. In general, it would make me enjoy the game more, if there were more often such situations, where multiple simultaneous missions were available on the Geoscape and force me to make decisions. What prevents you from generating 2 or even 3 abduction missions at the same time later in the game? GAMEPLAY VARIATION Gameplay variation through out the playthtough was good but not great. I felt like the game could benefit from one more plot quest between Cleaner HQ and UUO to keep things nice and varied. It could be tied to the UOO mission chain. As alien bases don't currently have any obligatory objectives, the extra mission could require xenonauts to assault an alien base or two to destroy some UUO shield generators or something. This would give me more reason to raid alien bases as currently I don't really need to as the panic progression is so slow. (more about panic later) I would also lengthen the latter part of the game with one more high stakes special alien base raid before the operation ENDGAME with data gathering rules and reinforcements to spice up the final stretch and give the operation more sense of urgency. I missed the soldier rescue missions too. Hope we get them back in some form. Speaking of soldier rescue missions, maybe add another mission type with reduced team size (3-5 units). The smaller the team, the more intense it gets, and latter half of the game tends to lose some intensity with huge 12-16 unit teams. The good old live alien capture grind where I'm required to capture certain aliens to progress in some obligatory, plot related research would be an easy way to add meat to the bones and also make the research feel it requires more effort from the science team. BASE BUILDING Founding a new base takes too much time, but you can really feel the issue if you lose a base to the aliens. The time and money it takes is a huge hit to the entire campaign. I lost one of my bases to a retaliation attack and I really wished I could build a replacement base a lot quicker. Maybe give a possibility to repair the destroyed base or rebuild facilities with lower (but still significant) cost and faster build times? In the base defense missions, aliens should actively trash the rooms they move through, so player would be more inclined to hunt them down and not just camp at the starting room. Trashed rooms would then need to be repaired in the base planning screen. This "room trashing/repairing" system would tie nicely to the issue of high cost of replacing the lost base I discussed above. If the aliens manage to win a retaliation mission, the base wouldn't vanish completely from the Geoscape, but all the facilities just go into "trashed" state and you could repair them to get the base back up and running faster and cheaper and it wouldn't ruin the whole playthrough. Of course you'd need to buy new planes and recruit new personnel too. Rapairing cost could be like 25% of the original build time and cost. The other issue base building currently has is that it can be played the same (optimal) way every time. You've added adjacency bonuses etc, to spice the game up, but it doesn't generate additional variety or add that much real options gameplay wise. Why wouldn't the player put all his generators adjacent to each other every time? So what if each base planning grid was randomly littered with 4 to 10 (depends on difficulty) debris tiles that block building any structures in that tile until you excavate it (same mechanic as facility repair mentioned above), which costs significant time and money to do. Now player needs to weight if it's worth to strive for adjacency or build faster and cheaper but with un-optimal facility placement. With this relatively simple addition, every playthrough would be different and you'd also need to build more facilities in the 2nd and 3rd bases when you can't fit everything in the first one. Currently (at least with my play style) all additional bases tend to have just radars, hangars and missile batteries as almost everything you need can be built in the first base. CLEANER ARC Cleaner arc feels linear and lacks player agency. I feel like the game runs on auto pilot and I really liked it more when I needed to actively work towards revealing the HQ. Most cleaner missions have so small failing penalties (+10% doomsday) that you can just easily skip them altogether. Buff doomsday damage or spawn more missions. Cleaner HQ should start to generate panic if left alone until Phase 2. Clearing the Cleaner HQ shouldn't award a medal for alien base mission. I felt the Cleaner HQ mission on a whole was a tad too easy. I've made numerous posts about improving Cleaner arc earlier, so I'll leave that out. AIR COMBAT I know air combat is going to get an overhaul soon, but I'm just putting few thoughts here still: currently it's too easy: I can manage with 2 starter fighters way too long with no weapon or armor upgrades. I should have real trouble bringing a destroyer down with a single Angel IMO. Auto resolve is too lenient too. The game needs more UFOs and more X1 styled waves where I simply can't shoot down everything and need to think which ones to shoot down. Add earlier tier UFO's to fill the "empty periods" even in mid to late game. Fighter repair times need to be a lot longer too. You also shouldn't be able to use badly damaged fighters at all. Repairing fully destroyed fighters should need an engineering project like MARS to add a cost to it. UFOs should also be a bit faster and harder to intercept, which would make me wait for them to land more often. Aliens need more air superiority missions. More and more aggressive fighters with larger aggro radius to combat my fighters and to defend their important mission UFO's. They should spawn around other UFOs more often, protecting them. I felt the retaliation missions were a good threat and I even lost a base at day 200. I definitely need to pay more attention to base defenses than I thought. This will be even better, if UFO numbers and air superiority gets buffed a bit. Escaping air superiority missions shouldn't be possible and escaping in general should probably cause some damage to add a cost to it. You shouldn't be able to choose air combat starting locations as freely as you can now. Wasn't starting locations tied to Geoscape positions in X1? I like that better and more realistic. I shouldn't be able to shoot UFOs when my fighter is on top of it as it can't shoot my fighter either. RADAR RANGE Radar ranges are too large in general. I would reduce max range 30% with the largest reduction from tier 1. With 3 radars in each, I could really manage with only 2 bases. This relates to the panic balance too, which will be discussed in more detail later in this text. NIGHT MISSIONS The game desperately needs more night missions. They are intense and just feel great to play. Force players to do them by making crash sites/missions to vanish quicker (6-8h) and spawn more UFOs/missions at the same time. Also, make UFO's land only at night time (land at dusk, lift off at dawn). And make them land a immediately after entering the atmosphere, as soon as they reach the border of day and night. The game's general mood needs more dread, and night missions are a great way to add tension. PANIC Panic levels and game over rules should be more dynamic. Currently it's just a board gamey "lose 2 regions and it's a game over". I would love to see situations where I lose multiple regions and their region bonuses to really make the last months of the game feel like a high stakes race against all odds to the victory in a desperate all or nothing situation. Goldhawk probably wants the game to end when there's no hope left to cut the game short, but losing 2 regions really doesn't feel like a situation where humanity would surrender in such an existential situation. Especially if Xenonauts had a solution and means to end the invasion planned in few months time. If we want to force the game end more quickly in a death spiral way, just add a panic multiplier tied to the number of lost regions: 1 lost region: All panic damage x1.1 2 lost regions: All panic damage x1.25 3 lost regions: all panic damage x1.45 4 lost regions all panic damage x1.7 5 lost regions: all panic damage x2 6 lost regions: game over Orbital bombardment should also generate A LOT more global panic (Currently it's just +10 global at the start and +20 to targeted region) I'd say +10 global on every shot and +35 to target region. This is more in line with terror sites which cause +35 panic if the city is leveled. Alien bases should also cause more region panic damage over time. It could also cause supporters of that region to flee or die suddenly. Currently there is no way the player can lose a recruited supporter, so this might be a good way to add more back and forth dynamic to the Geoscape gameplay. (more about the supporters below) SUPPORTERS/INFILTRATORS/OPERATION POINTS Operation points in general and the supporter system all felt quite well balanced. However: Supporter status (isolated, guarded) should be more dynamic, have a more irregular change cycle and be tied to the region panic level (higher panic, more guarded supporters). Current fixed cycle felt too rigid and predictable and the randomness of the status artificial. Each individual supporter needs a mouse hover tool tip so I don't need to click them each one by one to see their features. The game had way to few infiltrators spawned in general. The amount of infiltrators spawned should be tied to region panic instead of direct UFO activity. So UFOs rise region panic -> region panic rises infiltrator spawn chance. Aliens could also start killing recruited supporters in high panic regions (panic level 75+) or in regions with alien bases. (One more reason to raid alien bases, an issue I discussed earlier) Current region panic level should also provide a negative multiplier for supporter bonuses. So for example a region that is on a brink of total collapse, supporters shouldn't act with 100% efficiency. Like this: Panic 0-59: no negative effect Panic 60-69: -10% supporter efficiency Panic 70-79: -25% supporter efficiency Panic 80-89: -50% supporter efficiency Panic 90-100: Region supporters flee and provide no bonuses (recruiting is also disabled) I think the game lacks a proper sense and feedback of rising panic. Make the panic bars flash brightly every time it grows (with sound?) and add popup warnings for every panic level reached in the list above. This would provide nice additional feedback and flavor as the panic levels rise. Recruited supporters' state should not be called isolated/guarded like infiltrators are. Them being fearful/eager (or something more fitting) instead would make more sense in this context. Current region panic could then define how many of the regions' supporters are fearful or eager to join Xenonauts and not a random chance. In general, I would strongly advice to push for more simulation-y feel with more dynamic elements to make the Geoscape gameplay feel more alive and less linear. Reduce tension's instant doomsday/panic reduction feels unrealistic and gamey. Make it reduce doomsday/panic gradually until it's cooldown is over instead. Killing infiltrators shouldn't be instant. It should feel like commencing a high stakes operation which would take like from between 3 to 8 days for some operators to carry it out. Isolated infiltrators could be 1-2 days faster to kill and guarded might take 1-2 days longer. Stuff like this would reduce the feeling of just clicking red tiles to grey. I would like to have couple more Strategic Operations: Recruit a veteran soldier. You'd have a means to get high level soldiers quickly if you happen to suffer a full (or even half) squad wipe Replace a downed fighter. Getting a new fighter replacement instantly could save the day in a tight spot. Clear the skies (really expensive). A multi national missile strike would randomly down 1-3 UFOs around the globe with no crash sites left behind. Rush building. Base building speeds up X% for X days (very useful for example when you lose a base) NEW MISSION POP-UP This is more a QOL thing, but the way a new mission/UFO appears on the Geoscape map currently is driving me crazy: The game just pauses and a window with the mission parameters and an option to launch combat team pops up, effectively blocking the new mission/UFO icon on the map, so I always need to close the window first to see where the said UFO or mission is before I can make the decision to launch interceptors or what not. Making the camera center (and maybe even zoom a little!) to the icon first with just a small popup window (RADAR PING) with buttons to show expanded info we have now. Make sure the new mission/UFO icon IS VISIBLE ON THE MAP WHEN IT APPEARS!! TRAINING FACILITY Training facility is still overpowered and kinda boring/one dimensional and doesn't provide any meaningful gameplay once it's built. (it's just there and people get better automatically) The training logic is also a bit confusing and the game lacks information of it's functioning. I'd like to choose the soldiers who get to train and see what the results are. I assume training just adds combat exp currently. It'd be better if the training was a separate value in XP bars. Reduce the number of soldiers that can train in the facility at a time. MEDICAL CENTER Medical center is OP too. Its healing rate should be distributed according to the number of injured people, so that the more injured people there are, the slower everyone heals. Maybe have a limited amount of HP distributed by patients per day or limit the max patient numbers. This would give me incentive to build more than one medical center. The survival chance is also WAY too high. At veteran, just by building the medical center, every third (35%) of my died soldiers survive! After upgrading to the surgical center, almost half (45%) of the casualties survive, which is laughable. I would suggest maybe 15% and 30% instead. GROUND COMBAT MAPS There's a pretty good amount of maps in the game, but the quality seem a bit all over the place - mainly the crash sites and terror maps. The game definitely needs a proper mapping quality/cohesiveness pass before v1.0 hits to bring the early 5+ years old maps to the same standard as the maps that are made at the later phase of the development. As I usually know what biome the map is going to be, it would be really beneficial to know what kind of map I can expect to fight on, based on the biome. Currently all biomes feel too samey layout wise. I'd like each biome to have their own distinct characteristics, like deserts are very open, jungles to be very tight and dense, artic maps to be full of lakes, stuff like that. I know we are probably not getting stairs and proper multi-level buildings and it's absolutely one of the things that I miss the most, compared to X1's more vertical maps. I really, REALLY hope there's a way to get that to happen still, but I won't hold my breath there. As the UFOs get bigger, the maps should get smaller and a larger part of the alien crew should be inside or around the UFO defending it. Currently, the mid to late UFOs seem fairly unpopulated and clearly not as fun to clear as the earlier ones. Terror site maps could use a bit denser design and a lot more variation. Sure, the Soviet town biome is coming and adding some long needed variety there, but the number of terror missions the game spawns within a playthrough, I would say you'd need at least 6 maps for both tilesets. I also hope you find time to incorporate Soviet town biome to other mission types too. Cleaner intel gather comes to mind, but these biomes should be used even more in other mission types like abductions to break the map type monotony. TERROR MISSIONS Terror missions should be something more than just an arena deathmatch and the completely passive bombs that are currently littered around the maps are screaming a missing gameplay mechanic. What if the bombs were instead ATD's (Alien Terror Device) that generate fear around them and the Xenonaut units would suffer constant morale damage until the device is destroyed. Would tie nicely to the theme of aliens terrorizing people and would also make these mission feel a bit more unique while still having a relatively low impact in gameplay. These ATD's could also be used later in alien bases and UOO etc. to add an additional challenge with a nice one-two punch with alien psionics. Aliens shooting surrounding props (that I covered in the part covering the base defense mission) could also be used as a flavor thing in terror missions. It'd be cool to see Sebillians trash the place up while killing civilians. Saving those civilians should be at least a small part of the terror mission. Maybe add a small panic damage to each killed civ. So if you fail or skip the mission, you'd get the 35 panic damage, but even when the mission is successful, if all the civs are dead, you'd get like 1 panic per dead civ or something. Not much, but make them matter. ALIEN BASES There should be more bases and they should be a lot tougher to clear, so you'd need to really think when you are able to deal with them. Difficulty wise, they would also benefit a lot if the bases had two proper levels with lots of teleports where aliens could move back and forth and teleport and surprise the player. Currently the few teleports the bases have, all lead to a singular upper level room that is predictable and easy to clear, which is kinda boring in comparison. I'd also add a more tight, labyrinthine layouts for added tension. ROOFS LOGIC Building roofs/UFO hulls shouldn't be removed permanently the second any tile is revealed inside as it's currently implemented. I would suggest by default, removing the roof only if: visible enemy is inside the building my own units are inside the building mouse cursor is inside the building toggle roof button is set to OFF The system proposed here is logical in a sense that, as long as roofs are toggled AUTO,(the default mode) the roofs are all on and you'll see a realistic "birds eye view" of the battlefield unless there's something critical to see that is inside a building. It's also visually more pleasing to see full buildings than a huge black area just because one of your units sees a square meter of empty floor from a window. Also, regarding the container part: this will remove the issue where you either can't see the enemy on top of the container or the enemy floats in the air as the container is not seen, which both are sub-optimal. All height levels and all roofs/containers etc. should be visible if roofs are toggled on (default). One can always hover with cursor or use the roof toggle button if you need to see / plan something, while critical stuff like units and enemies auto-remove roofs. Simple and logical. And the same logic should be applied to dropships and UFOs too. If there's nothing important to see inside, why not show your beautiful hull graphics instead? ...and you can always remove the roof with mouse hover or roof toggle button if you need to see inside. I'm pretty sure this is how things worked in X1 too, or at least in it's CE version. And to further justify the mouse hover, it's a quite established mechanic to remove roofs and other FOV blocking elements in other games too like Diablo, Fallout, Baldur's Gate etc., so I'm confident it's gonna work perfectly like this. This would greatly benefit the games visuals! CIVILIAN AI Unnecessary and sporadic civilian movement makes turns take more time than it needs to. Make civilians move to a safe spot and stay mostly still to make the game flow better. Currently they run, stop, kneel, stand up, run, stop kneel, stand up, kneel stand up run, stop, knell stand up, kneel. Which takes a lot of time for nothing. HIGH GROUND High ground is a trap. Being higher ground in combat is one of the most universally known benefits, but in X2 there's no higher ground bonus whatsoever, just penalty of being an easy target. Being higher ground should give at least additional 30% cover +10% cover per additional level difference from ground level. I feel this needs to be fixed! COVER SYSTEM (THIS IS A PRIORITY) The current cover system is elegant, intuitive and simple enough, and it's a much more realistic approach than what modern X-com and similar games offer (where an object only offers protection if you are right next to it), but it fails to model a situation where the target hunkers right behind a cover. For now, the only benefit of being close to a cover in Xenonauts 2 is for the cover to offer protection from incoming shots in a much wider angle, while the amount of protection the object provides does not change. The issue is that all the objects in the game obscure shots equally, regardless of whether the target is right next to it, or further away. It's completely irrelevant if you are hunkering behind a waist high concrete wall, or if the said concrete wall just happens to be somewhere between the target and the shooter. It just doesn't make sense and makes tactical choices too easy. It lessens the tactical relevance of where you move your units, as there's almost always some objects in the line of fire (which means you are as good as in cover anyways). It feels too simplified gameplay wise if a rock for example reduces the same 20% of the shot accuracy if it's 10 tiles away of the target or if the said target is kneeling right behind it. It would add a nice additional layer of gameplay and tactics to think about unit positioning if being kneeled right next to a cover gave an extra boost in cover value. (Cover value x2, but not higher than 80% for example) Being behind a corner is a trap too, as an enemy can just run into a perfect 45 degree line and shoot you with perfect accuracy and your unit, being behind a corner is as good as in the middle of an open field. Being at the corner of a wall should provide 50% cover if you are being shot from a sharper than 45° angle from the angle of the wall I'm at. Currently, I completely avoid moving my units next to a corner and it just doesn't feel right, as it should be a lot safer spot intuitively than it is now. Kneeling soldier should be able to shoot behind another kneeling soldier as it was before. It's the same logic with all the other cover too so it makes more sense. DAMAGING TILES Units should not plot movement automatically through damaging tiles like fire or Sebillian gas. LIGHT/HEAVY ARMOUR difference between light and heavy armor needs balancing, I'd add a tad more weight/accuracy penalty to the heavy. Same with MARS/ARES: heavy armor should have more negatives to make me even consider not to have one. (accuracy) STUN WEAPONS I never built or used any stun weapons. The baton is just so good I never felt I needed anything else. The baton needs a nerf. And while you are at it, buff all the stun guns. GRENADES Frags need a radius buff now that it has the DMG falloff. Smoke and stun are both really powerful and might need a nerf. Smoke is also needlessly dark and makes seeing thing difficult Alien AI could maybe shoot more through the smoke - even with lower hit chances to try to cause suppression? Especially Sebillian with burst and Mantid with symbiote weapon. Flash shouldn't give full stun from behind. (ie, it should detonate in target's FOW to be fully effective) C4 AND KNIFE Who uses these? BUZZARD Didn't feel the need for these and never researched it. Mostly flat maps are so easy to traverse this is just not that useful. AUTOMED Automed is still slightly overpowered. It could heal a bit more per turn, but shouldn't heal stun and maybe cure only 1 bleed per turn to keep the medkits useful. GAS MASK/MIND SHIELD GAMEPLAY Gas mask and mind shield gameplay need more depth. It's currently a no brainer to equip everyone with them as it's only a weight/inventory cost. Add an ON/OFF toggle (it fits neatly next to the grenades in the UI) with accuracy/FOV penalty. Mind Shield could work better as a first aid kit styled item that could be actively used to break an already established mind control link. This would provide a lot more intresting gameplay than a completely passive system we currently have. TACTICAL MODULE Does anyone not use these? I think it needs to be a tad more heavy to make me think about using it. Bringing back the armor plate module (you could really make a proper tank with heavy armor + shield + armor plate module) would also make me think about the tactical module more. SNIPER RIFLES Snipers feel underpowered. I would add a bit more penetration and damage to differentiate and make them more viable weapon choice. Roofs are too dangerous without any elevation buffs (discussed this earlier in the document) and good firing lines are rare. And when you manage to land a shot, it's damage is underwhelming. Desperately needs buff. It should one hit quite reliably all unarmored units SHOTGUNS Slightly OP. Experienced high TU soldiers with shotguns feel very powerful. Running next to the target and unloading the shotgun puts even larger foes down in an instant. Maybe consider reducing penetration and armor destruction effect of all shotguns. SHIELD Shield bearers should provide more cover value than a normal unit, so people behind them were better protected. BLEEDING/UNCOSCIOUS Bleeding shouldn't stop when a Xenonaut falls unconscious. It's too cheesy to stun bleeding unit to prevent them from dying. DAMAGE EFFECTS I think wounded soldiers act too good. The accuracy damage is a step in the right direction, but I would consider adding similar damage to reflexes and TU too. Nothing major, but a little bit for added flavor. OR the stat damage could be randomized so it's practically a location specific damage. If you are hit in a leg, it doesn't affect your accuracy, but your TU instead. Every shot that hits should also cause some stun damage - even if it doesn't cause damage. For example flat 10 stun per hit, or if you want a more complex system, it could be like 20% of the damage blocked by armor. This is a must IMO. UFO LAYOUTS/CREWS Ufo layouts feel kinda samey. Is there something to make them stand out more from each other? As I discussed in the map section already, later UFO maps are way too large for their own good. Scale them down and focus on UFO raiding. Also, UFO crews seem a bit too formulaic in a way you always know what to expect as soon as you see the first enemy unit. You could maybe mix and match the crew composition bit, at least in the latter part of the game. A bit more variety/unpredictability goes a long way making the game feel a lot less repetitive. TELEPORTS/COMMAND ROOMS It's too easy to cheese command rooms with teleports. Using teleports should cost like 25% TU. Alien AI should also use teleports more aggressively around command rooms to make the approach more dangerous. Teleport blocking shouldn't be a thing. If you don't want to add telefragging, maybe switch the units places in such a situation. ENDGAME The first mission was cool and I love The unique biome you've done just for it. Wasn't fan of needing to clear the whole map though. I would change it to desperate rush to the sub terranean facility against never ending enemies. The second endgame mission was too easy and the High Eternal battle was really anti-climatic. A total letdown that soured my feelings about the epic final battle. X1 last mission was a lot better with nice sense of urgency. I would add servitors to both endgame maps. POST MISSION STAT SCREEN Post mission stat screen should have a list of destroyed items and changes mission caused to the doomsday/panic status. Very important! ENEMIES: CLEANERS Perfect. Maybe soldiers could have frags at the HQ? ETERNALS Eternals are a letdown. Their mind control is meh and the final boss was laughably easy. It needs more of everything. More armor, more health, more cloak, better mind control. I would have liked to fight more of them too. PSYON/SECTON Psyon/Secton is the least threatening crew (minus the cyberdrone) Psyon's Mesmerize ability is super underwhelming. It's too easy to resist (I can't even remember if anyone got mesmerized in my playthrough - does it even work?) and it working just for once a turn makes it pretty much useless. Psionic triangulation is a cool concept, but psyon/secton AI should try to take advantage of it more: they should move in pairs or group up more. First mission with those purple Psyon elites(?) with mind control ability fuck me real good though. Wasn't ready for those! WRAITHS/STALKER ARMOUR Wraiths should be considerably more hard to hit when the cloak is on to force players to get up close and personal with them. Balance it out by making them a bit less accurate. The same issue is with the Stalker armor: it's underpowered and comes available too late to be an attractive option. It should decrease accuracy a lot more. Wraiths should be visible at the beginning of the mission and activate the cloak as soon as somebody hits them. Cloak should be active until the end of the next turn. (2 turns) Wraiths would be a lot cooler enemy if the AI preferred keeping distance and higher ground and if being higher ground would give a proper buff. (More about higher ground above) This would make them feel more like proper snipers. REAPERS Shouldn't attack MARS or shields. Their attack should cost less TU and they should be faster or have a better AI. Doesn't feel threatening enough. It also needs more frightening SFX. SEBILLIAN Sebillian gas grenade is underwhelming. As using a gas mask has pretty much no negatives (apart from weight/inventory space), everyone's wearing one plus later game armors have gas immunity too. Gas should spread on a larger area and also melt armor A LOT on every step. Sebillian shouldn't throw gas grenades to MARS or other gas resistant units. Gas grenade should get a late game upgrade that bypasses gas resistance. Or maybe a completely new incediary grenade type? Suppressed Sebillian never does anything but just sits there to be shot again. If you don't want them to run away, just use all TU to shooting. Seblillians are too easy to suppress too. Sebillian should have the X1 infrared vision to see through the smoke. MANTID/SYMBIOTE Perfect! Really fun to fight with. MENTARCH I love Mentarch. They look cool and are fun to fight against. I just wish there could be more of them in the late game UFOs. If possible, make them bigger. CYBERDRONE Totally OP, so perfect. Don't nerf. SERVITOR Perfect! I love these. I wish I fought more of them. ANDRON Pretty spot on. Maybe a bit more armor? MISC VISUAL THINGS: SCORCHED TILES Scorched tiles (after explosion) are not on par with the rest of the visuals. They are hideous compared to even X1. BLOOD SPLATS AND FOOT STEPS Blood splats and foot steps should fade by turns, not by time as it currently is. This is a nice little detail that could easily be modified to really benefit the gameplay. UFO CRASH SITE VISUALS Crashed UFO hull should look like its suffered a crash landing. Add smoke, fire and debris around and inside the UFO. This is one of the most common wishes from the community and I really hope you end up doing it. PROJECTILE SPEED Projectile speeds should be higher or add an option to configure it. Especially more advanced alien weapons should fire a LOT faster projectiles to make them feel more dangerous and lethal. Current speed makes them float slowly like party balloons and it not exactly dread inducing. All the more advanced weapons could benefit from a bit more visually interesting firing effects too. They are currently quite underwhelming. GEOSCAPE Lost regions are marked with only a thin red outline. Make the whole region go dark, full red or triped. Aircraft flight path line is too thin and the red color makes it even harder to see Geoscape could use some auto zoom when focusing on new UFOs or missions. Map could also quickly zoom to the mission icon when landing craft has arrived and the mission commences. Zoom -> cross fade to loading screen. (Think JA2 mission start zoom) MISC AUDIO THINGS: ANOMALIES Anomalies on the geoscape need a small ping so I won't miss them so easily. TEXT TICKER ACTIONS All the small actions on the text ticker like ANGEL-1 reloaded, soldier XXX fully healed etc. should have a small SFX to help me notice and differentiate them better. Needs new sfx: Losing a base sound effect is laughably bad Command room ambiance for geoscape map screen. Mind control could sound a bit more menacing Mesmerize ability lacks sound Wraith activating the cload lacks sound Sebillian self healig lacks sound Armor breaking (goes to 0) could have a sound (both alien and xenonauts) Falling uncoscious lacks sound (both aliens and xenonauts) Sound for completed load in the loading screen Meaty "critical hit" sound when inflicted damage is greater than 135% (or something) of the base damage. Add also big puff of red mist and additional blood splat particles. Units falling under suppression might also need sfx. Berserking needs some yelling Psionic effect sounds (mesmerize, psionic triangluation etc.) Panicing units' screaming and crying UFO ambiance (low frequency humming around and inside UFOs) Alien base ambiance (low frequency humming or something eerie and alien) Sound for Xenonaut dying. Not speaking of death screams, but a dramatic UI sound like in JA2 for example. MISC POLISH The general cutscene (Atlas base) plays before the camera centers on him (making the screen auto-scroll behind the dialog cutscene). Move the camera to the general first, then start the cutscene. Anomalies being quite important game mechanic (as it's tied to the panic mechanic, which is what causes Game Over), I think they should be larger and more visible (with sound) If the mission ends by stunning the last remaining alien, the "XXX has fallen unconscious" popup is displayed on top of the mission completed text. You could use the mission biome graphics as a loading screen background (B&W version with scanlines) to give it a bit more flavor and visual variation. Doomsday flavor image (the red mushroom cloud) needs to go. It just looks wrong and gives a wrong idea of something getting blown up. Instead, the image could be something similar to the intro video where communist and capitalist commanders are face to face, yelling at each other. The image should convey tensions, not that something got hit by a nuclear bomb! Showing where the reinforcements arrive should be a toggle and difficulty dependant. I don't want any unrealistic super human aids in my realistic mil-sim game. Game should use "UNKNOWN" alien names before it's been autopsied. How should I know that I've stunned a "Mantid Pilot" on the first mission against them? Also in general, the game should be a lot more vague about the new mechanics, items, mission objectives etc. to preserve the fear of the unknown. Tell me about things only when I find out about them. Gained BUFFS (autopsies etc.) need to be visible somewhere. Mission review screen should show panic changes it caused. Engineering screen should show how many items I have in total instead of how many items I have that are currently unused. (which is information I rarely need) Engineering menus should have a "new items available" exclamation mark to show there's new building options available In the Phase 1 title screen the Operations director looks way off compared to her dialog image. Grenade launcher feels underpowered. It's stats are fine IMO, but the regular flinch animation of getting hit just doesn't seem it's enough. Make enemies under explosion kneel and get up or even run the fall unconscious and get up animations to really make the boom feel powerful. Maybe same with regular grenades too. Target doesn't play "gets hit" anination when hit with stun baton. The ground combat is missing an action history. Sometimes I miss a popup and there's nowhere I can check what it was. X2 would greatly benefit from a darker, more ominous atmosphere to better capture the tension, dread, and existential stakes of an alien invasion, so anything and everything that you can do to add to that would be appreciated.

I did not, I'm pretty sure. (99%) as I built it just to test the fact.

Nano fabrication research comes available right after UFO base mission and not when the Skyhawk returns to the base. Load the save and kill the last alien in the base. Notice how the Nano fabrication becomes available as soon as you close the mission debriefing screen. user_research_bug-11.json

Not really a bug, but the fidelity difference between the new alien base props (the green tube thingies) vs the old ones (the computer desk) is quite jarring.

You've probably already fixed this, as you've been focusing on shroud issues lately, but I'll put this here just in case: The slanted alien base wall block vision to the adjacent wall tile. EDIT: and the back side of the same tiles are visible too.

Yeah, sorry. It was some time ago, and forgot to do the bug report at that time... I just remembered the issues now, so that's why this report was a bit of bare bones. :/

I'm not gonna do a list of the issues, but I recently completed my first base defence mission in maybe a year and I was surprised by the amount of map errors. There was a lot of pathing/fow issues. Quantum array room was the worst culprit, if I remember correctly.

Is it intended that I can build 4 (or more) quantum arrays, even when the maximum range is capped to 3?

Perfection! I agree with most of this. I'm in the process of my own first proper playthrough as we speak and I've been writing my own magnum opus too, which has a lot of the same thoughts you've written here. Great minds think alike. Great job and hopefully @Chris reads this with care! I think I'm gonna post mine in few days. Thanks again for doing this.

This is not that important issue, but I'll just put it here so you can file it in as a thing to fix at some point in the polish phase.

Thanks.

I don't want to sound diificult, but why isn't the game picking the least used map on the second crash site then? I mean if you have such a system implemented, shouldn't the map that was played just 10 minutes ago be diaregarded from the random map pool? Edit: but yeah, as you said, it's a rare thing and if it needs lots of work to fix it, I'm sure you have more pressing issues to work on.

Nice update! Well done!

ok, here you go. There's a save before the first crash site (geoscape), a save from the last turn of the first crash site (tactical), a save just before the second crash site (geoscape) and a save from the first turn of the second crash site. (tactical). Hope this helps. user_before_first_destroyer-2.json user_last_turn_of_first_destroyer-3.json user_before_second_destroyer-4.json user_first_turn_of_secord_destroyer-5.json

I shot 2 destroyers down back to back and both generated same crash site maps. Are there even more than 1 dock map for destroyers available currently, or is there a bug? (also, why I'm not surprised both were against sebillians? ;)) auto_groundcombat_turn_1_start-120.json

If I remember correctly, Chris said some time ago that they might at least make the medals a bit more interesting...