Andeerz

Hmmm... the big obvious problem I see with that is that if there isn't cover and there are baddies within range, you might be screwed.

Oh! You get to choose where you land with the drop pods?!!! That sounds pretty cool! But I take it, it is pretty borked at the moment, no?

Max raises some excellent points. I agree with all of them. I am all for there being a time where all your tier one aircraft become completely useless, and it can even be abrupt (I like the idea of the aliens being all liek "Hahaha... silly hunams. Let's play for real now!) but the construction times and costs for the new crafts need to be more reasonable so you can at least keep up unless you do not play smart. There also needs to be a better balance on funding. Plus, there needs to be some implicit cue that encourages you to up your research on aircraft (not anything explicit... see the Megaman Sequelitis to get a good and funny explanation of what I mean) before this battleship stuff happens. I suggest maybe before battleships arrive in force, there is guaranteed but not entirely overwhelming (depending on difficulty) exposure to a craft faster than a Mig that could still be taken out and/or that is not very consequential in how it affects the attitude of nations if not destroyed. If the player can't take that hint, then they deserve to lose when the battleships come. I dunno... I need to think about this more. And I COMPLETELY agree about the Charlie. And I seriously advocate the paradrop idea proposed earlier by Gauddlike and some of the suggestions I made here as a way to make Max's ideas regarding the Charlie doable without breaking the game at the very beginning and, just as importantly, adding some cool strategic choices (until advanced dropships make them a non-issue) and a feeling that the replacement dropships are a huge improvement and a truly new technology. This would be an excellent complement to Max's suggestions. It could likely be modded in later on, though... The issue with the Valkyrie drop pods... I have not gotten that far in the game yet to experience this. But I feel like there is no point for the drop pods unless there was some sort of benefit over having the dropship land, unless it is like an airplane that cannot vertically land. In real life, such a technology would be wonderful since it would allow for a rapid, stealthy, and accurate drop into an area (if they are like how I think they are) without risking the dropship (if done high enough) and minimizing risk to the soldiers on the way down. It would be an improvement over parachuting into an area due to increased speed of deployment, higher accuracy of landing, and more protection. If having a dropship land in the combat area presented some sort of risk to the dropship then it would provide a very good reason for them (like, perhaps it having a risk of being shot at while landing, possibly injuring your Xenonauts and perhaps even forcing a crash landing, or at least maybe it taking sufficient fire while landed could make it unable to return leading to a delay in troop return). Just some food for thought.

And this.

I see what you mean. But to me the only thing that would be unbalancing no matter what is the squad sight issue. The other things would (ideally) be equally exploitable by both humans and aliens. HOWEVER, realistically speaking, the AI of the game probably won't be good enough, at least any time soon, to be able to exploit this to full effect as humans could. Not necessarily. If this was to be in the game, I would hope there would be some chance of reaction fire. Even if the fire doesn't hit, it could suppress with much effect. Just think about it. An alien notices one of your guys peeking and fires a burst. If it doesn't hit the guy's head, but still manages to hit the corner, there would still be a chance of suppression. And that could definitely throw a huge monkey wrench into your plans for the turn or next turn. The risk would be there, and a very good one at that, provided other things in the game (like accuracy) are fixed as well! Also, imagine if a reaper notices and is just around the corner and has enough TUs to come up and kill your peeker... But this would only be for sure good to have, in my opinion, if there is a mechanism in place to at least give the AI and the player a choice in whether or not to reaction fire such a well-covered target. This would still be good to have in the game as it is now, as I think one should be able to choose whether or not to spend reserved TUs on a low-accuracy shot on a guy moving far away or save it up for the next guy who might move or fire who is closer and easier to hit. We can still do that now, and I do it often even in the vanilla game. To me, that's the real benefit of area-damage weapons. In any case, this is a squadsight issue (but not one I consider a problem, really), and not one that arises from peeking. Though I can see how the peeking feature, provided it presents NO risk to those doing it, would make this issue worse, even making it a bit of an exploit. I feel like that is one of those things that would need testing to know for sure. In my opinion, so long as the aliens can do the same thing, the AI is good enough, AND there is a chance of reaction fire, it shouldn't be unbalancing. I'd actually welcome the increased challenge this would present (though it would require some map redesigns probably).

The only thing bothering me about the UI right now is that there is no Hawaii nor a lot of the other larger minor islands... but that's it! It looks gorgeous, though I love the look of the old one, too!

And perhaps some terror missions, if failed, could result in nukes... like maybe perhaps in the future some terror missions could be sabotage missions against some alien command post (or landed ship) near the terror site city that is orchestrating some sort of massive terror operation (more than just a squad of troops could handle). The local military would be sorting it out, but your elite dudes are killing the leaders and effin' up their computers and stuff.

I like how you think. I think the impact of effect of nuking in the case that the terror mission is ever outside of your range should be less than if it was in your range. Also, I am all for keeping the chinook, but just have it more reasonable like it was back in the day AND having a paratrooper option as detailed earlier! There would be interesting tradeoffs to both: Chinook can carry vehicles and immediately go back to base after the mission but has less range and speed; airplane (like a C-20) couldn't carry vehicles (maybe later tiers could, or there could be special paradroppable vehicles/robots later on) but has much further range and increased speed. However, the plane takes an few hours of game time after a mission to start heading back.

Here's my feedback for now about what could be done to improve things within the current framework: I find it silly that during alien base missions I can fire one burst of a machine gun at a door and completely destroy it. Anything structural made of alien alloys, specifically alien doors, need to pretty much be indestructible by anything other than plasma (and even then, a LOT of plasma) and high explosives (not grenades! and even C4 should have a hard time getting through). So, drastically up the health on these things and make alien alloy the absolute strongest material in the game. Any cover made of steel that is beyond a centimeter thick should also be particularly difficult to destroy by anything other than plasma and C4, though drastically less so than alien alloys. Anything made of concrete or stone should be less strong than steel, though anything made of these materials that is about, say, half a foot thick should be about as strong as something made of steel about a tenth of that thickness. I really find it odd that, like the alien doors mentioned earlier, a burst of fire from a machine gun can completely pulverize a thick chunk of concrete (like one of those concrete tube sections or whatever in the industrial maps). Such things should take quite a beating before giving out. A frag grenade or several bursts from a light machine gun shouldn't destroy large concrete objects or stones. A direct hit from a rocket ought to. Maybe sheet metal structures ought to be in this category, too. Sandbags, red brick, and weaker stone-like structural things (like the walls seen in middle-eastern maps) should be less strong than concrete (maybe half as strong). Most wooden props and cover should be fairly easy to destroy and offer minimal if any protection. Their main purpose should be to obscure view. However, they still deserve more health than they have now. For example; a wooden door should be pretty weak, but should take at least more than two bursts of a light machine gun before being swiss-cheesed enough to fall apart. A wooden crate should maybe not be able to take a direct frag grenade blast, but anything less than a direct hit from a frag shouldn't destroy it. Thin things like signs should also fall into this category. These are just my thoughts off the cuff, and as such are not well researched or have anything backing them other than what feels "right" to me. In any case, I'd highly recommend looking up military training documents about relative protection of different kinds of cover if you have not already. It might give some good ideas about what the starting point should be. On an ending note: It's unfortunate that the system is the way it is. Damage to cover really should be dependent on projectile type among other things, and it would be pretty cool to have penetration at least for thinner types of cover, again being dependent on projectile type. Having this kind of feature would increase the options available for balancing, as well as offer some cool, plausible pros and cons to the different weapons technologies that could enrich the tactical experience of the game. For example, perhaps ballistics would not be able to as easily destroy cover as plasma but would have superior penetration than the others. Lasers would not be able to easily penetrate even thin stuff (provided it's opaque) but could ignite flammable objects. Plasma would have ok penetration but have superior destructive capabilities against cover. Just some food for thought...

Looking at some youtube videos on the matter, it doesn't seem like low altitude parachute deployment leads to troops being that spread out. It would make sense for the troops to start off together regardless of the kind of (hypothetical) dropship used. EDIT: Actually, after further reading... if parachuting were ever to be used by Xenonauts, it would likely be High Altitude Low Opening parachuting (HALO), as it is quite stealthy and can work in just about any weather condition. The biggest risk would be to the aircraft the troops are dropped from, as it would still be detectable by radar... but the kinds of risks associated with this are beyond the scope of this game.

Seriously, Chris, would this be at all that hard to implement?

I feel like the only reason peeking might be exploitable and unattractive to Chris is because of limited sight range. When I play, I mod the game so that everyone, alien and human, have a sight range of 100 (so it becomes 25 at night, which is reasonable). With the game modded this way, the lack of an option to peek becomes all the more irritating, especially since it would NOT be unbalancing in this situation at all. However, by modding the game as I have, I've pretty much made the game completely different from what the creators of Xenonauts envisioned (though it has just as much, if not more, tension, action, and tactical awesomeness than the game with vanilla sight ranges in my opinion).

I think the chance for injury for paradropping should be really low. These are highly trained individuals who will know what they are doing (then again, I don't really know how risky low altitude deployment is). As for chance of being blown off course... The way I would envision it, all troops would land a short ways away from the actual combat zone and will have landed close to each other anyway. We would be talking really low altitude parachute deployment here, like 100m, so being blown off course probably wouldn't be a huge issue, I'd imagine. Then again, I have very little knowledge on how this stuff operates in real life other than what I've read on Wikipedia...

Oooo... is there a way to easily mod these stopping chances and hitpoints? I hope one day these features are moddable to be dependent on projectile type and that cover can alter trajectory and damage of a projectile following impact or penetration (again, dependent on projectile type). It would be a really awesome project for the modding community, methinks!

I like your idea, Gauddlike. I can see what people mean by there being no reason to ever use both, but if I had my way, radar ranges and prices and ranges of everything would be lowered somewhat which would make for more interesting geoscape gameplay in my opinion. And having a long range aircraft for missions outside of the chinook range with the tradeoff of not being able to take a vehicle would be useful in such a modded situation. Even as the game is now, I could see both being useful if there is are terror missions that are too far away for the chinook. As for them getting back on after a paradrop mission... I wouldn't be against a one or two day long delay in getting the soldiers back without the need of the plane, but they could just get back on the plane after an hour long delay or something. The C-20 could just land nearby and the local government could implicitly arrange for a helicopter pickup following a successful mission.

I wish there was chance of penetration of certain pieces of cover, as well, for all weapons. A box full of paper or a street sign should NOT stop (though it SHOULD affect the accuracy) of even a bullet from a pistol. EDIT: oh, and also, perhaps units like drones and androns shouldn't be affected by suppression, or at least be able to fire accurately while suppressed. ;P

I would love for this to at least be moddable. Having the Charlie is a cool concept, but I could think of much better contemporary ways to deploy troops, like parachuting from faster aircraft and the like. It would be cool to be able to send a jet or Hercules or something for rapid response at the expense of longer delay for getting troops back and not being able to evac (at least not without a Charlie nearby?). I dunno. BTW, StellarRat, where did you propose this before?

Would this be possible?

I see what you mean, Gauddlike... with how suppression and other things work in this game, it might be a no-go to have the grenades explode at the end of the turn exclusively. And it would make smoke grenades and flashbangs pretty crappy (though I wouldn't mind smoke grenades having smoke accumulate over a turn instead of it being instantaneous... but I digress). But I feel like it would be awesome to somehow have the opportunity to allow for this to happen, perhaps as an alternate firing mode. And my reason for wanting this boils down to being selfish. I like to mod my game in a particular way where I make explosives a good deal more deadly and suppressive, among other things, and I want to be able to have my soldier or aliens to move out of cover to throw a grenade and then be able to avoid harm from the grenade they threw by moving back into cover before it goes off. In the original XCOM you can do this, and it allows for use of grenades much like how they are used IRL. As things are now, I feel like grenades are WAY too weak, and the limits placed on them are much too arbitrary. Also... I don't think frag grenades should be able to take out most cover... but again, that's another issue. Also, even with the suggestion, the frag grenades might not be quite as lethal as rockets, but they can be lobbed over stuff and weigh MUCH less, which already more than makes up for their disadvantages compared to rockets I think. Anyway, I guess this explosion issue is just an abstraction I'm going to have to live with. But I feel like with how the game works with frag grenades regardless of how they are balanced, they cannot serve quite the same tactical niches they do in real life and end up effectively being just mini rockets with really suppressed damage and blast radius, which I guess is fine and is a niche all its own. I know I'm harping on about realism, however I do acknowledge that realism takes a back seat to gameplay. And I understand that as certain issues about grenade functionality are addressed (like displaying trajectory, accuracy, stats-based throw range, etc.), grenades will become much better balanced and their existence better justified.

I see! Thanks! I think in that case it would be cool if the grenade could detonate at the end of a turn to give the thrower a chance to move back to cover. What do you think?

Nobody gonna respond to my post? :3

I think it just ends the weapon effective range and does nothing to the sight range. I am not entirely sure, but that's what it seems to do for me, as things do seem less accurate when fired through it.

It could be fixed by making a ticker count down every time a dropship is sent, and if the timer for how long the mission is supposed to be there is expired AND the ticker is at zero, then the mission fails.

Perhaps it could be variable? Sometimes it's cut and other times not?

I love all of these suggestions so far, ESPECIALLY the grenade throwing arc one.