Andeerz

Hmmm... I think you are missing my point. I agree with everything you say, except your first sentence, and half of the third sentence... there are games like ARMA, America's Army, Red Orchestra, IL-2, Orbiter, and, to a degree, Aurora that try to be as realistic as possible and revel in the challenges real-life (or real-life-esque) problems present... but that's a completely different topic, as the goal of this game is not to be realistic. This game is trying to set a mood (which doesn't necessarily have to involve realism at all, obviously), and some of that mood is set by the nature of gameplay. I just think that a lot of the mood is killed when I encounter silly limitations like this 3 aircraft limit. Anyway, what about my suggestion makes any aspect of the game even close to realistic?

Ok... lemme clarify some things: I don't know if anyone can really say that without knowing the inner gutty works of the game. For all we know, the framework might already be there and require a few tweaks of the UI and a changing of a few numbers. But that is all speculation. My main argument here is that any limits imposed on a player in a game should make sense within the context of the game universe it occurs in; it should at least make sense enough that it doesn't draw attention to the implausibility of the premise of the game or possible holes in the setting's continuity (if that is the right word...). This three plane limit does exactly these things and makes no sense for the reasons I mentioned in my previous posts. My suggestion would do more than increase the scale of air combat (and not by much, I assure you); it would remove a silly restriction that serves to detract from the atmosphere the game espouses. That alone is an improvement to gameplay. Another improvement to gameplay is that it allows for more variety and flexibility in how the player and the aliens can respond to threats. I already explained what kinds of situations I hate that the 3 aircraft limit imposes. I don't want stupid Independence Day scenarios or huge air battles... I just want air combat to make sense to avoid stupid scenarios like the one I mentioned in my last post with the ship coming to attack my base. Balancing, I think, would not be difficult. The balance should and would arise from two things: the nature of managing resources, how much things cost, etc.; and the speed at which the aliens up their difficulty as time progresses. The game already does, in my opinion, an excellent job of striking a balance in ground combat for the most part, as by the time I get the resources to upgrade my soldiers, the aliens have themselves become more powerful adversaries (and in the higher difficulties, they do so faster than you sometimes). The way the game does this balance on the side of the player is by virtue of how much time, money, personnel, and physical resources it takes to purchase/manufacture the things you need, as well as how much time it takes to get newly hired personnel and aircraft to where you need them to go. The way the game balances things on the side of the aliens is not having them become too powerful too fast (for which there is an acceptable explanation for in the game! So this somewhat arbitrary limit on the aliens makes enough sense!). These balancing mechanisms are precisely what would and should balance my suggestion and every feature of the game. And the game definitely has this capability in place. Think about it: as the game already stands (which is already pretty good!), it is prohibitively difficult and expensive (as it should frikkin' be) to purchase/manufacture and maintain a sizeable airforce, not to mention a sufficient ground force and significant global presence in general. And the pacing of the alien invasion scales appropriately with this. With my suggestion, one would probably never be able to get an airforce of greater than a total of 20 planes until after a few years game time if ever, and if the pacing of the alien invasion is altered to accommodate this (as in, keep the appearance of certain ships with time the same or similar as it is now... just make the sizes of squadrons increase in size at a rate proportional to what is expected of an average player's increase in airforce size), there would be balance. So, basically, I think it is player management of resources that should limit the strategies they can employ, tech they use, and the sizes of squadrons. And proper scaling of alien difficulty with time would limit the sizes of alien squadrons. ...not if the limits on the aliens are done wisely and in a way that doesn't break my suspension of disbelief. More about that in my response to your quote about the 100+ aircraft UFO squadron... Oh, believe me, I think the limit for ground troops should be lifted as well, and that would be balanced in the same way air combat would; resource/time/etc. costs and proper scaling of enemy difficulty. And the combat wouldn't really get much bigger if at all. Maintaining troops and outfitting them to be an actual threat gets more expensive resource and time wise than aircraft pretty darned quick, and there would probably never be a time where the player would land two chinooks full of troops at a given engagement since it would cost so much logistically to do until maybe really late game (assuming the limit to troops was taken off). To put things in perspective, an individual soldier outfitted with a laser weapon and wolf armour with maintenance costs costs about as much as an aircraft, and you need way more soldiers than aircraft. So having more than 16 well equipped soldiers or whatever the limit is right now is no small feat. But that is another topic altogether. And I agree that there need to be limits somewhere, just (ideally) not where they are readily visible stick out like a sore thumb. Just look at what I wrote above in this post for how I feel limits should emerge. There would be something to stop that: hard limits imposed that make sense within the setting of the game like I said before. The aliens presumably have to contend with other military forces and have other things to worry about other than the Xenonauts. Plus, though their forces are large, they are presumably limited and need time to be outfitted to operate in the atmosphere. So, it would make some sense (at least enough for suspension of disbelief) that they wouldn't have 100+ craft available at the same place at the same time for such an engagement as you say, and would have to divide their forces to do many things in a limited time, hence squadrons of reasonable size given the time that has passed in the game. Sure, with my suggestion maybe small squadrons could merge to larger ones, but if the scaling of difficulty is appropriate, it wouldn't break the game. It would be a simple thing to balance by just having the developers play through enough to see how fast the alien threat should grow and adjusting that growth appropriately. And small squadrons would still exist, and with the player having limited resources at their disposal, the player will frequently (as they do now) have to send out squadrons of 1 or 2 planes while other 3 plane squadrons are taking care of other, bigger threats. Sure. It would be possible for the player to set up such a large squadron. But, for reasons I stated earlier, that would be a substantial investment of resources on the part of the player to be able to do so, not to mention risky. Put all your planes into doing said strategy, then what's to keep the aliens from sending a landing ship contingent towards your base now devoid of aircraft, or harassing a bunch of other places while all your planes are focused on one area? And if alien squadrons could merge and respond to this large squadron threat, then there would be balance and challenge right there to that tactic. And most of the time, at least a few months into the game as it is now, it's pretty frikkin hard to have a squadron engage more than one squadron per outing; there is that nice fuel limit (rather generous limit, at that). And if that isn't enough to balance things, then the game could just lower the fuel capacity of the aircraft (which is already huuuuuge), and/or make the aliens ships a tad faster, and/or change the frequency of radar detection and/or make the aliens smart enough to turn tail in the face of such odds. So, since suggesting a cap of 6 or whatever, I've since changed my mind. There should be no hard limit at all. The end. This would change the game in that there will be more flexibility on both the ends of the player and the aliens to respond to threats, as well as remove a really immersion-breaking feature of the game as I have belabored extensively and excessively in the present wall of text. To me the rationale for my suggestion is evident, and mechanics for balancing the suggestion laid out. Fortunately all the balancing would require is possibly a few changes in numerical parameters that already exist, and would not require any novel game-mechanic other than MAYBE the ability of squadrons to merge.

I'm glad Chris agrees on that point! As for what I said about the single aircraft... sure they don't stand a chance against my 9 aircraft squadrons, nor do they stand a chance against three or two. And me sending out my single aircraft in the game... yeah they are at risk whether it's nine UFOs or two. Also, think about what happens after about a month in the game. There are a LOT of UFOs about. I frequently find myself having to judge what to send where, and I never have enough aircraft to pursue all targets (not that I find that a problem gameplay wise! Fun challenge...). I normally only send one or two aircraft against squadrons containing a single UFO anyway, because I only have so many aircraft to mobilize at any given time... so it's not like the game would change in that respect all that much. Plus, getting nine aircraft and being able to afford and maintain them is hard enough in the game (and I have no problem with that). I cannot envision a time where I've had enough aircraft at my disposal at any given time to (had I the ability to) have a squadron of bigger than five... especially not with the multiple UFOs flying about that I have to intercept. The main gameplay benefit I see from having unlimited or a larger limit (like 5 to 9 or something) squadron size: I can outnumber the enemy when it makes sense to do so, and they can outnumber me when it makes sense to do so (why the hell shouldn't I be able to send more than three planes out against an escorted capital ship if I know it's coming to attack my base and I have more than three planes at the ready and know they have superior aircraft? Also, why can't the enemy decide to merge squadrons or mobilize larger ones if they want to up the odds against me (which should scale with the difficulty of the game as the game progresses)? And if upping the limits changes the game, that's not necessarily a bad thing. To put it more simply, my suggestion is that I should be limited by my resource management abilities and the aliens should be limited by the scaling of difficulty as the game progresses. And I feel my suggestion likely would improve the game by taking out an annoying, contrived limitation that sticks out like a sore thumb and breaks immersion. If that isn't a gameplay benefit, I don't know what is. In any case, I can see where you are coming from, Gauddlike, but I feel like neither of us can tell what might happen until it's tried anyway.

Playing the game more as is... I guess I could live with squadron sizes being 3... though I'd prefer 6. And what DEFINITELY needs to change, methinks, is that noncombat aircraft (i.e. dropships) should not contribute towards the limit of aircraft per squadron. Even if squadron size was unlimited... if the game difficulty scales properly as the game goes on, like maybe aliens have squadron sizes increase in max size by one per month, I don't see squadron sizes on either size ever going above maybe 10... And that is not a mindboggling amount of craft to manage. I like the air combat... it just needs a few more aircraft, I think, to truly get the most out of the minigame. And I'm NOT saying that every engagement should have a whole bunch of aircraft: I think even late game there should be instances of single aircraft flying about as it happens now.

Yeah! I am, sorry Buzzles! But it is still fun to ponder. As for "off map" support during ground combat, I disagree vehemently with Chris that it would take away from the ground combat scenario for reasons I mentioned before and will summarize here: Having the ability to call in an airstrike or some other form of off-site support will NOT at all reduce the need or value of having troops on the ground. A missile obliterating a building may or may not kill everyone inside; you still need troops to go through the wreckage which is still a pretty tense situation (and with the good armour some of the upper tier guys have, especially if balanced to account for this, I wouldn't be surprised if such a strike would only slightly scathe these baddies). Also, you still need to have the troops to actually find where the baddies are in order to target the strike. That's half the tension of a fight right there!!! And any off-site support is only going to have so much ammo... so it's not like it would be used ad-nauseum. In the case of planes, I'd imagine only one or two strikes would be able to be called within the time scale of the battles of this game. And you wouldn't be using big ordinance like the avalanche torpedo in such cases with your troops and civvies on the ground; something like a hellfire missile would be in order (don't know if those existed in the cold-war era... could be researched if not!). In the case of hypothetical cannon strafing via helicopters or planes, again, within the time scale of the battles at hand, there would only be time for one or two of these kinds of runs (maybe more with a heli...). If we are talking about artillery... I don't see much how this could be done in the time scales the game operates on (hours and minutes needed to respond to crap), but I will entertain the idea anyway. Say there is a terror site or crash site and there are allowed to be mini artillery vehicles you could buy that you could load up on a separate dropship that could land off-site. You could call in artillery support from such things, but I'd imagine these guns would functionally do nothing more than the same crap rocket launchers could do, except you don't need direct line-of-fire. This would not be broken, in my opinion, as like with all the other off-site support things, you'd need the troops to establish visual contact with the enemy and maneuver the enemies such that you could use it. Also, all of this would be quite resource intensive, as you'd have to invest in all of this. Tension and the feel of x-com would still be there... especially if we make the enemies a tad stronger and improve the AI (which that is certainly going to be planned). Also... just for the record... I will admit that in my opinion, as the game is right now which is pleasantly challenging and awesome (though buggy) there have been very very few situations where I considered such off-site support as I envision to be worthwhile... If and when certain alien enemies come into the game, however, I could see this changing. As for alien off-site support, I'd envision it being limited compared to the player's options in that when you are going to a crash site, there are no remaining alien craft to do such off-site support. In the case of terror sites, perhaps there could be provisions for there being alien aircraft also participating that would need to be dealt with before setting troops down. Or, hypothetically, if troops are set down successfully and alien aircraft are somehow left in the air (can't see how that would happen, though), then the aliens could do similar things as you could. In the time scales of the battles that occur in this game, the possibility of aliens mobilizing reinforcement aircraft to come in and assist after you land and do stuff seems not plausible with the speeds and stuff things have right now (which I think is absolutely fine!). And as for Thothkins... for the record, I HATE Starship Troopers (the movie). But I will go through my opinions on your ideas one by one if you or any one else cares to read them!

Maybe rigging up a reactor to do such a thing would take much more time than the few hours it takes to send in your troops and therefore wouldn't happen. However... there is no real justification for not sending in 100 Chinooks other than the sake of gameplay... that and maybe resources since you the player are in control of a the world's best military tech and there isn't enough out there to organize something of that magnitude... I guess... and what you said I guess sorta works too as a plausible explanation. I agree. Perhaps not if you are responsible and establish air superiority of your own... Well, I am in the minority, and this is already a niche game... no point in making it a game restricted to even more of a niche... but I actually think it would be cool for the player (or a government without any control on my part) to be able to choose to obliterate (or attempt to obliterate) a crash site or whatever. And I do think it would be cool for the aliens to be able to do the same if you don't establish air superiority. If I'm stupid enough to send in my Chinook without taking measures to prevent the map becoming a crater the second turn, then I deserve it! Anyway, on the Xenonaut side it would be counterproductive in most cases for the player to do said total obliteration of crash sites, as most of the point of sending in your troops is to capture technology, not destroy it. But I still think it would a be a cool option to have on the table, but it would only have very few instances of actually being useful (definitely NOT in terror site situations). Additionally... indirect fire from air support (allowing for controlled destruction via missiles, strafing with cannons, etc.), on the other hand, could have a fair amount of use maybe (probably not in terror sites, though). As for alien bases, I'd imagine they'd have those places pretty well protected and buried much like human missile silos are but even better protected. And no amount of bombardment will take those out, which would then necessitate sending in a small team of troops. And no amount of indirect fire from air support would likely be useful there, and would likely be risky. But as for the justification for aliens not just obliterating crap themselves in much the same manner (I mean, they probably don't care about collateral damage...right?)... I don't know. If we're talking plausible alien invasion scenatios... aliens probably would have orbital KEW crap and just obliterate all our major urban centers, ruin our agriculture with a few well-placed nukes, and just wait for civilization to collapse within a matter of months or a year or two... Then again, they do bother to do terror site missions and stuff. And for all we know, the ships they have may not have been intended for warfare in the first place. Maybe they didn't know we humans were here to begin with. Now this just gets into speculation about the motivations of the aliens and their overall strategy which might be completely implausible to begin with. Whatevs.

It is not a pain to complete missions without a sound function (I mean, the game is fun even as it is now!!!), but it is frustrating and immersion-breaking as all hell when you hear these things happening in between turns and don't have the slightest inkling of what direction they are coming from when you'd think that trained professional soldiers (or anyone who isn't deaf for that matter) would be able to tell. And it does affect things you mentioned (working one's way to the UFO, etc.) in that you have no idea if the sounds you heard are coming from the direction of where you are going, or behind your troops are, or whatever, so you cannot adjust your tactics accordingly and have make guesses due to a lack of information you should have. In any case, the directional indicator ideas the OP and Gauddlike suggested would be pretty awesome, intuitive, and pretty straight forward in their implementation...

I'd imagine there's some exploit that could be done to kill 'em good just like with the others... I just encountered them a few times and got obliterated every time!

I'm not asking for the game to be any easier. I'm glad there is so much involved in the logistics of supporting your air force! It's a welcome and awesome challenge and I think this would be what would self-balance a lot of this suggestion so that, among other things, the game would never get to this theoretical 20 plane maximum or even close to it. Also... it might be worth noting that the only times I've ever been frustrated with this 3 plane limit are while playing on veteran and insane difficulties... especially insane difficulty. Too many times have I cursed the fact that I couldn't add another F-17 to as an escort to my chinook to improve the odds that I don't lose anyone to interception on the way to a terror site. But I guess you are right about it being unfair for other players to draw more of the game into the air combat stuff... I guess I find the air aspect of it actually fun and pretty good for the most part the way it is other than the fact that I can't add to a squadron as many planes as I have lying around that through my skillful gameplay I can afford to maintain. I didn't realize so many people had problems with it. Also... when I said fighters earlier... I meant heavy fighters... those things are BEASTS and arrive early on insane difficulty. A lot of fun, but darn I hate not being able to just put in that fourth fighter in the squadron... And I think the number of fighters in the air is pretty neat, personally.

It wouldn't be impossible but would require work. And depending on how much of the players think it is a necessity (I, for one, think it is), perhaps it is something that should have work invested in. There is going to be a tactical map feature added, right? Maybe that would be a good place to display such information about where soldiers think sounds might be coming from. And perhaps the ability for a soldier to be able to perceive the relative position of the source of a sound and the accuracy of that perception could be dictated by one of the soldier's stats... like reflexes maybe (though that wouldn't make too much sense)? Or introduce a new stat for that purpose (which I think this purpose alone would merit such a stat). The game mechanics that would underlie such a system would be relatively straight forward, especially if it is simply relegated to sounds made by weapons or vocalizations. An example: any time a shot is fired, the game could calculate the distance from the source of the sound to every entity on the map. For each entity, there would be a roll of the dice, with the resulting number being modified by distance between the source and the entity, and perhaps intervening obstacles like walls and stuff, and perhaps some sort of stat possessed by the entity (like reflexes or some made up stat like "perception" or something). If the result of this calculation is above a certain threshold, then the side the entity belongs to would have the information available to them of the relative direction and area the sound originated from. How high above that threshold value would determine the accuracy of that information. In the case of the player, that information could be represented on the tactical map with circles or something that can be toggled as an overlay (sort of distantly analagous to the motion detector in the original X-com). In the case of sides controlled by the AI, perhaps that information could be integrated into their decisions regarding movement and attack (but I have no idea how the AI works in this game). Alternatively, it could just be a system that works just for the player. Seems like a pretty solid system to me. And, yeah, any and all of these things would require a lot of reworking of code, but, darn it, if it is a feature that would benefit the game by being there (and I think it would!), it would be more than worth the effort. And it's not like the math and stuff involved would be at all processor intensive in the slightest. And my favorite suggestion so far in this thread, for what it is worth, is Oathbreaker's. It seems like it could work with least effort... and, also important, it would bring one of the very very few things to the game that the original X-com had that I absolutely loved and added to the atmosphere.

There is already a lot of challenge; challenge which I welcome that is frikkin' aweosome that is due to the superiority of alien craft to human craft 1 on 1 (or even 2 on 1). However, I hate that I cannot do what came first thing to my mind to combat this challenge which I thought should be no brainer: increase the number of my aircraft to even the odds (which is something that would take good resource management to do which is crucial part of the game). And I think the enemies should be able to do the same. How I would balance the enemies (if they even need to be balanced further) is simply give them better AI (well, that's not necessarily simple...). And I don't even think there needs to be much in the way of balancing, really. Maybe make the alien aircraft as strong if not stronger than the most advanced of possible human craft in the game and give them much shorter cool-down times for evasive maneuvers. As I said before, the alien craft (at least in veteran and insane difficulties) are already much better one on one or one on two on one than human aircraft (at least the heavy fighters are... which are the ones that should be better than all but the most advanced human fighters). And the game already has the mechanisms in place to balance my suggestion: squadrons of alien craft get bigger as the game progresses. Just make them continue to get bigger than just three per squadron at a reasonable rate. The game should be balanced (and sort of already is) by making it so that by the time aliens get squadrons of a step up in larger size and strength, you will have (if you play smartly) accumulated sufficient resources to combat this increase in alien strength with more and/or stronger planes on your side. It doesn't seem like something that would require anything but changes in numerical values on tables, and some slight tweaks to the air combat UI, and maybe improvements to alien air combat AI. I guess there ought to be a cap, like maybe 20 or something per side (which I think one would never get to anyway...). But basically, my suggestion boils down to verisimilitude. The aliens are supposed to have ridiculously awesome aircraft from the get go. And the way this should be balanced (the way it is now sort of) is by having the aliens start off with just single aircraft squadrons at first and then move up in number per squadron and frequency of squadrons as the game progresses (which is justified nicely in the background story arc as to why this happens). If I managed to be smart with my resource management to have built extra planes for the purpose of evening the odds, I should be allowed to do so. This 3 aircraft limit per squad breaks game immersion for me as it is such a contrived limitation and uncreative way to achieve game balance that ultimately sacrifices cohesion of the game universe. I think it's possible to have one's cake and eat it to (balance the game and make a robust, solid game universe, and make the game fun all at the same time) if one is creative. EDIT: You know, actually, I think I could live with there just being a 3 plane limit, but just have it so that you can include the chinook in the squad without it counting towards the 3 planes.

I am also of the opinion there should be bigger squadron sizes for both aliens and humans. I don't care for large armada style conflicts; I don't think those should (or would if we are going to think about how things might be IRL) happen. I know we are talking about a fictional setting here and a very simple air combat system that abstracts out like 99% of everything that happens in air engagements (which I'm totally cool with... it's an awesome game feature as is!), but I find it silly that I cannot send as many planes as I want to do what I want because of some contrived limitation that has really no reason to be there that I can see. For example, it's sort of dumb that if I have spent the resources to build 6 F-17s, and I am at a stage of the game where there are a bunch of alien squadrons of 3 fighters, that I am not able to send all six out as an escort with my chinook to ensure its safety. That alone would take care of pretty much all of the balance issues people seem to have with air combat in the game. That said, I love the strategic air aspect of the game so frikkin' much!

Good points, Gauddlike. But there ARE points to doing such things. if I want to level or swiss-cheese a building containing some aliens that are getting in the way of me getting the technology I want to recover which is valuable for the survival of the human race, then it could make sense (so in those cases it WOULD be conducive to the objectives of your Xenonauts), civilian casualties and slight lowering in standing with governments be damned. If I decide to accept the civilian and political costs, so be it. But, I see your point, and makes me able to accept the decisions made by the creators of the game a bit more... However, I still think my suggestion would be a great addition to the game which would add to immersion into the game setting as well as make the strategic and tactical aspects of the game more challenging, fun, and engaging. Also, I completely disagree with the developers of the game saying that implementing such features would reduce tension provided aliens are able to use similar tactics and have effective balancing countermeasures. And not having the blaster bomb, I can agree with at least for the human side (maybe certain aspects of the computer-related tech couldn't be reverse engineered with cold-war-era tech). Aliens having it might be interesting, though.

Assuming you could mobilize such artillery within minutes to an hour from a thousand miles or so away... but you make a good point. And, to play Devil's advocate... why not have the ability to do such a thing with a distant air/missile/artillery strike if you have the resources and ability if you do not wish to risk your troops or have no reason to obtain more alien tech and stuff in those instances (which would be a rare situation, I'd think!)? Perhaps we could even assume that's what happens to the sites you don't get to in time through the actions of other government military operations... whatever, just brain farting here. As for what Gorlom said... I'm not advocating realism as much as verisimilitude; cohesiveness in the game universe to make the setting and feeling of the game all the more compelling and immersive. I could play a whole multitude of other games out there with game mechanics almost identical to that of X-com and xenonauts. I choose to play this one because of the interesting setting and feeling of it all, and having things make sense within the context of the game universe is terribly important for me, and I think others, as it is what makes you feel more like you are in the game as opposed to just playing it if that makes any sense. Otherwise, just have abstract shapes representing everything. There is only so much suspension of disbelief I'm willing to do... and I find it silly that you can have airplanes with ridiculous range and stuff loosely based on real aicraft and their abilities as well as aliens have their ships and them have no impact on what happens on the ground. I can live with it and still enjoy the hell out of the game... but if there is not enough in the setting of the game to give some food for thought (not necessarily an outright explanation... those aren't fun) as for a plausible reason for such tools such as airstrikes to not to be useful, I think it detracts from the game setting which is just as important (at least to me) as game mechanics, as, again, I could be playing other games similar in that regard. At the end of the day, though, I can definitely live without indirect fire support in the game... it will stick out like a sore thumb in terms of discontinuity in the game universe to me, but the game will still almost be as immersive and awesome as it can be. I just really like games that make you feel like you are in that game's world as much if not more so than making you feel like you are playing a game.

Well, to entertain this stuff further... To establish air superiority to get your dropship to the site, you'd need to have some escorts. Without escorts, perhaps it would be ok in the beginning of the game where there aren't many ufos about, but it would still carry risk. Later in the game with more ufos flying about, including alien fighters and the like, escorts would be pretty much necessary... and/or some stealthy features that maybe could be researched (Well, helicopters are low flying enough to be pretty stealthy anyways... but I don't know what tech these aliens would have to detect stuff). If your dropship task force is intercepted, your escorts could combat the intercepting craft, assuming your task force is detected by the aliens and they decide to do something about it. In order to have airstrikes being an option during an engagement, one would have to send appropriate things along with the task force sent to whatever site, or have them meet up at the same time at the site. Like, for example, one could send some attack helicopters or other attack aircraft along with the dropship, much like one could assign escorts. That would allow a window of opportunity during the engagement for a soldier (through some clever interface) to be able to call in some air support dependent on the armaments, fuel situation, etc. of whatever support craft. If perhaps the helicopters or other support craft have realistic ranges, this would require one to set up bases (or even aircraft carriers! ) around the world as staging grounds for such strikes which could be another strategic problem for the player to have to deal with, as the player would have to defend them and provide upkeep (or convince governments or get in good enough standing with them to let you use them). I hope I make some sense. And maybe during the operation after the dropship lands, if there is enough alien presence in the air... like if your escorts are thwarted but not until your dropship lands... or if the escorts are still fighting or whatever... perhaps the aliens could possibly order some strikes against you, even! I dunno, maybe that would be too out of keeping with the feel of the game... and nothing would keep them from blowing up your helicopter in those cases. As for what I said about how things might play out later on in a game... I should have phrased it differently. I was sort of thinking of a justification for air support stuff like I mention not being in the game in the first place... but anyway, if it were, the ability of the player to have air support would depend on how well the player manages things. If the player doesn't strategically manage to keep their presence in the air strong enough to make airstrikes possible, then they are SOL. But it wouldn't be impossible, just difficult! I think this entire suggestion might require too much to be added to the game to make it meaningful and actually work, and it might not be possible to have it such that the original feeling of the game is maintained. But maybe it can be! Do I address your concerns? And about the last thing about provisions probably not being there to mod such stuff in... poopies. You are right. But it is still fun to think about!!! And maybe it could be kludged in using existing game mechanics... or not.

I know this is a necro, but the subject matter of this thread is something I have thought about extensively myself. Aldazar raises an excellent point about how such game mechanics could move the game away from the original sort of creepy X-com aesthetic. But, I don't think anyone can really say that unless such features are actually tried out, which is what I hope modders might be able to do in the future. Anyway, for the sake of toying a bit with the idea, let's pretend that such mechanics (SPGs, gunships, mortars, attack plane support, missiles, etc.) are in the game. The way I see it, the kind of stuff the Xenonauts are trying to do most of the time are quick in-and-out sort of raids that are surgical in nature (think about the Bin Laden raid! ). Maybe an artillery strike or air support of some sort could be called in once or twice in a small engagement of such a short time scale, depending on if and how much of whatever would be needed to do that you sent along with the dropship or had available some other way. But such things would (at least I think... I'm no RL soldier) be blunt instruments (except for maybe mortars... but I don't see how those would be really much different from grenades other than the operator being further away from the action...). Plus, verisimilitude would dictate that, especially later in the game, the aliens would have good enough air superiority that setting up such air strikes and the like would be very difficult, risky, and maybe not worth it at all. Or maybe they would have some sort of technology that would completely make such things pointless in the first place which would further add to immersion. I think the creepyness and x-com feel would stay and the general gameplay wouldn't change much, especially if the aliens had countermeasures and their own tricks up their sleeves... I mean, it would still always boil down to the individual soldiers doing the killing and stuff, and the air superiority of the aliens would effectively keep your squad isolated and on their own, especially after any sort of hypothetical long range support has already happened. I don't think such game mechanics would take the punch out of combat at all in the slightest. In fact, I think it would add to immersion into the game universe since things would all seem more plausible... but that is a dangerous road to go down. Just my two cents... long story short, I hope I or someone else mods this in at least as an experiment.