GizmoGomez

Also, there's this to consider: If we had leaning, the aliens would have to have it too. Do you want to have plasma snipers firing at you from behind walls? Or, if in your idea you can look around corners but still cannot shoot (which would still be "unrealistic"), scouts seeing your soldiers so plasma snipers can fire at you from across the map. Either way, I much prefer not having leaning, if only because it'd be so much more difficult if the enemy could utilize it effectively.

@Aaron: How difficult would it be for unarmed friendly AI to have different stats than armed friendly AI? By separating the trained, armed NPC stats and behaviors from those of the untrained and unarmed, we can have soldiers that actually are brave, semi-skilled, etc, while still leaving the civilians as cowardly pansies who can't run ten meters without tripping over their shoelaces. I'd really appreciate the trained soldiers and policemen not being the same as the untrained panicky civilians. I'd suggest making at least two groups, though three would be ideal (and four would be stellar): Armed, Trained: Soldiers, Policemen They'd be the top of the friendly NPCs. Maybe they'd be comparable to a totally green Xenonaut recruit. Armed, Untrained: Civilians with guns (farmer w/ a shotgun, etc) Decent stats (for an NPC); less bravery than the soldiers, but more than the unarmed civilians If needs be, combine both Armed into one; but they'd be better being separated and distinct. Unarmed: Anyone unarmed Pansies that cower behind their hay bales and park benches. OPTIONAL Armed, ULTRA-Trained: One specific sprite (like, blonde farmer with the blue shirt and the shotgun, maybe) This ULTRA-NPC would have really really nice stats. Basically, he'd be the easter egg; that one random NPC that runs around and does awesome things (like bursting out of a house and executing an alien point-blank as it walked by the door). Inspired by this thread. It'd make the AI a lot better by giving you more options.

I disagree; I mean, what happens when over nine thousand UFOs show up over the middle east, you shoot all of them down, and you assault successfully every one? I'd hate to have all of my hard earned funding points stop accumulating after a certain point.

Nah, it'd look like a bug. Although, making the bottom left square of the pistol empty (that is, make it not take up room for anything) would be interesting. You'd be able to fit a pistol and a single mag into the two by three space in the belt. Honestly, I think it'd still be weird, though.

Perfect, literally could say it better myself.

That'd be hard to implement, simply because the pathing algorithm probably looks for the lowest TU cost move. Because moving along the edges of the squares costs less than traveling corner to corner, it'll always choose the lowest TU option first; that is, move forward. Then, once the algorithm decides it can't travel forward any more without needing to travel to the side (not diagonal, but left or right) to reach its destination, it will do the more costly diagonal moves. That being said, I like the idea. Alternate pathing algorithms are one thing I'd really like. For example, one that automatically avoids "hazardous" tiles, and would make you walk around fire, toxin gas (coming soon, I hear), stun gas, etc.

Yeah, I believe it's underground. They send little drill-pods or something to enter your base. Also, the reason the aliens don't glass stuff is because they do want to study us.

Ha, this is ridiculous. Even the bot posted stuff about fire. (jimmyjohn)

How about the corsairs come in right as the UFOs, escorted and not, speed up enough to not be catchable by Condors? Then you kinda have to upgrade to Corsairs. Also, agreed, Corsairs should be the "next condor" by making them cheap, easy to make, and thus able to be spammed a little. We don't upgrade to them because they're not good enough to justify the price. Therefore, drop the price. Have marauders be the ultimate, but expensive, craft, but make corsairs fairly cheap, like condors. That way you'd be stupid not to upgrade to corsairs, because they're so similarly priced to condors. Also, they would be needed to catch up with the faster craft with the foxtrots. Also, I don't know what their fuel is like currently, but it should at least be that of the foxtrot, probably slightly more. Otherwise they're still limiting the foxtrot. The next plane unlocked (marauder) makes the foxtrot obsolete, so we need the corsair to not hinder/limit the foxtrot concerning speed, fuel, etc.

I like the idea of incendiary weapons (grenades and rockets) that would work as area denial and anti-reaper munitions.

Well, you can just take 12 soldiers then. The first dropship carries 8 (or 6 + 1 vehicle), I think the second carries 12 (or 10 + 1 vehicle), and the last carries 16 (or 14 + 1 vehicle).

The jimmyjohn account is just some kind of a bot, repeating posts that have already been posted. Don't pay it any heed.

I've used the "stock" Wine for running the windows-only experimental builds; it runs like a champ, no modifications needed. Granted, this is on OS X, so maybe it'd be a tad different on Linux.

I don't even have to close them, I can just visualize it in my head. That, and the middle east (or is it desert?) with the fence with the hole in it to the north west. I've gotten that one probably half of all of my ground missions, total. haha

Been suggested, not gonna happen. Would be cool, though. What kind of realistic (as in, ones that Chris may actually go for) secondary objectives could we have for terror missions?

Maybe as well as buffing torp damage and large UFO HP, we should also buff the foxtrot speed and the corsair speed. That way, if you try flying with condors you're kinda stuck going rather slowly, but if you've upgraded to corsairs you can go really fast.

There was an armor value and mitigation at one point, wasn't there? That went away for whatever issues it was having. If we brought that back, we could give the torpedoes great armor mitigation, and increase the armor of the UFOs. Otherwise, increasing the damage of the torpedoes significantly and increasing the HP of the non-evasive UFOs to match it. The condors and dogfighters would still have the same effectiveness against escorts and dodging UFOs, and the foxtrots would have a much better defined niche to fill.

That is a very valid concern, yes. Hmm... Well, how about this: UFO shot down - small points based on how large the UFO was (larger the UFO, the larger funding boost; bombers and ground attack craft may get extra funding points because they're so evil to the funding nations) Then we get a choice: Ground combat: We get a large funding boost, alien loot, research materials, troop training. Air Strike: We get a smaller funding boost (maybe half the ground combat, but more than the UFO shot down bonus) and however much cash we would receive from selling all of the alloys, alenium, and the alien weapons/other loot. (We would "sell" the loot to the local forces because it's our loot under treaty, or something. The whole mechanic should be explained in a Xenopedia entry). This way you can choose quick, painless money and a decent funding bonus if you don't want to do the ground combat. However, the funding bonus for the airstrike shouldn't be enough to justify choosing it over and over again. It should be for when you're feeling tired and don't want to do yet another "boring" crash site (light scouts, I'm looking at you), but don't want to lose funding or fall behind. The ground combat should always be the "better" option, in my opinion. (Building materials, troop training, research materials, more funding). However, the air strike should adequately compensate you enough so that you can do some of the ground combats and leave others to the local forces without falling behind. (Enough funding to just keep up with the invasion, plus some spending money for selling the alien alloys, alenium, and weapons/ammo cells.) Sound better? EDIT: Forgot to mention; a small incentive to pick airstrike over ground mission would be when you need cash now, but can't wait for the end of the month. So, choosing to give the local forces the crash site would give you money when you needed it, albeit at a cost later on (less funding vs doing the crash site). That should be a consideration when balancing it (though, in my opinion, the money from giving the crash site to them should always be the same you'd get from selling all of the sellable loot from doing the crash site normally. Maybe I'm wrong, I dunno.)

IIRC, in the original, if the zombie died in fire (or something like that) then the cryssalid wouldn't spawn. Is that correct, or am I just remembering things? Also, can reapers have a weakness to fire? And can we have incendiary grenades/rockets? Area denial stuff is super super useful.

Well, the issue is that people feel compelled to do every mission because it's frankly stupid not to try to do all of them. If we made it so that not doing missions compensated you enough that you wouldn't have to, then things would be alright and we wouldn't feel as if we had to do every one. What is the most important commodity in the game? Not soldiers; you can have plentiful high level soldiers stocked up. Not alien resources, you can stockpile those too. It's funding. You always have to work to keep the funding nations happy. If you're not increasing funding, then funding is decreasing. Currently the funding gains from shooting down a UFO are pitiful, and the funding gains from doing a ground mission are plentiful. This is the opposite of what we should have. Lets make the shooting down of the UFO the main funding part. If shooting down the UFO gives us the big funding boost, and doing the ground combat only gives us a smaller, supplemental funding boost (or penalty if we fail) then there's not an overwhelming need to do every ground mission. If we feel that we're set as far as alien resources, technology and soldiers goes, then there's not a need to do the ground combat. We can still choose to do the ground combat (I would), but we aren't forced into doing every mission just to keep up with funding. Does this sound good? EDIT: Also, this removes the need to have an airstrike option available; we can just let the crash site time out. Just tell the player that timed out crash sites are taken by local forces. Say something about how the treaty states that the crash site belongs to the Xenonauts for X hours, and that after that time if the Xenonauts haven't claimed it it belongs to the nation in which it crashed.

Which is more than accommodating considering the time period. Anyway, back to the ground combat...

That's a problem; the Foxtrots are supposed to be the heavy hitters, and yet with the right maneuvering they are weaker than the condor, total damage wise. We need to double the torpedo damage, and double the HP of the non-evasive ships. This way, dogfighters have their niche in taking out the maneuverable ships, but can't deal nearly as much damage as foxtrots can to the larger ships. Also, foxtrots wouldn't be any more or less powerful than they are now compared to the larger ships, because the damage and the HP would have increased together.

Double the damage of the torps, and double the HP of the larger ships. Simple fix. This way the foxtrot is significantly better at destroying the larger ships than the dogfighters without nerfing anything.

Huh, I'm gonna have to go read that one now. EDIT: Oh yeah, I remember that. Way to go, head scientist guy.

So long as every UFO past a certain point unlocks the tech and the research, then I'd be content. I'd just hate to miss ever getting a scout or a 'vette (for whatever reason, unlikely as it may be) and therefore never getting alenium (or a similar situation).