[Linux Steam Builds (Sort Of) Working!]

The main menu doesn't look glitchy anymore, now.

[Linux Steam Builds (Sort Of) Working!]

I tried it out. I had to download it overnight and then it ran somewhat OK.

But I have no idea what was caused by my wine setup, and what are general problems.

Even with the windowed checkbox checked in the launcher the game was in fullscreen.

The title screen was full of graphical glitches,

The Autoresolve option didn't appear for the air-combat.

[Huge problem: passive aliens inside ufo's]

That pacing around can be fairly confusing. I have had aliens knock themselves out by walking from a save place through fire or KO-Gas.

While I had nobody in that room.

[Proposed Psionic Fixes]

The thing that makes the psionic attacks so annoying is that there is no real defense against it. Except possibly for abusing the TU system.

What I would like is some device that offers partial protection. How about a shocker device that suppresses your xenonauts if they come under psy attack. Fluff wise this is inspired by the excrutiator from StarControl.

If a xenonauts goes berserk or gets controlled, he then only has half or none of his TU left to do damage. The downside would be that even an unsuccessful psy attack suppresses your xenonauts.

Is this kind of thing possible to do by modding?

[Financing the operation]

I tend to set up a manufacturing base ( or raid Sirius in Apoc ) whenever I wanted tactical challenges without having to worry about those nations being taken whenever I looked away for a second.

So for many playstyles you need the extra money. So how about an extra money slider in the difficulty settings. You can just put it on 10x funding if you want to play the game for the tactical stuff alone.

Or put it on 0.1x funding if you want to fight the alien menace with extra small resources.

This slide should of course be orthogonal to the normal difficulty slider. Or maybe even 3 sliders while we are at it: Politics ( Funding and nation satisfaction ), Strategy ( Amount and Strength of UFOs on the GS), Tactics ( Amount and Strength of Aliens on the BS).

[Ur-Quan Masters (Star Control 2) - Project 6104]

Never heard of P6104 before. Will have to try it.

I don't like the grind-heavyness of SC2 these days. But it still holds a special place in my heart.

[Good Youtube channels]

While I don't like him, jef usually suggests plumphelmetpunk for strategy games.

Kikoskia did great LPs of the first 2 X-Com games.

Quill18 is also a good LPer with strategy gaming as his focus.

or Grimith he is smaller, but also a good strategy/rpg guy.

[A consept that can bring X-com, Jagged Alliance and other strategy games together?]

Maybe a story similar to incubation would work better.

You are a private security/mercenary company guarding a mining colony.

Then some sorts of Aliens/Zombies show up. Probably Genestealer or X-Com Apoc style Aliens.

Having to hold out until the real military arrives, instead of always being on the offensive might even add a nice twist to the concept.

[Military ranks]

Having the recruit rank be "Xenonaut" might be nice too. Inspired by the recruit ranks in the German army.

[Increase utility of base defenses]

I really can't think of any other base defense utility that doesn't involve its representation on the geoscape.

I do, however, have an idea for a simple implementation that is pretty much automated. Just like the radar, the anti-air battery would have a range circle. If your interceptors engage any UFOs within this circle, the battery fires a single salvo which is assumed to occur just before your fighters reach the bogeys. This is instantly auto-calculated with a 0 - 100% chance of each UFO in the group suffering structural damage, critical damage or being destroyed (only escorts would be destroyable while the "capital ships" could only be damaged).

It's simple, automated and requires no player input beyond attempting to engage within the battery's range.

One thing I like about Alien Invasion is how base defenses and interceptors can work in tandem.

Unless we give up on the idea of trying to hide the base from the aliens, this is a bad idea. This might have already happened, I wasn't paying too much attention to the discussions.

What I would want, is a sort of barricade room ( or even fixed defenses like in Apoc ). This one would give you a good place to set up your anti base attack defense on the battle-scape.

[Greatest games of all time (according to you)]

So vaguely in order:

Angband

Imperialism 2,

X-Com (Apocalypse then EU)

StarCon 2/UQM,

SMAC/SMACX

OTTD

EU3

Stronghold(the original one by SSI)

Dwarf Fortress

[Configurable equipment loadouts and role badges]

While we are on the topic:

How are expended objects threated (by the game)? If a solider uses up a clip or grenade in battle, will he refill his load after returning to base?

Like the idea of having either roles or saved loadout. Having one of those would be great.

With a role, I would expect a solider to pick up equipment until he has all the equipment on his role set. And I would expect to have a modify role option, where I can make all my line-troopers switch their laser rifles to heavy lasers in one setup step.

With a saved loadout, I would expect a pulldown from where I can take ( and save to) a loadout ( for example baseline containing grenades and medkit). After picking up equipment, the solider will not remember, if I added those by hand or by shortcut.

Which one is better depends mostly on playstyle and gamebalance stuff. If solider throughput is high or low. Or if you have 10 trooper and 2 specialists, or if you got into a mission with 10 differently equipped soldiers.