Hairyscreech

A vs mode via lan would be fun, especially as the system requirements are pretty low overall so most laptops are viable. Just a set battle with human v alien, perhaps even only pre-chosen scenarios and troops to keep things balanced. Maybe a few scenarios like the terror missions, or the bigger UFO assaults. Hopefully would play more like a board game using laptops than a full blown multiplayer experience but would still be a lot of fun if combined with a few beers and a movie on in the background.

Just thinking this one through and it feel artificial to prevent the use of alien weapons entirely. Instead I suggest a system that allows their use but with a significant accuracy penalty and actively promotes their collection by using them as a resource item later in the game. Under the guise of the weapons not being ergonomically designed for humans we could give them a -50% accuracy penalty (offset by the alien stats being 50% higher so their accuracy is unaffected from current) and perhaps some damage penalty as suggested above with alien armor being designed for their plasma weapons. This would mean using alien tech early on to plug the weapon damage defect is almost encouraged but it is a glass hammer and may result in you missing some critical shots or not being able to stay as far from the enemy and snipe like you can in Xcom. Finally to make human built/designed plasma weapons still desirable we can make the human weapons not have the accuracy and alien armor resistance, meaning that in human hands a human plasma rifle is as effective as the alien one in alien hands. To prevent the alien weapons just becoming junk you sell late in the game I suggest that we have 2 ways to manufacture a human plasma rifle: 1. the total new rifle method, pretty much the same as xenonauts 1 and 2. the re-manufactured alien rifle, requiring 2 alien rifles to produce 1 human rifle. The logic being that it takes less resources for the technicians to refit an alien rifle for a human to use than to make one from scratch. This would make all those plasma weapons you collect a useful resource. Canonical reasons for these things: Alien weapons are not correctly designed for a human to use, grips are too big/small, sights are awkward, the balance is wrong etc etc, perhaps the hand holds are designed for 3 fingers making using them with 5 always awkward and uncomfortable. Aliens would build armor to suit the type of damage they expect (as above) Human rifles use a slightly different type of plasma, maybe a different element being turned into plasma, perhaps something that works in our atmosphere but not in a vacuum or other atmosphere so aliens are not adapted to deal with it Once alien plasma weapons have been researched we have enough understanding of how they work to modify them without catastrophic failures and techs getting fried while doing it.

Just found an issue after opening the scout doors, I could not fire through the open doors or throw a grande in there. Any weapon I tried to use was giving 0% chance and the red blockage highlight on the open door. It also seemed to break the end turn button. The alien turn before I think there was a burst fire from the caesan hiding inside so it might be related to the other burst fire issue reported here:

It looks like it may be CPU related, I have just been running it on a GTX970 and 6 core Xeon processor with very similar frame rates but what does stand out is that I have 11 CPU threads around 30% (have a load of other things open at the same time) and one thread at 70-90%. Initially I thought it was not multithreading properly but forcing it to use, 2, 4, 6 and then all threads did move the processor load about but all threads still results in one at 70+% and the others pretty low load. Increasing the thread count is only giving small frame rate increases and only a peak GPU utilization of 58%. For reference this system will hold a steady 60fps on GTAV or FO4 or over 110fps on Saints row 4.

The game engine is horrific. It has been the biggest problem all the way through. Granted the sprites and textures could well be used and maybe some code here and there but that's about it.

I did wonder if there is some kind of calculation loop going on, if there is an animated prop on screen then you can watch the rate speed up and then fall back to 1-5 fps or worse by the motion of the animated props.

As the LOS mode effect both the player and the aliens I would have thought it is simple a player choice, if one makes it easier for the player to spot aliens then it makes it easier for the player to be spotted. I can see real polarisation on this issue, perhaps it is best left switchable? I am going to fire up the old Xcom save and pay attention to how the LOS behaves later as I am not sold on xenonauts in persistent mode yet.

This is more what I am leaning towards myself. It would be nice to see a touch less UFOs in the wave and some more roaming at random, perhaps some fighters, lone bombers or corvettes roaming at random. At the moment I just wait until the wave is revealed, prioritise the key targets and knock down the most important, scouts etc become secondary if I have a spare interceptor. With some randomisation I would not be able to prioritise so easy, that lone bomber may be a random roamer or it may be a terror attack, which would mean I might have to send the Ateam of interceptors, no if that's mid way between waves am I going to have them back and ready for a cruiser? when is the wave coming? if I ignore it then is it going to bite me back? These are the choices I want to have to suffer, at the moment Just wait and all the ufos pop up, no problems choosing the best target for the right interceptors.

^^ Can confirm this one, it does seem to still be randomised on each load. You also get a different race if you save/load the geoscape when the dropship is inbound, so you can despatch the drop ship, save before you hit the target and save/load to play the base with the race you want. Cheating slightly but if you began an andron base you can use it to make sure you go back to an andron base in the short term.

I think it is just a fundamental of the game that it needs a slow start, without a slow start there is no progression. To jump in at what used to be the end of the second month is like saying an RTS would be better if each game started with a base and unit production already sorted out for the player. This kind of game is all about the escalation and the slow sinking feeling.

You know that's a fair argument, The OG was never a problem despite using this method. Perhaps this is more of an implementation thing than a fundamental issue. 100% agree about lightening the FOW on the revealed area currently it makes the game view too dark and hides the art too much.

I think the two posts above this one sum up why I don't like persistent mode, a lot of effort had gone into the tile sets and with persistent mode you just don't get to see them in their full glory. It also makes for spinning troops around after a move just for the sake of double checking you did not miss a spot when moving, which really is just a waste of time and TUs. Meh. Guess I am just not a fan of it.

Is anyone else finding the waves are making the flow of the game quite stop start? At the moment with the wave system I know with 3 bases once I have downed the last ufo on screen I can click 4x speed for a few days as I know exactly when the next ufo will appear. I'm not getting any of the old Xcom watching the geoscape never knowing when the next ufo will appear and if I will be ready for it. I am feeling with the waves I am not getting any sense of tension or unpredictability. I guess this could be solved by trickling the waves in a bit more to stop 5 popping up at once and then nothing for 4-7 days? In my current play through I have 4x flights of 1 corsair and 2 foxtrots and a single flight of 3x marauders and interception has just become a routine chore, 4-6 ufos appear and I just despatch the flights, knock them down, air strike them and go back to research. (and this is at the point battle ships start showing up.) The same number of Ufos more randomly paced might leave me with everything refueling/rearming or flying short sorties and most certainly focusing less budget on air power. (p.s. is the scout the only ufo that shows up all the way through? As late in the game they are just like swatting flies, I send out a single interceptor to knock them down and just airstrike them, the rewards for a scout are just not worth the effort and risk of doing a crash site. A corvette might be worth it though.)

My worry about the day 1 corvettes is that the game ticker is set up for progressive roll out, with corvettes rampaging around the map unchallenged the ticker has the potential to advance way too fast early on setting us up for a rough time.

Hopefully very soon the most played will be Release version 1.0.0 I myself am on V22.5 HF1.