Jean-Luc

I'm sure "moar weapons" will be modded in soon enough.

OOtS is probably the most famous fantasy web comic ever so it's hardly surprising. There is no guarantee Xenonauts will be able to print as much money from a KS drive but, yes, it would certainly be beneficial to give it a go. The start of Xenonauts' KS campaign needs to coincide with a press release (preferable a major one with many shiny updates). I bet that crashed ufo art could reel in some large cash salmon.

Aquanauts.

I remember reading about a system, long ago, that tried to incorporate smell into games. You basically had a "thing" attached to your pc that contained various compounds (or something) that would release different smells depending on the game context. I expect games would have needed to be designed specifically with this in mind. In any case, no thanks.

Does fawning over the crashed UFO art and pretty much ignoring the rest of the update mean we're superficial?

See? This is why we can't have nice things.

There are other ways to get attention that don't carry the risk of messing up your game's presentation. There's a reason this sort of thing isn't generally done.

Assuming I was going to be honest regarding this contest, making myself honor-bound to pick any of the submissions carries just too much risk. Goddess forbid that I should rub salt in my wound and promise a free game to the winner.

I would die before I let the community name anything in my game.

These tactics enabled the soldiers' human eyes to see through walls (and pretty much all non-transparent physical objects) at all times?

Not really, it's supposed to be a bit of a surprise I think. Maybe they'll show up in the beta.

A scary Chryssalid-like type of alien is planned but we don't know if they'll have the same mechanics or not.

^ Nice avatar.

The USSR has been on board the Xenonauts project from the beginning and this rationalization has been covered in the comments already.

The end of the month is also the time when you pay your personnel's wages (and maintenance?). Maybe you went a bit overboard with building/hiring?

Well, it shouldn't be hard to "mod".

The main difference is that in JA2 and SS you lead a small-ish group of characters that are more or less persistent throughout the game and are developed in more detail in the sense that they can have skills, background stories, voices, etc. They're a relatively small scale tactical rpg tbs-es so to speak. In X-Com and, consequently, Xenonauts you lead what's closer to a small army with dozens of soldiers, vehicles and aircraft. You also deal with things like base building, research, manufacture and other details. On the other hand the soldiers here are much simpler and more expendable, you are expected to lose and replace quite a lot of them by the time the game's over. Losing a few guys every mission can be considered acceptable loses in these games whereas in JA2/SS it'd be an unrecoverable tragedy. X-Com/Xenonaut soldiers do have some stats, portraits and such but they're a lot less distinct and don't have as much individual character like those in JA2 or SS. So Xenonauts could be said to have less rpg elements in favor of more strategic management.

It feels odd because the MiG is a famous long existing earth-tech plane and suddenly it has to be researched. It's like here's your pistol, assault rifle, sniper, MG, etc. but you have to "research" the shotgun. Even when you say it's just being modified (rather than researched from scratch) it makes one wonder why is this modification so different from the ones done to the F-17. Why does this single piece of earth-tech that's based on something so "mundane" and well known (a MiG) need to go through a research process when everything does not? It just rubs one the wrong way and creates a sense of inconsistency (for me at least) regardless of rationalization. In any case I just wanted to state the reason, I'll deal with it. Technically it is a good solution to all the opening stage (early game) issues.

It sounds unmanned but it needn't be and the point is the same as that of the "scout" whatever it may be. I just don't like the sound of light/heavy scout. A "scout" is typically light by default and it's fairly safe to assume that no other UFO has a light/heavy variant which kinda begs the question why does the scout, of all ships, have it. It sounds a bit contrived, like it was forced in there to fill a gameplay gap without fitting conceptually with the rest of the alien craft. It could also be called a "Surveyor", a kind of non-military scouting craft that maps the land and water masses, records climate features, looks for good landing sites, etc. but doesn't gather detailed military intelligence like the Scout.

Nice. I'd like to see some mercenary or paramilitary groups (like the French Foreign Legion) used as backgrounds since they can apply to any nationality which is nice in cases where it's hard to think of a "native" example.

I really like the OP proposal purely in terms of gameplay but I agree with Gazz and others before him that it stretches credibility to a pretty awkward level. If "MiG modification" needs to be researched, why not the same for the F-17? If the MiG needs to be manufactured, why not the other plane as well? While certain rationalizations can be applied they're pretty weak and fail at creating suspension of disbelief (for me at least). Instead of researching the MiG, maybe it's the avalanche missiles/launchers that should be made a researchable item as the first step towards defeating heavier UFO hulls. The MiG could begin the game equipped with 4 sidewinders instead or even be unavailable until the avalanches are researched. I would also suggest changing the light/heavy scout names into something like probe/scout with probe being the "light" version. Having light and heavy scouts sound a bit odd/redundant.

Yeah, there's no need for a virus when aliens can just die from Tom Cruise exposure.

I'm not sure but I think psi abilities could be modded in for humans.

I wonder if these questions will ever stop. With a game like this probably never.

Ohhh didn't know about that, nice. Funny how at first some of the complaints were about there needing to be more variety and more "stuff" but now it seems like it might be too much. It's the way of the world I suppose.