TehRic

Rectangular maps are fun for a few missions, but I agree that they detract from the fear of flank, especially for day-time missions. One good flank I recall was during a day-time terror mission, and that was simply because those tend to have a ton of hiding spots via buildings. Many of the crash-landing missions lack in this department, unless it's a night-mission. Great points brought up, overall, Shaska.

Give me a mod with that configuration, and I'm there.

Edit: GizmoGomez beat me to the post. I doubt he was directing that at you, TrashMan. That statement came off, to me, as more as in-general. The way people set up their loadouts will vary, and having plenty of options is more satisfying than a restrictive amount. When the majority of players start claiming that the game is too easy as a result of a specific mechanic or design, then re-balancing can come into play.

Thanks for pointing that out, Sathra. Based on what you've said about the later encounters, loot-wise, I say your funding suggestion would suit perfectly. I've been running a veteran ironman campaign that I'll most likely be restarting due to a sour blunder that cost me my interceptors (bit off more than I could chew); not having enough money to replace them was a bust. The idea of increasing it by 20-40% would, at the very least, provide me with a reason to save 200-300k in case of accidents.

An increase in monthly profits would be nice. It's been a while since I played the OG, but I recall netting (roughly, depending on the amount of crash-missions & how well I handled terror missions) 1-2 million during the early months. It was good enough to get the following month moving quicker when compared to the 500,000-ish I get in early-game Xenonauts. At first, I attributed the reduction of income to the fact that we now have infinite missles/ballistics/grenades/medikits/stun-batons/flares, but I still feel like the current monthly payments barely cover my needs, especially if things go sour. I also feel that loot from missions should be higher than it currently is, by a pinch. The lovely thing about the OG was the fact that nearly every good (and by good, I mean minimum deaths & civilian casualties) mission felt like a giant chunk of change added to your wallet. I recall the plasma weaponry, alone, would be more than enough, sell-wise, to pack your base & soldiers with more goodies. The power sources, navigations, and alien entertainment/food was the icing on the cake in terms of loot. I haven't reached late-game yet, but I've had my fair exchange of terror missions and medium assaults, so I still can't comment on how good the loot is from bases & larger ships, but I do feel like the early & mid-game seems a wee bit on the small-side for money. As pointed out on the tl;dr list thread, the lack of funds makes building extra bases a painful endeavor.

That's exactly the sort of randomization to help in terms of wall-type placements such as fences. Same for the bushes in the farm levels. Little off-topic, but would it be possible to make bushes passable at the cost of extra TU? It would make for a fun addition of ambush strategies for both sides. Sending in a scout to check the area while you have a sniper hiding in the bushes. At the very least, make bushes destroyable via having your hunter roll through it.

What's amusing from my old memories of X-COM'ing is that I'd usually roll out with 8, early on, even though you could cram more, and yet now when I see a restriction of 8, I suddenly want 10. I do agree with the notion that having more options to play with is better than keeping things minimum. As far as I'm concerned, having more xenonauts on the field just equates to more targets for the sebilians to target-practice on.

After reading Chris' post, I did come to realize the subtle changes (changes of car colors & the types of cover). I didn't notice them, at first, since I was more focused on seeing the sort of randomization I anticipated (i.e. a same city with a warehouse being swapped for a small park with some benches or something). I can elaborate on an example of two levels at this stage of development where the limitations didn't bother me on one as much as the other. Levels like the early snow mission containing two small houses & plenty of cover doesn't bother me, since random placement of enemies & cover will effectively make the experience different each time. However, there's one particular early-mission in a city-like setting where your chinook lands in a corner that is fenced off, next to a parking lot. My problem with the latter arrangement, when compared to the former, is that I get a meta-game'ish feel to this area, since the enemy ship is on the other side of the fence, and there's only one way to pass through that fence (unless I blow the fence up, which is always fun). Because of this, the beginning of the mission starts off fairly safe without consequence after I've cleared the chinook's perimeter. Instead of having my guys move in a slow manner (saving TU's), I find myself having them all run towards the exit of the fenced area without any sort of concern. Bottom line of this comparison: In the snow mission, the intensity remains from start to finish each play-through. As for the mission with the fenced corner you start in, I find that the intensity only occurs once you pass the fenced half. Perhaps the fences can be randomly swapped out? I know you'd want to preserve the legitimacy of the fence, since it serves to separate the parking lot from the other zone (large warehouse/construction zone?) I could go take some screenshots of the area I was referring to if there's uncertainty to the zone I was referring to.

Good to catch up on this. Thanks for clarifying things, Gauddlike.

Totally agreed. The moment I realized that the new X-COM not only lacked randomization, but that Firaxis didn't toss in any form of toolset/steam-workshop application, its replay-value dimmed considerably for me. It's a large percentage of the reason why Xenonauts has a lot more potential in its longevity.

Well heck, even if the maps aren't going to be utilizing any sort of built-in randomization, just being able to have the freedom to create & share maps will suffice. Give me a compilation of the best from the community of each tileset combined with the default maps we're given when the game officially launches and I'm a happy soldier!

Completely understandable. I would like an official word in, though, since you seem a bit uncertain. I definitely enjoy the variety of terrain types. The potential makes my head spin when compared to old-school X-COM map layouts. Is there also any word about compatibility with current player-submitted maps? Cheers, Gomez.

So the concept of levels & sub-maps was scrapped completely? That needs updating on the Xenowiki, then, unless that's being saved for future builds. As far as variety goes, I'm in the same boat as you, so I'll need to play a bit more then, now that the higher tier alien ships are unlocked. I suggest adding a few more maps for the very small scout missions, then. It seemed to cycle between 4 different layouts, and while I appreciate the detail put in, it'd be nice to see enough to reduce insane repetition. One can excuse one or two repeats of a map in a single play-through, but once you've done a particular map 5 times after 10 missions, the twitching begins.

Two questions from someone who has only been playing casually during the alpha and is now playing a bit more now that we're in beta: 1) Are the randomized sub-maps functional in the current build? Unless my build installed incorrectly from the last, the sub-maps are supposed to randomize per selected level, right? I'm having loads of fun, but I can't help but twitch after running the exact same maps containing a near-exact replica of sub-map placements. If the randomization of sub-maps isn't fully in place, then that's fine, but I get the feeling something's off. 2) Are any of the player-submitted maps compatible as of now? I ask, because the last mapping thread is from February. P.S. Great work with the transition from alpha to beta! Looking forward to the upcoming updates.