Bromley86

With Xcom3 you could neutralise the threat (i.e. androids carrying the heavy weapons). With Xcom:EU you can (apparently, I can't bring myself to play it) neutralise the threat with Psionic class troopers. With Xcom1 you could, after a while, see the defense strength and so effectively neutralise the threat by sacking anyone with a low strength. Plus I found the soldiers to be more like cannon fodder than those in Xeno (probably something to do with 14 vs. 8 in the starting dropship). Anyway, the point of all that is that I didn't mind psionics in the other games, but I do in this one. Range mitigation helps a lot, but I think Caaygun & Gauddlike have the right idea with a single attack having multiple effects depending on how badly the target fails the roll. Ideally I'd like to see 2 attack types: a global one, like the current Dread, that has a chance of affecting everyone in the team and a targeted one that has that variable effect. The global one could be set off without LOS, the targeted one ideally only on soldiers that had been spotted (by any alien unit, whether now alive or dead) in the preceding turn. Of course, that might not be possible.

Cheers Gauddlike! Do you know if it's fixed for release, or whether they're considering a more usual Xcom system (1 Sgt per 5 soldiers, etc.)?

How do you get your whole squad up to Commander? Currently I only have 6 in Nov '79. Okay, I'm being flippant. I take it rank progression is currently (and will remain at release) something like a basic 10 "stars" = rank one, 25 stars = rank 2, 50 stars = ranks 3, etc. If so, I assume the only way to avoid having an entire squad of Commanders will be to massively increase the number of stars required?

Ditto. Base missions are fine, terror missions are tactical-nuke-only. Has anyone tried to substitute terror maps from v.21?

I've found someone's been pinching stuff from my stores. Sequence: 1. Hire 3 new soldiers 2. Unequip armour from my injured soldiers and kick them off the dropship ready for the new guys 3. At this time, there are 3 Jackal suits in store 4. Fast forward until 3 new guys arrive. Armour disappears after the popup tells me they've arrived. (The new recruits are not wearing armour - I checked ). The only kinky thing I've done is rename the Rifleman class as Recruit and set up a new Rifleman class. I had some laser weapons in store that didn't disappear. EDIT: It's related to the default equipment of the Recruit class (my renamed Rifleman class). I just edited the default equipment from Jackal and laser rifle to no armour & ballistic rifle. Guys arrive and the armour is still in my stores.

Ha! Wish I'd gone for the free play, but didn't have time last weekend. Terrible game.

I've avoided the new Xcom; aside from anything else, the way I am makes playing with a few soldiers that you absolutely cannot afford to be badly hurt Not Fun. Still, I'm a sucker for anything that's 75% off, which this is until the 7th. It's also free to play for that period. Just don't fall for the XCOM EW add-on (unless you want it), as that's only 10% off.

@last two. Taking that position though, surely you should be advocating a move to 50%?

No excuse - I wasn't even drunk!. Yep, I want aliens hidden unless they're in the sight range of one of my guys but want to see the whole map from the get-go.

Tried searching "Fog of war", but the words are too short. SO apologies if this gets asked and answered all the time. Is there any way to disable to FoW? I've been playing with Lightgemini's sight mod and I really like being able to see most of the map. What I don't like is mowing down the poor aliens from a distance. I know I could mess with weapon ranges or accuracy, but what I'd probably want to do is change the drop-off after the optimum range is exceeded, and that's hardcoded. So turning sight ranges back and FoW off might be a compromise.

Another way of doing it might be the other way around; to make the research topic available at a certain ticker level, or the ammo just becomes unlimited with a pop-up informing you that the funding nations are able to supply your needs.

At something like $50-$200 per round, I don't think it really matters at this level how many RPG rounds your heavy guy spams. http://www.pmulcahy.com/rocket_launchers/russian_rocket_launchers.htm

I was experiencing a fair number of ground combat crashes. Sometimes I'd make it all the way through with no problems, sometimes I wouldn't. The crashes would always occur during Hidden Movement, more often in terror missions than normal ones and I haven't managed to figure out what trips it; possibly something to do with Zombies and Reapers, but perhaps not. Anyway, since I installed the simple version of Lightgemini's Long Range Mod (i.e. just an increase to sight ranges), I've not had a single crash despite playing 2 terror missions and a bunch of scout/corvette missions. As bug tracking goes this is a little weak, but it all helps . Mod: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/5082-Long-Range-Mod-%28another-sight-mod%29

Yep. Reloaded from before that mission and all seems fine.

Cheers Chris!

Sure, but that's very different to being in a firefight with advanced aliens and only shooting 6 rounds .

Given that terror missions are the only long-range ground mission that players can realistically undertake (as they won't see any UFOs that land outside their radar range), just set the dropship range to 41k and be done with it. That avoids the necessity of forcing the game to make an exception for the first terror mission as well as avoiding the irritation of potentially missing the next 2 or so terror missions due to range issues (it'll likely take a while to get another base set up with not just interceptors but also a whole extra assault team). But what if the idea of local forces shooting down a percentage of UFOs, which will mean there are crash sites outside your radar range, is actioned (good idea, BTW)? Sending your dropship to the other side of the planet to assault the crashsite exposes it to risks of interception and also ties it up for a good while, meaning you might not be able to respond to a terror mission or just a craft that you downed. So there would be costs to the player of casually making use of that range.

That's the point though. You're not burning ammo as quickly as you should, which is why the mag sizes feel too large. The reason why you're not burning through ammo is because you're killing the aliens. That's because you're hitting them too frequently, and that's a function of range and accuracy. I've never fired an assault weapon and have zero combat experience, but I'd wager that real life soldiers don't ration the ammo out like it's coming out of their paychecks. Current TU costs for the M16: Single 17, 20, 23; burst 35. Would it IRL take twice as long to fire a burst than to snap off a single shot? Likewise, would a fully aimed shot take only 2/3 of the time of a roughly aimed burst? Assuming the answer is no and that the burst cost should really be ~20, that means M16 users will be burning through their ammo faster, perhaps enough that we can have realistic clip sizes (in terms of numbers of bullets, although Okim's volume point is also a good one). Of course, in game terms that probably also requires a reduction in accuracy. EDIT: BTW, in case it's not clear, "burst" is a selective fire feature that chucks out 3 bullets (in this case) for every trigger pull, as opposed to good fire discipline with a fully auto weapon.

Like Sathra, I had assumed that it was a targeting priority issue as Reapers sprinted past my guys to take out the scary civilian and Lizards moved down local forces in preference to tooled-up Xenonauts who'd ended their turn out of cover nearby. However, it's not that. Once the Lizards finished off the remaining visible civilians in a terror mission, they just ran around. I literally parked people in the middle of roads and watched an alien hop up out of cover, draw opp fire and run some more. It's not just an issue with local AI (i.e. priorities between cover and attack being screwed), as aliens out of sight aren't firing across the map at my exposed guys. For example, in the file below, before I charged my guys forward the alien in the NE store had group-sight of my chap in the park but wasn't firing on him. I can finish multiple turns exposed in full sight of 2 aliens and not draw fire (as I'm not moving, they can't opp fire me). http://www.filedropper.com/2013-05-17105634 This probably explains the weird post-suppression moves I've been seeing, where the alien will just stand up rather than trying to kill my chaps. v.18.5 (Xenonauts Alpha BETA Candidate 4)

Reaper/Zombie AI on the terror missions may be a little predictable. I had 10 civilians, so there were more Reapers & Zombies than in vanilla, but I must have caught 6 moving counter clockwise around the top and then left of the map towards the Skyranger in my last terror mission. First time it I saw it, it was a shock to discover a Reaper had got behind my lines, so it's not a bad tactic. But the element of surprise is lost if they all perform some sort of alien conga line .

Making corpses & equipment far more vulnerable to explosives will help keep a check on RPG spamming, as will massive penalties for humans being killed by Xenonauts. Also, if strength becomes a fixed (or very slowly increasing) stat, then it'll be hard for players to spam RPGs/HMGs without lots of hiring and firing. I don't suppose the explosion damage dropoff factor is moddable? Because if it is, then RPGs could have high damage at point of impact, but be effectively useless against tough/armoured aliens without a direct hit.

Ideally you'd get around that by using something like the JA2 or SS ghost icons for squad members who can't see that particular enemy. They could still target them but would suffer an accuracy penalty, perhaps unless they possessed a scoped weapon. That'd give the real life suppression effect you mention. Not going to happen now though and, anyway, it might be a little irritating as you'd have to click on all your guys to see who had direct sight of an enemy and who was relying on squad reports.

This is what I'm currently working with. Unadjusted, you get $10k funding increase for shooting down the UFO and then $4-5k increase for the ground mission (8-10 points). I've also modded terror sites elsewhere to include 10 civilians rather than 5, so there's more money to be made there. Haven't played multiple months yet though, so this could be a little tight still, but as we didn't really have any money issues in v18.4 when the ground combat funding effects were ignored, it's probably best to keep the scores low. If this is too low for you, doubling the ufo/base/terror secured part and upping aliens from 1/2 to 2/3 will increase the reward to $10-13k unadjusted for UFOs and ~$30k for terror missions. missionscore_gc: EDIT: End of the first month, funding up $96k with no terror mission. So the above should be fine.

I had the same as the OP. No problem equipping and using (although no one shot my guy), but it crashed at the end of the ground combat mission. Of course, despite not using shields since, I've had occasional crashes at the end of ground combat since, so I can't guarantee cause & effect.

Not for me. Better link to the file for them.