ClaytonCross

First let me say after playing Xcom: ufo defense, Open Xcom, Xcom:Enemy Unknown, and Xcom:Enemy within I find the detail and fidelity to the player outstanding in this game. While not as flashy as Xcom:EU it is far less buggy and provides a lot of control and information to the player. I really enjoy this game and hope for a squeal or at least another game of the same design. There were some things I found my self missing from the other games though. 1. Rotatable maps. This is my the second biggest annoyance after playing Xcom:EU is that I really want to be able to spin the maps so I can see the from back side. I know there is a big issue with design to change this but I don't need to be able to spin to all 4 directions like EU, I would just love a north and south few if possible. The mouse cursor provides a lot more information than any other game like this but I still like seeing it more than feeling out behind walls to figure out where I am going to move the unit running down the back of the building. 2. A movement grid around cursor. Similar to the first issue I find some places where I feel like should be able to move but can't. Most notably around ship entrances and at the corners hedges dividing areas were the movement spaces are not as easily seen because the art would suffer from filling the whole square so it looks wider than it is. Xcom: EU lets you hold shift and see the grid with open movement areas. While this is used for "shield" scanning if this were applied with the "?" block used when entering unknown areas and only base on the map not unit obstructions (other than your units) it would greatly reduce some confusing moving problems with soldiers and vehicles. 3. Strait line of site while in full cover. The cover system in this game is any many ways superior to all the other games of this type. I do have 2 complains. The first is full cover is almost more of a hindrance than a help because it blocks strait forward line of site. Xcom: EU fixes this by acting as if the unit is standing one square out side of the the cover for view and then they actually step out to shoot, then step back in. This is functional but also has issues. Firstly stepping out to shoot should always trigger reaction fire which would get you slaughtered in both games and it would require a lot of work for AI as well. I recommend a "Turkey peek" button. Which adds an animation to lean out for 1/4 reduced cover benefit and 1/5 reduced aim at the cost of 10 time units for out and in like kneeling and can't be done while kneeling. so kneeling be comes standard for half cover and open areas but you have an expensive but safer way to check around corners. I also believe it should still set off reflex fire but since you keep 3/4 of full cover defense its worth the risk but if you have to guys better to not use it and play as is one on each side if possible. I don't think this is at all game breaking. 4. Line of site over two half cover blocks in a row is my second complaint with the cover system and my is the number 1 complaint of all. during base defense or moving on maps with crates I often end up behind behind two pieces of cover in a row. I under stand it having a blocking present when your one block away but if it is "attached" to the cover you are behind and not at least 3 blocks away it should not provide cover for targets unless they are using the cover directly. I am a former Marine and a southerner who grew up with shooting all types of guns and if I have a berm, sand bag barricade, or and old deep freezer (yes I am southern enough that I have done that, we keep are ammo in it to protect it from the rain... also sometimes our lunch)and I am shooting off of it long ways I use it as support and I am not dumb enough to aim low and hit the it! Especially if the target is any distance away and would not require me to aim much lower. It makes me more mad when my veteran sniper does it... oh so irritated. 5. Equipping soldiers. This is really to very miner things. First The abbreviations for the skills should say what they are when you hover the mouse over them. I know it seems obvious and I figured it out quickly but I did not pick up on reflex right away and immediately tried to mouse over to see what it was to no avail and actually saw a few lets plays where they did the same thing. As fine tuned as this game is it seems like a small detail missed but it is important to know when ordering and equipping units. I for example don't want my heavy gunners or rocket soldiers with high reflexes... it can end badly. The other thing equipping soldiers is gear management. I would like an unequip unassigned personnel button so I can more easily refit my drop ship soldiers and I would like it to that the set role default gear button did not remove all gear when I am short something like armor or rifles. If it would instead equip everything I have and if no weapon then the equivalent ballistic weapon so that I could at least setup the armor and equipment and have them armed. Then I can fix weapons later if I need to. If I am short armor at least give them the weapon and equipment so that they don't accidentally go into combat unarmed.

ya +1, I definitely agree with Gauddlike here.

I like that as a requirement for PSI powers. interesting.

@ ladlon While I understand your intention I have to agree with Gauddlike that it really is an all or none thing. If you do an invisible move at normal cost and with reaction shots you risk making it look like a bug instead of a feature. If you do it that way you need to remove reaction shots to avoid this then adjust balance if needed. Also LOS would go away after you return (which you are discribing as automatic) so all you would see is a quick alien head to the right and then it would be gone. So you would not have time to see alien if it is off screen but in view range, you would not get a chance to shoot, and you would not get squad site. If you never actually saw the alien you don't know where to AOE so the feature becomes more risk then reward and actually less functional then just doing it yourself. So ... I like the idea of corner shots and seeing around corners (possibly increasing alien site range for balance) but I don't think it would be wise to do less then that. Do or do not, there is no try.

Quote Sathra to: "I like it how it is. Every corner is scary, and takes some thought to deal with (I like to shoot through the walls). Might be realistically silly, but I enjoy it. Also helps that I easily memorise spawn points after a couple missions on a map ." I have an idea and I know some people are complaining about this and I am going to suggest making it worse but extend alien site during the day a little more. - Sathra's Fear factor of walking around the corner into auto shot is till there because you don't know if some one can see you same as before. - Gauddlike's fear of a squad sites with no persecution is still there but balanced by: 1. Aliens having initiative in all engagements so its not likely they will die with out getting there shots in. It is more likely your soldiers will die from reactions but if they get close and in cover they can pin an alien down. 2. I would also suggest that the reaction shot LOS does not change at corners so that aliens advancing or flanking your units don't risk being assaulted by players they can not shoot at without advancing. So corners increase defense but not reactions does not allow reaction shots around corners at all. So ya your cover is great until he flanks you or blows it out then you need to pull back or kill it fast. 3. No reactions around corners and extended visibility means aliens can also fall back and force you to fallow into reaction fire in order to try to use squad site so yes you may move to a corner see an alien and unload all your guys on it but if you can't keep him there then you risk loosing your spotter every time you approach. 4. If you have no cover aliens will be generally more dangerous so you will use it when you can and rush aliens when you can't, which is about like normal but you will strive you use cover until you can "track" an alien for a rush. 5. Guess shots after spotting an alien should have a reduced chance to hit unless its a grenade or another explosive but aliens do it to and you usually have one maybe to shots with explosives which have shorter range I think so your going through alien reactions shot and/or risking scouts so that you can get in range for him to grande you (destroying your cover) so you can use yours and maybe be in the open for other aliens.... I think that is its on risk. Rockets are an exception but at the same time your not normally going to have a full squad of rocket launchers moving slow and with 2 shot each. If you did aliens would get more shots out of site and if you miss twice your out of luck. If you have 1 guy with a rocket launcher he will not likely have LOS on all aliens or enough ammo to shoot more than 2.

lol so just the one random mission then. made me laugh, thanks.

Tried it, it worked, Im a noob. thanks for the help!

Ah the missing piece of the puzzle, thanks for that bit of information!! I tried the arrow keys thinking that would make sense but no joy. Might help if it always showed the silhouette, for me it only showed it when it was in the right place so I would not known if I had turned it.

So I played some more today. 2 day missions and 1 one night. I now think the confusion with ship load outs is that I only have one option so I thought it was just showing me what I have equipped, I imagine when I have more options it will be a list and then I can choose I think I can not order equipment because I have infinite of all base weapons and will manufacture new stuff not order it got ordering personnel down base construction is still a little annoying but I destroyed the 4th hanger and now have room to build vertical rooms New notes: 1. I figured the left click aim thing first fight by accident but did not realize till the 3 fight that I should shoot twice if I can get over 50 present and do so. Saw aliens doing it first. 2. Had 3 missions and they are all on the same map as well as the aliens are always in the same spots... a bit repetitive. 3. Night missions are as awesome and chilling as the original X-com. lost 1 guy on the first day time mission because he blew himself up with the rocket launcher and then my own guy shot him by accident, second day time mission no losses, first night time mission lost 4.... nice. playing on veteran iron-man for the first play through so that should make things interesting. ---added note figure out med kit 3rd mission found out how to send squadrons as groups from the forums Most important when the mission loaded I did not realize it was done and I needed to click the screen to start, found out by accident, that's why I did not do a mission the first time because I left and folded laundry while i waited and when I came back I thought it was still loading... dumb I know but the "its going to take a long time to load" loading screen through me off. So I was kinda expecting that. It only took about 3 seconds once I knew I should click the screen. any way that was about 1 hour total play time and I am golden now, just wanted to give you the noob prospective before it became second nature and I wondered how anyone could ever be confuse.

lol, funny but oh so wrong.

I could see them as a marker of separation to how how far past your starting gear and skill your troops have come and it would be interesting to fight alien collaborators from countries that they have turned, not in regards to turning the country back but simply adding additional number. Even if they are week starting level soldiers if they are numerous and do not diminish end game alien numbers it would still add difficulty because while minor threats, you could not just ignore them. mainly it just a fun idea.

Interest idea, I would be cool to destroy the whole site or to attach a failed mission again. (to be honest I looked st this post because I though some one was trying to tie the 1991 game "scorched earth" in to it (its the predecessor of worms so I just had to see where this was going. lol. But this is cool too)

The original Xcom allowed a 20 square view during the day and a 7 at night for humans, but 20 day and not for aliens, that is why night missions were so scary. Just a thought if your setting up your own site distances. That might be a good model to follow so that you can keep the night time fear factor and still see at some distance under good conditions. In fact I would say maybe make aliens 21 at day and just so you get an occasional shot from no where during the day to keep you on your toes but not enough to wreck your day. That is if lightgemini is correct about be able to set your on site distances, I have not tried it.

I have not played that far yet so I was unaware that a rail-gun like weapon was already in the game. I commented based only one a ballistic to laser transition. But if they are already there then the subject seems mute, as ballistic research does not end but is adapted by lasers and then becomes something better. I could see an advantage to a mass driver (rail gun like weapon) over a lasers in regards to inconsistencies of lasers heat absorption, effectiveness vs reflective services, and the natural dispersion of light where as a mass driver would perhaps be more consistent because it is impact based from the round. I had actually considered this more after my post. I had wandered if it would make more since for rail guns to come after lasers as they could in many ways be considered a superior weapon. I am not sure it makes since for humans derived tech to drive the pinnacle of research as you state. I would maybe have made it tear 3 but that is subjective and merely my opinion. Not only that but X-com:EU tends to agree with you as the plasma weapons end game include the Alloy Cannon and Plasma Sniper rifle which are upgrades to human tech instead of new alien tech and really they are the 2 most deadly weapons. It is almost a disappointment that aliens don't copy human designs end game because of them, though I do admit they would wipe your guys out end game due to superior numbers and that would suck, lol. http://xcom.wikia.com/wiki/Weapons_%28XCOM:_Enemy_Unknown%29 <-- for X-com:EU weapon strength reference

I love this idea!! Let the local military handle the little ones, your the elete force after all and who is to say you didn't sell some of your gear to them so they could handle it way? Beats having to wait for them to fly over water like I did in the original X-com, lol I did have a though, you can attack a UFO with more than one interceptor, will there be a launch squadron button in the final UI? right now you have to line them up one at a time I believe and wait like the original, but if they can both attack, why not launch them as a squadron? maybe send the drop ship too so its half way there when it get shot down for faster response time, the risk being if another UFO shows up you may not be able to respond because all your ships are out, but I like that.

Firaxis actually did a very good job they just took it in a little different direction and it was still a bit buggy when it released, saying it had more life because of character customization is kinda week. If the game play really sucked it would not matter if you could put them in cool looking armor or not. That said no one minds a little character customization and that DLC would be nice but I would not mind if that was a later patch and they used the first and maybe second patch to fix any bugs and major issues with the game discovered post release.

That in mind a rail gun would be a nice step between ballistic and laser weapons. They actually exist too, its just that the last ones seen since WWII were so big that it was like mounting a train on to a battle ship. It is also the plot behind the move Eraser http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116213/ . But consider that they could be enhanced by the alien beam technology on the way to understanding lasers and that they have an EMP effect caused by the power magnetic forces placed on the projectile and it could make them better against electronic enemies where lasers are better against fleshy enemies that burn. just a thought.

That is good to hear I will keep that in mind, and I will give some more feed back when I get a chance to continue, but right now I am getting the "your making me wait..." look from my wife, so I will try tomorrow, lol.

For the people complaining about aliens being able to kill their soldiers by guessing their location I see two answers: 1. Make a super duper easy mode where you hit start is strips all the UI away shows an alien with the internet troll face and has one button that says "fire", they click the button the "alien" dies and a sign comes up.. "congratulations you beat the super duper easy mode... now grow a ..... backbone (see cleaned it up) and play the real game! lol 2. Allow those to be turned off on easy mode and if they cry its too hard to play easy they can turn that off too. So as you can tell I am prone to exaggerate. So yes my point about not using cover is yes also exaggerated and you can hide to heal, pull back and regroup and yes even shoot at 45% angle or a window, but my point while exaggerated is still valid that walking around a corner to see if some one is there is well a bit dumb. I see to a degree you recognize this as well. As far as balance goes it really depends on how well the player uses it since I don't see it needing a tutorial. But if your more tactical and able to use it well you will also more likely play at a harder difficult and give your self handy caps if it makes the game too easy, after all that is where things like Iron man mode come from and the reason you see imposable - iron man - pistols only lets plays on the internet for X-com:EU. All this being said (because not only do I exaggerate but I am also long winded) I would suggest it is an option you can turn on and off as stated in my first post. Then you don't worry about balance you let the players find it. But I also understand it not being a priority for release this could easily be an after release patch add-on. I do understand you have a lot more pressing matters to work on before release and that this is the kind of thing that could reset a lot of design/balancing work if it is a default setting as well as AI changes. Please understand I am not asking that nor do I expect that much of a change this late in the build. But I would like to see it as an option some time since its not something I could just choose to do myself. As a side note, ... I love your signature.

So this may be in progress or mentioned before but I did not find a post on it by searching so: I was playing a bit after buying the per-order and I realized all the buttons are pictures and I don't know what they do. So I though I would mouse over and it would tell me like most games... and I was wrong and still a bit lost. any chance that will be added later? ---Side notes I just downloaded from steam and played the first time yesterday so with fresh eyes and as someone with no prior play in the game I noticed some other things. - Changing the Equipment on ships is not very intuitive for a first time player, did not figure it out in the 10 mins I had to play - Ordering equipment is not very intuitive for a first time player, did not figure it out in the 10 mins I had to play - Ordering personnel is not very intuitive for a first time player, I did not realize at first that the number was the number I had and I was adding to it to order more. I did eventually order 5 more soldiers so I got there. - Building bases structures is not very intuitive for a first time player, I built a few buildings but 1 it did not high light the build square and the original X-com even did that, 2 the shapes of the buildings and locations of the starting base structures is annoying and hard to build from, 3 I was hovering over structures to see what they were and it was very glitch and showed some building and not others as well as I had to point one square high so it was really only 2 square vertical structures and square only structures that worked. If they were horizontal I could not see what they were. I know the original X-com kinda through you out there with no guidance and I figured it all out, however while I am not asking for a tutorial a little more intuitive menus would be better. In fact I found the original game fairly intutiace and did not have much issue ordering gear, order personnel, equipping craft or building bases. Your screens look great but the original UI layout and function may be a little better for beginning players, though I imagine it has more functionality for veteran players to Xenonauts who have had more time to figure it all out. Due to the long load time and well wife aggro, I did not get to actually play a combat mission I will post again if I see anything that strikes me on first play there when I get a chance. (I did see the message about final project having faster mission loads. So no complaint there I know your working on it.)

If you lose sight of it again once you lean back then you know exactly where it was standing and kill it using ground target shots because it has not had its own turn so it won't have moved. It is also important to note, that can work both ways so it is not really an advantage to one side or the other as long as both sides can do it. It just makes the game more tactical and cover actually important..... Do aliens not all so get squad site? Could aliens not also use cover? Can aliens not also guess your still there and trough a grenade blindly around a corner? Would it not also make them harder to kill if the are in cover? and would players actually have to be more careful and tactical if aliens don't just run wildly in the open? I truly believe it makes the game harder more fun and more tactical if both the computer and player are actually using cover instead of standing in the open like its the colonial period and we apparently haven't learned to not stand in the open and shoot, besides don't people just move out and move back anyway? is that not the same, just you risk setting off reflexes more? Its more dumb that you would jump out "here I am shoot me!!" and then hide again, instead of peeking and shooting from cover. Also in the original X-com aliens could do this and players could not. http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Line_of_sight under blind spots I have no issue with aliens getting some advantages like longer site range and so on, but I would like to think my solders could be smart enough to us cover.

"Turkey peek" / Corner site / Shooting from cover is another X-com:EU upgrade that I would like added as an OPTION. To clarify, In X-com: UFO defense if your standing at the corner of a building you can only see at a 45 degree angle (diagonally) meaning that you have to step out of cover into a direct path to see an alien 2 squares away. In X-com:EU if you are at a corner you can see anyone in a strait line as if you are standing in the line beside the building, and you can still shoot at any alien in that line from cover. Which allows you to use the cover of corners and assault more tactically. In the real world there is a name for this, its called a "turkey peek" and they actually teach this in the military. You peek out with your rifle long enough to see and maybe shoot then pull back into cover so you don't get shot in the head. Now I am aware that in the game this raises two issues, which is why I think it has to be an option you can turn on and off. First, is a lot of people will say walking around the corner into an alien 2 squares away and getting blown away by auto shot is part of X-com and something that could take away from Xenonauts and they are not wrong. It does add to the fear factor that whole leap of "oh crap here I go!" lol. But for the same reasons JS removed added the view to allow turkey peek at corners I want it as well, in that it adds more command control and makes the game a little less about luck and a little more about tactics. Secondly, when you make the player capable of finding enemies like this it will make the game easier, which is in opposition to why some of use love x-com... unless the aliens can do it too. If it is possible for aliens to do it as well aliens will also be harder to kill, but if they can't I would like to level the playing field reducing the number of soldiers I use. This will make my games faster and also more tactical .... sound familiar? lol. Don't get me wrong I want to play Xenonauts like the original X-com in its original state some times, but as Xenonauts is a much improved version, would it not be beneficial to allow more tactical play? ---UPDATE / Correction: I just played X-com:EU and realized they don't actually turkey peek. When you click fire they step out into the open around the corner one square then switch to shoot cam and fire, after shooting they then step back behind the corner. This "free"/automated move allows for easier line of site and shooting mechanic without them having to create varied cinema screens for the shot cam. ... It would also be easier to duplicate in the original version.... if anyone understands what I am talking about, lol.