ChaseBears

well imo armor vision reduction is way overdone. we wouldn't 'need' shield scouts if armored mens could see. though tbh you can scout fine without shields, its just riskier. I've no doubt people could get used to it, it just doesn't pass the 'explain this to someone who hasn't played' smell test. Sort of like pistol-commandos. "You don't armor guys... and give them them pistols... so they can scout? in the cold war era?" I've gotten more than one eyebrow about that.

The blacked out maps are kind of traditional in X-Com. After a while, you know vaguely where the UFO is anyway, once you've determined the borders of the map - it's in the direction the map lets you go. (Of course, that means there's really no downside to letting players know where the UFO is... but w/e.

The only reason to take vision impairment off the table is shield scouts and shield scouts are dumb/gamey as a mechanic. You don't need much vision to use a shield for UFO breaching, which IMO is their intended role.

How is it good gameplay to have minmaxed shield-scouts? You don't need realism, but you do need authenticity, and guys wandering across fields with combat shields up makes my mind's eye wince. What is this - Testudo formation?

I wish ;_; I can look at those files and combat shield is available and mig has 2 hardpoints *and they are still wrong in the game*. In new games. It's an unkillable monster. The only thing I haven't tried is rebooting; I need to clean up some stuff I'm working on first. I have a suspicion its a weird memory issue with the game. Thank you for your responses, though.

I did both... I just can't get rid of it. I cant get combat shields and my migs are messed up >_<

Hi, I seem to have an unkillable mod. I'm running the experimental beta, it says so in the launcher, yet I don't have the combat shield and the Foxtrot has 4 missile hardpoints. I'm sure this is because of the mod; yet the mod doesn't exist. I deleted it from all locations (game dir, mods dir, other mods dir, download folder), verified the game cache, wiped the game directory and redownloaded, checked Appdata and My Documents for rogue copies of the files, and started new games three times. It's all been a bust. The game definitely has the updated geoscape look of the experimental beta, so its not some weird flaw in the launcher. And I can look directly at aircrafts.xml and see the Foxtrot with 2 hardpoints. But I make a new games and rush Foxtrots and they still have 4. The mod does not show in the Modding Tools. I also tried re-installing the mod then deleting it with Modding Tools. I feel I'm missing something but

Your interceptors in X-Com might take some damage when they used their cannon against small targets, but it was essentially meaningless. You can actually lose Condors against Alien equivalent of Cessnas right now. But you're still expected to use Condors against much tougher threats... There's other ways to add challenge to the early air game. It's about more than gameplay, though. There's supposed to be a sense of escalation. The game starts with a small number of easily handled threats but soon enough it will throw big nasties at you. Your Condors should be overwhelmed by the new threats, not barely adequate against the current ones. And if you want to talk about tactics... If you stagger your missiles you can blow up infinite light scouts with Condors. It isn't challenging so much as it is micro that the fighter pilots won't do on their own.

IMO, Assault Shields should be roled for assaulting UFOs and indoor combat rather than protecting scouts as they venture across open fields. A vision malus suits this perfectly.

The light scouts arn't even built for combat. They ought to be chumps. Even unmodified fighters (unlike the Condor) are supposed to take them out. This was the case in X-Com too, the smaller UFOs presented minimal threat to your starting fighters. Suggestion, make evading something alien Fighters can do but not the Scouts. This presents a sharp divide between combat craft and utility craft. If you want to have a challenging fight in the first month, there could be rare multi-ship groups. The aliens banding together in attempt to stop the bleed. The logic of the game compels you to shoot down every UFO you see. That's how you earn money, that's how you earn tech, that's how you level up your soldiers, that's how you earn nation rep. If shooting down every UFO requires you to spam hangars then players will do it. It only takes a couple of downed UFOs to payoff the construction cost. Also, 'Rampaging UFOs' makes for a much less controlled game experience. It's far more likely than players game experiences will range from utterly facerolling the aliens (doing very well in interceptions, ahead of the curve on money and tech) to extraordinarily difficult or failed games(doing poorly in interceptions, behind the curve and getting worse). Assuming that the player will shoot down _most_ UFOs means there's a far more consistent progression in squad power, relations, and funding: the result is a more consistent challenge level.