Went

Laser Squad is the best!

Maps are predominantly static objects. Walls, grounds, furniture - all this doesn't move, so it's looks better like a flat spite, drawn exactly for projection as player looks at them. But units (soldiers, machines) - dynamic. They turning, breathing, moving in different directions, they have lots of special animations like firing, dying, throwing e.t.c. Moreover, units are highly customizable - they can carry different weapons, ammunition, armor, can have different sex and faces, can belong to different players (not in X-Com) e.t.c. So when you want to have soldiers drawn with 2d sprites, you may have picture of each unit in each orientation with each weapon in each armor of each sex and face, and for all of this you need long row of animation frames. Just multiply all of this and you'll get enormous quantity of content. You want to add any new weapon or armor? Then render soldier with all these orientations, sexes e.t.c. You wan to change something else - you'll need to rerender ALL THIS CONTENT! In the same time 3d units will give you absolute freedom in clothing, equipping, turning soldier, absolute smooth frame rate, and just DRAMATICAL economy of content and time.

Harridans also fly inside of Carrier UFO's roof and get invincible there in previous version. Did you fix this issue too?

I have asked only about 3D units in 2D environment, not about full 3D game (this is no good, agree).

- You are just one GLOBAL organization, and nations/regions are reluctant to fund you as they want/try to handle things their own. (explains the odd loss of funding because of somewhat silly reasons) Why another ones doesn't even try to intercept enemy UFOs or terror sites? - The UFO's you do manage to detect are just a small fraction of the whole force. No. You see all of UFOs arrive our planet. Because only they make "accidents" on the globe. - The nations you lose are just nation that were fed up with the organization and decided to fund their own national defense organizations. So i think the cold war is a very good setting, because both major players are both busy and distrusting of a global united force. This also explains why nations only send you their privates... No they are not. Any biological kind unite against common enemy. And humans not a exception. 2. Due to the really bad political situation, Xcom needs to both prove they can handle things on their own. And not show "public" association to either Capitalist Pigs/Commy Bastards by... lets say landing a plane in their base. American goverment give me money to build base in Moscow, but didn't forgive me if my plane will land there? Weak argument. 3. UFO magical-science-gizmos operational/none-operational. Yep, magic can explain everything. But this is not only story issue, this is gameplay issue too. It make me mad, when enemy UFO lands in front of the nose of my interceptors and they need to return to base, because have not enough fuel to patrol area until UFO will take off. 5. Balance issues, its already somewhat of a logistical nightmare. Do you really want to control 20+ soldiers? Just outfitting them makes me shiver... Yes. Balance issue make game illogical. 7. Do to insert_techno-babble_here it is obviously not possible! If we do that the kaboom will be too big! And will destroy the planet! But if we infiltrate them... kill most on board... we will have enough time to make a smaller explosion! First. No, we have not enough time. Enormous reapers give us no time at all. Second. Hyperdrive malfunction is too obvious for intergalactic race. Sure, they have invented anti-malfunction device, in other case all the universe will be filled by such "unreachable places". Third. Player dropship would be destroyed once he will try to reach enemy dreadnought. Etc. No, final mission legend is sic as hell. 8. Thats a good point. Hard to make an excuse for this that is not: "For obvious game mechanics... Duh!" First. Gene pool itself is a illogical because alien gene structure will be incompatible with ours. Moreover, for millon-year creatures gene table will be such obvious thing like a Lego for our children. Second. There is many other ways to discover human kind in place of UFOs flying and city terror. Such brutal actions is incompatible with such high-developed super-mind.

I don't like "snatched graphics" and "community mods". Game may be perfect "in vanilla", and this version is a game itself, all other mods is just a... experiments for fun.

I have "invented" some time ago "X-Com" there tactical-shooting missions replaced with wargame-like battles (like a Panzer General).

Yep, strong local forces in some missions would be nice.

But they may not to be! And in this case few soldiers will not be enough. So you need to keep here enough soldiers to repel invasion even if most of batteries will miss.

Just for fun. I'm clearly understand these things never be fixed, but for my tediousness I need to tell about 1. All the humanity is under deadly alien terror, but only one organization with ridiculous budget fights against it. 2. Player interceptor have to land only on player base. So if it haven't enough of fuel, it just falls down instead of landing on any local airfield. 3. When enemy UFO lands, not my, nor local aircrafts unable to airstrike it. In the mean time, any crashed UFO can be easily destroyed. 4. Alien-tech weapon can require so much alien materials and work time like a alien-tech interceptor. 5. Player is unable to send two dropships on one crash site. 6. Player is unable to store alien weapons, meanwhile able to use it on the field. 7. For some strange reason, in final mission player is unable to carry to enemy dreadnought fussion bomb, instead this he tries to kill enemy praetor with soldiers. 8. For same strange reason, aliens "study" humans, losing their super-technologies and soldiers. Million-year creatures so stupid, that by their hands digging their own graves.

So why I need batteries at all? Thus, several soldiers enough?

They weight huge ammount of memory and give not smooth animation nor sufficient visual variety. Exceptionally for huge units. Didn't you thought, why all of them just unanimated solid bodies?

No, you are wrong. Each reload UFOs behavior and attack results was little different. Some times missed one, some times missed both batteries. But this is not a point. Point is wrong mechanics itself. Such principal things like base survival may not depend just on one or two dice throws. This is a basic rule of game design: importance of the event should be proportional to its control.

Even you'll build 3 battery, you'll not be in safe. I had one base attack in past game. Base had 2 advanced (plasma) batteries against alien carrier. I have tried 3 or more times (with game reload) to repel enemy UFO and all these times my batteries missed their target. So this is just another game design error - batteries just useless. If you rely on them, be ready for that blind chance will determine your fate. It will be better to build one more interceptor.

Thank you, Chris. Didn't you think about 3D units in isometric environment instead of tons of sprites?

What is the reason, if not a secret? Inexperienced programmers or incorrect project management?

This is a question primarily to developers. On the one hand, the game in current state is pretty... linear and limited. It even doesn't implement all original X-Com stuff. Some of other stuff implemented not the best way. I sure, devs know about it, but a full-sized game project is a hard work, and not all ideas can be implemented in the first try. On the second hand we have lots of high-quality content and game code. Game engine (on my opinion) is able to support a much more diverse game mechanics than the one we have now. So what about full-scale game add-on in future? Of course, not free. Of course, not amateur. Of course, not just new gfx, but new mechanics and game dimensions. I, for one, is ready to pay another 20 bucks for the game to become a truly tactical and truly simulator.

LOS psionic is a solution too. But this will make psi almost same as weapon - have a LOS and attack. Almost. And like as any other weapon, this solution will have the "oneshot" problem. Even worse - you will unable to protect against this attack behind the cover. Imagine, your top-ranked soldier gets 100% cover, best armor and much TU's for reaction fire. Then one silly psi-caesian just comes from the darkness and controls him. How player can parry this? Ooops

Even anti-psi armors is not solution. Okay, you have it. Probably it's attributes will be weaker than Sentiel ones. Would you wear it? 1. If it's anti-pri defence would be good, and anti-damage not much worse than others - answer is YES! Always YES! So this is not gameplay element, it's just "must have" element. 2. If it's anti-pri defence would be weak, or anti-damage effect will be much worse - answer is NO! Never! So it's will be spare game element, like the Fury interceptor. 3. If all the attributes will be balanced well and player will know about enemy race before ground mission, there will a sense to have two armor sets for both psionic and non-psionic aliens. But this will be boring to reequip team before each combat. Moreover, even if a soldier will equip anti-psi armor, it's just change randomizer rules and nothing more. So, psi armor is not solution for problem. What solution IS? Mind control must affect only soldiers with very low morale (10-20). So aliens will drain his morale first and only then try to control him. Player will see it and will have a solution - move panic soldier away/disarm him or venture to ignore possible control lost.

I got new "surprise" here. It's name is MIND CONTROL. My lieutenant with 80 or above bravery... Just BANG! and he kills all teammates around him. There is no way to block or parry this. Random generator says: "these soldiers will die this round" and you can do nothing against. This is just game design error, not a challenge.

I understand topic author. Imagine a game of chess. In a normal game, the player sees an enemy pieces and has all the necessary data in order to make the correct decision in time. If a player made ​​a mistake, he sees how and why he got defeated. But Xenonauts is a game with invisible opponent pieces. We see the enemy pieces only when they hit ours or we accidentally hit them. Therefore, we must guess, estimate where the pieces is and follow the tactics, in which each of our figure covered by some other. And opponent is in the same conditions. Can such game be named "strategical"? Of course, no. But. X-Com globe never was a strategy game. It was only "glue", "content source" to order sequence of tactical fights in something like alien invasion story. Even in hardest level, X-Com globe gameplay was quite trivial. But the Xenonauts have decided to go further. Developers decide to make a game on the globe that is as complex as the ground missions. So, on insane, we have "invisible chess", where our alien opponent makes smart, but all the time same moves. And task for player is to learn this moves and counter them. But each try consists lots of ground missions, whose can not be skipped. So we have not just "invisible" chess, but chess, where each piece weights 100 tons and we need a derrick to move each one. Did you predicted enemy position incorrect? So, hire porter team and put all the pieces back.

Yes I did. Beaten easily with "manual" ironman mode (real ironman is too dangerous due lots of bugs). OKAY! Everything except sibillians is UNDERPOWERED in this game. I playing insane to get challenge, but got it only within Corvette UFO fighting against two reptilodis, sitting behind their chairs. All other enemies pose no danger to the player in any quantity. It's better?

This. I have played Veteran not so much time ago and haven't any problems not in air, nor on the ground. Lol. I want to have 3 bases and 6 aircrafts on each too. But there is no money for it. If you want to have some science advance, some armor and some lasers, you would have two bases with 3-4 planes and two radars on each. Yes, you would able to shoot down almost all UFO's in your range, but this will not be enough. And one more remark about terrors. It is much better for relation to allow terror to happen and neutralize it rather than to intercept carrier in the air. Terror site cleaning gives huge relation boost (+150.000$ or something like this), while carrier interception gives ordinary about +10.000$

Kabill's advice is great. I really wish to see how it works in practice - just like action movie. I am not very good in English, therefore unlikely to be able to pass the desired degree of irony in this phrase. "A single rifle burst should be sufficient to re-suppress them". No, my rifleman would miss all the rounds and suppress only his mate, who standing nearby. "Rocket launchers with stun rockets are perfect for this". No, they NOT! I have filled the whole room with purple laughing gas, but sebillian never even coughed. This will almost certainly pin it down and make it capable of taking only a single snapshot which will have at best a ~25% chance of hitting. But he hit and one-shoted my soldier in wolf armor. And so on. In real game everything goes not as planned, but how random says. This is not card game, nor chess. In short, I expressed my personal opinion - sebillian regen overpowered on insane difficulty. Can it be killed? Of course, yes. Is there some tactic that allow to do it quickly, without significant losses, without the need for specially selected equipment and Irish luck? I'm not know, really want to see video how kabill doing this in real game and in same conditions.

Sounds good. Thanks.