Josip Broz Tito

I think those are the shortcut routes that were added a patch or two ago. Blow one open and you can usually pincer a room aliens are in. Pretty cool.

I've been using a vehicle along w/ 6 people, saves me $$ on armor and weapons in the long run for the other 2 people. Or so it seems.

Its not to hard to get a few guys in wolf by the first terror mission. Also, use smokes more often, especially when pushing out of the chinook on terror missions. Guys, make sure you're trying out everything you can on your end to do terror missions. Please write down what your squads are consisting of as far as what types of weapons, equipment, and armor you have and how you played the first few turns. Sometimes (many times actually) it's more a matter of needing to try a different approach. I'm not saying learn-to-play since that's not applicable in beta, I just want people to take a few cracks at missions they're losing on to see how different approaches affect the outcome. This way, we can give the devs more accurate info. Also, make sure to save before you send out the chinook to a terror mission so you can change equipment/add or remove vehicles.

I have the same luck hitting reaction shots using snap shot tu's as I do with hitting aliens with snap shots= aboot 20% and that's fine. When I have enough tu's set for a burst= same odds as a burst it feels like. No problem IMO from the xeno's perspective. As for the aliens= they usually miss. If it's a caesan warrior or above= they're pretty accurate shots anyway, but usually don't get hit. Harridan's nail reaction shots but that's the lore, they have great reactions and accuracy= np. Unless there's something wrong in the code that I'm not noticing in-game, I feel that there isn't an issue. It's just a matter of %'s from shots used and stats.

Yeah, that's ehy I want their suppression values increased, and have them tied to another unit on the field to suppress their targets. They aren't to much of a threat themselves.

Always shoot/blast doors open in alien bases: opening them= suicide.

I end up building a few lasers just because they're cheaper than plasmas, yet offer a big boost from ballistics. It makes a difference doing a terror mission with someone using a precision laser vs someone using a ballistic sniper. That said, I make rifles last since I'm sniper/machinegun-centric. Lasers can easily last you until battleships.

They're winnable as they currently are, and should stay the same for veteran (and get harder for insane). As long as I can keep rly hard terror missions in the higher difficulties= ok w/ them being nerfed for normal edit(and I mean winnable w/ 1-2 losses or none, did it in build just b4 this one which had practically the same ground game)

yup: ) Unarmored or jackal? def not wolf

Nah, I'm with you. The laser's look dope. Plasma's are cool, but in the monvert polishing kinda way. Plasma-caster though: the gun looks brutal and shoots how it looks. I've never gotten far enough for mag-guns yet.

ooh, that'd be a good peripheral.

That sounds cool: I think I remember getting missions close to that result in TFTD. Even if it could drop to one alien (if 2 and under=stays in UFO) that'd probably help. Especially when people get alenium missiles.

Hunter doesn't need 2 hardpoints. Scimitar and Hyperion would benefit from 2 hardpoints though. By the time you get them, it's often better to have 2x infantry since they'll be throwing out more firepower and less susceptible to damage. While the hunter with the MG does need more ammo, don't use that as justification for 2x hardpoints on hunters. Use a rocket vehicle at least on a terror mission, then rethink your position. It's also very possible to have a pulse-laser equipped vehicle by the first terror mission. These explosive-equipped vehicles make the first push out of the chinook, and the subsequent swarming by aliens far easier to deal with. It is reasonable to kill 4-6 aliens with a rocket hunter and 6-8 with the pulse-laser equipped hunter. You cannot look at the MG vehicle alone when making balance suggestions for them overall.

Falidell, we just fundamentally disagree. I understand where you're coming from and respect your ideas, but would prefer the game not go in that direction. I personally don't mind the number of missions as they are now. It might be fun to occasionally throw a very high up ship onto the map that a player might be able to down with all of their aircraft semi-suicidally. This would offer players an option to drastically shift up the tech tree to get closer to the end, but at the risk of being unable to keep control of the map for a while.

Having shrikes earlier in the tech tree would help a TON in this regard.

No need for an animation besides the stun baton one IMO. Saves coding time and looks close enough. Also- It would have to be a knife, otherwise it's not upgradeable really. As aliens get armored up, the weapons will need to utilize plasma to cut through, leaving a piercing weapon as the only realistic option. Hence, plasma stilleto: would work just like the torpedo's and missiles. Superheat metal and use that to drive a wedge for the energy to follow and dissipate. It'd be a rod that you'd smash one end into the target that would activate a minor energy release driving a bit of metal forward into the target with plasma energy pushing it.

Falidell, how wouldn't mixed up crews of aliens go against your thoughts? It's added variety to the ground missions. It's been brought up, and now I think it's the case that there's nothing unexpected that can happen in light scout missions. It's just 5-8 mooks w/ plasma pistols that you have to fight well past the point where you're practically immune to their weapons. If people aren't wanting to run ground missions: now, to me that means that there's a lack of variety occuring. I'm sure more advanced alien AI will help, but adding in secondary objectives etc and random factors can help a ton. In the OG, random maps were what made it replayable to heck. We can't have those in this game, so we need another random factor to spice up missions and make us wonder what awaits us each time the chinook lands.

Thothkins, I'd be down with psionics as you proposed.

Accuracy penalty seems plenty fair, if there was a human DNA identifier to make them explode: I'd expect to see warning of it in the research.

Amazing, to bad the aliens don't have mellee attacks. Those drawings are beautiful.

MG is fine, but the pulse laser (and to a lesser extent, the rockets) change the game. Pulse laser shots annihilate/one-shot caesan, sebillian, and andron warriors. Use the pulse laser for a while and see if your opinion doesn't change. If you know when to take the shot, pulse laser vehicles can get a kill with almost every one. That's one vehicle capable of killing 6-8 aliens on its own. That's the power it has. At the early-mid part of the game when terror missions show up: the pulse laser is your go-to for getting rid of threats. It doesn't matter whether they get exp or not. It's not really even a disadvantage since you'll be selling it once you acquire scimitars. At that point the pulse-laser is an alternative to having 2x rocket infantry. Right now you don't get the ability to be in two different maps spots or use cover to well in exchange for a longer sight range, no-reload needed vehicle with firepower equivalent to alenium rockets. The advantage the infantry should have is higher total rocket capacity, since they can only fire every other round, can't illuminate the dark, and have shorter sight range. If you take the time to look at the pros, cons and opportunity costs: explosive weapon vehicles need a limitation to balance them against their alternative. Limited ammo is about the only thing that works. If you reduce pulse laser damage in exchange for ammo= you've made terror missions harder in the early-mid game. No, keeping the damage the same is critical. Thus, ammo must be kept around its present level. The reason I'm ok with coaxial guns for scimitars and up= at a certain point in midgame it will almost always be more worth it to have 2x infantry versus a vehicle. Added firing options helps make vehicles more versatile past that point.

I kinda like it this way: psionics made the older games way to easy.

Yup.

Gotta ask: have you used the pulse laser? If you have one by the first terror mission= it usually makes it a cakewalk. Those 8 shots will kill 6-8 aliens if used correctly. Plus you can fire the thing twice per turn. Whatever you shoot probably won't live. If you add more ammo to it in the amounts you suggest= you can clear most of a terror mission with 1 vehicle. That's plain-out bad for gameplay. The reason I keep bringing up 2 infantrymen is that each vehicle replaces 2 soldiers and has to be compared and balanced compared to them. Reason I advocate more MG ammo= it doesn't compare well to two MG infantry. Since the pulse laser is essentially a fancy rocket launcher, you have to compare it to it's equivalent in infantry: 2 rocket infantry w/ alenium rockets. In addition, you have to factor in the extra sight range vehicles have as well as their ability to fire 2x per turn with no need to reload. You can't give the vehicle the same payload that 2x rocket infantry can carry because then the vehicle is always the better choice since it can see further, and doesn't need to reload. Look at vehicles compared to the rest of the arsenal, rather than in a vacuum.

Lucky...never have anything dangerous when I land... I honestly miss the frantic 'gotta get out of the landing sub asap so I don't get pulse-launchered/grenaded' feel from tftd. Maybe a re-skinned light drone as a medium drone is a good answer to this situation. It'd leave light drones (who hopefully get an AI buff, maybe a TU buff) as they are and allow for something that wolf armor won't sneeze at.