Twigg

Mechanically this doesn't make sense as you are then double punishing the player for losing a soldier, arguably triple punishing because of the armor loss. Narratively I am not sure what the cost would be associated with. If you wanted to go this route maybe you could do a temporary bravery penalty to the surviving soldiers to reflect the stress and emotional shock of losing a comrade in the line of duty.

The problem with this is it's effect on the action/TU economy. The more effort it takes your crew to stabilize from an unlucky hit the more you are incentived to prevent those hits from happening in the first place. This will inevitably lead to overwatch creeping being a more and more effective strategy which is incredibly dull to play. As it stands the game doesn't reward you for aggressive play and changes like this just push further in that direction. If we want to make getting wounds more punishing to the player than something should also be done to prevent the conclusion to that process be even more camping.

My post was a little vague, what I meant was that how would the developer balance general missions if the player could be 10 or 20 soldiers to any given mission? I agree that certain missions (the final mission in the first xenonauts being a pertinent example here) you can have a higher number of soldiers because the level designer knows that is the case and can plan around that. I also think you are going to have to accept that this game, like xenonauts 1, will not provide the kind of large scale combat you want from it in the base game. I personally would love a more robust melee combat system and a more robust air combat system but that is clearly not the focus for this game.

How would you even balance the combat when you could have some players with literally double the amount of soldiers available in the mission?

Dark, bloody, and desperate like this?

I recognize the point you are trying to make but can we not use gay as a derogatory descriptor? Not only is it in bad taste but it is also unnecessary because your point as already made with the reference to super hero costumes.

Chess is an interesting example as I am pretty sure it took hundreds of years for it to turn into the game we know it as today, it is not something that came out of the game perfect. My general point is that this game shouldn't base it's mechanics off of what lovers of a 30 year old game prefer because not only is that limiting the audience but it also limits the scope for the designers. The best example is squad size. I know the original games let you throw a ton more bodies at missions but I really prefer the more limited squad size and limitations it puts on the player.

I am one of those people who came to Xenonauts from the Firaxis Xcom games and have never played the original 90s X-COMs. I loved both the Firaxis games and Xenonauts 1 even though they had different design philosophies and therefore different strengths/weaknesses. The idea that these 30 year old games are the pinnacle of how this genre can be done is bonkers to me. It has been three decades since they originally released, nearly every mechanic and decision from those games should be questioned to ensure that we don't miss out on more than a quarter century of technology and game design advancement.

Did another tactical mission and now this is what I see. user_weird_armor-7.json

I am not sure if the defender armor is all supposed upgrade to the warden armor stats and sprites like the magnetic weapon upgrade or that I am supposed to have the option to select pre and post upgrade defender armor but regardless the way it is being displayed now is pretty confusing and probably not intended.

I have played for nearly 60 days in the new milestone 2 and have a hard crash preventing me from continuing. Definitely noticed some of the changes. I did not like the change to warden armor. I get the idea of giving the player a new baseline to act as a safety net but it winds up being more time and resource draining to get your squad up and running with a set of warden armor and that comes at the point at which the game is the most punishing, the start. I think the granularity of individual sets of armor was important as I could balance out engineering priorities (ie wanting enough armor for shield and shotgun dudes but making sure my snipers have lasers) where as now it is way too all or nothing. The new module system is fine but I do prefer the old version as I could load up soldiers with both the defense and accuracy modules to trade strength for combat effectiveness. I am sure this is circumstantial but I feel like I am taking more casualties than normal because my soldiers can either hit things or take a hit, but not both anymore. I haven't noticed the new non panic based economy at all. Built my second base at the start of the month and am in line to build the third at the start of the next. My worst area is currently at 45ish panic and I still have plenty of cleaner missions to do that can lower that no problem. Maybe you only need 2 bases now instead of 3 but this feels similar to the lab situation a few months ago where the best strategy was so clearly the best that it would require a radical approach to change that and it is probably not worth it. I don't remember if it was changed here or in a later patch but now that you can't medpack a MARS I don't think you can heal it. That combined with the fact that it and it's upgrades are so damn expensive and it's best gun has 6 shots means it doesn't feel worth it at all. This isn't directly related to milestone 2 but something that became very clear after starting a few new campaigns over the course a week. Arguably the worst part of the game is the setup before your first mission where you are creating your loadouts for soldiers, removing clearly shit ones, and hiring new recruits. Anything that can be done to speed this process up would be appreciated. It would be great to be able to bring in previous campaign soldier loadouts so I am not doing it from scratch but I would truly love it if I just didn't get soldiers with below 50 TU or strength. They might as well not exist and with new buildings taking so long to build I can't afford to let them take up valuable beds in the early game.

I agree that it isn't too difficult to get 5 tubes, you can always change the mission to make that base level success harder or easier. What I think is more interesting is the extra tubes and what you get for them vs what you risk. I played an abduction mission a few nights ago and was able to get 9 of the 10 tubes, which offered very little other than the satisfaction of playing the mission in a more difficult way. I think the player should be given exponentially better rewards for more tubes to temp them into making riskier tactical decisions. I also think this mindset can be brought into other missions in the form of temporary side objectives. For example getting inside the downed UFO in 5 turns and living till the next turn gets you a large cache of alenium. Build in an incentive to player with higher risk so the best way to play isn't WW1 trench warfare but with better weapons.

Let's agree to disagree on this one, neither of us are going to convince the other to change their mind and we have both made our point as to why our preferred squad size is better. It is down to Chris and his team to create the 'best' game for as many players as possible and I wish them the best of luck on that difficult task.

I am with Skitso that changing the abduction missions to be another flavor of 'kill everything' is a mistake. The game needs more ways to encourage different strategies and loadouts, this mission was one of the few that overwatch camping while slowly creeping forward wasn't the most effective strategy.

I think you are missing the forest for the trees somewhat. While there may be other reasons you can't take multiple dropships, one of them is that the game is designed with a certain number of xenonauts in mind and adding more significantly affects game balance. It is similar to why they changed the selling mechanics in the game because it was designed around doing a certain number of missions per wave and if you do significantly more you broke the games economy. I am not saying that other games can't use more or less soldiers, I am saying that the developers of this game chose to use a certain number of soldiers, aliens, and a specific map size and I agree with how those choices work for this game. I am making a counterpoint to you and other players request to significantly blow up the count of soldiers available because it can be easy for the vocal minority to get its way when the silent majority are happy with the current situation.

That sounds incredibly tedious. The maps can already feel a little small with a dozen soldiers and a dozen enemies, I can't imagine how cramped they would feel with double that number. I don't think xenonauts 2 works on the kind of scale you are looking for and there is at least one person who agrees with the developer's decision not to so many combatants on each side.

I feel like the point of these timed mission is to force the player away from the standard slow and steady gameplay style. It is way too easy to slowly crawl up the map killing things as they pop up and 80-90% of missions let you do exactly that. I wish the game rewarded players more for being more aggressive with their positioning and timing to help mitigate this.

I may be in the minority here but I like the real time nature of the air combat and that it is quick and deadly. It is a great palate cleanser from the slower and more methodical ground missions and requires you to use a different skillset. The air combat itself needs more work (there was previously talk about weather affecting air combat which I think could be a lot of fun) and I would love more flexibility in air loadouts so it doesn't feel like I am just equipping the most powerful thing I've built and going from there (which is an issue with the ground combat as well) but the general premise is something I really enjoy.

I just got a steam deck and am setting it up for Xenonauts 2. Is this still your recommended mapping layout?

I second the request to rotate soldiers in the dropship. I'd also love it if you could set them to crouch in the as well. I know it seems small but not only does it help make the world feel more alive but with the amount of times I've been attacked while still in the dropship every TU can make a difference.

I think this would be a great addition to the game and would like to see it happen as units get hit. Balancing it could be a little difficult because you don't want to get into the 'misery' cycle of getting hit -> having limited hit back because of the decreased accuracy -> getting hit again.

Adding more enemies doesn't make the game more interesting or fun, it make it more tedious. There are only so many aliens you can fit on the current maps before it becomes a clown car situation which ruins all the tense atmosphere and immersion the game worked so hard on building up until that point.

Are save games from the experimental 26.3 compatible with the main release branch version?

Some of these may relate to v25, but I skipped that version so I apologize if any of this is old hat. Is there a way to repair the MARS now? I know the medkit to repair a robot was silly but I now can't find any items to repair it which limits it's usefulness. The new alien base commander center with the teleportation changes are incredible. I knew I hated the old version but I didn't realize how much I hated it until I played this one. This is probably wrong but I feel like aliens can teleport around in the base as I often get attacked from behind even though I very meticulously push forward and clear areas out to prevent just that. Air upgrade costs finally feel reasonable, I've only used the machine gun line of weapons and that has been totally viable. What exactly is 'advanced gauss blaster' and how do I unlock it? (see attached screenshot) My guess is that it is meant to be 'advanced gauss cannon' and it is a bug but I am not sure electroshock grenades make all other forms of stun weaponry pointless. I personally think this is more of a reflection of how poor the rest of the stun roster is but that could just be me. Why is the observer bounty so much higher than any other ship? I am shooting down harvesters and I think they are giving me 125k whereas observers give me 200k. The economy is not great atm. The price drops for some things are massive and don't see to recover. This is aggravated by the fact that I am often forced to fight lots of ground battles to get the required alien alloys so I have this huge amount of alien corpses, guns, and grenades that barely sell for anything. Why does the gauss battery require the laser battery upgrade? Why does the plasma battery require the laser battery upgrade as well? I feel like the player should be allowed to skip some of these if they think the rest of weaker batteries is worth the resource savings The tier upgrades for both weapons and fighter ships are very linear and dull. I built my first Gemini and if you were to tell me they were two Angles glued together I'd believe you. Sure they are better but not in any interesting way. I still use Angels 220 days in because as long as something isn't shooting at them they are basically as good as the most advanced fighters I have if they have the same weapon. Is the expectation for the player to use each weapon tier? There are a lot of them now and going through each one doesn't feel like it is worth the cost for the performance gains. The binary state of damage is this game makes combat less interesting. My soldiers (and the aliens) perform just as well on 1 hitpoint as they do on 100 so my only real concern is if my soldier got 1 shot or not. Large ufos become a massive grind after a while between the high number of aliens, the killbox nature of the ship, and the fact it is all the same map. I honestly wish I had more alien bases to do because those feel a lot more fun. I haven't gotten an abduction mission in a long time. Those quick missions would be such a great palette cleanser from the hour plus harvester grinds, I don't know if I am getting unlucky or they stop showing up at a point. I'd love a scout vehicle. Something that can fly and is very hard to hit but has limited offensive capabilities. The MARS is nice but I don't need vehicles to kill aliens, I have tons of soldiers who do that pretty well all on their own. A lot of this sounds like complaining but I am genuinely enjoying the game, keep up the great work.

Pretty straight forward, the game crashes when attempting to use a medkit to heal a wounded soldier. Roughly 150 days into the campaign, using the advanced medkit and I believe I am on the arid map for a crashed medium UFO. Let me know if you need anything else. output.log auto_groundcombat_turn_4_start-556.json