Zigot

While I like some of these changes, I feel like attempts to increase difficulty by removing viable play styles (ie defensive play) should be an option, not something forced across the board. Especially since these are the sort of changes that would be a slight difficulty increase for veteran players but likely a painfully sharp increase for people who are new to this type of game.

I've always felt that it is a bit odd that there is no way to make an alien ship change its target, as it makes one of the fighters you send far less useful than than the others. I'm not sure how exactly you would go about determining the best target, but it seems like there should maybe be a way to force them to change target. While I haven't had a chance to try out the latest build, it seems like having one near useless ship in the fight would only compound the problems that other people have been talking about (early fighters being too underpowered)

Ending my first turn, the Reaper attacks a Civilian and the game immediately crashes (cleanly thankfully) Reloading the save produces the same result every time (though it is the same Reaper attacking the same Civilian. The save is right at the end of my turn.). I have encountered Reapers in this build before and they have even attacked either civilians or local soldiers but it was always in a Hidden Movement. I don't know if any of this additional information is useful, but here it is: Problem Event Name: BEX Application Name: xenonauts.exe Application Version: 0.0.0.0 Application Timestamp: 528cddb1 Fault Module Name: xenonauts.exe Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0 Fault Module Timestamp: 528cddb1 Exception Offset: 002a9475 Exception Code: c0000417 Exception Data: 00000000 OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3 Locale ID: 4105 Additional Information 1: 472b Additional Information 2: 472b602a60f31d3460ebaf77b67345ae Additional Information 3: 56d6 Additional Information 4: 56d63fb7b1866465b1690663010c5014 Here is the save: http://www.mediafire.com/download/2sh04c7rb5hpbf2/2013-11-27_06.15.29.sav

I've found that the Alien Base missions tend to boil down to a slog in the first room (usually resolved with lots of C-4). This problem is only made worse by the fact that the alien defenders will see and shoot my soldiers through solid walls (sometimes two sets of doors). I'm not sure if the Wraiths are supposed to exhibit this behavior, but they all teleport directly into the starting room on the first few turns. I actually like the idea of being pinned down, but I expect the aliens to be held to the same rules as my soldiers, and when they don't it tears me out of the experience. I'd like to point out I've been playing since some of the earliest builds (posting for the first time) and I think the game has only gotten better, but the better it is the more these kinds of things seem to stick out.