Vojevoda

I opened on Androns with demo packs at every opportunity. But it felt like it made no impact. Amount of shots required to down one Andron with Acc weapons seemed to be the same. Hard to tell for sure, since there is no damage numbers on Commander. I think it is all about kinetic resistance Androns have. Played one mission with lasers. No Androns this time. Went through Cyberdrones like hot knife through butter though.

Wait till you reach Androns. I made a mistake on this play-trough on not researching Lasers for too long. Focused on Air superiority. And Accelerated weapons worked perfectly fine. Right till the moment Androns showed up. I had to do two missions back to back against them on Commander. And what a mistake that was. Kinetic weapons barely scratch these bastards. Lost a lot of good men. Most of my roster is in infirmary. Finished mission yesterday completely exhausted. Seems like I`m having a little breathing room after those two mission to start producing lasers. Hoping no Terror site pops up for a little longer. Not to mention, there are later damage upgrades for lasers making them even more valuable. And upgrad for passive recharge. On previous play-trough researched them too late. That was also a mistake.

Game have been very stable for me in pre release build and release one. So far, not a single crash or something. Encountered only one minor bug. There were some major problems far back. But team made a hell of job since on fixing everything.

April is going to be fun. Wish you guys good sales.

Have completed the game on veteran. Here are some additional thoughts and questions. Again, in no particular order. Had my first landed UFO on day 300+ Is this intended? Or is it just random? Arial combat had a weird curve. At first, going to X-55s felt good. Most encounters were relatively easy, unless you go for auto resolve. Any large solo alien ship was super easy, especially with torpedoes or missiles. However, if Cruisers and Harvesters had two escort UFOs - air combat becomes basically a coin toss. For a while, a had to really pick my battles if I`m not to abuse reload much. But, as soon as I constructed my first two X-120s - aerial combat became trivial. Auto resolve everything. Zero struggle or challenge. Not sure if it is a bad thing for a very short period of a very late game though. My first fight on the orbital platform had a little mishap. I figured, that side teleport points also counts as extraction since they look exactly the same. But it turned out to be enemy reinforcements points. Perhaps, it would be a good idea to point that out some how. May be a different color, or art? Grenadier feels odd. I have been using one for the entirety of the game. However, his role was basically a glorified construction worker. All he did was destroying cover. Most of the times, even most advanced explosives had low to no effect on enemies. Never used a smoke grande by him. Since reloading takes too much TUs. Perhaps consider adding some more advanced grenade launcher later in the game. With slightly longer range and ability to be loaded with two types of grenade at the same time. To give him more utility? Or maybe, I'm just not getting his role. I wonder if some late game events are pre tailored to make game more challenging or everything is pure random? I noticed that after day 380 plus, terror sites started with not only me surrounded on three side from the first turn, but also large number of aliens seemed much closer to drop ship as before. They just overrun you fast(smoke grenades are MVPs by the way). Orbital Platform sabotage recovered end mission items. Are they random? I finished the mission, recovered a couple of corpses and a weapon or two, though none of them were in my inventory or on the platforms. Realized that I screwed up, and forgot to put captured Ethereal in to my inventory(in retrospect, could have waited a bit longer to capture one on a new UFO type). Reloaded. And this time I did recover Ethereal, bit all the other items where different. I did, replayed last turn. As I had to remove all the reinforced aliens again. But reward items seemed like a bug. Description of Ethereal gave me some noticeable WH40k Aeldari vibes. Every time i read some science text(superbly written by the way) when lead scientist making fun of engineers - I had one thought in my had. Please hire Jim Parsons to do a voice over with Sheldon's voice. It would be hilarious experience. Not sure if it a bug or a feature. End game mission one. I managed to take out two out of three reinforcements platforms before first reinforcements arrived. But why they arrived, it was revealed to me inside fog of war. I saw how many arrived, direction where they headed after, and initial tiles of teleporters remained visible. This looked like a bug. Can provide save if necessary. Also, noticed that Shields used by my men restored all HP on end game mission two. As intended? Also, I found this build to be super stable. Zero crushes or anything like that. Only once, aerial auto resolve took a long time. Lake a 30 seconds or so. Really looking forward to a full release. Very happy with most changes I have read in 7.5 experimental build.

Another option. Additional fuel tanks could be used to increase speed of the aircraft. Afterburner burns more fuel, so with tanks, craft can traverse a portion of distance at higher speed. Maybe a toggle, between distance and speed. This could be rendered obsolete after upgrade to Aelenium engines.

So I could not wait till full release and decided to give 6.30.1 a go. Last time I played was in 2023. Below are general thoughts on campaign. In no particular order. As of right now, I`m preparing to board orbital platform. So might add some things as I finish the campaign. Huge thanks to the team for very fun game. Looking forward to full release. Early game vs Cleaners seems a bit too difficult. Hard to pinpoint as of exactly why. Time limited mission do play a role but that is not it. Perhaps, it is the maps. Or inexperienced soldiers. Or combination of all of the above. After cleaners, game began to feel way easier, and difficulty slowly but steadily went up. I personally enjoy a challenge, and it never felt unfair or unreasonable. Just made rethink my usual way of playing. But these time sensitive mission most likely will turn off a lot of newer players early on. If I recall correctly, outside of files heist and VIP escort, all the other time sensitive missions were basically optional. But those two are crucial to game progression. Base attacks and UFO interior basic mechanics of throw a stun grande then vaporize everything with shotguns works too well. At least early to mid game. Much later in the game, on a second base attack I got my ass handed to me. A new layout. Basically a maze with lots of attack directions. Plenty of mechs of all kinds. Kudos to those who designed this map. It was a challenge and I had a lot of fun. Stun grenades were almost useless there. Outside, is where tactical game becomes much more challenging. Hard to cover every direction. More of that please. Perhaps, we need more stun immune aliens. Especially, inside UFOs. Maybe, assign at least one stun immune as personal guard to a mission commander. Transition from regular to accelerated weapons felt smooth this time. Researched and produced accelerated weapons before had a chance to even star Laser research. If regular infantry laser and accelerated weapons both have merits, jumping to laser on air combat felt like cheating. Difference is vast. Mostly due to the significant range increase. However, a little later UFOs became much stronger and numerous. So laser lance feels perfectly in place. Overall, operational points game feels new, unique and fun. However, I feel a little reduction in cost to operate on UFO crash site would make sense. First base defense was not an easy task. In fact, I got overwhelmed several times over. Had to totally readjust my strategy and began to fall back slowly grinding aliens that stepped a bit too far. This made me seriously consider a couple defense batteries for the main base to reduce number of incoming aliens. AI seems to completely forget positioning of my units once line of sight is broken. Perhaps, here is a room for improvement in AI difficulty scaling in that regard. Make aliens more aggressive based on last known position. Not just LOS. Gaus weapons do not have immediate distinct recognition. While other weapons do. Feels like I'm looking at same picture randomly resized. I'd say, it is the only piece of art that your team dropped the ball on. Machine guns needs increased accuracy on short burst. It makes total sense with low acc on long burst both from balance and logic perspective. But not on short burst. Perhaps, make exo skeleton give a boost to short bursts as a bonus. Fuel tanks on crafts feels useless. I had zero cases when 20% increase changed anything. Pressure from panic mid to late game feels low. Felt like something seriously stepping on my toes during first phase(nukes). After that it became super manageable. And later it pretty much stopped noticing it. Even when orbital bombardment started, for a second I thought oh boy, NOW I'm in trouble. But taking down UFOs and occasional OP reduction in selected region made me forget panic again. Mind games by Psyons feel like they don't do anything. Making Mind Shield module among the most useles upgrades.

Been playing a Cleaner Base mission, and encountered a Sentry Gun that was highlighted green(as my own soldier). Tried to force attack(Ctrl+click) on it with no result. For a second I thought that I stumbled upon some central console and got control over "dumb" base defenses as some sort of a new mechanic. But unsurprisingly this Sentry vaporized my soldier next turn. However, after save reload, Sentry worked as intended again. Tried different things to reproduce the bug but no luck. Ultimately, would call this a minor bug for normal play through. But it cold be deadly for Ironman. No save, unfortunately. Should have saved it different folder immediately.

After upgrading my radars to Quantum ones(upgrading through engineering) one of my bases has two radar coverage circles. Unfortunately, I was not able to determine if both are actually tracking UFOs(since very few came in to range to draw conclusions). Constructing additional Quantum arrays in that base does increase radius(the central and seemingly proper one), but second circle remains. As an idea, one of the bases I lost was in that area. I don`t recall exactly where I built it, but if it might be at New Guinea. It`s possible that for some reason game started to show radar circle from that lost base. user_day_241_manual_save-35.json

What`s is your problem? Are you from ruzzia that you so desperately defending this? It`s just a spelling of city. If I didn`t start this thread, you would not even notice.

What are you talking about? Using original name and not one defined by centuries of ruzzia occupation is propaganda? What planet are you from? As for safe, tell that to people who die almost every day as a result of ruzzian missile strikes on civilian infrastructure. The only way your boss could visit Ukraine since rizzian full scale invasion (520 days and counting) was by taking plane somewhere to Poland for example, and then taking a train or car.

Fixing things starts by fixing names.

Again. It has nothing to do with honoring someone. It`s a PROPER modern spelling. The fact, that many maps have not updated it, does not make it less true.

But again. If I start manual, and touch absolutely no button except for pause, result is always a win. That is the bug part. Autoresolve script is working in some very weird way.

A couple of points from after 160+ days in game. Some background. I have played A LOT of original X-Com and X-com 2. And even done a full playthrough for Xcom Hardmode Expansion(the best way to play original Xcom BTW). Also, played all Firaxis Xcoms(not a huge fan). And Phoenix Point Game of the year(after developers made game, well, a proper game). And, of course Xenonauts 1(though initial state of the game made sure I did not replay it more then once). I play standard difficulty for now. To get a feel of things. I see a lot of references above for early missions being too difficult. Based on my normal difficulty I find it not the case. I`d say it`s a rather expected early game curve, while your soldiers are inexperienced. But I see how highest difficulty can become a problem. And since I played it, there was a minor nerf to those missions. So more comment on that after second playthough. Regarding accelerated\laser weapons debate, my opinion is that game should skip standard laser research, and make advanced lasers available a little further away. Like a couple month, give or take. I`ve been trying different research options and got my accelerated weapons way before lasers. And can 100% state that accelerated weapons are very good compared to lasers. And in no way those are trap, like many said before. Lasers have only few advantages - an accuracy bonus for low level operatives and very good terrain destruction. In pretty much every other aspect, I proffered accelerated over non advanced lasers. Overall, ground combat feels a bit too easy right now. I play semi iron man. And even with that, I`ve lost only one operative so far. Technically, I`ve lost more. Somewhere around five or six. But every other got "saved" by medical facility bonuses after return to base. What feels very alien and confusing is air combat. Ar first, everything is fine. But once you get to abductors and interceptors, things get very weird. To be fair, I`ve lost one of my bases, so maybe that setback is what makes thing difficult but still. The main problem is right now game states that air combat is "in between state" and we should use auto resolve function. But after a while, I see that if I don`t use manual combat - i`m loosing hard. It takes forever for air crafts to repair damage. Ensuring that I let plenty of UFOs let loose a wreck havoc on geo map resulting in quite significant spike in panic levels. I`ve seen some videos of other people playing. And what seems weird is that I`ve seen UFO fighters only once(I believe) as part of an escort of large ship. And now, all I see is Interceptors. And three of those things just melts three of my Phantoms with Laser Lances. But again, the main problem I see is If you use autoresolve your crafts get too much damage and it takes forever to repair. And if your crafts are damaged, good luck killing subsequent UFOs without abusing manual air combat. I may be very wrong on this, but overall, aerial combat feels like least fun part. And more importantly, least comprehensive. No tutorial, nothing. Just figure out things yourselves by loosing plenty of air crafts.