Chthon

This is something I feel should be along the lines of "Why can't it be both ways" where you can find it either way you look. Making it easier to find is better, no? Having it always at a click or two away from where you would want it is good, rather than forcing you to exit out of a screen and navigate over to an entirely different screen, is good. This is what we call UEx or User Experience. Maybe you will have to redesign how you set up the way you make the calls, but in the end it will be for the better.

I witnessed a streamer throw an AP grenade, an ordinary one, into a UFO, and it demolished walls and equipment inside the UFO completely. AP grenades do not do that. Even a 1/4 inch thin layer of steel will block any damage they deal at a range of over 2 feet. I doubt they can destroy alien alloy at any range. The real damage they deal is the shrapnel they throw when they shatter.

As the title says, AP or anti-personnel grenades are shrapnel grenades, not high explosive grenades. They are designed to break apart into small pieces and pierce people in a large area around them. They are not made to deal massive damage to terrain, vehicles, or equipment. Having them blow up walls and cover is not one of their uses. In short, everything the new X-COM teaches players is wrong about them. If you want high explosive force to destroy equipment or a wall, you need C4, an explosive charge, or a rocket. An AP grenade will not cut it.

I think they're talking more about the order of thought in a person's head. They choose to go on a mission(1), then they pick who goes on the mission(2), and then choose where they go on the dropship(3). Currently you have to do it out of order by choosing who goes on the mission(1), then pick where they go on the dropship(2), and then choose to go on the mission(3). The ordering of the actions is not natural, so it's not obvious to the ordinary person that you can reorder the dropship.

Never played modded so I don't know. Might be retreading old ground. If so it just reinforces the need rather than dismisses it.

My idea though is to have certain things like buildings be what you remember, and other things, like props and cover be the things that you have to discover.

I feel though that this level of pre intel also opens the door to an intel gathering game, where you could have to gather intel on a mission before hand, or even go in with bad or wrong intel on a map.

I've seen streamers use a tactic of loading up soldiers with additional inventory well past their carrying capacity, and then dropping it all in the dropship on the first turn in case they need things like ammo or grenades. Honestly, ignoring whether or not this is intended or not as a mechanic, as the only way to actually prevent this would be to prevent the player from dropping things or picking things up, why not instead embrace the idea of a dropship storage so that this isn't necessary at all? Being able to set up a storage for the dropship for extra ammo or materiel on a mission could be useful, but also force the player to return to the dropship should they need to resupply as a penalty. What do you think?

Something that would be nice, and would even make sense is giving the player a map preview before they set up for the mission. This could be an unaltered version of the map without crashed UFOs and damage from the UFOs. Just stuff that you would generally know about the map, and a general idea about where any UFO was downed, and allies might be located. This kind of intelligence would be important and sensible. It'd be provided by the host country if it's still allied to the Xenonauts. If it's not allied, it might not be as accurate, unless the Xenonauts have a base in the area or have observed it recently. This would help prevent situations where you bring a vehicle on a raid where a vehicle might not be as useful due to cramped quarters. Other times you might bring snipers where there are no places for them to set up to snipe. Just what weapons you bring to a mission could be greatly affected by the general map layout. Of course this would change the idea of there would be areas that you haven't seen that are blacked out, and areas you don't currently see that are grey. Instead maybe there are areas that are dark grey but you can see what you think is the map and buildings, and lighter grey, you've seen the map and layout, but aren't looking at it currently. In short, you cannot fully trust the dark grey map and buildings, but you have some idea what is there for the terrain as you have some intelligence. Then you can still have black areas, which you had no intelligence. Perhaps these are areas which were confidential to the local host nation on special missions. Edit: Another thought is that it doesn't have to show building interiors. It could just be an aerial view. This would also mean that the black areas would extend to building interiors, with dark grey being the building exteriors until you view them.

My first thought to this idea that getting hit reduces battle effectiveness is that different weapons would impact a solder in different ways. We literally have different bullets with different stopping powers for that reason. Some would hardly affect a soldier initially, but would slowly degrade their performance due to blood loss like small caliber arms not typically used in war taken to non vital parts of the body, while harder hitting weapons are more typically used in war. If we were to look at just our war weapons though, we still have to look at the weapons the aliens use and how those would affect soldiers when hit. Would a laser blast have an impact on a soldier? It would burn of course, but initially it wouldn't degrade the soldier's aim. The degradation would set in over a few turns as the heat spreads through the body. Same with a plasma burn, though a plasma burn might have more of an impact and an impact on morale as it'll likely set the soldier on fire partially. So the way I'm thinking is different weapons would hit soldiers, and aliens differently. Then I also thought about the effects of adrenaline. Typically after being shot a soldier might get a burst of adrenaline, if the hit wasn't too severe, and be able to continue fighting for a minute or two before dropping. Maybe make it a turn or two before passing out despite 0 or low negative health. It would also reduce the penalties because during this time the soldier wouldn't feel the pain or effect of the hit. Who knows about alien physiology as well. Perhaps there are biologically enhanced soldiers who have super adrenal glands able to fight for turns after they would otherwise be dead. Maybe make that extreme more rare, but perhaps somewhat less rare is a soldier that can ignore the pain of a wound for some time after a hit due to adrenaline, but they can only run on adrenaline for so many turns on a map before it runs out. A limited supply if you will, after which it is exhausted. I don't know if mixing real life with this game's fantasy would be fun, but I think it might introduce a few new mechanics which might be interesting.

This looks more like a bug of the fog of war not revealing things that should have been visible, rather than a question of if something that isn't visible due to fog of war should be taken into consideration of to hit calculations. Frankly if it is in a soldier's way of their shot, they should be able to see it unless their shot is completely blocked already.

Having been former military, a typical feature of the light machine gun that the military likes to see is that any rifle magazine that holds the same ammo type also can be fed into the LMG. In practice, this functionality does not work well, you don't have much ammo, going from a belt of 100-250 rounds if in a carriable drum or longer if mounted, and it tends to jam often if it's the standard military magazines, but it's in case you're in the field and "Oh crap, your LMG gunner is out of ammo! Give him some ammo quick!" There's absolutely no reason that when you go to energy weapons like the laser rifles, you wouldn't have batteries that would plug in universally, with mixed results. Programmatically it might be a bit harder to accomplish, but it would add a touch of realism if it didn't simply make a weapon non-functional when done. Even if the LMG got one burst off and needed reloading it would be a good "Oh crap!" mechanic.

Be careful with the term "shill" as well, because in the US it can mean someone who endorses a company or product to an extreme for money or compensation, while trying to hide said compensation. Often times it's used to label people who vehemently defend a product to an extreme extent against all reasonable criticism.

Just hope that unlike me, when you encounter your first leader unit, he's not an Andron... you can't stun and capture Androns, so I was stuck having to wait for another opportunity I was extremely annoyed.

Looks to me that it might be due to the fact that it'd completely overlap coverage (almost) and radars are one of the more expensive items for both initial cost and upkeep.

From the looks of the image it's illegible as always. I wish they'd fix the fonts there

It may sound realistic, but standard procedures for clearing rooms and buildings in the military rely on shock and awe. You sneak up to an entryway so as to leave the enemy unsure if you have arrived or not, then burst through all at once. Such mechanics aren't possible in a turn based environment, at least looking at exactly how you'd do it in real life, but hopefully the enemy not only isn't expecting it at that moment, but is completely surprised by it. An example procedure that is often used or altered for regular use is a 4 man clearing team. First all four stack up on the door against the building. Then a silent cue is given to the 4th man to move up and prepare to kick the door in. He is there to cover the door to prevent an enemy from getting the jump on everyone else as well. Then another silent count goes down, with the kick happening on the last count. The first 3 go through the door after the 4th kick it, and the forth follows through after. Each moves to their trained corners of the room, searching for threats and shooting any that enter their field of fire as they go. This is repeated for every room in a structure. Unfortunately it doesn't work so well in Xenonauts since the aliens don't ever seem to get surprised and are always expecting you. This forces me to adapt my tactics, but that's not necessarily a bad thing either.

It's a limitation on how they implemented the arcs. Everyone throws at the same arc regardless of the situation. If something blocks that arc, then it does not check another arc. For the longest time I didn't realize you can actually throw objects onto roofs because of this.

I do a lot of autoresolves, but if I feel that I could down a UFO and the game gives me a 6% chance, I say BS and down it myself. Autoresolve has it's uses, saving time and what not, but is not a replacement for true skill in the air One of my teachers way back in high school taught us about vectors using a pen and paper game where we would use vectors to "dog fight." Each turn you could increase or decrease the size of your vector, or you could turn your vector, both up to a certain degree. The object was to get into a tailing firing position on the opponent. I feel the air combat minigame resembles that a lot.

It talks by itself? It's one of those singing carp plaques that activate when you walk by?

Sometimes the opening mechanism seems broken. Particularly with one door in the landing UFO. Just watch for a special icon, you have to actually click on part of the door frame for it to work. You also need enough TUs to turn towards your mouse + 5 to open/close the door.

I found that out the hard way once, when I engaged one. I had no chance to deal with the suddenly upgraded escorts, but I was determined to at least knock the big man down. They also persist in damage from one engagement to the next. I've taken many down through multiple engagements, and am very careful with noting when my planes are rearmed during waves. You still have to escape with your skin however or you lose your planes. However it still leaves the mission even if you get all shot down.

I try to distract them with the condor, while the foxtrots move into range of the corvette and shoot it down. Shooting down all 3 isn't necessary, so once I've done that, I escape. The escorts will escape into space allowing me to take or airstrike the mission craft.

I don't know about the config files, not having played with them, but everyone that watches me told me, you have to overload them. Maybe it changed at some point and the game config files never were updated to reflect that?

You have to push them further and gain a penalty to get them to go further than that I believe. I always go one or two into penalty land unless they have low TUs as well.