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As I beat the game multiple times with and without mods I really wanted to make some changes as to how it plays out in the end and i wanted to ask you modders out there how possible it is to implement these ideas I listed below and what would have to be done in order to do so. I would be glad to inspire other people as well if they want to implement some of my ideas into their mods. Make the Geoscape actually more challenging. In the vanilla version and all other mods i ve played so far it is all about getting every UFO down ( and looting some crash sites but only the technology granting sites are medium important). Once you accomplish that you can virtually not lose the game anymore and its basically a " Im just grinding for the last mission " thing. To start things off you have to make the air fights more difficult and more important in order to induce some decision making which actually do matter instead of the dull "ah, I just shoot down every UFO i see from the most dangerous to the least dangerous one". Some mods are already on a good way to do so but I would like to make some more changes. Furthermore I d like to see some more "aimed" moves from the Aliens. The idea which is spinning around in my head for starters is the "aimed base assault UFO" which starts half across the globe, after, lets say 3 hours of spinning around, than heading straight to the assigned base. Needless to say that this UFO should be one of the hardest to take down in terms of capability of sustaining damage as well as firepower. On the other hand the better coverage you have the sooner you will spot this type of UFO. In this kind of scenario we already have the decision inducing move which would be, assuming the aimed UFO started with a wave of UFOs, " Do I go after the small fries which damage my income or do i focus the firepower on the incoming assault ship? Do I have the menpower to defend my base and go for the other UFOs?" Making this kind of UFOs spawn in an irregular fashion as well as in a regular fashion makes things harder to predict and more about risk managment than : "This kind of UFO has a chance to spawn every wave so i just have to wait for 3 hours and if there is none coming I can go for the other UFOs/crashs sites/whatever." Make things more unpredictable by mixing random goals, like ;research, bombing run, abducuctions; with aimed goals like terror sites, base assault missions, and base constructions. (btw let smaller scouts also do the hrm ... you know ... scouting ... for bases and such). Imagine the scenario your are going for a crash site and you have to pull back because an base assault UFO just appeared at the outer radar detection range and goes for your base. The farther away the crash site the higher the risk you wont be back in time, in which case you absolutely have to shoot the UFO down even if the 2 condors dont make it back. This makes the fight desperate. I want a month to be hard because I took a high risk and misjudged a situation on the geoscape instead of the RNG deciding for me if too many UFOs spawned and I just dont have enough air supremacy to keep up with it. This would btw also encourage more bases and more squads. An additional pre escort for the assault UFO can be send as well but these are details which can be disussed later if the idea has a good ring to it. Steam says i have 230 hours in this game and i havent ecountered a single xenonaut base assault, ever. This shouldnt happen. Other ideas would be scouts which actually scout, making aimed goals like terror sites and base construction more quickly to be "selected" instead of the aimless wandering around the map which just says that this is the time the UFO gives you to shoot it down. More ideas would be welcome- So UFOs should be harder to take down and have more "aimed" goals. At the best you should be able to shoot down 70% of all UFOs while you have to deal with the reamaining in another way. Its an invasion, goddamit. Aiming UFOs should also be guarded way heavier than they are, should have more firepower, hp, special traits etc... . Terror Site UFOs shouldnt be stopable 80% of the time. What i mean give the player so many other tasks, or UFOs, while the Terror UFO is on the way that he has to decide what to go for. Since a terror site is pretty easy to deal with, in my oppinion, its almost like giving him free xp. At the very least it should be doable since the aliens go for 10 000 of other people as well. If his/her best squad is injured on the other hand it might be worth to shoot it down while small UFOs do some damage to the funding and go for the smaller fries later on. Yes, its all about decisions again. Another idea would be the "Released Reapers". At the beginning of the night, wherever that is, a UFO releases some reapers in an area and you have the task at hand to save some civilians or save one very important person or gather and bring back valuable resources before a nuke destroys the whole thing at the end of the night. Note that there isnt a discussion about nuking or not, its simply about what you can save before it drops down. This way you force the player to play a nightmission for once and give the poor reapers an andvantage. It shouldnt be able to avoid nightmissions 100% of the time like it was before. And yes, a few thousand lives will be lost in this, its unavoidable. Maybe let the civilan mission be that you gain reputation or funding for saving as much civilians as possible while the resource gathering gives you special and valuable resources but you lose some reputation and funding ( Its basically the same). The player should be on the backfoot from the very beginning, while his skillfull play decides how much he loses in the early stages. Yes, it is very possible to lose this, which brings us to the next point: money. While Im a big fan of micro managing every piece of junk I produce I would agree that producing money with your workshop isnt a good way to play the game, because at one point you simply break the ceiling with your money making bases and thus render every other way of playing the game ineffective (just like the developers intended the game NOT to be). Let all the stuff be sold for a bit more than they cost, including engineer wages, and some stuff which is particulary useful for selling but not enough that you could afford to fend off an invasion with it, just so that your engineers dont sit idle while they cant produce the next jackal armor. While alien resources should be rare, the items produced from them should sell for a very high price which gives the player a decision if he needs the money that badly or if he wants to save the materials for other uberweapons and aircraft. The main source of income should be the funding from the nations around the world. I havent thought much about this but it should definitely have a very high limit in terms of income. Maybe have a 50%,40%,10% split. 50% of imcome from the possible looting in total (per month), 40% income from the founding, and 10% income from your workshops. I would also like to see the casuality rate on having an effect on the income and the funding. We had something like 4 billion people on the planet and an invasion should have a larger casuality rate than the usual: "We lost around 10 000 people in an invasion from some Aliens which totally outclassed us in every military aspect possible and had some big ass bombers soaring through the sky. Hard times, you know?" The next point is: Let countries be recoverable. Up until now the game was all about reaching that break even point at which you hardly could lose the game anymore. Now it should be able to recover from some big blows if you got the wits and menpower for it. Losing a country in the beginning should be a given as well as you crawling on your knees to get it back. Hard conditions can be met like getting 3 bases in under 24 hours. Or one very hard base. Did i say i love the extra condition under which a base can be destroyed ? Well i havent used it once. Like, not one time. It wasnt necessary. And I really would like to have to use it. Maybe infiltrate an supplying landing ship? Basically it should be possible to get back into the game as well as screwing it up at every point and turn. This wall of text brings us to the core point: The game should slowly but steadily be lost if you play good and slower lost if you play excellent. What I m saying is that it shouldnt be possible to actually withstand the invasion. Not in the skys nor through playing every possible ground mission. Menkind fights back but the war is already lost. In the end its a race against time to get the so much needed technology milestones or die trying it. At which point the so important hyperspace radio jamming comes into play. I really like the idea because it actually is, or should be, something that works. Intervening a single ship while it flies down to earth on the other hand isnt. The Valkyrie flies around around 3300 mph and the battlecruisers are way faster than that. In my opinion giving the player this one end mission is just .... cheap.Since he/she knows its the last mission the player wont really "fail" at it either. Here comes what I would like to replace it with: When the aliens notice the jamming is up and running, they all jump down to earth which results in an major attack from, like, 4 motherships and numerous escorting ships. The motherships should be able to land and construct bases from which they search for the jamming device. At this point of the game the players should have a high chance of losing the game, should lose a few bases and be at the point of collapse. At which he/she fights back. Conditions to win: Hold the jamming device and eliminate all the motherships. Other ending scenarios are possible. It doesn have to be the jamming device they are looking for, but i defintiely want that all out assault on the planet. Im also thinking about an limited supply of UFOs which can spam in total at that point. In a nutshell the player should build up his bases/squads/technology through the game until he thinks he is ready and daring enough to activate armageddon/the jamming, but he shouldnt be able to drag out the invasion as long as he wants to. The better he plays the more chances he has to withstand just a bit longer to better his chances of surviving the ultimate assault. In the endgame its all about making the decision if holding the line for one more month actually helps him to improve his squads/bases/technology or if he loses more than gaining something from it ( decisions, decisions :-) ). The air fights should be revamped in order to let the aliens fight more point striking instead of getting the feeling of random UFOs flying around doing random missions. And thats about it. I have some more ideas about special missions if we could punch the game to actually get them working. Everything i didnt mention is perfect, excellent or is already taken care of, for instance like maps ( thx kabill), enhanced Xenopedia, enhanced graphik stuff, and additional guns, grenades, breaching charges ( thx to all other modders). Much gratitude for the developers for such an awesome game. I have no clue about modding yet and would like to know how much of this is possible before i start to sit down and make the impossible ... not possible. Also, merging a lot of other content into 1 complete overhaul mod would be a great.