Search the Community

Overview: So after running through a bunch of air combats with the game I started wondering about approach the developers are taking for the air combat. I like a lot of the ideas in the game and I think that the overall implementation is pretty great. It's definitely more challenging, deeper, and fun for a lot of people. After reading a lot of forum posts, there seems to be three camps: 1. The people who are actually good at the air combat and like it to be difficult 2. The people who develop tactics to that work around the difficulty (three Foxtrots, hit and fade, rinse, repeat) 3. The people who are like me, who haven't quite figured it out (and may not!) Past Approach: To take a quick look at the "roots" of Xenonauts, the X-COM approach was a simpler air combat format. The aircraft were destructible. They either had to be rebuilt or you had to order a new one. With each era of the game, assuming you were keeping up with research, you had very reasonable chance at bringing down a UFO in a single or perhaps two engagements. With this system, the player got to decide whether it was worth the sacrifice of an aircraft to bring down a target. Repair times were long. Current Approach: With Xenonauts, the focus seems to be on multiple engagements per UFO. Even the people who say they love the combat and are good at it say so. "Don't be afraid to re-engage in four hours!" Yes, I know that approach works, but that's means several times the number of air engagements per UFO. Is that the intent of the system? I'm not sure. General Comments: I find the air battles in the beginning of the game to be exciting and fun. By the time the second or third month rolls around, the difficulty spikes way higher and it becomes very frustrating for me. Having to do that all the time makes it tedious. At that point, I just want it to be over so I can get to the parts of the game I do like. And there's plenty I like about this game. It seems obvious that at least one of the reasons they introduced the "free" fighters was that air combat was so devastating. Losing three fighter craft would basically ruin the game, it's pretty tough to recover $350,000 on top of the inability to actually shoot down UFOs, which is one of the primary ways you make money. Suggestion: Down here at the bottom, if you made it this far past my wall of text, I do have a suggestion that would hopefully help each of the three groups of players have fun with the game. Assuming there will be no changes to the gameplay elements, my best suggestion is as follows: Decouple the air combat difficulty. Have one for the overall game, and one for air combat. That way, each player can fine-tune their experience. ----- Thanks for reading. And thanks to Goldhawk for all their effort. There's a lot of good here, and I hope that the game is successful beyond all imagining.

So I played the original X-COM games and was really loving Xenonauts, until the point a few months in when the squadrons of 3 heavy fighters are introduced, as well as the medium craft with heavy fighter escorts and the heavy craft. At this point, in my opinion, it's impossibly hard to take down any alien craft, and because these are the only types of UFOs encountered, that I found (after 10-12 encounters all comprising the types above), I was unable to actually gather any resources to continue the game. I'm very concerned that the game hits such an overwhelming difficulty spike where you can go from regularly taking out UFOs and engaging them on the ground, to being unable to take down any UFO whatsoever, seemingly immediately. Even a lone medium landing ship can take all 4 of the MiG's torpedoes, all of the 2 Condor's missiles, and a bunch of gatling laser fire, and easily take down all of my aircraft. I had not yet been able to research the plasma aircraft guns, so this was the best tech that I had available. Unfortunately, at this point the game stopped being fun, and became a major frustration, to the point where I no longer want to continue that game, because I feel that I'm in an inescapable situation that the game has put on me without warning. If I had done something wrong, such as sent too few aircraft or equipped them poorly, then I would be more understanding of this failure state, but to my knowledge there's absolutely nothing I could have done better to prepare for this type of combat. Having read the forums, I understand that a better way is to focus on manufacturing earlier on, and focus on creating a Corsair, but I think that it's currently too easy to ruin an entire game, because one should be using forum posts to enhance one's play style, not to overcome unbeatable situations. A better situation would be to introduce the harder craft more gradually. A squadron of two heavy fighters, or a heavy and a light, or perhaps the medium ships should be unescorted more frequently, or even throw in a good measure of the smaller UFOs, even later on, so that players who can't or won't research and build quickly can still have a chance. Another option would be to separate out the difficulty sliders for air and ground combat, so that players struggling with one can make this part of the game easier (even midway through) rather than feel utterly beaten and give up. That's not to take anything away from the game or the developers at all. It's excellent fun and obviously the product of a tremendous amount of hard work; I will no doubt start a fresh game to continue enjoying it, but feel that I shouldn't have needed to.

So, realism nags us, and tells us that there are more than two hardpoints on an F-16. I agree that we need a good explanation as to why things are the way they are. (ie, why only two missiles?) First, we have the Condor: F-16s have three hardpoints under each wing (six total), one on each wing tip (2 total), and three under the belly. We can say that the three hardpoints under the belly were removed/replaced in favor of adding a permanent expanded fuel system (seems simple enough to me; plus it echos what happened to the Foxtrot). The wingtips are easy; these carry Air-to-Air Missiles (like the game currently has). In the Xenopedia photos it shows the Condor with two AAMs on the wingtips, and two other objects under the wings. I propose these objects are Xenonaut Sensor Pods, something I just invented to explain why these aircraft can detect UFOs and Alien Bases so well. This leaves the other four hardpoints under the wings unaccounted for, both realism wise and in the photo the Xenopedia shows. I'd assume that they either: a) removed these hardpoints to decrease weight and drag, and to increase fuel efficiency and speed, or b) they could simply carry external fuel tanks all the time, to help the Condor have it's incredible range (considering the relatively short ranged F-16). Or a combination of the two (removed two hardpoints, used the other two for fuel tanks). On to the Foxtrot: So, the MiG-31 could carry four heavy missiles under the belly, and various missiles under the wings. Initially the Foxtrot had four heavy missile slots, actually. However, having four missiles made it overpowered in gameplay, so it's payload was reduced to two missiles/torpedoes. Why would this be, realism wise? Well, we can simply explain that the four missile hardpoints under the belly were removed/replaced to increase fuel capacity through permanent external tank additions to the underbelly, just like the Condor. For the hardpoints under the wings, two are used for the heavy torpedoes, and the rest were either removed to reduce drag and increase fuel efficiency and speed (every bit counts when you're chasing UFOs) or used for external drop tanks, same reasoning as the Condor. Now, many of you know that the MiG-31 had a built in cannon. As far as the gun goes, we can say that they removed it because the space was needed for a better sensors package (basically they put the Xenonaut Sensor Pod inside the aircraft, to reduce drag on the outside to enable higher speeds for intercepting faster UFOs). Sound decent? Not too unrealistic, I hope.

At the end of October 1979:- Overall tactic: I went with base building over equipping soldiers again in this build. With the lower base build cost, I went straight for a second base on day 1. A lull meant that I couldn't get a third base quite as quickly, but by the start of November the facilities are being built. By the end of November I should have 3 strike bases set up. Again, this offsets the nations with plummeting funding, such as the USA (if first base is in Europe (Sicily and not Greece. Bah)) An example of: In October I lost $40k of US funding. In November it was +$10k Ground Combat: The first four or five missions are tougher in this build. This isn't because of grenade use in previous builds. I usually only resort to grenades, when the weapons start causing too little damage. The aliens seemed to have a better grasp of cover. Also, they aren't as predictable. They now come out of the UFO (thank you) to mix things up a little. Alien plasma pistols seem to be pretty nasty this build. I'm glad that's pretty much all I've been up against. I may have to think about skimping on the armour. 2 20 day wounded troops very early on. Weapon types: Pistol/Shield - Invaluable in breaching UFOs and I've been using it a little more in getting close to defensive positions, due to grenade range limitations. Sniper - Hypervelocity has been removed for the moment, so that was felt. There's also a TU increase. Considering the time it should take to set up a sniper shot, I'm actually fine with that. It does mean that it takes a few missions for the Sniper to find his/her feet. Several actually. But still very useful considering grenade tweaks. LMG - The winner this build. I bring one in when the rocket launchers have enough strength and TUs to make it more viable. They have benefited most form the grenade tweaks. I now have 2 on the squad. Rifle - Relied on more with grenade tweaking. More useful in early missions waiting for LMG and sniper rifle to become more useful. Rocket Launcher- With everything it touches becoming a purple stain (unless it's friendly fire) this is used much more carefully. I'm switching ammo a lot more depending on the situation. Stun being a little more effective works well for this. Shotgun - Still not being used. Current maps don't provide close combat situations where it would be useful (early industrial maps were much better for this). Inside UFOs is probably the best bet, but there are still accuracy issues with that for nearly all weapons. Shield/pistol and grenades works better. There are no line of sight interiors in the early UFOs that would favour the use of the shotgun. For example, corners that would block use of grenades. Overall, a thumbs up for the changes. Some confined maps should bring Shotguns into their own. Still not using -High Explosive, Stun Batons, Flash Bangs for the reasons given here Air Combat - I enjoyed watching my Foxtrot fail to take down the light scout by itself, and I managed to take down 2 Corvettes without going back to reload. Reload changes are making a positive difference already. Also enjoying the variety of UFOs. I can't think when I've had a scout with 2 escorts. Straight into 3 fighters in this game, rather than a build up of single ones first. Nice to see things shift around. I've used the cannons a little more in this build. Not much more, but then there are others here, who use them in traditional dog fighting style., so it's possibly just me there. I was going to link back to 19.4 for not using Vehicles. But considering the increased difficulty of the first few missions, I'm wondering if a tank would have been a solution. Very possibly. Other issues (I've posted these elsewhere, but they fit nicely here too.) Stores is now ignored and manufacturing is pretty hollow. I'm realigning the soldiers in the dropship tab once and never going back to it. Greece being in the Middle East really jars as the first thing I go to do in the game is put a base there, only to find that it's in the "wrong" funding bloc. Instant Promotions - I had 7 Sgts after the first mission (Update: I'm getting commanders at the end of October) Manufacturing delay - there's no manufacturing to start with and I have a 6 day delay waiting for the third hanger to be built before I can begin the manufacture. I imagine that there would also be a delay if I built a garage, but haven't built that one. So, no manufacturing to start with, and then a delay in the first topic that's available to manufacture. Local forces down UFO early mission - If you want to equip your squad before the go, you want to press cancel. However, the timer stays at the same speed as when the "local forces down UFO" message appears. Hours race by before you can get to the top to stop it. Even if there's a time freeze hotkey, it would be nice if it just reverted back to the slowest speed. Firing into the UFO from just outside the doorway, continues to be odd looking. Accuracy plummets (and it's poor to begin with). Breach soldier doesn't always have the TUs to go much further than the door safely. So, it's back to grenades, as the least risky option. I can understand why you don't want everyone to be able to fire right into the back of the UFO, but it looks strange when you can't Research dries up around 18th with 15 scientists. That's for a few days and then it dries up again around the 27th. The tail end of both research periods is only 1 topic leading on to the only other available option. So there's no real research choice for the player. It's very linear. Considering the world is supposed to be running around trying to figure out how best to deal with the threat, there's little research going on. Edges of Light Scouts. - I still find some of the targeting around the corners of the ship to be odd. I've had a Caesian in plain sight just at one of the pincers, but I couldn't hit it directly and had to work my way around. Some oddities at the door as well. These have pretty much always been there. Savegame: End of October

One of the more interesting things I've seen on these boards is that there seems to be a large divide between those that feel air combat is incredibly difficult, and those that feel it is completely trivial. In the interest of bridging that divide and generating some discussion on air combat itself, I've decided to throw up this post sharing my tactics and how I win at air combat without ever taking damage from alien craft. I'm not saying this is the only way to play or necessarily even the best, just that it works 100% of the time as long as you properly execute it. Foxtrots are your friends. They render Condors and Corsairs completely obsolete, and as such are the only aircraft I build until Marauders are available. They are also highly cost efficient, and should never be down for repairs unless you screw up. I generally operate with 3 per base. We will also only be using torpedos, as they have more damage and range than sidewinders. Additionally, keeping your explosives upgraded is of paramount importance and probably the most important research in the game. Whenever a new tier is available, always always always research alien power source/reactor/etc immediately followed by the explosives upgrade (or alenium in the early game). There are really only two tactics we will use, jousting and kiting. Jousting is flying straight at the enemy at minimum speed and just killing them before they enter firing range. Kiting involves having one plane fly away from the enemy at a fast enough speed to not be caught while the other two fire and then disengage. The final element we will use is staggering our fire, which is less a tactic and more a simple mechanical skill. Staggered fire seems complex, but is actually very simple. Alien craft will always roll a set distance, however they will not roll far enough to leave a Foxtrot's firing arc and their roll will not cooldown fast enough for them to avoid a second, properly timed shot. To properly perform this maneuver versus any alien Fighter, simply drop your speed to minimum, target the fighter, and switch one torpedo to "red" (not firing) status. Then unpause and approach the Fighter until it enters range and the torpedo fires. Feel free to tap the pause key until the missile nears the Fighter and forces it to roll. Wait until the Fighter finishes it's roll, and then fire the second torpedo as soon as it finishes (pause may be useful, especially in groups with multiple fighters). If you engaged a group that includes escorts and a larger ship that you do can not safely kill with your remaining torpedos, retreat (avoiding afterburner use if possible to conserve fuel) and then return with a second wave to kill the main ship. Jousting is the simplest maneuver to perform, simply reduce your speed and fly directly at the enemy ship. Torpedos have slightly longer range than most UFOs, so you have just enough time to fire and kill the enemy ship before it will be able to fire at you. This maneuver should only be performed against ships you have enough firepower to kill, as it will leave you very exposed to enemy fire should you fail to kill it. Two alenium torpedos will kill a bomber, six plasma torpedos will kill a Cruiser. I do not remember the numbers needed to kill medium UFOs off the top of my head, and will edit them in later. Lastly, we have kiting. This is best performed after escorts (if any) have been killed off. Simply order your craft to fly in different directions from each other, and see which one the UFO will turn and chase. Have the one being chased maintain enough speed in a safe direction to avoid being fired on while the other two close to firing range and attack, then retreat all three aircraft (being careful to not have the kiting plane leave the combat zone at a time that would cause the UFO to turn around and have a new target in range). This allows you to safely fire four torpedos, which is generally enough to take out most targets in two flights (8 alenium torpedos will kill a cruiser, so you can joust on your second engagement). This takes longer and consumes more fuel than jousting, so it should only be used on targets that can not be killed head-on. And there you have it, these basic tactics can reliably get you at least until Feb without suffering any aircraft losses if you execute them correctly.

Hi. THough having a dedicated place to discuss autoresolve feature would be helpfull. My first early impressions on autoresolve are the following: -It works nice so far. Got just to the first scouts (not the small ones). -Planes seem to take a bit too much damage. Engaging light scouts with 2 condors consistently gives a victory with 19-26% health on both condors. I like autoresolve giving worse results than the ones a player can have doing it manually, to encourage playing on manual, but this is too much worse. A player can win the combat with around 80% health in 1 or 2 condors, or no damage at all if good. 26% health on autoresolve is too much punishment, having around 50% health remaining will be better as it doesnt make you lose so many intercept chances because of repairs. As I almost skipped 19.4 entirely Im finding UFOs to be tougher than usual so I need to play more on manual to be able to give better feedback about autoresolve.

How do you shoot down a Corvette with Condors and Foxtrots? I have 2 Foxtrots and 3 Condors. Suddenly a bunch of UFOs appear just before the end of October. Two of them are mediums and others are fighters, and one of the mediums is escorted. I havew never seen a medium alien ship before. So I send a Foxtrot and 2 Condors after the unescorted medium. The Corvette goes for my condors, so I send the Foxtrot to the side and the 2 Condors right at the Corvette. The latter shoots a missile and the Condor dodges it, he shoots a missile at the second Condor who also dodges it. My Condors arrive at range and shoots a missile which is dodged. I shoot the rest of my Condor missiles which hit, and the Corvette shoots back. I have no more dodges left and one of my Condors is destroyed. The other runs away having no more missiles. In the meantime, my Foxtrot comes in from the side, shoots a missile which is dodged then hits with the other missile, but the Corvette shoots down the Foxtrot which has no dodge ability. My surviving but damaged condor gets away, but I have lost a Foxtrot and a Condor and the Corvette is still flying. So how the heck does one down an alien medium ship? Maybe I should have sent two Foxtrots and 3 Condors? There are still 3 alien fleets flying around and a terror base to boot, and sending Charlie there is asking for them to be shot down by all the fighters swarming around... Henri

So, I've now accidentally lost/nearly lost a few air combat missions as a result of forgetting to set missiles/torpedoes to standby and therefore launching them all immediately when coming into range (and, obviously, missing their targets!). With this in mind, I'm wondering whether it wouldn't make sense to have them set by default to standby rather than to fire. Since the air game seems to be mostly about timing missile attacks, having them set to fire by default seems somewhat pointless in any case as many alien craft will easily avoid an uncontrolled barrage. Furthermore, I think there's an argument for claiming that, as things stand, air combat might be more difficult for new players by virtue of them assuming that fire-at-will is the best way to proceed as it is the default (at the moment, the very first lesson of air combat is to turn all missiles off until you're ready).

I suggest adding three options for how fast time flows in the air combat mini game (similar to the geoscape time options): Slow, normal (current), fast. Slow would be used for carefully dodging shots, more effective micromanaging, and more precise maneuvers. Normal for normal stuff. Fast for skipping past unnecessary waiting, like when you're escaping an air battle and have to wait for your aircraft to reach the edge of the screen. Several people have complained about waiting for the air combat to finish when nothing else is going to happen, like when you're escaping after using all your ammo. This would fix that problem. Additionally, beyond making the air combat better, it could also be used to balance the difficulty levels. On insane you could remove the pause function and just leave in the three speeds. I'd support that.

Given the necessity for larger squadrons, I've started to run into the problem of mixed squadron numbers not matching up. I would prefer it if the planes on the side were 1/2/3 and it lined up with the numbers on the aircraft battlescape, rather than, in my current squadron, have it show up as Foxtrot-1 (1), Condor 1(2), Condor 2 (3). Might just be me being silly for looking at the numbers rather than the order, but I often see the (2) and click on the Condor-2. I'll get over it... but still. Anyone? Numbers in the parentheses are as they are on the map. Edit: or hell, color code them

Have pointed out several times that due to the amount of income/skillups from crash-sites, the optimum way to play the game is expanding your air power for as long as possible while mostly ignoring your ground troops. This rapid expansion of air-combat potential, and the discovery of exploitable quirks in the system (staggering fire from Foxtrots) has led to a lot of changes on the Dev's end that effectively make air combat "more difficult." In the end, as long as there are more UFOs than we can shoot down, we will be rewarded for holding out as long as possible on giving gear to our soldiers while maximizing the number of craft that are shot down (unless a system is used where shooting down more UFOs results in a rapid advancement of the invasion as discussed in a previous thread). As I see it, finances for the game break down into three basic areas: 1) Air Combat 2) Base Construction 3) Personnel and Equipment Given that a single MIG back in the day would cost something like 11 million US$, it might be reasonable to split the finances for the air combat mini-game off, or at least the massive price difference would be my "out of game" reasoning for the split. Couple ways this could be handled using the current infinite plane system. 1) Simple option: Planes are provided by the country bloc your base is in. Start of the game, the first are provides you with two Condors and a Charlie. If you lose one, they replace it after a while. If you want a supply of Foxtrots, your engineers and a certain amount of cash are invested to have the facilities built to provide that base in that country with Foxtrots. This leaves the balance of planes up to the player. After shooting X number of UFOs down for that country (or a certain funding level, or Rating) they will provide you with Four aircraft, etc. Likewise if you want to upgrade to a Corsair. Costs could be kept the similar, or increased, but it would be a one time cost per base. New bases could be supplied with a set number of planes, and would increase separately based on the funding or rating of that bloc. [Possible exploit, placing two early bases both in the Russian bloc, perhaps it would be based on something else?] 2. Separate budget. At the end of the month you get X millions (25 or so?) to spend on aircraft, and a regular budget that is supplemented by crash sites for base expansion and equipping troops. A similar split could be implemented for purchases of base locations, or for the first months, the monthly budget would so far outstrip cash earned from crash sites that it is the only practical way to purchase a new base location. OG: The increasing number of ships in Superhuman mode etc actually made those games EASIER financially, although more difficult in ground combat. That allowed rapid expansion and tech research, speeding up the game overall. At the moment we are already playing on a Superhuman-esque difficulty due to the waves and overwhelming invasion ideal. Obvious downside, you are reducing the player's choices on how to spend their money. Generally people will dislike a reduction in their options. Upside- Devs can now play with the air combat system and tweak it to a far greater degree without unduly influencing what is being spent on ground combat. Similarly, you can encourage people to actually spend their cash on equipping their troops with new gear rather than waiting as long as possible with ballistics and clothes. I don't actually expect this to be implemented at this point, but if the idea gets picked up by a similar game down the line, I think it might make the development a bit easier. Thoughts comments bashing?

Hello everyone. I am eating cheese cake, so i kind of happy at the moment. But this issue is making me sad.... Even after the 12 of july patch, i am getting crash after crash (of the game, mind you) when i engage in air battles vs three alien ships. Does any body got a solution for this?

BASIC IDEA: Add another button in the air combat aircraft screens (same category as retreat, afterburners and evasive roll) titled "Emergency Disengage" which would allow the rapid egress of an aircraft from a fight, but would result in a 72hr recovery time in addition to the repair time for the accumulated damage +20% max HP more damage (to a minimum of 1% HP) to simulate the rough landing. (More info in the Details section). -The balance should be similar, if not the same, as the current indestructible interceptor system. (More info in the Balance section.) -This should satisfy both sides of the indestructible interceptors debate, the for's and the against's. (More info in the Reasoning Section.) DETAILS: BALANCE FACTORS: REASONING BEHIND THE SUGGESTION: I am going to post links to this thread in any threads discussing the indestructible interceptor issue. If your needs would be met with this idea, if you like and support the implementation of the idea, please comment and say so. This will help the developers see how popular this idea is (if it indeed gains popularity.) Please comment any concerns or suggestions below as well. Thanks!

Hey, i found a very anoying bug, the game crashes only when you fight (and win) against 3 alien aircrafts, if you loose nothing happens.

The battlefield based play for this game is good but the air combat is grossly unbalanced. The aliens have pretty much total supremacy making getting ahead almost impossible. Why are you allowed to only field three fighters against an alien craft even when you have four or more and the aliens have an absurd firepower advantage? Personally I don't get it.

It may be just me, but after the new update the air combat became very hard! Missiles almost impossible to hit UFO and all depend by dog fight.

How do I do it? (lol) I cant seem to figure out how to fire missiles and cannons? I can click on the weapon and it turns red, right and left clicking doesnt seem to do anything... The keyboard setup shows pressing 1-5 as firing a locked missile. I dont see any missile locks? And pressing 1-5 doesnt do anything. It is probably something stupid obvious but I havent fired off the first shot yet 8-/

In the moment it is hard to figure our which air craft you control. It would help to make one fighter blue, one green and one yellow or so on. Thanks

Hello, friends! I have several Ideas on Air combat (besides in-flight assault which I described in another thread). IDEA 1. What is the reason for new cannons? While we can simply chose warheads for no cost, the wide range of anti aircraft cannons costs much time and money. Ways to solve it (and make sense of using different cannons). a. Specify which cannon is better for use against which ufo. For example laser cannon can scratch smallers better while plasmas - for biggest. or something like that. b. Make COMBAT simulator. So a player any time can make a virtual duel with uUFO wings and make choice which cannon to build. That will be almost like ordinary combat... while a player can not test weapons on UFOs that he never shot down! So there will be reason to get knowledge of all crafts. c. Weapon effectiveness. So after shooting down for example 10 cruisers the player gets new technology (even with no picture) as Calibration of weaponry for shooting down Cruiser. You know, after that the UFOs get less chance to be victorious. Good prize! PLAYER MAY EVEN CHOSE TO LOOSE SOME FIGHTERS BUT SHUT DOWN HARD TARGET. The bloody but priceless experience. IDEA 2. After all we know the enemy. It is tough, but... We know! The idea of countermeasures. In addition to evasive maneuvers Foxtrots and other craft may use them (drop the foil, or IR-decoys etc.). These measures were known even in World War 2. Of course the technology may become available not so easy. And may be different branches. For different classes of UFOs - separate research projects. They also may become available after several combat results, not at once. This may cause air combat menu remake, but could make much sense. What do you think?

How much work would it be to add armour mitigation and degradation to air combat? I've been thinking of changing the health and armour of UFO's to make a 2-torp MiG effective. However, if there was armour mitigation and degradation I could instead drop health a bit, but increase armour so that only same-era (Avalanche for Corvettes, Alenium for Landing ships and Cruisers) Torpedoes could do good damage to a 'Capital" ship. High level would do severe damage, while lower level could only do some damage. But they would also degrade armour enough that after a couple of Torps, same-era missiles could now get through the armour, with cannons after missiles or at the same time as missiles. So you'd use Marauders or MiG's to 'crack' the armour, then hammer it with missiles and/or guns to finish it off.

Hey! Not sure if I'm somehow building in an unusual manner or whether this is already being addressed, but right now the aircraft weapon scaling feels a bit frustrating. One full barrage of tier 2 (Alenium) Missiles/Torpedoes seems to completely destroy anything less than Corsairs (or is it Landing Ships?) which prevents you from being able to make money/get alien resources from ground missions in order to build the tier 3 aircraft that can even somewhat stand up to tier 3 UFOs. I couldn't seem to go back and trade out Alenium weapons for Sidewinder/Avalanche (which may have been a bug), but even if I could it would have felt like a really bad solution. I'd honestly really rather have more options in the dogfighting screen to control my rate of fire or intensity of aggression so I could choose how to fight the ships I encounter on the fly with either the intention of destroying them or forcing them to crash.

Hello, guys! Here is my idea which was realized in my novel "2085. Fifth Invasion Chronicles" and planned to be realized in Russian X-COM inspired project 2021. The Last Frontier. Unfortunately the 2021 project seems to be closed for lack of programming, while it PROBABLY could be very similar to Xenonauts. The similar idea was more o less realized in X-COM Enemy Unknown 2012 DLC (as well as the Russian localization used my word from 2085 - 'plasmer' instead of plasma rifles, pistols etc.). Okay here is an idea and mechanics of implementation in current game. I think it will not be impossible to implement it, there will be few need of additional graphics. The assault of UFO in flight. Not shooting it down, not waiting for land. The upgrade of existing landing craft Shrike can be made (or developing new type of craft, but that is much more in graphic). The craft becomes extremely fast. It may carry only few soldiers (much place will be taken by additional engines or fuel). And only the strongest can participate and not be wounded (that means the week may suffer in extreme velocity and start mission wounded). So the craft will do the following things. 1. Start an intercept of UFO. 2. Successfully touch it if UFO does not change the course. If changes, craft returns to base with slow speed and may be very week against alien retaliation in the sky. 3. Open UFO by precision charges (no special graphics, just one craft attached to another and black screen around). The operatives then: 1. Start assault. Not all the aliens can fight against, some busy with flight control. 2. Finish assault. There have to be limited turn counter, for only skilled solders can be effective. 3. The soldiers with simple armor can suffer health diminishing turn by turn. The velocity, alien atmosphere etc. The successful result gives. 1. Big loot. 2. Specific experience. For example one time high rising of stats. 3. Special technology. Something like. Alien inflight control recordings. Which simply make Earth avionics more advanced.... And Just reduce the time of aircraft building by 50%. 4. And something else if the developers will desire. I have ideas and can share if it is interesting. Jemar.

I'm getting nowhere in air combat. Against 3 Heavy Fighters (or a Medium ship with 2 Heavy Fighter escorts) I've tried 2 Condors and a Foxtrot and I've tried 3 Condors. All with Alenium Missiles. I don't see how to do it. Sometimes I can knock two of them out and lose 1 or 2 of my ships if I replay the battle over and over but mostly I just lose all ships. Is it possible to do it with Alenium technology?

So crap is hitting the fan relatively early every game for me, and I could use some help. Basically my problem revolves around air combat, because once the medium sized ships start appearing I can't take them out at all. Can't get them with 3 MIGs cant get them with 2 MIGs and a Condor equipped with a laser blaster as the MIGs kite it around and I unload all of the missiles, torpedoes, and blaster ammo into this thing. So any suggestions and/or advice?

Hi all! So, in a couple threads now I've seen that there's a desire to have small UFOs show up throughout the game, instead of them all disappearing and being totally replaced with the current generation of higher level UFOs. This is because: a) We need a way to train new recruits, and having weaker UFOs show up throughout the game gives us an opportunity to train new recruits without needing a base training system. b) Sometimes it's a nice break from the hard core missions to have a nice easy mission where you can dominate the enemy easily. It would show you how far you've come since the early days of the invasion, and boost your spirits a bit. Anyway, some people won't/don't like this idea because they don't want to have to do the super easy (and sometimes repetitive) ground missions for light scouts and scouts. This is why I came up with this idea: As a part of the air combat auto resolve, why don't we have a "Normal Attack" option for the regular auto resolve, and an "Aggressive Attack" option for when we want that UFO completely destroyed, with no ground mission? My idea wouldn't change the main auto resolve at all, it would simply add another option: Under the normal system: If Xenonauts > UFO(s), then UFO crashes, creating ground mission. If UFO > Xenonauts, then Xenonauts Lose. Using Aggressive Attack: If Xenonauts >>> UFO, then UFO is destroyed outright, creating no ground mission at all. If Xenonaut > UFO, then UFO crashes normally, creating ground mission. If UFO > Xenonaut, then Xenonauts Lose. Of course, this is somewhat simplified, seeing as it doesn't take into account individual aircraft taking damage, or part of a squadron being destroyed, but that's not exactly relevant to this post. My main idea is that if the UFO is insanely outmatched (like a trio of Corsairs armed with plasma missiles vs a single light scout) it can be destroyed using the Aggressive Attack button. (Obviously this would need to be balanced somewhat, the example above was just an example.) Destroyed UFOs would give half of the normal Alloys and no alenium, I'd say. This would cost the player a little amount of resources for the luxury of not having to do the ground mission. If the player wanted the money, all the alloys, and the alenium from the UFO, they'd have to do the crash site themselves. This would be to encourage doing ground battles and not simply spam the Aggressive Attack. Honestly, Aggressive Attack wouldn't even be all that useful for current UFOs, because they'd be pretty evenly matched and would therefore not be destroyed. It'd be a function for lower level UFOs. Perhaps it could also effect what damaged state the UFO crashes in, if not destroyed outright. Like, if Aggressive Attack had a higher chance for major damage than Normal Attack would. Also, maybe Aggressive Attack could have a greater chance of Xenonaut craft being damaged/destroyed if the sides are more evenly matched. Anyway, sorry for the lengthy post. Thoughts?