Things that I'm hoping to see...

[Lord Blade]

I posted this on the Steam forum, and wanted to share it here.

So I've been trying to go through the Kickstarter and official site and find out what's what with current design and such, but it gets a bit confusing. So here's some stuff that I would personally like to see in this game. I'd like to know what you guys think...

1) More depth with the classic base building system

I loved the classic X-Com style base building that Xenonauts used. It not only allowed for more customization, but also opened up the opportunity for base attacks, where room placement actually mattered.
I'd love to see more effort towards that. More room types (like training rooms, or containment cells, etc). And a lot more impact if a defense mission is going on. If say aliens start smashing open containment cells for example, they could unleash captured aliens to help cause chaos (could be deadly depending on what you've got locked up). And having a unit run through an armory could let you better equip troops (or non-combatants) for fighting off the enemy. Plus destruction of certain room props could be a hinderance to you (losing science consoles in your labs could damage your research for example).

2) More air combat options

I liked the air combat system in Xenonauts. I'd love to see some more depth there as well. Say giving planes specific orders, like having them try to aim for non-critical spots on the enemy. Having a better damage system would be cool. Instead of just enemies crashing at X% damage, you could try to go for engines specifically to try and bring down a ship in as good shape as possible. Or even having new ship weapons specifically designed to cripple and not destroy ships (like EMP weapons or somesuch).

3) Special combat mission orders

I was thinking something like if you have a plane hovering over a crash site (or landed UFO), you could get a strafing run option in combat, where the plane would basically fly by and blast an area on the map on call (making it use up fuel and ammo on the plane so you have to choose when to use it).

4) More alien types and sub-types

Because researching all the different types is fun. And I'd love to see actual autopsies and live research for every type, not just a generic species autopsy.

5) A use for capturing more live specimens

In the first game, once you've captured an alien/officer/leader... there's not really any point in doing so again. Which is kind of disappointing. It would be nice to see some sort of reward for capturing instead of killing. Like having more interrogations. Perhaps capturing NC aliens could lead towards research of alien tech, while officers could teach you more about alien ships or strategies.
There could also be a lot of "random" research things you could get, like alien lifestyle info, or recreation, or food types, etc. Basically things that you don't really need to win, but are just interesting little tidbits you can get out of prisoners to add more lore to the game.

6) Having UFO's spawn a bit more sporadically

In the original, it feels like you basically wait a few days, then a dozen UFO's drop down at once... then you're waiting again. It would be nice to see them spread out more. Having the odd UFO from time to time, and rarely have several at once. Just to make it more fluid.

7) Much more soldier customization

This is a big one. I very much want to see a hell of a lot more customization options for your troops. Picking name, sex, country, race and face at the very least. Colour options might be nice to help differentiate your troops on the ground at a glance.
This is honestly probably my favourite aspect of the XCom remakes. Just how much detail you can put into your soldiers. It's great fun making squads of your friends.

8) More Geoscape scanning options

Basically getting improved scanners over time that would let us identify ship types, rather than just size, once a ship is in scanning range. And possible some sort of decoder to intercept transmissions that would let us know what a ship's mission is. Also let us know what race(s) is on the ship.

9) More mission types

So, I'm still playing through the original, but missions seem to mostly just be crashed UFO's and attacking landed ones (I've not seen any non-UFO missions).
I'd like to see more alien missions on the map. So along with attacking UFO's (crashed or landed), having multiple mission types.
Terror missions with lots of soldier class aliens in a high population area.
Abduction missions where the aliens are after a specific person (like some military leader) and it's up to us to stop their abduction.
Infiltration missions, where the aliens are trying to spy on locations, and it would just be a couple of elite units (so basically trying to hunt down a couple of slippery enemies before they escape).
Sabotage missions, where they aliens are at military installations, trying to destroy stuff. Could involve lots of soldiers as well as the possibility of needing to disarm bombs.

10) More research options

Researching stuff is fun! I'd love to see more to explore. Notably some things like side-grades to weapons, instead of the usual straight upgrade path we have. So having some new weapon types that come up with a new tier (like when we hit lasers) that rather than just being a straight upgrade, give more specialized functionality. So maybe an option for different weapon/ammo types (I remember the classic games having regular, AP, explosive, incendiary ammo for example). Something like that would be nice. Let us equip for specific situations.
Have multiple weapons for each type, with varying accuracy vs damage and such (so maybe 2-3 rifles for a tier, each being focused on its own strength).
And give us more equipment. Scanners, mines, tripwires, portable walls (basically a small folding shield units can place to take cover behind), hacking devices, etc. All sorts of goodies.

11) Grenade timers

An option added to grenades to choose how long it takes them to go off. So being able to set them to instant (blows up when it lands), end of turn, 1+ turns. It could lead to some interesting strategy, especially if the AI is set to react to grenades. You could set a grenade to go off after a turn, and use it to flush out aliens behind cover (rather than just blowing them up instantly and destroying stuff).

12) Actions taking set TU rather than %

I think it would make much more sense for actions to use a set amount of TU, rather than a % of the unit's total. A pistol would fire slightly faster than a rifle, and of course each would be modified by firing modes. But as a unit gains stats (specifically more TU) it doesn't make sense that it somehow now takes them even longer to fire a shot than it used to (especially as with skill and practice you'd actually be able to shoot faster). As units improve, they should be able to fire more shots in their turn, not just be forced to waste TU.

[Ruggerman]

A very nice selection of options for the game, but I do very much agree with your point number 12, as I see it the better your become, and more practised, you should be able to complete more, or have a better chance to get a better result.

[Fimbul]

Very good points! Especially 12! Getting more Experience (TU) is only marginal, you can move a little farther but if you want to perform an action, then it's almost nothing.

Shooting around the corner/throug an open door you stand next too!

I would like to see the ability to shoot around the corner where you stand. It's infuriating to stand next to an open door or a hedge end and you get a 100% blocked! It might cost an additional TU amount to perform it from the safety where you can hide again after shooting. but please!

Throwing over hedges and fences!

it should really be possible to throw grenades over obstacles without any accuracy loss. That's exactly the use case of grenades and what you train in the militairy. Throwing grenades from the relative safety of a trench with high precision over obstacles. And hedges shouldn't be a problem either, just less accurate because total lack of sight. But you are still able to predict the flight rather well, because it's exactly what you train!

Hedges shouldn't be a total block of everything!

Even a thick hedge is mostly air, leaves and few branches. They can mess with your aim but certainly can't stop any bullet! Then they should be easily destroyable, any explosive or dense fireburst should flatten them outright. Heck you can easily squeze through most hedges without doing any damage to them anyway! It may just use twice the TU amount.

Edited May 1, 2020 by Fimbul
typos

[Alienkiller]

Most of that Points we will get in Xenonauts 2 or are implemented already which is still in Beta-Status to test them out. Esp. Point 1 in an other form, 4, 5, 9 and 10.

Point 2, 8 I aggree too, esp. after the Beta-Tests.

Point 6 is good as it is now, because the Devs have integrated some Specials in Xenonauts 2, which we Backers test already in the Beta.

Point 3 is already implemented (there you can choose you wanna secure the UFO or destroy it completely). If you choose the first 1 you and your team get new Ressources, if you choose Point 2 you will destroy the UFO completley but get money.

Point 11 and 12 aren´t nessecary. The Devs wanna have Point 11 more realisticaly like in the Real Army. And on Point 12 I aggree with Ruggerman.