New to XN/2 but original 1990's xcom player - thoughts after playing

[BlackOpsy]

Got the game on Steam yesterday.  Here are my praises and some suggestions (mostly low hanging fruit)

Negatives
1. Weapon sounds not loud enough and quality on some is not good. Some of the best memories is hearing a plasma cannon during hidden movment and hearing the screams of civilians/aliens ie reapers attacking. Or the autocannon tearing up a small town with fire ammo to flush and burn all the cryslads. First SECTON encouter they shot that tiny rail pistol is laughably bad with sound.

2. Aliens on death need to be louder too and imo improved. After playing pretty much non stop since yesterday It's a tiny garbled noise

3.  1x1 MARS is nice... and is a aweseom option and should stay, but I wish the heavy weapons platforms of Xcom, 2x2 units where in too . If you noticed in Xcom originals, maps had somebuildings that allowed 2x entrance, some ufo's had 2x2 grav lifts (ie cyber disc). I think 2x2 for ultra heavy units is the way.  I heard about the 3x3 and I can see that being too hard to balance.

4.There are advanced aircraft with EMP protected circuits,that could surive a massive nuc pulse from space, not sure why a goverment funded would opt for 50+ year old aircraft. At least the lore explains it "ok" ie procurment, and vaccum tube emp resisent. 

5. I personally like every weapon and piece of equipment in the UFOPEDIA. Making generic categoires "ballistic", Laser, is cutting corners to me by telling me "details" do not matter. 

6. Ballistic plates add "12" armor for example, but no mention of them in the PEDIA as far as I can tell.

7. Equipping craft with weapons/ammo. Maybe add a weapon locker that has a inventory and size can change based off ship? Let  soldiers use it during missions.... It's annoying to overstack soliders to drop on a mission... ie terror mission

8. Give our soldiers access to the MP5/Submachine gun. 

   Subgun gets 5 rnd burst 

   Subgun range reduced to 18

   Subgun loosed 1-2 pnts of damage

   Subgun snap/normal TU is reduced/faster then rifle

   Subgun remains lighter

  Add more subguns for lasers, rails, etc  

9. Lighting could be better, add in HDR and deep dark shadows, especially at night

10. I miss the sell/sack/buy pages

11. Why 2009? Just make it 2029 - I remember xcom being several years ahead on the clock. Adds immersion to me anyway lol.

Positivies
1. Equipment shows you stats while hovering vs using UFOPEDIA

2. Equipping soldiers at base - but we need craft inventory too.

3.  No longer need to tedliousy research each specimen

4. Base building matters to whats adjacent and makes u think tactical vs useable

5. Improved solider weight/stats

6. Graphics are nice but see #9 in neg

7. I really like the cleaners and missions lol need more

8. Spirit of 90's game is mostly there and changed positivly overall for XT

9. Anything else not mentioned didnt' stick out and was good or as expected great work!

Edited July 19, 2023 by BlackOpsy