Ogilvy the Astronomer Posted July 20, 2023 Share Posted July 20, 2023 I’ve downloaded the Early Access and have made some notes, in case they’re helpful. This is for Milestone 1.22, covering the first 38 days, default difficulty. It’s from the very beginning of the game up until a Cleaner dockyard base. Sorry if these points read like a stream of consciousness, but I was basically playing through the game and tabbing out to add a bullet point every now and then! FYI, I played X1, and a very early slice of X2. I do lurk on this forum, but on the whole I’m coming to the game with a clean slate. The intro sequence and initial menu screens are really well done. The “click middle button to lock a nested tooltip” confused me. I’m not sure it’s necessary, just waiting three seconds for the circle to disappear to me is intuitive and works perfectly. Having the middle click instruction so early in the tutorial made me worry that the game would be quite fiddly. The game became unresponsive the first time I was playing though the tutorial and got to the part when you launch interceptors. Clicking on the “LAUNCH AIRCRAFT” and “CLOSE” buttons did nothing. The escape key did nothing either. In the end I had to Crtl+Alt+Delete and exit. I then reloaded, started again, and it worked fine. It felt a bit odd to have shot down a UFO, prepared a team to go to the crash site, and then immediately have to switch to defending the base. “Cleaners” are mentioned with no explanation of who / what they are. It’s just kinda assumed you know. It feels like there’s missing backstory. The tactical combat UI feels very slick, I like it a lot. Overall the combat tutorial is well done and does a good job of explaining lots of different aspects of the game. I like how the percentage chance to hit calculation is broken down. Makes it easy to understand. And the ability to plan a move and then see what the percentage will be from a different position before committing is really good. The character animations are well done, big thumbs up. The Cleaners look like humans with gas masks, but when I killed one I got a “killed an alien” achievement. Are they humans or aliens? Maybe it’s supposed to be a mystery at this point. Use of the flashbang and smoke grenades is really neat. And shooting the boxes to give another soldier a clear shot. This is all great. The ending of the tutorial is a bit sudden. You’re retreating to defend from the next room and then it just ends. Next thing you’re starting out in the backup base. How about the tutorial sees endless waves of enemies and you just keep fighting for as long as you can, knowing your soldiers are doomed? Story-wise that makes sense, because these troops are mounting a desperate last-ditch attempt to delay the enemy. Gameplay-wise it means the player gets more practice in, allowing them to try different things in a low-pressure situation, i.e. they know that it’s a tutorial and it’ll end when all the soldiers die. The Engineering screen is a bit confusing. I wanted to build more Defender Armour, so input a load of those. $10,000 each, but there’s no readout telling me what the total cost would be. Then I clicked “Start Production” and it just added another set of Defender Armour to the to-build list. Not sure what’s going on there. In the Loadout screen, could double-clicking on a weapon/item from the stores automatically move it into the soldier’s inventory? Update: just realised that right-clicking does this. Double-left clicking is what I tried to do first though, so perhaps is more intuitive. It doesn’t seem possible to put a grenade into a soldier’s secondary slot, which seems odd. Update: once I got to the combat screen I understood that grenades don’t have to be put into a soldier’s hand before throwing. I like this X2 approach! I really like how you can see the breakdown behind a soldier’s attributes, such as accuracy. This makes it easy to see what’s having an effect, e.g. the armour plating. I’ve got the pop-up saying that my Skyhawk has arrived at the crash site, but the accompanying picture is of a fighter plane rather than a helicopter, which threw me a bit. I thought maybe I’d dispatched the wrong aircraft. The mission briefings are very clear. The overwatch toggle buttons are great. The tooltips are brilliant. I’m using them a lot. Clearly a lot of work has gone into them and it's paid off. Do medikits have a limited number of uses? It seems not, but that’s not stated anywhere that I can see. A guy just ran out at me with a gun. I know from playing X1 that he’s an armed civilian, but a new player could think that he’s an enemy, maybe a Cleaner. It seems odd that you can’t click on an enemy to find out anything about them, e.g. species name. One of my soldiers has been shot and has a bleeding wound. The blood icon has the number 1 next to it, but the tooltip says that he’ll lose 5hp each turn. Update: I think the 1 is the number of bleeding woulds he has, but I'm not 100% sure. The combat report screen is really good, showing how each solider is progressing. Three purple heart medals, good job team! My first alien autopsy. The art and text are first rate. And the psionic triangulation ability sounds interesting too. Now I’ve got available projects to research. Why does Xenobiology have “Plot” in brackets after it? Will researching it speed up the game and bring on tougher enemies? It’s also the only one to have a specified effect (+ $240,000 monthly funding). Maybe all the research projects could have their effects stated as clearly? I’m equipping a MARS, and it’s really cool. Changing the primary weapon and seeing that reflected in the artwork is awesome. Could the secondary weapons change the artwork too? Selecting armour for the MARS is a bit confusing. There’s a drop-down menu at the top-left that only has “Steel plating” as an option, and the armour rating is given as 15. But then below the “tactical vest” (which sounds weird considering it’s a robot) there’s a checkbox for “heavy steel plating”. Selecting this changes the artwork (great!) and seems to bump the armour rating to 25, although the top-left box still says “steel plating”. The choice of equipment for the MARS, such as a smoke launcher, helps make it an interesting choice to bring along on a mission. I just tried giving a solder a second steel plate. The tooltip said no valid placement, even though there’s plenty of space. Maybe it should say something like “maximum one per soldier”? Playing a Cleaner mission. It’s ace! I like how it’s different from the normal “kill all aliens”. Having a MARS smash through walls is awesome. Should I be taking dead Cleaner bodies back to the chopper so the scientist can autopsy them? I’m still none the wiser as to who these guys actually are, other than baddies. Are they aliens? The text at the end of the mission gives me a number for “aliens killed” so I guess they are? Like the Thin Men from XCOM. It would be nice to know the direction the Cleaner reinforcements are coming from. In case it’s useful info, playing on the default difficulty I had two KIA soldiers, and captured 13 data sticks. I stayed until I was told that Cleaner reinforcements had arrived, then ordered everyone to leg it to the chopper. I didn’t actually see any of the reinforcements. Now I’ve got a progress bar for finding the Cleaner HQ. This is slightly confusing as I thought I was stopping an alien invasion. Maybe there needs to be a line of text making it clear what’s going on – stop the Cleaners first then move onto the aliens? Is this Cleaner section basically an extended tutorial? Or are the Cleaners the aliens in disguise? I just checked the Funding Report. It says “alien victory is 2 region lost”. This is clunky phrasing. I’ve just competed some research. The text and artwork are really good. Text says “new engineering projects are available to build”. ‘Engineering projects’ is in bold so I expected it to have a tooltip, but it doesn’t. There’s a button to assign new research; maybe there should be one to go to the engineering screen too, if I’ve new things to make? When going to the engineering screen, sometimes the engineer will say something like “Da, comrade?” but sometimes the box just says “…”. I like that I have the option of stun batons or stun guns. It’s an interesting choice to have to make. I just shot down a UFO and have the pop-up where I can launch a mission or collect a bounty. It’s a bit annoying that the globe view is frozen behind this window, as I can’t actually drag my mouse around to see where the crash site is. Dragging and dropping engineering projects to reorder them feels very slick and natural. On the geoscape, could one of the time speed controls be to pause time? I’m up against Sebillians, trying to stun one. It took four Xenonauts three turns firing stun guns at the alien to actually stun it. (Most of their shots missed). Could there be a stun bar so you know how much progress you’re making? The crashed UFO model is cool. I’m standing over the corpse of an alien and trying to pick up its gun to use it. Doesn’t seem like I’m able to. Should there be a tooltip or something, if I need to research the weapon before using it? The medkit tooltip says that some damage is permanent, but I think this is a bit misleading as they can heal back to full strength when back at base, right? I suppressed enemies, but then they’re attacking me in their go. Does suppression only stop overwatch fire? I think this might have been covered in the tutorial but I've forgotten! A civilian just ran into a UFO I was preparing to breach, and almost ruined my plan! Could NPCs avoid UFOs? I managed to stun a flying brain thing, but again it was quite frustrating. Stun guns feel too weak – or perhaps their accuracy should be much higher. Combined with some visual feedback about how much stun damage an enemy needs to take before they’re actually unconscious. Right now I’m dreading having to stun more enemies. I just hired some new soldiers, but am not sure if they appear immediately or if there’s a delay. The music is perfect throughout the whole game. It adds a lot to the atmosphere. I have research options to interrogate captured aliens. It says I’ll get improved training rate and a damage bonus. Could this be phrased in the same way as the “Effect” messages you get with the “Plot” research? In other words, could every research project have the effect clearly stated? “Effect: improved Xenonaut training rate, and 15% damage bonus against Sebillians.” “Effect: unlocks laser rifle for production and essential to progress the plot”. (I made that second one up as an example!) This would really help understand which research projects you should prioritise for your chosen playstyle. Already the amount of research projects is starting to feel a bit daunting. It would also be good if you could queue up research projects, like you can engineering tasks. And maybe not lose all your research progress if you switch from one to another. What does the Chief Scientist do, burn all his notes just because you change your mind? The loading screen seems to always have the same tip, about right-clicking on a weapon in the inventory screen to unload it. Just had an abduction mission. I’m really enjoying the variety so far. My soldiers kept being “mesmerised”, but there was no explanation of what that actually means. Update: this ability is explained in the autopsy report. Looking at the Base Stores, I’ve no idea if it’s safe to sell certain items. I’ve got alien corpses piling up – should I sell them? What about the Cleaner Data that I collected? The Funding Report has a “NEXT” button that doesn’t seem to do anything. There’s a surprising lack of tooltips on the Base screen. Should I build a missile battery? Not sure what it does. Knowing the mission objectives during the loadout screen would be useful for best equipping your team. Update: perfect example, the briefing is saying that it’s better to capture than kill the VIP. Had I known that, I’d have packed some stun weapons. It’s too late by the time you know the objectives. Could flashbang grenades be buffed a bit? Maybe someone stunned has reduced TU for their next turn? At the moment I think they just stop overwatch. They feel a bit weak as a result. Regular grenades are very useful, in contrast. Update: some of my soldiers were just suppressed and have started the turn with reduced TUs, so maybe what I requested is in the game already! Perhaps the flashbang grenade explanatory text could be updated to reflect this? It makes it sound like flashbang grenades are really for breaching UFOs. Does the amount of stun damage keep adding up? Can you make enemies unconscious by chucking a ton of flashbang grenades at them? Can you reduce their TUs for the next turn to zero? I get that you shouldn’t overkill aliens, as then you gib them and don’t get useful resources. But is it different with the Cleaners? I think they’re just using human weapons. I’m blasting them with grenade launchers! For these Cleaner missions when reinforcements arrive after a certain number of turns, could there be a countdown so you know how many turns you have left? I just accidentally friendly-fired my MARS. It was a single shot from a sniper rifle. The word MISS appeared, but also a red number 15. Did I miss, or hit and cause 15 damage? I have a solider with a clear sight to an enemy, but all the alien head icons are orange. Shouldn’t one be red? The seagulls on this level are really loud! Oh wow, I just looked through the controls and saw that you can zoom in and out with Page Up / Page Down. This is so useful. I don’t think it was covered in the tutorial. It feels like the difficulty has shot through the roof. I identified the VIP (I think, it’s an alien), but there are so many Cleaners about. My entire team got wiped out and I only landed a few hits on it. And zero out of 18 data files retrieved. I think this is a good time to quit – it feels like it’d be hard to recover from that slaughter, and the difficulty spike has dented my morale somewhat! Overall I’m really impressed with X2. I’ll admit that the “what’s new in X2” forum post made me think this sequel would be a bit underwhelming as nothing too radical was listed, but having played it I’ve changed my mind. All those new additions add up to a game that I think is in a different league to the original. What I’ve played through was almost universally really good. I think that the new mission types are particularly effective, and I’ll end by suggesting again that a mission type where you’re controlling local forces, along with a skirmish game mode (perhaps unlocked after you complete the game) could help set X2 apart from its peers. (Forum post about these ideas here). I hope all that was useful, and I’m happy to clarify anything that doesn’t make sense because I was typing it in a hurry -- I was eager to get back into the game! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted July 20, 2023 Share Posted July 20, 2023 1 hour ago, Ogilvy the Astronomer said: I’ve downloaded the Early Access and have made some notes, in case they’re helpful. This is for Milestone 1.22, covering the first 38 days, default difficulty. It’s from the very beginning of the game up until a Cleaner dockyard base. Sorry if these points read like a stream of consciousness, but I was basically playing through the game and tabbing out to add a bullet point every now and then! FYI, I played X1, and a very early slice of X2. I do lurk on this forum, but on the whole I’m coming to the game with a clean slate. The intro sequence and initial menu screens are really well done. The “click middle button to lock a nested tooltip” confused me. I’m not sure it’s necessary, just waiting three seconds for the circle to disappear to me is intuitive and works perfectly. Having the middle click instruction so early in the tutorial made me worry that the game would be quite fiddly. The game became unresponsive the first time I was playing though the tutorial and got to the part when you launch interceptors. Clicking on the “LAUNCH AIRCRAFT” and “CLOSE” buttons did nothing. The escape key did nothing either. In the end I had to Crtl+Alt+Delete and exit. I then reloaded, started again, and it worked fine. It felt a bit odd to have shot down a UFO, prepared a team to go to the crash site, and then immediately have to switch to defending the base. “Cleaners” are mentioned with no explanation of who / what they are. It’s just kinda assumed you know. It feels like there’s missing backstory. The tactical combat UI feels very slick, I like it a lot. Overall the combat tutorial is well done and does a good job of explaining lots of different aspects of the game. I like how the percentage chance to hit calculation is broken down. Makes it easy to understand. And the ability to plan a move and then see what the percentage will be from a different position before committing is really good. The character animations are well done, big thumbs up. The Cleaners look like humans with gas masks, but when I killed one I got a “killed an alien” achievement. Are they humans or aliens? Maybe it’s supposed to be a mystery at this point. Use of the flashbang and smoke grenades is really neat. And shooting the boxes to give another soldier a clear shot. This is all great. The ending of the tutorial is a bit sudden. You’re retreating to defend from the next room and then it just ends. Next thing you’re starting out in the backup base. How about the tutorial sees endless waves of enemies and you just keep fighting for as long as you can, knowing your soldiers are doomed? Story-wise that makes sense, because these troops are mounting a desperate last-ditch attempt to delay the enemy. Gameplay-wise it means the player gets more practice in, allowing them to try different things in a low-pressure situation, i.e. they know that it’s a tutorial and it’ll end when all the soldiers die. The Engineering screen is a bit confusing. I wanted to build more Defender Armour, so input a load of those. $10,000 each, but there’s no readout telling me what the total cost would be. Then I clicked “Start Production” and it just added another set of Defender Armour to the to-build list. Not sure what’s going on there. In the Loadout screen, could double-clicking on a weapon/item from the stores automatically move it into the soldier’s inventory? Update: just realised that right-clicking does this. Double-left clicking is what I tried to do first though, so perhaps is more intuitive. It doesn’t seem possible to put a grenade into a soldier’s secondary slot, which seems odd. Update: once I got to the combat screen I understood that grenades don’t have to be put into a soldier’s hand before throwing. I like this X2 approach! I really like how you can see the breakdown behind a soldier’s attributes, such as accuracy. This makes it easy to see what’s having an effect, e.g. the armour plating. I’ve got the pop-up saying that my Skyhawk has arrived at the crash site, but the accompanying picture is of a fighter plane rather than a helicopter, which threw me a bit. I thought maybe I’d dispatched the wrong aircraft. The mission briefings are very clear. The overwatch toggle buttons are great. The tooltips are brilliant. I’m using them a lot. Clearly a lot of work has gone into them and it's paid off. Do medikits have a limited number of uses? It seems not, but that’s not stated anywhere that I can see. A guy just ran out at me with a gun. I know from playing X1 that he’s an armed civilian, but a new player could think that he’s an enemy, maybe a Cleaner. It seems odd that you can’t click on an enemy to find out anything about them, e.g. species name. One of my soldiers has been shot and has a bleeding wound. The blood icon has the number 1 next to it, but the tooltip says that he’ll lose 5hp each turn. Update: I think the 1 is the number of bleeding woulds he has, but I'm not 100% sure. The combat report screen is really good, showing how each solider is progressing. Three purple heart medals, good job team! My first alien autopsy. The art and text are first rate. And the psionic triangulation ability sounds interesting too. Now I’ve got available projects to research. Why does Xenobiology have “Plot” in brackets after it? Will researching it speed up the game and bring on tougher enemies? It’s also the only one to have a specified effect (+ $240,000 monthly funding). Maybe all the research projects could have their effects stated as clearly? I’m equipping a MARS, and it’s really cool. Changing the primary weapon and seeing that reflected in the artwork is awesome. Could the secondary weapons change the artwork too? Selecting armour for the MARS is a bit confusing. There’s a drop-down menu at the top-left that only has “Steel plating” as an option, and the armour rating is given as 15. But then below the “tactical vest” (which sounds weird considering it’s a robot) there’s a checkbox for “heavy steel plating”. Selecting this changes the artwork (great!) and seems to bump the armour rating to 25, although the top-left box still says “steel plating”. The choice of equipment for the MARS, such as a smoke launcher, helps make it an interesting choice to bring along on a mission. I just tried giving a solder a second steel plate. The tooltip said no valid placement, even though there’s plenty of space. Maybe it should say something like “maximum one per soldier”? Playing a Cleaner mission. It’s ace! I like how it’s different from the normal “kill all aliens”. Having a MARS smash through walls is awesome. Should I be taking dead Cleaner bodies back to the chopper so the scientist can autopsy them? I’m still none the wiser as to who these guys actually are, other than baddies. Are they aliens? The text at the end of the mission gives me a number for “aliens killed” so I guess they are? Like the Thin Men from XCOM. It would be nice to know the direction the Cleaner reinforcements are coming from. In case it’s useful info, playing on the default difficulty I had two KIA soldiers, and captured 13 data sticks. I stayed until I was told that Cleaner reinforcements had arrived, then ordered everyone to leg it to the chopper. I didn’t actually see any of the reinforcements. Now I’ve got a progress bar for finding the Cleaner HQ. This is slightly confusing as I thought I was stopping an alien invasion. Maybe there needs to be a line of text making it clear what’s going on – stop the Cleaners first then move onto the aliens? Is this Cleaner section basically an extended tutorial? Or are the Cleaners the aliens in disguise? I just checked the Funding Report. It says “alien victory is 2 region lost”. This is clunky phrasing. I’ve just competed some research. The text and artwork are really good. Text says “new engineering projects are available to build”. ‘Engineering projects’ is in bold so I expected it to have a tooltip, but it doesn’t. There’s a button to assign new research; maybe there should be one to go to the engineering screen too, if I’ve new things to make? When going to the engineering screen, sometimes the engineer will say something like “Da, comrade?” but sometimes the box just says “…”. I like that I have the option of stun batons or stun guns. It’s an interesting choice to have to make. I just shot down a UFO and have the pop-up where I can launch a mission or collect a bounty. It’s a bit annoying that the globe view is frozen behind this window, as I can’t actually drag my mouse around to see where the crash site is. Dragging and dropping engineering projects to reorder them feels very slick and natural. On the geoscape, could one of the time speed controls be to pause time? I’m up against Sebillians, trying to stun one. It took four Xenonauts three turns firing stun guns at the alien to actually stun it. (Most of their shots missed). Could there be a stun bar so you know how much progress you’re making? The crashed UFO model is cool. I’m standing over the corpse of an alien and trying to pick up its gun to use it. Doesn’t seem like I’m able to. Should there be a tooltip or something, if I need to research the weapon before using it? The medkit tooltip says that some damage is permanent, but I think this is a bit misleading as they can heal back to full strength when back at base, right? I suppressed enemies, but then they’re attacking me in their go. Does suppression only stop overwatch fire? I think this might have been covered in the tutorial but I've forgotten! A civilian just ran into a UFO I was preparing to breach, and almost ruined my plan! Could NPCs avoid UFOs? I managed to stun a flying brain thing, but again it was quite frustrating. Stun guns feel too weak – or perhaps their accuracy should be much higher. Combined with some visual feedback about how much stun damage an enemy needs to take before they’re actually unconscious. Right now I’m dreading having to stun more enemies. I just hired some new soldiers, but am not sure if they appear immediately or if there’s a delay. The music is perfect throughout the whole game. It adds a lot to the atmosphere. I have research options to interrogate captured aliens. It says I’ll get improved training rate and a damage bonus. Could this be phrased in the same way as the “Effect” messages you get with the “Plot” research? In other words, could every research project have the effect clearly stated? “Effect: improved Xenonaut training rate, and 15% damage bonus against Sebillians.” “Effect: unlocks laser rifle for production and essential to progress the plot”. (I made that second one up as an example!) This would really help understand which research projects you should prioritise for your chosen playstyle. Already the amount of research projects is starting to feel a bit daunting. It would also be good if you could queue up research projects, like you can engineering tasks. And maybe not lose all your research progress if you switch from one to another. What does the Chief Scientist do, burn all his notes just because you change your mind? The loading screen seems to always have the same tip, about right-clicking on a weapon in the inventory screen to unload it. Just had an abduction mission. I’m really enjoying the variety so far. My soldiers kept being “mesmerised”, but there was no explanation of what that actually means. Update: this ability is explained in the autopsy report. Looking at the Base Stores, I’ve no idea if it’s safe to sell certain items. I’ve got alien corpses piling up – should I sell them? What about the Cleaner Data that I collected? The Funding Report has a “NEXT” button that doesn’t seem to do anything. There’s a surprising lack of tooltips on the Base screen. Should I build a missile battery? Not sure what it does. Knowing the mission objectives during the loadout screen would be useful for best equipping your team. Update: perfect example, the briefing is saying that it’s better to capture than kill the VIP. Had I known that, I’d have packed some stun weapons. It’s too late by the time you know the objectives. Could flashbang grenades be buffed a bit? Maybe someone stunned has reduced TU for their next turn? At the moment I think they just stop overwatch. They feel a bit weak as a result. Regular grenades are very useful, in contrast. Update: some of my soldiers were just suppressed and have started the turn with reduced TUs, so maybe what I requested is in the game already! Perhaps the flashbang grenade explanatory text could be updated to reflect this? It makes it sound like flashbang grenades are really for breaching UFOs. Does the amount of stun damage keep adding up? Can you make enemies unconscious by chucking a ton of flashbang grenades at them? Can you reduce their TUs for the next turn to zero? I get that you shouldn’t overkill aliens, as then you gib them and don’t get useful resources. But is it different with the Cleaners? I think they’re just using human weapons. I’m blasting them with grenade launchers! For these Cleaner missions when reinforcements arrive after a certain number of turns, could there be a countdown so you know how many turns you have left? I just accidentally friendly-fired my MARS. It was a single shot from a sniper rifle. The word MISS appeared, but also a red number 15. Did I miss, or hit and cause 15 damage? I have a solider with a clear sight to an enemy, but all the alien head icons are orange. Shouldn’t one be red? The seagulls on this level are really loud! Oh wow, I just looked through the controls and saw that you can zoom in and out with Page Up / Page Down. This is so useful. I don’t think it was covered in the tutorial. It feels like the difficulty has shot through the roof. I identified the VIP (I think, it’s an alien), but there are so many Cleaners about. My entire team got wiped out and I only landed a few hits on it. And zero out of 18 data files retrieved. I think this is a good time to quit – it feels like it’d be hard to recover from that slaughter, and the difficulty spike has dented my morale somewhat! Overall I’m really impressed with X2. I’ll admit that the “what’s new in X2” forum post made me think this sequel would be a bit underwhelming as nothing too radical was listed, but having played it I’ve changed my mind. All those new additions add up to a game that I think is in a different league to the original. What I’ve played through was almost universally really good. I think that the new mission types are particularly effective, and I’ll end by suggesting again that a mission type where you’re controlling local forces, along with a skirmish game mode (perhaps unlocked after you complete the game) could help set X2 apart from its peers. (Forum post about these ideas here). I hope all that was useful, and I’m happy to clarify anything that doesn’t make sense because I was typing it in a hurry -- I was eager to get back into the game! That's actually an incredibly helpful post, thanks for taking the time to type it all out for us. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ogilvy the Astronomer Posted July 21, 2023 Author Share Posted July 21, 2023 No problem, happy to help. I've thought of two more points I should have included: Is there a way to easily see how long it is until your next cash injection? I get that it's at the end of each month, but currently with the "Day #" system you need to do some mental maths and work out when the next multiple of 30 will occur. A calendar might be easier? Researching mag weapons was underwhelming. Their stats don't seem like such a big upgrade over ballistics, especially considering the engineering time, cash, and alien alloys you need to put into building the mag variants. After I researched them I felt like I'd been conned a bit, or at least had made a poor decision. This is in contrast to the Warden armour, which felt like a good choice, decent value, and a worthwhile upgrade. The artwork for the mag weapons is ace though. My suggestion is that once you research mag weapons, you get an engineering project to retrofit all your ballistic weapons to mag. Then, for a modest outlay in cash, engineering time, and alien alloys, every ballistic weapon automatically becomes the mag variant. I think that would make it a more even decision between going mag or holding off for lasers. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doubleskulls Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 5 minutes ago, Ogilvy the Astronomer said: No problem, happy to help. I've thought of two more points I should have included: Is there a way to easily see how long it is until your next cash injection? I get that it's at the end of each month, but currently with the "Day #" system you need to do some mental maths and work out when the next multiple of 30 will occur. A calendar might be easier? TBH I'm not sure why we just don't have a proper calendar (i.e. 1st Jan). 5 minutes ago, Ogilvy the Astronomer said: Researching mag weapons was underwhelming. Their stats don't seem like such a big upgrade over ballistics, especially considering the engineering time, cash, and alien alloys you need to put into building the mag variants. After I researched them I felt like I'd been conned a bit, or at least had made a poor decision. This is in contrast to the Warden armour, which felt like a good choice, decent value, and a worthwhile upgrade. The artwork for the mag weapons is ace though. My suggestion is that once you research mag weapons, you get an engineering project to retrofit all your ballistic weapons to mag. Then, for a modest outlay in cash, engineering time, and alien alloys, every ballistic weapon automatically becomes the mag variant. I think that would make it a more even decision between going mag or holding off for lasers. I think that for Rifles and Pistols magnetic weapons are useful. They are cheaper ($$$ and resources), have more ammo, and most importantly do more damage over 2 shots right up to armour 44. You also get "free" research for an improved interceptor weapon. That does more DPS than the laser cannon (it fires 4 shots per second, instead of 1), but I've had a least one instance where it ran out of ammo before shooting down the UFO. Accelerated shotguns and sniper rifles get less penetration, which I think tips the balance in their favour, and MGs get better range with lasers. Also, I'll generally only build the laser weapons I need for regular dropship missions. Therefore Accelerated weapons I'm not using regularly are still handy if you get a base defence mission as they are not that much worse than lasers. I don't want anyone doing base defence with a starting weapon! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harlequin565 Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 13 hours ago, Ogilvy the Astronomer said: No problem, happy to help. I've thought of two more points I should have included: Is there a way to easily see how long it is until your next cash injection? I get that it's at the end of each month, but currently with the "Day #" system you need to do some mental maths and work out when the next multiple of 30 will occur. A calendar might be easier? Researching mag weapons was underwhelming. Their stats don't seem like such a big upgrade over ballistics, especially considering the engineering time, cash, and alien alloys you need to put into building the mag variants. After I researched them I felt like I'd been conned a bit, or at least had made a poor decision. This is in contrast to the Warden armour, which felt like a good choice, decent value, and a worthwhile upgrade. The artwork for the mag weapons is ace though. My suggestion is that once you research mag weapons, you get an engineering project to retrofit all your ballistic weapons to mag. Then, for a modest outlay in cash, engineering time, and alien alloys, every ballistic weapon automatically becomes the mag variant. I think that would make it a more even decision between going mag or holding off for lasers. Wholeheartedly agree with that second point. I feel that most tutorials will just tell people to skip mag weapons. When I researched it, Laser popped quickly after, and I was left thinking 'wait a minute, I've just got a short research time on another weapon set, which is best?' This was then made far easier by restarting and going Warden armour and completely skipping mag weapons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doubleskulls Posted July 22, 2023 Share Posted July 22, 2023 11 hours ago, Harlequin565 said: Wholeheartedly agree with that second point. I feel that most tutorials will just tell people to skip mag weapons. When I researched it, Laser popped quickly after, and I was left thinking 'wait a minute, I've just got a short research time on another weapon set, which is best?' This was then made far easier by restarting and going Warden armour and completely skipping mag weapons. Accelerated weapons are at least equal to, if not marginally better than the starting laser weapons. They generally do more damage (because until the later game penetration is better than destruction), cost less and have more ammo. Lasers accuracy bonus is useful if you are trying to skill up lower accuracy soldiers, and the MG has better range. I'm increasingly of the view that until you are ready for advanced lasers (which are better) you may as well stick to accelerated weapons. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ogilvy the Astronomer Posted July 22, 2023 Author Share Posted July 22, 2023 I think the issue for new players like me is that the mag weapons feel disappointing once you've unlocked them. So whatever change is made should result in the player feeling positive and excited about researching them. I remember unlocking Warden armour, thinking "this is great!" and being eager to manufacture some and try it out. I didn't have the same reaction from mag weapons. My perception was that the stats didn't seem that much better, and it would take a lot of engineering time / cash / alien alloys to make mag guns. Maybe the reality is different, and lasers aren't any better, but that doesn't change the reaction of a new player. Ultimately every research unlock should be a positive experience for a player, right? How exactly that's achieved is more complex, I grant you! All I can say is that my suggestion of a manufacturing project to retrofit all ballistics to mag would have achieved that positive reaction from me, but it's not the only solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doubleskulls Posted July 22, 2023 Share Posted July 22, 2023 8 hours ago, Ogilvy the Astronomer said: I think the issue for new players like me is that the mag weapons feel disappointing once you've unlocked them. So whatever change is made should result in the player feeling positive and excited about researching them. I remember unlocking Warden armour, thinking "this is great!" and being eager to manufacture some and try it out. I didn't have the same reaction from mag weapons. My perception was that the stats didn't seem that much better, and it would take a lot of engineering time / cash / alien alloys to make mag guns. Maybe the reality is different, and lasers aren't any better, but that doesn't change the reaction of a new player. Ultimately every research unlock should be a positive experience for a player, right? How exactly that's achieved is more complex, I grant you! All I can say is that my suggestion of a manufacturing project to retrofit all ballistics to mag would have achieved that positive reaction from me, but it's not the only solution. From a game balance perspective mag weapons do give quite a big boost over starter weapons, 6 more damage and 5 penetration on the Rifle, MG and Pistol. That's very significant for most enemy types - crucially reducing the 'average hits to kill' number for a lot of early game aliens. I'm not certain sound & visuals, are either the same or very similar to starter weapons which may account for the perception that they aren't significant upgrade. Comparatively advanced lasers (the next tech for lasers) gives 6 more damage and unlimited ammo, so is pretty similar to the gap between regular & accelerated kinetic weapons. I agree, for new players the differences are relatively small and having two different weapon techs, with similar capabilities, at very similar points in the early game is confusing. Lasers have different sound and visual effects, and because of the increased damage to terrain feel like a big upgrade (compared to accelerated) but aren't. Personally, from a design perspective I'd push lasers a bit further up the tree and make them a bit more powerful so its an unambiguous upgrade that comes later. Maybe having Basic -> Accelerated -> Lasers -> Advanced Lasers each give relatively consistent damage increases plus 'secondary' features stay the same, would work. So for a rifle a 4 point upgrade in damage on each level, with accelerated giving penetration, and laser more destruction, would more clearly differentiate that lasers are better, and make more sense. In conjunction maybe tying laser tech to the UFO Destroyer, rather than the Scout, so its available a bit later? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ogilvy the Astronomer Posted July 23, 2023 Author Share Posted July 23, 2023 18 hours ago, doubleskulls said: From a game balance perspective mag weapons do give quite a big boost over starter weapons, 6 more damage and 5 penetration on the Rifle, MG and Pistol. That's very significant for most enemy types - crucially reducing the 'average hits to kill' number for a lot of early game aliens. I'm not certain sound & visuals, are either the same or very similar to starter weapons which may account for the perception that they aren't significant upgrade. Comparatively advanced lasers (the next tech for lasers) gives 6 more damage and unlimited ammo, so is pretty similar to the gap between regular & accelerated kinetic weapons. I agree, for new players the differences are relatively small and having two different weapon techs, with similar capabilities, at very similar points in the early game is confusing. Lasers have different sound and visual effects, and because of the increased damage to terrain feel like a big upgrade (compared to accelerated) but aren't. Personally, from a design perspective I'd push lasers a bit further up the tree and make them a bit more powerful so its an unambiguous upgrade that comes later. Maybe having Basic -> Accelerated -> Lasers -> Advanced Lasers each give relatively consistent damage increases plus 'secondary' features stay the same, would work. So for a rifle a 4 point upgrade in damage on each level, with accelerated giving penetration, and laser more destruction, would more clearly differentiate that lasers are better, and make more sense. In conjunction maybe tying laser tech to the UFO Destroyer, rather than the Scout, so its available a bit later? Maybe in conjunction with this, the research text for mag weapons can big them up a bit more? To help with giving the impression that they're a worthwhile upgrade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ogilvy the Astronomer Posted August 3, 2023 Author Share Posted August 3, 2023 I've just completed a second playthrough -- milestone 1.28/b, beginning through to Day #180. Here are my notes. Now I'm putting the game down until it's fully released! In the tooltip about crouching, it may be worth specifying that crouching doesn’t increase accuracy. Just because it normally does in these kinds of games. One of my soldiers has gone “Beserk” but I don’t know what this means. Should soldiers have some afflictions UI with appropriate tooltips? The bleeding icons appear by their names, which is useful. Maybe there should be icons for things like beserk too? I’m playing on my ultrawide monitor and everything works perfectly. I’ve rebound Camera Zoom In / Out to my mouse wheel but the actual zooming in and out effect is really slow. Civilian corpses don’t show up on the ground when your soldiers are standing over them. If items collected from the battlefield are only useful for selling (e.g. alien bodies), would it make more sense for them to be sold automatically on mission completion? On the Loadout screen, immediately prior to launching a dropship, could there be an easy and obvious way to get to the screen where you can manually position your troops within the dropship? Throwing grenades next to cover makes me very nervous, given the high chance the grenade could just hit the cover and explode at my feet. Could grenades ignore any cover you’re stood next to? Maybe the same for regular weapons actually. Like how adjacent crouched soldiers are ignored. Could there be some sound effect or a very obvious visual cue when a shield is hit? Maybe the damage absorbed could be displayed, in the same way as with lost HP. I’m trying to fire a grenade launcher but it’s not working. I think it’s because it’s out of range, but other weapons still fire beyond effective range. Methinks a tooltip or popup message or somesuch is needed. A fired a grenade launcher, missed, and destroyed a desk with cleaner data. I thought that was pretty neat. One of my soldiers has a very thin yellow bar under their red health bar, but I don’t know what this means. Difficulty and pacing of the first Cleaner mission feels spot-on. Is C4 that useful? I never use it, reasoning that the terrain grenade thing is more useful because it can be thrown. Sectons and Psyons look very similar to me. Is it not possible to close UFO doors on the same turn you open them? It seems not, but that’s a bit confusing. Although perhaps better from a gameplay perspective! I’m still utterly baffled by how stun damage works. I just attacked a downed UFO and managed to make a Sebillian and Mentarch stunned and eventually unconscious mostly with smoke grenades and a few bullets from ballistics. If I can capture them this way then why bother with stun weapons? The Sebillian and Mentarch were the only two aliens remaining. They were both unconscious, but the mission didn’t end automatically. I had to End Turn a few more times until I’d held the UFO for three full turns, even though there was nothing for me to do. In the end mission stats screen “Xenonaut Victory”, it says 9/10 aliens killed, but I killed every alien except for the two I captured, so something here doesn’t add up. On that same screen, I can see where my soldiers have been awarded medals. The MARS still has icons for where medals would be awarded, so it looks like it’s possible for the robot to get medals but it just wasn’t awarded any this mission. But I think in reality they don’t get any medals? In the stores room, alien corpses are selling for $10k, but live ones for only $20k. Feels like live ones should be worth more. Could lead to a strategy of actively trying to capture aliens to raise funds. I’m doing a mission at night. Flares have appeared in my inventory. It seems they have a weight – does that mean some of my Xenonauts that were near their weight limit are now over it, and have a TU penalty? Just wondering, what if soldiers that are carrying much less than their weight limit gain a bonus to their TUs, and maybe reflexes? That could lead to more strategies, such as very lightly equipped assault troops. My MARS has a Rangefinder. It has an ammo readout of 0/0. This is confusing – surely it gives a passive buff to accuracy, rather than being used up? The MARS cannon feels OP. I’m one-shotting Psyons with 20 armour. When you hit an enemy (or get hit yourself) and the armour / HP reduction briefly appears, could it have a minus in front of it? To clearly differentiate damage just done to health remaining. I walked right past an abduction pod because it was blocked by a tree. (I should have rotated the camera!) Could they be made more obvious, maybe with a bigger glowing effect or something? Unless you want the player to have to look carefully to find them. I’ve played a lot of missions with ballistic weapons and have never had to reload. Should clip capacities be reduced? I’m using lasers for the first time. The graphics and firing animations are great. And the lower clip capacities means you actually need to bring more ammo and plan your reloads. Throwing grenades if a soldier is in a doorway is so frustrating. The grenades just hit the door frame and then blow up, injuring the soldier. My second attempt at the Cleaner dockyard mission – attempt #1 was such a disaster, it ended my previous playthrough! This time I was better prepared. It was still tough, but I managed it. Ended up being chased back to the helicopter by Cleaner reinforcements, which was fun. The mission was way too hard the first time I attempted it though. I suggest either revealing these two Cleaner missions later, when a player will have better equipment; or they appear as they currently do, but with a warning that they’re hard and so you should get good kit for your soldiers first (I think Warden armour and Lasers, but I guess that shouldn’t be spelled out for a player); and / or you have an indication of where the VIP is on the map. If you send your team in the wrong direction then it can really stuff you up, given that you’re on a timer. I’m not too sure when I should be setting a second base up. Maybe your Ops person should give a hint when it’s around the right time? On lower difficulties at any rate. Regarding second bases, can you have one just for hangers i.e. air defence, or do they need a store room and living quarters, generators, and all that jazz? Night missions feel a bit underwhelming. Not so different to daytime. I wonder how they can be jazzed up a bit more. Maybe have night-vision goggles as optional equipment? And Xenonauts have reduced bravery? Second Cleaner VIP mission is identical to the first. I’ve completed Alien Origins base research plus Cleaner HQ location. If I’m reading the hint about the Cleaners correctly, that would be an awesome plot development. People in this game are very keen to jump through windows! Should grenade launchers fire in an arc? It seems at the moment they act like rocket launchers. A note on the alien abilities. Some are great – looking at you Wraith cloaking field, which significantly changes my approach to this enemy. (Explosives first to disable the field). But other abilities are underwhelming. For example, the Secton ability sounds good but I’ve never seen it used. Just completed my first terror mission. It was ok but the map felt a bit empty, considering the context. Surely it should be rammed full of aliens, panicking civilians, and local forces mounting a desperate defence? It’s a terror mission after all. When equipping a laser cannon to a MARS, the artwork shows it with a regular cannon. In Engineering’s available projects, Alloy Plating is listed under Equipment and Vehicles. Is that intentional? Could there be a clearer explanation about the difference between advanced medkit and automed module? Is there a point in bringing medkits if all your soldiers have automed modules? In use, I think Automed modules are a bit OP. Soldiers potentially surviving being KIA is confusing. Maybe you get this chance if you can get to their body with a first aid kit within a number of turns? To stabilise them. Or carry them back to the chopper within three turns, that would be great. I’ve had my first appearance of Reapers, and it was a bit meh. I just shot them from a distance with sniper rifles. These are iconic enemies and should be terrifying. I wonder if their first appearance could be a scripted mission that plays to their strengths – maybe something like a friendly local forces base is under attack, or an allied lab, or a leader’s bunker, or a special alien base, whatever – but a maze-like labyrinth map full of Reapers. Make their first appearance really impactful. One of my planes was destroyed. It’s good that it auto-replaces after a while. I like how you can pay to rush-repair a plane. Maybe there could be an option to pay to rush a manufacturing project? Do soldiers improve based on the stats they use the most? A water tank got shot and water started pouring out. Nice detail! I like how armour works in this game. Cleaner HQ mission was really good. “Scripted” missions like this are the best and really spice things up, I wish there were more. The Cleaner autopsy report only completed after I finished the Cleaner HQ mission. The text suggests I capture a live Cleaner, but that arc is complete now isn’t it? On the manufacturing screen, if you want to build multiple Angel interceptors then then > quantity arrow doesn’t work. The quantity is always stuck on one. A shipping container was just completely destroyed, but the ladder that was attached to it remained intact. Could teleporters on UFOs be more obvious? Some particle effect shooting upwards or something. On the main base screens, you’re told how many soldiers are at the base. The numbers given seem a bit off. Are they counting sentry guns as soldiers? The Engineering screen only lets you assign build tasks if you have a Base with a Workshop. However, the Research screen works for every Base. This inconsistency confused me a bit. Landed UFO. Mission briefing says I need to kill all hostiles, but after taking the UFO a pop-up appeared saying I need to hold it for two turns. Dragonfly – “Twelve combatants and up to two vehicles” – should that be including up to two vehicles? Alien base. Given that MARS robots can’t open doors, is there the possibility of a MARS getting stuck here? Alien base – briefing says you need a Xenonaut in the command room to see the remaining aliens, but I think you actually need someone stood by the big holographic globe. Alien base mission was great. Tough but not unreasonable. Grenade launcher feels a bit obsolete. Doesn’t scale up with tech advances as well as other weapons? A UFO attacked one of my bases. My laser battery did nothing, which was very disappointing. At the very least it should do some damage to an incoming UFO. Maybe there could be a mini-game with you controlling the defense battery? Sentry guns are very useful (potentially OP). Look ridiculous on their little castor wheels though! For base defense missions, given that most aliens attack from the hangers, does that lead to an optimal base layout where you can just funnel all the aliens into a killzone? Gauss Rifle and Shotgun artwork looks very similar. Alien bases don’t look very alien. Nor do alien ships, actually. Too many sheet metal walls, kinda boring. Gauss weapons’ firing visuals look weak, especially compared to how powerful lasers look and sound. I decommissioned an aircraft, but the pop-up asked if I wanted to sell it. Do I get money for decommissioning old aircraft? Shoutout to the artist behind the aircraft pictures in the Xenopedia. So so good. To make a Gauss Blaster for my aircraft, I need 50 Alloys and an Accelerated Cannon. I’m not sure what this is – I skipped researching Magnetic weapons, which I think I need for an Accelerated Cannon? I only know this from a previous playthrough. Maybe a tooltip hint would be useful for newer players. Gauss rifle, shotgun, and sniper rifle magazines look the same. Gauss clip capacities are back to ballistic levels, meaning reloads are rarely needed. It was better with lasers, when you had to plan ammo levels and reload at tactical times. In all my time playing I never had a melee situation. The morale system seems quite barebones. I’ve only had a soldier panic a couple of times, and the next turn they were back to full bravery. I never needed to use the system where you spend TUs to rally yourself. The idea behind having officers impact bonuses is neat but I reckon could be fleshed out. Stunning aliens was so frustrating during my first playthrough that I just skipped it entirely for my second. I stunned a couple accidentally with smoke grenades and regular weapons fire. The “scripted” missions like the Cleaner bases, where you have extra objectives, are really good, and have been the highlights for me. I wish we had more of them. Including the talking heads bits at the beginning, with your scientist and ops manager. That happened a couple of times at the beginning and then basically never again. I think there’s potential for more to be made of ranks and medals. Forum thread here. I really like the ideas here about using captured aliens to make powerful modules. I had typed up some feedback about maps, but then realised that @Skitso has already done that, and far better than I could do. So, shout-out to this thread, which I agree with completely. That’s it, sorry it was such a long list! I’ve clocked up 24 hours across two playthroughs, with the second one reaching the 180 day limit. This game is ace, congrats to the devs! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skitso Posted August 3, 2023 Share Posted August 3, 2023 What a great list of good points. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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