Ideas from first 30 days

[krolyn]

First I must say that X2 looks quite good! Compared to X1 I specially like the reinforcements after X turns and the manually placing of interceptors before aerial fights.

 

Suggestions:

• Geoscape
  • More starting funds and empty start base to allow for free base design (to speed up things, these first buildings could be completed instantly)
• Tactical
  • No time limits on abduction mission
  • Unarmed civilians should be less suicidal and run towards dropship (or exit by edge of map)
  • Armed civilians same as above, or controlled by the player
  • Hit causes suppress (if close by friendly fire suppresses, a hit should also)
  • Peak and shoot around corners (without breaking cover)
  • To simplify, ballistic shots should not damage cover (as it is now, a couple of shots destroys blast doors, trees, metal crates, etc...)
  • Injuries should temporarily lower stats
  • Greatly increase the effect of adjacent cover (to reflect that soldiers can hunk down behind coverage)

[Conductiv]

1. starting funds are difficulty dependent, free build at the start is a possibility as you get to choose the location of your starting base, it wouldn't be a big stretch for it to thematically have the desired layout.

tactical:
1. time limits are part of this mission type, as you are sort of racing the clock as to prevent the aliens from beaming up the abductees.
2. agreed, I think they are already working on this.
3. doubt you'll get to control them, but other then that, probably the same as point 2
4. I think it already does...I'm not sure. but in general a bullet that hits also gets within a models proximity, so should apply its suppress damage..just keep in mind that it will likely take more shots to suppress the alien then it takes hits to simply kill the alien. aka if you hit everything..the alien is probably just dead...or you've been bouncing off their armor all the time.
5. since lines of fire can completely block shots fairly easily in this game, lean out mechanics are going to cause more issues then they would be worth. 
6. on the fence on this one, your starting weapons are ballistic and the tutorial has you blast a wooden crate with a shotgun to remove it, terrain destruction is a key part of the games mechanics. but I'd also like each damage type to have its effective niche, and currently anti material damage is clearly in the thermal damage corner, point is thermal damage is also very effective at shredding armor, and just killing enemies...as such it might be a good idea to give ballistic weapons their own niche aside from doing significantly reduced damage to terrain (well, normal damage as thermal deals double)
7. makes sense, just keep in mind that will make it harder for your troops as well if shit hits the fan. negative spiral effects tend to result in most missions either going down flawless...or your team died. personally I prefer a more back-and-forth effect where you don't absolutely have to hard CC every enemy you don't outright kill
8. cover already has a significant impact, and its actually quite well thought of in the fact that its protection isn't absolute...but the most common cover (40%) combines very well with the crouches stance (20%) meaning 2 individual multipliers reducing the enemy CTH to 48% relative to you being in the open (so if they had a 50% CTH, they would now hit you 24% of the time) you can further reduce enemy CTH in various other ways.

 

[ooey]

A starting empty base? Well this could be achieved simply by giving the player the money for the starting components and no initial build time for them. But it's a good thing that the starting base is already built because it has one inherent flaw - it's rather vulnerable to attack if left 'as is' (if aliens attack through hangers/lift shaft) which either means a forced redesign or the necessity of building missile defences in case of attack. Perhaps allow a free-build on the easier levels?

When building a new base I always make them so that the aliens are forced into a 1-way path "kill-zone" if they try to get into the heart of the base (of course this trades build-time for a more defendable base).

Time-limited missions add to the variation of the tactical missions and so are really a good thing. It may also be a good thing if landed UFO missions are also timed so you have to get to them before they take off and capture them (or at least blow one of their outer doors off so they can't take off or something).

Peaking around corners may be just too powerful unless the aliens get that feature too (essentially the ability to see an enemy without them being able to fire at you since you don't present much of a target). That opens a whole new kettle of worms! 

Edited November 16, 2023 by ooey

[Alienkiller]

If I remember correctly back, the Betatesters suggested that and tested it out. But I can´t remember what Version it was from the 1x-Versions. If that could brought back again with older Equipment, which you have to upgrade Step by Step, then it would be very interessting (like the women Commanding Officer explain in the Intro).