Rapid-Fire Suggestions/Thoughts

[JamesU92]

So, I played through the milestone 5 on the unstable branch.  Which in hindsight was probably unwise, as I lost my save just before I was about to do Operation Endgame.  Needless to say, I'll probably be taking a break from Xenonauts for a while.  But I wanted to leave some feedback, so here goes.

The UFO delegation system:  While the goal of letting people who don't want to clear as many downed UFOs is all right, punishing players who take too many UFOs probably wasn't the right way to go about it.  I came up with two possible solutions. 1. Simply increase the rewards for delegating UFOs, possibly giving a choice for what rewards are given.  Like, say, a choice between a cash award (default), part of the salvage (alloys, etc.), or operational favors (operations points).  2.  Each UFO taken reduces the expiration timer of subsequent UFOs of that type (as the cumulative collected data lets local forces plan and mount their assault sooner; first come, first served) This could force players into the risk/reward choice of taking night missions and eventually just make it so a dropship wouldn't make it in time.  This could make it so those who wanted to fight every UFO would need to invest resources into multiple bases with dropships and equipped ground teams.

The stealth guys: While being able to distinguish between higher/lower tier units is important, I feel like them only entering stealth on taking damage made them too easy and less distinct.  It also doesn't make much sense why they only enter stealth when injured, but not when in obvious danger like getting shot at.  I feel like a good way to go about telling units apart would be make their stealth fields differently colored, perhaps with some more effective, and maybe with a different shaped glitch effect for the colorblind.

The Sebelians: These guys have always felt under-armored.  Yes, they have their scales, but they are also wearing armor.  Also, it's weird how their health regens but their scales don't.  Maybe make it so they have armor on top of their scales, but only their scales regenerate.

Blood Splash on Gibbing:  When a unit is gibed, have blood splash messily over several tiles, and maybe the walls too.

Alien Blood:  Since the "aliens" are from alternate evolutionary history Earths, if they're descended from that fish that first crawled from the ocean, they would probably have red blood.  The Mantids, Symbionts, and Reapers could have yellowish insect blood or Horseshoe Crab Blue blood.

Sell Living Aliens for Ops Points:  While living aliens are worth much than corpses it's still not really worth it and more ways to get ops points would be nice.

Map of the Multiverse:  Assuming that that you appear in the same location and that timeline splits occur evenly throughout time (Though it could be that there are more branches in more recent "times" because there are more universes to split off from the same way there are more branches at the top of a tree than the base, on the other hand the multiverse could expand the same way the regular universe does, pushing universes out of reach as fast as they appear and balancing things out.) about one third would appear in intergalactic space (As they split before the Milky Way formed.), one third would appear in interstellar space (As they split before the solar system formed.), and about 5% would have multicellular life (As they split before multicellularity evolved.)

Terror Missions: The lore of the terror missions doesn't make sense.  Why would the aliens plant a bomb with ground teams?  If they wanted to explode a bunch of people, they could just send in a bomber.  Instead, maybe have the aliens install psychic broadcast devices to terrorize the locals.  These would need babysitting from ground forces, and might also affect Xenonaut forces.  And maybe make it so terror sites inflict panic for every hour their left active, potentially forcing players to consider a night terror mission.

The MARS/ARES:  For that price couldn't you add more cameras to them and give them 360-degree vision, and maybe night vision too.  This would lean into their intended role as a scout and also maybe let them fire in 360-degrees (i.e. turn just their turret to shoot instead of their whole chassis) as well.  Also, I feel like the Gauss Cannon is a downgrade from the Laser Cannon, as I can just shoot open the front door of a UFO in just one shot from a Laser Cannon, but a Gauss Cannon needs more shots.  So maybe leave it so you can choose between a Laser Cannon or Gauss Cannon after they're unlocked.  I'd also like to be able to weld a shield onto a MARS as a primary, to make them better at soaking up reaction fire and breaching.  Or add a Servitors healing beam as a secondary.  And maybe give them Cyberdrone style directional armor.  A single shot missile pod in the secondary slot for people who like Canons would be nice.  Also, do the Advanced Laser/Fusion weapon upgrades effect vehicle weapons?  They should.

The Impact of Alienium:  I feel like just how revolutionary alien technology, and in particular Alienium, would be is underplayed a bit.  Like, I remember reading back in like 2007 about how we had working exoskeletons back then, but they were held back by not having a suitable power source.  On that same vein, the chief scientist could reason that the aliens have a power source for their weapons.  And so could have designed the Accelerated Weapons ahead of time, ready to slot that power source into when discovered.  So, both exoskeleton frames and accelerated weapons could both unlock the instant you discover Alienium, which would feel pretty impactful.  If you feel that's too early for exoskeletons, maybe have the "first-generation" units have a downside like reduced reflexes or time units, with a later upgrade that removes that downside.  Also, can Alienium be recharged?  That could explain why the Alienium generators don't consume Alienium, just send the depleted Alienium offsite to be recharged and then brought back.  What would happen if you overcharged Alienium?  Would it explode?  That could explain Alienium explosives, just overcharge a bit of Alienium until it explodes.

Accelerated Weapons:  I feel like these are underwhelming, and I know I'm not alone.  Granted with five weapon tiers it's probably a choice of which tier you skip, but, skipping Accelerated seems to be the obvious best choice. The problem for me is they cost as much alloys as a suit of armor, so you're effectively choosing between a big boost in armor or a small boost in damage.  I feel like making them cost a small amount of Alienium and no alloys would make them more attractive, and maybe give them an alloy barrel upgrade that improves damage.  Lore wise, the alien magnetic/accelerated weapons seem to be coilguns that shoot regular bullets.  This doesn't make much sense as regular bullets aren't magnetic, however, you CAN shoot copper cased bullets out of a railgun.  So, the Accelerated Weapons could be hybrid railguns, and the alien magnetic weapons pure railguns.  Yes, railguns have that barrel erosion issue, but, reducing projectile speed, or getting harder barrels, reduces the erosion.  So, Accelerated Weapons could be tuned to "only" need to have their barrels replaced after every mission.  Since the alien magnetic weapons are designed for stealth, a neat detail to add would be that they fire silently and can switch between subsonic or high velocity firing modes at the press of a button.  Also, why is there no Accelerated Autorifle/Cannon?

Laser Weapons:  They're fine, maybe have their accuracy bonus be a simple flat value.  Or improves at distance, because no target leading or bullet drop.  Maybe.  The current accuracy bonus feels a bit Jank.  And I would like to point out that even looking at an area that is hit by a laser can damage your vision.

Gauss Weapons:  The only problem I can think of is that the ammo has an iron core.  Because of something called "Magnetic Flux Saturation" or something, a material can only accelerate at a maximum rate in a magnetic field, regardless of how strong that field is, and Iron's MFS is pretty low.  I remember playing a game called "Children of a Dead Earth," a game which lets you design realistic coilguns.  In that the ammo of choice was something called "Magnetic Metal Glass," which sounds way cooler than iron anyway (and I'm pretty sure is a real material).

Plasma Weapons:  The plasma weapon lore is just dumb.  Plasma stabilized by gravitons, really?  Additionally, I've seen enough hard sci-fi buffs scoff at the idea of plasma weapons that there feels like a missed opportunity for the chief scientist to be insufferable ("Those morons must be misreporting lasers or something.  The alien energy weapons couldn't possibly be shooting plasma.")  A better explanation for plasma weapons would be that they shoot plasma in the form of plasmoids (i.e. lightning balls).  These plasmoids would still just kind of scorch the surface of a target and be deflected by magnetic fields.  So, on contact with a surface or magnetic field the plasmoid could collapse in such a way that they project a tightly focused beam of plasma, much like a HEAT warhead, capable of punching through matter and magnetic field alike.  If you take nothing else from me, please, make the plasma weapon lore less stupid.  

Fusion Weapons:  The player skipping plasma straight to fusion feels like skipping a step.  Yes, the game already has enough weapon tiers, but still.  Perhaps the Advanced Stun Weapons could be fluffed as first generation plasma weapons while they work on something with more stopping power, or at least have the chief scientist go "Thanks to my genius, we can skip a step!"  For the lore, Fusion Weapons seem to have the fusion reaction happen inside them.  This is bad, as fusion reactions emit a lot of X-rays and potentially neutrons, problems Alienium is supposed to avoid.  Which is why, from a weapons standpoint, you want the fusion reaction to happen as far away from you and, ideally, as close to the enemy as possible.  You could do this by firing a plasmoid loaded with a charge of fusion fuel which ignites a fusion reaction when it collapses.  As to which fusion fuel, well, Deuterium-Deuterium and Deuterium-Tritium both emit large amounts of neutrons, which can cause neutron activation and radioactive fallout.  So, Deuterium-Helium3 is probably the best, the alien fusion weapons could conveniently also use that, solving the supply issue.

Colossus Battlesuit: It feels a bit too single purpose, like, is it too clumsy to hold a shield? Or a(n energy) knife?  And I kinda wanna punch things with it.  I guess I'm just upset seeing the secondary weapon slot empty, and the inability to add a mindshield or tactical module is a big downside too.  Maybe let them mount MARS secondaries like the smoke launcher, Autorifle, or that single shot missile pod on their forearm Warmachine style.

Bionic Implants for Soldiers:  Equipment being as easily swapped between soldiers as it is, I feel that having equipment that is literally attached to the soldiers could offer an interesting choice for the player.

Recruitment Loadouts: I would recruit a bunch of soldiers, have them arrive three days later, and have already forgotten what class I wanted them to be.  Please let me set what class the soldier will be when I recruit them.

Commanding Officer Indicator:  All too often the commanding officer of a mission would turn out to be that Assault or Shield that just got wasted for taking a risky move, and now everyone's panicking.  So, an obvious indicator would be nice.

Roof Explosives:  I once threw a Hail Mary demo charge on the roof over an enemy's head, the roof didn't collapse.  I was upset.

Night Missions:  I noticed that all the lights were out during a cleaner VIP mission at the dockyard at night, even in buildings with people in them, this doesn't make much sense.  And while yes having the lights out with aliens around makes some sense and is creepy, maybe have some lights stay on during night missions.  Seeing a Secton suddenly run under that lone working street could also be very creepy.  Maybe add an option to spend operations points to have local forces launch an artillery flare, providing outdoor, but not indoor, illumination for a time.

Radar:  The UFOs stealth could be explained with an alloy-based Radar absorbing coating and their electric thrusters having a low thermal signature.  This coating could be copied by the Xenonauts, which would enable them to fly through even restricted airspace at will, important for the first phase.  The aliens' electric thrusters could emit a low radio noise and leave an ionized exhaust with a distinct if fuzzy Radar signature that terrestrial, and especially military, Radars are suspiciously unable to detect at a hardware level.  The necessary hardware retrofits could take years.  And the Xenonauts could just use carefully tuned and extra sensitive Radiation Seeking Missiles (these seek radio waves, like Radar), possibly with alloy components.  As for the Quantum Array, it just feels too strong for how early it is, just one upgrade and you know everything about every UFO from there on out.  Like, have the first upgrade be "Higher Resolution Radar" that just tells which class the UFO is, with later upgrades revealing more.  Maybe early on, the player could choose to spend some operations points to scout the area of a mission and see what's there.  Additionally, the Quantum Array is supposed to intercept alien communications, but wouldn't it be trivial for them to change encryption keys on a whim?  Speaking of...

Encryption:  The Xenonauts, being an organization expecting to face an enemy with unknown, possibly infinite, computational ability, would use Single Pad Encryption.  With single use keys generated by random physical processes, such as a wall full of lava lamps, it would be mathematically unbreakable, by virtue of there being no math involved.  The catch is that the keys would need to be delivered physically on hard drives without being compromised, with more delivered as they're used up, but that's the Operations Director's problem.  Indeed, the aliens could be using Quantum Computers to read all of humanity's most heavily encrypted secrets like an open book.  Good ending: The Xenonauts find whatever quantum proof encryption the aliens use, and everyone switches to that.  Bad ending: The aliens also use Single Pad Encryption, implying that they believe, or have proven, that there is no quantum proof encryption, and so the era of Public Key Encryption is over, another casualty of the invasion.

The Cleaners:  The Cleaners just never feel threatening past the very early game.  Like, once you get lasers, they're a joke.  Maybe give them upgraded armor and weapons one or two months into the game, and not just at their base, to keep them competitive.  On top of that, maybe make it so the cleaners have to be found and taken out to stop Doomsday.  To help with that, Intelligence Supporters could give progress on finding the Cleaners' base, giving a choice between Security Supporters to keep Doomsday away and Intelligence Supporters to find the Cleaners before it's too late.  To Keep the pressure on, they could get better at stoking tensions as time goes on, like, Doomsday goes up 1% every day the first month, 2% the second, 4% the third, and so on.  Perhaps make it so the player can't build new bases until the cleaners are gone, and the Cleaners are hunting for the Xenonauts' base.  If they find it, game over.

Free Supporter at Beginning:  Since the Xenonauts are borderline fugitives at the beginning of the game, having a (non-elite) supporter in the region their first base is set up in could explain how they're able to operate at all.  Plus, it could add more nuance to the decision of where to set up the first base, and give a nice early game boost.

The General: When I first read in the blog that the General was an adversary, I thought that ATLAS was set up by the Cleaners themselves as a controlled opposition to refine opsec or something, and so was set up to fail from the very beginning.  The Chief Scientist, Operations Director, And Tactical Commander (Which could be the Commander's full title.) all have flaws that could easily justify their firing.  So, naturally, when they actually succeed with that first UFO takedown, they needed to be disposed of.  Thus, the Xenonauts rise from the ashes of ATLAS.

ExDef:  These people seem less "mediocre" and more "outright stupid and reckless."  Grey goo, alien diseases, antimatter, there is SO MUCH damage even a few grams could do, they should have no go-ed it at the first sign the gateway could receive ANY mass.  So perhaps it can easily be tuned between "accept mass" and "only information," with ExDef naively not knowing "information" includes "psychic influence."

The Eternals:  I was... disappointed by the Eternals, but I'm not sure if it's because I set myself up for disappointment.  They just feel... boring.  You see, I had what I thought was a cool fan-theory about the identity of the eternals would be.  Thats why I played the experimental branch, to see how my theory held up as soon as possible.  I originally wanted this send this whole post including that theory as an email instead of a forum to avoid spoiling it on the off chance the devs actually took it, but I had trouble finding an address.  Well, even if the devs liked it, it's probably too late to change the story anyway.

Ugh, I've been working on this post for days, it's getting late, I need to go to bed for work.  Hopefully it posts alright.

[Gregor911]

The dynamics of events are a bit distorted. Cold War with the Purifiers is too static. Death Clock is a great addition but Xenonauts should actively search for activity of the Purifiers. Purifiers should have helicopters and do missions similar to Xenonauts. The invasion phase makes no sense. Because one UFO lands on the ground and that's it? In my opinion, after destroying the Purifiers, the aliens should secretly establish bases, bribe politicians. Such a phase of development and preparations for taking power. If the Xenonauts stop it, then the invasion. I understand that depending on the difficulty level, from 2 to 6 terror missions in a short distance. And then more flying UFOs, more terror missions. Even a mission where you have to defeat the aliens from several UFOs 2/3. The rest is described quite interestingly above

 

Edited April 27, 2025 by Gregor911

[pwd]

I never noticed a commanding officer mechanic. Is it that your highest ranked soldier is your c/o and losing them causes a squad-wide morale hit?

I think my c/os would usually have been snipers who would stay way way back from the action (not even leaving the dropship until their way was definitely clear. I guess I wouldn't have lost many as a result.