18.51 Initial Impressions

[Max_Caine]

There's a quote from the Discworld book "The Truth" which is quite apt here. "People will happily swallow big lies but choke on a small fib". If smoke weren't concealing, I think there'd be a lot more people who would complain about how that doesn't make any sense than there would be people who complain about how plasma guns don't make any sense.

[Solver]

Realism should not be brought into the discussion too much, because it does not always lead to good gameplay. In realistic terms, yes, military-quality smoke grenades can build up such dense smoke that troops inside of it will be invisible from the outside, but that actually has little relevance to the game.

In the original X-COM, I'd also say there was only a small problem with smoke grenades. There was nothing wrong with them in principle, it's just that the smoke cloud was big and provided a serious reduction in visibility. If you were near the middle of a smoke cloud, you were only detectable by someone right at the edge, IIRC, making it extremely powerful. Xenonauts already does this better by having smaller clouds of smoke.

[Phoenix]

I am ok with the ground combat difficulty, although night time terror missions and having drop ship always surrounded by 3-5 aliens is kinda of annoying... Once you get out of the drop ship stage, there are around 3-4 more alines to kill on the entire map, and they mostly run away, since you outnumber them...

Not sure how random it is, perhaps I had just a streak of bad luck (I lose usually 2-3 soldiers in the first stage and maybe one later on as a result of some misfortune or simply not calculating APs properly), but normally I would throw the pilots of the drop ship from the sky high before the next mission for landing in such a hot zone.

The research seems a bit slow, because terror missions and Corvettes appear in month two, and you have no means to destroy the corvettes (I've tried and kited with 3 condors, hitting all the stingrays and and depleting all the rounds from two condors that managed to sit on the tail of the corvette, that's 500 rounds and it didn't crash). cash compared to the purchases you have to make is kind of hard to get... if I want air superiority, then once I build two hangars, I cannot afford to make two foxtrots to deal with month 2 corvettes.

Laser weapons seem to have an awful lot of requirements before you can even start researching ones, but still you can deal with Androns and the Yoda aliens fairly ok with ballistics. LMG saved the day

The fast weapon progression of aliens is kind of a problem to me. jackal armors do squat vs heavy plasmas in mid month two and you have to call for a trade off either the armors or base buildings like hangars, medical center.

I am not sure why the amount of soldiers was dropped to 8 or 6+ vehicle, from what used to be in Alpha 8+ vehicle or 12 soldiers...

I think it is very hard to get any secondary base up and running in a reasonable amount of time. Was there a huge hit to the monthly funding? By the end of month 3 I couldn't even get first base running properly with lack of proper airforce to deal with more and more corvettes and just produced first laser weapons for ground troops - night time terror mission in Moscow went badly... 6 dead by the end of turn 3, because 5-6 aliens camping around the drop ship in their sight radius, 2 others were simply evaced and bombs dropped on the city.

I like the unlimited ammo, which removes he chore of producing something obvious and small scale compared to other things

[Sathra]

4 Avalanches should take out a Corvette. Need a MiG to do that, and need to change its initial loadout (they were set to only be able to carry 2 accidentally, but HF 3 should fix that).

[lemonrev]

Steam Beta,

Still playing the game at this time. Tryed first to make a manual thought it might have just been a pdf but it turns out its all web based and it has to generate though the game, took too long tryed to close it off. i now know about this.

I had a suppress mission, I dont know how to capture the aliens that i can suppress aliens by shooting them of course and i had like 2 guys right beside the alien, and there little blue icon above the aliens head, Tryed to click on alien to like arrest it but no go. only action i found was to shoot it, and if it was suppressed and i left it alone it would turn and shoot my men, How do you deal with this ?.

Btw that was my verry first mission after trying to shoot down 2 other craft which escaped. Dang alien just chose to land right on the outskirts of my radar from my map.

I hope you can help but thanks for the steam release. been waiting for this for a long time.

And i do like the way the hay bails disappear as they get shot .

[Sathra]

Suppression is like firing at an alien to keep its head down. They lose half their AP/TU on their next turn.

To capture an alien either throw a bunch of flashbangs/stun grenades at it, hit it with a stun baton, or shoot it with a stun rocket.

Stun grenades and rockets spawn stun gas as well as cause stun damage, if a unit starts its turn in stun gas, or walks through it, it takes stun damage. Generally if a unit is hit with a stun grenade or 2, then starts its turn in stun gas it'll be stunned.

[lemonrev]

thank you for the responce, ok one silly question more, how do you use med packs on other units other from putting the medpack from backpack to ground bar ?.

[Sathra]

Equip the medpack into the hands (as long as there's room for it in the backpack, it'll swap with the weapon). Leave inventory screen, then click on the medpack from the command bar. Crosshair should show up. Put it over a unit (for best results, move next to the injured unit first), then right-click to increase healing increment for extra TU's per action (its about 5HP per 10 TU or something).

[Phoenix]

Ok I've played some more and need to re-evaluate:

The research is fine.. it's just a matter of getting some luck on the UFO activity and a large scout in the first month... Given that everything goes ok.

I've probably overreacted at first with building a vast airforce.... 3 condors and 3 foxtrots seem to be an overkill... especially once you will get allenium warheads going... 2 condors and 1 foxtrot should be enough

That saving on three hangars and three aircrafts allows you to expanded probably in a reasonably timely fashion to the most needed sector of the earth given the funding status

Night missions are still dangerous to the point where I try to avoid them if I only can... especially night terror missions... because apparently it's the game's logic to have the drop ship surrounded by 5 aliens and then 3 more idling and running away on the other side of the quite large map.

I am so far disappointed in regards to interior combat and UFO breaches. Maps that I've experienced so far, were mostly a shootout in the open with some maneuvering to get some flanking shots to bypass cover.. if in doubt, use rockets... or spray and pray with LMGs

Grenades take a lot of APs to use...and their accuracy is abysmal... what makes them generally useless, with the exception of stun grenade which you still have to use at close range, but the stunning smoke density compared to the stun rocket makes it a superior alien capturing tool

Shotguns and pistols feel completely obsolete due to non-existent UFO breaches (majority of aliens are outside, and once you are nearing the UFO remaining ones just rush out to fight you in the open). A bit disappointed in the sizes of interiors of UFOs when comparing that to old XCOM or even the new XCOM. I admit I reached only November so far, so maybe that will change. (although I have Wolf, Buzzard armor, all plasma and laser weapons researched, Scimtar tank, Corsair, etc.) Probably need to wait for some larger UFO than Corvette to capture "commander" type alien and perhaps get some new dropship with higher capacity.

I didn't notice any alloys or allenium requirements when cost of manufacturing was presented. It only showed monetary cost. Is that intended?

[Chris]

The Alloys / Alenium will be shown in the new UI we're working on. We forgot to add it to the old ones for some reason.

[StellarRat]

...I am so far disappointed in regards to interior combat and UFO breaches. Maps that I've experienced so far, were mostly a shootout in the open with some maneuvering to get some flanking shots to bypass cover.. if in doubt, use rockets... or spray and pray with LMGs

Grenades take a lot of APs to use...and their accuracy is abysmal... what makes them generally useless, with the exception of stun grenade which you still have to use at close range, but the stunning smoke density compared to the stun rocket makes it a superior alien capturing tool

Shotguns and pistols feel completely obsolete due to non-existent UFO breaches (majority of aliens are outside, and once you are nearing the UFO remaining ones just rush out to fight you in the open). A bit disappointed in the sizes of interiors of UFOs when comparing that to old XCOM or even the new XCOM...

So, I have some answers for you. First, the starting UFO's are tiny. That's true. However, they do get much larger starting with the landing ships. Second, there is a problem with AI now that it doesn't reserve any troops to guard the ship. That will be fixed. Also, they plan to have aliens on the outside return to fight for the ship if you manage to get inside. Last, the shotgun was intentionally nerfed this last HF, but Aaron will put it back to normal eventually. In theory, it will be very useful inside alien ships once there are actually aliens to defend them. And, the AI doesn't seem to favor buildings as much as it used to, hopefully that will be fixed too. That will also make the shotgun more useful. The grenades are a little messed up right now because you can't toss one over cover and they lose explosive power with range. I think you'll find them much more useful when those are fixed. Edited June 1, 2013 by StellarRat

[Solver]

Some research texts do not show up, giving an empty xenopedia screen, like Alien Officer interrogation.

I have some immersion-related points.

First, I'd suggest avoiding breaking the 4th wall in in-game descriptions. Consider the description of the plasma rifle (and other rifles). Ends with:

Most strike teams should contain at least some soldiers armed with rifles (backed up by more specialist weapons), as they are the best all-around weapon in the game

I don't think "the game" should be mentioned. Instead I'd keep it in-character, like "the best all-around weapon our operatives can employ".

Also, what's up with casualty numbers? I really like that you have a casualty number on-screen, but at the end of in-game November mine is at 1013 people. A thousand casualties after nearly 3 months of an invasion, that would amount to a bit above 4000 worldwide per year. For comparison, that's less than the yearly deaths from traffic accidents in Japan, and less that two months of traffic-related deaths in the USA. The game is intended to convey that the world militaries are helpless against the aliens. Civilian planes get shot down, navy ships are strafed and bombed, cities get terrorized, but casualties are low. My main base in in Europe, and casualties in the Europe region are a 203 after this time, basically conveying the impression that I'm dealing with the aliens so well that the chance of being killed by aliens is less than dying in a typical accident.

[Dreader1962]

- I noticed on the main globe display that the city names don't contrast well when they are in the desert/arctic areas during daytime.

- I am curious on the selection of cities; many cities in Australia, but no entry for Paris, Rome, Chicago - no Canadian cities.

- In the tactical game, is there a LOS checker so I can see what cover would protect from what direction? It's very hard with the isometric view.

- I noticed that the path that is drawn does not take advantage of diagonal movement as it should to optimize AP expenditure.

- I selected to play in Windowed mode but it does not do this. Also, the edges clip the stats in the upper right.

[flashman]

New Ui will change the geoscape map.

when you put movement mouse over cover it uses blocks to show direction of cover and quality.

I believe windowed mode only works with a lower resolution than max so 1600x900 instead of 1920x1080

[StellarRat]

- I noticed on the main globe display that the city names don't contrast well when they are in the desert/arctic areas during daytime.

- I am curious on the selection of cities; many cities in Australia, but no entry for Paris, Rome, Chicago - no Canadian cities.

- In the tactical game, is there a LOS checker so I can see what cover would protect from what direction? It's very hard with the isometric view.

- I noticed that the path that is drawn does not take advantage of diagonal movement as it should to optimize AP expenditure.

- I selected to play in Windowed mode but it does not do this. Also, the edges clip the stats in the upper right.

Hold down the cntrl key and you can see what your LOS is from the selected soldier. As far as pathing, yes it has problems sometimes. I prefer to move my guys one tile at a time when the situation is critical. That will avoid any path problems and you can make sure you're choosing a path that keeps you behind cover (very important later in the game when many weapons can one shot you.) Edited June 2, 2013 by StellarRat

[Solver]

I finally figured out another thing that's bugging me.

There is no to little UFO variety at any given time. Game begins with light scouts and scouts. As Corvettes appear, scouts basically disappear. Then landing ships take over, then cruisers. There is almost no overlap. This is bad because it's less geoscape variety, and more predictability for air combat. It makes it more difficult to train a secondary assault team of less experienced soldiers because there are no easier missions, they're all pretty much the same. And it really makes map variety seem much worse than it is because you'll be getting maps out of a small selection at any given time. Like now, I'm playing against Cruisers, and three maps in a row it was the same map. Too familiar by now. Exit the dropship into a train yard, then a power station to the right across the road, the UFO is behind the power station.

[rune_74]

- I noticed on the main globe display that the city names don't contrast well when they are in the desert/arctic areas during daytime.

- I am curious on the selection of cities; many cities in Australia, but no entry for Paris, Rome, Chicago - no Canadian cities.

- In the tactical game, is there a LOS checker so I can see what cover would protect from what direction? It's very hard with the isometric view.

- I noticed that the path that is drawn does not take advantage of diagonal movement as it should to optimize AP expenditure.

- I selected to play in Windowed mode but it does not do this. Also, the edges clip the stats in the upper right.

Weird about the city names, is there a reason for that?

Also, I think there should be more of an overlap of seen UFO's as well.