Sabotage! Our aircrafts and economy are systematicaly attacked from within

[noname19]

Our X-COM inteligence defence unit discovered alarming trend in our fighting capabilities.

1- New directives from Above reduced the maximum number of soldiers in our default landing chopper to 8 (in v18.x). Those landing choppers are barely half full when they arrive to fight alien scum. Thanks to that, adding vehicles to our operations is contraproductive. Not only they are bigger and easier to hit, their guns are so inacurate we believe alien malware is corrupting their targeting units. What is worst, adding vehicles further limit the number of soldiers on mission. No missions, no training -> dead soldiers. Training fresh soldiers later is horrible pain, as enemies are more and more dangerous and our soldiers more and more dead. Few of our more brain-limited analysts recommend turning those dead soldiers into zombies and sending them first as cannon fodder. Not a bad idea if geeks find a way to do it.

2- Another sabotage was discovered in our own manufacturing labs, as plans for crafting Foxtrots were modified and half their missile hardpoints eliminated. They can't shoot down even small scouts without reloading at base! Here is hoping new explosive tech will change that, but we are sure enemy will adapt. Not to mention they are throwing more and bigger ships at us all the time.

3- We are not sure if this is actually sabotage or just normal geek behavior, but our scientists refuse to give us progress on the stuff their are researching. I mean, look at them - the more you add, the happier they are, but you have no way of knowing if they will finish the project in a day or a year. We are not sure if they understand the difference, really.

4- Our engineers are extremely lazy *and* corrupt - thats the only explanation we can give you why it takes ten engineers four days to build one laser rifle. For 40k. Look at the market, we can sell it at best for half as much, and it's unique class of weapons. Later on, we noticed some project that involve staggering number of engineers that took month or more. We are fighting a war here, aircrafts going down in flames and pieces and they are sitting there, sipping beer and taking huge salaries.

5- The prices we can sell our developed technology are laughable. There is no way we can support our horrible economical situation with manufacturing and selling for profit. I vividly remember whole bases dedicated to producing advanced weapons for sale in the first invasion, all those years ago. Militaries world-wide were taking all we could produce and then some. Good old days...

6- While everything we buy is ridiculously expensive, including buildings and I have to repeat the manufacturing problems, we have only two sources of cash - selling alien weapons that noone can use and monthly funding, if you can call it funding at all. We need to expand worldwide, but we can't even pay for hangars, living quarters and radar.

7- Aliens started sabotaging their UFOs, our only source of Alenium. Two months of shooting down every UFO that moves (again, sorry for that Boing, it looked really suspicious on radar) and doing every available mission even on planes that landed on their own and we managed to gather only ten units of Alenium. As awesome power sources go, its no use if we can't get our hands on much more of that stuff.

8- Our engineers are lazy, we already established that. Thats the only explanation why reloading and refueling takes so long. They are probably taking a nap or two while doing it.

I am sure we will uncover more alien interference later on, but thats enough for a start.

Edited August 10, 2013 by noname19

[Max_Caine]

Sir! Message from Xenonaut Command, sir!

Firstly, they want to know who this X-Com you're referring to is. A rival outfit, sir?

1) Joint Operational Command has issued an RFI for new vehicle designs, and are already looking into upgrades to current systems.. SIGINT and HUMINT have strong positive indicators that scouting vessels appear frequently even when larger ships appear, making the field training of new recruits easier.

2) Sir, Flight Command has issued detailed directives on how to use aircraft, and the Flight Command Review Board has unanimously declared that the Foxtrot in its current state is the only aircraft you'll need, ever.

3) Research and Development has issued a statement regarding your accusations of sabotage. The Director of Research claims that there is a much greater element of unknown in research than there is in making a known design.

4) The diplomatic corps are steadily making headway with the funding nations, and should hopefully make funding from the council the primary source of funding for Xenonauts. In the meanwhile, experienced commanders have shown that income gathered from alien UFOs used intelligently can make up the gap.

[thothkins]

I had wondered about all those abducted and mutilated cattle appearing on the canteen menu. Now I know we've just been infiltrated. So that's all right then.

Gaaaaaaaaah!

[noname19]

Actually I know Foxtrots are awesome, I use them all the time. The problem is, as always, money. I don't use armor because I don't have money to make it. I don't use laser weapons because I can't afford to assemble them. I built one Foxtrot and I was working on another one (in v18 stable I had several wings of Foxtrots, but enemy battleships have some impressive offensive and defensive capabilities resulting in much less Foxtrots). Air tactics are not a problem, money is. And alenium, for some reason, because having 10 alenium after two months screams bug somewhere. I completed about 10 of missions with intact UFOs and at least twice that much shot down UFOs. Why we can't at least sell equip for same amount it was built for? Also, as I said before, manufactoring times (at least in v18 stable) of some advanced fighters were insane. My fighters were being slaughtered by enemy battleships that usually appeared in groups and even with cheated money so I could test base specially made for manufacturing, new fighters took really long time. Of course, when my fighter's couldn't engage the battleships, countries around the globe were "not happy".

I can't speak about higher level fighters as I didn't have them thanks to the long manufacturing problem. It seems to me though, if Foxtrots are only fighter you ever need, then there is something wrong. There should be a good reason to build higher-level fighters and there should be a good way to do it.

As for vehicles, my recomendation still stands - add special slot not usable by xenonauts to transport. That way, you don't lose space for xenonauts and you only decide if you want or don't want added firepower / cannon fodder.

Lowering cost of new base is nice, but you still need to build very expensive buildings there (radar for 200k for example). And you have to do it soon, otherwise countries not covered by your radars and interceptors will cause problems with your funding.

All in all, I would prefer more money to be made from missions so you are not dependent on monthly income so much. You should be able to start manufacturing new equipment and fighters at other times then at the beginning of new month. I know some people already cry that it's too easy -there are *always* people who find something too easy. When you make a game that 95 percent players never finishes on easiest difficulty, you will find someone who finds it too easy on "impossible". As someone who played UFO all those years ago, and then UFO Terror from the Deep and UFO Apocalypse and more, I have some knowledge what I am doing. I can still say that Xenonauts on normal dificulty are not easy for me. Of course, part of it is beta status, but other reason is there are so many ways to screw up.