Hello again! Downloaded the latest version and played 4 missions during January. The only mission I didn’t take that I could reach this month was the HK crash site due to waiting for reinforcements. Seems very playable, I had an extremely fun afternoon/evening and I’m looking forward to the rest of what you’ve got planned! Thanks very much for what you've given us so far.
I think it was Gifty that chose the musics - you're free to suggest new ones, although I don't want the download to get too big
Awesome choice Gifty! Yeah, more music is needed but I wouldn’t know where to begin with that!
I know it’s Alpha so there’s stuff I’ll not bother to mention for obvious reasons, and some of it will undoubtedly be pipe dreams and totally beyond the engine but here’s some notes I made while playing. Hopefully some will be helpful.
GeoscapeThe air war is very cool and I love the idea of having aircraft with mutually supporting roles but it’s a bit fiddly to control. It would be really nice to have a way to order multiple craft to fly in formation with matched speed to a single waypoint. This is probably wishful thinking but I thought I’d mention it anyway.
I thought I was going to lose my returning Viking at one point when all my interceptors were refuelling/re-arming but I remembered I had turned on the “Force craft launch” option, so that saved my bacon, I launched a Talon and breathed a sigh of relief. Given how busy the skies can be this is a handy option.
Some kind of marking to show Skynet controlled territory where Tech-com bases are likely to be assaulted would be handy. Maybe a map of the situation in the UFOpaedia?
A side-effect of the idea of building bases to reach mission zones means that I can, for example, build a base near an area that I can’t reach from my initial base and then transfer my craft over to it, both perfectly safely and beyond the craft’s operational range. It seems a little cheaty given your efforts to make air travel more tactical. Maybe very long transfer times, to simulate perhaps moving the craft via sea or suchlike. Dismantled and moved by truck? Perhaps tied to a workshop project “Dismantle craft for transportation” and then reassembled at the other end? Some kind of in-flight refuelling mechanic?
BattlescapeSomething that occurs to me regarding the pilots: If we are going to be having dedicated pilots as part of the killable crew of the craft, would it be possible to make evac from the Battlescape impossible or harder if the pilots are killed or wounded? It would also be nice for them to be able to advance in rank somehow, despite spending their mission on the Osprey and never firing their pistols. In addition, the rest of the unit gets promoted fast due to the sheer number of pilots.
For the first mission I imagined I would be sending a squad up against one or maybe two Terminators, who would be seriously hard to take down and maybe winning with half my squad on their feet if I played well. It played a wee bit different to that with my guys up against 8 machines. I’m not complaining, though! It was an enjoyable first encounter.
My first mission on Experienced difficulty was supporting the resistance and the second a supply drop. Both went relatively smoothly with the loss of 2 soldiers per mission. I was beginning to think it was a bit easy, with half the small army in the Osprey tooled up with the M82A1 and HEAT rounds I thought the Terminators fell disappointingly easily. I was one-shotting them frequently with it. (Might just have been RNG weirdness, though.)
Then my third mission to urgently support the resistance saw 5 deaths and I learned to respect the automatic weapons of the Terminators when one burst took down 2 squad members as they bunched up coming out of the Osprey. This one was way harder. The LZ was very hot and there were 15 machines not the 8 or 9 of previous missions.
The Skynet factory mission was even tougher: 7 KIA and 2 wounded. I won't give away the numbers I was facing. It’s a nice terrain and, yeah a total bloodbath thanks to a wide, empty landing zone. My first positive score, though, despite casualties! I'm not going to say much else about it to avoid spoiling for others except that gameplay wise it went very smoothly.
I’m looking forward to armed resistance fighters, though. I’d forgotten how irritating normal civilians are.
Anyway, thanks again for your work, it is very much appreciated.
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It's a great concept and something totally different from other conversions. I've been keeping a hopeful eye out for news!