General XCom balance

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Bad sonic performance in air is not because of air but because of change environment from water to air, that reflects 90% and more of sonic energy. That is why doctors use liquid during ultrasonography to minimize lost of energy.

Speed of sonics in water is 10 times faster then in air but 1m air bubble will stop it. Energy is better with higher frequency, so you could destroy "stones" inside kidneys etc. using ultrasonics (cavitation effect).

IMHO this SONIC weapon should be changed to ULTRASONIC, that would make sense from science perspective.

[wsmithjr]

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Research:
Nothing available "for free" at the start of the game, making your scientists as useless as your engineers until you've had your first mission. Feels more consistent - why would 10 dudes be able to come up with something so much better than current earth technology, in less than a month? Although, see laser flavor text below.

Medi-Kits would be purchasable from start, but not manufacture-able.
Motion Scanners... ditto, I guess? Can't think of anything the aliens have that lends itself to the principles it works on.

Need to perform an autopsy and learn about alien biology before you can research Alien Containment (much like in xcom 2012). Stun rod still available from start, as it's just a big cattle prod. Still useful if you're using the weapon-selfdestruct optional feature!

Also, maybe need to perform an autopsy to learn Alien Ergonomics? in order to research/use their weapons

Elerium used to manufacture lasers; Laser Weapons research gets flavor text along these lines:
  "Given the ease with which alien UFOs navigate our atmosphere despite their size, their fuel must be
   extremely efficient. It should be possible to manufacture compact infantry laser weapons using human
   technologies in combination with this fuel - we can begin designing equipment immediately, though
   manufacture will require capture of a UFO with fuel intact."
Laser Cannons would have a ton of shots per cannon, but cannot be recharged, so you have to make a new one once it runs out. Feel free to sell the useless empty one, though... they won't know it's junk until it's too late!
All other laser weapons are treated as effectively limitless ammo, once constructed.

Alien equipment manufacturing would pretty much use only Alien Alloys for anything that isn't ammo, which'd use elerium.


I like a lot of your suggestions.  I don't agree that there's nothing to research right off the bat.  X-Com 2012 is different because the game starts off with a mission.  You could go several days without being able to shoot down and assault a UFO, so I'd like some stuff to do right off the bat.  It makes sense that given how deadly the aliens are (via reports, other military contacts), that X-Com knows they're going to need some more advanced medical treatments and so have already started coming up with concepts to implement those.  It makes sense to not allow Laser Tech until you have an alien weapon, but I'm not sure how you'd do that.  Can you base a tech requirement off having others weapons in inventory?  I've allowed the laser pistol to be built right away, but then require Elerium before the laser rifle can be built (we've maxed out our tech and need alien power source to produce something more powerful than a pistol design) and then requiring Alien Alloys for the Heavy Laser (ie., earth tech can't handle the immense power of the heavy laser until more durable materials can be found to contain that power).  Laser Rifles require 1 Elerium and Heavy Laser req 1 Alien Alloy and 3 Elerium.

I like your ship changes, except I think terror ships are fine as they are.  I am using the Heavy Fighter mod and so I think it encourages the use of those to survive against the heavier ships.

Thanks for the thoughts.

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I dunno, if they had even just some basic ideas for things like the medkit, wouldn't they have been developed for use in our regular human-vs-human wars?

Requiring an alien weapon researched would be pretty straightforward I believe, as there's already STR_PLASMA_DEP1 and 2 that achieve a similar effect in order to let you unlock the Plasma Cannon by researching either the heavy plasma or plasma rifle (plus the corresponding clip).
But with lasers requiring elerium thing I just meant that though you could still research laser weapons right off the bat, you'd not be able to build them.

Anyway, we have a few other dead-end or fluff-only research topics, something that could perhaps be improved upon.

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That old idea of autopsies being necessary before a body can be sold (gotta make sure it's safe, y'know?) would be great, but I don't think it can be done with just ruleset editing sadly.

Interrogations are pretty pointless other than psi, hyperwave, and the alien-origins-martian-solution-cydonia-or-bust sequence. I guess the Navigator and Engineer rewards are a good way of finding out how the game works, so maybe Soldiers would yield research in alien weapons? But instead of random, it'd go up from the weakest (mind probe) to the strongest (blaster launcher).

Alien Entertainment could be a psi-research trigger - the flavor text mentions it uses psionics to stimulate the brain, and it sounds like a nice reward for successfully raiding a base.

It'd be neat to have Alien Food and Surgery give something as well, but it couldn't be anything important given how rare abductors and harvesters are.


[54x]

We could always have a "start with a tactical mission" option too, that starts you off against a medium scout UFO, with your default skyranger loadout?