Yay, some constructive criticism!
These things are scary, dude! I actually think they are a bit OP and could use some nerfing. I compared their original base stats (now nerfed) to that of Ethereals, the vanilla game's most potent ground troops, they had equal firing and 'superior' reactions (considering they have no inclination towards using extra TUs for psi-attacks), only slightly inferior TUs and stamina, and somehow superior Psi-Strength. This brought up some things for me regarding their nature/game balance which were not entirely addressed in your latest update.
I did have a closer look at the race and while I admit they're no pushovers, I think you're exaggerating a bit. They're better than Snakemen, but certainly not as tough as Mutons and Ethereals. They have no Psi and are not only way, way more fragile than Mutons, but also Ethereals (they die just fine to starting firearms, whil killing Ethereals with them is a real trial of patience, and don't even get me started on Mutons). Yes, they are better snipers than any vanilla race, but still much worse than Robin's Waspites
(OK, this can and will be nerfed a bit).
In
this post I attached an Excel file that contains all alien stats, is helpful for analysing. I think they're not that overpowered, but I agree with you that they're a bit too accurate maybe.
1. Lizards usually have very small brains, even thunder lizards had walnuts for brains. A race can surely be intelligent with such a brain, but it's hard for me to buy that such a race could have super-human (or even super-mammalian) intellect or would fall in line with a race whose main method of control and communication is psionics, something they currently resist better than any other non-Ethereal main race. I think they should have lower Psi-Strength, but higher bravery. I think a war-like race of lizards would be hard to scare. I'm thinking like, 40-45-50 Psi-Strength (as per Snakemen), and 130 (or higher) bravery.
Most, if not all, vanilla aliens were based on real life UFO reports (Sectoids being most obvious, but others are no less inspired by such tales). With the Reptoid, I wanted to do a similar thing, so I based the race on "generally accepted" features among ufologists, which are quite sure about their high intelligence (and other capabilities, as shown on
this amusing video). While I think superhuman intelligence would be an exaggeration, they do possess human-like brains and are much more independent than many aliens. I'm also playing on the "evolved human-like dinosaurs" myth. Naturally, such intelligence is
reptillian intelligence, which is no laughing matter!
2. Even if Ethereals somehow convinced these terrestrial Reptoids to join their crusade, how would they anonymously prepare for their missions without a terrestrial base? Other aliens set up at and come from Mars directly, so how do these aliens get the ships they use? If brought to them by other aliens, they'd need a spot to meet and trade, and afterwards allow quick dispersal into society considering there are no other aliens on Reptoid crafts. Did Ethereals give them exact blueprints on how to make all the alien's ships? If so, where are they built? If in the first month, reptoids had a high chance to make a base somewhere, then operate from that base? Hard to code that. Better to make them extra-terrestrial and let them use all the undisclosed benefits of that, I think. Or, they are collected from Earth previously and modified with brain implants for control, best of both worlds? That could partially explain their abnormally high Psi-Strength.
That's a bit more complicated, but there was no place in the game to explain it properly. Reptoids come from Earth, but they left the planet millions of years ago and only returned a hundred years ago or so. Therefore, they are effectively aliens, no matter their origins. Perhaps I should add it somewhere, maybe even to the race itself, unless it would disclose too much...
3. These Salamandrons... they have a bark that is worse than their bite unless one of two things happen:
1. Incendiary damage is dealt to health and applied to armor like normal damage from explosions, or
2. Terror units and other units with weapons that are a part of the unit's body gain the use of a second weapon.
Without that, these guys are cuddlier than Silacoids. They seem to mill about, not attacking, with too low reactions to ever reaction fire at anything, and they are too tall. They are listed as 30 height, when I think the max height for a tile is 24. Surely that interferes with something. I think they should have higher firing and reactions, say, maybe 40/40?
The stats are fine, though I agree they are somewhat crippled by the current limitations. I decided to disregard them for now, since the game will have to include these features at some point (because TFTD). I'll be perfectly happy with a huge angry lizard with incendiary weapons, if it can bite you in half with its jaws.
you're saying they don't do much? This is a limitation... well nevermind, Dioxine just mentioned it.
Suffice to say it depends on when you meet them. But they're frying civilians just fine, which is their primary purpose, and I also lost a few men to them.
As for the height, I haven't noticed anything wrong, but it's an important information from you. I'll leave it alone for now (since it's really damn huge), but I'll keep an eye on any weird behaviour.
4. The UFOpaedia pictures are very TFTD, understandable since they are basically from that game, but from the viewpoint of someone who never got into that game and has only been reintroduced to this game via XCom 2012, it feels very non-XCom-ish to me. Maybe Robin could help you make more vanilla seeming entries...? I wish I could. That would be awesome.
I wish he would, but I have no such skills.
I consider this mod to be more experimental/fun, so it's not very high quality when it comes to resources. Still, every mod is in a flux state of being constantly upgraded, so who knows what happens?
