Suggestions on how to improve the mod

[Solarius Scorch]

I meant smoke is less effective now because the enemy potentially has more directions of effective attack due to better vision. You simply get shot at from all sides now.
Is it easier to see through smoke now? I never thought about it.

Regarding pistols: I love them! As long as they're Gauss pistols.

[AncientSion]

Try Chem Magnum

[Arthanor]

lol yeah, Gauss pistols make pistols relevant again. I use chem magnums and smgs, but mostly in mansion missions and rarely otherwise.

For regular battles, if it's close enough and weak enough to fall to a pistol, it can fall to a handle and then be robbed/enslaved/ransomed. If it's dangerous, pistols, even at 40 damage and especially at low-ish accuracy (and prompting reaction fire, unlike melee) aren't worth it to actually kill stuff that needs to die.

[GarlandSP]

Handguns are backup weapons for CQB they are niche weapons, i use them in cases where my gals must run from one point to the other and are low on stamina, handguns are excelent choices as they use low TU and dont consume Stamina.

[a0kribu]

Two suggestions.

A small red arrow over the head of the enemy/wounded soldier when you center your screen on them.
Reason: We all hate hunting for that invisible alien in the darkness.

A way to check enemy inventory (well, weapon he's holding) when you have vision of them.
Reason: You don't always recognize all the weapon models and sometimes the enemy is facing away from you/behind a wall from your perspective. Your soldier should have that information and it can be life and death often enough. Is that guildmaster holding a plasma pistol or is that heavy plasma? I know my armor can take one of them but not the other.

[Dioxine]

First, you have 'alt' for standing units, mini-map for laying units.

Second, it's a fast paced combat. It is not guaranteed that the soldier has a good visual. Besides, what the f*** did I made all these handobs for? What place it leaves for player's skill? What place for an error? And most of all, it'd remove the requirement of neutralizing the enemy to see the full picture of the stuff they're carrying - hence the pleasure from that fact. But whatever. I'd just never use such an option.

Yes I know I'm being irrational but rational people should never try to create any art.

[a0kribu]

I didn't mean the contents of their pockets, just the weapon.
Describing it as "fast paced combat" is kinda....

Are we playing the same game?

[khade]

Might be a slightly odd idea, but there was mention of making the skyranger and pigeon harder to get and this might help there:  possible mission where you attack a salvage team or a salvage yard, or even an archeological dig, with possible rewards including scrap, piles of junk, homefront rifles(if anything can survive centuries in muck, these can) with the upper end rewards being wrecked vehicles or very rarely hulls for some of the black market ships.  You could rebuild a jetbike for sale or use, with a little work and a decent workshop, maybe this could be the only way to get a skyranger or pigeon, or other aircraft more in line with our era.

I think it would make sense to have better rewards for bigger maps, raiding a small salvage yard would offer less than a major one, or attacking a small group digging out a ruined jetbike vs a big crew who found an old airfield.

Another idea is to be able to have some runts, hands and maybe a brainer or two do job where they are the ones digging up old stuff, with the chance of your dig getting raided and needing to fight off those who want your hard earned relics or just want to repress what you may have found.  Probably a manufacturing project of that sort would be too complicated.

What other materials from our era do people think might be fun or useful to find?

Wow this got long

[karadoc]

I didn't mean the contents of their pockets, just the weapon.
Describing it as "fast paced combat" is kinda....

I think what Dioxine meant is that although the gameplay for us is slow, you should imagine that it is actual fast paced and hectic from the point of view of the soldiers. They are running and shooting and throwing grenades etc as fast as they can. They are sprinting through enemy lines to slash them with an electro-sword, etc. It is fast paced for them, even if it isn't fast paced for the player. And so if the soldiers aren't able to give a detailed account of the enemy stats and weapons after seeing a glimpse of them through the darkness, then perhaps it's ok that the player doesn't know that information either.

[Dioxine]

I think what Dioxine meant is that although the gameplay for us is slow, you should imagine that it is actual fast paced and hectic from the point of view of the soldiers.

Indeed. What else would I mean by that.

Might be a slightly odd idea, but there was mention of making the skyranger and pigeon harder to get and this might help there:  possible mission where you attack a salvage team or a salvage yard, or even an archeological dig, with possible rewards including scrap, piles of junk, homefront rifles(if anything can survive centuries in muck, these can) with the upper end rewards being wrecked vehicles or very rarely hulls for some of the black market ships.  You could rebuild a jetbike for sale or use, with a little work and a decent workshop, maybe this could be the only way to get a skyranger or pigeon, or other aircraft more in line with our era.

Yes this is one of the options I have considered, but the most work-intensive one (requires a custom mission).

[Mattdo]

First, you have 'alt' for standing units, mini-map for laying units.

OMG you guys if you press Alt the invisible enemies that your characters can see but you can't are highlighted! This is the most amazing thing I've found out since my discovery that my characters can sprint if I press Control! And all after only three years of in-game time!

[Meridian]

OMG you guys if you press Alt the invisible enemies that your characters can see but you can't are highlighted! This is the most amazing thing I've found out since my discovery that my characters can sprint if I press Control! And all after only three years of in-game time!

Well, the feature is only a few months old; and only available in OXCE+ ... but I like you like it.

[a0kribu]

OMG you guys if you press Alt the invisible enemies that your characters can see but you can't are highlighted! This is the most amazing thing I've found out since my discovery that my characters can sprint if I press Control! And all after only three years of in-game time!

Although I didn't say it yesterday, I am also very happy to know of this feature.

As to poking fun at Dioxine calling it fast-paced combat:
Claiming that recognizing all the obscure sprites from all angles is what makes or breaks player skill in tactical combat is way more ridiculous (Not to mention that some vision-impaired people have hard time distinguishing Homefront from a pistol). I was just getting even.

[Dioxine]

But that's the mod's motto, dear sir. "It's Ridiculous!" Some things need to stay ridiculous. As for the vision impaired... I'm not a doctor, I don't heal people. I'm just a mere artist. What I know that sure, a game needs to be accessible. Meridian did wonders in improving the interface. But also - all in moderation. You cannot treat everyone as vision impaired only because some are. Sometimes an improvement takes away some of the spirit - I've seen it in too many games to count. What gives me the power to judge that? Why, nothing but my intuition. I might be wrong, true, sometimes I do get overdramatic over nothing.
(Also it is a fast paced combat, no denying that!)

[a0kribu]

This has probably been suggested before.
We need a way to make those interrogations disappear from the Workshop list. Either by making them not appear after they've been researched (Guessing it's impossible with the current implementation?) or adding some sort of superseding filter system.
Click on a button next to a topic and it toggles it's category between "obsolete" and default or something.

Also:
The workshop lists are just too bulky. They contain way too much clutter and categories are not enough, navigating is still way too painful.