In my current play though on the most recent nightly as of now I believe it's timestamp is 8/2/2020 I have found a few problems in tftd ranging from new AI issues and the old calcinite dilemma. The only mods I have been using are better smaller torpedo's, replaced gauss, and zarbite flares by StavingPoet along with more faces so nothing to really change the aliens actions or maps ect... But I have encountered a few issues well attempting my first veteran playthrough though OpenXCOM.
I have encountered some rather horrifying LOS issues and I am not completely sure how to describe these but I have had aliens usually gillmen and have seen lobstermen have the same issues I think it could be a result of the AI intelligence and aggression for these two but I really have no idea. I have had DPL's, shock bombs and sonic pulsars all sent at the back of the flying sub as if the aliens can see a soldier in the back of the Trident. It is almost as if the Ai thinks that they can hit me though the sub. This almost always happens with DPL's, in fact the aliens use of which is seemingly broken. The AI seems to always know where my soldiers are and attacks them with DPL's and if it wasn't for them running out ammo and in one specific case a gillman tried to shoot me though the USO walls and killed himself and a lot of his buddies. The LOS issues with the DPL is ridiculous and if it wasn't for the AI running out of ammo and killing themselves because they think that they can shoot though walls some of these encounters would require extensive and meticulous use of mc or DPL's of your own if you don't have that you just have to abort or fail the mission. Not much you can do to stop this as it is such a powerful weapon you are in the hands of rng on whether the aliens will be able to use DPL's without killing themselves. In a way it is beneficial that the AI is rathe stupid with them as if they weren't you couldn't fight them and survive. I think the way the AI uses waypoints is the problem but they really shouldn't be able to because it could very easily create unwinnable scenarios as you can't know were a missile is coming from because of the waypoints and the power of it basically means all of your soldiers can get killed before you could even get line of fire. It probably should stay as a direct LOF weapon as it is way to powerful and can prevent you from leaving the sub, I guess you could send one troop at a time but hemorrhaging soldiers, armor, and equipment isn't practical. In it's current state LOS seems to be a little more than broken and the AI's ability to use the DPL leaves much to be desired but if they could use it properly it has the potential to create rather cheep scenarios where you may need to sacrifice soldiers to waste their ammo and that is not really good.
- An additional bug I found had a tentaculat hit me though a wall in an artifact site with a tile space between us and I had the soldier look at the door and he also blocked the lift another soldier had watch on the bottom floor as well.
The old calcinite dilemma should probably be fixed. People like to complain about the problem with the deep one but the only problem I have had is getting a live on as a result of alien bleeding. Deep ones are common and not that hard to come by. Shure the game should tell that you need a deep one but just about everyone knows now. But calcinates are another problem as just like how some people may never encounter the triscene one may never encounter a calcinite. Whereas most people never see the triscene because they skip terror missions not encountering the calcinite may not be because you skip terror missions but rather that aquatoids are common in terror sites and the only other hope is a mixed crew mission which in themselves are extremely rare and only have a chance to feature calcinites. I don't think I have to explain the necessity of drills as it could be in July or even later till you get any tasoth and even later to get mc set up. Making it so you have no options to deal with lobstermen early. Even with the sonic cannon and sonic pulsars even a single lobsterman is a serious threat and can take a stupid amount of shots to bring down. Getting four or more pulsars under a lobster doesn't even guaranty the kill same with the sonic cannons, DPL's on the other hand require two shots and in close quarters this isn't an option. The lack of calcinites is a serious problem and there needs to be some guaranty of a calcinite encounter before or shortly after the first lobsters so that the player has some option other than running away which can be impracticle depending on ones current progress or funds.
For the longest time I have been under the belief that the enemy needs sight to use psionics/mc. Not LOS but for example if a bio-drone spots me a tasoth on the other side of the map should have no problem using mc. I was fine with this and thought this was how it worked as in UFO Defense I always found that something could see one of my soldiers even if I couldn't see them. The discovery of which I made in a pleasurer liner, the issues is that when ever the AI sees you once it can use psionics/mc from anywhere on the map even if the AI doesn't know where you are. I never noticed this in UFO Defense as the structure of the maps wasn't so complex save for alien bases and Cydonia, both of which have more than enough places for aliens to ambush you, as a result I never noticed how broken psionics were. But with the design of the ship missions, colonies, and artifact sites it is really just bs. I don't mind dealing with psionics/mc but when a few tasoth squad leaders tucked away in some dark corner or even aquatoids deep with a base or ship can attack you before you are even spotted that turn is rather cheep and is a serious problem. It would be much more balanced if they fallowed the player rules of psionics/mc with one exception. Lets say a bio-drone spots one of my soldiers they then are at risk to be attacked by mc, if they break LOS then they are still at risk for that turn the only way to not be at risk would be to kill they alien that has spotted you. Now all of this is for one turn and the same requirements would need to be met. I don't know how hard this would be to implement but it would go a long way to making specifically tftd more playable. I have had many missions that are impossible simply because I am getting attacked with mc from a tasoth on the other side of the map. This is execrated in the lower deck of the ship missions. Though the use of save scumming I found on aliens with in any nearby areas giving LOS and it was just cheep as it is almost impractical to finish these missions with less than 30 turns and your soldiers just simply break under the attacks after a while. To get to the point it is simply unfair to deal with in it's current state as you will often not have a way to get to or even find the alien responsible for the attacks. It stops the game dead as no amount of skill can really stop this from happing, it is just cheep but the only other option as of know is psionicLOS which makes it so I almost never even have to deal with psionic/mc attacks. Please find a solution to this because it along with tftd's other problems really keep it from being a challenging but balanced experience.
