* Concerning the camera effects when units are seeing each other :

Whenever a unit is seeing an other, or the gathering of TUs for a reaction shot starts, or the gathering of TUs for a reaction shot ends, or an opponent starts to shoot, the camera moves. But it doesn't just hop from one point to an other, it uses a travelling effect which is very annoying :

- this travelling effect starts with an acceleration of a second or two, ends with a deceleration of a second or two.

- the cruising speed of the camera is always the same, no matter the zoom, no matter the distance between the units it focuses on, you can't change it

- the camera position is often completely off the target it wants to show to the player

- sometimes the camera hits the border of the map before the end of its travelling. It ends up sliding stupidly against an invisible barrier (this can be the reason the camera is off sometimes, but I also suspect the zoom affects the camera accuracy)

- nothing happens when the camera moves, and the player can't perform any action. Most actions of the player (like looking at the stats of a unit) during the camera travelling will force the camera to jump somewhere else, after which the camera will jump back to its point of origin, and will restart the whole process again

- this travelling effect alone can't be disabled, but it can be disabled if you totally disable the "center view" option, which I'm going to talk about now.

*) Concerning the camera moves when the units are seeing each other (aka "centered view"):

Whenever a unit is being spotted, or an opponent fires at us, the camera moves to show us the unit, its move, and/or its possible target. This happens very often during a turn, too often I think.

- When an alien enters the fov of one of my soldiers, the camera focuses on the alien as it's being spotted, then on the soldier as it starts to accumulate TUs for a reaction shot, then on the alien again to show me which unit the soldier is aiming at, and when enough TUs have been gathered, the camera focuses on the soldier, and then the alien, and then the shot is taken. If the alien wants to take a shot while my soldier accumulate TUs, the camera will shift focus at least two more times. If the alien escapes the fov of my soldiers to enter it again, add an other round of camera focus changes on top of that. If the alien moves in an out of the fov many times in a row (like when it's walking in a building behind windows), it becomes very annoying.

- When civilians gather in a safe area, they will just stay there walking in circles until the area isn't safe anymore or the mission ends. If you happen to have a unit there, the camera will shift focus every time a civilian walks in or out of its fov.

- This can be disabled by unchecking the "center view" option. This way, most missions become much more enjoyable. On base defense missions, however, one can be tempted to check the option back, because in this kind of mission you have cameras, and it's very useful to track aliens, to count how many of them are remaining, and to know where a particular alien was wandering last. As an alien can pass in front of a camera for just a split second, and as the map is too big to be viewed entirely when zooming out, centering the view in this case is helpful. Also, the "center view" option is useful when you select your own units, because sometimes the halo effect on the selection ring is not enough to spot the selected unit quickly.

Anyway, if you add that horrible camera travelling effect on top of centered view, the missions can quickly drive you mad.

* What I suggest for camera travelling :

- give a way to customize the camera travelling effect : changing its speed, removing the acceleration/deceleration parts.

- fix the camera position problem

- make the camera stop against the border of the map when it hits it, rather than sliding against it

- more importantly and above all : give a way to *DISABLE* that camera travelling effect

* What I suggest for camera moves :

- reduce the number of camera moves. In the scenario above, there's no need to show us the soldier who has spotted the alien and/or is gathering TUs for a reaction shot. Just saying who it is is enough. For the TU gathering process there's a tooltip with the face of the soldier, if it's not enough you can add his name and/or highlight him on the map. If he's off-screen the player can simply zoom out to see him.

- when opening a window (like soldier view) the camera should either continue its travelling movement or be paused. The camera should not enter into a travelling loop.

- perhaps even disable the camera moves when the map is zoomed out enough to see all the involved actors. Simply highlight them to show to the player where the action is happening. The UI should be pointing stuff out, not grabbing your head and putting your face in it.

- give a way to disable the camera moves for a certain category of unit (or player). I know those civilians are safe in that garage, I don't want to anybody to remind me that they are walking in circles in there because they have nothing better to do.