few suggestions

[mor2]

1. add events, the current messaging system is fine for simple notifications but its lacking for major events, for example research completion shouldnt be another barely noticeable line, its should open a window with summery or link to ufoPedia and the base so you can set a new research objective (anyone who played hoi series will know what i mean), same goes for end of the month, there should be an event window that summarize what you gained, paid etc during the last month. 

it should add more to sense of progression,achievement and goal especially if that end of the month data be kept for at least month(to make a comparison last/current month) and maybe also accessible through some credits button.

2. its not necessary to place the alien/our ship on every map, for example the parking lot map 75% of it consist of the ships parked and roads, with the aliens always on the 6 floor and the fight always taking place on the firth floor...
the plaza with alien ship is beautiful but serves no tactical meaning, better drop it make the parking lot twice bigger with one more access point, add cars to use as cover (right now there is no cars but there is many ppl ) spread the aliens to make it hide and seek...

3. please avoid choke points where they serve no tactical need, for example in one of the oriental maps where the ships separated by a big building and wall with one square tile gate is annoying, considering that the alliens never leave their ship and even if they did they could never get there faster than me, so it just serves as annoyance in the first 4 turns where i just run back there.

4. when there will be a time please add more sounds for the aliens, its just more creepy to hear them, even if you know where they are.

5. the inventory button in the tactical view should also close it if clicked again.

cant seem to remember the rest of the stuff i thought before.

[H-Hour]

2. its not necessary to place the alien/our ship on every map

As far as I know, it is expected that an alien ship and a drop ship will appear on most maps and I don't see any compelling reason for this to change.

for example the parking lot map 75% of it consist of the ships parked and roads, with the aliens always on the 6 floor and the fight always taking place on the firth floor...

This map made it into 2.3 just before release. It is the very beginning of a new random map assembly (RMA). That means it is made up of different tiles that are combined in different ways in-game to randomize it. So far, though, there is only one building tile. Eventually I hope it will reach a 4x4 city block with several different buildings, but because of the vertical size of these buildings (it's a big city) and the level of detail I am shooting for, they are very time consuming (and I am a very slow mapper). You can see a second building in progress here.

I agree that it's a problem that the aliens always spawn in the parking garage. I set up spawn points all over the map, but they seem to spawn only in the first ones placed. I hope this will be changed in the future.

[bayo]

5. the inventory button in the tactical view should also close it if clicked again.

And stats too. Few lines of script is need, if somebody interested. Or open a bug report.

[mor2]

@H-Hour, probably most of those "dead" areas i referred too are just those spawn problems.
as for the alien/drop ship, i dont know if its a design requirement and obviously i dont see the bigger picture with all that RMA but its my personal preference to play more focused maps, for example the parking house idea is great but i think it just feels to small, its like a one big room you can walk across in one turn. so i cutting the alien ship(which presented in 99% of all other missions) and doubling the size of the parking lot will add more "open space" that force you to use the surrounding. something like this: (and yes i know i suck at painting especially sing mouse and paint)


but maybe its just me, i also loved the nice hospital mission, 2 buildings, under ground and roof access,not to big but big enough for hide, seek(and destroy) on the other hand i always skip the base mission, its just way to big, instead of tactic is spend a lot of time in logistics.

[geever]

1. add events, the current messaging system is fine for simple notifications but its lacking for major events, for example research completion shouldnt be another barely noticeable line, its should open a window with summery or link to ufoPedia and the base so you can set a new research objective (anyone who played hoi series will know what i mean), same goes for end of the month, there should be an event window that summarize what you gained, paid etc during the last month. 

I would hate if the game popped up windows everytime something happen. I hated it in XCOM too.

However we have the messageoptions system with which you can set: time to stop, play sound or even show up in the log for every event we have. I could imagine an extension where players like you can explicitly set that they want a popup of some event. If you would like to have it in game, post a Feature Request on the Tracker. If you would like to have it soon, go for it and send a patch (to the Tracker)!

-geever

[bayo]

I think we can create a kind of hyper links in the message option too.

[geever]

I think we can create a kind of hyper links in the message option too.

The messagelist is quite small for them, no?

And you hate that nodetype IIRC, as it's a hacked text node...

-geever

[H-Hour]

doubling the size of the parking lot will add more "open space" that force you to use the surrounding.

While I can see the utility of doubling the size of the parking garage, it won't happen any time soon (if ever) because the RMA tiles need to be as inter-changeable as possible. That means all buildings will be built as a 4x4 tile until there are enough buildings to generate several different city "combinations".

[mor2]

I would hate if the game popped up windows everytime something happen. I hated it in XCOM too.

However we have the messageoptions system with which you can set: time to stop, play sound or even show up in the log for every event we have. I could imagine an extension where players like you can explicitly set that they want a popup of some event. If you would like to have it in game, post a Feature Request on the Tracker. If you would like to have it soon, go for it and send a patch (to the Tracker)!

this exactly what i meant, an extension for the current message options, adding popups for major events like research and end of the month.
ideally it will serve for more then just notification purpose, improve accessibility for research, linking to the UFOPedia page of the curent project and to the research screen so you can adjust your research objectives.
And more informational in case of end of the month event, because really who reads the 20 notifications gained XXX from nation YYY who now likes you ZZZ and the AAA amount you paid for BBB ?!  but a nice little table summing expenses and how you did with nations (this month compared to the last one) will be more informational and provide a bigger picture.

anyway i will try to submit this (btw why does my FF cried your site is unsecured? asking for an exception) if i mange to finish the registration process if i manage to open my email (my email client is very sensitive to this crappy WIFI and sometimes doesnt open up)

[mor2]

While I can see the utility of doubling the size of the parking garage, it won't happen any time soon (if ever) because the RMA tiles need to be as inter-changeable as possible. That means all buildings will be built as a 4x4 tile until there are enough buildings to generate several different city "combinations".

if understand correctly this RMA will include few locations which will be randomly chosen and placed together, the parking lot is one of them, the plaze is one of them and more are coming.

in this case i will ask you the opposite of what i asked before, make them smaller...  8 soldiers are just not enough to cover 6 stories high parking lot and at least another 2 buildings as big buildings(which will be harder since the will have rooms) especially not on highest difficulty level! i'll need twice as many soldier only to secure the surrounding area, points of entry and stairs when my main force clears each floor...

[bayo]

And you hate that nodetype IIRC, as it's a hacked text node...

Your wrong. Nothing to do with text node. It is a widget created for this only one usage.

[mor2]

@geever, sorry but i give up, i can get on your sourceforge but i cannot register, user management related pages are shown as they failed to load (no this time its not a crappy wifi fault), i tried on explorer as well, so i probably have some problem with this laptop maybe with java(i had played with it recently) or something else in either case i am not willing to waste anymore time on it, i'll just stick to the suggestion forum and hope someone like it enough to post it there.

Extended message options, add specific popup screen for major events, improving accessibility and data presentation, event examples:

• Research completion event, prompting research completion, allowing to see what it is and set new research objectives, providing brief summery(if posible) and picture of the project, with links to its UfoPedia page and the research lab.
• End of the month, presenting all the end of the month notifications in readable format, two tables, expenses summery and international relation/funding and add links to the statistic panel or base summery for further info or in other words this vs this, does it really need explaining?!

after reading some more, i found out that the number of troops may be expanded beyond the original 8, in which case the original function of the 1-8 hot keys is lost, so i suggest adding "squad support", because we mostly play with squads, sending one squad to the alien ship, second to the building, third to cover...
so how it works, you'll assign troops by ctrl+squad num and then by clicking the squad num you'll cycle through all the troops in that squad...

[mor2]

please change the screenshots path for windows systems,  the average user should be able to access his screenshots and have fun with them(posting them online or whatever)
and i doubt that the current path %appdata%/UFOAI\2.3\base\scrnshot    is some thing that the average user will be able to find (without external help)

i suggest moving the screenshots  folder to a more common place, either game folder or my documents.

[Kildor]

using game folder is prohibited, this folder is RO for regular users. My documents (or better my pictures) is nice idea, but request in general is not critical.