I agree that a save feature in-mission would be outstanding! For similar reasons too! My wife and kids are always pulling me away... lol Not to mention that the previous games had them as well, and was a major feature for me and all I knew who played. Now, can it be abused? Sure. But having it as an option, doesn't mean you have to use it if you are a die hard no save kind of person. So its nice to have options.
I played through the whole of RC5 and had a few things I found I thought I wuold mention. If they are being fixed, sorry to go over old territiry. If not, cool... Here they are...
The most Major is concerning reaction fire. When I reserve tu's for this it takes it out of my current tu allocation. When it is utilized, it takes it away from the next turns avail time units?
? How frustrating!! Example: Actor crouched, double checkmarked for reaction fire with 30 TU's. End turn. Alien shows up, actor takes a shot or two. Next turn, he starts round with 6 or 9 time units!!! WTF? Why did I reserve any if they come out of NEXT turn allocation? Ok, so I'm passionate about this one. Sorry. It just doesnt make sense to me.
I think I found a bug with the grenade launcher. When crouched, after taking a shot the actor swings back and forth with the gun. end of alien round resets him. I figured you would want to know.
Having to buy back my own weapons after a mission if the actor is killed. Now this is silly. I understand the idea about auto-selling items and loot, to help streamline the game and take out some of the busywork. But being double penalized for a loss of life? wow, hard core. Not to mention the common sense approach would be that Phalanx is collection the items, and would return my own weapons once recovered. I think this needs some attention.
Wich is a nice segway for the cost of Buildings. I'll start by saying I love a challenge, and working hard to gain a reward. Saving $ and balancing things out is a great part of x-com. But, I found a typical mission is netting something like 45-75K. Well, not bad. But concidering a UFO hanger cost about $1 Million...? Another perspective is that nano armor is 75k to produce at the base. 1 mission, 1 set of armor. and usually you have lost someone along the way as the aliens are no pushovers to be sure. Ending in a vicious cycle of income - expences that eventually get you knowwhere. Not even the wekly funding is sufficent enough to make strides in this area. This needs some readjustment. Maybe having more funding from the nation-states on a weekly basis. Or, my favorite part of Apocalypse, give us someone else to fight besides the aliens, ie: a sympathectic organization to the aliens, or a organized crime syndicate. This would allow a new dynamic to the game, and give us a few options on $ generation, and skill training for the troops. Not to mention a toned down, more evenly matched foe to battle in new environments and with different tactics.
I cant seem to direct my interceptors or dropship once I have them "started". Setting up a patrol path for my interceptors to search for alien ships, or have them in the air on a rotating standby would be nice.
Last thing for this post. There seems to be no way to get rid of a base you might not want or need anymore. As well as not being able to have access to anyone in that base unless a dropship hanger is installed, thus also being the only way to equip the troops. (this is bad, very bad). I should be able to station troops in a new base to defend it from the alien scumbags with just a elevator, living space, and a storeroom. Common sense again right? Gives it time to become more built up and formidable, especially concidering the $ situation to build anything. Yikes!
As usual, I give mad props to the powers that be, as I love this game already, and totally apreachiate the hard work and time you all put in on it. I might be a bit verbose, but i feel explaining things as I see them helps in some way, and of course, I only mean things as friendly constructive critisisms, or helpful ideas. Can't wait for RC6!