Testing feedback and suggestions for the early stage of the game

[sirg]

First of all, this game gets better and better, and I was glued to it after I made it working.
I've played most of the previous versions, so I can tell the improvements, but some things are still missing.

Problem:

I've set up a base (the 1st) in the middle of EU, and I got it working fine, squad, tech people, buildings and so on. But, it happened that the aliens attacked Wellington, and I could do nothing about it, because it was out of reach (the dropship wouldn't fly that far, even with 2 extra fuel tanks). So the 1st month ended, and I couldn't rescue anyone in Wellington. I've tried making a base in Australia, but it become operational to late and i lost the game very fast, even though the other countries were happy.
So, I think it's silly to have such events in areas that are out of reach for you in the very begining.

Problem:

There is almost no way to identify a certain soldier on the battlefield, unless you click him. It would be much easier to have an option of displaying their name all the time, like you see it on mouseover. Also displaying a soldier's health bar should be considered too, because I found myself clicking them all the time to see if they got hit.
Sometimes the action zoom-in feature is buggy, and I can't see which soldier is shooting or being shot at. An other thing that should be considered is adding a facing arrow to the green circle under each soldier.

Problem:

Like others said before, it's annoying to transfer people from one base to an other with their craft and lose all the gear. I say that the gear should be linked to the craft, like the squad. This would ease management, as the craft could have its own storage space, and you could take alot more gear in missions, available in the craft.
Please consider creating gear templates, for less boring clicking.
I also haven't found a way to find out the status of a transfer, like eta and contents.

Problem:

Interceptors - I don't know why, but they fall like flies, and this part seems buggy to me


My impression is that this is a really good game, even though it has some problems, and I'm happy to see there is so much good work being done. Some of the micromanagement could be cut, with more emphasis on the squad leading part. One thing that also makes this game interesting is research and storyline, so these are welcome. I think the game is a bit to hard in the begining, and the support of each country should be affected less in the first months.

[tobbe]

Problem:

I've set up a base (the 1st) in the middle of EU, and I got it working fine, squad, tech people, buildings and so on. But, it happened that the aliens attacked Wellington, and I could do nothing about it, because it was out of reach (the dropship wouldn't fly that far, even with 2 extra fuel tanks). So the 1st month ended, and I couldn't rescue anyone in Wellington. I've tried making a base in Australia, but it become operational to late and i lost the game very fast, even though the other countries were happy.
So, I think it's silly to have such events in areas that are out of reach for you in the very begining.

Wellington is the primary reason why i always build my HQ in Northern Africa, just below the text. From that point you can reach any mission available atm...

[sirg]

Because this game is very similar to XCOM, I tend to have some playing reflexes from that game, and one of them was setting the base in US or EU.

My opinion is that your 1st base location is irrelevant to the game, because it's part of the early stage of the game, where the player tries to learn how the game is played. The player can't know that Wellington would be to far, and can't forsee other similar silly things.

Because the game has a strong storyline, I think the first base location should be fixed and tied to the storyline

In the 1st XCOM, there weren't any to far missions, so one base was enough for several months. I find it odd that you can fly from middle EU to US, but you can't fly to New Zealand (ever heard of in flight refueling?)

[TaShadan]

also there are only coming Harvesters and my Interceptors have no chance fix that plz

[eleazar]

also there are only coming Harvesters and my Interceptors have no chance fix that plz

I find at the early game i almost always down the UFO (if i can catch it).  Have you outfitted your aircraft with targeting computers and the Raven thingy?  Also i usually send 2 aircraft for each UFO.

[sirg]

After more playing, one of the biggest issues for me was the civilian casualties limit, which caused me to lose the game, not because I was doing poorly, but because one terror attack was out of reach.

Thanks to some very useful info on this forum I managed to edit the rules and set it to zero, and more - I've edited the Firebird data, so now it has double fuel capacity, and thus I've finally reached that terror attack

After a few more missions, things get really interesting and I like this game even more - it's highly addictive for people that like squad based tactics.
But I've reached the point where I have a very very hard mission in Antartica (I always get there at night, no matter what). What I hate about it is that some things are almost absurd, like the way aliens snipe my squad from the other edge of the map. I think they must have 200 accuracy and 200 sniper skill, or else I don't understand. It's quite ridiculous... They are also wearing tank armour to make things more ... annoying.

Besides, crafting new weapons takes way to much, almost the same time as research, which is silly - why do 10 skilled workers need several days to assemble a rifle, having the best modern equipment at their disposal? It's unrealistic to have an army of workers for making one item.

[eleazar]

i don't think you can get through the game without building more workshops and hiring more workers.

[Robbe]

I've set up a base (the 1st) in the middle of EU, and I got it working fine, squad, tech people, buildings and so on. But, it happened that the aliens attacked Wellington, and I could do nothing about it, because it was out of reach (the dropship wouldn't fly that far, even with 2 extra fuel tanks).

Could your base assumption be wrong? I also started in the middle of the EU and reached Wellington just fine. I had to deinstall the craft's armour and cannon, though. So it is equipped with just two fuel pods and nothing else -- this seems to make it light enough for such a long journey.

I still have to report a bug in this regard: I had the craft equipped with armour and it could not travel to Wellington. I subsequently ordered the armour removed (which nominally takes 24h) but could then go to Wellington immediately. I should have to wait until the armour is fully removed...

[sirg]

Probably it was an other bug, because I had 160 fuel at one moment, and I still got the error message (out of range).

[nemchenk]

Don't know if you are still having problems, but:   

1) Get the updated aircraftmanagement.ufo from http://ufo.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/*checkout*/ufoai/ufoai/trunk/base/ufos/aircraftmanagement.ufo?revision=14300

2) Even there, Firebirds with 2 drop-tanks and no other equipment cannot reach every part of the globe.

My 2p: I don't know whether this is intentional or a bug, but given the civilian death threshold it seems a bit harsh. I don't mind being penalised during the early game for having only one base, but not to able to get to the missions at all seems too much.

I've manually changed my aircraftmanagement.ufo to give the Firebird 200 fuel -- with 2 drop tanks, it can now *just* get to anywhere on the planet, though it takes 36 hours to do so

nemchenk