Finally finished, standard difficulty.
Good stuff
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1. The PC game market has been gagging for a good turn based game for some time now (I know I have) - avoiding real-time Apocalypse style was a good move.
2. I was surprised how little I missed breakable buildings once I got used to the idea. Although they were a big part of the fun in Xcom/TFTD it doesn't seem to matter here so much. Just as well since you'll never manage it with the Q2 engine.
3. Smaller maps are good fun without too much searching - no need to make them bigger.
4. Flamethowers - yeah !!!
5. Very nice looking Geoscape.
6. Overall a good replacement for Xcom/TFTD - you really should sell it, but only when its finished
Bad Stuff
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1. Too many fluffy options for weapons at the start of the game - we do not need a pistol, ingrams and micro-shotgun for sidearms, plus another shotgun amd smg in the primary options. Xcom is about developing new weapons anyway. You should pare the list down a little.
2. Too much padding in the text descriptions, particularly the stuff you start with. With the older Xcom/TFTD games I enjoyed going through the Ufopaedia to soak up the good stuff in there. In Ufoai I tried to start like that, then started skimming when I started seeing the same cut/paste text over and over again, then I gave up. Stuff I needed to know (like the capacity of living quarters) I just guessed and experimented because it was quicker. I didn't really like the email format research report either although at least there's a logic to doing them that way. However I would seriously suggest you keep the UFOpadia separate since that need to be concise and helpful, especially at the start of the game.
3. There are lots of new ideas for rooms (team-room, ufo hangar) but the bases are the same size as before. Given that new players had trouble with the older games wrt base layout this is probably yet another good place for an editor with a chainsaw.
4. I never did like the old Xcom/TFTD 's allowing you to use alien weapons directly - when I saw the "man-portable devices thing" research item, my hopes were up, but were then dashed. Seems like a wasted opportunity - you could have had a plasma or partcle accelerator weapons of human construction which would have been cooler than just using alien stuff.
5. There seem to be too many restrictions in the research tree - I don't think there is a need to research all 4 aliens before being allowed to research the Aircraft Particle Accelerator. If you do go down this route you should give more clues as to whats needed when its the only thing in your research tree and you can't allocate scientists to it, beginners will just fold at this point as capturing live aliens is quite difficult to begin with.
6. Battlescape reaction fire seems confusing.
7. The troop characteristic menus seem to be inspired by Aftermath - Aftermath only had bad ideas, you should steal ideas from the originals (UFOEU/TFTD)not the bad copy
8. There is no need to name non-soldiers - it just adds to the admin workload, which is already pretty heavy in a game like this. And I don't think there is a need for medics at all, just the hospital will do fine.
9. I found the the auto-buy/sell system to be infuriating - it should default to off as I spent most of the game fighting it.
10. Initially ufo's can knock out my planes, which is OK, but having the new plane supply dry up really hurts the ability to experiment.
11. There are bugs, but I raised them in the bug forum and anyway the game isn't finished yet so no point hassling you with stuff you already know.
Keep up the good work - I might even volunteer myself if I can figure out how to compile the code.
Cheers.
