A few thoughts on squads.

[tivec]

Hello everyone!

First of all, thanks for a great game! I am very happy to see that the stability and playability of the game has increased to a level that is almost on par with the old XCom 1 and 2 (and in some ways even better).

I have a few suggestions that I think would make the game more enjoyable to everyone

1. Renaming soldiers at the equipment selection screen.
   I often load up my soldiers with a given set of equipment depending on their skills. Then I name them for instance "(Spr) Sarah Chandler" for a soldier with a sniper rifle, "(Lmg) Mark Quinn" for one with a Light machine gun, and the likes. Now, being forced to go to the hire screen to rename, and then remember what the name was of the soldier works but takes extra long time.

2. Renaming aircraft.
   Take for instance a base with two squads, Alpha and Bravo. One of the squads may be focused on capture, while the other is set on killing everything they see. Now when a mission starts, I'd see:
"Firebird-class Dropship (8/8)" - this won't tell me anything about who's on board, and what team it is. Perhaps if we'd be able to rename them from the aircraft screen?

   This also goes for intercept craft. Maybe I have one craft specialized in fast UFOs, while I have one specialized in heavy UFOs. Being able to see the difference would be great.

3. Changing the order of the soldiers in the squad.
   This would make it easier to split the group into combat pairs. One heavy, and one support (medic, etc). As far as I know, I can't order who's placed where on the squad.


Keep up the great work!
/Tivec

[Cpt.Jclink]

  dude your totally right when i was playing i had 2 squads because i needed one extra if i am under attack or i needed to go to another mission and my first ship is out of fuel but if you could name them like red 1 or omega or whatever you want to i sent a unarmed squad to fight the sheevar and the were all killed and i think the bad guys new i did not have guns because the all rushed me well thats all

[JerryLove]

How about a little farther than that? How about the ability to just build squads (rather than load individuals into aircraft). That would make it simpler to accomplish any number of tasks (going to squad B when some of squad A is in the hospital rather than replacing individuals, moving a whole squad to a new base, equipment allocation, etc).

[TrashMan]

When it comes to squads and soldiers, I'd jsut like to have a good starting selection of soldiers.

I SOOOOO hate it when I try to re-create my JA2 dream team, only to have recruists that are useless or ugly as hall (alltough apperance is not my main concern).

3 months into the game and I STILL don't have a single male recruit that's good with heavy weapons (and doesn't completely and utterly suck with EVERYTHING else). And then I suddenly get a female recruit that has ALL stats set to competent??!?!?!?
Just how are these stats generated???

[BTAxis]

According to templates. Most recruits are grunts, then a small portion are specialists (who have a high initial stat in one area and slightly below-average stats in all others) and 1% of all recruits are elites, who are good at everything.

[Malick]

Regarding the naming of grunt, I'd like to see the rank being included by default in their name. It is currently the case for events in the battlescape ('(Sgt.) John Doe panics !').

Would be nice to be able to rename aircrafts, but still be able to see what type/class they are when sending them.

Mission
  Aircraft_Name    Type   Base   Pilot/Soldiers  UGV

Malick

[MIKED]

While on the topic of squads, would it be possible to select multiple soldiers at once and make them all move, possibly in formation? 

This would also be helpful after you have cleared an area and need to move a group of soldiers to an unsecured area.

[TrashMan]

I got another one - the ability to form a squad inside a base and equip it EVEN WITHOUT A TRANSPORT.

apparently, you can't defend a base without a transport, since you're soldiers in the base will start without weapons and everything.

[ghosta]

I would prefer something like equipping your soldiers in your base (but without forming squads) and loading some weapons and ammo into your dropship with another equipment screen just before every Mission.