After playing a while the game, i think that is possible to make som changes to improve the quality of the game.
1. Bolter rifle. This rifle is a very good piece of work, but is very unbalanced. For a early weapon, it could be better. My sugesstion:
- Reduce the spread of:
aimed shot at 0.9. Reason: the bolter rifle uses a flechette, and this projectile have a excellent accuracy, almost like a ray (see the Steyr ACR
http://www.steyr-aug.com/acr2002.htm). So, although haven´t scope, a shoot with an iron sight could be accurate at medium range.
- Change the 3 round burst for burst of two shoots. Reason: This weapon have two cannons, so, shooting 2 projectiles at same time could do a heavy damage with heavy recoil but with the spread of a snap shot. So, although the damage is reduced to 150 HP, the spread could be lower and the hit probability higher at medium / close range, without lose a single shot.
With this changes, the bolter rifle could begin the backbone of the squad weapons, making obsolete the assault rifle and some close weapons at early stages of the game.
2. Sniper rifle have a good scope and is a 20mm weapon, so, a 0.9 spread is really ridiculous jejeje. The spread could be 0.6 for aimed shot. Snap shot could be 1.
With this, the sniper rifle will be more realistic.
3. Aliens must begin with armour. Reason: The storyline talks about an impossible enemy for the standard weapons. So, beginig with armour, the chemical propeled weapons could be less lethal and makes possible the entrance of the bolter rifle as a milestone in the war, following by laser weapons for long range engagements as a milestone too. This for standard difficulty and more. Maybe for later versions, it could be added a heavy alien armour.
4. Laser weapons must be limited to rifle and pistol. The reason is, heavy laser is not sufficient powerfull to be a sniper weapon and don´t have sufficient ammo to be a support weapon. The laser rifle do a better job, is less expensive in TUs, have the same accuracy, much more ammo and is almost as powerfull like the heavy laser.
5. SMG and micro SMG begun obsolete for the alien armor, so, i think that almost no one use it. So, the laser pistol could be modified to be a submachine gun, adding a second clip or special clip to giive more ammo.
6. It could be introduced an armour between nanocomposite and combat armour, because using alien materials to do the nanocomposite armour would take some time, and the alien could deploy more quickly ther rifles and blasters. So, an armour using some techs in nanotubes but never the same quality as alien materials could be a solution.
7. The holster and backpack is ok, but the belt is awfull. It could be nice to have space in chest to put clips (using the same space of holster), so, it could be possible to use a backup pistol, grenades and a rocket launcher or another weapon in the backpack (like some armies soldiers).
8. The attack to the bases is another point that must be changed, at my point of view. Fisrt, there´s no warning. So, what the reason of defenses? The attacks must be doing by incoming ships and not by strange suprises.
9. It could be nice to launch harvester with an escort of two figthers, but lowering the firepower of the harvester. I use sarracen with two particle cannon and i haven´t neccesity for the advanced and antimatter-costly fighters. And i do the job fine!!
This are some of my sugesstions. With the spirit of improve this excelent work.