So after having made comments about balancing, I've been playing more and I'm inclined to believe I was wrong and it's not the game that's the issue, but rather that there seems to be something wrong with the Easy Campaign. I never seemed to get enough stuff to sell, and by the time I'd made enough money to do anything I'd lost all support and was inches from being totally slaughtered.
I started a Very Easy campaign, and it quite frankly hasn't been. I'm on my 6th Machine Gunner, now a Heavy laser guy. For some reason they always end getting murdered by grenades. I'm really hoping 2.5 see's some new armors.
Always before, I was going to bolters, and then dying horribly. This time I went lasers, and while they were more expensive, having to research both D-F Cartridges and the Laser Rifles, they make a much more potent weapon in the hands of the troops. They're far more accurate than any of the projectile weapons and if they require more damage, that's fine, because I can get more shots out of them per turn than I could with heavier weapons. And reaction fire doesn't eat my entire TU store, so there's some for movement and thus lasers cause me to be more mobile.
I'm wholly unsure about the effectiveness of Aerial Laser Cannons though. I mean, the Stiletto is now armed with them, and is perfectly capable of knocking down a Fighter or Scout, but where the Saracen is capable of downing a fighter one on one with TR-20's, it seems in capable of doing so with laser cannons. There also seems to be no point in mounting Targeting Computers with Laser Cannons. Is that right and I should sell them and purchase Raven ECM's instead? Or am I overlooking a benefit?
The ground difference is beyond remarkable however. I went from having to try and close nearly to knife range to use full-auto to deal with even unarmored Taman's, to being able to terminate them from across the map with pin-point accuracy.
True, Blood Spiders and Armored Taman's are pretty resistant to Lasers, but judicious use of Grenades and the Rocket Launcher deal with either of those with remarkable effectiveness. And nothing so far has come close to the usefulness of the Grenade Launcher or Flamethrower. I have one soldier carrying both, and I really like being able to swap between the two if the situation changes. It's more efficient to drop the Grenade Launcher and jam a Flamethrower in the face of an alien than it is to swap to Flechettes. Costs less, and does better damage at the range Flechettes are effective at.
I also love the range of the flamethrower. I had a base defense mission and could hit an alien at the top of the entry ramp from the bottom of the entry ramp. It's nice to see a Flamethrower with a sufficiently long range instead of those that are one or two squares and then STOP suddenly.
I'm actually finding Very Easy more enjoyable and yet harder, than Easy. At the same time, it's easier than easy. Which sounds strange, but in Very Easy, I'm not only getting more Alien Ships that I can engage, but those that I can't, like Harvesters, are landing more often. Which is good.
Downsides: I hate the Market map. It's cramped unpleasant and has too many corners and 'alleys'. It's awesome. Which is why I hate it. Is it odd that I was more terrified by this mission than I was by the actual Terror mission?
I also hate the Hills map. That one never goes well, because the Aliens don't leave the Harvester, they just bunch up between the tails so that when I try to get into position to see in there to engage, there's five or six of them waiting, no cover behind the ship to get close and if you don't go around, neither do they, but if you don't, they won't come to you. Finding out that it's that map is enough to make me abort the mission, load my save and use the Auto-mission button.
I also found myself not liking the farm, until I learned you could stand on the wood piles to get a height advantage and shoot over other wood piles.
