My 2 cents about 2.5

[Brandt]

Hello there

I guess its a bit late to talk about 2.5 version, but I feel an urge to express it. Hopefully no one will be offended by such attitude
Spoilers included, be warned.

As start, I would like to say, that whole team which had work on UFO:AI project did a great job. Really. The whole stuff, music, tactic depth etc is impressing, especially it was funding and developing by community alone.

I was playing a long time in 2.4 version, which I found somewhere in internet, IIRC. It has some minor downsides, but overall it was a solid game, in spirit of old UFO/XCOM series.

Not so long ago, I installed newer, 2.5 version. After reading changelog, I had some expctation about it, but I decided to make my opinion after try. What I think about it (in compare to older ver.):
+ Revamp of weaponry stats was good idea. It looks now more meaningful, I mean eg. Sniper weapons now have acc, which could be expected for such stuff (earlier I had feeling, that I equiped my solder with potato gun). Also, that fancy yellow gun (I forgot name, but it wasn't needler) looks useable and Blaster Rifle has any use as "close", because as "heavy" it was fail. Only complains is laser weapons (I read somewhere they were moved to later part of game) and Aimed shot from Plasma Rifle, that is slighly more accurate than Snap shot (there's one more complain, but I'll mention it later).
+ Changes in graphics are neat, improving somehow the ambiance.
? As long as I was playing, I didn't encounter any "crashsite" map, with downed UFO. I actually liked that kind of maps, so I feel it as a loss.
? The sky, crowded with various UFOs in 2.4 was somehow tiring and I was trying to shot alien vessels just above the sea, to avoid too much ground fights. In 2.5, I have 1 UFO for approx ... 5 days. Yeah, my solders can recover health completly and there wasn't any ship in ufo yard, waiting for disassembe for longer than hour ... oh, and I discover the button "go forward 12h" But sometimes I lack the moments, when I had more crashed UFOs than dropships, lol.
? Wound system is kinda annoying, but I guess its step closer to better bring out the brutality of fighting with extraterrestrial menace, however aliens are also suffer from this effect. Few times, they survive being shot, but in their turn ... they just died. Also, there's a Chance to stun alien with firearms, whats a nice addition. Encumbrance isn't a problem, if I may add to this point.
- Aliens, to offset the rarier showing up, seems to have much improved stats. It wasn't be a great problem, if they weren't became uber sharpshooters, able to shot with accuracy beyond technical possiblity of their weapons. My sniper was spotted by alien, sitting on opposite edge of map on attempt of shot. Alien burst at him, killing him with 2 hits. Lol. My soldiers are constantly hit by bursts or auto from Plasma rifles and triple shots from Blasters from great distances, what is practically making impossible to perform any offensive actions. In current situation I can only order them just to cover themself with counterfire up and have hope, that they won't miss too often. I'm not sure, If I want to fight aginst alien deploys from Harvesters, with armors and needler guns ...
- Speaking of shooting range, I found one flaw from previous version, which now grow to size of serious one. On some maps (like Mansion), game deploys PHALANX team on middle of nothing, what makes then moving targets for aliens. So far It wasn't huge problem, as they shot with rather low efficacy. In 2.5, such deploy end up with bloodbath in first turn. There's a map, called probably Resort, when whole team start ... at the beach, being burried by fire from aliens standing on the roof of main building. Dunno if that map should resemble D-Day, but its awful anyway.
- Any kind of constant fire, like Burst, Auto or similar, have overall greater chance to deal damage than Snap or Aimed shots. I
guess it shouldn't work that way, at least it didn't work that in 2.4.
- Reaction fire seems to not work as I expect, as soldiers with such enabled sometimes don't react, even if alien just run in front on them, kill their teammate and run away. They have rounds/charges in clips and have set the lowest cost attack as reaction, ofc.

Thats all, what I recall myself for now. I hope criticism is constructive enough, I'm open for poining out my flaw in tactic approach in 2.5 Thanks for reading.

[Rodmar]

- "fancy yellow gun" should be the alien needler, indeed, or else the terran flamethrower.
- crashsite maps are still generated for any type of UFOs, but the more maps without UFO wreckage are added to the game, the less crashsite happen to come out. Perhaps some maps depend on your advancement in the campaign, though.
- the alien pressure has been delayed in v2.5. Play the game longer and you will soon want to shoot down the UFOs above the sea again (circa 30 UFOs sighted a month on difficult level).
- learn to overuse smoke and gas grenades (especially on the Resort map). Indeed, I hope v2.6 will address the smoke grenade cheat one way or another (beware that some aliens are deemed as seeing through smoke but I'm not sure).
- some aliens are deadly as ninjas and snipers, some others are slow and safe at mid range. There are times during the campaign when it may hurt (less HPs, lack of weapon and armor), thus research and produce advanced weaponry as fast as you can. In mid game, the alien provide you with the blaster which is perfect to roast those pesky ninjas who turn around the corner.
- laser weapons may look blocky but they are handy throughout the game against certain aliens, or as training weapons. They are lightweight, very accurate and have a long range. They do medium damage but do you know that a wounded, berserk Ortnok may be more useful than a dead one? If some heavy alien armor comes out however, laser weapons could become obsolete, and why not?