My Initial comments...

[Aaangel]

Having played a total of about 4 hours I first wanna tell the team great job, it's good to once again feel like the commander of XCOM, but I have found a couple of things that I find to be either missing or completely insane UI designs.

Features missing:
I'm not sure if research costs money, but my funds appear to suddenly plummit. If this is also because research costs money, a rough estimate of the research cost would be nice. If it's because I'm not good at administrative my funds then disregard

In the equip screen for soldier a mouseover hint for items (weapons, ammo, etc.) would be nice so you know what you're actually looking at. A reason for why one of my sniperrifles are red would also be nice.

When completing research it would be nice to have a dialog asking you if you wanna view the ufopedia. A reassign staff dialog would also be nice.

My soldiers are always left with timeunits enough for a shot (yeah you guessed it I used to play UFO: Enemy unknown and XCOM:apocalypse alot , in case they come under attack, but my soldiers do not fire back not sure if this is a bug or by design. But it's wrong.

Interface blunders
2 handed weapons vs. inventory space
This one here is driving me nuts ... Why equip a soldier holding a sniperrifle, with a 9mm sidearm, simple ... because in close quaters the sniperrifle doesn't fire fast enough, so normally you need the sidearm. but you don't have enough room to equip the 9mm because the sniperrifle is a 2 handed weapon and you cannot move the rifle to the backpack (which in reallife also would be insane) because it holds ammo and doesn't have enough room. Basically you need to drop the rifle to equip the 9mm, which soldier IRL would drop his primary weapon to use his sidearm ... where is the shoulderstrap like in Hidden and dangerous 2 :?:.
This problem is reoccuring all the time ... the above is just a basic example, but also hunts you when you wanna use a grenade or the knife. To me this area of the game needs big work. Maybe renaming the left hand slot to shoulder and allow the soldier to "hang" his primary there when using a grenade or sidearm or allowing granades or sidearms to be equiped to the left hand.

IR googles
Again this one relates a bit to the design of inventory slots ... why do you equip IR to the backpack, where is the eyeslot which would make more sense ?.

[tomshackell]

A reason for why one of my sniperrifles are red would also be nice.

It's red because there aren't enough sniper rifle clips in the inventory for the number of sniper rifles. Hence it's telling you it's not loaded. Still I agree it would be better if it told you this somewhere.

My soldiers are always left with timeunits enough for a shot (yeah you guessed it I used to play UFO: Enemy unknown and XCOM:apocalypse alot , in case they come under attack, but my soldiers do not fire back not sure if this is a bug or by design. But it's wrong.

You need to click the little shield to turn on reaction fire.

This one here is driving me nuts ... Why equip a soldier holding a sniperrifle, with a 9mm sidearm, simple ... because in close quaters the sniperrifle doesn't fire fast enough, so normally you need the sidearm. but you don't have enough room to equip the 9mm because the sniperrifle is a 2 handed weapon and you cannot move the rifle to the backpack (which in reallife also would be insane) because it holds ammo and doesn't have enough room. Basically you need to drop the rifle to equip the 9mm, which soldier IRL would drop his primary weapon to use his sidearm ... where is the shoulderstrap like in Hidden and dangerous 2 :?:.
This problem is reoccuring all the time ... the above is just a basic example, but also hunts you when you wanna use a grenade or the knife. To me this area of the game needs big work. Maybe renaming the left hand slot to shoulder and allow the soldier to "hang" his primary there when using a grenade or sidearm or allowing granades or sidearms to be equiped to the left hand.

Yes this is one of my pet peeves also :-)

Tom

[Elbenfreund]

first: thanks for you comments.
but considering the date of your posting i rather sure the alpha of the manual http://ufo.myexp.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=644  out for quite some time at this time which covers your red rifle / reaction fire and also this one i think:

I'm not sure if research costs money, but my funds appear to suddenly plummit. If this is also because research costs money, a rough estimate of the research cost would be nice. If it's because I'm not good at administrative my funds then disregard Wink

do you have production going on  ? because most likly its the produced item that costs you money ... which would be in the manual as well

nevertheless the features you mentioned for sure are worth thinking about, so thanks for the ideas and keep up with the feedback

best regards eric.

btw:

Again this one relates a bit to the design of inventory slots ... why do you equip IR to the backpack, where is the eyeslot which would make more sense ?.

i think its because of the way IR works. it is not a permanent thing but a item you use. and the way to _use_ thinks in ufo:ai is to have them in your hands.

[ubequitz]

tomshackell has now implemented the ability to use a grenade or knife or pistol etc without having to drop or put away a two-handed weapon. Currently the feature is in trunk SVN but since it works so well I will be looking at porting it back to the 2.0 branch for the next release.

[Mephisto]

nice!

[Bandobras]

tomshackell has now implemented the ability to use a grenade or knife or pistol etc without having to drop or put away a two-handed weapon. Currently the feature is in trunk SVN but since it works so well I will be looking at porting it back to the 2.0 branch for the next release.

A good idea! This should also help AI greatly (but needs some coding).

I wonder what's wrong with nation funding in RC5 that people keep complaining... Is it too low or don't they wait till the end of month before posting, or can't they scroll messages to see the list of funding from particular coutries?

* Bandobras dissappears again

[sirg]

I also want to add to the list of people complaining about the holster weapon - if a soldier is using a two handed weapon, he/she must drop it or put it in the backpack (if there is enough room) in order to arm with the holster weapon, wasting to many TUs.

I think the holster should fit only one handed weapons - not the shotgun (it sounds like Robocop or Judge Dredd to have a shotgun in your holster), so in this case, the actor should hold the two weapon in one hand and with the other shoot with the holster weapon, in a second weapon fire mode. Of course, holding the two handed weapon in one hand means the actor can't use it.

In 90% of the times, the holster weapon is useless, it's just weight, and in some cases I use the holster space for ammo or medkit. So, think about how many times this is used.

I would also like to be able to fire two pistols at once

[Aaangel]

first: thanks for you comments.
but considering the date of your posting i rather sure the alpha of the manual http://ufo.myexp.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=644  out for quite some time at this time which covers your red rifle / reaction fire and also this one i think:

I'm not sure if research costs money, but my funds appear to suddenly plummit. If this is also because research costs money, a rough estimate of the research cost would be nice. If it's because I'm not good at administrative my funds then disregard Wink

do you have production going on  ? because most likly its the produced item that costs you money ... which would be in the manual as well

nevertheless the features you mentioned for sure are worth thinking about, so thanks for the ideas and keep up with the feedback

best regards eric.

btw:

Again this one relates a bit to the design of inventory slots ... why do you equip IR to the backpack, where is the eyeslot which would make more sense ?.

i think its because of the way IR works. it is not a permanent thing but a item you use. and the way to _use_ thinks in ufo:ai is to have them in your hands.

About the red sniper, yeah I figured it was because there wasn't any ammo available, but you have to remember real men don't read manuals they wheep

I don't really have a big issue with the small things, however I still maintain that the inventory vs. 2 handed weapons needs big work. But I can't wait for this to be finished, this game has great potential.