I’ll grant you the head thing is unusual - before I realised what targeting body parts actually did - I always went for the head.
I’m guessing Snapshot did this to stop the player from targeting the head as the only part worth shooting at!
Lore wise it’ll be odd though - were are their brains?
Well, not all existing creatures have brains in their heads (or not only in their heads). That would be lovely if they explained in such a way, that as basic aliens are humanoid, more complex ones evolved to protect the most fragile elements of their body, like brain, eyes, etc.
But they didn’t and currently shooting off Chiron’s head is insanely easy, but doesn’t bring expected results - that Chiron will be killed or at least stripped of logical reactions (like chicken with chopped off head).
The way i justify it for myself: Head “disabled” does not necessarily equal “blown off”. The “hitpoints” of the head only represent the threshold at which it becomes disabled(as opposed to destroyed) - representing blindness, concussion, things like that. Actual destruction only happens later (when the target runs out of general hitpoint pool and thus dying, as it should without a head).
I’ve just made a thread about the head shot thing here The head shot thing
I was going to post in this thread, but I figured that it’s worth discussing in its own right, and I didn’t want it to get lost in amongst other discussion that could relate to this topic.
The thing is though, if you shoot something in the head with pretty much any gun, let alone something like a shotgun or an assault rifle, you’re going to do some pretty nasty damage that goes way beyond the point of a concussion.
I hear what you are saying, Kodos88. Even though it can be really hard at times its so rewarding when you change up your tactics and end up dominating. I went into this thinking “Xcom 3” and was severely punished, switched up my mojo and am having a blast.
Just as you said, I hope they dont take away what makes this unique.
It would be cool if they played with the difficulty settings a bit, im 99% sure the pandorans always and forever hitting my guys is tied to their stealth rating but my game might be bugged, I would enjoy seeing the enemys miss once in a while. Im only on the second difficulty and it feels like the first time I played Dark Souls hahah
I also wouldnt mind it that when you hit “Restart” it also switched up the map. If im about to fail a mission its a guaranteed win when I hit Restart because I know where the enemys are coming from.
Other than those minor issues and bugfixes I really hope they leave it as is. Hell, I sorta hope they only put in bug fixes. Ive learned to deal with the 100% enemy accuracy and its not always bad having advanced knowledge of enemy positions 
And this is where gameplay separates from reality. They made a design decision to have different body parts equal different effects so they could mutate the body parts to hopefully require us to change tactics. As soon as that happened they needed to make sure that there wasn’t an instant kill head shot otherwise it doesn’t make sense to shoot at other body parts. So say goodbye to reality and hello video game development where reality takes a back seat to gameplay.
I like the mutation mechanic and so I can accept not having a head shot being a kill shot even if it means the game isn’t realistic.
If separating itself from reality were an aim, then PP has certainly succeeded in that respect. 
Shooting something in the weapon arm might as well be a kill shot, because it allows you to stop that thing from being able to do any damage to you. It’s the same effect, but with an added sense of ridiculousness whilst doing so.
I feel like the “Realistic Ballistic Model” thing is pretty innovative and unique. I don’t think the game needs a rebalance so much as players just need time to learn the game. Sure, some things are over-tuned at the moment, but I agree with OP. This game is rad and unique.
But it isn’t. Many of the enemies have attacks that are on other body parts. So it requires tactics to determine whether it is best to focus on killing the enemy (removing all attacks) or removing the biggest threats on multiple enemies.
If they could find their brains, this’d be a very different game.
I could accept the weirdo mutants not dying from headshots. In fact, I assumed that’s exactly what it was, at first. That seemed cool at the time. When I realized that humans also can have their heads and torso disabled, but still be alive… it was clear the body part targeting was pointless, used to barely disguise the bullet sponge aspect that ruins tactics.
I figure there’s no point in trying to justify it. That explanation would make sense, if any shot to the head could cause disability. Instead, you take out about a 3rd of the pandoran HP bar shooting them in the head, and they’re just fine and dandy.
I don’t get why people feel the need to go all positive or all negative. Their ballistic model is just like Valkyria Chronicles, or the original XCOM so not really innovative, but something that was great to return to the genre, yeah. A lot of stuff about PP is great, under all the refuse.
But to say this game doesn’t need rebalancing? This requires very short play time and very high optimism (or a decent bribe). Some people find the game impossible to win due to loads of poorly balanced enemies, and others realized the game is incredibly easy to break:
Which brings us back to body parts being pointless. And it kind of makes sense… I mean, what IS the weak-point of a bullet sponge? Sponges don’t have arms or legs or heads, in fact.
I’m reminded of Ninja Gaiden 2 3D, where you could cut off all of a ninja’s limbs save one, and he would crawl after you, an suicide bomb you. That’s something that would be cool to see in this game. Instead, by the time you take off a couple of limbs, the enemy dies, despite having plenty of HP.
I sum up the problems of lethality and head shots here:
“…and super easy if you know the basics. Too easy if you cheese it. And with cheese it I am not even talking exploits, but just using normal game mechanics”
Ok. Then tell me please how you solve a lair mission, where you encounter 2 bomb chirons who rip you apart from the other side o the map plus 2 sirens approaching your team and the other stuff of samll aliens.
I await your answer. We speak of a 6 men squad!
His comment seems incorrect. But I will note the video/post I linked to above, game difficulty too easy, shows how nothing in the game is a threat.
Right from the off I have been a raving fan of the mechanics and I don’t think for a minute this will change.
I recon they will first tackle the bugs that some players are suffering with, they did say they also would be tackling custom key-binding.
On that note I can’t see the first patch to be overly exciting, but the following ones should start to address the polish and balance.
okay. you need 2-3 assault/snipers lvl 7 if possible (shouldn’t be hard as that get many kills early). You give them shotguns and max move equipment. Normal assault armour if it is all you have, but anu move armour if you have it.
Give them high will and speed.
“If possible” add a priest with the speed boost head.
Activite level 7 assault skill that gives 2 ap on kill.
Now you dash around the map. If you see an enemy use quick shot and one shot them with shotgun. This means of course walking next to the enemy. Dash and high mobility will make this easy.
You can two shot sirens. Just stand next to them and aim on the lowest armour part.
Chirons are easily killed with face shots. You can two shot them with shotguns to face early on.
If you need to kill bosses. A sniper/heavy with the level 7 heavy skill can “one shot” everything in the game.
so 6 man?
a priest.
2-3 shotguns.
2 sniper/heavies.
That is less then 6.
You can also add assault to your priest with the skill to give your team 1 ap a round.
There are also other ways. One is to have a high stealth guy run to the end boss and one shot them. They can run the mission alone too.
I used to have one heavy fly to the spawnery. But you are probably quicker running with your assault dash who has max will and speed.
Hope this makes sense and helps.
Yes some monster like the Siren, can function with out her head turn people etc, but shoot her arms and she dies;)
I see where your tactics comes from, but 2 bomb chirons will kill your team nontheless! So multiple starting of the mission is nevcessary until no bomb shiron or only one appears!
You should be able to run to them and kill them on turn 1.
Or just run to spawnery with dash assault/sniper and destroy it asap. Turn 1 if poss. You can usually guess where the spawnery is.
Tried using assault/sniper shotgun guys yet? They work well.
Also you can snipe the chirons with heavy/sniper if in range and level 7 heavy skill. That will also “one shot” them.
If you are really really struggling then just ignore the base for now.
Immersion and investment in your troops and tracking their triumphs and failures are so key. This is one thing that Xcom2 WOTC got very very right. PP can do this too with time and all the extra money from Epic. (Hopefully)