Also: night missions! Fog of war! Ammo+ button! Female soldiers! More detailed maps! New UI! All of this and more makes me want to play this game right now! I am very hyped
Yea those are really fine additions, but I was expecting them (except more detailed maps). I’m also hyped, but just as much as my age allows me to.
Now I understand why number of havens was decreased, when there is such detailed interaction with each of them. I think it is great change. Instead of hundreds meaningless havens just couble dozens of them being very important. Just wonder what is that production capacity. Maximum number of items which can be produced? Maximum number of units of dominant resources? Also cost for recruitment went quite high.
I wonder what is that “Standby” ability? You put soldier out from queue so game don’t return to him when you end turn with other soldier? Or maybe he is moved to end of queue? “Standby until further instructions” as text, when do don’t play the game, is quite mysterious.
Oh and quite important question for me. Will the storage still have unlimited range (really strange option but understandable for an easy difficulty mode) or we would be able to resupply only in base(s) and/or partly in dropship?
I think standby is known ability for movement stop at enemy sight, but I may be wrong
It is a nice touch to have such list of basic actions/abilities of our soldiers, btw.
My early feedback about BB5. I compared first screenshot from previous news “August Dev Upd” and “Backer Build 5” update. There under our soldier’s health bar was shown bar with action points left for that soldier (those not selected). In current update it is gone. I think that previous version was better. There we could see at glance if any soldier nearby has any AP left. With that recent visualisation we will need to cycle between soldiers or remember those values for each soldier. Or maybe it will be part of customizable UI and we will be able to turn showing it on and off?
In an attempt not to have too much clutter, some things get removed. The UI is still being worked on. You can see the AP remaining for the currently selected soldier below their health bar. For the rest of the squad, you can see remaining AP next to their class insignia in the bottom left.
It makes sense. A soldier being tired from a previous mission, his stamina will lower and coming next mission he won’t be able to use all his Time Units. Will you let him rest, or risk further stamina damage?
Probably not.
Why, for parallel research for our allies, you have a different research for Phoenix Project, and other for either NJ/Anu/Syn.
Perception is the only stat I don’t fully understand. Will it gave further line of sight to the soldiers, letting them see enemies other units can’t? Will it be more for night missions?
Isn’t it? The number of choices, either Trade, Recruit or Assault
Other notes: the new enemy does seem a little funky, seems like PV possessed a japanese giant crab, and then possessed Ultraman! We’ll have to see it in action.
I like the new color palettes, for crabmen, it gives them a more sea based look, and it takes away all that feeling of “this game is so brown!”. The scavenging missions in BB4 were so brown and bland that the game was hurting itself.
It is exact range for spotting enemies. Soldiers since Backers Build 3 have it set at 35 value. In BB4 it was additionally modified by skills (+25% and +100%) and armors (actually non of them modified it according to inventory stats). Those skills made Sniper perfect unit for spotting, which could see enemy all over the map (diagonal size of map is 68 and his perception was 70).
From what I see from screenshots Perception is still set at 35, but maybe daytime conditions will limit it and armor and skills will help to negate this effect.
I suppose that once one soldier spot an enemy then every other soldier can see and shoot that enemy.
I think not, that would give an huge advantage to the player: just by having a single high Perception soldier, you could even begin first turn spoting every single enemy in the area and planning accordingly. It makes more sense for that soldier to be the one seeing the enemy and when you change to other soldier you loose track. You can even give the Snipers something like a Mark Enemy ability: for 2 Willpower, the sniper will put a device in an enemy that will allow all squad to see it.
But there will be other conditions limiting that like time of day (supposedly), breaking line of sight, mist, and stealth factor, so probably sniper won’t see every enemy in first turn. You would need to have open field or put that soldier really high to spot over all terrain obstacles.
It makes sense, but it was like that since X-COM in 1994. You needed only one soldier to spot an enemy and then every other soldier could aim at that enemy (accuracy and obstacles were limiting factors there). Recent XCOMs had maximum firing range if I well remember (or was it only limiting overwatch fire?), but still every soldier could saw that enemy. Even if it would be like you say then every player will remember position of that enemy and will free aim in that place, so there is no point in hiding that enemy.
And of course Snapshot can decrease that range to 30 and skill bonus to just 40 or 45. Or to other values, so it can be case for balancing.
Base value of that statistic can be even dependant on game difficulty mode you have chosen. On easy you can see whole map, and on hard your soldiers can’t see a sh*t even during the day.
I’m wondering what those rocks in the base building screen are. Do we have to excavate before we can build on them? Can we just build but it takes more time? Can we just not build at all?
I’m also wondering about not being able to build a new vehicle bay (I don’t see the icon for it, at least) and I’m also curious about being able to build more access lifts. Historically speaking (old xcom games) our base would have an access life that was just… there. You couldn’t move it/remove it witohut mods at least. Will this new one serve a new function other than being an entry point for invading aliens, I wonder…
Also, on the first diplomacy screenshot we can see a red progress bar starting at 0% on the top right. This makes me guess that it is the “endgame” condition (the aliens win), much like the avatar project in firaxis’ xcom 2. I’m guessing that once we research the phoenix archives, we’ll learn about this doomsday clock?
I think we will excavate. Or maybe not? Maybe it will be natural limitation for base size? Unless Kevin will answer we will see on Tuesday 5.30 PM UTC.
We excavate. Rock formations will limit base formation, and will act as a natural defense mechanism against base assaults, since it will force alien forces to choke points.
That is, until said aliens learn to drill the rocks, thus circumventing the base defenses
I like this diablo-like enemy hp bar on the top of the screen (monster icon looks perfectly there as well). Looks better than just showing hp bar above every enemy.
If so then nice.