The version for sale on the Epic Games Store is our Base Edition which does not include early access. Only the Platinum and Signature Editions available directly on our store include early access.
Is it updated or not? Uploaded or not? Can you make a sticky or something until you resolve this? now you have wildly different information on a few threads, not to mention the countdown timer…
Actually stop asking about build upload in the thread for feedback about the build content 
Stop posting about it here then! In any case, Epic is updating now so I guess it’s live.
Did they fix the enemy encounters, by chance? I have yet to play this, since I have university stuff going on, but the one, big, problem I had with BB4 was that enemy “pods(?)” would be pre-activated and would light you up, without you either running into them, or them stumbling upon you. Generally, you should first run into them, they move into cover or whatever, and then they will start shooting you and giving you the clamps.
I don’t know what are you talking about. BB4 didn’t have such thing as pods or enemies lighting you up. You could see them and they could see you if there was line of sight. There isn’t any activation or anything like that.
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It ain’t Firaxis XCOM, and there are no pods/activations.
In this build the enemies certainly do have to see you first before they start attacking. It makes some of the early missions much easier, I had one ambush where my dudes were surrounded by fishies (Tritons) and wormies (Fireworms), but I immediately killed the enemies closest to my position and retreated to the bottom of the map, and the enemies just kind of wandered around aimlessly because they never got close enough to my guys to be “alerted.”
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- I think that Haven Info option should not be available before we get to the site and explore it.
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Okay, that’s good to know. I actually played a bit of the new build and I have to say: it’s night and day better than the previous build. But that, generally, goes without saying.
And then onto my thoughts so far:
Though, there are some “polish” things that definitely need to be addressed. One is the Triton’s tentacles going all over the universe when you kill them. The other, is the environments. You’re just sort of floating in a cloudy sky-box and I’m sure that will be fixed in a later build by making it look like you’re in a desert, city, forest, etc. Also, the inclusion of weather would be a nice bit of polish or whenever the Pandorans are doing their equivalent of a terror strike the buildings would be on fire, somewhat, and you’d hear screaming and a lot of audio/visual flavor. Small, flavorful-things like that, but again, it’s just a backer build so I can forgive that.
I am really glad the difficulty was adjusted so I wouldn’t be immediately fighting Pandorans with machine guns, grenade launchers and being grossly outnumbered and outclassed. The inclusion of a tutorial was definitely much appreciated, because before I was just shooting from the hip and noticing that I could only move 4 spaces, because encumbrance was a thing. Lots of great things were fixed and adjusted, to which I’m grateful for in this recent build. The stamina mechanic is a great thing and I think it’s really cool. Also, I think it changes your characters disposition in combat as I noticed them saying much different things the longer I played. I also noticed that if someone keeps missing (looking at you heavy with the Helcat) they lose a lot of confidence in themselves.
Light Criticisms for posterity:
- Battle buildup. I feel like the game throws you into the meat of fights WAY too fast. Some maps where you are getting supplies there are dudes already in sight and ready to tear you a new one. Some maps I get a turn or two before I encounter anything, but the layout of the maps and their size doesn’t lend themselves much credence to some encounters.
- The environments. As mentioned earlier the areas look really nice initially, but I just wish there was more “oomph” to some of the areas. Again, the whole floating in a void thing doesn’t make feel as though I’m fighting in a dilapidate, rustic setting, but just some map. Though, I did notice in some of the YouTube videos on their channel some of the later areas don’t have this, so that’s good.
- The character animation. Whenever you use an ability that uses Willpower, you just sort of whack the air and then you did a thing. This, I don’t doubt, will be in the final version. Sort of funny, yet confusing when I first use War Cry or whatever.
- The character voices. This one I am gonna be a bit harsh on, since, my golly-gosh are these voices kind of… ehhhh… I know this is a backer build and a early version at that, but, man, do I hope there are multiple voice options in the final game, because wow are they… bad. I’m not gonna get into this too deep, but the inflection on their voices don’t make them sound entirely confident to do their jobs. Also, they all have the same voice, for their respective genders. So, not much variety.
Good things:
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New enemy, the Triton. Looks cool and I like their appearance. Good first enemy to deal with in the initial month of the game. Not sure how this game scales its enemies, if its monthly or weekly or whatever. But, good first enemy to be fighting. They can shoot, not very well as most their attempts whiffed, but they can shoot and more than once in a single turn if they didn’t move. Their grotesque and appropriately so and I think they’re a good addition. Better than playing BB4 and having to fight dudes with grenade launchers… immediately. And then my guns are destroyed and then caught with my pants down.
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Civilian AI. Nuff said. They no longer run around randomly and actively try to get away from dudes trying to kill them.
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Enemy hostility towards Civs. Again, nuff said. Before, in the previous build, they’d just get killed and there was nothing I could do, which was annoying and I nearly would pass a mission.
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New skills. Some of the new skills I actively prefer to the previous ones. The second class skills is a great thing, something I wish XCOM 2/Long War 2 did. Looking at Dash and getting, essentially, a free movement. Not sure if getting a free movement is a bug or not, since it says you can move at 50% of the action cost.
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Geoscape. Much more fleshed out and much more enjoyable to traverse than just clicking on things and not knowing what they did. Havens make a lot more sense and will make even more sense in the final version, hopefully. The mist is a nice thing to see, but I’m not sure if that’s meant to be the equivalent to the doom tracker or if it just makes Havens be under attack and the enemies being stronger.
I haven’t gotten much further than starting to attack the first alien “hive”, but I will post some more details much later on, when I get more time in the weekend. University, extra-curriculars and the like.
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The Unit barks are temporary and currently consist of placeholder lines from Simeon Dotkov, the sound designer, and someone else. They are currently in the process of getting more voice lines recorded by multiple people with more experience in voice acting.
The maps floating in gray space is a bit odd given that past builds had actual stuff around the outside of the maps
And yes, that is the doom tracker
As for Dash, your soldiers get up to 50% of their AP to spent on movement only, which is a heavily toned down version of the previos skill.
Only 2 complaints:
- Saves don’t work as intended. When I saw that nest mission will take too long, I turned off the game. When I started it again, and loaded the auto-save, it told me I won the mission and cleared the nest. Also, after that I could not save the game, until few missions after.
- When you use “ammo+”, it should first take the ammo from the base, and if it can’t, only than make more.
Saves don’t work in geoscape for me, only in missions
Have to say, this is brilliant, the game looks amazing. BUG: I have enemy crabmen regularly turning their backs against me which makes killing them rather easy. QUESTION: Is this the best place to report any further bugs or technical issues? STATEMENT: Game looks great.
Thanks for that. The vocals seemed a little… Placeholder.
If you encounter bugs in-game, hit F12 and you can send a bug report. It sends a screenshot and log information about what the game is doing directly to our QA team.
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If haven has Food Supply = 0 it means something? Do we need to trade food to them to help them out or we can’t do much to help them? Will it decrese their population?
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is there any advantage of having second Research Lab? Time of each research didn’t changed from what I can see. Or maybe it has changed but labels don’t update accordingly?
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Yes, I have seen it.
I am not 100% if I like it, especially with passive enemies like sentinels. It seems too easy not to activate them and then jump them when you are ready. I think it would be more interesting if they would start the mission activated.
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i like the blue smoke tho.
Its nice blue smoke, but it lingers forever. I go through loads of ammo and grenades against the fishis.