Please add an extra vehicle slot for aircrafts. That way you can flexibly choose if you want to bring a vehicle to a mission or a full complement of soldiers.
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I’m with you there. You should propose it on Canny: https://phoenixpoint.canny.io/feedback?sort=trending
That’s the best way to get ideas in front of the devs
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I’m not sure what you mean by extra vehicle slot? So we can bring 2 vehicles?
Then you tell that we can bring to the mission vehicle OR full complement of soldiers. Isn’t it already like that? You take many soldiers or vehicle and few soldiers.
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I have seen this idea being proposed before, and I agreed with the suggestion back then as the opportunity cost of fielding a vehicle was way too high back then. (as in a slot that could be used for vehicles exclusively, and personnel space could no longer be used to carry a vehicle, the result being that you could always field 1 vehicle, there was no opportunity cost) but that is 2 patches ago and they have been re-balanced in the last patch…well at least the mutog got buffed according to the notes.
while I’m pretty sure the opportunity cost is still to high at the moment, I’ll have to see if they are making changes into the right direction.
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Except in the early game, where a vehicle can sometimes be used to make up for the fact that you have an underpowered squad - especially against Sirens & Chirons - the opportunity cost is still too high, but only in terms of transportation IMO.
It takes 3 slots to transport and deploy a vehicle. Without mods, that means that if you want to field a reactive force in a plane fast enough to get from A-B before the Pandas have trashed the place, you are only fielding 3 Squaddies & a Vehicle.
If you load it onto an Anu transport, you can take that up to 5 Squaddies & a Vehicle, which can be a pretty powerful combo, but ain’t gonna get anywhere quickly enough to Defend a Haven against assault.
So having a Vehicle Only slot in which the vehicle is slung under the transport, leaving 5 or 6 spaces in the transport for the Squad would be the perfect solution.
What I mean is that the aircraft can transport 5-8 soldiers plus one vehicle. You can still deploy only 8 soldiers or 5 plus a vehicle (or two vehicle and 2 soldiers if you have two aircaft on site).
I think that this could help if it is a researched or purchased add-on later in the game. Vehicles are powerful early game, so you need to make a choice between taking a vehicle vs. leveling up potentially 3 more troops. Late game, vehicles really only help in ambush/rescue/scavenging missions, so it would be nice to have an extra vehicle slot in aircraft.
I don’t see the point of this. Original never had it and vehicles are godly for their cost. It’s NEVER a consideration “soldiers or vehicle” it’s always “bring a vehicle on nearly every aircraft with a weak squad, match the teams with the vehicle, and bring multiple aircraft if the mission calls for it”. Considering how easy it is to field multiple aircraft, I’d say work on fixing that portion of the game before once again making things even more mindless.
If you want just soldiers in a mission, bring two aircraft or swap out the vehicle. What’s difficult about that? Why must the game facilitate you never having to return to base?
That’s not true. That’s never a choice (or at least shouldn’t be) unless you’re somehow intentionally gimping yourself, or somehow unaware of the game’s existing mechanics. You can build at least 4 training facilities in a second or third base before the end of the second week. They’ll level all your soldiers not currently on an aircraft to level 7 pretty quickly. 4 is a minimum limit too, nothing stopping you from doing at least 6. If you’re rotating soldiers out, they’ll all hit level 7 by the end of the third week or somewhere in the 4th week maybe and you’ll never be using a non-level 7 soldier again.
If we’re considering that extra 5 SP per mission, that’s also very unnecessary and no one should need to put that much SP into any soldier. (This isn’t an opinion, this is just reality. I’ve been killing Scylla’s with level 1 soldiers and no armor)
The choice that does exist is if you want to use a vehicle with a specific squad (because the squad doesn’t have a lot of SP put into it/armor/weapons and is a rather weak squad cost-wise, and is being amped up by the presence of a vehicle.) Alternatively you can deck out squads with equipment, which is more costly, and field them into missions. You realistically should have both running and let the multiple aircraft compliment one another. That’s where the choices come from. Give everything a vehicle, and bye bye choices. Everything becomes more straightforward.
To be true in late game you don’t have such missions. 
Whole world should be explored by then, so there is only haven/base defence and alien base attacks (eventually if you won’t finish aliens [end game] too quickly you can witness war between factions so haven defence against other factions instead of Pandorans).
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that is cheating 
I agree, 8 slots (or 9 for a few missions) allow enough soldiers + vehicle if you use two aircrafts
I assume you’re joking, along with that emoji. 
… but it’s not cheating.
I just don’t think adding a vehicle slot to the aircraft would do much more than give us less choices of how to respond to things. Sometimes we don’t have the stamina (6 soldiers and a vehicle, split 3/3 on a mission-per-mission basis, resembling the way I do most missions now as-is, would double the stamina effectively), sometimes we’re doing it with less than maximum manpower (Helios, Manticore and Thunderbird are all under limits. requiring multiple aircraft for maximum support, despite being unnecessary most of the time), and sometimes certain missions are just not ideally done without a vehicle (so if we’re doing a full squad of soldiers, then some missions might need to be skipped and returned to later).
With a guaranteed vehicle on board, the only choice left is “Where do I fly next?”, which certainly makes it more like the new Xcom, but I argue that it takes away a unique charm that separates Phoenix Point from the rest. An aspect of this game that I like. When I first played, admittedly I thought it was weird that I was doing a mission 4/8… but once I realized that missions didn’t really need 8 soldiers, then it just became an added bonus for when possible/easy to do and perhaps more of something needed for specific missions only. A neat and added little feature that never existed in the genre before. It’s weird to me that people want this removed, too, while also not considering how it’d render some aspects of the game more simple and easier by effectively giving you more power on every mission when they’re not balanced for that kind of loadout.
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I know, it is not cheating but it looks like that. I have never stacked Training facilities, med bays or Living Quarters in one base.
You should try it. The devs deliberately chose to make them stack so you can do exactly that. A single med bay is super slow. You need to have response teams around the world to react to threats, so someone needs to train them up. Experience give you few skill points so you need to actually use them in missions to skill up. I think it works nicely.
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You know, the game is so broken that I never build med bays, you can heal on tactical using medkits, virophage kits and technicians,
experience is on tactical too, but I have 20 soldiers end of January and those operatives without an aircraft stay training in Phoenix Point base (the only one with TF)
Also SP pool is increased with succesful missions, exploring POI, completing LotA schemata missions, Bionic Fortress…
So far 0 problems completing all endings in Legend, along other self restrictions
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Dont know how everyone else vieuws it but if I can choose between a vehicle or 3 soldiers, id pick the 3 soldiers every single time.
As is, there is 0 reason for me to take them. The only vehicles I have I recovered as loot and I put in bases nearby Pandoran activity in the hopes that I get to use them in a defence at the very least.
Allowing youre planes to take their current loadout + a vehicle would at the very least make me consider taking them. Currently though I just dont even bother…
They are good for certain missions where speed and unlimited cargo may be important. And they are in powerful combination with technician.
Sure, if I would have that many soldiers with equipment to choose, I would also do that. But in my campaigns I prefer to build more teams (aircraft) with lesser soldiers instead of less teams with more soldiers per team.
Vehicles are just much cheaper + more HP as 3 soldiers and can help in almost any mission, though not as good as 3 high skilled soldiers.
Of course, it depends on play style. If you don’t bother about having as much teams as possible early on then vehicles are probably not really worth it. I thought the same for my first couple of campaigns but with some expirience realised that is more important to have as much independent teams as soon as possible instead of one team full of soldiers. A Manticore with one vehicle and 3 not highly trained soldiers can do almost any haven defence (maybe except extreme ones), are super for scavenging sites and also ambushed are not a problem and such an independent team is pretty cheap to build up and also IMO way stronger compared to a squad of 6 low level soldiers.
I almost end up with one Helios team with 5 highly levelled OP soldiers (my A team) and a couple of mixed low level teams with vehicles to cover what I think should be covered.
I generally ensure I have a team before I produce another manticore. If I want to send them out in the field I can swap out an excisting party for when they need to rest up abit.
They dont gain XP and their gear doesent change throughout the campaign. IF you can get them early on, sure they can be a usefull tool I suppose. But even then id still prefer flesh and blood party members over a vehicle if id have to choose.
My usually start:
- Fill the starting Manticore with recruits and, if necessary, build equipment for the recruits
- Build 2 Scarabs, if I find one on an early mission then only one
- Build a second fab (parallel, depends on resources)
- Build a second Manticore
After roughly two weeks I have 2 Manticores full loaded. So I can explore two times faster, roughly doubles the income from POIs and for difficult missions I can go with both to field a full team (5 soldiers and one vehicle).
Any other attempt to get two aircraft after two weeks without stealing or raiding havens for resources was not possible, because soldiers are much more expensive.
Then I go on and the third team is ready end January, early February. It takes a bit longer as possible because I usually go also for bases and building better equipment after I have the second team ready.
With raiding and stealing aircraft this goes even faster and I think I could have maybe two more full aircraft, each witch a vehicle, in the same time frame.
As I said, I concentrate more on flexibility with more aircraft instead of fill all of them with very expensive recruits. Vehicles are pretty cheap and even when they don’t have the firepower of 3 soldiers, they can tank pretty much for the same or even more and are also useful as a save driving bunker for my soldiers. Good enough for many missions or I join two of them for more difficult ones.
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