Editing XCOM (section)

==Xenonauts==
X-Com coded by [[Reasonable Marines]].

A faithful remake of the original, with time units and all that. Changes a few things (like lack of Psionics on your side) and re-adds vehicles (yes, blowing up half a building with a rocket jeep is awesome) and the first controllable dogfights since Apocalypse. Basically the alien invasion is during the Cold War and makes everyone shit themselves simultaneously when THOUSANDS of spaceships are openly in orbit and fucks humanity's shit up in creative ways. Every day the UFO's are left wandering, news bulletins full of terror and destruction emanate from the screen adding to the drama and suspense.

The ending is very creative, particularly concerning the plot of how an inferior species can imagine how to defeat a powerful empire. Stunningly well-made, desperate final mission which may result in a glorious ending, or a bittersweet ending where you still win but the assault team is martyred.

It seems the Alien Empire never had any rivals in history for *millions of years*, and basically a decentralized feudal shithole with a sickeningly decadent ruling class, the Praetorians leading mindless, slave soldiers with subliminal radio chips in their brains. To them, we are just another province to be absorbed: DNA to be assessed in a cat-and-mouse siege so the Praetorian can eat us, process us as another lobotomized slave troop class or added to their aristocracy's DNA, or all three. The immortal, amoral sons of bitches called Praetorians took every little advantage from races they conquered. The "Sectoids" called Caesans were meek and mild, peaceful researchers whom Praetorians conquered, killed and remade into docile, vat-grown slaves, stealing their telepathy. From reptilian Sebians, they stole their regeneration and even refined their genomes into medical immortality, and it all snowballed from there. So the Xenonaut Institute goes for the Achilles Heel. Which brings us to...

...hyperspace travel. The insufferable head scientist we got develops a mathematical equation, and constructs a gigantic jammer which blocks all attempts to enter space-time in a radius of 10000 lightyears, securing millenia of breathing room even if we are just one solar system. Flipping the switch freaks out the Praetorians who land to destroy Earth, and this is where the team starts an assassination run to the High Praetor, the leader of Sol System invasion. Rampaging across the luxurious cruise ship, you can zerg rush and kill him as he snorts space coke in his high garden, and die as hundreds of Reapers swarm upstairs from the ship's hold as martyrs. If you are feeling particularly crazy, divert your attention to blow up the to security locks in different corridors so you can escape after the High Praetor is dead, preferably not Reapers buttraping your team.

Maps are mostly pregenerated, not fully procedural.

Fewer weapon and ammo types. Seriously, you've got the big five (pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, sniper, and LMG) and a rocket launcher. No variant ammo types, although the weapons do have researchable types adapted from alien materials(which are simply damage-ups: Laser, Plasma, Railgun-Kinetic).<s> This means no unfairly powerful weapons like the Rape Launcher or the Stun Grenade Launcher.</s> There *are* a few super weapons but seriously, if you waste a "Singularity Generator" which is an ENTIRE CAPTURED BLACK HOLE (a hot commodity salvageable from alien battleships) for a 50 kilogram (without ammo) glorified grenade launcher that needs specialized armor to carry and doesn't even one shot its AoE, you are a fucking moron.

More basic inventory control. You don't micromanage producing and storing individual ammo, and you can have as many magazines, grenades, and med-kits as you want, limited by carrying limit. You just build the alien-based laser or plasma guns, base gives you ammo made fashioned from a melted-down alien cells. (Alenium is basically a quantum-grade battery aliens came up with. Usually it powers the alien craft, the player creatively salvages the spent ones into explosives because [[HFY]].)

Smaller team sizes. Max troop count on a mission is 12, with the best drop-ship.

Fewer oddball items, like the motion scanner or psi-ball, but there is now an assault shield, so your dudes don't immediately die when popping open a UFO. Said shield gets upgraded with Alien alloys, and even the final mission sees use of it. Trust me.

Rookies are better out of the gate, but are still shit compared to your colonels. Still, they have a decent chance of killing a simple enemy in a turn with a LMG, doubly so if carrying a missile launcher, no longer do operatives miss the broad side of a barn.  

Explosive weapons damage items, lowering the amount of money you receive from selling. This is for the best, because explosives are stupidly powerful and are probably the most reliable way of putting a fool down. Considering Reapers, the expy for Chyrssalids are even faster and crazier, you *are* going to need them.

Saveable, customizable loadouts for all of your troops, and obviously no engine-based limit on the amount of items you can bring into a mission.

Aliens don't really hide in corners or really hard to find spots, which makes flushing them out a lot easier. I said flushing out mind you, as they DO charge out and deal serious amounts of damage before going down, to say nothing of teleporting aliens that go burst fire in your face if they are lucky.

Troops remain vulnerable a lot longer. You are never at the point where you can float an invincible army of death-dealing demigods over a cowering cadre of snakemen, raining death and destruction down with maddened glee. Even if you do, weird aliens will teleport close and blow you out of the sky, or your flyer will fry a nerve from psionics.

Country relations are more important than after-mission loot. 

You can kick or pistol whip an enemy to death. Cue surrounding an annoying alien marksman and beating him to death with riot shields. It's not impossible to simply storm an earlier Alien base with shields-and-shock batons and simply rush for the Alien commander and beat his ass, sling him over your shoulder and escape to interrogate.

You can call airstrikes to cancel boring UFO raids.

No Psionics for Earthlings so there is no way to counter some of the aliens methods to dominate their enemies save for high morale and endurance.

===Xenonauts 2===
Now with 3D graphics!  A demo is available through GOG.com and Steam, with the release planned to be <s>later in 2017</s> <s>late 2018</s> <s>early 2019</s> <s>early 2020</s> 2021 at the earliest, now arriving in 2023. In closed beta early access as of June 2020, going public in February 2021.