Replayed the final mission with the 0.2 changes. Just from memory (so I'll miss osme changes for sure) - Full Auto change feels spot on - powerful but much tougher to use. I deliberately didn't use Puppet on a sectopod as that still feels to cheesy and grabbed a Heavy MEC earlier in the mission, so not sure if you made that harder or impossible. The new Sprint ability is great, better balanced than straight Sprinter.

Didn't get to try the new Marksman tree, but it looks interesting

The GTS skills appear to be right in line with vanilla although its hard to judge after hust a single mission. Packmaster may be a little strong, it'll be easier to judge in a full campaign rather than one mission.

I just ran out on the Avatar timer, so I failed my first Shadow Ops campaign. I mainly lost because I didn't expand into other regions early enough, so a lack of funds and lack of access to avatar facilities killed me, I had also mistakenly believed that researching alien encryption and building a shadow chamber removed an avatar point but it turns out I rushed construction of the shadow chamber for no reason, so it was more of a strategic defeat than many tactical defeats. But that's besides the point.

I was on Commander Bronze Man. I was playing Shadow Ops with Vanilla classes removed as recommended. I was also playing with a bunch of other mods, mostly UI/cosmetic mods but also minor mods that added new enemies and items, as well as Grimy's loot mod. I do plan on starting over with a new campaign with Shadow Ops and maybe fewer of those other mods, but here are my thoughts so far.

First off, REALLY fun to see these new and original perks, as well as the classic EU/EW perks brought back. The Dragoon is probably my new favorite class, and it's a great new take on your typical defensive class, as it removes the generic heal-bot party role and replaces it with a role that is more proactive with its defensive abilities. It forces you to think ahead, but it also balances in your favor since losing shield health will not put your soldiers in the med bay. I unfortunately didn't get my Marksman very far, but I found that Snapshot and Mark on the same soldier was a very versatile combo, using both on the same turn was good for small groups and for dealing with bullet sponges. The Dragoon's stealth protocol also synergized well with the Marksman's First Strike. The Combat Engineer's Breach ability is almost too good, as it made fighting against shieldbearers and Mutons almost trivial since it could shred and remove their cover, leaving another soldier to finish them off. You could probably nerf it by reducing its range. The infantry is nothing special, but I feel like maybe that's what it's meant to be. Besides the awesome bullet swarm ability, the infantry's use of the pistol is pretty good since when you have the magnum perk, it's a viable option when trying to fight in close quarters.

The only real "bug" I encountered was a combat engineer bug. It seemed that the Combat Engineer was able to launch non-smoke grenades without ending the turn as a first action, although that was definitely not the case earlier in my campaign, and I never picked Fast Ball as a perk for the engineers affected. That, and the lack of animations for gremlin actions and for Rifle Suppression which you are probably planning to fix sometime before the end of beta. There are a few other weird things, but I won't bother listing them here since I'm pretty sure they were a result of some other mods.

Overall, really enjoyed it, it didn't create as much of a challenge on the tactical layer as I expected it to, and could use a bit of nerfing, but I'll probably have more useful input after playing through with fewer additional mods included.

Thanks for all your feedback. I'm testing out balance for the next version now, and lowering the range on Breach does seem to make the ability more balanced while still being useful. I've been nerfing it in small steps because it's supposed to be the signature ability of the Sapper subclass - I want it to be powerful, just not overly powerful.

I'm glad you're finding the cross-subclass combos useful. The classes are designed to have a lot of synergy if you just take all the perks from one subclass, but also have some perks that are completely viable to take with either subclass.

Infantry is a bit weird because a lot of the power in the class is in the bonus ammo slot, so it can vary depending on what ammo you have equipped.

I fixed the Combat Engineer bug, thanks for the report. It was caused by the internal class tag rename.

For rifle suppression, I suggest installing Suppression animation fix for Rifles.

Renewal protocol does not remove panic. Is it not supposed to 'revive', I.e. remove mental effects? If not it probably should as you're a bit stuck otherwise.

I would really like breach to be more different to grenades somehow, much as barrage is (I really like barrage and i think the cooldown probably balances it). Not sure how without turning into reliable demolition. I'd still be up for removing the damage and reducing the cooldown by a turn. And with a rifle it could have longer range and very small radius.

To our earlier convo on rifles, one option could be to link the ghost's perk to SMGs instead of rifles. Maybe tweak the perk so less movement gain and maybe more crit. SMG could be locked to dragoons and upgrades made cheaper. And barrGe probably needs to be weaker with a rifle, otherwise cannons are just a sidegrade to rifles by mag weapons.

Also meant to add: not sure advanced nade launcher is great purchase for just 3 tiles of range. You could probably stand to nerf the basic launcher's radius and then advanced nade launcher could upgrade to the vanilla basic launcher radius.

I guess renewal protocol should remove mental effects, for consistency, yeah. Right now it only removes unconscious - so it will get a bleeding out soldier fully up and back into the action.

Breach's purpose really is to be reliable cover demolition. I don't like removing the damage because, even if it makes balance sense, it doesn't make physical sense for a shotgun shot that blows away all the walls to do no damage at all to units. Giving it a different effect for rifles is a neat thought.

SMGs aren't in vanilla so I'm not linking anything to them. Also, they count as rifles so they still give you the SMG effect. The purpose of the Dragoon perk is really to make rifles sort of SMG-like without needing the SMG mod.

The next version will change barrage to do less cover destruction when used with a rifle.

The advanced grenade launcher nerf really is meant to make it pretty useless as an upgrade. I think nerfing the vanilla launcher's radius would make Combat Engineers too weak.

Oh, BTW, I love the feedback I've gotten on Breach.

"Breach is too strong, reduce its radius and make it snap to the grid."
"Breach is still too strong, reduce its range."
"Now Breach is too much like a grenade."

Thanks xylth. I guess you have a taste of how Johnny Lump must have felt for 2 years. You get feedback but mostly from people who are not professional playtesters, have no experience of balancing themselves and are playing more than they're beta testing. So you have to try and figure out how much is valid for balance, fun and your own concept of the mod. So good luck!

On the grenade thing, perhaps one option could be to give the base launcher the full range and the advanced launcher the radius. Having grenades as long range cover destruction would distinguish it from breach a bit. But it wouldn't be able to strip cover from a whole pod (sometimes one, occasionally 2).

Just occurred to me that barrage is a bit like the plasma blaster. I haven't got that far, but hopefully the plasma blaster is still stronger so that it's not made obsolete.

Still really enjoying it, so thank you. I still haven't truly figured out how best to use shields, when to use renewal protocol, who to conceal with the ghost (and when) and so on. This is a good thing.

I might have run into a bit of a roadblock due to other mods (IESS+ plus ABA gives you infestation much earlier, putting 2 pods of 4 vanilla lids on each mission). So I'm going to have to heavily cheat my way through the next in-game month before I can come back to meaningful playtesting.

Heh, Breach is definitely one of those abilities that has to be powerful, but it's hard to say exactly how powerful. Is it possible to make Breach's blast radius smaller the further away from the soldier it is? Maybe that would be an interesting nerf.

I actually think Breach is in a fairly good place right now. It's very similar to a standard grenade, but since combat engineers get the radius boost from the grenade launcher, that's ok. Launched grenades have a larger radius and deal more damage to units, but less damage to cover; breach is more reliable at destroying cover and doesn't require limited-use inventory items, but is worse against units.

Possible bug (0.4c): fastball only seems to give a free action if it's activated at the start of a turn (e.g. like serial on a non-sniper through the AWC).

Crazy idea: I find I don't use smoke as often as I'd like. Main reason is melee units and particularly stun lancers. If I smoke my squad, the lancer will run in, probably still hit and then I'll have a smoked lancer in the middle of my squad. What if (stay with me), combat drugs also added a poison effect to the cloud? You'd have to test vs the AI but I don't think lancers will run into poison. But you won't get poisoned provided you have shields. So it would pair nicely with a paladin captain+. Problem is it could be used offensively, which might be OP, although it wouldn't apply any explosive damage so it would just be the status effect like an inferior flashbang.

I like sound of all the 0.5 changes.

So far I'm really enjoying the hunter class in particular and I think it's in a great place. That's not to say I don't like others; I just have to get further into the trees and get the hang of them more. Hunter class makes swords genuinely useful and a totally different option to the primary weapon (unlike ranger with shotgun). I've been using strict archetypes but I also feel there's plenty of scope for crossover. E.g. a marksman could use sprint, low profile and keen edge to become a hybrid, while retaining the core shoot/concealment perks. Or a tracker could lose the sword perks and take bullseye to become a flanking sniper specialist.

Now that grenades and Volatile Mix have been deservedly nerfed, I'm planning to un-nerf the Advanced Grenade Launcher, assuming it's not too ridiculous in playtesting.

Possible bug (pre-AH): the shield you get from shields up does not grant immunity to poison. I merrily strolled through my own gas grenade cloud and got poisoned.

I think it would be cool to release these classes as a stand-alone mod without any gameplay/balance tweaks. I'm sure that's already been suggested, but I wanted to express my support for that idea. :)

Are you willing to try something ambitious? Do you have any ideas for a revamped Psi Operative? I think there is a lot of potential there for altered abilities; for example, mind-controlling all enemies in a small area for a single turn, or inflicting damage in a radius around the soldier, or walking through walls as if the soldier had a Wraith suit. I think that would really set this mod far above many of the other mods on the Workshop. :) But as it is, your current classes are great!

The problem with not having the gameplay/balance tweaks is the classes don't really work as designed without them. I'll see if I can make more of it tweakable in the inis.

I do have ideas for a revamped Psi Operative. I'd like to make it a bit like XCOM 1 MECs: you take an existing soldier, put them in the psi lab, and get out a pre-leveled psi class with some of the abilities dependent on what class they started with. I've got some vague ideas but I've had trouble with the design skeleton.