I think that the bullets should be pale blue or orange, the vibrant red kinda makes them look strange. Like magic or lasers or something. I liked the way they were in the first game.

For what it's worth, I'm really loving the art used for the windows and doors. It really works with the art style, which is leaps and bounds ahead of FS1 already. I do feel that MGs are too expensive as they are currently. For the sake of game balance it makes sense to have them harder to get than more CQB-focused classes, but they do feel that they're too generic to warrant that kind of price when minelayers are cheaper. I could see how you can explain it in-lore though, considering they're lugging around support weapons with surprising control. Maybe my appraisal of it is because most of the time I've seen SMGs and pistols in these videos they've been losing; they've been visibly more effective, so I may have to play the game in order to 'feel' the change, as it were.

The ui on bottom right of combat (clear plans layer, prev next unit) is fine as is. small enough and to the point, you know what each button does. Can't wait for final release, absolutely loving the beta and all the new changes from fs1.

I am unbelievably hype for this game. Loved the single player campaign of the first one, I couldn't put it down.

Going to be writing this out as I watch the video For missions like the one around 15:30 with random unit placement, maybe consider giving both sides a single turn where units are invisible and unable to shoot in order to re-position without losing the randomness. Something of a battle fog as the lot loads in all the new arrivals. Whether or not enemies also get a move during this stage might have to be tested, though. You have a button set up to clear all plans on a unit, could you add a button to also reset everything for them? Such as aiming, ignore orders, and the like? Just a quick "resume default behavior" button. At around 39:00 when you were positioning units I noticed that the lights from the area were casting shadows behind the cover that you deployed behind. You mentioned earlier that you couldn't light up the areas where units were allowed to be deployed due to various constraints, but you might be able to get close to that effect by making each enemy unit a light source during deployment, so that at least the shadows would show enemy line of sight, and since the interiors of building are obvious, you could get pretty close to a visual representation of the deployment area, barring other restrictions. With regards to getting better mercenaries types to cycle through, (I'm assuming that all factions draw mercenaries from the same pool) you could perhaps have each mercenary, when clicked on, have them provide some short, randomly-generated resume to convince you to hire them (if individual troop stats are planning to be implemented, this would be a good place to list is, otherwise, it'd still be amusing to see people providing different resumes when they're all essentially identical) and then give you, and other factions, the ability to state that you have no interest in hiring them, which might give slight cost cuts to other factions and, primarily, speed up how quickly they get pushed off the roster and replaced by someone more valuable. It'd still be random, but if idiots with pistols start flooding the roster, you could tell them to get lost, and it would reduce the odds of more pistols coming in. 45:43 I get that those lights are a bug, but I wouldn't mind that being a loading screen, I thought that looked awesome.

Another thing I didn't write about situational placement; I remember from FS1 that Tactics would take over from lower-level tacticians when situations became too difficult; maybe having units already firing at anyone they can see the moment the mission starts would help? Maybe even already having a plan set up, though that's not really possible at this point, heh.

It's almost certainly been thought of/considered, but, for what it's worth: Maybe, for the random unit distribution (raider mission) you could either make it so you can still move them within a radius of their initial position, or just force your units to spawn within a certain distance of each other/one or two other units. Both would allow you to maintain the situational positioning, while giving the player some measure of control over the matter and set up some more defensive positions. Definitely interested by the strategy layer/meta-game and how that plays out over the long-term.

For the raids, erhaphs ypu could choose if your units have a 'safe' starting position or a 'risky' starting position, so you can ensure your expensive units dont get destroyed quick but still be a raid

Looking good, really looking forward to it. Played the first one for so many hours lol

Contract at 14:38 and fairness of starting in line of sight in a gunfight and possibility of losing units. With the map generation and character placement can you add a line of sight algorithm so that you maintain the "instant action" aspect but its a fraction of a second before the set up we see. EG: people will be just out of view, or behind a wall / object or facing away from targets. Keep the scattered character placement (as sides feels more uniform and less chaotic) but give a "grace moment" on start up to eliminate death and loss that is unavoidable. Just a thought.

12:17 The communication from Virgil is using the default player name rather than the one that was entered.

Quick thought about the income system: perhaps it should be called a budget rather than being just income, what with not being able to save excess money for later. I think it'd make more sense, and fit into the whole thing about the player being some sort of a municipal bureau.

8:43 It feels like it should be a win for the pistol guy at the hallway. At least if AI did point him at the door in time. Text on buttons is fine. In fact, I remember myself struggling to deal with icons in classic XCOM and old RTSes a lot when I was a kid (before I grew experienced and switched to hotkeys). Also, while we are at it: FS1's old simplistic unit icons don't match the new ones. I don't mind either style, it just has to be consistent.

The locked down windows look like a laser fence.

It would be a lot better to have the unit selection disambiguation UI be a kind of a pop-up hovering on top of the units that are overlapping. If it's off in the corner like that many players might miss it.

I'm mildly interested in the strategic meta-game, but I'd love to see more improvements to the tactical gameplay. Can we get some more high-level players to test the game & make suggestions? Here's some feedback I have based on playing FS1: + Better *LoS testing* (light source from FS Prime?). Also, proper LoS testing when ducked behind cover. + How do *zones* currently work? Can we at least move, resize & delete them now before committing a turn? + How do we disambiguate between two *stacked opponent units when giving focus/ignore orders?* + *More accurate ghosts* in dark mode. (If a unit was last seen ducking 3sec ago, we should be able to simulate the ghost to start out standing without incurring the stand order penalty at the start of the simulation.) + *Glitchy intermediate waypoint generation* around corners/windows should be fixed (I even saw this in one of these dev updates so I know it's not just my computer). + *More transparency* about engagement rules / TTK penalties. An old version of FS1 apparently had icons next to units showing what bonuses/penalties they have (e.g. duck/stand penalty, which lasts some time after the order is executed, and can accumulate if spammed - something that's not obvious). This might be a good way to teach the fundamentals to new players. + *Saving unfinished plans* automatically in the background. (Ideally supporting multiple versions and copy/duplicate in case you want to try something totally different, then change your mind and want to go with your original plan.) + Undo/redo. + Finer *timeline controls* (often you want to see what happens just at the end of a simulation, but it can be difficult to pause it at the right moment, before it automatically resets to the beginning of the turn). Ideally being able to scrub, or at least step back/forward by a single time unit. + Sensible *keyboard shortcuts* (having to use two hands to press fn+backspace to delete orders on laptops is not). Also, a reliable keyboard shortcut to reset the simulation is needed (pressing E did this in FS1, but only as long as a unit was selected - if the selected unit died during the simulation, the hotkey didn't work). + More *replay features:* viewing opponent plans, dark mode vision toggles for either player, speed options (0.25x, 0.5x, 2x, etc), zones only appearing in the turns when they were originally created and not from the very start of the replay, smoother follow-camera motion (when an isolated unit dies, slowly zoom in over the next 2-3 seconds - when a fast unit like a shotgunner moves outward, start zooming out 2-3 seconds before this happens - just to make the motion overall less jerky), more spacing between units and screen edges (all action should appear closer together on the screen). Uninterrupted playback with follow-cam turned OFF (in FS1 it stops after each turn in the replay). + The ability to click a button on a replay that copies a link like "frozen-synapse://server/replay/123456" to your clipboard. People with FS installed on their systems would be able to click the link to open the game and load up that replay. + I hope *DESYNCS* will be completely eliminated. This bug single-handedly made me stop playing FS1 as it occurred regularly and it feels like a kick in the balls. We have cool new mechanics like the aiming diamond, moving shot, new units, but a lot of the original core mechanics seem largely untouched, and I think FS2 should be better in relation to that. I can't think of anything besides the new wait order UI.

Some questions and suggestions: - What are relics? Is this a supernatural element, or just a "tech-magic" thing? Sorry if this was answered earlier, I haven't been keeping up with all these videos. - Random placement: seems annoying to lose units to bad placement if they're going to be persistent. Maybe define spawn zones for player units and prohibit enemies from spawning there? Don't know how well that would work with randomly generated levels if those exist. The placement of opposing groups mingled together like that is weird anyway. How would the entrance have happened to get it that way? Your guys all fall through the ceiling? - Overlap menu bottom right: does this work for plan points too? Selecting the right one was sometimes a bit of a bitch in FS1. - Bottom right UI: Maybe small icons beside the text? Like up/down for the layers, < and > for prev and next unit, a (muted?) red X for clear plans. Not sure what the green bit between prev and next unit is btw. - Obscured parts of the level look like you could fall through into the void - it just looks like a place you can't go. Maybe lift the blue shimmer effect to the ceiling of that area? Or just have some mild moving fog there. Differentiate it from how the outside of the level looks somehow. - I think the random pause was because your unit and a blue one walked into each other.

Now that I have played the game (~10hr) I realize several changes from the first game that I dislike (though some may be there for good reason). 1. The layer system should be something you can turn off (preferably via hotkey like alt+click is select closest node/more like Frozen Synapse 1). It's often the case that the nodes are what you're clicking at and they're not layered themselves yet you need to engage with that system. It's possible it's something you get used to but. Either way there's plenty of moments where you've got two layers of hidden nodes and you can click neither because neither is the selected layer. That's a bit unnecessary. I would have preferred if the system was more like the unit disambiguation when you click them you get the numbered list (numbers representing the order of nodes, because usually when you've got overlapping paths you know which one in the order you'd like to select). I'm not saying you should only have that. Disambiguating the paths (lines, I don't know the terminology) still requires the layer system as far as I can see. I think most of these suggestions move the system towards more intuitive use while not obstructing the very structured use you've developed (well done). 2. Right click always references the selected node. That's not how it was in FS1 and it's very jarring. I understand that the issue with selection in the past was that there wasn't a good way of opening the order menu where you needed to be precise. But now that you've solved the overlapping problems I don't see the need for a system that forces left clicks before rightclicks. I'm sure I'l get used to this but it's a pain in the ass and it's counter to most UI users face. You don't rightclick a cell in a spreadsheet program and expect it to apply to the current cell. Same with window based folder navigation, browsers etc. 3. Undo button. It's needed. This is a game where you plan out something and you wish to explore other options. You might make clumsy mistakes in editing that leaves you unsure of the current state of the plan (imagine selecting the wrong node and pressing delete). A 'save plan' button would be incredibly helpful aswell. Right now I'm always hesitant to change something because I know I'm not guaranteed to recover completely and every second I spend on a plan is time potentially wasted. I think exploring options should be encouraged as much as possible. 4. Color blindness options. I've got moderate protan and none of the colorblindness options fit. The default leaves me confused as to green vs yellow and the best among the options (#1) just barely lets me distinguish the two colors bottom right (I have to focus and there might not even be a difference). I'm convinced that #3 is just 3 solid blocks and #2 is only distinguishing on the left side, but I live with the uncertainty of course. I think making this option parametric for each of the potential colors is way more helpful. And the fact that you've got this system already makes me think it's not that complicated to make it parametric. Even just having out of game configuration files for each of the colors would be great. I'll try to post this in a better place as well (steam forums?), if I find it.

Maybe use the architectural marking for doors and windows.

The game looks fantastic, I think its going on the right direction. The only thing I really don't like is the situational distribution, my suggestion is keep those type of mission really optional, I really don't have to do if I don't like it. Making spawn half/half of the zone would be perfect!

For losing people too quickly, you could have the characters in-game "happen" to be nice to you and gift you some resources if you get wiped out too quickly On the mission complete screen the friendly units lost have a green icon and enemy units have a red one, so it looks like losing friendly units was good and killing enemy units was bad...

At 18:35 the enemy unit dies at the very end of the turn, and the mission kinda ends with them still standing in their death animation and there even being a bullet in the air. Can you make turns like this play out all the animations etc. for a bit of "quiet time" after the battle? I think it'd look a lot better and feel slightly more satisfying.

I am not sure I like that second layered unit staying dark after they are no longer standing on top of each other, I will lose people all the time watching replays Also wow is the flamethrower the fastest killer in the game?

Don't change regeneration, just have your team spawn on one half of the zone and the raiders on the other. It makes it feel like you wound up in a gunfight. I would suggest that you have a option to talk them down, or just to come in guns blazing. If you try to talk them down, you should have a random option that the talking works, and they leave and you get the money for free, but if they do not accept the offer, then just spawn a situation. If you lose a unit, it was because you decided to talk, rather than to go in guns blazing. Side spawns makes sense, as your all just kinda standing around talking them down. If your boosting the cost of units, only to boost the cost of your economy, that doesn't make sense. I would suggest that you keep the economy on the least common possible. I like the alley fight. Sonata really thought that one through. The unit selection UI would depend upon the icons used. When you cut the SMG at 31:00 it was missing the UI picture for the character. I would suggest that the income from the other faction for the relic should be higher than the income you get from the relic. That way you can "sell" the relic for some quick cash. Maybe you should have a rating for what kind of mercs you get from the mission. Could you invest into other factions, so that when they grow, your money grows?

Overall the game's looking good, but here's what I noticed. >The prices are pretty unbalanced. Prices unbalanced, a flamethrower is way more dangerous than an assault rifle so it's weird to see it so cheap. Maybe adjust more or change the amount of money the player gets >UI definitely needs more streamlining; mission summary screen could just be numbers insted of a list of enemies. >Also, notifications can get annoying since its alotta just clicking X after you know whats up. Maybe just one notification for the tutorial then you can have a yellow (!) on the mercenaries screen that says it all?

Why are there features that you can't implement?

I don't think that the door/windows should be red, red is usually associated with enemies/failure, it should have more neutral color, very light shades of blue or even white come to mind... When you're talking about some feature that "can't be done" (as in moving the map while dragging the character), it would be good to state some reason, you don't have to go into much detail, but just saying "moving the map while dragging the character can't be done" is super weird.

I have to say that that I am a little disappointed by the implementation of the open city format. I love fs1 and the strategic planing and therefore I love the combat situations. But what fun element do I get from the open-city? I still like the general concept and it is the natural step after frozen synapse 1. But gathering "relics"...? Come on, this is admittedly the worst motivation to do missions. It is like "we need an open-city format - but what we do in it?" rather than "we have a great idea about the focus of the game - for this we need an open-city". I still hope that it turns out great.

The frequency of the incursions and, and the lengthy process of getting your soldiers back seems really unforgiving and overwhelming. Combined with how expensive new troops are and how little money you make, it looks like it would be really easy to get totally screwed in the early game and have to restart.

Still just wanting SPACE BAR to be able to trigger the outcome phase. Stop making me put my tea back down. I want to sip my Earl Grey while I watch my genius/the total disaster I have created unfold before me without interruption!

I dont understand this implementation of flamethrowers at all. The way they work right now, how is it different than a shotgun (outside the fringe case of people running into your overwatch faster than you can cycle your gun). The whole point of flamethrowers is that it counters cover, which these don't. These aren't flamethrowers they're more like radiation guns. How flamethrowers should work is you aim them at a door or a window and it goes through and then around the corners. They're supposed to be bunker busters. Not whatever this is. Your guys can't even seem to sweep the arc.

you type very fast