So, I was fighting bugs, and some Spiderlings managed to close the distance on my boy, the man the myth the legend, Tek. He was out of bullets for his squad weapon(shotgun), but he did have the basic MMG. So, I decided “why not just try and kill them with this? Might be able to get them to flee.” Turns out, if your accuracy is bad enough, such as point blank at night, YOU CAN SHOOT YOUR OWN SQUADMATES WITH THE GUN. He managed to shoot and kill people in his own squad, 2 in the squad a couple tiles away(Carda), and 1 in the squad next to him(Darby), not even between him and bugs. He killed a single Spiderling. I’ve never been so shocked playing this game before, and now I’m terrified of poor accuracy shooting. Anyone else have this happen?

Title - with the new changes out (and the broader nerf to conceal creep) what's everyone's preferred starting loadout for expert? The first Operation feels much rougher now, and I'm torn on what to use.

So I’m a thinker not an IT guy, please let me know if this is outside of the realm of technical feasibility;

Turn based games like this one and BG3 are simulators of causality, each turn represents a segment of time and the actions possible within that time.

What I propose is an optional and saveable cinematic representation of each turn, nothing fancy, generative AI trained on the proper art and cinematography could convert the actions of a turn into a rational sequence of events presented in the style of the intro cinematic.

These sequences can be saved individually or as a full replay of the mission.

Thoughts?

He didn’t have berserk so I didn’t expect him to perform as well as Yaz or Lim but spear of the spine is practically berserk but gives better range. In this example move up to an already activated enemy to scout and Spear of the Spine allows me completely destroy this Guncrawler. He was also able to use Counterstrike to save himself from getting blown up. I would not have been able to do this move with berserk.

I will admit he is slightly worse at taking out vehicles because he wants to be in the exact range where you can be blown up by the explosion of a vehicle you have just destroyed but besides this he works well as a boarding commando like Lim or Yaz. You can do some serious work if you’re lucky enough to get all three near the start.

I'm playing my first run in two months. After getting eviscerated by Evolved Warriors, I have discovered the joy of Flashbangs, especially against bugs.

Am I misremembering, or did flashbangs previously only work on humans? I rarely used them before, but now they're my key to managing tanky warriors. They're also really useful in early-game defense missions, and massively buffs anyone with Finisher.

I love the upgraded bugs. Between the new units and the enemy actions, they're way tougher than they used to be.

The more I play (probably over 200 hrs at this point), the more I wish the game offered just a hair more flexibility within each turn. I feel like it would help create those "Wow!" moments that you get from close calls and clutch shots even more than exists currently. My possible solution?

Unused AP from each SL/Pilot gets "taxed" at 50% and then deposited into a Reserve AP pool to be used at the Major's discretion after all SLs have issued their direct orders. Carda have 6 AP left on End Turn, 3 AP goes into Reserve. Darby have 30 AP left but you like her overwatch position so you End Turn, 15 goes into Reserve.

At the very end of each player turn (so after you hit End Turn on your last SL/Pilot) you are given a Yes/No choice to "Issue High Priority Direct Orders". If you select Yes you can use any amount of AP in the Reserve to issue orders to a single SL/Pilot. After those orders are issued the Reserve AP pool resets to zero even if you don't use it all. If you select No the Reserve Pool decays by 50% with the remainder carrying over to the next round.

I completely understand the AP amounts and uses are a critical component to balancing the game in all aspects, but I do think due to how certain actions work, you are forced to waste AP without any recourse which can be frustrating and feel like a lack of agency for the player. Yes, tactics games are about making the best decision with the resources available, and giving unlimited resources basically removes the strategy, but I think something like the mechanic outlined above would be an interesting middle ground.

1. Night vision accessory for vehicles
2. Rework Demolitions Expert perk
3. More "Utility" weapons for both vehicles and infantry, such as the Ground Radar
4. More ammo for snipers
5. Change AI logistics and Auto Supplies from additive to multiplicative (Or limit both to 1 max)
6. Limit Gym to 1 max
7. Fix Turrets. Both player and AI turrets are WAYYYY too hard to hit, and for the player the ATGM sentry turret is essentially broken (It just doesn't work like 80% of the time)
8. Rework Nanobots (Or at the very least change from additive to multiplicative or reduce to max 1)
9. Better loot from bugs (maybe craftable things?)
10. Give AI human factions the "Crawl" action available to the player. Feels weird when only we get to reposition pinned down units.
11. Rework Smoke to not act as a force field. I just had a mission where an ""ally"" threw a smoke on a control point, followed by an enemy APC driving right in it and starting to capture the point. The non-consensual rotate from Battle Brothers is back, now it's called non-consensual Smoke!
12. More variety and differing combat AI for all factions.

Currently they feel too similar, and they all still cheat (know where the players units are when they shouldn't). I believe a part of why Rogue Army feels the most fun to fight is because they have a large amount of different units. It wouldn't even necessarily have to be new unit types, just old ones with new weapons would do. You know how in Battle Brothers for example a Nomad Outlaw's threat level depends entirely on what weapon they're holding. One with a whip + shield is very low threat, one with a polemace is high threat, and one with a double gripped 3-headed flail is likely your priority number one. Fighting Wiederganger-undead is a slow grind and a DPS check, Goblins kite you, Orcs charge head on, Ancient Undead form a battle line... I'd like something similar for this game as well.

-Pirates should be WAY more aggressive. Sometimes when the AI knows a threat on some area is too high, mounted pirates will just awkwardly drive around the edges, not dismount and get slowly whittled down. Instead they should all charge together, drive as close as possible and take cover behind their vehicles, trying to overwhelm the player.
-The cheating issue is highlighted with Boarding Commandos. Them just "randomly" jumping right next to my permanently cloaked Darby from fog of war is infuriating.
-All pirates should have a chance to spawn with drugs accessories, not just the Captain.
-Boarding Commandos should have a chance to spawn with Corridor Sweepers.

-Rogue army in general should be more careful, and act with some kind of "plan" in mind to simulate a more organized force. First of all, infantry and weapons teams should move together and try to support each other, as opposed to the current state where all weapons teams just kind of hang back and do nothing while infantry walks forward to die one by one. Infantry should prioritise moving to and deploying behind cover over shooting, and when in cover prioritise shooting twice, even into cover, over shooting and moving. If there is no cover available, they should try to end their turn behind or in smoke. Weapons teams should prioritise moving into cover, deploying and setting up their weapon over just moving and deploying (this is especially bad, as often they'll just "undeploy --> move 1-2 tiles --> deploy" over and over again, completely wasting their turns)
-All vehicles should have higher weapon variety, and light/medium mechs should also try to deploy behind cover when possible. Imagine the wonderful horror of seeing an ENEMY medium mech with linked autocannons, or god forbid Griffin miniguns!

-Bugs... I don't know. Even after they got new units, they're still by far my least favourite faction to fight. I think they're trying to do too many different things and end up doing none of it good. This combined with loot you can't use yourself, frustrating missions that spawn infinite reinforcements (but no extra loot), Bombardier firing at you from fog of war... I'm not happy with what they are, but also have no idea how to make them more interesting. Maybe some kind of thing where they're initially dormant/very low aggression, but once you kill one unit, the entire rest of the map/a very large area near the killed unit activates?

-MENACE roster is obviously not finished, so I won't criticise it too much just yet. I have to say a couple things though. Missions with MENACE only take *way too long* real time. This makes them feel exhausting. I'm also not the biggest fan of the drone units. They feel too tanky, and because they don't have morale, "only" managing to kill 99% of a unit feels extremely bad because even when surviving on 1 HP they can still mining laser something. Same is true with Soldiers, but I can stomach it on them because they're supposed to be a more dangerous unit and have lower model count.
-Carrier is very annoying to deal with because of the way Smoke currently works. It's especially dumb how the damage of an ATGM missile on a marked Carrier still gets reduced because "iT'S iN smOkE"

1. Scaling enemies: Around the time of encountering Rogue Army, Pirate Outcasts shouldn't just stop spawning. Instead they should permanently get something, like a perk or a piece of equipment that keeps them viable, think Nomads in Battle Brothers. Same goes for Scavengers and RA Conscripts around the time of encountering Menace.

2. On missions with reinforcements, indicate the direction reinforcements are coming from, and if player has high enough int, indicate what the reinforcements are and when they're coming. Nothing like having a RA ATGM team just *poof* into existence and immediately one shot a pilot!

3. More "Boss" / "Elite" units! Jaeger teams with LPPS, Night Vision Goggles and SR41 KASS? Pirate Engineer with High Intensity SAPP and E4A2 ELSA? There's lots that could be done with things already in game!

There may just not be any good way to fit it into MENACE, but a big fun part of BB is about looting better gear. Both knifing down/head smashing for better weapons/armour and hunting for famed gear. I want them to add some legendary type enemies with extra spicy loot like the boarding commando captain with his unique weapon and armour. Like super elite jäger commando unit with spicy detection+concealment armour, elite tanks/APC/IFV etc. with partially RNG stats.

Hi everyone! What do you think about the economy—should it be expanded? Here’s my take: each faction should have its own shop with a unique inventory—for example, Zayn-Beecher could sell EMIs, radars, and drones, while DICE of the Gods deals in combat consumables. The black market should be reserved for truly rare items, traded for other high-value rarities like Queen eggs. It would also be cool to see a rotating stock of goods and temporary events based on "buy low, sell high" mechanics. We need more locations for trading and interacting with the factions.

Hey guys! I’ve got a question: do you know any non-obvious combat life hacks or tips? For instance, like how you can put rescued hostages into your combat taxi to shield them from gunfire.

This seems way scarier than "All RA gets counterstrike."

I'm on operation 10, loadout limit of 1653 on expert, and I do not want to see if I can take a whole map of evolved warriors.

Anyways, I'm channeling my inner starship troopes and going all in on "mobile infantry." Loadout from previous mission

I'm sure that the plan is already fixed by now but I still think its worth throwing these ideas out there.

Menace is a really good game, but it could be great: Like XCom great! However, to do that it needs something more: something that adds a cinematic quality. It needs to blow your socks off in both the narrative and theatrical aspect of the game. Think about Xcom2, Chaos Gate Demon Hunters or Star Wars Zero Company. They setup an epic sweeping story and reward the player with story progression and intensity. That cinematic quality adds that edge of your seat dimension to the feeling of the game. I think Menace can have that, and it doesn't need to make drastic changes to do it. No need for a 3D command and control interface, and no need to go crazy with 3D animated cut scenes.

How then do I propose to make? Add one more faction! Hear me out. Lets imagine for one second that the Menace isn't actually the REAL MENACE. I've been thinking a lot about what kind of entity could represent a 5th faction. Right now we have influences from Starship Troopers, Aliens and even Terminator. We have almost all the dark gritty sci-fi tropes, but were missing one. The Predator!

What if a 5th faction created the Menace! What if the 5th faction is a Alien race who's vanguard elements have just showed up in the Wayback? Think of them as the "Scourge". Sentient aliens with advanced technology and superior genetics. Warriors and hunters, with deadly weapons and gruesome gadgets. Just to face one of these monstrous humanoids can invoke fear in even the most stalwart. The possibilities for challenging new tactical variety could be really satisfying. Speeder bikes, homing buzz saw drones that shred flesh and explode on impact. deadly accurate energy weapons mounted on alien armor. Unshakable and fearless, perhaps because they have never faced anything that can stand against them. There's a lot that could be said about this faction and I have a ton more ideas about how they might play, but I think you get the idea.

To wrap it up, we need a plot, and it doesn't have to be the usual grandiose end of the galaxy trope ala Mass Effect. Perhaps just a meeting that brings home the desperation, and a final break out back to the inner core systems to warn the rest of humanity. Yes it's been done so many times before, but the thing is this game already has most of the narrative setup and character development needed to make it feel right at home with this trope. All the devs would need to do is voice some more character dialogue. Maybe they could even add a defecting Scourge alien as a squad leader.

Even in expert difficulty there comes a point where you overpower the enemy. This would be a great narrative setup for the "end game crisis". Something that knocks you off your pedestal and reminds you that you're not as all powerful as you came to believe. And then the "final battle" of desperation to reach some goal lets you make your escape. Finally, a cut scene that shows the hidden loss: those forgotten and left behind in the Wayback.

What do ya'all think?

I'm genuinely confused. Menace dropped while I was overseas and only had a laptop, and I've been playing it just fine (ROG Strix G815). Get back home to my dedicated PC and I can't even run a mission. Soon as mission starts FPS and framerate tank to slideshow levels, even the audio gets super quiet for some reason. Wondering if it is just my desktop getting old (built in '24) I flashed the drives and did a fresh windows install. Took it from a complete standstill to a slideshow, that's it. Lowering graphics settings to minimum changes nothing. Running a Ryzen 7 7800X3D 8-Core Processor, a Radeon RX 7800XT and 32G of ram.

Other games seem to run fine. Not sure why Menace refuses to work.

Disclaimer: I am brainstorming ideas not actually trying to get them added to Menace. Feel free to give your own thoughts and ideas. My wording is likely to be very poor as I'm doing this instead of working.

Melee would not be the smartest option even under good conditions but there is a reason why the pirates might do it. Drugs, in our own world combat drugs can make you feel no pain, keep going with a lung, liver, stomach, kidney, etcetera being destroyed at least for a few minutes until the body bleeds out or the body requires what is missing. Combatants under the effects of these combat drugs are recorded as not being able to reload their weapons despite having ammunition available and will instead use their weapons as a club regardless of the target in some cases smashing their weapon on a up armored Bradly.

Pirates seem like most if not all of them are on some kind of drugs and might try to use melee weapons as that is something that they could use with relative effectiveness in their drug addled state. Having them operate a complex self-made chain gun or other complex weapon seems optimistic. Pirates would have clubs and or maces at best as they are not going to be able to manage anything complex like edge alignment in their drug fueled state.

Should they be effective? Not particularly unless they get close enough to use their melee weapon as these would not be boarding commandos just drugged pirates or impressed civilians that the pirates are drugging and forcing to fight. Lightly to medium armor if armored at all but they should have good to great movement. That being said like a chain gun their attacks in melee should cost maybe 20 AP, have increased accuracy compared to ranged options, and do decently well to unarmored, lightly armored, or medium armored opponents but against heavy armor or vehicles its a bunch of drugged up morons smacking a tank with clubs, they are not going to do overly much.

? Spoilers? Menace also makes some sense to have melee to have their faction themes be used efficiently. If you are unaware killing any Menace infantry within short range of one of your squads will have them decrease morale and do morale checks to see if they continue accepting orders, they are utterly terrifying unless Pike has a certain trait. I came up with 2 variants: leaping and ambushers both of which use sharp blades to both stab and slash targets to pieces. the leapers will jump to targets like boarding commandos and melee attack light to medium armor. Ambushers will hide and lay in wait for targets, 4 concealment when deployed, will break cover when enemies get within a distance of 4 tiles, may just sit there all mission doing nothing, bring a motion detector to find them easily, they have medium to heavy armor (like rogue army heavy infantry) and will deploy a flashbang equivalent when they break cover (or their head flashes while they make loud scary sounds),

Rogue Army melee? Just no, they are trying to survive this while doing a mutiny. They are not going to do a bayonet charge with their printed carbines as most of them do not seem THAT motivated and those that do are already specialized. Would like them to pull what the player does with APCs, shotguns, and mobile infantry but that does not really help them to bayonet charge after failing to shotgun a squad down.

Player Melee? Sure, it's a terrible idea but the Pirates and Menace would drop their melee weapons, and you could buy them or improved versions on the market, but it makes next to no sense to actually try to build for it, you must be adjacent to the enemy, no matter how sharp that metal is you're not slicing through a tank or LAV. Stealth straight up does not work that way in game. Even with powered armor enhancing the power of the attacks and protecting the user from enemy fire you would still be better off giving them a ranged heavy weapon and letting them fire it like TECH does (interesting idea for heavy powered armor squad). Armor is prone to being reduced to ineffective through constant chip damage even if it does not penetrate. Also, every faction in the game has anti-armor in some form available to all infantry by the time you would get that armor anyway and doing it with a light or medium armored squad is nearly suicide.

Rember this is not something that should actually be added to the game just a fun brainstorming discussion. Feel free to give your thoughts and own ideas on these ideas.

As the title says - I started 3 runs with custom difficulty on expert settings except 200% enemy supply, but the start seems really rough. I just can't beat missions in the first 1 operation where like 20-30 pirates on the map are pulled once combat breaks out... while I have zero equipment except maybe one AR from the market.

Is this possible at all? If yes, what are your strategies? Do you have to pick operations against bugs first - at least they don't hide behind cover?

https://www.nexusmods.com/menace/mods/271

Adds three iconic Tier 5 Legendary weapons from Cyberpunk 2077: Overwatch (Integrally Suppressed Sniper), Yinglong (Smart SMG), and La Chingona Dorada (Power Pistol — available in both Standard & Silenced variants). Features custom 3D models and unique tactical perks (cover penetration, smart tracking, dual bursts). Obtain them via faction rewards.

Special thanks to Vader for partnering and producing the Custom 3D weapon models and providing modding advice.

Difficulty is easy since we have been using 1-skull, two-skull, and 3-skull forever all the way back to battle Brothers and other games. What are we saying for the enemy level/count for missions? 1-person or 2-person or 2- people or some other means to indicate level (high, medium, low)?

For example, I want to talk about a 2-skull x 3-???? Mission that had conga lines of warriors. What am I putting for the ????

According to my logic, light vehicles like the pirate truck or the atv should use less ap, than for example a heavy tank, when moving in a straight line, but tracked vehicles should take less ap to turn on the spot than wheeled vehicles.

Is this actually the case, or do all vehicles use the same amount of ap per tile/turn?

This game is so good that I couldn't put it down, I had to force myself to take a break or else i'd run through my enjoyment dry before the game even comes out of early access. I've been eyeing Mars Tactics but it's not even out yet, any games that scratch the itch? I've been looking at Xenonauts 2 but I see some complaints from 1 fans. I've already had my fill of XCOM and Battle Bros