[Goatfoam]

Also, some notes on how the three main races (UAAC, Xenomorphs, and Yautja) will play. They will all have different styles of weaponry, defenses, movement point generation and power supplies, etc. so hopefully each one will be a completely different experience.

The UAAC will be the predominantly most "generic" play-wise, with a lot of the standard equipment types we see in the unmodded game. They'll be the most "Technologically Active" race, too, with plenty of research to keep them busy (some of which will only become available when they 'encounter' certain races -through use of ruins and events). The UAAC will probably make for the best "all-round" single-player experience, as they strive to update their technology to deal with new alien threats. There are also plans to include the Anglo-Japanese military, the French, the Russians and the Spanish Coalition once the five main races are sorted out - which will be the UAAC's main opponents.

The aliens will play very differently. Their main area of expertise will be Intel, with the ability to infiltrate colonies, impregnate the colonists, and then begin hiving the planet. Their ships will be quite specialised, since they have no technology to speak of, and tactics will consist mainly of boarding actions - the ships will be fairly damage-resistant to achieve these ends. They will also have the unique ability to completely enshroud their planets with pheromones and ultra-dense resins which will effectively render them invisible to most RADAR and conventional scanners. Diplomacy simply won't be an option with them, obviously, although once the Human Cultists are done, this will at least give them some support.

Predators will be the ultimate hunting machines. I'm toying with two ideas right now - either make them completely nomadic, or limit reproduction to such an extent that they'll never have a huge empire. Their ships, while small, will be powerful enough alone to take on several enemy vessels, with awesome weaponry, cloaking devices and even a form of shielding. Of course, their ship crews will be excellently trained too - both by shipboard and planetside facilities (Xenomorph 'farms', Alien Safari Parks, etc) and by the use of Intel missions.

Other general features of the mod will mean that glassing a planet will be very hard without ultra-high technology levels (which the elephant men will no doubt have access to once I start work on them), with a greater emphasis on ground combat. The concept is one of adding individual elements to each troop unit to increase hit points - grunts, sergeants, medics, etc. - and then adding weapons and equipment with various effects afterwards - pulse rifles, motion trackers, armor, etc.