>>2350779
>What did JA2 do that nobody dares copy?
The boredom. All you do in this game is wait for your mercs to finish moving sectors, finish healing, finish repairing, finish taking a nap, finish training militia, finish backtracking. And when in combat you wait for enemies AND civilians and sometimes militia to finish screwing around and let you play. It's the kind of a game that falls between two niches: players who want to shoot stuff in the face, and those who'd rather play a proper management game.

>>2350779
Mars Tactics, I think Wasteland 3 does ballistic simulation

>>2350779
>What did JA2 do that nobody dares copy?
Bullets still hit things even if they miss the intended target. Every other game out there doesn't give a shit about even trying to simulate any kind of ballistics and any projectile that misses just vanishes into the ether. That means there's no point to volley or saturation fire of any kind and within a game designed like this every weapon turns into a high damage precision weapon, or is already inherently useless. And of course, action point and stat growth that portrays the development of the character, as opposed to a shitty two-action system that was so limiting, that most "perks" that existed aimed at circumventing it instead of working with it, or just sitting at spawn for 20 turns spamming overwatch ,because advancing is too costly and stealth doesn't really exist outside of a timed gimmick.

>>2350779
>meaningful suppression
afaik it's broken in vanilla and only been fixed in 1.13
>a punishing economy
never considered the economy in JA2 to be difficult, at least with the standard approach where you liberate mines

another thing: complete strategic freedom. there is only one objective that ends the game: death of Deidranna. you don't need to contact the rebels. or you can contact the rebels, go to their base, and wipe them all out and take their weapons.
you can skip taking over towns - there are just enough alternate means of earning money to financially sustain your operation without mines

>>2351089
>All you do in this game is wait for your mercs to finish moving sectors, finish healing, finish repairing, finish taking a nap, finish training militia, finish backtracking.
skill issue
if you put enough autism into workforce management you can have a machine that takes over the whole country in literally 2 weeks

>And when in combat you wait for enemies AND civilians and sometimes militia to finish screwing around and let you play.
militia implies you're defending a sector, which means you're waiting for enemies rather than advancing
so, again, skill issue - it's your own damn fault for playing passively

>>2351620
That's basically the gist of the issue. If it takes a specific breed of autism and highly optimized playstyle, it's no wonder the game isn't super popular with gamers and devs.

>>2351736
it's not a requirement, though. seen many people take slow approaches that you could even call 'lazy'
again, one of the game's strongest points is its strategic freedom, including pace

>>2351620
>afaik it's broken in vanilla
No it's not. Bullets flying your way and more than double on hitting you reduce your AP, accuracy and chance to interrupt. Vanilla also has the morale mechanics where if you, or they, see more enemies than friendlies suffer penalties depending on personality type. 1.13, HAM and the other forks just expanded on those mechanics or at least made them more transparent.