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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Aircraft/boat/satellite Attack


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This has been on my mind for some time, what would the rest of the world be like? The Aircraft, the Boats, and the neutral Civilian stuff?

 

So I've heard, in an episode of the X-Files, a UFO docked with a passenger jet in the hope of getting to the people inside. However, jets took down the ufo, but the door was still open and the passenger jet crashed.

 

So, I was wondering, maybe there is some missions where a passenger jet is under attack by a UFO, or a boat may be assulted, or even, a Satellite in orbit which transmits vital signals is being blasted.

 

What do you think?

Edited by Chmmr
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well, boat attacks are not really new, they were there in XCom-TFTD.

 

A jet attacked in mid-air... uh... you would have to react REALLY fast to get to the jet, because it will of course still travel at normal speeds... and then you have three craft docked at each other in flight - now that's one heck of an aerodynamic problem :)

 

and the satellite in orbit wouldn't make much of a mission, the aliens shoot it and it's gone, what do you want to do about it? the only feasible thing in gameplay terms would probably be random alien destroying missions - a ufo appears somewhere, moves to a destination and shoots something. if you can stop it, you gain points, if it is successful, you lose points. the target could be in orbit, but that would be unfair in the early game, since none of your starting craft are capable of above-atmosphere flight. :P

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well, boat attacks are not really new, they were there in XCom-TFTD.

 

A jet attacked in mid-air... uh... you would have to react REALLY fast to get to the jet, because it will of course still travel at normal speeds... and then you have three craft docked at each other in flight - now that's one heck of an aerodynamic problem :)

 

3 Aircraft docked in a plane in flight LOL yes it will be crowded, maybe the Jets will act as bonus points? Governments will say "Theres nothing you could have done", but if you eventually gather technology, they will be more frowning saying "You have Xenium Reactors? Why didn't you help the passenger flight of Boeing 567!" you get what i'm saying :)

 

!! Idea:

 

Military Armies and Jets:

 

Early on in the game, Human militaries are on high alert for UFO's. As such, Military Jets corner UFO's down. This allows you to help you shoot UFO's down. Different types of Military jets will be there, such as in Europe, you have Typhoon interceptors/Harriers to help you out, while if your in Russia, you see MIG's. These craft however do not compare to your Interceptors (the ground breaking technology of all governments put together) but they will be worth their metal early on against the alien threat. Military Jets also escort passenger planes. Military Jets are armed with normal Human technologies.

 

Military Jets can range to the size of the country. If it's poor like India then it will barely launch any fighters at all. Russia, America and Europe however can launch many fighters. Usually the Fighters can travel far, but your Interceptors carry much more fuel than the Military Aircraft, as such, they can only travel a few km before having to re-fuel. They also move permanently at a normal speed.

 

Early on, these will be useful, but later on in the game, Military Aircraft will be swatted out like flies, imagine, America sends all of their fighters to stop a Battleship and they ALL get whooped (Remember what happened to our Interceptors in UFO? And those were cutting edge technology LOL). So, eventually you will have to take control, but still, they can still be fodder (not very good fodder) ;). So, when the aliens jump out on a passenger jet by going "Hello Boys!" and blasting the escorts and docking with the jet, that's when I think they'll call you out. Seems more like a Terror Mission though.. :)

 

Edit: What if the governments, when allied with the Aliens, turn on you with their military?

Edited by Chmmr
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It seems entirely possible that UFOs can sustain the weight of a plane without it flying. They can create gravity wells which could theoretically suck the sun inside. So they just dock and oppose the thrust of the airplane, which is when you come in.

 

 

so you mean they basically negate gravity around the plane, keep it hovering motionless in mid-air, and dock?

 

I see two problems with that:

 

1)why would UFOs do that? I mean it sure is cool, but they could just as well only shoot the plane down. fizz boom bang, no more plane.

 

2)what do you do before you have xenium power source-driven aircraft? okay, the skyranger-equivalent has VTOL capabilities, but it would be a bit risky to dock anyway, don't you think? the wind velocities at commercial flight altitudes are breathtaking.

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It seems entirely possible that UFOs can sustain the weight of a plane without it flying. They can create gravity wells which could theoretically suck the sun inside. So they just dock and oppose the thrust of the airplane, which is when you come in.

 

 

so you mean they basically negate gravity around the plane, keep it hovering motionless in mid-air, and dock?

 

I see two problems with that:

 

1)why would UFOs do that? I mean it sure is cool, but they could just as well only shoot the plane down. fizz boom bang, no more plane.

 

2)what do you do before you have xenium power source-driven aircraft? okay, the skyranger-equivalent has VTOL capabilities, but it would be a bit risky to dock anyway, don't you think? the wind velocities at commercial flight altitudes are breathtaking.

 

1) Terror. They could nuke a city, but instead, they deploy scary things into it to kill civs and try to get Xcom shut down.

 

2) As soon as the skyranger enters the gravity well, that's that sorted. Bear in mind the gravity well will apply to the centre of the alien craft, and the airliner is being sucked into that. Seeing as the skyranger is much smaller and lighter than the airliner, It will be sucked in too, but it can use its VTOL jets to maneuvre inside and dock.

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I don't think X-COM could muster the technology to board any ship at speed in Earth's atmosphere. In the vacuum of space however...Well, you don't have wind resistance to think about.

 

I can see the appeal to doing a map with a lot of civs, a few of your agents and some alien moles onboard. Now maybe UFOs can conduct these dockings to our jet planes, but if we can't, our only option with our planes, as painful as that is, is to blast 'em both in that situation.

 

Alternatively, maybe the only option open to being part of the jet flight is from some deep homework by our MiBs. With enough lead time, you might have time to get 3-4 agents in place as passengers. I can't imagine this type of mission would happen all that frequently, especially when there are several more you can do more about.

 

That said, I'd like to encounter these abductor UFOs with my Avenger in space. In a way its probably a good idea tactically, to let the UFO take the people, then you go after in hot pursuit (its made a whole lot easier if you can match or surpass said UFO's speed), catch them in space, then perform the rescue. This other alternative at least begins to make it something X-COM could actually manage (in terms of some civ survivals).

 

...

 

There's a lot of brainstorming going on in the other satelite thread, so I've nothing new to add to that yet.

 

...

 

But boats? Boats would rock depending on how it was implimented. It could probably go very much like how TFTD handled it, and in the context of the first game, it is technically a "surface mission" your regulars could handle. No Aquanauts required.

 

My only problem with aliens hitting boats is that X-COM "pre-TFTD tech" will need one of its own, or lease one from the military to do its boardings. A roving sea worthy X-COM carrier base might be fun to use, but even smaller destroyers would be fun.

 

However since most of our monetary assests would be tied to our land bases, financially they'd probably only operate out of one or two boats/nuclear subs while using other militaries as spotters. Perhaps even looking back at Dipstick's ideas about "delegating missions" in that thread may also have some bearing here (if their boats are closer than yours in that context).

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A large plane could not land on a cruise ship ever, there is absolutely no space for it to land. Also, the thrusters would light the ship on fire, and burn a hole through the top of it
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if your skyranger-equivalent can land in a city or in a jungle, it can land on a large boat. I don't see a problem there :)

If it's VTOL, and if there's a helipad. In other words, it probably could land on most military vessels, but I don't think many container ships, tankers, or cruise ships have helipads. ;)

 

edit: well, some super-de-luxe cruise ships might have them, but anyway: that's probably a minority

Edited by j'ordos
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Many of the larger ships have helipads for medical reasons, I think the same for tankers. As for burning holes, most of the X-COM guys would know how to open-air repel to a moving surface. Whatever craft was used could hover far enough above and load/unload troops that way. Alien craft use gravity, so no worries about awkward unloading.
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Quite right. Cruise ships need helipads (or at least large open areas that can be used as helipads in emergencies) in case they need to medevac passengers or crew.

 

Tankers often have the ability to at least handle helicopter activity if the helo has baskets aboard (as seen in some of the rooftop rescues in NO).

 

Container ships are a massive "maybe".

 

Anyhow, container ships and tanker ships have such a small crew that there'd be unlikely to be anyone to rescue.

 

Cruise ships would be the likely target.

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I hadn't thought of repelling from a troop ship above the cruise/tanker/military ship, but that's a great idea. If nothing else, at least its an excuse to see the action used depending on if the ship type didn't possess (or even if it did) a helipad. Good catch j'ordos and shwick.

 

Still, perhaps there's a reason a player might choose to use or lease other methods of transport to the ships/oil rigs in danger out at sea, such as stationing some agents to ride on nuclear subs or something for that possible eventuality, or some other boat transport. Also I suppose I like the notion, how ever tactically challenging of such ship or rig types as interceptor-only type bases...to quicken X-COMs deployment capability times a bit later on in the campaign.

 

Basically land, sea, air & space opportunities.

Edited by Snakeman
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The whole point about having massively expensive uber-planes is the fact that they can land on ANY TERRAIN. Otherwise they could just use what the current military have, chinooks etc.

 

Also, let's not forget the game is set in the future (a bit.) The default year is 1999, and the game was made in '93.

 

There's also the possibility that the cruise ships will be built differently in response to the alien threat. For instance, in the beginning, the UFOs will mince the ships, and Xcom won't have much of a chance. However, not being uber-stupid, shipyards will start to make ships which have landing pads for Xcom to kick donkey in the event of aliens.

 

Perhaps the aliens will raid container ships for supplies?

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Exactly, sort of like, why should aliens go through all the trouble of harvesting certain things themselves if we've sort of done some of the work for them. Container ships would seem to me to be choice targets for raw & semi-refined goods, then you've got the luxury cruise type ships for abductions/terror missions.
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  • 1 month later...

Why does the skyranger need to land??? Its a VTOL so the soldiers can repel, but also if your soldiers are equipped with flying suits then they can simply hover down onto the boat.

 

However the skyranger probably would not be able to stay hovering forever, mabye it could fly-off after three turns regardless of who or what is in the skyranger, while your skyranger is there it will have ropes leading down onto the ship (or possibly ladders, which is another thing which would be good in the game, but im not too sure if anyones posted that yet), also there could be a button so the skyranger returns to hover for three turns, you can use it to evacuate if aliens are whooping your butt, or simply to reinforce or get more equipment to go kill the aliens.

 

One question though, are the aliens which are going to attack the ships going to be UFO's or USO's??? If its a UFO, they might not take to kindly to your troop transport hovering above the ship and may attempt to shoot it down.

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  • 3 months later...

I don't see the worrys about a skyranger not being able to keep afloat long. I mean, they do have the fuel to fly around the world and back...

 

I like the ship idea.

 

Even passenger jets are a possibility. I mean, a skyranger can match the speed of a 747.

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