15 replies to this topic

[Otterboy]

Had this idea whilst talking about live aliens in another thread.

Currently there is little reason for keeping live aliens after you have researched them, in fact after you have the live type you dont need more live aliens except for rank.
It seems slighlty silly that you would turn down the oppurtunity to comprehensively study an alien organsim especially when it is trying to attck your world.

So i thought of some modifications to the alien research methods found in xcom.
Alien autopsies would be the same and require simply [alien containment] and a [laboratory] as before hand.

The [alien containment] would also have facilities for keeping live aliens, these would be little more than cells or holding tubes with enviroments. Whilst this would provide some research potential it would prvide little data about behavouir, advanced studies of locomotion or anything that required space.

So these limited facilites would provide only limited research on live aliens, biochemical data and more advanced autopsy style information.

Then there would be new facility, the secure alien habitat, using previuos information and perhaps communication this facilty provides much more space and a more natural enviroment for the study and observation of aliens, the more intelligent ones could even be interorgated in such a facility.
This would provide much more information, especially behavoural and real life applications of knowledge rather than acedemic extraporlations, for example the discovery of [chrysallid] tracking mechanism so that crawling means the chrysallid cannot detect you and so cannot attack (could this be in game? Seems like a cool idea)

Perhaps later there can be a upgrade, with alien entertainment research and mindprobes it would be possible to trick aliens into thinking they were in a different situatin and use the mind probe to sense their actions allowing for advanced behavourial studies, such research would take a while but could provide an insight into the working of the alien AI thorugh the use of research in game reinforcing player observations.

And all this means live aliens have a continuing purpose. The possobilites for extra atmosphere and fluff research is extensive and the possobilities for more advanced bio technologies and alien understanding is also there for new techs later.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

We could provide a damage bonus against an alien type throughly researched in that way. After all, you could discover that that grey really dislikes being hit in the arm (damage bonus results from soldiers targeting a grey's arms)

[Otterboy]

Aye stuff like that would work well, how else would you know that greys dont like being hurt in the arm if you didnt experiment of live aliens to find out? Y
ou would need several aliens as some might die and it would take a while to find such stuff out, hence an observation and research style habitat as opposed to a place to hold them.

[_borg]

Well... an autopsy might reveal that the alien has more nerves (or whatever) connected to it's arms than anywhere else. Or perhaps it could have vital organs in it's arms? And then the scientists could just make a wild guess that the creatures arms are the most vulnerable spot.

[mikker]

Well... an autopsy might reveal that the alien has more nerves (or whatever) connected to it's arms than anywhere else. Or perhaps it could have vital organs in it's arms? And then the scientists could just make a wild guess that the creatures arms are the most vulnerable spot.

...Cloaks are most vulnorable in the brainz?

"and nothing else matters" ~ Nickleback

[cd12]

First of all every live alien captured would/should die of starvation before alien food is researched, this would be logical.

Some of the aliens (or all) could be suicidal, there could be a sort of implant in them or simply their "will" (wich they don't really have, for the main brain on Cydonia controls them). So, let's say they simply die after a period of time, a week or something.

I personally like the idea of "controlled alien habitat" and doing a research on them, but the problems is what to do with too much aliens?

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Sell them to McDonalds. Or use them for target practice.

[A_dxman]

This is a brilliant idea! It could add so much to the technology tree and could make this game one of the spookiest games around.
Aliens should starve after a few days if the player hasn’t discovered their food.
The extras aliens could be fed to the live ones to demoralise them or even just as a quick way to get rid of the bodies, after all they have no problem with dissolving human bodies and eating the goo.

Maybe as more ‘fluff research’ is conducted the player can gain useful knowledge that is not necessarily needed to finish the game. After say, 3 fluff branches on the tech tree, you could discover something REALLY useful, like I way to trigger an inbuilt ‘self destruct’ with psi powers or a way to use viral agents to cull them at their bases.
Even better is the other idea that maybe humans can not replicate plasma technology and that we can only salvage it of the bodies of the aliens. So what if, after several ‘fluff technologies’ you discover a way to make human weapons more like the alien technology.

All after V1.0

Does this make sense to anyone but me?

BTW

I personally like the idea of "controlled alien habitat" and doing a research on them

This is a totaly kewl idea!!!!!

[Cpl. Facehugger]

How about we learn how to enhance level 1 human tech with alien technology after interrogating aliens? Like, an alien engineer tells us how to make an electromagnetic rail system for the standard rifle.

[Jonnyboy182]

Thats a great idea, getting add ons to human weapons that make them better

[dipstick]

RAIL GUN! *sir, as the sniper in this group I feel it is my duty to test out the latest rail laser rifle*

*go on then, have a go, see if you can hit that sect.......GOOD JOB soldier*

This would be a good idea for mods and suchlike, but could prove very time consuming and hard to balance. Would it be easter egg like, or essential? Maybe more required the harder the level, so on beginner you would not need anything, but by the SH level you would be desperate.

another thought, maybe you need X live Y race? eg for advanced biochemical analysis of sectoids, you would need to obtain 5 live sectoids of any rank, and for advanced tactical analysis you would need 5 sectoid navigators. That sort of thing. This info would be available to the player, so an additional column would be needed - special materials. As the aliens would be dying quickly, you are able to start a project with less than the number of required aliens, but any project requiring solely dead aliens would need ALL the bodies before starting, just to make things more interesting.

How about that then?

[mikker]

offtopic, i think that the sniper abilities should be lowered. A 100 accurecy soldier can hit as easily with a rail gun as with a sniper riffle. I think that the weapons themselves can set a max. ammount of accurecy.

[rjpeers]

How bout throwing in the idea that if were keeping live aliens for advanced research, what happens during a base defense? Maybe in a base defense the Aliens discover (or have already discovered) your keeping a Grey Commander that they're trying to get back. Possibly sending an Alien on a suicide run thru your base to find your Containment lab and break out the other Aliens....Now you really got a mess on your hands.

[kashyyk]

Possibly sending an Alien on a suicide run thru your base to find your Containment lab and break out the other Aliens

this would meen your half way through researching commander 2 only find him dead at the end of base defence.

i dont like it.

[Blood Angel]

Possibly sending an Alien on a suicide run thru your base to find your Containment lab and break out the other Aliens

this would meen your half way through researching commander 2 only find him dead at the end of base defence.

i dont like it.

More incentive not to let the /b/tards through then isn't it?

Also, I like the idea that some aliens, without their psionic bosses controlling them, would revert to a feral state. Just a thought.

[GARAK]

Does it make sense to need 5 corpses to obtain what little information is given in the xnet entry? It's not like your discovering the aliens entire history or anything, just basic biology, some origins theory, and strengths and weaknesses.

Also, the aliens are clones right, so all the ones of a particular class are programmed with the same knowledge. Interrogating 10 of them wouldn't give you any more than one.