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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Nanotechnology & Genetic Modification ...


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1) Well, it was mentioned in this thread about endings being influenced by the "moral" choice of genetics and mostly discussed here, so it seemed most logical to carry the logical conclusion in the thread it originated in, sorry. ^-^

2) Most of the world's shopping centers have no problem delivering to them, so that may need work.

3) In a Muslim country? Yes. Playing in the realm of god like that would be akin to asking for a Jihad or two. In a Christian country? Famed for it, and for exactly the same reason. The current leadership of the USA would be a good example of someone opposed to the stuff. Most humanitarian groups worldwide? Still yes.

There's a huge difference between what people accept and otherwise when they're not the ones on the front line, history is full of things that people call atrocities and wouldn't accept. Nazi Germany's racial scapegoating and termination, the United States' double nuclear strike against civilian targets.... They worked, but they are far from universally accepted as "good" or "necessary". And given the extremities of the biological horrors one can imagine resulting from the darkest applications of genetic modification, who might governments think is more of a menace?

4) Which are you referring to exactly; do you mean technologically unfeasible, in game terms?

If that's the case, then no problem. The more extreme versions were simply suggestions for things down the path to the aliens' own biological meddling.
Most of the lesser modifications, such as nerve rewiring, humans with better than 20/20 vision, controlled hormonal output and the other first tier all retain a certain level of current technology even without alien input.
For something such as armour skin-grafts, implanted ovipostors or floater life support balls, I intentionally meant them as heading towards the more extreme variants heading towards what the aliens did. And the grey eyes for mutants, because mutants rock.

5) This is where I'd disagree. This is far from two elite armies facing one another down. One is the traditional human elite army indeed, but the other is far from it. An army of clones, gifted with powers for psionic domination, terrifying biological warmachines such as Spawns and Raptors, heck, all the non-machine terrorists are biologically designed war machines, so are Satyrians and Morlocks. Even greys are genetically engineered.
The only two species that have even an inkling of not being artificial are Ethereals and Snakemen, one of which is a physical wreck that survives solely on psionics alone. This does not lend itself to the theory of similar forces given that one of those forces alone already uses five species that have already been genetically engineered.
Oh yeah, and the one with all the genetically engineered weapons is essentially innumerable cannon fodder. It does actually sound a bit like starship troopers. =p


However, something I'm more concerned with you didn't even touch upon, namely game balance, given the first tier genetic mutations, scattered between aliens to get a little diversity, used to give your own soldiers just a little bit of an edge against that. More important than whether something is technologically feasible or not is how it might effect the game, even if the technology names need to be changed, the way it functions can simply be transferred to something that fits flavourfully but lacks any particular plan to it. Every idea can be reworked to incorporate some or all of those features in different guises.
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1) Yeah I did reread the entire thread and see that. EIther way no biggie, just a reminder to everyone cause we all get carried away sometimes.

2) I always assumed there was some really complicated system of delivery involving MiBs and the like. There are not any packages marked XCORP(I hope). If there are, humanity is kinda screwed.

3) I certainly think most governments(even Muslim theocracies, although that is a good discussion for jurists everywhere) would die at the hands of genetically modified humans rather than aliens. Ever heard the phrase, "no one hits my little brother but me". Also, some of them might be greedy for the technology themselves. If the public ever found out about XCORP and the conflict, humanity would be screwed.

4) LIke I said above, when I get around to it I will write up the terran and alien mod lists. Some of those applications are really 'alien only'. also, I kinda liked my list, but that is personal preferance.

5) I guess its Starship troopers in the 'hordes of genetically modified aliens' sense. My original point was to say that I want a game where the aliens are 'superhuman' and we are just trying to use our home field advantage to catch up. Think like XCORP vs. Predator league.
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I generally like the idea, but opinions please.

First, Do we want genetic/biomechanic manipulation.
I would like to have some advanced costly ubersoldiers whose charachteristics i can directly affect. Instead of standardized faceless cannon fodder. Not too overwhelming, as heavy plasma kills you just as dead anyway and well-equipped rookies can do the job too. Just with greater casualties.

Second, Is it feasible.
Some minor modifications like those listed "light" above are already mostly available. With alien autopsies the mechanical parts would be quite simple. Advanced biotech, as implementing engineered retroviruses would need a lot of effort though.

Third, How does it fit into game.
To this i have nothing technical to add. Balancing issues and exact descriptions come later(much later). I would like to have larger increase in training potential, however.

As you are referring to ethics of war, there are none. Every way that human can be killed, has been tried out and made a weapon. And every thing that has looked effective on drawing board has been build. And every thing built that has worked, has been used. In human history i cannot remember a single potential weapons technology that had not been built(not all ICBM versions used yet, luckily), even though from crossbow times most advanced weapons have always been referred inhumane.

IMO secrecy would not be an issue. Single reporter is easy to silence, or disappear if need be. And who would believe him, anyway. Poor kid has just watched too much X-Files. Governments would always know and might approve, or not and cut funding, but great public would always be in the dark.
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That's one of the things I wanted with my suggestions. Even though they're better than the average soldier, they still die to single plasma shots, and there is always going to be technology that can achieve something similar or better somewhere on the horizon.

The reporter thing seems to have been taken a tad seriously, so I think it would probably be best to step back and just leave it at "meeting the public", any human contact with such individuals, it's primarily just a balance tweak regardless.

Since alien incursions are common knowledge to the average citizen (they can't really be convinced en masse that all those laser shooting disks are weather ballons and.... so were those black scorpion things that invaded London last week), it doesn't seem too unlikely that a vague public knowledge of something like X-Corps existing is far behind, if nothing else to prevent global panic.

However, just how far does this "willingness to win" go? If a general in any military was prone to calling in airstrikes that obliterated his own forces as well as the enemy's, then it's not as likely people will "appreciate" that he's doing well against the enemy as much as that he's killing off the home team. Whether something is "moral" or otherwise is less important than how others will react to it.

As to opinions: Of course I want G.M. soldiers, how else would I play god quite so readily? :devillaugh:


In terms of feasibility, yes, all light modifications could probably be achieved with even base human technology within the next decade or two, barring "psi" enhancements, which don't techincally exist, which is a slight problem.
Technologies involving medium and extreme would more comfortably sit within alien specific technology, but hey, this is X-Corps. Engineers regularly construct hyper complex weapons, ships and devices that cheerfully defy gravity even though scientists only researched them last week, scientists can come up with brand new hybrid technologies by researching only the alien power source and a lump of alien metal.
Given this, why does it seem so unlikely that a similar mimickry could occur in other scientific fields?


As to how it fits, the increased training potential (I'm glad SOMEONE likes that) and extra little "tweaks" I feel could add a lot of potential strategy to the game that [i]isn't[/i] already covered by other technologies, as well as a potential to add some variety to both alien forces (chitin armoured chameleon Muton with twin bioclaws and a psi-wall upgrade versus "oh, that Muton has a heavy plasma, how unusual") and make your army of fully maxed out soldiers actually have differences between them rather than all share the exact same stats, equipment and armour.
'Sides, how many other ideas reward people for not overtraining your soldiers? :P
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  • 6 months later...

PROBLEM:

 

1) Research of autopsies and some other alien items was useless to an experienced player.

 

2) Soldier death's in the lategame:

I play superhuman, no save/reload abuse (excepting bugs).

Soldier deaths happen even to veterans and they hurt.

In the lategame, when you lose veterans, the rookies who will replace them will take ages to be a par.

Too much, in my opinion.

 

SOLUTION:

 

*** NEURAL PROGRAMING ***

 

Xcom learns eventually learns how to give mission experiences to rookies (ie they download memories of previous missions).

 

GAME TRANSLATION:

 

After researching any 4 alien autopsies + alien surgery + PSI lab, NEURAL PROGRAMMING becomes researchable.

 

NEURAL PROGRAMMING causes the following game effects:

 

Any newly recruited rookies will be granted experience (ie- given free 'hit' counter increases) equal to 1 grenade throw, 2 shots, 1 reaction shot.

 

These free gains will be visible as stat gains on his stat screen (ie- it will be possible to still see his originally rolled stats).

 

Any currently hired soldiers who have less than those 4 hit counters will also be given free increases to that level.

 

Soldiers with MORE than the prescribed free level gain nothing (ie- they gain nothing by the memory playbacks in the lab).

 

 

----------------

 

The way I have defined the research,

 

1) Makes some useless research items useful

 

2) Makes lategame soldier deaths more tolerable as the new rookies will have xp equal to about 4 missions.

 

3) Makes NO difference to players who save/reload (never accept soldier death).

 

4) Hopefully wont offend any of you who like purely human soldiers because, technically, the soldier remains un-implanted.

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My needlessly glib opinion:

 

Within 10 years, it's quite probable that people will begin modifying the human genome on a grander scale. It's also quite probable that careless genetic modification will cause horrible genetic defects in some fetuses, resulting in a ban on genetic modification.

 

It's not guaranteed, of course, but still fairly likely. For that reason, I say that it should be normal human beings fighting those aliens. With cyberware, nanoware, bioware, and other junk muddying the waters, it dehumanises them and makes you feel their losses in a financial way only.

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It's not guaranteed, of course, but still fairly likely. For that reason, I say that it should be normal human beings fighting those aliens. With cyberware, nanoware, bioware, and other junk muddying the waters, it dehumanises them and makes you feel their losses in a financial way only.

 

Maybe you feel their losses in a financial way, but I felt a pang whenever Paul Denton went down for the count in Deus Ex. Besides, shouldn't we want Xenocide players to decide whether they consider the use of GM and other mods ethical? It is great ethical decisions such as this that have made for great gaming moments and in general add to the atmosphere and openness of a game. You decide what the war on aliens should look like. That is the players role, to fight a war and decide at what costs it must be won.

 

Also, the aliens have been experimenting with human modification and cross breeding. If you managed to steal their research(maybe from a base you captured), it would allow you get close to working it out in your soldiers, should you choose that this is an acceptable measure to win.

 

Also, I liked someone's suggestion earlier of having mods that were not true alterations for those with ethical objections. Now its up to the player whether this war is just about power or also purity and freedom of evolution.

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You know something, we never saw the results of the reproduction research done into the aliens cloning until Apocolypse. Yet in the original game it touched on that then. I tend to think that it is this point that could be expoited the most in terms of attempting to mass enough of an army for the long haul so to speak.

 

Not so much so the genetic engineering on the micro level of different attributes thing. Perhaps the point of such an endeavour could be that you'd use it to syphon off loyal soldiers into other allied armies/groups that would then help to influence in some small way, their actions behind the scenes. I'm not speaking of infiltration here, though that is only one very small aspect to all of this.

 

I'm talking about how things could be effected in a more general way in terms of how battles are waged that your not directly apart of. We've discussed this before with regards to selling arms and filling manufacturing requests for various groups/reasons. This would extend that general notion to manpower and to a smaller degree in this department, influencing outcomes (as would your market influences with liquidating items).

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In regards to what the players consider ethical:

 

Players will do what they need to win the game. If players are at a considerable disadvantage without bioware/neuroware/cyberware, they'll use it, and only consider avoiding its use after they've finished the game already and no longer care about a high score.

 

You can never expect someone to add roleplaying elements to a strategy game unless those roleplaying elements are presented with actual in-game mechanics... if using engineered soldiers, for instance, perhaps certain nations would cut funding or refuse funding altogether (I could see Canada and Germany immediately withdrawing funding, for instance), some soldiers would be ethically opposed to the act and quit, etc.

 

Once again, I'm copping out and suggesting that a large amount of development time be saved by not implementing a feature.

 

Of course, post v1... I guess people can add in whatever they like to the codebase, as long as it can be conditionally compiled out. ;-)

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You cannot design game features for the lowest common denominator among an audience. If 50% of gamers always play to win, we cannot stop them. So what if they wait till they have won a couple times to decide to role-play? Guessing from the popularity of play challenge modes, this is no concern at all.

 

Also, how would nations know what exactly you were doing? There could be rumors and such, but if XCORPS supposed to be secret, then having government auditors destroys that pretty quick. Even if the general public doesn't know, alien infiltrators will pick up on it quickly. I always assumed the money went into a hole where XCORPS hand was waiting.

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The governments must have a fairly intimate knowledge of X-Corps activities -- for one, no government agency would ever consider paying money into a hole unless the results were at least marginally tangible (i.e., we can see the base being constructed and have periodic checkups on their progress).

 

For another, the governments don't simply rely upon "a UFO crashed!" to signify X-Corps activity: there are any number of factors, including the intervention of the government's own soldiers, which could result in a UFO crashing.

 

And, finally, there's the fact that the government would need to be informed (and have tangible proof) whenever X-Corps shot down a UFO over their territory... they can't just trust word-of-mouth. (Otherwise: "Hey, United States? Yeah, I shot down two battleships over your territory yesterday. Please increase my funding. *grin*") =)

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If they had intimate knowledge of anything near a base than the aliens would find every base within two weeks. Also, you would be suprised what goes on with government contracts. I could easily see something as insignificant as a few million dollars being ignored. Sure they would trust some paperwork, although what they saw on radar and reports from UFO watchers would probably suffice. In my opinion they would not care until funding was at least 10 figures.
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Maybe you feel their losses in a financial way, but I felt a pang whenever Paul Denton went down for the count in Deus Ex.

Same here, but then I stayed and fought with him on the next playthrough. If you die in the 'Ton or go out the front door, he lives. If you go out the window, he dies. That's one of the buggy parts of the game.

 

 

It's not guaranteed, of course, but still fairly likely. For that reason, I say that it should be normal human beings fighting those aliens. With cyberware, nanoware, bioware, and other junk muddying the waters, it dehumanises them and makes you feel their losses in a financial way only.

It's evolution. We've been demonkeyized.

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I've always been fond of the idea to be able in some way to "tweak" soldiers.

This post needs to be posted about separately, it's too long to group with the other post.

 

In most X-Com games, how hard is it really to load up a bunch of rookies with Pistols, mind control and strip a bunch of Mutons/Lobstermen/just raid Sirius five hundred times in one day, and make them parade back and forth in front of them until they're all maxed out beasts of war? The entire theme of Aliens I always found is not "puny humans against super-powerful aliens" as much as it's "super-strong humans against limitless numbers of puny aliens", which is just how I like it. So the idea of genetically "improved" humans seems actually to fit MORE readily into the X-Com mould than some people seem willing to think.

Agreed. And besides, there's tons of genetic modification in Apoc (not controlled by the player, but it's there).

 

The aim of UFO was more than just sending endless numbers of men to die in UFO battles all day, you researched the alien technologies, researched your own improvements to them, until not only were you equal to the very aliens you faced, but towards the end of each game (with trained Psi units, heavy defensive armour, flight capability, not to mention average stat levels - and this is purely in UFO) you exceed them. You build Avengers can take out two Battleships in a sitting, craft weapons that exceed the best they have to offer, and all your guys can fly to boot.

This is why the aliens need to be augmented like this, this is why they need armor.

 

So, to get back on topic, with genetic modification (I'll simply bunch nanotech with the process here, since the only way to accomplish large-scale modifications on a non-embryonic lifeform is through bacterial or nanite manipulation).

To "improve" a soldier shouldn't be so drastic as Schwick suggests, the idea of different fields is good, (though the metal endoskeleton misses out the slight problem that without your bone marrow, the body lacks any way to actually produce new blood cells so you die in three days. =B), but possibly in a variety of subtle ways.

Bacterial? You mean viral? The metal endoskeleton could artificially create bone marrow or something. This is what those scientists are for.

 

1: Each soldier has a concealed "tolerance" stat, and each "improvement" bears a cost based against this. This is the general amount of manipulation their body can take before they may start rejecting their own body tissue and die in a bloody mess on the floor and everyone has to bring their own mop.

 

Since this could be carried out by a simple blood test, the level of tolerance of every soldier is automatically known upon recieving the tech to want to know tolerance in the first place.

 

Exceeding this by even a little (and getting lucky and them not dying) can lead to random effects such as momentary blindness (a random chance of severely fluffing a shot), various psychoses through the mission (well, we're all familiar with THOSE), permanent psionic deadbeat (A strength of 0, a skill of 0, both unraisable. Have fun in those bases! ^_^ ), quicker energy loss from movement, crippled (straight forward reduced strength, or TUs, or energy, or accuracy, or reduced reflexes et cetera)....

These effects are chosen only at inception, once "finished" without dangerous effects, the character is settled.

 

I'm sure everyone can think of more ways of torturing their poor rookie test subjects of course.

 

Suddenly even awful soldiers have another chance to be great, another "Psi-esque" stat that can suddenly differentiate soldiers who had previously been identical, whilst the potential benefits of overloading soldiers a little past their tolerances can easily outweigh the chance of their being "flawed". Conversely every death due to biological failure is a huge score reduction.

 

The average tolerance should be similar to the Psi stats type of range. Exceptionally high 100s, and exceptionally low <10's would be rare, but not unheard of.

Great idea!

 

Other possible side effects:

Braindamage

Paralysis

Death (Necrosis or something)

Coma (they're unusable for a random amount of weeks, or you kill them.

 

2: Each soldier can only undergo improvement once and once only. If you research ocular enhancement and rush to fit in someone for the procedure, they can't be reworked on once you get cardiovascular upgrades, even if they did have more tolerance available to them.

 

Tactics fun when you are forced to decide whether to upgrade and get that bonus now before you do that alien base, or try for a supersoldier once you've mastered every tech and are just killing time before heading up to Thanatos.

Eh?? Once? Tolerance provides a sufficient limit already, doesn't it? Just don't allow removal of Augs and have like even 100 Tolerance should only give you 3-5 augs.

The tolerance price for the augs should be increased.

 

3: In mutations, I refer to increasing the "potential" of a soldier, the closer the modified unit was to their original maximum, the lower the increase they can achieve - habits are already formed, training already done its work, getting old....

 

For example, a rookie just hired and immediately put to improved eyesight will have the basic accuracy bonus, and the maximum increase in potential. The 100 Psi Strength Commander you've had in every battle since day one, who has every stat maxed out barring a meager "Seventy-nine" in Time Units, if given the same treatment will gain only the accuracy bonus, and no magically increased maximum.

 

Yet more tactics, the potential need for dropping all the "old guard" to create an all-new rookie force from scratch in the late game is a tempting prospect for the perfectionist.

The rookies aren't exactly rookies, either. They're recruited from the best of the best, they have to have experience.

 

4: The aforementioned funding cuts, even outright war and raids by religious nuts and humanitarians alike is a great idea, which I'll refer to in detail a little later as related to each "tier" of artificial evolution.

 

To cover simply, if "discovered" (take them on a terror mission, or a randomly generated media reporter breaks in and snaps a picture of your base, which should happen even when you're not doing anything wrong, just for a larf), your funding can stand to be reduced or cut entirely if you've made a bunch of school-girl hunting tentacle fiends, but if you've done the equivalent of making your soldiers take steroids, then the media wouldn't really care, and nor would any funding countries, but you might lose $$$$ from the Vatican. This would be magnified (and snoops far more likely) at higher difficulty levels.

No pictures of underground military bases in the middle of nowhere, please. It's just that some of the people working there are bound to leak what they're doing. After about 2 or 3 months after you first do it, it'll be leaked to the funding nations. Those nations that care about such stuff, will get very pissed.

 

5: Time and money: In order to both make scientists necessary after everything has been researched (rather than sackable to make more room for engineers like the original), each soldier would function in much the same way as a manufacturing job.

 

Total man hours for a true biological nightmare could easily rival an advanced ship equivalent in total man hours as scientists need to occupy themselves monitoring feeds, maintaining them, entering the formula.... Naturally, these scientists couldn't research during this time, nor could the soldier be sent on missions until they were "finished". Cancelling equally, is not an option, so don't mod your whole force all at once. :D

 

Equally, given the general facilities needed for such activities, special "biological containment lab" facilities would need to be produced, with a maximum of two men modified per BCL rather than taking up "lab space". These rooms would be pricey and slow to complete, and obviously compete with other rooms for base space.

Good ideas!

There'd be a level 1-3 BCL facility. The level 1 facility would not be able to do medium, or extreme. The level 2 would not be able to do extreme, only. Level 3 does all.

 

Cast out from all economic ties and alliances with a planet that both hates and fears them, yet too powerful for any country to remove them, X-Corps is faced with two choices, either continue their original mission without the aid of any human support (Can't recruit more men of any of the three categories, must pay black market prices for everything else), eventually winning at terrible cost and then remaining trapped and aloof on a world that hates and fears them....

Can't recruit men? I'm sure some people will work for where the moneys coming from, and others will "do what's needed to save the world".

 

Or ally with the alien forces, turning superior X-Corps firepower towards destroying and burning entire cities to the ground until the last vestiges of free humanity are dominated under X-Corps' control, and then humans joining the legion alien creatures assaulting their NEXT world, though how human they might be is rather questionable.

Hmmm.. I'm not as much of a fan of this one.

 

Both "dark" endings signify the need for an entirely new mission type. The X-Corps terror mission. Assault human cities, stunning civilians and armed force members to bring back to base or simply killing them for kicks. The only way X-Corps can recruit new members is to abduct them, mind dominate them, and put them to work. Or simply throw them in the cloning vat to fuel the modification vats. It's all good. :devillaugh:

Of course.:devillaugh:

I'm sure you've seen this:

http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=5120&st=0

 

Efficient Metabolism - Muscle tissue engineered to function better anaerobically and be more resistant to lactic acid buildups combined with improved pulmonary efficiency allow greater strength and speed in the patient, providing +1 Time Unit and +1 Strength, with a further +5 potential to each. A rookie "bionaut" (bio-enhanced soldier) with this upgrade can potentially run a square further than an equivalent soldier every turn once fully trained.

Nanites could help with this. Like in Deus Ex there's the "rotor for sorting calcium ions" which I'm not exactly sure why it helps muscles, but I do know calcium ions are involved in contracting muscles.

 

Super Circulatory System - The heart's size and efficiency increases, whilst blood vessels are infiltrated by a series of cutoff valves which slow blood loss and aid recovery.

Combined with this a store of platelet fuelled nanites occupies the bloodstream, swiftly serving to regenerate tissue damage and lost limbs.

The Super Circulatory System essentially serves as a "negative" fatal wound. Each turn, if health is lower than maximum, the bionaut regains 1 point of health. If health is full, but other stats were reduced due to injury, these are recovered upon complete regeneration. The bionaut also has a 5% chance of a fatal wound being healed each turn instead of their 1 health per turn regeneration.

Due to the invasive nature of this procedure, it takes [15] tolerance as opposed to the average [10].

The nanites could also be used to clear fat from the blood, clear poisons from the blood, and taking apart virii and bacteria in the bloodstream atom by atom, and reusing the materials. Perhaps machines with various drugs in them (refilled by somekind of plug sticking out of the skin, Matrix-esque), like sedatives and stimulants could inject them as needed. If you get stunned, stimulants wake you up. If you are in pain, inject some narcotics, etc.

 

Wired Reflexes - the nerve cells of the bionaut are modified and rewired in such a way as to give split-second reaction times to the point of seeming clairevoyance, as a result gaining an increase of 3 to Reaction, with a further 12 extra potential for the stat.

As an added bonus, the trooper regains 0-5 TU's at the end of their turn, after movement as a result of their obscene reaction speed. A lucky bionaut might get to reflexively duck a shot even after running across the whole map the turn before.

I don't like this one.

I also don't like the psi-related augs.

 

Here, humans have started to walk the fine line between utilitarianism and "playing God". Large-scale alterations to the human body to achieve battlefield results start to weaken the sense of "us versus them", and the morality of subjecting soldiers to a lifetime as freaks starts to emerge.

Sounds like Gunther in Deus Ex. MINE SKUL GUN.

 

Compound Eyes - Whilst otherwise normal, the eyes of the individual are changed in function and structure to those of a Grey; large, pupilless black orbs. These eyes view in several spectrums, including infra red, eliminating nighttime vision and smoke penalties, as well as granting the same accuracy bonus as Enhanced Vision.

Good idea, bad name. Compound eyes are what a fly has. Make them metal prosthetic eyes.

 

Battle Claw - Mimicking the effective lethality of Spawn attacks, the Battle Claw upgrade grants the bionaut a single chitin covered arm ending in a vicious barbed pincer, and can be selected twice, with 25 tolerance each. (If only selected once, the poor bionaut would be a tad imbalanced...)

Each claw may effect a melee attack for 10% TU cost and 100% accuracy, dealing armour piercing damage equal to the Bionaut's strength score with each attack.

If both hands are made into claws, a 15% TU cost double attack becomes available, dealing double strength as damage.

As the obvious downside, these claws cannot wield guns or other melee weapons, though they can throw grenades. A cloaked claw-bionaut would be a dangerous toy indeed.

Cover them in steel or alien alloys as an upgrade.

 

Chitinite Armour - Another grudging nod to the efficacy of the Alien war machine, natural biological plates are fused to the soldier's endoskeleton to create a living artificial exoskeletal armour, highly resistant to plasma fire, though vulnerable to armour piercing weaponry.

 

Front: 80 Sides: 60 Back: 70 Under: 50 - Though Chitinite Armour effectively prevents the user wearing any other armour, all plasma weapons are at half effect when calculating damage against it. Due to its "construction" and biological nature, it does not prevent fire damage.

Hmm. I don't like this one. I'd prefer real armor.

 

Chameleonism - Similar to cloaking technology, the skin of the bionaut adapts almost instantly to its surroundings, rendering it blurred and difficult to see.

 

If the bionaut has not attacked during its turn, and is more than 10 "square equivalents" from a unit, it is effectively invisible to that unit. Intelligent and observant human controllers might notice the blurry features of a camouflaged unit (or a piece of scenery that LOOKS like one), and open fire on it with reckless abandon, but there is no "alert" (little red flashy box equivalent from UFO) about its visibility.

As an extension, the chameleonic unit's constant shifting colours grants shooters a penalty akin to firing through permanent solid smoke cover.

Many aliens see with mainly psi. The ones that don't can see heat. It's useless against most aliens.

 

Extreme augmentations: Too extreme for me. You're leaving out most of the possibilities of prosthetic/nanotech/mechanical augmentation.

 

I suppose there are a few more possibilities, but keeping things comparatively simple, this fairly small number seemed a good one to stop at. As ever, feel free to comment, read, suggest and critique if you think I messed up balance or missed something. Hopefully it provides something of a mean that could add something to the game for everyone to enjoy.

 

 

Edit: Ah yes, with all that I forgot aliens. Why not have them simply have a set number of "slots" with which to include a random variant of some of these mods in each?

 

For example, a beginner Sectoid encountered within the first week (and a Soldier) wouldn't have any available slots - Soldiers are cannon fodder after all, but a Squad Leader might have, for example, a single slot of 10, which for one might be improved eyesight, for another might be efficient metabolism. At superhuman, even early soldiers might get one, whilst commanders might fill all ten! Chameleonic Chrysalids ought to keep you alert though. :devillaugh:

 

 

It might even be racially selected, with more going into psi for Cloaks and greys, durability and healing for mutons and snakemen et cetera.

 

The clones thing was basically just a cop out for having universal template stats anyway, why not use this to both up the challenge AND add a little variety?

Chameleon would make sense for aliens. But enhanced vision should see them as normal, and so should anyone with a psi-amp.

 

I loved your ideas, most of them are very good.

 

Now, here are some of my aug ideas:

 

Air sensor:

Nanites on the hairs all over your body sense movements in the air current. In effect, allows you to "see" in a 360-degree circle 4 squares outward. Allows you to see around corners in that circle but not through walls directly.

 

Enhanced Respiratory System:

Nanites that inhabit the mouth, nose, throat, and lungs clean the air before it enters the lungs. This decreases the rate at which airborne poisons enter the body (read: small launcher stuns less effectively), increases energy, and if swimming is implemented, allows holding your breath longer.

 

EDIT: I hate how invision powerboard mauls posts with many quotes.

Edited by T-1
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