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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Ships In Base Defence


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if you read the mission briefing text closely, you will find that they have been evacuated along with the non-combat personnel for security reasons.

:D

now this is the "official" version... which I don't really buy. because if they have been evacuated, where are they when you lose the base fight? do they commit suicide?

 

this should be fixed somehow in xenocide, but I guess it will be ^_^

 

perhaps the way to do it could be that the bases have to be evacuated semi-automatically: if you suspect that there will be an attack, you can click an "emergency" button, causing all non-combat personnel to leave the base to somewhere safe and all ships to be temporarily relocated to other bases (if there are free hangars). if you do not have the time to do this, ships and civilians are there in base defence, and can be damaged/wounded or even destroyed/killed in the battle.

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  • 3 weeks later...
i noticed that too.  Don't you think that if they evacuated, that they would try and get to another base?

I guess it's to make sure the loss is even greater, but in that case we should definitely see the crafts inside the base...

 

If the "Evacuation" button is implemented, then it's definitely a case where (depending on the time we have) some crafts/scientists/engineers might be able to get out and report to the nearest base where housing is available. Evac would disturb Research/manufacture even if the base was held, at least for a couple (dozen?) hours...

On the other hand, if there was NO evac order, then some scientists/engineers would be running around, perhaps one or two security officers with a pistol... Imagine them under alien control... :LOL:

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  • 2 months later...
if you read the mission briefing text closely, you will find that they have been evacuated along with the non-combat personnel for security reasons.

:D

now this is the "official" version... which I don't really buy. because if they have been evacuated, where are they when you lose the base fight? do they commit suicide?

 

this should be fixed somehow in xenocide, but I guess it will be  ^_^

 

 

i think x-com has some sort of standart evacuation protocol that (beside a ton of orders) also says that the planes that evacuate have to hide somewhere around the globe for the time of the assault and the remaining base defenders are in no case allowed to know where they will be hiding because when the aliens make life prisoners and psi interrogate them they cant tell them the location of those genius scientists and engineers that would be an unbelievable loss for xcom when falling in alien hands

 

imagine all the xcom knowledge in alien hands - kiss earth goodbye ;)

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Guest alex the greater
imagine all the xcom knowledge in alien hands - kiss earth goodbye ;)

 

you do relise thay descoverd all this stuff eons aggo and wouldent give a shuckeroonies about our tech

 

 

about the noncombat personal i think dount have enough time to evacuate

thay should stay in the base maby evean fight back

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Yeah, scientists/engineers should stay in the base (as well as the crafts).

BUTwe also need a kind of "Total Evac" button... in the event that we know when the Alien Battleship is coming from... To save all the scientists/Crafts/soldiers/material that we can...

Better that the base activity be disrupted for a few weeks than the whole research and fighting potential be lost...

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I think instead if the goal is to institute an evac order-ish kind of thing, all we'd need really is a prompt to "ok/decline" at the beginning just before the base defenses fire -- probably be better that way to illustrate the panic your under to decide what to do as commander.

 

I like the idea of having a percentage of your scientific/civ staff represented if you chose not to evac them (even if they could fight back separately, its a nice thought that if Chryzzies are present, the added danger to them sounds very cool). Now I know given the age of the orginal X-COM and its memory limitations, you had a specific unit/item limit represented, however, if Xenocide's going to fix a lot of this with regard to adding the possibility of having more units, these battle scenarios could introduce all sorts of fun things.

 

Ok'ing the evac order should go as before, although I like the thought that maybe this time, they're ability to evac is determined by the living arrangements leftover at other bases of yours. If so, then there wouldn't be a need for (at least in this instance of not enough living space elsewhere) the "Ok/Decline" evac order...They'd be stuck at the assaulted base by default. You'd only get the option if there was space somewhere else.

 

I think however that we can go without requiring an extra hanger or two to be empty to deliver them to whichever recieving bases you had...Just thinking here that if I was commanding a base that had all its hangers full and evacuees were heading there because I did have the living space for them, I'd temporarily shuffle out those ships, allow those evacuees to land and order those ships be parked outside or something after (or could have them go back on patrol -- essentially behind the scenes kind of thing with regard to what those ships would be doing). Otherwise, introduce larger hanger facility designs we could build that would allow extra landings (goes back to my belief that it should be just as challenging to manage base facilities for unforseen circumstances like this, evacuations, or even for captured large ships for special missions, and weighing these needs up against things as living quarters or storage structures and others).

 

So there's nice thoughts here. I wouldn't want my hired civies to be as defenseless as the standard civies found elsewhere if left behind, but I would like them to be just as vulnerable to be zombified or other things happen to them (no armor just T-Shirts). The bit about unit count I'm still wrestling with, but I don't think for example it would be as prudent to have say, all 255 scientists represented if you had that many there. Probably just 5-10 of each civ class you got. Losing one could equate to losing 10 or something. In other words, the ones you see that actually can put up a minimal defense represent the only ones that could arm themselves prior. They'd theoretically be holed up protecting their unarmed comrades (unseen for the sake of avoiding too much unit saturation on one given map).

 

About ships in this instance too. If you didn't evac, it would be nice to see them there at the base. Could provide an extra place or two to hide apart from closets, or second level Golden Toilet faciilities heh :) The added risk to these ships I think would be just too...for instance, gotta watch out for doing too much damage to the hanger or bye bye ship...and whoever is hiding within :)

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  • 1 month later...

Hi, i like the ideas mentioned here, especially the following ones:

 

- to allow at lease "some" scientists etc to "make a stand" - even if it's just with a pistol and a gas grenade. (well, they are scientists after all) :)

 

one twist on this could be that one of them is actually able to use the alien item that they were currently researching. Eg, if we are researching an "Alien Clip" for use in an alien plasma gun, when the base gets attacked, one of them gets to use that plasma gun. (but with only half the ammount of ammo etc) - or something like that.

 

- to allow our ships to be present in the hangar during the attack.

 

one twist on this, aside from being able to enter our transport ship to check for any sneaky aliens :) could be this:

 

Easy mode:

The ships themselves are "not" directly targetable by the aliens. However, if any bomb blasts, or "stray" shots hit our ships, then they receive damage. THis then means that after the base defence is successful, those ships then have to wait untill they get repaired (eg like the usual repair/refuell times), depending on how much damage they sustained.

 

Hard Mode:

The aliens have an opbjective of destroying our ships. We then have to carefully remember to place soldiers and tanks so that we can guard the hangars :)

(not sure if maybe the aliens would only arrive using access lifts, but maybe our ships could be a bit further away so that they cant simply drop in, blow it up, and leave etc) :D

 

what do you guys think?

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That wouldn't be there win objective, but good for raids.  You should be able to raid Alien bases as well.  Just leave some high quality demolitions and blow up the cloners or food.

 

This idea is not too unlike using pilot units and their skills to eventually target precisely on UFOs only this is in the context of slowing either side's progression by selectively targeting a base facility within the complex to slow down a particular effort.

 

Your example of taking out a cloning chamber at an alien base is a sound one. If it could then influence to some extent the number of foot soldiers you see from time to time on the battlescape. It also lends that importance we wanted to give to supply runs in general (be it alien or player).

 

I agree that probably only whichever facility represents the "nerve center" be the only thing that determines whether a base gets wiped from the map or not when your through. This would allow for the raid mission type you talk about where obliterating the base's command center isn't mandatory to score some points and some loot. However, you should still suffer some point losses elsewhere like the first game did for letting the base still stand from one month to the next.

 

So I'd like it very much if structure types had some relation to each side's overall war effort in different ways/effects...Setbacks from time to time for their loss and subsequent reconstruction (and new hirees where applicable) sounds very cool.

 

Easy mode:

The ships themselves are "not" directly targetable by the aliens. However, if any bomb blasts, or "stray" shots hit our ships, then they receive damage. THis then means that after the base defence is successful, those ships then have to wait untill they get repaired (eg like the usual repair/refuell times), depending on how much damage they sustained.

 

I think here with base assaults and structural damage, it should be equally probable to knock out a ship if its still there simply by taking out the fuel tanks and such in the hanger room regardless of difficulty, though I do like that you could inflict some damange on the ship directly. Its just that, if your objective is the structure, not what's parked there, and you light it up they should both take damage. If the structure exceeds whatever stability measurment the game would use, then it and whatever's in it will go up too.

 

Difficulty level may not have to be about what the AI will go after so much as how many units will show up, but it does sound appealing (if they can work out pathfinding issues and such) to make much more strategic mission objecitves possible (the first priority, second priority, third priority stuff mentioned in the other topic ascribed to ranked units i.e. like special abilities they do)

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Maybe there shoudl not be a nerve center, but knocking out comm areas would be important. Levelling a base or just castrating it would be equally useful, no point penalty. In fact you could raid bases so you know a weak base is in use rather than a strong one being built elsewhere.

 

I think in general alien base assaults should involve multiple battleships of soldiers.

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  • 6 months later...

Perhaps the evacuation could be like a base-to-base transfer, but if you win the fight you can cancel it and have them come back (resulting in a day or two of lost work). Even simpler to impliment, just have a prompt pop up that lets you do a normal base-to-base transfer, which means the transfer cost plus quite a bit of time lost since you have to wait for them to arrive at the target base and then transfer them back before they can get to work.

 

Even if you don't evacuate, you might build a shelter that all the civilians go into (new base facility or part of an existing one?), but the 10 or so scientists mentioned are too gung-ho to go in the shelter, so grab a pistol and stay in the labs.

 

I love the idea of raids, it would be sweet if a full-strength alien base was "impossible" to defeat head-on (not actually impossible, just really, really hard) so the suggested method is to do a few raids to weaken them and shoot down any ufos in the area to prevent repairs. Persistent alien bases might be difficult to code for, but that would be super sweet. (Raid one, breach doors and destroy ufos. Raid two, damage cloning vats and food supplies. Raid three, destroy command center.) The only problem is that is several missions with no immediate reward and a lot of risk. (you could make the final reward super-awesome though.)

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For having scientists engineers and other civilians (you the base commander, maybe? Unable to use weapons but controlable?) into battle effectively, you would have to decimate them to usable ammounts (100 scis = 10 scis, 100 engineers = 10 engineers, etc). Then they won't cramp the base (imagine 255 scis standing between you and the aliens.... who happen to be vipers and spawns :boohoo: )
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Exactly my thoughts mikker. If the civs at your base are to be represented at all, they should represent a fraction of those who'll actually be able to help you. Any percentage of those taken out in battle will represent a larger chunk taken out of your overall civ staff of said type.

 

Plus, its just nice to have more ways to be vulnerable too. No armor and no consistant way for them to continue to grow stats can make them a bit of a liability when mingled with your soldiers. Not to mention, I think anyway, they ought to be very vulnerable to Psi panics and mind control.

 

To make things a little more balancing (so we're not prone to want to throw away our civs needlessly), mix some of the compliment of the enemy units coming for you. i.e. Include a Chryzzy or three, and/or a few psi soldiers, regardless of what your HWD said about the retaliating UFO having mainly Mutons or something aboard. The HWD would likely only display what the majority of the enemy crew was made up of, not any "suprise guests" with them :)

 

Well, besides just being hammered in point loss when you lose a civ.

Edited by Snakeman
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  • 1 year later...

2 year necropost woohoo :D

 

Well actually what happens in base defense is that all non-combat personel (even though they are engineers/scientists doesnt make them civillians) go into any skyrangers and interceptors and hide in the lockers and compartments in the base, any planes in the base go to the launchpad (the hanger is for storage and refueling n repair) but they do not take off and evacuate.....why do they not take off and evacuate???

 

Because there is a big-donkey alien battleship waiting outside with heavy plasma cannons aimed at the door ready to anhiliate any ships stupid enough to take off.

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OK, major thinking time here.

 

Have another ship designed specifically to attack XCom bases - perhaps a battleship with different interior. When it attacks a base, you have an opportunity to access this ship from the battlefield - through the access lift or something. Then sabotage it from within.

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That's a good idea. It got me thinking of something else though. There could be a chance when a base is attacked that not everyone is done evacuating. You would have to protect the scientists and engineers while they made it to an exit area, or skyranger, or waiting buses. If some die, then you don't have those guys anymore.
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