Phasing In New Weapons

[tzuchan]

Was reading through the Training Thread by Sir Schwick, http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6276, where he suggested a series of RPGish Feats system that I felt was too complicated, but he did raise an interesting point with the Laser Weapons and Plasma Weapons Feats....

 

Now, I'm not saying that we should use the feats system, but that it brought up something that might add an interesting twist to the game. Now, before anykind of recruit is in the army is even allowed to hold a gun, I assume that there's always a period of orientation and prepping before hand? I mean, I don't like the idea of giving a fresh recruit a rifle and pointing him in the direction of the firing range without at least giving him some safety tips...

 

What does this have to do with Xenocide? Well, presumeably, all our fresh new cannon fodders are going to be recruited from various armies in the world and that they are familiar with various types of human designed weapons. Do you think that the fresh recruits should really be able to pickup a plasma cannon and use it as effectively as someone who's had exposure to the weapon through technical briefings and such?

 

I propose that when fresh new recruits are added to the roster, that they have a period of orientation time, maybe a day or two, during which they can use all human weapons, including laser weapons with no penalties at all, but if asked to wield a plasma gun, that a accuracy and TU penalty step into play. This should be enitrely automatic, and behind the scenes, with no major affect on the gameplay, and be noted in the manuals. Minimal fuss, and additional finetuing for a wannabe expert in the game. Maybe i's something that's left out in the lower difficulties, but kicks in at higher difficulties.

[Snakeman]

Well, I'd presume too that anyone going into standard training will only be working with human weapons (including any new researched human tech) within the training facility, and that, unless it'll take into account using alien tech when its been researched, then you've got a point that some sort of time penalty could maybe be incorporated for the first few missions that they use it instead.

 

A hit to TUs/any Accuracy stuff (maybe even Reactions as well) as one example would probably be a good starting point to look into for those first few missions.

 

I mean, one could argue that a soldier could get over the initial strangeness of using new things in the training facility, however, it doesn't compare to combat experience with the things. So from a purely functionality standpoint, I do find it interesting from a peformance issue in combat in the beginning like this, since it adds that extra bit of randomness to actions that can happen.

 

Plus, spreading out the randomness/challenge here as you say can also help liven up the other difficulty settings in terms of making them stand out a bit more from the others.

 

From a soldier/equipment management standpoint with these difficulty settings, temporary hits to stats with new alien tech (or perhaps too with new tech in general) is probably the best approach to this. From a programming perspective (I'm no programmer, just postulating here), you'd probably have to tie in these hits to each new item and have that last an X minimum of combat missions before they stablize again.

Edited January 2, 2005 by Snakeman

[j'ordos]

OTOH, I'd hate the micromanagement of recruiting replacement soldiers, have a terror mission pop up that requires a full squad (including some new guys), remembering which are new and which aren't, and then after a couple of days going back to them (the survivors, that is ) to give them their final load-out...

[Snakeman]

Valid point. In the first game, it was hard to know, unless you renamed all your soldiers so you could see at a glance the important stuff.

 

Maybe the game could generate a symbol by the name of a newbie issued new gear for the first few missions. An asterisk * a question mark ? or perhaps something like a colored coded dot thing. I dunno, something that makes scrolling through the soldier page a little more informative for the time spent on viewing it w/out clicking on each soldier, then into their personal inventory.

[sir_schwick]

Well for the training bit, I like it. Here are the two negative modifiers for all non-conventional weapons/equipment.

 

No. of Missions Used - I assume this should always be one, maybe two or possibly three on higher difficulty ratings.

Time - This would increase with difficulty, being very negative and taking a month at high levels to fully finish.

 

Its simple, players know it, and it makes even not so skilled squaddies with field experience useful. On easy difficulty its almost non-existant. On superhuman its very important. As for sorting, that is a different issue.

 

Good idea tzuchan.