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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

X-com Bomber!


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Why don't x-com have bombers or ships with long range missiles for aid? For example you KNOW there's 2 aliens left in the mission and they both hide in same building.. You have only 1 man without explosives and those bastard aliens reactonfires everytime you go in. Well order bombing with radio and after 2 turns the whole building is down ^_^

 

Of course it should be balanced, about 10-20% of the bombs are dropped in wrong place, it would cost like 500 000 U$D or even more! (who would like to use it in every mission?)

 

It wouldn't be impossible to implement on future versions of xenocide..?

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hmm, not bad, but i think it would be a better idea if you could bomb an alien base or a crash site before the mission itself. During the mission it could cost human lives and i dont think x-com would allow that -_- and for the same reason you couldn't bomb terror sites.
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I can't say why not...but it would not be fun if you could bomb places. Yeah, lots of money would balance it, together with the no-stuff thing.
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Might be neat if the idea was that you might be allowed to use it once per mission. You highlight a 6 or 8 block pattern of squares and then call in a precison strike. Maybe its a firing run from an Interceptor, or maybe you could purchase an "ASA"(Atmosphere to Surface Artillery) Sattelite system. That would do the same thing. To balance it though it would have to be very expensive to use and maintain, and I would think that it would only be good for 1 use per battle. And perhaps the Aliens would have some chance at distrupting the signal causing the shots to lose lock and hit in an unexpected place. I like the idea though, it would be cool for some heroic Sgt. who is mortally wounded and cant get to a medikit intime to be able to call down a strike on himself taking 3 Chrysallyds with him. Or adding to the dillema of calling an artillery strike down on a building that might contain civillians. I always play to protect the civillians on a terror map. I will have my commander step in front of a civilian and turn himself into a shield if I can get there in time. When I get Psi, I always have a Civilian Liasion Officer, whos sole responsibillity is to round up as many civilians as possible and move them to a safe place.

 

Realisticly, ground troops are always supported by some kind of heavy weapons, but then again how realistic is it for a Snakeman to slither around a city killing people??? :huh?:

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Realisticly, ground troops are always supported by some kind of heavy weapons, but then again how realistic is it for a Snakeman to slither around a city killing people???  :huh?:

Good question.. ^_^

 

If I collect some thoughts here it would be like this

 

+ large area damage, total destruction

+ effective

+ excellent herostorymaker.. "he used his last powers to save the others by calling an air strike on his own head when he was surrounded by 3 chryssalids" "ooh! what a hero" :wub:

 

- expensive

- inaccurate, or accurate BUT aliens could distrub the cordinates a little..

- Needs a building in base, something like "bomber array" or "long range cannon" and it's expensive to maintain.

- Destroys all weapons in area.. (of course)

 

Don't know about the -not in terrorsites-thingy.. there's an idea but I really would like to use it there :unsure:

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Instead of calling for an air strike. what about adding mortar-like weapons? Maybe the more advanced craft could even have plasma or lazer weapon 'mounts' on the craft (thinking somewhat like the Falcon in star wars)

 

Just a couple ideas.

 

Puck ^_^

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Where would the bomber start from? If it's your base, how many hours would it take to arrive (each battlescape turn is about 4 seconds)? So the bomber would need to follow the interceptor and strafe after the ufo is downed, or follow the skyranger in case you want to use it. Perhaps it kills a percentage of the aliens present, but also destroys a percentage of the artifacts you recover. Might be useful against a battleship if your soldiers aren't up to a big fight. Perhaps the strike takes out 25% of the remaining aliens, but also destroys 50% of the artifacts? There has to be a tradeoff for using it. I don't think a strike while the soldiers are present is wise. Consider that the battlescape was like 100 meters square, so a realistic bombing run would hit at least 1/4 of the entire battlescape, and accuracy would be give or take 1/4. So there'd be a good chance the bombs hit your troops too. Even smart bombs can hit the wrong spot. Even if you say 'target the ufo', the iridium sheen could scatter the laser guidance and create the random effect.

 

I say all this because there has to be a balance for both sides. Consider the idea that eventually this game could be 2 player with you playing the aliens. The idea must be fair to both sides, not just make it easier for the human player to wipe out the enemy with no losses. If the aliens "are dug in like an Alabama tick" (sorry, just watched Predator), you'll learn to bring more grenades after losing a couple grunts digging them out. The aliens have superior tech for most of the game, so you should expect to lose soldiers.

 

If your craft have mounted weapons for use in the battlescape, so should the ufos, with the chance that they can shoot down the skyranger as it's coming in. A downed ufo could still have functional weapons, so you could say 10% of the time the weapons are intact and can damage the craft. Of those times, 10% results in losing the skyrnager and all the soldiers. Very nasty if it happens, but it does give the aliens a chance against all the human advantages. Just my 2 cents.

Edited by Breunor
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Hey breunor, where you find those stats and stuff for the turns and size? I always wondered...

Anyway, I like your idea puck about bringing a mortar-like weapon platform along, it would stop the time delay thing with the bombers coming in. PLus justlike the HWP's they were good but they cost a lot plus they take up major space. Besides a mortar luncher could have good explosions, but not at the expense of the entire battle feild. Also to balance, just have it move slow, or take little damage.

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I think the best way this would work would be that you can strafe any ufo/terror site/alien base as much as you want with any ship with weapons, the downside being destruction of civilians and equipment. You can determine how much of a UFO you scrape up by how destructive your weapons are, why not be able to have greater control after the fact? A corollary to this - alien bases need base defenses! That way, your avenger can only strafe so much, and the damage to the base needs to either not take effect until you've landed, or needs to not affect the defenses until you've landed, so that under no circumstances can it be beneficial to sit in the air and pulverise a base with your plasma guns. At the same time, you can shoot up a base, and risk your fighters rather than your carriers and crew.
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hmmm....yes, a stealth bomber! It can be parked in a free hangar.

 

And why not lightnings? Why not instead of having them carry people, making them carry bombs? 1 hardpoint, and more effective bombs?

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ok, losing and xcom craft and all your soldiers is rediculus. seriously. that would blow if your sending your best team in with all your psi guru's and your snipers with 113 accuracy. then before you get a chance to kill everything. you get shot down. no. EVIL. but i do think the craft can attack at landing skyrangers, but never be able to kill it. lets say the craft gets damaged a little, maybe a couple soldiers die? or, its forced to crash land, lose some more soldiers. losing a skyranger is rediculus though.
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The 100 meters is a total guess on what I remember from the original. Each square is 1 meter, I don't remember there being too many of them.

 

I think having a weapon you bring along like the mortar team would be a better option than the strike bomber for game balance. Losing the attack craft was a thought on how you balance something like this out. If I'm given the option to totally waste the aliens with no potential loss to myself, there's little balance there. What you could do is use the scoring system there. Say the locals don't like you bombing their stuff, even when there are aliens present. So instead of getting 100-200 points for clearing out a crash site, you lose 100 points for leveling the area. Combined with no experience gains for your soldiers and no alien artifacts, it would balance the fact you didn't have to fight. Doing it at a terror site would never be an option, since you'd wipe out the only witnesses who could say there were aliens too. The government would just think you wiped out a neighborhood. Unless you'd already lost that country to the aliens, then it would be fun! :devillaugh:

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Well, it'd still be unbalanced if you could sit in the sky and rain fire on an alien base. I think you should get shot at by base defenses, but if you land immediately, no worries. You only have a chance of losing a craft if you're hanging around bombarding a base with an interceptor, and then you're asking for it. You'd have to actually repair your skyranger a little after a base raid, which would be a Good Thing, in my opinion.
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about that, why does battleships even get attacked, if they could just skip the base peraiters, by landing quickly?
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I think if the aliens have base defenses, you'd get shot at no matter what, at least once. On the other hand, what keeps you from flying in low and landing a mile out, or even renting some trucks from the nearest town? :D Of course, getting a cab back to the plane might not be easy...

 

I think it's the element of surprise that requires a close landing. As Deimos had described a while back, your transport comes flying in at full speed, drops your soldiers like hot potatoes, and they're kickin' butt in less than a minute. If you landed outside of their base defense range, there'd be all the time in the world to lock up the base and defend it. Same goes for aliens attacking your base. I don't think that a ship should be totally destroyed every time base defenses work though, it should be a little random. Say 50% of the time it's destroyed, and the rest there's a percentage of survivors who still attack you. The chances would vary depending on the level of defenses you have.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I like the Bobmber idea.

It could be like a fighter. you keep it in a hanger and select what weapons you want on it and have to keep it supplied. but instead of attacking UFO's it will attack ground targets. It could bomb a base or downd UFO's to clear it for ground troops.

It could be used on terror sites but that would kill alot of civilians but hey you were stupid enough to bomb a city so you deserv your budget decrised

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  • 1 month later...

LOL, napalm. :D

 

But I like the idea of being able to bomb a crashed UFO. I always hated leaving them alone and sometimes I just couldnt get to them all. Being able to carpet bomb the area should get you some points as you kill any alien survivors (with a bit of luck). After, either the site can disappear or it can be left but with reduced aliens in and (and significant damage to the UFO).

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I think that if we were going on the vein of surface attacks or strafing runs, it should be something akin to the gunship escorts to the american aircav in vietnam. The skyranger could circle the crash sites or base zones and secure the LZ using a cheek turret. I suggest a cheek turret so that the guns cannot be used in air to air combat and therefore there isn't any confusion as to why the Skyranger can't engage UFO's (besides being slow as heck). Edited by fux0r666
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So, how accurate and powerful will the alien bombers be at destroying your sky-ranger on the ground? How bad will it be when their interceptors shoot down your bomber? What's good for the goose and all.

 

The problem with walking this slippery-slope is where it leads. Rather than invade your base, why don't the aliens drop bunker-busters from orbit (for that matter, why do the aliens fl around at interceptable altitudes and then conduct "missions" without CAP cover? You think the sky-ranger should have point-defense weapons? What about the alien ships? What will a full barrage from a parked battlesihp do to your sky-ranger anyway?

 

I certainly understand where your are coming from, but this would seem to risk both feature-creep and a change in general game-feel. There's probibly some level of "useful idea", but I think the developers should be careful of throwing off game-balance too much or adding something simply because "it makes sense intellectually" rather than game-wise.

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You can argue for or against pretty much anything at this point.

 

The aliens behave the way they do because they are on an infiltration mission (for whatever reason).

 

You can't have point defense weapons on your skyranger because it is a utility aircraft and not a gunship, and can't be weighted down by weapons, actuators, turrets, targetting computers and the like plus a payload because of the limitations of the vtol engines.

 

Personally, I'm more for the squad based conflict rather than a joint strike military simulator. Everything in Xcom was done in a clandestine manner with certain birth given to plausible deniability. The secrecy of Xcom and the secrecy of the aliens' endevours would be blown wide open if there was some kind of full scale military conflict. I get the impression from the original game that the war that was being fought was much more of a cold war. Neither side wanted to reveal too much for fear of being exterminated.

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  • 3 months later...

when i have "super soldiers"(high statistics and stuff) i dont want to begin mission in #132 small ufo because maybe one "gray" survives and i must just find it and kill... its boring..

Future craft may have bombs to destroy crashed ufo.

If ufo crashed on screen shows option to bombard crashed ufo

 

sorry for my english

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The future feature list has a variety of ideas listed that have been discussed in the past. I'm not sure if bombing runs is in there, but I know it's been brought up, along with a gunner position or mounted weapon on the landing craft that could shoot prior to landing. The problem was that game balance would tilt more towards the player, without a corresponding drawback to help the aliens. Do a search for bombing runs or strafing runs, that should find it.
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  • 2 weeks later...
the bombing run dont get you any money, its to take out the freaking annoying 60 turns find the one sectoid when you have an avenger full of guys with flying armor type missions. thats it balance, no money, no salvage, nothing, just saving you some time.
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How about this... you have to have a Intercepter/Firestorm/Avenger patroling over the crash site when you land, your commander (or highest ranking officer) has a option for a strafe run, each strafe run depletes 25% of weapondry so you could at the most do 4. If the ship is equipped with Cannons, the run is kinda like miniguns strafing a building. Missiles a bunch of Rockets are launched (avalanch would be large, Stingers would be small, it would be cool to be able to drop a bunch of inc rockets though :( ), plasma a bunch of Heavy plasma shots (like 25) fusion launchers one fusion ball is dropped (like a bomb) on target (wow a use for fusion launchers!). Something like the fusion ball would level a few buildings! ("Rodger that, nuke the sectoid").

 

If you have a combo of weapons, the first two will be the most powerful weapon installed on the ship, the 2nd two will be the other weapon.

 

So what this would do is:

 

A.) Limit number of runs done (fusion launcher would only have 3, everything else 4 unless weapons were depleted before mission)

 

B.) Cost time and money to reequip the fighter craft with weapons again (ground strafing takes up lots of missles/plasma/bullets) and to repair them if used on a base assault and the aliens have base defenses.

Edited by Trevelyan
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when i have "super soldiers"(high statistics and stuff) i dont want to begin mission in #132 small ufo because maybe one "gray" survives and i must just find it and kill... its boring..

Future craft may have bombs to destroy crashed ufo.

If ufo crashed on screen shows option to bombard crashed ufo

 

sorry for my english

you don't need to take the missions. Just let them fade away.

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How bout you just launch a cruise missile at a specific point that you target and it utterly demolishes anything and everything within 4 squares, but the aliens have a [10%] chance of changing where the cruise missile lands. You have to have a special laser designator equipped on your guy and he has to highlight the spot for 2 full turns (ala StarCraft)
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  • 2 weeks later...
Bombing inside missions should definately be counted out. And bombing alien bases shouldn't have any effect as they're underground.
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  • 3 weeks later...

People, can I just say one thing....Lets please get BACK to X-Com: UFO Defense. We know a world supported organization would never send 6 guys in a flabby ship down to a UOF crash site. :hammer:

 

It would be blasted to heck, scanned for life with helichopters, Jets and Satalites, then blasted to heck again. Then hundreds if not thousands of troops would swarm the place. Thats not X-COM.

 

X-Com is 8 guys blasting 12 aliens in a groud combat mission. They walk funny, they shoot funny, and they die funny. But thats what we love. :explode:

 

But while we are on the topic, Those 2 alien missions are BORING :zzzzz: . lets face it, not every aspect of X-Com is perfect. Instead of a targeted missile strike, why not just have an AUTO battle option? Sure there is a chance that your perfect guys will die, but you can always NOT send themt o such a mission. You could create an "AUTO" squad of guys you dont really care about just to get the mission over with.

 

Ive asked myself, "why dont they just fire a few missiles into the place is blow it up?" Ive even improvised and just leveled whole maps with Blaster Launchers. It would be a cool feture, but just use your imagination.

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I figure funding nations would get rather angry when you turn large portions of their land to glass with your plasma guns looking for that last sectoid!

If my city would get attacked by aliens and x-com would come here and level my whole home because there's an unarmed halfdead sectoid in my bathroom, I would be happy! :happybanana:

Heh, maybe not..

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The Lightining craft had a mounted gun on the top. Maybe you could be able to trun it around and shoot up the place with craft weaponry.

 

Since it originally could only hold 12 people, it would be made up for with an "HWP"- ie. the rotating craft cannon. The small squad would be great for small missions, and the mounted cannon would asssist in mopping the place up. Plus, I just want to see what a fusion cannon blast would look like in the battlescape. It'd completely vaporize a small UFO. ^_^

 

So, it's sorta like bombing, but you can only do it with the Lightining. It'd give the Lightining an actual reason to be used...

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Yes, lightning has no use what so ever as it is now.

Short range, no hwps, uses elerium as fuel. Only 12 soldiers. Why would anyone use it?

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That'd be neat if it were true, but if I can still read figures correctly, according to the UFOPaedia the Lightning reaches a speed of 3100, and has 8 acceleration, while the Avenger reaches 5400 with 10 acceleration... And even then the Avenger has twice the fuel load of the Lightning. So there really is no point whatsoever in the original game to make Lightnings (we will have to change that in Xenocide, right? :) )
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I think it needs something else to be worth building. At least it should fly further, now it sucks 'cause you can't get to almost any terror sites with that piece of junk.
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I think it should be very fuel efficient. I mean, we have to give players a reason to make one, right?

 

We could make the Avenger guzzle fuel like a pickup, while the firestorm will guzzle the fuel of a midsize car.

The lightning should be the motorcycle of the Xcom world, really fuel efficient, and cool looking, but not much point otherwise.

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"guzzle"? :D Well I think I got your point anyway and I like it!
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  • 1 month later...

just to bring the original topic back: what about the basic "bombing in missions"-thing?

 

I'd say:

artillery support in normal ufo ground missions - yay. I'd like that

artillery support in terror missions - no way! we don't like collateral damage. (although I could live with the possibility if you greatly increase the point loss for "civilians killed by xcom operatives")

artillery support in alien base missions - nah. that just doesn't work

 

 

I don't know what the plans are for weapon hardpoints in xcom craft, but perhaps you could just replace a craft air-to-air-weapon with a combat support artillery weapon? This might even be a way to spice up the [Lightning]: make it the only craft with an artillery weapon on board. :beer:

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  • 2 weeks later...
Also there are balance issues, Before you think to hard on this if X-com can do it the Aliens can. You think the cannon would be nice to mutalate a sectoid, think of a plasma cannon with pin point accuracy fire through the open door of you skyranger squad right when they were about to get out, SIZZLE SIZZLE bye bye squad, then the weapons on board will mostlikely detonate so if one managed to survive by being in the very back under all the x-com bodies... It would not be good because we need to be balanced for the multiplayer aspect.
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  • 8 months later...
Here is my suggestion. Flying craft overhead can shoot beam weapons on the battlefield. This includes Laser Cannon, Plasma Beam, Gauss Cannon. X-COM can help direct fire with 'beacons' fired out of a smaller launcher or tossed. Of course okay pilots only hit thier mark part of the time. Aliens would be able to use flying artillery as well. Also, killing civvies with your guns would also cost you points.
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