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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Citizen Control


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With talk about possible "punch" melee abilities, and potentially armed civilians in terror missions, civilians could potentially become more than just mindless walking targets. As such, why couldn't the aliens take advantage of this and mind control the civilians to make them attack X-Corps troops?

You could either just take them out and sacrifice score, or endure the beating of brainwashed zombies and search for the controller, but a horde of pistol wielding police officers all mind-controlled into shooting at you would certainly make the game heavier on the atmosphere and add a little chaos to proceedings too.

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  • 1 month later...
Maybe it is just me, but even Flying Armour does not seem to do anything for my troops. Maybe once or twice have I seen a trooper hit by HP(pretty much all aliens use by March) and live in my many years of playing. Because of the 2x damage penalty against X-COM troops, armour is useless except fo rhte first six weeks.
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Put it this way: Would you rather have a 50% chance of surviving over a 3.6% chance?

 

It's like this:

 

Heavy Plasma does 110. In actual damage values, it can be anywhere between 0 - 220

 

Flying armour gives 110 for front armour. For a frontal hit, that shaves off 50% of the total range. You'd still die if it rolled a full 220. (For sides and the rear, it's lot less)

 

Plain armour gives you something like 8 front armour. That shaves off only 8 points of the range. Roughly 3.6%.

 

Personal armour does 50 if I'm not mistaken. 22.7%. Not bad, actually.

 

Money and resources for personal armour is not really hard to come by, and for the power or flying suits, elerium isn't too hard to come by if you set up a few elerium harvesting operations. Might as well have a lot of soldiers with close to 50% protection.

 

---

 

On to the subject at hand:

 

Perhaps there should be another form of mind control. That is to say, shouting commands at civilians.

 

General commands like go to location. Anyone within hearing distance will try to obey. You could even have 'attack' commands for armed civilians to use supression fire on an area or target. Of course, the civilains should be able to choose whether or not to obey. This could be based on a variety of factors. Their loyalties (by country or counter organisation). their morale and how intimidating the person who issued the command is (based off the unit's stats and persuasion/communication/leadership stat if it's ever introduced).

 

Aliens could probably do this too just to cause a bit of chaos. If loyal to the aliens, the civilians might even be persuaded to attack you.

 

If no one does anything, then perhaps a more extreme approach is needed (bullying, intimidating or worst of all, mind control).

 

- NKF

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It just seems like that, sir_schwick. Mathematics and randomness determine if your soldiers get killed. The reason why it seems like your guys die more often than usual is because we tend to focus on deaths. Sorry to say it's purely psychological.

 

----------

 

I'd like to elaborate on NKF's chances of survival determinations a bit. The chance of surviving a Heavy Plasma shot is not only because of armor, but also the health of the soldier in question. Armor absorbs part of the damage, but health absorbs some damage also. When health reaches 0, your soldier becomes unconscious, and when it drops below zero, your soldier dies.

 

The worst rookie has a health rating of 25. The best health rating a soldier can ever hope to achieve by natural means is 61. This range gets added to the armor of the soldier for a final determination of survivability. Assuming we are talking about the Heavy Plasma, the ranges of survivability are listed below (assuming a direct hit to the front armor plates):

 

Flying Suit @ 110:        61% - 78%
Power Suit @ 100:         57% - 73%
Personal Armor @ 50:      34% - 50%
No armor @ 12:            17% - 33%

Even if an alien hits your soldier in the bottom plates, your chances of surviving aren't too bad:

 

Flying Suit @ 70:         43% - 60%
Power Suit @ 60:          39% - 55%
Personal Armor @ 30:      25% - 41%
No armor @ 2:             12% - 29%

Overall, if you have undamaged armor, your worst - best case survivability scenarios are:

 

Flying Suit:             43% - 78%
Power Suit:              39% - 73%
Personal Armor:          25% - 50%
No armor:                12% - 33%

 

Not the best of odds, I admit. But a 78% chance of walking away from a direct Heavy Plasma shot to the chest wearing a Flying Suit is excellent odds! :)

 

- Zombie

Edited by Zombie
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It's mainly because your sample sizes in UFO are quiet small. On average, you'd probably have up to 14 soldiers per mission, or a few more in the case of the Avenger. The instant deaths that you experience do indeed feel severe.

 

But if you were to work with thousands of soldiers being hit by heavy plasmas, then you'd certainly notice a difference.

 

Then there's the damage modifiers... but the difference would be so mild that it not be noticeable.

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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  • 2 years later...

Schwick, you NEVER found the ability to fly useful? God, I used it all the time, I insisted on it. Some uses are just a matter of preference, but to name a few:

 

Staircases become mere options rather than necessities.

Crysslids can't jump.

Reapers can't jump.

Zombies can't jump.

Silicioids can't jump.

Fire never goes above one level.

The AI has huge problems getting blaster bombs to go up or down.

Most explosions don't go higher than one level.

You don't have to shoot open a flimsy hedgerow to get around it.

The first part of any UFO's structure to go is the roof when the reactor goes up.

Your men don't bunch up on the ramp.

Further visual range.

Floaters can't get away.

Did I mention Crysslids can't jump? Because they can't...it's comforting.

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Yeah, Mind Control Range rocks. But increase the efficiency of newbie x-com soldiers against (only) low psi shielded aliens is also a great idea to balance the new PA (if the range is the sight range). Sometimes 7x1 is not suficient even on almost-no-brain aliens. The alien's mind control range must be decreased as well (i've got some mind controled soldiers that has never step out the plane).

 

In Xenocide, the PA might gain an energy drain, as a new disable. It's worse than the panic mode, but at least original (i believe).

 

Instead mad citizens, some police officers may be great. With .38 pistols against fusion ball launchers... ^^

And they can go berserk, or panic, or mind controled.

 

Citizens could only pick up human guns on the ground and make some wrong things with them (smarter walking targets!). Speaking about alien AI, why they don't pick up the weapons from the ground ?

 

Sorry my bad spelling.

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