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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Nation´s Interception


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I personally think they should get them only if X-COM sells some over to them specifically. After all, they say in the original game's info on this interceptor that its the first type of Earth craft made that could actually keep up with (a few anyway) UFOs.

 

I like the possibilities too where this (the selling of items to countries) could influence politics to some degree. Perhaps this in accordance with Azrael's thoughts in that other thread about 'delegating' assignments out to other governments would help this idea too.

 

I think this would mean though that there should be some costs to you imparted, such as loss of salvage rights of course, but could also tie in the diplomacy angle really well (for instance, if they can actually hold their own fairly well, it could affect funding towards you to be cut or reduced even if they were still on good terms with you). You may lose some brownie points at the end of the month for not doing it yourself, but hey, the country is friendly and your making it up by selling more stuff.

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I like the idea. If someone has crafts to sell to x-com, they have themselves for own use as well. A small UFO downed every now and then appearing on globe with note "Military interceptors from state x have managed to shoot down an UFO over x and are requesting assistance".
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If the aliens tried to shoot down craft instead of getting pot-shotted to death then maybe you would want a nation's help. That would be an important part of the storyline, the point when nation's could handle those kind of missions, but your boys were still called in to take out the superhuman ground forces, bases, and Cydonia. X-CORP is an elite shock corp after all.
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I don't think that any military has as high standby and advanced detection as X-Com, and they are not actively searching for fight. However, US military alone is likely to have hundreds of interceptors compared to few of x-com and occasionally some will stumble upon a small enough UFO that they can handle it.
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I think that you should also get some occassional ' oh !"£$"£$ we got screwed by a UFO' messages, as in countries fail to down UFOs, and maybe get attacked in return.
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Moreover, at easier levels countries with lots of interceptor may have a chance to shoot down a battleship. At higher levels, only medium or small ufos. All in all, they might tell you if a UFO is located just with a little chance (and intercept them), like XCOM agents.
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I, personally, think that it would be good if you permanently have the trails of military craft in the skies at all times, then you would have something on the globe at all times, as well as an indication of the level of support you may have - eg you could ask aircraft in the area to help you out. I think that towards the end of the game (and in alien controlled countries) the aircraft would die out as they get downed.
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Interesting thought there dipstick. I hadn't thought of having them used as a way to help you by weakening them and keeping them busy until you can bring your forces to bear. Even if their successes were few and far between (after all, they may in fact be relying on you to be their "early warning system" given the sophsitication of your 'late' radar tech), I do see some value in it.

 

For instance, delaying a retaliating Battleship homing in on one of your bases by alerting the local militaries just long enough for your ships to finish refueling or some such. It may mean the difference between doing a base defense mission at its worst, adding your own interceptor to the fray, and/or then sending the landing party.

 

On the issue further down the timeline of events here. And by this I'm referring to what you sell to these outfits if they're not coming up with it on their own...Why put limits on what they can use?

 

I figure, if you want a particular military to one day use Avengers you'd made and sold, you should still take a disadvantage somewhere despite the monetary profitability of such a sale.

 

Maybe, just like you would being a careful X-COM commander, would pick and choose the engagements you'd use them in, so would they. So for example, even if you'd sold Russia a small squadron of Avengers, there's no guarantee they'd choose to use them in their stop gap interceptions even if they'd be the best choice.

 

Since they are pretty much the first intersolar craft, I can imagine any government would horde those, along with any elerium for themselves as long as is possible before choosing to use it. So really, I forsee most relying on the basic interceptor for most engagements, despite whatever weapons enhancements you gave them as well.

 

I feel the same with regard to ground missions that incorporate AI civies/local military/cops in a territory you'd sold off stuff to. Gradually you'd see them sport some of those items, however the disadvangages come into play depending on the standing that nation has with you. So if its poor, expect resistance from them plus the aliens. If they are friendly, you get help (but I think the 'helpful units' should be much lower than if you were in a hot country and they were against you).

Edited by Snakeman
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Since they are pretty much the first intersolar craft, I can imagine any government would horde those, along with any elerium for themselves as long as is possible before choosing to use it. So really, I forsee most relying on the basic interceptor for most engagements, despite whatever weapons enhancements you gave them as well.

 

That always bothered me about the first game, on both sides. It seems from the feul consumption for just Earth missions there is no way alien or X-COM craft could make it to Cydonia on their own. I would have thought there was some kind of interplanetary carrier craft equipped to handled these trips more efficiently. Desigining craft for both non-atmosphere and atomspheric flight limits abilities in both environments. Would also explain why aliens do not drop straight down to terror sites/etc. from orbit(staying out of X-COM scanners on carrier).

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From what I gather about the time it takes to cross the distance from Mars to Earth (and then later for you going to Mars), its probably a timetable inside a week or so. So while I wouldn't doubt the aliens might have had a carrier type craft, they might not have had to use them often since we were pretty much grounded for a good portion of the war.

 

Granted though, I would prefer your logic about the carrier for a sequel. I would much rather see a steady progression getting to Mars, rather than going on the very first craft capable of making the distance despite the timetable.

 

Besides, having a mobile spacefaring base of sorts I can understand being the kind of capability X-COM would want to have as soon as they can get it. And while that technological endeavour is being constructed, delaying the aliens as long as possible out there with their Avengers (would be a good way of minimizing costs to build if we can do boarding operations as well).

 

Another reason I can envision why you could sell Avengers to friendly groups is...If you somehow started to lose some of your craft, but had some cash, you can buy them back rather than wait the time it takes to divert engineers again to make them. You'd probably have to weigh the purchase against whether or not the nation's status towards you is sliding down or is affecting their ability to fight.

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Also, with regards to military aircrafts in alien infiltrated countries disappearing, why not just have them turn around and intercept X_Corp's aircrafts instead? that way, late game assaults air battles gain a whole new area of excitment... especially if the aircrafts show some improvements from enchancements provided by the aliens
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Indeed tzuchan, it could even open up other research opportunities in the 'hybrid tech' category of thinking, besides the sheer fun of not just fighting hostile aliens, but hostile human organizations.

 

I'm fascinated I guess by being able to visualize and have a hand in the progression of the war.

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I bet the aliens would not give terrans X113 powered equipment, but simply modify existing desings to use AA and other advanced materials.

 

What if you could then raid military bases in infected countries? You could then sell the improved equipment to freindly countries and get royalties off manufacture.

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That makes sense shwick, especially when you consider hybrid designs. I mean, what if you needed a crucial bit of tech in order to advance in your tech tree designs?

 

You'd either:

 

1) Have to purchase it from a country that you frequently delegated interceptions to that was friendly (and more than likely sacrificed salvage rights for as a setback) or...

 

2) It would have to come from the raids you mentioned on the more stubborn of countries. And...

 

3) Last option would be to wait it out and hope you stumble on this missing link item to continue while in your normal course of events. If this last one is much more time intensive to find this link, it imparts a little more importance to the first two options, being those are steeped in the diplomacy part of the game.

 

Given appropriate opportunities to prove yourself to a stubborn country, I'd imagine the first two to be the areas that would be more fun to exploit in order to progress significantly. Selling items you've found or manufactured and not delegating UFO interceptions too frequently would probably keep most countries on the best footing toward you in terms of cooperation. It can mean that later on down the line when you do delegate interceptions that they're more effective, but again at an exponential impediment to you in terms of technological or territorial progress if not monetary so much.

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IMO, raids on human facilities are a bad thing. This isn't apoc. You are ment to kill aliens, if you started to attack human locations as well, do you think nations would fund you? Not really.
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I was also talking about humans attacking you - imagine getting a message saying that your skyranger was under attack from a non-alien force, unknown in origin. You scramble some interceptors, but in the meantime you get an emergency message (obviously has to be video :naughty:) that the skyranger has been critically hit, and is going down. You are given a chance to save, then it goes directly to the battlescape where you find half your squad either dead or injured, and you are attacked by X paratroopers.

 

Kinda adds something I feel.

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What disappointed me most about Apocalypse was the fact that human opponents were usually much more dangerous to attack then aliens. I do not mean overall either in terms of company relationships. Taking out an alien scout ship was no sweat, however the guys at the Temple of Sirus always had HE Autocannons. The Marsec guys always had small launchers, and Diablo always had incendiary grenades.

 

I mean one of the best parts of raiding humans in original would have been how overpowered you felt, sorta like the aliens first attacking you.

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  • 1 month later...

XCORP is in it to save all of humanity, even those people whose governments signed a pact with the aliens. This is life or death for the planet. Classic good vs evil here. I don't like the idea of Xcorp attack humans or humans attacking xcorp.

 

I do really like the idea of first world nations occasionally taking down small or medium ufos. They may even take out an alien base with ground troops (special forces) if it's within their borders.

 

I don't know if I would want to see every plane the U.S. has in the sky on the geoscape though. It would be pretty crouded. Maybe toggleable? Imagine trying to tell your "interceptor" to attack a ufo but accidentally clicked on a civilian airbus or 747, or heaven forbid a friendly fighter aircraft. That would suck.

 

On a side note, it just occured to me that in the original, if a country signed a pact with the aliens they didn't kick you out of the country. You could keep you base there. That was dumb.

 

I don't think X-Com in the original was working with the funding countries in any significant way. They don't give you access to their radar or satallites, and that wouldn't even be a sizeable cost for them. They might call xcorp in if they shot down a ufo, or they might not. I would think they would clean it up themselves roswell style and those resorces would be forever lost.

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XCORP is in it to save all of humanity, even those people whose governments signed a pact with the aliens. This is life or death for the planet. Classic good vs evil here. I don't like the idea of Xcorp attack humans or humans attacking xcorp.

 

'Classic good vs evil', just like a hollywood movie. There are few good guys and bad guys in war. Its you with a gun and another guy across the field with a gun. Also, even when the stakes are high groups are still greedy and try to gain the advantage. During the 30s when Japan was marching through China, the Loyalists and Communists still attacked each other, just not as often. Real wars are not clean affairs, especially one that means loss of power for either side.

 

Another side to consider as well, X-CORP has been placed in a position of guardianship. That means protecting humans from other human threats, especially collusion with the opposition. Raids on human bases might be acceptable if it ultimately helps in the fight against the greater threat to human soveirgnty. Having X-CORP controlling leaders alien-style might be deemed necessary for the war effort.

 

The point is that you as the player should be able to be as pure or manipulative as you wish. You, for example, might decide that X-CORP will never anything questionably abusive of your power. I on the other hand might decide to turn this fight into who gets to control Earth. Its being able to make ethical choices that would really help get the mood right.

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I didn't know this was going to be an earth simulator. It's going to take decades to make the game have every feature everyone wants. To add a complex political simulation to this war strategy game seems unnecessary and burdensome. If energy is put into this style of play, other areas will suffer, OR it will take forever to make. It seems to me you should start your own mod project using a game structure better suited for conquering the world; perhaps rise of nations or Empire Deluxe.

 

Whatever your feelings on previous wars, which I never mentioned specifically, the aliens are not on an equal moral plain with humanity in the xcom / xcorp universe. They are evil. They hurt and kill people unnecessarily and avoid the "just war theory" at all costs.

 

I'm not making this game however and have the utmost respect for everyone devoting their time and energy to the project. All I can give are my humble opinions. I just feel the project xenocide should keep the spirit of the original game as much as possible, (just the original, not the sequels) and not have a conquer the world scenario. X-Com is more like a hollywood movie anyway, not a realistic alien attack simulation.

Edited by GARAK
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Nooo, I wasn't suggesting a massive engine to support this, I was indicating the possibility of alien-controlled countries launching attacks on your craft/bases etc etc. Nothing complicated.
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I caught that T-1 and think this sounds pretty good. It would be nice to see a variety in the lineup of missions and how they're presented.

 

2 or 3 combat setting variations on Terrors, 2 or 3 variations on infitration, base attack/defense, etc. I was thinking that if territorial matters became important, it could make more sense to have them.

 

i.e. Maybe you've had a tough time of it taking on rival human orgs on top of the alien menace, losing a couple of bases and resouces which could introduce combat setting variances on the base defense missions just as an example. Maybe you've had to go more guerilla style in your approach to the war handling much smaller encampments with limited defense potential, or taken refuge out to sea on a big boat or oil rig.

 

You could sort of weed in the best setting aspects to some of the the games that have worked well and sort of adopt them.

 

Well, either that, or a map editor would do wonders too :) Might be interesting too if we could string those designer maps together into respectable sized player made campaigns.

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I see your point. I do like variation. Some variety of terror missions would be nice as well as base objectives. In the original it was always, "blow up the command center." Even on mars it was pretty much the same thing. The bases should be entered from the outside and there should be different objectives depending on the construction of the alien base. If the command center has a weakness, blow it up. If its the reactor, not the command center blow that up, or make it go critical. I don't like the idea of just raiding an alien base. Why would that be easier than blowing it up? The aliens would probably blow it up themselves if it was attacked. They are supposed to be hidden. You get everything it it when you win anyway, just keep it simple and blow it up. I do like the idea of the alien base defenses shooting at you as you attack. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for human bases to have defenses and aliens that don't.

 

I still don't see the point of humans fighting humans in the presence of this greater threat. I thought the alien human war was a secret. If this goes any farther it will turn in a global conflict game where you are more of a politician and diplomat than military organization commander.

 

I would save the human vs human stuff for a sequel. The first game doesn't go into any details about the alien/human hybrids. What happened to them? You never fight them and they get access to nations leaders and are signing pacts. Maybe there could be a war with factions divided between pro xcorp humans and the ones, that although are glad the regular aliens are gone, are still under the influence and possible control of these hybrids. It's like the Ender's Game series where after they fight off the aliens the common threat that bonded everyone together was gone and WWIII broke out with the new technology.

Just a thought.

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The big reason to blow up parts of the base is that a damaged facility requires resources to fix. It takes time and men, and hinders operations from that base. Anti-personnel weapons are designed to maim instead of kill, because wounded men take a lot of resources for health care. Use the same sort of mentality with alien facilities.
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I've always thought that could make an interesting side objective for X-COM. While they are busy defending from the alien soldiers and personnel that are known to them, what they need to do is make some headway against the ones they use to do their infiltrating. Presumably they're not so easy to detect, but once they are, I'd think that they would be a threat X-COM would choose to ignore.

 

Granted, the player might, but I'd welcome a new mission here or there that fleshed some out.

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But if you attack an alien base and don't blow it up, they know that it's not a secret base anymore. They would be smart enough to destroy it themselves. I don't see anything wrong with that feature, but in effect, if you didn't need the resorces, you would never blow up the bases yourself. You would just raid it then let them blow it up for you. I don't know if that really improves gameplay.
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Actually I never thought of that gameplay angle. I think it would improve things even more, since you are just raiding for supplies and so they back off. However the same thing would come back at you as well. Once they found a base they would attack it mercilessly, probably forcing you to relocate.
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on that note, why couldnt the alien bases be "boobytrapped" and have a count down timer start as soon as you enter the base, i.e. 30 minutes or so. as a balance to that it might be possible to use one or two man recon teams to scout the layoute of the downed aircraft or enemy base to better equip the teams that are to clear/ capture the area. Once you have the recon data, you could establish which mode of insertion the team/teams will make. i.e. air drop, air assault, air transport insertion, terrestrial vehicle insertion, or infiltration on foot. For those who didnt know, air assault is fast roping or rapelling from a helicopter. I dont know if vtol vehicles are on the line up as i havnt read up on that yet. When i played xcom apoc, i allways set up my squads for certain mission types and/ or terrain types. Knowing the layout of the land prior to committing your forces would allow you to arrange times for pick-up thus lessoning the chance of loosing your air or ground mobile forces. I believe this would add a new level of strategy to the game that was sadly missing in the x-com series. Just my two cents (us dollars)
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A self-destruct mechanism would make sense for both sides. I know that the original Skyranger's were VTOL aircraft and probably should have had air assault capability. However alien base defenses would be quite good, since their technology is where we get our pretty FUsion Ball Defenses. My guess is that ground side entrances are equally well guarded(how would you assualt an underground facility with modern weapons?). Trojan Horses would allow you to get in and deactivate thier defenses so more ships can land.

 

In regular missions being able to egress, come back with skyranger's would be useful too.

 

A 30-minute timer is way too much time. At most a turn could be 10 seconds. THat is assuming weapons fire really slowly with everything but laser/plasma pistols firing 9 rounds a turn. That is less than a round a second, which is kinda slow. It also would mean that most soldiers can run 60 feet in 10 seconds. This is based off tiles being 4 x 4 feet(they are probably smaller). Both of these seem ridiculously slow, but it makes a good max time per round. Assumign that, 30 minutes would be 180 turns. I've had some long battles, but nothing even close. If the aliens(or you) figured out they were going to be overrun, they might activate a 5 or 3 minute timer(30 or 18 turns respectively).

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I think the option to toggle all nation's military aircraft-in-flight would be a good idea.

 

Don't forget, the USA should be able to do ground assualts itself, because their military is just so stereotypically "Oh, yeah, don't tell me, I know how to kill a goddamn alien" and cocky. :D

 

Ideally, allied nations airsupport should be like UFO: Aftermath's Phoenix Division Extras; you could delegate missions to other parts of Phoenix Division and they'd do it themselves... they had a lower success rate than you, but they could still handle missions. If you do well, the allied nations airsupport and your own airforce has good morale and does better, whereas if you do badly, allied nations airsupport will have low morale, and therefore a lower rate of success.

 

Nation Diplomacy could be handled like Mercenaries;

 

Blow up that nation's fighters, etc. etc. and piss them off. They don't like you, or hate you, but they won't turn to the aliens. You can bribe them back or kill any nations they aren't allied with. Eventually, it's a whole vicious circle and you have to balance how it works, very, very carefully.

 

Mercenaries;

 

Allied Nations (USA) Enemies; North Korea

South Korea Enemies; North Korea, China, Russian Mafia

China Enemies; North Korea, South Korea, Russian Mafia

Russian Mafia Enemies; South Korea, North Korea, China

North Korea Enemies; Anyone that moves that isn't a civvie

 

You get the idea. You have to balance your missions incredibly, incredibly carefully, otherwise you end up terminally pissing off one or more of the 3 main mission vendors.

 

Admittedly, the world would/could/might descend into global war at some point, which is another thing entirely... might lead to X-Corps aircraft being mistaken for one countries' enemys' aircraft, etc.

 

It depends if the world behaves itself, and whether too much is taken over by the aliens, ex; if Russia are given Alien-Hybrid Tech, imagine what might happen. The aliens would use this opportunity to make old rivalries flare up, and the next thing you know, USA and Russia are in fisticuffs and launching WMDs left right and center!

 

Very complex, but it would be very, very realistic. Or at least believeable.

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If we had time, we could model every single country in the world!!! But that would take so much time and effort. Isn't this beginning to lose track of 'Aircraft Deployment and Interception'?
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I guess this just illustrates Dipstick how topics can easily bleed into others around here. It's difficult especially if any one feature has an effect on another :)

 

Anyway, from what I can tell, these points were raised that seem key for this area of discussion:

 

1) Infiltrations - as it relates to using craft to get through and disable base defenses long enough for a traditional troop deployment to arrive within a particular time frame. Infiltration of enemy craft would also be important if factoring any future developments in craft or base development in space and Mars prior to the final assault (a different play style option to enhance end game, besides just letting things ride on the first space craft you can get to do it).

 

2) Using other nations' militaries to delegate assignments, like arial base assaults on its gun batteries. Your more brute force approach. Expect high casualties among them and an average/low success rate and ping pong effect on their morale. Placate these friends with tech found in the course of battle - or cold hard cash to keep your options open. They can also be used in traditional dogfights with similar results. The friendlier you are, your options shoot up in terms of performing actions in their skies and sending troops to a crisis in their boarders. They may even call you from time to time. Recommend that 'delegate mission' is something that ought to be something used sparingly or else you may find yourself increasingly relied upon (returning favors can be bitch :)).

 

3) The ability of UFOs to target X-COM (or in the case of examining another mission type, them going for the occasional civ plane, creating in essense a potential, albeit mini-terror/abduction mission site if there are suvivors on the ground after) craft more aggressively. Perhaps revolving around a difficulty setting. May also be something where 'delegate mission' comes into play to help discourage pursuit of X-COM ships on the run.

 

4) With relation to #3, an ability to use countermeasures, rear mounted weaponry, evasive action, or to go to aggressive actions by turning to engage.

 

5) And in relation to #4 or interceptions in general, a way of enhancing the displays the commander player sees using camera footage snippets from your interceptors. Each new addition of craft into X-COM's arsenal could boast a better camera, but it could begin with some basic grainy video starting with the basic Interceptor. Future incarnations of the onboard camera could yield clearer picture but also an ability to target systems on UFOs, or even enemy outter base defenses more precisely for a "slightly" more predictable outcome. Recommended that there also be aft cameras if alien UFOs can come after you and you happened to have rear mounted weaponry to see what happens or you can target with them in any precise way.

 

Also another recommendation here would be to enhance what maneuvers you can see based on Aggressive Attack, Standard Attack, Cautious Attack and/or if there is any other factor such as performing these actions while using a tactic such as evasive action. i.e. Aggressive Attack with Evasive Action.

 

My intital estimate for the various camera footages would be high though I think...It really all depends on how many camera improvements are to be gained for intercept interface enhancement. Even with a conservative number of about 3 onboard camera improvements we're looking at:

 

- Aggressive Attack, Standard Attack, Cautious Attack= 9 vids

- Aggressive Attack, Standard Attack, Cautious Attack w/Evasive maneuver= 9 more

- The same attacks but focused on arial opponent Base footage= 9 more

- Base attacks that use evasive mixed in= 9 more

- Rear mounted camera footage breakdown:

--- Evasive with no weapons= 3 vids

--- Evasive with countermeasures= 3 vids

--- Evasive with rear mounted targettable weaponry= 3 more vids

 

Check my math but I get 45 interception window camera vids, and that's not even taking into account effects events when mixed results happen...i.e. I'm looking through my rear camera while I'm performing evasive action in my unarmed ship. I call in an outside influence - "delegate mission" or another X-COM craft. They intervene sucessfully, UFO is a ball of flame in my rear view camera.

 

Someone would have to really love doing video stuff within a game I'd reckon to tackle this aspect :) At least one plus side I can see would be that the footage window wouldn't have to be overly large for some, perhaps thumbnail in quality for the earliest ones (they're grainy and fairly useless afterall, only present for atmosphere really), then perhaps slightly bigger footage window when you start to address targettable hardpoints or subsystems on enemy craft.

 

But then we get into possibly more vids when you think about how a tactic may look from a pilot's perspective i.e. I'm using Aggressive Attack w/Evasive, yet I'm targetting a UFO's engines= 1 more vid. My guess is you may need an additional 1 for a failure yet you don't get shot down. Now multiply a success and failure video for every likely subsystem. Whew that's a lot :)

Edited by Snakeman
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would these cameras be a result of research? meaning our aircraft would have to be retrofitted with them after they have been researched down the communications tech tree (if there is such a thing yet). The camera ideas would be great for unmanned recon drones. im probably going down another bunny trail with this, so if need be just direct me to the right forum LOL. anywho, if our fighters are eventually going to go to the aliens homeworld, we would need a way for near instantaneous communications between the fighters/transports and our home base. these cameras could be our fledgling effort to create a viable product for stellar communications.

 

True on the thirty min timer suggestions, as in game time that would be way to long. But what about a real time timer, nm as that would definately be another bunny trail, has this topic been discussed elsewhere, or should we start another thread on it?

 

what if other nations were able to contract out to us for escort missions on thier high priority transports?

 

well i need to get out to work in the garden, the wife is allready out there. Im really new at this so bear with me if you would. Oh, would it be to late for me to start to learn how to program, and if not where would I start, having no exp in any programming except BASIC way back in jr high, (im 31 now but dont tell).

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Yea, I was just hounded by my pops to come over and cut the lawn. Probably won't get to it til tommorow though. I'm just killing a little time before work.

 

On the battlescape timer for self destruct(s). I'd think you could set it to be within a few if its yours (i.e. your craft's self destruct). With the aliens I think it should be fixed by turn, not by time. i.e. 5, 10, 15, 20 turns or something til detonation. Course I wonder, how does one find out if the other side's self destruct has been set to let you know when its about to blow?

 

I'd have to guess that the only precise way to know if one had/how much time remained would be to try to find and Psi control an alien officer. The other way would be once you know a UFO's layout, you'd become familiar with where this thing is set from to start with - making that a priority destination at mission start (forces you to fight in a way, not hang back). Maybe when you do, you find there's not enough time to disarm it in the turns you have, so this might be where you might choose to evac and let your airborne cover waste the ground site.

 

It may cost you points on the mission, but at least it might've still counted as a success - albeit a bitter one.

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The other way would be once you know a UFO's layout, you'd become familiar with where this thing is set from to start with - making that a priority destination at mission start (forces you to fight in a way, not hang back)

 

Alternately, randomise the position for it (by a little), thereby making it more of an egghunt than a simple charge to the same place every time.

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hmm... that would be very frustrating wont it? unless it's not randomized very much... And what if that section of the UFO got destroyed or heavily bombed? will the self festruct still go on? or is there some sort of a backup?
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I agree, if these self destructs were in a similar location every time (not necessarily exactly the same place), and the area it was in was damaged or destroyed off the ship, it shouldn't be a worry. They just lose the ability to scuttle as shwick said.

 

On a similar track, if you happened to use an armed transport that got damaged taking down a UFO and subsequently used it to also do the battlescape mission for it, it too should have a percent for the player to lose his/her ability to scuttle their own craft.

 

You could also add in other damage percentage odds from the results of interceptions for things like communications - losing the ability to call in reinforcements or air strikes as tactics on the ground. You could also include damage probabilities to things like if the transport or alien ship had gun mounts on them usable on the battlescape.

 

edit: Speaking of overall damages as a result of interceptions, in another thread relating to being able to target areas of UFOs more precisely, UFOs could likely do this to you too if they cared (unless their approach by nature is more indiscriminate on a target).

 

Anyway, what I was coming to was sometimes in the old game, if you scored enough damage to a ship, you'd see the results on the ground in terms of some of the alien numbers already dead. I think it only logical it should extend somewhat to your transports should they act as interceptions and then subsequently land to take the mission. It could raise the challenge if a third or more of your men got waxed or severely wounded during battlescape phase.

Edited by Snakeman
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Technically, a Plasma Blast in any location on an Interceptor is going to rip it up big time, so I doubt they really need to bother aiming. When it comes to the "Avenger", and so on, yeah, they might bother aiming.

 

I'd like to see impact craters and such. That was the boring bit about the first X-COM. No impact craters! Just the UFO, landed neatly, even if most of the middle of it was blown to smithereens.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Yeah, craters, or drag marks across the terrain with fires and smoke... and knocked over trees would be cool too....

Oh wait, I don't really care. I think this whole thread is showing us just how complex a game can become if everyone gets what they want. Battlecruiser comes to mind with its 500 page manual. I never played it but it looked pretty complicated.

I just want xcom to be revamped and improved, not a complete global strategy simulation, air combat, ground combat, and economics simulation all in one. I'm not a general or the president and I don't have advisors, I just want to play a game.

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