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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Some New Ideas


Safe-Keeper

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I'm deeply intrigued by this "X-Force" re-make, and I thought I'd add a few ideas of my own:

 

Option for operatives to parachute into battle instead of landing by troop transport.

 

Method: Select "Air drop" as insertion method when approaching site. Operatives will jump out of their carrier and land relatively close to each others on the battleground. A requirement would be that every operative to be air-dropped wore a parachute instead of a backpack.

 

Usefulness:

Quick insertion of troops without having to risk transport craft.

Enabling your operatives to start out in the outdoors, spread out on the battlefield, rather than inside a transport craft, adds to the open-ended element of the game.

 

Drawbacks:

Operatives risk hurting themselves when they hit the ground, or get entangled in obstructions such as trees.

Disentangling from chute and taking it off (dropping item) costs time units.

Operatives on the way down are targets for alien snipers on the ground (if their reaction is high enough).

Operatives can not abort mission to retreat safely, as no troop transport will be on the ground unless it's told to land or another lands to join the battle.

The fact that parachutes are worn instead of backpacks means fewer items can be carried by operatives.

 

System for choosing starting formation and saving preferred weapons and items distribution pre-battle so that you don't have to do so every time.

 

Method: Choose who starts nearest the ramp of the landing craft. Then distrubute weapons, equipment, and items to your operatives, and save your settings for later recall and/or make it the default setting.

 

Usefulness:

It gets tiresome to distribute weapons and items every time you land. This saves you the bother.

 

Drawbacks:

I honestly can not think of any.

 

The landing craft itself can be shot at during battle.

Method: Landing craft(s) have Health and Armour and can be destroyed like HWPs.

 

Usefulness:

Adds to tactical element as you have to defend the transport.

Makes more sense than an impervious transport.

 

Drawbacks:

Transport can easily be destroyed by heavy weapons like Blaster Launchers, stranding the soldiers.

 

The landing itself is a turn, with the transport vulnerable as it comes in to land.

Method:

As the transport approaches the battle, aliens with a high enough reaction can shoot at it.

 

Usefulness:

Would look neat.

 

Drawback:

Transport doesn't get a chance to defend itself.

 

Additional transport craft can join a single fight.

So you can have soldiers down at a battle and a second Skyranger approaches over their heads and lands to join the fight (or gets shot to pieces and comes crashing down over their heads).

 

Ability to select transport and spend time units closing and opening the ramp.

Pretty self-explanatory. It'd protect troops who can't fight and need to be "hidden away" back at your transport.

 

More armour/suits, varied further by different armours/suits having different kit slots; backpacks/belts are items that must be purchased.

 

Method: For example, one armour has Left Shoulder and Right Shoulder slots while another does not.

 

Belts and backpacks are items that need to be purchased. They can be carried, dropped, and thrown, and are added to the weight of everything carried.

 

Usefulness:

Increases variation and depth.

 

Drawbacks:

Increases micro-management.

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Guest Azrael
I'm deeply intrigued by this "X-Force" re-make, and I thought I'd add a few ideas of my own:

X-Force? I don't know how you mixed our name, it's everywhere :WTF: Our game is called Xenocide, it's inspired in X-Com.

Anyway, moved to the Labs.

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Soldier equipment templates, like Apocalypse, right? Everyone gets a unique weapon set, and it stays at the end of the mission.

 

One update to the Apocalypse method would to actually have the soldier remember what they were carrying before the battle (mainly in terms of ammunition and grenade supplies).

 

Let's say you have a set of grenades and some ammunition. You use these up. The soldier should remember that he or she was carrying these ammunition clips and grenades (preferably where they are placed as well - unless there's a new ammo storage system - an ammo pool, for example). When the soldier gets back to base, everything that wasn't on his or her designated item list is put into storage, and replacement clips and grenades are drawn from storage - pending avaiablity if there's insufficient supplies.

 

See, in Apocalyspe, it was an incredible headache when you used a weapon that requires a lot of ammunition but gets spent very quickly. Like the Law Pistols and the Toxiguns to name a few - they're great weapons, but the ammunition requirements were ridiculous when you had to rearm the soldier after every battle (4, 8, or even 16 clips.. argh!). It would require less micromanagement on the part of the player if your soldiers were to automatically rearm the number of clips that they'd been assigned.

 

The con of this method, of course, is that you may decide to change to a new weapon in the middle of the battle, or even change your whole weapon set. But when you get back, your previous set will be armed. To have the new set, you end up re-arming your soldier again.

 

Actually, one way of fixing this is to have a button in the inventory screen that, when pressed, tells the game to remember the current layout. Every time that is pressed, the soldier remembers what is currently being carried and attempts to automatically equip based on these settings as soon as he or she gets home (or during whatever time of day that all the housekeeping is done (midnight in most of the X-Com games)). That's not too bad a solution, actually.

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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Guest Azrael
See, in Apocalyspe, it was an incredible headache when you used a weapon that requires a lot of ammunition but gets spent very quickly. Like the Law Pistols and the Toxiguns to name a few - they're great weapons, but the ammunition requirements were ridiculous when you had to rearm the soldier after every battle (4, 8, or even 16 clips.. argh!). It would require less micromanagement on the part of the player if your soldiers were to automatically rearm the number of clips that they'd been assigned.

I love those toxi-guns :), I used to carry 4 clips a soldier, that's true :D, I manufactured clips in mass!

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Airdrops are notoriously risky and inaccurate. You can often be spread out hundreds of meters to even miles from your jumping squad mates. Although some alien drop technology utilizing hover pods may not be a bad idea. They could be sleds you ride and slide into combat with.

 

The transports would have small arms(mini-guns, etc.) and some equipment to clear the LZ.

 

Also, I think once you have the knowledge, you should be able to utilize UFO systems and once the mission is over, fly the UFO back to base for breakdown or use.

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