11 replies to this topic

[A_dxman]

Just last weekend I was playing aftermath and having a great time, until I found 3 alien bases. Now, as a rule, in aftermath, I attack everything BUT the bases cause, lets face it, if someone else will die capturing an enemy base, why sent in you crack troops.
The thought occurred to me, why even waist human lives? Why not just Nuke the bastards, land, on top of the base, stick a nuke in the grav lift, run like heck and detonate the thing from 150Km a way?
In the X-com series this might not be practical because of civilians but couldn’t we apply the same idea?
Heres some inhuman ways to kill bugs.
• Nuke me, atomic or fusion is just fine
• 1 megaton of TNT
• Chlorine gas
• Carbon-monoxide
• Bug spray
• Biological weapons
• (or my fav) pore tones of concrete (or quick setting plastic {go neon genesis}) on top of the surface entrance to the enemy base and see how long it take them to dig their way out of that
• Sent a bunch of rednecks with RPG’s in to meet them
• Drown the suckers, full the thing up with water saturated with salt, I bet ethereals cant swim

[P[D]S]

, I have to confess, it's way more practical. In enemy bases mind control has always been terrible and it can therefor be very hard to clear a base with troops. A nuke or anything alike would indeed be a, although not so sophisticated, efficient solution.

Then again, isn't the whole point of x-com to fight the aliens AND research the bastards? No point in nuking their base then eh

[dipstick]

Something along the lines of 'discover what the aliens want, and if they are hostile to eliminate them with any and all force necessary'.

Good point, but could kill a lot of people and defeats the objective of the game really - no fun!

[Blehm 98]

most alien bases are somewhat near populated areas. *I don't think that New York would mind it if we nuke the base in the middle of the city, do you?*

[mikker]

why not flood the base entrance with poo 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

would you like to accumulate the needed ammounts? ::

[Durandal]

Nukes would be fun at first, but get boring fast. It's way too easy to plant a bomb and run. If you want to nuke enemy bases, just bring blaster launchers and tons of ammo

[Exo2000]

I say you should have the option of going into a base OR "nuking" it. If you "nuke" it, you lose any equipment and goodies you might have gained (elerium, alloys, guns, corpses, live aliens, rescued civvies) but you don't need to worry about them building a base there again. Overuse of "nukes" should make the council of funding angrier at X-COM, as well as increase alien counterstrikes on your bases. It would also increase the number of UFOs in the air at any one given time. You have a number of options when it comes to blowing the bases up;

Collapse the entry lift, meaning the aliens starve and die (unless a supply ship manages to land, in which case the base is back - they dug their comrades out), use Xenium Powered Bunkerbusters to punch their way down into the bases and explode, softening it up and reducing the number of aliens there for later assualt (this way it's like the base is a crashed UFO - when you get there, explosions are set off and a random number of aliens are killed, but not your men. Leave the assualt too late and all damage is repaired though) Finally, you can equip the XPBB's with tacnukes, in which case the base is irradiated and mostly flattened, leaving a big cavern with metal shrapnel in it. ^^

[azmodean]

How about this concept, you could make the initial assault on a base kind of like shooting down a ufo. The options are basically:
a. bomb the crap out of the base (a nuke or something) which completely destroys the base, kind of like when your weapons completely destroy a ufo. Using an actual nuke would have the drawback of pissing everyone off, but you might be able to "just" carpet-bomb the base instead.
b. "soften" the bases defenses with craft fire, then clean up with ground forces, similar to shooting down a ufo.
c. Perform a quick insertion of troops, who have to get past the bases AAA and then attack an intact base. This is like attacking a landed ufo.
d. Drop the troops off outside the range of the AAA and approach the base on the ground, possibly using ground-based vehicles. Also like attacking a landed ufo, except perhaps they don't know you are coming so are at different locations in the base area. This opens up the possibility of a infiltration-style attack.

All of this assumes that the alien base has Anti-air defenses, so it's not necessarily a matter of just deciding which approach you like, you have to have the appropriate hardware. Also presents a use for paratroopers if that is incorporated (easier for the delivering aircraft to get in and out intact compared to landing) Also, as the focus is on squad-based combat, you don't want all of this to get too complicated and take over. Like I said earlier, something along the lines of the ufo interception interface would be good.

P.S. just found the site, playing X-com again (with dll patching) and really excited about all this.

[seabass]

I think it would be cool if alien bases had "Human Containment" facilities where they held their doomed human captives. When your soldiers liberated the base, they can get extra points by saving these civvies.

Of course, the reverse would be true if your base was being invaded by aliens. They could free their brothers from your Alien Containment cells. The unarmed jail birds would make a bee line for your access lift and escape, or they might grab the nearest gun lying on the ground and fight back.

[Karfir]

Isn't x-corps supposed to be low-profile? Not public? This clearly isn't true in apoc, but the civvies in the first two x-coms could be told it was a subset of their own government that helped them out, to draw attention away from x-corps. Also, if you sealed to entrance to a base, the aliens could escape another way. They do have huge amounts of power in there, right?

[Snakeman]

Maybe one of the ramifications stemming from just sealing their entrance + intercepting every supply ship that tries to land to reopen it. By this I mean:

1. Alien Base is still intact, but now has limited/no influence in changing government stance toward you in that territory. [One of the conditions that can change that can be corrected by the successful landing and take off by at least 1 supply ship] - This assumes the most basic delaying tactic employed by the player.

--->Ramifications:

1a. - Aliens are still alive inside the base and will attempt to retunnel a new entrance at which point the base will be "active" again after a set time limit and all influential points it had to infiltrating or influencing the territory it is in resumes at its last peak levels. [This is the second condition that restores alien base activity influences IF player has been taking down supply ships with none landing]

Pros: No government fallout for the action you took & supply ship loot (or maybe its a deal with that government- i.e. that there won't be a fallout if they get shares of the loot - so maybe a "semi-pro")
Cons: Aliens can recover that base over time.

I think this is one tactic that could be of use while still giving the aliens an "out" so to speak.

Their ability to reover their base like this under other circumstances I'd imagine would also have likely results if they didn't have specific modules within the base destroyed along with the command center i.e. like power rooms, workshops & those "funky-what-the-heck-are-they?" plant rooms.

If they can eat, drink, healup, or have tools (if not communications), they'd probably have varying levels of "tunneling time" ahead of them around this notion of base module damage.

Examples:

Access Lift Blocked - day or two to recover
Access Lift & Hangers blocked - week or more to recover
Access Lift, Hangers & 1 important damaged interior module - 2 weeks or more
Access Lift, Hangers & 2 important damaged interior modules - 2 weeks or more
Access Lift, Hangers & 3 important damaged interior modules - 3 weeks or more

Again this assumes all supply ships are being intercepted, because one successful landing can cancel out these recovery times. This also assumes that, further along in attacking a base before blocking all exits, that the most important base module isn't destroyed - the command center. In fact, if you can "damage" the command center yet not have it mean the base has been eliminated, you could likewise place that as the 4th important module in the tunnel time list.

Keep in mind that I also didn't take into consideration if the aliens had any human slave captives on hand to help or even surviving aliens, but that can further alter those conditions a bit as well. Its also debatable what these generic sounding "important modules" would be, but I would suspect it'd begin with anything that generates food, water, and air in terms of the base being self sufficient for trappped occupants.

Anyway, I've always loved the idea of implimenting hit and run tactics, but that there can be penalties in terms of time investments repairing or rebuilding modules.

Edit: I was thinking too of another ramification concept, but unsure whether to put this here as a result of the aliens returning their base to active duty - And that is terror missions can result in the nearest 2 or 3 cities nearest the base's location some time after they escape. These terror sites can generate without the need of a "Terror Mission" precursor ship flying in and could happen simultaneously or one right smack after the other.

Edited by Snakeman, 30 December 2005 - 06:35 PM.