Alternative Ending

[Historian]

Ok, I basicaly got this idea from Aftermath.

 

How about, if some conditions are met (propably too much alien butt kicking) the aliens contact you and asks the [X-Com] operations to join them (Obviously with promises of power).

If you don't then the game continues as normal. However if you do choose to join the aliens then the [X-com] Operarions suffers a terrific schism. You immediately lose 3/4 of your forces (including bases, personnel etc) and now must fight against your former allies. You lose support from most of the nations but gain support from those that left before. Aliens stop attacking you and X-Com rebels start to. You would be then trying to quell the resistance on earth but fighting an uphill battle because you're greatly outnumbered and even with the alien help the rebels have already enough technology to be fearsome.

 

What do you think?

[SupSuper]

i think implementing an alien side is better

[Cpl. Facehugger]

But it would be cool if the aliens offered you an alliance, then turned around and conquered earth.

[coolp]

That would be awesome! There would be a totally different second hidden game in it... that wouldn't be hidden after the first week after release but still...

[[NKF]]

A year since this was last touched on, but no matter:

 

Here's a thought, rather than a simple 'Game Over' when you lose, why not keep the game going? But now all you'll have is a small guerilla force of soldiers who still believe in the cause and are willing to go on even though the organisation is now defunct (either by the government disbanding the project or the aliens wiping out all major facilities). Only now the aliens will have come in and set up shop. You could turn the world into a fairly horrible place with most of the major populations centres being turned into human farms for the aliens' experiments (as depicted in the bad ending for UFO).

 

The idea is to make the 'losing' conditions way more lenient and let you continue the game no matter how impossible the odds. Of course, once you can no longer continue, such as you're out of resources and have no more people to champion the cause, it's over.

 

So you can either rebuild the organisation from scratch, or imagine having to force or sneak your way through alien military fortification after fortification on your way to the central nervous system of the invasion fleet. You'll have to live off the land and make do with whatever you find. Sounds like fun.

 

I just found that the losing conditions for most of the X-Com games way too strict.

 

- NKF

[tzuchan]

Sounds interesting...

 

An attempt to add guerrila style gameplay into the xenocide engine...

How about if that happens, you loose everything, including all your bases, and all you have left are your transport crafts, and all the agents that you can cram into the transports.

 

As for equipment, if the transport is fully loaded with soldiers and HWP, than you can only loadup the standard load of equipment of your choice from the stores. If the transport is not fully loaded, then depending on how empty the craft is, you can carry extra equipment.

 

Then the transport crafts will be scattered about the globe, within a certain range of thier base of origin. Crafts from the same base will stick together, and if two bases are within range of each other, the transports from both bases will attempt to rendevous.

 

And if you have nothing that can intecept aerial targets, ie Lighting class onwards, you should not carryout missions when enemy UFOs/Aircrafts are around cause you'd be a big fat pidgeon in the sky.

 

Now, then the new types of missions available to you, in the order of intial importance:

 

Supply Raid:

You need to run this "Smash 'n Grab" missions to get resupplies. Most importantly, fuel for your transport crafts, but also equipment like ammo, armor, possibly even make off with capture Xenocide interceptors. Depending on variables, should range from lightly guarded to medium fortifications for a certain number of turns. Take too long, and enemy reinforcements start to appear.

 

Sabotage:

The aliens have an objective in mind and conquering the planet isn't it. Missions of this objective is to pushback a deadline, basically, if the deadline passes, no matter how well you may have been surviving, the game is REALLY over.

 

Intelligence:

Capture a high ranking unit for intelligence purposes. Succesful missions of this type reveal important missions, like perhaps important weapon caches, sabotage missions of high importance etc. Also leads up to the eventual revelation of the final mission.

 

Rescue:

Attacking and freeing inmates of alien experiments/jails. Mainly to get new recruits, and to increase alien activity in that area.

 

Base Capture:

You've found an ideal location for you to setup a rest and refit base, so that your crafts can come in for repairs, pick up necessary equipments and drop off extras. Basically just hangars and stores and living quarters. Just have to clean out the mutant wildlife first.

 

Definately, this is going to be REAL hard to survive the first few months, but basically, crafts at the same location share fuel and equipment, unless, of course, if you 've got both Xenium and normal fuel crafts. Ig you run out of fuel, you can still initiate missions, but they are limited to a certain range around the grounded crafts and you return VERY slowly. Essentially, in this gameplay mode, your transport crafts are basically mobile bases. However, they lack the ability to repair themselves, so you have to capture a base to rest and refit if your transports get in a dogfight and are damaged.

 

Also, the Aliens are limited by the amount of forces they have available to combat you. The more missions you initiate in an area, successfull or not, will cause the aliens to focus more on that area, leaving other areas less covered. Sabotage not only causes the aliens to focus on that area the most, but also reduce the overall forces the aliens have available.

[Snakeman]

I too like the idea of continuing onward without really strict losing conditions. I also think that, just having funding yanked is no real reason for you to go belly up completely.

 

The Guerilla stuff sounds wicked cool, the idea of some random elements of your fractured but loyal group attempting to relink up (or not as the player sees fit) and conduct more targeted objectives just to maintain its meager existance.

 

Once more, by this point, money is pretty much useless. Likely was well, you've probably lost the Men In Black channels to liquidate anything you would have had too much of. Only resources have any value. Recruitment would be fractured as well. You wouldn't be able to max out as quickly to recoup your soldier units who had to fend for themselves after the initial disbanding, so those who you would find in your travels are from pockets of survivors like yourself (those with and without combat backgrounds).

 

I sort of imagine this not unlike the "Future Terminator" stuff in that story's timeframe. Most of the population gone or subdued, economy as we knew it gone with the only resources that matter being those people you can find, food, and whatever materials you can scrounge over longer stretches of time to start a new base of operations to support this new society.

 

In accordance with that, I think some new facility designs should come late game (or strictly used for this severe downturn in events). Things that would make you slowly be more self sufficient than before when you relied on those governments' money and frequent supply runs.

 

One objective though, even though I like the thought of capturing alien bases, should still be to create a base of your own again.

 

Also, the Aliens are limited by the amount of forces they have available to combat you. The more missions you initiate in an area, successfull or not, will cause the aliens to focus more on that area, leaving other areas less covered. Sabotage not only causes the aliens to focus on that area the most, but also reduce the overall forces the aliens have available.

 

I like this too, since it gives the player another way out. Change the alien tactics used to find you, but only if the player is wise enough to attack farther from where they're based.

[mikker]

hmmm...

 

if you lose, you should be given a "Alien invasion succeeded! Want to prolong the inevitable?" popup.

 

Also, if the countries stop founding you, or every country signs, you keep all your bases, but the alien will kick more arse then before

 

What would happen in this mode?

 

1) Nobody will fund you.

2) You can't buy any items.

3) You can't sell anything either.

4) Money will loose it's value, but you can still get fuel and stuff.

5) No maintanance or other fees.

6) You get a certain ammount of hireable soldiers per month (maybe 10 or 20 or based on difficulty), same with scientists and engineers.

7) When you got no more bases you lose. I think a gurilla tactic is too advanced...

[tzuchan]

I suppose leaving you with your original bases is an easy way out of a whole lot off programming, but hey, this is a suggestion for post V1 anyway. Something like this might only pop up on V4+ <_>

 

Thing is, if the aliens win, they would presumely shutdown Xenocide first, by force if necessary. They would also be likely to have access to people who knew where all current Xenocide bases were situated, hence realistically, you'd experince near simultaneuos attacks on all bases. The senario I worked out assumes that you fought a fighting retreat, and that you evaced as many troops as possible and went to ground, in order to fight the alien menace.

 

Also, instead of base capture, I supposed I should have called the mission base setup...

Remember, since Xenocide is on the run, it's not likely that they'll have access to heavy duty construction equipment. As such, they'd have to scout out suitable abandoned facilities and convert them to thier own use. It's likely that those facilities will be inhabited by mutant wildlife released by the aliens. Also, I figure that the bases would be much more limited in shape and size, but atleast big enough for a hangar and maybe three or four other facilities at the very least.

[Snakeman]

Yea, I don't like that you'd get to keep all your bases for that reason above about government leaders revealing that to the aliens. Although perhaps there could be another addition here to finding a new base. You could introduce long lost locales to help you here, stuff that could have been laying around since WW 2 or before or something as one work around.

 

Ya know, stuff that might not be known at all or by very few government leaders in this game's time frame your team can uncover through limited patrols.

 

Course, I still also like the option of building another outpost from scratch as well. Think of it as a fork in the road to recovery. There could be a few branches to get there where the fun there is exploring the paths.

[sir_schwick]

I think you should keep your bases because you planned for this contingency. X-CORP has had contingencies in case governments were infiltrated so they would not be found. However, besides that I mostly agree. Here is my synopsis.

 

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- Money is no longer a factor.

- Because of above, you cannot buy or sell stuff.

 

The aliens now can set up open bases and facilities on the surface. Most urban centers are converted into food farms and scientific facilities. Resistance groups start going into the woods and fighting ineffective geurilla war.

 

You have several new concerns for your bases and men. The first is food. The best way to collect food is from groups who can harvest it or by raiding alien food facilities. Expect a lot of firefighting with the second one.

 

Recruitment is another problem. As you make conctact with resistance groups, they can now send new(although not l33t) soldiers, engineers, and scientists.

 

When you send missions to urban centers, you get a list of targets you can attack. These include 'military', 'production', 'housing', 'storage', 'starport'.

 

Your goal is to find enough gear to arm large resistance gropus and try to take over the large urban centers. If you can manage it, then a popular revolt can be armed. In reality this can help remove the aliens from Earth. Ultimately you are trying to destroy the overmind, but the aliens need to not have orbital supremacy.

 

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NOw, for the 'Dark Side' ending....

 

You can use 'prestige' points or something similair to requesition materials and personnell from Alien forces. Your goals are now to eliminate your former partners in crime and replace the world leaders. Now you can participate in 'terror' missions, infiltration missions, and still recruit from alien nations.

 

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[Snakeman]

I think the key to restoring things over time like enlarging the hiring pool you'd need in order to continue on the road to recovery, you'd need to open up not just lines of communication with the resistance groups, but eventually supply lines to their own encampments (so they can then help you out in whatever limited ways they can).

 

I like the thought above about turning the tables slightly for your side, to begin to do 'terror missions' of your own (although realistically, they'd probably be called something else). It'd be a perspective switcheroo where before you couldn't do these kinds of missions for fear of pissing off the governments. Now you don't have those ties so just about anything goes from those depths of disparity you find yourself in.

[Shinzon]

this could be an "Expansion pack" sounds like a compleatly diffrent game to me but still in the good ol spirit of x-com...

 

i would personaly love to see both sides piss the governments off and fight as guarrila... the guarrila reminds of half-life2 for some strange reason

[[NKF]]

Oh, I'm sure that if the mechanics were built into the game it would be all right. I mean, you could do it right from the start, but you generally won't have any inclination to do so because you all your resources are being supplied.

 

A base is merely a convenience. A very necessary convenience, I'll admit, but it shouldn't stop you from continuing the game if you didn't have one, right? I mean, you can always hide out in some old abandoned cottage, or set up tents (a true 'mobile' base! ) in the safety of some deep jungle or somesuch (relatively speaking. Safe from the aliens' detection. Not from the lions and tiger and bears...).

 

Or an aircraft carrier... which would be sunk the moment it was spotted. But eh.

 

- NKF

Edited January 4, 2005 by NKF

[mikker]

I agree that this starts to sound like an expension pack. What i imagened for a lost game, is that you fight for the rest you have, untill you die. You won't be able to win, but you're great if you can hold it a year.

[sir_schwick]

Actually I meant the dark side stuff to be avaliable only once the aliens propose and alliance with you. HOwever, having those options from the beginning could open up all kinds of possibilities.

[Snakeman]

Another thought here too, assuming this isn't just a way to delay the true ending of the game by failure...I imagine too, that if you started the guerilla stuff before certain things could be obtained (i.e. navigation, alloys, power source etc. was researched, but you could not develop your own craft before things went to heck)...It does still seem plausible to introduce the Cydonia thing and use an alien craft instead, however, I'd also imagine that as soon you knew this, you definitely would have a finite amount of time to do the mission.

 

Not like before where you still had support, and knew the location then when you could still hold your ground (but chose to delay doing the final mission until ready). I'm talking more of an alternate way to get that final mission from a losing position like discussed above...Only you can't wait too long and have to use whatever's available.

 

The key to opening this particular "fork in the road to recovery" though I believe, should definitely be tied to what research was accomplished before the disbanding portion. If you didn't get that far in the research, it stretches out your efforts much longer (i.e. if you didn't have a containment facility this late for captures/interrogations, perhaps this is another reason to use alien bases, even temporarily, since they've already got the environment inherently set up within their bases to keep them alive for this).

 

A last note relating to this particular objective, you could probably accomplish this without too much engineer support where it relates to facility construction (granted, you'll need them to make things from time to time as always). Point is, you won't have to necessarily build a containment structure for example, if you can take an alien position temporarily.

 

Just wanted to highlight one path, but I do like the notion of several ways to get out from under and exploring them.

Edited January 4, 2005 by Snakeman

[GARAK]

It would be neat as an add on. Or a sequel or whatever. "What ifs" are what science fiction is all about. I think the preloss xcorp should be very moral and upstanding, but the dessimated xcorp should use any means necessary to bring pain on the aliens. Sneaking nukes into alien bases and blowing them up should be commonplace. If you have to poison an alein food supply, (a city of people) to kill a ton of aliens, oh well.

I like the "do what has to be done" mentality in these kinds of games. It's like Xcom meets Fallout. 2 of the best games ever made...

 

Can we get the guy that does the voice overs for fallout?

Edited June 2, 2005 by GARAK