Kenshiro

IMO: I think this debate is on the wrong topic. Olympic sprinters, Rangers, Mutons, ninjas, who cares? Sometimes people get run over by all manner of things, and other times they dodge amazingly-impossible-to-dodge things. It's a debate that can go on endlessly because it's one of those quasi-physics question where likelihoods seem to be able to be figured out, when in fact it's all subjective and based on luck and intangibles. But, the real questions we should be asking while designing a game (unless we're coming up with a plausible technical explanation in the text for something, in which realism is more important) are: 1) Is it fun for the player to do it? If it is, and it doesn't completely fly outside the realm of the possible within the game universe, it should be considered. Running over things with a tank definately falls into the category of fun for the player, and also could be plausible (which both sides of the debate seem to acknowledge). I'd say its just about as plausible as carrying around a 70 pound machine gun and accurately striking a target on full auto or jetting around in a flying armor suit. This goes both ways, of course. Sure it's realistic for a soldier to have to go through grueling, long training to be able to participate in combat. But would you ever want to make the player do it? No. The player wants to jump right in and play the game. Is it realistic for the player to play a soldier without this training? Probably not, in most people's cases. Is it more fun that way? Absolutely. 2) Is it worth implementing? The question of when and if to implement then depends on time and resources. Is running over something with a tank easy to implement? I don't know. It'll require a special animation, some collision detecting code, some modifications to how the mouse interface works (normally mousing over an alien brings up a reticle), and some other things, like having a variable status that indicates the alien is squished. These will all have to be done by someone. I notice a lot of debates in the forums seem to be going into an infinity spiral over real/not real/technically perfect, when the main thing we should probably be thinking about are these two primary concerns. Just my opinion, of course.

Just imagine...

I think there's a facility that is critically missing from the base, and that is a weapons range. Every industrialized nation infantry base I've ever heard of(especially covert ops ones) and even civilian police departments have a range of some kind. This would allow for the marksmanship/heavy weapons training we discussed in the soldier interface screen thread awhile back. Your soldiers could be assigned to marksmanship training on the same lines as the psionics training. On a similar vein, a physical training facility would also be useful. This would contain items such as an obstacle course and a gym. This would boost your soldiers' physical attributes for as long as they were assigned to this type of training. Although I imagine a regular PT (physical training, read: military calisthenics/exercise) regimen would already be in place with or without this facility, its a lot harder to make gains when you are already in shape (as X-Corps soldiers would conceivably be) without some kind of workout facility. This being a secret base, I couldn't see the troops just heading out to the local gym in the nearest town (if there IS even a nearest town) and compromising the whole project. Having these facilities would give you the ability to not only improve your soldiers, but also to specialize them, giving the player a lot more control over the team composition. Instead of having to assign generalists to all positions, he or she can simply train up the troops to fit the team position.

I'd been reserving some comment, but the fact is the YF-22 and 23 were both in the pipe in 1989, and by 2010 will have about the same currency as the F-16 does now. If we're looking for the latest and greatest feasible technology available, here's some ideas: Boeing Bird of Prey X-36 UCAV Some ideas to throw out there; not that we need to unsettle something that's already been completed.

And then X-Corps got kicked out of South Korea, almost... You should definately be able to trample down bushes with the HWP, if not your X-Corps men. Especially if they have armored suits. Wooden structures seem pretty likely candidates for the HWPs to be able to run right through also. That always ticked me off about X-Com - your whole squad could get stuck if you had one guy out of TUs at the front of the line in a 1-square wide opening between brush. You'd think they could find someway through those bushes.

Very interesting. Although classified as an antimateriel sniper rifle, that gun does indeed fire a round designed for anti-aircraft guns. Technically the action makes it a recoilless rifle, but with a round of that size it probably fits the bill for a "heavy cannon" (still a misnomer) closest. Crazy Croatians. I'd hate to be the poor bastard to have to hump that thing around, much less fire it. You'd probably be bruised for days. Fur, you and I should compare notes sometime. I think this should probably move to the existing HC discussion, however.

With UFOs we kind of have to go with the common mythos of UFOs, by most reports UFOs can accelerate and decelerate immediately and change course without being affected by inertia. In the bulk of sighting accounts, individuals saw UFOs either keep pace and then rapidly accelerate to impossible-to-follow speeds or made some conventionally impossible maneuver, such as shooting at right angle up into the air from a straight-and-level flight. Military pilots reporting a UFO often related the UFO "toyed" with them by literally flying circles around them, or coming impossibly close to a collision before breaking off.

I don't think it's a good idea to require the base have an administration center to function. The X-Com base is a small scall operation, typically less than 200 personnel. Although it could be a setback for them to have a central office get destroyed, I doubt it would bring that few people to a grinding halt. We're talking about a difficult people management job in that kind of situation, but heck, I've had a third that many troops under my direct control before and I didn't even use a computer to keep track of them. I can't imagine such an organization would be without several redundant forms of backup communications and some kind of offsite records. Even though it's secretive, this a multi-national, highly funded, military operation we're talking about. I can't possibly conceive that someone would run such a chickenshit outfit that if a few computers and filing cabinets get taken out they're completely cut off from reinforcement and resupply. It defies common sense. Not to put too fine a point on it. Now, I could see some advantages to having something like that; maybe you can only pick and choose who you hire when you get the office, or perhaps you get some kind of comparison shopping advantage in your resupply, because those kind of things do take some organization. I could also see some communications plusses (though the X-Corps units, being the cream of the elite they are, are probably capable of being effective while out on their own to a large degree). Communications systems aren't small things when it comes to the military, but nowadays everythings done with general computers, cellphones (or Iridium Sat phones, which go anywhere in the world), and is less reliant on the gigantic mil-spec one-purpose-only beasts of the cold war era. So maybe a central office gives you some kind of organizational or operational bonus, but with that small of a unit I don't see it being terribly large. The one level I could see something like that being essential on is linking all the bases together. There has to be some kind of link - fiber lines and sattelite uplinks don't just grow out of your standard workstation, after all. I recall a lot of talk earlier about research and manufacturing being compounded by having multiple bases working on the same thing. That might be a good feature for a command center. It's true, on a large scale, taking out a centralized command and control facility can really ruin your army's day. But with such a small operation, I think we're close enough to ground level that subordinate leaders can work out the kinks if it gets taken out.

Notes about naming conventions: Rifles, cannons, and pistols (with the exception of a famous handful, and usually not military pistols) usually lack nicknames like missiles or aircraft. Unofficial nicknames are also not widely accepted unless they refer to a model designation. As an example, the M-16 is nicknamed the Black Rifle, but generally its only called this by gun magazines and books. Soldiers refer to it as a "sixteen" or just rifle (and those in the know call it "this piece of crap") just as an AK-47 is generally refered to as the AK (sometimes Kalishnikov, but that's the maker, not a specific nickname for this gun). The Peacemaker, Desert Eagle, Anaconda, etc, were all originally intended for the civillian market which is why they got their racy nicknames. Designations tend to follow the conventions of the country they are in use in and can be quite different from nation to nation. For instance the AK-47 is refered to by over 20 different model number designations in the countries where it is license-built, and most designations for it don't begin with AK or end with 47. The Panavia-built Tornado has several different designations in the countries which field it (and even one which calls it something other than Tornado). Tanks in the former Soviet bloc and allied nations built the same exact tank from Soviet provided factory tooling, and named the result something totally different than T-38, or T-52, etc. X-Corps, being an international organization, can therefore have its own model numbers and names for everything, but it should still follow a consistent designation convention. Most "M-(some number)" or other designations either follow a year (the M-1911 pistol, M-60 MG, and AK-47 and AK-74 rifles for instance) or a series (M-14, M-16 rifles, F-16, F-18, F-22 aircraft). The Brits and US Navy use a Mark system (Mark I, Mark II, etc, sometimes followed with Mod 1, Mod 2, etc indicating smaller revisions). X prefixes refer to experimental (not operational) models, and are usually given a non-X designation when brought into operational use, in however limited fashion. (The XM-177E2, aka Colt Commando, a shorty version of the M-16, was designated GAU-5A by the Air Force although its use was originally intended as evaluative; The XP-51 became the P-51 Mustang in operational service, etc). As cutting edge as X-Corps is, I don't believe even their "X planes" would be designated with an X prefix if they were planning to actually use them on real missions. Keeping a consistent theme or starting letter in choosing names (Fighting Falcon, Strike Eagle, Raptor, Nighthawk are all US fighters, Flogger, Fishbed, Fulcum are all NATO designations for Soviet bloc fighters) is also a good idea. I liked the themes presented above about using greek mythological names, although some were a bit obscure - though admittedly a Nemesis missile would be cool. Slang names don't generally break away from the official designation except in cases where the official name is too cumbersome or doesn't suit the item it applies to. Most unofficial terms are contractions of the official term, which get the name down to one or two syllables. Examples here are calling the M-16 the "sixteen", the F-104 Thunderchief the "Thud", the B-52 Stratofortress the "BUFF" (a less cumbersome and more suitable name), and the M-3 Sub Machine Gun the "Grease Gun" (for its reliance on greased ammo to be able to fire). Unofficial names that have nothing at all to do with the official designation are more the exception than the rule, so we should be careful picking names like that or we'll get schlocky in a hurry. Hopefully this will give us a guide to consistency in designating our weapons.

Part of the problem might be that some of the newer cards no longer support a screen resolution low enought to run X-Com. I can run X-Com just fine on my P-133 with its onboard VGA but my P-2.35Ghz with a Radeon 9700 Pro scrambles the graphics. X-Com util doesn't help, changing the name doesn't help, and turning off DirectDraw doesn't help. Could be something else, but I think the problem is that it just can't flip the resolution down that much. I've gotten similar effect working in C (in the long past) when I set the screen resolution to un unsupported mode that was too high for my card to handle.

I think it would be tedious to have to fight that many battles. Part of the beauty of the original was that the pacing was enough to keep you on your toes, but not so much that you were given an overwhelming workload. Imagine trying to run that many ground missions once your epic air campaign got underway... you'd be at it for hours, all the while stuck in real time without your research, manufacturing, or supply ordering progressing. I think the player would have too much going on. More is not necessarily better. By the way, most flying squadrons (at least in the USAF) have at least 10 aircraft and as many as 50. The smallest squadron I ever saw was in the Cameroon Air Force, consisting of 3 Alpha fighters and 2 Loon scout props, but that squadron included the entire support staff for the base as well.

Various military units have occassionally used the .357 caliber version of the Desert Eagle. Some police departments still specify a .357 Magnum revolver for certain duty positions, but by and large revolver calibers are passe. The new .357 Sig round, a centerfire rather than rimfire cartridge, has found some acceptance, but is a totally different round than the .357 magnum in all but projectile diameter (and even this is slightly different). Just in case anyone was wondering - that was pretty off topic. Another concept for subduing creatures who can't be manicled - how about a plain old net? They still use these on unruly people in some parts of the world.

I'm not forgetting this. While micrometeors do travel at ultra high speeds, they lack sufficient mass (and thus, kinetic energy) to inflict damage. This was a strong concern of the early space program, but extensive testing proved worries about these particles to be unwarranted. This is why we are able to go into orbit without constantly having astronauts get killed by specks of orbital debris.

I think we can fix the slow reload time for a railgun by simply making the thing multibarreled (like every other modern aerial cannon). With five or six barrels each firing even twice per second, that still gives us 10-12 rps, which comes out to 600-720rpm. Now that's still a lot slower than a conventional cannon, but keep in mind the velocity of these rounds is such that no frickin plane is going between them. Add on computerized target leading, and you've got a winning solution, I think. FireHawk, you're partly right about the size of the round mattering less. What is most important is the kinetic energy delivered to the target. A .22 LR bullet delivers a muzzle energy of only 160-180 foot pounds. However, given the front cross section of the round is only .22 inches in diameter, this gives a lot of energy over a small point. Given a soft target like a rabbit, a regular point .22 delivers all of that energy over a tiny area and zips right through the bunny, which is a really soft target. The hollow point transfers its energy, on the other hand, it deforms, spreads, and tumbles inside the rabbit, creating a shockwave that distributes practically all the energy in the projectile to the tissue of the rabbit, tearing it apart and causing massive wounding. The .22 hollowpoint is not more powerful, it just transfers energy more efficiently, at the cost of penetration power. Fire into a semi-hard substance, such as a wooden log, and the .22 regular tip will go several inches into the log. The hollowpoint will cause a large chip at the surface, but not penetrate. However, if you take that same .22 regular tip round and fire it against a 1/4 steel plate, the round will not penetrate and will ricochet, because all that energy has to go someplace. Some of it will transfer into the plate, but not enough to damage it. A .22 hollowpoint will pancake against the plate and drop to the ground a flat piece of lead, because as the energy is transfered into the plate, it deforms the bullet instead of the material it is striking. Neither round, however will do anything to the plate except perhaps leave a tiny indentation. Over the flight of a round, a .22 loses energy rapidly (in comparison to other kinds of bullets) because even though it starts out at a higher speed than other bullets, it has less mass and therefore is more subject to losing momentum through drag. Heavier projectiles start out slower, but because they are more massive, lose less of their overall energy due to higher mass with a lower relative cross section subject to drag. Bigger cannon rounds such as 20mm-30mm shells are a trade off between high velocity and high energy. Making them larger makes them too slow for their intended purpose or requires a heavier, more robust gun to fire them at the proper speed, neither of which works well in an airframe. DPUs are used because they maximize the amount of mass that can go into the cartridge of a given cross-section. A 20mm DPU is nearly twice as heavy as a 20mm steel boat-tip ball bullet, with the same amount of drag. As a result, a 20mm DPU will deliver more energy to the target, although it will get there somewhat slower than the 20mm steel round because of a slower starting (muzzle) velocity. Sabot rounds deliver high energy because they cheat the physics of the firing process a little. As much powder as a larger round can be put behind the bullet and efficiently exploded before the round leaves the barrel. Then, an outer casing comes off and the smaller bullet, travelling at a higher velocity than would otherwise be possible for a round of its size, continues on to the target. The molten effects in a tank occur because the impact transfers so much energy so quickly that the armor of the tank is heated to the point it melts. The energy is not transfered just in a straight line; starting with a small hole at the point of initial impact, it spreads out in a cone shape as the round passes through the tank hull and creates a rather sizeable hole once reaching the back of the armor plate. The round continues through the armor because it still has plenty of energy, as does the molten material that has just been melted away, accelerated by the bullet to ballistic velocity. The entire mess then flies around the inside of the tank until all the energy is transfered or absorbed, usually resulting in the crew being reduced to chunky salsa. The acceleration of our cannon, using a 20mm penetrator but at a hypersonic velocity, is likely to produce so much kinetic energy that even an advanced alien alloy material will be penetrated. A side advantage to hypersonic speeds is that the shockwave will cause the round to literally skip through the air without experiencing ordinary air drag (though it will be subject to the influence of its own shockwave). This will deliver energy on the order of a much, much larger conventional round. Since energy is delivered as a factor of mass and velocity and not just a regular multiplier, this method produces a projectile with hundreds (perhaps thousands) of times more energy than its conventional equivalent, creating quite a mess in our hapless enemy UFO.

No, no. Only every bartender and truckdriver has a sawed off shotgun. All Americans have a .357 magnum, .44 magnum revolver, or .12 gauge shotgun in their homes! I, however, keep a BFG 5000 under my pillow. Strictly for self-protection, of course. Oh, another idea which I think is sorely lacking in X-Com and seems to be appropriately placed in melee items: Handcuffs or (more likely) flex-cuffs. So your buddy flips out after an MC? You knock down an alien but suspect he might not be dead? Angry civilian causing you trouble? Hogtie that chucklehead with some flex-cuffs and he's no longer gonna be an issue. You'd use handcuff as a melee attack when the flex-cuff is held, just like any other weapon attack. I wouldn't think you could flexicuff anything except a person unless they were subdued (except maybe a sectoid - the little wimps). For those who don't know, a flex-cuff is an oversized plastic zip-tie, with a little one-direction-only zip buckle on it that works just like the strips they hold wires in neat bundles with. Only flex-cuffs are about a quarter-inch wide, 20+ inches long, and have a vastly improved tensile strength. You zip them around ankles and wrists and through a belt buckle or somesuch and no one is going anywhere. An officer can carry dozens of them because the weight is basically insignificant (I'd suggest making a pack of fifty or so take up one inventory square.)