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Mod suggestion/Idea (Field Scientists & Not-tricorders)


Ogaburan

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This is mostly a 2-in-1 post, but I think they tie in together for a neat mod.

Yet also separately they could add allot to the game.

1. Totally not a tricorder suggestion

I think this game can improve if we could add optional goals/objectives during missions.

So they wont become all that repetitive.

What I thought, is having a "weapon" that could load in it alien corpses or remains.

It would look somethign like this:

medical_tricorder.png

And named something in the lines of "Obviously not a tricorder".

And every time you load it, it will give you some kind of a benefit.

Now for this... I don't know what are the limitation of what can or cannot be done.

But my default thinking was in the lines of creating an invisible, uninteractive alien structure that will end up showing in the end of the mission and give you some money.

I think this will add allot to current game play:

- More strategical stuff to do

- Less "samey" missions

- Reason not to blow up or BBQ (Magnumomauts im looking at you!) aliens

- More things to do for the "concomitantly-impaired" recruits

Thoughts?

----

2. Xtended Racism and Sexism potential

Was wondering if this code:

<minSoldierAge value="21" comment="The minimal age of a soldier."  /> <maxSoldierAge value="35" comment="The maximal age of a soldier."  /> <femaleSoldierChance value="20" comment="The percent chance that a generated soldier is a female" /> <soldierStats comment="Soldier's stats are generated with values in the specified range."> <actionPoints min="35" max="65" /><resilence    min="35" max="65" /><strength     min="35" max="65" /><accuracy     min="35" max="65" /><reflexes     min="35" max="65" /><bravery      min="35" max="65" /> </soldierStats>	 <startingSoldiersStatBonus value="3" comment="Bonus applied to starting soldiers' stats" />

Can be separated into a few categories?

Like: Combatants, Scientists, Aliens... dare i say it "Women"... ect...

This will pave the way for quite a few mods, like the Alien Recruits mod ive seen some pictures floating around.

And also add the possibility to make a specific categories for Scientists who will have high ref but low acc. (Just Example)

My thoughts is that each category will have a chance="X" similar to how the distribution of nationalities work.

So end result will be that in the paperclip you will have:

Pvt. Longname Longnamisson

Dr. Shortname Shortnamisson

Seb. Elizabeth Windsor

Maybe even have separate ranks for the new "Classes"?

Thoughts?

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If its not a tricorder than what is it? Is it a hand-computer? Then why does it have only two buttons? Is it a communicator? Lore says they communicate with radio waves, they have no use for communicators. What is that thing in the middle?

At best, I'd say that its a tracker. It would be there for aliens to find humans among a crowd, preferably humans they previously abducted, did experiments on and inserted whatever, and on the mission they want to find that human again to see the results. Or scout-probes. Small probes that are not meant to fight but to record stuff like electronics and broadcast signals.

Soldiers would have to find them because they have basic security measures on it, that is a screen-lock and later self-destruct. This would explain why they just aren't picked up after the battle. Either soldiers are issued a basic cracker (once the item is researched) or just fiddling with it prevents the thing from locking.

So once battle has ended, soldiers might use it to find people that have implants or find hidden alien tech. Bonus money and/or publicity, as well as new information. It might help give the location of an alien base for example.

The thing could also be a visualizer (a display screen for us), something that the alien-hive-mind would put information on as an aid to the unit that is wielding the visualizer.

Once used it can give random information, depending on what the user last requested. It might "blip" the location of enemy units, might give information about the current saucer/base, it might show drones/terror units, structures, or it might show certain civilians.

But please don't just insert a tricorder.

"Tricorder" is purely there for tv-plot writing purposes and to save budget by having only one prop do things that several different props should do (seriously, what a tricorder does depended on what the scrip required, like so many Star Trek gizmos). It was made because TV-writers (and actors) often did not understand just how may tools and what kind of tools you actually need for engineering work (real or imaginary), so they just made only one and used the futurist-excuse.

Can be separated into a few categories?

Like: Combatants, Scientists, Aliens... dare i say it "Women"... ect...

Why would "women" create a seperate class? What would distinguish them from men to the aliens on the battlefield, their ability to give birth? Are they gonna gross out the aliens with their ability to lectate or something? Do you think the aliens would stop battle to ogle at a hot chick or something?

This will pave the way for quite a few mods, like the Alien Recruits mod ive seen some pictures floating around.

What you then want is traits. It would make sense for alien fighters on your side to have traits that your human soldiers don't have. Like an accuracy penalty but no night-vision penalty for the lizard-guys.

"Racism" is an idea of creating social boundaries for different kinds of humans based on mostly-arbitrary criteria (example, "he's Irish so he's a drunkard, so he's a lower race despite being European"*).

And also add the possibility to make a specific categories for Scientists who will have high ref but low acc. (Just Example)

Creating different non-combat classes does not make too much sense in the setting. Why would you bring an engineer or a scientist be with you on what is a lightning-assault/super-SWAT missions? They would just get in the way and they could not realistically do almost anything useful in the quick-combat situation (a medic isn't going to replace a soldier's lungs before a shootout ends, alien tech or not).

If they'd be needed they could just get there with another chopper, circle around the place and land once the all-clear is given. A medic (to stabilize a patient further than first-aid can) and a alien-item/corpse-recovery specialist might make sense to be along with the pilot of the chopper, but not on the battlefield.

As for specialized combat classes... no, at least in my opinion. That's what the remake did and it was annoying. It limited what weapons you can equip and how you can use your classes. I found this annoying as it limited how flexible your tactics can be. It's good that it's different for Xenonauts where you can change your team loadout on the fly and change classes on what you need.

*For the record and moderators please take note, I do not support racist views. I picked the Irish one because its one of the more ridicolous examples of racism.

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But please don't just insert a tricorder.

1. I was trying to be sarcastic... it would be a "device" of some kind.

The details are hardly the important bit atm... as I was asking about modding limitation...

Once I realize more clearly what can/cannot be done, then we can speculate some more.

My broad idea was referring to a portable device that can "read" information (like modern smarphones) from an alien body/Remains.

And you would get a boon of some kind by doing this (easiest thing will be money).

Not make all kind of bad-tv-techno-magic stuff.

Why would "women" create a seperate class? What would distinguish them from men to the aliens on the battlefield, their ability to give birth? Are they gonna gross out the aliens with their ability to lectate or something? Do you think the aliens would stop battle to ogle at a hot chick or something?

2. I also want to get into the obvious differences between women and men, I think this is the kind of thing one usually goes through in kindergarten... Im not sexist in any way, and the "dare i say it women" was more meant as a joke. Like putting the name of the English queen as a reptilian alien. If you cant get a joke... I apologise.

3. Traits?

There is not even a basis for that in the game, at least nothing even remotely similar to that that is moddable.

You need to write a whole new code to implement these... and then make it HTML friendly so ppl can mod it withotu the source code.

I think the better angle would be to adjust existing code...

From how I see it, the ability to have a chance="X" is in there somewhere, it would just need to be extended to the part that creates the soldiers. If that is even possible.

Then again with the sorce-code anything is theoretically possible.

Am just looking for what seems to me the shorter rout.

But if you want, and are capable of doing that... I'll gladly accept traits.

Creating different non-combat classes does not make too much sense in the setting. Why would you bring an engineer or a scientist be with you on what is a lightning-assault/super-SWAT missions? They would just get in the way and they could not realistically do almost anything useful in the quick-combat situation (a medic isn't going to replace a soldier's lungs before a shootout ends, alien tech or not).

4. Thats the whole idea of the mod, to create classes and if you have a reason to use them.

Scientist - generate money.

Doc's - Maybe revive a dead soldier? (on a % base, not just magic).

Aliens - Plain old "Cool factor".

Woman - All the reasons you stated, about mindfucking with the aliens! (JOKE!)

Regarding Scientists without any special features.

I, as in me that is not you and might think differently, would just want to add them anyway.

Because I think it would add realism and make the game harder/more interesting.

- A team would probably have a brave decently trained "egghead" with them on operations.

- It would make the game harder, to have to deal with also be forced to babysit a scientist that you were forced to bring with you because of bureaucracy.

At least thats how I would RP it.

And enjoy it.

Since its mod, guess what.... you wont have to use it if you don't want to.

As for specialized combat classes...

5. I think you should re-read what I wrote.

As I didn't even mention specialized combat classes... in fact I want quite the opposite...

Specialized low-to-none-combatants...

So if YOU are suggestion this, I would have to say no.

I don't think its a good idea, for all the reasons you then stated...

"Racism" is an idea of creating social boundaries for different kinds of humans based on mostly-arbitrary criteria (example, "he's Irish so he's a drunkard, so he's a lower race despite being European"*).
*For the record and moderators please take note, I do not support racist views. I picked the Irish one because its one of the more ridicolous examples of racism.

6. The combinations of those are just bad...

Are you trying to imply I am racist?

My somewhat provocative yet humorous sub-title was just that, to ensure people actually read it... and don't just give it the "TLDR" treatment you seem to have given my post. :(

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If its not a tricorder than what is it? Is it a hand-computer? Then why does it have only two buttons?

That is pretty obvious.

It is a hand held scanning device with only two buttons, that makes it a Bi-Corder.

Regarding Scientists without any special features.

I, as in me that is not you and might think differently, would just want to add them anyway.

Because I think it would add realism and make the game harder/more interesting.

- A team would probably have a brave decently trained "egghead" with them on operations.

- It would make the game harder, to have to deal with also be forced to babysit a scientist that you were forced to bring with you because of bureaucracy.

At least thats how I would RP it.

And enjoy it.

I kind of see this as the SG teams from the Stargate series having to bring along scientists as the soldiers are not trained well enough to do things like hack door controls, disable complicated alien defence systems and so on.

It would have been nice if there were some things only certain people could do to support that further within the game.

For example capturing the UFO by holding the bridge would be quicker with an engineer along or some doors can only be opened by the scientist class.

Getting into RPG territory a little maybe but no more than saying fences can only be cut by characters who have wire cutters or whatever.

Edited by Gauddlike
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