Kill/Capture Upgrade Incentive

Hi,

If someone has said this before I apologise.

Thinking of X-COM Apocalypse there was an upgrade system that encouraged killing and especially capturing all alien types and their technology.

Applying onto the ideas already in the game there could be things added that encourage engaging in all types of missions.

Mechanical Unit Disassembly:

An example could be the small, medium and large drone alien units being researched, perhaps even tying the androns to it, and when these units have been analysed an improvement to the emp grenade could be made.

Psionic Units Capture:

Seeing as anti-psionic armours and such are in the modding community, perhaps getting a live genetic sample of each psionic alien( psion,officer, leader and/ or praetor leader).

Praetor Capture:

Could be to unlock upgrades to the enclosed armours(predator and sentinel) with better bravery or improved resistance to their psionic shenanigans with the capture of a live Praetor.

For a reason, the captured Praetor values life enough to betray its own kind and "link" with the suit to provide resistance.

Sebillians Capture:

Complete capture of all the species variants could yield an improved smoke grenade.

Another potential research is a reduction in bleeding wounds occurring.

Harridans Capture:

Could result in a high-optic, narrow but long vision suit, I believe there is a mod that does something like this.

Wraiths Capture:

Not sure what to add with them, perhaps a weapon that has improved mitigation but comparatively low damage to counter the sub-dermal armour plates and to add further functionality to this weapon it could specialise in shredding alien armour.

Ceasans Capture:

Seeing as these aliens have such good eyesight a flashbang improvement could be developed.

Complete Live Capture

To rip off Apocalypse a bit and seeing as the player has gone through the process of live capture of all species an improvement to stun weapons could be added to account for the extensive knowledge of the alien invaders.

I am sure it could be expanded and not without great effort and talent so I leave the idea to the talented

I apologise I could not remember the various modders that have done work to this effect but I give credit to them where it is due.

X-Division's incoming 0.98 version will have caesen and sebillian medics, techs, weapon specialists and pilots and androns will have special units like hub, terminal.. nearly every tech will need its alive specialists to open.. Reapers and xenomorphs will let you make new chemical weapons and andron body parts will be used in vehicles and armours.

At 0.99 there will be special units like assasins, saboteurs and more to get info and unique items. There guys will pop up only at special missions like terror zones or base deference..

And a caesen rebellion member will... cauth ehm.. enough info for now

I've done something similar with Cybernetic Armour which requires various interrogations to unlock new armour types. It's a difficult point though as it's fairly easy to capture aliens anyway and unless you're going to turn live aliens into resources there's never a need to capture more than a few different types.

(An idea I had a while back, which I may or may not go back to, is a redesign of the tech tree that makes interrogation mandatory as a gateway to higher levels of tech. Basically, the idea is that independent study of alien artifacts is so slow that the only way to make meaningful progress within the time-period of the game is to capture aliens and coerce them into explaining what things do and how they work.)

I've done something similar with Cybernetic Armour which requires various interrogations to unlock new armour types. It's a difficult point though as it's fairly easy to capture aliens anyway and unless you're going to turn live aliens into resources there's never a need to capture more than a few different types.

(An idea I had a while back, which I may or may not go back to, is a redesign of the tech tree that makes interrogation mandatory as a gateway to higher levels of tech. Basically, the idea is that independent study of alien artifacts is so slow that the only way to make meaningful progress within the time-period of the game is to capture aliens and coerce them into explaining what things do and how they work.)

Yes.. its impossible to figure out the space in 3 month from the beginning.. Capturing can be easy for a random soldier.. But a specialist will be a problem at a heavy fire zone and they should be only with special missions rather then every ufo.. i think i handled it.. we will see at test runs

Seems the community is already on it

And I won't be surprised if there is alien language decryption research to top it off

And the revamped tech-tree I can imagine would be loads of work and balancing.

Having the alien-tech boost would encourage high value capture, especially battleship/alien fortress praetor capture to push out advanced tech and add more plausibility to humanity figuring out how to shut-down galactic travel in 3 months.

Well, Apocalypse did it, but they already had alien tech from 2 wars, androids and psionics to help them

Yeah at apocalype we already got a very good tech lvl and aliens were %95 organic.. rather then creating own weapons be just used their weapons and made a virus for them.. It was a very good game.. just didnt like the TU system and missed a real good sniper always..

alien language decryption research.. like a google translate for aliens about ultra scientific things even you dont have the words for that kind of technological things So i am against that "suddenly figure out about 6 alien language when there is psychic and computers among them.. There needs to be a good lore behind this kind of things..

True, apocalypse ended up being either all out brawl in real-time or a close quarter combat with poppers and "headcrabs" in buildings and space ships.

Also agree, the psionics and computers can work, but for a race that can "phase" between time-space there needs to be some security procedures.

Clearance codes or something officers, leaders and praetors have. This vital information could be put your mod's upcoming specialists .

Maybe a use for the encryption could be for the quantum cryptology center. The large and higher level ufos requiring more advanced decryption algorithms to figure out its mission?

Maybe having advanced tech tied to a level of alien base too.

Example

Outposts : low-level clearance codes

Bases. : mid-level clearance codes

Fortresses: high-level clearance codes

Well that is how I think some form of encryption could be achieved even with translators although I wouldn't know where to begin.

If we're tooting horns here, I may as well toot my own. My Drone Strike Package did exactly what you suggested in your OP, Raywalker. It is something I keep meaning to go back to...

Really does seem like most the elements are there if I looked.

Thanks for the link

Max_Caine, the drone package looks interesting and I think I will add it to my list of mods to download( blackberry download restrictions prevent it )

Bear in mind I need to update it - I'm sure it'll work, it may not however be best suited to the current updates.

Noted, I will keep it in mind and if an update in the future happens in the future it will be on the my to-download list.

I'd love to have to capture 2 or 3 praetorians to unlock the final mission. Is that doable?

I can't remember off the top of my head whether or not it's possible to set research projects to require more than one of the same kind of item (I seem to remember testing this ages ago but cannot remember the result). If it is, it would be simple to do. If not, you could work around it by having a manufacturing project that required the requisite number of live Praetors (call it a Mind Probe or something for extracting the location of the alien mothership).

Another idea which was brought up not so long ago would be to make it necessary to capture a Praetor from a Battleship and from an alien base. But since it's not assured that you will get an alien base at the necessary size it might require the player to deliberately let a base get built which I'm not keen on personally. A similar alternative would be to require any kind of commander (Officer, Leader or Praetor) from a base as well as a Praetor from a Battleship but that still relies on there being a base to assault. (And, I guess, anything that requires capturing from a base implicitly penalizes the player for screwing it up and killing rather than capturing the command unit, which seems a bit rubbish too. Maybe it's better to just make it a numbers thing, then).

It would be best to make two new objectives, each requiring one captured live praetorian. That way you could have a updated "count down" in objectives text. (Capture 3, 2 and one praetorians alive) and the third objective would unlock the operation endgame.

I've never done this kind of modding so if it's easy, could you pull one together?

You can another predatorian unit to game.. u can add one to caesan and other to sebillian.. at my mod i made a special unit for andron to replace predatorian..

It would be best to make two new objectives, each requiring one captured live praetorian. That way you could have a updated "count down" in objectives text. (Capture 3, 2 and one praetorians alive) and the third objective would unlock the operation endgame.

I've never done this kind of modding so if it's easy, could you pull one together?

The trouble with this solution is that a single Praetor would unlock both (a single item will unlock as many projects as require it). So they only way to do that would be, like drages has implied, to have a new alien or alien type (basically a Praetor replica) which yields a different object on capture. However, then you run the risk of capturing the same kind twice and it not counting (hence, in part, the idea for having to capture one from a Battleship and one from a base, since you could put a different unit in each one).

In any case, I will have a look later if I have a chance to see if you can have multiple-object research projects or else to see if I can find a workaround of some kind.

Test results: Doesn't look like you can make a research project require more than one item of the same kind. Tried both using a quantity indicator like in the manufactures file (i.e. 2xTHIS.IS.THEITEM) and by linking them with (AND) functions (i.e. THIS.IS.THEITEM(AND)THIS.IS.THEITEM). Neither works. So there's no obvious way to do this.

So, in order to make multiple Praetor captures a pre-requisite for finishing the game you'd need to have different Praetors which yield different items or else you need to make them a requirement of a manufacturing project. Given all the problems with the former it looks like the latter would be the most promising option. E.g.:

- Capture a Praetor and interrogate it. This a) unlocks the information that you need more Praetors and b) the manufacturing project you need to use to 'process' them.

- Once you have the requisite number you complete the manufacturing project which produces an item which unlocks a (free) research project which opens up the end game.

Alternatively, you could use the same design but have a single manufacturing project for each Praetor you process, each one unlocking it's own tech. This is a bit more clunky in terms of what you need to do but does allow the objective countdown in the manner suggested above.

EDIT: Another random idea:

There's X different kinds of Praetor (say 7, for the sake of argument) all with some kind of obvious unique identifier (e.g. colour). To unlock the final mission, you need to interrogate a certain number (say 3) of different kinds of Praetor. Only needing 3 our of 7 makes it likely that you'll only need 3-4 Praetor missions to bag the requisite number (since odds are you won't get a duplicate) and at the very least you will know so you don't waste time trying to capture a kind you already have. This solution would require a lot more work but might be a more elegant solution than the manufacturing option.

A little off-topic, but speaking of praetor capture.

Does the game treat the capture of the high praetor as a kill( I let him enjoy a singularity when I got to that point)

Perhaps that could be a little bonus to the end text if the high praetor is captured and "publicly" executed on the way back using the internetwork

No idea.

There is 2 corpse drop from per alien.. 1 is for dead and one is for alive.. so if something captured, it goes to research and at 2., its executed.. yep we dont get prisoners.. we are so evil..

And for main topic.. why only Praetor? Lets get some parts or even plane to open the final mission.. put some special drops to "ufos" and collect them an engine to reach that oversky dreadnought..

I am still sad and mad because we cant add more ufos with GC...

And for main topic.. why only Praetor? Lets get some parts or even plane to open the final mission.. put some special drops to "ufos" and collect them an engine to reach that oversky dreadnought..

I guess the point of it being multiple Praetor captures is that they only turn up on the hardest missions (i.e Battleships and Large Bases) and having to capture them is an added challenge compared with just having to kill them to finish the mission. So it's a way of requiring the player do several of the hardest mission types before being able to finish the game. You could do it with other things like you suggest (I now quite like the idea of having to collect a number of alien hyperdrives with the logic that the alien mothership is in fact camped out in some distant part of the solar system so you need to build your own space-worth vessel to be able to reach it before Earth is overrun). But it would be easier to do that than having to capture Praetors.