Ultimate immersion mode

[Oathbreaker]

Oathbreaker, your idea was actually done - partially - in the UFO: AfterX series. The problem was that people wanted the numbers behind the names! As it is, people like numbers. As Yahtzee Crosshaw says:



But anyway. There's also a good playability reason why numbers are preferred to words. When I'm playing a game, if the computer tells me that I have a 30% chance of hitting a bad guy three tiles away instead of a "low" chance of hitting, I'm less likely to look up where the developer is on foursquare, hunt him down and make him eat my shattered keyboard letter by letter because I better understand the absolute figures involved. I may not like those figures and call shennanigans on those figures on a forum somewhere, but I better understand the situation.

As described earlier - this isn't something that the average gamer will want. I have approximately 12-13 years of military/LEO/bodyguard experience - none of the shots I have ever taken were with the knowledge that I had 63.5% chance to hit - it was always "good shot" or "yeah I can hit that in a few shots".

Immersion is not for everyone. Some people just like the old RPG standby of having numbers represent everything, and the player having full control and knowledge of who is "5 points better" at this, that or the other thing/skill/magic/axe-wielding than the other guy under your control.

Immersion for me = being put in the position of the commander having to make decisions. You'd have hit ratios and combat obstacle/range shooting scores to look at, and that's that. Some people get through years of combat training, then get to combat and aren't worth a shit - they just freeze up or can't deal. Others aren't so hot in training but turns out to be THE GUY YOU WANT right next to you when the shit really goes up in flames. It might be the racist, the fuckup, the loser or the stinky guy - but he turns out to be the one you want next to you in the firefight when it happens.

[thothkins]

It might be the racist, the fuckup, the loser or the stinky guy - but he turns out to be the one you want next to you in the firefight when it happens.

or on a really bad job, you get the stinky, racist, loser f!ckup

And why is it you posted that suggestion in this thread?

I imagine that TheUbiquitous felt that it was in keeping with the idea of immersion, but I'm speaking for him/her/alien infiltrator there. The idea of stabilisation is more realistic than some sort of health booster. "Put away that First Aid kit! I've Red Bull! cures wounds and it's wings give me a tactical advantage on the Battlescape."

Quite like the immersion ideas, which shows that I've moved a little in that over the years. It gets rid of a lot of min/maxing as well.

[TheUbiquitous]

Seemed like a more "ultimate immersion" sort of mod. Spamming stimpacks should not make a quadrapelegic into full health in the course of any sortie.

I wasn't sure about how the health packs worked --- honestly, I still don't know --- so maybe my suggestion is redundant.

[thothkins]

Seemed like a more "ultimate immersion" sort of mod. Spamming stimpacks should not make a quadrapelegic into full health in the course of any sortie.

Cpl Hawking informs me that he's perfectly happy thank you.

[Oathbreaker]

Basic med kit - able to somewhat stop bleeding, generally speaking, at least for (5-10 turns, randomly generated number, not told to player) - player is notified when the wounded guy starts bleeding out again, if there's another soldier within 2 squares' distance when he starts bleeding again.

Combat trauma kit - requires a "18D SpecOps Corpsman" [which incidentally is a real world qual that I'd love to have but don't], and can stop people from dying fairly reliably assuming it's not a wound he'd have died from anyway.

...So, that would require you to send people to school. Or hire someone already qualified. The "Basic Training" feature is already on the chopping block, and rightfully so. But you could spend $20 000 to send someone to 18D school for 2 months.

Other schools:

Heavy weapons (1-2 weeks).
Alien weaponry school (1-2 weeks, gives some small positive modifier to hit with them, and give a stealth nerf to everyone else's chance to hit with them if you decide to implement this).
Basic Leadership school (gives +5 morale to everyone on that mission)
18D Medic - also has small positive impact on how long people take to recover from wounds received in a mission that includes a surviving medic, since they can stabilize wounds prior to RTB.


Completely separate issue:
The Chinook should be able to be damaged in tactical scenarios, with small chances of the following:
* Craft damaged, takes a few days to repair and get back to base, combat personnel have to hitch rides on local friendly armed forces craft, arrive separately.
* Craft damaged and (very small chance) crashes on RTB, 60% chance of survivors.
* Craft FUBAR, combat squad stranded, either send another Chinook to pick them up or they'll have to hitch a ride with local friendly forces/fly commercial back. Chance of lost gear/luggage (lol) if flying commercial.
*Helicopter crew hire/fire - track number of missions, maybe have a really experienced crew give a small chance to know approximately how many enemies you'll face. Or be able to drop you off and move away to a safe location/fly around with no chance to get damaged.

Again, this is just me dreaming. Don't worry about this, just keep making a great game. Right now I'm more concerned with the civilians moving very jerkily around on the screen during the non-player movement phase, it just looks bad and I assume it's on the list of things to fix before release. Not that I have ever played a Tactical Mission (can't get tactical combat mode to work on v13.02 on my iMac 10.6.8), it's just from watching Youtube.

[thothkins]

Does the thing that makes the UFOs pretty much invulnerable apply to the Chinook as well? I forget.

I've yet to have an alien go anywhere near the Chinook, let alone take a shot at it. However, improved AI and swarms of them does force an interesting tactical choice. How many troops of your limited squad do you leave to defend your craft. Smart aliens may know they are doomed, but may try and take out your craft first. Clever aliens would hot wire the thing and fly out of there.

While you may think that your ship is defended as you progress, flying, teleporting, crashing through walls, cloaking or what ever special abilities make it into the game could change that in short order, again forcing you to defend something on the Geoscape. Again forcing a different approach to clearing the Geoscape (assuming you don't just pelt it to the ship)

[Gauddlike]

The tiles representing the Chinook can't be destroyed.
Now if it was stolen that would be a different matter entirely

[thothkins]

That would make a nice end of mission artwork. Instead of the retrieval, there's a group of Xenonauts explaining to some police about the theft of their Chinook, and the policeman taking the details down in a notebook.

[Gauddlike]

Or several well armed and armoured Xenonauts troopers hiding behind a bush while a female trooper tries to flag them down a lift.

[thothkins]

...and after all of the issues we had over getting female Xenonauts into the game, and then you just throw it all away. I hope you are ashamed of yourself Gauddlike.*


*This sentence replaces thothkins previously very un-PC remark, removed courtesy of the Diversity Awareness Alliance.