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Difficulty Curve Smoothing


Chris

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Given it's Cold War, I imagine pretty much every Xenonaut would be an agent of their parent nation (not "double agent" - a double agent pretends to be an agent). Both USA and USSR, and to lesser extent small powers insisting that their guys go on every mission to make sure they aren't left in the dark.

Orderly queues for sending secret messages...

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Why would they do that if xenonauts already give them all their info?

That's assuming Xenonauts do give them the fruits of their labours. I would imagine that every one of the funding nations would try to get as much constant oversight over Xenonauts as possible. Some reasons:-

- Local population wondering what their governemtn is doing to protect them over others

- Need to develop counter measures of their own (particularly after air force failures)

- Possibly looking to exploit post invasion geopolitical landscape with advances over other nations.

I imagine that Xenonauts tell them to sod off, and try to get on with things without any of that oversight, as it gets in the way of their goals.

The result is that they can sell the items to the funding nations. Now, if you've already given them the ability to produce their own, it would reduce the value of those items further.

Just some thought on it. The information does come out, if later in the game the locals can upgrade their air forces and local troops. But if those local troops only have laser rifles, and the aircraft can only take down scouts, then it shows you how current the locals are compared to current Xenonaut technology.

Even if Xenonauts have the only air force capable of taking out alien craft in a close to even fight it doesn't mean no one else will try.

For example the US air force would likely throw everything they had at a craft approaching Washington.

I agree. I'm sure they would. You'd have thought they'd get a lucky hit as well. But it would seem they didn't and only Xenonauts downed a craft. It depends on whether those early scouts were looking at key cities & installations to a degree but whatever they were looking at, they pretty much got away with it.

It may be that Xenonaut forces are designated to take over air interception as part of their charter.

That's a thought. The locals do seem to take a back seat (he types to justify not have to develop local forces into air interceptions)

If Xeno radar coverage is not present then I would assume local forces to be handling air defence...If that is the case they may be more than happy for you to arrive and be handed the responsibility.

I think someone posted a bomb the crap out of them approach that could be taken by a lot of the local military. I'm not sure I'd agree with that. It would be nice to have a "military have shot something down. Pop over and investigate it" mission. That could tie things up nicely.

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You'd have thought they'd get a lucky hit as well. But it would seem they didn't and only Xenonauts downed a craft. It depends on whether those early scouts were looking at key cities & installations to a degree but whatever they were looking at, they pretty much got away with it.

Actually it depends mostly on how many of those scouts there were out there.

If there were 10,000, that's one thing. If there were 10...

It would be nice to have a "military have shot something down. Pop over and investigate it" mission. That could tie things up nicely.

Agreed, just like Chris proposed, this is called for.

Though the game does need enough maps that downed UFO missions don't become a chore.

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If there were 10,000, that's one thing. If there were 10...

yeah, I get the feeling that there were a decent number. Having said that, the appearance of 3000 ships in orbit might have also caused a similar level of utter panic.

Though the game does need enough maps that downed UFO missions don't become a chore.

As this one would have been given to you without going through the interception, that's a bit of a bonus right there. A small scout/scout map to clear things up and done. The new desert and tundra maps have helped a bit here too.

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That's assuming Xenonauts do give them the fruits of their labours.

Yes they do, that's part of the deal. And all nations would already have their people in the Xenonauts base oversighting everything they do, at the start of the pact forming.(airspace + funding for protection + info)

But it would seem they didn't and only Xenonauts downed a craft.

Xenonauts downed the first one, showing they are more effective. The normals could shoot down a ufo later on.

Possibly looking to exploit post invasion geopolitical landscape with advances over other nations.

How about everyone is too busy remedeing their economy, taken care of damage done after the alien invasion, to feasibly wage war.

Edited by GoodGuyEddy
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How would folks feel about new modes of recruitment being added as the game progresses? As the game progresses you would gain access to team (3 members) and then squad (6 members) recruitment . The rationale would be that the nations have begun building elite teams to attack alien craft and that the number of troops they have increases over time. If you hire a team you would get a corporal and two privates and if you hire a squad a sergeant, two corporals, and 3 privates. The teams would be priced the same as if you recruited that many privates so 60k for a team and 120k for a squad. The disadvantage is that you can't just skim off the cream of the crop, because it would get pricey.

Plus it could be used as a mechanism to bring in some story about what is happening in the world. You could get the option to hire one of three teams which would have programmatically generated backstories. For example, one team could be from the Navy Seals and the story could describe the battle of New York (a terror site you didn't get to) where they performed exemplarly by taking down a light drone. Another story, would be about a team of Mujahideen who killed the aliens from a crashed scout and mention the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan due to the alien invasion.

It may be too late in the game for something like this to be added, but I think it would be very interesting to add as a method of getting more story about what is happening into the gameplay. To make it more possible, I imagine that there are plenty of budding authors that would love to write short report style stories about events that are occuring during the invasion. Simply point out some tags that would accessible to the authors like [site of Terror Attack], [Elite Troop of Country], and [Country name] that would be accessible from within their stories.

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Yes they do, that's part of the deal. And all nations would already have their people in the Xenonauts base oversighting everything they do, at the start of the pact forming.(airspace + funding for protection + info)

Isn't that about as subjective as my point? Please point me in the direction of the Funding Nation Quality Control back story page.

Xenonauts downed the first one, showing they are more effective. The normals could shoot down a ufo later on.

Could do. You'd hope that they'd want to learn how. Not a sniff of it in the game until late on though as things seem to stand now.

How about everyone is too busy remedying their economy, taken care of damage done after the alien invasion, to feasibly wage war.

Actually, there are parts of an economy that will do very nicely out of a war, particularly if it can look to defend other nations, for a price. Now, if Xenonauts are keeping some research to themselves, if only to push things forward, that's lost profit to those nations. If Xenonauts publish every little thing, then those big nations would still have the better facilities to build quickly.

How would folks feel about new modes of recruitment being added as the game progresses? As the game progresses you would gain access to team (3 members) and then squad (6 members) recruitment .

Something similar was mentioned earlier, and linked into using countries facilities. Having the ranks they come in at be very low, would be ideal. More global events for me is always a good thing. I was hoping that the ticker would be able to bring these up as the game progressed, showing the increasingly desperate nature of the conflict.

As for damage, the biggest stuff is the tactical nuking after the terror sites. Bad, but at least limited. SO far, there's not hordes of aleins decimating ewntire cities. You mileage as to how big the nukes are may vary, but the death toll in usually in the thousands to tens of thousands yes? Not millions.

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Something similar was mentioned earlier, and linked into using countries facilities. Having the ranks they come in at be very low, would be ideal. More global events for me is always a good thing. I was hoping that the ticker would be able to bring these up as the game progressed, showing the increasingly desperate nature of the conflict.

Can you point out where that is? I looked through the entire thread again and nothing of the sort was mentioned previously that at least outlined something like what I wrote. The closest I saw was that the occassional corporal and sergeants would pop up in the hiring pool which is not what I wrote.

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I agree. I'm sure they would. You'd have thought they'd get a lucky hit as well. But it would seem they didn't and only Xenonauts downed a craft. It depends on whether those early scouts were looking at key cities & installations to a degree but whatever they were looking at, they pretty much got away with it.

And given that Chris will implement the military shooting down UFO's it appears they did and do.

Bottom point - if the militaries brass of the world really thought Xenonauts was the only hope humanity has, then they would be given a LOT more than just 1 base and 1 million and a handfull of soldiers.

As it stands, Xenonauts being a small international SpecOps initiative to capture and study aliens makes perfects sense and explains everything.

- limited funding and resources

- better recruits later on

- military shooting down ufo's

etc...

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Isn't that about as subjective as my point? Please point me in the direction of the Funding Nation Quality Control back story page.

The whole point of the X(Xenonauts) is the cooperation of everyone on the planet. While X were an independant oganization when the first ufo was shut down, they need the help of the nations. And when the proposition was made of xenonauts becoming the planets speartip of fighting and researching alien tech it would only stand to reason of every nation demanding a right of placing their liason in the organization to make sure X would not witheld any alien tech or knowledge(i.e. folfilling their part of the deal) before actually commiting. There is no chance in hell any nation would commit to such a project without placing some gurantees.

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Ok I only read till page 4 but;

I agree with the first three pages of sentiments on troops. I don't mind having rookies. It breeds squad diversity (i.e. not taking all your elites in one squad).

Two alternatives ways to approach auto crash generation with a view to avoiding drop-ship range increase or use of more bases;

1. After unsuccesful Xeno air combat a crash-site % chance generates with a message along the lines of;

"A UFO has crash landed. Local news reports the object was apparently laboring after mid-sky battle with secret governments forces"

This means as long as you make a combat with it then you have a chance for a crash site even if you balls up. The % could increase based on amount of damage you dealt in the combat with even a low chance for a crash without any damage dealt. Target will definitely be in range so no problem there.

Doesn't solve problem if you don't get into combat of course

2. Allow some local force intervention as presently suggested with natural problem of not being reachable but you could just have a pop-up after some elapsed time of; "Local ground forces report downed craft missing". I.e. it was repaired and took off again leaving no negative impact on funding. If this happened 3 or 4 times per game then there is a good chance its in range once.

Combine the two and you get some random chance luck off the bat as-well as slightly more tailored luck for those who mess up the air combat.

Apologies if anyone made a suggestion similar =)

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I still think it makes more sense to just start the game by saying 'Alien craft have been targeting military installations around the world' then have the enemy patrol near your base.

If they are looking for you and know the rough area you may be in then it is logical that they are near enough for you to attack at the start.

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I still think it makes more sense to just start the game by saying 'Alien craft have been targeting military installations around the world' then have the enemy patrol near your base.

If they are looking for you and know the rough area you may be in then it is logical that they are near enough for you to attack at the start.

That is a valid background. It appears there are several believable ways to achieve some measure balancing at the start.
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There's several ways around this - making early UFOs only spawn near the base is one thing we can do, but I don't like that level of "cheating". I like the events popping up across the world, showing you that there's a world outside your radar range that the aliens are attacking.

Going to toss out a weird bait/cloak idea...

How about bait? Maybe a research item to figure out what areas or items the aliens seem to be drawn toward. Then build a base structure than increases the percent chance for alien ships will come snooping around the base radius. The facility would require scientists or engineers. Adding more scientists/engineers would increase the bait affect. Obviously there would need to be some hard cap. If the player runs this too long and too high there is a greater chance for base invasion.

Later on, once you have base coverage the bait system could be reversed (again by some research, a cloak perhaps) to act as a percent chance that your base would not be found by the aliens, again affected by the number of researchers / engineers. Again a hard cap.

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Going to toss out a weird bait/cloak idea...

How about bait? Maybe a research item to figure out what areas or items the aliens seem to be drawn toward. Then build a base structure than increases the percent chance for alien ships will come snooping around the base radius. The facility would require scientists or engineers. Adding more scientists/engineers would increase the bait affect. Obviously there would need to be some hard cap. If the player runs this too long and too high there is a greater chance for base invasion.

Later on, once you have base coverage the bait system could be reversed (again by some research, a cloak perhaps) to act as a percent chance that your base would not be found by the aliens, again affected by the number of researchers / engineers. Again a hard cap.

That wouldn't affect the first part of the game though.

You could still be sat with nothing to do but wait for your research and construction to finish before being able to attract enemies to within range of your interceptors.

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That wouldn't affect the first part of the game though.

You could still be sat with nothing to do but wait for your research and construction to finish before being able to attract enemies to within range of your interceptors.

It would be cheap and a quick build, but maybe that would not sit with lore.

Another option may be related to the fighters themselves. Give them more range but penalize them in some manner for long distance interceptions. Although, most penalties I can think of seem just as odd at the bait idea.

Perhaps nation fighters could also be shooting down ufo's early on. Maybe this could be tied some type of intelligence feature of a base. I seem to remember talk about nation fighters but I don't remember the outcome of that discussion.

As larger ships begin showing up nation fighters are no match and only advanced technologies from the Xenonauts organization are a match. At this point there would be fewer nation fighters downing ufo's and the player hopefully has built up base and fighter coverage to engage more ufo's.

Edited by irongamer
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  • 1 month later...

You know... reading this thread, it suddenly made me think of the original X-Com and how it dealt with this.

Don't know how relevent my opinion might be but well, here it goes.

Basically? You were fighting an actual enemy who was setting up slowly in the original games.

You did not run into a range problem (or very rarely) because the aliens begun by sending scouts who scouted the entire planet, looking for a suitable location for their own initial base. Then after setting up bases or getting enough scouts downed by the player, then they start attacking the countries with terror ships or begun looking for your bases (if you got a good enough score downing scouts).

Likewise, alien bases meant supply ships, which flew in from various directions and could also be caught.

In short? The aliens had plenty of reasons to swing by the player's airspace and you could predict the aliens' base placement and targets via the type of ship sent and where they tended to go, allowing you to guess where new bases had to go.

In short? Why make it so complicated with random chance and what not? We're talking about early game, where you have F-serie fighters with short ranges and a slow Chinook as a transport. Have alien scouting forces that go around the world looking for a fight and that thus will run into your radar unless your base is in the middle of nowhere.

As for the new recruits thing...

Having to raise a rookie once more is a big part of the 'using veterans' risk/reward thing and a cornerstone of X-Com's meatgrinder dilemna (do I use expandable suicide squads that may run out of meat before the end of the mission or elite teams that *will* get the job done but whose fatalities cannot be undone with just a few clicks?). I personally think this is an element worth keeping.

Besides, it was pointed out that the superior weaponry is already a new advantage for mid/end-game anyway.

If all else fails, I see HWPs being a good cornerstone ; a selling point of them is that they don't need levelling-up. So although they use up many soldier slots in vehicles, they serve as a crutch while your rookies level-up.

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  • 4 weeks later...

It was meant in response to:

2) There's an issue with aircraft ranges and game balance at the moment. I want to encourage players to build multiple bases in the game, so the range of interceptors and radars can't be that large at the start of the game or there's no need for them. However, this leaves a situation where at the start of the game the player quite often is not able to intercept many UFOs because they don't enter their airspace. Which means very few crash site missions for people to play.

Instead of fiddling with spawn percentages, why not just give the player two bases (perhaps one main base and one smaller base) at the start?

Back in the alpha I started off with two bases - my first was a full base and the second just a radar/hangar one.

Yeah, I build a new base right at the start too. Given the range of the dropships, there really is no other alternative if you want to reach all the terror sites.

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If the base isn't built by the player I fear that it would be confusing (the reason for why and it makes the interceptions harder to understand for first time players) and possibly mislead the player into not understanding that he should expand. That might seem counter intuitive but if you try to address the issue with not covering enough you might over compensate.

Besides what if the new player places the second base next to the first one?

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