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This might sound outlandish but I thought it might be pretty cool. I've been playing a lot of FTL lately and after starting a thread that turned into a (friendly and constructive) debate about Air Combat and it's merits in Xenonauts, I thought about boarding enemy UFO's.

It's a concept used in FTL to board enemy ships, dispatch the crew and basically come out with the maximum amount of salvageable equipment. So, I thought this would be a neat concept when the Xenonaut forces start to engage the larger ships. There's pretty much an infinite number of cool ideas you could use with this concept, one being storyline purposes. I also thought the risk of bringing your Chinook into a battle would be pretty tense. Or, you could even design a new, smaller craft for like a Squad of 6-8 or something specifically for boarding enemy UFO's.

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But how much would this add to our enjoyment?

Taking on a battleship with 6-8 troops is less enticing than taking one on with up to 18....

Please elaborate A little bit more on the storyline aspect?

It just seems like one of the nice to have things.

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Erm...

You board enemy UFOs that are shot down, and enemy UFOs which you catch landed on the ground.

Do you mean board them in the air? If so... how? I mean, humans don't have fancy flying gear (at least, they don't have fancy flying gear early on) so how would they get on board mid-air?

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But how much would this add to our enjoyment?

Taking on a battleship with 6-8 troops is less enticing than taking one on with up to 18....

Please elaborate A little bit more on the storyline aspect?

It just seems like one of the nice to have things.

I meant 6-8 for smaller UFO's. One example for story would simply be, it would be a lot riskier way to try and take an Alien Commander alive, but also easier because you have more control over not having one die when you shoot a UFO down. Another idea is trying to intercept something like captured VIP's or information. Basically, the idea of boarding would be a really risky attempt to do something with a high payoff.

@Max_Caine

Yeah, I meant in the air. I'm not familiar with the armor already implemented in Xenonauts but the original X-Com had (Power suits?) the armor with jetpacks on the back, so it doesn't seem too unlikely to do a midair boarding after EMPing a UFO or something. Also Thothkins, joking or not, grappling hooks actually sounds pretty cool.

I figure the Aliens get to breach our base and surprise us, so maybe a story advancing mission or just a few random options for doing the same to them to obtain something useful would be neat. Also I don't think it would be terribly hard on the team to add, because all they need to do really is make a UFO interior as the map, so they aren't working on a lot of new assets.

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The Sky Pirates of Xenonauts!

Option 1

tech: Sir! we've discovered that the aliens are so smug in their superiority, that they fly with their sun roofs open.!

sgt thothkins: Get the grappling hooks and eye patches ready lads!

Option 2

tech: Sir! Some of the largest ships seem to carry smaller escort craft inside!

sgt thothkins: Hmmm, we could either use a captured shuttle to infiltrate it and get sued by George Lucas, or we could get a craft close enough and try to get troops in that way. Get the Grappling Hooks and Jetpacks ready lads!

Option3

tech: we've discovered that there's a gap in the UFO's defences when it come into land. We can get in through the landing gear.

sgt thothkins: Hmmm sneaky. We could do it on the ground and trail them back to base. But instead, let's do it in mid air so we can use our grappling hooks!

alien pilot: >tut< we're really going to have to get windscreen wipers on these things. Another Xenonaut just splattered against us.

Option 4

tech: Sir! trying to approach a battleship UFO in the middle of a dogfight with a Chinook is suicide!

sgt thothkins: Yes, that's why we're going to launch our new Limpet Pod. It attaches itself to the craft with grapples and then we can cut through.

tech: Sir, the UFO hull is almost impregnable!

sgt thothkins: Yes, in a couple of centuries our plucky limpet crew will be through and then the aliens will get a surprise!

tech: or we could wait until we've researched something...

I'm with 2 or 4.

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I hate to say this, but this is really impractical from any tactical perspective. I mean how would the Chinook manage to outmanuver the guns/missles/etc of any truly massive UFO? It would be hopeless unless the combat fighters would distract it for the time it would take it get close enough for boarding. Its a fun idea but extremely impractical when considering the facts of such a task.

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@NullOrdo. Weeeellll.... at around tier 2.5 the first suit equipped with jump-jets becomes available. But it's less

and more a
. You then have to wait a tier or so before you get a suit that's closer to the flying suit of X-Com, and even then it's still only jump-set capable.
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It's not very practical to board a UFO in the atmosphere of Earth, you will have to take into account several variables, like wind speed, altitude, speed of the human craft and alien craft, etc.

And besides, you must find a way to hold the boarder(s) to the alien ship without them falling to their deaths because of the high wind they will have to face.

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  • 5 months later...

Hi again folks!

Read about your doubts related to in-air boarding. I think that close attach to UFO may help. It means the tight junction leads to X-craft to be affected by any field or whatever that helps UFO to make that incredible maneuvers. For sure there must by something like that field. Those shapes with no filed can not be so fast and stable due to aerodynamics.

So if the X-craft attaches UFO - no problem. The only problem is to attach in air. It can be solved by speed and perfect tracking. So chance to intercept+assault is week but still possible. (details in my thread, I think you read it there).

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yikes! returning Chinooks filled with frozen Xenonuats or asphyxiated Xenonauts due to high altitudes.

Nice sideline in Corpsicles though.

I just can't picture this without wondering what the aliens are doing. What if they have escorts? what is drilling through the UFO hull (an issue particularly with this game, where you can't breach their hulls.) Why can't they just wait until the little Xenonauts are trying to get across then go for "Escape into orbit" killing everyone? How long until they develop a defensive electrical field? and several more...

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Just had a crazy cool thought, multi-stage boss battles! Basically a titan classed UFO appears, takes it like a month to get anywhere, but it can vaporize entire cities or something dropping that nation's funding.

However, taking it down requires a few things. First your aircraft need to cripple its weapons and defenses, may take a few attempts to soften it up and take down the defenses (so you have to damage it enough to make it unable to return fire)

then you have to attack it with a troop transport to board it, it will have to fly low and slow) the boarding forces basically are there to damage its levitation systems forcing it to descend and land.

When it is landed it cannot do anything anymore giving you some breathing time to regroup.

Now you can do a proper and thorough clean sweep of the crippled and crashed ship.

I think that would be a cool thing to have at least once per game to mix things up!

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The Sky Pirates of Xenonauts!

Option 1

tech: Sir! we've discovered that the aliens are so smug in their superiority, that they fly with their sun roofs open.!

sgt thothkins: Get the grappling hooks and eye patches ready lads!

Option 2

tech: Sir! Some of the largest ships seem to carry smaller escort craft inside!

sgt thothkins: Hmmm, we could either use a captured shuttle to infiltrate it and get sued by George Lucas, or we could get a craft close enough and try to get troops in that way. Get the Grappling Hooks and Jetpacks ready lads!

Option3

tech: we've discovered that there's a gap in the UFO's defences when it come into land. We can get in through the landing gear.

sgt thothkins: Hmmm sneaky. We could do it on the ground and trail them back to base. But instead, let's do it in mid air so we can use our grappling hooks!

alien pilot: >tut< we're really going to have to get windscreen wipers on these things. Another Xenonaut just splattered against us.

Option 4

tech: Sir! trying to approach a battleship UFO in the middle of a dogfight with a Chinook is suicide!

sgt thothkins: Yes, that's why we're going to launch our new Limpet Pod. It attaches itself to the craft with grapples and then we can cut through.

tech: Sir, the UFO hull is almost impregnable!

sgt thothkins: Yes, in a couple of centuries our plucky limpet crew will be through and then the aliens will get a surprise!

tech: or we could wait until we've researched something...

I'm with 2 or 4.

LOL'D to oblivion :P

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The Sky Pirates of Xenonauts!

Option 1

tech: Sir! we've discovered that the aliens are so smug in their superiority, that they fly with their sun roofs open.!

sgt thothkins: Get the grappling hooks and eye patches ready lads!

Option 2

tech: Sir! Some of the largest ships seem to carry smaller escort craft inside!

sgt thothkins: Hmmm, we could either use a captured shuttle to infiltrate it and get sued by George Lucas, or we could get a craft close enough and try to get troops in that way. Get the Grappling Hooks and Jetpacks ready lads!

Option3

tech: we've discovered that there's a gap in the UFO's defences when it come into land. We can get in through the landing gear.

sgt thothkins: Hmmm sneaky. We could do it on the ground and trail them back to base. But instead, let's do it in mid air so we can use our grappling hooks!

alien pilot: >tut< we're really going to have to get windscreen wipers on these things. Another Xenonaut just splattered against us.

Option 4

tech: Sir! trying to approach a battleship UFO in the middle of a dogfight with a Chinook is suicide!

sgt thothkins: Yes, that's why we're going to launch our new Limpet Pod. It attaches itself to the craft with grapples and then we can cut through.

tech: Sir, the UFO hull is almost impregnable!

sgt thothkins: Yes, in a couple of centuries our plucky limpet crew will be through and then the aliens will get a surprise!

tech: or we could wait until we've researched something...

I'm with 2 or 4.

LOL!

FTL had teleporters, much easier, this might be possible for late tech research?

Option 5

Tech girl: We've perfected short range teleports captain, only problem is we need to build a landing bird that can attach it's self like a Remora on the underbelly of those big unmaneuverable birds, like that hollywood movie with special forces boarding that jumbo jet in mid-air, hey I even got a cool name for it! the XXX- REYMORA!

sgt thothkins: huh?

Seriously how cool would that be, just missing hard points on the Charlie for beam me up Scotty, and say just need to be super close to the target.

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Well nice to see the fun respond.

I had my own idea and approach so may be you can find answers here.

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/5899-New-Idea-for-Special-intercept-missions

What I can add this moment is word about escort. UFOs sometimes fly without them. But they may call to arms their interceptors. So be prepared to defend the boarding team. As I wrote in one other thread the result may cost sacrifices. In other words for example you will not be able to stop the retaliation with one full wave of fighters. The second will do their job, but you have to be ready for losses.

The secnd key point. In X-COM-s 1-2-3 the walls of UFOs were vulnerable to strong explosives. Alien Grenades and Blaster Launcher bombs in #1, Sonic Pulsors, Pulse Wave Torpedoes in #2 (even the Gas Cannon HE rounds could penetrate Aqua Plastics). The UFOs in XCOM 3 were highly affected by many types of explosive charges.

May be I missed a point... but I thought that advanced explosives in Xenonauts could be effective in armor penetration. If not than how we could ever scratch an alien craft?

Jemar.

Edited by Jemar
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...teleporters, much easier, this might be possible for late tech research?...

Like in apocalypse, teleporters would be a "i win" button" :) not too far fetched though, could be researched from the harridans, if their teleport thing is changed to be something portable that we can study and use.

A nice idea for a mod.

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Like in apocalypse, teleporters would be a "i win" button" :) not too far fetched though, could be researched from the harridans, if their teleport thing is changed to be something portable that we can study and use.

A nice idea for a mod.

Never played apocalypse (need to find manual and or a tut) so I don't know how much of a game breaker it was

Another teleport idea would be based on the aliens' ship's teleports to go up and down levels, could say the xenos hacked it, problem is you can only send them 1 at a time in sequence, and you have to make sure the soldiers get out of the way each turn to let the next guy through or zap!

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