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Radar Jamming


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Somebody on this forum recently posted their opinion that the late game suffered once they achieved air superiority. Squadrons of Marauders and Foxtrots/Furies = no more terror missions or alien bases.

So, I thought in my fuzzy little mind, isn't air superiority predicated on global radar coverage? Surely aliens who can traverse the galaxy can come up with a response to WWII technology. Leaving aside the obvious fact that they should all be following the radar signature straight back to Xenonaut bases, and/or launching ARMs to blow the radar dishes sky-high, what if they just jammed the human radar?

I'm imagining this: a late-game ship, say, a strike cruiser, can jam your base radar. You detect the vessel in your coverage area, then you're abruptly offline. You'd launch intercept to the last known location, naturally, hoping the vessel didn't alter course and you can pick it up with your on-board systems. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. That alone throws you into an unpredictable situation, not to mention in the meantime landing ships could be touching down undetected, building bases, spawning terror missions, damaging your funding, and all of the other naughty things ETs love to do.

This would be a random, infrequent event; not often enough to throw your game into a tailspin, but taking away the security blanket of near-total air superiority. I know absolutely nothing about coding and modding, but I wouldn't imagine it would be too hard to disable the radar at base X if trigger Y occurred.

Thoughts?

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Thoughts?
Shouldn't there be some reward in doing well in air combat? I really don't like the idea that any advancements you make in the game should be negated by some alien counter-measure. To me, suddenly losing track of UFOs would nearly as frustrating and rage quitting as psionics are now. Where all the careful combat, equipment research, and building soldier experience is just tossed out the window and there is nothing you can do about it. Besides, there are a lot of ways to track aircraft that have nothing to do with radar including something as simple has humans with binoculars. I always think of the radar rooms as more like UFO tracking resources, radar, infrared, observers, signal intercepts, telescopes, etc... I think Chris decided to call them that just to keep things simple because everyone knows that radar can find airplanes.
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Where all the careful combat, equipment research, and building soldier experience is just tossed out the window and there is nothing you can do about it

Well, it wouldn't be "tossed out the window". As I suggested, it would be a random, infrequent occurrence. You would still have full radar coverage a large majority of the time (I'm thinking only one type of alien ship would have ECM, and not always employ it, or employ it after a variable time range) and you would still know that your squadrons could take down anything detected.

It's all about a comfort zone to me. I don't like complacency in a game. Sitting back with full radar coverage and superior fighters, leisurely taking out any and all threats, having no potential of alien bases and terror missions, is far worse to me. Having the occasional chance of the radar at one (not all, mod it so only one of the jamming vessels has a chance of appearing on any given wave) of your bases blinking out would help keep the late game suspense from tapering off.

Do you really want the late game threat to ratchet down?

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Say mid-late game there was some kind of "stealth" UFOs that could cloak at will, and upon capturing a landed one you could research ~hyperwave decoder that'd passively upgrade radar. So you'd have a period where there'd be more tension / a twist, then it's resolved.

That said, I don't think the mechanic is important enough to make it given we're in the final stretch before release.

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We could just have all the important UFO immediately beeline their objectives as well instead of messing about. I don't know if it was changed on Experimental but in Stable, they fly around in random patterns for like forever before hitting their objective.

That would do it too- i.e. lessen your capacity to shoot every alien ship out of the sky.

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Im not sure if radar jamming is the way to go but I agree with the overall idea of making the late game more interesting. TBH terror missions are my absolute favorite type of ground combat mission. While I dont think there should be an overwhelming amount of terror missions occurring, I wouldn't mind seeing more of them. Would having a few events (such as alien base/ terror mission) occur no matter how much air superiority you have be an option? Thus ensuring there is a little more variety to the end game missions without negating the players effort to establish air control.

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Would having a few events (such as alien base/ terror mission) occur no matter how much air superiority you have be an option?

That was the general thrust of what I was saying. How would you go about it? If not radar jamming or terror ships beelining for their objectives, what mechanic would you use?

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Stealth UFO...an idea!

Also, when the aliens continue to be frustrated in their attempts at land missions, should they, perhaps focus on attacking bases that have active radar? I believe, perhaps, the original X-Com (1?) game had bases that used radar made more likely to be detected by the enemy for assault.

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As stated before. The aliens have extremely advanced tech. Having some UFOs be undetected until they accomplish their mission doesnt seem that unreasonable to me.

So you like Erutan's stealth UFO idea too. Hmmm. I'm not sure. In the current setup, you can (late game) take out practically every terror ship before it has a chance to achieve its' mission. With stealth UFOs, it would seem like you're going to the other end of the spectrum, giving the player no opportunity to stop them. To me, occasional radar jamming (where you might at least know in general where they are before losing contact, and could scramble fighters) or beelining (if you detect them early enough on their flight path, again you could scramble fighters) seem to me more balanced approaches...?

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Honestly I would just have them appear... Not very fair or immersive I guess. So beelining seems good to me.

As stated before. The aliens have extremely advanced tech. Having some UFOs be undetected until they accomplish their mission doesnt seem that unreasonable to me.

It wouldn't be unreasonable that the aliens would have something along the lines of a rapid reentry pod that they can deploy from ships in orbit. It would be something that only give a brief warning as multiple very small, very fast contacts (maybe three or four distinct UFO contacts on the screen, each minimally armed and in groups of three like the fighters/interceptors?) converge on the location for the terror mission and as long as one makes it there, BAM! Terror mission. Similar concept to the Valkyrie, ship in orbit flies overhead, deploys troops in a similar fashion. They should have short, straight flight routes, overall time maybe 15-60 minutes game time to minimize chance of interception.

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Also, when the aliens continue to be frustrated in their attempts at land missions, should they, perhaps focus on attacking bases that have active radar? I believe, perhaps, the original X-Com (1?) game had bases that used radar made more likely to be detected by the enemy for assault.

Yes, but that wouldn't help much if you had commanding air superiority and shot them down anyhow regardless of their objective. Unless you gave them a chance of avoiding detection, or come in so fast you couldn't intercept in time, or surrounded them with escorts, or in some fashion increased their odds of mission success, right?

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...if a region pulled out of Xenonauts, then, the aliens could enter their air space with impunity?

Hmmm. That's an idea you could possibly work with, but the problem is I haven't lost a region since my first playthrough, and I would guess most experienced players are the same way

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With the stealth UFO idea I would make it a rare occasion. Maybe 1 every other month or so. Enough to keep some mission variety but not enough to lose the game. The thing is if you give the player an opportunity to stop the terror/base mission most will be able to. Unless as mentioned you make it so the player has little/no time to stop it. Which is pretty much the same as making the UFO stealthy...

Also I really like the idea of the aliens setting up shop in a region that leaves Xenonauts. But I also almost never lose a region (on veteran) Unless I get very unlucky with a air terror mission i cant reach or a terror mission at night (had a very bad experience with that once. There was one lucky/unlucky survivor left to tell the tale. Since then my troops go in daylight or push the red button)

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The stealth ones would only be larger UFOs - say a stealth landing ship that only decloaks when grounded, so some of them will get by until you tech up, but it's not like zomg you can't intercept anything. An alternative to this would be to say, cut the radar range of xcom bases by 1/3 or something on a stealth UFO type - so it can still be detected, but due to it's lower signature / response it effectively decreases the range it could be detected at. You could possibly have some research to (partially?) negate that.

I would agree that UFOs on certain types of missions/plans could have a tighter approach run as well.

Intermittent jamming would just be frustrating as a game mechanic imo.

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I like the stealth Ufo idea.

That said, currently I think radar is a little too powerful. It instantly detects ships and bases when in range, where in the original Xcom, basic radar only gave you a chance to detect. Finding bases where supply ufos landed required meticulous patrol operations with your interceptors. Perhaps it can be thus balanced that Ufo's are not immediately detected, but they get a detection chance per minute. Taking actions (abducting, causing casualties etc.) increases their chance of being detected.

About air superirority issue, perhaps when aliens get no terror attack chance for some time (and also by difficulty level) alien terror mission Ufos enter atmosphere closer to their intended target, and more or less directly attack so as to give less interception chance. This effect could increase as more consecutive terror mission ships get shot down before they attack, and also by difficulty level.

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To me this is a horrible Idea, simply because it flies in the face of expected behavior, if I spend money and time building up Air superiority I would never want the game to say "Oh well, that doesn't matter anymore because I can do XYZ." I think the people here are complaining of a problem of their own making.

You want some Aliens to get through... you let them through, problem solved.

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That said, currently I think radar is a little too powerful. It instantly detects ships and bases when in range, where in the original Xcom, basic radar only gave you a chance to detect. Finding bases where supply ufos landed required meticulous patrol operations with your interceptors. Perhaps it can be thus balanced that Ufo's are not immediately detected, but they get a detection chance per minute. Taking actions (abducting, causing casualties etc.) increases their chance of being detected.

According to the gameconfig file, there is a 0.1 chance per minute of your radar detecting an enemy vessel. In actual practice, though, it does seem you like identify every ship with plenty of time to intercept, particularly given their random wanderings as Ventuswings noted.

So, yes, decreasing the radar detection chance would also serve the purpose of (potentially) letting more late-game ships penetrate your defenses. However, this would also affect the early game, when your slow-as-molasses fighters have a hard time getting to and/or prosecuting targets in the first place, and the increased number of missed intercepts would correspondingly increase the hits to your funding. It could work, but it would have to be playtested and balanced. In my personal opinion, terror ships speeding straight to their targets or the occasional "stealth" UFO would be simpler solutions?

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You want some Aliens to get through... you let them through, problem solved.

So, I interpret this as another vote for stealth UFOs...? :)

As a side note, to me, "flying in the face of expected behavior" is the whole point. No air defense network should be absolute. Aliens should not always turtle in their ships. The less predictable you make a game, the more suspenseful it is (within "reasonable" limits, of course). You want to keep the player just a little bit unsure. I'm talking about introducing a CHANCE of late-game terror and base-building ships achieving their missions, not "...oh well, that doesn't matter anymore because I can do XYZ". I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water; I simply don't think allowing your endgame fighters to shoot down everything all the time is such a great idea either

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Wasn't Chris suggesting something like this few months ago? More frequent terror missions that would also start appearing earlier. He also proposed more streamlined losing conditions etc in the same thread.. were those ideas scrapped alltogether?

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