TheTuninator

Typically, you receive medals or "achievements" for doing good things; while I have faith in the ability of new players to recognize that night missions are deathtraps, I still feel there's some potential for confusion there. Also, as Chris stated, medals shouldn't be something you try to get, but rather something you obtain to recognize that you did something particularly cool/noteworthy. I feel like if there was a medal for a night mission people would try to "farm" it for their soldiers, and in any case it just feels too easy to obtain. Night missions are tough, but they aren't the kind of thing people seem to swap war stories about in and of themselves. How about some kind of medal that involves night terror missions in some way? That, I think, might be medalworthy, as those are pretty awful. It shouldn't necessarily be something you get just for showing up, for above reasons, but terror missions definitely hold a lot of potential for creating medals.

I don't really think there should be an award for simply doing a night mission; as noted, this may trick new players into thinking night missions are something you want to do. Also, Chris noted in the OP that he doesn't really want soldiers to be able to amass a whole bunch of medals; as such, we'd want to avoid really easy to obtain ones like this one. Of course, not that many soldiers might get it since a lot of them probably aren't coming back from night missions, heh. Also, pilots don't need to have stats to give aircraft medals/ribbons. I'd love for the game to have players get a bit more attached to their aircraft, as there's people in there too, and some kind of cosmetic award for aircraft that perform well and stick around a while would be a great way to do so. The concept of "aces" is a pretty core part of military aviation, and you can bet that pilots who were crazy enough hotshots to fly against UFOs would take great pride in tracking their kills. Remember, the point isn't the stat gain; the point is the medals themselves. Stat gain is an incidental bonus.

Ah, if that was the proposal, that works fine for me.

The tutorial should be entirely separate from starting a new game; I don't want to have to dismiss the tutorial popup every time I start a game. Just have a "play tutorial" option at the New Game screen, and have a popup message advising that first-time players do the tutorial. That seems like the most expedient solution to me.

I agree with this; given the small size of the bar and the fact that every TU matters, it'd be kind of excruciating to have to precisely line up the slider every time. Better to have a slider and additionally some "hard stops" or quick-select buttons (with accompanying hotkeys, of course) to facilitate ease of use for the player.

The thing is, being forced to scour the whole map for the last alien is rather tedious; that seems to be why X-COM included the 20% "kamikaze trigger" in the first place. I don't want to be forced to spend twenty minutes looking through empty buildings. I recognize that you technically don't have to, but the score hit is fairly appreciable. I've no problem with some of the aliens escaping from time to time, but equally, I think it makes sense for them to try to recapture the UFO as well, and I think that provides a lot more fun from a gameplay perspective. Of course, the penalty might be alleviated once we can actually attack landed UFOs and capture them, so this might be a problem which really doesn't bother me once we get into the beta.

Yeah, it gets a little annoying to constantly have to loop around to the front of the UFO after clearing the engine. I take it the "cargo bay" is going to be filled with interesting doohickeys once the UFO tiles are complete then? Interesting. And yeah, I'm really looking forward to the riot shield, that's going to be a great feature.

It can be a bit tough, I agree. I really want a passageway to be opened between the cockpit of the scout UFO and the cargo bay, as I feel that'd add a bit more flexibility to a player's assault options as well as being wholly logical.

It's a very well-thought-out system, but I still have to support the "hard reserve" which physically restrains you from moving myself. It's too useful and effective a safety net for me to contemplate swapping it out for another system.

Going to second this; well done, and will preserve the "mystery" and fear factor of the aliens for the actual game.

I would like to raise a point about the "hold the UFO" mission objective: If you win by holding the UFO for five turns, this has the unfortunate side effect of often allowing a fair amount of aliens to escape, thus impacting your score. I imagine that this might simply be due to the lack of actual alien AI at the moment, and I believe someone may have mentioned this earlier in the thread, but are there plans to make at least some surviving aliens to rush the UFO in an attempt to recapture it if you take control? While some allowance could still be made for aliens to escape, I don't quite feel inclined to pour over every nook and cranny in the map to find aliens so I don't take a score hit. Strongly encouraging at least a contingent of the remaining aliens to attack the UFO if it's captured would be both a logical course of action from their standpoint and a great benefit to the player's mental health. They shouldn't all have to do it, nor should they do it all the time in order to create varied behavior, but I think it'd be both a sensible and very convenient feature to have. I imagine it could also make for some quite harrowing game moments.

Terror Missions will definitely be something which warrants close examination for medal purposes, as they're about as ferocious a combat scenario as there is.

Oh, I agree it's entirely my fault if I misclick, but that's why I liked having the AP reserve automatically kick in as insurance; I'm a bit clumsy when it comes to squaddie management, and sometimes send them scrambling directly into enemy guns from time to time.

I use it pretty much constantly in X-COM (less so in the current Xenonauts build because it doesn't stay activated from turn to turn) and I really appreciate the convenience of being able to tell your soldier to automatically reserve the exact amount of AP necessary for shots. Otherwise, the player has to do a bit too much math with every individual soldier's stats in order to figure how how much AP to save so none is wasted; better to automate that task, I think. @anotherdevil-I find the idea interesting, but my only concern would be the potential harm of misclicks. Fire reserve is great because it physically prevents your trooper from moving past the point where he'd be able to fire; if the only barrier is a visual indicator, than I can still accidentally move my trooper too far, thus rendering the entire point of the reserve moot.

I hear you, and I respect that, but I hope you can appreciate my point of view as well. Chris and the team have clearly worked very hard to create a dark, somber, and realistic Cold War atmosphere which I really enjoy, and I would like to see that atmosphere upheld across all aspects of the game with decorations that actually reflect real-world decorations. In any case, I think what xracer says makes sense; we've offered our suggestions and critiqued each others', and we should wait to see which direction Chris wants to take things before debating further.

Excellent suggestions! The Stars of Gallantry could reflect the "melee" end of things, as a fair amount of stunning is likely to be done via Stun Rod. If there's actually melee attacks with guns, though (this is supposed to be a thing, right?) and they kill enemies instead of capturing them, that would be a great thing to have a medal for. I like your ideas regarding the Merit Star! As you are an X-COM vet, I will defer to you on the required kill milestones; I've not too much idea of what constitutes a truly difficult kill milestone in X-COM. Also, I really like the distinction between the Service Ribbon and Campaign Ribbon you suggested! Service Ribbons for X amount of missions and Campaign Ribbons for X amount of survival time in a particular theater sounds great. Definitely agreed on the marksmanship medal as well; I think AD suggested something like that, too? Not sure if I'd want a Grenadier one, as the phrase "close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades" exists for a reason, but an award for a trooper who has consistently high marksmanship could be quite cool, and would reflect the fact that players often designate a particular trooper as "sniper" or "marksman". Maybe something like if he's hit with X% of shots after X number of shots fired?

This is an interesting, and frankly quite horrifying, read; it deals with Hollywood's reaction to the SOPA reversal. Specifically, they plan to cut all funding to the Obama campaign because they've supported the Democrats for years and feel entitled to special treatment over the will of Congress' constituents as a result. http://www.deadline.com/2012/01/exclusive-hollywood-moguls-stopping-obama-donations-because-of-administrations-piracy-stand/ This is a direct quote from a Hollywood studio chief regarding the matter: Blech. The amount this speaks to the influence powerful lobbies like Hollywood have over Congress is rather unsettling.

Those explanations do make sense; I guess I'm just cynical by nature, and have little faith that Earth governments would refrain from using the weapons to intimidate fellow nations.

Alright, I'm overhauling my list to make everything a bit harder to get and adding a few more. Dropships: -Xenonauts Campaign Ribbon-Carry out 30 UFO ground assault missions. This could also be changed into a theater ribbon, see below. Troopers: (original medal names this time) -Survive for X months: Xenonauts Service Ribbon/Medal (can be replaced by the Theater ribbons, see below) -Capture 10 aliens: Bronze Medal of Gallantry -Capture 20 aliens: Silver Medal of Gallantry -Capture a leader/navigator: Gold Medal of Gallantry -Survive a mission with 50% or less health: Crimson Heart (I'd put it at 25% but alien weapons are likely to bring you down that far most of the time anyways; still, 25% might be better if we want it a bit more exclusive) -Sole Survivor: Survivor's Ribbon/Medal -Kill 7 Aliens in one mission: Medal of Heroism (5 seems like too small of a number, this needs to be a really extraordinary one to recognize those times when a single operative comes through in the clutch) -Be the first trooper into X amount (where X is a large amount) of UFOs and alien bases: Star of Courage -Clear a UFO of medium size(large, maybe? this needs to be really hard) or larger by yourself: Order of Earth -Take a bullet/explosion meant for a teammate: Star/Medal of Sacrifice (little iffy on this one, but just tossing out ideas) "Theater" ribbons: Much like actual campaign ribbons, these could be awarded to denote long service in a particular theater and might serve as a more flavorful alternative to a generic "service" medal. -Serve X months in a European base- Europe Campaign Ribbon -Serve X months in a Soviet Union base- Soviet Campaign Ribbon and so forth. These are basically to recognize the really old veterans, the guys who were riding in the Chinook to the first crashed scout ship and are now gearing up for the final mission. You could differentiate them with a simple palette swap to facilitate having a bunch of variants of the same medal. Also, how's this for a reworking of the "X kills" medals: -Kill 5 Aliens-Merit Star The ribbon gets bronze stars on it for every 5 (10?) kills up to 20, as per xracer's excellent suggestion. -Kill 20 Aliens-Distinguished Merit Star (gets a silver star on the ribbon for every five kills, so you would have a star for 25, 30, and 35) -Kill 40 Aliens-Outstanding Merit Star (gets a gold star for every five kills, so 45, 50, 55) -Kill 60 Aliens-Exemplary Merit Star (gets a platinum star or gold star for every five subsequent kills) This way, you have no more than 3 additional stars on the ribbon at any time, but you can also reach higher "levels" of the medal, much like real-life medals.

I'm talking from a "real world" perspective here, not from a game mechanics perspective, as again I believe the game's medals would do well to be grounded in real-world military tradition. It's quite feasible that someone could receive a medal for breaching a UFO with a riot shield, or leading a charge into enemy lines with a riot shield, but I don't find it very realistic that there would be a medal given out for having your riot shield blown apart no matter where it happened. If your whole squad is advancing together side by side toward enemy positions, and your riot shield takes a shot and is rendered useless, is that really something worth a distinction? You're actually less likely to die than a teammate in that situation, so why should you get a medal? It'd be better to take what you seem to want the riot shield medal to be, which is a medal for placing yourself into a dangerous situation for the sake of teammates, and change it to something like "first person into X UFOs or alien bases", something like that. That way the use of the riot shield is still quite likely, but it also has a bit more of a "heroic" feel to it. That's completely fine, and I reserve the right to critique your suggestions based on what I feel fits the game, just as you're free to critique mine based on your perspective. That's why we have this thread, after all, to offer up medal suggestions and then discuss them.

That looks great! I like your placement of the AP slider. My only suggestion would be that there be "quick buttons" for toggling single and burst fire reserve, kind of like this but not awful-looking and actually in the right place relative to the bar: Dragging a small bar like that repeatedly could get kind of tedious, so it'd be important to have some kind of larger "quick select" button. We need to fit the crouch button in somewhere as well; looks like it'd be possible to bump the left edge of the GUI to the edge of the screen and squeeze in a crouch bar somewhere, no? Here's a terribly made attempt at it in Paint. Now that I look at it again, it'd probably flow better to have the crouch button to the right of the inventory column.

Nobody's trolling anybody, calm down. First off, these are not the same thing. Actually taking a bullet is not the same thing as having a few shots break your riot shield; in one situation you are quite likely hospitalized and in moderate to severe pain, while in the other you are uninjured. Secondly, as I've indicated before several times, my understanding of Xenonauts is that it seeks to establish and maintain a fairly somber and realistic Cold War atmosphere. As such, any potential in-game decorations for soldiers should be based on real-world medals, in order to uphold this atmosphere. Chris is asking for new medal ideas for the game, yes; however, these medals should have some foundation in actual military tradition. The Purple Heart is a quintessential and highly recognizable military decoration. We can just pull random medals out of thin air, but if we look carefully at what actual medals are given out for and base Xenonauts' medals on those that will contribute to the game's atmosphere in a considerable way. Thirdly, I already agreed with you that some kind of award for being the first guy into a UFO on a regular basis is certainly a good idea; I just don't think that simply giving it to a guy for getting a riot shield shot out from under him is a good abstraction of that concept. As others have noted, it feels a little "achievement" like, and it doesn't necessarily fit the model of "extraordinary bravery" either since the guy with the riot shield is actually less likely to die than his companions because he has more protection. In short, I think medals should be more of an abstract concept, as they are in actual wartime, rather than being awarded for carrying around a specific piece of kit. Getting a medal because you carried a highly specific piece of kit and did something with it gives off a strong "achievement" feel to me, which is not something you want if you're trying to emulate actual military decorations.

The potentially disastrous implications of selling high-powered alien weaponry on a global scale amuses me greatly. More proof that X-COM is not exactly the most competent organization.

Ah, so I could place an image into the pool of randomly generated faces? Interesting. Is it possible to add additional ones to increase the pool of random faces beyond the starting number, do you think? I.e. it only picks from ~25 portraits because that's what the game has, but if you add random images as portraits, could you have, say, 50+ portraits in the pool?

Yeah, I imagine it would be a lot of work, but I'd be willing to go through a fair amount in order to do so as I think it'd be rather hilarious. If the game doesn't support it, though, it's absolutely not something that needs to be included; I was merely curious whether the game would naturally support a feature like that at launch.