licker

The aliens don't have to change mode at all, that was just a suggestion that it would be interesting if they occasionally did. Though you're right, it is about 'realism' to a degree, it's also about challenge. If you set up a kill zone do you just want the Aliens to keep on pouring into it and getting shot to hell? Or do you want them to group on the outside of it and exchange fire? I don't know, there are a lot of variables to worry about anyway. I'm more interested in making the setting based nearly entirely on mission, and not change, other than go from hunted to hunter. Missions where you have to storm a position vs. missions where you have to defend a position (and base defense is rarely this, base defense is usually just hunt the aliens hiding in your base, maybe Xeno has a better way to do those though) vs. missions where there is lots of open terrain and it's just pretty chaotic.

A good question. I'm not really up to speed with everything Xenonauts so I'll try to be general, and if it doesn't fit for some reason, then you'll understand why It could be as simple as a coin flip to start the mission. It could have to do with the map generated. It could have to do with 'knowledge' of whether the aliens are outnumbered or not, or 'out powered'. If the later two, then the behavior could change (should change?) during the combat such that if the Aliens find themselves in 'Hunted' mode, but shift the balance by giving enough casualties to the humans they change to 'Hunter'. And vice versa if they started on the offensive, but took many casualties. The trouble here is how do the Aliens 'know' what the numbers (or power) are? Personally I'm fine with them simply knowing this all the time, I think the sudden shift from offense to defense or vice versa would be interesting for game play and am not concerned about how realistic it is. Though I'm also not concerned if they use some simple metric along the lines of once they lose 50% of their force or take out 1,2,3,... (some reasonable number) of the humans they shift gears. But I'm no AI coder (or regular coder for that matter). I'm just spilling my brains

I would have said 'cheat' Cheating is something like bending the rules of the game to the point where the aliens can shoot you from places you couldn't shoot them, or getting boni to hit or damage past whatever weapon characteristics they have. 'Cheating' to get them in good positions, or to move 'intelligently' can be waved away pretty easily as a hive mind or whatever. My opinion (for what it's worth) is that aliens should have two main AI modes. Hunter, or Hunted. But they should never really just run away and hide (because that leads to tedious and dull missions). In Hunter mode they actively try to advance, flank, charge, whatever to 'hunt' the humans. In Hunted mode they find a defensible position (or they just start in one) and wait for you to come to them. Of course if an alien lacks a ranged attack then hunted doesn't work quite as well. Anyway, sounds pretty promising to me, can't wait to see what the final version is going to be

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corentin_Louis_Kervran#Calcium_anomalies_in_chicken_eggshells Why not, this time there's actual precedence for your theory

My theory on what? I don't need to give you *my* theory on nuclear chemistry because the accepted science covers it all very nicely. If you want my theory on how krackassium works you won't have any success because I simply do not care to make up some theory about it. My point was just that if you care enough to make up some theory on it then you could accept some criticism about the misuse of certain terms which you apply incorrectly to your description. I'm actually trying to help you, but if you just want to have internetz funz then I can do that easily as well.

Well I wasn't trying to be flippant, apologies if the first post seemed that way. Just pointing out that there are infact specific names for at least the isotopes of Hydrogen. As to the other elements, I'm not aware of any specific names for other isotopes, so C13 or K31 or whatever is what is normally seen. KOKON, hey, it's a term/theory for a sci-fi game, it doesn't need to be perfectly logical, but none the less, certain words have certain precise meanings, and as Gorlom points out, you cannot call something with a different atomic number an isotope of another element. That's just how the word is defined. I'd further point out that the neuclide series (actually you made it a cycle, which doesn't make sense) you provided for your scheme doesn't make any sense in the real world either, but since it's not intended for the real world it doesn't matter that much. None the less, it's almost as easy to get that kind of thing 'right' (in as much as an element with mass 300 can be right) as it is to just throw something out there. But it really doesn't matter that much, I'm not sure how many people would care that much to learn about the nuclear properties of a made up alien element. Though that's kinda weird too, 'Alien Element'. Theory would dictate that elements are universal, so claiming that one is 'alien' is a bit of a stretch. Or just that the technology required to produce/refine/whatever this element is only available to the alien race. That would be better I guess. If we're trying to play the 'make the sci-fi science as real as real science as we can' game.

really? Never heard of deuterium or tritium? But otherwise... yeah his stuff is a bit confusing.