Oktober

Whatever! I love my pistoliers! I get super excited whenever I manage to score a kill with one. Generally, for each team I'm running, I designate one guy as a mobile nade-chucking, first-aid-providing platform. And so far I've had good luck with scoring pistol-kills with these guys...against Caesans. Despite emptying lots of rounds into Sebillians, still no kills. I haven't yet played a game in which I could afford to equip my mans with laser-weapons. But that's something to look forward to. [insert plea for more forgiving budget here.]

Well I'm happy without super-duper realistic ranks. (If we had those, we'd get a bunch of unqualified soldiers in leadership positions because they're good at making themselves look good while everyone else is too busy working to play at office politics.) I'd settle for something that doesn't make my eyes bleed. With 15 minutes of research, such a thing could be implemented. Or, as some people have suggested, divorcing the ranking structure in this game from any sort of real-world equivalents would avoid the issue entirely.

Well. It's how things work (or have worked) in real life. It's not that complicated. The current system is only "straightforward" within the context of X-Com. It doesn't make any kind of sense, outside of that context. Can you provide an example of an army that only has 1-2 ranks for "basic" (does that mean "enlisted?") soldiers? I've never heard of any such thing. Generally armies will have 3 ranks of "private," and then 6 ranks of "sergeant" for enlisted ranks, and...other stuff for officers. Is anybody bothering to look up ranking structures on Wikipedia? It's pretty simple stuff.

I've managed to get a 2nd base up and running with 3 hangars, (2 F17s and a MiG) and by transferring one Ferret and half a dozen troops from the initial base, I have 2 bases which can shoot down craft and respond. I even got to/survived a terror mission with my main base! For most of the 1st month, my 2nd base just had a couple of F17s, and I pretty much just shot stuff down. It wasn't until received funds for the 2nd month that I was able to really turn it into a functioning ground-combat-capable base. It takes some time and being careful. I tend to hole-up a bit during waves of attacking fighters, because I don't have enough air support to keep my Chinooks safe. But you still get money for shooting stuff down.

Well there are several sgt ranks. Staff Sgt, Master Sgt, 1st Sgt, etc. The Air Force even includes Tech Sgt (equivalent to Army's Staff Sgt). And allow me to refer you to my earlier posts suggesting that we include the Army's (historically accurate) Specialist (spec 4-spec 9, I think) ranking structure. I know some people have said they don't like "specialist," but it's a once-popular, and still-used rank in the US Army. It makes sense to me.

I approve of this idea, but only if the illness turns Xenonauts into zombies. Bonus points if you can then take your Zombienauts on missions and let them loose in towns to try and draw alien fire.

Well I don't think the OP needs to be taken in the wrong way. Max is right: the game is designed to be something specific, and it's attracted us all for what it's intended to be. So certainly making outlandish proposals (like my own request for a "play as the aliens" variation on the main game) or not really something that need to be talked about right now. (On the other hand I don't think long-range SAM would be a bad thing. Sometimes you can't field enough fighters and it would be nice to have the option to just shoot some UFOs down instead of letting them destroy the countryside at will!) What Max is proposing is that we make refinement suggestions as opposed to just vomiting everything we want for some game, at some time. We're all beautiful, creative beings. We have great ideas which would be super-fun, somewhere. In this context, that's not necessarily helpful.

Stop making sense with your words!

I'm not following why you wouldn't be able to use the same xenos across different missions and have them progress? There does seem to be a racial component to how the aliens work. Caesans don't work with Sebellians don't work with Androns, etc. That might have something to do with it. As the player progresses, he'd move to commanding different species. I'm sure there's a clever way to work that in.

Additionally, (never having gotten too far in X-Com) wasn't there something in X-Com where countries would quit supporting the X-Com team and join with the Aliens? Maybe the aliens in Xenonauts could be trying to sway nation gov'ts to quit funding Xenonauts and bow to their authority.

I'd remove "Adept." Too many weirdo-magical connotations. I don't have a problem with Specialist, for one of the lower ranks. Squaddie to Specialist seems reasonable to me.

Oh my. That's a lot of soldiers. Do they come with preset stats?

No no no. The scouts are used to locate good targets for the fighters, corvettes, etc., to go strafe or assault. The alien side of the game wouldn't have to be as in-depth as the Xenonaut side. The player (as the Overmind) would need to do some management of the space-fleet to get the various craft set up for flight in the atmosphere. And perhaps the player is not the Fleet Admiral of the entire force, but a commander who has to prove his effectiveness through successful strafing and terror missions in order to access the higher-tier xenos for further missions. (Also, scouts could always land and just try to abduct civilians and cows and stuff.) Just look at how the alien AI already works in the game. Then construct an interface to let the player do that same kind of stuff. Really, at least initially, the alien player would want to avoid Xenonaut territory. There's a whole world to get easy kills on. Your alien troops could certainly level up as the complete successful missions. And you know how one of the Xenonaut victory options is holding the UFO for 5 turns? The xenos themselves could just need to hold out for 15 turns or something before a rescue ship could come scoop them up.

That makes sense. I was a US Navy cryptologist (interpretive). Exited as a Petty Officer 2nd Class (CTI2), also an E5.

This might be kind of off-topic, but it could be pretty amusing playing as aliens against AI Xenonauts. The player (as the Alien Overmind) would primarily use the Geoscape to launch scouts as they come available (which, from the flavor text, we know will be at a pretty slow rate) and look for good targets to send fighters after. Once the Overmind discovers that Xenonauts are hunting him, he would then use the process of elimination to try and pinpoint the Xenonaut base, and try to wipe it out. Can you imagine how fun it would be to launch a Terror mission and harass the puny humans for a while, and then try to set up an ambush on the Xenonauts as the Chinook approaches? Mostly just a pipe-dream. But still. Sounds like fun to me!

Ha! That's a lot of AP!

"Expertise in krav maga" is not equivalent to "best choice for front-line soldier."

Well of course this would be open for tinkering. My lack of suitable vocabulary shouldn't be too much of a stumbling block.

Precisely. For the type of military service we're talking about here, 95% of males also are not suited for the work. Of primary importance is operational effectiveness. Again, a certain type of mental illness is almost a prerequisite for success in special forces. (I'd recommend checking out On Killing.) Beyond that, the physical requirements are prohibitive for most men, and all women. Even your ultra-fit, Olympic-level female athletes aren't designed for this type of work. It's not sexism, it's biology. And psychology. From Wikipedia: "In On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman briefly mentions that female soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces have been officially prohibited from serving in close combat military operations since 1948. The reason for removing female soldiers from the front lines was due less to the performance of female soldiers, and more due to the behavior of the male infantrymen after witnessing a woman wounded. The IDF saw a complete loss of control over soldiers who apparently experienced an uncontrollable, protective, instinctual aggression, severely degrading the unit's combat effectiveness." My Xenonauts don't need these distractions! EDIT: On further reading of that same Wikipedia article there are listed additional reasons why and why not to use female soldiers. Particularly in Islam-ruled areas, men will refuse to surrender to female soldiers, whereas the women are much easier to handle if they're approached by female soldiers. I'd be way more happy about having women on the team if there were a game-context reason for employing them. Higher resistance to psionics, something like that. Make them an asset to the Xenonauts, something to be excited about and jealously guarded, and I'll be behind it 100%.

Yeah I definitely agree that "Xenonaut" should be your long-time, mid-range rank. Rookie --> Squaddie --> Grunt --> Operative --> Xenonaut --> Specialist --> Elite -->Veteran --> Chief That's 8. I feel a little weird about seeing "Specialist" that high up the list, but I could get used to it.

Only feeling comfortable placing men in the line of fire is a far cry from Aryanism -- even, if not especially, within the confines of a videogame. People cry about "equal treatment." Getting shot at is not a privilege. It's something that any sane person tries to avoid at all costs. Typically the people that excel in combat roles as psychopaths (clinically speaking). Normal people (men and women) that are forced to engage in combat generally suffer from PTSD. The few that don't suffer from "feelings" make great soldiers. There's a whole range of arguments against placing women in combat roles. They're "sexist" in that the recognize the differences between women and men. They're still reasonable, since there are differences between women and men.

Yeah I miss Rookies and Squaddies. Rookie --> Squaddie --> Specialist --> Operative --> Xenonaut? Something like that? How many ranks do we need?

Xenonauts don't need this kind of distraction! They've got a job to do! Also, my first two bases always seem to be on Crete and in Florida. I'm sure the guys'll find plenty of interesting leisure activities without beefy-lady coworkers getting in the way.

I replied to your post in that other thread. I'm happy having any options for gender-manipulation.

Nothing to apologize for. You're correct! I have expressed interest in removing the females from the game. But I'd also be okay with having them on the team, albeit in more limited quantities. I was building off of what you'd stated, not arguing with you.