GizmoGomez

@PRiME @E4D Vehicles having secondary weapons would allow things like having a machine gun with a heavy cannon. For the Hunter, there is room for putting both the machine gun and the rockets in the artwork at the same time, so perhaps we could make the rockets a secondary weapon (and cut the number of rockets down from the current 8 to 4, making it less powerful). For the Scimitar, we can give it a coaxial machine gun, and we could also give it a 40mm grenade launcher (make it similar to the Hunter's rockets). For the Hyperion there's already a set of rocket pods on the back of the tank, so those are an obvious choice. I'd make that a cluster rocket, so, it fires 4 rockets simultaneously and it has 6 shots of that. A machine gun would also be useful there as well. For all of the vehicles, I just like the idea of a smoke screen, so giving that to all of them as a secondary weapon sounds like a good idea to me. It'd have a relatively short duration for balance reasons, only lasting between one and two turns at the max. Also, it should only have a limited number of uses, maybe 6. For the vehicle machine guns (besides the Hunter's) I'd recommend just scaling up the Scatter Laser, the Plasma Caster, and the MAGSTORM and calling them "Heavy <weapon name>" to make things simple and easy to understand. They'd be unlocked with the normal rapid-fire laser/plasma/mag researches. Here's a list of what my ideal vehicle weapon arraignment would be:

First off, great job on everything, it's really coming together quite nicely. I have a few questions: In the new UI, will there be included a system for vehicle secondary weapons, both in the vehicle equip screen and in the geoscape? I know you want to have the xenopedia finished as soon as possible; if we (meaning people on the forum) make logical suggestions to slightly alter some articles (for example, changing the condor and foxtrot entries to not mention the titanium / magnesium alloy as armor, but to mention adding redundant systems to allow the plane to continue working even after taking heavy damage) would you be willing to implement them? We've started a "Realism Concerns Center" in the General Discussion board where we've found 3 or 4 places that could have some unrealistic explanations or descriptions ironed out. Of course, any changes would be approved by you (after all, it is your game) but we think that a few alterations to the existing descriptions would make the game a lot more believable when it comes to descriptions of human technology. A main goal of ours is to not be bothersome and to create as little work for you as possible, so believe me when I say we don't want to add to your work load by making the suggestions. Hopefully it'd just be as simple as reading the more realistic proposal saying yeah, that sounds good, and changing some lines of text in excel. Otherwise, you'd simply read the proposal, say no, that'd be that.

The Condor Xenopedia description describes it as having a reenforced airframe that hopefully will allow it to soak up more damage. The Foxtrot entry also mentions the reenforced armor. These would both have to be replaced with "added a multitude of redundant systems" or something along those lines. The magnesium / titanium alloy mentioned in both of these xenopedia entries aren't mentioned anywhere else in the entire xenopedia, so we would only need to alter those two articles.

So, lets get some things straight: The lack of personal armor in the beginning of the game is not an issue provided the aircraft aren't described as having armor. (This means that the armor description is correct, and thus doesn't need to be changed, provided the aircraft description does.) To increase survivability the aircraft wouldn't have armor, they'd have multiple redundant systems in place (which equates to the same thing; namely, more survivability). (This would need to be changed. Simple fix; don't mention armor, but mention adding redundant systems to keep the bird flying even after sustaining heavy damage.) The Xenonaut aircraft have tons of fuel, so a significant portion of the aircraft is taken up by fuel tanks. (This is stated already, so it wouldn't need to be changed. It could be altered to say that fuel tanks take up some hardpoints.) The Xenonauts cannot rely on AWACs or spotter planes for their work; the planes don't exist in the game anyway, and even if they did they'd need an escort up to protect them from air superiority UFOs. Obviously there aren't magical AWACs flying around whenever we want to track something. It's obvious that the Xenonaut aircraft is tracking the UFO itself (you can even see it's own little sensor range on the geoscape). Thus, it must be tracking them somehow, either with enhanced radar (remember the UFOs have stealth-like capabilities, so a standard radar package from the 70's probably wouldn't work as well as we'd need), special Xeno-sensor radiation detectors (the UFOs and alien bases both emit radiation), or a combination of the two (most likely). The sensors are effective to all 360˚, meaning that they couldn't be in the nose cone alone, but are more probably under the wings (thus pointing all around the aircraft horizontally to find UFOs and down to find alien bases.) The explanation of ground based radar assisting in the tracking works fine until you leave the radar range, get out over open water, or fly over certain uninhabited parts of the world. Plus, how does the ground based radar (or the AWACs, for that matter) explanation for the Xenonaut aircraft tracking the enemy account for the Xenonaut aircraft detecting alien bases? It makes much more sense that each plane is carrying a sensor package designed specifically for hunting down UFOs and bases. They also need to have special Xeno-sensors that detect alien bases. The bases emit that same radiation, don't they? That's how we are able to find them despite them being buried underground. So, how does this sound? Change the Condor description to include something like,

@Ishantil Alright, fair enough. Actually, one explanation I had for the missing ordinance was that it was all replaced by radar and other sensors under the wings of the aircraft, enabling it to actually do what it does in game, that is, have an extremely long radar range (for a fighter) and be able to detect alien bases.

The explanation given in the game for the short missile range is that the UFO emits a certain kind of radiation that we can't detect unless we're really close. It's kinda an odd, immersion breaking reason though because we can track the UFO with radar from much longer than 15km (max range of the avalanche). Thus, we've decided that an artificial max range would most likely be implemented to avoid giving the UFOs too much time to react. After all, if we fire them from a hundred clicks away they've got ample time to either shoot the missile down, out maneuver it, or otherwise avoid being shot.

It's not realistic, and it should be fixed.

Well, the Xenonauts don't have Hawkeyes, do they? Also, the planes do actually have some pretty nice radars for the geoscape. I mean, they can track the UFOs all by themselves for quite a distance, and they can detect alien bases. That's pretty hard to do with a standard package, I'd guess.

I did, but obviously not everyone else does. Besides, even those of us who know what's going on would appreciate something cool like that, right?

So, how would you explain the difference between the Xenonaut craft and the normal aircraft? I would say: Xenonaut aircraft have additional redundant systems in place so we can remain flyable even with heavy damage. They have massive fuel tanks that allow for a much larger range. They have massively enhanced radar packages to allow them to track UFOs when within a certain range. Because of the added weight of the fuel, redundant systems, and radar, the plane was too heavy with all of the ordinance to be able to fly to it's max potential, so they cut down the payload to the minimum to give the pilots a chance to survive (because extra weight would lead to them not being able to dodge the incoming enemy attacks quick enough).

I'd rather they get sidewinders; it'd make sidewinders less special and more of a standard feature on aircraft, while the cannon and the torpedoes would remain special.

Alright, cool. Because the player is the pilot (pretty much) could we say that the range has been artificially limited? I mean, if the fighter's out of "optimal range" you still can't fire the missile, even if you're still inside of the missile's "real max range".

I did. <looks around> What? It was a selling point.

I'd go for that. I'd be opposed to giving a foxtrot a cannon; that's just too difficult to implement, and you'd never get to use it unless you were insane (or just didn't care about repair times). Giving a foxtrot two light hardpoints would work, though. It'd give you an incentive to get up close and personal with aircraft, and it'd be a good way to defend yourself against fighters that get too close. Since the range would still be low compared to the torpedoes you wouldn't be able to fire them along with the torps unless you got close, in which case you're risking the aircraft and should be correspondingly rewarded for your risk.

So, if we make 2.5km the distance the guns can be used within, what does that make the max in-game range for the avalanche? 10km?

Okay, so can we agree that the reasoning behind the shorter-ranged missiles is because at longer ranges it'd be child's play for the UFOs to counter them? So, something like, "We cannot simply fire our long range missiles at enemy craft and expect the missiles to hit their marks. This isn't due to the tracking systems we have; once locked on we can track the UFOs with a good degree of accuracy (as is evidenced by our ability to track them on the map indefinitely once we've detected them, provided they stay within range). The simple fact of the matter is that in the time between our firing of the missile and the missile reaching the target the UFO would be able to deploy counter-measures or otherwise evade our missiles. The extra-terrestrials know when they've been shot at, and the more time we give them to react, the more likely they'll prove our efforts futile. As a consequence of this, and out of a desire to avoid wasting precious missiles, I've lowered the range at which we can fire our air to air missiles and torpedoes to keep the amount of time the extraterrestrials have to react to a minimum." Sound decent?

Can we get a flash of light in that case? Or an animation of the soldier becoming all charred and then vanishing? Just something to indicate vaporization so people don't get confused.

Yeah, that's all that should be even considered or proposed if this is going to make it in the game. I think it would add a great deal to the game. You need some "WTF? HAHAHA" moments in games, otherwise they can get too repetitive.

Okay, 2 light 2 heavy. I can support that. That way you have a choice between a gun and a pair of torps, armament wise. It also eliminates the significant damage difference between a fully loaded Condor and a fully loaded Foxtrot.

Antigravitons in plasma tech, noted. The female thing isn't a part of the lore, nor can/should we propose anything involving that. Oh, and while I appreciate the humor, I don't appreciate it on this thread. I mean, we're trying to actually get things done, so please don't post frankly irrelevant things such as female ratios and aliens being unrealistic. All it does ultimately is clog up the thread. Thanks!

I say give them four heavy hardpoints. Then the player can decide if they want to give it a couple of sidewinders. My standard armament would probably be two torps and two sidewinders, honestly. The question is how adding two missies (which could be used to force rolls) would mess with the balance of other craft. Having two additional torpedoes wouldn't mean anything as far as evasive rolls go; it'd still be nigh impossible to hit anything. What if you loaded up on purely sidewinders, though? A foxtrot with four sidewinders could deal some damage to evasive craft, couldn't it? That could mess with the division between missile truck and dogfighter again.

Ha, that's perfect. Lets make a sprite that looks like Chuck Norris that goes around and roundhouse kicks aliens, dealing over 9000 damage with each kick. Heck, I'd pay for that to be an optional feature.

Exactly; it's Chris's game. He can do whatever he wants with it. Ha, he could've made the Condor a repurposed blender and we'd have to go along with it. I like the idea of an "Immersion Mod". Perhaps if Chris doesn't decide to go along with something we could package that into a mod to release. I would hope that simple (if time consuming) text changes wouldn't be too much trouble, though, so lets hope for the best (namely, a Xenonauts that we all can love and become immersed in).

Instead of boosting the torp damage I'd rather simply add two more hardpoints back onto the foxtrot. The main issue with four-torp foxtrots was they were overpowered, but now that torpedoes are firmly in the land of the capital ships only and not able to take out fighters they wouldn't be overpowered anymore, right?

Pshh, Duke Nukem. I'd be more afraid of Rambo.