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Bear with me on this!... One of the things I loved about the game STALKER was that not everything was immediately hostile towards you, or at least wouldn't always drop everything and attack. For example, you'd be walking along, already tense, and you'd hear wild dogs barking somewhere in the distance. You'd swivel around, trying to spot what direction they were at, and how far. Often, you'd finally see them in the distance. They may or may not initially spot you, and at that distance, you were never quite sure if (when they were moving) they were headed towards you or not. You quickly evaluated the situation, and decided whether to keep moving, or stand your ground (with the assumption that they were going to approach you). Even if a dog would approach you, it would be unpredictable... it would move towards you, but then stop, maybe move the other way, circle you a bit, move a bit closer, then seemingly loose interest, but then stop and look your way again. With ammo being scarce, and combat generally being quite risky, this often resulted in extremely tense moments of you constantly keeping an eye on the dog(s), occassionally moving forward, re-evaluating. I'd often have my gun pointed at the 'enemy' all the while, but not pull the trigger unless I had to. It was an interesting situation where it being LESS hostile created more tension... rather than it being the standard 'I see him, I immediately shoot him' type of thing. So, why do I bring this up? Well, I have yet to actually play the game myself (and can only judge things based on the vids I've seen), but perhaps you could have some aliens that are disguised as civilians (...kind of a Carpenter's 'Thing' type of deal). So, you'd have a civilian in the combat area, but would have a bit of paranoia about it maybe being an alien. On one hand, you don't want to just kill the 'civilian', as you really don't know if it's 'real' or not. On the other hand, you would be keeping an eye on them, getting a bit nervous when they are close to one of your guys. If they were aliens, then at some random (or strategic) point, they could shed their disguise, and 'change the playing field' a bit. Not sure how difficult that would be to code, nor if it would throw any balance off. But, I figured I'd throw it in as a suggestion, as that might create some serious tension and throw some unexpected panic in a misison. I just love the idea of something that you are reluctant to immediately shoot, but are constantly worried might 'go off' while near your troops. Any thoughts?

dont really know if this thread fits on here. but anyways id like to ask the question if theres psi attacks ingame at the current build becuase right of the dropship my heavy saw a cesan alein and you know shoot at and i accdentily ended my turn and then he paniced out of the blue full HP full morale no one was shoot at or hit. and it was just a normal scout crash site

Now i know that probably all alien enemies that will be in the game is already mapped out and planned. I have had many years since beloved X-com to think about aliens i my self would like to face in such a game. Wouldn't it be interesting with something quite unique in the genre. I am thinking something with the sneaky speed and death contempt of the Chryssalid but with the terrifying psychic abilities of say the Ethereal. A small, lean, fragile, dwarf sized vessel of flesh with two pitch black eyes like an bottomless abyss if gazed into but most important, a thirsty, devouring radiating mind. A mind that radiates demoralizing or even paralyzing nightmares to the enemies (Civilians, Xenonauts) It could have active abilities also, but i think it would be too powerful and take away its character. Now what it would try to do, is to sneak up to your troops as close as it can get, and by just being in their proximity it would render soldiers paralyzed, drop equipment or simply panicking them. It would not carry a gun, and would have no means or even intent of physical aggression other that radiating these horrible nightmares before the eyes of the poor victims. Its body would be a mere carrier of its mind. Living of the imagery it would steal/borrow from its victims heads. Having no intent to kill, since it would deprive it of its entertainment/nutrition. So in effect it would not kill itself. They could also perhaps be made more interesting also choose a defensive mind attack, if detected. Fooling the senses, eyes and hearing that they aren't there so they could invisibly relocate and try another time. A Xenonaut further away could see it skulk away and finish of the critter with ease. Now i see them as primarily a terror weapon. Or maybe something larger ships could house one of, searching the ship constantly for intruders or unwelcome guests. Maybe that's one of the reasons Aliens abduct people simply to have a supply of thoughts. Since its thoughts and dreams this vicious little beings mind somehow transforms into proteins for its physical development.

Hello this is my first post on the site so be gentle, also had a quick look and didn't see any similar recent forums. So in Xcom there was a pretty fair amount of enemy diversity, but overall besides the three basic alien types (melee, ranged and psychic) you rarely needed to switch up tactics to repel a change in opponent. Given the trouble making different species it makes sense to make battling each enemy type feel very different. Here are a few ideas I blearily came up with while my mind wandered, im pretty certain you can all come up with better stuff. The Carrion Reaper: Goes after corpses to inject larvae rather than living things. Gives the ability to stuff corpses into your backpack for relocation more weight and turns something so seemingly simple as a corpse into an enemy asset needed to be captured. When not engaging in legitimized necrophilia it'll attack humans as fast as a regular Reaper/Chrysallid yet perhaps not quite as deadly. Defending corpses would be paramount to avoid being overwhelmed, anybody you don't want endangered could be made to haul bodies from danger zones. Invisible melee enemies: A Xenonaut is able to see it only when it becomes close, lets say 5 squares. This means hording action points for reaction fire and closely guarding eachother's back's is a much safer formation when you know one is lurking about. Combine this with a long ranged troop and the player must make careful decisions about positioning and line of sight. Looking down a street and seeing nothing might be reassuring, or worrying if you suspect these things are about. Crawlers: Climbs up walls, or perhaps its an alien fungal that grows on walls. Either way shoots from above with sticky biological stuff causing a unit to spend more action points when moving for the rest of that battle. Anyway its getting late please post more ideas for enemies! Oh and I also understand its probably too late in the development process to add anything big anyway but nevertheless...

As i remember Mutons, were build or re-engineered for battle, they were bad ass, also remember something to the fact they had armor grafted onto their skin. Ok stay with me, since these are soldiers why not make them a little bit more deadly by allowing them to blend into their surrounding, like giving them a chameleon type feature so that they coudl easily blend into all types of terrains, I know for the at dept this will create an issue, but if not too difficult i think it will ad just a little more tension, sicne they will be harder to spot. another of the $0.02 ( i know, i know i am running low now)