Search the Community

Howdy. I've chosen to come out my self-imposed lurker status to throw out an idea I've had ever since ye olde X-Com. What might that be, you ask? Close Air Support! I'd always liked the idea of having such a feature available, especially since it will give a tertiary use for hangars alongside another style of play. Now, the very first issue to tackle would be What types of aircraft would support? There's a bit of variety in how that could be handled. Personally, I believe that helicopters or other rotary-winged vehicles (up to and including hover platforms at a later date) would be better than jets. The reason for this is two-fold: helicopters, although still fuel intensive, are not so expensive as jets to fly. This would be simulated by lower maintenance costs. Secondly, a helicopter would be able to perform several fly-overs at different angles, whereas a jet might be traveling altogether too fast to do anything more meaningful than dropping one piece of ordinance. So, assuming that helicopters would be chosen as the source of CAS, the next and most important question would be how would it work? I'm going to be honest and admit that, yes, it could be either a waste of money or an overpowered mess if it isn't implemented right. It can't simply be something that, by paying another $30,000 dollars, you get access to missions where half the aliens are bleeding out on the ground before you even land. But, with that said, it can't be so weak as to be useless or a waste of money. Perhaps it could be balanced out by a potential destruction of the UFO, negatives to Mission Performance due to blowing a bunch of holes in a civilian area, and so on. I'd be hesitant to make it a "call-in" ability, since that'd be taking a step towards making it an over-powered sniper rifle, so one would assume the effects would take place before landing. Perhaps a 10% chance that each alien would take a direct hit by either a handful of MG rounds, a rocket, or whatever else you'd have equipped on the helicopter. There'd be a chance for houses, barns, and the ufo itself being either damaged or on fire. Smoke, blast areas reminiscent of rocket and MG fire.. Basically atmospheric effects to show that, yes, a helicopter really was strafing the area before you arrived. With all that said, I can understand if others either wouldn't want to see this feature in or would have it an entirely different way. I'm almost retiscent myself, having come to love Xenonauts as-is, but I'd thought I would put this out here all the same. You never know if someone's been thinking the same thing!

Just thinking, if you're going to have two fighters hanging out over your troops for a ground mission, wouldn't it make sene to equip them for ground suport? It would make sense if any Condors that went along for ground mission provides you with a bombing run and a strafing attack. Keeps them useful late game too, so it wouldn't be a no-brainer to scrap them when you get the funding for Foxtrots. This also mirrors the real-world practice where obselete fighters are often repurposed as ground attack aircraft.

Since my initial post was really really long, I've condensed it into this spoiler box: If you'd rather not read all the details, here's the TL;DR version: -Add another kind of hardpoint to aircraft, Support Hardpoint, located on the underbelly of the aircraft. -Add Support Packages which can be equipped to Support Hardpoints and Heavy Hardpoints. --Enhanced Sensors Package (ESP): increases radar range and detection rate of aircraft, used for scouting UFOs and Alien Bases --External Fuel Tank (EFT): Adds extra fuel to the airplane, allowing for increased operation time, range, etc. -Penalty for using Support Packages on Heavy Hardpoints is you have less missiles or torpedoes to use in air combat. -Penalty for using Support Packages on underbelly Support Hardpoint is: slower aircraft speed in geoscape and dogfights, no using evasive roll or afterburners in dogfight. -Ability to eject underbelly package in dogfight to remove penalties in emergencies. -Small cost (in purchase initially, then in manufacturing) for External Fuel Tanks. -High cost in manufacturing for Enhanced Sensors Package. Anyway, comments?

I would like to propose an idea for an Air Support Mod. I can only do basic editing, so I am just starting a thread to gather ideas. Air Support could be achieved by using the appearance of bullets/rockets firing down from the sky above the alien. Is there a way to make bullets manifest from any selected tile (preferably the highest) during a given instance? We don't need to see the actual helicopters. Just hear the sounds. It could be an AH-6 Littlebird (Which occupies 1 base square) or an Apache (occupies 2 base squares). Select a target and the firing comes from the highest tiles above target, and a little to the side. to make it appear like the bullets are coming from the sky. You get 2 Gun Runs per Ground Combat. If it's an AH-6....you get 1 mini-guns and 1 rocket. Apache gives you 1 rocket and 1 precision 30mm chain gun burst. If the alien is inside a building, the bullets and rockets hit the top of the building. Only 1 helicopter per mission, besides the Chinook. They fly the same speed as Chinook. Fighter escorts are still necessary or risk losing 2 helicopters. Not sure if the AH-64 was around during the Cold War, but the Loach and Cobra were in Vietnam and the Hind was available in Cold War days. EDIT#1 Add extra aliens to keep the game balanced. The purpose for this Air Support is for "Oh Crap" situations. Like when you see an alien but everyone is out of TU's. EDIT#2. - EXAMPLE Sound clip for AH-6 helicopter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nef0iFafRw EXAMPLE for AH-1 Cobra helicopter.

got bored and did some pictures of some ideas. first one is for adding color code for aliens showing what kind of alien is there. lets say that soldier is green, scientist is yellow, etc etc... or they could present their toughness. i think this could bring easily "without-much-working" (i guess) a lot more variety to aliens by re-texturing the alien model Uvmaps. tho on the downside is, there would be much more images added for xenonaut, basically from same alien. for second, is quite familiar to all... how about bloodtracks for the wounded? loved this concept in jagged alliance and for the third... thinking twice, well this might be quite dumb idea and overpowered, but how about aerial support for the ground combat? just have a look at the picture, it has AH-1 Cobra supporting ...tho, it wouldnt need to be helicopter, could be a airplane also doing gunning raid from air or bombing... allmost can see the vulcan fire coming from the sky and high speed velocity shadow from the passing plane in the ground lol ...but yeah, overpowered.

SMG's anyone? I only think this would be a cool addition because well of the time period and the type of combat that we're facing. Maybe some kind of 'mid game' research option that allows for smaller, more compact machine guns that take up less weight but produce around the same firepower. Secondly, what about some kind of close air support craft? I know the Huey was still in service from vietnam and the F -14 I believe was relegated to this role as well. I just think that it would be more interesting to have more involved in the 'over world' sense. Like if in the 'air' part of the combat the main craft's escorts weren't dealt with properly then they could help out when you tried to assault the downed craft... The aliens are interested in strafing highways after all.