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Some will get killed, some will survive. The lucky ones. The ones who will eventually follow soldiers around, thinking they'll be safe, then park right in front of them blocking LOF for that life or death critical shot Can you fix this, please? Just have them run back and stash somewhere, when we get close enough, somewhere where they don't get in the way. Pretty please

Now. I am a big person for opportunities to benefit from immersing semi-roleplaying tasks. This is an idea I thought of when my men were doing a mission in what was geographically roughly Chicago. After a long, fruitless search for the small class UFO, my crew heard 9 gunshots off in the distance, we rushed over to see a police officer who had gunned down two aliens, but, before my eyes, was wounded by a third (Which he killed.) This man, being a hero whose story should be told in the local tribune, was one who I found worthy of medical attention, receiving all 50 units of my assaults medkit. In the end, we killed the last alien, who stood there, in the wreckage of his ship, alone, to see that the mission was accomplished. I felt a slight sting when I saw not even a mention of the medical aid offered to this brave cop, Tommy Johnson, who warded of the alien insurgency (Which probably saved his life.) While it may be unneeded, I personally feel it would be a great touch in bringing in immersion... And creating another opportunity to give good player a chance to impress the nations.

Something that has always bugged me in Xcom, and bugs me in Xenonauts now as well, civilians and local forces run around like, well, idiots, and there isn't much my Xenonauts can do about it. I wish that my Xenonauts could give basic verbal commands to people we encounter so they aren't just running in circles like chickens with their head's cut off in the middle of a crossfire. Nothing detailed. I'm not talking about taking direct control over them, and it would actually be even cooler if these orders weren't always followed, but sometimes ignored by terrified civilians or enraged local forces. For example, if you make eye contact with a civilian an option to tell them to move to your chopper for safety, or hold position. Something like that. It always struck me as odd that I'd be sent to protect civilians but have no way to communicate with them and actually keep them safe beyond hoping they don't run into a hail of plasma fire before I kill everything. Also, I noticed that my stun weapons seem to outright kill civilians which is also a bit annoying. I wish there was some way to knock them out for their own safety. Kind of like how modern day SWAT forces will handcuff hostages to protect them as well as the SWAT team itself.

This is something that can bother me a little bit and I know anyone who plays xenonauts or watches cheesy horror flicks feels the same way. The number of times a civilian has done something stupid and left me yelling "You idiot! Why did you run out of the barn!!" has caused me to think about smartening up the civilians. This post is on the basis that keeping civilian alive actually has an impact on your game, as I haven't found much of a reason for the score yet. Instead of coding in fancy AI or having battle trained farm hands. I think it would be better fitting into the skills & training features that are under construction. Perk: Expert Marshal A great perk for this training would be that MP trained soldiers who come into contact would be able to add the vision of the civilian or local troop to the squad sight. So I wouldn't mind seeing soldiers being able to be trained to control civilians to a certain extent Training - Military Police An MP would be able to effectively give orders to civilians and local forces. The ideal mechanic An MP trained soldier would be able to directly que up movement orders for civilians (possibly local forces) when they are close enough. MPs would also be able to issue simplistic behaviours to civilians and local forces. Things such as 'get to the chopper' or 'stay down' would be an example. These could continue after the MP effectively 'loses control' of the civilian. It would mean that an MP can effectively run up to a civilian that is dancing in the street during a terror mission, get them into a building, then get them to stay there while the MP continues the fight.

Allows to make annoncements during missions: "Please do not panic. It's anti-alien operation. Civilians are invited to evaquate thru [choose direction] part of the area"

So, I saw a post that mentioned escort missions, and it got me thinking: How could there be a system to order civvies around? Get them out of your hair, save them from being cut down in a crossfire, etc. I thought of one, and instead of posting it all to that same thread (where it wasn't entirely on topic) I decided to post it here. So, the commands would all involve the civvies going "somewhere else", whether it be in a direction for a distance (think vectors, direction and magnitude), to a point (like our troops are controlled, by clicking the destination), to the chopper, or whatever. Once a command was issued, the civilian would have a % chance to follow the order, otherwise they would ignore it (if the % chance fails horribly, they could even become panicked or something). Morale would play a part in that % chance, so how you are doing in the match, what ranked officers are present, etc (normal morale stuff) would play a part in how cooperative they are. The system I had in mind for the soldiers actually issuing the commands could be put into/assigned to a "weapon/item," like a megaphone.(This would eliminate the need for the devs to add a new universal action that troops can do. I think it would be simpler.) The megaphone could be more effective the higher the rank of the user is, meaning that if a major issued a command, the % chance for them to follow the command would be better than if a rookie gave the order. Another bonus with giving orders requiring an item, is that not everyone could give orders whenever they wanted, making it more of a specialized role that really requires you to want/need to have the civilian move. This is because you would need to switch your weapon to the megaphone to use it. That way it could be somewhat auto-balencing, meaning you couldn't just issue orders willy nilly. As for the actual command system (like, what the orders consist of and how you give them), I have 2 ideas. The first (I'm calling it the Vector method) could be something like: use megaphone, click on civilian, pick a direction (north, NE, east, SE, south, etc.), then choose how many steps/squares to move (1 step, 5, 10, or all their TUs will allow.) So, "head north for 5 steps" would be the idea. If they ran into something/someone while moving they would just stop. Another way to issue orders (I'm calling this the "Pick a Destination" method) could be: use megaphone, click target, then click where you want them to go (basically just like how you would control your own troops). There would (obviously) be a limit to how far they can go, based on TUs. (They would probably have less TUs than Xenonauts, but now that I think about it civvies may already have TUs incorporated, seeing as they move around and do stuff.) Either way the orders work, there could (maybe should) also be a "Hide" button (stay away from enemies, find a corner out of the way and sit there) and a "Get to da choppa!" button, where they would head in the direction of the chinook, until they arrived (I haven't figured out where they would be in relation to the chopper once they arrived. Maybe they could just be "hiding underneath the belly", and simply vanish. Otherwise, they could block motion around the chinook, and that would be bad.) This could get them out of the way of the firefights, and maybe even allow them to be brought with you if decide to abort the mission and high tail it outta there (leading to less points lost for civilians killed. Maybe positive points even, for saving them.) Using the megaphone would use up TUs, like a regular item. There could be more TUs required for the more precise "Vector" or "Pick a Destination" commands, whereas the "Hide" or "Get to da choppa!" commands could require less TUs, as they would require less time to say. I really have no idea if this could even be implemented, and am not really expecting it. I just think that it could add a very interesting and potentially very useful facet to gameplay. Please comment on how good an idea you think it is, and please explain why you think so. Thanks!

I have a couple of suggestions. First, and most importantly, I don't think the game has "scaled up" quite enough to accommodate the larger resolutions of today's computers. The soldiers in the DOS XCOM games had short visual ranges, but it worked because the screen wasn't that big and it would probably be confusing to the player if he had to move three screens to find a line to his target. However, when you play UFO2000 on double-resolution, you can see just how comical it actually looks when you can't even see a target half a block away. As it is in Xenonauts, the soldiers can only see about 25 yards ahead of them, which ends up looking a bit silly at times. For example, you can see an entire vegetable patch in your screen, but the soldier at one end of the patch cannot see the alien at the other end, even though they are just two squares outside of visual range and it looks like they should be able to see each other. Likewise, I think the effective range of some of the weapons should be extended. What should be within the effective range for a handgun, and certainly an easy target for someone with an assault rifle, requires the sniper rifle to reliably hit. Along the same lines, I think it would be refreshing if all the maps weren't conveniently sectioned into 15 square chunks. It would be enjoyable, for example, if there were mostly flat maps, out in the middle of nowhere and devoid of citizens, where you could have a firefight with aliens 40 squares away. Secondly, would it be possible for unarmed civilians to flee the combat zone when they get to edge of the map, once they have been rescued? It's annoying to have to watch them wander around for 30 seconds while you're hunting down that last alien.

Guys, What if civilians could be armed during terror missions or missions in populated areas? There is an alien invasion in your town. You panic, pull out grandad's double barrel rifle and shoot at anything that gets too close to your house. Including soldiers, local forces and other civilians. Thoughts?

Okay, so after reading this thread I went ahead and sort-of did what the OP asked. As Terror Missions keep CTDing (for me, anyway), I haven't bothered to alter that bit yet, but for all crash-sites (other than the farm) all the civvies are now friendly AI. Download this file and over-write the existing missiontypeprops_gc.xml file (don't forget to back the file up first!!!). As soon as Terror sites are more stable, I'll change that too. Enjoy! EDIT: Now with added rockets! As erutan thought that a map filled with rocket carrying civvies would be funny, I took it to the next level. Back-up your missiontypeprops_gc.xml file, Download this masterpiece, delete your main missiontypeprops_gc.xml file and delete the "rockets" from the end of this file (so you have in fact renamed it to "missiontypeprops_gc.xml") for sheer rockety goodness!

I managed to try out the Kickstarter demo (version 10.2, I think) and liked what I saw. However, one thing that really bugged me was that the screen would constantly shift up, left, down or right whenever a civillian moved, which was a real eyesore. Can someone tell me if this has been fixed or is in the process of being fixed?

Fallout 2 --- and maybe the first one --- added a "push" icon on a right-click menu for all friendlies, just in case the friendlies were in your way and you needed help navigating a tough spot. With this option, you could push the friendlies out of your way, a square or two, when it really matters. Xenonauts needs something like this. The argument goes something like this: So --- yeah. Maybe not for combat troops but for giant vehicles? Or maybe troops should have a takedown option that doesn't hurt your rating so you can move the body out of your way? Or something. I mean, really.

Feel free to shoot these ideas down like a light scout UFO Might be nice to have a bit of variation in mission type from the Xcom template such as retrieve or rescue the VIP (nation leader/scientist/object of importance). This could look like or be coded like the person/object is in the middle of map (or hidden but would need good alien AI) and you need to move a member of you squad beside person/object to gain control of it (pick up object, person "joins" squad). Mission end when squad is dead (doh!) or person/object is moved back to landing craft (don't leave your squad behind) and perhaps the stand by of "kill all hostiles" (I'd almost like this not to be an option as getting vip secured should be the only victory). Perhaps have a continual wave of aliens so victory by killing everything isn't an option (balance possible item/tec gains by only getting what you carry out on your squad members) and adds to urgency. I think this would complement the game style as well as break up the shoot down/raid for tec cycle that can get monotonous. Also an avenue for unique rewards. VIP/VIO (very important object) rewards: Nation Leader: Better relations or "free" base (just a starter? or some upgrades?) Scientist: +1 base scientist or new/unique research tec Commando: +1 experienced solider Object: unique vehicle (Mech from japan ) or new/unique research tec -All of the above could have story driving rewards (aka info on aliens) Bonus: Armed citizens? So it turns out all those gun collecting survivalist were right! Where are they at? (Almost) just kiding but it would be nice to have variation in how citizens act. Having one grab equipment from a fallen squad member/alien/national guard would be interesting. Ok I already know this will not get done (too many sprites) but a citizen getting mad and throwing stuff (rocks to poor effect, fire bombs?) would spice things up (and not need too many sprites). Thanks for the reading time, -Mr. Gingerbread

Some NPC are just running around like a chicken without head. Might be great to have a option to interact with NPC and tell them, please go to there and there, there you will be save. At this moment they sometimes stand in the way.... With this option the game becomes even better I think.

One option that might be handy would be this: A xenonaut within 3-5 squares of a civilian at the beginning of the turn will put the civilian under xenonaut control for that turn. That way, it's possible to round up civvies, get them at least in the rough direction of safety and let your men actually feel like they are there to take control of a situation, rather than the feeling of having a shoot out in a super market. The downside is that it could enable some cheesy tactics (using civvies as scouts) but given that there's harsh penalties for civvies being killed, it should balance itself out.

I notice the time taken in Civilian/Military turns, each unit must move separately, how about just issuing move commands all at once, have camera fixed/free-roam at original place unless alien is spotted. I know already this can be done as I issue multi orders to soldiers and they execute over top of each other so figured this may be useful as some maps simply have heaps of civilians and it be nice to just get their moves done all at once. Don't tell me the PC can't handle the processing LOL. Perhaps for testing this can be a option ingame settings? Incase it turns out disastrous, somehow.

Since Chris likely has an idea set for AI mechanics, this is unlikely to be added to the game. However, I will put this idea out anyways incase the plans are not finalized, or for a future mod. Cilivians under an alien attack would most likely listen to the people trying to save them. Therefore, I think civilians should be under the control of the player as well. Civilians in the sight range of a Xenonaut unit should be able to be given commands in the same way as a soldier. They would also have Health, AP, and Moral. Moral would go up when around friendly units, slowly go down when left alone, and quickly drop when an alien is in the civilians sight. Civilians could be commanded to go to a certain location, or to stay put. When a civilian panics, they could do one of two things. They could either freeze or run in a completely different path. If a civilians Moral reaches 0, they would no longer be influencable by the Xenonauts