Search the Community

I just want to run my idea here to see if I'm alone in this. My idea would be to rename the RADAR facility to something like (X) ASCDA ((eXperimental) Alien SpaceCraft Detection Array)(Maybe someone can come up with better name then I did). Its a little thing and only for fluff reasons but also back in EU95 it bugged me a little that it seems only I can detect UFOs since I'm not getting any sightings from the military. But if I detect it by RADAR well there is RADAR coverage all over the world... Renaming it would help to explain several things. First it would explain why I don't get reliable UFO sightings from the local military because they are just not able to detect it. Secondly it would help explain why local military forces have such a hard time fighting off UFOs even if they have a lot more fighter planes then I do, because if you don't see it you can't fight it very well.

First off, let's start out by saying that this game has the best writing of any of the X-Com games ever. It really does. We all appreciate what Chris and all of the other devs are doing; namely, a superb job. That being said, lets get to business. GOALS Create a list of places in the in-game lore (Xenopedia) that contradict realism or otherwise break player immersion. Make proposals to alter the in-game lore to more realistically explain the game without altering the gameplay. Do it all in such a way as to minimize the work and/or annoyance of the developers. (We want to help, really. ) How we will accomplish this: People will make posts detailing specific instances of unrealistic or otherwise immersion-breaking lore ("unrealisms"). I will update this post with a list briefly describing each unrealism and include a link to the post. We will discuss the specific issues to try to reach a few good realistic explanations to replace the immersion-breaking one. When we reach a few good ones that people can (mostly) agree on and that make sense, I will update the list to indicate that the issues has been resolved and include a link to a post containing the more realistic lore. Allow Chris to decide if the proposed alteration is acceptable. IMPORTANT: To keep things organized, I'd ask us to avoid reporting unrealisms and discussing unrealisms in the same posts. Report posts should only contain where the unrealism is found, and why it is unrealistic. Feel free to make a second post directly after the report to discuss it. LIST OF UNREALISMS: Changes Not Proposed Yet <none> Changes Proposed LINK Missile Range Explanation is Unrealistic --Sidewinder --Avalanche LINK Fighters Having Armor is Unrealistic -- CONDOR -- FOXTROT LINK Weapon "Magazines" Erroneously Called "Clips" -- Rename Weapon Clips LINK Both Xenonauts and Local Forces use radar, but only the Xenonauts can see UFOs and track them consistently. So, we propose renaming the radar base structure. --(Same Link) OLD, OR OTHERWISE IRRELEVANT:

Yo, ITT post some dope-ass science-fictiony shit that you come up with. Must be Super-Science, must be Science-Fiction, must be awesome, must be as original as possible. Let's work together to create a sweet-ass universe where mechadragons rule the skies and starships that make the Death Star look like something out of a Cracker-Jack box. I'll start.

Why are lasers less powerful than plasma based weapons? I ask this because the type of laser depicted in-game by what I've seen isn't a "punch through shit" type but a "ionized plasma obtained through ablation" type . Bursts are too short and shifted in the wrong spectrum for punching through things (if you can see the beam it isn't a cutting type) thus why the discrepancy in potentials? If anything plasma should be more of a close quarters weapon whereas laser tech should be longer ranged (explanation for this is that plasma bolts require magnetic containment which in a Earth-like environment doesn't last long at all unless you're firing a fusion projectile whereas a laser could maintain coherency for longer distances and even considering alien tech and power sources you're still looking at plasma weapons as medium to close range bruisers while lasers would be more adept at distance where plasma wouldn't even reach). I know, I know realism isn't the main thing in a game but still... so often you see plasma weapons being better than lasers when in weapon terms they're equal given the same power source only that one requires close proximity to a target (relatively speaking) while the other requires advanced lenses (the more energy transported by the beam the more taxing it is on the lenses used to focus said beam, a work around could be EM lenses but that's tech well into the realm of SF by what I know though still possible).

Good day. Anti-fun pseudo-autism calling in. In the Anti-Gravity generator, the functionality is described as "emitting anti-gravitons". I would like to point you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton and ask you to note that as the graviton is a Majorana particle, its anti-particle is, in fact, itself. This causes a Majorana cringe. The simplest solution would be to keep the graviton compensation idea, but amend it. Option one is to note that its existence goes against pretty much all current theories in particle physics. Realistically, coming to such a conclusion would take years of research before even being considered as an option, as its non-existence is fairly firmly planted in the current scientific paradigm, and that level of doubt should probably be reflected in the report. Personally, I think this is the most boring option (though perhaps the most interesting option, had it happened in the real world!), so I won't bother typing it out. Option two would be to note that the anti-graviton actually is the graviton, but that the aliens have found a way to increase the odds of annihilation. The extraterrestrial Antigravity Generator appears to be what allows such vast alien craft to fly through our atmosphere with ease - the weight of the vessels is so great that it would be virtually impossible to stay airborne using only thrusters. The extraterrestrial solution is brilliant: they have created a device that reduces the weight of the ship. Weight (as distinct from mass) is the force acting on an object due to gravity, and the antigravity generator works by creating a localised field that negates a large portion of the Earth's gravitational pull. It does not appear to affect the object itself, simply reducing the gravitational force acting on it. This allows a large UFO to fly using only a fraction of the thrust that would be needed if the antigravity generator were not active - indeed, any alien capital ship that suffered an antigravity generator failure would almost certainly suffer a rather abrupt end. The science behind this device is incredibly complex, but a basic explanation is as follows: An elementary particle known as a graviton is the force carrier of a gravitational pull, much like a photon is the force carrier for electromagnetic radiation (such as light). Unlike many particles, force carriers like photons and gravitons are their own anti-particles - this means that they can, in theory, annihilate like matter and antimatter do when they meet. Suffice to say that since you feel gravity, obviously not all of them are annihilated. In fact, there's only a small probability of annihilation. One of our senior staff members drew up some diagrams that to my eyes explain it rather elegantly, but even simplified I'm not sure you'd be able to understand the details of quantum gravity. No offense - even I didn't understand it until yesterday either. In any case, the antigravity device works by redirecting the gravitons naturally generated by the ship along lines on the hull, where they usually don't interact with anything. However, when a graviton from Earth crosses paths with one of these gravitons, there's a chance they'll be annihilated. More gravitons mean more annihilations, and by my estimates about eighty percent of the gravitons can be annihilated, resulting not only in an eighty percent reduction in thruster fuel consumption, but also harvesting energy from the annihilations to further fuel the antigravity device. How this relates to the laws of energy conservation is a topic for further study, but that can wait until I've finished these designs for a hovertank. Because hovertanks are awesome. The third solution is to instead emit the gravitons towards, say, the moon, or a different celestial. The extraterrestrial Antigravity Generator appears to be what allows such vast alien craft to fly through our atmosphere with ease - the weight of the vessels is so great that it would be virtually impossible to stay airborne using only thrusters. The extraterrestrial solution is brilliant: It increases its gravitational pull upwards, as if hanging by an invisible line of gravitons. Weight (as distinct from mass) is the net force acting on an object due to gravity, and the antigravity generator works by creating an oppositely directed field that negates a large portion of the Earth's gravitational pull. It does not appear to affect the object itself, simply reducing the net gravitational force acting on it. This allows a large UFO to fly using only a fraction of the thrust that would be needed if the antigravity generator were not active - indeed, any alien capital ship that suffered an antigravity generator failure would almost certainly suffer a rather abrupt end. The science behind this device is incredibly complex, but a basic explanation is as follows: an elementary particle known as a graviton is the force carrier of a gravitational pull, much like a photon is the force carrier for electromagnetic radiation (such as light). Whereas most objects radiate gravitons in all directions, this device emits only upwards, and is powerful enough that it can compensate for approximately eighty percent of the gravitons from Earth, leading to a corresponding eighty percent drop in weight. Humanity has been attempting to discover the mechanism by which gravity operates for centuries, and this device provided us an irrefutable answer to a question that has foxed some of the greatest minds in history. I shall write a paper and share the knowledge with the world...once I have finished developing a hovertank, that is. Alternatively, you could throw out the direct meddling with gravity, and instead have the system affect the viscosity of the underlying air currents, thereby providing an explanation for why it's difficult to shoot down using ballistic ground-based turret weaponry, and providing an explanation of how aircraft-carrier-sized ships can stay "afloat". In addition, it has previously been established that the large ships aren't entering the fray early due to having to prepare for atmospheric flight, but the current description of the anti-gravity generator seems to imply all they had to do was compare the amount of anti-gravitons emitted to the ones received from Earth, which is as simple as subtracting two numbers. If you want to carry the graviton theme from the plasma tech, my fourth suggestion is as follows: The extraterrestrial "Antigravity" Generator appears to be what allows such vast alien craft to fly through our atmosphere with ease - the weight of the vessels is so great that it would be virtually impossible to stay airborne using only thrusters. At first we thought the only possible explanation to be a device that reduced the effects of gravity on the ship - hence the name - but upon closer investigation the extraterrestrial solution is even more brilliant: Utilizing extremely localized concentrations of gravitons near the hull, it dilates the passage of time for the air molecules beneath it - an effect predicted by my late colleague, Professor Einstein. With time passing at a slower rate, they are unable to move out of the way of the hull as it presses on it, and so the ship is essentially resting on a pillow of almost completely still air. This could explain why it is taking the larger ships so long to start descending through our atmosphere: The algorithms required for such gravimetric precision are nigh-incomprehensible, and even the slightest miscalculation could rip the hull apart. Indeed, any capital alien ship that suffered an antigravity generator failure would almost certainly suffer a rather abrupt end. Since the aliens seem to have done most of the R&D work for us, applying the same algorithms should allow us to mimic their effects on a smaller scale, even if we don't understand exactly how. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a hovertank to design. Of course, I realize this still is all science fiction, and at some point you're going to run into a statement that makes a sufficiently learned physicist cringe, but my proposed changes at least pushes the cringe up from "A passing interest in particle physics" level to the point where you'd actually have to do some calculations to see if it'd be plausible. For instance, localizing the time-dilation like I suggested would require an hitherto unknown relativistic metric, and smoothness-requirements for space-time manifolds should make any physicist's alarm bells ring, but actually finding out if an approximate effect is impossible requires some serious math. For that matter, even though I suggest "redirecting" gravitons, that's mostly because that statement, in technobabble tradition, shoves a lot of details under the carpet of seeming plausibility. After all, the trick to good technobabble is tricking the reader into thinking they've had all their questions answered, while hiding the actual plot-holes in the questions they don't think about, and if the aliens already have been established through willing suspension of disbelief to have directed graviton emitters that they use in their weaponry, graviton redirection probably doesn't seem like that much of a stretch to most readers. /Equip flame-retardant Predator armor