Serbillian Eye Sight Thought

[Scorpion]

They have thermal eye sight so smoke does not affect them.

You would think burning fires would really mess with them though.

Hard to see a crouched 98.6 deg. human behind a burning wheat field.

[KevinHann]

Could be interesting, perhaps the experienced modders will share if it's possible to make fire affect things like vision.

[ThoseDeafMutes]

And flares / incendiary weapons could almost act like flashbangs to them. But realism is less important than game balance. Although I find Sebilians really annoying because their allegedly poor eyesight doesn't seem to stop them from sniping my guys miles away, and apparently the most elite fighting force on Earth in the year 1979 doesn't have access to night vision goggles.

[Commissar Pancakes]

Ah...the night vision debate...that's an old one...

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I hope someone mods it in, night missions were always terrible

[Gauddlike]

The question you need to ask yourself though is what would night vision goggles do to change that?

It would either make night missions into just another day mission, or just reduce the night effect slightly.

The first is boring, the second is much easier to do as a balance change, just by tweaking the darkness effect.

Either way how would that also effect the aliens?

Should they automatically ignore darkness to compensate for those times when you bring night vision?

That also makes night vision goggles essential or night missions become even worse when you don't bring them as aliens see (and shoot) you from well outside the range you have any chance at all to react to them.

If aliens are still relatively blind when you have night vision then you will be shooting fish in a barrel.

Either way the balance is completely broken.

[Commissar Pancakes]

Perhaps if you equip a solder with night vision, the their vision cone is lengthened, but horribly narrower (they lose 70% of their peripheral vision)?

[Gauddlike]

Your soldiers can only turn in 45 degree steps.

Giving them only 15 degrees of vision would mean they had areas they physically could not turn to face.

Assume you are near the UFO door and want to cover it.

With narrower vision cones you would only be able to look at the door at all from certain positions.

You are not losing peripheral vision so much as losing the ability to look in certain directions at all.

Depending on how the real time line of sight system works with this it could be a major problem.

Imagine standing in the middle of an open field and knowing that an alien is standing ten tiles away but not being able to see them because they are stood 10 degrees left but you can only see 9 degrees.

Then when you turn you still can't see them because they are now 10 degrees to your right but you can still only see 9 degrees to the side.

Even if you see them as you are turning the line of sight would likely cover them again as soon as your sight passes over them.

[ThoseDeafMutes]

The question you need to ask yourself though is what would night vision goggles do to change that?

It would either make night missions into just another day mission, or just reduce the night effect slightly.

The first is boring, the second is much easier to do as a balance change, just by tweaking the darkness effect.

Either way how would that also effect the aliens?

Should they automatically ignore darkness to compensate for those times when you bring night vision?

That also makes night vision goggles essential or night missions become even worse when you don't bring them as aliens see (and shoot) you from well outside the range you have any chance at all to react to them.

If aliens are still relatively blind when you have night vision then you will be shooting fish in a barrel.

Either way the balance is completely broken.

Night vision could have been an equipped item that takes weight in your kit, and does not perfectly replicate day vision, but significantly reduces the vision penalty. But really, think of it less in terms of how it's different from a day mission for your men and more in terms of the design opportunities you might have had for aliens. Certain species could be very effective at night, and less so during the day and vice versa. Smaller scale "night" stuff could have been replicated by using building interiors to cut the power for flushing out aliens. This is by no means easily moddible, I'm just trying to give you an idea of the sorts of ways that night time and darkness could have been approached outside of just reduced vision.

I don't think it's boring to not have night missions actually, btw. When playing the '94 X-Com I use mod stuff to actually remove night missions from the game because I think they're so awful.

[Tulx]

I think I've read somewhere on the forums that Sebs are now as accurate as other dudes and don't have the penalty for shooting from far away anymore. In the earlier versions it was true though. I might be wrong however.

[Gauddlike]

Night vision could have been an equipped item that takes weight in your kit, and does not perfectly replicate day vision, but significantly reduces the vision penalty. But really, think of it less in terms of how it's different from a day mission for your men and more in terms of the design opportunities you might have had for aliens. Certain species could be very effective at night, and less so during the day and vice versa. Smaller scale "night" stuff could have been replicated by using building interiors to cut the power for flushing out aliens. This is by no means easily moddible, I'm just trying to give you an idea of the sorts of ways that night time and darkness could have been approached outside of just reduced vision.

I don't think it's boring to not have night missions actually, btw. When playing the '94 X-Com I use mod stuff to actually remove night missions from the game because I think they're so awful.

The thing is we don't have any of those differences so I am thinking less about what use they might have been in a very different game and what use they would be in this one.

I agree if night missions do not exist then it is not boring for them to not be there.

What I find boring is to introduce a set of night missions with a different feel and then remove/significantly reduce that effect to make them practically identical to the day time missions.

If that also makes the aliens far less threatening then it could literally make the missions boring.

No need for tactical planning if you can just put on your night vision and snipe aliens before they see you after all.

The opposite is also true.

If aliens are balanced to compete with your newly increased night vision then not wearing that item means you will be killed before you ever see an enemy.

That I would also call boring and frustrating.

As said above though, in a very different game facing enemies with a very different set of abilities night vision can be implemented in a fun and tactical way.

However adding them without making major changes to game balance to accommodate them would not work for me.

No mention was made of those changes though just:

I hope someone mods it in, night missions were always terrible