Mod idea for a training facility to increase bravery, but with a possible heavy price

[Tom Sawyer]

Ok I am enjoying the bejesus out of this game. This is so true to the original X-COM spirit

Now on to bravery. I understand the concept of recruits having scores from 35 to 60(s). However bravery seems to be a set number. No matter the missions that number is set in stone and often spells doom for a low rank. So when selecting troops a cherry can have killer scores but never get picked due to bravery.

My mod idea is once you have researched androns and possibly other tech you get the option to build a virtual reality center. Once space like the hospital but it can hold up to 5 troops. I am sure soldiers in game will have nasty names for it.

Restrictions:

1) Only troops with 5 or more missions can be placed within. This means the troops understand what they are facing vs the rumors a cherry might have heard.

2) Once in said troop is in for 2 weeks. Out of service out of play. Make that choice a hard one.

3) After 2 weeks the random dice get rolled. 0-10 No gain to bravery. 11-50 5 point gain. 51-90 10 point gain. 91-99 15. 100 on the rng gets you a special roll. 0-95 20 points. 96-100 Immunity to any psychic attack.

4) Having been put through 2 weeks of incredible body and mind torment there is the health roll. Say 0-60 No loss. 61-90 10 points gone. 91-99 15 points gone. 100 and the troop dies. Heart attack, aneurism something that the mind just could not take.

Not sure how if the game can allow this. But it was just an idea floating around in my head that I wanted to throw out

cheers

[BULIGO]

Ok I am enjoying the bejesus out of this game. This is so true to the original X-COM spirit

Now on to bravery. I understand the concept of recruits having scores from 35 to 60(s). However bravery seems to be a set number. No matter the missions that number is set in stone and often spells doom for a low rank. So when selecting troops a cherry can have killer scores but never get picked due to bravery.

My mod idea is once you have researched androns and possibly other tech you get the option to build a virtual reality center. Once space like the hospital but it can hold up to 5 troops. I am sure soldiers in game will have nasty names for it.

Restrictions:

1) Only troops with 5 or more missions can be placed within. This means the troops understand what they are facing vs the rumors a cherry might have heard.

2) Once in said troop is in for 2 weeks. Out of service out of play. Make that choice a hard one.

3) After 2 weeks the random dice get rolled. 0-10 No gain to bravery. 11-50 5 point gain. 51-90 10 point gain. 91-99 15. 100 on the rng gets you a special roll. 0-95 20 points. 96-100 Immunity to any psychic attack.

4) Having been put through 2 weeks of incredible body and mind torment there is the health roll. Say 0-60 No loss. 61-90 10 points gone. 91-99 15 points gone. 100 and the troop dies. Heart attack, aneurism something that the mind just could not take.

Not sure how if the game can allow this. But it was just an idea floating around in my head that I wanted to throw out

cheers

I hear you. It's a shame that the PSI-part of the franchise was so utterly...maimed in Xeno. Back in UFO days I was trying to assemble an elite psi-invincible squad. Sifted through hundreds of rookies, stuffed them in the PSI-training facility for a whole month, just to see 95% of them ditched because most had lousy PSI-strength, and many of those that did have it, were losers in other stats. Just for you, an old UFO-veteran, here is the list of my best PSI-capable soldiers before quitting the game.

The number on the left of their names is their PSI-strength, the numbers on the right are their other stats, like TU's STR, ACCU etc.

Manny was my favourite

Edited August 11, 2014 by BULIGO

[Gauddlike]

I honestly hated that mechanic in the OG. It was not fun to have to sift through recruits in that way. At least in Xenonauts you can see from the start if their bravery is any good.

The psi system still needs a lot of work to be fun in general though. Some of kabills ideas seem like they could hold promise if they work though.

[Zixinus]

I actually had a similar idea, although going for a far less radical treatment than Tom is imagining.

The basic idea wouldn't be something as radical as uber-lethal VR room. Rather drugs, intense exercises, couching and good equipment. Think Olympic athletes.

There would be focused intensive training on stat-specific areas (core, leg and back muscles for strength, lug-expansions and intense aerobics for TUs, confidence-building exercises for bravery even, etc) of the body augmented first with known steroids and hormones. This would be aided by various trainers such as those that prepared Soviet athletes for Olympic games. The treatments would give quick good results but would questionably be good for their long-term health. However since there is an alien invasion going on and these soldiers need every edge they can get to repel that, they would be willing to sacrifice that for victory (after making a fund with their absurdly-large pay for their post-invasion health care, just for optimism). This would give a nice touch of a human element of the war and the soldiers fighting it.

In the room itself there would be hardcore exercise equipment that wouldn't have fitted into the barracks/dormitory part (such as treadmills), a mini gun-range using projectors (using imitation guns because real ones would cause too much noise), a medicine lab for giving and monitoring the drugs in the soldiers, etc.

The mod could also be part of the base-upgrade thing, with the upgraded bases having futuristic 3d screens and better imitation guns for accuracy and reflex training, using scavenged alien tech for more sophisticated medicinal upgrades (alien superblood for stamina, stem cell treatment for health, etc), whole-body exercise machines, some sort of fancy brain-gadget for resisting psi attacks (I actually had the idea of using a sensory-deprivation coffin for some reason), etc.

Essentially it would be an intensive gym in one base tile. It would be an extension of the soldiers-screen. Soldiers have a good chance of gaining one unit to a selected state after about a week's worth of hours are spent inside. Soldiers cannot attend the gym while injured. The stat would be a mere +1, so it would be slower than doing many missions. There would be a chance that the soldier would get wounded during all the intensive exercise and be unavailable for missions, instead stuck in the hospital. There would also be a very small chance, especially with the alien-tech stuff that something would go wrong and the soldier would get a stat decrease.

Edited August 11, 2014 by Zixinus