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My suggestions for ground combat


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Hello all.

I've played the latest version of Xenonauts 2 (0.11.0) and want to share my opinion so far.

First, secondary weapons.

You added a key to swap easily weapons or items for fast use. I really like this concept. But two cons i think: unlimited munitions is a very bad idea. I think this kill the purpose of having to choose more mags or shots for our secondary weapons. Also, i would introduce a system like this: In your inventory display, you could have one slot that could be a QUick Access Item Slot (QUAIS). This could have the benefit of reducing half the cost of TU for the switching, but can only place one item per QUAIS (Assuming different armor could have different size of inventory and slot available.). Let's say i have a rifle, a pistol and a medikit. A normal switch would cost 10 TU, but switching from a QUAIS would cost 5 TU. Placing a item back into the QUAIS also cost only half. So i have my rifle, switch to the pistol only cost 5 TU. But then i switch to the medikit in the backpack, 10 TU. I place the pistol back for 5 TU. This is only a example, actual numbers and process are up to you.

Overwatch.

I saw a few occurences where a human soldiers and some aliens too, will fire overwatch while having teamates in their line of sight, injuring/killing them. They should do a check if there is no chances of hitting allies.

Medical.

I think adding medical systems to the game could really expand the possibilties of gameplay. Basically, instead of relying only on damage leftover below 0 to determine the dead/knock out state, you could add a system where we can do a check up on downed soldiers and take actions from there. Another example: A soldier get downed. Medic soldier come at his position and do a check. The guy can be dead, where no actions can be taken. He can be in critical state, so dead in just a few turns if not took care of immediately. He can also be unconscious, where he can be bleeding or not, and will wake up after some turns. The only way to know the state of a knock-out is by doing a check with another soldier, or having some technology that can display his status. (Advanced suit, specific monitor gadgets, etc...)

Critical soldiers could need specifics items/training/role to be stabilized. So like morphine, patching, injections,Transfusions, whatever... This would only stabilize the wounded soldiers and could take a few turns, depending on technology and medical training of the soldier. Some technologies could even bring it back up on his feets. The unconscious state is basically a state where the soldiers will wake up by itself after a few turns, but he can be bleeding and need some other soldier help to wake him up or patch him up, so that he doesn't bleed out and die before regaining consciousness. Some aliens (or humans) weapons and gadgets can do knock-out's like this, non-lethals weapons like taser, sleeping darts, etc...

That's pretty much it for now.

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  • 1 month later...

I like this idea.  What I REALLY like about this idea is that it suggests a reason for sending medical guys without superior gun skills (maybe even properly skilled scientist personnel) into the field with your "core soldiers".

Or - taking a soldier off the line for a month or so to learn field medic skills.  (One of several "skill trainings" that should be available.)

But it also leads to the idea of more than just a basic and an advanced medical pack.  (And maybe an emergency defibrilator (sp?) in the dropship.)

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I like the idea of a proper first aid system :) . I don't know how many things and action sI would like there to be, but now that you say so, it would be cool to have painkillers and whatnot, and perhaps even having your medic give CPR, which would take several turns and have only a certain success chance. 

The first X-Com game had painkiller and stimulants in the medi-kit, after all ;) .

There is something about having a wounded man and having to cordon off his position and hold it while the medic or medics treat him or her that I like.

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I like QUAIS system and Medic suggestion especially. Rushing to a downed solider to check his condition would increase experience and reduce cheap kill/instant kill situations which is disappointing in hardcore/ironman mode.

Imo everything should have a purpose each with pros and cons that enhances gameplay and options, such as. 

Anything in quick slot can be used cheaper or reduced time units such as: hand guns, grenades, medic packs, c4, scanners (utility), ammo for reloading. The pro and cons figure themselves out while increases game play option and most importantly: increases combat flexibility for new players. 

I suggest players can use any side weapon in the Quick slot as if it's equipped. This would help new players alot when they stuff up there TU system and cant fire the main gun, but they can still use the pistol to reduce frustration. Also I believe would complete the combat feel letting players use alot of TU from main gun and use the new left over on side weapon attacks. This would complete the combat feel and increase fluency. This would also increases players ability to customize equipment as long as you factor the pros and cons this system should work just fine.

 

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  • 9 months later...

I definitely like the idea of any soldier / a medic coming to the aid of an ally that has been incapacitated, and a screen coming up which says if they're dead, bleeding out, stable but unconscious, can easily be patched up and revived, etc. If there were even animations of using a defib / CPR, bandaging, administering painkillers, stims, etc, that would be amazing – definitely at least make sure you don't just do a generic “spray healing stuff” animation like XCOM does, that was terrible. In Xe1 you could only restore half the damage done by wounds, if you could add in a system where wounds randomly affect one of aim, TUs, etc that would add to the realism.

This same examination screen mentioned earlier could actually be brought up when looking at an enemy, so you know if something like a regenerating reptilian is going to get back up and shoot you in the back, but also if you incapacitate an alien with conventional means then you can stop it from bleeding out and bind it in order to carry it home instead of needing special stun weapons.

I really like the idea of scientists and engineers being brought along on missions (you already mentioned possibly using them to defend the base, I think someone else mentioned training officers accompanying the team) - as a medic yes, but also as xenolinguist / hacker, K9 or drone handler, operating mounted weapons and other scanning equipment on the dropship, using heavy weapons, etc

Edited by RustyNayle
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  • 3 weeks later...

I don't like to lose team members but I find Xenonauts-1's medipack both too potent, and too simple. Granted, the HP model is what we want it to be (combat readiness and consciousness, and not real life force), but having half the wound restored with no penalty save a drop in morale (and added stun damage if a file is modded) is really like "spraying a magical healing stuff".

Basic medipack would simply stabilize a wounded, stopping bleeding and preventing shock reaction. The wounded would be even so neutralized because he would suffer heavy penalties.

The magic of alenium nanoparticles shouldn't come too early, and only then could the on-field healing process start, only as long as a medic is tending the wounded (rather than a power charge of life force, it would act as a slow regenerating factor).

Upgraded medipack could also have more specialized uses:

  • morale booster (exhilarating drug) to help a little against psychic attacks and demoralization/wound effects;
  • pain-killer to allow a penalized wounded to forget pain and act with less penalties;
  • stimulant to revive stunned soldiers and gain TUs.

All these effects (stabilization/first aid, pain killer, stimulant, morale booster) would cost more or less charges (as currently), but they could have reverse effect and a limited duration (save for first aid), after which a reverse effect is applied: e.g. stimulant would cause stun damage, pain killer would cost HPs, morale booster would cost TUs

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I like the idea of only being able to stabilise some soldiers, leaving them unconscious/disabled for the rest of the mission, but saving their lives. Perhaps they have some fractures or a severe concussion that means they are out of the fight, but will recover when brought to a proper hospital.

As for first-aid, real-world first-aid, at least in the civilian world, consists of first checking for consciousness, then for breathing, then there is the recovery position or CPR, and of course getting control of whatever bleeding there might be.

So you could have an Analyze action and one or more First-Aid actions, depending on severity and perhaps whether the patient is bleeding. These could just be called various variations of "First-Aid", or slightly more immersive stuff like "Stop bleeding", "CPR", "stabilise fracture", and so on.

I also like the idea of various actions having advantages and disadvantages, forcing you to make some tactical choices.

Perhaps you could even be made to make a call between aborting the mission to evacuate the patient. Or perhaps there could be a "Med-evac" action that simply removed the patient from the map if you had a clear, safe corridor back to the landing craft (let's just say the helicopter crew came by with a stretcher and retrieved him and now he's safe in the chopper) or to a large enough area for an invisible, abstracted medevac helicopter to land.

Problem is that having to do too much when a soldier is wounded would get slightly tedious and time-consuming, since xenonauts have a tendency to drop like flies, so a balance will have to be achieved.

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On 5/17/2018 at 3:48 PM, Rodmar18 said:

I don't like to lose team members but I find Xenonauts-1's medipack both too potent, and too simple. Granted, the HP model is what we want it to be (combat readiness and consciousness, and not real life force), but having half the wound restored with no penalty save a drop in morale (and added stun damage if a file is modded) is really like "spraying a magical healing stuff".

Basic medipack would simply stabilize a wounded, stopping bleeding and preventing shock reaction. The wounded would be even so neutralized because he would suffer heavy penalties.

One of the things we'll be discussing internally as a potential Kickstarter stretch goal is an injury system, where soldiers do suffer additional ill-effects from a wound beyond just losing TU and maybe starting to bleed - e.g. taking a wound to the leg might increase that soldier's movement cost per tile. Then you can start to differentiate the medical equipment a bit; perhaps we could implement bandages and painkillers as belt items (stopping bleeding / temporarily removing the negative effects of an injury respectively) but limit actual healing to medikits.

We don't want those injuries to be too disabling, though - I was playing a cool little tactical game called Battle Brothers a while back that had a similar injury system, but it wound up being kinda annoying because taking an injury reduced the effectiveness of your soldiers so badly they may as well be dead. As @Safe-Keeper mentions too, you also don't want medical care to become too much of a tedious chore.

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A system that implemented career-ending but not promptly fatal injuries might be interesting, but that really needs more non-combat billets (range safety officer? Morale and Welfare? Classroom trainers?) that could be filled by someone who had an arm cauterized by plasma and earned some medals by firing back with their pistol.

Another way of looking at an injury system is "Anything that would be a career ending injury is also a combat incapacitating one, and that guy with his arm cauterized off counts as "dead" even if he collects disability pay afterwards, because tracking soldiers through three years of physical therapy is a different genre that what we're going for.

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I understand when balance and fun shall take precedence over realism and "immersion power". However, I think that neutralizing one soldier for one turn to tend a severely wounded comrade wouldn't be exaggerated and shouldn't turn anybody (it's close enough to Xenonauts-1 system). I assume that there are two kinds of wounds: normal wounds modelled by a simple loss of HP/morale and severe wounds modelled by added crippling/bleeding effects.

Moreover, a lightly disabled soldier could still be used as an over-watching unit, a scout, a medic, or a mule, depending on his impairment.

Decius' suggestion is also interesting, along with a sophistication of the (automated) medical care back at base (and not only a doubled healing rate for 8 beds), but they both should connected to an adaptation of the recruitment system, to be fair.

I think that the key word here, as with several aspects of a simulation game, is that the average player shouldn't refuse any complex level of simulation, as long as it is consistent, realistic, transparent enough, generating realistic results, AND it doesn't oppose the purposes of a game we all know. I get sometimes exasperated by some comments (not here!) from lazy players who sadly forget that their (respectable) taste is only educated by standardized techniques that result in standardized gameplay. Let take the rock-scissor-paper algorithm for instance: it was useful when technical resources were limited, to ease the balancing process, and to offer a simple meta-game for players who aim at dominating/exploiting the game mechanics (like a chess-player, because it's part of the game at chess). Now, in 2018, if a dev team achieve to design a highly efficient set of internal game rules and techniques, so that everything in game looks consistent, realistic, natural, balanced, yet fun, then it's okay with me, how complex the mechanics might appear. Really, the only good reason to keep the meta-game simple nowadays is to support the player who (admittedly) lacks any real-life experience (e.g. combat training), and (surely) lacks in-game awareness (waiting for virtual-environment!). So long as a medipack somewhat heal, and using a sniper rifle somehow get a higher range and precision, I am satisfied, even if I don't know for sure how things internally work.

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