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"Terror" mission


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Hello devs.

I hope that you finally make two-stage "Terror" missions.
I always saw it like this:
1. Destruction of enemy forces in the city;
2. Subsequent assault on alien transport.

Missions of this kind are not very frequent, so I think the additional complexity and duration will not hurt them.

Does it make sense to offer you any ideas now?

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Making Terror missions two-parters would up the difficulty. Those missions are supposed to be gruelling - having to push through with an injured squad / depleted grenades would add a twist that cranked up the hardness without being as mundane as "more numerous + more powerful enemies". Also, this could perhaps allow you to skip the second part if you weren't up for it: less risk, fewer rewards.

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15 hours ago, Ninothree said:

Making Terror missions two-parters would up the difficulty. Those missions are supposed to be gruelling - having to push through with an injured squad / depleted grenades would add a twist that cranked up the hardness without being as mundane as "more numerous + more powerful enemies". Also, this could perhaps allow you to skip the second part if you weren't up for it: less risk, fewer rewards.

Yes, that's exactly what I want to see.

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  • 1 month later...

I'd be all for that idea.  It might be less risk, fewer rewards if you skip out, but if you don't, you get the added bonus of assaulting a landed ship.

I just wish terror missions weren't tied to actual ships you can shoot down...once you gain air superiority, terror missions basically stop :-(

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...
On 30/10/2017 at 8:04 PM, endersblade said:

I just wish terror missions weren't tied to actual ships you can shoot down...once you gain air superiority, terror missions basically stop :-(

There's a mod out of there ("Furies, Terrors, Dreadnoughts Oh My") that introduces new UFOs the Marauders can't shoot down, so that in the end game, you get the choice: intercept (with the new Furies) and loose any spoil (like with a Strike Cruiser), or let it land, terrorize a city and get a mission.

Xenonauts-2 could take inspiration from this mod, somehow.

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I think one of the issues in Xenonauts 1 is that there's far too many UFO assault missions - terror sites are one of the few times you actually get to do something different. This is something we're trying to rebalance in the sequel so you get a nicer variety of missions even if you're shooting , but I still see it as a little self-defeating to add in more UFO assault sections than we already have :)

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More UFO assault isn't a problem. More of the same UFO assault could be a problem.

One way to mix it up would be that the craft is preparing to depart. Once the engines are started and the navigator launches, any soldiers still on board have to choose between being captured, crashing the UFO (e.g. by shooting the navigator or blowing up something important), or die trying.

Larger UFOs would help with that, if they were large enough to be a map with nonlinear paths rather than being on a map tile with pretty much one path to the command center.

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On 3/2/2018 at 4:07 AM, Decius said:

More UFO assault isn't a problem. More of the same UFO assault could be a problem.

I disagree - I think we want more types of mission than just UFO assault, even if we did have lots of different types of UFO to attack.

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16 hours ago, Chris said:

I disagree - I think we want more types of mission than just UFO assault, even if we did have lots of different types of UFO to attack.

X1 has roughly four different UFOs, of different sizes. There's the type that's linear "open the door and mutual shooting gallery", then there's "Open one door into a room with three doors", and there's "Open two doors into the same room", sometimes mixed in with "Use a teleporter".

More different floorplans on that same gameplay wouldn't add much, it would need to be a new type of thing.

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From memory the UFOs you can attack on the ground in X1 are the Light Scout, Scout, Corvette, Landing Ship, Cruiser, Carrier and the Battleship, so I think there's seven in total. But yes, the experience of attacking them could certainly be made less "samey".

However even if UFO assault missions were made more exciting, I don't see how the logic follows that UFO assaults should therefore be added onto Terror missions - improvements to Terror missions should ideally try and make them more distinct and unique from the other mission types, rather than more similar.

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16 hours ago, Chris said:

improvements to Terror missions should ideally try and make them more distinct and unique from the other mission types, rather than more similar.

Agreed. Terror missions may not need to be 2 parts(this could be unique to other types of missions like a colony for eg where the first mission is finding the entrance and the 2nd is the main assault)but they could house a certain type of alien mixed into the group only found on terror sites, they could be strictly Urban based or some sort of human infrastructure hub unique to terror missions(with added Unity colour grading, weather or fog effects to change the mood up from UFO missions) and even to add the aliens have rigged 3 large bombs scattered around the map to destroy the city (in the top level of buildings) that you have to deactivate which gives you a reason to search every building, and they could be heavily guarded where the aliens are more so found in buildings sniping from a window at the top floor and you have to infiltrate like you would with a UFO. There could be multiple angles of attack like crawling up a drain pipe and coming through a window and when these 3 bombs are deactivated you must kill all remaining forces. However there wouldn't be a timer involved on the bombs, just the fact that they explode on mission failure and blow up the location in question for a big funding loss or even country withdrawal. 

Speaking of multi levels, will there be more hilly terrain and upper and lower decks of colony's in X-2? One thing I've notice in X1 colony's is they are completely flat with no boardwalks or stairs to move to higher or lower locations. Early games were renowned for this as aliens would hide in the upper locations and ambush you or you would have to try and reach them.

Edit: If finding the aliens is a concern as they are hidden in multi story buildings (and dont come out), perhaps some sort of visual cue could be made like you hear faint distant noises, or a quick sound reveal of clunking pots or pans under the black shroud in the alien movement phase which gives you a direction to move in and explore. In X1 I would only find Androns hiding in corners on ground levels and Harridans on the roof with the same basic principal and alien mix throughout each terror mission. All upper levels of buildings were disregarded.

Edited by roxxed
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I agree too.

However, in this case, the UFO's fate could be made more clear. All the time the terror action develops, the UFO can't be intercepted because it is meant landed (in Xenonauts-1). When we land to rescue this part of the town, we don't find any UFO (I don't remember if we are credited the spoils, though (not being currently with the game)). Perhaps, the evenment chain should be more like: flying UFO -> landed UFO -> Terror Mission AND flying UFO leaving to orbit (let a little time to allow for an interception). Why is there no UFO flying back to the terror site to retrieve the terroristes? Because it's terminated (nuked) before its scheduled end.

The other logical pitfall is that UFOs shouldn't have the same content if shot down before a mission begins, or after it has ended. Cases are precisely Terror missions: shouldn't the shot down UFO house the whole terrorrist team we would have encountered if the UFO had initiated a terror mission (plus the crew)? Likewise, some Supply missions could have variable crew (before/after) when they transport aliens to an existing base (less aliens in the return flight).

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There are quite a few ideas here bundled under the heading 'Terror Mission'. Infrastructure attacks or bomb emplacements are fairly far removed from the pure terror element - they give the impression of timed objectives, which have the right urgency and would cause damage to human settlements, but I think the idea of terror is something different. Or at least, I think that it has potential to be something quite different and that should be much to do with the feel of the mission.

Differences could be as Roxxed suggests, simple graphical alterations to change the mood or unique terror enemies (e.g. Reapers/Cryssalids). Terror missions are the perfect candidates for nighttime events. The added tactical difficulty of visibility along with the spooky atmosphere that effects you as a player. Though my point is to reserve that feel for terror missions only, else they'd lose their edge.

Reapers are probably too much of a staple alien combatant to use only on terror missions but I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to make an alternate skin for them along with changes like added movement or an AI that is favours sneaking up behind your troops (or avoiding light sources). Along with what Rodmar18 says, maybe the aliens in terror missions should be suicidal, packed with explosives to really give the impression that you are fighting an enemy hell-bent on achieving maximum damage. In that vein, the aliens wouldn't need a ship to transport them, theirs would be a one way trip, so they could arrive via drop pods. This would negate your ability to shoot them down and could provide the visual clue as to where the aliens are located on the map: "I think they're in that building, the one with the huge hole in it and the alien drop pod sticking out the side... You go in first"

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2 hours ago, Ninothree said:

There are quite a few ideas here bundled under the heading 'Terror Mission'. Infrastructure attacks or bomb emplacements are fairly far removed from the pure terror element - they give the impression of timed objectives, which have the right urgency and would cause damage to human settlements, but I think the idea of terror is something different. Or at least, I think that it has potential to be something quite different and that should be much to do with the feel of the mission.

Differences could be as Roxxed suggests, simple graphical alterations to change the mood or unique terror enemies (e.g. Reapers/Cryssalids). Terror missions are the perfect candidates for nighttime events. The added tactical difficulty of visibility along with the spooky atmosphere that effects you as a player. Though my point is to reserve that feel for terror missions only, else they'd lose their edge.

Reapers are probably too much of a staple alien combatant to use only on terror missions but I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to make an alternate skin for them along with changes like added movement or an AI that is favours sneaking up behind your troops (or avoiding light sources). Along with what Rodmar18 says, maybe the aliens in terror missions should be suicidal, packed with explosives to really give the impression that you are fighting an enemy hell-bent on achieving maximum damage. In that vein, the aliens wouldn't need a ship to transport them, theirs would be a one way trip, so they could arrive via drop pods. This would negate your ability to shoot them down and could provide the visual clue as to where the aliens are located on the map: "I think they're in that building, the one with the huge hole in it and the alien drop pod sticking out the side... You go in first"

This was just a general idea on a mission objective and location. They do take the "terror" a bit out of the mix, but it could be interchanged with different locations or things that are human related(TFTD had shipping routes). Infrastructure could be a different type of terror mission completely and could be called something else to mix up the overall types of missions. As for the Bombs they could be changed for some sort of alien device that uses psionics or something that brings terror. I am against timed missions and it could be explained somehow in the prologue that negates this.

Landed/Downed UFO missions have the goal of finding the UFO so you have an end direction. Colony missions gave you a few choices at least but as it currently stands, terror missions are just kill everything.

 

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Well I think terror missions have a little more to them than just kill everything, there is that secondary objective of keeping the civilians alive. Although it is a very secondary objective; you are quite at liberty to ignore it, so returning to the kill everything scenario. Nevertheless, they do prompt you to explore the map rapidly before the aliens kill everyone. I seem to recall that the aliens are usually a little more well-armed too, but sadly they don't carry terror-specific weapons like flamethrowers or Imperial AT-ATs.

Firaxis XCOM has a bunch of mission types, they do mix it up a little, but I guess there is a fundamental limit to what ground combat can let you do. The XCOM2 missions essentially involve you getting to a certain location on the map and pressing the 'interact' button, hardly inspiring variety. OK, that is a gross oversimplification, there are fun variables like stealth, misdirection and squad composition. But I fear that the Infrastructure and Bomb missions would fall to the same blurring effect - that they could be devolved to 'go here' then 'kill everything'. This is why I was pressing for your other idea about the mood and feel of a mission.

At the end of the day, no player is going to think for a long time about the specifics of the mission objectives when they can all be reduced to 'kill everything'. Unfortunately, when the player stops engaging with whatever differences have been implemented, then the underlying game starts to feel repetitive. The Bomb mission would need to have something like a timer to make the player approach it in a different way. The fact that a lot of players don't like timers is, in some ways, a good thing - those are the missions you dread because they challenge the way you play. I mean, there are alternatives but they all have to force something on the player. Some artificial intervention that means you just can't use your regular tactics.

The added challenge of the Bomb mission could be that the whole facility you fight in is full of volatile materials, so you can't bring explosive weapons; or that the Psi-Bomb gives all combatants a penalty to a specific stat, say aim, so you have to make it a close quarters battle. Getting back to terror missions, I think that tactical impairment could be that your soldiers are more likely to panic, maybe having their morale/bravery linked to the number of civilians that get splashed or saved.

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  • 2 weeks later...

How about having some unique secondary objectives for some of the terror sites that yield unique bonuses. For example there is a terror attack on the town of Hawkins, and you need to find and secure a single scientist (civilian) or an experimental aircraft or vehicle or object from the near by research facility. You could have a one part mission where the objective is on the battlefield hidden somewhere or a two-part mission where the first section is a normal terror mission and the second is entering the research facility behind the aliens.  The aliens would be trying to overwhelm the conventional forces guarding the objective and destroy it before the xenonauts can stop them. 

Secure the objective and you get a powerful one-off experimental reward that can’t be replicated.  You can only ever have one and you can only get it by accomplishing the terror site. Maybe an aircraft, armor, weapon, super soldier of some kind (psionic or a fearless robot or just real good stats), an alien that has been turned etc.

Even if you had five or ten different objectives/rewards and randomly encountered two or three in a typical game it could add a lot.

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  • Terror secondary objectives that impact on the campaign:
5 hours ago, FloridaBoy said:

Secure the objective and you get a powerful one-off experimental reward that can’t be replicated.  You can only ever have one and you can only get it by accomplishing the terror site.

Likewise, you could add to this kind of one-time rewards, other, more common and less important rewards, like just a one-time boost to the current research, whatever its topic (or more like a free man-hour credit). In this case, don't forget to set a minimum time before activation so that the "Research Completed" doesn't pop up right upon returning to the Geoscape.

If the whole research mechanic is to made more complex, The secured scientist/equipment could have a specific tag and could be useful only in a certain field (xenobiology, intelligence, nanotech, energy armament, ...).

Securing civilians could be also a way to get free scientists and engineers. Nations would provide only a limited number of valuable scientists to hire, and saving someone's butt would either increase the recruiting pool, or directly earn you a hired man for free (with a monthly salary due as usual).

  • A new "terror-like" mission: Exfiltration mission. Another ground mission without UFO. Optional mission (available for days or even weeks). Fully equipped alien opponents (like a Terror crew) in size ranging from Scout to Corvette (or according to a clever randomized table). The setting would be: the Xenonauts decide to go to a place to exfiltrate a number of civilians, and it's a covert operation. Limitation of equipment: no heavy weapon, no rifle (?), no advanced armour (?), so that they can be taken for normal operatives. Perhaps it would be easier to simply strip the soldiers from any forbidden item, at the beginning of the mission, instead of adding an option in the suitable base management equipment window. They land in the nearby wood, or in any likewise concealed position. They move to the lab/factory/residential compound... and they spot on and meet with the aliens on their way. Both parties have a same primary goal: to reach a marked room where a few civilians are. The Aliens' starting position is randomly chosen from suitable preset ones, and  they have to walk as well to reach their objective. They prioritize Xenonauts less than in a Terror mission (they won't be bait out by purposely visible agents), but keep killing any civilian/local forces on their way. There could be a timer on this mission, because at turn 10 or 20, local forces arrive en masse, and the Xenonauts have to discretely retreat (i.e. the mission is aborted). In case the mission is successful, rewards are the usual spoil of war and one (or more) scientist/engineer/otherwise agent. In case the mission is cancelled, rewards are limited to the extraction zone, as per usual. In case the mission is aborted due to ran out time, rewards are the usual spoil of war only (less any alien corpses?). In any case, there are no diplomatic gain nor loss, and the mission is removed from the list. The design can accept both random missions and limited one-time missions (you win them or you lost them forever).
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terror missions should feel like TERROR missions. And also, they should make a bit of sense in the context of the game "lore"

 

*** long incoherent rant warning ***

 

so part one ... the reason:

 aliens landing to set off a bomb (aka mission with timer) ... nope, no way. With bunch of bomber UFOs appearing all over the globe every few days and every decently sized UFO being able to sink warships, they don't need to bother with landings to do damage, certainly not when they start using UFOs of cruiser size or larger.

 

so, option B. Aliens landing to set up some sort of device (let's say psi emitter with large radius effect). Large and relatively complicated device that needs some time and quite bit of work to be set up, start working and needs to be running for a while to show effect. The time needed can be explained by the fact that it can't be simply mounted on the outside of UFO (won't survive atmospheric entry etc), so the ship needs to land and aliens need to move it outside of UFO and assemble/activate it. Or maybe later have some sort of specialized UFO with the device mounted directly in the UFO, but it still needs some perparation time to get operational (can't work from inside of the UFO through the hull directly and so the aliens need a while to pull down the canvas roof of their cruiser convertible :) ). The device should be located right in front of the UFO (on the upper floor in case of specialized UFO) and should be reasonably durable not to be destroyed by a few random hits. On the other hand it should be destructible if enough force/explosives is used (so you can't/shouldn't use it as cover) and you should really really try NOT to destroy it because bad things would happen, well, you'd basically do the 'terror' part of the terror mission for the aliens, the part you are trying to prevent when doing terror mission (except the effect when blowing it up would be very localized while the properly running device would affect much larger area, maybe even entire city, that's why the aliens are bothering landing and assembling it instead of just dumping it on the ground and blowing it up themselves). Engineers can disable the device later after you secure the area (bonus reward for the mission? money/tech/resources/funding?).

 

As for the device, instead of timer after which some bomb or one-time-effect device goes off and mission fails (many players really hate that, me included) let's make it some real terror device. Something designed not to do direct damage (because that really can be done a lot faster and easier from air or orbit) but instead something that is designed to scare people, crush their morale, make them panic and soil their pants in general. Some PSI emitter that in terms of gameplay affects/lowers skills of Xenonauts and the effect gets stronger the longer the mission lasts. It should affect all skills except strength and hp, with primary effect being bravery/morale penalty (certainly lower maximum bravery, maybe even lower rate of regaining it after panicking, but instead of the usual panick/berserk/run reaction the result of low morale should mostly be similar to suppression), also it should have pretty noticeable effect on reflex skill (harder to concentrate/react). Smaller effect on TU's and accuracy. At the beginning of mission the device should start at "low" strength and after certain ammount of turns the effect should get stronger, up to a certain maximum (some reasonable percentage penalty, this would probably take a bit of testing to find propper balance, something that can't be easily ignored but isn't completely crippling). Or maybe remove the maximum limitation and just tweak the effect increases to allow it to go into extreme effect strength if player really drags his feet and mission takes really excessively long time to finish. 

(higher bravery increase in mission results after such mission?)

------------------------

 

part two ... terror (or lack of it)

 

ok, let's face it, civilians are completely expendable, disposable and useless. The game regularly displays messages (on strategic map) that somewhere outside of my radar coverage UFO has shot down airliner with 100+ passengers, or sunk a ship, strafed a train or abducted a few hundred, total losses around the world are climbing into thousands or tens of thousands ... why exactly should anyone pretend to care about those 5-10 civilians in a mission? Especially when they spend most of their time blocking doorways or getting into my line of fire. Sorry, but the current terror missions aren't any different from any other mission, except there are a few more civies on map (and the already mentioned "UFO not included"). Come on, that isn't terror mission, that is just aliens bullying a few random civilians, obviously the slowest and dumbest ones (that explains their AI) who weren't smart enough to run away fast enough. And the idea of aliens bothering to land huge friggin ship with 20+ terror troops just to curbstomp those 10 civilians on the map is really pretty ridiculous. 

 

So, terror mission revamp (maybe not all terror missions, but at least one version of it). A little bigger map, most likely city map, with UFO (and the PSI device next to it) somewhere on the map. Lots of civilians (30+? 50? more?). OK, this would affect the "enemy movement" part of turn quite a bit in the beginning of mission, but it should be bearable and it should get better quite fast. So ... civilians. They wouldn't need exactly good AI (and they are pretty dumb even in normal missions), after all they are panicking civilians currently being very busy pissing their pants because aliens have landed and are killing them and assembling some sort of terror device that is messing with their brains. So, aliens have lots of targets to fire at. Lots of weapon blasts, lots of screaming, lots of civilians dying all around the map (it would also cut down the enemy turn length). Ideally the civilians should try to move towards the Xenonauts dropship landing point (maybe make some sort of evacuation area behind the dropship at the edge of map civilians are trying to reach), after all military helicopter that is obviously not alien has landed some distance away and soldiers are shooting at aliens so trying to head in that direction doesn't should like the worst idea, getting the soldiers between themselves and the aliens sounds even better. Random movement, with a lots of panicking and back and forth running, etc, etc. That would mean that Xenonauts are fanning out from their dropship trying to locate UFO, lots of civilians are converging on the dropship trying to get to 'safety' and aliens spread all over the map are shooting at everything that moves, lots of weapons fire everywhere, Xenonauts trying to clear the crowd with stun grenades or stun batons, often having to risk shooting at aliens with mob civilians randomly getting in their way (machinegun reaction fire through the crowd?), Reaper or two thrown in the mix, zombies shambling through the crowd and clawing at the civilians, armed civilians/military/police panicking and shooting at pretty much everything that moves (aliens/civilians/xenonauts). General chaos in first few turns that would start to drop down noticeably fast with all the casualties (even with 50 civilians at the start there wouldn't be that many of them still standing at lets say round 5), creating something that would really feel like ... you know, a real terror mission. But with all the bodies scattered around the map would at least look a lot like terror mission site.

 

For those civilians lucky enough to survive the terror mission (still alive on map, or evacuated from the extraction point near dropship, or stunned on the ground so aliens lose interest) there would be some small reward in mission results, but the logic here would be that you aren't fighting to save those few people in the immediate vicinity of UFO, you are trying to stop aliens from activating terror device that would affect thousands more in much wider radius. Trying to save civilians on the map is barely a secondary concern, they are more of a distraction (or obstacle even), certainly not mission objective. And this would introduce some "new" challenges ... having to spend TUs to deal with civilians (stun them, or having to move to avoid shooting through them), it would make area effect weapons like rocket launchers a lot less usefull if you want to avoid huge casualties (or maybe screw that, nothing says 'crowd control' like incendiary rocket), machineguns and shotguns would have similar problem. Ammo would be more of a concern, especially with heavier Reaper infestation so you'd have to be more carefull with loadouts and pack more spare ammo, no more "I'll get through the mission with two clips". Stun grenades and stun batons would be extremely usefull. There would be incentive to not cause civilian casualties yourself, not just because the reward at the end of mission (who cares?) but because civilians would serve as usefull "human shield" and also as distraction, something for aliens to focus on and shoot at instead of your soldiers. On the other hand you couldn't ignore civilians completely because panicking police officer McUseless could randomly decide to blast his shotgun at one of your soldiers because that guy in Buzzard armor suit (or Predator armor) clutching laser sniper rifle doesn't exactly look like typical human soldier ... so better zap him sith stun baton just to be sure. Precision weapons like sniper rifles would be usefull to be able to pick your targets and also there would be pretty big advantages to using higher ground (firing from 2nd floor or using Buzzard suit to get sniper on the roof) as it woud allow you to fire over the heads of the crowd below. And instead of the boring and hated "mission fails after 10 turns" limit there woud be pretty good incentive to push forward and keep pressure on the aliens, because fighting them would be easier while there are still civilians around distracting them and while the terror device is still at low power setting and not draining/lowering your skills severely. The longer the mission lasts the more difficult it gets ... less civilians to distract aliens, higher skill penalties from the terror device.

 

 

OK, I'll stop there because the post is getting hideously long, but I guess you get the idea where I'm going with this. But I'll repeat it again (sort of TL:DR version): terror mission should really feel like TERROR mission

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I like your idea of having some kind of famine of ammo. There would need to be some restriction to stop you hauling a whole backpack full of clips but it would create a nice feel if conserving ammo were a serious factor in the mission. Usually your intent is to protect your dudes and deal damage from safety, so you can afford to miss a lot so long as you don't get hit yourself. This scenario would add that sense of terror to the mission if you had to put yourself in harm's way, in riskier than usual situations, to conserve precious bullets. Although going for melee kills against fully fledged reapers is perhaps a little too suicidal so some new fragile version might be needed.

I guess that this would be Xenonauts answer to the Lost in the XCOM expansion, with the twist that you wouldn't have your soldiers nailing multiple headshots per turn but rather they'd be beating off an unstoppable tide. One of the perks of Xenonauts is that items like clips of ammo exist in ground combat as distinct objects, so part of the mission could be to loot dead soldiers (from the regular military of course) as your progress through the map. As you say, this could all tie in to some main objective about a device of some kind - maybe even to set a bomb yourself to stave off a reaper infestation. 

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I’ve been replaying Xenonauts over the last few weekends...it’s been getting me thinking. You could also have missions against humans factions, the third XCom had a lot of those. Extract an friendly intelligence agent or defector, eliminate an alien sympathizer, find evidence of an alien sympathizer influencing/manipulating their nation. The existing mechanics for post mission scoring could even be used.  Xenonauts wouldn’t want to use lethal force against humans, so the missions would rely on avoiding enemies and using stun weapons. These missions could give you relation bonuses. Botching them could make things worse.

”USA promises full support to the war effort against the alien invaders after prominent senator was exposed working with the invaders to overthrow the government”

“Rogue paramilitary organization makes botched kidnapping attempt on Soviet officials. Kremlin promises they will be held accountable!”

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On 3/5/2018 at 5:24 AM, Chris said:

I disagree - I think we want more types of mission than just UFO assault, even if we did have lots of different types of UFO to attack.

Agreed.

Again, I think Terror missions should not be tied to UFOs.  They should just spawn on a map.  Since this game seems to be going for a sort of infiltration thing, we could consider that the city in question is be raided by aliens already on the ground.  That way you have no chance to shoot down the UFO before it starts the mission, the mission just pops up when the aliens start opening fire on the civvies.  And/Or, if we shoot down a ship of a specific size or higher, but we leave it there for a while, the surviving aliens venture away from the ship and start a terror mission in a nearby city/town.

As far as missions go, I had a thought.  What about 'baiting' missions?  They send a high value UFO out for you to attack, but once you get in range, more UFOs spawn to intercept your interceptors.  So you can take out the flying loot crate and risk losing your planes, or attack the interceptors and risk losing the high profile ship.  Or if you're good enough, do both :-P  This high profile ship can be anything, not something specific.  That way we never know when we'll get ambushed.  It could just have a chance of happening every time a UFO is spawned.

Edited by endersblade
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Sorry if any of these ideas have been mentioned before.

Instead of having the second part be just another ship assault. Perhaps you could make it a clearing out of a specific place. Let me elaborate.

You land at a terror site, clear out the aliens from the city. Then you proceed to clear out a large structure, a hotel, an embassy, a military base or perhaps even an airport or something similar. Water treatment facility perhaps? Something like that would make the problem of alien ship assaults repeating less severe.

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It looks like those two kind of missions would be the same, except that the aliens would use a different behaviour script: more aggressive in the"true" terror kind, and more defensive in the "secure-a-facility" kind. Initial placement would be different as well, and perhaps type of units deployed as well. Exploring the impact of changing scripts could lead to more diversity in gameplay while cheaply reusing the same assets.

By the way, can an AI switch from a script to another, according to some dynamic conditions (number of turns elapsed, number of foes alive, percent of the map controlled, ...)? If  yes, this could add even more diversity and unpredictability.

 

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