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A few Xenonaut 2 Suggestions


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Greetings to Everyone;

firstoff, grats to Chris and the rest of the Xenonauts 1 team for making a great game. Also thanks for making mods in the game easy - Chris mentioned in his retrospect on making Xenonauts 1 that it was essentially impossible to make the successor to X-Com people were hoping for, since the interpretations of what that should look like were so vastly divergent. Mods are the perfect solution for that.

Following are a few thoughts from someone who looks forward to Xenonauts 2.

1.) Minimap Please

Someone else probably already posted this, but it would be really nice if you could switch to a minimap view of the area, or just zoom out to see the entire map.

2.) Alien Strategic AI

Reading through some of the posts here Chris already seems to have a similar idea in mind anyways. What i originally wrote was more intended for a similar strategic approach as Xenonauts 1 had, but now there's talk of a different approach, so this may no longer be applicable to the new game that the Goldhawk crew have in mind.

There have been some comments about that Xenonauts ends up being really easy endgame if you had good successes early game. That is kind of in the nature of the game - consecutive successes give consecutive advantages, meaning that if the game has a static balancing this result is unavoidable. One could of course adapt the alien strength to the forces available to the human player, but then it kind of feels like you've been cheated out of your achievement: it doesn't really matter how well you do, the difficulty of the battles you face will always be the same.
So i suggest the following solution: give the aliens a very basic strategic AI, making informed decisions based on last months happenings. Ultimately, the goal of the aliens is to invade and colonize Earth. To do so they (in Xenonauts 1) need to adapt their ships to Earths conditions - once they have done so with their heaviest ships, defense becomes untenable.
The aliens have a specific amount of resources available to them every month, and what they spend it on depends on how last month went for them. If all UFOs they sent have been shot down, they will invest resources into fighter escorts for their UFOs, if their ground forces have been defeated, they will commit more elite troops, if the Xenonauts have been a nuisance, they will start a search and destroy mission against one of their bases, or if that fails execute a terror mission against civillian targets in retaliation. All remaining resources go into increasing the size of UFOs that will be sent down / a doom counter that ends the game when it reaches a certain value. Basically they want to study Earth and humans, and take the place as intact as possible: doing a terror mission would be retarded if so far all enemies have folded before them anyways.
The result of this is that the player constantly faces a changing strategic situation. The player gets to choose in what area he wants to have superiority for a little while. Researched better missiles for your interceptors? Awesome, you'll have a month where you can down UFOs easily, then they'll start sending fighter cover with all following UFOs (forever, until the end of the game), so you either need to invest even more into retaining air superiority, which the aliens will one month later answer with more and stronger alien fighter craft, or you can choose to not escalate the air war, and instead attack UFOs after they have landed. Wasted all aliens without loosing a man? You'll have better troops and no recruitment costs, but on the next ship there will be less alien civillian technicians and scientists, and more shock troops to protect them.
(For this all to work, it would be neccessary that EVERY UFO except fighter patrols lands eventually and stays landed for about 24 hours, so that if the air war escalated to a point where the player simply cannot shoot down UFOs anymore, he still gets a chance to fight. I would even go further and suggest that landed UFOs always show up on the global map regardless of radar ranges, representing ground forces informing you of the location. During this time the alien fighter escorts would retreat to space for refuel and rearm, giving you a chance to land ground forces in a helo ... of course they will be facing an intact landed UFO with full crew.)
Of course you can play dead fish in the water and do as little as possible to only fullfill your current objectives and advance towards the final mission - i'd even suggest that to be the easiest route to win the game. However while you do nothing, civillian casualties skyrocket, nations will cut their funding because they received no aid from you, and you will be cutting it REALLY close with the doom clock.


Here is a bit of pseudo-code on how this could be implemented.

AlienStrategicAI
{
    monthlyresources = monthlyresources + 1500 + 100*monthcounter + 10*numberSuccessfulGroundmissions;
    
    escorteffectiveness = ((numberFailedUFOmissions / numberUFOmissions) + (numberShotdownUFOs / numberShotdownInterceptors))/2;
    if (escorteffectiveness < 0.5 + random()*0.2)
        escortprobability = escortprobability + 0.2 + random();
    /*Our UFOs are shot down before they can do anything. Increase the probability of "purchasing" fighter escorts for further missions by this value. Values > 1 mean that there will be at least 1 escort, and there is a chance of additional escorts. This will of course increase the price of any further UFOs "purchased" to do missions. (It would also make sense to increase the probability of air superiourity missions based on this value, but that is not factored in here.)*/

    //budgetPs will be percentages of available resources. All numbers refer to last month only, not total since the start of the game.    

    infantrybudgetP = ((numberSuccessfulGroundmissions / numberGroundmissions) + (3*numberDeadAliens / (numberIncapacitatedXenonauts + 4*numberDisabledXenonautvehicles)))/2; /*This assumes the aliens think of a Xenonaut who fell unconcious but survived the mission as a casualty.*/
    baseattackbudgetP = ((numberFailedUFOmissions / numberUFOmissions) + (numberSuccessfulGroundmissions / numberGroundmissions))/2;
    terrorbudgetP = numberFailedBaseAttacks/10; /*This assumes no more than 10 base-attack-missions per month. The expectation is that by the time you would reach 10 base-attack-missions per month, the doom clock should have finished the game, but this should be ensured in the actual code.*/

    terrorbudgetadd = monthlyresources * terrorbudgetP;
    monthlyresources = monthlyresources - terrorbudgetadd;
    terrorbudget = terrorbudget + terrorbudgetadd;
    /*terrorbudget is used to "purchase" terror missions. Given the units involved, these are extremely expensive, so it might take an additional month (and another failed base attack) to accrue the resources. They should on the other hand be designed to be borderline impossible to succeed on, and the player should be rewarded for merely *trying* to help (and loosing his units in the process). Personally i'd like the idea of spawning player controlled civilians on the other end of the map, and you get bonus points for every civilian that is with you when you evacuate from the mission (or who is still alive when you kill the last alien, which should be VERY unlikely). You can just sit on your spawn and move the civilians, but then the aliens on the map will almost certainly find the civilians and butcher them, costing you dearly in reputation in that region for every civilian killed. Or you go out and fight, but there's roughly 20 alien elite soldiers out there. Add in just a few reapers and let the fun commence.*/

    baseattackadd = monthlyresources * baseattackbudgetP / 4;
    monthlyresources = monthlyresources - baseattackadd;
    baseattackbudget = baseattackbudget + baseattackadd;
    /*baseattackbudget accumulates over turns until it reaches the necessary minimum value to "purchase" troops for a base attack mission. That minimum value rises by 25% with each failed base attack, but base attacks that did *some* damage through killing some personnel and destroying some facilities count as partial success, raising the minimum value only by 10%).*/

    infantrybudgetadd = monthlyresources * infantrybudgetP / 4;
    monthlyresources = monthlyresources - infantrybudgetadd;
    infantrybudget = infantrybudget + infantrybudgetadd;
    /*infantrybudget just continually grows, gradually reducing the percentage of non-combatant aliens and replacing them with ever better combat troops. Every ship (except those on terror missions and base attack missions) has a minimum required number of non-combatants which can never be replaced (for example 2 for a corvette) then there need to be at least 2 warriors for every officer, 2 officers for every elite and so on.*/

    missionbudget = monthlyresources * 3/4;
    /*Three fourths (or some other percentage) of the remaining resources go into "purchasing" missions / ships that will do missions. These are randomly selected from the available missions of scout missions, research missions, ground attack missions, air patrol missions, and base construction missions. Every ship has an "attack value" associated with it, which will, when multiplied with a factor dependent on the mission-type, determine how much money you loose if the mission is successful.*/

    doomclock = doomclock + monthlyresources * 1/4;
    /*This is the equivalent of the ticker in Xenonauts 1. The doomclock determines the size of the ships available, and will eventually just end the game. Not drawing resources by combatting alien forces will make the doom clock advance faster, and successful ground missions will increase next months budget for the aliens. Shooting down alien craft and killing them on the ground will lead to you facing tougher forces, and eventually make the aliens angry enough to look for you and kill you, or just murder random civilians if that fails. Note that if the doom clock advances far enough, the aliens will start sending down heavy assault craft or dreadnought bombers, basically resulting in the difficult but still doable terror missions from Xenonauts 1 - but these are still basically ground attack missions, just that the craft executing them have horrifyingly high attack values.*/


}//end of AlienStrategicAI

Of course i just came up with random guesstimations for the numbers here, and those would need to be refined for balancing, but i think it gives a solid impression of the concept i am trying to pitch.


3.) Improved Alien Tactical AI

Now this is maybe an unreasonable request, because writing a good tactical AI is a significant amount of work (and hence costs a significant amount of money). A reasonably simple suggestion i could offer, however, would be to give the aliens states of mind that determine their basic course of action for their next turn, enabling simple squad tactics. A possibility would be that an alien is either "hunting", "hiding" or "retreating". The mental state of each alien would be determined at the start of the AI turn for all aliens (else some will move away before the state is determined and the squad will break apart, retreating in different directions).
If there are 2 other aliens within 10 squares of this alien, or it has a clear shot at a target within 15 squares, it will advance in the direction of the closest threat to hunt it down.
If there is only one threat within 30 squares (40 are the range of a sniper rifle), and there is cover against the direction of the closest threat within 5 squares, the alien will move to that cover and hide.
If several threats are within 30 squares, or there is no cover within 10 squares, the alien will retreat, moving away from the closest threats and in the general direction of the UFO if possible.
This will generally make the scattered aliens group up, and then start acting in teams of 3. My personal experience in Xenonauts is that going alone is suicide, teams of 2 often just have bad luck and don't manage to kill a target in a single turn, and teams of 3 to 4 are usually enough to be effective but there's still enough cover to be found (if the odds are bad - say you are fighting androns with only base ballistic weapons and not very high accuracy, you'll need teams bigger than 3, but that is rather the exception).
Of course this wouldn't apply to the aliens guarding the UFO which default to "hiding" unless there is a target nearby.


(And just as a post note - yes, i am well aware they are no longer unidentified flying objects once we have a categorization of alien vehicles, but it's just way shorter than writing "alien craft" every single time.)


I hope any of this has been useful.


Best regards


~Drakon

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Thanks for posting up your thoughts. As you mentioned before not all of the strategy stuff is directly relevant to the new design, but I think the point you were driving at is that the aliens should be more reactive to what the player does, making the game harder in the specific area where the player is dominant but allowing more breathing space in the areas where they are not. It's an interesting idea that I like and have been experimenting with myself somewhat - and whilst it's not been incorporated into the new strategy design at the moment, I'd certainly be interested in hearing your thoughts about how we could add more reactivity to the strategic game in Xenonauts-2 once we put out the strategic builds.

So this is good stuff, it'll just need updating for the Xenonauts-2 rules before I can properly consider it :)

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I think the point you were driving at is that the aliens should be more reactive to what the player does, making the game harder in the specific area where the player is dominant but allowing more breathing space in the areas where they are not.

Actually ... no.

Applying the approach you suggested in your reply the way you wrote it - making the aliens stronger where the player is dominant and weaker where he is not - will lead to players wondering why they are trying their best at all, since in the end no matter how good they do, the strength of the aliens they face is always relative to their own strength. In essence, the player is punished for doing well ... quite frustrating if you are not offering the players something in return to keep them engaged. Where the inital suggestion i made would give players agency, have their decisions and in game behaviour impact the further development of the game, just adapting the strength of the aliens to whether the player is dominant or falling behind actually removes agency: player behaviour has less longterm consequences.

What I want is for the game to be engaging and challenging throughout the entire duration of play.

As mentioned in my original post, keeping a game of this type challenging is difficult for systemic reasons. A solution i suggested was using incomparables throughout the duration of the game to keep switching the difficulty: alien escort probability ≠ quality of alien ground troops ≠ strategic alien behaviour (passive versus aggressive) ≠ doomclock (In the original Xenonauts all of these things were tied to the "ticker", and basically progressed simultaneously and at the same speed.). This makes the game more engaging over longer periods of time, since the player needs to start focusing on areas he has previously neglected, and has agency in choosing which style of play he wants to pursue - but those are actually just beneficial side effects from trying to find a balance approach that a.) doesn't use static balancing so the end game is no longer either trivial or impossible, and b.) doesn't use direct dynamic equivalent balancing (e.g. alien tech is determined by how far the player has progressed in researching), since that is frustrating for the player.

If you want to simplify the concept down, i guess you could say that the player is "punished" for being successfull in exterminating aliens by the aliens sending more elite troops and starting to act more aggressively, but "rewarded" by getting more resources to buy shiny things with and by the fact that his fighting pushes the autoloose-condition further away. Conversely, a player who is not exterminating aliens effectively (whether due to player choice or his inability to do so) is "punished" by getting less income and an eventual autoloose coming faster, but is "rewarded" in that the aliens will not send their more advanced units and will act passively (researching and scouting) rather than aggressively (actively trying to destroy player property or reduce his income / reputation).

(Additionally, but this is more fluff than strictly game mechanics, doing poorly will increase civillian casualties and result in a worse in game reputation for the player. For the pure gamers who only care about winning and not at all about the fluff, this will not matter, but for players immersed in the game world this can be a significant motivator to risk their in game valuables in order to save fictional lives.)

Since continually increasing the aliens capability should eventually make them nigh impossible to defeat (else you end in a scenario where the aliens "cap out", and the rest of the game is trivial, since the player can now exterminate everything the aliens send), the next logical step is to disassociate as many sub-aspects of difficulty as possible: in Xenonauts 1 that would be alien escort probability, alien ground troop quality and alien aggressiveness. This means that each of these aspects is in itself sort of a game ending criterium: once every ship has two heavy fighter escorts, the player won't be shooting down many UFOs any more. Once the alien crews consist predominantly of their most elite troops, any fight on the ground will result in casualties for the player. Once the aliens start doing one terror mission after another, the player will rapidly loose income and reputation, and eventually the game. However each of the individual game ending criteria in themselves are not enough to literally end the game immediately, only a single aspect of it: if the player can no longer shoot down UFOs, he'll have to go in against landed UFOs. If the player can not sustain the losses of ground assaults, he can still bomb UFOs which he shot down and obtain resources and reputation this way. While the aliens only send low quality troops or don't protect their transports with fighter cover, terror missions are still manageable, and though his income will be dwindling, the player will still have resources for a little while. If several of these start compounding, however, the game is pretty much lost.

If instead of UFOs being shot down Xenonauts 2 has a minigame where you need to find and identify the alien collaborator, then you can basically just swap out these sub-aspects - that would change nothing from the basic concept.

 

I am sorry if i am being unclear in my phrasing. I actually put the pseudo code in because i figured that is the clearest way to communicate the concept.

Edited by Drakon
Clarification.
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  • 3 weeks later...

One more, quite minor request - i figure the earlier i post this, the easier it would be to implement. In Xenonauts 1 you had to click through 2 sub-menus to get to your casualty list. Most military institutions rather tend to have their memorials rather up in the front of their areas and very visible - part of this is psychological strategy: it is well known that reminders of death actually increase dutifulness, and pointing out to soldiers that their actions will be remembered after their death makes them more likely to be willing to participate in high risk operations. As such, i think it would be really nice if the memorial for the fallen would be visible on the base overview screen and probably also on the base organisation screen. If it's easy you could have the names on the memorial in those screens be actually visible, or else just have several pictures where you see the memorial have more and more names on it, depending on how long the list of actually fallen soldiers already are. I know that's a miniscule thing, but i do think it would really help to set the tone for the game.

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Apologies for not properly responding to this earlier. Basically most of the stuff you're talking about is currently at too early a stage for me to spend a long time considering it - but it seems like you can put a thoughtful argument together so I'll be happy to have a long discussion with you about this once we've got the strategy layer out.

The problem with trying to do it now is that though the concept of how to balance the alien invasion has a huge effect on the overall gameplay of the game, it falls under the "fine balance" stage of the game because so many things affect it. You need everything working properly before you can start to tweak that, so it has to happen quite late. The difference between the ground combat enemies scaling with how well you're doing, and scaling to be even harder but then also giving more rewards (which I think is the point you made in the second post) is only a few lines of code, but has significant gameplay ramifications. Hence talking about it in the balancing stage rather than when we're still creating all the gameplay systems is the way to go.

Re: the casualty list, I agree. Again however best to see the UI before we discuss where it could go.

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  • 2 months later...

I’ve recently had a little bit of time on my hands during a train ride, so I thought a bit about the “secret war” concept that has been discussed in the forums.

 

Firstoff, two assumptions:

  1.  The aliens are basically bound to the physical laws known to us. This is necessary to have any discussion at all, else anything becomes a question of tech-mcguffinism.
  2.  The aliens have a solid reason to take over the Earth. If they just eventually want a habitable planet, it would probably be more effective to just terraform mars, if they already have the energy necessary to travel from one solar system to another with a sizeable fleet. If they merely want “the superiour human race” (*cough-Firaxiscom-cough*) it would be less effort to just get a couple of specimens and work with cloning / genetic engineering.

The entire concept of aliens wanting to cause a nuclear war seems a little absurd: if all they want is to render Earth uninhabitable, just redirect a couple of asteroids from the asteroid belt to hit Earth. That way you don’t even have to worry about thousands of years of nuclear contamination before Earth becomes colonizeable again. Since the aliens come from another solar system, doing this should be no technical challenge to them, and to this day we do not have any reasonable defense against such an incident.

A few real life facts:

In 1990 the US had in excess of 20 000 nuclear warheads, while the USSR had more than 30 000. These were mostly strategic nuclear warheads, since the INF-Treaty from 1988 forbid short and intermediate range nuclear warheads for land forces (reducing the total number of nuclear warheads significantly). Current estimates state that as few as 100 nuclear explosions from strategic warheads would probably be enough to render Earth uninhabitable – granted, the aliens likely would have more effective ways to deal with some of the primary problems, like getting rid of the particles that would cause nuclear winter, so let’s multiply that number by 10. That means that either the US or the USSR might loose 90% of their nuclear assets and could still easily render Earth uninhabitable. A second issue to consider is that for this strategy to work it is not necessary that the warheads are launched or delivered to a specific target – they can be detonated inside their bunkers or right after launch. Even if intercepted, there would be a non-negligible chance for the weapon to detonate regardless. As such it can be stated that even if the aliens possessed the capability to intercept every single missile fired at them, the US and USSR governments would be in a position where they are capable of rendering Earth uninhabitable.

During the Cold War, the official stance of politicians was that they were willing to accept complete annihilation rather than domination from a different political power. As such, even if the humans had no effective way of attacking an alien fleet in orbit, they could essentially take the planet Earth hostage and threaten that if they loose the war, no one will win.

As a practical example of this strategy actually working, consider Sweden’s neutrality during WW II. The Swedes threatened that if invaded, they would flood their ore mines, which proved an effective deterrent given that all parties of the war were interested in trading ore with Sweden.

Now off to speculation. The aliens probably have received radio signals from Earth for a while, and if they are capable of infiltration, they must have been capable of understanding what was communicated. They would be well aware of Earth’s nuclear capabilities (politicians kept bragging about them, in part to produce a scare in their own populace that would keep them in power, and in part to hopefully keep other nations too scared to attack them), and the then popular concepts of mutually assured destruction and the like. If the aliens consisted of a party of just a couple of thousand individuals, they could just request a bit of land as an autonomous nation, and any bigger nation in the world would gladly grant it to them in exchange for technological advancements. So we know that the aliens need Earth intact, they need Earth NOW, and there’s quite many of them.

All this makes the following scenario likely in my opinion: the aliens have a significantly sized colonization fleet. Maybe their original survey data from Earth is a bit older – if they looked 4000 years ago and happened not to inspect Mesopotamia or China, there is a good chance they figured Earth had no intelligent life. Given how long interstellar travel is likely to take, that is not that absurd a scenario. While approaching our solar system, an initial crew is awoken from cold slumber to assess the situation, make necessary adjustments and prepare Earth for colonization. To their shock they find Earth occupied by militaristic powers with nuclear weapons. If they actually lost their own planet to a conflict between such powers, their threats of total annihilation would seem even more credible to these aliens. The aliens are probably smart enough to realize that a small number of them will be welcomed in exchange for the technology they bring, but a large number would cause concerns and possibly a panic, so they would like to pacify the situation before it escalates. A small number of individuals is sent ahead to take control of Earth’s nuclear assets and ensure safe landing of the colonists. Interestingly enough, the Cold War actually presents a bit of a dilemma to the aliens: if they offer technology to either the US or the USSR, the other might see themselves pushed to initiate aggression out of fear of becoming completely out-teched. As such, interestingly, the aliens would actually want to stabilize and pacify US/USSR relations, trying to come to terms with both of them. At the same time, the aliens want to get in positions of power in the human military, in order to be able to eventually take control of the nuclear weapons. For this purpose, some paranoia between the US and USSR is actually beneficial for them.

Conversely the Xenonauts would want to disrupt the alien infiltration and hinder agreements between the US and USSR that would benefit the aliens. If both the US and the USSR agree to allow a large number of aliens to land and claim territory in for instance both the South American jungles and the Mongolian steppes, the Xenonauts would simply not have the manpower to stop further alien operations.

This also leads to several different end game scenarios:

The aliens took control of Earth’s nuclear arsenal, and colonized the planet. A small number of humans are kept in something similar to zoos for study.

The aliens decided to take the risk, and the humans launched all nukes. Earth is devoid of higher life now.

The Xenonauts were a tad bit too effective in stirring paranoia between the NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Nuclear war erupted between humans, and Earth became uninhabitable.

The Xenonauts managed to foil the infiltration efforts by the aliens, and facing a unified Earth the alien fleet grudgingly turned away in the slim hopes of reaching another colonizeable planet before their resources run out. Humanity is propelled forward in science and technology due to captured alien technology.

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@Drakon I like the thought put into your ideas. I would like to think that, even if a billion+ aliens were coming to Earth, if they were rational, they wouldn't start with violence. I could be convinced that 4000+ years of travel, forced by the nuclear destruction of ones planet, might radicalize the colonists. Generations were indoctrinated to believe that nuclear power is bad, and those who wield it are bad. Thus arriving at Earth with "no other option" but to save the Earth from the humans. I think most of these alien invader games have a hard time answering the question "why are they shooting first, and asking questions later?".

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Good thought process Drakon. I didn't know the thing about 100 strategic nukes being enough to cause nuclear winter (I just looked up the paper, I think they would have to detonate in specific urban areas for it to happen). I like the idea that the aliens would mainly be trying to interfere in international affairs and that such a game plan would lead to your four conclusions. Though I'd suggest that you could alter them a little: option three could be a 'score' achievement, whereby the effectiveness of the xenonauts leads to some fraction of the Earth remaining habitable (not a total loss).

Also, I think that you are dead on with the second assumption. The idea of alien colonisation always falls a little flat in my opinion. That stick-our-flag-in-another-planet kind of sci-fi was all the rage decades ago but it doesn't hold up now. 300 years ago some parts of humanity were quite happy to invade and colonise but today there is a lot of guilt and retaliation to that, in another hundred years our species hopefully wont be so merciless. Even in relatively old ideas like Star Trek there was a non-interference directive for the Federation. However, I take your point that the aliens are only doing it because they are being forced to but I still feel that there is scope for a much more solid rationale, especially one that works with the notion that the alien's attack is incremental (else the game would be really hard).

If you can assume that aliens are capable of interstellar travel, you can probably assume that they can wait thousands of years to terraform a planet. Yes, you could find a caveat here - maybe the aliens can only do such travel once and so arriving at Earth they have no choice but to settle here - but making use of a caveat is not solid reasoning. The aliens could still be aiming for control but not necessarily to disembark their civilisation and find a new home (which also runs into the additional issue of environmental incompatibility, likely they'd not enjoy 1g of gravity or 1 bar of air at 21% oxygen). Control, in a more sophisticated sense, can come in many ways: subverting government, owning core economic actors, or even by continually destabilising humanity so that we never make it into space. Even those forms of control are the basics of neocolonialism. Advanced aliens may have even more subtle forms of domination and manipulation.

Eliminating every aspect of Earth that aliens could find elsewhere (land, minerals, energy, position in space), the only thing I can think of that would draw them here would be our species and society. Possibly they'd want us for some inscrutable purpose, like using us as a card in galactic politics, or something heartless, like studying our behaviours when under attack.

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"The Septillians left the colony ships, walking onto a planet basking in sunshine, with rich acidic oceans, and warmly enclosed in a thick envelope of CO2. The last remaining humans would have made good hunting sport but gasping at the low levels of oxygen they couldn't run very fast."

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Firstoff, thanks for the reply.

Secondly, about colonization.

On 17.1.2018 at 5:56 PM, Shoes said:

I would like to think that, even if a billion+ aliens were coming to Earth, if they were rational, they wouldn't start with violence.

Unfortunately, i feel quite differently about that. Heinlein saw things pretty much the same way in his novel Starship Troopers. Yes, we generally like to think we are past colonization and oh so very noble, but just look at the way Native Americans and Aborigines are treated to this very day. They are tolerated on the fringes of society or in reservations as long as it is assured that they cannot be a threat to the interests of the major players, but no society intends to give them back any power. The reason our forms of colonization shifted are simply economical ones: slavery doesn't work well with highly educated subjects, and conventional trade just yields more benefits than conquering areas these days. If you are looking for an example where that is not the case, just consider sexual slavery. Since not much education is required there, this is a form of slavery that is still being widely used around the world, including first world regions like Europe or the US. The issue is whether the aliens have the means to trade with us - hence why i stipulated that if they can terraform Mars or Venus (in a reasonable timespan), they would and not bother with invading Earth. If they cannot trade with us ... just take a look at how kindly humans treat other species that are of little use to them, and might in any way, shape or form pose a threat to our interests.

On 18.1.2018 at 0:21 PM, Ninothree said:

option three could be a 'score' achievement, whereby the effectiveness of the xenonauts leads to some fraction of the Earth remaining habitable

Thirdly, regarding the idea of a partial victory: the problem is that with 80% of humanity gone, and the rest being pretty desperately busy trying to barely survive, the aliens could just easily waltz in and take over the place. Humanity would no longer be in any position to offer significant resistance with their nuclear weapons gone.

On 18.1.2018 at 0:21 PM, Ninothree said:

Eliminating every aspect of Earth that aliens could find elsewhere (land, minerals, energy, position in space), the only thing I can think of that would draw them here would be our species and society.

There is something on Earth that to our current knowledge cannot be found anywhere else in the solar system: a functioning ecosystem (yes, i'm ignoring that there might be an ecosystem on one of the moons of the outer planets - either way, it wouldn't be one that a species somewhat similar to ours could survive in). Something like that could probably be replicated by a civilization capable of interstellar travel given enough time, but that is just the crucial issue: how much time is available?

On 18.1.2018 at 0:21 PM, Ninothree said:

If you can assume that aliens are capable of interstellar travel, you can probably assume that they can wait thousands of years to terraform a planet.

I am afraid i cannot quite understand where that assumption comes from. If interstellar travel was easy for them, we probably would have heard of them before (compare Fermi Paradox). I am more picturing an exodus out of desperation, as mentioned for instance because they rendered their own homeworld uninhabitable with their wars. To get anywhere within a somewhat reasonable amount of time, they need A LOT of fuel for an insterstellar colonization fleet. Even if they could mine that in our solar system, would the humans let them (for instance deplete the available deuterium)? Also, i didn't exactly expect that journey to go off without a hitch. A number of colony ships might have had a malfunction along the way, or hit a stray interstellar body, so thousands if not millions would probably have died in cold sleep. The aliens might be understandably reluctant to go through that again for a species they have little reason to care for. Same goes with waiting several hundred if not thousand years to terraform a planet. Is there enough fuel to keep the colonization ships running throughout that time? What if the humans in that timespan decide that actually they want the planets in the goldylock zone for themselves, and attack the aliens? If the aliens get a hold of one of our history books, that worry is not all that far fetched.

There is also a political question. It is not absurd to assume that there are factions amongst the aliens who decide to take the moral high road, and declare that a couple of million dead amongst their species is preferrable to destroying this existing ecosystem. This is probably the minority faction, but it might actually be the original source of the Xenonauts. For most aliens, however, it seems probable that they want to go with the option that poses the smallest risk for themselves and their families, so the power holders would naturally be inclined to follow that path. In my original post the optimal end scenario was that the aliens decide to risk another interstellar travel (that could instead also be to risk waiting for the terraforming of Mars or Venus), because if the aliens really have no other option, they'll take a slightly damaged and irradiated Earth over extinction.

On 18.1.2018 at 0:21 PM, Ninothree said:

Control, in a more sophisticated sense, can come in many ways: subverting government, owning core economic actors, or even by continually destabilising humanity so that we never make it into space.

Hello, i have an energy cell here that will make fossile fuel obsolete. Thank you for handing over your economy to me.

All capitalist nations would fall simply with that, not even including other advancements in for instance the medical area. And once you control the economy, you hold major sway over the political leaders in any system. Issue is, that humans actually aren't entirely stupid (even though a number of our species continually try to convince me of the opposite). It would be reasonable to assume that the world leaders would immediately enforce a ban on any free trading with the aliens, to avoid the aliens simply literally buying up the planet, and demand to monopolize the rights to trade. That in itself would be enough to bring the former USSR and the US to the brink of nuclear war. Conversely, if i assume that the aliens are at least as smart as we are, they would be able to figure out the consequences of just appearing in the open. Which is where the clandestine story actually starts making sense. They approach power holders in secret, offering medical rejuvenation treatments and luxuries barely imagineable, and are willing to trade with them if only those power holders will give them a bit of territory that they do not care too much for. A populace was evicted for the creation of the nation of Israel, so why not do it again? This time there would even be A LOT of monetary compensation, and as the aliens claim there aren't that many of them, it is only reasonable to assume that they are willing to share control over the Earth with the rich and powerful amongst the humans. If this is not a colonization fleet, then trade is the more rational and effective option. Of course, the aliens know that once the human power holders start realizing that in the end they won't have any say in the new Earth the aliens are envisioning, because they want all pleasant areas for themselves and will make sure that no human has the power to retaliate for what the aliens have done, the human leaders will start resisting, so the aliens are trying to keep them misinformed and deluded as long as possible, to doublecross them as soon as they can.

Maybe you can convince me that actually, in the end good always prevails and Roddenberry's United Federation of Planets is more likely than Heinlein's Terran Federation of "if we can make sure you won't be a threat, we will". While i consider it unlikely, i'd actually like that.

Regards

~Drakon

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I think the best way to get to the bottom of this is to go back to how Drakon started and lay out the axioms we have in their most minimal form. After that essential form is expressed, it should be easy to pick out the problems and weave any number of stories around what an xcom/xenonauts game could look like. Galactic colonialism could be (and indeed has often been) made to work as an idea for aliens but that is just one example of narrative polish that goes at the end of creating a scenario. If you start with that, then the other pieces traditional in the game might not fit in so nicely.

For instance, I think XCOM2, for all its infamy round here, did a good job of changing the standard storyline whilst keeping faithful to gameplay: a resistance movement and guerilla combat make much more sense than the whole of Earth having a tiny, moderately resourced, strike team who can take down UFOs with conventional weaponry from the get go.

----

So, the axioms as I see them, for a game in this genre. Please amend as you see fit.

1: Aliens have come to invade Earth’s territory, the player takes control of the humanity's only real form of defence [this is the geoscape layer]

2: The aliens' invasion is subtle, not nuking cities but small-scale attacks which can be fended off by a single squad [ground combat]

3: The invasion is progressive and starts with weak scout troops - Earth's defence only encounters the enemy's most powerful forces much later on [difficulty progression]

4: The aliens have far better technology and it is only by harnessing that tech that humanity can prevail [research and engineering]

5: By culminating a research tree and understanding the enemy, the player then forms a counter attack for a win [resolution!]

----

Our prior discussion has mostly concerned the why of point 1. However, I think that the five points actually get more tenuous as they go on, so it’d be better to keep them in mind from the outset. The biggest plot holes, for me, are the capability of Earth’s scientists to master alien tech and develop weapons on par with the enemy’s; and also the sheer relentlessness with which the aliens send out their hordes of foot soldiers to be slaughtered and looted, giving the home side a path to victory.

From what I understand, Julian Gollop’s Phoenix Point is going to get around those issues by imagining the enemy as belligerent and barbaric mutants. So human scientists are smarter and the enemy’s strategy is a crude overwhelming of the Earth. However, if you want sentient and sophisticated aliens, then they require some flaw or rationale to end up letting humans appropriate their tech. Also they need some strategy which is ultimately threatening but not insurmountable. XCOM:EU did this by the aliens intentionally nurturing the human capabilities (the gift) but underestimating human resistance (ha, dumbass ethereals). I always felt that writing to be a little weak. The idea of the secret war for xenonauts 2 seems, roughly, to be that the aliens don’t have the resources for an all out takeover (which would be the obvious thing to do if possible) so they are trying to subvert humanity through infiltration - this would position the enemy as actually quite weak and ultimately defeatable. Though faced with that premise, some people round here seem to have lost their shit.

Effectively, the aliens need to seem better than us in most ways, but must eventually succumb to our ingenuity (and M16s). Personally, I’d lean towards a game scenario where, for the first half of the game, you are managing a losing battle (as you’d expect vs advanced aliens), then you discover the aliens’ weakness and spend the second half of the game exploiting that, regaining lost territory and finally seeing them off in a big showdown.

The weakness would be something the aliens don’t have, e.g. biological or chemical warfare, as you can easily do interstellar travel with just some specialised physics :p This premise would challenge the norm (axiom 4) - humans wouldn’t be able to adopt esoteric plasma technology as in most other games. Instead the player would fight back with something the aliens didn’t see coming, like weaponised viruses or genetically enhanced super soldiers. Conversely, another premise could be that the aliens are waging a war of covert economic or social manipulation, and humans win by counterintelligence locating the aliens base and an armada of nukes saving the day.

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I agree with most of your points, Ninothree. Let me firstoff state that i do not consider the hypothethical scenario i discussed to be the only one, nor necessarily the best one, it is merely one i could come up with in limited time that i figured would work. I am not entirely sure whether you are agreeing with that it would work but think another one would be better, or if you see issues that actually make it unbelieveable.

 

 

20 hours ago, Ninothree said:

The biggest plot holes, for me, are the capability of Earth’s scientists to master alien tech and develop weapons on par with the enemy’s; and also the sheer relentlessness with which the aliens send out their hordes of foot soldiers to be slaughtered and looted, giving the home side a path to victory.

In the scenario i put forth, Earth's scientists would be able to master alien tech because the aliens are helping them. But even setting that aside, replicating / reverse engineering existing technology is actually oftentimes not that hard - certainly usually a lot easier than coming up with technology on your own. In Xenonauts 1 there were a lot of technologies that humans basically already had, but just couldn't implement due to inferiour material technology (plasma weaponry would melt, etc.). Then there were some technologies that actually required advanced physics that the human scientists never obtained, and hence could not replicate - ftl tech would be an example. Especially if, as the people from Goldhawk are currently planning, the power cells are tech that the humans never really crack because it is based on physics unknown to them, i think that problem becomes minor. We already have real life gauss cannons (mounted on warships) or mobile defense lasers that will automatically target and shoot down projectiles - the main problem we usually run into is powering them.

As far as difficulty progression goes, i think my original post sort of addressed that. My idea was that in a Xenonauts 1 scenario the crews that the aliens would initially send down are scientists and technicians, and only when they actually encounter resistance they start sending soldiers, but they do so only reluctantly, because every spot taken up by a soldier means one techie less per mission, means you need to fly even more missions to complete your goals. In the currently discussed scenario this might be diplomats instead, and there might be concerns that their ultimately powered up tank-like soldiers are a bit hard to camouflage, and that if they send too many fighter bodyguards down their negotiation partners will get really nervous. It would probably also be necessary to stipulate that their better equipped soldiers have essentially higher social standing to explain why they start with initially sending anything but their best equipped troops: going down basically always entails a noticeable risk of death - the player is already capable of murdering anything from the get go, it's just significantly harder - and the higher ups understandably want to avoid putting their own butts in the line of fire for as long as they can.

From my understanding of what Chris wrote, Xenonauts 2 will actually not feature hordes of alien foot soldiers, but rather very few aliens as elites with the cannon fodder role delegated to human collaborators.

 

 

On a different note: i'd request that a "skirmish mode" or "instant fight" is added to the main menu, where you can select the tactical map from a drop down list (including "random"), the difficulty level and the tech tier that you want to play on (a possible list might include "Early game", "Mid game", "Late game" and "Ultra late game" corresponding weapons wise to primarily ballistic weaponry, laser weaponry, plasma weaponry and rail weaponry in Xenonauts one, with some mixture of earlier and later game tech sprinkled in, so it's not uniformly lasers or uniformly plasma weaponry), and you get a randomly equipped force with random stats to clear the mission. Might be a good idea that you need to actually have completed some research in campaign mode to be allowed to select the higher tech tiers, so players don't spoil some surprises for themselves. Adding this should take very little work, and that way you can advertise Xenonauts one with "one game mode already complete (but more enemy variety and weapons will be added to it as well)" when you put it up for early access.

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Ok ... i actually managed to derp and write before i think. Quite an embarrassing experience.

There is a way more obvious and logical reason why there would be tech progression for the aliens in the scenario i mentioned. The aliens are after all planning an invasion as soon as they have the nuclear arsenal of humanity under control, so it's not exactly a smart idea for them to parade their best weapons around before they are ready, especially since the US and USSR are probably immediately going to ask: "Hey, can we have one of those?" and if the aliens refuse, that might raise a bit of suspicion amongst the brass. That might in fact be part of the plan of the Xenonauts: to force the aliens to show that they actually have way better weaponry than they have so far admitted, and thus make the human leaders start to distrust the Xeno diplomats.

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1 hour ago, Drakon said:

I agree with most of your points, Ninothree. Let me firstoff state that i do not consider the hypothethical scenario i discussed to be the only one, nor necessarily the best one, it is merely one i could come up with in limited time that i figured would work. I am not entirely sure whether you are agreeing with that it would work but think another one would be better, or if you see issues that actually make it unbelieveable.

On a different note: i'd request that a "skirmish mode" or "instant fight" is added to the main menu, where you can select the tactical map from a drop down list (including "random"), the difficulty level and the tech tier that you want to play on (a possible list might include "Early game", "Mid game", "Late game" and "Ultra late game" corresponding weapons wise to primarily ballistic weaponry, laser weaponry, plasma weaponry and rail weaponry in Xenonauts one, with some mixture of earlier and later game tech sprinkled in, so it's not uniformly lasers or uniformly plasma weaponry), and you get a randomly equipped force with random stats to clear the mission. Might be a good idea that you need to actually have completed some research in campaign mode to be allowed to select the higher tech tiers, so players don't spoil some surprises for themselves. Adding this should take very little work, and that way you can advertise Xenonauts one with "one game mode already complete (but more enemy variety and weapons will be added to it as well)" when you put it up for early access.

OpenXcom has that. I never really played with it much. However, a minigame could be made out of it: a series of static maps that are meant to challenge the player. As you progress, maps get harder. Have some stats (shared globally?) about how many turns it took, casualties, etc. Stretches of maps could be themed, like pistols only or grenades only. A Kickstarter tier could be to design one of these maps for the game. Worms Armageddon's SP was pretty much this: a set of challenges for each weapon, and then a series of battles that get harder and harder. It added a lot of longevity to the game for me.

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Well Dracon has exactly the same mindset as how weak settings have been till now for most "xcom" based games.

I won t enter in why game setting is weak, this has been done more skill than my patience would allow me.

But even as i ve reag let say 75% of the above i feel there s a bit of logical thinking missing.

(TL:DR at the end)

Lets make some supositions:

Aliens have lost their planet for some reason (polution, war, sun death, whatever) and are seeking a new home, and earth is a randomly found or predetermined target for replacement.

What would happen:

1)  Humans have to be relevant or they would simply land over a continent or 2 clean humans or enslave them and secure the spots to then proceed to entire colinization. Nuke stuff shouldn t be a concern, Energy weapon are fast, destructive, acurate if you give it computational aim, not a chance to hit, no missiles could "land" with higly agile and fast UFO, or even patriot or SAM kind of sites, with space/air/land domination, there s no nuke answer at all.

If you think its too fast they stale human s=retaliation with trinket tech, and obsolete knowledge, until they are ready and stuff goes boom.

or

2) They would ally, giving tech to weaker countries which would be more receptive to be able to compete with major dominating countries.

This could work for a setting:

-. Suddenly a patch of earth countries become no zone for non allied humans, sorry no tourist allowed, zones goes "blank"for the rest of the world.

- Or less aggressively, the countries display technology which cause envy and fear from dominant countries to loose their lead status. 

- Even as tech is smuggled for hoards of money, things are no good...Spy got caught things get dire. Display of force are done, And nuke fails as Alien allied countries wipe them off with earth/alien tech.

-  Xenonauts is created as a shady rogue non oficial agency to discover WTF is going on, then it escalate to alien agenda, steal tech  delay if not able to disrupt alien agenda. (A bit of fireaxis Xcom 1 done right)

It could work and give interesting settings we haven t seen.

Stealth missions: infiltrate sabotage/steal/whatever and get the hell out.

Human (X-com) VS human with alien tech.

This is a plausible scenário, it has its pitfalls but could work and has many possible branching.

 

Theory:

- 3)  Aliens came before, when planet was empty, or not so empty:

This fall flat on its face. Aliens may not have terraforming tech. So the planet is useless. But this can lead to another cenário...that i ll lay down latter.

And if they have, we fall in scenario 1) or 2), but now the countries are settled bases for terraforming engines. 

3.5) Alien have terraforming tech, But they have ressource problem to do it, so earth is needed anyhow, and is the easyest target.

This would solve the obvious question: why endanger all the mission of finding a suitable planet with an hostile species when there are other worlds that are availiable to terraforming without this aggravating fact.

 

More possible settings:

-4) Humans are irrelevant but the Aliens need ressources, those are present within earth and shouldn t be easely accessible (ie: water). (OBS:You can link scenario 3 here as earth is of no use anymore)

Deriving from the Annunaki and Nibiru scam that aliens made us(maybe that part is true) and wanted gold, or pig shit (yes you know the movie)....

Aliens don t care about us or our planet, but they need some ressources to keep going and as we are irrelevent, and not suitable for slaves (too strong headed or fragile), they are taking those ressources on force, building bases aggressively and in the process transforming earth in a pile of unhealthy trash that is changing our climate in an unsavory way.  

Fight is on....

 

I can t think of something more were we are irrelevent and that would make sense.

 

Now, lets say human specie has at least some relevance, even if temporary, as slaves, thralls or aliens pet.

From Annunaki Scam, to Stargate.

5) Exactly Scenario 4 but they need us as slaves.

Fight for your freedom and planet health.

 

6) Planet earth is a perfect planet for Alien Move due to factors as 1 or 2. But:

The alien force is a scouting/inteligence force. They have to collect and send information, fase 1 of the game. fase 2: the "alien-in-charge" of the task thinks like a human politician and  kicking human ass into receptive thralls or eliminating them before a "auditing party" comes poke some unwanted noses (after (insert name here) would be well suited for its ambition. Or!!! Scrap fase 2 and lets get to fase 3: they need to build a stargate in the rim of the solar system for the population/colonist to arrive: Stop them!

Complicated scenario, massive pitfalls, but with awesome possibilities and multiple endings can generate many sequels.

Crazyness:

7) Planet hearth has ressources needed. Aliens are in a hurry after some battle out of our solar system (ressources for repair rearm and refuel) we don t know that, we think its an invasion and fight for our freedom. Aliens have no time to waste, build base around the solar system collecting what they need. And hearth have reserves not found in the solar system.

Part 1) we have to resist.

Part 2) Another space force come, we think its reinforcement, and depending how we ended part 1 we bash them too(or not), a space battle occur, many aliens of the first species/league entrenches themselves on out planet. Space battle make terrible/not so terrible damage on hearth (starship falling exotic substances released, cities or even countries wipped out. We struggle to survive and fight for our planet, that isn t already the same. 

- Main alien force has been driven out by (XXX or star destroyers fleet + executioner, Darth Vader is our saviour :) sorry coundn t resist - Yes i ve read Timothy Zan novel Heir to the Empire - best trilogy out there for Star wars even if the end seem obvious) but as the galactical chase continueout of reach, we are still fending with our ennemies:

- Entranchered Aliens that want to dominate us to survive, their secret genetic experiment bear fruits and mutated people and fauna flora nature is an element.(affff put zombies if you wish, i m tired of them);

- Add to this a S.T.A.L.K.E.R, feeling with some bizarre anomalies an half apocalyptic cenário, and so on... (Overdoing it is a pitfall) 

Earth damage. (just a restrictive factor explaining low pop, restricted areas, limited ressources, many faction and the full bounty)  

Part 3) As earth has become mapped in the galaxy, we have to evolve to not become some exotic place where we are servile alien drink servers or thralls farm workers on a farm planet, Or merely a species puched on a corner of the planet to be looked at as monkey whithout tails to be seen in a safari trip. (but that part is a long shot 1 and 2 are enought i think)  

 

8) As fireaxis crappy game Xcom1 almost did right, earth is a ripe genetic field, and for diferent reasons, we are a nice guinea pigs, or multicolored mices, us and the fauna and flora.

Alien use our planet as a laboraory, so in the beginning we fight weird stuff until its clear there s more going on as Alien activity becomes clear (seems awfully like Phoenix point/Foreaxis Xcom2) because they need moar! We end up fighting not an invasion but some crazy experiment (yes it sound like After(insert-name-here). In the process some teran allies with aliens to complicate things more we fight many foes: Aliens in their bases, humans and crazy stuff outside.

A little short in span with pitfalls (i fear phoenix point may have fallen right into a major one) but can lead to interesting stuff.

 

Well i could go on but....you must already be saturated.

TL:DR

Most of the success os the game, for any given cenario being it good of not so good, is about how to do earth as a living actor, in all games earth is dead. At worst, its a mere injector of money, at its best its something you can sell stuff and make money.

There s no factions, no diplomacy, no personal agendas, awfully low trade, no technology (you recruit from hearth a dozen scientist and they are the best of!!! The rest is trash...how bad that sound? awfull)

I find it strange with so many 4x around, especially to AAA titles, that own the brands, that this aspect isn t better explored. (I think Phoenix point will try to built on it...but the fog, Ktulhu lobster setting feel a bit weak. It was awesome for Darkest Dungeon, but i don t see it grabbing atention on a tactical squad game.

 

 

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Mordobb, i'd like to reply to this in a more complete and detailed fashion, but frankly, i find myself incapable of overcoming the language barrier. There are several parts of your post where i am not entirely sure what you mean, and i do not want to start a discussion based on quite possibly false assumptions.

I'll just go into one misunderstanding you seem to have:

On 28.1.2018 at 6:12 PM, Mordobb said:

Nuke stuff shouldn t be a concern, Energy weapon are fast, destructive, acurate if you give it computational aim, not a chance to hit, no missiles could "land" with higly agile and fast UFO, or even patriot or SAM kind of sites, with space/air/land domination, there s no nuke answer at all.

The scenario we were discussing was not hitting alien spaceships or troops with nukes, it was threatening to use nuclear weapons to make Earth uninhabitable. For that purpose, the missiles do not even have to be launched - it is enough to detonate them inside their silos. Since either faction has at least 20000 strategic nuclear warheads, and an assumed 1000 of them would be enough to make Earth uninhabitable, it becomes quite a challenge for an alien force to disable enough of them before the humans have the option of making sure that no one will be the winner in this conflict.

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  • 4 weeks later...

A few thoughts about the subject.

  • Do the events related in the Crimson Dagger novel become obsolete in the Xenonauts-2 setting?
  • Is the atmospheric refitting of the alien fleet still an explanation for the staged, gradual invasion? Although a strong explanation, on behalf of the need for any concealed operation, why an advanced civilization would need months to land on a medium gravity, atmospheric planet? Especially when the greater ship are equipped with anti-grav generators. Perhaps our atmosphere detonates in presence of alenium?
  • How to discuss about what will happen to Earth (subjugation/alliance, brute mining colony, terraformed (new world) colony, genetic herding, ...) without knowing of how the different alien species came to work together? In Xenonauts-1, the Praetor species enslaved the others and got the best of them, but we don't know of their worlds' fate.
  • Why in Xenonauts-1, the Xenonauts don't share their technology with all the other governments? In my game, I just have the military equipped with laser rifles and LMG (I don't recall if it's thanks to a mod or not), and I witnessed two Wraith warriors teleporting successively in a cluttered barrack with three 20-HP soldiers: only survivor was a soldier. The same could work with upgraded aircraft. This would make Xeno an important part of the planetary defence (and more so in the research and intelligence fields), but not the only one part.
  • Is the staged invasion concept the only one possible (for both the learning curve and sustained interest of the game)? I didn't play the Fireaxis game but if changes are ever to be made, I like the idea of a small, nested resistance movement against an overwhelming invasion force, with a feeling of a desperate and already loosed war, that we don't feel in Xenonauts-1. Likewise, the first encounters could well have elite (overwhelming) units, it's simply that the wise player wouldn't try interfere with them (after initial failure?). Think of past partisan/resistance movements: they wouldn't attack a fortified base, only ambush a light convoy or the like, that I call opportunity actions.

 

As for the way missions would be generated, this would imply several differences as compared to Xenonauts-1. Once covert operations are unveiled and brutal fights break out between the two factions, the Xeno organization wouldn't be held responsible for any unmatched alien attack, as they would be the "norm" and Xenonauts' agenda wouldn't be to save life at all costs (in the early stages). The minor events that alien missions generate on the Geoscape would be generalized and amplified to greater scales, such as terrorizing cities (and the subsequent nuking/bomb carpeting). Xeno's HQ would have to select the few missions in this apocalyptic setting, they have a chance to win, and let the others to the other Terran agencies/military.

Then, Xenonauts missions would fall in two categories:

  1. Defence of attacked Xeno / allied assets. These would be the one damaging Xeno's reputation/capacity in case of defeat. They would correspond to current Terror and Base Attack missions. Loosing an asset would hit the income/production/research/recruiting efficiency.
  2. Opportunity resistance actions picked up from a list of available, en-cours missions. This would resemble the random mission some want, due to the number of them once the war rages. The greater the danger, the more reward you get, but the system could be more subtle (unexpectedly high or disappointing reward, for a logical reason). Basically, Xeno's HQ would select those locations where the Alien pressure is lesser (for whatever reason: fringe action on a greater front, covert action, isolated crash site), where a squad alone would have significant success chances.

 

Missions after missions, research after research, the Organization would start to conduct air interceptions, and more important ground missions. It will always be the spear head of the planetary resistance but the day-to-day war would be conducted by the allied military (both air and ground combat). The player would be responsible for the general upgrading of these forces. If the game is to be ended like in Xenonauts-1, the air supremacy against the invasion fleet would be achieved by hundreds of upgraded 80s aircraft with hybrid armament, a fleet the player wouldn't have to manage of course. The same with retaking whole regions: besides covert/intelligence actions, Xeno would only deal with Alien Bases (and major human felon assets), and Terran ground forces would do the menial task. I believe that in dire situations, Humanity could  act the same as all the nations did in WW2: putting young inexperienced pilots in flying bombs and flinging them in mass at their targets. This could work as long as planes can be replaced at the same rate they are lost, doesn't it?

 

That I can't explain though, is how a troop transport could reach at a distant location, if air supremacy is not achieved and the invasion is already at full scale...

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On 28.2.2018 at 5:14 PM, Rodmar18 said:
  • Do the events related in the Crimson Dagger novel become obsolete in the Xenonauts-2 setting?
  • Is the atmospheric refitting of the alien fleet still an explanation for the staged, gradual invasion? Although a strong explanation, on behalf of the need for any concealed operation, why an advanced civilization would need months to land on a medium gravity, atmospheric planet? Especially when the greater ship are equipped with anti-grav generators. Perhaps our atmosphere detonates in presence of alenium?

From my understanding, apart from name and theme, Xenonauts 2 will have no connection to Xenonauts 1.

 

On 28.2.2018 at 5:14 PM, Rodmar18 said:

Why in Xenonauts-1, the Xenonauts don't share their technology with all the other governments? In my game, I just have the military equipped with laser rifles and LMG (I don't recall if it's thanks to a mod or not), and I witnessed two Wraith warriors teleporting successively in a cluttered barrack with three 20-HP soldiers: only survivor was a soldier. The same could work with upgraded aircraft. This would make Xeno an important part of the planetary defence (and more so in the research and intelligence fields), but not the only one part.

While not official, my interpretation was always that there are significantly more alien attacks going on than were shown, and the Xenonauts always just took care of those the local military couldn't handle, given that they have the most modern gear and license to operate beyond national borders. Military forces pursuing a unit into a neighbouring country would have easily caused severe trouble in 1975.

 

On 28.2.2018 at 5:14 PM, Rodmar18 said:

Is the staged invasion concept the only one possible (for both the learning curve and sustained interest of the game)? I didn't play the Fireaxis game but if changes are ever to be made, I like the idea of a small, nested resistance movement against an overwhelming invasion force, with a feeling of a desperate and already loosed war, that we don't feel in Xenonauts-1. Likewise, the first encounters could well have elite (overwhelming) units, it's simply that the wise player wouldn't try interfere with them (after initial failure?). Think of past partisan/resistance movements: they wouldn't attack a fortified base, only ambush a light convoy or the like, that I call opportunity actions.

Strictly speaking, no, this is not the only possible concept, it is merely the most obvious doable one, but closer inspection might deliver a superiour alternative. I am not exactly certain what the current exact plan for the storyline of Xenonauts 2 is (this also answers your comment regarding integration of different alien species) - if he has time to spare, maybe Chris will shed some light on that.

 

On 28.2.2018 at 5:14 PM, Rodmar18 said:

Xeno's HQ would have to select the few missions in this apocalyptic setting, they have a chance to win, and let the others to the other Terran agencies/military.

I'd like the approach of that. Rather than "We expect you to succeed every mission and the terror level / defcon level will rise every time you do not" make the base assumption "Things are already going south fast, try and find something you can do to stall the apocalypse." I think it might also be beneficial for balancing purposes, if your base assumption is not that the player will win every mission, but rather that you expect him to succeed in n missions per month.

 

On 28.2.2018 at 5:14 PM, Rodmar18 said:

I believe that in dire situations, Humanity could  act the same as all the nations did in WW2: putting young inexperienced pilots in flying bombs and flinging them in mass at their targets. This could work as long as planes can be replaced at the same rate they are lost, doesn't it?

That was actually more the case in WW1 than in WW2; by WW2 both sides already had a pretty firm grasp on air combat and becoming a pilot actually wasn't exactly a death sentence. Problem with your approach is that once nuclear weapons or FAEs become available to clear the skys your "flying bombs" probably won't even reach their destination - individual ones get shot down, swarms get nuked. The main nation that i can think of right now that used suicide planes was Japan, and the Kamikaze pilots actually are not generally considered to have been effective beyond initial surprise (not needing fuel for the flight home allowed them greater operational ranges than anticipated). Sure the StuKa sometimes failed to pull up in time, but that was an unfortunate exception rather than the norm. Bottom line however, is, that both sides that used these "flying bombs" lost the war (more due to resource reasons, but still).

 

On 28.2.2018 at 5:14 PM, Rodmar18 said:

That I can't explain though, is how a troop transport could reach at a distant location, if air supremacy is not achieved and the invasion is already at full scale...

Stealth tech. In particular, my explanation would have been alien collaborators who provide said stealth technology, but it is close to impossible for us humans to replicate (the alien traitors might be politicians or philosophers rather than engineers, and/or might have dramatically died while delivering the means to defend ourselves to the humans) which also would explain why the Xenonauts only operate in such small numbers and why there is only one such agency in the world rather than at least one sponsored by each of the major factions.

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  • 1 month later...

The idea Chris was getting at is a cold war between world powers being complicated and eventually overshadowed by a higher war; the former being symbolic of good vs evil, which really is happening in the secret war. I think someone already mentioned the aliens might want a nuclear winter because it assists them in terraforming the Earth to a climate more suitable for them. Perhaps the praetors are psychic aliens that thrive off aggressive emotions and/or desire to see how far humans will go to achieve their goal, to see if it's worth adding their DNA / culture to their own gene pool / thrall society. Maybe they just love death or somehow profit from it by harvesting psychic souls or something?!

I thought I read in one of the threads that Chris was planning on having the aliens beam themselves to the planet and only use small craft initially - a bit more like XCOM: Apocalypse, where they were coming from another dimension and couldn't survive here long or send big craft through right away. The smaller the alien fleet, the more they value their own lives, and the more they want to engineer a war between human forces so that they don't have to send their own troops to destroy us.

This is where the idea that the aliens don't want to colonise the planet Earth, they don't even want its natural resources, but maybe what has brought them there is the race to find something that another ancient alien civilisation has left behind (similar to the Precursors from Star Control). When the Xenonauts discover this, it becomes a race between them and the aliens to gather key tech for their own development in order to gain the upper hand against one another. If this is what they're after, then engineering a war between Earth's greatest powers would be a great distraction which allows them to go on many direct archaeological digs / searching through Earth's cultural and historical records to find what they're looking for.

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On 4/29/2018 at 3:51 PM, RustyNayle said:

This is where the idea that the aliens don't want to colonise the planet Earth, they don't even want its natural resources, but maybe what has brought them there is the race to find something that another ancient alien civilisation has left behind (similar to the Precursors from Star Control). When the Xenonauts discover this, it becomes a race between them and the aliens to gather key tech for their own development in order to gain the upper hand against one another. If this is what they're after, then engineering a war between Earth's greatest powers would be a great distraction which allows them to go on many direct archaeological digs / searching through Earth's cultural and historical records to find what they're looking for.

And if they are successful, their precious archeological artifacts might be irreparably damaged by having a random nuke explode right on top of them - or at least buried under a thick sheet of radioactive glass. Again, just offer one of your power cells to Earths leaders in exchange for exclusive digging rights - chances are they'll jump on that.

Seeming that the aliens will be teleporting to Earth and pretty much have no bigger / more powerful spaceships will help alleviate some plotholes - back when i posted this i at least wasn't aware this was the plan (if it had even been published by then). I'm still pondering alien teleportation powers ... most people don't quite realize just how powerful teleportation actually is, and i'd claim it actually takes quite a bit of thinking and brain power to not accidentally insert world-destroying plot holes into your setting with it. I don't know enough about the technical specifics of alien teleportation to really make a qualified statement in this case, i just know that i usually shy away from introducing any of it in a setting i work on because getting it right is just so damn hard.

As far as "The aliens want to annihilate humanity because they are evil and thrive on sucking up negative emotions" ... Protagonists in a story are always measured by their antagonists. The best stories (books/movies/games ...) are those which also feature the most compelling and believable antagonists, usually ones that quickly actually gather a real world fan group. Apart from my personal preference for hard science fiction (which i had the impression is more in line with the theme of Xenonauts than Space Opera) there are compelling storytelling reasons to give the alien antagonists an understandable reason for their actions - probably even one that the player will identify with and think that he might have done the same had he been in their position.

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If teleportation is only one-way from a massive ship with the capacity to do so, and consumes whole alenium cell (or much more?) per person each time they do it, then it would explain why it is possible, but very difficult for them to do so.  Hence why they're getting humans to do their dirty work.  The Xenonauts may never fully understand the tech, let alone be able to use it themselves.  It could at the most basic level be explained by a small scale hyperdrive jump?  It's alien tech, we don't have to understand it.  We just have to find a way to interfere with them using the tech so we can defeat them.

Edited by RustyNayle
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As I said, the idea is not that they actually want a full-scale nuclear war - at least, not until they have left Earth.  They want the world powers to be occupied with intrigue against each other while they find what they're after, and who's to say that ancient alien tech isn't proofed against nuclear bombs, it's survived the shifting of techtonic plates and all sorts of things through the ages, right?  If they wanted full scale annihilation right away, they would just mind control the world leaders and/or those next to the buttons to launch away (or they'd find a way to do it themselves, since they have the tech).  If this is somehow a continuation of the storyline of Xe1 (even though it has been said it's going to be an alternate reality / timeline), then perhaps the last surviving Praetor managed to warp his battleship from the dimension where the first war took place to this one, and he is still holding a terrible grudge against humanity and wants to see / experience their paranoia and suffering, feeling it first hand through his dark psychic powers.  However, his meddling over the last few decades has attracted the attention of the Praetors of this dimension (who might not have been corrupted by the Caesans in the same way as the ones in Xe1, but are working with the Psyons in a different way), and that's why he's in a rush to find what he's after and will accidentally expose himself more and more throughout Xe2 as he gets more desperate?

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Beaming a team on Earth sounds too much like the dematerialization/rematerialization process in Star Trek in my opinion. Any civilization capable of such a technological marvel would surely deploy tremendous weapons during air or ground combat (e.g. like materializing explosives, or even only dust,  inside a target), or other very exotic, "god-like" powers like the liquid robot in Terminator movie...

Rather, the alien team could be deployed through gating (or phasing in) a shuttle right above the ground. The shuttle would allow to protect the crew from the hazards of dimensional travel, and looks more "crude" and thus less omnipotent than rearranging a biological entity right at the atomic level. It would allow the infiltrators to survive a few days by returning to its life support systems.

As far as ground combat's assets are regarded, this would just add an UFO-like small cell, that would be concealed by the crew after each insertion (or somehow destroyed beyond salvage interest), but eventually one would be found and analyzed by the Xenonauts. The analysis of alien alloys (and possibly life support system) would be one of the first researches, besides that of individual weaponry and autopsies, and before any UFO breaching.

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Why do they need to use a destructible craft to do short distance hyper jumps (gating / phasing), when they can have man portable devices (which exhaust their energy in the process) that do it?  Just because someone has Trek-like tech in beaming, why do they have to be able to be able to send stuff into targets (it's expensive to do, remember, especially with no means to harvest new alenium on Earth), have T1000 tech, etc

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