Covert Operations + Non-Xnaut militaries and techology

[bigjackskid]

I may have brought this up early last year, though I don't fully recall. Since there is the Cold War going on, is propaganda a factor, in relation to, nor not in relation to the aliens? Let's say a "faction" within NATO or Warsaw is indepdently working on some technology, against the aliens, or even in league with them, this might something to think about for a "stealth mission." You dispatch one or a small number of agents to recover to destroy said technology, while covering your tracks.

If i'm bringing up a dead horse, my apologies. Currently dealing with a stressful situation in RL.

Anyway, I liked that local police existed in X1. But they were weak and not very intelligent. I'd like to see occasional incidents or big battles wherethe mission is to rescue a force of NATO or Warsaw troops under attack. The idea is that, this force can hold its own, (and their tech would improve over time like Xnauts), but ultimately they will be wiped out if you can't get to them during the ground mission and help them fight off the aliens, since there are too many of them. Helping this force would give improve relations wth Xnauts and said faction. Further, for propaganda, it could be that Xnauts puts out propaganda saying "Warsaw helps native defeat extremist rebels" in at attempt to improve relations between both parties but without revealing the alien threat.

 

[Gijs-Jan]

Yeah, I like the sound of that. After the release pressure on the Kickstarter and the closed Beta I might look into this in my spare time.
I do think it'll be generally straight forward to mod into the game if we don't include it ourselves.

I would imagine that balancing it in terms of how the aliens would feel could be an issue.
As in, I don't think that most aliens work well for large-scale battles. The idea being that aliens are rather exclusive / in the background.

Fighting a host of mind-controlled soldiers backed up by an alien might not be interesting enough. 

[bigjackskid]

1 hour ago, Gijs-Jan said:

Yeah, I like the sound of that. After the release pressure on the Kickstarter and the closed Beta I might look into this in my spare time.
I do think it'll be generally straight forward to mod into the game if we don't include it ourselves.

I would imagine that balancing it in terms of how the aliens would feel could be an issue.
As in, I don't think that most aliens work well for large-scale battles. The idea being that aliens are rather exclusive / in the background.

Fighting a host of mind-controlled soldiers backed up by an alien might not be interesting enough. 

Thanks for the feedback. I really appreciate the consideration. Hmmmm. By "large battles" allow me to clarify. I don't mean hundreds of NATO/Warsaw soldiers duking it out with Aliens. Rather I mean a few dozen, perhaps behind fortifications and maybe with vehicle support. They are holding off the aliens as best as they can (in  that they can fight and do inflict casualties on the aliens) but they are in a situation where It's unlikely they will win without Xnaut support. The player's job is to prevent their destruction and/or say stop the aliens from capturing something the NATO/Warsaw soldiers are protecting, technology, VIP, recovering a captured alien, etc. I mean for the non-Xnaut troops to be controlled by AI as well.

[Gijs-Jan]

I think I properly understood it then; and it's still a bit of the same issue.
Design-wise one of the things we're considering is putting an emphasize on the strength of individual aliens. That would mean we'd have only a couple of aliens on the battlescape, the opposite from having dozens of aliens on the battlescape.

Having said all of that, I've still noted it down. Maybe an idea would be to have the Androns fill this role in a terminator-esque horror-scenario. The planned swarm-based alien could exist in support roles to the larger individual (normal strength) Andron units.
 

[bigjackskid]

Okay I understand. I made a low quality mock up.

 

[Gijs-Jan]

What can I say; it's the Ayy Lmao bit that sealed it for me.
If I ever get the time, I'll try to update this thread :-)

[bigjackskid]

Thanks Jan. xD!