Obi Posted June 21, 2018 Share Posted June 21, 2018 Hi guys! New member/kick-starter backer here. So personally one of my favorite features of the Long War mod for Xcom2 was the ability to build squads of soldiers and send them out as needed (I'm sure most of you are familiar with it), since some soldiers and weapon combinations worked well together. Basically acting as a glorified squad preset system sending predefined people with predefined gear quickly and easily. I just loved being able to send alpha squad out on a mission and then have bravo squad cover for alpha when somebody was injured or they were preoccupied or something. It also felt like it made me more personally invested to the 'team' since finding replacement soldiers that fit certain squad motifs could be a bit of a challenge. Stealth Squad Omega lost a sharpshooter? Shoot that hurts I guess now we'll induct one of the nuggets.. Is this a feature that would make its way into Xenonauts 2? I feel like it might work really well with the stress system, allowing the player to easily substitute a group of fresh soldiers for worn ones. It might also work well if they decide to implement some sort of teamwork/ranking feature where certain soldiers get bonuses for working with others or bonuses based on the amount of time/missions soldiers spend together. I've attached a screen shot from Long War to show off their implementation on the off-chance you guys haven't seen it. Anyway, I really enjoyed the feature in Long War and it would kill me with glee if we saw some sort of counterpart in Xeno2. Either way keep up the good work devs! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted June 22, 2018 Share Posted June 22, 2018 Hmm, OK - I've not actually seen this screen before (I have played Long War, but not that extensively). Help me understand the functionality - can a soldier be in multiple squads simultaneously, or is it an exclusive squad assignment like the dropship assignment in Xenonauts 1 (except without the dropship)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jocko Posted June 22, 2018 Share Posted June 22, 2018 @Chris In Xcom2, you can assign soldiers to a squad. When a mission briefing screen pops up, you may select soldiers to this mission individually or select a squad to the mission. All the available soldiers (i.e. not hurt and not in training) of this squad will appear as selected and ready to be deployed, after this you just hit a button and they go to a mission. Some details of this mechanic: - A soldier must be assigned to only one squad - On the mission deploy screen, after selecting a squad, you may remove individual soldiers from this specific deployment if you feel like not taking them (Or in long war, if the squad size will affect the infiltration time, making the mission harder) - Soldiers that belong to a squads CAN be individually hand picked to go on missions with other squads (In this case, if their own squad needs to go on a mission, this soldier will be shwon as unavailable) - A squad has something called "Squad Cohesion". Soldiers that are deployed several times with the same squad configuration get very small bonuses (i.e. +2 Accuracy, +2 Morale) on after some deployments. These bonuses increase with time, but a squad with relevant bonuses is something not only rare but also only appears on mid/late game. Also, any change to the squad (removal or addition of new soldiers) changes this variable, if it is someone completely new, the cohesion will suffer, if it is someone they know, cohesion may suffer less or depending on the case it may increase. In Vanilla Xcom2, this feature is not obvious, but a mod called Squad Cohesion brings this variable to light. I hope I have shed some light to it. I'll even add this mechanic to my post because it really is something I missed during X1 gameplay and didn't remember until now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solver Posted June 22, 2018 Share Posted June 22, 2018 Chris, in terms of X2, you could think of this "squad cohesion" mechanics as the other side of the stress mechanic. You have stress that soldiers accumulate from fighting in general, and traumatic events in particular. Squad cohesion could essentially be a factor in the stress mechanic - soldiers are more likely to trust other soldiers that they've already fought together with. Send a soldier on a mission surrounded by familiar faces, and they are less stressed by the combat. Have 6 people fight together for the first time and everyone is more stressed. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Obi Posted June 27, 2018 Author Share Posted June 27, 2018 It's exactly how @Jocko said. Thank you Jocko for that wonderful explanation. I would also like to point out that having a squad based system would make handling soldier stress and rotation a lot easier. For example if Alpha squad has been on a few missions and are stressed out it'd be as simple as assigning Bravo squad to the next mission while Alpha rests a few days. It would also greatly simplify a multiple click action (unassign each soldier from the dropship just to reassign others in their place along with their particular position in the bird). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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