Going Prone

[Thunderstruck]

First off, I love the demo and thought it was pretty good for a work in progress, so much so that I bought in on Kickstarter at the $65.00 level.  The one thing I would like to see introduced into the game, which was in the original XCOM series (and Fallout Tactics), is the ability to lay prone.  This would assist with minimizing the profile of your Squaddie in combat.  For example, I place my designated marksman on the roof to provide cover but I want them to go prone versus only kneeling, to minimize their exposure to enemy fire.  I always enjoyed this aspect of the original series and have been disappointed that the reboots failed to include it.  Another place it would be beneficial is when moving your Squaddie through open terrain, such as the desert, fields, vacant lots, arctic tundras, etc, where cover is sparse or to attempt to lessen the damage of enemy explosives detonating.  Please give some serious thought to adding this feature and have a great day :) 

BTW, thank you all for creating Xenonauts and Xenonauts 2 so that those of us who wasted hours/years of our lives playing Xcom for its tactical brilliance, can still have a game that follows so closely in its footsteps (and thank you for not adding an instruction manual that's as thick as a War & Peace novel, such as the original Xcom's instruction manual...lol!).

[Kaiphus_Kain]

Love this idea and fully support it, I play a lot of Jagged Alliance Back in Action and the ability for my sniper to go prone is a massive aid in combat when in the right spot that I would love to have in Xenonauts 2, plus the boost in stability helps with the head shots.

Edited June 22, 2018 by Kaiphus_Kain

[Chris]

On 6/22/2018 at 3:48 PM, Thunderstruck said:

First off, I love the demo and thought it was pretty good for a work in progress, so much so that I bought in on Kickstarter at the $65.00 level.  The one thing I would like to see introduced into the game, which was in the original XCOM series (and Fallout Tactics), is the ability to lay prone.  This would assist with minimizing the profile of your Squaddie in combat.  For example, I place my designated marksman on the roof to provide cover but I want them to go prone versus only kneeling, to minimize their exposure to enemy fire.  I always enjoyed this aspect of the original series and have been disappointed that the reboots failed to include it.  Another place it would be beneficial is when moving your Squaddie through open terrain, such as the desert, fields, vacant lots, arctic tundras, etc, where cover is sparse or to attempt to lessen the damage of enemy explosives detonating.  Please give some serious thought to adding this feature and have a great day

BTW, thank you all for creating Xenonauts and Xenonauts 2 so that those of us who wasted hours/years of our lives playing Xcom for its tactical brilliance, can still have a game that follows so closely in its footsteps (and thank you for not adding an instruction manual that's as thick as a War & Peace novel, such as the original Xcom's instruction manual...lol!).

Thanks, glad you enjoyed Xenonauts and backed our Kickstarter! The original X-Com didn't have the ability for soldiers to go prone, though - it had the same crouch system that Xenonauts and Xenonaut-2 uses. I suspect you're thinking of the Jagged Alliance games (or, like you say, Fallout Tactics) as JA did allow your soldiers to crouch and prone, and also to move whilst in those stances.

I think this is a great feature, but it's one that has a time and a place - it works better within the bounds of the more complex Jagged Alliance mechanics that it would in X-Com, I feel. You've generally got a lot more soldiers to control in an X-Com game, which means micromanaging their stance would slow down combat quite a bit, and the prone stances also work well with the stealth systems that JA has that don't appear in X-Com, etc.

I'm quite tempted to make a "proper" realistic (i.e. human soldiers vs human soldiers) tactical simulator as our next game, because I think there's a lot of people in our community who really want it - but Xenonauts-2 isn't that game.

[raidsoft]

I do think Chris is right about it not fitting entirely, though you could probably make it work but the question is if it would be worth it as I think it would slow down the game play even more and those that already play cautiously would end up progression a battle at a crawl (literally!)

 

Oh and I know there's plenty of people in my circle of friends that would love to see a game actually go for very in-depth tactical simulator like JA, I can't really think of anything that was as ambitious as that in terms of complexity of mechanics. I'd imagine that it would still end up a pretty niche game though, unless it ends up revitalizing the genre which I could definitely see happening if someone did that right (similar to what has happened with isometric classic rpgs lately)

[Sheepy]

UFO series also has prone, and it is quite detailed because it calculates LoS and LoF in 3D.  And XCOM apoc has prone too.

But I agree, having standing and prone is good enough for Xenonautes 2. It keeps the posture system simple while still presenting an interesting tactical option.  I'd prefer complexity be spend on other aspects of the tactical game.