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Night Fights and Alien Sights - Ground Combat


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I've been watching Xenonauts recently on Youtube, going from vanilla to X:CE to X-Division and i must say the game looks pretty awesome.

Then i was lucky enough to see that X2 is being worked on and is even more awesome - the communication between the devs and the players here. I read some of the dev diarys of X2, especially ground combat. So i was just wondering about-

Alien Sights:

What are the current plans for alien vision in 2, the same thing? Where aliens can see further than you and shoot you from out of sight? Coming from a more hardcore player, that plans to dive straight into X-divison NG +1 as almost my first and only experience in XCom (just waiting on a sale, since X1 was going for free a few months ago :P) even i find it a bit, dodgy, when the aliens can shoot and instagib you from out of your sight range. Maybe it's just felt alot worse in X:CE and X-divison (modded versions) with more accurate and deadlier enemies than usual.

But either way i see the main goal is of course to make the gameplay fun - being shot from out of sight isn't fun haha. It just doesn't feel fair, it's not something you can account for (besides spamming smoke/incendiary every turn when not in combat, just in case.) and so the most important part is there is little room for counterplay and/or strategy.

If the game is too easy if sight is equal - add more enemies, adjust stats, maybe make it so sometimes aliens get to act first when discovered, or at least take a turn to get behind cover etc. I'm personally all for challenge, just not from mechanics that again offer minimal interaction, counterplay and strategy.

Night Fights:

Every playthrough i've watched so far of X1 and probably everything ever made and played, has avoided night fights like the plague haha. The idea is cool and needing to at least account for and skirt around night time even though it's minimal interaction, is better than nothing - but i feel it leaves a pretty big gap for some great improvement and addition to gameplay. (Apparently your sight is reduced at night while aliens aren't affected, making sight even worse than usual, so i can see why it's for all intents and purposes a non existant mechanic.)

It'd be cool if it was adjusted and/or reworked somehow - maybe you both suffer decreased sight but because it's more dangerous at night, aliens tend to group up some. So it's not just you get to engage on aliens closer than normal making it easier, because you might accidentally run in to 3 of them at a time, far enough apart where you may not always be able to instagib with explosions etc. Maybe there's a material that gets destroyed by light as an incentive, maybe you don't 'need' much but you still need to do a night mission at least every now and then. Maybe a new mission type - Guerilla Warfare, ambushing an alien outpost (not base) out in the wilds.

Some sort of balancing, reward, or a mix of both. Maybe tech later for night vision/sight improvement to the same playing field as aliens.

It'd be cool if lighting affected battle and was randomly placed around the map and cover (a kind of hazard you want to avoid because anything in light is easier to hit. An example of a fun mechanic - interactable and offers counterplay. The choice is yours if you want that great cover in the spotlight, or kill that alien first that's known for deploying alien-version flares.) changing your strategy for movement, engagement, soldier composition and loadout and generally adding a whole new facet to gameplay with minimal resources required (if a little more balance testing needed.)

Etc.

Thoughts on the vision game?

Edit: So after seeing a Youtuber that had to do a night mission for a landed UFO (and didn't know any better beforehand, which is the only reason he deployed for it in the first place, heh) it turns out there's already a bit of a light mechanic which is cool, but it still seems like night fights could use some work as 99% of the time the system isn't engaged with. Expanding on the light play and maybe some bonus things, like the night specific Guerilla mission (or a nocturnal alien race) would be cool too.

Again maybe there needs to be a little extra incentive/reward for doing night missions, or maybe it's optional for doing dangerous night missions and rewarded as such, or maybe it's required but not often.

Either way it's currently a big missed opportunity.

 

 

 

Edited by Whiskiz
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I seem to recall the aliens have the same vision range as your troops - and if not it's only like 1 tile extra. The Armoured Car has a longer vision range than the aliens, though, so you can use that as a scout if you don't like getting sniped beyond your soldier vision range.

Yeah, the night missions probably require a bit more thought from a design perspective - giving different aliens different sight ranges at night might be interesting, so certain races are weaker or stronger whether you fight during the day or at night would potentially be an easy way to do it.

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The concept of seeing the enemy, whether in day or night, through smoke or gas come be a Tech advance that could be developed, and put into any of the combat suites.

On the thought, my be the suits in them selves could have component slots, which could be modified to suit combat conditions!!   

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Maybe it's Division-X or X:CE that gave aliens the ability to instagib from out of sight.

Aliens having varying sight at night would be a great start, but there'd still be room for improvement. Night combat could even become its own thing - along side air combat and ground combat. it wouldn't be all that intensive resource and time wise would it?

Maybe again expand on the light mechanic some, add a night mission or 2 (e.g Guerilla warfare or convoy/supply/etc ambush) or a nocturnal alien race that flys around at night more.

Maybe light could actually be a bad thing at night (with soldiers having a standard kind of default sight in the dark) that increases chance to be hit - a sort of global patchwork hazard on the map that would be fun to interact with and around for better or worse. (if the AI could handle decent decision making with that kind of thing.)

Then both your Xenos and the aliens could have varying ways of creating varying sized, ranged and duration of light to interact with, to deploy on enemies or their nearby cover. A bonus being making each alien race and/or individuals in each race, that much more unique.

You could have different maps with varying amounts and focuses of light, for example:

Logging camps - sprinkled around the camps but dark for the majority of the map, other than alien and xeno created light.

Dockyard - pretty well lit up outside while being completely dark in the industrial buildings that aren't being used at night

Towns - moderately lit up both inside the residential buildings and out, with maybe patches of darkness in alleys, backs of buildings, some buildings or anywhere not on streets.

Villages - barely lit up, around/in each building

Maybe the Guerilla warfare night mission is on alien outposts (not bases) that has a perimeter around the outside that's mostly lit up, as well as some light here and there on the inside that maybe you could metal gear solid around haha.

Maybe some light sources could be destructible, adding more choices and strategy//variety/replayability and fun - Do you try destroy a distant light source to move in for a safer approach but then maybe alert aliens, or do you risk going into the light and being easier to shoot, to try and get closer before engaging?

As with adding vertical environment variability - another global variability on the map to have fun and interact with that changes up strats, replayability, variety and loadouts while not being nearly as resource intensive as a whole new system, would be a great addition. If it's possible.

Edit: Maybe down the line modders could add varying times of day attacks, offering varying attack and defense values, with varying light amounts and placements. Maybe tiles could show like pitch-black, dark, normal, lit, well lit. Maybe varying strength of lights too.

X3 2025: ground combat, air combat, night combat, sea combat :P

 

 

 

Edited by Whiskiz
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