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Keeping alien weapons


Blade

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I love UFO games from the "original" UFO. Xenonauts was the 1st sequel that gave back most of the same experience that I got from that old game 20 years ago - and with improvements!

Now I am thinking about a limitation that wasn't in the original UFO - keeping and using the alien equipment.

On one hand, in the scenario I can still pick up, and use alien equipment. But when the mission is over, the equipment is "taken away" from the soldier, the only thing I can do with it is to sell it for scraps.

SERIOUSLY???!???

Please decide between:

- Alien weapons and equipment is just not for humans. There is no trigger, you need psi to activate it, too heavy to even lift... whatever, but then I should not be able to use it in the scenario. I would not be happy, but would understood.

- Alien weapons and equipment can be used by humans - but maybe less effective. You can still pull the trigger, but the scope is not for human eyes. You can prime the grenade, but throwing it is a feat, as it weights 10kg.

The whole storage system (witch was way more sophisticated in that original UFO game 20 years ago) makes way more sense if you can use the loot. Not to mention, it makes the whole game more interesting.

(On the picture: note that pile of pixels at the exit of the transport. That is the transport storage - extra equipment you could haul in, and loot from previous sites that hadn't been transferred to the base yet.)

ufo2.gif

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That's more of a fine detail thing so I'm not totally sure what I'll eventually go for, but the current intention is to go for the first option where you can't use alien weapons at all. Being able to recover and use alien weapons does tend to break the tech and manufacturing tree quite badly (as the heavy plasma in the original X-Com demonstrates).

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Looting is fun. I remember I have tried not to use missiles to shoot down UFOs in the original UFO, as it had an effect on the wreck - tended to destroy the UFO power sources badly, and those were nice loot. (On the other hand, it was nice to have extra entrances on the UFO hull.)

I am sure there is a way to integrate the alien weapons into the balance - the original UFO did exactly that. Alien plasma rifles were powerful, but not nearly as precise as lasers, and unwieldy (took more APs to fire). Let's face it - if alien weapons CAN be converted for soldier use, that is the logical first step - takes way less research and even less engineering to do that. Yeah, in the original UFO you really needed to rely on alien tech, as human rifles were pretty under-powered against even unarmored aliens. Xenonauts beginning is not that hopeless - the starting aliens can be killed with a couple of bullets, kind of similar to human resilience with heavy kevlar on.

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Trouble with loot is that it can mess up the game's economy. Each mission you can pick up around a dozen high-tech alien rifles, nearly enough to arm your whole squad. That makes it hard to include a cost value for upgrading your weaponry. I like the idea of scavenging something (grenades/ammo) or at least moving items around the map, but I dunno if using standard alien weapons would make the game better.

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I always thought that the heavy plasma and blaster launcher were the intended endgame weaponry in UFO Defense. The lasers were strictly better in the field than the firearms, and more accurate than the plasma, even if they did less damage, so the damage on target was higher with lasers if you had moderate accuracy troops, and higher with plasma once you had good accuracy.

 

Suggesting that alien weapons are optimized for alien ergonomics, and as such are awkward for humans to use (higher AP costs, lower accuracy) seems reasonable, especially as it justifies the synthesis technology where once you can build a plasma rifle, you can build a plasma rifle designed for humans to use that doesn't have those penalties.

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If the aliens have been using predominantly plasma weapons for centuries then maybe all of their armour is designed with those weapons in mind. It would be like humans predominantly having armour that protects against bullet impacts. It is what we know to be the major threat so why design around anything else. Their own weapons would likely be better than anything we have in theory but in practice if even their light armour protects them from that kind of damage then it would be pretty pointless using them in most situations. You might consider picking up that alien plasma shotgun if you got into a close quarters fight and only had a sniper rifle or rocket launcher (or vice versa) but in general you would ditch it after the fight for something more effective, unless you were into keeping trophies.

It does beg the question why we would bother creating our own plasma weapons. Maybe not all aliens got the plasma memo, or once they adapt their armour to kinetic or laser resist then plasma damage becomes more viable. Maybe our own plasma weapons are just variations of the alien weapons that remove the ergonomic issues. 

 

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On the subject of attack vectors that the alien armor doesn't cover, anyone remember that the endgame weapon in X-COM: Apocalypse is a glorified paintball, in part because it doesn't trigger the alien shields the way bullets or energy weapons or explosions do, and in part because it's a chemical weapon engineered to disrupt them specifically?

Some kind of "It kills them much more than it kills us" gas, dust, smoke, or aerosol-based weapon makes sense at the point in the weapons tech above the equal-quality weapons, or even as a prerequisite for a mission to fill an alien base with the stuff. (Obviously it can't just finish all of the missions, because that would be boring).

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The Apoc weapon techs were interesting. Most aliens start with natural weapons (e.g. goo spitters) that you can't steal. Then they have light firearms. You steal those firearms, then the game introduces aliens with shields - these counter to your developing weapons tech. By the time you have the heavier 'plasma' guns, the aliens are using an entropy launcher, that has homing capabilities. Ultimately, you develop the toxigun. The top-tier tech is biological for both sides.

But the neatness of it all is the way that alien techs come in phases so that once you get the advantage, you lose it soon after. If the aliens are dropping the game's best weapons from the get-go, then it messes all that up. Granted, you can play around with some argument of ergonomics, but it seems a little silly that a scientist can't rig up some human trigger on a plasma. So yeah, the alien-armour-resistance argument holds up better. That would then pave way for human armour to feel improved design features (plasma resistance), and human top-tier weapons to end up somewhere like kinetics.

In terms of the original post, about using alien weapons, I like the idea that they have a niche use when scavenged e.g. blowing hole through a wall, but take too much TU to use in a regular fight. Behind that, there needs to be a solid explanation for why humans can't deploy them in the field, or make much use of them in the base.

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Just thinking this one through and it feel artificial to prevent the use of alien weapons entirely. 

Instead I suggest a system that allows their use but with a significant accuracy penalty and actively promotes their collection by using them as a resource item later in the game. 

Under the guise of the weapons not being ergonomically designed for humans we could give them a -50% accuracy penalty (offset by the alien stats being 50% higher so their accuracy is unaffected from current) and perhaps some damage penalty as suggested above with alien armor being designed for their plasma weapons. 

This would mean using alien tech early on to plug the weapon damage defect is almost encouraged but it is a glass hammer and may result in you missing some critical shots or not being able to stay as far from the enemy and snipe like you can in Xcom. 

Finally to make human built/designed plasma weapons still desirable we can make the human weapons not have the accuracy and alien armor resistance, meaning that in human hands a human plasma rifle is as effective as the alien one in alien hands.

To prevent the alien weapons just becoming junk you sell late in the game I suggest that we have 2 ways to manufacture a human plasma rifle: 1. the total new rifle method, pretty much the same as xenonauts 1 and 2. the re-manufactured alien rifle, requiring 2 alien rifles to produce 1 human rifle.
The logic being that it takes less resources for the technicians to refit an alien rifle for a human to use than to make one from scratch. This would make all those plasma weapons you collect a useful resource. 

Canonical reasons for these things:
Alien weapons are not correctly designed for a human to use, grips are too big/small, sights are awkward, the balance is wrong etc etc, perhaps the hand holds are designed for 3 fingers making using them with 5 always awkward and uncomfortable. 
Aliens would build armor to suit the type of damage they expect (as above)
Human rifles use a slightly different type of plasma, maybe a different element being turned into plasma, perhaps something that works in our atmosphere but not in a vacuum or other atmosphere so aliens are not adapted to deal with it 
Once alien plasma weapons have been researched we have enough understanding of how they work to modify them without catastrophic failures and techs getting fried while doing it.  

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When it comes to alien weaponry I really like the system X1 X-Division mod have. Each tier of weaponry have not just one but actually TWO types of weaponry. One of energy type and one of ballistics type. And just like X-Division operatives can and should use both types of weapons, so do the aliens. And they also have weapons resistances depending from it. Caesans, Wraths and Harridans use energy-based weaponry like phasers and plasma guns and heavily rely on energy shields for protections which are good against energy-based weapons. However they are poorly armoured and can be easily downed by ballistic weaponry. Sebilians however are very tought and armoured, extremily resistant to concusive force and ballistics but energy-based weaponry can make a short work of them. They also use a little better variant of firearms initialy because they are too dumb to be trusted more complicated and deliciate weaponry anyway. Their less intelligent friends like xenomorphs and reapers follow the same rule in inverse: reapers assisting sebilians are very resistant to lasers but are vulnerable to their handler's ballistic weapons. Sounds really reasonable in case your war pet suddenly turns on you, huh? 

I think X2 could use similar system - sure, you can pick up and use alien plasma rifle (though poor ergonomics and unfamilar design will make it unconvenient), but the alien type using it will be very likely wearing armour designed to protect from it, so you are not getting much. However, the same plasma rifle could be useful against other aliens or against brainwashed humans/collaborationist forces. Actualy if I remember correctly in original X-COM laser weaponry were more useful against sectopod then plasma weaponry, because the latter had extremely high resistance to plasma guns which make sense.
It might also actually make sense for humans to use completely different weapon technology then aliens do. While aliens focus on energy weaponry, humans will focus on ballistics and maybe melee weaponry. Because the latter works better in Earth atmosphere or something like that. Humans are already incapable of psionics but field combat shields and batons that aliens do not - why dont we make humans even more different in their weaponry too? That will make aliens even more different and huh... alien to us and will allow for some more unique gameplay then original xcom. 

X-Division also made it that instead of being sold enemy weaponry is taken apart for materials to be used in constructing the human counterparts. You take apart fancy alloy ballistic rifles - you assemble the brand new human alloy ballistic gun using the barrel and internal parts you got from them.

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I like the argument with the armor vs. damage type.
So first contact aliens should bring plasma weapons and... basically forcefields that resist plasma. Humans can loot the plasma weapons, won't make too much good against shielded opponents.
Then aliens realize that bullets can kill them - so they will prefer heavier armor. That is when the human scientists need to come up with something better - beam weapons that go through the shields faster, or the gauss which penetrates heavy armor with ease.
Kinda same with the UFO-s - light ones will come with a shield but light armor, so conventional weapons have a chance; human advanced aircraft will look like a heap of human junk built around the alien power sources, computers, and weapon systems the xenonauts have pulled out of the wreck of UFOs. Forget about building a nice a shiny new airplane - the fastest new design I know of is the P90 by Lockheed Martin (SkunkWorks) - the prototype was designed and built in like 150 days. That is awesome for the 1st US jet fighter model (and a viable one in that) - but humanity just won't have this kind of time in case of an alien invasion.
...
Let's face it - if that invasion would indeed occur, we would most certainly lose. And the reason is not the lack of resources - we have hundreds of thousands of excellent scientists and engineers, but we suck at working together, so we won't be able to do the work fast enough to survive.

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  • 2 months later...

Sorry to bump

But balancing keeping the use of alien weapons outside of a single skirmish is not insurmountable at all.

 

1. Make the alien ammo degrade pretty fast you for example you could make total alien ammo half itself each day as its base rate or even faster

2. Add repeatable research to slow the degradation as a moderate research sink. This would give a "cost" to using alien weapons over researching better home grown alternatives

3. Give the aliens a tier of weapons which I think would make the game more interesting overall

Each tier would have its own "ammo" to slow the degradation each type would have to be researched separate so for example after a significant amount of time you could get tier 1 degradation to almost nothing but then at tier 2 ammo degrades really fast again unless you pour MORE significant time into researching it.

    example alien tiers

    Tier 1 Gamma ray lasers

    Tier 2 Plasma

    Tier 3 Molecular disintegrators

and obviously you would keep the alien weapons accuracy penalty

 

Doing all of this gives an interesting stop gap alternative to researching actual weapons while allowing you to use those cool alien weapons at least for a little bit.

   

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  • 4 years later...
On 12/10/2018 at 4:19 PM, Chris said:

That's more of a fine detail thing so I'm not totally sure what I'll eventually go for, but the current intention is to go for the first option where you can't use alien weapons at all. Being able to recover and use alien weapons does tend to break the tech and manufacturing tree quite badly (as the heavy plasma in the original X-Com demonstrates).

I never use Heavy Plasma until I go to Mars. Laser Rifles with auto shot are enough to wreak havoc in most situations. Not to mention other OP stuff in UFO: Enemy Unknown like PSI-Amps and Blaster Launchers. Oh, and X-COM: Apocalypse teleporters, those were lots of fun, especially in real time mode XD

But don't get me wrong. This is YOUR game, AND I LOVE EVERY BITE OF IT :D 

You did an amazing job both in the first part and this one. Like the sleek, clean art style, the aliens, the guns, the UFOs design. I'll see how for I can go with this build and than post a review at endgame.pl :D

I just did a whole story of the X-COM series and other games inspired by it that I played. Its on Polish though but you might try to read it with CHAT GPT translating it for you:

https://endgame.pl/article/seria-x-com-i-jej-nasladowcy

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On 12/10/2018 at 4:19 PM, Chris said:

That's more of a fine detail thing so I'm not totally sure what I'll eventually go for, but the current intention is to go for the first option where you can't use alien weapons at all. Being able to recover and use alien weapons does tend to break the tech and manufacturing tree quite badly (as the heavy plasma in the original X-Com demonstrates).

perhaps in later stages of the game, supported by mandatory research (alien electronics or some alien DNA research f.e.), where the alien guns could be picked up and used by xenonauts? With a possible restriction, that they could not be manufactured, but would have to picked up on the battlefield.

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On 12/10/2018 at 3:19 PM, Chris said:

That's more of a fine detail thing so I'm not totally sure what I'll eventually go for, but the current intention is to go for the first option where you can't use alien weapons at all. Being able to recover and use alien weapons does tend to break the tech and manufacturing tree quite badly (as the heavy plasma in the original X-Com demonstrates).

Defo but we should have silencers etc in our tree

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The Alien Weapons, if you read the Xenopedia correctly, have an imperative Security-System. They are only useable from the Aliens themselfs. Have you ever seen the Movie "Shoot Em Up" with Cleve Owen. There you see what an Security-System for Weapons are meant.

An other Weaponpart, like in new XCOM (XCOM Enemy Within) are the Human usable Weapons from the Cleaners. That Weapons you can use, if you whish. And from them you could make evtl. with R & D some cool Variations (like the UZI, MP or whatever) for your Xenonaut-Soldiers.

Like said, you can´t use the Alien-Weapons for 2 good Reasons:

1. The imperative Security-System. For that you have cutting of the Alien Hand / Hands. But then it´s not said that the Weapon work and if it theoretically would work on Field Conditions it will be very unhandy. That´s the worsest Situation an Soldier in Combat can have.

2. Like from the Chief-Sientist said you can test them in Laboratory-Parameters (which get done from the Scientists to Research the Alien-Weapons in all Parts) and find an Solution to Upgrade / Refit / Rework your own Weapons & Ammo.

 

It dosen´t make Sense to do an Copy & Paste from other Games (like old X-Com, UFO ET-Series or similar). In the UFO ET-Series you will get an big unhandy-discount.

Edited by Alienkiller
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12 hours ago, Dren608 said:

And Gas Masks/Vision goggles for Assaults that go into the Smoke filled rooms. We had that once upon a time in alpha/beta versions, don't know why it went away.

Yeah that is the one change that perplexing me as well. For some reason smoke grenades can stun now. Instead of actually having sleep gas grenades we have this boring middle ground that makes no sense. Smoke grenades can’t stun irl.

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On 12/14/2018 at 12:57 PM, Ninothree said:

The Apoc weapon techs were interesting. Most aliens start with natural weapons (e.g. goo spitters) that you can't steal. Then they have light firearms. You steal those firearms, then the game introduces aliens with shields - these counter to your developing weapons tech. By the time you have the heavier 'plasma' guns, the aliens are using an entropy launcher, that has homing capabilities. Ultimately, you develop the toxigun. The top-tier tech is biological for both sides.

But the neatness of it all is the way that alien techs come in phases so that once you get the advantage, you lose it soon after. If the aliens are dropping the game's best weapons from the get-go, then it messes all that up. Granted, you can play around with some argument of ergonomics, but it seems a little silly that a scientist can't rig up some human trigger on a plasma. So yeah, the alien-armour-resistance argument holds up better. That would then pave way for human armour to feel improved design features (plasma resistance), and human top-tier weapons to end up somewhere like kinetics.

In terms of the original post, about using alien weapons, I like the idea that they have a niche use when scavenged e.g. blowing hole through a wall, but take too much TU to use in a regular fight. Behind that, there needs to be a solid explanation for why humans can't deploy them in the field, or make much use of them in the base.

Toxiguns weren't even top tier. They started low tier, as they had 3 tiers of ammo. You could research them and the first tier of ammo by the early game, but they weren't very effective against the larger types of enemies until you brought a few of the mid tier enemies down and researched the mid tier ammo. The top tier ammo required you to research nearly every single enemy type in the game including a capture mission for them, which is something you could get locked out of. This made it an op weapon that required you to go out of your way to earn.

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2 minutes ago, SoulFilcher said:

I'd rather give them some use, like the suggested re-purpose to create the human version, over simply being sold like they are now. And on that note, we have way too many recovered items that can only be sold, might as well sell them automatically when the mission ends.

I'll agree with this, especially since we can't even batch sell for a single price anymore. What's the point in not selling everything when we get it? What's the point in wasting our storage space? It feels like alien loot is more of a gotcha than a reward at this point.

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It might be fun to have the option of using alien weapons that are dropped, but the point about them being OP is very fair. So how about some significant penalties to their use? Ideas include:

* They're not optimised for human use, so their accuracy is massively reduced;
* Their inbuilt security system causes some damage to the user every time they're fired;
* As humans aren't proficient in their use there's a chance they could explode when fired, causing significant damage to the user and anyone within a blast radius;
* They can't be reloaded;
* They can only be used on the mission they're dropped.

So, you wouldn't really want to use them, but in a desperate situation (like you're out of ammo for your regular gun) then they could give you a roll of the dice. 

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2 hours ago, Ogilvy the Astronomer said:

It might be fun to have the option of using alien weapons that are dropped, but the point about them being OP is very fair. So how about some significant penalties to their use? Ideas include:

* They're not optimised for human use, so their accuracy is massively reduced;
* Their inbuilt security system causes some damage to the user every time they're fired;
* As humans aren't proficient in their use there's a chance they could explode when fired, causing significant damage to the user and anyone within a blast radius;
* They can't be reloaded;
* They can only be used on the mission they're dropped.

So, you wouldn't really want to use them, but in a desperate situation (like you're out of ammo for your regular gun) then they could give you a roll of the dice. 

I believe the question is, if there will be a human-produced plasma weapons implemented in the game. Not talking about alien magnetic weapons, as there alredy is a human-made counterpart to them.

If YES (after research just like with laser weapons f.e.), then there is no need to use the alien weapons.

If NOT, I'd say lets use them (after proper research to "hack" the security system in the individual guns of course - could be done in workshop - this would also limit the amount of hacked plasma weapons), make them heavier than human weapons with less ammo, and higher TU usage for human user (not human ergonomy) but powerful as they are (I believe the plasma rifle does 56 damage). Then you have a very powerful gun, which has low ammo and costs you more to fire. Compare this to an advanced laser rifle or gauss rifle and the choice is clear - plasma only as a Last resort or for plasma lovers, by sacrifice of battlefield effectivity.

Gameplay example: I have been in multiple situations, where my grenadier was out of ammo without secondary gun (had a medkit as secondary) and stood on a alien corpse, which had a plasma rifle. If he would be able to use it, he could have had a chance to continue fighting.

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