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Will there be bigger transport vehicles?


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I'm hoping that the tech tree will get bigger at some point and have bigger troop transport vehicles. I'm sure I read ages ago that there was only going to be one size, i.e. 8 troops only.  Ever.  Which, if true, really sucks. I've done a search of the boards, but couldn't really find much. 

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That was the original plan. yeah, but we're now planning to add a dropship upgrade project that increases the carrying capacity of the drosphip in the relatively near future. We just need to do a few updates to the dropship screen in order to support this first.

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I always found it odd in these games that your organization can own multiple dropships, but can't seem to figure out how to send them all on the same mission together.

Makes sense from a game balance perspective.  Not so much from a real world logic perspective :)

Edited by Kindred192
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11 hours ago, Kindred192 said:

I always found it odd in these games that your organization can own multiple dropships, but can't seem to figure out how to send them all on the same mission together.

Makes sense from a game balance perspective.  Not so much from a real world logic perspective :)

Would be interesting being able to field two transports to the same location, two different start points for each team with a party in the middle of the map!

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13 hours ago, Kindred192 said:

I always found it odd in these games that your organization can own multiple dropships, but can't seem to figure out how to send them all on the same mission together.

Makes sense from a game balance perspective.  Not so much from a real world logic perspective :)

I'd say it is balanced by the need for two hangars, two dropship and twice as many troops (and $$$ to pay for it all).

I find it is bad design when the player has the resources, but the game does not let you use them.

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36 minutes ago, TrashMan said:

I'd say it is balanced by the need for two hangars, two dropship and twice as many troops (and $$$ to pay for it all).

I find it is bad design when the player has the resources, but the game does not let you use them.

It's the same design issue as not having close air support; at some point you just trivialize the game parts of the game.

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It has been said before, but XCOM2's move to guerrilla warfare really did make a lot of sense. It explained away a lot of these issues. If the desired game is one where you have a small squad fighting on the ground then the original xcom premise is very hard to justify.

Forgetting the lore side of things, there is still a limit. Imagine moving 20 units in a turn based strategy. If you bunched them, you'd have a ridiculous concentration of firepower. Besides, it would take an age to move all your units.

I guess some of it relates to the map size too. In a huger environment, it could be more desirable to split up a squad of 20 into smaller fire-teams. But the feel of ground combat should be that you reach the end of your turn wishing that you had just a couple more soldiers for a clean up.

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21 hours ago, Decius said:

It's the same design issue as not having close air support; at some point you just trivialize the game parts of the game.

CAS could be added (a helicopter/VTOL vehicle that you can periodically call in - but that again comes at a cost - another hangar space, another aircraft to maintain, and it wouldn't be of use on many maps), but at the same time, what about alien CAS? Just because you were able to land troops, doesn't mean you have air dominance.

 

Basically, there are 3 scenarios:

1 - you have a support craft, the aliens don't: Every X turns you can call in support

2 - you don't have support craft, the aliens do: Every X turns, the aliens can call in support

3 - both side have support craft - the support craft duke it out, air support is either unavailable or sporadic

Then comes the question of power. If CAS has the big guns, then regular cover is NOT going to keep your troops safe, and suddenly the entire dynamic breaks. Loosing your troops to attacks you cannot counter is no fun. Thus there would have to be a way to keep your troops safe (perhaps a way outside of your own CAS). Soldiers with AA missiles that project a BUBBLE inside which the enemy CAS cannot operate?

It becomes a complicated issue or how do I make it fun, engaging AND make sense? 

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If the aliens have an equivalent to the Vietnam-era AC-130, the impact of them on the tactical landscape is "On the first turn of CAS, the dropship is destroyed along with the largest cluster of Xenonauts. On the next turn and every subsequent turn, all Xenonauts not in hard cover are killed, or one cluster of xenonauts in hard cover is killed and the cover destroyed, unless they are in melee combat with aliens that the gunship cares about hurting with friendly fire."

 

One way of avoiding that is to make the local forces air defense good enough to deter close air support operations. But that just removes the alien CAS from the equation entirely. Xenonaut CAS using an AC-130 equivalent is also impossible while the war remains secret; large, slow-moving planes loitering and firing 105mm cannons at the ground are hard to hide.

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  • 3 weeks later...

In regards CAS, I'm assuming there is some impetus to minimize collateral damage (including damage to recoverable objects from the Aliens) and also keep the operational footprint low. Otherwise why deploy small units of infantry at all?

Basically from a game lore perspective. There has to be some reason why both sides are using limited forces and limited firepower and are engaged in low intensity operations for the game to make sense at all.

I for one would definitely be interested, from a gameplay perspective, in being able to have more troops on a mission.... something like around 30 max (platoon size) would be fun for me....assuming the proper size maps  and opposition. That is still a pretty small level of deployment troopwise when you think about it. I've also played plenty of other turn based games with that many units or more to manage (panzer general, WH40K Santctus Reach, etc) it's not at all unmanigable. It's just a little different style.

 

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Support we won´t get. That will destroy the entire game. It will be like all other Games: You have your ground troop, the Aliens have their Ground troop. One will survive like in the good old X-Com-Series, in UFO Extrateriestials, in UFO Aftershock-Series etc. And you will ever have a limitation of Soldiers, because Personal and Soldiers are expensive. They are fix costs and you have to upgarde and buildup the Base too. And not to forget the Upgardes / Modifications for the Soldiers, Fighters as well as your Transport. 

The only thing I missing atm is the Modification of Armors and Weapons with extra things. Like extra Plates for the Standard-Suit, Upgrades for existing Weapons etc. which the Devs wanna make better to the old Xenonauts. 

Forget the "extra Support" and 20 + Groups. You have to use what you have and that will be the maxium same sices like in the Original Xenonauts. 12 or 14 Soldiers if I have remember that correctly. Instead the Soldiers you can bring in an Assistance-Vehicle if you have the Technology.

The Upgradethings for Armor / Weapons and the Assistance-Vehicle will come in if it´s not yet implemented. That we will get, but not "extra Support" or "Mass of Troops".

 

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Just now, Alienkiller said:

Support we won´t get. That will destroy the entire game. It will be like all other Games: You have your ground troop, the Aliens have their Ground troop. One will survive like in the good old X-Com-Series, in UFO Extrateriestials, in UFO Aftershock-Series etc. And you will ever have a limitation of Soldiers, because Personal and Soldiers are expensive. They are fix costs and you have to upgarde and buildup the Base too. And not to forget the Upgardes / Modifications for the Soldiers, Fighters as well as your Transport. 

The only thing I missing atm is the Modification of Armors and Weapons with extra things. Like extra Plates for the Standard-Suit, Upgrades for existing Weapons etc. which the Devs wanna make better to the old Xenonauts. 

Forget the "extra Support for Xenonauts and Aliens" as well as "Groups of Soldiers which will come from several sides". You have to use what you have and that will be the maxium same sices like in the Original Xenonauts. 12 or 14 Soldiers if I have remember that correctly. Instead the Soldiers you can bring in an Assistance-Vehicle if you have the Technology.

The Upgradethings for Armor / Weapons and the Assistance-Vehicle will come in if it´s not yet implemented. That we will get, but not "extra Support" or "Mass of Troops".

 

 

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I always saw it as the militaries having all of the real air power, while the Xenonauts, XCOM, XDiv, etc, was supposed to be the proving ground or Stark-esque situation that pivots the war. I'd like to see it addressed at some point as a "your goal is to research and test this stuff, not to single handedly win with war with a dozen people". There would definitely be a better way to put that, but being in a sort of business or development role would definitely explain why they don't get access to do much more than help the military when they're losing. Speaking of, I hope TMs get more friendlies this time around. Even if they suck, it's great when they do stuff. Like this one time one of the Supercops, as I call them, took out a bunch of reapers outside of a UFO, as well as a couple sebillians before bleeding out. So, we get there, wonder where everyone was, and there's just this pile of corpses in front of a cop with an empty pistol. WHat a legend.

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