Thoughts on Chaos and Curiosities

[Coffee Potato]

So with a good number of nice things coming into the game now, I wanted to see what the future of the chaos element might be for this one. The best example I can think of for this would be WOTC at this point, with random aspects leading to some wild mission variety. I had some ideas, and was curious if any were either already in the books, or had been discounted (I've been reading through posts here, but haven't come across these yet)

-Random Competence in Guest AI-

While AI isn't quite there yet, I was curious if it was possible to somewhat randomize how civvies perform. For example, maybe some random guy happens to have a bat with him, and decides to go bumrush a sebillian. Maybe one of the cops there just happens to be the John Wick of their particular county. I know running into one rando unit completely decimating a ton of the mission by sheer chance always made me giddy in the original, it just made the world feel alive. Or, a recent XDiv stream, where a bunch of soldiers around a base competently held their own against a bunch of ceseans, pinning them down until we could push through. Is there a way to have more randomness to how they behave? (In the future, again, I know it's not in there yet). Maybe they could want to join in the end?

-AI Reloads/Bleed-

I always mentally note to check this out, but never saw the AI reloading...and I guess we wouldn't see that happen. One gripe I personally had about the original, even if it was understandable from a design perspective, was that cannons never needed reloading. The other stuff, sure, hand wave, etc, but for the longest time, I thought they had cheat TUs or something. Will they be reloading, or at least not rapid firing rocket launchers? Will the bleed mechanic apply to them?

-Odds of Ambush/Movement Speed-

A UI thing I'd love to see is some indication of where your reaction %s lie when moving. It would help a lot in determining what might be a safer run. Would it be possible to have a faster, or more evasive run mode? (Visually, it would be awesome to see something like Silent Storm, where their position while running froze, and determined their hit box during an Interrupt Attack.)

-Armor Mechanics-

I just hope that when Insane mode or some such rolls around, armor actually still matters. I felt like a lot of the armors were a bit of a waste at times, since being ambushed usually resulted in instant death anyhow. It looks like the Dodge mechanic will be the answer to this, will there be a chance to have a Deflect roll for heavier armors?

-Friendly Suppression-

I read that your remaining TUs determined bravery when being psionically attacked. Will this apply to situations where you want to lay down some HMG down a hall before sending everyone else in? 

-Landing Craft-

Will there be any landing craft gadgets or props? Like...deployable cover, turrets, landing smoke, etc? Maybe sacrifice a crew slot for that? 

-Unusual Situations-

I saw a post about multiple UFO landings and such, got me thinking about other stuff I always wanted to see in the genre.

• Pacification of Mind Controlled Populace (Coming in with Stun batons, while trying to hunt down the Psyons controlling them)
• PR Battle (Defend some civilian camera crews while filling an episode of SPACE COPS)
• Base Saving (Save some locals from a base raid or some such. See someone else getting raided for once, maybe they're a decoy base?)
• Arm Locals (Something akin to Jagged Alliance here, but maybe you could ship some weapons to a region, where they would use them for a couple battles or so in that region)
• Joint Invasion (Maybe if your relations were like...75 or higher, a neighboring region could deploy a few extra units either with you or on the other side of the map?)
• Air Support (Maybe 1-2 times per that round, probably based on region relationship, it could throw down some AoE fire in an area? Like say the equivalent of a couple rockets, or some 30 shots scattering in an area? Seems like a way to allow air support, and limit it at the same time, presumably no one can afford to lose planes. Or hell, just make it available, but have accuracy based on relations, so maybe 10 would suppress your own people instead.)

Sorry for the long post, but I was curious. Also I talk too much. Also I Love this dang game. Thank You in advance!

[Coffee Potato]

Actually, was just cleaning, and was wondering how in depth the side missions might be. What are the odds of being able to either auto resolve, or manually do those? Mentally, I'm picturing, and hoping for something like FFT: A2 on this. Like there already seems to be signs of this, and I read a post hinting that it might be this way, but I really hope there will be some stuff in there that might catch people off guard. 

Random ideas no one asked for, and might already exist:
-Sending someone out to compete against other "elite" branches, giving you some extra recruits for the month if they win.
-Send units to learn an area, providing off-map sniper cover for the next fight there.
-Let a unit serve as a dimplomat, or let scientists/engineers attend a conference, attempting to improve relations with an area. Maybe they could crit success a faster research dealie?
-Send a squad to go train locals, giving an extra couple units in case of a terror mission. 
-Send a soldier, scientist, and engineer to fortify an area, making it less likely to get a terror mission.
 

Other random thought...can we get radar boats this time?

[stewpidbear]

Do like the idea of airsupport, couple of A10 runs or two turns of Spectre Gunship fire support!

[Coffee Potato]

Personally I'd wonder if it could be tiered as time went on. Like an AoE rocket boom or 3x HMG situation over an area to start, which could become Alenium/lasers later, becoming a space laser/cannons by the end. 

Just thinking that design-wise, it would give region relations another use, and should only take some off map attack unit, plus a limited UI element to target it.

[Decius]

Adding artillery and removing fog of war wouldn't improve the tactical game.

[Max_Caine]

It's fairly easy to simulate artillery and similar things without having to code it, using the existing code definitions for weapons. I've done it. It's boring, unless you like steamrolling levels where giant explosions flatten both opposition and the terrain around them. 

[Coffee Potato]

I agree that would be iffy, but it would be nice to have some more random moments of levity, like the scouts with only one snake man on board from UFO, or sectoid raids in EU, or ground support showing up in WOTC. Or, XDiv locals doing awesome every now and then.

 

I guess the main thing the game seemed to lack, in my opinion, is a short break from the dread aside from the science reports. It's probably why I latched onto the cop npcs,  their pistol antics gave some hope. 

Edited July 7, 2019 by Coffee Potato