Can scintists die during research?

[sectoid]

That's the current plan. You lose the base defense is the command centre is 'taken' or destroyed, since its assumed that there is a bunker under it where non-combatants hide. And the base reactor too I guess.

if for defending base, i prefer 3-5 times more alien enemy.

all these enemy will emerged from airlock/access lift, and our soldiers will need to rush to the strategic location (bottleneck of the corridor, maybe) to start some sort of "tower-defense", or otherwise, secure whatever spot that seems advantage to hold of the enemy marching. in short, when the turn begins, it should have 3-5 times of invading aliens (please consider putting this in "Superhuman" difficulty, LOL).

[Sathra]

Except there are multiple possible points of entry for aliens besides the lift and hangars. What they are, we don't know. Wild guess suggests defense turrets and garages.

[anotherdevil]

No offense guys but a lot of these ideas have been brought up elsewhere on these forums (or even within this thread). you should have a look around. I'll try to sum up some of them, but I might miss a few, so do have a look.

1. You get to choose your soldiers starting positions at the start of the mission.

2. As Sathra said, aliens don't only attack from hangars and access lifts.

3. Also stated before, Command centre is a must defend, there may be other secondary objectives though

4. How well your base defenses do against the oncoming ship will affect how many aliens make it into the base

5. Things like automated turrets, and security rooms are out. Things like cameras, and motion sensors are being explored.

6. You can only control up to 16 soldiers, so what happens to the rest of your forces in the base (should you have over 16) is a bit in the air at the moment. Some think that they should turn into stationary NPC guards, others think they should evac with the scientists (me)

And perhaps a bit more. Have a read around, there's plenty to read and enjoy

[81dB]

The only disappointment I have from that list is the 16 soldier cap.

I was really hoping for 30+ soldiers to be fielded at a time during end-game battles. You wouldn't bring only 16 soldiers to try and capture a titanic battleship would you? Apoc let you field 36 soldiers with a very organized and intuitive UI.

This kind of goes back to squads being in the game or not. In TFTD/UFOD (and Xenonauts from the looks of it), you split your soldiers up into squads randomly and on the fly as you did the mission. However in Apoc, you assigned them into squads before each mission. Squads can also be edited on the battlescape, for example in case 2 out of 4 guys are in critical condition and have to leave.

There were two ways of using squads in Apoc:

In the beginning, you would split your squads up into typical fireteams, such as 1 rifleman, 1 sniper, 1 shotgun, 1 grenadier. However, as you get more soldiers and bigger aircraft, you would then split your squads up into entire units. An example of 4 squads in the end-game would be:

- 4 Close Combat Specialists (Shotgun, Stun-Rod, etc.)

- 4 Snipers

- 4 Riflemen

- 4 Special Weapons

You could then split these four squads up to do separate tasks within the mission, and not have to look "for that one guy that i sent over here, somewhere". Maybe you have the shotgun squad breaching rooms, while the sniper team provides cover fire from afar. Then you can send the special weapons with the riflemen to blow up the main generator on the other side of the map. It's also harder to remember soldier #13, than it is to remember "the sniper in squad 2".

Unless my memory sucks, you were able to field 26 soldiers with an avenger in UFOD, so it kind of sucks shrinking the number down to 16.

[KOKON]

There were two ways of using squads

I was generally splitting in 3 groups while playing with no saves at all.

1 - dead meat + robots

2 - guys that should survive

3 - guys without armour (i usualy had not eneugh of money to fullfill all armor needs) + guys who must not die at all costs

Edited November 25, 2011 by KOKON

[81dB]

My dead meat + robots were usually in my CQC squad, armed with stun-rods

Then, once they've earned their stripes, I give them real weapons.

[anotherdevil]

See having more than 16 people sounds all well and good, but you're supposed to be a tactical team, blowing up UFOs, then raiding them and getting back to base.

Having 30+ makes you feel more like an army, will make each and every one of the missions very long (aliens would have to have corresponding amounts to balance it, that's a lot of loading for the computer to do).

Then combine that with the large amount of missions you'll be getting close together (the aliens come in waves), and also the fact that having that many troops really removes any personal connection to your soldiers, and it doesn't sound too appealing to me.

Original War was an RTS, and in that you barely ever got above 10 men, and that was awesome good fun. Tight, you really had to know what everyone was up to, and you always regretted foolishly sending one of your engineers off on their own only for them to get killed

[KOKON]

Having 30+ makes you feel more like an army

It doesn't mean that you will send 30 men to every mission. But game engine should allow it.

Limit the number of men sent to mission in the early game.

- Skyranger could not take more then 16 or so.

- Make it to be too expencive to have the full team for all the drops.

- Make armour to be expensive.

In xcom avanger had 24 slots or even more. Have you always pumped it with men?

In apoc you could have at least 24 men on a mission, i don't believe that you sent more then 16

Then, once they've earned their stripes, I give them real weapons.

Lol that's smth new )))

Edited November 26, 2011 by KOKON

[Sathra]

Having a limit really helps with balancing though. Knowing that the maximum troops a player can bring is 16 helps to refine it. The higher the variance for player unit numbers, the harder it is to balance.

It also helps that in probably (at least) 50% of situations you won't even need to bring that many. 30 is just ridiculous.

[81dB]

I humbly disagree. You'd only need to make bigger maps and increase alien count to match a player's 30 soldiers. The player would have to spread his soldiers out, and have multiple front lines, as well as increased care in clearing out a map. Landing right in the middle of a big map with all the aliens surrounding you would make you wish you brought 30 soldiers, because your front lines are going to be suffering losses just coming out of the transport. You'd think that the aliens would've already taken up defensive positions after the crash to be able to ambush any Xenonaut transports. You can also add a "Troop density estimation" rating for alien UFOs, such as Light/Medium/Heavy, to recommend how many troops you should bring to this battle (16/24/32).

Though, that's a lot of work probably, especially if you want to randomize elements of a huge map. In Apoc, it was pretty common to bring 24+ soldiers when you were raiding the alien world, because there were going to be plenty of alien reinforcements, and you wanted as many TUs per turn (aka soldiers) as you could get. With the right elements, even 24+ soldier battles can be quite tough and tactical. Morale also plays a bigger role, as losing a captain or colonel on the battlefield could make 3-4 other soldiers panic. You might have 5-6 soldiers dead, and 20+ injured after your raids are over.

How about if the Chinook's carrying capability was lowered to 12, and the starting tank was removed? The player then gains transports that can carry 16, 24, 32 soldiers as they advance thru their tech tree and face advanced/increased counts of aliens. Then, if you can make multiple-part missions, similar to those cargo ship missions in TFTD. You would field 24+ soldiers, but you'd have to battle through 2-3+ maps without stopping. Your transport lands on one edge of the map, and you have to bring all your soldiers to the other side, thus loading the 'next map', and then you must eliminate the next map as well.

Ammo, medkits, etc. would all play a bigger factor. You might even need a few full-time medics armed with only a pistol and 3 medkits. Maybe even 1-2 "supply soldiers", carrying various ammo and explosives. Explosives/rockets get quite heavy, and you can make demolition-type scenarios where having those high explosives would be very useful. This would also forgo the need for big maps, as you can chain as many regular sized maps together as you want.

This might increase turn processing times, but Apoc had quite a lot of aliens on some battlescapes, and it handled it quite fine. I'd settle for 24 soldiers though, but 16 is quite low for a cap. 32 is my ideal cap, but I can see how that may seem unbalanced/overwhelming for others.

Edited November 27, 2011 by 81dB

[anotherdevil]

I humbly disagree. You'd only need to make bigger maps and increase alien count to match a player's 30 soldiers.

See the problem is that's a lot of work. Making randomised maps of that size is a lot more work, especially to keep it all fresh and new. There is also the problem of what happens if the player doesn't want to/can't bring 30 troops. Do they automatically lose the game because in the last mission they lost/injured too many troops, therefore making this mission far to hard to be practical?

Then, if you can make multiple-part missions, similar to those cargo ship missions in TFTD. You would field 24+ soldiers, but you'd have to battle through 2-3+ maps without stopping. Your transport lands on one edge of the map, and you have to bring all your soldiers to the other side, thus loading the 'next map', and then you must eliminate the next map as well.

That was a feature that I believe was not liked by many of the games players. It forced you to fight the same amount of aliens over and over again (essentially resupplying the alien horde), and every casualty that you take only makes it harder and harder. And there is no way to recuperate between missions either, nor to resupply depleted squads.

Something like that may be acceptable on an incredibly tough mission (base etc.), but for a regular mission I think it's just bad game mechanics.

Why exactly do you think that 16 is too low? What's the problem with 16 soldiers?

[Sathra]

^ What AD said.

Also, the Chinook's carrying capacity is 12, 8 with a tank. The highest tier dropship will have something like 16 troops slots and I think 2 vehicle slots.

Having too many soldiers can make the combat more complex. It would also probably require a UI redesign to make it more playable (such as being able to control squads of troops as a single unit).

[81dB]

See the problem is that's a lot of work. Making randomised maps of that size is a lot more work, especially to keep it all fresh and new. There is also the problem of what happens if the player doesn't want to/can't bring 30 troops. Do they automatically lose the game because in the last mission they lost/injured too many troops, therefore making this mission far to hard to be practical?

Yes, yes, which is why I suggested the multi-map scenario to avoid having to make big maps. You can stitch a bunch of medium-sized maps together. I was a fan of those multi-step missions, even though they sucked at night (but every mission sucks at night). Just make the rewards worthy of the battle. Players would be willing to lose soldiers if it meant gaining a huge boost to their research, or PR.

Do they automatically lose the game because in the last mission they lost/injured too many troops, therefore making this mission far to hard to be practical?

Sure, but this wouldn't occur unless you were losing a lot of soldiers in every battle. For example, for the first 2 months, you can beat every mission with only 12 soldiers, then you'd need 16, 20, 24, etc., as the aliens get more and more advanced, as well as more and more show up. You'd also only be able to transport 12 in the very beginning, and when you are able to transport more, you are able to afford more soldiers. But if you're playing on insane difficulty and you made too many mistakes, then yeah, you should lose the region (or game) as a result of having too few soldiers. That's kind of how it worked in the classics anyway. If you couldn't afford soldiers, you must've been screwing up royally lately.

However, like I said earlier, 24 as a cap is fine for me. 16 soldiers and 2 vehicles is 24 slots total. I'm hoping we can replace those 2 vehicles with 8 soldiers if we want to.

The multi-map scenarios don't necessarily have to be used on Earth missions, but instead in the end-game, when we are gearing up to raid alien worlds. In Apoc, you had to bring that many *because* there was no resupplying between every mission, and because the aliens' world would be infested with hostile forces (you'd think). It took a week or so to travel to the alien dimension and back, so bringing 30 soldiers with you was pretty common. You'd want to do as much damage as you could before having to pull out. I'm not sure what the end-game in Xenonauts would be like, but if these aliens are Martians, for example, then we'd probably want to bring at least 30 soldiers for our raid on Mars to do as much damage as possible before retreating.

Why exactly do you think that 16 is too low? What's the problem with 16 soldiers?

I just think that end-game should involve more than 16 soldiers, that's all. I can see how it gets repetitive for some, but to me, battles with high soldier count vs overwhelming aliens can get quite intense and fun. Explosives are also way more fun to use with high alien count. You'd still have to minimize losses if at all possible, because the cost of soldiers, equipment, and vehicles add up if you're not careful.

Never hurts to discuss.

Edited November 27, 2011 by 81dB

[Sathra]

Nah, 16 and 2 vehicle-only slots (external carry). The troops slots can be replaced with vehicles as well. Then there's the mechs, we haven't been told much about them, and I'm not sure if they're vehicles or armour...space-wise that is.

Actually for the last mission of Apoc I just used my basic squad of 12. Disruptor armour is amazing, and add shields to that...

It all has to do with making the missions playable and avoiding tedium. You'll do ALOT of ground combats (and even more air-combats), and if you can bring a huge number of troops they get tedious to control really fast. Especially since the UFO complements have to be balanced with that in mind, and players will feel that they have to bring as many as possible (I've been playing around with the builds. 22 aliens with properly powerful weapons are incredibly hard to kill off with 8 troops and a Ferret. Its due to the cost of firing mostly).