Idea for Alien Trait

[Belmakor]

Have a suggestion for one of the mid-late game alien races. It doesn't matter too much aesthetically which race but I think it might an interesting mechanic to the game to differentiate this race over the others...

Mechanics

One of the Alien races has a plague or airborne disease. You don't know about this until your first encounter with the race. Perhaps this could be managed one of two ways,

1. Any soldier within 2-3 tiles of this alien, either alive or dead has a high chance of contracting an illness. This would mean that soldiers storming the alien ship will almost certainly contract it - while others may not.

OR

2. Any soldier taking part in this mission without vaccination contracts the illness.

Effects and Consequence

Effects of the illness are not immediate and only discovered upon return to base. Infected soldiers are automatically sent to the medical bay to recover for some period of time. There is a reasonable chance that without a vaccine each soldier will die within 1-2 weeks (or some other game-balanced time). However, your scientist immediately come up with a program that can be researched to stabilise infected soldiers, which removes their chance of dying. This should be possible using only the initial research lab space (to avoid the unlikely chance of people auto-losing these soldiers because they don't have enough research capability).

Future soldiers that take part in missions against these aliens and become infected only spend a few days (or some random amount of time) in the med-bay under quarantine and recovery. This means you are not under any danger, but you do have to consider that soldiers on missions against this race will likely be out for some time upon completion forcing you to rethink what balance of force you take on the mission.

Counter

After your first experience of this illness, you can complete a new research option for a vaccination. This will initially be a race against the clock as you may have one or more (potentially experienced) soldiers infected with a very high chance of dying. This might cause an interesting conundrum for players - do you switch all your scientists onto a vaccination or do you let your soldiers die and focus on researching the next super weapon.

Obviously the idea needs some work but I thought it might add a little interesting variety as-well as a lore friendly "oh sh*t" moment in the middle of the game once you realise half your top soldiers are about to die unless you immediately switch your research priorities.

[Gorlom]

Sounds like something that would be fun only the first time you experience it, and only be annoying if you knew of it beforehand.

I would remove the "dead if you don't switch to researching the vaccine" mechanic. Mostly because I don't think it would be fun, secondly because it seems like a pain to code (the mechanic to alter recovery time after the soldier has ended up in the sickbay because of an outside event, as well as adding the mechanic that soldiers can die in sickbay) and would prevent the suggestion from getting into the game.

[Oktober]

I approve of this idea, but only if the illness turns Xenonauts into zombies.

Bonus points if you can then take your Zombienauts on missions and let them loose in towns to try and draw alien fire.

[hudcrab]

I think this is a really cool idea. I agree, having the soldiers die is possibly a bit harsh - maybe just have them quarantined until you can research and manufacture a cure. There should then be a tech for creative a vaccine.

This could also probably lead on to some sort of bioweaponry, perhaps - thus meaning it's not just an annoyance on a second playthrough but, in fact, a useful discovery.

[Gauddlike]

Maybe it could prevent advancement by experience gain (causes memory problems?) or steadily reduce stats over time (wasting disease?) rather than killing troops.

[BeatStroganoff]

Its a good idea, could lead onto a lot more. For example, have you thought that the aliens could catch disease from humans as well. Think about the early explorers meeting up with previously unknown people and lands. It was often the case that both parties became sick because their bodies didn't contain the antibodies needed to fight off the illness. This could also lead to biological warfare. There would be a lot of new content to add to the game. Maybe someone could make a mod using these ideas.