Gauddlike Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 Alien spawn points should be pretty much random (hopefully avoiding areas you can't reach). The AI behaviour for each should change as well. Even if they were to spawn in the same place they may sometimes be defensive and wait for you while other times going civvie hunting or retreating back to their ship. The problem with knowing exactly where your objective is would be that it doesn't really matter where the aliens spawn. If they aren't either in the ship, or on the easiest path to the ship, you will never bump into them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quartermaster Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 The reason for not just assaulting the alien craft and ignoring everything else is multifold. First you will lose the valuable resources that the aliens are carrying (about 30k in weapons & alenium in the form of clips). Secondly, they will spend the time that you are capturing the ship cutting down the civilians weakening your score with that country. Additionally, depending on how good the AI ends up being, you may have to worry about a coordinated counter-attack, delaying tactics by the forces defending the UFO, or ambushes. Just because you are bee lining to the ship does not suddenly make scout armor useless. The main benefit of scout armor in an assault is that it lets you see and fire at aliens before they can do the same to you. Thus the visibility of scout armor is in a sense a different kind of defense (in that you avoid fire). The reason to display it on the overhead but not remove fog of war in the regular display is that the way the sub maps functions is such that you design multiple buildings with the same exterior, but different interiors. Since one is randomly chosen from the list there will be times when you are able to cut through a certain building for cover and others where it just prohibits your movement. Having it only on the overhead map maintains a lot of the aspects of not knowing what is there while simultaneously giving you a rough enough sketch to formulate a battle plan with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StellarRat Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 I just had this crazy idea! Alien sniffing XCom dogs! Perfect for finding the hiders! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vivisector 9999 Posted August 7, 2012 Author Share Posted August 7, 2012 Awww. But what about the risk to your score? The public would be in an uproar if you allowed those poor animals to get annihilated in a hail of plasma! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thothkins Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 Well that''s the doggie version. In the kitty version, the cat stays in the Chinook with a motion scanner and sends the humans out... to kill aliens and fetch it nom noms and cat toys. All hail XenoKitty! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StellarRat Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 Well we all know that cats are experts at detecting and avoiding aliens! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thothkins Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 This is Jonesy, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vivisector 9999 Posted August 7, 2012 Author Share Posted August 7, 2012 Cats would be good role models for the aliens, too. After all, every X-COM player has memories of scouring the map for zillions of turns trying to find that last fricking alien. Well, cats are experts in wedging themselves behind, under, between, on top of, or just plain into the most obscure places. A cat-like alien race would be among the most irritating threats of them all! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thothkins Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 It's the needless torture of your Xenonauts, that might be a problem when faced with a single XenoKitty. It's demoralising to have your entire squad hunted down, toyed with and left dead or mutilated at the door of your supposedly secret Xenobase as a pressie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gauddlike Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Cats would be good role models for the aliens, too. After all, every X-COM player has memories of scouring the map for zillions of turns trying to find that last fricking alien. Well, cats are experts in wedging themselves behind, under, between, on top of, or just plain into the most obscure places. A cat-like alien race would be among the most irritating threats of them all! Scouring every last inch of the combat zone to find that last XenoKitty would be even less fun when you get back and find it has apparently been asleep on your bed the whole time, even though you looked there twice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StellarRat Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Scouring every last inch of the combat zone to find that last XenoKitty would be even less fun when you get back and find it has apparently been asleep on your bed the whole time, even though you looked there twice.true. Xenokitty would not be too dangerous, 90% of the time it would get shot in its sleep. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinitum Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Frankly though, partial fog of war showing the map outlines is the only sensible approach here (perhaps with actual fog of war covering the insides of buildings but that's that). If you want to be really hardcore about it have it randomize how much of the map is visible from the start but at the very least justify it somewhow, preferrably on the mission briefing screen - "HQ couldn't procure military maps in time", "low visibility due to low cloud cover", "first response recon driven off by plasma fire", "Pilot had tummyache on approach" and so on and so forth. Repeteadly having all of your guys repeatedly form a picket line in order to find the goddamn objective isn't a feature, it's tedium. And tedium is bad design by default. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorlom Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Tedium or suspense building. Depends on how you see it. I rather like the black FoW. I want it just the way it is, the way it was in X-com. I think that knowing where the objective is would make everything more tedious. I remember being bored out of my mind with the maps in the UFO AfterX series. Granted they had premade maps rather then lack of FoW, but the point still stands. If I know exactly where the objective is it just becomes and exercise in pressing the end turn button oh so many times until my guys arrive where I want them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donald007duck Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 (edited) i agree with not knowing where the ship is as the helecopter might need to avoid ground fire,and will land fast in any direction to get its troops offloaded. in addition i think there should be a map where either the alien ship or helecopter is in middle of map to changing tactics up rather than just same actions over and over i usually just clear 90% of map to the ship in corner then take out aliens. with a ship(expecially alien) in the middle of map you may find it faster but your tactics are totally different as you have to clear out around the ship not just to the ship and also makes support farther away even if only a few tiles on other side of a ship. this also would make the same identical map a totaly different playing experiance(*with exception of ship placement) Edited August 10, 2012 by donald007duck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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