Variety and representation of Xenonauts operatives

[SuperCaffeineDude]

Hello love the game but thought I'd post my ideas, so please don't hit me, I am writing to suggest something rather hard to implement but please think of this as more of a wishlist rather than actual expectations.

I would like to have greater attachment not just to my little SAS troopers, but to my whole military staff made up of supporting roles.

My simplest suggestion is that a skins are made of scientists and engineers so that when an alien attack occurs at your base a small number of staff (maybe those that couldn't evacuate) are at risk of becoming collateral damage.

Maybe have a panic room that is sealed during battle to house support staff. If the battle ends in defeat they would naturally be killed off, if not they are not they would return to there jobs

My next suggestion is that all staff level-up, how that is implemented would be simply be by checking how long they have served, or even better how many projects they have seen through. A scientist that has spent 2 years studying alien artefacts should be more proficient than a newb.

As stated in the title I would also like to see more types of operatives... (Mostly as NPCs)

Intelligence-Service (Men in Black)

They lower your chance of detection, increase the chances of alien base detection, have a chance of detecting alien attacks and movements off radar, and have a chance of assisting you during your attacks.

Pilots

They cost more money than a standard trooper

Exist inside the transport, equipped with a side-arm and no knowledge of how to use it. If they die you have no option to evacuate, if you lose the battle after this the transport is lost.

A pilot would add a level of risk to all land battles. And will constantly have you asking; "Do I want to risk him so I can have more firepower?". The pilot could also man fighter-craft and gain experience.

Admin Staff (Less so)

People who handle the logistics by lowering the costs of imports. They could also help by increasing the efficiently of support staff, the export value of goods and the relations between other countries.

Security Staff

They decrease the likelihood of your base being detected and assist you in base battles with gunpowder weapons

Head of Xenonauts

The base you're situated in receives efficiently perks. You can transfer to any base and, if aliens attack the base, you can fight with a side-arm. If you die you lose the game.

---end

Hope you don't mind my thoughts on what could be added, the game is looking great but I thought I'd suggest it now rather than suggest it even later down the line.

Edited August 30, 2012 by SuperCaffeineDude

[Jean-Luc]

Head of XenonautsThe base you're situated in receives efficiently perks. You can transfer to any base and, if aliens attack the base, you can fight with a side-arm. If you die you lose the game.

A xenonauts version of JA2's IMP might be fun actually. We won't be really seeing such a thing in X-nauts since soldiers are a lot more expendable (compared to JA2) and not detailed enough to allow for much customization but you could always mod in a special soldiers with a name/portrait of your choosing, buff his stats, and designate him as the head of the organization.

Since Chris is planning the implementation of perks/medals, a special perk could be modded in called "Xenonaut Leader" or whatever and it could provide certain bonuses (maybe a large bravery bonus). Should the leader ever die the leader perk could be, via modding, transferred to the next highest ranking soldier allowing you to role play a kind of line of succession.

Security Staff

They decrease the likelihood of your base being detected and assist you in base battles with gunpowder weapons.

Ever since Chris announced security guards for industrial maps I've been dreaming of a "security barracks/station" building that would spawn npc guards during base defence. They'd be armed with the best pistols available but their armour would always be at jackal-level. The Xenonaut troops would jokingly refer to them as reaper fodder.

[Gorlom]

Sounds like a different game to me. Apart from NPC soldiers in base defense I'm not really interested in any of that.

[SuperCaffeineDude]

I understand both of you two's reservations...

In terms of the whole leader thing, I was more thinking along the lines of having one blank slate of a queen bee with disposable workers. It just would have provided a cool target for late game aliens to aim for, as if they suddenly recognize you as a threat. Also it provides one more reason to fear the aliens as they would be, in some sense, trying get rid of you personally and permanently.

But with that strictly off the menu I'd say having a major battlefield leader present would still be cool, perhaps such a perk could be reversed upon the leaders demise and cause the troops to panic?

I like Jean-Luc thoughts on security, I had thought of them being controllable military-guard units similar to the NPCs that you can find helping you during your counter-attacks, but I think having a series of side-arm wielding NPCs would be much more suitable.

I worry that they might not be added on the basis that we can build a standard barracks to house our own fictional security troops, but having dirt cheap grunts as defence option that doesn't require missiles and keeping extra troops at your base would be great.

The same really applies to most of my suggestions. I just want some options to explore, in what is essentially world war 3, things that might not have been in X-com (like the flame-throwers I can't wait to see). Simply because in this game I want to not just be a leader of an elite team of troops, I'd like to be the military leader and strategist of the most advanced military organisation known to man.

Edited August 30, 2012 by SuperCaffeineDude

[Chris]

Doesn't really fit with how I envisage the game I'm afraid

[Max_Caine]

SuperCaffeineDude, just so you're aware, because of the work needed to go into making sprites, there's no such thing as a character "skin", which does make quite a lot of difference in producing new character models (which these would essentially be).

[Transcendence]

Hmm, sounds like food for mod.

I really like the idea of being able to build a Security Barracks and having a bunch of NPC Security Guards around your base when the aliens hit, giving you that little extra punch... or... more realistically... set of speed bumps... to take some of the brunt as your xenonauts mobilize.

The rest I am not such a huge fan of, each to their own mais non?

[Buzzles]

Pilots

They cost more money than a standard trooper

Exist inside the transport, equipped with a side-arm and no knowledge of how to use it. If they die you have no option to evacuate, if you lose the battle after this the transport is lost.

A pilot would add a level of risk to all land battles. And will constantly have you asking; "Do I want to risk him so I can have more firepower?". The pilot could also man fighter-craft and gain experience.

You've not really thought this suggestion through have you? The two points I've bolded basically contradict each other.

Either they're good with guns and it's the risk vs reward scenario in your latter statement, or they're rubbish, so there's no point having them leave the ship as they'll add nothing to the fight and losing them is too big a risk.

In fact, if they were on the battlefield, you'd probably have to guard them against anything bigger than a Scout UFO, meaning your combat squad gets split up.

That would be quite boring.

[Dangermouth]

Dunno. A nice mission would be to rescue a downed pilot before the bugs get 'im.

[Gorlom]

Dunno. A nice mission would be to rescue a downed pilot before the bugs get 'im.

I don't understand how this relates to the OPs suggestions... He mentions playable chinook pilots as part of your team. not as an objective in a mission or as part of planes.

Wouldn't it be better if you made a new thread then cram a suggestion into a barely related thread?

[Tam Elbrun]

looking at this from the perspective of it being a mod (as i honestly can't see a change this big happening this late in the game without the sprite system being reworked first, there's just not enough time to draw everyone the way it's set up right now) Here's my two cents:

My simplest suggestion is that a skins are made of scientists and engineers so that when an alien attack occurs at your base a small number of staff (maybe those that couldn't evacuate) are at risk of becoming collateral damage.

Maybe have a panic room that is sealed during battle to house support staff. If the battle ends in defeat they would naturally be killed off, if not they are not they would return to there jobs

You would have to completely re-sprite the basic civilians, and copy their AI, but it's doable as a mod as long as said AI is accessible to modders.

My next suggestion is that all staff level-up, how that is implemented would be simply be by checking how long they have served, or even better how many projects they have seen through. A scientist that has spent 2 years studying alien artefacts should be more proficient than a newb.

I honestly don't see the point. other than pilots and operatives why bother tracking levels? they can't fight, and i never have less than 10 people working on any one project so a slight boost to one or two of there efficiency isn't worth the effort of the mod.

Intelligence-Service (Men in Black)

They lower your chance of detection, increase the chances of alien base detection, have a chance of detecting alien attacks and movements off radar, and have a chance of assisting you during your attacks.

Easiest way to do this would be assigning existing xenonauts to "covert ops" as if you were assigning them to the chinook. as a trade off, you could have recalling them take a few days, that way having troops you're paying for but can't use as often would balance the benefit of extra men in the field and improved detection. Again though, the soldier assignment and equipment screens would need to be modifiable.

Pilots

They cost more money than a standard trooper

Exist inside the transport, equipped with a side-arm and no knowledge of how to use it. If they die you have no option to evacuate, if you lose the battle after this the transport is lost.

A pilot would add a level of risk to all land battles. And will constantly have you asking; "Do I want to risk him so I can have more firepower?". The pilot could also man fighter-craft and gain experience.

this i like, and i think it's been suggested before.

Admin Staff (Less so)

People who handle the logistics by lowering the costs of imports. They could also help by increasing the efficiently of support staff, the export value of goods and the relations between other countries.

Unbalancing, and like the level mechanic, unnecessary.

Security Staff

They decrease the likelihood of your base being detected and assist you in base battles with gunpowder weapons

Easy enough to do, just jack the local forces sprite sheet & AI, edit to resemble xenonaut uniforms more closely. Also the reaper fodder joke in their info is a must. Combined with the support staff it would give the base defense missions a similar feel to the city missions with local support & civilians, and similar penalties for getting your secondary personnel killed.

Head of Xenonauts

The base you're situated in receives efficiently perks. You can transfer to any base and, if aliens attack the base, you can fight with a side-arm. If you die you lose the game.

Would certainly add a unique challenge to defense of your bases if there were a random chance 'you' were there in person (higher the fewer bases you have). But i wouldn't have them as an active unit for missions. not sure how you would implement it though. Edited September 4, 2012 by Tam Elbrun

[Gauddlike]

looking at this from the perspective of it being a mod (as i honestly can't see a change this big happening this late in the game without the sprite system being reworked first, there's just not enough time to draw everyone the way it's set up right now) Here's my two cents:

You would have to completely re-sprite the basic civilians, and copy their AI, but it's doable as a mod as long as said AI is accessible to modders.

The AI part should be easy to do, you would just add them as another civilian type.

The sprites are also doable but would take a lot of work.

Adding them to specific mission types might be harder.

Missiontypeprops_gc.xml should allow you to set the types of civilians etc that are present on mission types but I don't know if it does that yet.