Difficulty Curve Smoothing

[kuroi_neko]

StellarRat's suggestions makes me think of the way UFO:AI handles the problem. The ability to build specialized structures like radars, refueling/rearming points etc could add more strategic options. That could have a major impact on the game balance, though.

I like the idea of retoring squad efficiency through boosted recruits. It's an incentive to let go of the "save & reload" technique. Giving the player some meaningful control on the training process like LWP suggested would provide a nice strategic option to mix old hands and rookies into an homogeneous force.

[thothkins]

I'm sure that having funding nations (split up into more countries) having certain resources available was discussed. It meant that you weren't putting all your eggs in one basement, so to speak. It sounds as though UFO:AI may have taken this approach. Things like refuelling points sound pretty interesting. Off to have a peak...

[Chollirem]

OK I dont know if what im about to say has been covered in here but here goes

1 nations should try and shoot down ufos in there own air space, but only get the jets the game starts you off with, this will keep fighters and small scouts out of the picture and force you as the player to take over as better UFOS show up and as you cover the world.

2 refuel points around the world. when you fly out to a terror site/crash site, the place a nation launch's air craft from to shoot down UFO's should be visible on the map, and if you dont have the fuel, you auto stop over and refuel at one of these none player controlled bases.

if you lose support from that nation you can no longer get fuel/fighter support

whatcha all think?

[Tacobandit]

OK I dont know if what im about to say has been covered in here but here goes

1 nations should try and shoot down ufos in there own air space, but only get the jets the game starts you off with, this will keep fighters and small scouts out of the picture and force you as the player to take over as better UFOS show up and as you cover the world.

2 refuel points around the world. when you fly out to a terror site/crash site, the place a nation launch's air craft from to shoot down UFO's should be visible on the map, and if you dont have the fuel, you auto stop over and refuel at one of these none player controlled bases.

if you lose support from that nation you can no longer get fuel/fighter support

whatcha all think?

How about they just increase the fuel in the chinook? It would be the cheapest alternative.

[Chollirem]

giving things inf fuel and range is EU

back IRL the more fuel.... the more weight.... more weight eats up more fuel.... and at some point your so heavy the bird couldnt leave the ground.

this way is more realistic,and if the countries are going to have fighter jets they send out, they need a location they are going to pop up from anyways,

so now losing a nation would mean also losing both air cover and a refuel as you pass through the area to get to targets normally outside of your range like a terror site.

Hmm I would like to see us able to "para drop" troops in...no way to end the mission but to win, takes 2 hours after mission for the troops to start getting sent home...and on mission the guys start out scattered about.

could be used as rapid response or to reach targets to far away to reach in time with a chopper

Have they talked about the paratrooper idea yet? to make it easy to implement just have a screen that says "troops dropping in" and then mission starts when them on the ground at random spots, may be make a parachute sprite if they want to be generous : )

[lemm]

I propose that each UFO has a % value set for it, which is the % chance that it will generate a crash site instead of escaping to space if it successfully completes its mission - the logic being that that local air forces managed to shoot down the UFO. This would initially be set high, but would rapidly tail off and would be non-existent by the mid-game.

I am suggesting that you add notifications on the Geoscape, similar to the ones about the freak weather storms, that inform the player that the local military has shot down UFOs. This doesn't have any impact on the game other than to serve as an explanation to the player as to why the smaller UFOs are not seen so often later in the game.

Edited March 18, 2013 by lemm

[GizmoGomez]

I support that idea, it makes sense.

[crusherven]

Is it possible to make it so the first terror mission will always spawn in range of the Chinook? I had one in Australia, and it disappeared before I reached it. It's fine to have future ones somewhere else, to encourage the player to expand, but I feel like the first one should be reachable.

[pnakasone]

In the normal development yes it takes years. But during war time you can see very short development cycles. Desperation can speed development. It is the gearing up of production that takes time.

[Bromley86]

Is it possible to make it so the first terror mission will always spawn in range of the Chinook? I had one in Australia, and it disappeared before I reached it. It's fine to have future ones somewhere else, to encourage the player to expand, but I feel like the first one should be reachable.

Given that terror missions are the only long-range ground mission that players can realistically undertake (as they won't see any UFOs that land outside their radar range), just set the dropship range to 41k and be done with it. That avoids the necessity of forcing the game to make an exception for the first terror mission as well as avoiding the irritation of potentially missing the next 2 or so terror missions due to range issues (it'll likely take a while to get another base set up with not just interceptors but also a whole extra assault team).

But what if the idea of local forces shooting down a percentage of UFOs, which will mean there are crash sites outside your radar range, is actioned (good idea, BTW)? Sending your dropship to the other side of the planet to assault the crashsite exposes it to risks of interception and also ties it up for a good while, meaning you might not be able to respond to a terror mission or just a craft that you downed. So there would be costs to the player of casually making use of that range.

[Kaorimoch]

My idea for soldiers and training.

When you have a soldier reach the top rank, you can retire them (as the military does) and put them in a training school as an instructor. This improves the rookies available for hire from the soldiers experience, or it could improve their base statistics by 10% of what the soldier earned during their tour of duty. This gets rid of super soldiers that players have that don't really improve from further deployments. It keeps ground missions more rewarding.

For aircraft.

I like your ideas. Let the troop carrier arrive at locations a bit faster too. The better aircraft can increase deployable soldiers (for the most part) and improve speed.