New mission type ideas

[HWP]

They were fighting for the civilians of occupied Europe, not against.

Professional terrorism is things like hijacking an airliner and darting it into your opponent's key economic center or military headquarters. Don't tell me that doesn't make a difference in the modern word.

Operations like SF Hydro sinking have to be planned in advance and conducted by a dedicated team, it's not something a light scout crew crashed in the middle of Utah is going to pull.

[Safe-Keeper]

They were fighting for the civilians of occupied Europe, not against.

Moot point.

Professional terrorism is things like hijacking an airliner and darting it into your opponent's key economic center or military headquarters. Don't tell me that doesn't make a difference in the modern word.

Was this a strawman attempt of some kind ? I know many large-scale terrorist actions (as well as other types of activism, of course), have consequences and never stated otherwise.

Oh, wait, we were discussing tiny teams stranded in enemy territory, so what was your point again?

Operations like SF Hydro sinking have to be planned in advance and conducted by a dedicated team

...and given that the Hydro bombing wasn't my only example...

But let's get back on topic, shall we? You stated that mindless killing of civilians and assassinations was the only way for a tiny team of isolated individuals to make a difference. This is patently false. Care to provide evidence to the contrary when you're done dodging?

[Jovan]

There is something ridiculous about flying in from 10,000 miles away for a ticking time bomb defuse mission and then having 3 minutes to defuse it.

Seems there was absolutely no way for you to arrive 3 minutes earlier, and you weren't afraid at all of arriving 3 minutes later just in time for the bomb to blow you up. Got to be movie magick.

Agree that leaking/ustable core is so "Arcade" for quite decent story of Xenonauts, but if aliens can activate UFO auto-destruction squence when the situation turned bad for them, it wont be so unrealistic. But I prefer option to run away to safety or try to save the salvage by deactivating UFO autodestruction.

[HWP]

Oh, wait, we were discussing tiny teams stranded in enemy territory, so what was your point again?

That they have zero chance of doing an operation like SF Hydro bombing. A Xeno equivalent to that operation would be bombing a Xenonauts base.

Random terrorism on the nearest object of value is about the most they can do, and even that's a stretch given that they look like freaks from a mile away.

But let's get back on topic, shall we? You stated that mindless killing of civilians and assassinations was the only way for a tiny team of isolated individuals to make a difference.

I said "terrorism and political assassination". I never said anything about mindless killing.

Terrorism is acts of destruction conducted in highly visible manner, intended to cause widespread panic through media reporting.

Political assassination is elimination of specific leaders that steer the public policy in an undesirable way.

Mindless killing would be running around in random directions shooting any human they happen to notice.

[TrashMan]

This was posted on another forum, but I think it's worth mentioning here:

- Sabotage: Infiltrate alien facilities or aligned countries and eliminate infrastructure

- Stealth: Recon missions that take maybe a one or two operative team meant to carry out objectives "all quite like"

- Assassination: Eliminate high value targets, whether it be collaborators or high ranking xenos

- Augmenting Conventional Forces: Use my squad to assist a nation's conventional military forces perhaps a multi objective mission

- CQB specific missions: Something really using multiple levels and tight quarters, like taking place in a high rise or a aircraft carrier

[Jovan]

Xenonauts shall not be some sort of Jagged Alliance/Hitman/Spacehulk clone or something like that. The main idea, is that you are controlling special formce not playing RPG/"turnbased arcade".

Assasinations are made by assasins, sabotages are made by agents, and stalth die-hard missions "one-good-guy-against-many-bad-guys" are done by Bruce Willis.

The professional, organized approach, is what makes the atmosphere of "old ufo". The good approach is to try bring missions from UFO films / sci-fi books, not from action blockbusters. UFO activity shall be dangerous and mysterious. The xenonauts role is to isolate alien activity from population, protect resources and strike alien where activity is present. Politics are made by politicians.

It'll be good to have armed NPC like local policeman etc. In many missions the local police shall report some ufo activity (seen in many ufo films), or suspicious objects and xenonauts emerge. The radio report from policeman shall be part of mission briefing.

Sometimes the NPC may be hostile, e.g. in non-cooperating countries.

And the aliens(at least some species) shall be able to escape! like in real world there is important to encircle them. That means in some cases it is important not to disturb aliens too soon. Later some technology advancement shall be able to prevent alien UFO from taking off, but at the start the moment of surprise shall be also important.

[TrashMan]

Xenonauts shall not be some sort of Jagged Alliance/Hitman/Spacehulk clone or something like that. The main idea, is that you are controlling special formce not playing RPG/"turnbased arcade".

Assasinations are made by assasins, sabotages are made by agents, and stalth die-hard missions "one-good-guy-against-many-bad-guys" are done by Bruce Willis.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but assasinations and sabotage are done by Spec-Ops teams as well.

What I woudl really like to see is mission with allies.

Like helping a military base under attack.

Taking a part in an offensive.

Imagine running trough a field fo wrecked tanks (some still functional and fireing), soldiers all around you and TONS of aliens everywhere.

Now either you push forward, being the "shock troop" of the offensive.

Or you are helping cover a retreat, being the last to pull back, as the last remnents of the failed offensive run for the hills.

[thothkins]

as cool as some of these missions would be, there's a campaign to think about. Would I send my troops into an alien hive or would I follow Cpl Hicks' advice and just nuke it from orbit and focus on the next crashed UFO? The need or reward to put the troops in that position should be factored in. Additionally, the reward shouldn't be so great that it skews campaign balance.