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More weapon types.


radekus

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I just finished the new X-COM remake and it's... lacking.

I found this website and figured, eh, great place to give in my ideas,

maybe they'll produce something worth playing.

So far I'm impressed with what I saw in previews.

Few Suggestions:

The game should be long to finish. The more things in the game, the better.

I like long games with intricate story lines. That said.

TECH TREE

- Research into basic human weapons to combat alien threat.

Different shotguns, rifles, pistols, machineguns, grenades, you get the idea.

Say you start with M-16, you can research the AK-74, then once you got

both you can research a hybrid that has both the punch and the accuracy of both guns.

It exists I just forgot the name. Same thing with other variants. Auto pistols, Auto shotguns, etc.

200 round AKM for light machineguns. Heavy machine gun variants. An MP7A1 would be a nice add.

Make the research on human weapons such that we can produce not only modern weapons.

(since game takes place during cold war, you guys have tons of new weapon references to

get ideas from, youtube is a wonderful tool for that)

Make it so the final research into human firearms ends in modern/futuristic projectile versions like the TAVOR,

the XM8 (and lmg variant), M4-16. Each gun for a specific class of soldier.

Each with different stats, depending on your strategy. (Urban combat vs outdoor long range).

From there, Research into theoretical warfare, Electric weapons.

- Non lethal (taser guns) to lethal.

- Light Tesla

- Medium Tesla

- Heavy Tesla

Research into theoretical warfare, laser gun research.

(each with all types of gun types, sniper, shotgun, rifle, pistol, etc.)

- Light laser class

- Medium laser class

- Heavy lazer class

Research into theoretical warfare, sound frequency.

(Can have cool effects like blowing an alien's head to making them go ballistic

and do weird things like shoot in random direction before dying.)

- Light ultrasound

- Medium ultrasound

- Heavy ultrasound

Theoretical warfare, Microwave guns.

(Can be used instead of RPG's to melt machines.)

- Light microwave

- Medium microwave

- Heavy microwave

Plasma gun research

- Light plasma

- Medium plasma

- Heavy plasma

And with enough research near the end of the game.

Subatomic string theory leading to interdimensional guns.

Basically, it not only melts targets but also

makes their entire bodies change, transports aliens into different areas,

making the alien fall to his death. makes organs and extremities shift position,

distorts the alien so it dies becuase the body was altered.

Use your imagination.

Can stick to one class type, or elaborate on more.

Basically, I don't like that it just ends in plasma weapons,

I believe humans should be able to surpass the aliens in technological innovation.

I guess from there on the same concept with aircraft and land vechicles,

the long progression I mean.

Once that is done it would be time to make a story that is awesome.

- Many alien bases

- Weird alien experimentation.

- Easter egg videos of iceland event captured on camera and other things like

alien abductions and stuff like this. If this is put in the game it would be awesome.

Just stuff to immerse yourself while you play the game. I guess every time you would get

an achievement you would be rewarded with a sick ass video that you could then see again

in the xenopedia.

Make the game slow paced, meaning, go by reseached and manufactured tech.

If you got an upgrade, aliens get one too. Don't rush it, this is why I dissliked

the x-com remake, it was too rushed, regardless of your tech level,

they just kept going. I get the idea behind it, but it kills the game when it's too short like that.

- Big battles of 18 soldiers vs whatever amount of aliens (there's room on the chinook after all)

- Upgradable transports.

- Upgradable interceptors.

- Building more bases.

- More realistic bases.

- Having your bases attacked by aliens and needing to repell them.

- Alien bases on earth.

- Underwater missions.

- Moon missions, common, they have to have bases on there.

- space mining and building bases on the moon.

- Fighting on motherships.

- Colonizing and fighting on mars (to get access to rare minerals and metals for construction of the last project.

- Last project, build mothership, use it to obliterate their invasion forces.

An awesome ending cinematic would be a great ending there, space battle followed by victory,

with people cheering in the streets and soldiers applauding eachother type a thing.

Could leave the game there with promise of a follow up where you invade THEIR planet(s).

The other thing is the animation and graphics, I'm sure it will get upgraded.

Main concern is furniture in buildings, they can't just be empty, common,

take example from the new x-comm when it comes to interior decorating.

Music playing in bars, that sort of thing.

Many, many cool videos, also, cheesy things like a drunk farmer getting abducted by aliens.

However, most should be serious, like it's not a joke, serious invasion goin on.

Those are my suggestions. Lemme know what you guys think.

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Some of what you have suggested is already in, some is definitely beyond the scope of the game.

The game is already almost feature complete, so large design changes are not very likely to happen no matter how good the idea may be. Feature creep is something that might kill projects like this.

The gun porn you suggest for example is something that is too much work and to little reward. Guns are right now filling specific roles and designed to be in tiers to be better than the last tier. there is little point to add a bunch of earth tech weapons when they are quickly going to be replaced by reverse engineered weapons. And because of how the games sprite system works (they aren't made up of composites of different sprites. if you add a new weapon all the sprites for every armour combinations needs to bbe added for that sprite.) that is a lot of work for almost no reward.

However that doesn't mean that there won't be gun porn mods that will have lots and lots of ballistic earth weapons. There has already been some made for previous builds of the game. Chris has even included some images (not sprites) for weapons that you can use for such mods.

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This does sound like a good mod basis ;) , but as Gorlom explained, Xeno tries to limit the number of weapons in the game as much as it can (ie. only one weapon per role, so only one machine gun, one pistol, etc.).

I kinda like the idea of surpassing the aliens in terms of tech, however. Don't know how realistic that is in itself, but maybe we could make some sort of alien-human "tech hybrid" that built upon alien technology with human knowledge. Don't know if that made sense, but it'd be a cool "final tier".

As for your other ideas, it's not that they're bad ideas, it's just that Xeno is already nearly finished, so it's a bit late to come with ideas like this. Having said that, many of your ideas are such that I wish would be implemented into a mod of some kind.

Many, many cool videos, also, cheesy things like a drunk farmer getting abducted by aliens.
I like this. Like when you board that "abductor UFO" for that first time and suddenly there's a random dead cow hanging there :) . Edited by Safe-Keeper
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Actually, according to Chris latest post we will be able to add some content during the first beta phase. He said he would be taking a look at mods to see if they were worth adding during this phase. I'm pretty sure we can convince him to add one sub-machinegun like the MP5 and I'm hoping to talk him into making some changes the shotgun. Also, Quartermaster did an excellent mod that added the RPG-7 and M-4 carbine. So, I think there is hope for a few additional conventional weapons. In actuality, it is not too hard to add weapons and even new techs to the game. So, a mod could pretty much add anything someone really wants. I'm hoping to work with Quartermaster in the future to do something like this if the game doesn't have enough "gun porn" as Gorlom puts it.

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I really don't like the idea of surpassing the aliens tech.

You are the underdog, fighting for your survival against a technically superior enemy.

Being able to close the gap and hold your own until you find a way to stop the invasion is a much more interesting idea.

When you hold all of the advantages the fight loses some of its appeal for me.

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I don't like that either. I'm just interested in additional weapons to round out the current collection. I've modded some of them to actually be weaker in some ways than the current batch even if they are stronger in other ways. It's all about balance. When stock balancing is complete I'm going to re-balance anything I've added in my mods to match.

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I really don't like the idea of surpassing the aliens tech.

You are the underdog, fighting for your survival against a technically superior enemy.

Well, I'd personally be thinking about a contest between lasers and advanced ballistics. Lasers should be more accurate than anything else and faster to fire than anything else, ballistic ETC guns (why the hell not) pack a harder punch than lasers, but weaker than plasma.

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I really don't like the idea of surpassing the aliens tech.

You are the underdog, fighting for your survival against a technically superior enemy.

Being able to close the gap and hold your own until you find a way to stop the invasion is a much more interesting idea.

When you hold all of the advantages the fight loses some of its appeal for me.

This depends entirely on how the game is balanced. UFO Defense became ridiculously easy once you got your hands on Heavy Plasma and other high-end weapons and gear, not because those weapons were overpowered, but because there were no restrictions on them. Players could capture, research and use them with no limitations.

Games can have pretty much any feature imaginable as long as it's balanced correctly.

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I am not talking about balancing weapons, I am talking about the aesthetics of the game.

The feel of the fight changes completely when you go from plucky underdog fighting for survival to high tech avenger chasing down the last of those pesky aliens and annihilating them with your superior numbers and technology.

Would the movie Aliens have been as interesting if the marines had just moved in and wiped out the bugs using more advanced tech?

How about Predator?

If Arnie and friends had flipped their own vision to be able to see through the cloak and used pred-seeking bullets in their shiny new gauss rifles to kill it in seconds then the movie would have been dull (and short, but mainly dull :P ).

That is the sort of feel I was talking about when I responded to the OP's suggestion that human tech should be able to outstrip the aliens.

I am all for a variety of balanced and interesting weapons.

I get bored easily though if all a mod does is add a half dozen weapons that are basically identical.

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Would the movie Aliens have been as interesting if the marines had just moved in and wiped out the bugs using more advanced tech?

Sorry to nitpick, but the marines did have advanced tech.

The kill ratio is heavily on the marine side (that's with half of them dying because they had to remove their ammo clips in the first room)

How about Predator?

If Arnie and friends had flipped their own vision to be able to see through the cloak and used pred-seeking bullets in their shiny new gauss rifles to kill it in seconds then the movie would have been dull.

Well, the predator did run from the Old Painless.:P

Too bad the guy missed, otherwise, it would have been a really short movie.

Edited by TrashMan
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I am not talking about balancing weapons, I am talking about the aesthetics of the game.

The feel of the fight changes completely when you go from plucky underdog fighting for survival to high tech avenger chasing down the last of those pesky aliens and annihilating them with your superior numbers and technology.

Would the movie Aliens have been as interesting if the marines had just moved in and wiped out the bugs using more advanced tech?

How about Predator?

If Arnie and friends had flipped their own vision to be able to see through the cloak and used pred-seeking bullets in their shiny new gauss rifles to kill it in seconds then the movie would have been dull (and short, but mainly dull :P ).

That is the sort of feel I was talking about when I responded to the OP's suggestion that human tech should be able to outstrip the aliens.

I am all for a variety of balanced and interesting weapons.

I get bored easily though if all a mod does is add a half dozen weapons that are basically identical.

Technically wouldn't it be possible to keep the feeling while being able to research more advanced tech than the aliens?

The aliens still have psychic powers (that humans will never get in Xenonauts) and probably a bunch of other alien only abilities that will let them keep the pace despite being out run in the tech race. Assuming proper balance. As long as the higher ranked aliens have stronger versions of the abilities it could be pretty well done.

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Sorry to nitpick, but the marines did have advanced tech.

The kill ratio is heavily on the marine side (that's with half of them dying because they had to remove their ammo clips in the first room)

Those were hardly better than what we have now. And his main point is sthat it would be boring if the marines wiped out every alien in the first five minutes.

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I did specify MORE advanced tech ;)

@Gorelem I don't think it would be the same feel.

When you can compete toe to toe with an enemy you outnumber significantly, even if they still have some slight advantages in other areas, the aesthetic changes.

You are no longer fighting for survival, you are fighting for victory.

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I did specify MORE advanced tech ;)

@Gorelem I don't think it would be the same feel.

When you can compete toe to toe with an enemy you outnumber significantly, even if they still have some slight advantages in other areas, the aesthetic changes.

You are no longer fighting for survival, you are fighting for victory.

Just overpower abilities of the top cadre of the aliens and the Xenonauts aren't toe to toe anymore. (you put that bit in to tempt me didn't you? and misspelled my name to make me :mad:)

wait, I might not have understood you correctly. what is it you want? for the aliens to be more powerful, equally powerful, less powerful (Xenonauts get power armour don't they? :P) or just use the same things as the player? I'm a bit fuzzy on the point now... and quite confused.

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I'd much rather see my soldiers winning battles because they have moved their attributes up than because they have better weapons and armor. After all, an assault rifle is six times as powerful if your veteran can fire three times more often and hits 75% of the time vs. a rookie that only has enough AP for one burst per turn and only hits 37% of the time. I personally would play the game even if there were no armor or weapon advancements and I might even enjoy it more.

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Your goals would not necessarily be the same.

If I have an enemy I can face on a relatively even footing then strategy and tactics are different to fighting an enemy who is stronger than my forces.

I wouldn't mind seeing pronounced differences between the weapon tiers apart from pure damage differences.

Off the top of my head the burst fire would be an interesting place to start:

Leave ballistics as they currently function (apart from balancing).

Lasers don't use burst fire in the same way, instead their alternative mode fires a single shot for greatly increased damage and using multiple charges from the battery.

Assume 3x damage, double ammo cost, and increased AP cost as the weapon needs to charge up for a longer time before discharge, it could even have the hypervelocity tag.

Plasma burst could fire a large amount of lower damage shots as a sort of plasma spray.

Say 10 shots from an AR using 5 ammo at 50% of standard damage.

The fourth tier:

Tier 4 could use the same mechanics as the ballistic, would need to play with them a bit to see how that works out.

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The only weapon i would replace from the starting "deck" is the rocketlauncher. And good substitute for it could be either automatic grenade laucher or RPO-style launcher which is little lighter than fully grown rocketlauncher.

It's only my opinion :)

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The only weapon i would replace from the starting "deck" is the rocketlauncher. And good substitute for it could be either automatic grenade laucher or RPO-style launcher which is little lighter than fully grown rocketlauncher.

It's only my opinion :)

why would those be better? *curious* :)

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why would those be better? *curious* :)

as it stands, the Rocket Launcher and SAW are pretty useless, the AR and DMR are more accurate and less dangerous. missing a rocket shot is pretty likely, takes too much time and if you are lucky enough to hit destroys the target completely. something faster and resembles a long range thrown grenade would be better, where even if you miss you'd still be pretty close to the target. which is the point of explosive projectiles.

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So it's a balancing issue. technically one can adjust the big rocket launcher until it fits better into the balance of the game. you don't need to replace it with other weapons (unless you are a stickler for nitpicking on how real weapons are represented in games.)

It would help a lot if the one that originally said he wanted to replace it explained what adjustments he'd make. Rather than just saying he want to replace it with something else that doesn't really have fixed stats in this game, and could end up completely different from what he imagined..

Personally I think that the rocket launcher should have large drawbacks (maybe the damage could be reduced if you think it is too powerful?) and that at least meowmers suggested fix sounds like a straight up boost to make the game easier for the player. :S would the aliens get something similar? would it be fun to play against?

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