Geoscape off-site installations suggestion

[Raffik]

Some of the concepts described below I have seen in an open source UFO game,  some are my ideas how to enhance the already very good player experience even further and I believe it would be great to have something similar in X2 as well.. Not sure if feasible in the way how the game is designed though..

Radar tower

the radars in the bases cannot effectively cover the whole landmass of the Earth. Adding a few radar towers on the Geoscape in the blindspots could cover all continents.There would have to be construction time and costs as well as  upkeep involved, and the coverage would be less (say half) of the basic radar and would also not upgrade to quantum. The bombers could also target it during their runs on the geoscape.

UFO Dissasembly Yard

For every downed UFO, you would have an option to either collect the bounty (there could be bids from the world regions - selling a UFO to them could reduce the panic in that region f.e.), or to keep it for dissasembly. For this, you would build an installation, where the downed UFOs would be transferred to (transfer time between 48 and 96 hours). Capacity of the yard would be limited, eventually you could build more. Every newly (not shot down before) downed UFO would trigger a research, in which the the tech and the stats of the UFO would be discovered.

Every UFO could be dissasembled using workshops (as projects) into individual items (alloys, alenium, surgical tables, propulsion, navigation, electronics, weapons etc), which would be used for triggering research. Later, the items could be either sold or used for crafting items, planes etc. Damaged UFOs would generate less items to research/sell as opposed of undamaged ones (Landed and conquered ones).

This would add another layer of gameplay, as now the items are gathered automatically after end of tactical battles.

Cleaner base

After defeating the base, it would be occupied by Xenonaut forces and would trigger research of the advanced structures. The player would have to transfer/hire scientists and engineers to that base to start the research. Until the research would be completed, the remnants of cleaner forces would attack the base trying to re-take it. After completing the research, the base attacks would stop and the base would be used as an additional source of research/crafting and/or income generation. 

The base itself would either become another regular base, or it would have to remain as is (no additional structures could be built)

SAM site

missile site (f.e. a modified ICBM site, provided by a region or country or built by player), used to shoot modified long range AA missiles at airborne UFOs (preferably the big ones - cruiser, harvester, battleship, carrier, bomber), helping to soften them up before they get attacked by the Xenonaut interceptors or to defend bases (or off-site installations) as an extra layer of defense. 

Alien moon base

The aliens could have a logistical hub on the moon, used to coordinate attacks on Earth and stack up forces, represented by a base. Such base could be assaulted by the xenonaut forces (or by the SAM site with a special missile to allow the base attack) to weaken the logistics of the aliens. The ultimate Dropship and at least Exosuit equipped soldiers would have to be used for such a mission. This mission could be triggered in corelation to the orbital bombardment, which is not implemeted yet.

Edited August 8, 2023 by Raffik

[Alienkiller]

Very good Ideas Raffik.

1. Point Radar-Towers: Nice Idea, that was suggested too several times. That could be upgraded to an small Outpost. The Outpost Idea was already implemented in much older Beta-Tests and were an interessting Content / Feature for the Geoscape.

2. Point UFO Dissasembly Yard: Yes, exactly that is an Idea too, which I have in Mind. Such an cool Geoscape-Content / Feature you have in the begunn, but never finished UFO: AI (Fan-Game). There they have an very cool new Protection at the beginning too, which overflow the Cevlar-Armour. It´s called something like Silk-Spider-Armor. The only difference is, that you can there either Dismantle the UFO or sell it.

3. Cleaner Base: Yes, an excellent Idea. That would make the Cleaner-Part more impressive and give yourself an Base I have in mind too.

4. SAM-Sites: Very excellent Idea, combined with the Point 1 Outposts it would give the Geoscape more pepper.

5. Alien-Moom-Base: An cool Upgrade for the Game. Let´s hope they can Integrate someting like that later on as DLC or as Base-Game-Content / Feature.

[Xeroxth]

All of these ideas are great and actually could be a new type of on site missions. Actually defending these off site areas against alien attacks would be great. SAM sites would give an in game reason for how the cleaners stuck around after you kill their main base. Helping the aliens destroy SAM sites allowing them the ability to fly with impunity. While radar towers can be attacked with you needing to station some troops with left over equipment. Probably each bases can have 4 sub radar towers.