Actions from Earth military forces

[Lancebloke]

Not sure if this has been posted before, but I always thought it was odd in the old games that at no point would the nations of Earth ever engage the Aliens, especially considering the basic technology you start with is very similar if not the same as those of everyone else.

It would be quite good if at some random points, UFOs would be shot down by other forces, or on the very odd occasion a nation takes on an alien base in its territory (which sometimes may result in a news report of x fatalities and failure to destroy the base).

I wouldnt suggest that this should happen often and certainly not with a high rate of success later in the game as harder aliens and craft appear, but it would add a dimension to make it at least feel lke a global invasion.

[thothkins]

At some point in Xenonauts, the local forces will take out the smaller UFOs for you, leaving you to focus on the larger ones. this prevents the player having to deal with endless missions in the latter part of the game. that was the idea anyway.

[Gorlom]

Earth npc forces takes action in both the geoscape and battlescape You won't see the earth forces aircrafts on the radar but as Thothkins mentioned there are ideas about them taking care of the smaller UFOs later in the game.

I think it has also been suggested that there would be a chance in the early game that local forces shoot down UFOs that are attempting to return to orbit after completeing their mission. This was a suggested solution to radar range issues and early gameplay balance. I don't recall if this was abandoned or not.

[Lancebloke]

Sounds good about the Geoscape features. I know that the Xenonaut forces (F-17 vs F-16 etc) were found to be more capable, however the munitions themselves seem to be the same and so you would imagine local forces would have some success. Especially with the amount of ground based missiles deployed during the cold war.

Re battlescape... you would imagine that nations would deploy their own forces and not just rely on a tactical nuclear strike where 20 men with M-16's would work. Would be good to see something more realistic in that space.

[erutan]

@lance - I suppose that will be a bit less of a disconnect once xenonauts have researched alien weapons/armors, but in the end xcom is more of a board game than a real life simulator. IRL one would expect the xenonauts would have a lot more funding and share tech with council nations on good terms, coordinate with local militaries in the sense that the xenonauts are more like a special ops branch, etc. But then we're playing some kind of RTS / civilization style game, which means we don't get that yummy tactical squad combat.

[Commissar Pancakes]

IRL one would expect the xenonauts would have a lot more funding and share tech with council nations on good terms, coordinate with local militaries in the sense that the xenonauts are more like a special ops branch, etc.

Pretty much why you won't have to deal with the smaller UFOs in late game.

[thothkins]

>sigh< I'd love more of a just that sort of game, but also with the yummy tactical squad combat.

[erutan]

@pancakes, I suppose scarce amounts of alloys + elerium accounts for the lack of high level tech spread around the world (hence only smaller UFOs being able to be shot down via hybridized earth tech towards the end). given that via attrition tech 1 IS effective one would expect to see more military engagement the entire time, but this reduces player agency.

@thotkins, you could play as the, dunno, spec ops with a full on AI battle going on around you (terror), then sometimes you're just a spec op team recovering a UFO. If you made it current day you'd be able to call in drone strikes and whatnot, outdoors combat would get a little dull heh. It would be interesting to see more of a RP element with council nations and supplemental forces, but that'd require really radical game design changes.

[thothkins]

yeah, while it's completely understandable that GH focused on trying to replicate the Battlescape part of the game mainly, I always look at the Geoscape/Funding part with a sigh. The interception part of the game being such an improvement is quite the added bonus really.