Alien Mid-Late Game Mission Ideas

[skaianDestiny]

Some mission ideas to help spice up mission variety once the Cleaners are gone!

• Alien Outpost
  • The aliens established a small outpost from which they're basing smaller scale raids from, increasing panic in the region it's stationed at until it's taken out. Assaulting the outpost will be attacking a 1-2 story alien building about the size of a larger UFO. Unlike a UFO fight, the outpost will be constantly calling in reinforcements every half dozen or so turns, similar to the earlier Cleaner missions. These reinforcements come from some quantum gate or whatever inside the base. Shutting it down is your primary objective, Victory results in a large increase in resources as well as a major panic decrease in the funding region. This mission would essentially be a Cleaner base assault but alien-themed.
• Bunker Siege Relief
  • Your operations director received an urgent distress call from one of the funding nations: the aliens have pinned down some VIP (general, politician, etc.) in a deep bunker and are sending assault teams to wipe them out. Xenonauts will need to take out both the loitering UFO and land troops to relieve the beleaguered and outgunned defense force. This would require a unique approach. You need to send 2 interceptors to escort your transport, otherwise it'll be destroyed. While they engage the UFO (air battle optional), your transport will land your troops outside the bunker. The map would be similar to the other bunker missions, only this time near the back of the bunker will be a small force of friendlies that aliens within the bunker are attacking. This would be a soft time limit before the aliens breach the final room that guards the VIP, with the player having vision of the area around the friendlies to give them more info as to what's happening. Victory results in a major panic decrease in the region it takes place in.
• Reaper Infestation
  • An alien UFO had dropped Reapers as part of a hit-and-run terror campaign. Problem? It turns out it happened a few days ago, meaning a large force of Reapers have infested whatever town or area they were dropped in. While the funding nation has firebombed the location, there may be still some survivors. Xenonauts' job is to go in and finish the job. While this would still be a relatively bog standard "kill all aliens" mission, facing only Reapers and a large swarm of them would be pretty novel mission to break up the monotony. Maybe have a "Reaper Queen" boss unit or something to keep things spicy, or have a bunch of weaker Reapers for horde chaff.
• Alien Collaborator Sting
  • Your operations director has been able to identify a high ranking general or politician who's been colluding with the aliens. Her agents have given her the location of a meeting point between the aliens and their insider, which is a fantastic opportunity to take out or capture the hostile VIP. This mission would require you to capture or kill the human VIP as well as any aliens in the area. There is a time limit before the aliens teleport themselves and the VIP out, so you'll have to act quickly. In addition to the aliens, the VIP will have come with a small number of remnant Cleaner soldiers (maybe making up 40% of the total enemy force). This would be a fun opportunity to show how far the player has progressed past the initial Cleaner enemies they faced. Maybe arm them with plasma weapons to keep it spicy, but I think being able to steamroll the Cleaners present thanks to your tech advantage is a good thing for the player.

Feel free to contribute any other ideas for alien mission variety!

Edited July 17, 2024 by skaianDestiny

[Skitso]

• I'd love to have a mission where I'm required to use only a small amount (1-3) of xenonauts.
• Alien retaliation mission (base attack) needs to be fleshed up. Make them less deadly and happen way more often. Defense turrets should never kill all invading forces but just make the mission easier. Alien AI needs to be capable of destroying scenery to cause room damage. Rooms with enough damage will need repairing before being functional again. This would force player to be active and stop aliens before they wreck the whole base.
• The game has a wonderful destruction modeling, so it'd be cool to have it tied more into the gameplay. Terror mission bombs should be placed in places where they cause as much destruction as possible (inside buildings) and have timers before they go off. This could also be a separate bomb defusal mission.
• The most fun I've had with this game are the desperate moments escaping from cleaner intel gather missions where I carry wounded soldiers and pick up dropped usb sticks dodging fire from the reinforcements closing in. So more missions like that.
• King of the hill style bomb defusal where you need to hold ground and maybe defend scientist defusing the bomb against waves of enemies and then evacuate.

Edited July 17, 2024 by Skitso

[gG-Unknown]

2 minutes ago, Skitso said:

• I'd love to have a mission where I'm required to use only a small amount (1-3) of xenonauts.

I just discovered, that later drop ship has 16 soldiers, insanity.

O agree, an infiltration mission with 2-4 soldiers would feel like a cure.

[Komandos]

On 7/17/2024 at 9:08 AM, Skitso said:

Alien retaliation mission (base attack) needs to be fleshed up. Make them less deadly and happen way more often.

The aliens already look like cannon fodder (Zerg) and not a strong space civilization (Protoss). In a 9x9 soldier battle, aliens pose absolutely no threat to the player.

[Bernie22405]

2 hours ago, Komandos said:

The aliens already look like cannon fodder (Zerg) and not a strong space civilization (Protoss). In a 9x9 soldier battle, aliens pose absolutely no threat to the player.

That sounds more like a difficulty setting difference between your experiences and Skitso's.  Perhaps the game difficulty levels need to be adjusted or more levels added.

[Bernie22405]

Personally, I'd like to see greater variety in the terrain locations/tiles.  Some different types of industrial areas that aren't seaports or deserts, different farmland (including some crops that can hide enemies, such as corn), and some seasonal variation affecting sightlines (trees with/without leaves, etc.) and seasonal variation in the day/night terminator on the strategic map.  That last bit has always bugged me in that it's always winter in the northern hemisphere and summer in the southern.

[Xeferah]

For later game:

- Alien VIP assasination, similar to the cleaner assasination, with reinforcements after X turns. No idea really about the reward? Maybe the next base assault has less enemies?
- Allien resource stash raid, again with reinforcements. Get in, grab the suitcases, run back to tha choppa. Reward would be allenium and alloys.
- Maybe if you lose a region, there is a way to get it back by killing the leaders? Similar to the "Alien Collaborator Sting" that was posted by the OP. Reward: region is back at 95 panic.

 

[Xeferah]

On 7/17/2024 at 8:08 AM, Skitso said:

• The most fun I've had with this game are the desperate moments escaping from cleaner intel gather missions where I carry wounded soldiers and pick up dropped usb sticks dodging fire from the reinforcements closing in. So more missions like that.

Those are indeed the most fun. After a certain threshold, a certain tech or upgrade, the game becomes "more of the same". I just shot down 6 UFO's, let's do all six of those where the only difference is the landscape and the type of enemies I face. Yeah.... we need more of those time sensitive game modes.
Even abduction becomes quite easy after you get 12 or 16 soldiers, you can rescue all hostages.

[Kulek]

I'd Say: It will be nice that aliens will have legal cheat options:
Example:
1) Deployed gizmos that gives all xenonanuts 1/2 of TU's or ACC until destroyed.
2) Telepotration for certain alien type. Teleportation as dodging bullets!
3) Ressurection for certain alien type
4) Mask as civilian (Camoflaged reaper will be awesome! Only from lose distance will be revealed as zombie..)
5) Invisibility generators!
6) More human working with aliens! Every mission can be reinforced by local traitors/agents!
7) Maybe cloning device in some UFO? When you kill alien, his copy is created... Or just spawn a reaper in every 3-4 turns. Constructing device for artifitial units will be nice too.
8) Aliens controling cyvilians and using them as cannon fodder?
9) Areas when advanced human tech simply dont work. And you need do bring old trusty shotgun to action.

Aliens should't play nice. Even if our Xenonauts will have more firepower and numbers with dirty trics it will interesting.

[Komandos]

12 hours ago, Xeferah said:

Even abduction becomes quite easy after you get 12 or 16 soldiers, you can rescue all hostages.

If the player has progress in development, and the aliens do not have progress in development, then naturally the player's victory over the aliens becomes easier.