Alien types field guide

[a_beorning]

Xeno squad on ground mission.

They see an alien. Caesan, for example.

Kill him? Or capture to interrogate? Maybe its officer?

Xenopedia said "...they were identifiable by their headgear"

Somehow my soldiers know how to distinguish caesan soldier from caesan officer - after mission they report how many soldiers and how many officers they killed.

I want this secret knowledge too! And not after battle but in battle, when I must decide an order.

How to do?

a) IMHO, easier and more like old good first XCom: when I target an alien, game shows not only hit probability, but alien type too.

b) harder but more stylish: "Soldier's pocketbook" with pictures of known alien types/ranks. Something like WW2-time pocketbooks with silhouetes of allied and enemy's planes and ships to know whom to shot.

Shown only types and ranks you already met in battle. Available in battle, or at least as a sub-section of Xenopedia.

с) print this pictures in game manual. Possible, but too old-styled even for XCom remake.

Now I just switch to another window and see pictures in assets/units/alien/... , but I don't think its a normal way.

And moreover, if I get it right, all those files will be hidden in game release.

[Max_Caine]

These are good points. There is one things I will say, officers are visually distinctive on the battlefield as (barring one race) they are the only ones wearing headgear. Perhaps it should be made clearer? "officers wear helmets", perhaps?

EDIT: In EU94, you had to use a Mind Probe to work out the classification of the alien. It wasn't automatic.

Edited March 29, 2013 by Max_Caine

[a_beorning]

Caesian officers wear helmets, and caesian leaders wear helmets too.

Sebilians officers wear black helmets. And sebilians leaders wear nothing but panties and gloves. No helmets!

Harridan officers wear no helmets too and differs from soldiers by color of trousers (red or grayish-blue). And soldiers from warriors - by color of boots.

Wraith soldiers wear helmets, wraith leaders wear not. But wraith leaders wear pants.

So, presence of helmet is not a sufficient attribute of somebody yo try to get alive.

In EU94, you had to use a Mind Probe to work out the classification of the alien.

My mistake. But even mind probe was better than "stun them all and look bodies in inventory mode"

[Max_Caine]

Hm. I was under the impression that all officers (except one race) were the only ones who wore helmets. Oh well!

[a_beorning]

Helmet is good enough mark for first battles.

Month or two later soldiers somehow learned how to tell not only soldier from officer, but from non-combatant, from psion, from guard, from elite...

I want this info (available to xenonauts!) to be available to user.

Info of current uniforms I just get from viewing *.PNGs, maybe developers plan to re-draw something.

[crusherven]

Well, since we don't have mind control anymore, I guess there ought to be *some* way of telling, even if it's just position on the ship.

[a_beorning]

Crusherven, position of the ship is not well enough.

Maximum it can say is "it's caesians" or "it's sebilians". And tell sebilian from caesian is not so hard.

But then door of ship opened, and three sebilians came out.

Two are in helmets but different color. Third is without helmet but in strange colored shirt, not like soldiers nor noncombatants seen before.

They staying so you cannot cover them all with one stun grenade. And run to them with baton means provoke fire from all three and lose a soldier for sure.

More or less safe way is to snipe two of three and then capture one using stun grenade.

But how to guess which one to capture?

Ship's position isn't a helper 'cause all three arrived in this ship

[erutan]

To be fair, you're not going to get a field guide until you stun something and find out what it is.

[a_beorning]

I'll get a guide record when I kill all three this mission - somehow soldiers do sort them to make a report

And next mission I will know who is who as soon as I see them.

Fair enough to me.

[erutan]

Hopefully it's in the Xenopedia. I'm not sure we should have a separate UI for this in combat, but it does sound like the non-uniformity of markings (which makes sense given different species etc) would get hard to keep in your head. Dunno.

If you just have 3 corpses of an alien race, how do you know what their roles were? Without interrogating them, let alone researching them would you understand what the doohickeys meant? If we as players can't tell that an alien race would value fancy shorts over a different helmet color, how would soldiers do so?

Maybe there could be a tooltip that pops up in combat once you've done the appropriate research.

Edited March 30, 2013 by erutan

[a_beorning]

Xenopedia -> alien races -> sebilian, subsections for known ranks with pics - it's more or less normal variant for me.

Better (I think) is target cursor

" 78% /30tu / Sebilian (soldier)/" - for known race/rank,

" 78% /30tu / Sebilian (???)/" - for first met rank,

" 78% /30tu / ??? (???)/" - for first met race.

"Field guide" as screen of UI for me will be best, but regarding developing time ...

If you just have 3 corpses of an alien race, how do you know what their roles were?

How do we know it now, in v17.91, on mission end?

Maybe we can identify any rank of sebilian when first sebilian (any rank) interrogated, any rank of wraith when first wraith interrogated, etc.?

But how we identify ranks of non-interrogatable adrons?

Or maybe we identify ranks of killed enemies by their equipment?

Toolbox - noncombatant-technican, weapon and fixed-channel communicator - soldier, tactical map and communicator with all unit soldiers channels - oficer, etc.

Edited March 30, 2013 by a_beorning
typo fix

[thothkins]

The tool tip is a good idea. I like the way it reveals nothing that you're not supposed to know.

And sebilians leaders wear nothing but panties and gloves. No helmets!

When authori-tah! goes to Sebillian heads