Tactical Intelligence

[Goetikmagus]

Having been a US Cavalry Scout (forward reconnaissance) for some years, I have some suggestions regarding tactical intelligence - otherwise known as battlefield comprehension. I also realize that gameplay may not allow for these ideas, but I'd like to point them out for consideration.

Number one, and most important: Vision is not the only sense that a person has. If a ~experienced~ soldier (or an enemy) hears movement or weapons fire, they can reckon force and distance reasonably accurately. Indeed, a trained tracker will immediately be able to spot or smell (ever smell atmospheric plasma? It's wild!) where an enemy soldier has been, night or day. I don't advocate turning the game into a full-immersion, nit-picking, bogged-down experience... but I think that each soldier should have some kind of "gut feeling" or "sense" of tactical movement outside the range of their vision (Green chevron for known friendly. Red chevron for known enemy. Yellow chevron for unknown?) ... which brings me to...

Number two: A target that is identified as hostile or friendly may be out-of-view, but absolutely no soldier in their right mind would ignore or disregard them. Instead of defaulting to "Hidden Movement", there should be some very basic indicator of the direction of an identified civilian behind friendly lines, a denotation that a particular noise or movement is unidentified, or that an obvious enemy is leaving footprints and clear echoes in a particular direction. Giving the good guys the ability to do this would remove some of the challenge of the game, but giving the aliens the ability to do this as well would return that challenge, and multiply it threefold.

Number three: As a counter-balance to number two, combat is wildly chaotic. Given that the Xenonaughts are trained and hardened soldiers whom don't break at the first sign of automatic fire, it doesn't mean that they can necessarily identify a friend from foe in obscure visibility. In thick smoke or twilight conditions, most of the aliens are humanoid in basic appearance. A soldier would have to get closer, or throw a flare, or even get shot at, in order to identify an obscure figure as a hostile.

Number four: Friendlies. They're your friends. In combat. If a local farmer has a shotgun, and is willing to help out, then it makes sense that said farmer will go off into the fog of war and either get killed or kick ass. On the other hand, if you land in a highly militant society, they should be able to engage your uber-commandos in radio contact. Perhaps they're not interested in following your orders, but they can at least report what they're seeing to you. Any local force engaging the alien enemy at the same time you are should have some level of shared intelligence. Low levels may give some non-visual indication (#1) of what they think is going on. High levels will share what they are seeing over radio, even if they're not members of the XNs.

I'm totally open to the concept that this might be a nightmare of mechanics. I'm also totally open to rebuttals or better ideas. In fact, I welcome them.

[Ryusho]

I want to say I do agree with you, but one thing that came to my mind, is how you mentioned the farmer with a shotgun, and the fact, that There is the chance that although they may not follow orders, they will either 'try to fall back' towards the craft you came from, because "Lets let the guys who know what they are doing handle this, I don't want to die.." or even, "I'm ...not sure whats going on, But I will do my best to help." and therefore they will choose a random soldier that is closest too them, and basically 'stay near' them, though trying to keep from getting between them and any identified enemies, bascially, fire support,

an addition to that last statement of "Helping" is that in the 'best case' scenario, they may bascially go, "...I don't know whats going on, But you sure do, What do you need me to do?" and you might get a 'not good' stat soldier, that you can control, either temporarily, -or- if they are lucky enough to survive the mission and yet gain -experience- you might get a 'free recruit' as they want to help against them.

[Goetikmagus]

I think you bring up a really good point about how civilian AIs should logically desire to fall back behind the squad. Then again, combat is a very confusing situation - especially if you're just not expecting a platoon to plop down from the sky and start ripping up the city to get to those alien marauders. Having someone with you who is militarily untrained is also sometimes a hassle.

Perhaps an individual soldier could shout an order to a civilian for about 10 AU? Simple things: "Get behind me", "Get to the ship", "Get down", "Stay here", "Move to cover", "Run for it", et cetera. Then give the AI a percentage that the civilian will do as commanded, based upon that civilian's bravery score?

Recruiting a lucky or talented civilian is a romantic notion, suitable for Hollywood - but not really suitable for this game. Once again, your existing squad are presumed to be talented and trained soldiers, with several years of experience (depending on rank). Anyone wanting to join and at least be effective in a group would have to undergo a minimal boot camp, probably lasting 18-20 weeks. In this game's time scale, 18-20 weeks is a very long time to be waiting for a free recruit.

[Riotmaker]

The idea on hearing the enemy walk by a wall or rough area locations with sound, that's something that really should be implemented even if its just hearing some movement, I believe there a system like it in the new XCOM:EU. However the reaper should not be detectable until its too late, something like "What was that sound..." just before they get impaled since they are an ambush predator species.

[Goetikmagus]

Well, ~any~ kind of alien or trooper who has not yet been seen, has not fired, and has not moved would have a kind of surprise factor. It would lend itself to the idea that you'd have to sit still for a while, if you're going to set up an ambush. In a full-blown terror mission, it's not likely that either the Xenonaughts nor the aliens will be standing still (unless you have a sniper in a good high-up spot). To some extent, I'd say that the argument is probably covered by the use of Reaction Fire. If you've got a whole lot of AUs that you're not using, then the trooper is basically waiting for something to pop up in front of them and ready to react.

[Andeerz]

This suggestion needs to be implemented, maybe not in the final release of this iteration of the game, but at least as DLC. If not, then someone should mod this in, and I hope that the game's structure is easily amenable to its addition. Something simple like what is in XCOM:EU would be pretty cool (which would cover a good part of the OP's points #1 and #2), but it would be nice to go a step further and try to nail points #3 and #4!

Something like what is done in D&D with spot checking or whatever might work as a basis for #3. As an example, an entity that comes into sight of a soldier but is obscured by smoke and/or cover would trigger a roll of the dice. The result of that roll plus some modifier based on stats of the soldier minus some modifiers based on distance and perhaps other factors (like low morale, injuries, cover, etc.) would determine if the identity of the alien is made out. If the sum total is above a certain threshold, then the entity is identified. Otherwise the entity is represented by a generic humanoid shadowy figure. This wouldn't be hard to code at all, but how easily it would mesh with the existing code and game mechanics of the game might be a different story. This would also require making a new set of sprites for the generic humanoid shadowy figure...

Also, I really like the idea of some aliens being particularly stealthy, especially the reapers.

P.S. How does atmospheric plasma smell like?

[Goetikmagus]

*Puts on the mirrorshades, the General's hat, and sticks a cigar in his mouth*

Victory, son. It smells like Victory.

[Xenomorph]

Have a go at Jagged Alliance 2 if you haven't already, you'll love it.

[StellarRat]

I've wanted "enemy guessimaters" for a long time. I think just an arrow pointing the in the rough direction of enemy movement and/or fire would be highly useful. Obviously, if they haven't moved or fired you aren't going to get anything. This is the system they use in the Battlefront Combat Mission series.

[Sathra]

Oddly enough, removing the hidden movement screen in V19X has a result similar to this post. Since the screen will centre on points of activity its really alot like your troops are hearing and pinpointing alien locations.

Half the time its useless though, since the screen is black with the shroud, but the rest of the time its close enough that there is some revealed terrain in view.

[Solarius Scorch]

I have touched upon the subject of non-visual detection in another thread. Let me copy it here just in case it makes a difference:

I wish we could have a system similar to the UNIMOD (a mod made for UFO: Extraterrestrials), which boils down to the fact that each unit has a Hearing stat and a Noise stat (not sure how weapon sounds fit in). This allows the player to detect aliens which are close but unseen, for example around corners, but the sound mark is only placed approximately so you can't use it for aiming. Oh well, we all have our wishlists.

[thothkins]

Oddly enough, removing the hidden movement screen in V19X has a result similar to this post. Since the screen will centre on points of activity its really alot like your troops are hearing and pinpointing alien locations.

Half the time its useless though, since the screen is black with the shroud, but the rest of the time its close enough that there is some revealed terrain in view.

Yeah, that's certainly my feel for it too. There's more awareness of the aliens across the map now. Still undecided on it.