terror missions enviro change.

[Darth Draken]

Hi, my first post on here, but not on steam..

First off awesome game coming a long well...

My thought is rather simple, the terror map, when a terror hits it takes xx amount of time to get to the missions, but on arrival everyones alive and nothing is trashed or damaged.. Does that mean the aliens wait around for our troops before the kickoff?

For me i would grade the game better if the place was already trashed up to a point, ie burning cards and buildings, dead bodies scattered, even enslaved people held captive.. Also maybes an alien dropship to secure unless the aliens teleported in...

And if thats the case then why do the terror ships land?

You could then have the task of saving the remaining npcs ect.

And the longer it takes to get to a mission the less people to save..

What do you think?

[ThunderGr]

Also maybes an alien dropship to secure unless the aliens teleported in...

And if thats the case then why do the terror ships land?

From what I have read from other people, you often spot the alien ship responsible for the terror mission and you get the option to assault the ship instead.

[Kurruk]

Yes you do, on my first play through, I noticed some bigger ship, after like 10 very easy light scout or scouts, so I sent all of my 3 ships: 2 condors and 1 foxtrot. They were all gone. After a while it landed just outside of my radar and got a terror mission (really think they were related).

Lost all of my troops as well there and because of ironman that was it for me ;-)

[thothkins]

I;m with the OP. I alwasy try and get to the terror site as quickly as possible, even if I have a base nearby. It has made no difference whatsoever to the status of anyone at the mission site. Why do it? Because logically, I think that the longer I take to get there, the more advanced the aliens plans should be.

A solution would be to have a default number of locals, local forces (with variable for technology level) and aliens as part of the terror mission. There should also be a collateral damage for the site. The longer the mission goes on, the more locals die, the more damage sustained and the possibility of losing 1 or 2 aliens.

This doesn't necessarily have to show up on the site structures when you get there. It would be nice to see partially destroyed buildings etc, but not vital.

But the point being that the all of the above will affect your final score.

[Kurruk]

So in other words, if you'd see some special building models that look like they were hit and also random shots on the ground, you'd be happy?

[Solarius Scorch]

Detonating a few plasma grenades would do. I'm all for using the existing demolition engine.

[smoitessier]

Wonder if it's possible, if your late to the party, to have the game play a few turns by itself before you actually start at the beginning, make sense?

If that takes to much processing power and would slow down the start of combat, then for purely cosmetics, have a few alien grenades explode randomly at turn -1 at the beginning, or not so randomly with sounds of explosions and civilians dieing (in the post loading screen).

[Kurruk]

They seem to be interested in seeing that something happened there. The easiest option it just show something that would look like there was something going on

So when loading of map is finished, but before placing units or any other object, devs might try couple of options.

Your plasma grenade is one I haven't consider, but it sounds interesting.

I was thinking about something like a meteorite shower. Randomize for one hour of delay x shots (ex 5) per side (aliens, locals) on the highest level of map. Then randomize destination for that shot and go through normal destruction part. After that depending on time there will be some random destruction from guns, like there was a fight.

[Goetikmagus]

I've often wondered about these things, myself. I think, to some degree, you get a little of that stuff during the first round, because the aliens are completely disembarked and scattered all over the place while your troops are just hitting the turf. It always kind of annoyed me in the OG when I'd just fanned out my team, and during the first round for the aliens, I'd hear automatic plasma fire, explosions, and people dying in every direction. Containment became a drag when all the civilians were dead before I had eyes on anything. Of course... that's the way it should be, really.

It does strike up other questions - like: Do the aliens take captives at terror sites? After all, if they just put down and slaughter everything that moves, then shouldn't they be called "Extermination Sites"? I have no delusions that development time should or would be spent on anything like this, but it makes perfect sense that the aliens would seek to capture, instead of kill. Perhaps they want live food back at the UFO. Perhaps they want human genetic material for their breeding programs. Perhaps, in order to amass a decent count of reapers, they need live hosts, instead of dead ones. Of course, as soon as the civilians start fighting back or the XNs land on-site, the time to capture is over and the fight begins. It would give opportunities to stop captures-in-progress by confronting aliens bogged down with unconscious humans - at which point the alien would have to choose to either drop its prize and fight, keep its prize and flee the battle, or try to fight while weighed down.

What's probably even more feasible is finishing a terror mission with an assault on some kind of temporary alien processing site - where they prepare their captured humans for transportation into space (be it either as food or scientific inquiry ... or even merely as hostages). That way, you've got another option at the end of a terror mission: Run your beat-up, low-on-ammo troopers back home for healing and re-supply, or send your gang of Devil Dogs to the nearby processing site to rescue as many captured humans as they can. Opting out may save wear-and-tear on your team, and wouldn't come with any penalties - but jumping in would act as a kind of "bonus round" for points, as it would present more aliens to kill, more artifacts to bring home, and best of all, more civilians saved.

Just a thought.

[thothkins]

EU1994 set them out pretty formally. The Abductor would have the big arms for getting cattle. The terror ships were simply there to cause mayhem. I think the alien unions demanded the distinctions.

Having the occasional surprise mission would be lots of fun. Here are some more mission examples.

Not sure about bonus round. If you don't do the second part, then it's technically still on the map. So, the aliens get to complete their mission and the finding nation score should reflect that. Generally I load extra ammo for terror sites, as I'm expecting extra problems. So, if there were varieties of terror mission, or missions surround specific craft, then at least I'd go in prepared for a possible two tier mission.