Combing the map for the final aliens in ground missions

[TiLT]

I just played the Xenonauts alpha for the first time, and I'm pleased. It plays better than it looks in the screenshots, and it certainly captures some of the X-Com magic.

I'm sure you've already thought about this and have a solution for it, but in the off chance that you haven't, I feel that I have to point out that missions become a drag once you're down to the final few aliens hiding somewhere on the map and you have to carefully comb through every building to find them, often re-visiting old areas in case they've wandered in behind you. This isn't really all that fun, and it eventually makes you careless because you grow bored, leading to unnecessary deaths. I ended up just quitting the game after I had visited the entire map without discovering the final alien because it wasn't fun any more and I had seen most of what the current alpha had to offer anyway.

In case you haven't already figured out a solution to the issue, may I suggest the following:

When the current amount of living aliens on a map gets down to 20% or fewer (or so. The exact number isn't important) of the original amount, the remaining aliens become desperate and more aggressive, playing less carefully and trying their best to hunt down the player. No longer do they wander around in a tiny room on the third floor of a remote building. They'll charge out into the streets looking for enemies, even if it's tactically unwise. At this point the player has more or less won anyway. Alternatively have them focus their efforts on getting back to their UFO to protect it in missions that feature those.

The exception to this rule should be aliens in or close to the UFO. They shouldn't start charging outside, but should retain their tactical advantage by waiting for players to come to them. This is the natural objective for the player anyway.

An added benefit of this feature would be that the late parts of ground missions would become more tense if the player knows that the aliens have given up all hopes of subtlety and are now coming for them with everything they've got.

Edited January 15, 2012 by TiLT

[anotherdevil]

sounds like a workable idea! =]

[Gorlom]

There is already a mechanic ingame to deal with theissue of haveing to hunt down every alien. if you cant find any more just hold the UFO (both parts i think) for 5 turns. (not sure what the terror missions victory condition is though)Any unkilled aliens escape then but atleast you dont have to do the tedious work of hunting them.

[TiLT]

Ah, that certainly helps for UFO missions, but not when there's no UFO present.

[anotherdevil]

when would there not be ufos present? Only terror missions and base attacks, both of which I'd doubt you'd want to just 'skip' because they're the hardest, and always the longest too.

[Gorlom]

He's not asking to skip anything. Hes acctually asking for the aliens to become suicidal when there's too few left to make a difference, sp that he doesnt have to look in every little corner for them.

[anotherdevil]

He's not asking to skip anything. Hes acctually asking for the aliens to become suicidal when there's too few left to make a difference, sp that he doesnt have to look in every little corner for them.

I think he was actually referring to your post about holding the UFO for 5 turns, wasn't he?

[TheTuninator]

I think both should be options; you should be able to just seize the UFO and hold it for five turns to win, but if you reduce the alien force below a certain amount there should be a kamikaze trigger.

That's only if it's feasible to implement, of course, but it'd be a good feature to have.

Plus, the combination of the two could result in players sometimes being forced to hold a UFO's bridge against a kamikaze rush from all the remaining aliens, which sounds like a damn lot of fun to me.

Edited January 16, 2012 by TheTuninator

[anotherdevil]

I'm pretty sure if you do hold the UFO the aliens will come and attack you so that you don't win by default... At least I think that's the plan when the AI gets implemented...

[Gorlom]

I think he was actually referring to your post about holding the UFO for 5 turns, wasn't he?

yes, but hes still not skip.. wait.. now you've confused me what are you talking about? what do you think im talking about? what do you think he is talking about?

[anotherdevil]

I thought he was talking about being able to skip ground missions or make them quicker. You then mentioned the fact that you could hold UFOs for 5 turns. He then said that would only apply when UFOs are present. I then said that the only time UFOs wouldn't be present would be base and terror missions, hardly ones you'd want to skip/autoresolve for fear of losing valuable men.

Then we got confused as to what he is wanting to skip etc. =p

[TiLT]

I'm not asking to skip or autoresolve anything. The "hold the UFO for 5 turns" objective removes the need for my solution in UFO missions because you can just head for the UFO instead of going over the entire map looking for a few stray aliens, but it leaves me vaguely unsatisfied and doesn't solve anything when it comes to base defense, base assault and terror missions.

I mean, what happens to the aliens when you've held the UFO for 5 turns? Do they surrender? Do they blend in with the local population? Do they catch a ride back to their base? Do they just up and die? You can see how this leaves me somewhat puzzled. It's a nice game mechanic but doesn't feel right storywise.

There's nothing unique about the non-UFO missions that removes the problems either. I remember having this issue often in X-Com for all kinds of missions. Even during base defense there'd be this lone alien hiding out in the upper levels of the barracks or whatever, making me go over every part of the base again just to take down an alien that is really supposed to be, you know, attacking. In base assaults of my own I'd take out the aliens I'd come across, then eliminate the alien leaders, only to realize that the mission hadn't ended yet. Cue anticlimatic corridor-hunt. Terror missions are so large and with such complex maps that it's very easy for an alien to end up in a place you don't look, further emphasizing the problem.

Either every type of mission needs its own version of the "hold UFO for 5 turns" solution, or something else needs to be done to remove the burden of mopping up stragglers (which can and should be dangerous!). My suggestion keeps things interesting until the very end without feeling like an artificial solution.

This is a very real problem, and I would be careful about underestimating it. If 1/3 of my time playing ground missions is spent looking for that final alien (which is a likely estimate in my opinion), that means 1/3 of my time playing ground missions is dull. That's not a good thing in any way, shape, or form.

[anotherdevil]

sounds like something for the AI guys to do. Just a general, make sure the aliens are actually doing something rather than standing around, sort of thing, not really something that needs to come into play only at the very end

[Sathra]

Everyone seems to be forgetting that the aliens can also escape from the map. That's what happens to the remaining living ones after the 'victory location' times finishes, and I guess it could also happen in base defense and terror missions.

You take a score hit though, as its assumed they run off, killing anything in their path till they die of suffocation/injury/starvation/vehicle accident. Couple of days really. Or they find an alien base, either one.

They're no longer a viable force, due to being seperated and without resources.

[admiral]

I have a couple of suggestions on that subject:

a) Base-terror missions: When the number of live aliens drop below a certain threshold, they stop trying to fight the Xenonauts and start heading for the exit, ie they are attempting to escape a hopeless situation. If the player doesn't manage to find them within, let's say, five turns, the last remaining aliens escape and the mission is successfuly concluded (maybe with a penalty, "x aliens escaped" so as to provide an incentive to hunt them and not wait for the time to run out).

b) UFO missions: When your team manages to hold the UFO for x amount of time, let's say five turns as it is planned to be, the mission doesn't end automatically. Instead, holding down the UFO for those turns reveals the location of the remaining survivors. Story-wise it can easily be explained, maybe the Xenonauts manage to activate the UFO's systems that record and monitor the crew's lifesigns. You can see this all the time in Star Trek, the ship can always pin-point the location of the crew.

[anotherdevil]

a) this wouldn't work I fear because they are still superior in fire power to you, so you'd be rapidly searching with your men, but at the same time (due to the time limit) leaving them in riskier situations than they should be in, and it is a terrible danger that they might die unnecessarily because of this.

b) could work =] Or it could just be that when you hold the UFO, all the aliens outside it try and take it back, and you basically get a turkey shoot of them trying (unsuccessfully hopefully) to dislodge your entrenched soldiers. And then the mission would only end when all are dead, or you clicked (a newly appeared) 'finish mission with UFO capture' button, etc.

[Gorlom]

b) UFO missions: When your team manages to hold the UFO for x amount of time, let's say five turns as it is planned to be, the mission doesn't end automatically. Instead, holding down the UFO for those turns reveals the location of the remaining survivors. Story-wise it can easily be explained, maybe the Xenonauts manage to activate the UFO's systems that record and monitor the crew's lifesigns. You can see this all the time in Star Trek, the ship can always pin-point the location of the crew.

Oh dear no. TV adapted story telling mechanics like tossing themselfs left and right while shakeing the camera and "biosigns" are just as big petpeeve as horny space walnuts with me.

Star trek has to have that little impossible piece of tech where they remotly can read lifesigns to tell their story... Xenonauts doesnt. If they are wearing stuff like the marines in Aliens 2 fine. (although i dont know why noncombatants would) But dont go mention star treks technology please!

PS. Wouldn't Alien non combatants panic when they are the last one or last 2 left? Could you work that into the combin mechanic any way? DS.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Gorlom

[Gauddlike]

If you have already hacked your way through lots of the enemy it could be that the last alien is stuck in the middle of nowhere having a panic attack and is unable to attack or escape.

I like the take and hold objectives as a way of finishing the missions.

Think of it as securing the main threat so the aliens can't self destruct the ship, overload the base power core etc then sending in the support team to mop up any survivors so your elite team can go off somewhere else.

You don't need them to locate the final alien when you can leave it to the national guard.

Primaries could be:

Landed ship: Take and hold the Ufo engine room and bridge for 5 turns to prevent self destruction, 3 if ship commander is dead.

Base: Secure the control room for 5 turns, or 3 turns if the base command team is dead.

Terror: Kill 75% of the enemy, civilians could also be saved as part of this if their AI allows it.

[TheTuninator]

I would like to raise a point about the "hold the UFO" mission objective:

If you win by holding the UFO for five turns, this has the unfortunate side effect of often allowing a fair amount of aliens to escape, thus impacting your score.

I imagine that this might simply be due to the lack of actual alien AI at the moment, and I believe someone may have mentioned this earlier in the thread, but are there plans to make at least some surviving aliens to rush the UFO in an attempt to recapture it if you take control? While some allowance could still be made for aliens to escape, I don't quite feel inclined to pour over every nook and cranny in the map to find aliens so I don't take a score hit.

Strongly encouraging at least a contingent of the remaining aliens to attack the UFO if it's captured would be both a logical course of action from their standpoint and a great benefit to the player's mental health. They shouldn't all have to do it, nor should they do it all the time in order to create varied behavior, but I think it'd be both a sensible and very convenient feature to have.

I imagine it could also make for some quite harrowing game moments.

[anotherdevil]

yeah. And take into consideration that some of the larger UFOs will be quite large. And, for the 5 turn thing to work you have to hold the entire UFO. So once they get one guy back to base, you have to search the entire UFO for it...

Perhaps a better option would be the idea of when they are under 20% of original forces they fall back to the UFO, or for larger UFOs the control room thingy. Sort of like what they did in the Icelandic Incident, but with no chance that they will successfully blow up the area and take your entire squad.

That would suck

[Gauddlike]

If you don't want any to escape you hunt them down.

If you want the mission to be over quicker you hold the control room.

You may even get bonus points for holding the control room that more than make up for any losses from fleeing enemies.

It would definitely make holding the room more interesting if the aliens came to recapture of course but it could turn into a duck shoot if they just stream back in one at a time while you have your whole team set up waiting for them.

[anotherdevil]

I agree, but remember that's assuming one entrance. That's something that Chris'll have to keep in mind when designing the bigger UFOs

[Gauddlike]

I wasn't assuming one entrance.

I doubt it would matter how many entrances there are, as long as you have 2 or 3 troops to cover each you can sit with a full AP bar and hope to reaction shot them as they come in.

[anotherdevil]

too true... That's why I prefer the retreat at 20%, though that might just do the opposite, make it insanely hard for you

[Gauddlike]

Yeah both sides have their drawbacks.

That's the main reason I was saying if you want to hunt down every last one then you should have to go looking for them.

If you want to just take the UFO then that's where you head.

If the AI has the option of running away or attacking and they make the decision individually then I suppose it would certainly add to the replayability.