No armor at the beginning i don t get it.

[EchoFourDelta]

All your arguments can be handwaved away by saying that xenonaut troopers wear the best armor available and that's one reason they are so successful. It's equipped on everyone by default.

Except it's not. They're all wearing a basic old-school, powder-blue utility uniform that provides literally zero protection from anything. That, and the boron carbide we use for armor has been used for decades as blast nozzles for rocket propulsion systems, and is harder than most grades of steel (it's commonly used in metal-cutting bits, saws, and drills) on top of being lighter. This is shit they had decades before the game occurs (composed of a material made before the turn of the 20th century).

I think what some people are asking for is better research and writing; plausible explanation for what we see in-game.

Edited August 27, 2013 by EchoFourDelta

[StellarRat]

Except it's not. They're all wearing a basic old-school, powder-blue utility uniform that provides literally zero protection from anything. That, and the boron carbide we use for armor has been used for decades as blast nozzles for rocket propulsion systems, and is harder than most grades of steel (it's commonly used in metal-cutting bits, saws, and drills) on top of being lighter. This is shit they had decades before the game occurs.

I think what some people are asking for is better research and writing; plausible explanation for what we see in-game.

Well, it does say "basic armor" when you selected the powder blue Star Fleet uniform. The civilians seem to die even easier than the basic Xenonaut. I suppose the writing could use a tweek though.

[Ishantil]

more like a red shirt...

[StellarRat]

more like a red shirt...

I know, but they're BLUE! LOL. I love the Caesan red shirts. I think someone was laughing when he did that art work.

[Ishantil]

I hope so, because I love shooting those guys.

[crusherven]

I think the bottom line for me on starting with armor is that the current survivability feels right at the beginning of the game. Adding armor would make the beginning easier--and frankly sebillians with pistols aren't that dangerous to start with. Either that, or you add armor, redraw thousands of sprites with the new artwork, and it does nothing except look different. What's the point?

[StellarRat]

That's pretty much how I feel.

[EchoFourDelta]

I think the bottom line for me on starting with armor is that the current survivability feels right at the beginning of the game. Adding armor would make the beginning easier--and frankly sebillians with pistols aren't that dangerous to start with. Either that, or you add armor, redraw thousands of sprites with the new artwork, and it does nothing except look different. What's the point?

I agree with you and Stellar - from a gameplay and mechanics point of view. It comes down to how the background is explained, how the story is written, and how utterly contradictory it is compared to capabilities that humanity had for literally decades when the game is set. It's all in how things are presented to us.

[thothkins]

Of course, if you started with the Jackal as it was before, then added a small upgrade to it, based on new plasma weapon findings, then you wouldn't have to have new sprites.

Personally, I'd use the real armour mod, to differentiate between them.

I agree that the opening missions are now a little on the easy side.

[Chris]

For one thing, the Condor Xenopedia entries are old and haven't been changed for at least a year. Secondly, if we're going into backstory then planes are the only things that survive the Iceland Incident. There's no other surviving equipment at all. I think the entry makes reference to the airframe being reinforced with an aluminium alloy to strengthen it against heat weapons, but it's not really practical to build your soldiers out of aluminium alloys.

The main reason, however, is simply that we want it to work that way for the game / research progression. There's quite a lot of things in Xenonaut / alien doctrine that don't make sense if you look at them too hard...but ultimately the gameplay always comes first so some suspension of disbelief is required.

[Chris]

I agree with you and Stellar - from a gameplay and mechanics point of view. It comes down to how the background is explained, how the story is written, and how utterly contradictory it is compared to capabilities that humanity had for literally decades when the game is set. It's all in how things are presented to us.

Suspension of disbelief is necessary here as well, as I'm sure you're well aware. There's no reason why the Xenonauts would only send 8 men into a combat site instead of throwing tens of thousands at it to make sure the technology was secured. There's no reason the Xenonauts wouldn't have essentially unlimited funding. There's also no reason why aliens capable of interstellar travel would attack in a carefully choreographed invasion that we ever had a hope of winning (unless you come up with a dubious plot conceit about their intentions).

You'll never have a story and setting in a video game like this that is not contradictory to the capabilities of the two sides taking part, because if you did it simply wouldn't be any fun.

I think you're demanding a rather high level of realism from Xenonauts - we have to come up with am "excuse" in the background fiction every time we do something unrealistic (which is all the time), and predictably they don't all hold water all the time.

[Newfr]

There's also no reason why aliens capable of interstellar travel would attack in a carefully choreographed invasion that we ever had a hope of winning (unless you come up with a dubious plot conceit about their intentions).

[Chris]

Awesome

[Ishantil]

Man, none of my agents are that cute.

[EchoFourDelta]

Suspension of disbelief is necessary here as well, as I'm sure you're well aware. There's no reason why the Xenonauts would only send 8 men into a combat site instead of throwing tens of thousands at it to make sure the technology was secured. There's no reason the Xenonauts wouldn't have essentially unlimited funding. There's also no reason why aliens capable of interstellar travel would attack in a carefully choreographed invasion that we ever had a hope of winning (unless you come up with a dubious plot conceit about their intentions).

You'll never have a story and setting in a video game like this that is not contradictory to the capabilities of the two sides taking part, because if you did it simply wouldn't be any fun.

I think you're demanding a rather high level of realism from Xenonauts - we have to come up with am "excuse" in the background fiction every time we do something unrealistic (which is all the time), and predictably they don't all hold water all the time.

Not so much realism, but something that's easier to swallow, and that doesn't contradict itself left and right. For a few examples:

Don't tell us they're invisible to radar if we can track and vector fighters in with the same degree of accuracy as if we were engaging conventional airplanes... with radar. The missiles apparently function by tracking radiation? The United States (I'm having difficulty searching BVR radiation-tracking munitions for other countries) had developed missile systems that could track specific radiation signatures, to say nothing of AWACS and ground systems.

If we're told the aliens' weapons identifiably cause their damage due to the heat they produce, and that we know at least the bare minimum that it's a good idea to use heat-resistant materials for aircraft? Like I mentioned, humanity as a whole had a mass-produced material since the early 20th century used for heat exchangers, rocket blast nozzles, blast furnaces, and high-temperature drilling bits that we wear today as armor, that can be several times harder at half again the weight.

Stuff like this is what I'm talking about. Not the fantastical ideas we're presented with in the obvious fiction of the aliens. But if you're defining certain aspects, how they work, and how real-world stuff is used against them, at least the human side of things could stand to be better written and researched.

I'm not trashing on the game; it's facking excellent, and is in every way a worthy companion to the original game, and I've already spent hours and hours playing it. It's just that a lot of the writing is... well, it's sort of meh in places, due to either the person writing the stuff not knowing or not understanding how the stuff he's writing about works.

[GizmoGomez]

(Sorry to interject, but Chris writes the stuff. Just so you're aware. )

Also, yes, the game is frakkin' excellent. No one wants to sound like we believe otherwise.

@Chris:

Would you appreciate it if we came up with ideas to "fix" or replace portions of the "unrealistic" writing, without altering what would actually happen in the game? So, us give suggestions that you could look over when you have a moment that could be more swallowable when it comes to human technology.

We (the fans, forum goers, whatever) could discuss things, narrow it down to a really good one or two ideas, and then present them to you, so you wouldn't have to trudge through a slurry of mediocre ideas to find the one that would actually work.

E4D, would you help out with that?

[Gauddlike]

I believe that was tried once before and no two people could agree on what was realistic or plausible so this could be good

[TrashMan]

Not so much realism, but something that's easier to swallow, and that doesn't contradict itself left and right. For a few examples:

Don't tell us they're invisible to radar if we can track and vector fighters in with the same degree of accuracy as if we were engaging conventional airplanes... with radar. The missiles apparently function by tracking radiation? The United States (I'm having difficulty searching BVR radiation-tracking munitions for other countries) had developed missile systems that could track specific radiation signatures, to say nothing of AWACS and ground systems.

There is a way to explain it.

They are not invisible ot radar - jut hard to detect. Xenonaut radar has 1% detection chance per minute.

Once they are detected however, every radar instalation in range in the world will focus on it - probably using a concetrated search, effectively illuminating it with a much narrower, focused wave. That method is highly effective, as a single target it hit from multiple angles and with a much greater densitiy, making it difficult to escape.

In other words, difficult to detect, but once detected, escape itself is difficult.

If we're told the aliens' weapons identifiably cause their damage due to the heat they produce, and that we know at least the bare minimum that it's a good idea to use heat-resistant materials for aircraft? Like I mentioned, humanity as a whole had a mass-produced material since the early 20th century used for heat exchangers, rocket blast nozzles, blast furnaces, and high-temperature drilling bits that we wear today as armor, that can be several times harder at half again the weight.

Amd I'm sure there are structual reasons they aren't used to build aircraft.

Not even the Space Shuttle is built from those - they just use cermic plates on the underside for re-entry.

I'm not trashing on the game; it's facking excellent, and is in every way a worthy companion to the original game, and I've already spent hours and hours playing it. It's just that a lot of the writing is... well, it's sort of meh in places, due to either the person writing the stuff not knowing or not understanding how the stuff he's writing about works.

Well, it's still above the writing of practicly every other X-Com like game...including the original.

[Newfr]

The missiles apparently function by tracking radiation? The United States (I'm having difficulty searching BVR radiation-tracking munitions for other countries) had developed missile systems that could track specific radiation signatures, to say nothing of AWACS and ground systems.

I agree that UFOs have to be visible for radars. Otherwise it doesn't make any sense. Like how we can spot em at all if they are invisible for radars? As for munition you are wrong. First of all IRL AIM-9 Sidewinder uses infrared homing system (IR) or semi-active radar homing (SARH) for AIM-9C while AIM-54 Phoenix (because Avalanche is fictional missile) use active radar-guided homing system (ARH). That also means that UFO have to be visible for radars otherwise ARH or SARH missiles just can't see it.

Both USA and USSR had no air-to-air anti-radiation missiles (ARMs) at that time (1979). Some say it was because fighters didn't have powerful enough radar to be a target. So there were only air-to-surface (we are not talking about ground based ones) missiles like AGM-45 Shrike or AGM-78 Standard ARM for USA and X-25 or X-28 for USSR. Yes, there were some experiments like ERASE project (Brazo ARM missile) that was cancelled in 1974 but nothing more till early 80-s.

[EchoFourDelta]

I never said the Sidewinder was PRH. I was referring to existing PRH models that could theoretically be adapted to this application. And yeah, that builds on my point; they've obviously done some work in how to track them with missile systems.

[Ishantil]

There are plenty of weapon systems that make a great deal more sense in my opinion to use against the Aliens. Based on the specs, the Sidewinder isn't very well suited to destroying anything but the alien fighters. The warhead just isn't big enough. You'd want a missile that was very fast and had a bigger warhead.

The space shuttles ceramic plates are a great idea for use against plasma weaponry, in fact. Research into those would have been pretty hot right around the time the game takes place, so something similar being used in the Jackal armor makes a whole lot of sense, actually.

[GizmoGomez]

There's a good idea; talk about how the Jackal armor uses technology based on NASA's Space Shuttle Orbital Vehicle. The Orbiter's Thermal Protection System, or TPS, was developed because it needed to be reusable; all other TPSs were one time use, which wouldn't work with a reusable vehicle like the shuttle. It was also extremely light weight and fragile, one could easily crush certain panels with their bare hands.

EDIT: I recommend mentioning the LI900 panels. These minimize thermal conductivity (even while hot you could hold it by the edges) while maximizing thermal shock resistance. They'd be perfect for use against plasma weapons.

EDIT2: The LI900 panels were extremely weak, strength wise, and were therefore not used in high stress areas. The LI2200 was designed to be much stronger, but at a significant weight penalty.

Edited August 29, 2013 by GizmoGomez

[GizmoGomez]

So, just so we're clear on things, where exactly are the issues with the realism of the writing?

I'm going to make a separate thread to catalogue the issues and possible "realistic" explanations as to why things were done the way they are. I'll update this post with the link once I'm finished.

UPDATED:

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/7258-Realism-Issues-Center-Lets-make-this-game-make-more-sense

Edited August 29, 2013 by GizmoGomez

[Ishantil]

Frankly, some of the weaponry and equipment choices don't make much sense. Either it was substandard equipment, under powered, or didn't make sense to adapt to the application chosen.

A great example being the F-16. The original application was for a short range low cost interceptor, not a air superiority fighter. The F-15C would have been a top of the line fighter in 1979, and would have made the most sense to adapt to a high-speed air superiority fighter. The excuses about armor doesn't make much since given that an alien heavy plasma rifle can defeat tank armor. Thus, anything an aircraft was made out of would basically be toast. So you'd want to adapt the best performing plane and expect losses. Thus, you'd want the largest payload you could get. The -15C has existing wet hardpoints and a massive payload. Basically it was designed to sweep in and kill everything that moved in the sky.

Keep in mind, most of this kind of stuff is quibbling. We fully understand that the fiction is being written for the gameplay, not the other way around.

[GizmoGomez]

Keep in mind, most of this kind of stuff is quibbling. We fully understand that the fiction is being written for the gameplay, not the other way around.

Agreed: we can't alter what's been chosen, only the explanation as to why it was chosen.

I've made a thread that will list "unrealisms" and where we can have a designated, central place to discuss them. Personally, while this thread is nice and all, I don't think it's quite the best place for discussing this stuff. I mean, it's not really a designated centralized place for discussing what we are.

I've made a thread where we can do just that.

Here's the link again:http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/7258-Realism-Issues-Center-Lets-make-this-game-make-more-sense