Interesting situation, probably needs a resolution before final release.

[StellarRat]

This happened today...So, all my soldiers are dead, but my scout car is still alive, but out of ammo. There is only one alien left and I can play hide and seek with him forever since the scout car is faster than he is and he doesn't know where I am currently. This is stalemate. What's the answer? Some ideas. My guess is that this could also happen with one of your soldiers being left too.

#1 - IMO, at a certain point (30 turns??), if you've held the aliens at bay, local forces should start coming in to help you. The aliens certainly aren't going to get reinforcements. They should start appearing at some at some spawn point and just keep coming in every turn until the aliens are dead.

#2 - Declare the mission a tie somehow?

#3 - Reload the ammo in the vehicle somehow?

#4 - The mission simply ends after a certain number of turns and some type of score is calculated?

#5 - All vehicles should probably have an unlimited secondary method of killing aliens. IMO, none of them should ever run out of MG ammo. They should be able to carry HUNDREDS of round of MG ammo specially the Hunter since that's it's main weapon.

Just pointing out a flaw in the game logic.

[thothkins]

#6 - Your vehicle runs out of fuel and becomes a hood ornament for an alien Corvette.

#7 - you return the vehicle to the Dropship and abort. It's a loss, but at least the vehicle will make it back.

#8 - As #7, but XenoCommand realise that since the Dropship and the vehicle are all controlled remotely, they no longer need soldiers at all. A new research branch starts and you can then play XenoMech!

[crusherven]

I'm kinda leaning toward #7 as well. Although it would be pretty sweet if you could run over aliens like you can do with objects.

[thothkins]

I look forward to the Roadkill entry on the debrief screen

[Josip Broz Tito]

I'd say you should be able to return the vehicle to the chopper and abort. No reason to have a time-limit. It'd handicap the aliens even further.

[StellarRat]

I believe the missions did have a time limit in the OG. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[Josip Broz Tito]

I don't recall a time limit other than the turn 20 'aliens get restless and attack' in TFTD for crashes. That didn't end the match, just meant the aliens would come out of hiding on turn 20 if I recall.

If there was a time limit- I don't see a reason for it in xenonauts tbh. It's not hard to blow up hiding spots or find aliens.

That said, more ammo for the machinegun would be great ; ) At least 300 rounds since that equals 2x infantry carrying 2x ammo on them and one loaded.

[Dranak]

I believe the missions did have a time limit in the OG. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

You're wrong. There was a point (20 or 25 turns?) where the aliens basically got a maphack and went full on aggression though.

[StellarRat]

The reason I've made some suggestions that seem to favor the Xenonauts is that time is not on the side of the aliens in ground combat.

[Jean-Luc]

That's a lost mission imo, back to Chinook and abort. It's up to you (the attacker) to force a "resolution". If you can't it's on you. Alien rescue team arrives (responding to a mayday prior to crash), picks up their surviving men/creatures/robots and blows up the downed UFO before leaving (off screen of course).

Edited September 2, 2013 by Jean-Luc

[EchoFourDelta]

In the original game, the aliens got a snapshot of your troops' locations on Turn 20, but they could "forget" your positions and lose track of you again as if they didn't regain visual contact with you in a certain number of turns (and some aliens forgot more quickly). Both UFO Defense and Terror From The Deep utilized this mechanic.

[GizmoGomez]

Fascinating.

I'd support giving the hunter a hecka lot more ammo.

[Tobbzn]

I'd support having unlimited ammo in your dropship so you could go there to reload. After all, right now you can overload your soldiers and on turn 1 drop any excess weight.

[kabill]

I think I'm in the "it's a lost mission" camp. In the final analysis, in a UFO recovery mission the Xenonauts are the aggressors, which means they need to clear the site to win. 'Hanging on' in order to force a 'draw' doesn't make any sense in this context.

Bear in mind, though, that if you hold the UFO for five turns, you win the mission anyway. Obviously this doesn't help if the aliens are in the UFO, but if you can kite them out somehow, you might still be able to win!

[Ol' Stinky]

I guess that after a certain, long time the aliens should win UFO missions by default? I'm thinking from the perspective of a complete newbie who might not know they can abort missions. There'd need to be a prompt to say why the mission's a loss to make it clear to avoid confusion. ("The surviving aliens have escaped.")

Or maybe if it gets to the point where it's a probable loss, a gameplay hint's displayed that informs the player that they can abort, what the requirements are for evacuating surviving squad members/vehicles, and how to actually abort missions.

[Josip Broz Tito]

Unlimited ammo in the dropship is a terrible idea. Absolutely negates one of the key aspects of the x-com series: inventory management.

If you're running out of ammo on your troops= bring more next time, and hope the aliens dropped enough for you to finish the mission this time. If not= abort. The game needs be a challenge.

[EchoFourDelta]

Resupply in the dropship en route between missions makes sense, but being able to head back in during a mission to resupply would be "unbalancing."

[gshuford]

The machine gun for the hunter does have a ridiculously low amount of ammo, though, with no options of increasing it.

[EchoFourDelta]

I will say that the Hunter's gun is where things get a little too ridiculous to be taken seriously. These guns have literally thousands of rounds hooked up when you deploy a vehicle like that.

"Oops, sorry guys, I'm done."

"What the hell are you talking about, we got here 30 seconds ago!"

"Yeah... our gunner only took a half can of 7.62."

"Doesn't that come in a hundred-round belt in the can?"

"Yeah... they only let us take half of one."

"You know that's enough to fire both of those weapons for a total of, like... .75 seconds, right?"

"Yeah..."

I mean, hell. Stick a can for each gun on the outside, let them grab it and reload or something. The guys carrying a gun that apparently fires the same round can carry hundreds and hundreds. Strong flesh, weak steel, I guess.

Edited September 2, 2013 by EchoFourDelta

[Newfr]

The machine gun for the hunter does have a ridiculously low amount of ammo, though, with no options of increasing it.

I can only agree with that. A single soldier with LMG can carry a few times more munition than Hunter (50 bullets in LMG + 2 or 3 additional ammo boxes). While according to this article Ferret Mk 2 carried a total of 2,500 rounds of machine gun ammunition.

Well, 2500 rounds a way too much for in-game Hunter, but I think something around 250-300 rounds will be fine.

[StellarRat]

Unlimited ammo in the dropship is a terrible idea. Absolutely negates one of the key aspects of the x-com series: inventory management.

If you're running out of ammo on your troops= bring more next time, and hope the aliens dropped enough for you to finish the mission this time. If not= abort. The game needs be a challenge.

I would agree, but the aliens in this game have UNLIMITED ammo. That's different than the OG.

[EchoFourDelta]

I would agree, but the aliens in this game have UNLIMITED ammo. That's different than the OG.

Stellar here raises an incredibly pointy point.

[Josip Broz Tito]

I never remembered aliens running out of anything in the OG. Not saying they didn't- I just don't recall ever running into that.

As far as using aliens unlimited ammo handicap...it's just that: a handicap they receive for not aiming as well as a human player can. Infantry ammo is not a problem unless you don't bother to plan ahead and carry enough.

Not allowing an auto-refill after every mission forces you to choose if you want to risk going to the next mission without resupplying. This is a semi-hard decision in some cases= that's a good thing for gameplay. The ability to use dropped alien weapons is already a concession for players that didn't think to bring more ammo.

I don't feel this is an issue really. Aside from hunters needing ammo on par with 2x machine gunners (like rocket vehicles have now), if you lose the means to kill the enemy= you lost the mission. Abort and cut your losses.

[EchoFourDelta]

That said. I can understand not being able to get back to the dropship and refill during missions. Between drops on a single flight is another story entirely.

Assuming these guys are too retarded to keep spare munitions and ordnance in the craft to refit after a drop, especially if they'd know they might have to make a second landing... that's just an unacceptable level of stupidity to be asked to swallow.

[Josip Broz Tito]

No, it's asking the player to account for this and take responsibility for planning ahead. I've been able to do 3 missions without resupply no-problem by allocating a few extra inventory spaces to soldiers, or by having stronger soldiers hold a magazine or two for weaker ones.

Is it realistic to not have extra ammo on the chinook? No, but it does simplify and make the game a lot easier if there was. I don't want to see the difficulty in this game gradually reduce during the patches. A change like this would really reduce the amount of pre-mission planning a player is required to do. That doesn't align with the design goal of making the player make tough choices.

If you want to be able to hit every UFO crashsite on the globe with one chinook= you should have to plan ahead for that as a player by bringing more ammo. It's a choice now and should be kept that way, otherwise it's further hand-holding.

I'd go so far as to say I'd like to see a fatigue system implemented for successive missions across the globe without decent rest.