Propaganda

[FruitBasket]

My thinking is this: there's a big war with aliens, which we have very little chance to win, so everyone's obviously a little panicky. Then suddenly it turns out there's a black-ops group which was preparing for an alien invasion, that has access to cutting edge military technology, and is slowly developing alien-based tech. This, of course, would cause some governments to feel threatened, hence poor relations and low funding of such an organization.

So an idea: what if we implement some sort of propaganda mechanic, like, e.g., having a camera-man on a mission to record a glorious victory over the xenos. Or send some of our scientist to universities around the globe to share some insight on the aliens. Maybe spare experienced engineers to help rebuild a citiy's infrastructure after a terror attack? And while we're at it give the police/army some nice laser pistols to help them fight of any future attacks.

Of course the downside is, that if we record one of our soldiers dying, or letting a civilian die, or worst of all losing all together, we lose credibility as Earth’s last hope. And obviously scientist that are not interrogating aliens or developing plasma rifles are being paid too much, as are engineers not crafting ‘lazerz’.

Lastly I think that this mechanic shouldn’t raise relations, or funding, but negate loss of those.

What do You guys think?

[Ryodan]

were supposed to be black ops, kind of a low key thing. avoid the spot light and all. And in order for local politicians to continue to do what they do best (take credit for other peoples achievements) no one can know about Xenonauts. That is after all part of the explanation for the airstrike option added in v20. Local forces pay Xenonauts for the right to the crash site and take credit for downing an alien craft.

as far as propaganda I could go for missions to arrest alien sympathizers (usually politicians, celebrities, or high ranking military) those could be a lot of fun. lots of ideas for how propaganda could fit into the game without an actual propaganda game mechanic.

[Gorlom]

Is the mechanic filling a demand you feel is left out or neglected? Or is it a cool idea you found a way to interject smoothly into the game as a whole?

[ventuswings]

If there are another specific mechanism for funding to be implemented, I would honestly like devs to implement funding changes related to Cold War blocs first.

[Ryodan]

funding related to cold war blocs is an excellent idea. Even though the situation is not good for humanity at the start of the game, politics would not be set aside. Of course for that to happen the geoscape would need to be broken down into actual countries and not just regions, I don't understand why that wasn't done in the first place.

[FruitBasket]

were supposed to be black ops, kind of a low key thing. avoid the spot light and all.

I think the xenonauts dropped the black-ops label as soon as the aliens started openly attacking humans. I mean - there are witnesses of our actions (civilians and local forces), and we're not wiping their memory MIB style. Not to mention, that terror missions would have (in theory) a lot of people seeing Xenonauts fighting the aliens, some of them would probably record it or photograph it. And if I recall correctly, after a successful mission the local politicians praise the Xenonauts, not themselves or the military.

funding related to cold war blocs is an excellent idea. Even though the situation is not good for humanity at the start of the game, politics would not be set aside.

Another thing is that the game takes place in a very interested period. Not only is humanity on the verge of wiping itself out, there are now aliens trying to speed up our extinction (or abduct some cows and probe some farmers), so an international organization, that in theory should be apolitical, has a chance to change the course of the Cold War, by joining or helping one block, or even try and unite the world. This would be something unique for the game making it more than just a ‘fan made’ sequel.