Teiwaz Posted November 6, 2011 Share Posted November 6, 2011 Most squad-based tactical games in the vein of x-com allow the player to rename their soldiers. 90% of the time, players use this feature to make notes about their soldier's capabilities or role in the squad, leading to teams with stupid names like "Bob Machinegunner" or "Bill Sniper" or "James Medic." Or even worse, "Shotgun 2." I've always hated this. Could we just have a separate field, which is displayed with the name (like their rank), which allows us to enter a comment without renaming the soldier? Or even just provide a dropdown of preset roles we could assign our soldiers? This could also be used to allow us to sort our soldiers when equipping them, allowing for easier management of soldiers within standardized roles. Even better, it could allow us to define default loadouts to soldier roles in order to reduce some of the micromanagement required when equipping squads before a mission. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anotherdevil Posted November 6, 2011 Share Posted November 6, 2011 I believe if you look in the frequently made suggestions you might find that this is frequently suggested. Something is being planned too, AFAIK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lokik Posted November 6, 2011 Share Posted November 6, 2011 As you really didn't have to fit your soldiers' equipment again in every mission, I just used the renaming to make the my soldiers more ethnically diverse. Don't mind if they add something like this, but I don't see it as something important, assuming that the game remembers the soldiers' gear loadouts after the mission. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 Yup this gets mentioned all the time. We'll be looking at implementing some kind of soldier icon or role button that lets you identify which troops are meant to be in which role in the beta. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MickeyC Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 yeah not something I would push for. For myself I likely wouldn't even us it if it was there. Also I've never heard of someone changing a soldier name to reflect their role/weaponry ... If you can't remember who uses what then it seems to me that you aren't invested enough in your troops to care who uses what Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sathra Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 I did, but it was letter codes. The only ones that were important were the Heavy and Psi markers (maybe Sniper in TFTD). Mainly because I'd use alot of troops, and it'd take a while to remember who was who. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MickeyC Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 Fair enough, Sathra. I always had a standard trooper loadout and then knew who my others were and when someone died just rotated one of my experience people into that role and got new rooks as with the standard load as replacements, always worked well for me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breadsmith Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 I did more or less the same, that experienced grunt will be amuch more effective sniper than the new guy. @Teiwaz, Have you ever heard of the FPS game Stalker? They actually named everyone like that in the game. Nikolai A-K for the win Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoywolf Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 this is a good idea, Ive been guilty of calling my soldiers Bill Blaster Bomb or something like that. But shotgun 2... that is so sad and so impersonally haha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elydo Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 I added the actual stats after the name, strength/accuracy were the most common, but generally the two most important ones for the role they seemed best for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anotherdevil Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 I just changed soldiers names into people I knew. Easier to remember that way, and easier to remember who carries and who dd what. And all the awesome things I could tell people they did! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patupi Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 *chuckles* Yeah, old X-com and the limited displays in some menus. I know a lot of people added stats to the names (and there was a prog made to add them automatically). I only added 'PSI' to the end of the name to all those who had a high Psi Strength who I wanted to train up later. The rest didn't seem to matter to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MickeyC Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 I just changed soldiers names into people I knew. Easier to remember that way, and easier to remember who carries and who dd what. And all the awesome things I could tell people they did! Yeah I'd often use names of friends Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoywolf Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 i'd be ok with an setting them with icons next to their names, that should be enough at least for me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sathra Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 For combat purposes, having an 'equipped weapon' icon would be enough I'd think. Combat shield overriding pistol, grenade and baton of course (because the shield is the important part). I never used friends name's for my troops. I tried it once, and they got killed every mission. It was...disturbing. And expensive! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anotherdevil Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 Yeah, if your soldier is a good sniper, you're gonna give him a sniper rifle. No point in giving him the sniper symbol, but then giving him a combat shield... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teiwaz Posted November 9, 2011 Author Share Posted November 9, 2011 For combat purposes, having an 'equipped weapon' icon would be enough I'd think. Combat shield overriding pistol, grenade and baton of course (because the shield is the important part).I never used friends name's for my troops. I tried it once, and they got killed every mission. It was...disturbing. And expensive! The 2 things this would miss are equipment-based specialties (like a medic, or an engineer), as well as in non-combat screens, such as the personnel or soldier windows. When I'm assigning guys to a transport, or setting their initial roles based on stats in the personnel window, I want to be able to see the squad makeup to make sure I have everyone I need. This would require this info to be visible pretty much everywhere you see the soldier's name. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sathra Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 Its more for ease of searching. If the primary weapon of a soldier is shown as an icon on their hot-button-slot-link-thing, then if you're looking for a particular weapon you can just switch between each. There's only so much room on those portraits. If its people with specific gear, I'd assume you'd know either their name or what you equipped them with and can search for them that way. You can assign troops to dropships from the equip screen, and they are each listed by dropship. You can just scroll though it there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gauddlike Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 Yeah the system doesn't need to be too complicated. A portrait with a rank symbol and a weapon type symbol should be enough. The weapon icon could be a different colour or have a different shape border to show what tier it is or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bibidibop Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Rather than naming the soldiers' roles, I was actually hoping this was about pre-defined combat loads. My *place specialty here* is definitely going to die frequently, and I'll find someone who is a close match, stat wise, eventually. Why not have it so I can name an arbitrary number of combat loads so I can just apply them as I need to. A pull down list of saved, user defined, combat loads could be added to the personnel window. The reasoning behind adding the loads to the personnel window is that window has the best soldier information organization. To be able to organize them, and load them without taking my eyes off that info would be invaluable. That is more so than the ability to go straight to the load out screen by double clicking a soldier name in the personnel window. Not that that is any less useful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gauddlike Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 That has already been discussed and, if I recall, Chris put it on his nice to have list to look at later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simmo753 Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 I always liked that I could re-name the soldiers in X-com, made a much better connection with them and made the whole thing more immersive for me, the call sign is handy for those of you who want to write stats down but i'd like to be able to change the name of the soldiers or edit the bio of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean-Luc Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 The callsign is the name (though maybe it should be called "name" rather than "callsign"). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorlom Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 What are you talking about JL? The old name is still visible in the soldiers file even if you change the callsign... isn't it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean-Luc Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 Afaik you can change the soldiers' name in this game. The "change callsign" button is the only name changing function in the game. So "change callsign" changes the name, right? Is there some other way to change the name? Really confused now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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