Containing Civilians

[Xias]

Hello everyone, new to the forums, but i had i suggestion for the game. Seeing that Civilian casualties actually matter to your mission score. I think being able to contain or direct civilians to a "safe" zone while on the battlefield would be useful and add a new mechanic to the game.

Maybe at the expense of AP as in zip tieing or detaining civilians just so they dont run into danger.

or even have it where you "sacrafice" one of your own soldiers by having him setup a quartine or safe zone which creates that soldier into a "beacon" of types where civilians in his sight would run to him as if the soldier were calling them to safety.

This request for this feature isn't at the top of my dream list if you will, but i do believe it would add a new dimension of realism.

I try to picture the scene of an Alien fighting force landing in on a heli, dismounting it, setting up a parameter then bounding forward directing humans to the land site as they secure the area.

[anotherdevil]

there should be a zone with NPC soldiers on terror missions (which you'll have a secondary objective to protect) and civilians (I believe) will make their way to that zone, so long as they aren't scared off by aliens, or xenonauts

[RotGtIE]

To be honest I never found civilians to be much of a problem to manage in the original X-Com and in this game there are already plans for a civilian AI to identify dangerous areas and move to avoid them.

Somehow I think as long as they aren't blocking doorways or anything like that I won't give a hoot what the civvies do while I sweep the map of aliens. I usually just ignore them as it is, and I don't think that is going to change in xenonauts.

Besides, somehow I imagine corralling a bunch of civvies around an operative is just begging for an alien grenade to wipe 'em all out.

[poulwrist]

I remember using stun prods / grenades on them...

[Gorlom]

I remember using stun prods / grenades on them...

Stun prods? you mean cattle prods? on people? and Frag grenades?!? You evil evil man you!

PS. Which game was the stunn grenades with the green smoke in? Apoc? DS.

Edited February 10, 2012 by Gorlom
typos

[poulwrist]

No, stun grenades of course

[BobbyDylan]

Do the aliens go after unconciouse civies? It'd be funny saving them, Men in Black style, except with stun battons.

"get down!.. no all the way down!"

*ZAP*

[MrPyro]

Aliens will ignore unconscious humans in UFO: EU; I used to employ stun rods on them on Snakeman terror missions, as being smacked with a stun rod was better than the alternative of meeting a Chrysalid.

You could also mind-control civilians, but they turned hostile the following turn, and they were useless anyway

[nutbarz]

What about the Farm. Can we have cows and chickens and goats and sheep and horses and..... I mean there is the random TV Alien after all. A Random cow running through the field would be funny... maybe someone can make a cow mod..

[Gorlom]

There is no cow level!

[nutbarz]

There is no cow level!

awww.... :-(

[Gauddlike]

yes there is, it's over with the cake.

[Gorlom]

That's soo evil Guaddlike. You know the cake is a lie.

[rynait]

Hello,

I would suspect civvies modded is a possibility, after all we could mod soldiers and aliens. Cow mods, well probability but making it look good would be a negative (cow graphic would involve 2 square spaces, like hunter taking 4).

But you never know what the dev decide to code involving the NPC/civvies.

R

[Safe-Keeper]

In reality, when SWAT teams clear, say, a building with hostages, they will handcuff everyone on the site, innocents or not, so that they may be more easily kept under control. I would love to see something like this made in Xenonauts -- the ability to cuff a civilian so that he doesn't run off and get himself killed. This wouldn't even require a "handcuff" item to be made, all you would have to do would be to add a "Secure Noncombatant" action when next to a civilian or (probably not as often) an unarmed alien.

A cuffed civilian would stay in place or follow directly behind a Xenonaut, whatever the player wanted.

Simply giving the player direct control of civvies within x tiles of a Xenonaut (with a certain risk of panic/disobedience) would be appreciated, too.

[Xias]

A cuffed civilian would stay in place or follow directly behind a Xenonaut, whatever the player wanted.

Simply giving the player direct control of civvies within x tiles of a Xenonaut (with a certain risk of panic/disobedience) would be appreciated, too.

I think thats a good idea...

Would you also have it where you could make the detainie kneel?

It would cause the civ to burn AP to stand thus not running farther if you were trying to secure them.

[Gorlom]

Safe-Keeper isnt that also to prevent any criminal pretending to be a hostage from acting?

From a gameplay perspective i think it would be boring. From a ingame character point of view I don't think the civvies would understand why they get cuffed. Conspiration theories would start springiing up and funding nations would cut funding and be generally displeased.

[Gauddlike]

The problem I see with that is that the aliens may well be actively hunting the person you have just tied up and told not to move.

While that might be useful (as bait maybe?) it would not make a lot of sense.

At the moment civilians are planned to run for cover away from the armed and armoured men, just as they do from aliens.

After all they wear unusual uniforms early on and later they will have glowing plasma weapons and be wearing advanced tech armour that no one will recognise as friendly.

Chasing civilians all over the map to try and get close enough to detain them doesn't sound like fun.

Instead maybe the Xenonauts morale support aura could have an effect on civilians?

Use that to influence their chances of running for an extraction point or the Xenonauts drop ship?

I see that as an officer with a commanding presence having more of a chance of persuading the panicked civvies to head in the right direction.

In game terms the higher the morale boost they get from being either close to a high rank or multiple lower ranks the more likely they are to stop running away and to head towards the nearest safe point (preferably still using cover).

It involves no extra work by the player.

[geoibax]

What about a very low AP-cost action to bark orders at civilians? Like "Get behind me!" or "Get to the choppa!"? No coercion/cuffing needed, just some verbal instructions to get them herding in the right direction? Mindless civvies always bother me in XCom and TFTD...

[Gorlom]

What about a very low AP-cost action to bark orders at civilians? Like "Get behind me!" or "Get to the choppa!"? No coercion/cuffing needed, just some verbal instructions to get them herding in the right direction? Mindless civvies always bother me in XCom and TFTD...

Sounds boring unless the civvies has an overwhelming % chance to resist the order.. like 80% or something.

[Gazz]

So the blood and mud spattered soldier with a smoking rifle shouts at you to move it and you... talk it over?

[Gorlom]

So the blood and mud spattered soldier with a smoking rifle shouts at you to move it and you... talk it over?

No Gazz I was more thinking along the lines of:

At the moment civilians are planned to run for cover away from the armed and armoured men, just as they do from aliens.

After all they wear unusual uniforms early on and later they will have glowing plasma weapons and be wearing advanced tech armour that no one will recognise as friendly.

Panicing, being scared of and just plain not trusting the guys with the weapons.

And there's also the issue with How do you respond to a Soldier yelling at you in Czech when you only speak Mandarin? Russian when you only speak Brazilian (or is it Portugese in Brazil?). Arabic when you only speak Polish etc... you get the idea.

PS. damn that tower of Babel DS.

Edited February 16, 2012 by Gorlom

[Xentax]

The language thing is legit, but humans are still recognizably humans, even if they have weird guns and uniforms you don't recognize. If you're running away from an ALIEN and a human with a gun points THAT WAY, you'll do that if you can control your panic long enough to think about it...

I'd like to see civs in two AI modes:

1. Panic: They run away from the latest perceived threat (last alien they saw, or last dead unit or other civ, or last explosion/gunfire, etc. This would include reversing direction if they turn a corner and they see ANOTHER such scare.

2. Herded: They move towards the nearest safe zone or the chopper.

Being near your units increases the odds of them entering mode 2 during the off-turn. Maybe your units have a stat that improves this?

Seeing an alien die/disable may also prompt them to enter mode 2 and head towards the source of the shot.

Seeing a live alien, seeing one of your units or another civ die, explosions/gunfire that they can't see the origin of, etc. increases the odds of them going into/stay in mode 1.

If this friendly NPC AI stuff is really going to happen, that kind of behavior ought to be doable as well...

EDIT: If no soldier stat is relevant, Civs could have a hidden (and wildly varying) morale stat that affects how likely they are to be in/stay in mode 2 instead.

[Gorlom]

That sounds as a very good idea that will be sufficient random to be fun. The chance to change to mode 2 could even be affected by difficulty setting.

[TheTuninator]

The language thing is legit, but humans are still recognizably humans, even if they have weird guns and uniforms you don't recognize. If you're running away from an ALIEN and a human with a gun points THAT WAY, you'll do that if you can control your panic long enough to think about it...

This isn't necessarily true. Think about the normal context of a terror mission; it's dark at night, and all of the civilians are terrified out of their minds.

Caesans, for one, are very close to humans in terms of body structure, and I'd wager that most of the other aliens are at least vaguely humanoid.

If you're a citizen in a town being shot up and terrorized by merciless invaders in the middle of the night, are you going to stop and squint to see whether or not the dark figure fifty feet away is a human? Hell no. You're going to run away from anything you see, because you have no idea what's going on. Nobody's going to pause to assess the situation rationally and logically when they're under attack by aliens that they didn't even know existed twenty minutes ago.

What's more, even if you can recognize that somebody's human, who wants to run into a firefight between a bunch of aliens and humans all wielding terrifyingly powerful, highly-advanced weaponry?

It'd actually probably make more sense for the Xenonauts to tell civilians simply to get down and stay hidden, as the Chinook will be a primary target for aliens, and you don't want to put civilians into a free-fire zone.

Edited February 16, 2012 by TheTuninator