Molotolv cocktails and suicide belts

Molotolv cocktail - burns 3X3 area for 2-3 turns

suicide belt- manually activated or when soldier dies

I just like more options for genocide

I think suicide belts are a bad idea. You just know there is some rightwing American preacher that is going to claim Xenonauts is a training simulator for jihaddist terrorists since you could potentially equip a suicide belt run up to a civie and explode.

And quite frankly I'm just not interested in the mechanic.

Molotov would be fun though.

I think suicide belts are a bad idea. You just know there is some rightwing American preacher that is going to claim Xenonauts is a training simulator for jihaddist terrorists since you could potentially equip a suicide belt run up to a civie and explode.

And quite frankly I'm just not interested in the mechanic.

Molotov would be fun though.

Sounds like good publicity for Xenonauts.

Once they get the C4 to actually do something effective, you can suicide by dropping one at your feet instead of throwing and setting the timer as low as possible.

It would be nice to have the option, so if one of my men got killed in hand to hand, the alien doing it, would get a scar or two.

Kind of like the trick with the armed proximity grenades on everybody, to make sure guys who fell to chryssalids, would get a kick in the balls, when they got up again

Can't see the sucide belt working. Almost all the aliens have guns - exactly how close do you expect a solider to get?

I didn't read thoroughly enough. In the original you could arm your grenades and carry them around and they'd blow whenever you dropped. It'd destroy your equipment though. I guess Xenonauts could do something similar, but I don't see much of a point. There aren't a lot of melee range attacks in either game, usually you just wind up paying extra money replacing the equipment and you're more likely to be within 3 tiles of your own guys than you are to be within 3 tiles of an alien when you drop. If you are simply running in with a stun rod and a primed grenade, you could do that with C4, since it has a timer. Right now my C4 destroys about 1 tile though, so the tactic will be more effective after they do some rebalancing.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Mathalor

Can't see the sucide belt working. Almost all the aliens have guns - exactly how close do you expect a solider to get?

I can make aliens come right beside my shotgun guy 100% of the time in the latest desura build so I don't see how it'll be different with suicide belts unless they improve the AI.

A group of suicide bombers hiding behind the tank and flash banging the aliens until they get close enough could work too.

Given we haven't seen much the work of the A.I. developer yet, I'm sure you'll be surprised and delighted when we do.

I think suicide belts are a bad idea. You just know there is some rightwing American preacher that is going to claim Xenonauts is a training simulator for jihaddist terrorists since you could potentially equip a suicide belt run up to a civie and explode.

It's a bit late to take it off the list of Kickstarter rewards though isn't it?

I can see soldier morale plummeting when the armouring starts issuing them out. Even with the fate of the world hanging ..blah blah

I don't see the civvies falling for the "they're really force fields" line often enough to prevent a serious funding drop when you're found out.

Actually, a second problem with suicide belts is... what happens when a Xenonaut dies? I mean, alien weapons are pretty tasty, and Xenonauts do die pretty quickly if they get hit. So if the belt exploded on death, that would X out any squaddies around Bob-omb.

Actually, a second problem with suicide belts is... what happens when a Xenonaut dies? I mean, alien weapons are pretty tasty, and Xenonauts do die pretty quickly if they get hit. So if the belt exploded on death, that would X out any squaddies around Bob-omb.

yep

It's mean to be carefully planned.

If you are planning it that carefully how about just plan to kill the enemy without blowing up your own troops to do it?

Use a grenade or C4 to blow them up from a safe distance.

Maybe use a rocket launcher to hit them from even further back.

Civilians throwing molotov coctails, I can see that if the devs implement some kind of "militia" faction.

As for suicide bombers... are you bloody serious? Firstly there's the association with terrorism, secondly this functionality has always been in the "X-Com genre", all the way back to UFO Defense days. Give a soldier a demolition charge, prime it, and tell him to run over to the nearest alien to get shot. He dies, charge goes off, alien is blown to pieces. Why would the devs waste time and money adding a piece of equipment to the game that makes the Xenonauts come off as crazed Jihadists ("oh, look at this, a game where you fight an occupation force using suicide belts, that's totally not a political message!") and doesn't add anything to the game?

Edited October 1, 2012 by Safe-Keeper
typos

If you are planning it that carefully how about just plan to kill the enemy without blowing up your own troops to do it?

Use a grenade or C4 to blow them up from a safe distance.

Maybe use a rocket launcher to hit them from even further back.

The suicide belt should be a lot more powerful than c4, it just wouldn't be balanced to buff rockets/greades/c4.

Civilians throwing molotov coctails, I can see that if the devs implement some kind of "militia" faction.

As for suicide bombers... are you bloody serious? Firstly there's the association with terrorism, secondly this functionality has always been in the "X-Com genre", all the way back to UFO Defense days. Give a soldier a demolition charge, prime it, and tell him to run over to the nearest alien to get shot. He dies, charge goes off, alien is blown to pieces. Why would the devs waste time and money adding a piece of equipment to the game that makes the Xenonauts come off as crazed Jihadists ("oh, look at this, a game where you fight an occupation force using suicide belts, that's totally not a political message!") and doesn't add anything to the game?

If anyone associates suicide bombing in a game with terrorism them they're clearly pushing a political correctness agenda.It's already possible to shoot and bomb civilians yet no one has screamed terrorist training simulator.A powerful explosive weapon without any kind of sacrifice is just imbalanced.

High explosives in the first game were a powerful explosive weapon you could use from day one in the first game. You either set a long timer and ran or you gave it to someone with a really high strength who could throw it farther than the blast radius. Rocket launchers could kill everything on one floor of small buildings. Autocannons could be loaded with high explosive ammo and fired in bursts (so much fun). And there were normal and prox grenades and the heavy cannon.

Xenonauts high explosives shouldn't require you to kill your own man. Existing explosives should be more effective. In order of priority: wider blast area, more property damage, and higher damage to aliens/unlucky soldiers/civilians.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Mathalor

The sacrifice will be in the overdamage system.

You can use powerful explosives to kill everything on the map but don't expect to recover much in the way of intact alien technology if you do.

Sacrifice in terms of booty, not your soldiers. That's just evil. Although, that tactic of sending a rookie over with a primed bomb would explain why the original X-Com never got seasoned soldiers who knew which end of the gun was which - they took one look at their prospective commander, and ran in the other direction as fast as they could go.

Suicide belts just seem like a non-sensical item - except for a very limited subset of potentially unstable recruits, this would hammer morale, likely displease a large subset of your (richer) funding nations, and run the risk of a single lucky shot wiping out your entire squad or mission (combine suicide belts with an alien getting a bead on a soldier leaving the Chinook before you fully debark.)

As has been said, the overtones that would carry over into the real world would also be potentially bad.

You can imagine what a news outlet like Fox or the Daily Mail would make of a game that lets you turn soldiers into suicide bombers. Particulary if they pick up on the fact you could then use these bombers to target & kill civillians in any country of your choice. (I know that this would not make sense in the context of the game, but this does not always affect reporting in cases like that. Look at the Mass Effect 'alien ...relations simulator' stories, for one example. And in that case, what was reported wasn't even in the game.)

Edited October 2, 2012 by Dix

If you are planning it that carefully how about just plan to kill the enemy without blowing up your own troops to do it?

Agree fully.

The suicide belt should be a lot more powerful than c4, it just wouldn't be balanced to buff rockets/greades/c4.[/Quote]Would this be to offset the fact that you're sacrificing a Xenonaut? It would have to be a huge bonus, in that case, in that in many missions you win or lose based on your casualties and associated morale penalties. This would carry with it its own balancing problems, and the question would be if you really needed explosives more powerful than the ones already in the game -- particularly when they revolve around blowing up your own people. Sure, the Blaster Launcher/Disruptor Pulse Launcher were loved in the original games, but this was because they were remote-controlled weapons that you could be guided to their targets more than the fact that they had a massively overpowered damage level and blast radius.

A more sensible penalty would be a points deduction or funding loss, or maybe some kind of major morale loss that would carry over to later missions ("damn, we are so losing this war, they've resorted to equipping us with bomb belts now..."). While I could support a kind of "harsh late-game" system that allowed you more and more desperate means of fighting (such as nuking your own cities as they were taken over by aliens, even if this killed millions of civvies) as the odds kept stacking up higher and higher against you, I don't think such a system would fit this game.

If anyone associates suicide bombing in a game with terrorism them they're clearly pushing a political correctness agenda.

I don't know how you reach that conclusion, nor for that matter, what "pushing a political correctness agenda" means in English, so I can't help you there, sorry. Either way, I don't see suicide bombing as part of the doctrine of an organization that is as critically short on manpower as the Xenonauts will most likely be throughout most runs. A major part of the game is that you have to take care of your soldiers, in part so that they will grow in experience, in part because new recruits can be expensive (in a game that also happens to be made so that you will chronically suffer from a tight budget), and while suicide missions made sense to a degree for, say, the Imperial Japanese, who had lots and lots of expendable men and machines and a fanatical loyalty to their Emperor, or the Germans during the later stages of the war, in which they were also desperate enough to arm retirees and children, or crazed terrorist organizations who can brainwash their recruits into thinking that Gods will reward them in an after-life if they kill lots of innocent people...

...I don't see how it would fits the "theme" or strategic situation of the Xenonauts in any way.

It's already possible to shoot and bomb civilians yet no one has screamed terrorist training simulator.A powerful explosive weapon without any kind of sacrifice is just imbalanced.

Yes, civilian death and property damage happens, and is punished, in the game. This is collateral damage and and unfortunate byproduct of any armed conflict. It also happens to have absolutely nothing to do with deliberate massacres of civilians, or, for that matter, suicide bombing. If there were missions where your goal was to massacre as many people as possible you might have had a point.

A powerful explosive weapon without any kind of sacrifice is just imbalanced.

I'm afraid I don't see how. As others have pointed out, if you use explosives you do more damage to property and destroy loot you could otherwise have taken with you home. Explosives also generate fire and smoke that can work both for and against you. Edited October 13, 2012 by Safe-Keeper

Why would the devs waste time and money adding a piece of equipment to the game that makes the Xenonauts come off as crazed Jihadists

Well, speaking about crazy ideas, how about you get a national bonus for everyone recruited at bases in particular nations?

Everyone recruited in Africa can jump to see one floor above his own.

Everyone recruited in France can lie prone to be overlooked by hostiles.

Everyone recruited in Germany automatically shoots any aliens on sight.

Everyone recruited in Japan will start out wearing an armor exoskeleton.

Everyone recruited in Italy brings two relatives at half productivity each.

Everyone recruited in Russia will not quit regardless if you pay his salary.

Everyone recruited in North America has a permanently filled shotgun slot.

Everyone recruited in South America can use a Speed Boost special ability.

Everyone recruited in Middle East comes with a non-removable suicide vest.

If that had a relevant point of some kind it went way over my head. What?

I think the point was; if you're going to make a game easy pickings for hysterical media, do it big or not at all.

My thoughts:

Suicide Belt: No. It's distasteful, wasteful and ungraceful.

Molotov: No. Military organizations have their own incendiary devices that are a lot safer for the user, and a lot more reliable.

Ooooh. Pardon me for being thick .

I agree that suicide belts wouldn't fit the game. Professional soldiers who are sanctioned by the whole world (like the Xenonauts) should have much better means of delivering explosives to their targets. At most, a soldier should be able to prime a grenade if you're sure he's about to die anyway - then he might take his alien killer with him in a heroic sacrifice, rather than something that invites comparisons to terrorism.

I'm surprised no one mentioned the Chryssalid enemy (or rather, whatever the Xenonauts equivalent of it will be). That would be one scenario you might find yourself wishing you could explode a doomed soldier. Hell, plenty of original X-COM fans would just exterminate the civilians on terror missions with Chryssalids - the point loss was preferable to having a whole map overrun with those things! But I hate to imagine the comparisons people would make if the game officially encouraged you to do that...

I don't really want to add either of them, they're not really the kind of tools professional armies use. Molotov cocktails would be extremely easy to mod in, though. Suicide "belts" could just be made with big lumps of C4 too, if you're that way inclined.