OpenXcom Forum
OpenXcom => Suggestions => Topic started by: Taberone on August 09, 2014, 09:05:59 pm
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There should be an option to have a "Last Stand" mode. The way it works is this: If its enabled and the Council terminates X-COM after two bad months in a row, you can still keep fighting for humanity....But all funding is set to zero. And maybe have the council drain cash every month. The "Last stand" is failed once X-COM finally goes into debt and the month has passed.
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I think it's a pretty cool idea, but it's pretty easy to make XCOM totally self-sufficient. Mass producing laser cannons can be done really early into the game, and basically renders your funding unnecessary.
Maybe in addition to losing Council support, most of your staff bails on the project too? You get capped at a small number of scientists and engineers, so you can't keep yourself going forever.
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So how can you redeem yourself, in order to regain the number of scientists and engineers?
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I don't think you should be able to. Maybe OP will disagree with me, but I think "last stand" implies that you're out of options and are in a win or die scenario. You've got a brief mercy period to rush for Cydonia, but before long your resources will run dry, and that's that. Having a chance to regain support after two failed months would basically make the game impossible to lose.
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There should not be a way to regain support from the council and redeem yourself. If the council terminates X-COM, justify the lack of funding even if you make progress by saying the aliens mind controlled them or something. Maybe drain other resources too.
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(https://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa43/SolariusScorch/Memes%20and%20reaction%20faces/1317098763320.jpg)
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Six other people have suggested this before?
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Is this like the 'Pratez' mod?
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Six other people have suggested this before?
Not sure if six, but this is very much a recurring theme... And always dismissed. :)
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Having some time during which you can't recruit additional manpower (no nation want to sent them to you) or buy anything, all craft with rent are taken away, etc. Could be interesting, if not really necessary. You should be able to lose the game too..!
Maybe Dioxine can implement a way in which to load a failing regular XCom game into the Piratez mod, representing the shift of XCom from defending the Earth to resisting the alien occupation?
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Maybe Dioxine can implement a way in which to load a failing regular XCom game into the Piratez mod, representing the shift of XCom from defending the Earth to resisting the alien occupation?
AFAIR in Piratez there is some fluff connection to the X-Com through the research topics named "The Russian Files". I can't remember the details though. :)
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There are several problems with this that only the devs could solve... like, cutting the funding, base construction constraints, changed store selection (sure you can buy stuff - on the black market), additional Xcom soldier types (sure you can recruit - from the off-the-street volunteers) and they probably won't do it since it's a lot of work on a nice, but ultimately just a featurette for a small hard core of XCom players... a better idea would be to write a custom mod and somehow streamline importing soldiers/bases/equipment from one game to the next...
The direct link between XCom and Piratez is kinda hard to pull off, since it takes place hundreds of years after XCom (and Earth) have lost; although it delivers some fluff about XCom continuing the fight from some hidden Russian bunkers for a couple more decades. Maybe someone will write a mod dedicated to this "Last Stand" in detail :)
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In the XCom spinoff clone I was designing there was a Last Stand scenario, but in addition to having to still fight the aliens without any new income . . . you also had Rogue Ops spring up all over the place like the tv show Alias.
(basically multiple MiB factions)
And eventually they would just roll you with a State Sponsored Army, as some big player out there in the world (like Russia or the USA) fell under complete control to the aliens and they were told to take you out no holds barred.
You'd get to fight through the final battle if you wished, but you would die no matter what, just like one of those endless survival mode zombie games. And they wouldnt be using pea shooters either, they'd have tanks, and they'd have at least all of the (better than usual) starting equipment, plus some alien tech here and there.
Then again there was going to be weapons of mass destruction in the game too, even on the battlefield mode (there was a Backpack sized plasma bomb with a yield of 50 Tons). And that would kill some of your soldiers each time even in the best armor the game had to offer, if not TPK them.
(because explosion damage would do a seeking algorithm and would bounce off of walls, so it wraps around corners and with a huge blast radius it would be able to nail people behind cover)
But really the Last Stand scenario doesnt hold water for XCom.
Its fair to say that if the whole world turns its back on you, and throws their lot in with the aliens.
They have all the data on the books about where your bases are, the computer codes to break in the mainframe, and so on.
And with all that assistance the Aliens would say it was "their pleasure" to mop you up.
Then you have a massive worldwide operation with 10's of Battleships being crammed down your throat at every base.
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Or a single bunker buster cruise missile per base if they wanted to be extra sure :)
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Or a single bunker buster cruise missile per base if they wanted to be extra sure :)
"RAISE THE GRAV SHIELD! RAISE THAT GODDAMN GRAV SHIELD!!!"
- Commander Andianov, last words
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The impression I got was XCom facilities were "Deep Underground Military Bases" otherwise known as D.U.M.B.s. Which are another piece of black-ops-lore.
No bunkerbuster cruise missile is going to penetrate a quarter mile of solid earth (or more!). And the Xcom access doors are basically a series of airlocks so dropping a Thermobaric weapon close to the entrance isnt going to nix them with overpressure either (like it might do to taliban cave complexes).
Ground assault has no problem with this because they just cut the doors with thermite (or aliens got their own non-inventory-item plasma cutter to do the same job). Thats why they come in through the Access Elevator or the Hangar.
Reminds me of some episodes of Stargate SG-1 where the Goa-uld invade earth and attack Cheyenne Mountain. They have a mothership sitting on top of the mountain but they have to send jaffa down the access points, and with their tech they have no problems cutting or blasting through the doors. Then well, we get a classic XCOM-esque Base Defense scenario (but they lose because they are vastly outnumbered and out-gunned).
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Construction of the base facilities is probably more an issue of paying for the things that are going to be put in them, rather than the digging and tunneling of them (which would cost millions, and is probably provided by other black ops budget funds that the player never sees or touches). Somebody else does the digging for you.
Building Time for the construction is probably 5 Days + 5 Days per Square. Then additional time for however long it takes to procure and install the equipment that is being put in them. At least that formula looks to be accurate for most of the facilities.
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Construction of the base facilities is probably more an issue of paying for the things that are going to be put in them, rather than the digging and tunneling of them (which would cost millions, and is probably provided by other black ops budget funds that the player never sees or touches).
Must be the same budget that pays most craft-related costs. :)
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No bunkerbuster cruise missile is going to penetrate a quarter mile of solid earth (or more!). And the Xcom access doors are basically a series of airlocks so dropping a Thermobaric weapon close to the entrance isnt going to nix them with overpressure either (like it might do to taliban cave complexes).
No Xcom Craft would penetrate a quarter mile of rock (or more) when trying to get airborne.
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@Dioxine
Actually that was the impression I got, that there is a huge huge shaft above each Hangar which the aircraft lifts off through.
This is why all of the Xcom aircraft have VTOL. Skyrangers and Interceptors do not take off and land like normal planes even if they can. And all of the hybrid craft can do it implicitly.
Also notice that when you send an aircraft off on an interception mission, there is a few minutes where the plane just sits there hovering over the base before it starts moving. Determined primarily by its "Acceleration" stat I think. If the plane had to vertical takeoff its way up a 300-600 meter shaft that would take a few minutes I think.
Then up at the surface its like some james bond or batman setup where there's an external hangar hatch camouflaged to look like normal scenery. Plane comes out, takes off like a bat out of hell.
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@Dioxine
Actually that was the impression I got, that there is a huge huge shaft above each Hangar which the aircraft lifts off through.
This is why all of the Xcom aircraft have VTOL. Skyrangers and Interceptors do not take off and land like normal planes even if they can. And all of the hybrid craft can do it implicitly.
Also notice that when you send an aircraft off on an interception mission, there is a few minutes where the plane just sits there hovering over the base before it starts moving. Determined primarily by its "Acceleration" stat I think. If the plane had to vertical takeoff its way up a 300-600 meter shaft that would take a few minutes I think.
...what? What have you been taking, man? I want that too... Crafts accelerating up a quarter-mile shaft, barely larger than their wing-span... Hell, even thrice as wide, makes little difference... See what's the problem here...? KA-BOOOM!
...not to even mention that such a huge shaft is far more than a guided bomb needs, the US airforce managed to incinerate many (mostly civilian) bomb shelters throwing a guided bomb from a plane down *elevator* shafts, few metres across.
Oh yeah and excavating such a shaft would take many months to even years, depending on (hugeness of) machinery used. Just sayan.
Yeah except these three little things your logic is sound. :)
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...what? What have you been taking, man? I want that too... Crafts accelerating up a quarter-mile shaft, barely larger than their wing-span... Hell, even thrice as wide, makes little difference... See what's the problem here...? KA-BOOOM!
...not to even mention that such a huge shaft is far more than a guided bomb needs, the US airforce managed to incinerate many (mostly civilian) bomb shelters throwing a guided bomb from a plane down *elevator* shafts, few metres across.
Oh yeah and excavating such a shaft would take many months to even years, depending on (hugeness of) machinery used. Just sayan.
Yeah except these three little things your logic is sound. :)
A well-concealed diagonal shaft with rails for acceleration can provide a safe takeoff for planes :3 But knowledge about X-COM bases location and supply lines control is a much more dangerous weapon than any bunker buster. Not to mention that aliens may have a planet buster weapons as well :D To survive after counsil disassembly X-COM will have to abandon their bases and switch to guerilla tactics. All that can be affordable as command center is couple of submarines, assuming aliens won't bother to hunt them down... They might even have to give up an idea of any military solutions, and switch to covert operations, assasinations, provocations and sabotage.