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Fan-Stuff / Re: The X-Com Files Operations Manual
« on: April 04, 2020, 02:35:13 pm »
For a sneak-peek, the story I'm thinking of spawned from this edit to the X-Com Ops Manual in the top post:
1. Never work alone. If you are the last one standing, secure your wounded mates and abort mission. X-Com will never expect agents to work alone. The most frequently requested guidance on this directive is answered as follows:
Q. I'm an interceptor pilot and my wing-men are shot down. What if the bogie is severely damaged? I really want to blow this thing away for the sake of my wing-men!
A. Aborting an interception mission is at the remaining pilot's own discretion. You are encouraged to weigh carefully the visual condition of your target versus the condition of your craft including armor and ammo, especially if you are dealing with a target of unknown configuration.
Q. What if my squad was small for my mission?
A. Consider aborting. The mission may continue if there were only two or three agents on the field to begin with, and in those cases the decision to abort is left to the remaining agent's discretion. HQ will not penalize for aborting anytime there is one agent standing in a mission, because even a small team is greater than the sum of its parts.
Q. My team is just me and an auxiliary unit. Should I leave because my dog is down? Do I have to mount a rescue?
A. Auxiliary units like dogs do count for the purposes of agent count, so two-agent missions can thus be conducted with one human agent and an auxiliary unit. As for rescue of an injured dog, this is a topic of ongoing debate within HQ. Dogs have brains, too, and while they are too difficult to interrogate in most circumstances (we certainly can't), their brains do nevertheless contain data on the location of your base; HQ's resident cynologist has advised that dogs do always know where "home" is. For now, you are advised that dogs do not count for purposes of mounting rescue operations, but that agents will be briefed on any possible exceptions to this guidance, just in case we all end up dealing with an enemy who could conceivably mine a canine's brain for location data. X-Com dogs otherwise do provide key tactical advantages to agents on the field, and the loss of all dogs assigned to a team on a mission is a major one; some missions, notably night missions, your CA advises are "much more difficult without the aid of our canine auxiliaries." For guidance on the effective utilization of dogs, see rule #7e concerning dog-equipped team tactics.
"Cynologist" is such a cool word. I can't wait to use it more. Here's some more coolness about real-life dogs, a minor plot-spoiler in what I'm thinking of:
https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/lifestyle/2012/09/dog-makes-500-mile-journey-home/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071108140336.htm
https://www.businessinsider.com/these-images-of-dogs-diving-underwater-are-terrifying-and-bewitching-2012-2
https://wagwalking.com/sense/can-a-dog-smell-underwater
This content does also imply some adjustments I made to the units file for my game, concerning dogs and how well they can see in various circumstances. Dogs trained to track things underwater by scent? Sometimes real life is more magical than fiction.
1. Never work alone. If you are the last one standing, secure your wounded mates and abort mission. X-Com will never expect agents to work alone. The most frequently requested guidance on this directive is answered as follows:
Q. I'm an interceptor pilot and my wing-men are shot down. What if the bogie is severely damaged? I really want to blow this thing away for the sake of my wing-men!
A. Aborting an interception mission is at the remaining pilot's own discretion. You are encouraged to weigh carefully the visual condition of your target versus the condition of your craft including armor and ammo, especially if you are dealing with a target of unknown configuration.
Q. What if my squad was small for my mission?
A. Consider aborting. The mission may continue if there were only two or three agents on the field to begin with, and in those cases the decision to abort is left to the remaining agent's discretion. HQ will not penalize for aborting anytime there is one agent standing in a mission, because even a small team is greater than the sum of its parts.
Q. My team is just me and an auxiliary unit. Should I leave because my dog is down? Do I have to mount a rescue?
A. Auxiliary units like dogs do count for the purposes of agent count, so two-agent missions can thus be conducted with one human agent and an auxiliary unit. As for rescue of an injured dog, this is a topic of ongoing debate within HQ. Dogs have brains, too, and while they are too difficult to interrogate in most circumstances (we certainly can't), their brains do nevertheless contain data on the location of your base; HQ's resident cynologist has advised that dogs do always know where "home" is. For now, you are advised that dogs do not count for purposes of mounting rescue operations, but that agents will be briefed on any possible exceptions to this guidance, just in case we all end up dealing with an enemy who could conceivably mine a canine's brain for location data. X-Com dogs otherwise do provide key tactical advantages to agents on the field, and the loss of all dogs assigned to a team on a mission is a major one; some missions, notably night missions, your CA advises are "much more difficult without the aid of our canine auxiliaries." For guidance on the effective utilization of dogs, see rule #7e concerning dog-equipped team tactics.
"Cynologist" is such a cool word. I can't wait to use it more. Here's some more coolness about real-life dogs, a minor plot-spoiler in what I'm thinking of:
https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/lifestyle/2012/09/dog-makes-500-mile-journey-home/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071108140336.htm
https://www.businessinsider.com/these-images-of-dogs-diving-underwater-are-terrifying-and-bewitching-2012-2
https://wagwalking.com/sense/can-a-dog-smell-underwater
This content does also imply some adjustments I made to the units file for my game, concerning dogs and how well they can see in various circumstances. Dogs trained to track things underwater by scent? Sometimes real life is more magical than fiction.
