Alien defences & fortification of downed UFO's

[kharille]

Watching metal canyons xenonauts vid.  Thing crossed my mind, if you delay an attack until day time, surely that'll allow aliens to deply mines/proximity grenades around or somehow prepare for an attack?  Guess the mechanism would be too complex but fighting a defensive battle with time to prepare should make it easier for them rather than for xcom.

Still, a bit too difficult to implement, empowering aliens with mines and all....

[Shoes]

I don't think that would be too hard to do. Just hard to do intelligently ;p

[Danny]

Well the Aliens could erect barricades which has an X % chance to block an Xcom troopers shot. ^^

[moriarty]

I like the idea, and I suggested it before. it would make sense to impose some kind of penalty for waiting instead of attacking the UFO right away. the aliens wouldn't just sit around and do nothing. also, fresh crash sites should have smoke and fires, but "older" sites shouldn't. depending on the initial damage to the UFO, aliens should either begin to repair or prepare for self-destruction (or whatever they do that makes the crash site disappear )

the trouble is that for any of these changes, we would need to create the battlescape layout at the moment of the crash, and keep track of it.

the easy way would be to give the aliens some kind of bonus that increases with time. but what would that be? the proximity mine idea is good, but the (vanilla) aliens don't have proximity grenades, and the AI wouldn't be able to cope with them (they would only blow themselves up). automatic turrets would also be good, but again such things don't exist in vanilla xcom.

the barricades could also be done, simply add some partial-cover alien alloy walls, but again I don't think the AI knows how to handle that in a decent way.

[Danny]

automatic turrets would also be good, but again such things don't exist in vanilla xcom.

Just make stationary units with high reactions and TU's

[Solarius Scorch]

It's not exactly on topic, but I was inspired by it to make a feature request:

I propose adding random damage to the battlefield when it's a UFO recovery mission AND the UFO Power Source exploded.

Justification: when the Power Source blows up, it tears large holes in the armour, so plenty of debris is flying around, damaging buildings and making small craters. This only has a minor (though noticeable) impact on gameplay, but would look very nice.

Implementation: just choose for example 2d10 random tiles per Power Source exploded, and apply damage to them as if they were hit by an AP weapon, strength 100. It's up to you if you want this before or after any units are spawned, but certainly before the X-Com spawns.

Possible development: If you feel particularly creative, you can even make X-Com Apocalypse-like nasty trails of destruction as wide as the UFO, extending from the wreck to a random direction for a random length. This would apply strength 150 raw damage to everything on these tiles, probably levelling any buildings it goes through.

It's in the bug tracker, you can upvote it if you like it

[moriarty]

upvoted and commented... for completeness' sake, and because not everybody uses the bug tracker:

I would like to expand on the idea, as well as split it up into several sub-options that should be switchable separately:

1) random UFO power source explosion strength. taking into account that elerium is used up during power source operation, as well as the complex gravitational properties, the damage incurred by explosion of a UFO power source should be (very) random. depending on the kind of dramatic failure, the breakdown of a UFO power source should vary from harmless failures to gravitic implosions to large-scale plasma meltdowns. in game terms: add a random factor to both explosion strength and explosion radius, possibly as selectable: 0 = vanilla behaviour, 1 = slightly varied (0.5 to 1.5), 2 = greatly varied (0.2 to 3)

2) the "path of destruction" from the UFO crash should also be randomized in length (different angle of impact), supplemented by additional damage to the "front" UFO wall tiles, and should be possible in all UFO crashes, not only those where the power source exploded.

3) additional terrain damage incurred by UFO fragments that rained down on the battlefield are also nice, and should be capable of causing small fires as well. this would add to the battlefield atmosphere, especially in night crashes

[Solarius Scorch]

upvoted and commented... for completeness' sake, and because not everybody uses the bug tracker:

Yeah, I forgot to mention the small fires... Thanks, Moriarty.

As for damage to the front UFO side, I'm pretty sure it should be able to withstand the impact. It's the exploding power systems which are dangerous to the hull.

More random-related options and fine.

[moriarty]

As for damage to the front UFO side, I'm pretty sure it should be able to withstand the impact. It's the exploding power systems which are dangerous to the hull.

probably true, admittedly

you know what would also be nice? just once in a while, a UFO should crash into a house. or a hill, for that matter. this could be done by hand-crafting a crashed UFO with a structure around it, but I think the engine should also be able to do that automatically (at least with circular UFOs): create the battlescape, generate a completely overpowered explosion limited to the radius of the UFO, insert the UFO into the cleared space.

speaking of that, would it be possible for the engine to place a UFO somewhere else but in the middle of the battlescape terrain tile? I am aware that his might cause all kinds of problems, including blocked doors etc, but if it's implemented with safeguards, it could even be fun... think of UFO crashes where the doors are blocked, but you can climb on top of the UFO via the hill it crashed into and enter through the hole in the roof... or the doors are blocked by debris that you have to blast away first... and if you don't have the necessary explosives, you'll have to leave and come back later (that would need to be an option, of course... semi-permanent crash sites... hmmm...)

[Solarius Scorch]

you know what would also be nice? just once in a while, a UFO should crash into a house. or a hill, for that matter. this could be done by hand-crafting a crashed UFO with a structure around it, but I think the engine should also be able to do that automatically (at least with circular UFOs): create the battlescape, generate a completely overpowered explosion limited to the radius of the UFO, insert the UFO into the cleared space.

Actually, the engine sort of works like this already: with imperfect maps, you can get your landing craft occupying the same position as a UFO, which results in part of the UFO obliterated and your Avenger standing there, among the rubble. (Yes Luke, I remember )

speaking of that, would it be possible for the engine to place a UFO somewhere else but in the middle of the battlescape terrain tile? I am aware that his might cause all kinds of problems, including blocked doors etc, but if it's implemented with safeguards, it could even be fun... think of UFO crashes where the doors are blocked, but you can climb on top of the UFO via the hill it crashed into and enter through the hole in the roof... or the doors are blocked by debris that you have to blast away first... and if you don't have the necessary explosives, you'll have to leave and come back later (that would need to be an option, of course... semi-permanent crash sites... hmmm...)

Indeed, actually placing a UFO inside a pregenerated terrain isn't quite possible now. As you wrote, the UFO has its own map block, which is empty except for the UFO itself. Changing it would be possible with some coding I guess, but it would require dealing with issues such as routes, which exist in and around the UFO but would often be blocked if the UFO fell on a house. And if the entrance would be blocked by walls or even worse, by densely packed earth if the UFO crashes into a hill, then much hilarity ensues.

Creating the destruction path going from the UFO in a random direction would sort of simulate this, without causing all these problems... Though it's obviously less immersive.

I'd love you see your version implemented some time in the future, but it's not very realistic right now; mine is.