The last alien...

[pmprog]

So I saw this thread: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,1323.0.html

and it reminded me of something that was added to the Firaxis XCOM game, and that was an indicator in which it hinted the direction of the aliens, I thought it might be handy for OXC. Here's how I think it could work:

There's a counter that has "Number of turns since last alien sight", when an alien is spotted, this is reset, otherwise it counts up on each of your turns.
If it reaches a predermined level (probably about 4), it shall pick a random live alien, and find the closest XCOM agent to that alien. Focus on the agent, and then provide some visual indicator of the direction.

This will be especially useful when TFTD comes in, because those maps are huge by comparison

[luke83]

Cant we just implement a rule that the last aliens get increasingly aggressive and come to find you?

Just a thought.

[pmprog]

Cant we just implement a rule that the last aliens get increasingly aggressive and come to find you?

Just a thought.

Well, I'd disagree with that, because what you tend to find is the last alien often panics... You might get some more aggressive, but I like the panic status. It gives you a warm feeling that you're turning the tables, and it's their turn to feel threatened.

[luke83]

hmmm good point...

[Warboy1982]

small scouts.

[pmprog]

UAVs

[Volutar]

After turn 20 any alien (which are 1 or 2 or even more of them) starts to cheat-see your guys, so they meant to auto-reveal eventually (even in vanilla).
There's other thing - it is possible we might have some logical obstacle for alien hostiles to find your guys. They may intentionally, or occasionally stuck or hide somewhere. I think it's the more important thing to check. They should go for your guys after turn 20 AUTOMATICALLY.

Though we can change that number in-game, starting from turn 5 after last alien seen. And reveal not EVERY of your unit, but closest. Because there's another issue - "turn20 mass panic": when last alien(s) suddenly see (aware) of whole your team of 20 xcomers, they just panic. Of course that's some sort of vanilla "feature" and sometimes is fun, but we can avoid that by revealing only 1-2 of your units, and make everything harder and logical, i.e. as it meant to be.

[Teks]

There are two effective ways to handle this.

1. blow up everything, but if your like me your already scouring over a crater (what? I'm supposed to save civilians? balderdash!)
2. Have your entire squad spread out across the map shouting MARCO!

(shoot anything that says polo)

[Mr. Quiet]

I thought the last alien would take the death pill right before screaming "All Hail The Mighty Brain!" and then disintegrate.