Transfer loot from sites

[moriarty]

in order to keep it as simple as possible while optionally expanding it, I would like to propose the following changes, to be introduced in this order of priority:

1) loot from mission sites is not teleported to the base, but added to the transport queue, arrival time is calculated by distance as if it was transported from another base.

1a) loot in the hands of a soldier or on board the transport craft (i.e. dropped inside) arrives at the base with the transport craft (skyranger etc.)

2) after a mission is completed, the mission site changes into a "clean-up site" (marked by a different color) for x hours before the "transport" starts. (x=? fixed value by mission site type? depending on amount of loot? IDK.)

3) a mechanic is introduced that saves the "state" of mission sites after the battlescape ends.

3a) "clean-up sites" can be attacked by UFOs, adding a new mission type: "clean-up team rescue". the mission site is the same as before: it retains all damage from the original fight, loot is partially piled up, storage crates are standing around, (armed?) civilians are present (the clean-up team), UFOs/alien bases are partially dismantled (parts are missing, like nav consoles, power sources, some walls etc. - it should be possible to randomly delete objects, right?), and fresh aliens are roaming the site.

4) a mechanic is introduced that shows transports for transfers on the geoscape. (adding the transports for stuff you buy would create too much trouble, I guess - where is the stuff coming from, anyway?)

4a) these transports can be attacked, too, adding a new mission type: "recover transport". the mission site is a landed UFO site with a (yet to be created) crashed human cargo plane. a few (armed?) civilians (the flight crew) are present, otherwise the mission plays as normal. if successful, loot previously on the transport craft has to be recovered by means of a "clean-up site" again...



I think 1) needs to be introduced. all others would be really really nice, but 1) is a must.

[luke83]

Maybe i should of been clearer, whilst waiting you would be back on Geoscape , and the reason for the local government support is  they may be closer to the crash site than the x-com base, freeing you troops up quicker, other wise there is only 2 options, auto send a transport ship after the skyranger every time, or wait  up to12 hours after the mission is finished to send a cleanup team from your base.

Maybe Government bases could send the cleanup crew  then send it straight back you your base, this would speed it up some what.

 Also , if you land in a unfriendly area , no other government would want to start a war, so then the cleanup crew must come from your base in that case.

So Moriarty, in your version, Point2, does the skyranger stay for entire time or are you thinking of another plane landing as per my thoughts?

[Danny]

Make it so:
- ALL weapons and ammo should always be brought back with the Skyranger.
- Alloys (UFO hull and such), nailed down UFO components (navigation consoles and such), dead bodies and elerium with a general transport.

How ever CAPTURED aliens should require special attention, you don't want them to wake up amongst the cleanup crew (especially Chrysalids or Ethereals)...
They should be guarded by some troopers and transported back on a specialized transport.

[moriarty]

Make it so:
- ALL weapons and ammo should always be brought back with the Skyranger.
- Alloys (UFO hull and such), nailed down UFO components (navigation consoles and such), dead bodies and elerium with a general transport.

that sounds reasonable. you wouldn't want to leave weapons lying around even with the most trusted clean-up crews.

How ever CAPTURED aliens should require special attention, you don't want them to wake up amongst the cleanup crew (especially Chrysalids or Ethereals)...
They should be guarded by some troopers and transported back on a specialized transport.

well, if we say we bring the weapons and ammo back on the transport craft, perhaps the same should apply for live aliens... that's the best way for them to be guarded, surrounded by xcom soldiers with stun rods. (and no, I won't go into detail about what happens if you get an alien stunned by smoke or weapons fire and your troops don't even have stun rods... they always have fists, rifle butts and perhaps some makeshift tazer from flashlight batteries and paperclips. there's a MacGyver in every team.

[moriarty]

okay, so here's a modified proposal:


in order to keep it as simple as possible while optionally expanding it, I would like to propose the following changes, to be introduced in this order of priority:

1) loot from mission sites is not teleported to the base, but divided into two stacks: all weapons, ammo, items, live aliens and stuff that soldiers carry or that is on the floor of the transport craft when the battlescape ends are put onto the xcom transport craft (and unloaded to the base once the transport craft arrives back home). the rest (alien alloys, elerium, UFO components, Alien bodies) is added to the transport queue, arrival time is calculated by distance as if it was transported from another base.

1a) loot in the hands of a soldier or on board the transport craft (i.e. dropped inside) arrives at the base with the transport craft (skyranger etc.)

2) after a mission is completed, the mission site changes into a "clean-up site" (marked by a different color) for x hours before the "transport" starts. (x=? fixed value by mission site type? depending on amount of loot? IDK. for game purposes, the site is basically an "xcom base" that the aliens immediately know of - so it can be attacked by a standard retaliation mission (*) )

3) a mechanic is introduced that saves the "state" of mission sites (terrain setup, damage to terrain etc.) after the battlescape ends.

3a) "clean-up sites" can be attacked by UFOs, adding a new mission type: "clean-up team rescue". the mission site is the same as before: it retains all damage from the original fight, loot is partially piled up, storage crates are standing around, (armed?) civilians are present (the clean-up team), UFOs/alien bases are partially dismantled (parts are missing, like nav consoles, power sources, some walls etc. - it should be possible to randomly delete objects, right?), and fresh aliens are roaming the site.

4) a mechanic is introduced that shows transports for transfers on the geoscape. (adding the transports for stuff you buy would create too much trouble, I guess - where is the stuff coming from, anyway?)

4a) these transports can be attacked, too. for mechanics purposes, if the transport happens to cross the path of a UFO within the UFO detection radius (or passes an alien base within the detection radius), a new UFO will be spawned at a randomly chosen heading and distance from the transport. this UFO immediately travels towards the transport at top speed. as soon as the UFO catches up with the transport, the transport will immediately crash. the UFO will "land" on top of the crash site immediately - that is, both the transport and the UFO will disappear to be replace with a new mission site: "transport crash site". the mission site (for battlescape purposes) is a landed UFO site with a (yet to be created) crashed human cargo plane. a few (armed?) civilians (the flight crew) are present, otherwise the mission plays as normal. if successful, loot previously on the transport craft has to be recovered by means of a "clean-up site" again...



I think 1) needs to be introduced. all others would be really really nice, but 1) is a must.


(*): about retaliation missions: are they spawned randomly, or do they happen only at the end of the month? because these missions should happen more often, of course

[Danny]

well, if we say we bring the weapons and ammo back on the transport craft, perhaps the same should apply for live aliens... that's the best way for them to be guarded, surrounded by xcom soldiers with stun rods. (and no, I won't go into detail about what happens if you get an alien stunned by smoke or weapons fire and your troops don't even have stun rods... they always have fists, rifle butts and perhaps some makeshift tazer from flashlight batteries and paperclips. there's a MacGyver in every team.

Though the Skyranger could be full...
If you manage to win without casualties somehow or take more captures then you have room for... XD

[moriarty]

well, stunned aliens are items, after all

[Danny]

well, stunned aliens are items, after all

Though I wished that could change

[Arpia]

you could assign all items a value that the game reads and decides who transfers what...
heavy - navigations, elerium generator, entertainment, alien autopsy equipment, large bodies (live/dead reaper/sectopod/cyberdisks)
bulk - elerium, alien food, alloy, dead bodies
equipment - grenades, clips, guns, mindprobes
live aliens - any standard sized alien

i'd say the troop transport could handle the equipment (or atleast a portion of it, say first 20/40/80 items of that type?) and the live aliens (or atleast a number of them, say around 4? in order of priority; commander comes with us ect...) these are automatically brought back to base at mission auto-end with the troops.
The rest is simply assumed to be handled by cleanup and arrives via transfer.
you could then deepen this by assigning different capacities to different craft - skyranger 40items+2live - lightning 20+2 - Avenger 60+4 (figures purely for example sake)

that way its all handled by the game and it doesn't bother me with extra post mission shenanigans (eg picking up equipment and hauling it back to skyranger with me... ugh...)

plus extra geoscape blips representing transfers would be cool. visual indicators of whats happening is always welcome.
wish i could code :/

[Danny]

I would LOVE to see a cut-scene of a captured reaper being forced into a cage... ^^

[xracer]

a little off topic
I know someone mentioned about the purchased transports.

How about making the transport originate randomly from one of the main cities in the "continent" (read region) were your base is located. so that is not always the same place and modify the time for arrival based on the distance from that city. The same will go with items we will sell

This will make it look like we are selling to different entities as well as buying from different entities.

Clearly this will allow for a new mission type the map would be a huge cargo transport with little outside map, although cargo-ships are just a huge empty area we can make it similar to the ships in TFTD those were always a pain to search.

[Danny]

Clearly this will allow for a new mission type the map would be a huge cargo transport with little outside map, although cargo-ships are just a huge empty area we can make it similar to the ships in TFTD those were always a pain to search.

If I see another 2 stage troller or cruiseship missions its too soon! 

[moriarty]

How about making the transport originate randomly from one of the main cities in the "continent" (read region) were your base is located. so that is not always the same place and modify the time for arrival based on the distance from that city.

that's an interesting idea... although people might not like the random arrival times. maybe we could first make it so that the items that come from further off travel a bit faster, so that the travel times stay true to the original? we could always add an optional random element. I think it would make for nice "eye candy". plus it allows for the addition of missions like "defend the transport" - those could offer the additional reward that you get the items for free (or a refund for them, since you already paid) because the seller is happy that you protected his people...

The same will go with items we will sell

uh... yeah, maybe... but it wouldn't have any adverse in-game effect if those transports were to be attacked by the aliens, right? or would it?

This will make it look like we are selling to different entities as well as buying from different entities.

Clearly this will allow for a new mission type the map would be a huge cargo transport with little outside map, although cargo-ships are just a huge empty area we can make it similar to the ships in TFTD those were always a pain to search.

but that would be a cargo plane, right? although in TFTD it would be ships, of course... ships who have been hired to ship cargo to a specific location and throw it overboard, no questions asked

[Jstank]

I think that it should be that if the Skyranger is overloaded with materials on a successful mission the crash site should remain where it is and turn into a 'salvage' mission which contains whatever the Sky Ranger couldn't fly home. When you return to the site with a more empty Skyranger or some type of freighter class ship, the mission will start like this (similar to what was previously posted). Civilians will be placed at specific points around a wrecked alien craft and will remain stationary. Soldiers will be located in defensive positions around the ship. Aliens will be placed within X radius of the craft and advance forward. The mission will be to defend the civilians for a set amount of rounds. % salvage is based on % of civilians alive by the end of round X (or if all aliens are killed). If a civilian dies during a salvage mission, a random scientist or engineer will be deducted from your pool of scientists and engineers. I think this would make it simple for the player and not burden them with salvage in the beginning of the game because the small crafts would be able to be fully loaded on the Skyranger. This would also incentive the building of freighter class ships to receive more salvage. This will be an option that will help in the end of the game yet not be necessary for a successful completion on lower difficulties or in early game.

[Mr. Quiet]

Wait, why would you leave the crew alone to clean up? It wouldn't make sense. You're gonna feel pretty dumb for not securing the Site with the clean-up crew the second time they get attacked and then the third and fourth and fifth. Your Operatives have no rush to leave. They need to stay to secure everything. If they survived, they might be traumatized the first time seeing aliens, but imagine how lesser security would act? Let my guys secure it. They'll even get debriefed on-site after the clean-up crew send the numbers to the CFN.

I do like your other ideas of transports flying with you back to base or going to another base. Would be cool to click on the transport to see what they're carrying and watch exactly what they're doing, like say flying to an airport or on an air carrier ship in the middle of the ocean for refill as well.