[MISSIONS] Including some conditions to start or complete missions

[Aldorn]

For brainstorming purposes...

In order to add some spice, what about introducing, from time to time, some conditions to start, or to complete a mission ?

Eventually, some of them could be "optional" : a success will provide bonus points, whereas a failure will not generate any malus

Some examples :

1) "This mission needs to stay secret, and so will need experienced team : equip your craft with maximum six units of minimum rank 'sergeant'"
   => Also if craft does not fulfill requirements, it will not ne possible to land

2) "This mission has to be fulfilled in urgency : complete it in less than 15 turns"
   =>  Skyranger go back home at end of 15th turn, also if mission not completed before, this will be a failure and all soldiers not on board will be lost

3) "You will not be able to use lethal weapons for this mission"
   => If craft contains any lethal weapons (based on battletype ?), it will not be possible to land

4) "This mission only requires rookies equipped with one handed weapons and no armor"

5) Rescue Mission (cf. Unknown Hero)

6) Large shipment of new type of Alien weapons

Spoiler:

"Our Intelligence service has reported the delivery of a large shipment of a new type of Alien weapons.

We absolutly need these prototypes to know exactly what the Aliens prepare.
We know that the delivery will take place in the following week (from June 12 to 19) somewhere in Asia, but we don't know exactly where.
We have 5 hours to attack the UFO after landing.
Monitor your radars, and try to not shoot the UFO in flight, wait until landing.
Exceptionally, crew will consist of Mutons and Ethereals with Sectopods.
The report precise they are heavily armed, expect lot of Blaster Launchers."

*

Mission Bonus-Malus:

UFO ignored: -2000 points.

UFO destroyed: 100 points.

Landed UFO assaulted: 300 points.
Weapons recovered: 100 points, 100 weapons --> sell them, use them.
New Alien Technology to research.

UFO crashed and assaulted: 150 points.
Weapons recovered: 100 points, 100 weapons (random, 10% chance to recover weapons, random weapon number).
New Alien Technology to research (only if at least 1 weapon recovered).

7) If player has not captured and interrogated any aliens at all, then encourage him to do so.

8 ) If player only captured and interrogated a soldier type, then encourage him to try and ID+capture medics/etc.

9) If laser weapons were recently developed, encourage trying him out by saying R&D is eager to see how the weapons perform in actual combat situations.

10) True missions with some goal(s) to be reached (like extract VIP civilian, assassinate Alien Commander, ...) that would end the mission, like shooting the alien brain in the cydonia mission.

11) "Hold the line" mission : have to resist X turns against a huge alien attack

12) "This mission ..."

[Solarius Scorch]

In general: hell yes.

It would require a lot of thinking and brainstorming though. Firstly, the conditions would have to be invented and properly balanced. Secondly, they would have to be, you know, sensible.

But I'm all for this. Back in the 90s I already thought of special undercover missions: one-handed weapons only and no armour allowed...

[Aldorn]

I added your proposition

[SenniTrebor]

This sounds good. Could it be linked to finding alien bases outside radar range, or other game benefits?

[Solarius Scorch]

This sounds good. Could it be linked to finding alien bases outside radar range, or other game benefits?

+1.

Also possibly to get to Mars.

[SenniTrebor]

Also possibly to get to Mars.

Or recovering alien artifacts from civilians, competators. Or research. Or arms caches

And how's about linking to this: Human vs humans - massive alien infiltration missions?

eg capture (stun) the president to reacquire a lost country. or somesuch. Maybe by several missions where one can't use alien/ advanced weaponry or civilian deaths have to be avoided.

And this:

20) New XCom mission type: Rescue Mission.

Alien team can also send UFO to the XCom crash site. They gain points if they do and there is a combat mission, but this time XCom has to defend (with few soldiers and some injured soldiers before the rescue XCom team landing, with the rescue crew and crashed crew if the alien come during XCom rescue landing).


When an UFO is shot down, the alien can sometime send UFO (Battleship or a new UFO type) to rescue the survivors and recover material (Weapons, Alien Alloys, Elerium-115, etc.), they gain points if they do.
If XCom send a troop transport during the alien rescue mission (the rescue UFO has landed (only for 4-5 hours, to be determined)), they have to fight the 2 crews, the crashed UFO crew and the rescue UFO crew.

Sometimes the Aliens make Ambush Missions, these are exactly the same as the other missions exept they land for more time (to attract XCom team) and there is more troops in the UFO (and some special strong troop like Muton Commando, and/or Terror Units, to be determined), thus XCom has to face much more troop during combat if they land on the site.

There is no info on the Ambush Mission with the Hyper-wave Decoder, the mission appears to be a standard mission (ex: Alien Research, Alien Supply, etc.).

https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=2279.0

I was just commenting on some of the other suggestions threads, and then realised I may have upset the display order. Wont happen again.

[niculinux]

+1 but -1 for turn limit,of say farwell to those epic long battles in the night. Personally I always was a fuffer in UFO xD so i'll automatically lose almnost all of these! 

[Unknown Hero]

Personally, as a player, I don't really like the "forced" conditions when I play a game.
I don't like limitations, I love freedom, I play for fun not for frustrations.

*

"Your mission Commander:

Assault a Snakeman Battleship, you have to win and to kill at least 10 Chryssalids.

Equipments:

1 Stun Rod, 1 Smoke Grenade, 2 XCom Grenades, 1 Armor (but, no Flying Suit authorized), 1 Medi-Kit, 1 Psi-Amp, 1 Pistol with 2 clips, 1 Rifle with 2 clips, no HWPs authorized, only 3 Rookies (total 4 units).

And you have to do this in 10 turns!

Good luck Commander, and use your equipments wisely!"

*

Not my cup of tea. 

Just imagine. Despite all the constraints, the player has successfully killed all the other units. He killed 9 Chryssalids, it's the tenth turn. He has only one ammo in the rifle that holds its last soldier. He may still succeed. The last Chryssalid (with only 1 life point left) is located at 3 tiles of distance. The soldier is kneeling, 92% chance to hit (and thus win the game). The player is confident. The soldier shoots and... ...miss...

Furious ... the player rises noisily and destroys his computer. 

That said, your idea of special missions is great! I like it! 

But as it's a tactics phase of the game, it's better to let the player to have the choice how to do it.

*

Mission:

"Our Intelligence service has reported the delivery of a large shipment of a new type of Alien weapons.

We absolutly need these prototypes to know exactly what the Aliens prepare.
We know that the delivery will take place in the following week (from June 12 to 19) somewhere in Asia, but we don't know exactly where.
We have 5 hours to attack the UFO after landing.
Monitor your radars, and try to not shoot the UFO in flight, wait until landing.
Exceptionally, crew will consist of Mutons and Ethereals with Sectopods.
The report precise they are heavily armed, expect lot of Blaster Launchers."

*

Mission Bonus-Malus:

UFO ignored: -2000 points.

UFO destroyed: 100 points.

Landed UFO assaulted: 300 points.
Weapons recovered: 100 points, 100 weapons --> sell them, use them.
New Alien Technology to research.

UFO crashed and assaulted: 150 points.
Weapons recovered: 100 points, 100 weapons (random, 10% chance to recover weapons, random weapon number).
New Alien Technology to research (only if at least 1 weapon recovered).

*

This way the player have full choice on what he want to do. 

[Arcalane]

Probably better to make them purely optional, perhaps to nudge players along and help them figure out early-game stuff. Not explicit handholding or pointing the player to what they should do next (like 2012's advisors and objective thing) but something to help ease new players into the game a little.

For example, if the player has not captured and interrogated any aliens at all, then encourage them to do so. If they have only captured+interrogated a soldier type, then encourage them to try and ID+capture medics/etc.

If laser weapons were recently developed, encourage trying them out by saying R&D is eager to see how the weapons perform in actual combat situations.

Small score bonuses, and it could be combined with the News Ticker idea ("Unknown paramilitary force seen using man-portable directed-energy weapons at UFO crash site...") for added flavour.

[moriarty]

It would also be interesting to have true "missions": especially to have "stuff that happens" which ends the mission. Like shooting the alien brain in the cydonia mission. That would allow for missions like "extract VIP" (ends if VIP dies) or assassination missions.

Cydonia's alien brain is hardcoded, right? But the mechanic must be there already...

[Solarius Scorch]

It would also be interesting to have true "missions": especially to have "stuff that happens" which ends the mission. Like shooting the alien brain in the cydonia mission. That would allow for missions like "extract VIP" (ends if VIP dies) or assassination missions.

Cydonia's alien brain is hardcoded, right? But the mechanic must be there already...

There's also the Alien Base, which is still destroyed even if you escape after blowing up the command centre.

I like your approach though. An objective is an objective, no point to limit the players' strategy on how to reach it.

[Muukalainen]

+1 for assassination, destroy, protect the vip or item, go to this area missions. + rescue.

Don't know how well they suit X-Com, but with them we would be one step closer to Laser Squad / Mercenaries total conversion mod

[Aldorn]

Personally, as a player, I don't really like the "forced" conditions when I play a game.
I don't like limitations, I love freedom, I play for fun not for frustrations.

I am not opposite to your opinion, and I think we may prevent us from this, as I said :

Eventually, some of them could be "optional" : a success will provide bonus points, whereas a failure will not generate any malus

[Unknown Hero]

@ Aldorn

Yes. 

Missions can also be categorized.

Special Missions:
Mission with constraints.
Mission with rewards.
Mission without malus.
Mission with this, but not this.
...more

And with the possibility to enable/disable them:

* Special Missions - "YES" - "NO"
** Missions type "XX" - "YES" - "NO"
** Missions type "XX" - "YES" - "NO"
...more

** Frequency of Occurrence:
"0" for "Not Often"
"1" for "Often"
"2" for "Quite Often"
...more

etc.

A lot can be done. 

[SenniTrebor]

I am liking all I "hear"!