Hostile gangs and civilians

[luke83]

The sentry gun is a interesting concept would be handy in a base defence 

By this weekend i should have the first attempt for my Gang Members complete. I already know there is a few strange pixels in the walking sprites that i need to step back through and clean up but  not bad for my first time ever at 2d animation , sure most of i simply traced but over and change pixel by pixel but it still been Hours of work 

Before i go back and polish up my Gang members i want to merge the civilian sprites with the x-com agents one allowing for civilians to hold guns correctly.  I just hope you programmers eventually make it easy enough for me to designate my civilians to use sprite sets " A " and "B" instead of the defaults.

[AlienRape]

Another idea is to have controllable drones (with no weapons of any sort).
Simply allow them to move longer distances to help quicken those few games when your spending ages looking for the last remaining alien.

[SupSuper]

Didn't X-Com Apocalypse have something like sentry guns built into base defenses?

[luke83]

"Didn't X-Com Apocalypse have something like sentry guns built into base defenses?

Under further investigation Yes , Yes it  did.

[MKSheppard]

a) Claymore type of device (small circular blast-range. triggered by movement on that tile)

Claymores are directional, not omni; with the majority of the blast going in the direction it's set up in; though it's not healthy to be behind a claymore when it fires.

[hellblade]

Could the damn humans at least run AWAY from aliens instead of standing next to them in the same room?   Seriously I don't think this'll be alot of work.   Maybe just use the panic function.

[SupSuper]

Could the damn humans at least run AWAY from aliens instead of standing next to them in the same room?   Seriously I don't think this'll be alot of work.   Maybe just use the panic function.

Well the panic function more often than not just throws you into alien fire, so maybe the civilians are already doing that, panic isn't rational.

[luke83]

Here is the first version of the Red coat gang that one day will help do the aliens dirty work on Earth ( at least in my version - assuming this game becomes easy to Mod later).  My thoughts for these guys is basically to defend the surface level of the aliens base and to Bomb targets under the guidance of the aliens  ( new mission type) - Maybe to even show up after a certain number of turns on a mission where a UFO has been shot down to gather parts and survivors ( this is why the ufos vanish from the geoscope when you dont send the xcom team).

Yes there is a few sprite that im not happy  with( especially in some legs)  but not bad for my first attempt (as far as im concerned).

 These are modded from the xcom_0.PCK sprite but  were never meant to be a replacement for the x-com sprites it just all i can add them to currently.

https://www.2shared.com/file/XIBZX5gC/Final_Gang.html

[SupSuper]

They sure look interesting. You could probably add them as a new "alien species" in the future.

[MKSheppard]

I had this idea while jogging:

Since we're eventually extending the resolution of the battlescape to modern resolutions to show more of the map...could we one day get battlescape maps that are twice the area of Original X-COM?

And with that doubling of map size; could it be possible to accomodate multiple UFOs or X-COM craft in the same battle? For example, you could send two Skyrangers to handle that terror site in Shanghai, because your best team got killed a few missions ago, and you now have a whole bunch of rookies...

Other ideas I had were:

Introducing time limits (of sorts).

Right now, you can take all the time you want to clear that Alien Battleship. That makes sense if the battleship was heavily damaged in a shootout with your Firestorm squadron; but what if you caught it on the ground undamaged?

Shouldn't the aliens be starting up the drive systems of the UFO so they can escape?

This would introduce a pretty neat mechanic; having to destroy the majority of UFO power sources on a battleship to prevent it from taking off with your unfortunate squaddies inside.

Likewise, shouldn't the Aliens be calling in friends to help them? If you take too long in clearing a shot down harvester, you might have to deal with a medium scout or two landing to provide reinforcements...or worse.

[Think about how the crash sites disappear after a few days -- why do they disappear? It's certainly not because of rednecks with shotguns feeding sectoids to alligators.]

[luke83]

 "[Think about how the crash sites disappear after a few days -- why do they disappear? It's certainly not because of rednecks with shotguns feeding sectoids to alligators"

 "Hey Billybob them Sectoids are in da fields  again, get my gun"

Sounds like im not the only person who ponders these things. As stated above , my thought on the missing ships was from a organised Cell of human that works with the aliens. If these are normal human helping the aliens for there own financial goals or Clones created by the aliens is up to you to decide . To me if we shoot down a UFO it would be crazy to send another one that will be picked up on radar to retrieve them ( as then i need to shoot that one down also) so this would be where the terrorist cells come into play. Have them Spawn onto the edge of a battle map at a random turn to HELP there alien friends .

As for your  other thoughts they sound like some winners to me.

Maybe its time we started getting a group of interested people together on this page to start planning out a official Openxcom MOD version of the game.  Start planning out what new weapons we want , battle types , new enemys etc,  agree on what direction we want to go and as a team start working towards it.  Personally  im terrible at  graphics but i still have a go as i have a dream of xcom that has not yet been fully reached, that's why i started experimenting with the sprites.  I don't want to change the feel of the game i just want to add more content 

[luke83]

The Civilians Have Guns

 

[kkmic]

Well, if a country has signed a pact with the aliens, would make sense that attacking a downed/landed UFO on that country's territory would mean encountering armed humans that will fight for the alines? Aliens are included on the battlescape too

[MKSheppard]

Shouldn't the aliens be starting up the drive systems of the UFO so they can escape?

Further tying into this; you could have a sort of "counter" in the lower right screen after you research two alien engineers. You know from them, the signs and symbols of alien ships spooling up for takeoff -- the panels on the wall start blinking in this manner, and that once X starts blinking, it is Y amount before full antigravitic reduction is achieved, and thus takeoff.

Right now, the Alien Engineers reveal UFOpedia images, which were useful the first time we played the game in 1994; but not so anymore.

[MKSheppard]

Well, if a country has signed a pact with the aliens, would make sense that attacking a downed/landed UFO on that country's territory would mean encountering armed humans that will fight for the alines? Aliens are included on the battlescape too

Or the country randomly spawns interceptors which try to escort the UFOs or intercept XCOM craft over their territory?