[Suggestion] Airstikeing downed ufo's Xenonughts style

[smexyvami]

i had this idea since i saw you can airstike downed ufos in xenonughts to clear them form map and lower panic and keep your preformance rateing still good. since sometimes you get a swarm of ufos and you can send landing partys to all of them why not beabel to send a fighter craft to airsike / bomb out the downed ufo for rep and ueald no rewards since your not landing and it removed the crash form map. making this unable to be done on tarror misstions tho

[ivandogovich]

Interesting idea, and I think it makes sense to use a different craft: i.e. a Bomber. 

The Interceptors dogfight in the air, and the Transports bring in troops, but the Bomber would be the only one that could nuke the crash site. 

I generally avoid adding extra craft, though there are a lot of great mods out there.  The Thunderstorm is awesome but a bit overpowered from what I have seen. 

By making this ability only class specific (Bombers only), you force the player to make decisions about what mix of craft to maintain at what bases. 

Maybe even making it require alien tech like the Firestorm would be good (in a Lore sense), as it would rely on alien tech to adequate locate/target all of the surviving aliens around the crash site.

Cheers, Ivan

[Solarius Scorch]

The biggest problem is that X-Com is doing everything in secrecy (whether it works or not), and bombing runs are sort of noticeable.

Still, we're talking about a couple discharges of craft weapons here, so maybe it would work. I'm just unsure of how to set victory points here: since for downing a UFO you get only a portion of what you'd get for destroying it in air combat, what would you gain for bombing it out - the full value?

[ivandogovich]

... I'm just unsure of how to set victory points here: since for downing a UFO you get only a portion of what you'd get for destroying it in air combat, what would you gain for bombing it out - the full value?

I'd say, not the full value, because the aliens have had some time on the ground to continue whatever nefarious schemes they have had in whatever capacity they had remaining.

Maybe another portion of the total? 

 ...say if you get 50% for shooting down...
you get another 25% for bombing,
so 75% over all for downed and bombed UFOs.

I don't know if this would provide incentive enough to make a Bomber an integral part of the game.  Right now, it would be just another "thing" to add and have to do, with probably not much pay back.

Now if you could use it to develop your bomber tech to target alien colonies....  that could be cool.  The alien bases could be presumed to have defenses like X-Com bases can, and then the Bomber could fire strikes into it.  It would be nice if this could reduce the base population on a scale with the amount of damage applied (not to exceed a certain level, say 30-50%, but this sounds involved enough that it probably requires a custom executable.

[shinr]

The biggest problem is that X-Com is doing everything in secrecy (whether it works or not), and bombing runs are sort of noticeable.

Fortunately in TFTD, submarines from local navies launching torpedoes and releasing depth charges at the downed USO deep underwater is a lot less noticeable.

[smexyvami]

I'd say, not the full value, because the aliens have had some time on the ground to continue whatever nefarious schemes they have had in whatever capacity they had remaining.

Maybe another portion of the total? 

 ...say if you get 50% for shooting down...
you get another 25% for bombing,
so 75% over all for downed and bombed UFOs.

I don't know if this would provide incentive enough to make a Bomber an integral part of the game.  Right now, it would be just another "thing" to add and have to do, with probably not much pay back.

Now if you could use it to develop your bomber tech to target alien colonies....  that could be cool.  The alien bases could be presumed to have defenses like X-Com bases can, and then the Bomber could fire strikes into it.  It would be nice if this could reduce the base population on a scale with the amount of damage applied (not to exceed a certain level, say 30-50%, but this sounds involved enough that it probably requires a custom executable.

ya the points could be negoshiable depending on the craft hit and made to fit the game and as for the "bomber" craft i like the idea you could have a dule class ship the thunderstorm and up. in xenonughts i havent played it just watched and you click airstike and get some pay out

[Dioxine]

What makes you think that the downed UFOs dissappearing aren't just that, wrecks erased by Earth's military forces airstrikes?

Even back in 1994, I was thinking that strfing downed UFOs with interceptors would be cool... but so far I haven't come up with any good formula of doing so, without making the ground combat part of the game irrelevant...

[MrFrustrated]

I always thought you should be able to do aerial recon or better yet an airstrike to soften the target before a mission.

If a muton ship crashed in a jungle, and xcom only had rifles and no armor, I would want to soften them up with a bombing run and some fire bombs to clear the area. Those green monsters wouldn't be able to hide in a burnt out jungle.

[MrFrustrated]

One more thing, what if a missle strike from base's your missle defense system.

[Vulgar Monkey]

Narratively you could imagine them floating all kinds of cover story (ball lightning, training exercise, illegal rave).

Mechanically I'd say that it's somewhat self balancing in that you'd be denying yourself lots of loot, research and training potential.

[moriarty]

I would even go so far as to make it cost money. After all, you need to buy the bomb(s) and fuel the craft and perhaps pay some bribes to cover the whole thing up... paying the gas pipeline company to take the blame and whatnot.

[smexyvami]

eventually air stikeing would yeald no loot rewards so no new reserch could be aquired . it would be simply a way to lower the downed crafts and clear them off the map for rep with nations when you get swarmed. bombing them out or sending a fighter craft to misstle stike it would eventually be the same thing as it would be useing your resorses ie a misstle or a bomb as well as sending a potestial fighter away form the base that could be needed . i allso see this opening up moding as people can make crafts and wepons spesificly for this