The X-Com Files (FMP+)

[Mr. Quiet]

Wow, great read, I love it!! This is something I wanna play right now Solarius

I have a radical proposition. The United Nations doesn't give you a dime to go on your own until they give you X-COM.
You start this prequel as you said, one of the UN's investigative officers. You'll have authorization to operate within many of the randomly generated allied military bases around the world. Included in this package: military trans to your desired location, NATO arms, and research laboratories for discoveries/artifacts. That's all they give you, but on your own, you already have established a few trustworthy connections to major agencies of national governments for up-to-date anomaly reports, access to I dunno, and etc.

On your way to figuring out what's going on in the world, your superiors will send proper agents, a few at a time, whenever they feel like it, to aid you in completing your investigations. After all, these UN bureaucrats want a full written report of your activities every month. When you jack in enough score points from missions and research discoveries for big juicy reports, the UN will realize this is far too big for them. So the few that you answered to will form what we have today the Council of Funding Nations.

Once the CFN sets up X-COM, you automatically go on to the familiar opening part of the game to set up your base. Now finally you're given a budget and control over something psst beautiful Everything you collected will transfer to your base automatically, even the agents you had early on that barely survived are yours. The Skyranger, Jets, everything is already set up ready for use. I only hope you make it so your inventory is empty, so you decide what you want to buy, instead of the boring part of having to unload the Skyranger and sell half of your weapons to make room for better stuff. That's vanilla.

Edit: About safe houses during Phase 1. You'll automatically set one up on the Geoscape before a mission, since air cav only drops you within very safe and undetectable distances. As well, when you complete a mission, you'll automatically head back to the safe house you set up on the Geoscape by to hide from enemy retaliations and to contact military for strategic pick-up. In this mode, you're vulnerable to attacks from cultists, MiB, or whoever you pissed off, so you'll enter into safe house defense if they find you before military picks you up. Abandoned buildings, jungle hideout, caves would be awesome. Make it rare, but also depending on how long military takes to arrive. Also would be cool to have a surface military base defense if assassins/mercs show up right before Phase 2 trying to eliminate your agents for documenting their secret operations and alien pacts.

Anyways I can go on, I just want to share a pov where you're not so safe in the world during Phase 1. Nothing to control 'cept your green operatives. So take what you like or not, I'm going to sleep now

[Solarius Scorch]

It's an interesting scenario, Quiet-san, and consistent. However, at the time I consider it a bit too ambitious when it comes down to coding; I would prefer to keep the required new code at a minimum, to make the project more realistic for now (above-ground bases being the only indulgence). Still, I'm not saying no - if we ever reach the stage outlined in the initial post, it can still be expanded.

The only think I am wary of is moving too far away from the tactical genre. After all, the only people playing this mod will be tactical game fans, so I wouldn't want to change it into something drastically different, because X-Com fans will dislike it and other people will never learn about its existence.

[Duke_Falcon]

4. Surface bases.

Something like this mayhaps:

[HelmetHair]

The only think I am wary of is moving too far away from the tactical genre. After all, the only people playing this mod will be tactical game fans, so I wouldn't want to change it into something drastically different, because X-Com fans will dislike it and other people will never learn about its existence.

I totally agree. Staying with the genre of tactical gaming is important. However, let us revisit the idea I had earlier, but focus it down.

Ok, what I am personally taking away is that you are looking at the whole picnic from beginning to end of XCom and doing a little thought experiment on what exactly tickles your pickle.

Well, you seemed to express an interest in the time before and leading up to the founding of Xcom so why not start there and let us think about how it could be implemented.

1. A base would have to exist and would have to be from a government organization known for secrecy and had active investigations well into the 90's into UFOs....enter the CIA.

2. Instead of detection range.... there is no detection range because there is no radar.... yeah. The player must rely on graphs to chart reported alien activity and send out air craft to patrol.

3. Upon detection, the UFOs will just do what they do and either hit the horizon at warp speed or RARELY land which you then send a team out to investigate. Make the landing time very short and you spend months chasing them down hoping to get lucky.

4. In the meantime you have missions that occur in cities, imagine like terror sites, but done a little differently. Where your team must destroy data in a filing cabinet or computer (like a synonium device) with or without interference from civillians, or MAYBE an alien infiltrator, who looks VERY human.

5. no more than just a few operators on a mission keeps everything VERY brutal. Also limit weapons to what could reasonably hidden in a three piece suit like a pistol a knife maybe 1 grenade. yeah MIB baby

6. After a progression of several enemies and your score is high enough, you lose the game and X-com begins.

Thoughts?

-HH

[ivandogovich]

6. After a progression of several enemies and your score is high enough, you lose the game and X-com begins.

ROFLMAO!!  Frickin Brutal!  That's X-Com baby!!

Actually, you could couch in terms of:  You were so successful, that the aliens had to drop their covert methods and begin their overt campaign to gain planetary supremacy.

1. A base would have to exist and would have to be from a government organization known for secrecy and had active investigations well into the 90's into UFOs....enter the CIA.

Start with a set of bases on each continent (CIA Stations), or maybe just two, but with the ability to build more.  Scoped down facilities.  One hangar, one garage, small equipment room, small investigative lab (10 max investigators) ... etc.

When you finish this Covert Phase, you should be able to bring your soldiers with you into the Main Xcom campaign.

Some really cool ideas here.
Cheers, Ivan

[moriarty]

2. Instead of detection range.... there is no detection range because there is no radar.... yeah. The player must rely on graphs to chart reported alien activity and send out air craft to patrol.

maybe instead of radar, you would have to rely on "UFO sightings"? in terms of in-game mechanics: radar sites (invisible to the player) with just a few miles range, but very high detection probability would exist all around the globe, representing people who can spot UFOs and phone some government agency or other, giving you a UFO alert - but the UFO will disappear soon, because it leaves the detection radius. those sites could even exist in oceans, representing ships that happen to be there.

that way, you will often get blips, but rarely have a chance to send a craft there in time, unless you are able to guess at the trajectory because the UFO has been spotted several times along its way.

for this to work, it would be nice to increase the detection frequency, though... currently, the game only checks for possible detection every 30 (game-)minutes.

[Dioxine]

I've made my own take on a "tiny Skyranger" (8 crew), I know there's been aplenty of those, but maybe you'll like it:

[ivandogovich]

I've made my own take on a "tiny Skyranger" (8 crew), I know there's been aplenty of those, but maybe you'll like it:

With all those engines it should be quite a bit faster, but less loiter time.  And it looks Awesome!
Cheers, Ivan

[Solarius Scorch]

Something like this mayhaps:

By Shai-Hulud, where have you found such nice sprites?! XD

1. A base would have to exist and would have to be from a government organization known for secrecy and had active investigations well into the 90's into UFOs....enter the CIA.

Please, not CIA. Everything but CIA. But yeah, something like that.

2. Instead of detection range.... there is no detection range because there is no radar.... yeah. The player must rely on graphs to chart reported alien activity and send out air craft to patrol.

Yes, but I'd still keep the "Command Centre" as a very low-quality radar with global coverage. It makes things a bit easier and less anal than relying solely upon a fleet of craft which you wou;dn't really have at the beginning, except transport and maybe one small AWACS.

3. Upon detection, the UFOs will just do what they do and either hit the horizon at warp speed or RARELY land which you then send a team out to investigate. Make the landing time very short and you spend months chasing them down hoping to get lucky.

Yeah, could happen, but remember aliens won't be active too often at first... Or at least seen.

4. In the meantime you have missions that occur in cities, imagine like terror sites, but done a little differently. Where your team must destroy data in a filing cabinet or computer (like a synonium device) with or without interference from civillians, or MAYBE an alien infiltrator, who looks VERY human.

Yes, yes! And raiding warehouses/mansions filled with cultists.

5. no more than just a few operators on a mission keeps everything VERY brutal. Also limit weapons to what could reasonably hidden in a three piece suit like a pistol a knife maybe 1 grenade. yeah MIB baby

Yeah, I'd love that. We'll see if it's possible; for now, there's limited availability of firearms.

6. After a progression of several enemies and your score is high enough, you lose the game and X-com begins.

...what? NOOOOOOOOO!!! XD

maybe instead of radar, you would have to rely on "UFO sightings"? in terms of in-game mechanics: radar sites (invisible to the player) with just a few miles range, but very high detection probability would exist all around the globe, representing people who can spot UFOs and phone some government agency or other, giving you a UFO alert - but the UFO will disappear soon, because it leaves the detection radius. those sites could even exist in oceans, representing ships that happen to be there.

Hey, this is a splendid idea. The entire vanilla radar thing is a bit fishy anyway: UFOs are supposed to be invisible to radar; and if they aren't, why isn't everybody shooting them down by themselves? Basing it on sightings would make much more sense.

I've made my own take on a "tiny Skyranger" (8 crew), I know there's been aplenty of those, but maybe you'll like it:

Not bad, though those top engines are huge. O_o

[Duke_Falcon]

By Shai-Hulud, where have you found such nice sprites?! XD

In Dune X : Building of an X-com game!
Seemed a good idea to use some D2 sprites after some edit along with X-com sprites. Fit nice together and easy to handle, create, manufacture, upkeep and sell or sack. Or interrogate.

Bila Kaifa!

[Random Commander]

I think I know a few good ideas for making the story go "off the rails"


1st Idea: Random Order of games

Since the aliens seem to be Aquatic in origin, what if when you begin as X-Com, you start seeing TFTD enemies instead of the original UFO Defense ones? You could have made choices in Phase one that could lead to the CFN to fund for Underwater combat against aliens rather than Surface combat. That way you either start with either a UFO game or TFTD game, and then after the Alien City/Cydonia falls, it sends a message to the other planet and then you go on to the next game, resulting in a varying metagame experience!


2nd Idea: Defensive endgame rather than Offensive endgame

What If you would rather not invade Cydonia? After 2 or 2 1/2 years, maybe an alien Super-UFO will be developed, probably using the human face on Cydonia as the hull (Andross!?  ) and have enough firepower to destroy the planet! At that point you will have a time limit until the Super-UFO reaches earth to intercept it with an avenger and blow a large enough hole in the hull to invade the ship and disable it. As opposed to stopping all surface alien activity when you destroy Cydonia, you will still have a few (albeit less intense) encounters with aliens as you transition your research to TFTD-related gameplay.


I gotta think of more, but it's midnight here and I should be in bed. Expect more possibly tomorrow.

EDIT: It's not tomorrow but hey, I got more ideas.


3rd Idea: Apocalypse intervenes early

During the land incursion, it is entirely possible that suddenly the interdimensional aliens appear. They could either help the aliens defeat you or become a third party, battling both your XCOM forces and the first alien group. There can be missions where both groups appear and fight eachother, called "Conflict zones." Just think: Mutons vs Anthropods!

The above has a rare chance of happening, but it allows for even more story-going options! Do you defeat the brain in Cydonia and go on to fight the interdimensional menace, or do you destroy the dimensional alien city and go for Cydonia later?

This will never happen in the TFTD portion of the mod because otherwise that risks dependency on a cross-game, and would also make things super confusing.


4th Idea: There are always the possibility of mutants!

With so much alien activity going on in earth, there are bound to be human-alien crossbreeds. You are going to have to manage relations not only with the countries but also the band of mutant clans that form. Will you treat them kindly with their revolution against a rogue agency (aka MiB and so on) and have them help you fight the aliens, or will you just downright obliterate them because of the risk of increased alien infiltration?


Yes, I agree there is a frack-ton of coding involved, but I bet if you share this project with some of the active coders, they could accept to do a bit of the more serious coding work! Maybe have Yankes of the OpenXcom Extended project help you? It might just be worthwhile if you two work together. There are also other good coders out there. Think about it.

Heck, maybe even SupSuper, Warboy and some other source coders could do a bit of work to allow some of this for regular OpenXcom!

[Solarius Scorch]

1st Idea: Random Order of games

Since the aliens seem to be Aquatic in origin, what if when you begin as X-Com, you start seeing TFTD enemies instead of the original UFO Defense ones? You could have made choices in Phase one that could lead to the CFN to fund for Underwater combat against aliens rather than Surface combat. That way you either start with either a UFO game or TFTD game, and then after the Alien City/Cydonia falls, it sends a message to the other planet and then you go on to the next game, resulting in a varying metagame experience!

Who knows, maybe it'd work? But of course it's an extremely remote idea as of now.

2nd Idea: Defensive endgame rather than Offensive endgame

What If you would rather not invade Cydonia? After 2 or 2 1/2 years, maybe an alien Super-UFO will be developed, probably using the human face on Cydonia as the hull (Andross!?  ) and have enough firepower to destroy the planet! At that point you will have a time limit until the Super-UFO reaches earth to intercept it with an avenger and blow a large enough hole in the hull to invade the ship and disable it. As opposed to stopping all surface alien activity when you destroy Cydonia, you will still have a few (albeit less intense) encounters with aliens as you transition your research to TFTD-related gameplay.

Maybe. I like the sketch, but of course, it has almost zero chance of happening.

3rd Idea: Apocalypse intervenes early

During the land incursion, it is entirely possible that suddenly the interdimensional aliens appear. They could either help the aliens defeat you or become a third party, battling both your XCOM forces and the first alien group. There can be missions where both groups appear and fight eachother, called "Conflict zones." Just think: Mutons vs Anthropods!

The above has a rare chance of happening, but it allows for even more story-going options! Do you defeat the brain in Cydonia and go on to fight the interdimensional menace, or do you destroy the dimensional alien city and go for Cydonia later?

This will never happen in the TFTD portion of the mod because otherwise that risks dependency on a cross-game, and would also make things super confusing.

I'm not sure how we would explain this shift, unless perhaps we could integrate it with my loose idea of one cult faction that deals with dimensional gates and summoning Doom creatures...

4th Idea: There are always the possibility of mutants!

With so much alien activity going on in earth, there are bound to be human-alien crossbreeds. You are going to have to manage relations not only with the countries but also the band of mutant clans that form. Will you treat them kindly with their revolution against a rogue agency (aka MiB and so on) and have them help you fight the aliens, or will you just downright obliterate them because of the risk of increased alien infiltration?

The half-alien hybrids are already in the FMP!

[essohbe]

I like the whole idea but is it realistic? Like, will it take 10years? Lol.

I like the idea for phase 3 being that you destroy Cydonia base but that's just an outpost... the humans realize it took all the resources Earth had just to get to Mars and without a breakthrough new technology light years beyond our current one then there is no hope but to simply try to repel each new attack that inevitably comes from the stars since we can not take the fight to them.

[HelmetHair]

X-com Interceptor

[Random Commander]

X-com Interceptor

True, but how are we going to integrate that into the tactical game genre? That would almost be like trying to make a game out of the turn-based combat system from Master of Orion II! I mean, it's not a bad idea, but also know that Interceptor isn't even in Xcom Lore. If we are to integrate interceptor ( which is probably not going to happen any time soon ) then we will have to create a new game entirely.