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Author Topic: WWII XCOM?  (Read 8323 times)

Offline MKSheppard

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WWII XCOM?
« on: February 26, 2015, 12:16:31 am »
Way back when in the old days; I hex edited and PCK edited through magic a M1 Thompson SMG into XCOM; and at least one guy tried to make a good attempt at WWII rifles for UFO and WWII uniforms through editing the stock overalls.

Now that we have some more control over the game; I'm struck by the fact you could try making a WWII themed XCOM using the whole Nazi Flying Saucer mythology:



Imagine sending a Raumluftlandschiff to Cydonia to blow it up; and the Panzerkleins from Silent Storm replacing power suits; while surplus french sky blue uniforms replace the overalls (in a nod to Xenonauts).
« Last Edit: February 26, 2015, 12:18:30 am by MKSheppard »

Offline jackstraw2323

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Re: WWII XCOM?
« Reply #1 on: February 26, 2015, 12:29:17 am »
Between the nazis in piratz and the weapons there and in fmp/xops mods you're about a third of the way there for mod resources.

Offline MKSheppard

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Re: WWII XCOM?
« Reply #2 on: February 26, 2015, 12:30:22 am »
There's also a lot mythology tied into WWII; like the whole "foo fighters" phenomenon that could be exploited.

The biggest problem I can see is that even the slowest UFO's top speed of 2,200 km/h easily outpaces the fastest jet aircraft of WW2; the P-80 at 960~ km/h.

But there's something that could be used to shoot down UFOs -- rockets! But you'd have to redesign a lot of the intercept game to work around expendable surface to air missiles instead of manned reusable interceptors -- but that could also be carried over to "regular" XCOM -- imagine shooting down a battleship with a Patriot battery you placed near berlin
« Last Edit: February 26, 2015, 12:34:10 am by MKSheppard »

Offline pilot00

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Re: WWII XCOM?
« Reply #3 on: March 09, 2015, 11:37:00 pm »
There's also a lot mythology tied into WWII; like the whole "foo fighters" phenomenon that could be exploited.

The biggest problem I can see is that even the slowest UFO's top speed of 2,200 km/h easily outpaces the fastest jet aircraft of WW2; the P-80 at 960~ km/h.

But there's something that could be used to shoot down UFOs -- rockets! But you'd have to redesign a lot of the intercept game to work around expendable surface to air missiles instead of manned reusable interceptors -- but that could also be carried over to "regular" XCOM -- imagine shooting down a battleship with a Patriot battery you placed near berlin

That is a thing in UFO AI, as I remember you could position SAM's for exactly this purpose.

Offline ChainsawAardvark

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Re: WWII XCOM?
« Reply #4 on: March 10, 2015, 03:14:10 am »
Well we can't have this topic if someone doesn't mention Harry Turtledove's "World War" series. A big part of that is thought the aliens have late 90s tech levels, they don't have the supplies to maintain combat against all the nations at once.  That actually seems to be close to X-com as we know it, with infiltrators and terror rather than outright combat.

Perhaps instead of shooting down the crafts, the radar coverage is your spy network, and you have to wait for the machine to land. However, the aliens stay on the ground longer, and X-com has bigger forces to deal with the higher alien population. Kevlar is still a few decades away so no body armor, and the only thing close to the HWPs would be the ineffective "Goliath" remote bomb used by Germany. Lasers are also a post war concept, so there wouldn't be much of a middle ground between human weapons and plasma.

Aside from the late war STG-44, there weren't really any select-fire rifles, so there would need to be a fairly clear difference between semi-auyo full powered weapons and sub-machineguns, with possible light MGs (m1919/mg-42) in the mix. This shouldn't be too hard to implement - rifles have snap or aimed only, smgs are snap or burst and lower damage, Machineguns fire burst, and use so many TUs that you can't move before shooting (ie 75-90%).

This might be some extra work, but we might want to consider making the story a little more than a rehash of what we know, just with different weapons. Perhaps these are creatures from Lemuria/hidden jungles in Antarctica. Rather than flying to Mars on 1940s tech, they head to the South Pole for the fianl mission of no return. (Functionally the same as Cydonia, just a palette swap.)


Offline kikimoristan

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Re: WWII XCOM?
« Reply #5 on: March 10, 2015, 03:44:55 am »
wolfenstein sprites may prove valuable because they are double the resolution of 40 x 32 xcom ones so when you rescale it counts as having changed it enough that is a remix/resample :)  legal stuff is funny that way.

Offline kikimoristan

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Re: WWII XCOM?
« Reply #6 on: March 10, 2015, 03:46:02 am »
check this out

nazi soldier/engineer/medic


nazi leader


nazi commander


tank is gonna be their terror unit
« Last Edit: March 10, 2015, 03:58:24 am by tollworkout »

Offline kikimoristan

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Re: WWII XCOM?
« Reply #7 on: March 10, 2015, 03:48:13 am »
and you can make 2 types of enemies

natzis - new race of aliens with ripped wolfenstein sprites
aliens


and have tanks and artillery  weapons and grenades play a major roles
add more sniper rifles, assault rifles, carbine, pistols and make them german version and allies version
remove lasers and make plasma alien only cannot be used by humans
also you need to replace all fighters/transport make them way slower change pictures and change maps make them more old school..airplanes didnt have jets back then so all propellers. add propeller tiles into the game  don't have to be moving just look like propellers
you may need to have some custom tiles like tent remove all modern stuff from human bases
you need to change xcom base and base sprites to overground tents army camp style base of operations
double up terror missions as Natzis Attack or Aliens Attack both make sense.
and lastly you need to change most background pictures to 30/40s look
you will have to remove urban terror mission is too modern looking go for farm  as terror sites instead and see if hobbes can borrow a few new terrains maybe railway terrain looks pretty oldschool industrial european factories etc you still need to edit all modern stuff out
and you may need to change the ranks
« Last Edit: March 10, 2015, 04:02:23 am by tollworkout »

Offline MKSheppard

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Re: WWII XCOM?
« Reply #8 on: March 14, 2015, 03:34:36 pm »
Perhaps these are creatures from Lemuria/hidden jungles in Antarctica. Rather than flying to Mars on 1940s tech, they head to the South Pole for the fianl mission of no return. (Functionally the same as Cydonia, just a palette swap.)

Oh man; even better! That ties into the whole Nazi "Hollow Earth" Mythology floating around!

What if you have to do a multi-level mission descending deeper into the caverns of the hollow earth for the final mission?

Also from the wiki on Hollow Earth:

George Papashvily in his Anything Can Happen (1940) claimed the discovery in the Caucasus mountains of a cavern containing human skeletons "with heads as big as bushel baskets" and an ancient tunnel leading to the centre of the earth. One man entered the tunnel and never returned.