Author Topic: Weapons that break, prison riots in the alien base and money thefts.  (Read 9080 times)

Offline Arthanor

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Re: Weapons that break, prison riots in the alien base and money thefts.
« Reply #15 on: March 10, 2015, 09:27:40 pm »
It would make sense if the risk increased when an alien is researched. As for the coffins: Who knows how to safely keep a Chryssalid? Why would an alien containment build in January 1999 be able to? Even if they somehow knew how to, maybe they messed up giving it its sedative? (there are a whole bunch of errors in hospitals, where we actually know what we're doing) Maybe this sedative doesn't work on Chryssalids and that's how XCom finds out? Just as we can make stories of how something could never happen, we can make stories about how it can happen. If you don't believe the stories saying it can happen, you don't have to use the mod either ;)

The battleship could not be called to rescue anyone. The aliens are trying to escape in order to call an attack on the base (escaped aliens obviously know where the base is) and because they care about their own life and they hope to be rescued. The retaliation mission could be sent strictly to take care of the XCom base. Maybe for the attacking aliens, recovering others is a very secondary objective.

Having the mechanic is the first step to getting the story going. Then everyone can make their own version of how it could happen, whereas now it can only not happen.

Offline DoxaLogos (JG)

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Re: Weapons that break, prison riots in the alien base and money thefts.
« Reply #16 on: March 10, 2015, 09:37:15 pm »
All really good points, pilot00.  I like the idea of Mind Shield nixing the retaliation, unless you allow for the aliens breaking out sabotaging the Mind Shield.  Also, connecting the lore to the mechanics is important to help the theme to blend into the possibility.  Although, one could argue that the expendable aliens would not call for “rescue”, but just call the battleship because they said, “We’re at the human base. Here are the coordinates… come and get it!”

So, I’ll summarize some ideas as follows:

1. non-leader/non-psi captive aliens only means no breakout due to heavy sedation assuming we know enough about alien physiology to sedate them properly (proper research?)   (or expendable if this was rescue)
2. Psi-capable captive aliens (technically i think those are effectively all leaders) can cause a breakout due to MC - if rescue and not retaliation - these are valuable assets to the alien military effort
3. Probability of breakout adjusted based on alien psi strength in captivity
4. Higher number of psi-capable aliens bumps up the probability of happening
5. Probability of breakout gets higher based on alien/soldier ratio at the base.
6. Mind shield stops breakout attempts (unless allow sabotage and I’m okay not allowing it).
7. Mission starts with some weak psi soldiers on alien side
8. Mission starts with a number of civilians or scientists/engineers roaming around due to surprise attack from breakout

Discuss  :D

Offline pilot00

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Re: Weapons that break, prison riots in the alien base and money thefts.
« Reply #17 on: March 10, 2015, 09:40:43 pm »
It would make sense if the risk increased when an alien is researched. As for the coffins: Who knows how to safely keep a Chryssalid? Why would an alien containment build in January 1999 be able to? Even if they somehow knew how to, maybe they messed up giving it its sedative? (there are a whole bunch of errors in hospitals, where we actually know what we're doing) Maybe this sedative doesn't work on Chryssalids and that's how XCom finds out? Just as we can make stories of how something could never happen, we can make stories about how it can happen. If you don't believe the stories saying it can happen, you don't have to use the mod either ;)

The battleship could not be called to rescue anyone. The aliens are trying to escape in order to call an attack on the base (escaped aliens obviously know where the base is) and because they care about their own life and they hope to be rescued. The retaliation mission could be sent strictly to take care of the XCom base. Maybe for the attacking aliens, recovering others is a very secondary objective.

Having the mechanic is the first step to getting the story going. Then everyone can make their own version of how it could happen, whereas now it can only not happen.

You missunderstood my post. I am not against the idea. I just say that it needs an ingame explanation thats not an excuse but something viable. If a stun rod (electocution) can stun said crysalid, chances are they know how to keep it down. Plus the entire facility is supposedly designed to safely keep them in. And thats why I cringed even durring the first time I played the game, that the facility was ready to be build from the get go (and i was 7 years old at the time). "Where the hell do they know what the aliens need to live?" was my thoughts. It should be a researchable after you dissect some corpses, but thats another matter.
I am not against the idea of an escape attempt, but just as I said I dont want to see it been implemented into a yolo style such as the base defense in 2012: "Here you passed the time frame required and completed x research, now eat an alien invasion to the face while your grunts are unequiped because reasons....oh and yolo swag."

If it has the appropriate lore, transparent mechanics to do something about it or prevent it, I am all for it.

All really good points, pilot00.  I like the idea of Mind Shield nixing the retaliation, unless you allow for the aliens breaking out sabotaging the Mind Shield.  Also, connecting the lore to the mechanics is important to help the theme to blend into the possibility.  Although, one could argue that the expendable aliens would not call for “rescue”, but just call the battleship because they said, “We’re at the human base. Here are the coordinates… come and get it!”

So, I’ll summarize some ideas as follows:

1. non-leader/non-psi captive aliens only means no breakout due to heavy sedation assuming we know enough about alien physiology to sedate them properly (proper research?)   (or expendable if this was rescue)
2. Psi-capable captive aliens (technically i think those are effectively all leaders) can cause a breakout due to MC - if rescue and not retaliation - these are valuable assets to the alien military effort
3. Probability of breakout adjusted based on alien psi strength in captivity
4. Higher number of psi-capable aliens bumps up the probability of happening
5. Probability of breakout gets higher based on alien/soldier ratio at the base.
6. Mind shield stops breakout attempts (unless allow sabotage and I’m okay not allowing it).
7. Mission starts with some weak psi soldiers on alien side
8. Mission starts with a number of civilians or scientists/engineers roaming around due to surprise attack from breakout

Discuss  :D

Yeah I was talking about something like that.
« Last Edit: March 10, 2015, 09:44:15 pm by pilot00 »

Offline DoxaLogos (JG)

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Re: Weapons that break, prison riots in the alien base and money thefts.
« Reply #18 on: March 11, 2015, 04:06:01 am »

overflowing alien containment is something i'd like to see implemented, but i'd rather push that to the extended version or my own.


So does this mean that this requires source code changes to support?

Mono

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Re: Weapons that break, prison riots in the alien base and money thefts.
« Reply #19 on: March 16, 2015, 12:41:49 am »
weapon jamming is theoretically possible, but weapon degredation is harder, as weapons only exist as quantities outside battle and have no individual properties
I have to test this but OXE as an ammo property "damageAlter->ToItem".
If I interpret correctly the readme, when an alien shoot you it can destroy your weapons, you will end defenseless ;D

As for aliens breaking out: this sound better as an implementation of random events.
  • An explosion on base X kill 1/3 of your engs
  • Influenza on base Y: half of your soldier get in sick bay for a week
  • Unknow donors give 4 million $ to X-Com
  • Creativity explosion! this week your scientists give double research points
  • Civil protester: all your supplies will be delayed 2 week for this month
  • Sabotage: one of your craft explode
  • ...
Can this be implemented on milestone 3.0?  :P