Base Defense Mechanics

[x60mmx]

I really enjoyed the fact that base defenses in Xenonauts reduced the number of attackers according to how much base defense you had, if it failed to repulse the attack.  Made having some investment in base defense a good idea.  In 20 years of playing X-Com I have never bothered with anything beyond a mind shield and some soldiers waiting around with proximity grenades and blast launchers because I valued other facilities more.  If defenses could reduce the number of attackers, I could see myself actually using them.

Possible?

[Warboy1982]

possible, sure, but i don't really want to pinch things from xenonauts. they have their own thing going on, and i respect that. if we start trying to "ape the competition" then we might give the impression that we're actually trying to compete. i say get both and enjoy them for their differences. xcom, the original series, and xenonauts, the next generation.
(i guess enforcer would be DS9, trying to keep up with modern trends, interceptor would be voyager, flying forever in empty space, and going nowhere, and enemy unknown would be enterprise... no explanation needed.)

[hellrazor]

We already had the idea of adding a crashsite if the Base Defenses were successful in shooting down the Battleship.
I guess that Base defenses weren't really thought completly throu in the original game concept.
But they actually make sense in case you trigger the random Retaliations from Ethereals, by researching The Martian Solution and you do not have the means to deal with an Base Attack vs Ehtereals & Sectopods.

[Hobbes]

I really enjoyed the fact that base defenses in Xenonauts reduced the number of attackers according to how much base defense you had, if it failed to repulse the attack.  Made having some investment in base defense a good idea.  In 20 years of playing X-Com I have never bothered with anything beyond a mind shield and some soldiers waiting around with proximity grenades and blast launchers because I valued other facilities more.  If defenses could reduce the number of attackers, I could see myself actually using them.

Possible?

Xenonauts didn't invent this idea, XCom players did.

The idea of base defenses caused a reduction on the number according to the number of hits scored on attacking UFOs has existed in the XCom community since the game came out.

Quoting from Kasey Chang's Unofficial Strategy Guide (published in 2002, my italics): "During a hectic month, total of twelve battleships came after my base. Only one made it through my 3500 pt defense (with grav shield, of course), and its remaining landing parties are easy to wipe out with only HWPs and a few defenders.""

 I think this was proven later to be a fallacy in observation or wishful thinking by XCom players because to my knowledge there isn't any coding for this. Xenonauts took this false impression and implemented it.

[Warboy1982]

yeah, a base with only an access lift and one or no hangars would get a very small invasion party due to the limited number of spawn nodes available. even with three hangars you wouldn't get the full crew spawning on superhuman. in openxcom, however, you will get the full crew on superhuman, regardless.

[x60mmx]

I don't think it would be encroaching on Xenoanuts at all, merely fixing a problem with the game's design.  As it currently stands, there really is no reason to build any defense facilities, besides maybe a mind shield, because it's more effective to defend your base with a small squad equipped for the job.  In the 20 years I have been playing, never once have I thought to myself, "Defense facilities would have been a good idea".

It's not about taking ideas from other games, it's about tweaking things to reduce redundancy in X-Com, which has always been it's largest fault, by a long shot, in my mind.  I'd love for defense facilities to be worth considering.  As it stands, they aren't even worth taking up space in my base for, which is a shame.

[Solarius Scorch]

Wasn't it an option in XComUtil?

[x60mmx]

Not that I remember or according to UFOpaedia.

[x60mmx]

Another major note I forgot to mention on why I never use base defenses.  Let's say they work and blow up the battleship.  The aliens just send another, the another, etc.  To get them to stop you still have to fight a base defense, so what's the point?  Might as well just leave a defense party at base and use the facility space for other stuff.

If base defenses causing casualties to the raiding party is being frowned upon for being lifted from Xenonauts, how about some other mechanic for defenses to aid in the inevitable base defense mission?  Perhaps injuring portions of the raiding party so they are easier to kill or causing lowered morale?

[Jstank]

I like this idea A lot. But what if a successful shoot down of a incoming battle ship netted a crashed battleship to clean up right outside  your base location. Would that give you incentive to make some room for the defenses?

[x60mmx]

Personally? No.  A crashed Battleship means a lot of well equipped aliens for an average of 50 elerium, I'd let them repair and leave.

Having crashed battleships from base defenses would also just drop a steady supply of stuff at your doorstep and would be easily exploitable.  Build enough defense to render you impervious and that battleships will keep coming indefinitely and piling up crash sites without ever endangering your crafts.  You'd never have to leave your front yard, and even if you only got 50 elerium at each site, who cares when you had to fly 5 meters to the site?

Until base defenses have an effect on base defense missions, there will only be 2 ways of going about base defense.  First is to not build any and leave a defense party to deal with raiders and stop the attacks. Second is to build plenty of defense and try not to be annoyed by the constant parade of Battleships knocking on your door. 

Speaking of, the whole assault-your-base flag not getting turned off when a battleship is destroyed by base defenses is pretty lame in how it works.  I get that the aliens still want to destroy your base, but why send one battleship again, when the last got blosn out of the sky before landing?  Shouldn't they send two the next time around?  It would only make sense to me that aliens should increase their assault efforts (inevitably rendering your defenses pointless) or that blowing up an attacking battleship should re.ove the assault-your-base flag, in which case defenses become a tax to avoid a mission.  Hardly satisfying.

Also, with base defenses only mattering if they can shoot down Battleships, what's up with missile and laser defenses?  Without effecting base defense missions they are entirely useless.  Is someone really going to dedicate enough of their base to missile defenses to make them  not totally useless?  Are they just there to trick newbies into wasting resources and facility space?

[Solarius Scorch]

Speaking of, the whole assault-your-base flag not getting turned off when a battleship is destroyed by base defenses is pretty lame in how it works.  I get that the aliens still want to destroy your base, but why send one battleship again, when the last got blosn out of the sky before landing?  Shouldn't they send two the next time around?  It would only make sense to me that aliens should increase their assault efforts (inevitably rendering your defenses pointless) or that blowing up an attacking battleship should re.ove the assault-your-base flag, in which case defenses become a tax to avoid a mission.  Hardly satisfying.

Why hardly satisfying? They're there exactly to avoid the defence tactical mission, that's obviously their primary (and only) role. If you want to fight, why build them?

Also, with base defenses only mattering if they can shoot down Battleships, what's up with missile and laser defenses?  Without effecting base defense missions they are entirely useless.  Is someone really going to dedicate enough of their base to missile defenses to make them  not totally useless?  Are they just there to trick newbies into wasting resources and facility space?

That recent update with mission handling is the first step to giving us tools to enable other craft to assault the base. Hopefully.

[x60mmx]

Why hardly satisfying? They're there exactly to avoid the defence tactical mission, that's obviously their primary (and only) role. If you want to fight, why build them?

Touche.  Perhaps my bitterness with how base defenses currently play out was toying with my reasoning there :-P

I did consider other ufo types being able to assault your base an option.  If UFOs that could be repelled by lower level defenses actually attempted, they would suddenly prove useful.  This would add some complication to base building/management, which I am not really opposed to. 

What if base defenses could attack UFOs with a certain radius of your base?  Missile defenses at radar posts could suddenly prove useful for attacking small UFOs that pop up far from your main bases.

[Solarius Scorch]

I did consider other ufo types being able to assault your base an option.  If UFOs that could be repelled by lower level defenses actually attempted, they would suddenly prove useful.  This would add some complication to base building/management, which I am not really opposed to.

Yeah.

What if base defenses could attack UFOs with a certain radius of your base?  Missile defenses at radar posts could suddenly prove useful for attacking small UFOs that pop up far from your main bases.

Maybe. That distance would be rather small, though - especially for direct beam weapons which require a straight line, so we're talking up to 20 km maybe (against very high altitude targets).

[x60mmx]

Beam weapons would be inherently limited in range, but missile defenses could easily have a greater range.  Though that would bring up far more issues with game balance in the air supremacy department than I think it would solve to be honest. :-/