Thanks!
It's still a baby, but it already has teeth.
Frankly I haven't worked on the aliens in regards to dodging yet. It only works against melee anyway.
And no, hovering doesn't take more TUs.
Only melee? Damn. Still sounds like a evil ability to give to an alien.
It doesn't? My eyes must be fooling me.
...and how would I do this?
You know, that's a good question. May be impossible.
Another alternative would be just making Reapers tougher and their AI bolder. They're quite weak and lame.
I think they're fine just as they are. They do get some special weapons though (mostly spamming Elerium Bombs).
Again, how do you do this sort of thing?
Anyway, what would a Snakeman baby do? Crawl towards you menacingly while begging for small invertebrates to feed on?
Maybe they perfected begging into the next level of weapon, it makes your soldiers suicide or berserk.
And that's why the Snakemen are R strategists
Hey, Hyperworms could be literally teared from the guts of their mother, and yet just hearing them triggered me faster than you can say "THE BLIGHT IS APPROACHING" in a female voice out of a computer savant.
I thought about giving Snakemen Hatchlings a short-range venomous spit attack. Fatal-ish to unarmored troops, dangerous to vests, annoying to personal armor, a bother to early tanks, insignificant to Power Armor/Hazmat. Possibly with a armor-eroding effect, to make them dangerous even later on in significant amounts. They should be quite weak and one shot from any normal weapon should be enough to kill them. In fact, maybe armor-eroding should be their real attack, because that means they complement Chrysalids and Snakemen better - Snakes kill your soldiers with more ease, Chrysalids don't lose warm bodies that could be used for impregnation instead.
(if you want to be extra evil, have the hatchlings pick up and eat dead bodies and turn into something tougher. Because what Chrysalids don't impregnate, the snakes eat. Also, there goes your gear lol)
Maybe every Snakeman carries eggs on inventory, and eggs "hatch" as new snakemen hatchlings during the alien turn (with full TU, as per Chrysalids/Spitters). The eggs are objects so you can pick them up (I'm thinking they won't hatch if you do, like Brainsucker eggs in Apoc), or destroy them with explosives, or a cheap "Destroy" use action.
Alternatively, every start of a alien turn, a Snakeman "lays" a egg (no TU spent - its a free action unique to them) before moving on its patrol.
Now how many Snakemen would be able to lay eggs and at which rate, let me look at the maths:
1 egg per turn, every turn, all snakes:
Small Scout (8 crew):
Turn 1: 0 Hatchlings
Turn 2: 8 hatchlings
Turn 3: 16 hatchlings
of course the player is probably killing Snakes every turn, but... uh, doesn't work.
Setup 2: 1 egg per turn, laid every two turns, all snakes:
Small Scout (8 crew):
Human Turn 1: No eggs no hatchlings.
Alien Turn 1: 0 Hatchlings, 8 eggs (from now all turns are alien turns for simplicity)
Turn 2: 8 hatchlings (minus any killed by player), no eggs
Turn 3: 8 hatchlings minus any killed, 8 minus X killed Snakemen eggs
Turn 4: 16 hatchling minus any killed previously, 0 eggs.
Turn 5: 16 hatchling minus any killed previously, 8 minus X killed Snakemen eggs
Turn 6: 24 hatchlings minus X killed, 0 eggs.
Setup 3: 1 egg per turn, every three turns:
Human Turn 1: 8 Snakes, 0 eggs.
Alien Turn 1: 8 - X Snakes, 8 - X eggs laid
Alien Turn 2: 8 - X Snakes, 8 - X eggs still laid
Alien Turn 3: 8 - X Snakes, 8 - Y hatchlings.
Alien Turn 4: 8 - X Snakes, 8 - Y hatchlings, 8 - X eggs.
Alien Turn 5: 8 - X Snakes, 8 - Y hatchlings, 8 - X eggs
Alien Turn 6: 8 - X Snakes, (8 - Y hatchlings) + (8 - x eggs = 8 - y Hatchlings).
With Snakemen Terror, let's say there's 18 Snakes 6 Chrysalids (they don't matter to the calculation, tho):
18 - X (where X is DEAD) hatchlings by turn 3, 36 - X by turn 6... hmmm, this is problematic.
Let me try a slower rate, I'm not very good at math:
Small Scout with 8 snakes:
0 eggs or hatchlings by Human Turn 1, 8 eggs by Alien Turn 1, same, same, 8 hatchlings, 8 hatchlings and 8 eggs, same, same, 16 hatchlings, 16 hatchlings and 8 eggs, same, same, 24 hatchlings by turn 12.
Terror Ship with 18 snakes
0 eggs or hatchlings by Human Turn 1, 18 eggs by AT1, same, same, 18 hatchlings 0 eggs, 18 hatchlings and 18 eggs, same, same, 36 hatchlings... hmmm...
Trying new hatchlings every five turns:
Turn 5: 8 or 18
Turn 10: 16 or 36
Turn 15: 24 or 54
Turn 20: 32 or 72
Of course, the problem here is that not even the greatest of mathematics can calculate how many Snakemen and laid eggs a X-COM player kills per turn (personally, I win missions before turn 3, because I am the best.
).
Also, it might lead to new tactics or situations, from bringing extra ammo to bringing hazmat, knives and swords to wade through the hatchling hordes.
The simpler situation is to go the Hyperworm route and have a lot of Snakemen hatchlings come out of dead Megaworms/Snakemen. The obvious problem is that is easily exploitable (and tiresome), just have a guy with HE munitions standing by.
Poor Snakemen do come off as the suckiest aliens, when by comparison:
- Sectoids have psionics and those hellish reactions
- Floaters fly
- Mutons are tough
- Ethereals are all psionic.
Reptoids aren't in the mod yet, and I assure you they'll be quite interesting. A hint: they are not aliens.
The British Royal Family?
And I got the "not alien" from the autopsy in my game.
Personally I'm betting on Gillman descendants/offshoots. I always thought a lot more could have been done with the poor Gillies, as they are a species defeated by alien invasion - I once had this story idea for a "Last Days of the Gillmen" story, where we see their society before T'Leth falls, then its effects. The Gillmen polities ("Schools", as in fish schools?) create a X-COM equivalent, as civilization falls, their race dies in cold, hunger and conflict between themselves and the new alien invader, their leaders sell themselves out in drooves to the Aquatoid aliens and their world cools down into a nuclear winter snowball.
