Author Topic: Special missions for XPiratez  (Read 9726 times)

Offline Arthanor

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Special missions for XPiratez
« on: May 05, 2016, 06:30:11 pm »
Dioxine mentioned we should discuss his ideas for additions in separate threads, so here is one: Special missions!

The recent addition of Mansions and the Space mission discussion got me thinking:

1 - Two stage missions to capture a craft at the space-port then strike at the space-station? Sounds awesome to me! but can you define enviros per stage? As in you're ok in any armor to get the space port, but need a space suit to the 2nd stage. Or since most crafts are likely space capable (they are very similar to the vanilla UFOs afterall, just have a bit less fuel), maybe a one stage mission with the proper crafts. Having space worthy armors that can move in 3D only while in space would be pretty cool too!

2 - XPiratez shipping mission, with the TftD ships. The rich and decadent elites of earth mingle on fancy cruise ships, enjoying a slow and scenic tour of the planet. See the shimmering arctic skies and rare winter sea ice (no more ice in the summer by 2600 :P), sail through the rainbow of the (oil) Slick Gulf (of Mexico), etc. As Piratez, you strike at a cruise ship, with the top level containing quality VIPs, serving crews (GO Janitors and Hostesses) and the few discreet security personnel (Mercs? Marsec?). On the lower decks, the riches and pets of the passengers await you (glittering and hungering, respectively), along with a hardened work crew (raider slaves with hammer/pipes/power tools) and the engineers in charge of maintaining the ship.

Assets for a ship mission should already be available. What else would you like to see? Dioxine had some quite awesome sounding things already in his post. To reiterate:

   - Ratling hideouts

   - Monster hunts

   - Cult of Apocalypse temples

   - Mini-Pogroms

   - Academy Prison Infiltrations

   - Underwater! Go skinny dipping (or power-armor walking) in the continental shelf, explore old wrecks, ruins and caves, uncover treasures and fight aquatic enemies. Most of your weapons don't work, including grenades! Movement rates significantly reduced, as are sight ranges, but most outfits allow 3-d movement!

    - Arena Fights. Small missions for a few Pirates in an enclosed space, with strict rules on weapons and armor. Face various gladiators, and either die in shame or win prizes and admiration!

    - Space Missions. Take your Deliverator (or other suitable ship) for a spin to some orbital station. Face horrors of space, brave vacuum and lack of gravity, get hi-tech loot!

    - Deep Cave Forays. Who knows what lurks in the shadows Deep Below? Your enemies are heat, fire and darkness. Heat is bad for Stamina, nuff said. But you can meet and kill new, exotic races or experience awful horrors.

    - Into the Demon World! Step through portals to confront insanely powerful demonic cratures.

    - Dreamscape. The most esoteric of your journeys, where all you can take is your mind and body. However, special researcheable outfits will transform into armor when taken there. Also they will spawn some weapons for you to use (others will need to be found on site; all very unusual weapons, naturally). You only suffer Stun damage in the Dreamscape, but you need to win or find exit to return! The catch? VooDoo. The better the outfit, the quicker it will render you unconscious... unless your VooDoo is strong enough to counteract that negative effect!

Offline Rince Wind

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Re: Special missions for XPiratez
« Reply #1 on: May 05, 2016, 06:59:08 pm »
Pirate TV:
An early to midgame mission with very little loot and mostly civilians plus faction security. The point here is to show off. You go into a TV station and send your own programme for a time, telling the world how awesome (and good looking) you are. Success would net you a lot of points for your monthly report, but every civvie you kill lowers your score. Maybe you'd have to grab an item with a high score value, or destroy something like in some of the TftD missions. Unlike mansions killing everyone should not be a viable option. Maybe have the pogrom victims on the enemy team, to discourage the killing of innocents.

Edit: And maybe a chance that the offended faction starts looking for your hideout, as you exposed yourself so much.
« Last Edit: May 05, 2016, 07:01:31 pm by Rince Wind »

Offline new_civilian

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Re: Special missions for XPiratez
« Reply #2 on: May 06, 2016, 12:01:34 am »
Mini Mansion Mission Madness: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4600.0.html
Dioxine made them perfectly scalable, why not use them in smaller versions, too?

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Kidnapping Missions
A specific person/unit has to be caught without causing any damage. The reward could be either money or something else.

-

Air piracy
Seeing robin's fantastic stellartrans transporter map I thought : This one would make a nice target in XPiratez, maybe even with a specific mission. E.g. taking the craft hostage and holding it for a number of turns against police forces trying to rescue the passengers/crew

Offline Arthanor

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Re: Special missions for XPiratez
« Reply #3 on: May 06, 2016, 06:32:09 pm »
Cool ideas!

Since it is possible to have more missions going on in a month than before, the variety that special missions bring is quite a boon. Eventually, especially in such a long campaign, attacking shipping becomes repetitive despite the variation in factions.

The idea of VIP capture should be easily doable with a unit worth a lot of points alive and a lot of negative points dead.

The tv take over is a really new, nifty idea. But it could be hard to implement. The population is doable with weapon less enemies like in some of the transport missions, but the objective? I guess you could make the radio station the only exit area? Couple that with a limit to cloth armors and smallish weapons since you are trying to blend in and that could be quite challenging, especially with having to not kill some of the enemies.

Offline Dioxine

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Re: Special missions for XPiratez
« Reply #4 on: May 06, 2016, 06:50:46 pm »
The idea of VIP capture should be easily doable with a unit worth a lot of points alive and a lot of negative points dead.

Quite impossible atm. The score for capture is hardcoded to be double the kill score.

Offline Mattdo

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Re: Special missions for XPiratez
« Reply #5 on: May 06, 2016, 07:25:33 pm »
Would it be possible to do some kind of Manufacture action with a captured target that awards you Points? I was thinking it would be nice if I could set free my captured government agents for a diplomatic bonus...

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Special missions for XPiratez
« Reply #6 on: May 06, 2016, 08:03:19 pm »
Would it be possible to do some kind of Manufacture action with a captured target that awards you Points? I was thinking it would be nice if I could set free my captured government agents for a diplomatic bonus...

While not possible at the moment, releasing prisoners for points instead of money would be nice. Maybe sould also require contact with the specific faction.

Offline Arthanor

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Re: Special missions for XPiratez
« Reply #7 on: May 06, 2016, 10:19:25 pm »
Quite impossible atm. The score for capture is hardcoded to be double the kill score.
Damn.. didn't realize it was made that way, I thought you could define both.. (I'm sure Meridian or Yankes could fix that pretty quickly). But otherwise, it would be possible to make the VIP award no points, but researching him award a lot of points? So the kill or capture in itself isn't worth it, but you if you got him alive, the VIP can be used  for something (propaganda?) that increases your image significantly.

Granted, that's not much different from the regular trying to capture Guild Reps and stuff, but if the mission is tailored (time/gear limit, or special map where you have to get in a bunker?) it could feel rather different any ways.

Offline Dioxine

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Re: Special missions for XPiratez
« Reply #8 on: May 06, 2016, 11:05:38 pm »
Well, I can manipulate it by giving a good score for unit, but bad score for corpse recovery. Research is fine too but it only would work once AFAIK. Both solutions are rather hackish, and already implemented for govt employees, catgirls, smuggler captains and passengers...

Offline Gunner-chan

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Re: Special missions for XPiratez
« Reply #9 on: May 07, 2016, 02:53:02 am »
Maybe a bit hokey but... Considering this is the Piratez mod any chance of raiding actual blue water vessels?

Like I dunno, guild yachts or academy research craft? Seems a bit weird but fitting with at least one element of the theme.

Offline Thryllth

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Re: Special missions for XPiratez
« Reply #10 on: May 07, 2016, 03:19:08 am »
Going after a nice fat ocean liner full of people with to much money definitely seems to me something the gals could and would do in a heartbeat.  Pirate radio also fits nicely with your position as a scourge on shipping and general terror (or nuisance depending on point of view).  Perhaps an option to assault not just the space station but some way to breech a craft in flight?  You spawn inside the other vessel with a minimal number of hands (4-6) and are limited to melee and projectile weapons with no explosives or laser/plasma/gauss as that may breech the hull!  Give the gals a tight timer to reach the control room and kill/capture the pilot or the self destruct goes off like on grounded supply ships.

Offline new_civilian

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Re: Special missions for XPiratez
« Reply #11 on: May 07, 2016, 04:15:04 am »
What about Terror missions where the gals are actually the attackers?

Offline khade

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Re: Special missions for XPiratez
« Reply #12 on: May 10, 2016, 03:07:28 am »
Uh, hello, figured if I wanted ideas added, I'd have to join up for it.  :)

Let's see, random missions....

Storming a Humanist rally, where there are several human civilians, preferably unarmed or mostly unarmed if you want us on our toes, a bunch of Activists, several Soldiers, and either a few Instructors or a Leader, in an open area with a stage set up.  Ideally the citizens would be safely ignored, but anyone actively aligned with the Humanists would have to be taken down to win.  It would be fun if there was a chance of your ship randomly being right in the middle of the stage with a dead Leader corpse right in front of it, I can see it now: the leader is right at the height of his rant, spittle flying and mustache sitting proudly on his face, when suddenly, he hears a loud noise.  Looking up, he sees a skybus appear out of nowhere hurtling towards the stage, obviously someone lost control of it.  He doesn't even have time to scream.   :D

Raiding a church, easily hidden weapons only 2x1 or smaller, and as long as no one shoots a gun or gets seen in employee only areas (marked with red carpet or something), they will ignore your hands. attract notice, by shooting or getting shot at, or being seen in forbidden areas and not silencing the viewer in one turn, and you now have a time limit as well as having people shooting at you.  Morale would probably still go down as usual, so high bravery would probably be useful here.

Getting attacked by and attacking Molemen (seriously, where are the molemen?).  Figuring out how to force their giant drill subs to surface or noticing a place they're scavenging for gear and attacking, having them randomly run into your base, assaulting an enemy hideout and having them accidentally attacking at the same time (three way battle!).  Maybe add some underground dinosaurs, lizard folk and sexy savages too, for the real Hollow Earth scenario.

Later in the game I could see raiding a Spartan Fort, could maybe 'liberate' the womenfolk. Can't imagine it being easy, as they're too paranoid to send everyone off on a pogrom.

On a sillier note, maybe missions to kidnap a musician, who would totally not be Elvis, which could get you involved in The Cult of the Sequined King(tm).  Elvis clones and impersonators would be amusing, maybe the cloning tech could be used to speed up healing?

This got just a bit out of hand, hopefully some of these ideas are either usable or remotely good.

Cheers!  :)