[Feedback] Pilots

[NeoWorm]

I realized yesterday, that since we have pilots for crafts now, crafts have technically all stats that soldiers can have. Including PSI strenght and skill, including bravery and morale...
I had few ideas based on that and had to write them down somewhere:

PSI craft weapon
Succesful attack can make UFO land, slow down UFO or disable enemy weapons. Or cancel UFO mission. Or acquire UFO mission info if not in range of H

Pilots panicking
Morale get's down by missing shots (probably some weapons like cannons should have exception), being shot at, being hit, enemy ship size (flat one time check to lower morale with defined ammount). It can cause pilot to disengage and return to base (may be recoverable), pilot ejects (craft lost if last pilot on board, pilot transfers back to base), berserker rage (pilot attacks with everything, maybe even possible ramming UFO?). Miltiple pilots can support each other - panicking pilot gives negative bonuses as long as panicking.

UFO PSI attacks
Don't know how good this could be, byt if X-Com would be able to PSI in crafts, why not aliens. It can disable weapons, it can cause pilot to panic, it can reveal craft's homebase to aliens and start base assault mission.

Pilot suits
Special armors that give pilots better bonuses for dogfighting or even enables their skills to be used while piloting.

It would need a pilot info on interception GUI. Which I think is kinda missing even now. I can mockup something later.

[Stoddard]

PSI craft weapon
Succesful attack can make UFO land, slow down UFO or disable enemy weapons. Or cancel UFO mission. Or acquire UFO mission info if not in range of H

Ehrm. A Telegraph Pole of Rending? Or a Rusted Pile of Malfunction? (and the choking variant shuts down airbreathers, although enemies don't fly them as of now)

UFO PSI attacks
Don't know how good this could be, byt if X-Com would be able to PSI in crafts, why not aliens. It can disable weapons, it can cause pilot to panic, it can reveal craft's homebase to aliens and start base assault mission.

Still I think this a) somehow does not fit into the voodoo narrative b) psi has to have limited range for some reason c) if we have craft psi weapons, why don't we have pis grenades, psi miniguns and psi rocket launchers, and this gets ridiculous.

Pilots panicking
Morale get's down by missing shots (probably some weapons like cannons should have exception), being shot at, being hit, enemy ship size (flat one time check to lower morale with defined ammount). It can cause pilot to disengage and return to base (may be recoverable), pilot ejects (craft lost if last pilot on board, pilot transfers back to base), berserker rage (pilot attacks with everything, maybe even possible ramming UFO?). Miltiple pilots can support each other - panicking pilot gives negative bonuses as long as panicking.

A great idea.

Pilot suits
Special armors that give pilots better bonuses for dogfighting or even enables their skills to be used while piloting.

The choice between combat armor to clean up the crash site effectively or a pilot suit to enhance air combat is really interesting.

[NeoWorm]

Ehrm. A Telegraph Pole of Rending? Or a Rusted Pile of Malfunction? (and the choking variant shuts down airbreathers, although enemies don't fly them as of now)

Kinda don't get it. I still didn't played piratez ( I am not interested in boobs while playing X-Com, sorry).
What I meant was pretty much mindcontrolling either vessel commander or engineer and forcing them to land. Psionics on battlescape basically.

Still I think this a) somehow does not fit into the voodoo narrative b) psi has to have limited range for some reason c) if we have craft psi weapons, why don't we have pis grenades, psi miniguns and psi rocket launchers, and this gets ridiculous.

Don't care about voodoo. In X-Com you need psi amp to use psionics. So, same thing on interceptors. Only bigger to amplify the psionics even more...

[Stoddard]

Kinda don't get it. I still didn't played piratez ( I am not interested in boobs while playing X-Com, sorry).
What I meant was pretty much mindcontrolling either vessel commander or engineer and forcing them to land. Psionics on battlescape basically.
Don't care about voodoo. In X-Com you need psi amp to use psionics. So, same thing on interceptors. Only bigger to amplify the psionics even more...

Yeah, sorry about the piratez references.

What I had in mind is that the psi-amp either can be scaled up or not.

If it can, and thus craft psi is possible, what stops scaling it a bit less and have a two-handed "heavy psi amp" or, say, a base facility to
instapanic the invaders, or a dedicated heavy craft to influence country capitals to increase income. It's a big can of worms.

EDIT: Psi is targeted, there are no AoE effects with it. One has to see the target somehow, or at least have an idea of its position to use it. If those restrictions are gone (and how are you going to get line of sight to an engineer in flight?), it's just a doomsday weapon, all the way up to Thrintun Suicide Night. There have to be some sane limits on that.

[Meridian]

PSI craft weapon
Succesful attack can make UFO land, slow down UFO or disable enemy weapons. Or cancel UFO mission. Or acquire UFO mission info if not in range of H

It is already possible to slow down UFOs and force UFOs to land using tractor beams: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,5266.0.html

"Mind-controlling" is in my opinion not possible:
a/ psi works on distances measured in meters, not kilometers (i.e. missile range)
b/ no line of sight

Pilots panicking
Morale get's down by missing shots (probably some weapons like cannons should have exception), being shot at, being hit, enemy ship size (flat one time check to lower morale with defined ammount). It can cause pilot to disengage and return to base (may be recoverable), pilot ejects (craft lost if last pilot on board, pilot transfers back to base), berserker rage (pilot attacks with everything, maybe even possible ramming UFO?). Miltiple pilots can support each other - panicking pilot gives negative bonuses as long as panicking.

Maybe in PirateZ, where you command a bunch of lunatics.

Military pilots don't panic.
(unless you teleport a Chryssalid inside the cockpit)

UFO PSI attacks
Don't know how good this could be, byt if X-Com would be able to PSI in crafts, why not aliens. It can disable weapons, it can cause pilot to panic, it can reveal craft's homebase to aliens and start base assault mission.

See above.

Pilot suits
Special armors that give pilots better bonuses for dogfighting or even enables their skills to be used while piloting.

It would need a pilot info on interception GUI. Which I think is kinda missing even now. I can mockup something later.

Pilots need at most a suit to help them withstand higher G-levels better.
How can a suit make you a better pilot?? Or navigator or gunner for that matter...

If you want some bonuses and/or skills for pilots, I can add them... but please something at least a bit more realistic.

[Stoddard]

Pilots need at most a suit to help them withstand higher G-levels better.
How can a suit make you a better pilot?? Or navigator or gunner for that matter...

If you want some bonuses and/or skills for pilots, I can add them... but please something at least a bit more realistic.

Does the craft acceleration have some effect on the dogfight performance? Like, better evasion or something?

If it does, then just maybe dedicated pilot suit makes sense. If it's declared that, say, Ship Engine-powered vessels are not affected by G-forces, then  of course the suits don't make any sense at all.

On the other hand, there are two things a suit can bring - it's not like power armor would fit into the figher's cockpit, and VR-like helmet systems are becoming more and more used ever since electro-optical targeting systems became mainstream.

[Meridian]

Does the craft acceleration have some effect on the dogfight performance? Like, better evasion or something?

Yes, since recently, it governs the disengage speed.

https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4187.msg79505.html#msg79505

[Stoddard]

Yes, since recently, it governs the disengage speed.

https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4187.msg79505.html#msg79505

As it is I don't think there's a credible reason to augment craft stats with ones derived from pilot armor.

If max(craft, pilot) accel gets to affect the accuracy and dodge chance, then maybe. If player could somehow override the safe accel (where pilot's limit (given by the pilots' health*stamina+armor stats) is below craft's), the time spent in such state biting out of pilots' health and stamina ... but it's too much code for a questionable benefit.

[NeoWorm]

I still think the pilots right now are kinda underused. Their bonuses to crafts are more or less an afterthought. If there are pilots I would really like them to have at least as much personality as field soldiers. Which means that they should have some mechanics that matter more than craft they are sitting in.
I honestly don't care if military pilots panic or not. This is X-Com where soldiers commonly shoot so badly they are more dangerous to friends than aliens, blindly falls into berserker rage and shoots whatever is in sight or decides to throw away weapon and hug aliens intead of shooting them. Panic system for crafts can be interesting mechanic. Maybe. Screw reality. The same applies to Psionics mechanics. Fluff can be written to justify pretty much anything, what matters is if it is fun.

Imagine following:

Crafts have maximal values and basic values for their stats. Max is cap where pilot can push the aircraft with his skills. Basic is number that get's modified by pilot's stats.

Soldier without special pilot suit can pilot craft but have penalties like a pilot with worst stats possible, making the craft even worse.
Basic Pilot suit enables bonuses from skills at 0.5 of their value. It is required for some crafts. Something like interception only crafts. In combat it is cumbersome and gives penalties to TUs and Strenght or something like that.
Advanced Pilot suit made from alien alloys enables pilots to withstand greater forces thus the bonuses are on 1.0 of their values. Also works better in combat, comparable to lighter personal armor.
Neural interface suit is possible after researching psionics and gives 2.0 value of the skill bonuses. Some aircrafts can require this suit. May have battlefield penalty against Psionics because it's stimulating pilot's mind and thus making it more vulnerable to psionic attacks.

If you have craft that requires pilot in a suit but also carries soldiers and your pilot get's killed in the mission, you can't extract from the misison. Mission abort will count all soldiers as MIA and craft as lost. If you win, your craft, soldiers and equipment get's tranferred back to the base with all the time waste of transferring. It can be interesting minigame to protect your pilot to be able to extract if something goes wrong. Suddenly the pilot's dead weight is justified. You can even bring spare pilot to fight just to be sure. It's another mechanic. Also it can be utterly annoying, I don't know.

With crafts that need multiple pilots as far as I know their stats get averaged. I would change it to make the bonuses additive. If there is a cap on maximal bonus it doesn't matter and feels little better than need to have two good pilots just for them not to suck. If Pilot morale and panic mechanics are introduced multiple pilots can complement that. Panicking pilot have bonuses like worst pilot possible untill he get's better. Only if all pilots panic, player looses control of the craft. Multiple pilots are needed to launch the craft not to land it or return it. Missing pilot just gives negative bonuses like worst pilot would.

If craft is destroyed there is chance that pilot eject before dying and can be recovered (he's tranfered back to base)
Or maybe we can add button to eject pilot to the GUI and it will be up to player to eject the pilot at the right time to save him.

Maybe even mechanic that would enable pilots to be hurt or killed during dogfight. Adding another layer of having multiple good pilots in case of heavy injuries that will take more time to heal than craft to be repaired.

[Ethereal]

Psi weapons of ships - it's nonsense, like psi miniguns. But the module with a psi amplifier is not even a bad thing. At maximum convergence with UFOs, it works and scans it. As a result, we get full information, as with the decoder, and more information about the approximate crew size and its composition. It is even possible to do a chance of triggering, depending on the psi skill of pilots.

By the way, UFO Extender had such an item -
 

Keep Base Navigation Modules (Ground assault missions have a chance of giving some info about the UFO's mission. The probability of finding something is proportional to the number of navigation modules recovered during the mission.)

This can also be used for the psi module. It is useful, until the decoder is opened.

I honestly don't care if military pilots panic or not. This is X-Com where soldiers commonly shoot so badly they are more dangerous to friends than aliens, blindly falls into berserker rage and shoots whatever is in sight or decides to throw away weapon and hug aliens intead of shooting them. Panic system for crafts can be interesting mechanic. Maybe. Screw reality. The same applies to Psionics mechanics. Fluff can be written to justify pretty much anything, what matters is if it is fun.

Believe me, no army of the world, no organization, will never allow a mentally unstable person to manage aircraft. And if the pilot has a panic, then either he is an impostor, or even a terrorist.

[Stoddard]

Believe me, no army of the world, no organization, will never allow a mentally unstable person to manage aircraft. And if the pilot has a panic, then either he is an impostor, or even a terrorist.

Never allow is too stong a word. Shit happens. Remember that guy who flew an A320 into a mountain on a whim?

[Ethereal]

Never allow is too stong a word. Shit happens. Remember that guy who flew an A320 into a mountain on a whim?

Well, there are a lot of versions. I then think that he was a terrorist. It is not the time or place to discuss it, but your truth - everything happens.

[Multiheaded]

Hi, I'm a bit of a military history fan, and let me tell y'all: while military pilots might not "panic" at the first hint of danger, they still hesitate, get nervous, make wrong calls in the moment or simply feel it's better not to die right now. This is ubiquitous in air warfare; true aces with nerves of steel are rare (and often don't live long).

Seconding the idea of pilots' morale coming into play when facing heavy fire. Not sure if a separate bravery gauge is doable, but a chance to forcibly disengaged on damage, reduced accuracy and slower approach speed/maybe even falling back to a longer range are definitely realistic consequences if the pilots fail a morale check.

[BTAxis]

I'm not a fan of the idea. Interceptions are a relatively simple part of X-COM and have their own relatively simple rules. Overcomplicating interceptions by adding more rules is not in the game's best interest.

[SuperCaffeineDude]

Pilots in XcomEx+, cool, does anyone have an example?
Bravery effects might be fun,maybe...

Evasion: Dodge Chance
Targeting: Hit Chance
Navigation: World Speed
Reactions: Effects Evasion and Targeting based on speed of craft.