[DONE] [Feedback] [Documentation] Hunter-killer

[SteamXCOM]

This seems good.
      I gather it goes like this
      Hunter killer randomly, unexpectedly, jumps XCOM craft:
      (since it is already decided the hunter killer is SUPERIOR to the XCOM craft then the next possibilities occur:

      1- XCOM craft is eliminated
      2- XCOM craft somehow escapes damaged or otherwise; and is forced to abort mission returns to base, this percentage chance of escape increases if the XCOM craft is carrying external armaments

   
   if 1
   then  (to expound upon Solarius Scorch's idea)
     --Percentage chance of injuries and/or death (higher rank has greater survivability for RPG purposes).
    -- Delay in return. the "transfer" time is hidden, so you never know if the person was saved or not.
    --Percentage chance of losing each item on board.
    (whether the XCOM craft destroyed or crash lands is irrelevant, for game purposes it is unavailable for further XCOM missions)
    Yes, LIGHTNINGS and more advanced craft would have more equipment and personnel recovered and/or greater chance of escape.

  As for the delay in return and suspense of who survived or not, the game is 1990's and communications were still uncertain compared to 2017, especially in in remote areas.  Even in more modern territories the Xcom survivors might be keeping a low profile among the population so news of their fate would be delayed as opposed to a routine ground mission where communications are continuously established. 

An XCOM mission might develop where XCOM crash survivors are trying to get from one end of the map to the next with their stuff,  battling hostile locals (that have nothing to do with aliens) that are simply regional armed drug militias, gangs, looters or whatever.  A win might get some AK 47's but not enough to be considered "farming,"  or that mission optionally aborted and the survivors ransomed back.

[Ethereal]

No chance for escape, but all the easier. If the aircraft acceleration is greater than UFO, then he should be able to get out of combat. And UFOs will chase before landing at the base. And if the landing was in the range of the radar UFO, the Stalker is attacking the base. This, by the way, do useful to Missile Defense in the early stages of the game, which is useless against Battleships, but against the smaller ships can come in handy.

[Hobbes]

Yes, makes sense.
Will be added.

Default will be true and you can set it to false.
Default true is better than false in my opinion, since the UFO has to pass a percentage test first anyway, so it's still backwards-compatible with vanilla and (probably) will be less ruleset to write for the modder

I had this idea today: switch from true/false to an integer value, where 0 = no intercept, 1 = intercept any XCom craft, 2 = prioritize XCom interceptors, 3 = prioritize XCom transports

I think the aerial combat would gain if the behavior of the UFOs can be both more randomized and pre-determined regarding its targets. As an example, a UFO could be set to patrol a certain area to prevent any landings by XCom transports. Or, if escorting a Harvester, the UFO escorts would prioritize XCom interceptors. Or 2 escorts could be set each to focus on interceptors/transports or just to attack anyone.

[Meridian]

How will the player know which is which?

Also, HK targeting primarily transports basically means there is no way of handling the situation except avoiding it, am I right?

PS: do you want all attributes on a mission wave (and have same UFOs with potentially different settings) or can all these attributes be UFO level (which might be easier for the user to recognize the threat level)

[The Reaver of Darkness]

If anyone has a good idea how to save the crew that doesn't involve "free bounty" (e.g. ground mission) and involves at least some penalty

Ship crashes. You send a transport to recover it. Some crew may die in the crash but most probably survive. Equipment also usually survives but some is lost. Craft is lost but you recover materials which you sell for part of its cost.
Penalties include:
1.) it may not be safe to rescue them if more hunters are patrolling the area, but you're limited by time
2.) some loss even with a perfect recovery
3.) you must order a new craft
4.) you must have at least 2 transports in your armada to enable recovery--however you can recover with a craft from a different base
5.) the rescue transport will be busy during the flight to and from the crash site--with a slow transport going a long distance this could take a very long time

Maybe this is "free bounty" but there's other factors to consider relating to whether or not you are capable of rescuing them. You also want to be prepared beforehand, so that when the time comes, rescue can be quick and painless. It's not completely free, and it certainly isn't lossless.




Now I figure the personnel, tech, and other stuff is highly secret so you can't hire civilians to come get them. But just the same it might be possible to arrange for a government agency to rescue the craft. You'd have to pay a large fee which would render the monetary savings minor unless it was jam-packed with expensive stuff, but you would get most of your favorite soldiers back intact.

I also figure if you fail to rescue them, they don't actually die out there. They're simply forced to destroy everything and start new lives in the nearest human settlement that will take them. But either way, you don't have them anymore.

[Meridian]

I assume over ocean, everyone dies.

Does this actually spawn a mission or is it just a touch-and-go crash site?

A. If it spawns a mission, who will be the enemy?
And should the survivors spawn as xcom and fight as well?
Or should they spawn as civilians you need to save?
Or should they not spawn at all and just be recovered at the end? Or killed if you lose/abort.

B. If it doesn't spawn a mission, can we just simplify it that survivors come back home by public transport after certain amount of days?

[Nord]

B. If it doesn't spawn a mission, can we just simplify it that survivors come back home by public transport after certain amount of days?

I prefer this.
And yes, "EJECT" button!

Also, without tactical mission - no need to kill all when falling in ocean.
Give passengers a status "recovering from crashsite" for a day or two, so they will store their stats and armor, but lose all equipment

[Ethereal]

I think it will be more correct. In place of the downtrodden X-COM transport, a point is created for the mission, both for terror. Saves on missions are present, but without equipment and under the control of the player. If he did not arrive, he lost everything and everyone along with the downed transport. I flew and successfully completed the task - I got everything back, and the ship is under repair with 99% of the damage. But the interceptors are destroyed immediately. Together with the pilot. Ie - if there is "allowLanding: false", then there will not be a mission.

[Countdown]

Just a bystander chiming in. Great job on this feature Meridian, such a cool addition.

I assume over ocean, everyone dies.

Not necessarily. Life rafts/life vests are a thing, even in today's commercial passenger planes.

B. If it doesn't spawn a mission, can we just simplify it that survivors come back home by public transport after certain amount of days?

Sounds like the simplest solution. Lose the craft and all equipment, but have a chance for survival/injury (based on whatever factors you think appropriate ie soldier health, armor, etc) and have them set to return to base in X days based on where they went down. Those that were seriously injured may require extra recovery time.

I agree with those have said that they wouldn't want to lose an entire squad of trained soldiers without even the opportunity for a fight. I think losing the craft and equipment (with the chance to lose a soldier or two ... I'd favor greater chance for survival/injury though) seems like an appropriate negative consequence so these HKs are a big concern, but not game-killing.

Does this actually spawn a mission or is it just a touch-and-go crash site?

A. If it spawns a mission, who will be the enemy?
And should the survivors spawn as xcom and fight as well?
Or should they spawn as civilians you need to save?
Or should they not spawn at all and just be recovered at the end? Or killed if you lose/abort.

If you're to go this route, it could immediately spawn an "escape" mission where the enemy is the race of the craft that shot you down. You have to get all the survivors to the exit and abort, whoever makes it survives and goes back to base. Lose the craft, only equipment recovered is what you had on you when escaping.

If you're worried about farming, make it so even if you kill all aliens on the map, you don't recover equipment/corpses on the ground, only what is on your soldiers. Justification is they still have to "escape" before another alien ship shows up. That said, I think losing a craft and potentially soldiers in the crash is a big enough loss you wouldn't want to use this as "farming."

[SteamXCOM]

Always should be some chance for escape once hunter/killer on the trail

When "escape" is used, it does not necessarily mean speed XCOMcraft vs speed of enemy but added into that whatever "tricks" can be employed, chaff, electronic counter measures (ECM), decoy missiles, particular pilot skill, evasive tactics  even   ie using terrain features such as clouds or "Hollywood improbabilities" such as unexpected intervention of another air force or an occasional feature anomalies (oh Iron Mountain, fly by that and the UFO compasses go wacko). 

How this might work is in the dogfight phase instead of the usual range UI engagement buttons the player clicks one of the following buttons:
1 use pilot skill (you evade the UFO and no damage, but encounter continues/ you evade the UFO and it cannot find you, encounter ends, you fail to evade, and UFO  encounter continues, you screw up double damage from UFO next strike )
2 use ecm  (you evade the UFO and no damage,  / you evade the UFO and it cannot find you, encounter ends, you fail to evade encounter continues. whoops, double damage from UFO next strike )
3 use defensive gunnery (you fire back, and UFO is driven off encounter ends, UFO takes a hit, encounter continues, you miss encounter continues, UFO takes hit but double damage from UFO's next strike(note the UFO can never be destroyed, just driven off)),
4 use acceleration (if simply faster you escape encounter ends, if not encounter continues, you mess up and double damage from UFO's next strike)
5 Use anomaly  (becomes randomly available if at all after a certain amount of time, when clicked on a message displays the type of anomaly you took advantage of  (ie "your MAYDAY has alerted a local airforce interceptor wing which chases away the UFO," encounter ends).  If you mess up TRIPLE damage from UFO next strike against you.

"Encounter continues" means UFO hunter Killer is following attacking you and depending upon its firepower and your craft type is how long it will take before you are downed.   Options that result in "no damage" mean your actions interrupted the normal attack rhythm of the hunter killer for a few seconds.    Options that result in the hunter killer doing double or triple damage could be game scaled to mean 25% or more damage than usual against your craft.

You continue to select any available option until
you escape,
the hunter killer is driven off
or you are downed
(NOTE there is a recharge period for an option after selection and developing technology will give higher chances of certain options suceeding).

FYI
Since the dogfight UI is arranged for range the encounter alternately, depending on success of options would increase/ decrease range  as follows
--encounter continues at current range
--distance between Hunter killer and XCOM craft decreases (increasing chance of UFO to strike, using all its weapons)
--distance between  Hunter killer and XCOM craft increases (decreasing chances of UFO to strike, its short range weapons cannot be used)
--distance increases off the scale and XCOM craft escapes hunter killer, encounter ends

Also consider XCOM craft is equipped with "chaff"  and /or  "ECM console" etc  is at the expense of carrying something else, but gives those respective options to use for escape in the event of an occasional  hunter killer attack.

I assume over ocean, everyone dies.

Higher percentage of death, as per Countdown, rafts etc can save people /equipment

Does this actually spawn a mission or is it just a touch-and-go crash site? 
A. If it spawns a mission, who will be the enemy?

No aliens, as they consider their job done in removing the immediate threat;  just opportunistic human "scavengers," local milita, gangs etc; and missions not always 100% spawned so you are not "grinding" against scavengers and  abortable so you can just pay a ransom to get your soldiers back.  Sprites that can be used for hostile  human scavengers are already well represented in some mods.

And should the survivors spawn as xcom and fight as well?

Yes as per above.
 

Or should they spawn as civilians you need to save?

No

Or should they not spawn at all and just be recovered at the end?

  variable mission generation is perhaps 25%, the rest of the time persons and a percentage of materials recovered showing up at the base in a few days / weeks later.

Or killed if you lose/abort.

Mission Abort gives chance to ransom survivors from hostile locals

B. If it doesn't spawn a mission, can we just simplify it that survivors come back home by public transport after certain amount of days?

  yes

[Solarius Scorch]

PS: do you want all attributes on a mission wave (and have same UFOs with potentially different settings) or can all these attributes be UFO level (which might be easier for the user to recognize the threat level)

I agree it would be clearer to the player if it was settable per UFO, but on the other hand it would flatten UFO designs into predestined roles - perhaps more than we'd like.

Still, if I were to decide between the two, I'd go with UFOs, not missions.

[Meridian]

"use anomaly" ?
"ransom from hostile locals on mission abort" ?

I am speechless...

Should I also implement ground staff, so that you can order them to clean toilets?
And maybe also a pizza baking simulator mini-game... to improve soldier morale.
And sex-chat! Every good game needs a built-in sex-chat...

 

[Solarius Scorch]

Don't forget QTE elements. They make every game better, right?

[Hobbes]

How will the player know which is which?

The player will have to guess the target of the HK based on its heading, ufo size, speed, etc. 

Also, HK targeting primarily transports basically means there is no way of handling the situation except avoiding it, am I right?

Or the player can send ahead interceptors to clear an area of any HKs before sending the transports. Or it will have to send interceptors to escort the transports while they approach the landing area.

Above all it will be an assumption of risk: if you send a transport without any escorts to an area with possible HKs then you risk losing the transport and everyone on board. This might sound brutal but the same happens if you lose all soldiers in a tactical battle when a Blaster Bomb hits the inside of the UFO on the first turns, and cargo planes against fighter craft usually doesn't end well for the former. It also simplifies the 'mission to rescue survivors, etc.', which is a nice idea but perhaps could be implemented later.

PS: do you want all attributes on a mission wave (and have same UFOs with potentially different settings) or can all these attributes be UFO level (which might be easier for the user to recognize the threat level)

Might be irrelevant: at UFO level, the modder will simply have to create separate entries for each UFO if he/she wants for more diversified behaviour (as an example, a type of Large Scout attacks interceptors, another type attacks transports, etc.), and then create specific missionWaves using the different ufo entries. If the attributes on missioWaves it is simply a matter of assigning the specific flag to each ufo in the wave - and this doesn't invalidate your point regarding recognition, i.e., Medium Scouts can be set on missionWave to prefer attacking transports, Large Scouts have mixed behavior, Terror Ships go after interceptors.

My point is basically to give flexibility to the modder concerning how easy/hard should be for the player to recognize the type of UFO (which is important because you need to give some info to the player) and adjust its tactics accordingly.

Finally another idea just came up (I think you or someone mentioned this before) would be for some alien bases to have a detection radius and send HKs to intercept if any XCom craft is detected (with a flag on either alienMissions or alienDeployments to set the alien base as capable of interception). But this might be complicating things at this point and could be added later. 

[The Reaver of Darkness]

Does this actually spawn a mission or is it just a touch-and-go crash site?

Maybe touch and go if you get there in time, but alien craft may opt to land there. If that happens, the time limit is greatly reduced (from a few days to a few hours) and if you land to rescue them, you must fight the aliens off.

This could make for an interesting battle, but would require new maps. You'd have the alien ship, x-com craft landed, and crashed x-com craft. The two crews would spawn separately. You could try to run everybody into the landed ship (if they all fit) and abort mission, losing anything you left behind, or you can try to fight all the aliens and take everything home plus extra loot.

One thing that might make it harder is if you have to fit both crews on one ship. Maybe some members of crashed crew begin the site wounded and with diminished morale. They also are auto-equipped with what's available and you don't get to set their equipment. So the site can be more difficult because part of your crew is in a weaker state.

What'll prevent you farming it: you'd randomly lose soldiers even if you play your cards perfectly because some die in the initial crash--especially if it's in water.