Suggestion: Council Trainings/Challenges

[TheCurse]

So periodically Council does some spec ops training/evaluation...
Like storming a house or item retrieval, hostage rescue or other stuff.
Enemies are either real (only stun allowed, casualties give heavy score losses) or targets (via tile script, needs proper weapons to damage it).
Organisations in this kind of profession do that. Pretty much all of them. Either to compare or to train each other.
(E.g. council wants to train their people by watching your tactics or its a normal spec ops tournament)

Gives some Council props (score, land surveys, whatever) and maybe some money.
Settings can be different (1-4 man teams or so), undercover or not, multi stage even, heavy restrictions on equipment.

Alternatively: tank race 
AI only mission, tank goes on a track and shoots at targets, fixed low number of turns then automatic win, score by destroyed targets.

[Solarius Scorch]

The idea is fun, but I'm not sure how it would work mechanically. I'll give it some thought. Just don't let me forget

[Thermite]

So periodically Council does some spec ops training/evaluation...
Like storming a house or item retrieval, hostage rescue or other stuff.
Enemies are either real (only stun allowed, casualties give heavy score losses) or targets (via tile script, needs proper weapons to damage it).
Organisations in this kind of profession do that. Pretty much all of them. Either to compare or to train each other.
(E.g. council wants to train their people by watching your tactics or its a normal spec ops tournament)

Gives some Council props (score, land surveys, whatever) and maybe some money.
Settings can be different (1-4 man teams or so), undercover or not, multi stage even, heavy restrictions on equipment.

Alternatively: tank race 
AI only mission, tank goes on a track and shoots at targets, fixed low number of turns then automatic win, score by destroyed targets.

Sounds neat!

[Mr. Mister]

I agree on it looking like a very fun idea.

Regarding how it'd work, you'd need to add a new equipment filter/category for "non-lethal", and also give a metric fuckton of negative points for killed enemies.

If "enemies" also have only non-lethal weaponry, the only way to explain why squad wipes (everyone falling uncoscious) are possible is that their performance was so bad they were fired by the council as a political way to save face, regardless of their history and stats. And for this reason, no mission aborting - it wouldn't make sense to let those who managed to flee keep their job.

Regarding rewards, besides points, I'm thinking the biggest draw should be a commendation, with more stats rewards than usual, acting as a training certificate. Maybe each soldier could only get one level of such certification max, but there could be multiple different certifications for multiple different training exercices, be they differing in difficulty/tier or in ambit: rescue and fire-fighting, finding and capturing a dogs (trained not to bite) in a limited number of turns...


But yeah, this is extra work, and as much as I'd love it, I'd rather you invest developement time into finishing cult of apocalypse and MiB.

[Thermite]

I agree on it looking like a very fun idea.

Regarding how it'd work, you'd need to add a new equipment filter/category for "non-lethal", and also give a metric fuckton of negative points for killed enemies.

If "enemies" also have only non-lethal weaponry, the only way to explain why squad wipes (everyone falling uncoscious) are possible is that their performance was so bad they were fired by the council as a political way to save face, regardless of their history and stats. And for this reason, no mission aborting - it wouldn't make sense to let those who managed to flee keep their job.

Regarding rewards, besides points, I'm thinking the biggest draw should be a commendation, with more stats rewards than usual, acting as a training certificate. Maybe each soldier could only get one level of such certification max, but there could be multiple different certifications for multiple different training exercices, be they differing in difficulty/tier or in ambit: rescue and fire-fighting, finding and capturing a dogs (trained not to bite) in a limited number of turns...


But yeah, this is extra work, and as much as I'd love it, I'd rather you invest developement time into finishing cult of apocalypse and MiB.

Also add hostage situations as well?

[Alazar]

Firing a squad of highly trained, bio and implant enchansed, martial art master, ACE pilot Helix knights/psions during an alien ivasion. Maybe just instantly close the project and let aliens win? I'd rather execute every chairman of this council for treason against Earth than allow that to happen. Which reminds me, how about adding a mission to hunt down Council member clones after you beat at least 1 alien embassy?

[Mr. Mister]

Firing a squad of highly trained, bio and implant enchansed, martial art master, ACE pilot Helix knights/psions during an alien ivasion. Maybe just instantly close the project and let aliens win? I'd rather execute every chairman of this council for treason against Earth than allow that to happen.

Point very well taken. Solarius, is it game-engineeringly possible to disallow sending agents aove a certain rank at a mission?

[TheCurse]

Point very well taken. Solarius, is it game-engineeringly possible to disallow sending agents aove a certain rank at a mission?

its probably easier not to make the mission loosable.
So unless one of your guys is actually killed you´d loose none.
However, that may require some changes.

[Mr. Mister]

Maybe make the non-hostile enemies spawn an item/non-hostile pawn every turn or couple or them, each one giving you negative points upon mission end, to act as a kind metric to reward you for less turns taken?

[Solarius Scorch]

I've entertained such ideas for a long time, but I couldn't find a way to prevent silly outcomes, especially if the player tries hard. So, without new code to prevent agents going MIA and such, not possible.

[Bananas_Akimbo]

How about designating every single tile as a landing zone tile (or whatever they are called)? Is that possible? That way at least you couldn't lose any soldiers upon aborting the mission.


Anyway, I've had similar ideas for a hypothetical, never going to happen mod (cause I don't have even a single required skill).

One would be a shooting range mission, that can be spawned at the player's leisure (via workshop project or some other method). It's only purpose would be to test your weapons in a safe environment. The map would be filled with static targets (enemies with only 1 TU, that use the same graphic for every direction they face, stuff like dummies and decommissioned vehicles) and various bits of environment for demolition.
There's one major issue: Your soldiers gain experience against enemies, that can't fight back.
I can think of various ways to curtail this issue:

• Limit the availability of the mission to just a certain number per month.
• Limit the number of soldiers, that can partake.
• Give the enemies ridiculously high melee dodge, so at least you can't train melee and reactions against them.
• Have all targets be environmental objects instead of enemies. There would be one enemy present in the form of a safety instructor or something similar, whom you are not allowed to harm or you receive a hefty points penalty. So the mission isn't actually winnable, you would have to abort once you're done testing. Stick the instructor inside an inescapable booth or limit his TU to 1, so he doesn't get in the player's way.
• Force all partaking soldiers to wear a special armour for the mission, which makes them unable to do anything, due to weight and all hands being occupied. Graphic could be something like a soldier sitting in a chair. The shooting would instead be done by a special unit, that is spawned for the player only for this mission (like in that one mission, where you have to defend a scientist against the MiB). This special unit could again be explained as being some sort of instructor.

Another one would be a base defense mission without active enemies. It would basically just be an opportunity for the player to inspect the base at will and without danger. Could perhaps be combined with the shooting range idea. The targets would be the same and it would actually make sense for them to be set up inside the hangar. Less so in the lift. Envrionmental bits wouldn't be possible, sadly.
If it's not possible for the player to generate base defenses,  then maybe there could be an easy base defense mission every once in a while, where some nosy civilians have somehow snuck into your base. Not as good, but still a nice way to get a glimpse into an X-COM base early on.