XVI Bioweaponry: The Vector Lance

[SpaceWombat]

Well you are right about that but if you are saying that XVI is a rather complex organism than my obvious question about this would be:
What's the gain from a complex organism to "infect" (parasite, whatever) someone if it is less efficient than a virus? Are aliens extremely advanced in weapons and space travel but merely stupid in biotechnology?

As I said before I do not want to raise anger because I counter the invested efforts. To change the text sayings would be quite easy though. I do not like the main concept of XVI at all. And the name neither. 

I'm just expressing my feelings about the concept, no offend. If you do not like critics that is fine for me, I will not give further comments on that one.
Thanks for hearing me anyway. 

[nemchenk]

In my various notes on UFO:AI, I have written "Alien stun weapons -- needed?"  I think the Aliens definitely needs some non-lethal, but still weird, armaments, to facilitate the capture of specimens for XVI. My 2p

[nemchenk]

Just a thought -- how much material does this syringe inject? And how quickly?

I'm just thinking -- it may be easy to score a hit on someone in "real-time melee" with this thing, but then you have to wait for the injection to finish, while the target just stands there? Or else it is very fast-acting anaesthetic that it injects in parallel...

[eleazar]

Just a thought -- how much material does this syringe inject? And how quickly?

Quickly enough to be a valid melee weapon.

[Kildor]

XVI is not a virus?
So, all aliens are biological, DNA+RNA+Proteins+Cell-based life organism??

Very strange and it should mean, there are no any other lifeforms.

But the same problem even if XVI is virus, it need in correct cells mechanismes to grow.

[Surrealistik]

I'm just thinking -- it may be easy to score a hit on someone in "real-time melee" with this thing, but then you have to wait for the injection to finish, while the target just stands there? Or else it is very fast-acting anaesthetic that it injects in parallel...

From what I've read in the description, a powerful, fast-acting anaesthetic is indeed used to pacify the victim. I'm guessing the discharge of the XVI solution is expedited by pressure.

[nemchenk]

But, that's my point: if the Aliens have a quick-acting anaesthetic, then why not use it before the XVI lance as a general-purpose weapon? If you need to inject 100ml (lets say) of XVI into a victim to infect them, then you can't inject it too fast, or else their body will not be able to absorb it!

Maybe the XVI lance takes a ton of TUs to use it, so that an Alien using it has to basically spend the next round standing over their victim, sort of like the Medikit.

This leads me to: Alien psi/tech/chem stun weapons. Stun the target, and the XVI lance becomes much more easy to use! "I felt a malevolent presence in the room, but was unable to move or even scream. Then they started injecting me with horrible alien tools... It was awful..." You know what I mean?

[eleazar]

IMHO it would match the Alien agenda if stun weapons were a common part of their arsenal... even before the stage of the game where XVI becomes a problem.

As a side benefit you could revive any stunned soldiers if you won that mission... so it might might allow us to nerf the alien strength in the beginning a little less, without changing the difficulty.

[Winter]

I wouldn't be terribly opposed to alien stun weapons, as long as they're incorporated well. The thing is, it needs to be useable by aliens on humans, but not by humans on aliens.

The ideas I've come up with so far are either a stun dart launcher or simple gas grenades, with or without launcher.

Regards,
Winter

[nemchenk]

Those sound good, if a little low-tech What about these as well:
- ultra- or infra-sound paralysis weapons. Aliens could be immune to these due to physiology.
- psi or hypnosis. Humans have little or no psi capacity.
- the Alien Death-Ray well, some kind of tractor beam or raygun-type effect, perhaps grav-field manipulation. Not sure how the aliens would counter it?...

[Surrealistik]

The dart medium is probably the best of Winter's ideas because it differs from Phalanx's core stun methodology (gas grenades).

Something more exotic might be interesting though. Psionic stunning specifically attuned to the human physiology proposed by Nemcheck as an example.

[Starship_Yard]

Aliens already use Plasma Technology.  A small plasma burst could possibly ionize the air around a target enough to shock like a taser hit.  Armour would lower it's effects requiring multiple hits.

An alternate option is to use the particle beam technology which has already been defined as well out of our capability to replicate.  A low level particle beam is used to ionize the air between the weapon and the target which then carries a heavy electrical charge.  Maybe an alternate fire mode for the Particle Beam Blaster?

Brett

[nemchenk]

Ooh, nasty!

It would be nice to have a *paralysing* weapon, too. Not stun as such, just paralysis. Just seems more gruesome to see your guy standing there, but unable to do anything about it!