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Ideas of Psionic concept and other things

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brainy19:
What's the current development on the psionics concept?

Sophisanmus:
I'll just barrel through this.

I love the psi-implant idea, though the idea that the first one would allow mind-control does unsettle me a little.  I liked the element from X-COM: Apocalypse; while the psi-weapon was available right off the bat, psi-capable troopers still needed considerable training (stat increase) to use even the basic powers with any reliability.  With the implants, there may even be multiple levels as the technology improves, and also different implant types for different purposes (i.e. a psi-dampener for solders wanting protection instead).  Effects could include Fear/Morale break, stunning effects, disarming (affecting nervous impulses enough to inhibit enemy accuracy or cause them to drop their weapon), illusion (enemy sees/fires at soldiers that aren't there) and, of course, mind control.  If there are three or more abilities, different implants could exist which allow for certain bonuses (or restrictions in usage) of these abilities.

Okay, I'm getting a little carried away here...

Air support, if still under any consideration, could possibly be handled with the implementation of random-generated map elements/cells/sectors.  When a ship is shot down, it's "damage level" is set to some value (say somewhere between 1 and 5, with 5 being cracked with some smoke, and 1 being nearly destroyed).  When the player transport approaches the crash, they are given an "overview" of the crash status (a bit of text describing the crashed ship's damage level, possibly plus or minus one level) and the player is given the option to begin mission or fire on the ship first.  Based upon the weapon mounted on the Transport, and the size/durability of the ship, some of the aliens may be killed, and the damage level may degrade one or more levels (the latter being more likely).  Of course, a ripped-open ship provides the aliens less cover and more environmental hazards (fire, smoke), but greatly diminishes the recovered resources and technology for the player. 

Just a thought, if the creation of multiple damage-level ship-crash map sectors is planned/isn't too big of a price for this functionality.

Whew, that wasn't so bad...

BTAxis:
About multiple damage levels, it's not as easy as it sounds. Even making a destroyed version of a map tile for a largish UFO is a lot of work - adding cracks and mangled sections actually ADDS to the map. Case in point: we still have to do this to the Bomber UFO, but it's such a big project that nobody has attempted it yet. Add to this the plans for more UFO types in the future, and we've got our mapping work cut out for us as it is.

That said, the current situation is that making multiple destroyed versions of the same UFO is unlikely to happen. The work involved is not worth whatever result it would bring.

Then again, provide us with a modest army of fulltime mappers, and we'll talk again.

brainy19:
I like Sophisanmus' idea for the psionic transplants.  Once the technology becomes available, each soldier could receive the basic implant which would give them minimal protection against the alien's mind attacks.  But from there, the soldier can receive implants that are specific to certain psionic tasks (one for control or tampering of enemy's emotions, another for the more physical abilities such as affecting the accuracy of the shoter, etc.).  And as technology evolves, the soldier can receive upgrades on their implants, making the attacks more effective.  However, I do not know how to write code for games, so someone else will have to take the initiative on that.

And if it is decided to use air support, what could be done is one soldier carries a pair of binoculars with a laser mounted on it.  This would be used to paint the target with the laser, which would give the transport pilot the coordinates needed to fire it's mounted weapon.

Kildor:
brainy, can you draw this "binoculars"? Or, even better, model it in any 3d-editors?
Or write correct algoritms of implant`s using, correct scripts of this, etc.
There are more than enougth of ideas and proposals, that looks like ideas, but not so match of peoples, who can implement its in game.

Try to learn how, if you really want to help :-)

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