Making combat feel more like future than like WWII

[Viento]

Hiho!

The way combat in AI is done is quite a bit "old-fashioned". There is a lot of direct fire and only one indirect fire weapon (the grenade launcher). So basically nothing has changed in terms of infantry warfare since WWII. We know that this is not true.

I would love to see combat feel "more modern".

My ideas:

> more indirect fire weapons: Infantry Missile launcher with controllable rockets.

Can you still remember the "blaster bomb launcher" in Enemy Unknown? Something like that is available in the military today. It's not as powerful of course and you can't assign 219 waypoints, but it would be very nice if something like this existed again. Just allow the player to set 2-3 waypoints and a less powerful payload... this would leave some opportunities for upgrading (plasma technology => more damage, alien minicomputers => more waypoints).

The direct line of fire rocket launcher is almost out of date today. And the game is set in the future.


> something unique that doesn't feel like "infantry combat today": Force fields to create artificial cover

If there is some kind of force field technology in the game (I think I've read about it somewhere), it would be great to add something uniquely modern and futuristic. You could use the forcefield like a grenade, but instead of an explosion an area of power forms that can deflect/absorb damage and thus give cover to your soldiers.

Using smoke grenades is a very old tactic. Upgrading it to actually creating cover (not just obscuring visibility) would feel futuristic to me. One could further upgrade the efficiency of the force field, add chamelionic attributes (it assumes the colour of the surrounding environment and is thus invisible to aliens), etc...


> more futuristic ammo types: from "laser-incision" round (able to pirece thin armour by using a pulse of laser upon impact) to "anti-matter high penetration" round

Once the first alien armour appears ingame, one should be able to develop types of ammo for the "standard weapons" to counter it. I think it would add a flavour of futuristic battle if there was something like a bullet that is designed to use a small source of energy (e.g. laser technology first, later plasma, later antimatter,...) to "melt" through the armor on impact... alien technologies could open up even more improved types of ammo and thus keep the "old-school" weapons ingame.

I would love to use the assault rifle with an "anti-matter high penetration" round or a "plasma-core alien material jacket" round. If those were given cool names, this would add a lot of futuristic feeling to the gameplay (plus give you more things to research + keep the variety of used weapons higher).


I can't think of any more ways of adding more advanced equipment to the arsenal but perhaps there are more ways of making combat feel more like it was set in the future.

See you!

Andreas

[geever]

> more indirect fire weapons: Infantry Missile launcher with controllable rockets.

NO BLASTERS!. If you had used the search function of the future you could realize that we don't want controlled rockets.

The main concerns:
* It would kill the gameplay. Such a weapon is overpowered to anything else. This is a strategy game you have to think about your next move, we don't want to turn it into an action game where you land, fire 2-3 rockets towards the landed UFO, then voila mission complete..
* You may have noticed civilians. You must save civilians. The UN don't allow you to use mass-destruct weapons.
* Destructible terrain. The terrain is not destructible in UFO:AI - as our engine doesn't support it - such a weapon would rise the need of it and we won't do it.

-geever

[Hertzila]

> something unique that doesn't feel like "infantry combat today": Force fields to create artificial cover

If there is some kind of force field technology in the game (I think I've read about it somewhere), it would be great to add something uniquely modern and futuristic. You could use the forcefield like a grenade, but instead of an explosion an area of power forms that can deflect/absorb damage and thus give cover to your soldiers.

Using smoke grenades is a very old tactic. Upgrading it to actually creating cover (not just obscuring visibility) would feel futuristic to me. One could further upgrade the efficiency of the force field, add chamelionic attributes (it assumes the colour of the surrounding environment and is thus invisible to aliens), etc...

Where have you found force fields in this game? I thought the devs said very clearly that they don't want force fields because they are unrealistic with no basis on real life physics ("Does not fit the setting.").

> more futuristic ammo types: from "laser-incision" round (able to pirece thin armour by using a pulse of laser upon impact) to "anti-matter high penetration" round

Once the first alien armour appears ingame, one should be able to develop types of ammo for the "standard weapons" to counter it. I think it would add a flavour of futuristic battle if there was something like a bullet that is designed to use a small source of energy (e.g. laser technology first, later plasma, later antimatter,...) to "melt" through the armor on impact... alien technologies could open up even more improved types of ammo and thus keep the "old-school" weapons ingame.

I would love to use the assault rifle with an "anti-matter high penetration" round or a "plasma-core alien material jacket" round. If those were given cool names, this would add a lot of futuristic feeling to the gameplay (plus give you more things to research + keep the variety of used weapons higher).

Laser tech takes frustratingly big space for it to be used in bullets and its rather expensive tech. Also remember that this game uses chemical laser, not the usual scifi laser that uses simple diode for creating the beam and electricity as ammo.
Plasma is used in the enemys weapons and, IIRC, are the first things to be balanced. I think it also took more space than what would fit in a bullet. Until we get 20mm or bigger rounds plasma won't really fit in them either.
AM on the other hand is so hard to store and keep safe that I doubt it would hold inside a bullet. It's also very valuable so it might not be the first thing to be thought as a bullet enhancer.

Depleted Uranium or similiar heavy substance is about the only thing that could help the penetration of normal bullets that I can come up. DU has some alleged health risk but it seems a bit doubtful. Naturally using something else as the weight would solve this.

[Viento]

So you really don't agree that combat feels quite "like today" or "even yesterday" and not like "X years in the future"?

I strongly feel like that.

But okay. I can understand the "guided rocket" point... sorry, I didn't check that before.

Andreas

[Gunner]

So you really don't agree that combat feels quite "like today" or "even yesterday" and not like "X years in the future"?

I strongly feel like that.

But okay. I can understand the "guided rocket" point... sorry, I didn't check that before.

Andreas

remember this is the world of tomorrow where war has become out dated. soldiers now serve mostly in a peace keeping and police role. and look what happened between WW1 and WW2, mass disarmament and weapon technology regressed and that was in only a few years. so these guys would be equipped with the minimal that fits the task. they've probably had blow the dust off of the old weapon stockpiles just to provide you with any heavy weapons.