Alien bestiary

[geever]

wheel83, your suggestions are too much of copying XCOM3 aliens. I would rather like to see original (unique) monsters in UFO:AI! (Not even talking about the possible copyright issues with the copied ones.)

-geever

[H-Hour]

didn't think it would hurt anything to brainstorm a little

No, it doesn't. But since we're trying to nail down a set of tactically diverse aliens it helps to have a clear sense of precisely where you think it will fit in. Your next post did that.

I understand your point about the feral alien, but I think probably the Combat Bloodspider already fills the role of a fast-moving, deadly melee enemy. The glands are different but from a tactical point of view not so different to be worth making a separate alien. Instead, it might be worth asking whether we want the combat bloodspider to have a XVI-capable attack or not. Personally I think the number of aliens with XVI attacks ought to be kept to a minimum, so that it poses a very specific and localised late-game threat. But of course that's open for dicussion.

[Tamanfodder]

I like the consept of having little aliens that still fill many tactical roles. (The current way things are going) Less stuff to memorize. But we could use a "cannon fodder" alien, like grunts on Halo. Tamans aren`t really cannon fodder since they will hawe the PSI-abilities.


P.S: I hawen`t seen a shevaar since 2.3.1 came out! What has happened to them???

[Hertzila]

Idea about the "splitting alien":

Biomechanical (a thing that has both biological and mechanical parts, correct?) alien that has four or so smaller drones that it can "lay"/deploy and that will automatically deploy on death. I'm not terribly sure of what the main alien would do but I think it would end up as being the "tank" of a team, as well a having a (somewhat weak) medium-to-long range attack. Something you wouldn't be terribly afraid to go against but the damage would add up quickly enough that seeking cover would be preferable.

The main feature of the thing would be the four (possibly replaceable, more on that further) drones, something akin to somewhat smaller bloodspiders. These guys would instead be glass cannons: weakly armored, fragile but hellish things if they get close to an agent. They could also act as spotters for snipers when the AI permits and would be hard to see once/if visibility gets added. In case the host alien ends up 2x2, they would also be suitable for house cleaning. Their main attack would be fast melee attacks that would add up quickly if TUs permit.
They could also be replaceable whenever the host has less than four under it's control, somehow. My current ideas would be to either spend a full turn or two to refill or eat a corpse and then spend a turn.

When the alien dies, the four drones would be released, somewhat damaged and berserked. As such, they would simply rush straight at the PHALANX while ignoring cover. One twist that could be added is that since the host would be their link to the XVI, when they get released on death, they berserk against anything in short range, whether PHALANX, civ or fellow alien. Thus killing the host would be risky as it can take a lot of punishment but managing to do it in the middle of the enemy would leave them badly damaged, giving you a nice advantage. It's risky, because the enemy could just flank you or simply rush you while you try to shoot the damn thing.

The background/lore could be something about an alien race the XVI modified on a grand scale to fit a better job inside the hivemind or that they modified genetically one of their existing aliens races into another breed, this guy.
The mechanical side is there to cover the possible illogical side of keeping seperate aliens inside of the host.
If you want, you can think of this guy as somewhat like the Half-Life series' poison headcrab zombies. Not much, but the same "tank host that has smaller glass cannon/fragile speedster units do most of the dirty work" combo would be in effect.

[Crystan]

Hell yeah the Breeder sounds like a Chryssalids/Tentaculat. I hate/loved these aliens and they really scared me.

[geever]

Biomechanical (a thing that has both biological and mechanical parts, correct?) alien that has four or so smaller drones that it can "lay"/deploy and that will automatically deploy on death.

Beside that I don't like the idea to copy the multiworm, I don't think it is even possible. If I'm right we can't spawn players to any position of the map because we cannot be sure they can reach every other point of the map (it would also need extending the code to ensure that the cell isn't a wall actually). On our maps the mapper places spawnpoints and he guarantee that the point is valid and the map is playable if alien/soldier/civ placed there.

-geever

[Hertzila]

Beside that I don't like the idea to copy the multiworm, I don't think it is even possible. If I'm right we can't spawn players to any position of the map because we cannot be sure they can reach every other point of the map (it would also need extending the code to ensure that the cell isn't a wall actually). On our maps the mapper places spawnpoints and he guarantee that the point is valid and the map is playable if alien/soldier/civ placed there.

-geever

I see, well, that pretty much kills any splitting things and such. Oh well.
What's a multiworm BTW? One of the enemies of XCOM? Because I haven't played any one of them. The first game that's "XCOM-style" that I have played is this one.

[H-Hour]

I think at this point we're setting out an ideal set of aliens so we know what to work towards. We don't have the different AIs or flying implemented, either, but we can still plan aliens to take advantage of this. So I don't think the lack of implementation is a barrier to an alien that spawns more aliens.

One way around the technical problem would be to use the pathfinding to see if a unit can move from the dead alien's grid to an adjacent grid. If that is possible and the grid is not occupied, a child alien could be spawned there.

In terms of gameplay, I think we would need to be very careful about the number of children spawned. Even if they are easy to kill, four children could occupy four soldiers for at least a turn. With only 8 soldiers available now, that's quite an investment. I would think their attack would need to be very weak so that soldiers could withstand them for a couple turns or so.

[wheel83]

My ideas for the aliens are inspired by X-com yes, but isn't this whole game inspired by x-com? I didn't say anywhere that i think you should completely replicate aliens from x-com. Nobody holds the copyright to an alien that spawns other aliens at death..I dont think..
 I think the feral alien idea at least diversifies the ranks a bit more than putting another mechanical spider in the game. I don't care what you do for a quick stealthy alien, but why just make an alien thats so similar to an alien already in the game? Its a waste of an alien I say. The combat spider would be a bigger badder version of the blood spider right? If so I think this idea is kind of a waste, no offense intended to whoever came up with that idea, but it should be something thats not already in the game i think. Why not just modify the existing bloodspider? Right now they are not very deadly anyways, and they could look deadlier too.

 I see i'm not the only one that thinks a multiworm inspired alien would be a cool idea. If it can be done I think you guys should try it.

Hertzilla, I agree the smaller drones would be difficult to fight but there could be strategies around this. I know in x-com if you stun a multiworm it's spawns don't emerge. Also killing them with fire works well. Or maybe just blowing them to shit could work as well.

Geever, I understand you want the game to be original and not copying x-com but i don't think you should reject ideas so quickly just because they are inspired by x-com. X-com were very good games because of these ideas and since playing this game I went back to playing X-com apocalypse and found that it is so much more fun because of these ideas. I think this game should be original and something different than x-com, but so far from a tactical standpoint these aliens are boring to fight.
I think some of the best things tactically in x-com were the multiworms. And the brainsuckers that would hatch from dead alien's inventories unless you got to them in time. That and the stun and fire grenades. area damage.
Again, i dont think you should simply rip off these ideas but keep them in mind when making your new aliens because tactically thats exactly the kind of thing this game needs. Take those ideas and create something new from that.

Like maybe a flying alien that drops smaller aliens, or a vehicle that aliens can embark from unless you destroy it in time.
 Or maybe a multiworm inspired alien but you have 1 turn to destroy the eggs/drones/whatever before they hatch/activate.
Or maybe a quick stealthy type alien that has a strong chance of causing panic if it touches you.
Make players think about how they should go about thier missions instead of just shooting and taking cover.
anyways, thats my 2 cents for the day. good luck with the game.

[Bartleby]

wheel83... u shouldnt discuss too much of ure ideas here in the forums. people that work on artwork have often a hard time here. i guess when u post a simple grafic the chance that all love it is quite high. sometimes an image says much more than thousand words and for many people its much easier that way.

[H-Hour]

why just make an alien thats so similar to an alien already in the game? Its a waste of an alien I say.

Because then the player can inherit all he has learned from a previous alien and apply it to the new alien, rather than having to learn an entirely different alien. We are not looking for as many different aliens as possible. We want a diverse set that is small enough for the player to get to know the strengths and weaknesses of each alien.

[wheel83]

oh, well i guess i misunderstood the purpose of this thread. I thought this thread was for discussing ideas for new aliens. I can see why it would be difficult for artists to get an idea of what to do.. I myself was going to submit artwork for this game, that's what led me here, but I gave up on it because I couldn't find out what anyone wanted.
So to clarify, the only aliens that artwork is wanted for are the ones described at the top of this thread? Those are for sure going to be in the game?

sorry for any confusion i've caused for any artists, i was just brainstorming ideas because i thought that's what this thread was for. Although if I were to create art for this game I wouldn't get into anything I didn't know until i knew what was wanted for sure. Unless I wanted to do it for my own fun.

If you want people to get started on artwork for anything you should definitely make up a list of things that are for sure wanted in the game, and descriptions of what aspects and details of any specific alien you want to look like, etc..give as many hints as you can, this will make the artist's job so much easier. Also artists should be ready to rework and redesign their art if needed. This is graphic design 101. Artists should keep this in mind, unless they don't mind their artwork possibly never being used, and they're just doing it for fun.

anyways, about the combat spider thing, I guess it's just a matter of opinion. I for one would find it more entertaining to encounter a brand new enemy in which i would be forced to come up with a whole new set of tactics to fight against than to just use more firepower killing the same enemy with the same tactics. Although I think it would be cool if somewhere along the game the aliens decide to upgrade thier bloodspiders to be more combat effective and render the bloodspider obsolete with a "combat spider" which still had the ability to gather corpses and such.
once again, just my 2 cents,
(note to artists, do not draw my ideas)

[ZombieTickler]

Doppleganger/Puppeteer
Concept: An enemy that registers as a civvy until close proximity. (I don't write code so not sure if that would work out). This unit could be mechanical and constructed by billions of nanobites that can stretch, compress, and change texture/color. Alternatively it could be a biological unit with the same capabilities as stated before or even a parasite that drives the host(and possibly spread to others???). Plenty of scifi/fantasy inspiration out there for this type of unit.

WARNING-TERROR WEAPON I remember a movie called something like "Puppet Masters"(alien parasite controlling host concept). Military was finally made aware of the alien invasion and set up blockcades with orders to shoot on site to contain the aliens....well about 50-100 kids ranging from ages 4-10 start walking towards one of the blockcades and it is lost due to the hesitation. Whats scarier then having all those civilians be the death of your entire team for lending a helping hand?

Details: Like I stated before, not to sure if you could have them appear as civvies until close enough distance with the coding. No range weapons, only melee. Think Terminator 2 for a morhpic mechanical weapon or if its organic the parasite could of caused a mutation in the host for claws or retractable spikes. If regular civilian AI was written so they would actively flee towards Phalanx agents for safety/cover it would make this unit deadly and would make the player have to think about how they should handle civilians(Stunning them for there own safety, taking the penalties to just kill them outright, or possibly losing a team mate or more.

[geever]

Doppleganger/Puppeteer
Concept: An enemy that registers as a civvy until close proximity. (I don't write code so not sure if that would work out). This unit could be mechanical and constructed by billions of nanobites that can stretch, compress, and change texture/color. Alternatively it could be a biological unit with the same capabilities as stated before or even a parasite that drives the host(and possibly spread to others???). Plenty of scifi/fantasy inspiration out there for this type of unit.

Seems you're not aware what XVI is, neither read this thread throught. See Breeder in the first post!

-geever

[ZombieTickler]

Just googled XVI and feel a little less ignorant now. I read the entire thread earlier, but unlike the breeder the puppeteer is an unknown threat till it closes in. Goes with the concept of civilian management as if those jerks don't already get in the way enough. Less about multiplying, more about camouflage.