Things to learn from Xenonauts?

[TrashMan]

With the demo out, I wonder how many of you noticed a few neat ideas that should also be in UFO:AI?

I for one like the tons of recruits, but 10 days of training + funding needed.
A lot of good UI decisions there also, showing weight an TU's for soldiers.

[kurja]

Didn't the first xcom game also have a price for recruiting new employees? So you had to "purchase" them. I'm not sure if that makes sense though. Something similar might be good though, like a wait period before the new recruits/employees arrive and can be put to work.

[geever]

Didn't the first xcom game also have a price for recruiting new employees? So you had to "purchase" them. I'm not sure if that makes sense though. Something similar might be good though, like a wait period before the new recruits/employees arrive and can be put to work.

Both planned. Employee will be prepaid for a month, so you (some players) cannot cheat with firing and rehiring them. New recruits will arrive with a delay and fired employee will leave you forever.

-geever

[kurja]

sounds great!!!

[H-Hour]

Both planned. Employee will be prepaid for a month, so you (some players) cannot cheat with firing and rehiring them. New recruits will arrive with a delay and fired employee will leave you forever.

We could even get rid of the nation quota and just let you hire as many as you need. *braces for backlash*

[Jon_dArc]

We could even get rid of the nation quota and just let you hire as many as you need. *braces for backlash*

That would conflict with the randomized soldier stats, though having a quickly-refreshing pool whose size is fixed by nation quota could work.

~J

[geever]

That would conflict with the randomized soldier stats, though having a quickly-refreshing pool whose size is fixed by nation quota could work.

Finally! A man other than me realized the problem with not limited soldiers! However the proposed solution is not good enough! Players would still be able to build up a superhero team too quickly with no training and gaining experience needed, which would make the game less IMHO.

-geever

[TrashMan]

The way it works is you pay money for fresh soldiers. However, they suck and you can't assign them anywhere untill they train (in what is I guess standed orgnaization tactics and weapons) (which costs MORE money and time).

While realisticly there really should be no limit to soldeirs, we know realism gets punted out the door occasionally. Even with a huge number of soldiers, the law of averages means you wont' be getting super-soldiers.
And a large pool should be there.

Waht's the point of tiny soldiers pools? Difficulty? It's false difficulty that makes little sense. You start with 8 soldiers and if you loose a few you're boned. Earth is boned. Because 4 below-average recruits perished and cannot be replaced?

[Jon_dArc]

Finally! A man other than me realized the problem with not limited soldiers! However the proposed solution is not good enough! Players would still be able to build up a superhero team too quickly with no training and gaining experience needed, which would make the game less IMHO.

IMO you overestimate the power of the supersoldiers. That said, I really think the current supersoldier mechanic is broken and just encourages end-of-month savescumming (and startscumming), so either making them go away entirely or causing them to show up based on some alternate mechanic would be preferable (and also solve much of the problem with no soldier limits).

~J

[TrashMan]

The easiest way is to not have super-soliders at start at all.
All stats are in a specific range.


As time passes, and game moves in more advanced phases, slightly better soldiers become avilable. But their stats are allways smaller than what a soldier kept alive from the start would have.

Fpr better example, at start you get 50 lvl1 soldiers.
3 months in the game, some of your starting soldiers have reacheld lvl8
You start getting recruits wiht lvl5 stats
5 months into the game you best soldier is lvl10
You start getting recruits with are lvl7.

[H-Hour]

I don't see any problem with hiring unlimited soldiers if we remove the random super-soldiers. I don't like either mechanic currently:

1. Limited soldiers means we can't make the battlescape difficult enough so that the player loses soldiers frequently. In X-Com, the guys that managed to survive into late game really were heros, and felt like it, because they had survived when so many others had died. I miss that. Even getting a rookie to Squaddie role was an accomplishment. In UFO:AI it's practically inevitable unless you're really an idiot on the battlefield. After 20 missions in my 2.5 playthrough of UFO:AI on standard I've only lost one soldier. They don't feel like heroes because they're all surviving.

2. Getting random super-soldiers also makes me feel less responsible for them. They're much better than others because the computer made them that way, not because I struggled to keep them alive long enough to improve.

[Crystan]

I hate it when i lose any soldier - and if i do - i restart the mission.

[kurja]

reloading = cheating 

Even without doing that, soldiers really hardly ever die. On the most difficult (which isn't hard enough, btw) there's a death here and there but it really doesn't feel "war-like" since losing more than one soldier in a mission is almost a freak accident.

I don't think I've ever lost a mission, and that's saying something. Once I came close when I sent my new second team on a mission equipped with early game guns and armour against a dozen late game ortnoks, bridge map... But even then, there were casualties but still a victory.

[TrashMan]

reloading = cheating 

If people want ot cheat, they'll cheat.
you cna't stop epoepl from re-loading at the end of month. you can't stop peopel from re-startign the game if they don't like the initial batch of soldiers (I did it plenty of tiems. I had a LP and I was hunting for soldeirs with specific appearance)

Even without doing that, soldiers really hardly ever die. On the most difficult (which isn't hard enough, btw) there's a death here and there but it really doesn't feel "war-like" since losing more than one soldier in a mission is almost a freak accident.

I don't think I've ever lost a mission, and that's saying something. Once I came close when I sent my new second team on a mission equipped with early game guns and armour against a dozen late game ortnoks, bridge map... But even then, there were casualties but still a victory.

Do you use the (broken) medi-kits?

[Crystan]

reloading = cheating 

Thats ridiculous. Cheating is god mode and stuff like that, not loading a savegame. And anyone who says something else is just wrong.