Training mission / simulation room

[sirg]

I think the game should have a tutorial mission for training and getting used with the game, regular weapons (including the grenade launcher), and reaction fire. Instead of your squad it could feature other soldiers, like sniper, explosive expert, close combat master, etc.. and several aliens, or you could use your squad but the soldiers can't be killed for real (get revived after the training mission).

Other suggestion is to build a base facility like a simulation room, maybe with a "neurolink" or something like that, where soldiers experience custom battle scenarios from a chair (like in the Matrix). The simulated battles should give some experience, but not as much like a real mission. Or there could be other kind of limitation, like stress from the neurolink, so you can use the simulator only once per week. The player could choose the battle condition, how many aliens, weapons, civilians, landscape, etc.

Perhaps it could also have the limitation, that you can't use your real soldiers, but instead, you get premade soldiers. Sniper, Explosive expert, 3 Soldiers (who are as strong as oxen and tough as nails). And it would give you the combat expirience, but not to your troops. Of course, you can never effectively simulate an actual battle environment, just train yourself to respond properly to everything the aliens might do.

[sirg]

I imagined it like a virtual reality system (e.g. Matrix) were your soldiers could train from a chair.. and gain some experience .. like half of the xp in real situation. The good side is that your soldiers can "die" in the simulation but not for real and you don't use any real ammo or equipment.
The down sides could be, rest intervals, or limited training sessions per month, etc...

This facility could be researched towards mid game, for improving new rookies, etc... I think it could be very fun, if you could test your squad in your custom scenarios, like against 12 angry aliens in the mine, against hovernets, etc...

[grumpy]

I imagined that it might be useful to have somewhere to test new weapons and to some small extent tactics. It is mainly training for the player. If it gives lot of experience the game will be very difficult to balance.
The soldiers that are recruited to phalanx will already be as trained as they can be in mock-up scenarios, they will gain very little from that, except keeping an edge.

[sirg]

Suggestion - maximum 4-6 virtual reality missions per month - xp gained something like 50% less than real life missions.

The soldiers that are recruited to phalanx will already be as trained as they can be in mock-up scenarios, they will gain very little from that, except keeping an edge.

If that would be true, there is no point thinking about this feature, but the soldiers have pretty poor stats when hired, even after times goes by and the player advances to other stages. Maybe it's easier to modify the recruit system of the game, and forget about this whole idea, by allowing the player to hire better soldiers as time goes by. It's not very realistic, but it's good for gameplay. The simulation room is intended to test different aproaches and give the chance for some rookies to catch up.

Besides, fighting aliens is a very different thing, and no soldier is properly trained for that

[grumpy]

If that would be true, there is no point thinking about this feature, but the soldiers have pretty poor stats when hired, even after times goes by and the player advances to other stages.

My point was that improvement should be very slow compared to real experience and have a low maximum improvement without combat experience. Also, there is already a training simulator in the game to do exactly that. A really hardcore player would probably like to train the rookies himself over and over again, but I doubt that the majority would. It's not a bad idea to give some experience after a tutorial/training mission, but training in general should probably be automated in the game.

Besides, fighting aliens is a very different thing, and no soldier is properly trained for that

In a dropship full of rookies just landed at the terror site.
When the doors open you can still see some of them haven't figured out which end of the weapon is the dangerous one.

Rookie: Lieutenant, why did they send us? We just got off the plane this morning and they said this would be a training mission. There are real dead people out there...

Lieutenant: - TRAINING IS FUTILE, RUN CANNON FODDER!

[sirg]

Yeah.. an we will send waves after waves of rookies until the aliens are out of ammo! Then I, the brave Commander, will take this messy battle into my hands, and shoot the helpless aliens with my pistol!  :twisted:

Great!

Now, regarding the training concept, I pointed out the limitations of the training room, like 2-4 missions per month, maximum. I can't tell how any player would choose to play. Some, will enter the game for a quick skirmish with their favourite squad, in a little "coffee break". I would like the feature of playing a custom mission to test myself or my squad abilities.

On the other hand, this feature is a two edged sword - it can ruin the fun of going in an unknown mission, in a real battle, because you can always simulate one at home. As a counter measure I imagine the VR simulated world to look somehow different, the enviroment having other textures or even no textures, looking artificial (let only the models look real).

[Winter]

My idea for a training option in the game would be thus:

- Training missions could be started at any time at any base with a Training Simulator building.

- You could replay any past mission you've fought but you must use your current team and skill levels. You could use either your current team's equipment or your equipment as it was during the mission.

- You could simulate a mission on any Earth-based map except UFO recoveries. UFO recoveries would be unlocked by recovering the relevant UFO type in the field. The simulation would let you dictate any conditions, from number of alien troops to alien equipment to alien intelligence, even the number of civilians. However, you would never see anything that you haven't already encountered. No new aliens, no new alien equipment, nothing.

-  Obviously you wouldn't get to recover any equipment, but you also couldn't lose any soldiers. Any skill gains would have to be minor.

- The Training Simulator would continue passively training soldiers, slowly raising their skills whether the player initiates any training missions or not.

This way we allow the player greatest freedom and fun without forcing players to do training missions to stay competitive.

Regards,
Winter

[sirg]

Winter, you read my mind and even better, synthethised the concept I was proposing. I think it's great how you put it... I was also considering locking UFOs and other maps, or alien races. This time I have no objections, none at all!


:?: will you consider including it in the game?

[grumpy]

Winter,
sounds good.

[hotdog]

I know this is a month old but maybe you can limit in a different way?
I am thinking on more of a training type rather than just training because when my dad talked about his army experience he stated that they have training specializations like Demoltions, MOUT, Adv. Marksmanship etc.

Maybe make it so that you research better types of training that let you surpass maybe 80 skill in certain areas like pistols or maybe assault weapons cause my dad said something about the MOUT training him to use assualt weapons also that the Adv. Marksmanship trained him to use Sniper Rifles.

Mostly make you find matrix items in missions or something that you can research say its a level two MOUT program that lets you surpass 100 in Assault Weapons? That would keep ppl from using training to just increase all skills at once which would make it a little more fair so ppl just cant make every soldier a crackshot, know-it-all, master medic, Powerful, Fast, 999 hp soldier. maybe make a wieght training room for their Strength and a firing range for acc.?

[sirg]

It's a Virtual Reality Interface Room - so there is almost no limit to what it could be simulated there. Imagine the holodeck in Star Trek universe. I imagined it something like the neural interface from Matrix - the real person is hooked to a chair and the mind is linked with an interface to a computer generated enviroment, whatever. For me, it doesn't really matter how it's done, I won't see such a room very soon, but IMHO, it would be a great addition to the gameplay.

[Tamanfodder]

What do i smell here??? Another topic worth necroing!

This really would be a welcome aspect in game! I like the idea as it is refined by winter! Lets put some pressure to get this one going! 

[Jon_dArc]

- The Training Simulator would continue passively training soldiers, slowly raising their skills whether the player initiates any training missions or not.

As an addendum to this, one easy way to address the concern of creating super-soldiers by just leaving them in the training simulators is to have solders gain "shadow EXP" in actual missions by some mechanism, the simplest probably just being some additional fraction of all EXP gained in a mission. This could either be divided up per-skill/attribute or, if you wanted to give players more flexibility, it could all just go into a lump pool.

Then the Training Simulator (passive version). The player stations soldiers in the training simulator, which converts some amount of "shadow EXP" into real EXP per hour/time unit (details may vary—could be across all skills/abilities, could be across some finite number chosen by some method, or in the one-pool case the player could choose where the points are getting distributed to). You could optionally include some probably agonizingly slow gain of EXP regardless of "shadow EXP" amounts or expenditure, but that's really optional IMO.

As a result, soldiers need to go on real missions to get serious use of the training simulator, but you can still trade time for soldier growth.

~J

[vulkus]

I think we should include the sim room in the hospital wing. Replay the mission failures to those that were injured during combat. Injuries aren't always due to heroism. They come out of hospital with a slight increase in str or mind. Nothing to spectacular, we don't want to reward them for their failures.