Hmm. The implants thing sounds good to me. That'd be one way to distinguish X-COM from the "normal" army, too. I'll have to put some thought into this.
Yeah, i always liked human enhancements in games (e.g. Deus Ex)
I'm asking myself how useful energy shields and plasma blades are when mines do the job of cutting off a passage and all the combat is ranged anyway.
shield: was only a though, didn't think it through.
plasma blade: Thuis would mostly be used by the aliens by a really fast one (run&hit) in close combat or as a suplementary weapon for 'normal' ones (one hand plas pistol, the other hand holds the blade) so you have the maximum damage given the range to the target. I didn#t intent the player to use it, but maybe some will and it's one of those wepaons everybody underestimates
... we'll see.
And EMP? What sort of damage would it do? Plus they wouldn't be too effective against a flying enemy
How do you get stunned cyborgs/robots, so you can research them intact/alive?
EDIT: And concerning flying robot-enemies that you deactivvate with EMP ... it doesn't have to be a grenade to do that (maybe an EMP-amplifier rifle) , but if the enemy is near the ground it surely will also be affected by a grenade.
And if it successfully survives multiple hits of hot plamsa and/or explosions and then fall apart when falling down a few meters i think the design is extremly bad
... and even if it falls apart (which we just do not implement
on fall), it is not scorched or anything, that might prevent all research.
I downright don't like spy drones - part of the UFO experience is walking around a corner and running into your friendly neighborhood alien. Plus we have IR Goggles anyway.
fine with me
Those alien plants sound interesting. They'd give players a gas-based hazard outside multiplayer. They'd have to be in alien botanies, though. No walking plants!
Hmm, walking plants, that sounds funny
... but no, you are right. "The thing" has already been made.
Otherwise, the aliens you propose sound reasonable, though I think we shouldn't create too many of them. However, it did occur to me earlier that I had not catered for a typically psionic alien (I keep wanting to use the term 'psyker', because I like the word, but the Warhammer people would be all over me if I did). I don't really want to create an Ethereal ripoff. It is reasonable to have the Antareans themselves use psi later on in the game, but perhaps we should add a fourth "caste", the psionics. Workers wouldn't have that kind of delicate equipment, Soldiers are too busy pulling triggers and Commanders are too few in number.
Howe aboput we create a similar (genetically engineered) caste of the Antareans, that is e.g shorter/slimmer/whatever and has additional implants to enhance psi-skills? ... i don't really like 'natural' psi-abilities (maybe they _enable_ you to use it, but you still need implants)
Yes, creating too much new specias is a bad thing, but i'm all for using robots (different types of the same model for different roles) or something like that. What do you think?
About the UFOpaedia descriptions you posted, that's all good with me. I notice you went with tachyons where I put fusion. That's no problem, naming is arbitrary at this point. We'll come up with some convincing bullshit after we fix the core equipment list.
Oh, i really streched things (known facts) with tachyons anyway, so i have no problems if we change them to fusion later
... but on the other hand: fusion weapons seem to be overkill in troop-combat ... i think i'll do some explosive stuff with fusion ... I'll not use tychyon for that.
Watch the post above for updates.
Werner
