Armed civilians

[beng]

It seems a bit unrealistic to have missions in military bases and military convoys where there are a bunch of military "civilians" running around without weapons. Shouldn't military personnel have assault rifles and pistols at least, if not rocket launchers? That could make it more interesting since your troops could get caught in crossfire between them and the aliens.  Also, in 2084 will American culture have changed so much that American civilians become unarmed? Missions in America should have at least some of the civilians packing pistols, semi auto assault rifles, hunting rifles and shotguns, and missions in the Middle East should have them armed with assault rifles and RPGs.

[anonymissimus]

Military civilians appear to have more hitpoints than civil civilians though. Most noticable when you try to stun them.
On the easier difficulty levels, where a hit may not instakill a civilian, it can happen that you can safe a civilian after getting hit by healing him.

Don't know about the middle west in the US...but I would guess you are exaggerating that a lot.
I would love to have civilians crouch and seek for cover as they should though.

[TBeholder]

There probably should be an intermediate type, "guard" or something, with separate AI behaviour. For convoys, but also in settlements for local police, gangs, etc.

[beng]

In 2.5 the equipment_missions.ufo file contains weapon loadouts for civilian farmers, gang, police, antiterrorist and army, but they don't seem to be used during gameplay.

For UFO:enemy unknown / XCOM someone made a saved game editor to add pistols to civilians during terror missions. That was a lot of fun. Sometimes the civilians might manage to kill an alien, or they might go bezerk and spray bullets all over the place.

[TallTroll]

I think there is a long-standing plan to arm at least some "civilians", military types and a few guards in some maps. It's pretty low priority right now though, there are still major gameplay systems not implemented

[cevaralien]

I noticed that in team_civilian.ufo, you can mark the weapon line as "true" or "false", this one by default. If i mark it "true", the civilian begun to be armed? They can shoot? It could be interesting on military scenarios.

[DarkRain]

No, they won't start the mission armed, but they would have a chance to pick up weapons dropped by dead/stunned/panicking soldiers/aliens and use them, a very small chance since 1) not even the (default) "fighter" AI actively seeks dropped weapons — much less the civilian AI — only if they happen to end their turn standing on top of one they'll try to pick it up the next round, but 2) civilians don't really have combat capable stats, they might not have enough strength to pick the weapon up, or not enough TU's to use it (specially if they get an encumbrance penalty) even if they can hold it.

[cevaralien]

Ok. Actually, i mod the civilians stats, so, hold the weapons wouldn`t be a problem, but grab it is another thing. Maybe if i do the phalanx weapons dropable, they can grab it.

I will try. Thanks again.

[anonymissimus]

not enough TU's to use it (specially if they get an encumbrance penalty) even if they can hold it.

They seem to have lots of TUs by default at least, apparently about as many as a sheevar (~45), judging from how they are running around. So even with a penalty they should still have ~20 TUs.

[DarkRain]

Well, since they are going completely naked (not really naked you all know what I mean ) they must be getting the TU bonus from carrying no weight, but honestly I don't know how many TUs they may have, they do have low speed, but admitedly that stat doesn't make all that much difference.

[anonymissimus]

Apropos naked: Most of the females are of type Pamela Anderson with totally oversized breasts, a single breast larger than their head, and skirts like nothing. I like the Asian type, about the only one with realistic breast size. And in most of the maps (civilization themed - village, city etc) the females outnumber the males by far. Not a coincidence, no ?

[Rodmar]

Right, let's have some semi-naked males too.

[DarkRain]

Right, let's have some semi-naked males too.

What? You mean male civilians in African village maps should be wearing only a loincloth? That's racist you know

Jokes aside, everybody is welcome to contribute new civilian models, the reason that females outnumber the males in most maps is because in most "nation team" (Africa, Europe, etc) definitions the number of female models outnumber the male models 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 (and in one of them 5 to 1) on the other hand most special teams (Soldier, Miner, etc) have only male models (only exception being the "scientist" team but still male outnumber the females 5 to 2 here)