User talk:Gl0w

Firstly, let me say, Great game. I just heard of it a couple days ago. Thanks for your Efforts. Secondly, I'm not just listing a bunch of ideas, I'm willing to contribute too. I haven't done a thorough inspection of existing To Do lists, but I've browsed this forum a few minutes. I can revise this post as necessary. There will need to be some research and discussion to help me figure out just how I can help.

Lets get right into it... The big stuff:

Production

• Producing things should grant a little profit when sold. Time being the trade off.
  • Without making money from production its pointless to build workshops at all
  • Indeed this facet of the game is currently broken.

• Tooling fee, you can buy varying levels of production capacity for either specific items or item types (the tabs).
  • Higher factory levels could be based off research.

Auto Missions

• Actually based off of number of soldiers and their equipment?
  • on base defenses you only have to have one soldier and you win.
• Do Autos still have a small chance of capturing aliens alive?
  • Perhaps based on the number of stun items equipped?

Scripted Missions and Political Events

• Basic additions that give users some more variety to play style. Instead of just hunting ufos and missions, you would be able to choose slightly different routes to reach the endgame. With an emphasis on customizing your Squads and Bases.
• It is relatively large and complicated, so I'm sure It'll take a while.

• Increasing cashflow
  • from certain nations/species for completing nation specific missions (eg: protecting the pyramids)
• Bonus equipment
  • Missions to steal prototypes(or unknown tech) from other nations/species (with appropriate happiness effects of course)
• Recruiting uber soldiers
  • it happens anyway, may as well make it happen for a reason.
  • Obtained from Aliens and Nations
• Siege/Defense Missions
  • Just a simple change to the AI and map to either put the aliens on offense or Defense
  • Definitely useful for scripted missions (as mentioned above)
    • especially great if there were destructible map pieces

Alien Allies

• Other Alien Races that are fighting with you
  • Just the occasional NPC in battles and random interceptors
• Giving you resources and access to technology on a limited basis.
  • Including Soldier/Worker/Scientist recruits of different species.
    • With bonuses as appropriate for the species' specialty
    • Perhaps just one bonus per species
      • Example: Andromidans give you scientists, Neptunians give you weapons, etc)

• Example Mission: the Asgardians are at war with reptilians and will pay you x credits for each Reptilian body you sell them.

Storyline

• I'd love to see some more storyline so there's a bit more of a flow to the game. Its currently mostly research based storyline, which is pretty great already, but there could easily be other stuff to add some drama and variety.
  • Perhaps mix in 'Ancient Astronaut Theory' and the various races of alien people claim to have seen in 'real' life.
  • Not all of it needs to be available to battles so no models required, but maybe an avatar for email like messages.
• Coupling it with varying races and allies it could really flesh out the game.

I can definitely help with this aspect of the game, but I'll need to do much more thinking about it and discussing with other coders.

Soldier Configurations ( Exists as Equipment Templates )

• Saveable Configs on a limited basis (per base limit?) so you could create custom loadouts (eg: Sniper gear or Assault Gear)
  • Allows you to experiment and not waste a bunch of time switching configs and also to clone units for multiple dropships.
• With saved configs you could modify them without a ship there, and have defensive soldiers(and their gear) prepared in advance.
  • Its a bit awkward to configure the gear of soldiers when your base is attacked and you haven't been stockpiling gear(cus there's no dropship there, for example) this would solve that.
• Also gear that is currently configured for a soldier is still listed in transfer/sell lists (this would also solve that)
• Would be nice to have either a link to buy/sell menu or capacity to buy stuff right from equip menu

Weapon Shapes

• More variety of sizes for better combinations of primary/secondary
  • you currently can have machine gun with 2 mags, a medkit, and machine pistol(in backpack) plus 2 mags, and still have grenades. If you do it just right. It works because only the machine pistol is 3 slots.
  • Soldiers Gear is one of the few areas that users really customize, so its a big part of the game.

Gear:

Backpacks

• variable Backpack types, so you can sacrifice storage space for other benefits
• Jet pack
  • Simple Jump boosters, don't need to have free flight just pick jump to: location and go
• Engineering Pack
  • Items that modify the map in some way
  • Stationary gun mounts, cameras/radar, mines, bridges/ladders
  • Costs money (probably?) and TU (possibly multiple turns)

Stealth Armor

• Slightly less protection (medium) but gives you stealth mode option
  • perhaps unable to use while moving as a trade off, and/or firing compromises your position.

Weapons:

• Uzis
  • One handed primary gun
  • relatively weak but allows you to dual fire for full auto spread damage
  • Close range and Light
  • Allows us to vary our loadouts a bit more.
• Mortars
  • hefty, Very slow(1 a turn-ish), and powerful
  • Very Long Range but Innaccurate
• Mines
  • based on grenade types
  • some could be proximity based
• Shields
  • one handed and armored
  • includes push action and block action
  • could also default to covering you when knelt
• Biological
  • Causes Damage over Time attribute effects
    • Poison / Infections etc.
    • Different effects for certain races of aliens
• Stun Rod
  • Should be smaller and one handed, it becomes almost completely useless once you get electro laser.
  • Treat it more like a secondary weapon, as its practically impossible to get within melee range at all.
  • With a shield it could create a sort of riot cop / nonlethal ninja type soldier

Drugs/Enhancements

• The equivalent of potions in other games. Small items you can have in your pack to give you enhanced attributes for a (very) short time.

Units:

Robots

• Similar to bloodspiders but perhaps with stun capacity as well as eat face(melee) mode, ranged weaps, and suicide bots
• Camera bots for increased sight(on a limited basis)

Aliens

• Continued from Alien Allies Section above
• Different races with enhanced attributes
  • would unfortunately require more skins and message avatars
• Can take species ideas from various pop culture sources like stargate etc
  • names can be changed to protect the innocent

Where this game could go:

Expansion

• Solar System map and bases on planets/moons
• fighting off incoming waves of aliens from several directions
• Space Based Anti-UFO Defenses
  • Satelites and space interceptors

Thanks for indulging me and my way to long message.