Good News Folks!

[flark]

First of all, hello everyone.

 

I've been visiting this great site for quite some time now but am only just now finding the need and time to register.

 

I've just been scouring the EXT forums and have learned the great news that soldiers can indeed be killed during tactical missions.

 

It goes something like this;

All soldiers are equipped with an advanced suit in which even if their body becomes badly damaged the suit will sustain the brain and keep that soldier alive. If at least one soldier 'completes/wins' the mission - the downed soldiers are automatically loaded into the transporter along with captured items and are taking to medical lab. Healing times can be very extensive as in some cases the soldiers brains are implanted into new cloned bodies.

 

If all soldiers are downed in a tactical mission - brains will be irretrievable and all soldiers will be lost/dead.

 

If you choose to 'tactically retreat', only downed soldiers carried to transporter will be returned to med lab, just like captured equipment in original XCOM.

 

Final point. I'm lead to believe soldiers driving tank vehicles will be permanently killed if the tank is destroyed.

 

 

I hope you all find this news as reassuring as I do. I am also lead to believe the game is generally set at quite a difficult playing level and will not be easy to complete.

 

I hope to see more of you around the boards.

[Pete]

That's great news. The whole soldiers not dying when they're shot was a bit confusing there for a while

 

And welcome to the forums!

[flark]

Thanks for the welcome Pete.

 

He he, I'm my excitement to report and explain the great news about soldiers dying I forgot to mention some other great news.

 

The rumour is that the game was released today in Moscow and the few people who have it and have taken time out to post are saying the review by GamePro which reported "exclusive reliance on funding nations for expenses" is also incorrect. Apparently all collected items can be sold as like the original XCOM. The only difference is 'MANUFACTURED' items cannot be sold for a 'PROFIT' -which in my opinion is not such a bad thing.

[Pete]

Yep - this probably means you have to scavenge a lot more and can't do the old X-COM trick of building laser pistols for $8,000 and selling them for $20,000 or whatever the price was.

[Azrael Strife]

Finally can the whining stop!

 

Many thanks for the info and welcome flark, hope you stick around

[Gimli]

Awesome!!!

 

I was hoping there would be SOME sort of explanation. Could you just give us a direct link to the death-thingy, so that I can show it to other people? I really don't want to search if I don't have to, being on a tight schedule and all.

[Azrael Strife]

Mentioning the GamePro review - they've %^$ another point: you can sell everything. So "exclusive reliance on funding nations for expenses" is not true.

 

So, the game is released in Russia. Right now it is only available in Moscow, by 3rd May it will be everywhere. I'll going to buy it tomorrow.

 

From what users say:

 

* if every single soldier dies in a mission - everyone really dies;

* tank operators die, no hospital;

* it's really hard to play, "medium" level seems like "superhuman" in original game Very Happy

* dumb in-mission camera.

 

https://fotki.yandex.ru/users/drauk/view/52/?size=XL

 

 

Link to the discussion: https://www.ufo-extraterrestrials.com/forum...0529fa0258f4c63

[flark]

Thanks Azrael.

 

There's also another (possibly clearer) discussion about the death issue here:

 

https://www.ufo-extraterrestrials.com/forum...opic.php?t=1431

 

 

Sorry I don't think there's anthing official yet, but this is good news to stop the growing mass hysteria.

[Gimli]

Excellent, thanks a lot!

[Azrael Strife]

A most interesting post:

Allright, I just loaded it up again to make sure I had my facts right. First of all, I don't have any information regarding why certain decisions were made, I can only comment on them from a gameplay standpoint as an end-user. Secondly, I have also not yet played through the whole game. With that said...

 

It plays like X-Com, it feels like X-Com and it's as addictive as X-Com. The issues mentioned here really do NOT yank me out of the game or change the feel of the game from the original in any significant way. For example, let's take trooper mortality.

 

The UFO Pedia explains that the medical bays on this world at this time are advanced enough that if enough of the brain is left intact, they can regrow a team member. However, this is a time-consuming process and is not always successful. The worst case scenario results in a patient with significantly impaired capacities. After playing for a while again this evening, I can confirm this. Soldiers still go down quickly when hit by Alien weaponry and I've had them show up after the mission requiring 40+ days to heal. I don't find it unrealistic that every time one of my soldiers is taken down, it's not an instant or unrecoverable kill given this technology. Your vehicles don't recover, but given how they explode when destroyed, it's not a stretch to imagine there's not much to recover in there. You buy another vehicle and move on.

 

I was doing well with missions on downed scouts, but my first mission to a downed fighter was quite an education. Between an alien melee-monster and some other nasties, I lost my entire team. As noted here, once that happens, they are gone. There's no one to bring the wounded or even just the remains back, so it's permanent. I should also mention that the way wounds are handled in combat is, IIRC, more detailed than the original X-Com as far as their effects and their ongoing need for stabilization.

 

This game is not easy (and I'm playing on the Easy level). New soldiers arrive as the nations of the world send them to you and this contributes frankly to the sense of trepidation whenever one of your existing soldiers is wounded (or in the case of losing an entire team, killed). Each recovering soldier is unavailable for duty and may be permanently impaired. Each dead soldier is gone and your remaining team is significantly smaller until the next recruit(s) arrive. I have felt pretty constantly a feeling of needing to conserve my men and avoid throwing them away. As they gain experience and improve, as with the original X-Com, your attachment to them grows.

 

I don't find the change in the design actually changes the gameplay experience. They tweaked it in one direction, but then tweaked a few other things to bring us back to much the same place we started in terms of the feel of mortality, danger and limited resources.

 

Moving on... I researched a new weapon technology and built some in my workshop and was able to sell them to gain more funds for my budget. I'm not sure where the idea that you can't sell what you build came from, but it seems to be false.

 

I would not be as concerned about this as you guys are, every time you hear about something that's a bit different. As far as I can tell, the developers had a very good understanding of what made X-Com outstanding. My $.02 from playing this, after playing the heck out of the original X-Com back in the day, is that it's the real deal.

 

Regards,

 

- Erik

 

Erik is the administrator over at Matrix Games

 

I can't wait to try this one!

[Gimli]

Good and informative post.

[Aralez]

I still don't like the idea of "reconstructed" soldiers, but at least this is more reasonable than the initial info! Thanks flark!

[flark]

There is strong speculation HERE that the game will be available to download from Matrix tomorrow.

 

Here is also a very positive report from a formerly critical fully English speaking XCOM fan who is lucky enough to own it already.

 

buchowski:

 

My Russian friend helped me to install the game in English! Luckily the russian verson has English included.

 

I am currently on my first mission after shooting down an alien scout ship. It has ALL the feel of the original X-Com and more. I was disappointed after learning about the "no death" rule but I don't think that will affect the gameplay too much (i hope so anyway!) and I have been a huge critic of it.

 

Everything is very smooth, soldier actions are easy to do and the gui is very clean and well thought out. Selecting a weapon and shooting is done with 3 clicks. Hats off to the dev team for a slick interface.

 

I like it when the alien crumples to the ground after taking a shot! I already had a bomb hit my tank https://www.ufo-extraterrestrials.com/forum/images/smiles/icon_sad.gif but luckily it is still standing! Just researched a laser rifle and none of my soldiers can fire it straight at the moment haha.

 

I'm already hooked, this game is AMAZING.

 

I'm getting quite excited now!

[Space Voyager]

This "regrowing" system is exactly what UFO: Afterlight could use... At least it wouldn't be obligatory to load the game every ten minutes.

[Solarius Scorch]

I know this suggestion is coming a "little" late, but I'll post it anyway for fun.

[Disclaimer: I haven't played UFO: ET. But I certainly will soon.]

First of all, I agree that soldiers should be killable - that's what make real war different from superhero movie, and looking at X-Com fan fiction ansd posts here on this forum, it is also very important for most gamers. Without all those dead rookies, as well as some brave officers, this game would lack a large part of its emotional impact on a player. On the other hand, it is understandable that some characters become very important and the player wants to make them as well-protected as possible.

So maybe some kind of compromise can be forged? Let's consider something like this:

In the beginning, things are just like in X-Com: soldiers that are only injured go to hospital, and those that are killed are, well, dead. However, during the game you gain access to a technology which allows you to produce a kind of cybernetic implant, which serves as a UPS for the brain - which means that it can sustain the activity of the organ, and esopecially the psychic processes. Those soldiers that have this implant coyuld be rervived from physical death, provided that their brain and the implant survived the damage - just like it apparently happens in ET. Then, if those implants were just one-time use and were hard to come by (like needing lots of special materials to produce, or maybe being obtained from some third party, etc.), then yoyu would have to make decisions like who gets them and who doesn't. I think this would increase life expectancy of your favourite and/or most experienced soldiers, while still retaining the old school bloodshed. It could even deepen the overall game experience!

[flark]

Let's consider something like this:

In the beginning, things are just like in X-Com: soldiers that are only injured go to hospital, and those that are killed are, well, dead. However, during the game you gain access to a technology which allows you to produce a kind of cybernetic implant, which serves as a UPS for the brain - which means that it can sustain the activity of the organ, and esopecially the psychic processes. Those soldiers that have this implant coyuld be rervived from physical death, provided that their brain and the implant survived the damage - just like it apparently happens in ET. Then, if those implants were just one-time use and were hard to come by (like needing lots of special materials to produce, or maybe being obtained from some third party, etc.), then yoyu would have to make decisions like who gets them and who doesn't. I think this would increase life expectancy of your favourite and/or most experienced soldiers, while still retaining the old school bloodshed. It could even deepen the overall game experience!

What an absolutely excellent idea Mr Scorch! That would have been perfect!

 

I agree at the start you aren't too bothered about your brand new rookies getting wasted. Although later in the game after they have been promoted several times and have 10's of missions under their belts you become very attached to them. It would have been perfect if the brain implant technique had needed to be researched from one of the later alien autopsies for the later stages of the game. It could have opened up a whole new branch of research:

 

Research: Rare Alien Clone Autopsy

Research: Alien Clone Brain Implant Idea

Research: Clone Implant Lab

Research: Advanced Brain Implant Armour

Manufacture: Advanced Brain Implant Armour

 

They could have also made it very time consuming to manufacture therefore only really reserved for your favourite soldiers.