New campaign: Peaceful protest

[Civilian]

*Post updated*

 

I wanted to start a new campaign after my old one https://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/index...?showtopic=7826 sadly and abruptly ended in a terrible disaster. It was the best EU campaign I ever played, though.

 

This time the main ideas for the game are:

 

-a totally pacifistic approach. Humans will fight alien dictatorship and terror but without killing any of them. No alien UFOs will be shot down. This means that only landed UFOs can be mission targets (apart from terror Missions and base defences/attacks) and only stun weapons are allowed! However I will change the pistol to a stun pistol (with the original 26 damage) to deal with flying units at the beginning of the campaign.

 

-No tanks will be allowed. This is required to deploy more troops on the field (which will be urgently needed) and to avoid the accidental usage of reaction fire.

 

-To make the campaign even more challenging I will NOT dismiss any soldiers, no matter how bad they are and what their stats are. Instead I will try to find a use for them (without making them cannon fodder) or at least take them with me all the time.

 

The other game setup will be mostly standard: Dos Xcom 1.4 with the combo-patch applied and XcomUtil bug-fixes, improved base layout, but not improved base features. The improved weapons and tanks are pointless so I will not apply those fixes. I will also use the "research help" function of XcomUtil to give me even more reason to capture living aliens.

 

---

 

Body armours, stun weapons, medikits, psi amps and smoke grenades (and maybe electro flares) will be the only equipment during this campaign. Mind controlled aliens will be disarmed and led to a soldier that stuns them once they are no longer under human control.

 

Soldier losses will be very high, especially at the beginning when there are no body armours available and when doing missions against terror units. To compensate for that I will change the minimum required time for the "delivery" of a new soldier from 72 hours to 24 hours.

 

I also hope that normally unused things like the smoke grenade or the motion scanner will play a bigger role now...

 

---

 

As the final mission on mars is normally only winnable by killing the mother brain I decided to end those mission with the insta-win feature of the XcomHack editor once I get into 1 square distance of the mother brain. That way the campaign ends as peaceful as it begins.

 

---

 

Well that's the plan. Not sure if it is doable, but I gonna try.

 

Please, if you have any ideas or warnings BEFORE i start the campaign: Now is the time!

I am a little bit at a loss when I think about stunned Celatids or Chryssalids, they will be VERY difficult to handle when waking up....

 

<solved>A question: If i would change the damage type of the pistol to STUN, would that work as a "Tazer" or tranquilizer-dart-gun? Or would it still do normal damage? I know the engine has some limitations regarding this, so... <solved>

[Sunflash]

Well this sounds entertaing. Wish you could just video the whole thing.

 

As I understand it, you'll basically be mobbing things with stun-rods and stun-bombs? Hope you bring ALOT of people. I'd try to offer some help, but my UFO/EU knowledge is so far out of date it's not even in recoreded history anymore... XD

 

Good luck!

[Pete]

Wow! I could see this working a little better in Apocalypse where you have the help of stun grenades and the gun that gives you a bit of range, but this is going to be intense!

 

The biggest issue I can see is that if you play this on Superhuman the aliens' reaction fire will render the game unwinnable. Even if you cross the map with the aid of smoke grenades for cover, the enemy is likely to see you before you see them.

 

My only suggestion is maybe to tweak the stun rod so that it has a slight range on it, or else tweak the laser pistol to be a low powered stun gun (if that's possible) with low accuracy and/or limited range.

 

Not sure how viable any of those options are as I'm not overly familiar with how editable things are in the game, but with stun rods only for a fair portion of the early game I can't see it lasting too long sadly.

 

How about (if this is possible) as an alternative/in addition to the above you tweak the electro flare to become like a real-world flash-bang and deal a slight stun damage within a certain radius. Again, I'm really not sure how much that item can be tweaked, but I'm hoping the game treats it as a sort of grenade that just deals zero damage.

[Civilian]

Sunflash, I will post pictures as I am not so experienced with movies

 

Pete, you are absolutely right regarding the difficulty: As my last campaign was lost due to a tiny loophole (Sectopods are almost immune to rocket tanks) I made some test runs in an already existing campaign. It was a good idea to do that before I starte3d the real campaign because many problems (and again loopholes) appeared that I simply hadn't thought about:

 

1. Floaters! Floaters and other flying units can not be stunned by stunrods when they are in the air.

2. Smoke grenades do hide you (good) AND the enemy (bad). Basically they are for covering a retreat only, an offensive usage is not practical. At least that's what I experienced so far.

3. Death rates. Ever seen Lemmings falling off a cliff by thousands? Well, then you know how hard the pacifistic approach is! One live sectoid engineer required 9 soldiers to bring him down and then back to the ship. 7 soldiers of those 9 were killed, the remaining two were heavily wounded. What was even worse: The equipment of those 7 soldiers was lost.

4. A minor problem: The stunrod seems not to be re-equipped by Xcomutil like the other weapons are, it is somewhat tedious to arm 14 soldiers with stunrods each time they leave the ship.

 

The solution? I think the stun pistol/Tazer weapon is an absolute must. I will try to use an editor to change the damage type of the pistol (with a very low accuracy and damage, just like you suggested Pete) and make some field tests...

 

I hope this works!

 

edit: It works!!!! The hits look and sound like tiny explosions, cute!

 

I am using the default stats for the pistol (no Xcomutil autofire fix) and the accuracy is very low as it is (no need for a change imho), however the stun damage is a bit too low: I hit a sectoid three times before it fell unconscious, another sectoid was hit once and fell unconscious, only to regain consciousness in the very next turn!

 

I lost 5 soldiers to reaction fire, though. Mainly because of the terrible accuracy and the weak stun damage. Oh well, at least better than a 7 to 1 rate, now it is a 5 to 2.5 rate

 

One more negative side-effect: as all UFOs are undamaged they have the full troop strength...

[Pete]

Just a comment on point 2 - I only started using smoke grenades properly in my last campaign (a superhuman campaign as usual ). I find them essential on my first turn to provide cover for leaving the skyranger. Simply throwing one or two out the doors and ending the turn with no other real movement - provided there are no bad guys to shoot at - is a must for good survival rates past the first few turns I've found.

 

No idea why that was the first time I really used them properly in 15 years of playing the game (wow, that long eh? ) but there we go

[Civilian]

I will try that, Pete. I had hoped reading the Online Ufopadia article about them would help me with using them in a proper way, but they are much less useful in a real battle than in theory

 

Btw, I edited the post above^ to update it regarding the modded pistol!

 

If changing the pistol works, i could maybe change other weapons as well, imagine a stun grenade (weak and low range, unlike the stun launcher bomb) or a stun rifle, with only a 1 shot clip!

 

However, I will wait for some more warnings or ideas before I start, this is the second time I missed something vital in my campaign planning phase....

[Pete]

Wow! That full troop strength is going to hurt later on!

 

At least you don't have to go up against Mutons if you're very careful as they'll take far too much stunning.

[Civilian]

Yep, because of that I had planned to abort or avoid Muton missions until the Small Launcher has been researched

 

Just a thought I had atm: A simple stun grenade would maybe make the campaign too easy, but a proximity stun grenade would be more difficult to apply and hence worth at least a test....

edit: Nope, the stun grenade does still work like a normal grenade and kills the alien. So I think I will turn the pistol into a weak 3 shot Tazer with low accuracy and leave the damge unaltered and the rifle will be changed into a long-range and accurate 1 shot tranquilizer dart gun with its default damage value. This should not be overpowered.

 

Basically i would have 4 weapons to chose from

 

1- Stunrod, high accuracy, strong, unlimited ammo, no range

2- Tazer pistol, low accuracy, weak, medium clip (3 shots)

3- Dart-Gun. high accuracy, medium damage, low clip (1 shot only)

4- Small Launcher, high accuracy, high damage, needs to be researched and needs resources etc.

 

Zombies will have the same resistance against stun that Chryssalids have and human soldiers will arrive after 24 hours and not 72 hours. That should be enough to get the campaign going... but I will wait a bit more for the discovery of other possible loopholes

[Pete]

That certainly sounds a much more manageable scenario with a bit more fun and a lot less frustration at any rate

[Civilian]

The soldiers will still die like flies on a windscreen, especially at the start of the campaign. Especially when a chryssalid wakes up in the Skyranger... or a Celatid... or a Silacoid.

 

Once power armour is available and Small Launchers are researched it will maybe look different.

 

I will make some more tests now, I do not want the game to be too easy. However 3 needed hits for a sectoid is ok imo, the pistol seems balanced that way as not every shot will hit, especially with the low accuracy of my soldiers and the lack of autofire and the small clip.

 

Gonna test the rifle now!

 

edit: The default rifle is a bit too weak, it only does 4 units more damage (30) compared to the pistol's 26. If I only give it one shot (I also removed the auto-fire) it will become useless as the pistol would be superior regarding overall damage. The accuracy however is ok. Hm ok, I will give it a stun damage of 40, that will make it a worthy alternative for the pistol and it will still not be overpowered. The default stunrod does 65 damage btw.

[Civilian]

Here some random screenshots of my now started "beta test" campaign:

 

https://i48.tinypic.com/ruw2rq.jpg

The initial base. As you can see there are no Interceptors and no Hangars for them.

 

https://i50.tinypic.com/21ls9dx.jpg

A radar base in the south for more coverage.

 

https://i47.tinypic.com/25kifyv.jpg

The first bunch of soldiers. I wonder if FullAuto will recognize something special (Wolfgang W....)

 

https://i49.tinypic.com/168a1sn.jpg

First contact (btw, see the clip size of the pistol?)

 

https://i50.tinypic.com/335glqw.jpg

The sectoids have some impressing reaction stats! But at least the losses are smaller now and no equipment is lost.

 

https://i48.tinypic.com/a5gt41.jpg

The sectoids aren't stunned for long when hit with stun pistols...

 

https://i45.tinypic.com/2iqxqc1.jpg

Pete's smoke grenade tactic works, combined with motion sensors the second mission is a success, one captured alien, no losses, no UFO recovered.

 

https://i46.tinypic.com/5wdruv.jpg

The first month hasn't been finished yet, but i have researched all soldier laser weapons, the medikit, the motion scanner and the first alien. Then this appears! No research help feature activated but the HWD is already researchable, wow...

 

I think if nothing serious happens I will continue to play my "beta" and it will become my official campaign. If problems should arise then I gonna change things during the campaign itself....

 

The research is way too fast, though. But as I do not use any of the researched weapons, no major imbalance should result.

 

Edit by BB: Again, have mercy on those without high-speed connections! +1mb of images is a bit much, especially when your screencaps are double the in-game resolution! Either resize or link!

[Jman4117]

Turn the autocannon into one of those 6 shot tear gas launcher things, but give it the heavy cannon's firing rate at best. Make the grenade into a stun grenade, if that works. Make the laser weapons into phasers and maybe make the proximity grenade into a 0 dmg "motion detector".

[Sunflash]

Now JMan has some good ideas there.

 

Let's take it a stetp farther, though. Why not turn the tanks into tear-gas cannons/Taser-rifle bots? (I'm thinking like a those non-lethal SWAT buggy-robots.)

 

Stun grenades have been addressed, though I think you said you couldn't get 'em to work as stun grendaes properly? Not being a UFO/EU junky, I wonder if you can apply stun damage from smoke like in Apoc? If so, you could change the frag grenade into a max'd-smoke grenade, possibly?

 

Phasers hard-wired for stun only would be interesting. Could skip the Plasma infantry weapons but require Plasma tech to mount a Stun-Phaser on a Hovertank, perhaps?

 

 

Seems to me the hardest part will be keeping your score high enough in the first few months. Keep us posted!

[Bomb Bloke]

2. Smoke grenades do hide you (good) AND the enemy (bad). Basically they are for covering a retreat only, an offensive usage is not practical. At least that's what I experienced so far.

They're good for close range attackers; they're less advantageous to rangers.

 

They're also better suited to night missions, where the alien's have over double your vision range (the smoke therefore penalises them more then yourself, but they still come out ahead). But really flares are best in that situation.

 

The ramp of your dropship is an area where you're quite exposed; aliens can see (and shoot at!) trooper legs as they wander downwards. As good a time to obscure enemy vision as any.

 

3. Death rates. Ever seen Lemmings falling off a cliff by thousands? Well, then you know how hard the pacifistic approach is! One live sectoid engineer required 9 soldiers to bring him down and then back to the ship. 7 soldiers of those 9 were killed, the remaining two were heavily wounded. What was even worse: The equipment of those 7 soldiers was lost.

I've never put much testing into the AI, but it always seemed to me that aliens will try to end turn facing whatever enemy is closest to them. That is to say, if you can pull off a flank, you can guess which direction to attack from on your next turn based on who's closest to the target.

 

Not so easy while inside a UFO.

[BladeFireLight]

The ramp of your dropship is an area where you're quite exposed; aliens can see (and shoot at!) trooper legs as they wander downwards. As good a time to obscure enemy vision as any.

 

I'm with you on that. exiting the craft is the one point where you are forced to have a large group of units clumped together waiting for a Alien Grenade. Shoot anything you see first, smoke the ramp, then exit.

 

-Blade FireLight

[Zombie]

A grenade always explodes with HE damage by design. You can't have an Incendiary grenade, an AP, Stun, Plasma or Laser "Grenade" either. That's just the way the ball rolls.

 

My only concern with your new campaign is the eventual clogging of your Alien Containment module with tons of useless aliens. I suppose you could set up a single base with an AC module and only send the crew stationed at that base out on selected missions to keep Astore.Dat lean. All the other bases shouldn't have an AC module then. Anyway, my two cents.

 

- Zombie

[NKF]

There were a few points I was going to address earlier - but work intervened.

 

Anyway, here goes:

 

- Zombies: I was going to suggest that you keep playing as is and treat missions with zombies as a failure. No one said you had to win all of your battles. You can always do what you can, drag everything you can into the Skyranger and dust off.

 

When I was playing my grenade and later rocket launcher campaign many years ago, I enforced a rule that I had to evacuate a battle once I exhausted all of my ammunition available - including scavenged equipment. Due to bad planning I had to evacuate a few battles (and maybe lose a base), but that was a good and humbling experience in itself.

 

Further on zombies: You can often outrun them.

 

- Next to the Chryssalids, Cyberdiscs will be your biggest problem at the start. But don't fret, it's possible with enough lemmings and persistence. Or evacuate the missions and live to protest and subdue peacefully another day.

 

- If you do plan to evacuate an un-winnable terror site, are you willing to stun the civilians to negate their loss points? You're not harming anyone.

 

- One tip I might recommend, since you won't be using any weapons, is to not research the plasma weapons. Keeps the extra points rolling in, which would normally disappear once you've researched them.

 

- If you find the original stun rod less appealing, I might suggest trying the stats for TFTD's thermal tazer. It's slower, but packs a better punch. Works better on tougher enemies, though not as mobile as the stunrod.

 

- Your pistol stunner - I recommend using it only for the airborne units that just won't land (in a timely manner). Making any other stronger weapons would lessen the usefulness of the small launcher once you can access it. Just a thought. Mind you, waiting for them to come come after you into small places is another albeit dangerous option.

 

- The point on not sacking anyone is a fair enough point as no one's going to be carrying anything lethal. There's also the advantage of doubling as psi-fodder. Just be mindful of those carrying the small launchers.

 

- NKF

[Civilian]

Wow, many thanks, guys, those are excellent ideas(and so many of them), I do not even know where to start to answer!

 

Ok, the first thing I'll change will be the removal of the stun rifle (thanks NKF), it feels a bit redundant. About only using the pistols on flying units, well that sounds fair enough, too. And I would use the TFTD stunrod values but it seems the values are not editable.

 

Stun Tanks. Well, at the start of the campaign they would be godsend, but I think once body armour becomes available (and the stun launcher) they would be somehow redundant, too. And on top of that I do not know how to edit them. So I will stick to the decision of not using any.

 

Zombies will be restored to their default values. I will most likely abort any missions with them (just like with Cyberdisks) in it, albeit not without trying to pick up some artefacts if possible. Not every mission should be winnable, aye.

 

One thing that forces me to restart the campaign and leave the beta behind is the XcomUtil improved base feature (not the layout). Starting with 50 scientists is simply far too easy. And I will most likely reenable the changed research feature in XcomUtil to give me more reasons to capture aliens. As I will not capture many at the beginning this is ok.

 

Surviving the first months with a good rating will be extremely difficult....

 

 

edit:

 

Well, I tried to start a campaign yesterday. It did not work.

There was no available mission in the fist two months and in the third the game gave me a Terror mission. Which was catastrophic to say the least. The lack of ranged weapons led to a 100% death rate, among the soldiers and the civilians. To make it worse not even 1 of the Aliens was stunned...and those were floaters!

 

So, I am sorry to announce the cancellation of this campaign. It seems the game is not flexible enough for an idea like this, there are no real possibilities when completely changing the way of playing it. Maybe better editor-tools could make this campaign idea possible, but I am not sure...

[Sunflash]

edit:

 

Well, I tried to start a campaign yesterday. It did not work.

There was no available mission in the fist two months and in the third the game gave me a Terror mission. Which was catastrophic to say the least. The lack of ranged weapons led to a 100% death rate, among the soldiers and the civilians. To make it worse not even 1 of the Aliens was stunned...and those were floaters!

 

So, I am sorry to announce the cancellation of this campaign. It seems the game is not flexible enough for an idea like this, there are no real possibilities when completely changing the way of playing it. Maybe better editor-tools could make this campaign idea possible, but I am not sure...

 

 

Hrmm. Sorry to hear that. When you said there were no aviable missons, does that mean none that met the 'ufo can't be shot-down' thing, or no missions at /all/? I'm by no means a EU expert, but that strikes me as kinda odd. o.O

Sucks that it's not gonna work, sounded like you had it mostly all figured out. D: I'll try to wrack my brain a few times this weekend and come up with something, but no promises.

 

Although now I'm wondering if something similear to this could be pulled off in Apoc, since it's got a chunk more flexability in regards to the stunning stuff....>.>

[Civilian]

There were 3 or 4 UFOs but due to the limit of not shooting them down (but waiting for them to land) I had only 1 mission available. However once I tried to land there with the slow Skyranger it took of and disappeared.

 

The problem with the lack of game flexibility is this: If I make the rifle or the pistol simply shot Stun darts instead of normal ammo, the game basically reverts back to the gameplay it had before the changes, it doen't matter if the aliens drop because they are dead or stunned.

 

And If I do not add a ranged stun weapon the game becomes impossible. Well, at least at the beginning. I guess once Armour, PSI and Stun launchers become available it will be maybe even too easy.

 

There is something missing, something like a medium-ranged stun weapon for the early game. Maybe a stun grenade. But sadly it seems this isn't possible without some major modding work.