Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Egan_BW]

You should remember that Snakes eat their prey whole.
It's just that the Vipers have all eaten women recently.

[Greenbane]

What if the breasts are eggsacs?
...

AND THEN KOSS HAD THE MENTAL IMAGE OF SNAKES EXPLODING FROM BREASTS

That's what I just suggested. But the fact eggs are stored in one place doesn't mean the newborn creatures burst out of it.

[Remalle]

I think the idea now is that NONE of the aliens will be weak, that role will fall onto ADVENT.

Pretty much. So... any guesses as to how many aliens they will still reveal? I'm still hoping for something like a Sectopod. I guess ethereals will be inevitable as it makes no sense for them not to be in the game.

I'm still holding out for the glorious return of the Reaper, but the role it was supposed to have in XCOM before it was cut was filled by the Viper.  Wouldn't be surprised to see some more original aliens, too.

[Darkening Kaos]

What if the breasts are eggsacs?
...

AND THEN KOSS HAD THE MENTAL IMAGE OF SNAKES EXPLODING FROM BREASTS

    ... or ... you could look at any art by HR Giger.  Theres snehk-like things everywhere...so many.   Yes, I know, not snehks, but close enough.

[IronyOwl]

THEY CHANGED MY SECTOID HUSBANDO THEY RUINED HIM REEEEEEE

just covered in human skeletons with no explanation

Overdue for a sig change.

A non-mammal wouldn't have milk, and egg-based reproduction seems more sensible. The original Snakemen were hermaphrodites and carried many eggs within them.

Except they're aliens, and therefore "reptile" and "mammal" might be considerably more nebulous terms.

For that matter, there's a handful of terrestrial nonmammals that produce at least vaguely milk-like substances, so even on the home front it's not that weird.

I think the idea now is that NONE of the aliens will be weak, that role will fall onto ADVENT.

Pretty much. So... any guesses as to how many aliens they will still reveal? I'm still hoping for something like a Sectopod. I guess ethereals will be inevitable as it makes no sense for them not to be in the game.

I'm still holding out for the glorious return of the Reaper, but the role it was supposed to have in XCOM before it was cut was filled by the Viper.  Wouldn't be surprised to see some more original aliens, too.

Well, let's see. So far we have:

Sectoid - Party Buffing Necromancer Lord
Viper - Debuffmongering Waifu
Muton - Ranged Melee Specialist
Berserker - Angry Wall of Meat-Tenderizing Meat
Chryssalid - Venomous Multiplying Ambush Predator

Cyberdisks, Drones, Sectopods, Floaters, and Ethereals are all that's missing from NuCOM. I notice other than the bosses all our MIAs are at least partially mechanical, which might be a bad sign for their return.

What I'm curious about, though, is if there's going to be anything that rewards melee combat. Snugglebugs are obviously the worst idea unless you can take them out quickly, Mutons are explicitly hardasses in melee despite also having guns, Berserkers are of course purely melee, and then Sneks are Necros sound relatively neutral. So that's 2-3 out of 5 where running up to melee them appears to be an explicitly bad idea, and none where it's an especially good idea, innate advantages notwithstanding.

So what I'm wondering is if melee combat will be a good idea against some foes and a terrible idea against others, or just sort of innately awesome against anything you can get away with it against, but then there's several things you can't.

[Urist Imiknorris]

I predict that melee will completely ruin Ethereals.

[Aedel]

I predict that melee will completely ruin Ethereals.

>stab ethereal
>the psionic magic deflector shield bounces the katana machete back
>you stab yourself in the gut and fall to the ground
>ethereal kneels down and says nothing personal kid.

[KingofstarrySkies]

QUICK, SQUADDIE
STAB THE GAJIN BESERKER

[Sergius]

There will be a subplot where one of the XCOM falls in love with sneik and they marry and have little XCOM hybrid operatives.

Looking forward to it.

[Greenbane]

A non-mammal wouldn't have milk, and egg-based reproduction seems more sensible. The original Snakemen were hermaphrodites and carried many eggs within them.

Except they're aliens, and therefore "reptile" and "mammal" might be considerably more nebulous terms.

For that matter, there's a handful of terrestrial nonmammals that produce at least vaguely milk-like substances, so even on the home front it's not that weird.

The point remains that reptilian egg-based reproduction (many offspring at a time) is more sensible than a pseudo-mammalian alternative (one offspring at a time, breastfeeding period afterwards).

At any rate, yes, there's aliens and they're masters of genetic engineering so they can likely choose which qualities to keep and which to discard. Mammalian-like breasts and milk make little sense for a species bred for combat. There's also the possibility that they're vestigial lumps, part of the humanoid torso engineered to provide more versatility to an otherwise cobra-like form. The concept art doesn't really show anything but breast-shaped bumps. Venom/egg sacs (or nothing at all) are far more likely than any mammalian organs.

[Rolan7]

There will be a subplot where one of the XCOM falls in love with sneik and they marry and have little XCOM hybrid operatives.

Looking forward to it.

Well...

New interview on Chryssalids- Literally everything is horrible now, and we are all going to die.

is it just me, or were they very insistent that this specific hybrid won't ever join XCOM   Particularly early in the interview.  They even sorta moved from that into "they have no human DNA, see".  I might be reading too far into that...

Count me in for "hybrids (aliens) will be recruitable, probably in late game".

Edit: It's that first question, "GAMESPOT: So the chryssalid returns, but outside of multiplayer, there's no chance of somehow recruiting one to join the XCOM forces, I presume?"
But the response is that they won't join because they're part of the alien occupation.  ):
I'm done editing, sorry.

[IronyOwl]

The point remains that reptilian egg-based reproduction (many offspring at a time) is more sensible than a pseudo-mammalian alternative (one offspring at a time, breastfeeding period afterwards).

Why would that be the case? Wouldn't sapient species tend towards low numbers of high-quality offspring?

At any rate, yes, there's aliens and they're masters of genetic engineering so they can likely choose which qualities to keep and which to discard. Mammalian-like breasts and milk make little sense for a species bred for combat. There's also the possibility that they're vestigial lumps, part of the humanoid torso engineered to provide more versatility to an otherwise cobra-like form.

Can doesn't mean did, and their engineering has repeatedly been shown to be somewhat more complicated than that; they couldn't fully disguise Thin Men in NuCOM, and apparently couldn't or didn't want to copy & paste all of their current goons' advantages into each other. That seems to leave quite a bit of room for odd aesthetic choices.

And then of course in NuCOM Mutons were said to still possess tribal markings, which suggests they're not entirely mechanical vatspawn.

The concept art doesn't really show anything but breast-shaped bumps. Venom/egg sacs (or nothing at all) are far more likely than any mammalian organs.

Actually, the rightmost image shows them trailing up towards the head suspiciously, which strongly suggests venom sacs to me.

That doesn't mean they couldn't have been mammary glands just because of scales or genetic engineering, and it's unlikely to do a great deal against my demented headcanon, though.

[Execute/Dumbo.exe]

Also the fact that there aren't any tits there.
Do... Do snakes have tits normally?

[Krevsin]

Also the fact that there aren't any tits there.
Do... Do snakes have tits normally?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Egan_BW]

It's a side effect of sticking arms onto giant snakes. Ethereals could remove them, but it was a choice between that and using the research time to make chryssalids even better.