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[Happerry]

If we make a close combat specialist unit, we'll need to make them a shotgun and stunblade or something akin to that combo too. We don't actually have any good close ranged combat stuff right now besides the mundane grenade and pistol. Which isn't to say that I don't want to create a Breacher squad sometime soon, I just don't have any confidence in getting people to make them actual specialist equipment... Besides maybe a taser.

Well, anyway, the reason I'm not voting for Plate is that I want our armor design to have the TAV built into it, so we don't have to spend points on them separately when we're going to want everything to have them. Other then that it seems a pretty decent first generation armor.

[Madman198237]

Why, in a protection sort of sense, is hunter armor better than plate-style armor? I understand that Hunter armor has fancy gadgets, but disregarding those since they can be integrated into plate-style protection, why do you think it's better?

The reason PLATE doesn't include TAV is because we need more work to make TAV better. An "all the fancy extras" would be my design plan for next turn.

[Chiefwaffles]

Yes. It's the gadgets.
I think the gadgets are more than worth it, and with Hunter Armor we can do both the gadgets and the armor in one design, while ensuring they integrate together nicely. We can spend a revision and design, or we can spend a design. Though I do want to wait for an alloy token to do it (and while I hope for one this following turn I think armor isn't critical priority and it can wait another turn if required).

That and I think "gadgets" undersells it a bit. The stuff integrated in Hunter Armor would be really helpful for our soldiers.

[Madman198237]

Yes, but not NEARLY as useful as simply being protected. Also, far better to leave open a design to make TAV better, integrate it with the armor, and invent all those fancy extras, than to chance everything on the one design/one roll. Also, if we do PLATE now, we have armor *NOW*, making it perhaps much more likely (given a halfway-decent roll) that we might receive tokens.

[Chiefwaffles]

I think the impact of the XH-3 would be pretty significant, personally. The opportunity cost of plate armor makes the advantages of "do it now" notably less effective. You could argue that plate armor would have a better short-term impact than an XH-3, but I'd rather get the XH-3 and armor done with two actions, rather than three actions. Even if plate armor is some degree better in the short run, the difference in action economy makes it worth it in my opinion.

[Madman198237]

PLATE has a much lesser potential opportunity cost, though. It definitely costs a revision, but makes the design less risky. Also, burst-fire just isn't good enough. Railguns can have scaled power quite easily, so if you just put a literal slider on the stock or something for "how much electricity goes into the rails" and then improved the feeding mechanism, you can fire single powerful shots or huge numbers of less-powerful (and thus easier to control) shots.

Oh, and it'll be cheaper than armor-with-all-the-gadgets, so we might also get an early warning about how expensive our stuff might become, and thus how much we should actually include in the gadgetry design.

[10ebbor10]

So, can I have a tiebreaker?

[Pavellius]

Anti mimic training of Inter agency cooperation teams (2): Strongpoint, Pavellius
Rockbreaker Missiles Mk. 2 (0):
XH-3 Railgun (3): Chiefwaffles, Happerry, Madman
ARC Thrower (0):
Investigatory Unit (4): Blood_Librarian, Happerry, strongpoint,Pavellius
PLATE: (1) Madman

[10ebbor10]

So, I should screen proposals closer, and inform you ahead of time.

There's an issue with the winning design.

Revision: Investigatory Unit
1 Unit Experience Token, 1 EXALT Token
Things are not always as they seem.

Sure, maybe before the invasion we could have entrusted local government intelligence agencies to handle this. But they’re simply no longer up to the task.
Now we have secretive independent paramilitary organizations and shape shifting aliens to worry about. We can’t rely on old Earthborne methods any more.

An investigatory Unit is a NOTSOFTER trained to maneuver this new world of intelligence. While making something like this form the ground up in a revision would normally be difficult, we have a number of advantages. We take those already showing potential in the relevant fields from existing agents [Unit Experience Token]. We take the data that EXALT left behind to get a different viewpoint into these matters. We can rely on the fact that base recruitment requirements - how we recruit from top militaries and intelligence agencies ((I assume this is how we work)) - and NOTSOFTER mean our men should already be somewhat experienced and/or easy to teach on the matter.

Simply put, an Investigatory Unit is a NOTSOFTER squad with training in intelligence affairs, investigation, interrogation, and the most up-to-date briefings on anything that could possibly be relevant.

Their goal will be to locate alien/EXALT corruption and influence, to capture suspects (we hope that they can use ol’ fashioned brute force for this now - and they definitely can for humans - but while we hope it works, we don’t necessarily expect aliens to be easy capturable without special tools.), gather intelligence and information, and if possible, purge corrupting influences.
If possible ((as in, if it already does this like we intended in its own design)), the computer core in the Brazil outpost will be used to aid our operatives in data-crunching and general analysis of information acquired by Investigatory Units.

[/quote]

A different viewpoint is not enough information for what you intend a token to do.

[Pavellius]

Does the Exalt Intel token represent what we know about Exalt, or some intel documents that the Exalt soldiers left behind?

[10ebbor10]

The latter, which of course becomes the former.

[Strongpoint]

Well my vote stands, same but without exalt token is fine for me

10ebbor10 Just curious, would Exalt token work in the design below?

Anti mimic training of Inter agency cooperation teams: 1 unit experience, 1 Exalt intelligence
Suspecting infiltration of enemy Mimics (also knows as skin crawlers) into Earth organizations, X-COM took effort to eradicate those out. Lacking resources, expertise and necessary for such work X-COM asked for assistance from its friends from Inter agency cooperation teams and sent its instructors to share all combat experience of fighting vs Mimics.

In addition to sending instructors X-COM offered help in supplying Inter agency cooperation teams with some key components of TAV2 (along with blueprints that allow to produce less sophisticated elements outside of X-COM) and donating part X-COM's stockpiled firearms and ammunition

Additionally, X-COM shared intelligence data on Exalt, hoping to find help in finding this mysterious 3rd side. After completion of training X-COM asked their friends in special forces to actively search for Exalt and infiltrated mimics.
(Expected mechanics effects: Unused Inter Agency Cooperation teams will give passive benefit to a chance to detect alien\Exalt activity in their region. Inter agency cooperation teams will become better in fighting aliens, especially mimics. They will be partially equipped with TAV2s.)

[Chiefwaffles]

That’s a super easy modification. I’ll make it to the design within an hour about.

But I recommend voting for the XH-3 because we will lose at ground if we don’t.

[10ebbor10]

Just curious, would Exalt token work in the design below?

It's a better, but the problem there is that the mechanic is impossible. You deploy your squads after the aliens act. It's thus impossible for unused squads to aid in detecting aliens, as you haven't decided whether or not you use them yet.

[Chiefwaffles]

Okay. Again.
We will lose at ground if we do not upgrade our infantry. While I prefer the XH-3, it doesn't matter what exactly we do - we just need to upgrade our infantry. Strongpoint's thing and the Investigatory Unit don't do that.


Furthermore, Investigatory Units (and any other investigation-focused unit revision for that matter) just won't be useful as a revision. It can't be. We need a mission and a unit type. Hence, I propose this:
1.) People vote for the XH-3.
2.) We do this design very soon:
Future Design: XCOM Investigation
1 Unit Experience Token, 1 EXALT Token
The aliens have Mimics that can look just like humans. There's a paramilitary organization with goals independent of us moving around, clearly with ties to individuals and organizations of notable power and wealth. We can't just pretend that outright fighting is the only theatre we'll have to participate in.

XCOM Investigation covers the introduction of XCOM into formal investigation of these matters. XCOM already has informants across the globe, but we need formal and trained teams to investigate these matters. People who can get into places, people who don't look like XCOM, people who can recognize alien, persuade people, "persuade" people, and act as formal XCOM agents abroad. Their objective will be to locate hostile influences and, if possible, eliminate them, as well as unofficially acting as "ambassadors" - knowing that XCOM is hard at work ensuring your country is free of alien infiltration would be quite a relief to those in power and increase their confidence in the XCOM project.

Investigation Units - the teams of trained agents - can be sent out to any individual country(/continent?) to fulfill their objectives as ordered by XCOM when deemed necessary.

The general notes on alien operation and training of men for situations involving aliens (Unit Experience) will be of great use for this project. As will using stolen EXALT intelligence (EXALT token) with what we can gleam of their operation methods and what they know about the aliens already in order to give our operatives an idea of what to expect with more subtle situations.


This way we can get actual competent investigation efforts while ensuring our infantry doesn't lose horribly again this turn. We can't afford further ground losses. If you vote for the XH-3, we can do the above design (or something like it) soon to handle investigation while not losing horribly to the aliens on ground.