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[10ebbor10]

The art of diplomacy.

To be clearer though, in this case.

Slapping alien alloys on standard armor would be.
1. Trivial revision if you use a token
2. Easy-normal if you don't, closer to easy than normal

If you want to actually have fancy armor that can fully exploit the benefits of alien alloy, and maybe a grappling hook or so, then we go Hard-Very hard.

[Madman198237]

"A good compromise leaves everyone unhappy"

[Blood_Librarian]

I cant believe this. Madman is arguing to simply make an entire set of infantry armor in a revision while Waffles eloquently requesting for an entire armor set as a design while I am pushing for  an armor with the things we need to win.

Why am I always the one who has to argue for the right option?^/s

[Chiefwaffles]

Did you imply Skeleton armor? Did I just hear skeleton armor getting implied?
Well, you leave me no choice.

I'm willing to change the name, and willing to add/change things in the design itself.
Design: Hunter Armor
1 Alien Equipment Token
Hunter Armor is a set of personal armor taking full advantage of the nature of alien alloys. Namely, the fact that alien alloys are really light while being really strong and can somehow absorb blunt forces.

First element is, well, the alloy armor. Plating covers most of the body (and all vital areas), but Hunter Armor is very much not a "one-piece suit"; we want to preserve mobility (even with the lightness of alloy, if you put enough on a person eventually they start getting encumbered) and expense. Regardless, survivability should be up insane levels thanks to the super-miracle material that is alien alloys.
A helmet incorporates an improved version of the TAV2. Namely "not prone to breakage if someone makes a mean joke about it in its proximity"-improved. The sensors are integrated into the suit and the helmet visor incorporates the HUD, which can be turned on and off at will. This should allow our operatives to always benefit from the TAV2 without suffering from its bulky and fragile nature.

A simple system in the back, near the spine, monitors vital signs and distributes various medicines when needed. It's not a huge deal since we don't have medkits yet are just using standard drugs - painkillers, stimulants, anesthetics, etc. - in fairly low quantities, but it should at least be a notable aid. Enough to keep a soldier from death for a couple hours or to keep someone fighting for ten more minutes. That kind of thing. The vital sign monitoring system is also networked with the integrated TAV, meaning the status of Hunter armor-wearing soldiers is visible to all other agents so they may react appropriately and just be better aware of injuries.


Moving past all the hybrid alien groundbreaking technology advancing human knowledge and our view of reality as we know it, we approach the most important feature:
A grappling hook.

It turns out that when your armor is sufficiently light and you can make the grappling hook "rope"-thing-whatever-you-call-it partially out of alien alloys, you can create a grappling hook able to be shot across notable distances and bring the entire soldier there very quickly. We had some problems in testing at first when the grappling hook smashed the soldier into the wall at extreme velocities (and surviving with little-to-no injuries thanks to the armor!), but we've aimed for much more reasonable velocities instead. They should just remember to have their feet ahead of them for the landing. In order to ensure the viability of the grappling hook, we're using some alien equipment parts to more properly integrate the systems, from just getting an idea of how to properly build the grappling hook, to integrating a super-small elerium power supply in order to ensure it has enough power to actually take advantage of the alloy-reinforced cable. We could probably get along without it, but this would help, so we may as well.
Imagine. Our soldiers zipping across the sites, confusing aliens, using the integrated TAV to get the advantage on them and always be aware. Never being in one place. Their armor keeping them alive.

EDIT: Added in Alien Equipment token usage on grappling hook.

Chinese Industrial Park (0):
American Mountain Base (0):
Brazil Jungle Base (2): Happerry, Pavellius
Falcon Fighter-Transport (0):
Colombia Jungle Base (2): Strongpoint, Blood_Librarian
Hunter Armor (1): Chiefwaffles

[Pavellius]

Switching my vote to the Columbia base, though I would prefer it be located in Argentina, since that's one of the XCOM supporters.

Chinese Industrial Park (0):
American Mountain Base (0):
Brazil Jungle Base (1): Happerry
Falcon Fighter-Transport (0):
Colombia Jungle Base (3): Strongpoint, Blood_Librarian, Pavellius
Hunter Armor (1): Chiefwaffles

[/quote]

[Madman198237]

That design overreaches so far I don't even know where it's reached to.

You're going to make an auto-medic AND a literally physics-defying grapple system at the same time. And then plug it into the armor, which should really just claim to be medieval plate, because that's what it is. Oh, and medieval plate has neat tricks, like having almost perfect coverage of everything that might get shot.

[Happerry]

Chinese Industrial Park (0):
American Mountain Base (0):
Brazil Jungle Base (0):
Falcon Fighter-Transport (0):
Colombia Jungle Base (3): Strongpoint, Blood_Librarian, Pavellius
Hunter Armor (2): Chiefwaffles, Happerry

Personally I think having the panic point in Brazil is the perfect reason to put a base in Brazil, but at this point it's obvious no one else agrees. Oh well. Anyway, I'm not going to vote for an infantry training base because we already don't have enough transport to bring all our guys in as is, so I don't see the point in going for more infantry points when people seem to hate the idea of going for more advanced infantry classes that might cost more. It's not like we'll be able to bring the extra guys in till we get more VP anyway...

[Chiefwaffles]

Wow, Madman. I have no idea how you even got to that conclusion.

So.

Slapping alien alloys on standard armor would be.
1. Trivial revision if you use a token
2. Easy-normal if you don't, closer to easy than normal

If you want to actually have fancy armor that can fully exploit the benefits of alien alloy, and maybe a grappling hook or so, then we go Hard-Very hard.

That's in a revision, meaning a design doing the same (grappling hook) would most likely be around Normal.

And by the way, Ebbor's referring to the Skeleton Suit from XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Y'know, the one with the grappling hook. (supershort video link) This is what he means when he's talking about "grappling hook", and what you're calling a "physics-defying grapple system".
Hell, I'll even edit in the use of an Alien Equipment token to get it just in case that makes you happy. But we both know it won't.

Furthermore, the "auto-medic" is:
1.) Building off of the TAV. Which already has vital monitoring systems. Which also happen to not be hard. Especially for us.
2.) Injecting small amounts of existing medicine. We're not trying to make something that'll heal broken bones and plasma wounds, but it'll be enough to keep soldiers going for a couple more minutes or keep critical soldiers alive for another hour.
Considering we've made railguns in designs and a hybrid flying tank with gravity propulsion, something as simple as what you call the "auto-medic" should be less than trivial to incorporate.

And no, it's not medieval plate.
This is the Skeleton Suit.
It's what this design is based off. That's the kind of coverage (roughly - I'm aiming for a bit more) we're going for. We do not want to sacrifice mobility.


And I agree, Happerry. The Colombia base honestly seems like the worst possible option to me - we'd be focusing the design on our least-needed production (UP), putting it in the wrong place, and ignoring other problems while at it. While I somewhat prefer Hunter Armor, I'll still vote for the Brazil base if enough others do to make it a viable competitor in terms of votes.

[Strongpoint]

Switching my vote to the Columbia base, though I would prefer it be located in Argentina, since that's one of the XCOM supporters.

I prefer Colombia because a) it is closer to North America b)Colombian jungles are great for hiding  but this is a minor point

Personally I think having the panic point in Brazil is the perfect reason to put a base in Brazil,

Because our aircrafts are slow and will never get in the place in time... Oh, wait...
You may say that this may allow us to reduce the panic point but doesn't it means that base need to be public for that?

I'm not going to vote for an infantry training base because we already don't have enough transport to bring all our guys in as is

We have two tokens to improve our EP and VP situation. We can use UP for the freaking Inter Agency Cooperation teams. We, as you said below, can revise\design new units. We can revise Skyranger\develop new transport. We can use one Talon and many Skyrangers.

Furthermore, it is less "infantry training base" and more "learn to how fight our enemies effectively" kind of base

Also, I have a strong feeling that you, one who wanted the second base for a long time, just voting for the armor now because... voting for my design is unacceptable because it is... strongpoint's design. Fluff for the base is secondary if you want resources it provides.

[Chiefwaffles]

If you want a "learn how to fight our enemies effectively" design, then you make a design to do that. All your base is going to do is extra UP - the least important production point for us.
EDIT: Besides, didn't Ebbor explicitly state we can't just directly upgrade troop skill/effectiveness any more after we did NOTSOFTER? If you want to improve troop performance, you have to explicitly start specializing them. Just saying "train them gooder" isn't going to do a thing.
We can't use 1 Talon because it'd get crushed at air, either.

Also, no, that's not how panic works.
While it certainly does indicate the populace's level of panic, it's more-so the nation's ruling class. In every XCOM game, you lose a nation when the rulers of that nation decide that XCOM isn't doing enough for them and that it'd be a better idea to try to strike a deal/surrender/"peace treaty"/whatever with the aliens. These people are the ones who would be aware of an XCOM base in the region.
Hell, in XCOM1 the primary method of decreasing panic is orbiting a super-top-secret satellite over the country to detect UFOs in the region. The populace would never know about that, even though the act of doing it directly decreases panic.

And even regardless of direct panic effects (which isn't the point), a base in Brazil makes it significantly easier to lower panic and prevent future increases over time as we have base defenses covering the area as well as quicker response times.

[Strongpoint]

If you want a "learn how to fight our enemies effectively" design, then you make a design to do that. All your base is going to do is extra UP - the least important production point for us.

a) In that case we'll get the design that does that (let's say a unit) but not the base. I want base. Many players want base. Base is the key.
b) No. It won't just give us UP. It is not how game mechanics work. Go find 10ebbor10s words after our first failed attempt. Oh, and if I wanted only UP I wouldn't bother proposing a base and just went for recruitment center. It is a manufacturing center, it has hangars to launch aircrafts, it has its own radar. It is a BASE.
c) UP is actually not the least important resource. We lost the last battle because we went for less U for no good reason but desire to win A LOT in the air. We are regularly losing battles where numbers aren't in our favor.
d) Essentially, it is the same offer as Heppery's but instead of > "build a base + no meaningfully fluff" it is a "build a base + meaningful fluff" backed by tokens to prevent difficulty increase. Really, Happery's offer could be build an X-COM base in Brazilian jungles and lose no useful information at all.
I really want to use both unit token and Exalt token because they have a good chance to sit there forever.


As for location > It is a very minor thing for me. Like really minor. I am ready to move it to Brazil, Antarctica, 100km away from out current base should it get a vote or two.

Chinese Industrial Park (0):
American Mountain Base (0):
Brazil Jungle Base (0):
Falcon Fighter-Transport (0):
Colombia Jungle Base (3): Strongpoint, Blood_Librarian, Pavellius
-Same as above but in Brazil (1): Strongpoint
-Same as above but in Argentina (1): Strongpoint
Hunter Armor (2): Chiefwaffles, Happerry

[Chiefwaffles]

If many players want a base, then they should vote for a base that tries to be a base and not a glorified wasteful attempt at achieving something we were already told to be explicitly impossible.

You very clearly emphasize UP and training. You talk at lengths in the design about all this fancy tech and methods relating to personnel then you just at the end go “oh yeah other stuff is here too I guess.” You prioritize the unit stuff in your design.

No, UP is the least important resource.
If you didn’t notice, we couldn’t deploy all our existing UP thanks to a lack of VP.

Your base wastes tokens for no good reason, and focuses on the wrong things. You can claim that it’s fluff all you want, but it’s in the design and will thus affect it.

[Madman198237]

Now, I seem to need to point out that ebbor's message was edited, and so I didn't see that edited section.

Maybe you didn't read the overly-long section about plate armor I posted...but plate armor in no meaningful way affects mobility in combat. And that's when its made of steel. We can get away with even more armor, if we want, when using alien alloy. And, again: We could literally make a copy of late-medieval (the kind that covers basically everything) plate (preferably with a little less shiny-ness), with a more modern helmet design (i.e., integrated TAV). Boom, instantaneous armor that covers everything and makes hostile melee attack an exercise in futility, while making it EXTREMELY hard to get a kill with ranged weaponry, because of the magic alloy.

[Strongpoint]

If many players want a base, then they should vote for a base that tries to be a base and not a glorified wasteful attempt at achieving something we were already told to be explicitly impossible.

It is a no less base than Happery's offer. Nothing in the description says that it will perform any of its functions worse than his version

You very clearly emphasize UP and training. You talk at lengths in the design about all this fancy tech and methods relating to personnel then you just at the end go “oh yeah other stuff is here too I guess.”

It doesn't says > reduce effectiveness in all other areas for better infantry. And I could write some silly description of workshops and labs but what for?

No, UP is the least important resource.
If you didn’t notice, we couldn’t deploy all our existing UP thanks to a lack of VP.

We could. You just made a bad plan. We would perform better in the last battle with talon+raven+3 Skyrangers. It is not my problem that thread is paranoid about air part of the game. I am more than fine to spend half of VP on transports and half of VP on fighters. It is a balanced approach. Buying 6VP worth of fighters and 2VP worth of transports IS NOT fine.

The only time when we got stomped in the air, was during the first battle in Brazil, despite that we almost won the following land battle. If we did a right thing and sent 3 Skyrangers we would win that battle.

Your base wastes tokens for no good reason, and focuses on the wrong things. You can claim that it’s fluff all you want, but it’s in the design and will thus affect it.

It gives us useful things (at least me and two other players think so) so it is not a waste by definition. Otherwise those tokens will keep laying there. When did we get unit experience? Something like 4 turns ago, right?

[Madman198237]

Hindsight is 20/20, Strongpoint. Keep that in mind, and remember that your plans would likely have been no more successful, overall (as in, considering every battle and every plan together), than anyone else's.