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[Blood_Librarian]

I would remove the token and keep TAV, maybe as a larger object in return or such.

[Strongpoint]

Edited the proposal. I am a bit worried that TAV without token may be greedy, but...

[Chiefwaffles]

So you want to upgrade the effective skill and equipment of IAC teams?
Actually, what if we made it so they get access to a bit more equipment and also transport?

Oh right.
We already have that.
It's called NOTSOFTER.

Strongpoint, you're attempting to force a niche unit into the position that our general-use NOTSOFTER already works at. We don't need to waste a revision making IAC teams more skilled and equipped when we already have a Unit that costs the same while being more trained and well-equipped than IAC teams will ever be.


So here's three revisions that would actually have a semblance of usefulness.

Revision 1. Useful because again, every soldier is using a semiautomatic long-range weapon with a relatively low rate of fire. We're fighting aliens that outnumber us in engagements and two out of three alien units specialize in close-range combat. An automatic burst-fire railgun would be a tremendous upgrade in an easy revision and for little cost.
Revision: XH-3 Railgun (Edited - changed wording around recoil and whatnot)
The XH-2 is a solid railgun, but it's still effectively a glorified prototype.

By drawing on our experience with the manufacturing and maintenance of the XH-2 since its deployment as well as our other experience with railguns - the Phoenix gunpod, the Talon's upgraded railguns, and our base defense railguns - we can improve the gun. The XH-3 uses more advanced self-loading systems in order to reload at a rate sufficient for fully automatic fire.
If recoil is a problem, we can just modify how much power goes to the rails per individual shot and let soldiers switch between modes, since it's all electric and computerized anyways. Several modes can exist - sniper, battle rifle, assault rifle, SMG. All just a matter of adjusting how much power the rails get. SMG gets low-enough power to allow for comparably-insane firerates, sniper rifle gets high power at low firerates, and so on. Bonus is that it lets the XH-3 be a multi-purpose weapon with very little effort from us.

TL;DR: We've spent a lot of time with the XH-2 and have done lots of railgun tech since then. Give the XH-2 (now XH-3) automatic-fire capabilities to make it a more effective combat weapon, especially in closer-range and faster-paced combat.




Revision 2. Since now we have alien containment and just imagine how juicy alien interrogation tokens would be.
Revision: ARC Thrower
1 Alien Equipment Token

Essentially, the ARC Thrower is a glorified taser modified to take advantage of what we know of alien nervous systems ((from abstracted dissections since we don't have tokens for that and we've had lots of opportunities to get them if they existed)) and to overwhelm them completely, rendering them unconcious long enough that the battle at hand may be finished and the alien may be securely detained for transportation to a containment cell.
In order to provide a (relatively) respectable range and enough power to fulfill its requirements, the ARC Thrower is fitted with a small elerium power source, like in alien equipment and the XH-2.

The ARC Thrower, for a gun, is short-ranged. But we're hoping to at least let soldiers use it from out of immediate CQC distance; we'll take whatever we can get, though. Soldiers using the ARC Thrower are instructed to prioritize completion of the mission over capturing aliens, and that we only need one alien for it to be considered a succesful mission-wide use of the ARC thrower.




Revision 3. Since we still have no real way of investigation. Sure, Strongpoint's revision tries but it's explicitly trying to just be a "passive" boost, only works in certain areas, relies on the lesser-trained IAC teams, and focuses way too much on Mimics. That's not how alien infiltration would work - they would use Mimics to gain access to VIPs, sure, but the bulk of alien infiltration would be "convincing" 100% human individuals to subtly support them/oppose XCOM. And no amount of training can let us screen entire countries for Mimics.
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.

TL;DR: Use our relevant tokens to train/specialize a NOTSOFTER squad in intelligence-gathering/espionage.
Should help locate alien/exalt influence, get us intelligence (cool tokens/base locations/infiltration warnings/advanced warnings of plans/etc.) capture humans and maybe-but-probably-not aliens, and help purge bad influences.

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

The XH-3 greatly increases the competency of our actual mainstay units. Reminder that with our new production, we won't even be able to use Interagency Teams this turn. We'll have enough Skyrangers for all 3 NOTSOFTERS, making upgrades to IAC Teams useless.

The ARC Thrower allows us to capture aliens and get wondrous interrogation tokens.

Investigatory Unit actually lets us begin doing proper investigation.

[Strongpoint]

Short version of  my revision is:
Hey, friends, we and our soldiers are quite busy fighting off that regular alien landings. Can you help us a little with finding infiltrated enemies? After all it is a part of special forces regular job. BTW, we'll provide you assistance in this task in form of training and some technology. Oh, and those mimics are quite dangerous and our combat veterans will teach you how to fight them

Chiefwaffles revision is
We ar swimming in UP and EP and actions. Lets design an investigator unit, than design investigation mission and send that unit on investigation instead of using UP (and EP from their equipment) on combat

Make your choice, people


BTW, I hope everyone sane understands that we need 4th UP this month. It is absolutely necessary. We got several VP and EP since beginning of the quest but we got no UP increase at all. We are outnumbered on land and it is getting worse.

[Chiefwaffles]

IAC Teams...
1.) Are significantly less-trained than NOTSOFTER.
2.) Are significantly less-equipped than NOTSOFTER, and all equipment has to be hard-revised into them.
3.) Cost the exact same as NOTSOFTER.
4.) Can only be deployed in certain areas.
5.) Rely on good relations with their host countries.
They are worse in every way than NOTSOFTER, and you're wasting a revision making them slightly less worse for some unknown reason.

Investigatory Unit is not a design, it does not need a mission, and participates in combat. But if you actually read anything other than the title, you'd know that.


Furthermore, you're ignoring the other two revisions I posted.

[Blood_Librarian]

quickly looking over the threat, I can't be bothered to write a revision for a flamethrower like we should be doing, so I'm just gonna vote for the investigatory unit since it seems like its nice.

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

[Strongpoint]

IAC Teams...
1.) Are significantly less-trained than NOTSOFTER.

They are trained differently not less. I expect IAC teams to be better in fighting humans and counter-intelligence missions

2.) Are significantly less-equipped than NOTSOFTER, and all equipment has to be hard-revised into them.

On other hand it means they don't spend E points

3.) Cost the exact same as NOTSOFTER.

Oh, how many times I tried to revise that... But it is irrelevant for a passive benefit I am trying to get here is the main reason of the revision. I see it more like... hm... free info from drones we get before combat.

4.) Can only be deployed in certain areas.

It is a limitation, sure. But I am ready to live with that. Help in the part of the globe is still help.

5.) Rely on good relations with their host countries.

Don't we try to keep good relationships anyway

They are worse in every way than NOTSOFTER, and you're wasting a revision making them slightly less worse for some unknown reason.

First of all not in every way, because VP have value. Also, there are further potential in revisions. But you are missing the key idea: We have this units. Units that came from rolling 8. We don't use them. We try to find a use for them. This revision is not made to bring IACT into combat and replace NOTSOFTER (even if it does makes it better here)

Investigatory Unit is not a design

It is a design that tries to be squeezed into a revision and that is your usual style of playing. Sometimes it works, sometimes don't and you go "unfortunate" and "GM is wrong" route. Also, it uses unit experience token in absolutely illogical way. We got experience in fighting and NOW we are better investigators

it does not need a mission, and participates in combat.

Their goal will be to locate alien/EXALT corruption and influence Yeah. That can be done during regular fighting

But if you actually read anything other than the title, you'd know that.

It is hard to find a polite way to answer that so I won't

Furthermore, you're ignoring the other two revisions I posted.

Do you think I have an obligation to comment every proposal?

[Chiefwaffles]

It is a design that tries to be squeezed into a revision and that is your usual style of playing. Sometimes it works, sometimes don't and you go "unfortunate" and "GM is wrong" route. Also, it uses unit experience token in absolutely illogical way. We got experience in fighting and NOW we are better investigators

Try reading it, please.
Seriously. That's a thing I recommend doing. Reading it. It tends to help when critiquing things.

I even put it in a neat little TL;DR for you, which you apparently and somehow missed. "Upgrade NOTSOFTER's investigatory capabilities." That's all it is. Everything is just fluff around that. We're using two tokens to make a unit better at investigating things.


Whereas your revision is "Make our worst unit type better at investigating things, make them better at fighting mimics, make them give us a passive bonus to investigating wherever they are without doing a mission, and equip them with the TAV2."
In a revision.

[Happerry]

but please stop trying to say “I told you so” at every possible moment.

It is indeed pointless to say "I told you so" when mistakes are never admitted and learned from anyway. I'll stop doing that.

BTW my words were directed to Happery who acted like his base is a giant factory or something, when it clearly isn't.  And my offer wasn't giant barracks either

...My base was a giant factory. The base that won was also a factory. It gave us an additional VP and EP. My base might have given us two VP and no EP because it was more focused on air stuffs, but a factory is still a factory, just like your base was a giant barracks that would probably have given us another UP or two. But then, to understand these things you'd have to actually read+comprehend the thread, and you've already shown your unwillingness or inability to do such.

I mean, it would have been nice if we got ten VP, but that was never going to happen. As is, getting two tokens for a good base building roll is pretty dang nice, and they're both tokens we needed more of as our vehicle costs climb and we gain more and more types of must have equipment. 7 VP will let us deploy 3 skyrangers and two talons per mission stage, or two skyrangers, 1 talon, and two ravens if we spend our monthly increase on VP and they start throwing small UFOs in every direction independently again. Meanwhile the extra EP means that if we can get a one cost armor, we can afford to give everyone a weapon+armor upgrade if we deploy all three skyrangers, with also is pretty good. Or everyone have a weapon and TAV, or whatever.

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

Personally I'd prefer to go for an electrolaser instead of a really big taser for our stunning weapon, so I'm against the ARC thrower. (And even if we do use the ARC thrower, for our first stunning weapon I'd prefer to use a design on that to make sure we get a good one.) Honestly, while I like the Investigatory Unit, I'd also prefer to use a design on making a specialist unit type instead of a revision, but since the last time I tried to suggest making a better unit class I got yelled at by everyone going 'oh, do not be silly, this is a realistic world where aliens shoot energy guns at people and theres no point in making specialized troop types despite that being how the source material did it' I'll take what I can get. Railgun upgrade wouldn't be bad though, even if I'd like to try to get a 'heavy railgun' design out sometime soon, before they surprise us with sectopods or reapers.

[Chiefwaffles]

What other specializations could we do for units?

The problem I have with it is that I can't think of and haven't seen anything that really works with the unit system. While in XCOM you had specialized units, sure, they were all specialized and a part of a single team. In here, we'd have to make an entire specialized squad, and the specialization would still have to work when a sizeable chunk of our sent forces are that specialization.

[Happerry]

We could go make the Breacher Team, which is trained and specialized in breaching UFOs, which we're going to need to do more as they get bigger and bigger UFOs. They've already got mediums with at least 4 transport units worth, given that small ones usually show up with only two, they had a small lander and a medium lander, and by word of 10ebbor10 they outnumbered us by 'three to one'. Think of how big a large UFO is going to be, I mean, what is it going to have six units by itself? Eight? Think about trying to take one of those things on the ground. And a unit trained for close combat internal structure fights will also probably be useful once terror missions start happening. Also, I remember at least one battle report along the lines of of 'you guys killed all the aliens outside the UFO, but could not break in to kill the rest, so the airships had to shoot it down when it tried to take off again' and we've never added shaped charges or something to bust through the doors since.

We could make specialized skirmishers, meant for medium-long ranged combat with the railgun and the TAV, trained to provide fire support for squads stuck in with the enemy without causing friendly fire, detecting and eliminating enemy flanker/scout units like the drones and mimics with the TAV, and generally acting like the traditional XCOM 'full squad of snipers'.

We can't do this yet, but eventually they're going to start throwing ethereals and other psychics at us, or finally get around to making sectiod commanders with their own psi powers, and once they do that a specialist force of 'anti-psycher' could certainly be useful. Or anti-'Giant unit' troops meant for hunting down Sectopods and Chryssalid Queens and other 'titan sized' troops.

And in the long run, battle psychers would also be nice...

It's also possible that, once we design, say, anti-psycher, breacher shotgun dood, battle psycher, skirmisher, or some other combination, we could spend a revision on making a mixed squad.

I do understand that we have a lot of other stuff to do, all of which is also important, which is why I haven't been trying to talk people into a unit design every turn or something, but as time goes on, I think there's going to be a limit to how much we can improve what are effectively squaddies just by giving them better equipment, and eventually we're going to be running into elite mutons or Chryssalid-Mimic fusions or other horrors like that, and then we're going to really need more advanced troop types, and I'm worried that we'll neither have any nor have the will to design any instead of 'better gear which can surely solve this problem'.

[Chiefwaffles]

Actually, on that note, here's something we could do to complement a theoretical skeleton armor design:

Would work best with the XH-3, which more people should vote for by the way. Easy revision with a very nice reward!
Future Revision: Assault Squad

There's more to fighting than standing in a line and shooting at the aliens with railguns whenever they pop out of cover.

XCOM Combat is about mobility. Movement. Flanking your enemies. Avoiding being overwhelmed. And much more. Moving is everything, and we (apparently) need to train our operatives to fight accordingly. Taking advantage of whatever equipment they have - namely [SKELETON ARMOR] and the [XH-3] - they're constantly on the move to surround, flank, surprise, ambush, and just generally overwhelm our enemies. Hitting them is hard as they zip from cover to cover.
They should generally be fighting at closer range, and would have increased training in swords CQC and the like though their focus still is using guns at "close-ish" range.

TL;DR: NOTSOFTER specialized in combat mobility.

[Madman198237]

PLATES: Passive Lightweight Armor and Tactical Equipment System
Alien Equipment Token
We have sufficient experience with alien alloy to begin the manufacturing of simple yet highly effective armor, in the form of a hybrid of medieval plate armor and scale armor. Plates cover the torso, legs, and arms, while the overlapping scales provide flexible protection for areas between the plates. To make it easier to produce this armor, some of our captured alien equipment was analyzed to attempt to determine its production methods. [excuse for token use] The plates are manufactured to be ~5mm thick on the torso, and ~2mm everywhere else, effectively the same as late-medieval/early Renaissance plate armor, yet even easier to wear due to the incredible lightness of alien alloy. These are expected to take multiple plasma hits before being compromised, on account of the durability of the metal. The scale protection, however, is very thin, and expected only to protect against a single shot. To get technical, we make alien-alloy copies of the: Cuirass, rerebraces, vambraces, cuisses, greaves, and gauntlets, filling in the gaps with the scale armor, all made of alien alloy.

Yes, this is literally a copy of a sort of partial plate armor with something like this stuff covering the gaps

Spoiler: Image (click to show/hide)

Since it's just doing ancient stuff with a new material, the engineering effort involved is minimal at best.

[Strongpoint]

"Upgrade NOTSOFTER's investigatory capabilities."

What the point of this without a separate investigate mission?
I think we see the whole investigate thing differently. For me investigate = chance of detection of enemy activity and\or their base. Your investigate is something like somehow get more info after victorious battles.

I can see NOTSOFTER version that is focused on capturing prisoners but you don't need to call them investigators

[Chiefwaffles]

Your investigate is something like somehow get more info after victorious battles.

That is true, yes.

Investigatory Units in the short term will be good for getting a better idea of the situation during and after missions. So we're more aware of what the aliens were trying to do, if there's any alien influence, EXALT influence, and the like.

But yes, a mission is required to properly investigate things. This is true no matter what we do, and it's also a bit of a chicken & egg problem; if we create an "investigate" mission first, then we won't have any units to investigate. If we create the unit first, then we won't have any dedicated missions for them to do. It may be possible to use a Design action to do both at once, but I'm not a huge fan of doing multiple only-kind-of-related things in a design and I'm not a fan of using a design for this in the first place.

So we have to choose what to do first. The Investigatory Unit is meant to be the prime choice for sending on any future theoretical "Investigate" missions while also still being helpful in regular missions as well.