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[Pavellius]

It looks like most of the votes are already in place, but I'll post this guy here anyway:

Triffids are living plants that can grow up to 3 meters/8 feet tall. Their exposure to the gift has given them human-level intelligence, but has not changed their primitive hunger-desires. As long we nourish them, they are loyal to us.

They have a straight stem, springing from a woody bole which is shaggy with little rootlet hairs. This bole is roughly spherical with three bluntly-tapered projections extending from the lower part. These can dig into the soil to function as temporary roots.

At the top of the stem is a funnel-like formation which has a tightly-wrapped green whorl within resembling a rolled fern frond. This whorl is sticky and can lash out at passing prey. It carries a sting which can kill a full-grown man.

Triffids move at a walking pace. They can lift themselves about 30 cm/1 foot off of the ground on the three projections on their boles. They walk rather like a man on crutches, sliding two projections forward and then lurching so that the third comes level with them. At each 'step', the stem whips violently back and forth. Triffids can leverage this momentum for a quick and deadly attack.

[Doubloon-Seven]

How about triffids?

...that's not a bad idea, all things considered. We could have some use for them. Maybe infiltrate the supply of potted plants with triffids?

[Pavellius]

How about triffids?

...that's not a bad idea, all things considered. We could have some use for them. Maybe infiltrate the supply of potted plants with triffids?

We could airdrop the seeds to cause trouble all over a region

[NUKE9.13]

We could airdrop the seeds to cause trouble all over a region

Alas, whilst we could perhaps airdrop the seeds in an area we were attacking directly, we could not drop them indiscriminately. This world operates according to XCOM logic, wherein the aliens do not just bombard the earth from orbit, or deploy their strongest troops straight away, or follow Skyrangers back to XCOM's base. We have to play 'fair', as it were, which means no WMDs. Anything we do has to have a potential counter, for game balance reasons.

So, the question is, what are Triffids for? Your description doesn't really make it clear what makes them useful to us- they sound slow, melee/short range-only, and easy to detect. Melee troops can be useful, but they need to be fast, or good at hiding. Can they hold a gun? Are they super hard to kill? Can they disguise themselves as regular plants?
It's an idea with potential, but it needs expanding on.

[Pavellius]

Good points, Nuke.

Let's say the seeds are small and cheap. They grow larger underground and become the woody bole. Within that bole, the rest of the triffid grows to full size, curled up. When mature, it breaks through the top of its bole and digs its way out of the ground (not discarding the bole, for it's the bottom of its body). The process is reasonably fast and undetectable, and the triffid pops out of the ground ready to kill.

If our aliens plant seeds as part of doing other missions, X-com will soon be torn between fighting triffids or intercepting our aliens (with more seeds). And the triffids they don't deal with will just eat and spread.

Is this the potential you had in mind?

[Failbird105]

Good points, Nuke.

Let's say the seeds are small and cheap. They grow larger underground and become the woody bole. Within that bole, the rest of the triffid grows to full size, curled up. When mature, it breaks through the top of its bole and digs its way out of the ground (not discarding the bole, for it's the bottom of its body). The process is reasonably fast and undetectable, and the triffid pops out of the ground ready to kill.

If our aliens plant seeds as part of doing other missions, X-com will soon be torn between fighting triffids or intercepting our aliens (with more seeds). And the triffids they don't deal with will just eat and spread.

Is this the potential you had in mind?

Do you mean 'forces X-Com to do cleanup post mission' or 'grows after everyone has left and forces X-Com to go back and deal with them.

Because the first one is dubious at best and I'm not sure how useful it would actually be anyway, and the second just isn't actually allowed.


Edit: Vortigaunts can heal now, and their psi-bolts are better described, I accept none of the blame whatsoever if they're now super difficult.

[NUKE9.13]

If our aliens plant seeds as part of doing other missions, X-com will soon be torn between fighting triffids or intercepting our aliens (with more seeds). And the triffids they don't deal with will just eat and spread.

Is this the potential you had in mind?

Ah, no. As Failbird said, that is exactly the sort of thing we can't do. People asked about something very similar last time, and the GM said no.

Anyway, Like I said, I'll vote for Vortigaunts with healing powers, since that has interesting potential.

Main Base Location
Mercury: (4) DoubloonSeven, Failbird, NUKE9.13, TFF
Asteroid Belt: ()
Earth-Sun L3: (1) Kashyyk
Neptune: ()
Secondary Bases
Asia:
India: (54) DoubloonSeven, NUKE9.13, Kashyyk, Failbird, TFF
Japan: (1) TricMagic

South America:
Brazil: (1) DoubloonSeven

Africa:
Nigeria: (5) NUKE9.13, TricMagic, Kashyyk, Failbird, TFF
Designs
Mercurial Shipyards: (4) DoubloonSeven, NUKE9.13, Kashyyk, TFF
Ophanim: (5) DoubloonSeven, TricMagic, Kashyyk, Failbird, TFF
Vortigaunt: (3) Failbird, TricMagic, NUKE9.13

[piratejoe]

Oh hey this is a thing again...Automated fighter UFO's anyone?

Also as much as I like L3, there are no shipyard designs there, and there isn't anything we could mine or gather from L3. Additionally a base in Japan, while funny, would be unwise unless Sakhalin could be considered part of Japan considering just how far from the heartland of Russia it is and how close it is to Japan...Though, by that logic, I suppose Alaska would be considered a part of Canada...

Main Base Location
Mercury: (5) DoubloonSeven, Failbird, NUKE9.13, TFF, Piratejoe
Asteroid Belt: ()
Earth-Sun L3: (1) Kashyyk
Neptune: ()
Secondary Bases
Asia:
India: (6) DoubloonSeven, NUKE9.13, Kashyyk, Failbird, TFF, Piratejoe
Japan: (1) TricMagic

South America:
Brazil: (1) DoubloonSeven

Africa:
Nigeria: (6) NUKE9.13, TricMagic, Kashyyk, Failbird, TFF, Piratejoe
Designs
Mercurial Shipyards: (5) DoubloonSeven, NUKE9.13, Kashyyk, TFF, Piratejoe
Ophanim: (6) DoubloonSeven, TricMagic, Kashyyk, Failbird, TFF, Piratejoe
Vortigaunt: (3) Failbird, TricMagic, NUKE9.13

[Failbird105]

Main Base Location
Mercury: (5) DoubloonSeven, Failbird, NUKE9.13, TFF, Piratejoe
Asteroid Belt: ()
Earth-Sun L3: (1) Kashyyk
Neptune: ()
Secondary Bases
Asia:
India: (6) DoubloonSeven, NUKE9.13, Kashyyk, Failbird, TFF, Piratejoe
Japan: (1) TricMagic

South America:
Brazil: (1) DoubloonSeven

Africa:
Nigeria: (6) NUKE9.13, TricMagic, Kashyyk, Failbird, TFF, Piratejoe
Designs
Mercurial Shipyards: (6) DoubloonSeven, NUKE9.13, Kashyyk, TFF, Piratejoe, Failbird
Ophanim: (5) DoubloonSeven, TricMagic, Kashyyk, TFF, Piratejoe
Vortigaunt: (3) Failbird, TricMagic, NUKE9.13

Oh god please no. We're already at risk of replaying the entire first turn from the previous game can we please not replay the second one too.

[NUKE9.13]

Yeah, I'd rather not go down the automated fighter route again. For one thing, whilst aerial combat will be important, it will hopefully not be quite as dominant as the first time round, since ebbor indicated that was a bug, not a feature, and we were discussing ways  to reduce the impact (I'm not sure which if any of the discussed solutions have been implemented, though). For another, I don't remember the automated fighters actually being that effective. We had to upgrade them to manned fighters, didn't we?
And, yes, not doing literally the same things would be nice.

Even if we don't do Vortigaunts this turn, I'd like to do them later on, since we will need something more swole than a baseline sectoid, and the aliens having healing abilities would be a fun twist.

[Failbird105]

Honestly, I would be more okay with the Ophanim if they weren't so incredibly similar to the scout drones from the first game.

[piratejoe]

We didn't have to upgrade them to manned fighters I don't think. I believe our first fighters were basically remote controlled while the second fighters we made were purely automated. Though, I did get an idea. We could make a small light fighter that not only can work as a fighter but as a hover tank. Of course, it'd probably be more made for the tank role than the fighter roll but, still. We should get a bomber ship though, which we can use to strike at military targets. After all, causing terror by showing the military forces of earth are weak and easily dealt with rather than through destroying cities will make it easier for us to get people on our side. Its one thing to kill soldiers after all, another to kill civilians.

Also, I'd really rather something that wasn't ripped right out of half life as our first combat oriented front line troop...Just saying.

Regardless, expect me to make a hovertank/fighter and figherbomber design in the future, along with other stuff of course.

[TricMagic]

Main Base Location
Mercury: (6) DoubloonSeven, Failbird, TricMagic(North Pole) NUKE9.13, TFF, Piratejoe
Asteroid Belt: ()
Earth-Sun L3: (1) Kashyyk
Neptune: ()
Secondary Bases
Asia:
India: (6) DoubloonSeven, NUKE9.13, Kashyyk, Failbird, TFF, Piratejoe
Japan: (1) TricMagic

South America:
Brazil: (1) DoubloonSeven

Africa:
Nigeria: (6) NUKE9.13, TricMagic, Kashyyk, Failbird, TFF, Piratejoe
Designs
Mercurial Shipyards: (6) DoubloonSeven, NUKE9.13, Kashyyk, TFF, Piratejoe, Failbird
Ophanim: (4) DoubloonSeven,  Kashyyk, TFF, Piratejoe
Vortigaunt: (3) Failbird, TricMagic, NUKE9.13

Also, Kashyyk... I just now noticed you cut out one of my votes for whatever reason. The North Pole is one of the only human inhabitable regions, and tends to be obscured from sight most of the time, if not all of it. It also has ice, and is rather cool in comparison to most of the planet.

Well, inhabitable in terms of not much work being needed there for them to set up a base should they ever choose to.

[NUKE9.13]

We didn't have to upgrade them to manned fighters I don't think. I believe our first fighters were basically remote controlled while the second fighters we made were purely automated. Though, I did get an idea. We could make a small light fighter that not only can work as a fighter but as a hover tank. Of course, it'd probably be more made for the tank role than the fighter roll but, still. We should get a bomber ship though, which we can use to strike at military targets. After all, causing terror by showing the military forces of earth are weak and easily dealt with rather than through destroying cities will make it easier for us to get people on our side. Its one thing to kill soldiers after all, another to kill civilians.

So, perhaps ebbor could confirm this, but I believe that the value of air support has been toned down, since it made air combat much more important than ground combat.
Regarding indiscriminate bombing, XCOM logic again states that the Ethereals prefer a boots-on-the-ground solution to their problems. Terror missions involve deploying troops to wreck stuff, not just bombarding places from orbit.

Also, I'd really rather something that wasn't ripped right out of half life as our first combat oriented front line troop...Just saying.

I'd prefer completely original stuff as well, but taking inspiration from other franchises is totally fine in my opinion. Better than ripping stuff from XCOM itself (not that that's a major problem either).

Honestly, I would be more okay with the Ophanim if they weren't so incredibly similar to the scout drones from the first game.

That is, as I mentioned, by design. I understand your objection, but the scout drones were very effective.
Do you have a suggestion for a change that would preserve their utility but make them more distinct?

[TricMagic]

I would honestly like to have both aliens... What are we likely to use the shipyard for exactly?