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[itisnotlogical]

Or toggle explosive friendly-fire.

What I'd like is an adversarial version of the full game, with one player as aliens and one player as XCOM. Both play on the geoscape, until one finds cause to initiate a battle. I imagine this would work better in Oldcom rules though, as the player can be more proactive in that game. In XCOM the player only ever reacts, where as in Oldcom you could send your Interceptors to patrol and explore.

[Mathel]

Yes old X-COM: UFO Defence.
The new one is XCOM: Enemy unknown.

[RAM]

then what is UFO: Enemy Unknown?

[Egan_BW]

Non american name for X-Com: UFO Defence.

[PTTG??]

I had that rough idea a while back. I added the idea that it's more like a shadow world game. Something like the broadest interpretation of the SCP Groups Of Interest thing. Each player is a GOI, recruiting from the same pool (and bidding on contracts for popular individuals) and seeking to get hold of useful tech....

Actually, I'm thinking it should still have an NPC alien invading force, but defeating it is only part of the war; one has to win the secret war after the aliens are defeated.

I'd make the tech tree much broader and dependent on localized resources. If there's a neptronium deposit under the arctic ocean, only the faction that controls the mining platform has access, and only they can make neptronium ammunition. But perhaps they can sell it... Anyway, player factions would radically diverge. If the National Philosophy Working Group discovers psi effects early on, they can grab that and make use of it. In the same game, Blackwell Security Contracting might put lots of research into conventional guns and training, and Excelsior Areospace might find antigrav generators in a crashed alien spacecraft.

By the time the shadow war begins, the three factions may differ more from each other than the aliens did!

[scrdest]

I had that rough idea a while back. I added the idea that it's more like a shadow world game. Something like the broadest interpretation of the SCP Groups Of Interest thing. Each player is a GOI, recruiting from the same pool (and bidding on contracts for popular individuals) and seeking to get hold of useful tech....

Actually, I'm thinking it should still have an NPC alien invading force, but defeating it is only part of the war; one has to win the secret war after the aliens are defeated.

I'd make the tech tree much broader and dependent on localized resources. If there's a neptronium deposit under the arctic ocean, only the faction that controls the mining platform has access, and only they can make neptronium ammunition. But perhaps they can sell it... Anyway, player factions would radically diverge. If the National Philosophy Working Group discovers psi effects early on, they can grab that and make use of it. In the same game, Blackwell Security Contracting might put lots of research into conventional guns and training, and Excelsior Areospace might find antigrav generators in a crashed alien spacecraft.

By the time the shadow war begins, the three factions may differ more from each other than the aliens did!

I really like this idea. Then again, I'm ever the sucker for secret wars...

I'd also give each faction a random non-exclusive starting tech, so that even with the same positions of groups and resources, there is variance.

The big issue would be balancing it so that no group gets shafted by RNGesus, I imagine. Aliums only land on your turf when they can walk all over you and then disappear into enemy territory forever? Sucks to be you!

So, rather than XCOM detection range thing, I imagine something along the lines of setting up safehouses and fronts and being able to deploy from these and/or something like the Long War 2 infiltration timer, so that with two groups operating in the same area and one being closer, the other can try to deploy earlier and have to take on a harder mission in exchange for having a head start.

[Mathel]

How about once a mission has "started", it is seen by all players and they have 6 in-game hours to get there before it begins properly?

[PTTG??]

Maybe make it so that some types of missions involve an initial "stakeout" period, where no matter when you arrive, you have to wait on-site for anything from ten minutes to an hour or two. This would increase the number of events that involve multiple player parties acting at the same time.

And yeah, I imagine that territory in this game would be very nebulous, and even the event-detection-system stuff is on the tech tree. If you use high tech to see an event going down inside someone else's territory, do you notify them and ask to run a co-op mission? Or do you stealth in and try to take the event yourself?

I really like the idea of players being able to specialize. If my faction has great sensors and field research, I should be able to sell info to the other sides, and buy fire support from someone else.

I guess that this implies that some kind of currency should exist, and I'm not sure what that should be. Cash or even gold still has some value, but it might be better to use a fantastic resource like alien power cells or even an abstract "political support" unit.

[Mathel]

If you trade on the black market, you have to use money. But between players whatever they accept at the moment.

5 heavy plasmas for 2 alien power cores? No problem.

[scrdest]

You know, I think the stakeout thing could work like this:

You have X hours of no frills preparations, getting the team briefed and ready - it's just padding, to let most of those interested to participate but favoring those with a position nearby with the extra time.

Then you have some more hours of covert insertion preparation - if you launch before this, you start with your cover blown since you just tossed your guys out of a black helicopter a'la EXALT or whatever in an urban centre rather than being sneaky. This allows a whole stealth system thing for groups which choose to specialize in it along with an option for Michael Bay Ops not to bother.

Then you could have the final period where you can wait to boost your odds... somehow. My first idea was everyone who joined starts at the same time, but the heavy preppers get some free moves for every Y hours, but I feel like that might cause issues on second thought.

Or maybe fluff it as recon, and give them things like getting a general shape of the area, number of enemies, position on detectors, etc., with increasing amount of that stuff revealed every so much time spent. So the 'locals' get a home turf advantage by knowing the lay of the land.

Speaking of that last thing, it could be expanded; you could have an overmap structure/deployable of, say, controlling the local SIGINT agency that give you sight range for battlescape camera objects, and a Hacker class that can do that temporarily for single structures in battlescape.

[PTTG??]

Ok, so let's go with it being a thaumic upswing. The beginning of the Age of Aquarius. It's not magic, but it is a Meta-Axionic General Information Cohesivity-based phenomenon.

The invasion is the appearance of anomalies, which must be suppressed before the general public becomes aware of it. There is a single overall "masquerade integrity" that overt action by any side decreases.

Controling public perception is key. From bribing news agencies to delete a tape to shutting down the internet to developing psionic wipe devices.

Oh man, the tech tree would be so awesome though. Start with something that's basically an MRI machine that causes a week of long-term memory loss, and gradually upgrade it to these little laser pointers that overwrite specific events in moments.

Anomolies vary widely. A nest of Hemotrophic Demihuman Spirital Entities in a basement might be a tough fight, but they're just as interested in preserving the masquerade as you are. A 5-year-old born under the Sign of Hermies who can't do anything aggressive, but does know how to conjure glowing orbs of light? That's scary. And also... potentially useful.

[TheBiggerFish]

....Hey, maybe we should make this one?

[TBeholder]

What I'd like is an adversarial version of the full game, with one player as aliens and one player as XCOM. Both play on the geoscape, until one finds cause to initiate a battle.

UFO:AI has tactical multiplayer, but that's it.

It would be also interesting to have more different organisations active (like in XCom: Apocalypse) and/or play as divisions of one.
Or… It would be kind of fun if you're controlling an agency running local armed response and have to deal with superiors (your moderately pointy-haired government), neighbours and then also XCOM (once it's officially starts and starts draining resources and recruits from you and your backers) - including decisions "We can handle it!" / "Call XCOM!" and trade for stuff from the joint program's R&D (or back and forth if you brought some toys for your scientists). The science, industry, land and finance resources are allocated to you by your government depending on the country/alliance and how well you perform (and parties do things just to screw each other over, so unless you perform well enough that messing with you is bad PR… your FUN is right there), screw-ups count against you, and you lose if either aliens infiltrate too much and Vichy-fy the place, or politicians say "Meh, just give it all to XCOM".

I imagine this would work better in Oldcom rules though, as the player can be more proactive in that game. In XCOM the player only ever reacts, where as in Oldcom you could send your Interceptors to patrol and explore.

And then there are fan remakes. UFO:AI even shows radar circles of your patrolling aircraft (just like for base and standalone radar installations).

[Egan_BW]

I's like to think that if your organization is shut down and X-Com drives off the aliens instead, that's not as much of a fail condition as the aliens winning. It's not about who gets to kill the ayys, it's about whether the ayys get killed at all.

[Scoops Novel]

Someone should make a 60 hour rpg, to be played in one hour. 60 different events and scenarios, chosen at random, with the real threat of permadeath or failure at any time, followed up with a brand new mission. When you finally win one, you'll be crowing to the moon... and then you'll go into the next mission, and die horribly.