Greetings Operatives,
at the moment we know that we will have 4 factions with some common (assault, heavy, sniper) classes with particular tweaks according to the faction and some elite/unique classes (infiltrator, mutog handler), but what about independent havens?
Some havens will be under the faction control, others are going to be splinters of those factions, but what about 100% independent ones?
The independent havens (IH) are probably going to be the majority, at least at the beginning, each one with its background and behavior, but they all share a common denominator, they are all composed by common people surviving the apocalypseâŚso far.
So why not add a special class for them.
I am thinking about the interactions between us (Phoenix Project) and the IH.
PPrj isnât interested in conquering the world like the other factions are more keen to do, they just want to save humankind, in fact if you didnât side with any faction you arenât going to enforce some other one ideology on IH, so they will keep their independence.
As any other settlement you will find on the geoscape to grow up a relation you will probably have to start helping the IH in their tasks, probably linked to survival and defense. After you worked with/for them for a while they will become friendly towards you and people in the IH will start to want to provide their support.
I immagine faction havens you sided with to provide faction troops, faction equipment and resources but probably or you will have to pay for them or those aids will come in very low quantity. You are still just an allied to their faction, so I immagine the most part of their, letâs say, production goes to the faction itself.
IH are another thing, when you are allied with them, you both are on par, there isnât a third party involved. So they will give you all the support they can.
This mechanic will help the player that do not want to side with a faction to have a more balanced game too.
So here it comes the new IH class.
Overtime, according to the relations between you and them, the haven development, size, and whatever power mechanics will be in the final game, a group of volunteers from the IH will knock at the door of your base to bring their help.
These soldiers will be a jack all trade, all average stats, poorly ragtag equipped people.
As soon as they join you, you will probably give them all the obsolete weapons you arenât using anymore for your main strike forces, then send them to training room (if there is going to be one), and be happy to have some free more guys to defend your base (that arenât scientists or engineers armed just of good intentions).
When I look at them I see all those characters that in movies/books arenât the main protagonists but through their help, courage and sacrifice, they help the âcool guysâ to win.
A part from keeping them in your base for extra defense power, you could employ them as cannon fodder in your main strike forces, or to fill in the gaps of a wounded or killed operatives, or in extreme situations send a whole squad of them to deal with an unexpected threat. In the latter situation probably most of them will die, but they will save the day.
I think this idea gives lot of potential for further development, you could give them some passive skill that if they fight in their IH to defend it they get some boosts, if their IH is lost due to PV some get an âall is lostâ modifier making them very weak and almost useless in deployment out of base defense, while others get ânever forget, never forgiveâ giving them a passive bonus when fighting against PV. If you deploy more volunteers of a same IH together or a whole squad of them they all will be boosted cause of a âbrothers in armsâ like situation. All of this stuff will make them acceptable operatives, useful and fun to be used even if never a top tier.
Let me know what you think about this draft of an idea.
I would prefer them to be just recruits at our gates and we carve them to any PP class that we have access. No need for any IH class. And of course they could have those modifiers you mentioned. And while defending their Haven they can be civilian, assault or sniper similar to PP faction.
I will try to explain my PoV.
If you recruit someone that is from a faction, he grew up under that ideology, training and such. So when you recruit an Assault from NJ he probably trained months before becoming one.
If a ragtag guy with a rusty hunting rifle arrives at your door and you tell him ânow you are a NJ Assaultâ and he gets the related skills and stuff to unlock through char development, well itâs âMAGICâ for me.
You can equip the IH guy with a Gauss Rifle and he will be able to shoot with it, but not getting any related skill a standard faction trained NJ Assault operatives will get.
Thinking this way, you should not be able to unlock any NJ faction skill, since that soldier is no longer with NJ but is with you. So he will have NJ skills that he has got until arrival to you and nothing more. But I think that we will be able to fully train soldiers in their respective roles when we will unlock such class training from specific faction. Thus we will be able to train someone from Disciples of Anu as New Jericho Heavy (so he will have his basic DoA class and second from NJ). Same goes with soldiers from IH. Probably there will be some basic civilian class. But well⌠Maybe Iâm wrong about it.
When you recruit a faction soldier he will come with his skill tree. Training a DoA as a NJ seems quite hard as one rely on mutations and the other on augmentationâŚso probably you can equip a DoA with NJ stuff but again, he wonât magically get NJ skills for the Heavy elite class for example.
About Phoenix Project I think your pure PP recruits are going to be Operatives of inactive cells scattered all around the world that through mission and stuff you will get in contact with.
So there is no logical motivation to put a faction skill tree on an IH.
I would say it is not impossible. Take Supermutants from Fallout as example. Even P-Virus incorporate mechanical parts into their bodies like machine gun for crabmen, some launchers for queen (seen on screenshots and concept arts) But we will see. Maybe I expect too much from multi-class system.
When you will know how to train specific class (you will have unlocked proper technology in research tree) then why couldnât you train them like that?
You know what? After thinking about it I would gladly welcome another class(es) from IH after all. I would love to see them as fully developed as in other factions. Maybe not so deadly, but handling many aspects in their scope of role. So typically good for any job but not experts at it - unless combined with other factionâs classes. And they could be deployed by each IH during haven defence mission, running next to your squad as experienced allied units.
I hope not. I really hope that those inexperienced recruits from IH (or even from other factions) can be turned into pure PP soldiers. They just need to be simple level 1 guys and gals waiting for your shining training facilities to turn them into super âphoenixâ soldiers.
1.In PP lore is important and awesomely made, so if cross tech is going to be a thing I doubt NJ would even touch something from DoA. Anyway techs and skills are going to be divided as skill set seems to be somehow random according to char background and unlocked through deployment.
2. Welcome aboard the IH train!
3. It has been told that PP bases are limited and personnel is a scarce resource to manage wisely, so I donât think and hope getting PP operatives is going to be that easy.
I think individual classes for independent havens might make them a bit âOPâ comparatively. The thing with Anu, Synedrion, and NJ is that they all have organization, supplies, and experience that makes them tougher and better situated in the apocalyptic world. Thus, it makes sense they have special classes and whatnot. It would be strange for independent havens without those advantages to have such perks :o
But independent havens still can cooperate, and they probably know their surroundings and locations of all neighbouring havens. Like city-state if they are in good âplaceâ they can manage to do great things in the meantime rejecting ideology of main 3 factions. You know something like Vault City in Fallout 2. They were highly orginized and quite powerful in their vicinity.
IH people have survived two mists, world war 3 and who knows how many other difficulties and struggles, even without the organization and resources of the main factions.
So such common people heroes need proper attention.
As I said they wonât have top tier advanced skills but more like âlast standâ, âsacrificeâ or âtell my wife I loved herââŚfor example an IH volunteer if killed in melee will detonate any explosive/grenade in his inventory bringing any foe around with him.
Iâm liking this idea, especially since what we know about classes is that they are representative of a characters skills and abilities and a Grizzled Survivor would have very different skills to a Soldier or a Sniper
Yes, and as IH survivors would come from very different backgrounds and no faction training would be nice to get a ârandomâ skill tree for everyone according to personal story life and IH characteristics. I mean create a pool of skill that combined in different ways can do the trick.
I was thinking even to add some family bonds, for example if 2 brothers join you and you put them in the same squad as long as they fight together they get a bonus will point. IH are communities so itâs easier to find family members fighting side by side, probably in an IH everyone is called to arms when needed, unlike factions that have difference between civilians and armed forces.
Sharing from battle brothers were different backgrounds have different traits, instead of specific skills, recruits from different factions or havens may have different traits that are unique to this faction or heaven, each trait could add or substract points to a speciffic stat or be will modifiers (f.e an Anu soldier not paniking if a mate is infected and a NJ soldier paniking because of the same reason). Traits only will affect the character and skills will be related to classes and items.
Well I understood that this is already a feature, that background and faction will actively affect the pool of skills and perks of each character, meaning for example that all NJ assault soldiers arenât going to be all the same copy-paste.
What I am telling is that IH class will leave much more freedom as factions have to follow a fixed canon.
Same goes with soldiers from IH. Probably there will be some basic civilian class. But well⌠Maybe Iâm wrong about it.
So typically good for any job but not experts at it - unless combined with other factionâs classes. And they could be deployed by each IH during haven defence mission, running next to your squad as experienced allied units.