Why can't we carry alien corpses?

sarge945
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Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by sarge945 »

As you know, in Long War 2, finding alien corpses can be a huge hassle, and can delay your techs significantly. In the same way that my troops can carry unconscious or dead friendly soldiers to the evac zone, why can't we carry dead enemies as well for their corpses? It would be especially cool if we could carry out an unconscious enemy and "interrogate" them, which would give us a small intel cache as well as a corpse. I can't remember if there are ways to make an enemy unconscious.

I just think it would smooth out the lack of bodies issue a little.

I know there is a mod that does this, but IIRC it isn't compatible with LW2 and, even if it is, probably isn't balanced around it.
azarga
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by azarga »

It's PI way of trying to manage your resource income rates and making non-extractrion missions more valuable.

I'm using this mod though (with some .ini edits to disallow carrying massive creatures)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... ry+corpses

Because I think it only makes sense to allow you to extract any corpses that your soldiers actually deliver to EVAC with them. Wouldn't expect that mechanic as part of LW2 anytime soon (ever).
Clibanarius
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by Clibanarius »

sarge945 wrote:I know there is a mod that does this, but IIRC it isn't compatible with LW2 and, even if it is, probably isn't balanced around it.
It is compatible. No mods that alter gameplay are 'balanced' because LW2 itself is only balanced for usage alone. So go hog wild and use Extract Corpses and enjoy the game.
cryptc
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by cryptc »

I use Extract Corpses with LW2 and it works fine. I find it promotes "push your luck" type playing where you can either focus fully on the objective, or you can send your shinobi back a bit to pick up that corpse you need and hope that little detour doesn't cost you the mission (or a soldier).

Probably still unbalanced, but I'd rather add features like these and then up the difficulty to match it (not really necessary since Veteran LW2 is still super hard for me)
sarge945
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by sarge945 »

That's fair enough, thanks for the responses. I will run this mod.

Since it technically gives me an advantage, can anyone recommend a mod which will make the aliens slightly more powerful to match without making them insane?
Saph7
Long War 2 Crew
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by Saph7 »

sarge945 wrote:As you know, in Long War 2, finding alien corpses can be a huge hassle, and can delay your techs significantly. In the same way that my troops can carry unconscious or dead friendly soldiers to the evac zone, why can't we carry dead enemies as well for their corpses?
Because within a couple of weeks, everyone would be making sure to end every single guerilla op by having every remaining soldier pick up 1 corpse each. It'd turn the last five minutes of every single mission into an extremely tedious pick-up-and-move exercise.

The game would then have to be rebalanced around the assumption that players were getting an extra 4-5 corpses every mission, so you'd get fewer rewards from Troop Columns, etc. End result would be that you had exactly as many corpses as you did at the beginning, except now you'd be penalised if you didn't put in your five minutes' corpse retrieval duty every mission.

Players would notice that they weren't any further ahead in supply and complain about still not having enough corpses and would ask why their soldiers could only carry one corpse each. After all, they could manage two if they dragged them, right? And why not carry one corpse to the evac zone, drop it, and go back for another one?

Modders would respond by creating an "Extract Multiple Corpses" mod.

The final result would be one soldier running to the evac zone on a Jailbreak, carrying a stack of 4 Advent Troopers, 2 Advent Captains, 1 Advent Stunlancer, 2 Sectoids, a Viper, a Muton, and three Drones, which someone would screenshot and post to imgur with a caption of 'that's LW2, boys'.

And nobody wants that.

(PS - they're adjusting the alien spawn rates for 1.3, so you shouldn't be bottlenecked on stuff like Andromedon corpses quite so often anymore.)
Jacke
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by Jacke »

I used the mod Extract Corpses quite a bit. I did edit its INI so my troops could only carry out human-weight bodies and not Mutons, Andromedons, etc. I would have used the Fulton Harness for them, but I never had a good chance to try it out.

I don't think Extract Corpses unbalances LW2 to any significant degree. I didn't find the extra actions needed to carry the bodies that burdensome. Playing XCOM Bodysnatchers has its own built-in risks, as I did get Reinforcements drop on my troops due to delays shifting the bodies and even got a few wounds out of them I wouldn't have received otherwise.

What I did get is no silly lack of corpses when it should be obvious if XCOM can carry out their own troops, they can carry out ADVENT troops.
Maebalzurakin
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by Maebalzurakin »

sarge945 wrote:That's fair enough, thanks for the responses. I will run this mod.

Since it technically gives me an advantage, can anyone recommend a mod which will make the aliens slightly more powerful to match without making them insane?
Harder? Try playing the game with this other mod too.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... earchtext=

It activates ALL pods on the map as soon as you break concealment. Very fun. Very tough even on rookie. Very realistic. Strange they could call for reinforcements from 10 miles away, but they couldn't call the other pod 50 feet away. :lol:


You might also want to include this....
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =618077830

True concealment Gives you a few extra turns by not starting reinforcement counters until concealment is broken.

If you can finish your objective and manage to grab a corpse on the way, then you deserve it.
sarge945
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by sarge945 »

I tried using All Pods Active, it makes the game so insanely, ridiculously hard. I love the concept of it, it makes more sense from a gameplay perspective, but it just makes it so insanely and unfairly hard. I have about a 99% chance of a squad wipe.

I would happily use it with some buffs to my soldiers though. I kinda wish Long War 2 had gone for a similar approach, and balanced around that, since it does play a lot better, but that's just my opinion.
Steve-O
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by Steve-O »

cryptc wrote:I use Extract Corpses with LW2 and it works fine. I find it promotes "push your luck" type playing where you can either focus fully on the objective, or you can send your shinobi back a bit to pick up that corpse you need and hope that little detour doesn't cost you the mission (or a soldier).
QFT.

I don't find the Extract Corpses mod to be unbalanced at all. I also don't use fulton harness, on principle, though. So maybe just ignore that item if you're worried about the mod making things too easy.

You can't shoot while carrying a body, so it's not like you're picking up every body between the start and the extraction zone. Time limits and enemy reinforcements still force you to keep moving, and putting yourself down a gun to pull out a corpse is a tactical trade-off.
Clibanarius
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by Clibanarius »

By the way, the vanilla XCOM2 configuration inis has a setting for REDUCE MOBILITY WHILE CARRYING that is disabled by default. Set that to 6. Also, disable the Fulton Device. Enjoy, Extract Corpses now balanced.
sarge945
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by sarge945 »

Clibanarius wrote:By the way, the vanilla XCOM2 configuration inis has a setting for REDUCE MOBILITY WHILE CARRYING that is disabled by default. Set that to 6. Also, disable the Fulton Device. Enjoy, Extract Corpses now balanced.
Sounds fantastic!
Clibanarius
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by Clibanarius »

Yeah, it makes it actually a huge trade-off when going for corpses. They're losing a ton of mobility, can't fire back, and reinforcements could drop on your ass while trying to make off with that Muton corpse you so desperately need for Plasma Grenades in April. :P
LordYanaek
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by LordYanaek »

Clibanarius wrote:By the way, the vanilla XCOM2 configuration inis has a setting for REDUCE MOBILITY WHILE CARRYING that is disabled by default. Set that to 6. Also, disable the Fulton Device. Enjoy, Extract Corpses now balanced.
And enjoy never being able to extract a dark VIP alive or save an unconscious squadmate :twisted:
Antifringe
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by Antifringe »

As much as I liked Guerilla War, I have to agree with the naysayers here. I tried mixing the Extract Corpses mod with LW2, and there's a really good reason it's not included by default.

People are understating how powerful it is. I know it doesn't feel strong, because it's only a little bit extra cash each mission, but it seriously adds up, especially in a game environment where the default loot for most missions is almost zero. I was nabbing 4-6 corpses a mission, and double or triple that if I was using Fultons. Sure, sometimes extracting with a corpse is tricky, but most of the time, it's really not. You learn how to leapfrog and build corpse piles, etc. I was probably netting an extra 40-60 supplies per mission due to corpse grabbing, and that was without the Fultons. At somewhere around 8-10 missions, that's a fortune. I was never bottlenecked on supplies, ever. But the individual payouts were so low, it took me a while to realize that they were the problem. I just thought that the game was undertuned or something. Then I tried playing without extraction, and holy moley, it was a completely different game.

It basically turns off the economic portion of the game. You can't really balance that just by adding extra powers to the aliens or whatever. That's like "balancing" the loss of an arm by surgically installing a third leg. To make it balanced, you need something that subtracts that extra wealth back out. Of course, if you were using corpse extraction to gain more wealth, then there's no point. You should either just accept that the game is now imbalanced and have fun with it, or not bother with the mod at all. You're adding complication without real change.

If you are interested in corpse extraction to smooth out the tech requirements, that's probably more workable. One way would be to require Fultons for extraction, but make them one use only (as in, the item is permanently lost after you use it). Rig the prices so that the Fulton and the corpses cost more or less the same, or maybe even have the Fultons be a bit more expensive. Now you have a system that lets you pay supplies and a tactical cost to cherry pick the occasional rare alien for your lab. That's a much richer mechanic and could probably be made to work within the complicated ecosystem of LW2.
LordYanaek
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by LordYanaek »

Antifringe wrote: If you are interested in corpse extraction to smooth out the tech requirements, that's probably more workable. One way would be to require Fultons for extraction, but make them one use only (as in, the item is permanently lost after you use it). Rig the prices so that the Fulton and the corpses cost more or less the same, or maybe even have the Fultons be a bit more expensive. Now you have a system that lets you pay supplies and a tactical cost to cherry pick the occasional rare alien for your lab. That's a much richer mechanic and could probably be made to work within the complicated ecosystem of LW2.
I like that idea.
However it looks like 1.3 have changed a number of corpses requirements and Stun Lancers should also be more frequent now that they can show in "Rainbow Pods" so the corpses issue might no longer exist. Let's wait and see.
sarge945
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by sarge945 »

Antifringe wrote:As much as I liked Guerilla War, I have to agree with the naysayers here. I tried mixing the Extract Corpses mod with LW2, and there's a really good reason it's not included by default.

People are understating how powerful it is. I know it doesn't feel strong, because it's only a little bit extra cash each mission, but it seriously adds up, especially in a game environment where the default loot for most missions is almost zero. I was nabbing 4-6 corpses a mission, and double or triple that if I was using Fultons. Sure, sometimes extracting with a corpse is tricky, but most of the time, it's really not. You learn how to leapfrog and build corpse piles, etc. I was probably netting an extra 40-60 supplies per mission due to corpse grabbing, and that was without the Fultons. At somewhere around 8-10 missions, that's a fortune. I was never bottlenecked on supplies, ever. But the individual payouts were so low, it took me a while to realize that they were the problem. I just thought that the game was undertuned or something. Then I tried playing without extraction, and holy moley, it was a completely different game.

It basically turns off the economic portion of the game. You can't really balance that just by adding extra powers to the aliens or whatever. That's like "balancing" the loss of an arm by surgically installing a third leg. To make it balanced, you need something that subtracts that extra wealth back out. Of course, if you were using corpse extraction to gain more wealth, then there's no point. You should either just accept that the game is now imbalanced and have fun with it, or not bother with the mod at all. You're adding complication without real change.

If you are interested in corpse extraction to smooth out the tech requirements, that's probably more workable. One way would be to require Fultons for extraction, but make them one use only (as in, the item is permanently lost after you use it). Rig the prices so that the Fulton and the corpses cost more or less the same, or maybe even have the Fultons be a bit more expensive. Now you have a system that lets you pay supplies and a tactical cost to cherry pick the occasional rare alien for your lab. That's a much richer mechanic and could probably be made to work within the complicated ecosystem of LW2.
Thanks for this. I was thinking there were issues but I couldn't pinpoint them
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JoeShmo
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by JoeShmo »

I never understood the logic of "Well then we'd have to design expecting you to ___", or "Then Ill spend the end of my mission picking up all the bodies", or "Then you'll have more money than you should", etc.

This would be like saying the inverse, "If you add pod reinforcements, then all my units will die before I extract because I have to kill every enemy before I leave".

Neither statement is logical, because it depends entirely on your own behavior; and should we be balancing around behavior, or the suggested gameplay of the game? It's like if you got penalized for getting too many levels before a boss in an RPG. "We want you to be level 5..but you're level 20 ..so we have to design expecting you to be level 20 now". What?

The issue is not whether you should be be able to carry corpses or not ( but it makes sense, since you can carry a lot of other things / people too ), it should be "Why" you would feel the need to carry them to begin with.

The design of missions in a nutshell creates an environment where players feel apprehensive about research, supplies, etc. For one, it runs counter to traditionally how Xcom has always functioned, but for the intended design of LW2 ...its inconsistent and finicky, having to depend on huge RNG layers to line up so that you can get something you need / want. RNG in and of itself isn't that problematic, but when you add layers of it ...it becomes more like a celestial event for something to happen. It's been said that 1.3 is going to address this, but we don't know to what extent exactly, or if it's even going to work / be adequate.

Players want some semblance of determinism, even if it's just a matter of altering your to-hit chance by 5% by positioning your unit differently. Carrying an alien body provides that semblance of altering your fate, and that's rewarding; just like how it would feel to run into an alien weapon out in the field that you know fully well could tip the scales in your favor if you could bring it back to someone to figure out. If PI wants to limit players, they need to do so intuitively, not artificially. Research, for example, is in and of itself intuitive restrictions. It's gating your progress, your success, but only based on your own deterministic behavior. If you start making it so that in order to research anything, you need a .0001% drop from somewhere...then you've removed that player influence.....and made it panning for gold.

If anything, PI could make it so that alien bodies carried from the field could be considered "parts of ____", where you might need 3 or 4 to make a "real" one. Make research require "1 sectoid corpse" or "4 samples of sectoid corpses" as two options for completion. You could say that the reason you only get "samples" from carrying a body..was from the wear and tear getting it into the evac and safe on board. You can't sell samples, can't trade them, etc. so they'd only be used as a "fail safe" means of making sure you don't go large sections ( or the entirety of it ) the campaign without a key research item because you kept getting evac missions with the enemy you needed, and non evac missions with the ones you didn't.
Jacke
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by Jacke »

I like JoeShmo's argument here. I know that Pavonis is trying to balance the game economically, but I don't think that's a good enough reason to prevent corpse extraction. Some other way should be used for that. Anyway, it's time XCOM became the Body Snatchers. :)
Drogmyre
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by Drogmyre »

JoeShmo wrote: The design of missions in a nutshell creates an environment where players feel apprehensive about research, supplies, etc. For one, it runs counter to traditionally how Xcom has always functioned, but for the intended design of LW2 ...its inconsistent and finicky, having to depend on huge RNG layers to line up so that you can get something you need / want. RNG in and of itself isn't that problematic, but when you add layers of it ...it becomes more like a celestial event for something to happen. It's been said that 1.3 is going to address this, but we don't know to what extent exactly, or if it's even going to work / be adequate.
This. You hit the nail on the head, Joe, this is exactly why 1.2 feels off for a lot of people.

The mission discovery roulette wheel has dicked over 3 of my campaigns so far, because I can't generate enough Vigilance. Even with 13 guys on intel, a Scientist Advisor, and the Avenger scanning in a region, I still only get like 6 day infiltration timers, at best. (Yes, I could also have a Radio Relay, which would bump that up to 25 rebels on intel, but still, holy crap.)

That's quite frankly absurd. When you're using the equivalent of 20 rebels on intel, and not getting missions with reasonable timers, something is wrong.

And it's the RNG.

I get that 0% supply raids and such are not intended. I appreciate that fact. However, when I have literally no other options regarding missions, when I have no other options to get corpses, or supplies, or elerium, or alloys, I'm going to do it, because I'm forced to do so by the RNG.

It's not a fun or interesting or balanced game mechanic. There's too much variance, with too little player control. There simply aren't enough missions that grant corpses right now, and there's quite a few mission types that SHOULD (Datatap protection, Pavonis pls) grant corpses but don't (also network tower). So when my only option to get corpses are UFO Landings (which are hard as hell to find), Supply Raids, Troop Columns, and HQ assaults, the latter of which takes literally 5ever to infiltrate, you bet your biscuit I'm gonna go on 0% missions, because I have no other choice due to the RNG.
mattprice516
Long War 2 Crew
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by mattprice516 »

Not sure if it's been mentioned yet but the lack of proper animations and prohibitive time it would take to make them is a major reason.
azarga
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by azarga »

mattprice516 wrote:Not sure if it's been mentioned yet but the lack of proper animations and prohibitive time it would take to make them is a major reason.
Animations are indeed glitchy with most aliens.
If we take into account only the aliens that would be more or less around standard human in weight (makes no sense for XCOM soldier to be able to carry something like Muton or Andromedon etc) from my experience with the "extract corpses" mod:

-sectoids - works fine, apparently skeleton for animation is similar to human characters
-sneks - glitchy - the tail remains fully extended and rigidly "erect" parallel to the ground, i guess since animation skeleton for sneks has no legs part, the tail part is just reset to default position
-drones - completely glitchy, actual model floats somewhere to the side

ADVENT corpses, on the other hand, have no problem with animations.
DaviBones
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by DaviBones »

azarga wrote:
mattprice516 wrote:Not sure if it's been mentioned yet but the lack of proper animations and prohibitive time it would take to make them is a major reason.
Animations are indeed glitchy with most aliens.
If we take into account only the aliens that would be more or less around standard human in weight (makes no sense for XCOM soldier to be able to carry something like Muton or Andromedon etc) from my experience with the "extract corpses" mod:

-sectoids - works fine, apparently skeleton for animation is similar to human characters
-sneks - glitchy - the tail remains fully extended and rigidly "erect" parallel to the ground, i guess since animation skeleton for sneks has no legs part, the tail part is just reset to default position
-drones - completely glitchy, actual model floats somewhere to the side

ADVENT corpses, on the other hand, have no problem with animations.
Very good information for the discussion... Obviously I don't speak for them, but I think that the Long War crew wants to make sure this project is professional, which means, if they are going to do something they want to do it right. In this case that would mean, if you can carry ADVENT corpses out, you should be able to carry snakes and drones out as well, which, as you said, is glitchy. While animating the snake's tail might be feasible, unfortunately, the drone sounds like it would need an all new animation for both the drone and the soldier carrying it, which from the sound of it is not going to happen.
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JoeShmo
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by JoeShmo »

azarga wrote: Animations are indeed glitchy with most aliens.
If we take into account only the aliens that would be more or less around standard human in weight (makes no sense for XCOM soldier to be able to carry something like Muton or Andromedon etc) from my experience with the "extract corpses" mod:
I think it could be reasonable to have a check when you are near a heavy corpse and/or attempt to pick one up.

Are you wearing an Exosuit?
Are you a Spark?
Yes?
Pick that Mutton up!

Animation wise...it's definitely a sad issue; but gameplay wise you could circumvent it entirely if you converted "carry advent / alien" into "salvage advent / alien" . It goes along with what I was talking about in my post, about having a means to convert corpses in tactical into something you can use for strategic. I think it might be a good gameplay mechanic ( say, once per species type per mission ) to allow you to "salvage" the remains of a fallen enemy unit for tech / needed body parts ( I know..that can sound gross..but science! ). It sort of falls in line with item drops that happen during missions, maybe make it so each enemy randomly drops "enemy specific supplies" when they die..using the same pickup timer system as loot usually does. That way you can throttle the frequency of it.

It makes more sense in an atmosphere of quick guerilla tactics to scavenge and go ...rather than devote 2-3 soldiers to dragging dead bodies to an evac point and up a rope. And like I had mentioned in my earlier post as well...you can make it so you have to piece together a few of a particular type of salvage to make it equal to a real one, which would make sense if you are say..salvaging several different pieces of a plasma rifle from different missions. You can "assemble" the parts of a dinosaur together over time ...rather than hoping to find an intact one.
DaviBones
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Re: Why can't we carry alien corpses?

Post by DaviBones »

JoeShmo wrote:...you can make it so you have to piece together a few of a particular type of salvage to make it equal to a real one, which would make sense if you are say..salvaging several different pieces of a plasma rifle from different missions. You can "assemble" the parts of a dinosaur together over time ...rather than hoping to find an intact one.
This is all I could think of when I read this :lol: https://youtu.be/rWHniL8MyMM?t=49s
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