>>190065Your idea has merit. Mods do have a long history of eventually becoming standalone projects. UFO Defense still has some limitations that I don't think I'll be able to fully overcome, but I think I could make something still. It won't be able to check off everything on my wishlist, but I could possibly get a proof of concept on how viable the "100 soldiers only" thing could be.
One of my main concerns is stealth. It just doesn't work very well in this game. It's funny you mention X-Piratez, I downloaded it yesterday and have been giving it a try. I had a "stealth" mission against some bandits to attack an airfield. It mentioned the plane I'm stealing being in parts, so I thought I could pick it up and evacuate. Then the game puts all of my girls basically in the center of the facility (which is dumb) and surrounded by enemies who are literally 3 tiles away and looking at me. I couldn't beat that mission, but I doubt there was actually any crates I could pick up and run with in the first place.
The other concern is the Geoscape. If it were an XCOM mod, I think my idea for the Space Marines handling human agents (who would be able to blend in with the other humans on the occupied planet where Astartes could not) would be very different than what I had in mind.
Let me lay out my idea first.
The player starts with hundreds, or even a thousand no-name "agents" who were the crewmen of the Strike Cruiser 'Vagus Anima.' After getting lost in the warp, the ship was heavily damaged, and so these crewmen are no longer needed in their duties until the ship is repaired. So they get stealthily transported across the planet as seeds that will grow into cells of saboteurs and intel operatives. The planet itself is divided into 10 provinces with a few cities in each (ala council of funding nations). Agents passively generate "insights" which will eventually become actionable intel, like static facilities housing repair components, T'au patrol routes, or the address of an annoying pro-T'au politician. Covert operations can be done with these Agents, rolling the dice on the ability of these humans to get the job done. In this way, the Agents are a resource that can be burned. There will always be the chance for losses among them, but more agents can be recruited among the imperial loyalists in the population.
Most of this sounds like it can be done. Indeed, X-COM Files did something similar, where the HQ and Intel buildings added a small amount to "Global Detection" which would occasionally reveal cultist transports or the odd UFO before the invasion fully started. I could possibly have the XCOM bases instead be covert hideouts (like X-Piratez or the Outposts in ROSIGMA) where the amount of Agents living inside directly influence the size/efficacy of the base's radar capabilities.
But something I really wanted for my game was for the player to have the opportunity to be -proactive- in their strategy, like preparing an ambush on the Geoscape. Causing problems somewhere to draw away T'au reinforcements while another team accomplishes the actual objective. For example, causing a mass-shooting in the T'au hab zones (can't let people forget the Space Marines are xenocidal assholes) to get the military's attention while a covert team breaks into a research station to rescue an Astropath. There would be many, many opportunities across the planet for the player to start shit at any given moment on any given day. But the player isn't expected to take even 1% of those opportunities until it serves some greater purpose. It's a planet controlled by the T'au, eventually the player will learn the positions of most of their static military bases. But there won't be a reason to attack them if the T'au can just come in with a fresh garrison.
So at the same time, the player would be sowing the seeds of rebellion among the humans. Gangs of guerrillas cause problems without exposing Agents to risk. Eventually they become big enough to attack the T'au directly, and be able to hold static positions that the Marines conquer. The humans on the planet outnumber the T'au 10:1, and due to some plot contrivances the T'au are cut off from reinforcements as well. (I was thinking of setting this a few years after the 4th Sphere Expansion)
So there'd be guerilla armies, T'au desperately trying to make and keep a frontline, internal politics among the rebel factions, winning the hearts and minds of the humans (it's been a few generations of 'benevolent' T'au rule), each thing changing the environment in which the Space Marines operate on the Geoscape in order to complete their mission of trying to go home. Either by fixing their ship to be warp-capable again, building a psychic relay tower and gathering enough astropaths to phone home, or by conquering the entire damn planet so they can do the first two options in peace.
There's much more to this idea, many little details and tangents. It's not worth getting into all of them right now, I think. I could implement a little bit of each idea in very hacky ways. There's definitely bits and pieces of the different megamods I could use, combining them into my own thing. As a mod, it'd be a lot simpler than the final product, but if I can make the mod fun, then I think it'd be a good sign that the final product could also be good fun. It's worth at least brainstorming how I can adapt my ideas for XCOM, and then do some programming magic and ruleset illusions to smooth the edges. One big problem would be the fact that XCOM missions/UFOs are decided at the turn of the month...
By Celestia, I swear I'm sounding like an 'ideas guy' right now. The scope of what I want might be too large to be feasible, but dammit if this game is just a dream for now then why shouldn't I dream big?
>>190067That would be fun to make as a mod for my own game, so I don't sued by Hasbro. Maybe I could even hire their VAs for my own shitty dialogue? Talking ponies wouldn't be too out of place in X-Piratez or XCOM Files...