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Author Topic: Game looks good, some extra suggestions.  (Read 4089 times)

Wanderer

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Game looks good, some extra suggestions.
« on: April 12, 2007, 08:06:43 pm »
First, the game rocks.  Thank you.  It's good to see XCom again.

Second, I apologize if these are posted all over the place and I couldn't find them.  I did do a browse through the forum as well as a brief search on a few items that I thought might have been brought up before.

Equipping Soldiers to Aircraft and with gear

- In the equip aircraft with soldiers screen, allow us to see their health to decide if we want them on the next mission or in the hospital.

- Once a soldier's equipped, keep him equipped.  No reason to remove gear from a soldier I've set up just so but needs some R&R in the hospital, or just want to switch his aircraft.  This would require, however, a way to deal with a soldier's equipment outside of the aircraft loadout screen.

- If a weapon has no ammo (IE: Producing guns and not clips), Offer a warning or show the available ammo in the gun on screen so we can see this, instead of assuming there's a clip in the weapon.

- Show the weapon's skill usage on the equipping screen (sniper, heavy, assault, close, High Exp).  

- Lighten up a little on the selectivity on placing items in a specific slot.  I've started going faster on equipping screens and dropped an item into the hand only to have it returned to the floor.  Also when dragging things to the floor in base let it auto-sort itself instead of finding a blank space for it.

Hiring Soldiers:

- Took me a bit to realize that more people would become available eventually when I first started.  Something indicating when the next batch becomes available, or a note that pops up on the geoscape (and stops time) would be nice when new recruits are available.

Buying/Selling gear:

- Don't show gear equipped to soldiers as sellable items.  Nothing hurts worse then realizing Bazooka Joe went into combat without his Bazooka...

- A sell all button, or sell 10x, would be nice.

Tactical Map:

- Instead of control, Rt-Click to turn would be nice.  The 'middle click' doesn't work well for laptop users.

- Hot keys to the weapon's firing system and being able to arrow to select which you want would be nice.

- A little more wisdom on the High Explosives weapons (grenade and rocket launcher come to mind) when you set them to reaction fire and shoot right next to a team mate.  

- Destructable environments - When I looked over the map editor you have, it seemed like you could build destructable buildings and whatnot... is it just a matter that there are no maps built with this or does it need further review?

- Reasonable firing lines for snipers.  Example: Sniper's on a roof, sees the enemy (via his head, he's below him).  So, I aim headshot, and I get nothing but roof...  In theory, a sniper would shoot from head to head on a headshot, not waist to waist.  Under most circumstances, if you can see him, you can shoot at him, even if your chances are miserable in connecting.

- More distributed stats for both players and aliens.  It's amusing to see a recruit with outstanding or superhuman gunning abilities... and a speed of 8.  I'd like to see the results brought towards an average, and a lower average at that.

Base Map:

- Some items are hard to tell how much room they'd take up before you install them, IE: Large UFO Bay.  Put an outline on the base map during building placement so we can see what it'll take up.

- Lower the price for hospitals (or create a cheap 'first aid bay' or something) if we can't force hire new recruits.

- Add in some non-camo camo, like red/blue/yellow... I like to be able to tell at a glance who's my cannon fodder, and who's not.  While we're at it, can we get the checkbox that decides if a camo scheme affects the whole ship or not to work properly?

Offline blondandy

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Game looks good, some extra suggestions.
« Reply #1 on: April 13, 2007, 10:17:27 am »
I agree with you on all points.

I have read (somewhere on this forum or the TODO wiki or ...) that there are plans to overhaul the inverntory system (which covers many of your suggestions).

many of the points you raise have been mentioned (like turning with MMB, RMB, CTRL) already.

Offline Zenerka

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Re: Game looks good, some extra suggestions.
« Reply #2 on: April 13, 2007, 12:56:57 pm »
Quote from: "Wanderer"
- In the equip aircraft with soldiers screen, allow us to see their health to decide if we want them on the next mission or in the hospital.

Yes, that should be done, we already talked about that and we should implement that soon.
Quote from: "Wanderer"
- Once a soldier's equipped, keep him equipped.  No reason to remove gear from a soldier I've set up just so but needs some R&R in the hospital, or just want to switch his aircraft.  This would require, however, a way to deal with a soldier's equipment outside of the aircraft loadout screen.

There are plans for rewriting and rearranging equipment/inventory code as well as menu. These plans cover what you wrote.
Quote from: "Wanderer"
- If a weapon has no ammo (IE: Producing guns and not clips), Offer a warning or show the available ammo in the gun on screen so we can see this, instead of assuming there's a clip in the weapon.

The weapons with no ammo should go red/blue to point that there is no ammo loaded in. Doesn't that work for you? Or do you mean something other?
Quote from: "Wanderer"
- Show the weapon's skill usage on the equipping screen (sniper, heavy, assault, close, High Exp).

It is ammo-dependent, not weapon-depended. Select an ammo and look to object info window in equipping screen.
Quote from: "Wanderer"
- Don't show gear equipped to soldiers as sellable items.  Nothing hurts worse then realizing Bazooka Joe went into combat without his Bazooka...

Good point. I will fix that ASAP.
Quote from: "Wanderer"
- A little more wisdom on the High Explosives weapons (grenade and rocket launcher come to mind) when you set them to reaction fire and shoot right next to a team mate.

In general, high explosives weapons should not be allowed to be used in RF. That is a bug which needs to be fixed.
Quote from: "Wanderer"
- More distributed stats for both players and aliens.  It's amusing to see a recruit with outstanding or superhuman gunning abilities... and a speed of 8.  I'd like to see the results brought towards an average, and a lower average at that.

Should already be fixed in current trunk, will go to 2.1.1 as well, most probably.
Quote from: "Wanderer"
- Some items are hard to tell how much room they'd take up before you install them, IE: Large UFO Bay.  Put an outline on the base map during building placement so we can see what it'll take up.

Nice one - please fill the new feature request on our sf tracker.
Quote from: "Wanderer"
- Add in some non-camo camo, like red/blue/yellow... I like to be able to tell at a glance who's my cannon fodder, and who's not.  While we're at it, can we get the checkbox that decides if a camo scheme affects the whole ship or not to work properly?

I don't understand what do you mean here.

EDIT: erm, the weapons with no ammo should go red/brown, not red/blue, of course.

Wanderer

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Re: Game looks good, some extra suggestions.
« Reply #3 on: April 13, 2007, 05:23:04 pm »
Thanks for the fast response, Zenerka.

Quote from: "Zenerka"
Quote from: "Wanderer"
- If a weapon has no ammo (IE: Producing guns and not clips), Offer a warning or show the available ammo in the gun on screen so we can see this, instead of assuming there's a clip in the weapon.

The weapons with no ammo should go red/blue to point that there is no ammo loaded in. Doesn't that work for you? Or do you mean something other?


Either I'm blind or I didn't notice.  I will pay more attention in the future.  It's rare I have a gun without ammo but I did catch myself accidentally on one.  They were red iwhen attempting to play the tactical, but I didn't notice the color change when I was equipping them in the aircraft bay.  May simply be ID10T error.  

Quote from: "Zenerka"
Quote from: "Wanderer"
- Show the weapon's skill usage on the equipping screen (sniper, heavy, assault, close, High Exp).

It is ammo-dependent, not weapon-depended. Select an ammo and look to object info window in equipping screen.


I see.  The UFOPaedia makes it appear to be weapon dependent, which is how my confusion came about.  When I'm not at work I will try what you suggest.   Thank you.

Quote from: "Zenerka"
Quote from: "Wanderer"
- Some items are hard to tell how much room they'd take up before you install them, IE: Large UFO Bay.  Put an outline on the base map during building placement so we can see what it'll take up.

Nice one - please fill the new feature request on our sf tracker.


Um, will try. :)  If you end up with some garble that resembles this item you'll know where it came from.

Quote from: "Zenerka"
Quote from: "Wanderer"
- Add in some non-camo camo, like red/blue/yellow... I like to be able to tell at a glance who's my cannon fodder, and who's not.  While we're at it, can we get the checkbox that decides if a camo scheme affects the whole ship or not to work properly?

I don't understand what do you mean here.


I want my cannon fodder troops to be glowing bright red so I know they get to check out all the blind corners. Trying to figure out who's got the jungle camo vs. who's got the arctic camo at a glance is difficult.

I need my red shirt disposable actors! :)

Offline Zenerka

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Re: Game looks good, some extra suggestions.
« Reply #4 on: April 13, 2007, 05:59:19 pm »
Quote from: "Wanderer"
I want my cannon fodder troops to be glowing bright red so I know they get to check out all the blind corners. Trying to figure out who's got the jungle camo vs. who's got the arctic camo at a glance is difficult.

Ah, camo as camouflage. Now I understand.
In general that would not be a problem - our code allows us to support as many camouflages as we have.
The only one very minor problem left - someone has to do new camouflages. For every type of human armour (currently there are two: Combat Armour and Nanocomposite Armour, which makes three version of such camouflage). Here, in the female* and male* directories one can find examples of camouflages (texture files) currently used.

Wanderer

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Re: Game looks good, some extra suggestions.
« Reply #5 on: April 13, 2007, 06:13:39 pm »
Quote from: "Zenerka"

The only one very minor problem left - someone has to do new camouflages. For every type of human armour (currently there are two: Combat Armour and Nanocomposite Armour, which makes three version of such camouflage). Here, in the female* and male* directories one can find examples of camouflages (texture files) currently used.

I love it when you stare at something, it makes perfect sense, and then realize the only reason it makes sense is you have NO idea what you're really doing. XD

Having never designed models, or anything of the sort, would it simply be a matter of borrowing the .jpg's and modifying the colors involved, or do they need to be stapled onto a model file somehow with some software?

Offline Zenerka

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Game looks good, some extra suggestions.
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2007, 06:35:08 pm »
/base/models/soldiers/female/body_desert.jpg - make some changes in this file and see the effect in game by selecting female soldier without any armour and enabling desert camouflage

PS Unpack 0models.pk3 (zip file) to get such directories and after that remove that 0models.pk3 file
PPS Good luck!

Wanderer

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Game looks good, some extra suggestions.
« Reply #7 on: April 13, 2007, 09:24:46 pm »
Quote from: "Zenerka"
/base/models/soldiers/female/body_desert.jpg - make some changes in this file and see the effect in game by selecting female soldier without any armour and enabling desert camouflage

PS Unpack 0models.pk3 (zip file) to get such directories and after that remove that 0models.pk3 file
PPS Good luck!


Thank you for the unpack information, I needed it.

When I modify the file in question, it doesn't have an effect in game.  I'm using the Windows version.  Do I need to push this file to a new location, or back into the .pk3 file, for the modifications to take effect?

Offline Zenerka

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Game looks good, some extra suggestions.
« Reply #8 on: April 15, 2007, 04:15:28 pm »
Did you remove 0models.pk3 after unpacking?

Wanderer

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Game looks good, some extra suggestions.
« Reply #9 on: April 16, 2007, 05:29:19 pm »
Quote from: "Zenerka"
Did you remove 0models.pk3 after unpacking?


Nope... will do that now.