Dear Ufo:AI creators and whoever else (like other forum folks)..
Hello, As you can see, I'm not regular member of this forum but I've played last version of your game (2.1.1 with hotfix2 when I'm typing this) and I wanted to tell you about some things I've observed. I hope you will be able to understand what I'm typing, even when English isn't a language in which I often write. I also want to give you my apologies from advance for some things that I type here which were surely posted by now. Because I don't have net connection at home right now, it's impossible for me to read whole forum. I hope you will not take that as disrespect.
First, I want to report several bugs I've spotted during play:
- One map (mine_crash_05d) crashed the game every time I've let on mission dropship with 8 soldiers. I think that's the bug, because when sending smaller number of troops, I can play game normally.
- Ships don't stop shots! Well, some parts do, but still my soldiers could get shoot throught dropship walls when inside and I've shoot alien throught ship cockpit.
- Reaction fire somewhat bugged - One trooper is allowed to shoot only after other character on map loses all TU. There was situation when alien came into range of several soldiers, one of them opens fire and misses. Then others are waiting until alien shoots several down, and whoever wasn't killed yet starts to shoot. All of them were having pretty high speed, saw enemy for some time and were having enough TU.
- When my base was invaded and I've choose to defend it, group of marines from other base and ship were participating in battle, group that I wasn't calling to fight. Why they have come? Also, in this base the only ship was one interceptor, but during battle you could find two of those interceptors on launching pad and one dropship on another pad (maybe one that transported soldiers here without my order?).
- Soldiers got much problem when aiming at enemy at higher level. Why those guys cannot just lift their weapon so they aim at center of building window?
- Your ships can fly even when out of gas (example: -15/100 fuel on my dropship).
- When messing up with ships in several bases (buying here, selling there etc.) I've came to a point when I have all ships loaded with troops in every base but I can send only those from one base. I don't know exactly why it happened but after reselling/rebuying ships one more time everything started to work again.
- After some time playing and gaining several bases, one of them crashes the game when I click it. Dunno why, it worked right after build
- I can't scroll my equipment list in soldier arming screen. So, when I've got several weapons of different types I can't get to them until I sell/transfer some equipment.
- Aliens are crash-proof. I mean, do any alien dies when ship is shoot down? I never saw dead body other than maked by proper use of a weapon. Function killing random alien or two at beginning or just putting dead alien model near wreckage on map shouldn't be a problem.
- Soldiers need wider range of sight. It's nice that one cannot see alien behind his own back, but it's strange when that alien standing next to him at his side is as much unnoticed.
- When ending a mission with trooper in crouch position and then looking at him/her in personel screen, s/he gets up from knees. It's nothing special but I'll inform about it in case developers don't want that.
- Sometimes alien weapon bolt don't stop at soldier damaging him but goes throught without effect. I know that's probably a miss but yeah - misses should be more missed
- Suicide civilian run - Civilians are running completely at random. They should get away from aliens and their shots. Instead they sometimes run up from their safe hideouts just into line of fire. It happens most often on arabian-npcs type map (Maybe it's a specific map build or some easter egg, dunno).
- Probably you also know about that already but personel names have nothing to do with their look. Not counting a gender, which at least for troopers is ok (and gives you a smile when you think that nurse Anne is really a big, beardy man - must be a shock for patients), you may got dark-skinned folks with asian names etc.
- Most characters head gets bigger and face blurred (because of fitting texture into that bigger head?) when you equip them with first type armor.
I've also got some sugestions/ideas. Some of them may not fit into your vision, and most were probably discussed already. Lot of them even when accepted will take a lot of work, and I know you got enough to do, thus you can take them also as 'wish list'. Still, some may give you a good way to solve gameplay dillema and some of them may come into your liking, and in future - also into new version of game.
- I don't know why you must research completely weapon to be able to use it. Probably some of them are just a 'Aim and pull a trigger'. I suggest to add more techs for alien equipment, like 'Using plasma weapons' - those tech wouldn't need as much to research as other ones, but will allow only a use of weapon, not a build. To balance game, allow a need of sacrificing several weapons to research them (probably scientists must take them apart to examine and some of them will also broke during tests). Of course, when playing aliens who are original creators of those weapons, player needs only to invent them which is easier, faster and overly not so demanding.
- Chance for 'not-military' personel to join a fight. Why that civilian can't take a regular pistol from troop body and shoot sometime at alien (or - when panicked - at fellow human) when looking for a place to hide? Also, why every single alien ship is inhabited only by battle-ready aliens? Are there no technicians (like without weapon, armor and with low stats alien hiding and never leaving a wreckage of a ship when everyone else uses some kind of particle weapon, are really good at fighting and like now - they're actively trying to kill humans).
- Often people in missions should have slight chance of win even when your troops will not arrive. There should be some kind of NPC-based combatants like police officers in cities or SWAT trying to secure alien vessel crash site until player troops arrive. They could be like regular civilians but actively looking for aliens and trying to shoot them down. And yes, they should be weak - regular policeman like a civilian and equipped only wih weakest pistol and SWAT at regular stat level but only with SMG, weakest armor and maybe some non-lethal grenade. With something like that they will be able to damage somewhat enemy at start, thus being a help to a player when he starts a work, but will also never unbalance game in later and harder times (what can you do with that little pistol against armored alien holding a plasma cannon? Nothing. But still, attempts would be looking great). Also, someone could develop an upgrade-npc feature, like giving a SWAT plasma pistols if player sells over 200 of them (so they will not get plasma too soon). Some kind of variable should do the trick (ifSelledPlasma=>200, giveSWATplasma=1 or something, I don't remember much from programming, but if you did things up to now, you should be able to do this - if you find time and mood, that is). Aliens got a lot better weapons anyway, so non-player soldiers would still be more lethal than regular npcs but nothing truly powerful.
- Allow a build of tunnels in base! Why every room must be connected directly with another one. Hallways and things like that would make defense easier in case of alien raid.
- Grenades need some bigger radius of effect. It looks stupid when alien throws plasma grenade at trooper and another one standing 4 panels from detonation point remains unhurt. If you think that would make grenades too powerful, at least make characters standing not-so-close stumble or something so they will get less TU next round (they need to get up and get steady).
- Weapon/armor customization. With new technical discoveries, there should be a option to upgrade some older weapons. Like adding some more range and reducing recoil of a rifle or making armor somewhat lighter after discovery of a new material.
- I'm pretty sure that you're sick of suggestions like this, but I would like to post it just to make list full. So please hold on, when I type those several words: More interactive (destructable?) enviroment!
- Please, really, create and add to game some kind of devlog and add it to every game package so poor guys like me will be able to see which features are planned in future and which are not, never again unintentionally wasting your time.
- Maybe lower somewhat a year in which game takes place. Industry and technology are looking like they have stagnated too much - didn't progress much from today, even when a really long time passed. I mean, in several decades we will probably get technology that now is science-fiction.
- It's too easy to gain wealth. I propose to change buy/sell price so buying equipment would be a lot more expensive. Also, when building hangar, player shouldn't get vessels for free. Maybe one, little, old transporter when building first base to actually do some missions, but nothing more.
- At medium difficulty level management things look to simple - there is only one alien mission at time, no alien ships until late of the game (how aliens drops infantry on Earth?). There should be more to do at once so player will need more personel and equipment. You can now easily handle situation with one base even in late game. Still, don't overdo it - handling 6 missions at once can be a problem. Also, with increasing number of missions-at-once, impact of their succes on different countries should be changed, so player will not make whole country angry when losing several missions but he will got some kind of special attention and care if his success/fail ratio will be, let's say: 6:1. Or every action can get you some points that are summed up at end of a mission. Like killing a civilian: -160 pts, mission complete: 300 pts, capturing alien average-useful item (like grenade): 5 pts, capturing new type of alien equipment (like rifle you never saw before): 120 pts, losing PHALANX soldier: -185 pts, etc. Sum of this points would make world more or less happy of your performance.
- Please, don't get too wild with ideas if you will implement psi. Basically, by most definitions (sci-fi and those used by some institutions in their hypothesis IRL) it should be just a proper trained power of mind, strenghtened eventually with some kind of equipment, but in several x-com'ish games creators get so strange and unreal (even from science-fiction view) mechanisms of its work that it's sorry to watch. If you want to think of something completely new, maybe some technological thingy (like drug-injector changing perception and reaction patterns) instead of paranormal Jedi tricks would be better. Or you may just write in UFOpedia 'Our scientist don't know how it works, but it works and we can do it.'
- Every alien should get some weaker melee weapon - equivalent of human knife would be ok, because often alien using only grenades can't kill anyone without blowing itself up (and it will try to kill human - no matter that it is standing next to him and it can leave this room first and then throw grenade inside even when target is out of line of sight - this may be also taken as bug). Other option is just giving every alien emergency shitty pistol so they will always get an alternative in battle.
- That was probably often-posted idea too, but, well.. Other organisations would look nicely. Aforementioned police and special-forces, but also other groups that would defend themselves against alien invasion (or help aliens). Player could get into alliance with some of them, which could prove beneficial - several new missions (some warehouse has been attacked and corporation will gladly pay for help) or new technologies (when in very friendly terms with some scientific group, player can get access to several great scientists for hire, or he can get bonus to psi power/defense when he analyze data gained from some occult order). Several organisations should 'dislike' each other, so even while player can maintain some cooperation with all of them, he never gets whole support from everyone.
- In alien landing mission (or even some alien vessel shoot-down ones, when ufo isn't very damaged) there should be time in which player must win. Let's say after 30 turns if no soldier gets into alien ship and there is some enemy inside of it, ship can took off again, thus ending mission. Seeing that there are much elements in ship, one can blow up something, grounding ship forever but not being able to get whole set of techs proposals after completing mission (example: he left alien fighter ion cannons intact, so he can now research that weapon for his own gain. Sadly, he destroyed whole cockpit and engine, so he cannot invent new targeting or propulusion systems).
- When starting new game 'without personel and modules' options 'on', in first base, player should get more money so he can create whole infrastructure needed to play.
- After some time without seeing any enemy, aliens should go toward PHALANX dropship or place where they saw player troops last in search of humans instead of thoughtlessly wandering around and sightseeing.
- Shouldn't camouflage be set automaticaly depending on where do you send soldiers? I think that manual change is not needed. Also, it becames just changing of color schemes because I didn't found it making any difference in combat.
- Combined techs leading to new discoveries. It's strange that one tech includes several new inventions. Let's say new protection should be invented not only after analyze of alien armor but also after techs like 'Fast-making of nano-fibers' and 'Nano-fibers shaping' and then 'Nanocomposite armor' would became available.
- Decreasing hit-rate for a weapons being not 'sniper' type for a long range would be nice. I know that one can be pretty good at shooting but soldiers and aliens hiting each other half of times with particle cannons (Well, that's what the name means in my language version - I'm thinking about that big greenish things shooting Exploding Beams of Destruction) from two sides of map, especially when they got sometimes same ratio of hits with aim at medium range looks weird. Also, sniper rifles should be powerful and accurate enough to make one kill on light-but-still-armored target with one hit, but also should take enough TU so sniper will not run around killing whatever he spots but he will be able to shoot two times without move, unless he got inhumanly high speed stat.
- Dropships are practically impossible to lose. It's pretty too easy that way. I propose that after utterly failing a mission, dropship becomes lost. Also, flee option should be available, allowing player to take off from battlezone before completing task as long as there is at least one soldier inside. Eventually, player may invent emergency auto-pilot allowing dropship to get back to base without anyone on-board.
- Allowing greater amount of troops to participate in battle (if not by landing with two dropships, then another, bigger one) and also allowing to use every capable soldier to defend base during alien intrusion with a chance to arming them before beggining battle (When I got 12 in base, where are 4 of them?).
I've got also three quesions concerning gameplay, which answers to I didn't found in manual, and because it is not much, there no sense in starting new topic:
- Is fuel for your ships free? If not, how much it costs?
- What is a monthly pay for every person in base personel?
- Do small hangars/launching pads supports more than one interceptor or it just looks like that during battle in base?
Well, I hope that wasn't very torturous read. I'm very sorry if all of what I wrote was discussed by now. And I hope you didn't think of me as thankless by posting such big 'Idea list'. You did great job up to now and I've just posted what I (and probably not only I) would like to see in last final version (not counting things that I'm sure will be implemented, like complete transfer option). I'm pretty sure that you and other forum members will discuse what of it would prove useful and fun, and what is load of crap. Well, good luck and thanks again for your time.
