Wow great game.!!

[MunkeyMission]

    And look at these buttons on the message box!!  Thats a great game.
So, here is one happy free customer. I thought it was half past ten and its a quarter to three. So much for the important stuff of the day and on with the important stuff of the day.
It's great. Most space games of the last few years lack a lot unless theyre inspired by Duke and Doom. There were lots of diamond platform on the old tv home computers but I havent seen a good one to suit the all powerful pc (Snake Eater wasnt very good what was it Rainbow or something?).
This one is. Thumbs up. Radar on.
Good forum.
I would suggest the improvements but I dont have one.


  Much gratis.

[MunkeyMission]

I did crash after a few hours and havent retested it yet but it did work for hours. It said something about c+ and refer to your documantation in a retry ignore cancel box which was 'always on top' of the mouse pointer so I tried tab buttons and pressed ignore which caused a crash but only of the game itself. Maybe I was running 800x600 before starting which the game was running 1000+ but I have a good graphics card so I'll up it to 1200 and have another go saving my progress and post any result. I'll note the error message if it repeats. It occured as the invasion of Bristol, England was loading (about the eighth or tenth).
Once again well pleased with it and back to it. Many thanks. 

[MunkeyMission]

I did have a trouble at first picking up the alien lasers from the 'floor' box on the combat inventory selection but when the plane got home it brought the laser with it. I was able to pick up the ammo for it which must have been sensible in case any lurking nasties were out of it. I havent gone through a whole medikit yet but I'll have a good go at that later.
  I cant get over this marquee box!! 

[Mattn]

hi and welcome on the board. thanks for your feedback. one question - which version are you playing?

[MunkeyMission]

Its version 2.1.1 and it wasnt lasers it was alien plasma pistol (or one of them) and I had no research of them so probably couldnt touch it.
Ive been giving it a good play beyond the time of the crash but havent been back to Bristol yet and have changed to 'normal mode' (losing one whole ships crew last night). I am just getting to the difficult stages.
The crash may have been the computer having been left on for a night or two (maybe the night before). The biggest problem is all these aliens running around killing the soldiers!
The game must have been a huge project and only one expense spared.
Mine is just installed directly to windows not left overnight for the maps (as Im sure I read in the forum) It downloaded for me in about 30 minutes. I am told I get 3.6 mega bits a second but we all know thats mythica. I did get up to 150k and more and thats the fastest I've been getting out of it.
I have noticed two glitches. 1) the icon for the website in my start menu shows a picture of an application window where the rest are ufo icons and 2) one soldiers health over stretched his limits on the soldier selection menu. (he wasnt a superhuman and got lost anyway)
I was reading the Freegamer review and must agree 'the best free game around' and add one of the best games around.
As for their opinion on reducing the inventory controls I thought it was fairly standard procedure for defending the Earth. I only have to reuse it for small adjustments or soldiers lost anyway. Yeah I think its a feature. I would even add a selection menu for adding weapons to the ships inventory to stop it filling with one weapon but control over the spending solves that.
Well pleased with it.

[Ibara]

I also think it is a terrific remake of UFO Defense, but the devteam seems to be too ambitious in the depth of this remake so I guess none of us will live to see a "complete game".  The development process should converge somewhere instead of trying to incorporate almost everything on the wishlist.  Nethack is a good example.  It is a complete game now, but never final.  People all over the world are stilling adding things twenty years after its first appearence in 1987. 

[BTAxis]

Just to clear this up one more time, we're not making a remake. Nothing we do has anything to do with Microprose's product. Of course, our game is heavily influenced by it, but we don't copy. We try to re-invent.

That said, you may be right about the game never getting finished. But I don't think we'll succumb to eternal feature creep. We have definite ideas about how certain aspects of the game should look and feel, and we will (and have in the past) decide nto to add a feature if it does not fit in. I for one believe this game will have a reasonably "final" incarnation.

[Winter]

What BTAxis said. We have clear goals for the game's beginning (virtually complete), middle (already well underway) and end, with a full plotline drawn up right to the finale. There is a finite set of features planned and there isn't a lot beyond that list of features which will fit in a game like this. So why in hell would we be being 'too ambitious'?

Maybe you're just being 'too impatient'.    If you're so eager for it to get done, pick up C or start modelling or take up any of the other dozens of jobs you could do, and help the project out.

Regards,
Winter

[Sean_E]

Winter: No need to get hostile!  It was only a point that I kind of agree with.  I can see that you have a goal in mind, but it doesn't seem apparent to the "users" of your great game.  If they look through the forums there is very little in regards to a "project plan".  I also know that you are working on version 2.2 with eyes to version 2.3.  What I feel the other members are looking at is that there are no distinct milestone points in your development cycle.  I was going to suggest that after the release of v2.2 that an assessment of the project be made to get set up for v2.3.  This would probably move the project along faster and employ more help from the community that supports yours and the others efforts in bringing this game to fruition.  And one more item....  responding in a defensive manner and 'suggesting' to contribute or leave, will not earn the support from others.  This is just my observation.

BTAxis:  I want to say thanks for answering the questions that I have posted here in the forums.  It has helped shape my ideas on how to support this game.  I too played the X-Com series and really enjoyed them.  I consider this game project an extension of that series without being that series.

Now, if I don't get ousted for speaking my mind, I am offering my skills as a Project Manager, Model Designer and Programmer to this project.  If it is not welcome, than I will continue to enjoy the game and its future incarnations.

Regards,
Sean E

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[Winter]

Winter: No need to get hostile!  It was only a point that I kind of agree with.  I can see that you have a goal in mind, but it doesn't seem apparent to the "users" of your great game.  If they look through the forums there is very little in regards to a "project plan".  I also know that you are working on version 2.2 with eyes to version 2.3.  What I feel the other members are looking at is that there are no distinct milestone points in your development cycle.  I was going to suggest that after the release of v2.2 that an assessment of the project be made to get set up for v2.3.  This would probably move the project along faster and employ more help from the community that supports yours and the others efforts in bringing this game to fruition.  And one more item....  responding in a defensive manner and 'suggesting' to contribute or leave, will not earn the support from others.  This is just my observation.

BTAxis:  I want to say thanks for answering the questions that I have posted here in the forums.  It has helped shape my ideas on how to support this game.  I too played the X-Com series and really enjoyed them.  I consider this game project an extension of that series without being that series.

Now, if I don't get ousted for speaking my mind, I am offering my skills as a Project Manager, Model Designer and Programmer to this project.  If it is not welcome, than I will continue to enjoy the game and its future incarnations.

Regards,
Sean E

All of our project plans, feature outlines and TODO lists are kept on our wiki, readily available for anyone to see from a clear link on the main website. Why would we put them on the forum? The forum is just for communication, trying to use it as a project archive (especially when we have a wiki full of all the information you're telling me is not available) would be a bit silly and inefficient.

I'll point out that I never suggested anyone to leave, I only told them that if they want to speed up releases, they should contribute -- not exactly unreasonable. No disrespect, but I think you're being overly touchy in this case. I don't know why, but people on the internet seem to equate disagreement with hostility.

We get criticism from all sides about our design choices, but if we tried to please everyone who posted about how wrong we are in everything, THEN the game would never get done. Thousands of people are playing and loving UFO:AI, and the project is moving faster than ever simply because we have a clear and unified vision. So when we get comments about how we're mismanaging the project, or how dare we to still not be finished, or how somebody wants to fit round pegs into UFO:AI's square hole, we're not required to listen or smooth their ruffled feathers. Similarly we're very happy to hear from people who have good ideas that fit into the gameworld as we've made it so far.

If you're serious about wanting to contribute, Sean_E, please join our IRC channel and drop me a private message (my nick's Winterslice) and we can hash out the details. You'll have to register a nick of your own though, unfortunately, Freenode doesn't allow PMs from unregistered nicks.

Regards,
Winter

[Sean_E]

Thanks for the response Winter.  I guess it is very difficult to determine how 'harsh' words are when it is taken in context of writing.  So I apologize if I came off critical. (too much time in different forums).

The wiki has good information.  For myself, I get lost in it trying to find specifics to my questions.

As for contributing myself, I do plan on doing it.  I am just trying to find where my skills would be best suited in the flow of the project.....either modeling, texturing, rendering, animating.  I am unsure as to where to focus myself.

Regards,
Sean E.

[Mattn]

@Sean_E: If you really plan to contribute you are more than welcome. There is still a lot of work - if you have experience with coding and modelling you are our man ;-)

the general steps to get svn commit rights are easy: read the coding guidelines (also svn commit guidelines) - in our wiki. read them again and again ;-) - send a patch in form of code or maybe a missing model, if it's accepted you can get svn write access. all you need is a sourceforge.net account.

hope to hear back from you

[Winter]

As for contributing myself, I do plan on doing it.  I am just trying to find where my skills would be best suited in the flow of the project.....either modeling, texturing, rendering, animating.  I am unsure as to where to focus myself.

Regards,
Sean E.

It depends on what you like doing, because we need all those things to varying degrees. Probably our most pressing need is for animators, followed by coders. We've got people willing and able to model, even texture, but right now no one on the team is really doing animation. I've got several new enemies modelled myself, just waiting to be incorporated because they lack textures and animations. Unfortunately I can do models (as 3d drafts or as finished quality) but am bad with textures and completely unable to animate.

For example, we really want the Breeder model textured and animated for further trunk development. You can find it in my untextured models pack here: http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=1694.0

Other models in that pack which are still untextured are:

Fighter/Transporter dual-role plane (airthing.wings)
New Kerrblade model (kerrblade2.wings)
Alien Mortar and shell (mortar.wings & alienmortarshell.wings)

Like I said, please visit IRC and drop me a message and we can discuss the things you want to do and the things we need the most in all your fields of expertise.

Regards,
Winter

[Sean_E]

Unfortunately, I can not import blender files into Max.
If you could export it as either 3ds or OBJ it would be very helpful.

Also, what are the possibilities of getting the unrigged Phalanx models?

Regards,
Sean E.

[Mattn]

For example, we really want the Breeder model textured and animated for further trunk development. You can find it in my untextured models pack here:

is this a humanoid, too? then i can do the animation