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Author Topic: Starting formation, why?  (Read 2983 times)

Roy Dest

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Starting formation, why?
« on: June 12, 2008, 03:56:50 pm »
This is just a suggestion, but it could save some rounds in the beginning.
When the mission starts, soldiers are placed around the airship. If I want to do immediately any kind of activity, (like secure the surroundings) it takes about two rounds to move at least a half of them from behind the ship. This vehicle is usually near the edge of map, so it means that a part of soldiers is separated from a battleground between a map edge and ship, or worse, in a map corner, where even more of them is placed uselessly.

It would be nice, if they would just appear in within a ship, so they could all get out and go in the direction where I need. It was so in original X-com games and it worked fine. I understand, that paranoid green brains of soldiers, despite of the alien-infested area, feels the need to lose a time with surrounding the ship against the mysterious and potentially dangerous impenetrable darkness of the map edge, but I'm their commander, and I should set the priorities.
Surely, this has a sense, if the aircraft would always land in the middle of map, and it would be really surrounded by buildings full of aliens, but this is not the case on all maps I remember. And getting out of the ship, on what side I actually need, would serve just as well.

Even better would be to calculate the soldiers' positions between a ship, and a map center, so they would actually appear in front of ship.

Offline BTAxis

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Re: Starting formation, why?
« Reply #1 on: June 12, 2008, 10:31:56 pm »
Soldiers are placed according to start positions placed on the map by the mapper. That means that if soldiers are placed in a corner without any good reason, the mapper is at fault. Fixing it is a matter of moving the start positions around so they are more sane.

sirg

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Re: Starting formation, why?
« Reply #2 on: June 25, 2008, 09:53:59 am »
How about all starting inside the craft?

Offline DanielOR

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Re: Starting formation, why?
« Reply #3 on: June 25, 2008, 05:55:59 pm »
I with you on that, Sirg - starting inside the craft is realistic.  Getting out of he ship and to nearest cover is among the most dangerous parts of real missions, as well as a beatch in UFO:EU.  If the aliens are their first, they get to lay some deadly traps.  I know I love to take them down just as they get out of the scout.

Offline Mayhem

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Re: Starting formation, why?
« Reply #4 on: July 05, 2008, 07:17:34 pm »
On a related note, the alien starting positions on the "shot-down" maps are also pretty silly.

It generally takes your troops a while to arrive, and the aliens apparently just sit around in their ship until you have landed and had a chance to cover their exit with weapons arcs, and THEN they come out...

Surrealistik

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Re: Starting formation, why?
« Reply #5 on: July 05, 2008, 07:45:20 pm »
Quote from: Roy Dest
dangerous impenetrable darkness of the map edge

Easily the most frightening thing in the game.