Actually, learning how to make maps would probably the best thing to start with, as it's more helpful, and not hard.
There is some problem with forum I posted 6 points and it didn't save:
1. Story line - year problem:
When I saw date 2084 at start(intro) I was looking forward to play with future weapons and see future of earth. But I was really surprised when I lunched the game and there were only current weapons (from decade 1980-2008), home, cars, buildings and everything also from current time. This just doesn't make sense, I skipped trough storyline in wiki and didn't find answer.
Supposed solution:
Rewrite our history, put second cold war to 1995, end to 2002, creation of UN and huge countries to 2010 and first alien invasion to 2014. I think there is no problem with changing dates to fit better to story and models in-game.
2. Alien invasion scenario is not logic and doesn't fit to storyline
http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=1701.0"
3 May, 2084
Initial attack on Mumbai.
The aliens' objective is to harvest humans for study, in order to decipher our genome and with that information adapt the virus to be able to infect humans. To this end they perform gruesome experiments on dead and live humans and use nasty equipment in the field, such as the Bloodspider. The Kerrblade is the alien harvesters' primary autopsy tool."
http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Storyline/Final"The first attack hits the city of Mumbai on the 3rd of March, 2084. Six small UFOs appear out of nowhere and come screaming down from orbit, undetected by the vast radar installations covering the skies over Mumbai, and set down in the single most densely-populated city on Earth. They offer no warning, no explanation. Twenty thousand innocent civilians and three battalions of elite troops are massacred over the course of twelve brutal hours before massed Commonwealth soldiers manage to bring the aliens' advance to a standstill. Then, as suddenly as they appeared, they retreat to their craft and vanish back into orbit, leaving only the ravaged streets of Mumbai as evidence. "
Just don't get it, why did they kill 20 thousand people, when they're primary goal is to study and decipher humans genome? Three battalions of elite troops are massacred?
Suggestion:
I thing better cause for war that fit to alien's goal should be kidnapping some important people (President of UN, Generals of armies of each country) so they both destabilize Earth and can study they're DNA.
3. Soldiers and army concept is not logic
Army information from wiki:
"Today, the Asian Republic's economy has all but recovered due to the commercialisation of nanotech and holographics. It still possesses a strong and up-to-date military, trained to a higher standard than any other country.
Today, the member nations have merged so closely that they are better known as a single body: the Revolutionary Countries. One joint government represents the entire continent, and they manage an economical juggernaut surpassed only by the Greater European Union. Their military is small but has state-of-the-art equipment. Their training is not exceptional.
It has only a small volunteer army and a tiny defence budget as mandated by the IMF. However, what forces the UA does have are highly-trained and can turn on a dime, able to reach any place in the country within two hours.
And so on for another nations..."
And now I command PHALANX and I can hire only limited number of soldiers?
Asian Republic knows nanotech? So why there is not any military equipment that use it?
There is also few missions involving military structures(shelter, convoy etc.) where are soldiers acting as civilians, they don't shoot, they just get killed, it's completely irrational.
Suggestion:
This part of game need to rework somehow.
- each nation should have another attribute
- strength should be increased by selling allien weapons to nation
- strength should be increased by having bases within country borders
- strength should be decreased at unprotected parts of land
- strength should be decreased by leaving crashed planes at country land
- strength should be decreased by leaving terror attack without response
- the higher strength of country is the better soldiers it should offer to hire
- country with lowest strength should betray (see 7.)
Also in missions involving military of some country military citizens should be armed and fight back.
4. Blackhole economy concept
I'm buying and selling at same price and i don't know to/from who? It's just black hole I can sell anything and buy anything from it...
Suggestion:
- player buys/sells to country where is base located
- there should be 10-30% difference between buying and selling price (buy and sell something just cost some money
- when you sell weapon to country you should not be able to buy them back because they use them for its own army
- when you sell weapon to country you should get preference with it better (they can defend themselves so they will like you more)
- weapon price should not be so high because you do favor to country
advanced alien tech should be produced only by PHALANX
5. Repeating missions instead of load&save - soldier death
I like this concept, it prevent abuse of load&save functionality. But I thing everybody got pissed off when he is searching for last alien and his best soldier is killed by this alien, so player repeats mission.
The problem I see in this part of game is that trained soldiers have huge value for players and there is no way atm. how to replace them(the skilled one).
Suggestions:
When good soldier is lost at mission army of nation he was hired in should offer replacement for him (some army trained professional). My basic idea is to sum all abilities of died soldier, lover the sum by 20% and create new soldier with this sum randomly distributed into skills (so player doesn't get same soldier, but he got replace, so he won't have to repeat mission). New soldier will appear at list of soldier recruit and player get e-mail with his name.
6. Training of staff idea:
I think it should be good when player has possibility to train his staff. Basic idea is each person has skill from 0-100 that says how efficient he is. Hire screen would allow player to check 'in' training at each person he hired, so this person will cost some money each month and will improve.
The more skill person has the more efficient work he does(faster research, faster production, faster healing etc.).
7. Worst country betray idea:
First alien base is discovered and assaulted. Immensely powerful psionic attacks emanating from the base's psionic projector cause soldiers to destroy the device in a panic.
I suppose it will happen in mid-part of game, so it should be interesting if base was found at country player has worst relation with and the one with lowest military strength. This country should also stop supporting UN and funding project - this country will be infiltrated.
Reason for this is that player has usually a lot of money, so this should make a game a bit harder. There should also be some extra expenses at this time(base defense and so on) so player will not be bored with maxed credit.
Hope someone will read it and thing about my suggestions :-)
I'm going to play last version of game(2.3 beta) again at higher difficulty and will post new thinks.
