Medals for soldiers, make more use of the 3d-engine

[MCR]

Hey Folks !

First I want to congratulate all the developers to this great remake/re-invention of one of the best game-ideas ever developed !!!

I personally stumbled over the 2.2.1 version of this game over a year ago & played it till there was nothing left to play 
Currently I'm playing the most actual version, thanks to Muton & his great 'All in one win32 build script': http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=3843.0
Thanx a lot for that one !!!

The progress you are making is great & very visible when comparing 2.2.1 to 2.3dev. There are a few things however which IMHO should also be implemented:


The First Request:

I think when you Buy/Sell things, there should be not only a still picture of the equipment displayed, but rather a nice 3d animation where for instance the gun or ship is rotating in the preview window...
I think almost all of the equipment is available as 3d model, so this should be used !
In the UFOPedia it should be the same. There you can rotate almost every item by clicking on it, holding the mousebutton & moving the mouse, it would look better if every item would rotate without clicking & would be stopped on click, then the player should be able to take control of the viewpoint. This would add much atmosphere to the game & would show some of the new possibilities with 3d !


The Second Request:

I think one of the big motivation-pushing factors of UFO AI is the development of the soldiers. It is great to see the promotions & growing abilities of each member of the team & I think this should be expanded, so I am requesting to implement a medal-system for the soldiers.
Medals could be given to each soldier for things like this:

Medal for killing all the aliens in a mission with 1 soldier !
Medal for a 'DoubleKill, Triplekill, Quadruplekill' with 1 soldier in 1 turn !
Medal for a 'DoubleKill, Triplekill, Quadruplekill' with 1 soldier in 1 mission !
Medal for the catching of the 1. alien of a race alive (Distributed only once per race) !
Medal for 25, 50 & 100 missions with a soldier !
Medal for surviving a mission lionhearted (with less than 10 health for example) !

This should be combinated with gaining experience when being awarded a medal. Every medal should result in a boost of morale & other statistics, like gaining accuracy & speed for a 'DoubleKill, Triplekill, Quadruplekill' for example...
I think this would boost motivation for the player not only in terms of not sacrifcing brave, well decorated soldiers, but will also push different tactics to award medals with all the soldiers !!!
From the implemantation side this should be not to difficult, because I think all the statistics for the individual soldiers already exist & could just be a little expanded...
Not yet awarded medals should be shown in the statistics of each soldier greyed out & on mouseover there should be a short explanation how to get that medal, for example: 'Kill 4 Aliens in 1 Turn'


The Third Request:

That is not a request, but rather a question. What is this stuff with the reaction-fire all about
IMHO that was perfectly integrated in v2.2.1 & now it is getting much more complicated in each version ?!
I think there should be only one button for reaction fire & there also the firemode should be selected. The TUs should be reserved from the current turn & used up (or not) when it's the aliens turn. In your next turn you should start with full TUs !
Just to throw my ketchup into this discussion 


Okay, I think that's it for the moment.
Please consider my thoughts on your project, developers & don't be too harsh on me, 'cause this is my first post & I really do not want to be a mere critic, but really help you to with this great project, which in this state is already far better that the innovative original & more 3d 

P.S.: I swear I won't ask you about the implementation of destructible terrain 

[MCR]

I checked the *.ufo files in base/ufos & found the file medals.ufo where all the ranks are defined. There is also something like this  :

medal cross
{
   name      "_Cross"
   image      ""
}

medal coin
{
   name      "_Coin"
   image      ""
}

It looks like a not really finished definition to me, but I am happy to see that some kind of medals seem to be planned ?!

Another question: scanning through the ranks of the soldiers I noticed that till the rank of warrant there is the definition of

killed_others   2

but in the following ranks nothing is defined for killed_others. Does this not mean that for the higher ranks it is not important anymore how many civilians or own soldiers have been killed by the soldier. I do not know much about the code yet, but in my opinion there should be the statement added:

killed_others   0

for all the higher ranks. Is this not what was intended by the author, that to get promoted to higher ranks no civilians or own soldiers are allowed to be killed by the promoted soldier ?
& One other question: What is happening to a warrant for example who kills 3 civilians during a combat - Does he get degraded to sergeant ?

Sorry for all this questions, but I am really motivated to get into this project & help you to get things working...

[Kildor]

> but in the following ranks nothing is defined for killed_others. Does this not mean that for the higher ranks it is not important anymore how many civilians or own soldiers have been killed by the soldier. I do not know much about the code yet, but in my opinion there should be the statement added

Default value is 0, so there is no need to write it again.

[MCR]

Thanx for the fast answer. What do you think about my other questions & suggestions ?

[Viento]

More 3-D Usage: I think this is eye-candy and consequently it's not necessary at the stage of the game right now. Of course your suggested visualisations would be great but most probably there is a lot of stuff to do that is far more urgent.

Decorations: I like the basic idea but I don't like the requirements you listed. UFO AI is not Unreal Tournament where you can get your "Awesom Masterkill", etc. Your medals seem to be imitating this concept. Since UFO AI tries to work with quite realistic military units, I think decorations should be awarded if realistic prerequisites are met.

Getting the "Frag-O-Maniac-Multikill"-medal doesn't fit into the game's logic, I find.

Since I like the idea of decorations, I would suggest using medals something like this:

> Medal for 1st serious injury (like today's Purple Heart) => condition: awarded for 1st injury < 10% of hitpoints remaining
> Medal for courage / bravery (bronze, silver, gold): => condition 1: minimum of 20 successful missions + condition 2: average kill-ratio of 0,5-0,75 aliens per mission (= Bronze),  0,75-1 kills / mission (= silver), > 1 kill / mission (= gold).
> Medals for Outstanding Service (e.g. bronze, silver, gold): After a soldier took part in many missions, like 30, 50, 100....


Even though these conditions aren't realistic, they are much closer to it than your suggestions, I think.

Andy 

[MCR]

More 3-D Usage: I think this is eye-candy and consequently it's not necessary at the stage of the game right now. Of course your suggested visualisations would be great but most probably there is a lot of stuff to do that is far more urgent.

Probably you are 100% right on this one unfortunately...

Decorations: I like the basic idea but I don't like the requirements you listed. UFO AI is not Unreal Tournament where you can get your "Awesom Masterkill", etc. Your medals seem to be imitating this concept. Since UFO AI tries to work with quite realistic military units, I think decorations should be awarded if realistic prerequisites are met.

Getting the "Frag-O-Maniac-Multikill"-medal doesn't fit into the game's logic, I find.

I did not suggest the "Frag-O-Maniac-Multikill"-medal - That are your words
But for me a soldier killing 4 aliens in 1 turn is a **cking hero & should be awarded for his heroic action   

Since I like the idea of decorations, I would suggest using medals something like this:

> Medal for 1st serious injury (like today's Purple Heart) => condition: awarded for 1st injury < 10% of hitpoints remaining
> Medal for courage / bravery (bronze, silver, gold): => condition 1: minimum of 20 successful missions + condition 2: average kill-ratio of 0,5-0,75 aliens per mission (= Bronze),  0,75-1 kills / mission (= silver), > 1 kill / mission (= gold).
> Medals for Outstanding Service (e.g. bronze, silver, gold): After a soldier took part in many missions, like 30, 50, 100....

Great suggestions, developing ideas further...

[maackey]

I dunno If you were thinking of any more ideas for medals, but to expand upon your previous list I had some suggestions that you might've already thought up, but its nice to have a cohesive list to pore over when trying to visualize things.

NOTE: numbers are arbitrary and can be changed accordingly to fit the almighty, holiest of holies: "balance"

lifesaver -- healed 100+ points of hp during mission
toe the line -- lost 90%+ hp during mission
lucky kitty -- gained "toe the line" 9 times
marksman -- at least 90% shots hit during a mission (min 10 shots)
deadeye -- 100% shots hit during a mission (min 10 shots)
courageous cook -- burn 10 aliens to death
chief chef -- burn 20 aliens to death
pyromaniac -- burn 50 aliens to death

perhaps add some medals with bad effects as well?
indiscriminate -- killed 5+ citizens
lazy bones -- no damage dealt during the last 5 missions
bad shot -- less than 1/10 shots hit during a mission (min 10 shots)

NOTE: numbers are arbitrary and can be changed accordingly to fit the almighty, holiest of holies: "balance"

I really like the medals idea. I know it isn't exactly realistic to give them funny/silly names, but this is a game and not everything has to be super serious all the time. I also think that the names give a personification of sorts to the awards, and make players want to achieve them more than if they were some bland descriptive name.

[DiDiT]

Hmm... maackey, while I should be frying you alive for bumping a old thread, I'm gonna pass because you medal ideas made me chuckle.  


also, while I like the general idea of medals/achievements, but i dont think they will be part of the main program...

[MCR]

@didit:
Feb. 18, 2010 is old ?

@maackey:
Good to see you reviving this thread, I like your ideas regarding the requirements very much, although I do not know if the developers would agree with the  names, but I could envision some nice graphics representing your medals

I also think that we should combine models & soldiers-ranks with this idea:

http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=4614.0

So we could maybe make some overlays for the soldier-textures, so that the rank of the soldier & his already earned medals would be represented somehow on the battlescape. This would help us to 'personalize' the soldiers & attach the player to them even more...

[Encha]

What is this stuff with the reaction-fire all about Huh 

if this has not been answered. i believe this to be a basic instinct action,  meaning if they become under fire within the next turn, they will fire back on whatever attacked them during the Hidden Movement stage. so they dont just sit there and be killed. they have some time to retaliate.

hope this answers it.