Alien activity too intense?

[McGeary]

I love this game , i love games like this. X-com through to the likes of UFO : aftermath and aftershock.... BUT.... i just spent all night playing this and had atleast 20 interceptors shot down , 4 troop transports shot down and am struggling for cash/soldiers/aircraft weapons...
  Also when it comes to tactical missions my soldiers simply REFUSE to use their reserved time units to shoot at any alien that wanders out of cover , even if its right infront of them. yet the aliens will shoot at (and usually kill in one shot) my soldiers as soon as they see them no matter who's turn it is.

This is playing it on the easiest difficulty setting by the way.

I know the kinds of responses i'm going to get (if any) but before you slam me let me just say this post is more about blowing off steam than complaining and being ungrateful to the good folks that made this game and are letting it go FOR FREE.

I feel better alredy.

[Hertzila]

I love this game , i love games like this. X-com through to the likes of UFO : aftermath and aftershock.... BUT.... i just spent all night playing this and had atleast 20 interceptors shot down , 4 troop transports shot down and am struggling for cash/soldiers/aircraft weapons...

That's strange. I usually get a nice amount of pocket money from all the UFOs and artifacts I sell. Remember to wait until the end of the month (or start of the month, rather) for big investments though, otherwise that pocket money won't do at all.

 Also when it comes to tactical missions my soldiers simply REFUSE to use their reserved time units to shoot at any alien that wanders out of cover , even if its right infront of them. yet the aliens will shoot at (and usually kill in one shot) my soldiers as soon as they see them no matter who's turn it is.

Use weapons that cost only a few TUs to fire (sidearms, shotguns, lasers) and have agents with good speed (IIRC) and you should get your reaction fire fairly reliably.
Also, are you sure you're using the "Reaction Fire" option and not the "Reserve time units"?

[kosta]

please accept my apologies for offtop.
I would love to contribute the project. I enjoy programming(scripting mostly). I can dedicate much time to development.
would you give me some advices on how to start?

[MCR]

Read the forum and the wiki.

Read as much as you can, almost everything is quite well documented somewhere in the wiki.

Use the forum and wiki search function often.

[McGeary]

That's strange. I usually get a nice amount of pocket money from all the UFOs and artifacts I sell. Remember to wait until the end of the month (or start of the month, rather) for big investments though, otherwise that pocket money won't do at all.
Use weapons that cost only a few TUs to fire (sidearms, shotguns, lasers) and have agents with good speed (IIRC) and you should get your reaction fire fairly reliably.
Also, are you sure you're using the "Reaction Fire" option and not the "Reserve time units"?

Thanks for the reply and the advice , i'll play around with it a bit more and see if it helps

[Conz]

I'm getting like 5 ufo's per day with the 2.4 dev version, which is making research kinda impossible..
I've been playing a few hours now and my first month still has not passed.
I'm running out of everything (including pilots) as the shop does not get refilled fast enough and my manufacturing base is not done yet.

Any way to get this activity down a little ?

this is on 'easiest get-to-know-the-game' mode. And I still play the original UFO game =p

[kosta]

How you imagin future of UFO AI, if you do not even reply on posts where someone want to contribute or where someone reports bugs!!??

[Hertzila]

How you imagin future of UFO AI, if you do not even reply on posts where someone want to contribute or where someone reports bugs!!??

Read the forum and the wiki.

Read as much as you can, almost everything is quite well documented somewhere in the wiki.

Use the forum and wiki search function often.

http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=4608.0

http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Contribute

http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?board=19.0

[Crystan]

And dont forget to visit our IRC channel.

[jerm]

How you imagin future of UFO AI, if you do not even reply on posts where someone want to contribute or where someone reports bugs!!??

The developers are not your personal slaves and you can't expect them to reply within the next few seconds after a post. But the fact is, bugs ARE posted and looked at. And there ARE avenues of contribution on the CONTRIBUTE tab right at the top. The only thing lacking, and the devs did mention the fact, is that the posted information is largely unorganized or not properly documented.

In fact, you should be damn thankful their taking the time out of THEIR lives to make this game for us. But all you can do is whine? Gawd... the nerve of people nowadays.

[marc]

I wanted to add re: reaction fire, that indeed the speed rating affects reaction speed (speed attribute seems to be used for both TUs and rxns).  In xcom, the remaining TUs at the end of turn also affected rxn speed (more TUs left, faster rxn speed).  Not sure how the mechanics work for UFO:AI though.

Also, one quirk worth mentioning is that I've had agents take rxn shots during civilian movement, just like how the aliens can take rxn shots at your agents in range even if the shooter isn't targeting the active agent that is moving/performing an action (of course in this case I mention it isn't even the aliens' turn).

[rlilewis]

Well I'll try to get back on topic...


Personally I think there are way too many ufos, especially given the high casualty rate they suffer. Also having to constantly fight easy but time consuming manual battles trivialises the experience and makes it boring super quickly. Even with a good autoresolve system there are still far too many of the darn things whizzing about and getting blown out of the sky.

Perhaps if the attacks could be more bursty so that you may have a period of a week or two where there are little to no attacks but then suddenly a wave of intense activity in a particular area; preferably near the player's base/s for gameplay reasons. During the quiet period you would see almost exclusively scouts who will by default try and flee if they don't feel they have a high chance of winning. Then during the intense period you will see mostly fighters and harvesters intent on landing and wreaking havok.

Of course that would put your base/operatives under great pressure for a short period and you may take heavy casualties both to people and equipment but you would have that breathing space in between to get yourself organized for the next major attack. At the start of the game the quiet periods will be long and the intense periods will be brief but this will change over time to become the opposite (rate of change depending on difficulty level).

Also I think the likes of harvester/terror missions need to be much more difficult from the get go with maximum number of aliens for a map with a mixture of taman/ortnok ALL in armour with plasma rifles or better to really put the hurt on the player and make them feel totally inferior.

[geever]

Patches are more than welcome on this issue.

-geever

[ptbptb]

Just want to give a "Hell Yeah!" to the "Alien activity too intense?" question.

Less UFOs, harder UFOs, higher priced UFOs. That's the direction I'd like to see things go.

At present, even cheating the hell out of the game using debug_ commands, there's just a ridiculous amount of missions to do before you can make one set of nanocomposite armor.