An Open Letter to the Developers

[letsdance]

That's my error though.

yes that's the point: it is too easy to make errors concerning soldier movement. especially for newbies.

You don't have to cheat, you know.

it doesn't even feel like a cheat, because it's so obvious. and no, they don't repair fast enough. i had 2 fighters and while i waited for one of them to be repaired i lost serveral ufos until i decided to just sell and rebuy one. maybe that also changes with the new pace in 2.5, but it's still a problem that selling and buying is a fastrepair.

Hit the slowest speed button just before you engage, 5 seconds  I think.

i did that, but i still didn't know what happened. i have no clue about craft distances or damages done. i need numbers.

Options -> Gameplay -> Confirm Actions -> Moving Only (Setting Yes will ask you to confirm when shooting as well as moving)

that sounds painful. i have enough "are you sure you want to do this?" in my windows. i don't need it in games too. an automatic highlight on mouseover would be perfect. this is not the highest priority and i assume it would take some time to implement. but definitely a very nice to have.

If you're looking for a production economy, 2.5's changes are probably not what you expect.

not like xcom had, that was just stupid. but it should be cheaper to produce something myself compared to buying it on the open market.

[ShipIt]

yes that's the point: it is too easy to make errors concerning soldier movement. especially for newbies.

Life is hard, you know.

it doesn't even feel like a cheat, because it's so obvious. and no, they don't repair fast enough. i had 2 fighters and while i waited for one of them to be repaired i lost serveral ufos until i decided to just sell and rebuy one. maybe that also changes with the new pace in 2.5, but it's still a problem that selling and buying is a fastrepair.

This only works for the early aircraft, which is available at the market. The advanced goodies, iirc, you have to produce yourself, so it won´t work later in the game. Also, in the future your orders will not arrive instantly anymore.
But still, imo you are perfectly right, the selling price for an aircraft should depend on its condition.
There is also another feature request, which addresses the repair times for aircraft.

i did that, but i still didn't know what happened. i have no clue about craft distances or damages done. i need numbers.

Of course the air combat system needs to be improved. Unfortunately nobody feels like doing it atm.

that sounds painful. i have enough "are you sure you want to do this?" in my windows. i don't need it in games too. an automatic highlight on mouseover would be perfect. this is not the highest priority and i assume it would take some time to implement. but definitely a very nice to have.

Did you even try?

not like xcom had, that was just stupid. but it should be cheaper to produce something myself compared to buying it on the open market.

No?

[Wolls]

"yes that's the point: it is too easy to make errors concerning soldier movement. especially for newbies."

Engage the confirmation.


"it doesn't even feel like a cheat, because it's so obvious. and no, they don't repair fast enough. i had 2 fighters and while i waited for one of them to be repaired i lost serveral ufos until i decided to just sell and rebuy one. maybe that also changes with the new pace in 2.5, but it's still a problem that selling and buying is a fastrepair."

Right off, maybe, put some armor on that and it takes time to equip, if yer just buying decoys then yeah.


"i did that, but i still didn't know what happened. i have no clue about craft distances or damages done. i need numbers."

do check yer pk3, aircraftman??  ..its beeen awhile, i think this is the right file 2 feeel?


that sounds painful. i have enough "are you sure you want to do this?" in my windows. i don't need it in games too. an automatic highlight on mouseover would be perfect. this is not the highest priority and i assume it would take some time to implement. but definitely a very nice to have.


not like xcom had, that was just stupid. but it should be cheaper to produce something myself compared to buying it on the open market.


Every open market I ever saw2, und4ercut... if yer lookin for profit, just sell all accumulated weaponsand shoot down every alien craft you detect.

[H-Hour]

not like xcom had, that was just stupid. but it should be cheaper to produce something myself compared to buying it on the open market.

You should think of your workshops as specialised fabrication centres, not industrial factories which use the cost-efficiencies of scale to mass-produce goods cheaply. It sounds like you're still pretty early in the game, when workshops are only really good for disassembling UFOs. But the value of your workshops is their ability to produce items you can't buy on the open market (ie - fabricating items no one's ever produced before). This kind of workshop does not achieve any cost-efficiencies when producing a medikit or an assault rifle that has been mass-produced on the open market.

[Wolls]

i have no clue about craft distances or damages done. i need numbers.

check the ..ufoai..\base\0ufos.pk3
     extract archive --> aircraftmanagement.ufo

its a simple weapon damage minus shield value = actual damage (EDIT: completely ignoring the weapon accuracy which should make/have an impact)

note that the damage integer within the aircraft specs are in fact the  aircraft health points, so for example the firebird has a HP of 200.

So, depending on the aircraft, the weapon  (that the aliens are firing at you), the shield ( aircraft armour) ..;  the shield will usually let you take at least another hit.



.. for example the Saracen has a value of 125 damage (or health points), so against the PBW or particle beam weapon ( which has a weapon damage of 40)   The first few armours ( they go +4 to +8) of polymer  and alien plating will not allow you to survive the fourth hit.

Alien polymer ( of +16 I believe) , will give you not just the fourth, but the fifth hit, of course the sixth hit will kill ya.

Most ppl run Stilettos of course...

[Battlescared]

i did that, but i still didn't know what happened. i have no clue about craft distances or damages done. i need numbers.

How many games do you play that give you numbers during an encounter?  There is often an abstraction of the fight.  Bit of a spoiler here, but as you research UFO's, you'll see their health bars.  Then you can see how the fighting is going.  And the graphics and sound do match the weapons that are being used if you pay attention, at least for our vehicle (though it may not be perfect), and the range of the weapons is shown graphically as the circle around our fighters and the ufo.  One thing that is bad is that you can't really disengage safely like you could in XCOM.

But you're also missing a big part of the game.  I rarely shoot down ufo's with fighters... I leave that job to my missile installations,which I build usually in groups of 3 around my base.  If a UFO survives my missile traps, then I can usually shoot them down with a fighter before they take any damage.  I don't try to engage every UFO, and many of them will land and then I can attack them there.  Very few ufo's leave the earth on me.  I take out 80% of them easily. 

Also, don't forget to equip all the parts of your fighter.  I don't really like this part of the interface, but there are multiple areas where you configure your fighter with weapons and utilities.  Be sure all spaces are equiped with something.  A stilleto will shoot down a fighter/scout well over 90% of the time.  And make sure you put a good pilot in it.

Point being that there are multiple ways of dealing with UFO's in UFOAI besides just sending fighters at them.  You really just haven't played long enough to learn them.

[letsdance]

Life is hard, you know.

but shouldn't the hard part be the strategy, instead of using the interface?

Right off, maybe, put some armor on that and it takes time to equip, if yer just buying decoys then yeah.

even with equipping all those items its alot faster than repairing. fully equipping a ship doesn't take more than 2 days. repairing takes over a week easily.

But the value of your workshops is their ability to produce items you can't buy on the open market (ie - fabricating items no one's ever produced before).

then it might be better to not have a workship and engineers at the beginning of the game - another point to make it easier for newbies.

How many games do you play that give you numbers during an encounter?  There is often an abstraction of the fight.

yes and that's ok. xcom also didn't give numbers. but in UFOAI, when i lose a fight, i only get the information this information. i don't know how close i was to killing the UFO (therefore i don't know if i should send another fighter after it) or if my weapons had any effect at all. or if the long range weapons were of better use than the short range weapons. when i win the fight i don't know if it was pure luck (maybe the ufo does much damage on one hit but didn't hit often) or not. XCOM paused the game when a fight began and then let me see the progress. that was sufficient information to take decisions. i think in XCOM it was too easy to escape an UFO btw. of course it would be best, if a damaged vehicle loses speed.

anyways, i'll just come back next year or so, and see if i like later versions better =)

[kurja]

Is aircraft repair time affected by anything the player does? Like, if I had 40 engineers in the same base as the aircraft...?

[ShipIt]

Is aircraft repair time affected by anything the player does? Like, if I had 40 engineers in the same base as the aircraft...?

Iirc it´s hardcoded to repair 1% of damage per hour. We should assume each aircraft comes with it´s own ground crew.

[Soandso]

You can easily see how an air battle goes by slowing time to 5:1 when at weapons range.  I play at the highest difficulty and have been cleaned out a few times and come back with different arrangement.  It's kinda easy in a way because there is always only 1 UFO vs whatever you field.

[vedrit]

On the note of soldiers being mediocre, it's a matter of perspective. Let's look at it like this: Let's say you are recruiting soldiers from Army Rangers. Compared to civilian police, they are elite. Compared to all the other troops you are recruiting, or what you need, or what they could be, they are not very good; average or mediocre.

[Visitor]

On the note of soldiers being mediocre, it's a matter of perspective. Let's look at it like this: Let's say you are recruiting soldiers from Army Rangers. Compared to civilian police, they are elite. Compared to all the other troops you are recruiting, or what you need, or what they could be, they are not very good; average or mediocre.

That would be a good point if it would be relative. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the game, often one's average fresh grunt is mediocre while your best sharpshooter is merely decent. Coupled with the actual performance on the battlefield, it leads to assumption that stat description is general and a trooper who is good at something, is good when compared with completely untrained, talentless civilian, not when compared with experienced veterans.

[H-Hour]

Stat growth has been changed in 2.5.

[Talanic]

I've had a vague thought about idle engineers, provoked largely by this thread.

Obviously you don't want PHALANX making a profit from manufacture and sale.  That's a design decision and it's already been made.  However, at the same time it feels to the player like we're paying 20+ highly trained engineers to play Galaga all day.  They're part of a military organization; if they don't have anything to do, something to do *can* be found.  Why not have idle engineers with available workshop space cut out some of the cost of facility and aircraft maintenance?  Not necessarily so much as to make pumping a base full of engineers economically advantageous, just enough to justify not firing them all early game when you don't have much for them to do?

[H-Hour]

UFO disassembly is what engineers should be doing when not producing something you need. They can net a very small profit from selling the scraps, and you can start stockpiling alien materials and antimatter you'll need later in the game.