Messages

16

Discussion / Re: Renamed nation makes errors

« on: July 19, 2010, 03:53:56 pm »

Hello, i have renamed Russia (i hate it!) to Lithuania and when i enter the battlefield i get back to the geoscape mode... The error is that the game can't find team "lithuania", i don't get it!

In Soviet Russia, program hacks you!

17

Tactics / Re: What's your favorite weapon?

« on: July 19, 2010, 05:19:33 am »

Hey geever: the description for the laser pistol reads:

Thanks to extremely high accuracy inherent in laser weaponry, it will be easy for ambidextrous soldiers to use two laser pistols at once.

Hopefully, this is just an inaccurate description?

18

Discussion / Re: Feedback 2.3

« on: July 19, 2010, 05:08:16 am »

Speaking of Starchaser, it actually has normal engines and is quite useless-it is just Stilletto with double range.

Thanks for the tip -- I wasn't sure whether to build Dragons or wait for the Starchaser.  You must made my decision for me.

19

Discussion / Re: What does this icon mean?

« on: July 18, 2010, 08:40:27 am »

Any problems with the base aside from base attacks? I ask this because I got a mission in Mexico about a base attack, and my HQ was in China, so I flew to Mexico to defend the base and it turned out to be my base somehow. So I won the mission, figuring it was just a fluke, but then my HQ in China had the red circle around it and all the buildings were non-functional because the computer thought my base was still under attack, even though it wasn't that base that got attacked. Any ideas?

I think you're experiencing this bug which has been fixed in the latest dev version.  I seem to remember that the workaround for now is if you see a terror mission that's described as a base attack, you need to either automission it or skip it completely.

20

Discussion / Re: Aliens impaired by wounds?

« on: July 18, 2010, 05:04:09 am »

IIRC there should be a message that says something to the effect of "Captain Alienpants has a mental breakdown". I don't remember if it was only in case the alien goes on a rampage or whether it also shows up when he crouches and starts weeping.

I've only seen the message on the rampage -- when they freak out, crouch, and just hold their heads, I never see a message.

21

Tactics / Re: How are Heavy Weapons incorportated into squad tactics?

« on: July 17, 2010, 11:07:03 pm »

Did I miss any heavy weapons?

Particle Beam Cannon
Plasma Blaster
Minigun (if you want to include multi-player)

However, I doubt you have any RL-experience with the first two. 

22

Mapping / Problem getting uforadiant set up

« on: July 16, 2010, 08:02:10 pm »

I'm following the Mapping for Dummies guide and I'm having a problem getting started under Windows XP.  The directions say:

When you load UFORadiant it will ask you for the engine path. This is the path to the ufo.exe file which should be in the base folder where you installed the game. If you've bypassed this without setting the path, you can set it in the editor by going to Edit > Preferences... and selecting the Paths option under Settings.

However, I also get asked for "compiler binary."  Is this ufo2map.exe?   I tried that and it then goes ahead and seems to load normally (i.e., I can load the subway map and I see it with textures), but when I try to select a texture on the right-hand panel, I get a dialog box titled Loading Textures with the clicked on texture (e.g., text_mattn/) quickly followed by an error message:

"GtkGLExt-WARNING (recursed) **: cannot create GdkGLContext aborting..."

Then it shuts down.  Any ideas?

23

Tactics / Re: What's your favorite weapon?

« on: July 16, 2010, 06:37:08 pm »

No, and won't have ever.

-geever

... and there was much rejoicing...

24

Discussion / Re: Some gameplay questions

« on: July 15, 2010, 10:11:08 pm »

Hmm, LOL i never thought of that!!! In my case I have 5 fully built bases globally and I keep 8 soldiers in each base (40 soldiers total). Because those bases are widely and wisely spread, I do not need more than 2-3 hours to fly to the scene, clean the bugs and return. It never happened yet to attack my base while my soldiers are out in a 2 to 7 hour window.

Yeah, to be honest, I think since in 2.3 the aliens don't actually try to seize the base during base attacks (they usually just stand around outside), it probably wouldn't make any difference, but I try to play as if all the features are actually in place.

It could be handy to keep the lightly injured Soldiers (always take heavily injured soldiers in missions because when you heal them with medikit that is actually faster than hospital care) at bay for small missions unless there is a harvester-like attack.

OT, but the hospital vs. medkit thing bugs me.  A lot of times I'll try to leave one alien alive so I can get everyone healed up before completing a mission.  It seems backwards that you can heal faster with a medkit than a fully stocked hospital!   

There is no need to attack a scout or fighter with more than 4-5 soldiers. The attacks in base use maximum 7-8 alliens and most of the times I have seen 5 attacking. So with 3 soldiers you should be fine and you could deal with them quickly in case they attack the base while your team is out on a mission.

Still by my experience it rarely happens. So keep 8 soldiers on each base but try to spread your bases across the globe for faster missions. Saves you game time as well.

True.  The only other time it's a problem is when my firebird gets ambushed by a ufo on the way back from a mission and gets lost with all hands.  But even that's rarely a problem because I'm almost certainly restoring from a save in that case.   

25

Discussion / Re: Some gameplay questions

« on: July 15, 2010, 07:21:53 pm »

Store enough UFOs to fill a yard and sell the crashed ones. I have in my yard only 100% intact UFOs (mostly Harvesters but you need Scouts and Fighters for research) that I got from terror missions. All the others I just sell them for quick bucks. Try to do as many missions as you can, that way you will never run out of money!

Good idea!  I wish I'd thought of that before I loaded my yards up with busted scouts.     Oh well, eventually they'll be disassembled and I can keep just the intact big ones.

Also, what do you need 30 soldiers for?
Even if you employ two teams and have a couple heal up in the hospital every now and then you shouldn't exceed some 18 guys.

Well, I want to keep every base manned at all times.  In the original UFO my base always seemed to be attacked when my soldiers were off on a mission.  No one was there to defend so my base would get completely wiped out.  So I now keep 16 soldiers in each of my two bases so I always have a full team left behind to defend.

26

Discussion / Re: Some gameplay questions

« on: July 14, 2010, 08:59:34 pm »

Thanks, Tzzimy, that's really helpful, especially the tips about the "~" and the order of production priorities!

I'm playing on Easy right now, and it's September of the first year.  I have 3 bases (one of them is only partially functional), 4 SAM sites, and 2 UFO yards.  I was originally making money selling UFOs, but lately I've been keeping them to disassemble so maybe that's why I'm low on cash.  All my countries are "exuberant", but the salary costs still are draining my cash (I've got about 30 soldiers, 50 scientists and 40 workers).  I'm starting to run out of stuff to research, so I could probably fire some scientists and save some money.

27

Discussion / Some gameplay questions

« on: July 14, 2010, 06:30:12 pm »

I have a handful of general questions I'm hoping I can get some answers for:

1) Is there any way to get the messages displayed during the battles to re-display?  I hate it when one of my people gets killed and the message goes by so fast I can't tell who it is.  It's mainly an issue when I'm trying to decide if the person that got killed is good enough to be worth retrying the mission.

2) Does picking up alien equipment mid-mission have any effect on the amount of material you're able to collect?  I'm at the point where I'm spending as much as the countries are giving me, so selling mission loot is my main source of income. 

3) Is there any way to make money other than money provided by countries and selling mission loot?  I know in the earlier versions, you could make stuff and sell it, but it looks like that's a break-even proposition at best in 2.3.

4) Can you halt work on a UFO disassembly the way you can halt work on research?  I just finished a UFO disassembly but my antimatter containment isn't ready yet so I lost the antimatter.  However, when I went back to a prior save and stopped the disassembly, I lost all the progress I'd made.

5) I've got tons and tons of dead aliens, but I can't figure out how to get rid of them.  I know in the original UFO, you could sell the alien corpses, but I don't see any way to do that.  Is it possible to run out of space?

28

Tactics / Re: What's your favorite weapon?

« on: July 12, 2010, 05:31:53 pm »

Does using the Flamer really work with the crummy reaction fire in version 2.3?

It does for me.  I've had really good success with camping a flamer outside a landed harvester and waiting for the aliens to pop out and french frying them.

29

Discussion / Re: UFO:AI needs you. Yes, you.

« on: July 11, 2010, 05:28:57 pm »

Hey dfscott. If it's mapping you want to do, start here. Post in the mapping forum if you have any questions. Mapping is a recurring need, and at this moment there aren't many people doing it.

Ok, cool -- I've already started playing with UFORadiant so I'll start there.  Thanks!

30

Discussion / Re: UFO:AI needs you. Yes, you.

« on: July 11, 2010, 03:57:52 am »

I noticed this thread appears to be pre-2.3.  Is mapping help still needed?  I'm a coder, but I'm a java guy, not C, so I'm probably not the best person to code.  I'm not an artist, but if some mechanical grunt-work is needed, I can certainly do that.