Messages

46

Discussion / Re: Sourcetrunk review of UFO Alien Invasion : input wanted

« on: December 02, 2011, 04:30:14 pm »

There are some nice toys a long way down the research path that you likely won't see in a short-ish review playthrough, especially the newer aircraft types which take a long time to deploy because of the long sequence of resarch and build tasks that need to be completed. Also, some PHALANX weapons require as prerequisites alien tech which takes a while to appear.

47

Bugs prior to release 2.4 / Re: Aircraft Production

« on: November 17, 2011, 10:16:18 pm »

That's obviously not the case... PHALANX craft are all V/STOL, so basically just need a flat bit of hard standing to operate from. All weapons are interchangeable, so there's not even an objection in terms of reloading from different racks etc.

Even if the final reason is that devs CBA to implement it, that's fine. There are probably better things to spend limited dev time on anyway, and I rather doubt it's something anyone would want / need to do often anyway. However, it might be useful to have it as an option sometimes

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Bugs prior to release 2.4 / Re: Aircraft Production

« on: November 15, 2011, 11:41:29 am »

Shouldn't it be possible to build / store a small-size craft in a large hangar? A waste of resources, yes, but sometimes it might be preferable to use a large hangar that is free now than wait until a new small hangar is built somewhere

49

Discussion / Re: Building new bases. Request.

« on: November 07, 2011, 02:13:41 pm »

Well, that's the PHALANX bureaucracy for you. If there were no constraints though, you'd just develop a few standard base types, and only ever build those most efficient arrangements

>> Not at all realistic and no fun

Clearly, you've never visited a real life military base. No base commander, ever, has been 100% satisfied with the location and logistics of their facility. Also, PHALANX is meant to be at least partially secret, and not really popular with the host governments - they support it because they have to, not because they want to. So, no, you don't get the prime base sites. Their own military gets those

50

Discussion / Re: Nation Relations

« on: September 19, 2011, 12:35:57 pm »

1) Better relations = more funding, and more personnel made available at month turnovers. Also, a very unhappy nation may quit the PHALANX project, and ultimately lead to losing the game (nation unhappiness is one of the primary loss mechanisms)

2) Pretty much as you'd expect, conducting successful missions in an area improves relations, failed missions, or ignored missions reduce relations. Selling UFOs to a nation improves relations. Building bases in an area improves relations. There are probably several others too, but those are the major ones, AFAIK

3) Doubt it. Documentation can be a bit thin for lots of things, partly because few people want to spend time writing docs, and partly because the design isn't finalised yet. It is both the blessing and the curse of volunteer projects that just about any aspect can be changed / removed / added at any time. It's not impossible that the factors going in to nation happiness could change, so documenting them probably isn't a huge priority

51

Discussion / Re: time unit system

« on: August 24, 2011, 06:25:32 pm »

I probably prefer the UFO:AI system. Because the TUs to fire, move etc stay constant, and the actors TUs rise, they can do a little more per turn, over time, which seems entirely in line with real word experience.

One of the main advantages of elite soldiers is that their training allows them to execute missions quickly and efficiently, with a minimum of personnel. It's not necessarily that they do much differently to a regular soldier, but that they are capable of doing it faster, always being ready before the other guy.

So, as PHALANX troopers get used to fighting the aliens, and given the UFO spawn rates, that they see more action in a month than some SF troopers do in five years, the ones who survive would be getting very good.

52

Feature Requests / Re: alien translation

« on: August 16, 2011, 07:20:59 pm »

1) Esperanto
2) Klingon (amusingly, Klingon is an awesome language to rap in. Look it up on YouTube)
2) Tenctonese (from Alien Nation, it's got an alphabet and stuff, at least)

53

FAQ / Re: Soldiers Stats_How do they work?

« on: July 30, 2011, 06:24:55 pm »

Weapon skill stats and accuracy contribute to weapon accuracy. I can't find the page with the relevant equations on, but rather than calculating a "to hit percentage", the game calculates a Gaussian distribution, and places the shots according to that. One of the bits of the equation is (weapon_skill + accuracy)/200, so a "perfect" shot requires a total of 200 points between the two

Strength does not (yet) do anything, but an item weight / encumberance system is planned for eventual inclusion, I think

Speed affects your TUs per turn

Mind affects Morale, and soldier promotions. It also seems probable that it will be used in the psionics system, when that gets implemeted. It might get renamed though

54

Artwork / Re: Alien bestiary

« on: July 22, 2011, 07:32:56 pm »

Looking ahead a bit to the possibilty of a new visibility system, a dedicated sniper type might be a neat idea. With extended vision range compared to other units, and possibly limited ability to see through smoke (if any future visibilty system supports that) they would be better than other aliens (and probably a little better than PHALANX troopers) at acquiring targets. They should prefer accurate weapons over more damaging ones, and crouch and use aimed fire more often, to maximise their hit chances.

On the minus side, they should be physically quite weak (low HP, low natural armour), unable to wear heavier armour, and especially vunerable to flashbangs (due to oversensitive eyes, similar to the Tamans stated vunerability, although probably for slightly different reasons), but quite resistant to stun. They should also be quite rare, appearing at quite a late point in the alien progression, and only normally present at all on larger UFO types, and generally only in small numbers then. They would effectively be deployed as a Marine contingent on larger UFOs, providing long ranged support to the run'n'gun Ortnoks, and heavy firepower of the alien tank units.

Since they are introduced later in the alien ranks, they should have quite a range of weapons to choose from anyway, but it might be appropriate to also add an additional weapon just for them, with relatively low damage, high accuracy and only aimed and snap fire modes, and a medium TU cost. The objective is to model a Designated Marksman Rifle, *not* a true sniper rifle.

Doctrine is to use several well placed shots to kill / wound, not volume of fire. The weapon should still do appreciable damage to end-game PHALANX armours, around 80 points wth low variance perhaps - enough to allow a one-shot on low HP troopers with no armour, and still enough to worry a high HP soldier with good armour if he cant find and deal with the shooter quickly. Preferred method of attack would be to sneak out of cover and take a snap shot or two at mid range, or stay fairly still and take a couple of aimed shots at very long range. Unit TUs should therefore be fairly high, but not outrageous. It should probably have a fairly small clip as well (more like the 8 rounds of the bolter than the 30 of the AR).

As a comparison, the human sniper rifle does 105 damage (more than proposed for the new weapon), and costs 12 and 18 TUs to fire. If the "alien sniper rifle" takes the same TUs for the same fire modes, giving the sniper unit around 40 TUs would seem reasonable. That's faster than most PHALANX units, enough to fire 2 aimed shots whilst retaining a minimal ability to move, crouch / uncrouch, or 3 snap shots, or quite a bit of movement plus a snap shot, and so on.

The total *maximum* damage output / round would be around 240 (3 snap shots). If the best PHALANX armour had a resistance against the damage type of 50 (which seems possible given the planned progression of armour), that would bring actual damage from 3 hits down to about 90, enough to worry even the toughest trooper, and kill weaker specimens.

That would however almost certainly leave the sniper stranded in the open, though. Note that 3 shots at 12 TUs consume 36 of a max of 40, leaving a max of 4 left (enough to walk out of cover in a straight line, shoot 3 snaps, then take a 2 TU step back, or crouch before shooting from an exposed position, but not to move whilst crouched, then shoot, then move back into cover, for instance). Clearly, sniper AI should prefer to either aim to end a turn in cover and take what shots that TUs can be spared for, or try and stay at long range to take advantage of their superior range and accuracy

Although there is little firm detail about the proposed psionics system, I suspect using a psionic scan of some kind would be one of the best ways to locate these little monkeys, or UGVs whose relatively thick armour should serve them well here, enabling them to soak up several hits without undue damage.

Whether any new weapon is considered or not, the alien sniper would fill a gap in the aliens tactical makeup, allowing them to compete better in long range engagements, which is currently quite a weakness for them. They would logically spawn outside a UFO more often than other types where possible, to make maximum use of their talents.

If a specialised weapon was added for them, perhaps it should only unlock considerably after the snipers have started appearing, to give PHALANX a decent chance to get good armour and weapons fielded. These guys should certainly be scary, and able to punish sloppy tactical play, but not ubersoldiers with instagib guns.

Thinking about it, under the proposed health / medikit changes, an accurate, low-damage weapon would make even more sense for the aliens, since you'd have a fair chance of a soldier who has been hit several times having several bleeding wounds, and needing very swift medical attention to stop them from bleeding out, taking not only the wounded soldier out of the line, but also the soldier, or soldiers, needed to do the doctoring, possibly for several turns

55

Discussion / Re: Help with mission deployment

« on: July 16, 2011, 01:22:27 pm »

I mostly prefer having people start outside, as it cuts out many turns of creeping slowly out of the dropship and establishing your first perimeter, you can get into the action more quickly. You're also less vunerable to a grenade tossed into the dropship (I lost more than one UFO / TFTD team that way), and sucky psionic strength, when that gets implemented (I lost more than one team to the first few encounters with psychic aliens, when your otherwise awesome, but with terrible Psi scores soldiers reveal themselves)

56

Discussion / Re: Alien activity too intense?

« on: July 11, 2011, 11:53:48 am »

>> Or make use of the broken medikit system

1) Doesn't work well if you spawn next to a UFO, with aliens facing you. They get their shots before the medkit goes off
2) Relying on broken mechanics is dangerous because they get fixed eventually

57

Feature Requests / Re: Where is the air support?

« on: July 10, 2011, 03:59:44 pm »

I don't think the national governments would be terribly pleased with "Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure" as a response by PHALANX. They could do that themselves, probably better than PHALANX could, since they would have access to much heavier weaponry too.

When UGVs are implemeted, you'll see a huge boost in PHALANX firepower. Why would you need air support when you'll have what amounts to tank support?

58

Discussion / Re: Alien activity too intense?

« on: July 10, 2011, 02:27:00 pm »

>> it's quite possible to run perfect missions even with just combat armor

Absolutely. But if you've only got 6 guys in total, and 2 get seriously wounded in the first mission, say, it's getting pretty risky to expect the team to do more missions, because you have to either take wounded with you, or leave them behind...

Ultimately, I'd like to see the balance pitched such that leaving missions alone sometimes is a viable option, at higher difficulty settings at least.

59

Discussion / Re: Alien activity too intense?

« on: July 08, 2011, 05:53:13 pm »

>> How about this! In lower difficulties less UFO's and missions would appear and expenses would be smaller to compensate the impact on your economy (AND due to  easier difficulty) and on higher difficulties you would be swarmed like nowdays?

Balancing a game is rarely that simple. For instance, one of the key differences between difficulty levels is the initial and extra numbers of soldiers (and other employees) - on the hardest difficulty level, in the first month you cannot even fill a Firebird, but under this scheme, you would *also* be expected to deal with the highest number of tactical missions.

I know it's called "very hard" for a reason, but it would be preferable not to push players into feeling that they have no choice but to stick to "perfect" missions, by abusing save/load. Both too many and too few UFOs can be a problem, but again, it's impossible to even begin to balance that while entire gameplay mechanisms are missing or incomplete.

You don't *have* to respond to every alien incursion though. Indeed, you might argue in a well balanced future version, that it might be an explicit design intention that at certain times, PHALANX may be better advised to leave some missions alone, until they can improve their equipment, for instance.

60

Design / Re: Base Defence

« on: July 07, 2011, 03:08:04 pm »

>> That's exactly how it works now!

Sorry, I should have been more specific. Currently, the "virtual dropship" is simply populated as needed from the top of the bases' soldiers list, which may coincide in whole or in part with soldiers assigned to another dropship (in which case, they get the equipment assigned to them from there).

You can't control who gets used, it's just the first 8 on the list, even if they are badly wounded, for instance. What would be better would be a persistent base defense group, so you can have a base supporting a designated defence unit which is *always* the first in line, so you can actually manage the membership and equipment of your designated defenders as you can with your expeditionary squads.

One solution would be a *persistent* virtual dropship, probably tied to an active Command Centre. Once it is active, it becomes a special category of hangar, and is assigned by a default a special dropship, called the Base Defence Squad, which has no equipment or weapon slots, needs no pilot and cannot be launched onto the Battlescape (presumably because it has no range, no speed etc). The dropship also cannot be transferred, bought, sold etc. It's simply a container for ground troops and UGVs

It's a bit of a fudge, because I suspect it would have to be displayed in the "aircraft" tab, which is a bit counter-intuitive, but functionally correct (and involves minimum UI changes, too). It would become available when it meets all display criteria (which ties in with the existing system), and is somehow marked as the first place to go for defenders during a base attack (although I have to confess, I have no clue how feasible that is to code. There may be engine contraints which make that impossible, for instance). Since the membership and equipment management stuff necessary all lives in the existing dropship coding, that would just need replicating.

Ideally, you might even be able to eventually control the size of your defence force by building more advanced (ie expensive) Command Centres, once the UI changes for varying squads sizes is implemented. A small radar-and-one-interceptor type base might only rate a cheap, 6 slot defence squad, whereas your dedicated research / production bases might rate the 2-space, hugely expensive Advanced Command Bunker, which allows 10 foot troops and 2 UGVs, suitable for fending off a Battleship-full of late game aliens

>> However it's not the right way to do it

I know I've seen discussions from the devs on how to deal with base defences, but not knowing enough about how the code works, I can't say for sure what the merits of any solution might be. So far as I understand the workings of the code, I think a good solution on the lines of what I've said here is possible without the need to make huge changes, but my understanding may well be flawed.

I've effectively sidestepped the issue myself, by deliberately selecting my Firebird crews exclusively from *below* the 8th "unused" soldier assigned to a base, and by keeping all the equipment I would want to use in a base defence in storage. Thus, in the event of a base attack, I have exactly the equipment and  squad I want (slight exception it the case of wounded soldiers somehow higher up the order being selected if they are using the base hospital. You can also work around that by reverting to a previous save, and reassigning your low-number wounded to another hospital facility).

I love flamers for base defence, btw. Because it's such a confined map, it's rare to see something that's out of range, and it's a great use for low-stat troopers. Anyone can be a hero with a flamethrower