UFO:Alien Invasion
General => Discussion => Topic started by: damiac on October 27, 2015, 05:37:28 pm
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Hi Guys,
I just tried this game (version 2.5 release) over this weekend, and it's a lot of fun. Great job!
I have some feedback, it's a bit rambling but oh well:
1. Reaction Fire mechanics aren't very well explained in game. There's already a battlescape tutorial, perhaps a little more explanation on how RF works, how to choose a fire mode, etc would help. That picture on the forum with all the callouts to the various elements is really helpful, it'd be great if that could be integrated into the game.
2. UFO Types: I'm not great at remembering things just by a picture. I know my interceptors can shoot down some ships, but they're too weak for others. Unfortunately, if I haven't captured a ship yet, the game doesn't tell me what type it is, so the only way I can figure out to differentiate them is their top speed, which I think isn't unique to any given UFO. It'd be nice if the unknown UFO types had some kind of descriptor, even if it's just Large, medium, and small, so I can stop suiciding my interceptors on UFOs they can't possibly beat.
3. Maps & Cover: From reading here, I know it's a known problem, but I want to stress that some maps have just brutal layouts, where your troops are just standing out in the middle of a field with aliens around when you start the mission. Some maps just don't seem to have enough cover available. I know smoke grenades can help with that to a degree, but it would be nice if the maps were a bit more neutral, instead of favoring the aliens so much.
4. Battlescape Saving: I know, I know, it's a taboo, with good reasons, but hear me out. If you read on this forum how people play the game, and how slowly you have to play sometimes to be safe, it's not unheard of for people to say some missions, when played well, take upwards of 3-5 hours. Most people don't just have blocks of 3-5 hours to devote to a game, so their only choice is to either leave the program running, or to save it in a VM. However, there are plenty of roguelike games that prevent save scumming, yet still realize their players might not be able to finish the entire game in a sitting. That's why my proposal is that the battlescape should allow a "Save&Quit" function, and when you reload that save, the game would delete it. This prevents savescumming, while still allowing someone with limited time to fully enjoy this game, just like how most roguelikes do it.
That's all I have. I saved the best for last, really the ability to play out extended battlescape situations over multiple play sessions would be huge. I haven't seen this exact proposal before, so I thought it was at least worth throwing out there.
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3. Maps & Cover: From reading here, I know it's a known problem, but I want to stress that some maps [name the map(s) in question, attach a screenshot to illustrate] have just brutal layouts, where your troops are just standing out in the middle of a field with aliens around when you start the mission. Some maps [name the map(s) in question, attach a screenshot to illustrate] just don't seem to have enough cover available. I know smoke grenades can help with that to a degree, but it would be nice if the maps [put in the names, attach a screenshot to illustrate] were a bit more neutral, instead of favoring the aliens so much.
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Just a suggestion.
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4. Battlescape Saving: I know, I know, it's a taboo, with good reasons, but hear me out. If you read on this forum how people play the game, and how slowly you have to play sometimes to be safe, it's not unheard of for people to say some missions, when played well, take upwards of 3-5 hours. Most people don't just have blocks of 3-5 hours to devote to a game, so their only choice is to either leave the program running, or to save it in a VM. However, there are plenty of roguelike games that prevent save scumming, yet still realize their players might not be able to finish the entire game in a sitting. That's why my proposal is that the battlescape should allow a "Save&Quit" function, and when you reload that save, the game would delete it. This prevents savescumming, while still allowing someone with limited time to fully enjoy this game, just like how most roguelikes do it.
That's all I have. I saved the best for last, really the ability to play out extended battlescape situations over multiple play sessions would be huge. I haven't seen this exact proposal before, so I thought it was at least worth throwing out there.
This so-called taboo is garbage out of a bad reason and an easy excuse for not needing to implement and maintain battlescape saves. Something that's true for all parts of the code however. People will always find a way to cheat if they desire to anyway. In those roguelikes mentioned you just have to copy the savefile while the game is shut down and copy back after quit. In UFO:AI you can cheat in other ways already, such as saving immediately before playing a battle and retrying if it doesn't go well enough. Just in case the "retry" feature gets removed.
Moreover, the lack of battlescape saves make reproduction of battlescape bugs a nightmare and thus leads to instability.
Lastly, whenever maps are redone, they tend to grow larger than they had been. Thus the time needed to play maps has increased over the years. At some point UFO:AI becomes unplayable without battlescape saves. This was not thought of at the time this so-called taboo was instantiated I presume.
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... an easy excuse for not needing to implement and maintain battlescape saves. ...
If this would actually be true, I would say we at least have an excuse.
And I would ask, what is yours?
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And I would ask, what is yours?
Until recently the fact that UFO:AI could not be compiled with MSVC while I'm not quite used to developing on Linux. As of now, more the fact that I always lacked the hardware to compile big projects as fast as I want and probably the issue that I would need MSVC 2013 for UFO:AI, using hwoarangmy's recent work.
I'd be happy if it could be agreed upon that the taboo is bad and it would be nice to have battlescape saves anyway but we lack the time or whatever.
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I get you, screenshots and specific examples would obviously be more helpful than general complaints. Fair enough.
Back to the subject of battlescape saves, I know it's contentious, and I'm not trying to pick fights, just present the reality that I (and I assume lots of other people) don't necessarily have big contiguous blocks of time to devote to a game, but nevertheless, we enjoy games that take more than 10 minutes to play. So a roguelike system of saving seems to address the primary concern of creating a new tedious but optimal way to play, while also addressing the concern that not everyone can spend 3 hours on a big battle.
I'm aware there are ways to cheat that, but as it's a single player game, there's no getting around that, and who cares if someone cheats on their own anyway? By keeping that opportunity out of the game's interface, at least the game itself doesn't encourage it, which is the most you should really try to do anyway. In nethack I can back up my character if I really want to, but there's no button in the game to do so, so most people don't. And nobody can complain to the nethack devs that it's boring to keep reloading their save and trying a tough battle again, because they didn't offer that option in the first place.
I know implementing battlescape saving takes work, and that the dev team is plenty busy on other stuff, but I think if the team would just say "Patches welcome for battlescape save&quit function" it might encourage someone to do it, rather than the current dev line of "We don't want it and it would ruin the game because you'll play in a boring way". In other words, I'm asking for a small change to the project philosophy, not a change to the game itself. I'm hoping the change in philosophy might allow someone else to take it upon themselves to actually do the work, knowing it'll get into the game, rather than being relegated to a "cheat mod".
Thanks for taking the time to read and respond to my comments. And like I said, great work so far, this is a fun game even as is, which only makes me want to help in whatever small way I can to polish it and make it even better.
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... if the team would just say "Patches welcome for battlescape save&quit function" ...
Actually, this is exactly how the team always thought about this.
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Oh, that's interesting. I saw a post by Geever that pretty much said no, we don't want battlescape saving. Perhaps that was just an old post or something.
Ok then, so it's resource scarcity thing rather than a design philosophy thing. That's a big improvement in my mind! The community can provide resources, but they can't go against the design philosophy.
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Until recently the fact that UFO:AI could not be compiled with MSVC while I'm not quite used to developing on Linux. As of now, more the fact that I always lacked the hardware to compile big projects as fast as I want and probably the issue that I would need MSVC 2013 for UFO:AI, using hwoarangmy's recent work.
Note that it might also work with MSVS2012 as I don't think much c++11 features are used. There might be minor changes to do (for non standard microsoft functions) but I guess it would be pretty easy to setup.
Concerning compilation with MSVS2013, I recommand to use the bundle
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ufoai/files/UFO_AI%202.x/2.5/ufoai-deps.zip/download
You just have to unzip it somewhere and set UFOAI_DEPS environment variable (or use cmake to set UFOAI_DEPENDENCIES) to the path where you unzipped the bundle.
Back to the subject, I agree being allowed to save in the battlescape would be a great improvement. For having read some UFOAI documentation, the "excuse" of the taboo is almost official and I've already seen that they ask people interested to go for a patch (as ShipIt just did).
For having done that for another open source game (Open Dungeons if you want to know), it is not straightforward and pretty hard to maintain.
For my part, I've recently tried a game with 2.6 version (I had previously finished 2.5). I stopped a few weeks ago after a little bit more than 100 battles because I have a new fight in a big map (bunker if I remember well) with many corridors. I tried to play it but after more than 1 hour, I lost patience and started to send troops everywhere to see if I could find the last remaining bloodspiders. In fact, I faced at least 1 ortnok and 1 taman. I got tired of searching for them and stopped the game.
IMHO, the worst is the alien being so passive. In big maps with small rooms, you can loose ages searching fo that last alien staying in that room. And when you send your troops, you have no choice but to suicide at least 1 canon fodder to expose it a little. I know maps are currently getting bigger and that's not a good thing IMHO.
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Geever has his own opinion.
None can ignore my points about battlescape bug reproduction and increasing map sizes however.
I wonder how much devs play the game still ? Naturally, developing a game time-conflicts with playing it - perhaps there was more interest in battlescape saves if devs had more time for playing ? When did you last play one of those 5+ hours attacks on an alien base ?
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This so-called taboo is garbage out of a bad reason and an easy excuse for not needing to implement and maintain battlescape saves. Something that's true for all parts of the code however. People will always find a way to cheat if they desire to anyway. In those roguelikes mentioned you just have to copy the savefile while the game is shut down and copy back after quit. In UFO:AI you can cheat in other ways already, such as saving immediately before playing a battle and retrying if it doesn't go well enough. Just in case the "retry" feature gets removed.
Moreover, the lack of battlescape saves make reproduction of battlescape bugs a nightmare and thus leads to instability.
Lastly, whenever maps are redone, they tend to grow larger than they had been. Thus the time needed to play maps has increased over the years. At some point UFO:AI becomes unplayable without battlescape saves. This was not thought of at the time this so-called taboo was instantiated I presume.
actually there was very big map with a house and all walls around house in 2.4 never saw that map after 2.4 only part where there is house with basement and helipad exists. that map got smaller, but it still takes a lot of time. while i would actually like to see battlescape save also beter AI would solve long battlescape play. AI that would find you better like they do now.
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As for v2.5, this map comes in several version indeed.
The largest one is still used, when it's an harvest mission (or whatever?), with a Harvester landed on the heliport, and the Phalanx transporter on the tennis court.
As the harvest missions become scarce in the late game (why, by the way?), it's no wonder you don't see this map very often after a while.
On this map, and its little sisters, you end in knowing where the alien spawns so that it gets a little quicker, because they don't open certain doors.
Back to the topic of time consuming maps, I think that the alien base or the base defence are exceptions, and well, a few long maps won't hurt. In the first half of 2085, the most long maps are now those with a landed corrupter. I believe I rather shot them down into the sea when I have powerful enough interceptors...
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Those problems are well known. However, saving the battlescape will not solve them, it would be more of a workaround. The goal should be to keep the time required to play a mission within a reasonable range.
In 2.6-dev, alienbase, basedefence and mansion maps are already using mission targets to give players a shortcut in those scenarios. I was thinking about doing the same for mission with large UFOs, not sure about that, though.
Next step would be to find a way to adapt the map size to the number of actors involved, which unfortunately is a major task.
Geever has his own opinion.
None can ignore my points about battlescape bug reproduction and increasing map sizes however.
I wonder how much devs play the game still ? Naturally, developing a game time-conflicts with playing it - perhaps there was more interest in battlescape saves if devs had more time for playing ? When did you last play one of those 5+ hours attacks on an alien base ?
I am sure geever spent more time for this game than you did. So I doubt you are in a good position to question him.
I am for sure would be able to ignore whatever you write if I just wanted to.
I do. Yes, it naturally does, as one can do only one of those things at a time - doubt about the latter. Never - maybe I just don´t care enough about my squaddies.
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It seems so.
Is it the map and the AI, or is it the way we play?
I mean that if I'd play more aggressively like the nowadays military, or as is depicted in the Hive Mind novel, the missions would be a lot shorter (12 soldiers squad): take cover, run, ... and if no cover, then crouch; no smoke/anti-alien gas/fire grenades to secure your path and your back. I realize that I tend to wait for all these effects to end, before I can launch another ones and jump to the next secure location. I wait for the aliens to wander in the open and face 4 guns, or I move blindly into the smoke, and send forth a scout at the beginning of each turn to say pick-a-boo and unleash hell on the poor aliens who asked themselves where I was gone. I play very defensively because I don't want ANY loss and sometimes the aliens do use their full TUs. I would be ashamed to post on YT a video of a storming of a corrupter: it can take one hour or more if there are 5-6 aliens inside!
Reflecting on my way of playing, and comparing to other game types, it's quite the same: I'm a defensive, cautious, turtle gamer. Back to Starcraft 1, I would take hours to fully build base, secure expansions, and finally move toward the enemy base. I won every time (against the AI). Not because of my tactical skill, just by exhaustion, the AI having no more resources left and having spent all of them on suicide, non coordinated attacks... Btw, it's why I shun Warcraft and the like: they were designed for aggressive players, who don't care about the death of their units (more are coming behind).
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Yes, more consistent map size and better alien AI would help with long mission times, but still, battlescape saves are always going to be a helpful thing, you never know when you'll be interrupted to deal with real life, or maybe you have 20-30 mins to play sometimes, but can't commit to a full battle.
I know this is a big task, but it would be nice if the game didn't select big maps, like the military base, or the military bunker, when there's only 3-4 aliens to fight. They're easy scenarios, but it's not a fight to overcome the aliens, it's a fight to continue playing safely for 2 hours instead of just having my guys run around like idiots so I can just finish the mission already. I have lost quite a few soldiers that way, and it's unfortunate that the most optimal way to play is so tedious on those sparsely populated maps.
Still, from what I understand the AI is much better than it was in 2.4, so obviously you guys are making improvements.
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Those mission targets sound interesting - is it more than just "kill all of the aliens" ?
In a base attack there could e.g. be a target to kill those aliens in the vicinity of that PSI transmitter only or similar, you get the idea. That would be pretty logical too, instead of tracking down every last alien, disable the base. Just an idea I just had.
I am for sure would be able to ignore whatever you write if I just wanted to.
Ignore me, but ignoring the fact that reproducing and tracking down battlescape bugs by using battlescape saves was much easier would be...illogical? For instance, it's totally possible for this issue (http://ufoai.org/bugs/ufoalieninvasion/issues/5426) to be fixed already, if only I had been able to save in those situations, as that would probably have enabled me to nail down the exact circumstances triggering the bug. As it needs repeated restarts from the same situation, it requires keeping the save file. So the behavior would be cheating, assuming playing circumstances.
A very long time ago, wesnoth (http://www.wesnoth.org/) did also not allow saving while a scenario is already running I was told, only at the start or end of a scenario, similar to UFO:AI does at present. I don't want to imagine what the game's stability in combat would be like without "battlescape saves"...
Is it the map and the AI, or is it the way we play?
The way of playing ?
I may be able to do an attack onto a small alien base in 3 hours, but anything less is just suicide. There's also the problem that you don't know the size of the base and therefore the length previously, perhaps that could be given as a hint ?
It's not as if attacks on alien bases would be rare or something, in 2.4 it ended the campaign. But in 2.5 or 2.6 I destroy at the very least 3 bases or so until the campaign ends, up to maybe 10. And that despite shooting down supply ships as soon as possible, usually.
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For now, we may only have hints on the briefing screen, just before entering a mission (and this is quite logical).Their are still to be improved (with those tactical hints and estimates).
We could also have these briefing screens open when we click on a mission locator on the geoscape.
It's true that currently, the estimated length and other characteristics of a mission is something we learn by playing; if we take note of this, I mean.
As a workaround, we could have sensors (i.e. a toggle sensor option) that would add pings on the radar screen, bypassing the visibility system. Now the challenge would reduce to: how to find and kill them. Not kidding, this could be like an "accessibility" option that would basically change temporarily the duration of a mission (by making it easier to find the enemy), as if it would be possible to dynamically change the difficulty settings from within the campaign.
People would use this option until the game is enhanced, or they get bored to not have as much as challenge anymore. And when they are ready for a few hours gaming session, they could toggle the option back, to return to normal gameplay. That way, there is no battlescape save management to implement, and people would do as I do: saving before entering a mission, and reloading (on another day if time is short) in case of disaster, or if any valuable NCO or officer get KIA.
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As a workaround, we could have sensors (i.e. a toggle sensor option) that would add pings on the radar screen, bypassing the visibility system. Now the challenge would reduce to: how to find and kill them. Not kidding, this could be like an "accessibility" option that would basically change temporarily the duration of a mission (by making it easier to find the enemy), as if it would be possible to dynamically change the difficulty settings from within the campaign.
That basically makes every map similar to a base defense, when one soldier stays in the camera room ? Our AI's main strength however is its cheat, knowing when and how to reach and shoot at a soldier previously to doing it. That way I can ensure to always stay out of reach, as in a base defense. Not very funny.
That way, there is no battlescape save management to implement, and people would do as I do: saving before entering a mission, and reloading (on another day if time is short) in case of disaster, or if any valuable NCO or officer get KIA.
Please mind my point about battlescape bug reproduction as well. Something a player who also reports bugs should understand.
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Those mission targets sound interesting - is it more than just "kill all of the aliens" ?
Usually this is "Secure a certain area for a given number of turns to win the mission.", but there a several other possibilities to use it.
In a base attack there could e.g. be a target to kill those aliens in the vicinity of that PSI transmitter only or similar, you get the idea. That would be pretty logical too, instead of tracking down every last alien, disable the base. Just an idea I just had.
Well, right now you have to secure the power core and the PSI-device for some turns to win the alien base mission. As the AI actively tries to prevent the player from reaching his objectives, this plays different and thus is a nice addition
The same goes for Mansion, where you can win by securing the "panik room", instead of crawling through every chamber looking for this last, lonely Bloodspider hiding in some corner. In base defence, aliens now will try to blow up you Power Plant, Antimatter Storage or Command Center in order to win. Also, in battlescape missions your dropship (Firebird only) is now a target for aliens.
Right now we are about to sort out how to display the information needed for the player, as this is confusing as is. Unfortunately our buildbot died some time ago, so there is no other chance than self-compiling 2.6-dev to check things out.
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Not very funny.
It would be a workaround, while we're waiting for a better AI.
Moreover, I doubt a better AI (and map objectives) will completely change the fact that a full turn takes up to 5 minutes, and any player with less than half an hour of past time keep finding missions too long. That's why I said "accessibility". But perhaps a roguelike is not like counterstrikelike, I don't know.
Please mind my point about battlescape bug reproduction as well. Something a player who also reports bugs should understand.
It's because I play on v2.5 stable, and the only bugs I spot on are "static" and easily reproducible (no need so far for a saved game). Though I'm still trying to reproduce some weird side effects when you add employees to a nearly completed task, or when you transfer things, and there's no more room when they arrive, etc. :)
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I experience occasional battlescape crashes when ending my turn sometimes, where it just crashes right back to the world map, and it's like the mission never happened, the firebird is at the ufo site, idling, with all the soldiers, even the ones who were killed in the mission that crashed. If there was a save for the turn before this happened, it's be a lot easier to reproduce.
Obviously, battlescape saves don't solve all the problems, nor does it make the battlescape situation any more fun (Not that I don't think it is fun now, but it could be even more fun).
What I've noticed are the most fun maps are the ones that are largely open, with a buildings here and there. What seems to happen is the aliens can all move toward you each turn, but due to the landscape, they end up coming from different angles and at different times, although they do end up covering each other quite a bit.
The extremely open maps, like the farm one, aren't bad, but the openness tends to remove some of the tactical play, meaning you're mostly just shooting at each other from long distances. Smoke grenades keep these maps from being truly unfair, but adding a barn or some small buildings would probably make these maps a bit more fun.
The least fun maps tend to be very large, with complex hallways, like the military base mission, where the aliens mostly just get stuck in various rooms, and you have to tediously hunt them down in this giant complex. It's hard to keep patient through 20-30 turns with no action.
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Well, right now you have to secure the power core and the PSI-device for some turns to win the alien base mission. As the AI actively tries to prevent the player from reaching his objectives, this plays different and thus is a nice addition
I'm sure it is. I hope there are ways for the player to know which rooms or areas these are then. Screenshots could help.
In base defence, aliens now will try to blow up you Power Plant, Antimatter Storage or Command Center in order to win.
Cool. When will that happen then and how ? For instance, if at least one soldier is around still or otherwise no alien but nobody, it shouldn't, should it ?[/quote]
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That's really cool, objectives really help tighten the tactical situation, and create a lot more tension by forcing conflict over a specific part of the map. Suddenly I can't take 100 turns to move 10 steps, throwing smoke grenades the whole way(Not that I actually do this, but it would be more optimal than how I really play). Patient tactics are boring, rushing tactics are much more fun!
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I'm sure it is. I hope there are ways for the player to know which rooms or areas these are then. Screenshots could help.
Cool. When will that happen then and how ? For instance, if at least one soldier is around still or otherwise no alien but nobody, it shouldn't, should it ?
Right now, those areas are simply marked by green smoke. The mission briefings are not updated yet, the messages you get in game are still very basic. This is all still WIP.
Hopefully I find some time to make a post in the forums, to explain what is going on. Screenshots included. Progress is documented in our wiki: http://ufoai.org/wiki/Talk:Mapping/Entities/misc_mission
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Well, right now you have to secure the power core and the PSI-device for some turns to win the alien base mission. As the AI actively tries to prevent the player from reaching his objectives, this plays different and thus is a nice addition
The same goes for Mansion, where you can win by securing the "panik room", instead of crawling through every chamber looking for this last, lonely Bloodspider hiding in some corner. In base defence, aliens now will try to blow up you Power Plant, Antimatter Storage or Command Center in order to win. Also, in battlescape missions your dropship (Firebird only) is now a target for aliens.
That sounds really cool. I will have a go to check how that works ^^
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By the way, those who want to test the concept may try and stumble on the Fuel Deposit mission (frozen) (as soon as v2.5 stable). There are two such activators, and a mission briefing. To be frank, the mission objective "Get there and hold for X turns" is just a demonstrator in this case, because when you get here, all but one alien are dead, and the map is very small.
There are several references to the Bunker map in this thread. If it's the map I think about: desert surface, large tunnel entrance, big main store room, and two levels of quarters, stores and offices...
I found out that doors to the big hall happen to be randomly or purposely closed. It the same for the corridor security doors. In some configurations, the securing time is dramatically reduced because you never have to watch your back, and two doors only are open to the big hall: in 5-6 turns nearly all the aliens that may reach the hall are deads. The other are most often trapped in on quarter of the map because of the closed doors, the stairs, etc. (you can hear them IF they walk, and locate them this way. Just beware 2-4 that are in the other small rooms, and who will jump out when your soldier get near. Next time, I'll count the number of turns, and the time needed.
What could help on this map, however, is to remove the metallic sound when an actor walk in the corridors, and to let it only for all the stairs, and the catwalk in the hall.
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There are several references to the Bunker map in this thread. If it's the map I think about: desert surface, large tunnel entrance, big main store room, and two levels of quarters, stores and offices...
That is military shelter, as opposed to bunker. Which features lots of concrete instead of metal and is a pretty fast map.
Yes, military shelter belongs to the most tedious maps, aside from alien base attacks. And is not present in 2.5 yet IIRC.
(you can hear them IF they walk, and locate them this way.
I know the sound changes based on the unit that's moving and the material it's moving on, but not strictly due to the location, no ?
A map where this is very useful is old mine, since there only the stairs are made of metal, so you can know if/when a Taman/Sheevar/Ortnok changes its level.
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I know the sound changes based on the unit that's moving and the material it's moving on, but not strictly due to the location, no ?
It's a guess. If you zoom enough during the Aliens turn, you may notice if the steps are quite near or from afar (ahead) this tile, and from the right or from the left. I read that there's a bug when the sound comes from behind (volume is too high), however. Again, caution should be taken because sometimes, an Alien doesn't move, or moves only one step.
Out of the topic, it's a habit a player comes to build: listening to the foot steps. That, plus the terrain sound (snow and metal are easy), and the distinctive sounds emitted by humanoids, spiders and hovernets. When you are lucky, they alternate perfectly (spider, foot, spider, hovernet, foot, ...), and knowing the max size of a crew, you may quite accurately guess who is where.
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If it's the map I think about: desert surface, large tunnel entrance, big main store room, and two levels of quarters, stores and offices...
I found out that doors to the big hall happen to be randomly or purposely closed. It the same for the corridor security doors. In some configurations, the securing time is dramatically reduced because you never have to watch your back, and two doors only are open to the big hall: in 5-6 turns nearly all the aliens that may reach the hall are deads. The other are most often trapped in on quarter of the map because of the closed doors, the stairs, etc. (you can hear them IF they walk, and locate them this way. Just beware 2-4 that are in the other small rooms, and who will jump out when your soldier get near. Next time, I'll count the number of turns, and the time needed.
What could help on this map, however, is to remove the metallic sound when an actor walk in the corridors, and to let it only for all the stairs, and the catwalk in the hall.
Yes, that's the map I stopped to play because it is too long (I've already won it once or twice in the same game but ATM, I don't feel like messing with it). The sound stuff is interesting because I usually play with sound turned off and I didn't know it changed depending on where the alien walks.
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Out of the topic, it's a habit a player comes to build: listening to the foot steps. That, plus the terrain sound (snow and metal are easy), and the distinctive sounds emitted by humanoids, spiders and hovernets. When you are lucky, they alternate perfectly (spider, foot, spider, hovernet, foot, ...), and knowing the max size of a crew, you may quite accurately guess who is where.
More reliable than that is observing the movement behavior of civilians though. If they are running into some direction, it generally means that aliens are in the opposite direction. While if they don't move much or stay put, it's a guarantee that they are not in movement range of aliens. And they know the movement range of aliens much better than the player does, can be observed when spiders try to catch them. Aliens may still be able to shoot from afar, but for smoke covered snipers or so who shoot from afar anyway it's useful to know that no hostile plasma blades are near.
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Actually, this is exactly how the team always thought about this.
Well, I would agree in almost any other code parts but this is more complicated. As the game is not yet finished, the codebase will change a lot. If we accepted patches, soon it would age, being incomplete, broken, conflicting with the upstream code. We fould find it necessary to maintain the code we agreed not maintaining to be able to make a release or simply make the software working. There is only one solution to that problem: Not accepting patches for battlescape saving. Of course anyone is free to make a fork, this is Open Source.
-geever
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Well, I would agree in almost any other code parts but this is more complicated. As the game is not yet finished, the codebase will change a lot. If we accepted patches, soon it would age, being incomplete, broken, conflicting with the upstream code. We fould find it necessary to maintain the code we agreed not maintaining to be able to make a release or simply make the software working. There is only one solution to that problem: Not accepting patches for battlescape saving.
That's an interesting vision and I agree it would not be an easy task to maintain (and I know what we are talking about here). But IMHO, UFO AI is advanced enough to such a feature. But we all know UFO AI is a spare time project so if the team do not want to have that on its shoulders, it's understandable.
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Well, I would agree in almost any other code parts but this is more complicated. As the game is not yet finished, the codebase will change a lot. If we accepted patches, soon it would age, being incomplete, broken, conflicting with the upstream code. We fould find it necessary to maintain the code we agreed not maintaining to be able to make a release or simply make the software working. There is only one solution to that problem: Not accepting patches for battlescape saving. Of course anyone is free to make a fork, this is Open Source.
At least that's a serious point, rather than the futile attempt to force the player not to cheat. Other games I know treat the matter in a much more mature manner, they hand over the responsibility for cheating or not cheating to every player on his own. Your point implies that it does not need to be that way forever though.
I can throw in yet another argument: Even in 2.5 - stable - I occasionally was experiencing a crash or otherwise severe bug during battlescape. While they are very rare, it's a pain to restart the whole mission because of that. (And it's not cheating if done because of a bug!)
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On v2.5 stable, I can report 1 or 2 crashes for 150 missions so far. It seems (but I lack data) that it was related to the last living alien on the map; well, last time, only one alien was deemed remaining but hidden (perhaps dying?) and the crash occurred during the alien turn. Next time I try and think about joining an event log.
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Well, right now you have to secure the power core and the PSI-device for some turns to win the alien base mission. As the AI actively tries to prevent the player from reaching his objectives, this plays different and thus is a nice addition
So I played my first base attack in this playthrough. The "and" condition here should be an "or" - I held the power core target zone for I think 3 turns and that won me the mission. I don't know whether you are supposed to hold both places (simultaneously or one after another ?) but conquering only one of them seems more logical, it is symmetric to what the aliens try to do when invading a Phalanx base. The aliens in an alien base seem to wander around much less randomly than they used to do, similar to how they're behaving in a Phalanx base now. They seem to be heading strongly for the target zones. This makes 'static smoke wait' tactics on the entrance ramp much less useful and reduces the need to look around for the last few aliens greatly. When attempting to win via target zone (as opposed to winning by killing all aliens), perhaps the easiest method is to head with all soldiers for a long straight hallway leading to the Psi device room (the map part file is called wormhole when opening in radiant) and then shooting from a distance onto the aliens which should frequently happen to move into shooting position. When I was about to enter the power core room, I had a hard time doing so since I had to do it around a corner and aliens were rushing out with their plasma blades.
The power core room is the one with the two rectangular light green illuminated tanks.