Messages

211

Discussion / Re: Civilians... those little buggers.

« on: January 26, 2008, 11:43:22 pm »

About that, version 2.2.1, which will mainly be a bugfix release, will have the civilian death limit removed. Instead you will lose if you make too many nations unhappy, which happens if you let too many civilians die.

Makes sense.

212

Artwork / Urban and Arctic camouflage

« on: January 26, 2008, 11:38:07 pm »

I like to use the 4 different uniform colors to help distinguish my soldiers, regardless of where i'm sending them they will have a variety to arctic, urban, jungle, & desert uniforms, so i can tell at a glance who is who.


However the urban and arctic uniforms are quite similar especially when viewed under non-ideal circumstances.

If i applied the following color-shift to all textures would it be accepted?
The new arctic camo is lighter, grayer, and the dark spots are a a little brownish.  I realize arctic camo has various styles, but this style is more distinct.



[attachment deleted by admin]

213

Artwork / Atmospheric glow around the earth

« on: January 26, 2008, 10:08:24 pm »

I have redone the atmospheric layer which is placed over the globe.  This should make appear more realistic.
www.jwbjerk.com/dl/ufo/map_background.tga

This is intended to layer over the globe, to provide the realistic hazing near the horizon.  I'm not sure if that's the way it currently works or not.

I haven't been able to test it because i'm not quite sure how to re-zip the pk3 files so that the game accepts them.

214

Artwork / individual faces on soldiers

« on: January 26, 2008, 06:47:15 pm »

I'm interested in creating some new textures to work with existing models to allow more soldiers to have unique faces.

Can someone explain how the current system works?

I'm assuming "head01..." through "head-5..." represent different models, and a,b,c, etc represent different textures?

There seem to be 4 armor colors used in the game, but there are 2 additional ones in the image folders... will these be used?

There are a lot of images, some of which seem to be unused.
please explain which files are needed for a new face skin variant,
and how to get the game to use the variant.

215

Feature Requests / Please show radar radius when setting new bases

« on: January 26, 2008, 04:49:12 pm »

This one's a feature request.

When placing a base it would be extremely useful to see the radar radius of any point that the mouse is over

216

Feature Requests / Wrong Default automatically sells new types of Equipment

« on: January 26, 2008, 04:40:00 pm »

Most of the time when i discover (or retro-engineer) a new tech and start manufacture, i find that the "buy/sell" screen is set up to sell this new gear.

It seems pretty obvious that people will want to keep the new gear they make.

on 2.2 Mac OsX universal

217

Discussion / Re: First aid?

« on: January 26, 2008, 04:56:46 am »

To heal, at a medicaid or hmo sort of rate.

Huh?

218

Discussion / Re: Release 2.2 discussion

« on: January 26, 2008, 04:50:04 am »

I just finished as much as there is, and I very much enjoyed it.

--always wanted to play X-com

219

Discussion / Re: First aid?

« on: January 25, 2008, 11:19:09 pm »

Do doctors currently have any function?

220

Feature Requests / Scientist, Medics, and Workers

« on: January 25, 2008, 10:48:35 pm »

Unless you plan to give these employees unique stats (and i don't see a point to that) the current system of hiring/firing the non-soldier employees is needlessly difficult.

It would be much easier on the player if he could (for instance) hire and fire workers from the production screen, where there's already a readout that tells how many workers the current facilities can accommodate.

It currently takes a lot of clicking back and forth between various screens to make full use of your living quarters without hiring excess people.

221

Feature Requests / Re: Feature Requests

« on: January 25, 2008, 10:27:14 pm »

We plan on implementing "templates" that make equipping soldiers a lot less painful than it is now. This includes a standard template for the initial troops (though this may not be the optimal loadout for your liking!)

Templates would be interesting, but something which would be a simpler starting point is an "auto-equip" button, which would provide the soldier with the best available equipment for his skills.

222

Feature Requests / Launching intercept aircraft has strange requirements

« on: January 25, 2008, 08:45:28 pm »

Apparently "Living Quarters" are required to launch intercept aircraft at an alien target.  It took me a while to figure out why i my secondary bases could never attack alien craft.
However without the living quarters i can buy and equip and even launch those planes, but they refuse to go anywhere.

It doesn't make sense to me that aircraft require living quarters, since other buildings such and the command center, radar, and storage which realistically require people, don't require the living quarters because that staff is not one of the 4 employees simulated by the game.

However if you do decide this prerequisite is desirable, it should be explained in the documentation.

On 2.2 MacOsX Universal
(submitted to sourceforge also)

223

Feature Requests / It's hard to find the vital game info inside all the flavor text.

« on: January 25, 2008, 06:36:42 pm »

The flavor text is well written and must have been a load of work to do, but unfortunately for new players it often does a bad job at informing the player what the in-game qualities of a building/technology/whatever are.

Not only is there a lot to read to find that one or two sentences with the vital data, but sometimes that data isn't clearly stated.  For example:

The Living Quarters facility is the standard habitation unit for PHALANX personnel. It provides living space and sanitation for up to 20 people and several necessary ancillary personnel.
The facility's lower floor contains a soldiers' barracks, communal showers, bathrooms, and a common area where troops can spend their off-duty time. Each soldier receives 1 bunk and 1 locker partition to store their personel effects such as civilian clothes. It is also intended for storage of uniforms and other on-duty equipment.
The upper floor contains officers' quarters, generally used for any ranking/important personnel. Each private quarters has its own bed, desk, storage space and sanitary unit, and the level as a whole sports shared but separate shower cabins. This level is located above-ground and receives natural sunlight.

It really doesn't clearly say what kind of personal are part of that "20" and what are "ancillary".  Are officers included in that 20?  Is the concept of "officers" even in the game?


The simplest and most effective thing to do is to leave the flavor text as is, but to add at the bottom, or preferably the top, highlighted in some way (such as bolded) an unambiguous statement of the game rules.  For instance for "living quarters", such a statement might read:

The living quarters accommodate 20 employees on the base

224

Feature Requests / Aircraft and Soldiers drop their gear when transfered

« on: January 25, 2008, 05:55:37 pm »

I'm not sure if this is a bug or an FR, but the current state is not IMHO ideal.

If you try to transfer a soldier attached to a lander, the game won't let you, so you think, that the aircraft and soldier is considered a unit for purposes of transfer.

However, if you transfer an equipped and crewed aircraft to another base, it will be transfered without any weapons or any of it's crew.
Similarly if you transfer a soldier, he will arrive without any equipment.

99.% of the time i believe that the player would want the soldiers and aircraft to retain his/its equipment and the aircraft it's crew.  But currently there's a lot of extra clicking to reassemble a crew/aircraft at a new base.


On 2.2 MacOsX Universal
(Also reported on Sourceforge)

225

Feature Requests / Re: Head Cut

« on: January 24, 2008, 05:09:11 pm »

please open a bugtracker item about this issue: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=805242&group_id=157793&func=browse

Let me try to nail this down...

I read on the Wiki that the Living Quarters are supposed to hold 20 people including solders and the various civilians.  Is that how it's currently supposed to work?