UFO:Alien Invasion
General => Discussion => Topic started by: Olaf80 on July 18, 2010, 07:27:26 pm
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Im playing 2.3 (german) for nearly a week and no not the versions before:
Optic: Great!!! I love it: Its my god old XCom and the models Ive seen are all great (I know the problems with texture from some of my mods)
Interface: Easy to understand and easy to use
Translation: There was only one tech with englisch text by the lascannon (no translation perhaps?)
Tactical Mission: Easy Controll of my soldier, nice Alien AI (they take cover *g*), no saving but I read somethere that this is a tech. problem. Okay sometimes I lost some time but I survive it :-)
Automission: Nice and usefull after some frustating tries.
Different typs og Aircrafts: Not only one Type of starting Interceptor is fantastic
Equipment for Aircrafts: YES!!!! My old Dream by XCom not only to have Weapons for my Interceptors
External Buildings like SAMs: Cool, in the beginning very useful to have a chance to shoot down an ufo and the ufo storrage seems somelike Area 51
Research: Good Idear with not only Laserweapon for Human technology, that it seems that I need a special number of Aliens is different but a very interesting solution.
What I miss: Some Research decription are missing but It seems that its on work(if not i can try to write some)
Suggestions: Advanced equipment like ECM or Tageting Computer (like the alien armor) based on alien technology (Im playing at the moment with to different Alien Races.. perhaps there comes more but I havebt read the wiki.. (spoiler...*g*)
Short: I wish the publisher like EA would work like you!!!!!!!!! and I enjoy the game
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Thx on behalf of the team and welcome to the forums :)
What I miss: Some Research decription are missing but It seems that its on work(if not i can try to write some)
Plz start with a *list* of the missing descriptions you encountered. (sometimes they are simply not 'linked in') .
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Starchaser-class Interceptor comes to mind -- one start research on it (at least in the version of 2.3 that's pulled down by the Gentoo ebuild), but has no pre-research text.
Wiki page
( http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Aircraft/Starchaser-class_Interceptor (http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Aircraft/Starchaser-class_Interceptor) )
is basically a stub, so it's presumably just implementation running ahead of documentation. Haven't run this game long enough to actually finish the research and see if there's a buildable interceptor w/ stats and all.
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Speaking of Starchaser, it actually has normal engines and is quite useless-it is just Stilletto with double range.
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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.
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Starchaser is not fully incorporated to the game yet, so this is known problem.
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My feedback for the latest version is that it lags... Classic version plz my pc can't handle the current one.
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'Bomb' also has no description in the 2.3 release, IIRC. Would be reluctant to use it without knowing how it's triggered, or whether it has a large blast radius. :D
Main bug I've run into has been the (already known and tracked) bugged Tropical Harvester map -- can't reach second floor, some doorways can be fired through but not walked through, mega-super-tough-and-brainless Ortnoks walking up and down the stairs with plasma blasters not firing at all while getting roasted and electrolased repeatedly.
Other main bug is some blinking ground textures (usually underneath ships or the like), but seeing as I'm running a Gentoo build w/ 2.6.34 + DRI + X.org drivers + Mesa + w/ a Mobility Radeon X1400, and there have been new ebuilds lately for multiple parts of that stack, some graphical weirdness is probably to be expected.
Minor issues I've noticed include the ability to waste TUs by using a medkit on oneself (appears to never help, probably should say 0% instead of 100%, whereas somebody else using a medkit on you appears to be 100% min(20, maxHP - minHP); and the 'use goggles' button not turning off when (current TUs) >= TUs-to-use-goggles > (TUs - reserved TUs).
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Miss:
The Snake Mans from UFO AI 221
The medium and strong Armor (not Implemented?)
Alienbases (dont found one)
contra:
-Too much alien activity, rest periods are too short
-Some levels like player base seem too large for the AI. I have played dozens of rounds without a basic struggle to meet aliens, it's not hard that is boring.
-The Glowing effects do not work for me. Probably the problem is only a error in my PC.
Pro:
-nice new Maps
-new Technologies like the Stun Gun
-The External Buildings
-The new Reaction Fire System
-The New Graphics and the Quarantine Stations images like the Living and autopsy Alien Pics
-The new Soldier Ranks i have my first Lutenent nice
-The autocombat system
Bugs?:
-sometimes the game freezes while Loading a map
-Reaction fire on the wrong Soldier. Aliens shoot at the Soldiers standing, not on the runs by him
-Aliens shoot at civilians miles away instead of Phalanx soldiers nearby
-Some Pathfinding Bugs
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Other main bug is some blinking ground textures (usually underneath ships or the like), but seeing as I'm running a Gentoo build w/ 2.6.34 + DRI + X.org drivers + Mesa + w/ a Mobility Radeon X1400, and there have been new ebuilds lately for multiple parts of that stack, some graphical weirdness is probably to be expected.
Minor issues I've noticed include the ability to waste TUs by using a medkit on oneself (appears to never help, probably should say 0% instead of 100%, whereas somebody else using a medkit on you appears to be 100% min(20, maxHP - minHP); and the 'use goggles' button not turning off when (current TUs) >= TUs-to-use-goggles > (TUs - reserved TUs).
Tropical harvester is fixed in the patch.
Would you mind to create SF-bugtracker items for the quoted stuff ? Sounds rather new to me.
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'k, will do after some testing.
Was a bit wrong on the goggle usage -- there IS a bug, but it's not based on reaction fire (that was coincidental), but what's happening is that the code that is used when deciding whether or not the button should be lit thinks that the TU cost is 10, but it actually costs 12 to scan -- hence the disconnect. Tested this by crouching up/down (3 TUs ea) or passing grenade from belt to hand (2 TUs it seems). Scan stops working at 11, lights out at 9. Will file but need to head out now.
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> The Snake Mans from UFO AI 221
> Alienbases (dont found one)
They are both in game. Play some more to get shevaars and alien bases. And particle weapons too.
> The medium and strong Armor (not Implemented?)
Don`t know about this point.
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Filed https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3031933&group_id=157793&atid=805242 -- my suspicion is that the 10 TU "throw" mode is what's fooling the UI code into thinking that the goggles are still usable with 10 TUs.
Also added
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3031936&group_id=157793&atid=805242
for the blinking textures.
Double-checked medikit, cannot reproduce so not filing an issue there.
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Thx Lew, someone will sooner or later take care of that.
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i know u dont like that questions, but is there anywhere a 2.4 todo? havent found one.
what are the aims for next release?
will there be a 2.3.1 bugfix version - maybe with new gui? ;)
well... i am just very excited. great work until now.
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see https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/ufoai/milestone/2.4
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will there be a 2.3.1 bugfix version - maybe with new gui?
bugfix only, for sure
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Hi! Let me put my two cents.
First, this is a great game. It's the same feeling as the old UFO (or X-COM) and I am actually playing through nights with it. However there are a few points that I don't like and some even make me pissed because it spoils the fun. Perhaps worth to address.
- Reserve points. It is annoying that you can't save some TUs of your soldiers to return fire if the enemy strolls into their crosshairs. Yeah, I found the button but actually my soldiers very rarely shoot back, if ever. It was way better in the old UFO where you was able to ambush careless enemies. Nevertheless there's not even a Reaction value for the characters as I noticed. Maybe it'd be worth to implement.
- Soldiers gain experience way too slow. After fifty or more missions my best guy is still only Competent in Assault Weapons while he'd be already a superhero in the old UFO.
- The thing that pisses me the most is the "balancing" of the game, namely the better weapons you have the tougher the opponents become. Indeed there's supposed to be some challenge but not like this. I mean what the heck happened to the weapons, or are my soldiers up against Terminators? A simple Taman grunt takes more than a burst shot from a Plasma Rifle from point blank range, although it's not wearing any armor. And they tend to become wonderful snipers as well, they can hit my soldiers with a plasma pistol from kilometers without a problem. Soon it comes down to this: if the enemy sees you, you are toast, period. And it all ends up in playing "Retry" again and again - there goes excitement. It seems my soldiers have no chance, and it's not the kind of thrilling no-chance-but-we-are-heroes thing. It's the game-unbalanced-to-unfair-and-rather-boring thing.
- Have anybody mentioned that there are way too many tactical missions? It'd be useful to have a difficulty setting to set them. Actually there's an UFO landing somewhere every hour and that gives really little time for strategic playing. Also it chewes up soldiers real fast and here we get to that stupid Retry button again. (Hey, the solution is NOT removing the Retry button!)
- Talking about tac missions, it's quite boring when all off sudden an avalanche of Harvesters appear and all land in the same environment. I'm just done with the 6th farm shootout in a row and I am quite bored. But you can't just skip these.
- Why the heck are soldiers scattered everywhere around the base when an attack occurs? A long set of rounds pass by just moving them in position. Meanwhile the aliens barely move, actually they are just holding positions. I can find them always at the same spots. I don't even have to look just throw a grenade into those rooms.
- It is rather odd that a field medikit can heal a mortally wounded soldier just immediately, but it takes weeks in a high-tech hospital for them to recover. Also, recovering takes waaaay too much time.
- In the old UFO there was fatigue, soldiers lost Energy points if moved too much. Now soldiers don't get tired. It is an important game aspect, why drop it?
- Also in the old UFO, when a soldier got wounded, he lost one Health point every turn from then on, until the mission ended or he died. Now the soldiers can fight on without a flaw with half of their heads chopped off with a Kerrblade. WTF?
- It would be really useful if the radar told what size is an UFO it just spotted. One might lose less interceptors.
- For the technical side, I still can't get any sound on my Mac, but I barely get a thing of how to recompile the game. Should I really start learning a new profession just to play a game properly?
- No, I did not read through previous posts so I don't repeat what others already wrote. :)
- Yes, I still like the game, it's the best I've seen for long years.
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- you can reserve TU for reaction fire. How much you save depends on the fire mode you choose (tick mark next to the fire mod). To update it you must cycle the reaction fire button back to no reaction and then to single or multiple reaction. There is a known issue with reaction fire not working sometimes... or many times.
- The healing in the tactical mission was mentioned to be changed.
- Fatigue is weird. Elite soldiers get fatigued from running 50 meters across the map?
- The radar tells you the kind of UFO if you researched it (at least on the version I play). Otherwise, you will learn to recognize them by their looks.
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Hey tomcatmwi !
Thanks for your excellent summary of current game design & other problems in UFO:AI.
I agree on most of your points & am confident that we will take care of those before v2.4 comes out.
VERY GOOD OBSERVATIONS & SUMMARY !!!
If you want to help us, we have multiple trackers on sourceforge, where feature requests & bug reports are stored, maybe you want to take a look & help us making this game what it deserves to become ;)
Here in the forums stuff sometimes tends to get lost over time...
So here are the sourceforge links for you:
Bugs:
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=157793&atid=805242
Feature Requests:
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=157793&atid=805245
Patches (improvements are always welcome):
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=157793&atid=805244
Greetinx & thanks for the excellent review once again. :)
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- The radar tells you the kind of UFO if you researched it (at least on the version I play). Otherwise, you will learn to recognize them by their looks.
IIRC, in the early going, it's:
770 - Scout
880 - Fighter
1100 - Harvester
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tomcatmwi,
thx for the feedback :)
Some of your points sound new to me, others familiar.
Some are bugs, some are missing features and some are design aspects.
I fully agree with MCR. If you took the time to write all that down, you should also make the second step and put your points in the right places *and* watch over them until they are solved somehow, so you can fully enjoy the game in some future version ;)
If you agree to do so, we will gladly point you to those 'right' places.
MCR forgot to mention the 'proposals in our wiki' and the 'design' forum.
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- Soldiers gain experience way too slow. After fifty or more missions my best guy is still only Competent in Assault Weapons while he'd be already a superhero in the old UFO.
Two notes --
1- I don't believe you gain any experience if you do auto-missions.
2- Some soldiers start out FAR superior to others -- e.g. stat ranges 25-40 or so. This is a 1% random die roll. I'm not terribly fond of this (IMHO, this should probably be somewhat frontloaded -- surviving elites joining you in the beginning -- followed by conscript-level replacements for a while, and then a greater chance of elites later once you've proven yourself and there's been time for training). The current system encourages save-scumming because of the magnitude of impact (given that this combines with the stat-gain system to make these guys pretty much permanently superior, because they need the same XP to gain N points above starting stats as far inferior ones do... and it increases superlinearly w/ N.)
- The thing that pisses me the most is the "balancing" of the game, namely the better weapons you have the tougher the opponents become. Indeed there's supposed to be some challenge but not like this. I mean what the heck happened to the weapons, or are my soldiers up against Terminators? A simple Taman grunt takes more than a burst shot from a Plasma Rifle from point blank range, although it's not wearing any armor. And they tend to become wonderful snipers as well, they can hit my soldiers with a plasma pistol from kilometers without a problem. Soon it comes down to this: if the enemy sees you, you are toast, period. And it all ends up in playing "Retry" again and again - there goes excitement. It seems my soldiers have no chance, and it's not the kind of thrilling no-chance-but-we-are-heroes thing. It's the game-unbalanced-to-unfair-and-rather-boring thing.
Haven't really seen this. Not unusual to clear a map against a Harvester's worth with 1-2 wounds, total. But I don't use the plasma weapons at all, except for the plasma pistol as last-ditch sidearm -- all laser rifles, heavy lasers, and sniper rifles for the distance work (common factor: very low spread values, even for the burst modes on the lasers).
- Have anybody mentioned that there are way too many tactical missions? It'd be useful to have a difficulty setting to set them. Actually there's an UFO landing somewhere every hour and that gives really little time for strategic playing. Also it chewes up soldiers real fast and here we get to that stupid Retry button again. (Hey, the solution is NOT removing the Retry button!)
- Talking about tac missions, it's quite boring when all off sudden an avalanche of Harvesters appear and all land in the same environment. I'm just done with the 6th farm shootout in a row and I am quite bored. But you can't just skip these.
Agreed on frequency and tedium. Even with 70+ scientists researching three techs in three bases, and multiple UFO disassemblies occurring at one time, production/research figures are slow enough and mission variety low enough that it's extremely repetitive.
This combines with certain nasty bugs (like the fbxrd's Tropical/Harvester map where you can't enter the staircase room, and the many flashing textures on certain maps with an older ATI card) and the non-success rate with auto-mission (currently estimate automission success rate at maybe 2-3%... with heavy lasers, laser rifles, sniper rifles, nanocomposite armor, and a fair number of Proficient skills w/ one having reached Very Good... and a record of complete stomping when played manually) -- and it's very 'meh' while waiting to finish coilgun and stingray research. Never mind the time it takes to get antimatter so I can actually *fly* the two Dragons that I've built.
From the alien's perspective, I would have expected them to pause to regroup and analyze the situation, then come back with more numbers, more toys, better skills, better tactics, or some combination thereof. Haven't seen any Sheevars or Bloodspiders, any UFO above Harvester.
It is rather odd that a field medikit can heal a mortally wounded soldier just immediately, but it takes weeks in a high-tech hospital for them to recover. Also, recovering takes waaaay too much time.
Known weirdness.
- Also in the old UFO, when a soldier got wounded, he lost one Health point every turn from then on, until the mission ended or he died. Now the soldiers can fight on without a flaw with half of their heads chopped off with a Kerrblade. WTF?
Wounds do affect accuracy by increasing your spread values, so you don't want to engage in a sniper duel when wounded. That said, it doesn't reduce your TU, AFAICT, and wounds don't get worse.
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Am I missing something (research requirements perhaps) or are flashbangs / bombs / smoke / incendiary grenades not in the 2.3 release? I've never been able to buy or make them, and I'm certain they would be handy
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Am I missing something (research requirements perhaps) or are flashbangs / bombs / smoke / incendiary grenades not in the 2.3 release? I've never been able to buy or make them, and I'm certain they would be handy
They were removed from 2.3 because they didn't work well. I thought it's better not having unusable objects in the game.
-geever
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Ah, right. I was merely a bit confused due to having seen several references to them in various places. Having a more limited equipment set that works is clearly preferable to cluttering everything up with broken equipment. I suppose smoke / concussion rounds for the GL / RL are absent for the same reasons?
Ideally, I'd like my "assault" role troopers (at least) to carry smoke / flashbangs for making long dashes and room clearance easier. Also, although the AI seems to be quite good at finding cover, having them being able to pop smoke to cover an advance / retreat would be even more awesome.
Very nice to see such a fast reply too, thanks
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Currently, there isn't really a "proper" visibility system in the game. In other words, an alien can not see you if there's a wall between you and him, but he can if there isn't. The game doesn't calculate any kind of partial visibility, so it couldn't handle smoke grenades.
I agree that a whole range of fun tactics will be available with a full visibility system, and to my knowledge this is part of the long-term goals of the work arisian is putting into the renderer.
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OK, I think I am done with this game until it's made somewhat fair.
As I mentioned before, aliens tend to become invincible super-Terminators as my research develops. As soon as I invent some new weapon or armor, the aliens instantly have an even bigger gun, and my new toy is rendered useless. Also the opponents become smarter, way smarter than any of my best soldiers, and now we are at a point when they never ever miss a target, let it be at any distance, with any weapon.
Having an unarmored Taman mowing down my entire squad with a plasma pistol from the other edge of the map while my men are clueless about even how to fire their guns is stupid. This really has to be adjusted. A major thrill element in the old UFO was how you were able to see your new scientific developments deployed and used. This game gives the feeling that research is completely irrelevant. Regardless whatever weapon you develop, forget about using it. All you get is a few e-mails but you actually gradually lose your chances in combat. Now I have the Nanocomposite Armor and Plasma Rifles but I find it completely impossible to finish a tac mission without at least one of my soldiers killed. That would be actually acceptable if it was not that hard to acquire new soldiers and it wouldn't be that difficult to improve their abilities. (Which are, as I previously said, also next to impossible.)
A major problem on tac missions that in some cases my soldiers are dropped out to an open field, with no cover within a hundred meters. Sometimes they can't get there for two or even three rounds. It'd be much more advisable if they always started in the dropship, and not scattered around it.
Also wanted to ask why some aliens begin to cry after they get wounded? Is it supposed to mean they are losing morale and panicked?
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Uhm what difficulty are you playing on? There are certain ways to beat all maps I've found even if some mean that you hide behind the dropship on the desert crashed harvester map and let the aliens come to you. Love needle guns.
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Using plasma rifles pretty much invalidates any complaints about missing at long range.
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- For the technical side, I still can't get any sound on my Mac, but I barely get a thing of how to recompile the game. Should I really start learning a new profession just to play a game properly?
Mac sound is a known issue. It has to do with how the sound support is linked in. It will get fixed at some point.
My question: Are you PPC mac, i386, or x86_64? Which binary did you download? It sounds like you've got working graphics, and I'm still having problems getting my PPC machine to build working graphics for either PPC or i386.
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Ah, right. I was merely a bit confused due to having seen several references to them in various places. Having a more limited equipment set that works is clearly preferable to cluttering everything up with broken equipment. I suppose smoke / concussion rounds for the GL / RL are absent for the same reasons?
No, there were no smoke-rounds for them (yet?).
Ideally, I'd like my "assault" role troopers (at least) to carry smoke / flashbangs for making long dashes and room clearance easier. Also, although the AI seems to be quite good at finding cover, having them being able to pop smoke to cover an advance / retreat would be even more awesome.
That's not easy, we need to implement the proposed visibility system for such features.
-geever
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>> No, there were no smoke-rounds for them
>> we need to implement the proposed visibility system for such features
Yep, understood. Please, don't think I'm critiscising or anything. I've just been reading around and have seen references to various things, and was vaguely wondering why they didn't appear in 2.3. I do have a notion of how much effort has gone into producing what is there, and considering it's been done by volunteers, it's little short of a miracle that it works as well as it does.
I have very fond memories of the XCOM games, and I've spent many an hour hunting down sectoids (Autocannon, HE rounds - pew pew pew), a similar number on TFTD, and even as far back as Laser Squad (Android Barker was just awesome), and even Rebelstar 2 (which accused me of cheating, because I had that map down *cold*, and knew just how to burn the foliage so the rats ended turn in front of my heavy lasers, where to position my troops to avoid Terminator fire, and how to steal all the eggs before the reinforcements got too into the fight). Happy days...
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Yep, understood. Please, don't think I'm critiscising or anything. I've just been reading around and have seen references to
No problem.
-geever
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Now I just got so upset I deleted the entire game. For what fun it used to be when started, the utter disappointment it turned into.
More than often it happens that one or two aliens get hidden behind a piece of rock on certain maps. It is impossible to get closer to the rock because it lies in open terrain, with even a river in the way (seriously, why can't my soldiers cross a two steps wide creek?) In each turn they come out of cover, fire a few rounds with deadly precisity (the usual thing: wielding plasma pistols they hit my soldiers kilometers away, despite they are behind a cover, crouched) and immediately step back behind the rock. There's no chance even to fire at them because they never come out. My soldiers don't fire back with reaction fire regardless I turned it on. Hence it is mission impossible. And it is happening again and again in a row.
Besides of the aliens becoming the best snipers in the world, they seem to have endless TUs compared to my soldiers. They just run across half of the map in a single round, and still have time for multiple well-aimed shots. Their speed is also an unmatched advantage which especially turns out in close quarter combat.
Also the rate of terror missions get unbearable. Every day there are at least two or three landings and half a dozen flying UFOs which I can't handle. All the nations gradually lose their faith in me. This is a serious game balance problem. The game is simply no fun at all after a point.
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Now I just got so upset I deleted the entire game. For what fun it used to be when started, the utter disappointment it turned into.
More than often it happens that one or two aliens get hidden behind a piece of rock on certain maps. It is impossible to get closer to the rock because it lies in open terrain, with even a river in the way (seriously, why can't
So it was little bit harder than you expected and you don't wanna take the challenge. :P
Fine.
-geever
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I don't get it. You're playing 2.3? These aliens don't sound like the critters I face off with. I do have hundreds of hours in 2.3 (currently playing 2.4). Often times you can find relatively safe places and sometimes you have to spread out your troops and rush for a house/ rock etc.
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That is the tactic i use, but ai are kind of lame: instead of walking, they shoot and hit the spot, where is hiding my soldier (one of 3 shots usually hit) to save for rf. They usually use rf, unless i crash their ship (except harvesters)...
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Sounds like you should look into using explosives and flanking tactics.
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Its great that you guys made this game happen. The least I could do is to give some feedback:
- frequency of UFOs, and game difficulty: like previous comments suggested, I also found that there are a lot of UFOs and terror missions. In game time I am in September 2084 now having ignored a lot of them for 3 month reacting on 2-3 a week, and all factions are happy, if not exuberant. I also used auto mission lots of times, but after a while it ends with the mission being lost (which does not include any losses in personnel, or equipment - strange). Oh yeah, how is it decided if I can automission a mission or not??? My first base is on the "corner" of Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. The second is in Alaska, but first I only used it for research. It is a bit strange for me, if I were any of the factions, I would be pissed that UFOs are flying around, and terrorizing people. I play at standard difficulty, but I don't think thats the issue here. And I am not suggesting making the game more difficult. :)
- lights: on some missions at night places are just too dark, I can't see if the house I'm approaching has a door, or which side it is on. I tried turning up brightness, but there was not much improvement. In a terror mission, where there is a casino, the stairs above the enterance were pitch black, but there were lights in the staircases in the back. The 2nd, and 3rd floors were also pitch black. I know that the aliens have no problem with that, but I would have thought that by 2084 this will not be an issue. I am not sure whether the problem is with the maps, or maybe flares would be too difficult to programme, but it is really annoying for me.
- visuals: it seems to me that the game starts to lag (not sure if it is the right word) when I raise the camera to 3rd level or above. There are also some issues with dead civillians, but I guess this is nothing new. Or sould I change the settings somewhere, or download some new drivers?
- saving on tactical missions: I know it is on purpose that one can not save during mission, but one can before. ;) From what I read about difficulty, and mission frequency, I would guess that this will change in future versions. If you guys reconsider things, please add some saving options. It could be related to difficulty, and there could be a limit to saves per mission when the maps become larger. Some people save much, and some don't. I think it should be up to the player (I read somewhere that it would take the fear away, maybe "0" saves on harder difficulty will keep them from sleeping through nights ;)). Or maybe it is a technical issue? Also I find the save slots on geoscape not enough (I am one of those who saves much :)).
- For those of you who find the game difficult, concentrate on scout UFOs (the slowest smallest ones) in the beginning (recovery is a bit less complicated as aliens start out in the open), sell everything you don't research currently, take cover as much as you can, and crouch for precise shooting. It is also good to keep medkits in your holster instead of your backpack, to save time.
Keep up the good work!
bear.
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Oh I forgot to ask about the laser turrets. I researched and produced them, but can't use them. I can't install them in my SAM. It is in my base nearby, as I am able to sell it, but it does not show in the SAM as "in store". I also rebuilt the SAM, but still I am not able to install it. Any help would be appreciated.
bear.
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Oh yeah, how is it decided if I can automission a mission or not???
Welcome! Story related missions cannot be done automatically.
Or maybe it is a technical issue? Also I find the save slots on geoscape not enough (I am one of those who saves much :)).
Technically it's doable. but it would mean we should develop and maintain a code we don't even want to have. It would need greater efforts that it worths.
Oh I forgot to ask about the laser turrets.
Laser turrets can only be used for in-base Laser Defence facilities, not for external SAM sites.
-geever
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Forgive me if these have already been mentioned but soo much to read to catch up on but some things I've noticed in the 2.3 stable version -
1) UFOpedia - no pre or post research desciption for Starchaser, no pre research desc for the Stingray, no info on the bomb item, no stats for the Kerrblade, Plasma blade nor plasma grenade once researched.
2) In my game, it seems like there's way too many UFO missions happening, between 6-10/day so you don't get time to rest any injured soldiers.
3) I've had a few UFO's recently just disappear from radar or suddenly appear on radar near base almost like it lands but no terror mission comes up or it leaves the atmosphere. Not sure if this is WAD to represent the Alien's ability to adapt to my technology lvl or a bug starting to appear
4) I've sometimes have had CTD in battlescape when the weapon fires & seems to go into sound loop. Probably nothing more than just a driver or software conflict on my part rather than an actual bug.
5) Production doesn't seem to go any faster or slower regardless of the # of workers.
6) My battles seem limited to only 4 battlescapes or so - the one w/ the railroad where you start up on the hill, the farm w/ the large open pens, the snowy hamlet happens for Russia regardless of season are the most common ones
7) Ability to patrol an area w/ interceptors/transport or at least change it's direction away from danger. Right now you can stop it or reassign it's homebase but only if there's an available spot for it to go to
8) Healing in the hospital seems to take forever but you can send them on a mission & heal them by using a medkit faster.
9) I've been playing on the easiest level just to get back into the swing of things but play balance even at that level seems to be well in the Aliens favor or the difficulty setting has little to no effect. They can hit me from the far corner using the plasma pistols yet my guys couldn't hit the broadside of a barn the size of Texas w/ the barrel butting up against it not to mention their skills they start with.
I really do enjoy this version & look forward it being completed.
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3) I've had a few UFO's recently just disappear from radar or suddenly appear on radar near base almost like it lands but no terror mission comes up or it leaves the atmosphere. Not sure if this is WAD to represent the Alien's ability to adapt to my technology lvl or a bug starting to appear
This bug got fixed since that.
7) Ability to patrol an area w/ interceptors/transport or at least change it's direction away from danger. Right now you can stop it or reassign it's homebase but only if there's an available spot for it to go to
You can start your aircraft from base with the little blue icon on aircraft screen, and then set a destination to it on the geoscape. The interface could be better though, agreed.
-geever
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5) Production doesn't seem to go any faster or slower regardless of the # of workers.
The hours-left in a production status is actually man-hours left. Try doing the same task (such as disassembling a harvester) in a base w/ 20 workers and a base with 30 workers, and running for a while -- the latter's hour number should go down faster. Last I checked, the code was in-place for strictly linear scaling w/ workers (w/ workshops, of course) with a minor exception that every task takes at least one hour.
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This bug got fixed since that.
You can start your aircraft from base with the little blue icon on aircraft screen, and then set a destination to it on the geoscape. The interface could be better though, agreed.
-geever
And just to clarify, you can also redirect aircraft that have already been given orders (or are automatically returning to base). I didn't realize it at first and have found it really handy when a fighter pops up near a base when my Firebird is inbound from a mission. You can turn around and run while your interceptors chase them down.
And as geever says, it's not particularly obvious. Just ignore the pop-up screen and click on the geoscape. You'll should see the pink course line change to where you clicked.
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And just to clarify, you can also redirect aircraft that have already been given orders (or are automatically returning to base). I didn't realize it at first and have found it really handy when a fighter pops up near a base when my Firebird is inbound from a mission. You can turn around and run while your interceptors chase them down.
And as geever says, it's not particularly obvious. Just ignore the pop-up screen and click on the geoscape. You'll should see the pink course line change to where you clicked.
Thanks, I thought all the choices I had were in the popup as like you I had a Firebird that I thought had no place to go but to it's destruction.
Lew yard - it just doesn't seem like it's working right in my game as I've watched it for things as little as Plasma Grenades though ship disassembly does seem to take too long also as I don't think I'll ever be able to disassemble all my captured ships :P In my game I've got 3 production bases - 1 for ship disassembly & 2 for weapons or ships if no weapons are needed.
A side question to ship disassembly - can you sell/dispose of ships in your yard? Seems like I can only destroy a shipyard instead of being able to look to see what's in a shipyard. I've got 3 shipyards full of ships that I don't think I'll ever be able to disassemble all of them before game is over but do want to disassemble just those where I can get the tech to research or parts I need out of them.
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A side question to ship disassembly - can you sell/dispose of ships in your yard? Seems like I can only destroy a shipyard instead of being able to look to see what's in a shipyard. I've got 3 shipyards full of ships that I don't think I'll ever be able to disassemble all of them before game is over but do want to disassemble just those where I can get the tech to research or parts I need out of them.
You will be able to sell them, once I implemented it. It is a missing feature.
-geever
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Some more feedback after playing a little longer -
How about some variance in the number of aliens faced based on the ship damage if any. In the old XCOM you could expect as little as 1 in a small ship mission if it was damaged to as many as a dozen or more in the larger ships if undamaged.
Not sure if it's been fixed or seen but when an alien uses a grenade there's no explosion graphic but the damage does occur to soldier. Also along these lines the AI doesn't seem to use them or gets them rarely in a mission, how about an increase in this aspect?
Sometimes I get odd alien behavior on tactical missions where an alien just walks up to one of my soliders or right by one totally ignoring me which allows me to "execute" them the very next turn. Not sure if it's some kind of morale thing but I've not seen any of the "gone mad" msgs when this happens nor are they going after civilians.
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Hi, I'm coming into this as someone who loved the original games, and I'm impressed by what you've done so far. I am a commercial C++ programmer, and I would like to help out when I have the time. Realistically, "if I have the time", as I have a family, but I will try.
A few proposals:
1) I gather there's no weight/ strength/ Time Units system created yet. I would have thought it would be fairly straightforward to create a simple one: an item requires two strength for each space in the inventory it takes up; perhaps there could be "light", "medium" and "heavy" items, which take up 1, 2 or 3 strength for each space in the inventory. If a soldier is over their strength limit, Time Units are reduced accordingly, rounded down. i.e. if strength 30 and they have medium items taking up 20 inventory spaces, their TUs should be reduced by ((20 * 2)- 30)/30, so they will have their TUs reduced by 1/3. I think that would be about right, as long as ammunition was rated as a "light" item then the average soldier should be able to carry primary weapon (and reload) and secondary weapon. At the moment I can't see any reason not to give every single soldier multiple reloads, a secondary weapon, medikit, infrared glasses and multiple grenades.
Strength "experience" should be significant if a soldier is carrying their maximum weight or above.
2) I know there are various proposals to resolve medikit issues. I would have thought a simple way would be to say that only half the damage inflicted in a mission can be healed by medikits. So if a soldier was hit for 20, medikits can heal a maximum of 10. Hospital healing should probably be speeded up somewhat to compensate.
3) As far as I can tell, it's no cheaper to produce something than it is to buy it. This makes producing items which you can buy pointless (I suppose you might run out of stock to buy, but I've not seen it happen). In the original game you could make a bit of money by producing things and then selling them. This gives engineers who would otherwise be idle something to do. It doesn't need to be huge, even being able to produce something for 90% of the value you can sell it for would be worthwhile.
Keep up the good work, let me know if you'd like me to flesh these ideas out more.
merlin
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Hi, I'm coming into this as someone who loved the original games, and I'm impressed by what you've done so far. I am a commercial C++ programmer, and I would like to help out when I have the time. Realistically, "if I have the time", as I have a family, but I will try.
Hi, welcome on board. I hope you can get plenty of time for UFO:AI. The more developers, the better. ;)
1) I gather there's no weight/ strength/ Time Units system created yet.
DarkRain just started to working on it, see here (http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=5307.0).
2) I know there are various proposals to resolve medikit issues.
criusmac started to work on medikit and injury system once, but he abandoned us. :( His last patch is on the tracker (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2891685&group_id=157793&atid=805244) also discussion in the Medikit (http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=2216.msg27067#msg27067) thread.
If you could pick up the line and continue his work it would be awesome!
3) As far as I can tell, it's no cheaper to produce something than it is to buy it.
That was a decision not allowing profit from producing because PHALANX is not a merchant firm but to be honest I'm not quite satisfied with the way it is done. I think is should be done with market system like the way xcom3 did: if you sell much of an item it's sell price drops dramatically. But that's something for the future.
-geever
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Hi Merlin and welcome from me as well :)
Well, geever was faster than me and said exactly what I wanted to say, so I saved some time ;)
As you can see from those discussions, we have numerous 'junior game designers' around here. So simple approaches like yours (to get things started) won't stand the test of discussion.
As you are a professional, I see two major areas of work for you:
1) bugfixing. We don't have so many devs that are able to fix *any* bug.
2) encapsulation. We started the tedious task to work the code towards a more OO design. Maybe one fine day (2084 ?) we can switch to C++.
You can get much applause from the users for #1. For #2, you'll 'only' get kudos from a few admins. But #2 will always fit into your time table ;)
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Hi Merlin and welcome from me as well :)
Well, geever was faster than me and said exactly what I wanted to say, so I saved some time ;)
As you can see from those discussions, we have numerous 'junior game designers' around here. So simple approaches like yours (to get things started) won't stand the test of discussion.
As you are a professional, I see two major areas of work for you:
1) bugfixing. We don't have so many devs that are able to fix *any* bug.
2) encapsulation. We started the tedious task to work the code towards a more OO design. Maybe one fine day (2084 ?) we can switch to C++.
You can get much applause from the users for #1. For #2, you'll 'only' get kudos from a few admins. But #2 will always fit into your time table ;)
Hi, thanks for the responses guys. I tend to prefer simple solutions because they actually get implemented. I've had a look at the medkit diffs and there's some interesting stuff there, however I can't help thinking it would have been nice to fix what is effectively a bug for the latest release, without getting so bogged down in multiple wound locations etc. I'd have thought multiple wound locations could have been added later, e.g. when it became possible to target particular locations (which would presumably require creation of a body graphic as well, so that could be reused to show where wounds were).
I'm more than happy to bugfix, it's a significant part of what my job involves anyway. It will take me a while to get up to speed though, bearing in mind I've never programmed in C before, never used SourceForge before, etc. We use quite low level C++, so I didn't have any problems understanding the medkit diffs, but there are C vs. C++ style differences (how something is done) as much as anything else. Bug fixing would probably make more sense until I understand how you want to do encapsulation, for example. When I'm a bit more comfortable with the code I might have a look at picking up the medkit stuff.
One final point on features (and I know you have more features than you have coders!): is armour facing anywhere on the ToDo list? I always quite liked that it in the X-Com games there was a tactical element to which way your soldiers faced. If you get hit on the front then even with quite weak armour you had a chance, whereas if you got hit from behind then even with the super armour you could get damaged. It's also quite realistic, as soldiers and tanks do have stronger armour where they're most likely to be hit, i.e. on the front.
Keep up the good work- I will try to help out where I can.
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If you know C++, you also can give your attention to UFORadiant, our map editor. There is many wishes and bugs in it, and we (mappers) will be very happy ;-)
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For the people having difficulty with the game, here are the 3 biggest game changers that I've found:
1. Research and build the nanocomposite armor ASAP
2. Research and build lasers, ASAP
3. Use cover! The game gets to a point where if you dont finish your TUs with cover, expect to get hit. #1 can usually keep those hits from getting lethal.
Make sure everyone has a medikit. If you start getting tore up, create an "aid station" where one or two guys are in a safe spot, and you run your hurt guys to them. The aliens are often not too aggressive so you can take time to heal up wounded folks.
As far as suggestions, I also agree with the several of the other posters about the pace of the game. I can understand the aliens escalating their activity, but it gets to a pretty ridiculous level when it takes several IRL hours just to get through 1 game day, when you have weeks to have something researched or broken down. I'm not sure what the best fix for this would be.
Couple of questions:
Can 2.3 save games be transfered to 2.4?
Can terror missions or crashed UFOs be ignored once in a while, or will that result in big status hits?
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Can 2.3 save games be transfered to 2.4?
No.
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i've found out earlier that there is a limit of 2096 employees per base (512 of each kind). Raise it! I want to finish the game as fast as possible!
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i've found out earlier that there is a limit of 2096 employees per base (512 of each kind). Raise it! I want to finish the game as fast as possible!
512 of each kind is not a per-base limit but overall. However I don't think it's low, we're going to remove the hard limits for other reasons.
-geever
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Hi guys, I stopped playing this for a while but downloaded it again last month and damn... it's still awesome! Can't wait for the new elements you guys are working on. Daddy wants some heavy armor.
Pros:
Reaction-Fire... (this would have been on the list for cons a while ago). What ever you guys did, it actually works worth a damn. The last time I had UFOAI on my PC, I stopped using RF after the first mission when aliens pranced across my whole squad's LOS (who all forgot they were supposed to do something), popped off a few shots, did a moon-walk to the quick-mart around the corner while singing Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and grabbed a case of bear for the trip back on their next turn. Mouth gaping, I swore "Reaction what? Never... again..."(as I had seen the hundreds of complaints about it and its lack of any kind of effectiveness) Out of curiosity i decided to try it (since it had been a while) to see if anything had been changed. An evil grin spread across my face as an alien rounded the corner on his turn and was greeted with a hail of bullets. THANK YOU soooo much.
Effort: You guys have all put so much effort into this project and continue to for all of us to enjoy. I personally thank you, you brought the kid out of me again with this game. To this day, the X-COM series is my all-time favorite and this is right up there with them in my book with it's own unique elements. Keep up the awesome work you bad@sses.
Everything else not mentioned below: Outfrickinstanding. Daddy like.
Cons:
UFOpedia: Extreme lack of luster. Don't get me wrong, it's well written and flows with the story-line, but the lack of a large, sweet looking image of the research just makes it dry and uninteresting to review. Hell, I used to check out old reports in X-COM often during a game no matter how many times I beat it (even the autopsy reports were cool), but I actually found I had to force myself to read UFOAI's research reports. I almost feel I'm being punished for finishing the R&D, boys. 5 days and 375 UFO incursions later and I'm just not excited tenough to bother reading the plasma rifle or autopsy report. It's a shame too because whoever wrote the 'pedia and put all that effort in was almost in vain. It's bad when even just throwing up an animated picture of Starwars Kid in the top corner of every report could make it more interesting to browse.
A.I.: I'm sure it's a monster to program, but good god... as an X-COM veteran, your AI is effing retarded. It is predictable and not too bright, and on many maps they congregate like cattle near key locations (especially base def). What's worse is you compensate this by making them unnaturally beefy, like what the rage-quitter mentioned in earlier posts. Granted, he struck me as having absolutely no strategic talent if he had that much of a problem, but it's obvious what's going on when the naked Tamans suddenly can take some serious punishment with a coke and a smile after researching plasma. Compensating poor AI with exponentially accumulating, god-like stats does not present a challenge, its just poor programming border lining the ridiculous. I can buy them becoming sharp-shooters due to the hive-mind learning curve according to the story, but health? How does connected intellect explain learning how to take a burst of point-blank plasma fire after losing a few of the collective to ballistic rifle fire? (Might be another con then, weapon Imballance?) A 98 pound Tamon in his undies is still a 98 pound Tamon even if the over-mind he's connected to tells him he's a 12 ton armored elephant thats eats plasma for breakfeast. I wish I could offer you a solution but I'm not a programmer, it's just blatantly absurd as it is. I, too, have had Ortnoks take pot-shots at civilians across the entire map when I have a troop 4 meters in front of it armed with a sword and a dirty look. Not only was my troop an immediate threat, but was what I thought to be an easier target than some idiot 10 clicks away behind 4 fences and some hay. I've also noticed Aliens force-firing at targets like civilians or my troops when they have absolutely no LOS in that direction whatsoever, and they aren’t going berserk when this happens.
UFO Spammage: The frequency of the UFOs paying a visit... holy piss. Hopefully that is WIP, quite a popular topic.
Maps: Farms and Oriental districts come up way to often and are too boring for their frequency, especially when you take into account the above mentioned spamming. Some days I play about an hour and go, "Fu#$ this, not up for the grind today." Ugh, just thinking about another forest mission right now makes me want to drive my head through a wall.
Variety: In essence, the lack there of. A year into the game and I am sssssssooooooo sick of Tamons and Ortnoks I could club a baby seal. The great thing about a "story line" is you can modify it, change it, add things, take away things, whatever, to make it better- more enjoyable... for the game's sake this is a must. Keep in mind you guys doing all the work on this project: Stop slapping down ideas from all these creative people flooding in to support your game, I've seen allot of things that could greatly improve every aspect of this game. As it stands right now, the game gets unbearably monotonous. MORE weapons, MORE enemies. On the topic of weapons, you have too damn many useless secondary weapons that really aren’t even handy in the beginning of the game let alone later on. I see that there MIGHT be some new armors introduced which means you have a prime opportunity to enhance the game with some shiny new gnarly $h!t. (GREAVER I have seen too many posts from you stating "it doesn’t go with the story line... it doesn’t go with... it doesn’t..." shuddafukup. The game aint done yet, the story-line CAN be MODIFIED to accommodate better game-play which is equally, if not MORE important.)
Fuel: yea, there isn’t much point in making the advanced aircraft. Why spend lots of money and waste allot of resources to get an aircraft so you can take on the harvesters and prevent them from landing when you need them to land so you can get the fuel to be able to take on the harvesters... yea... doesn't really make sense considering how long it takes to disassemble a fighter for the drop of antimatter they give does it? Did any of you take into account how many damn UFOs visit during a 24 hour period, let alone 500 frickin hours? Some one failed beyond epic on this. The idea of technological advancement is to ADVANCE. Getting a Firestorm and Avenger in X-COM was a wonderful time. Getting the starchaser and other craft in this is painful and irrational. I could get 1-4 ufos down with advanced craft's tank in this but with absolutely no point or end-game when letting them land or using Stilettos would have been as rewarding if not more. I'm really hoping you make an attack transport, BTW, hopefully one that resides somewhere near the realm of economic.
Civilians: steeeeewpeeeed eeedeeots. So stupid they often run to aliens for shelter, or towards a gunfight... I must have missed that in the story-line Greaver, did the people of the future become incredibly dumb due to red-neck inbreeding and playing with Chinese lead-painted toys? Why don’t they panic and run hiding like the aliens after being shot at? Can you not program them to lose morale if they are the target of gunfire and/or within a radius of an alien? How about when phalanx troop is in their sight they head to them or something, maybe even being able to take over their actions if you get within a radius (as if your troops were telling them what to do)? I make it a priority to have cattle prods ASAP, and NOT for the aliens, hell no. Its for the idiots I’m sworn to protect blocking doorways and stairwells for 10 turns. How about a "restrain civilian" option when standing next to one that puts them down? Their avatars crack me up too, aliens landed and the chicks pose with a hand on their hip like they gunna chew some @ss out of their man cuz they caught him cheatin'. Where is the arms flailing, cowering, screaming, pant soiling, and lamentation of de women?
Soldier Skins: I get sick of the same 8 heads, some with glasses some without. I’m hoping you're adding more variety there. Out of curiosity why do most of them all pop up with Asian names every game I play? Are they the expendable race of the future ROFL? The US gives me all their Asians, Africa gives me all theirs, Europe and so on every time.
The chick's death screams still sound like a chipmonk being punted over a field goal by a line-backer.
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thanks for your feedback. about the farm+oriental "issue" - we don't have enough maps yet. if you wanna help, download the map editor and change this ;)
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Hello Brasher,
your feedback is (probably) mostly appreciated, but the style is lacking.
First and foremost:
... GREAVER I have seen too many posts from you stating "it doesn’t go with the story line... it doesn’t go with... it doesn’t..." shuddafukup ...
Are you referring to Geever!?
It's one thing to come and make suggestions for improvement;
It's another (ugly) thing to waltz into an open-source project forum, having nothing to contribute, and telling one of the developers to "shuddafukup".
Behave.
Regarding the AI, you could have spared us the mega-rant (2 paragraphs, one for the enemies, one for civilians).
This is a well known issue which is constantly under development and tweaking, as you've read on the forums.
Also, try reading the AI discussion (http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=5056.0) to get a sense of scale and effort on this subject.
Regarding variety - Repetitive maps, soldier\civilian models, not enough weapons, "visually stale" UFOpedia articles:
In one word: Contribute.
In many words: If you can bother to complain about it, can you bother to help in fixing it?
You claim you're not a coder, and that's alright. But you don't need coding skills to help with creating models and textures, and with mapping.
You don't see other people here rant about it because they don't have the time to contribute,
and while it would be "nice to have", this project's limited resources are directed towards issues with higher priorities.
Having said all that, I do agree with you on:
- The anti-matter (fuel) paradox - Some alternative way(s) of getting it should be thought of and implemented, IMO.
- The frequency of UFO activity - I'm pretty sure it can be easily changed, and will be, as a matter of final fine-tuning.
BTW, notice how this issue also leads to ridiculously high income (and hitting the 10M credits cap). - Your complaint of the inability to interact with civilians.
I'm 99.9% sure you'll never be able to actually control any of them, unless you could code that yourself somehow.
I've thought that maybe, every non-sharp weapon should have a special "fire-mode" say, "Physical Strike" in order to beat civilians into unconsciousness.
For this to work without messing with game balance, I suppose a new damage type (say, "civilian_stun") should be implemented, to which combatants are totally resistant.
Anyway, Brasher, you do have a certain style which I generally like, but please remember you're a guest here...
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Understand I meant no offense; don't take my post any where near being a hostile review, please. I'm rough around the edges, but this is completely a compliment. Maybe I should have made it more clear the issues I mentioned are well known and are constantly being worked on which is why I praised every one involved on effort. This game has made my year. Out of all the games I have (Fallout, BF, CIV, and many more) you’d see me playing UFOAI the most.
As far as Greever, it was late and you're right, I should have used a little more tact. Reading my post again, it seems more like I singled him out, but there are others that I've seen having a tendency to shut people down in the forums, as well, with a manner that could harm publicity (this includes new people, young people who show an interest in this genre which is amazing as I thought this style of game play phased out of recent generations with the common ADD style need for instant gratification through the multitude of modern-day crappy games). It's a personal peeve of mine. My intent was to hopefully jolt some one out of the mundane (or what ever) which seems to have tainted their creativity and sincerity, not bash them as I believe they have been key players in the success of UFOAI, attitudes aside. “Shudafukup” is quite different than STFU; it is impossible to express connotation via text, but if you were to have heard me speak it, it carried a light-hearted and playful tone. I urge all of you to encourage people’s creative thoughts and let them down gently if a proposed idea is a bit too far-fetched or not possible. Don’t forget you were “like that” at some point lol.
I’m looking into helping out with the maps, you totally got me stoked. The only reason I haven’t contributed to this point is because I was worried about the old saying, “Too many cooks spoil the soup”, but if this area needs help enough for you to ask then I’m there and would love to support where I can. I’ve never been a part of an on-line project like this; do you have a link to groups with a leader for certain tasks that I could get in touch with? I get lost in your forums. As an outsider, things look chaotic to me and I’m a bit intimidated… I’m old and accustomed to a structured chain of command lol.
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Brasher, it's not that well coordinated on the mapping side. But there's a forum for mapping questions (http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?board=3.0) and the mapping section of the wiki (http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Mapping) has lots of info to get started. Ask (in the mapping forum) if you have any questions.
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Brasher, I'm glad to hear you want to contribute :)
You will probably want to skim the 'contribute' section of our wiki and find out which task suits you most. In the process, you will learn why some of your points require soooo much work.
In addition to that, I'd like to see you take notes of that *process*.
That is, plz write some wiki articles like
"How to find a suitable way to contribute"
"Why certain features are incredibly hard to implement"
Got the idea ?
Feel free to rant about everything that keeps you from 'directly contributing the next day', but NOT without telling us what would have helped you to do so ;)