Messages

1

Feature Requests / Re: Licensing

« on: September 21, 2009, 11:07:18 am »

OT
A joke about different programming languages:
If you ask a programmer how to get somewhere his answer depends on the programming language he uses:
- C++: Go to that intersection, then right, straight, straight, straight and finally left and you will reach your destination.
- Pascal: Go to that intersection, turn right into Shakespeare st., next go to Goethe's st. and finally left into King's st. and there you are.
- Assembler: Go to that newsagent, buy a bus ticket, go to the bus stop over there and get on a bus, get out on the third stop, go through the underground passage and that's it.
- Prolog: You see that tall building with a red sign? That's it.
- Lisp: Go to that intersection and ask somebody there.
EOT

2

Tactics / Re: Acceptable losses

« on: September 20, 2009, 09:15:20 pm »

First of all, what version of the game do you use? You can check that in the main menu, on the bottom.

1. I did not notice a UFO flying abit north of the equator until a mission showed - Do I need some radar or was I just too far since i'm in the south pole or do they not show up every time?

You have a radar by default in your first base, so I guess it's just a matter of them flying out of it's range. I guess a north pole would be better - closer to main lands. Also, they don't show up every time.

3. I found myself retrying alot of missions as I always strive for 0dead (Atleast in the begining when my numbers are small and my supplies limited) and quite often I find aliens pop from around the corner and kill my soldiers with a single melee strike or just a lucky shot. Do my men start with armor? Where can I check? If not, where can I equip them with armor?

In the base menu click "aircraft" and there, on the Firebird-d screen there should be a "assign soldiers" button and that's where you choose whom do you want to take for the mission and what should they be equipped in. A soldier has a basic armor if he is represented by a model wearing a vest and a helmet. You can give them armour on the proper "armour" tab.

Although 4 grenade launchers is original:) I don't expect it to be some kind of UberEpic combination, I suggest switching some to weapons better suited for reaction fire, like snipe/heavy machine gun. If you don't have them just buy them (don't forget the ammo) - they aren't that expensive.

3

Discussion / Re: Base attack

« on: September 20, 2009, 08:59:41 pm »

Random is nice if you don't have 3 farms in a row:P but that's what I could get used to, what i really didnt like was a harvester on most missions and 1-2 aliens inside it, and it (the harvester) always had to be cleared in almost the same way. Adding the problem of invisible aliens hidden within obstacles makes me want to wait for some more revisions:P

There are IMO not enough terrain features in random maps (no piles of crates lying on the ground, no lone tree next to some kind of a road and so on - I'd love to make some but currently I have no time to even start learning how to do that) which made me feel that I'm playing the very same mission over again, that's why I would like to play a fixed mission once in a while (I don't remember a campaign where I played a fixed mission twice).

4

Discussion / Re: Base attack

« on: September 20, 2009, 05:05:34 pm »

Is it 2.2.x? I'm not sure if base attacks were in 2.2 series...

-geever

Guess that might be the reason (2.2.1), I didn't play 2.3 for that long because I got bored of all the same repetitive random generated maps

5

Discussion / Re: Base attack

« on: September 20, 2009, 04:18:05 pm »

"Well"? I played "well" for, like, 5 months, winning every available mission and shooting down some UFOs (mostly supplies, scouts and fighters), but still no base attack. Maybe I should screw something up? Well, whatever, I'm going to find out, I guess:P

6

Tactics / Re: Newbie questions

« on: September 20, 2009, 02:09:50 pm »

With 10 workers it takes 572 hours to produce a targetting computer, that is almost 24 days:P It's really better to just buy that computer, especially on very easy where you have money for whatever you want. Just construct anoher workshop and hire additional 10 workers.

Use version 2.2.1, it's a stable release. 2.3 is a development version, with lots of features uncompleted, buggy disabled and/or otherwise not ready to use.

remember the old but memorable ufo

I'm one of those few people around here who never played any of the original UFO games, so I don't remember:P Well, I played X-COM Interceptor, but that was a totally different game.

7

Discussion / Re: Base attack

« on: September 20, 2009, 12:25:30 pm »

What should I do to have my base attacked? Shall I send and loose hundreds of interceptors so that the enemy knows where I am or what?

8

Tactics / Re: Newbie questions

« on: September 20, 2009, 12:06:11 pm »

First of all, what version do you play? Is it 2.2.1 release or on of the current dev versions? Also, What difficulty level are you playing?

1. How do you arm your interceptor? I usually mount 2 sparrowhawk missile launchers and a tr-20 missile pod,, + armour and one of both ecm and targetting computer, and on standard difficulty settings this usually does the job. If it doesn't then try to send two inerceptors and back them up with a missile launcher from the ground (build a missile battery in your base). you can also try to lure ufos over your base with the firebird dropship (but that may take some time to learn)

2. How many workers do you have in your workshops? If you have one worker even a construction of a sniper rifle mag will take (afair) 1200h. Production times are displayed on the panel on the right. If production times don't satisfy you, construct another workshop and hire more workers.

3. funding from nations is displayed in statistics, in 2.2.1 it's one of the tabs on the lower left window, in 2.3 it is on the panel on the right.

4. to capture a live alien perform any autopsy AND research the alien breathing apparatus. That enables researching of stun rod, meele weapon used to stun and capture live aliens. There is another way, but that is up to you to discover.

hope this helps

9

Offtopic / Re: News: Scientists Can Levitate Mice In Lab!

« on: September 10, 2009, 06:29:37 pm »

...And yet we still consider ourselves the "higher" and "more advanced and intelligent" form of life here...   

And from the biological point of view we are (after all, no other species managed to even control fire), but as I look at some people I have this strange feeling that our civilisation reached a certain point where we're going backwards to the point where we started.

As of for killing because of disagreement in religion history can tell us some funny stuff, for example in late Middle Ages the Order of the Teutonic Knights (who were supposed to deliver christianity by swords) attacked countries that were christianised years before, and before battles both sides were praying for victory to the very same God.

10

Discussion / Re: Why is the "saved game during combat" thread locked?

« on: September 09, 2009, 11:22:24 am »

Right, I forgot about that...

Isn't there any way of "chmod"ing them into read-only while UFO:AI is running in such a way that only the game can "chmod" it back? Or would it, even if possible, waay too much trouble?

11

Bugs prior to release 2.3 / Re: bugged alien on map "UFO Landed"

« on: September 08, 2009, 11:32:36 pm »

Yeah I noticed that maps are random, but as I said, it happened regardless of how the map was spawned. I don't have any logs (should have copied them, I guess...) but I still have the savegame from before the attack, so I'll try to replicate that bug tomorrow and post the log.

12

Bugs prior to release 2.3 / bugged alien on map "UFO Landed"

« on: September 08, 2009, 07:21:52 pm »

v2.3 r26082, second terror mission, alien ship landed in industrial area in sydney, one of the four enemies shoots from the ship, but he is not only nowhere on the ship, but also nowhere on the map. after 5 attempts (with him being nowhere on the map) I gave up and auto-missioned it.

13

FAQ / Easy-to-use SVN client?

« on: September 08, 2009, 03:03:12 pm »

I'm looking for an easy-to-use svn client for windows xp, anyone can suggest one?

14

Bugs prior to release 2.3 / Can't enter battlescape

« on: September 08, 2009, 02:47:11 pm »

I just downloaded and installed 2.3 dev v. r25862, started a new game, equipped my team and so on. Then when the first mission appeared on the map I sent my firebird there. When it reached it's destination I was asked wether to enter, auto-mission or cancel. When I choose auto all's fine, mission successful, when I choose cancel mission is canceled, but when I choose enter, my screen goes black for a split second and then I'm back to geoscape, time is stopped and I can continue playing as if nothing happened BUT I can't play that mission. When I try to enter the mission again the screen goes black except for the green cursor, I can still move it all over the screen and I hear music, but the battlescape is not loading and nothing more appears. I have to shut the game down via task manager.

Any ideas how to solve it?

I'm using Win XP sp 2

15

Discussion / Re: Why is the "saved game during combat" thread locked?

« on: September 08, 2009, 02:38:02 pm »

Hi everyone,

A small offtopic about savegames - the most hardcore savegame feature I've ever encountered was in Warhammer 40k Chaos Gate (IMO one of the best games ever and similar to UFO:AI but without base management - limited ammount of troops (at about 60 for whole game) and supplies, ranks for troops; equip them, go to "battlescape" and kill enemies). There were 4 difficulty levels:

Space Marine - easy, player's units generally stronger, enemy generally weaker
Veteran - average
Champion - hard, opposite of easy
Mighty Hero - same as Champion except for saves - at the beginning of campain you choose a single savegame file, and the game is saved automatically whenever you quit and when one of your soldiers dies in combat. Sweet, isn't it?

Ability to save game during battlescape would enable such "Mighty Hero" difficulty level in UFO:AI, that is, there would be a single save for both geoscape and battlescape, so you couldn't load and choose another equipment. Consider implementing this nightmare of a code to enable that kind of challenge:P (that's an argument for adding battlescape saves in order to make the game harder, not easier:P)

I'm not even close to being good enough player to try that level of difficulty, but I'm sure some of you are:)

If implemented, I would enable battlescape saves at will in easiest difficulty setting, but I'm not a developer, so it's just a suggestion which, I guess, will be rejected:P