Messages

1

Feature Requests / Re: Saving during missions.

« on: February 24, 2014, 06:12:11 am »

:-) Okok. At the end - it is your game.

I really would like to write: "challenge accepted", but I also really have no time to do so, even for try to contribute coding in smaller ways. :-(

Maybe I come back to this ... topic, when I have more time, and done some smaller work for the project.

2

Feature Requests / Re: Increase hit chance on consecutive shots

« on: February 18, 2014, 06:30:23 am »

An additional idea of measuring your "speed" might be to mark every time unit spend on the last turn and your actual turn if it was done for moving to a new (not in this turn visited) field (crouching might only get the first 2 units marked). Your actual speed (== penalty for shoot and being hit) then is the sum over the marked time units, from the most actual one till the last of you actual maximal time units (your max speed). So you have a "moving window" over your TUs, to sum your actual speed.
For the "reaction fire" alternative of "dodging", every (or every other - if you want to penalize to moving) time unit is artificially marked as being used for moving to a new field. You keep your "speed" during the whole alien turn. Your reaction fire slow down is already incorporated as in this case you have time units left over that aren't marked as moving. 

With that you become slower on TU penalty effects (instantly), because your maximal TUs drop, and therefore your moving window becomes smaller. Those effects should be added on severe wounds, gas etc. (I don't know exactly if this is the case already). Becoming slower by shooting or looking around, opening doors or crouching is more accurately modeled than in my easier approach in the post above. One is becoming faster when moving on also. Your actual weight (making you slower, decreasing your maximal TUs) is also working fine with this. You always have a valid value when you run into reaction fire.
You also get a penalty if you are move first, and shoot late so you have to plan your fire positions a turn before hand if you want maximal hit chance, and while you prepare for shooting, you might not want to break your concentration by reaction fire or dodging around.
You can "dodge" instead of reaction fire to spend the rest of your TUs  for defense. And if you leave your guy just standing around... aiming, he becomes an easier target.

Edit: Spelling (partly) 

3

Feature Requests / Re: Increase hit chance on consecutive shots

« on: February 17, 2014, 08:05:13 pm »

It seems as you mix the simulation with the simulated situation. Our turn based simulation simulates a fight. You might think shooting a frozen target would make aiming of course easier for the second shot. But the alien is not frozen. We just simulate the fight like this.
Rather I would give a penalty to the shot depending on the number of fields you and the alien had moved (simulating the alien and you running) while assuming that a turn simulates the same amount of time.
And if you haven't moved the last turn, then your guy "truly" stood still and THEN I would give you a aiming bonus.

Hmmm... maybe you could accumulate every move on the last turn and every move in the actual turn for penalty, that would be running. The penalty counts to your shot and the shot of the alien => running target and running attacker accumulate. Also instead of moves, one can use the number of different visited fields per round.

Finally, as a additional "reaction fire" option, you might use saved time units to "dodge", which would increase your "account" of "visited fields" artificially, so that the aliens can't hit you easily, thereby making aiming harder for the next round.

That might bring a new tactical decision layers for the mission battle: Hit and run vs. hit or run. Dogde vs. reaction fire.

4

Feature Requests / Re: Saving during missions.

« on: February 17, 2014, 07:39:44 pm »

I don't think any of that reference data defence is needed anyway. Defending or even thinking of preventing "to hack the game" actively is IMHO a waste of time. All I WANT to say is that the design decision not to save within maps for micro-replay is not broken by a save mechanism to continue. If its to cost intensive (manpower, redesign problems) to implement one - well - I perfectly understand that... 

5

Feature Requests / Re: Saving during missions.

« on: February 10, 2014, 07:59:29 pm »

So what.
And if you have a VM running, you can snapshot every move. And rewind to where ever you want, throwing away all random-mess, or not depending on the randomizer used.

If you have to copy your file on every step you done so far, its already a pain in the butt. If you store some global additional indicator data at some places in the game unrelated to the slot, and overwrite this thing like every 5 seconds even when idle (and of course when leaving the game) you need 4 files to save after every step. This reference might such simple thing like the number of all intermediate safes since the mission starts. Connect it with the random number generator outputs (its seed saved with the mission data and randomly chosen at game starts) you can't even do the exact same move repeatedly for getting different results, but have to do another thing (though you might want to do another thing anyway). What if that random generator choose where to write and read the reference out of 30 unrelated files (like mapdata, the executable etc.). Then you have to overwatch the file system very carefully... or have to mod your safe game mechanism...

There is something called convenience. The magician may design the safe system convenient for breaks and inconvenient for safes on regular basis - and that might be good enough. :-)

6

Feature Requests / Re: Saving during missions.

« on: February 09, 2014, 06:28:40 pm »

If some day a code magician appears out of nothing and wants to write saving routines for the battlescape and may reprogram the battlespace itself to allow saving AND want to preserve the original design decision for prevent exploiting the save system, he could set up a single save slot for the actual mission and "just" safe every single advancement within the mission - so the save doesn't saves you from dangerous decisions.

7

Feature Requests / Re: on capturing live aliens

« on: February 09, 2014, 05:56:41 pm »

And if you implant alien organs, you might see a drop in PSI defense or your soldier tends to become a spy, because he is more accessible for the hive mind.

8

Feature Requests / Re: A few ideas for bases

« on: October 24, 2013, 06:56:24 am »

Think we are talking about two different things or ideas here. Or some other kind of misunderstanding.

Yes we do. And this is indented, because I have an (alternative) idea for base design, that make more sense IMHO to the Phalanx organization, the nature of alien attack patterns, and by the way heals a bunch of logic bugs.

As bishop wrote, IF the attack is an surprise (the soldiers are not regrouped) than how could they manage to evacuate the civil personnel.

And if they have time to evacuate them (without the hive mind realize what they are, and get them shot from air) than why aren't the soldiers regrouped? Then you should be able to place them where ever you want at the base (maybe by "building" the span points).

On the other Hand, IF you know before hand that the guys come, why aren't you have the base full of countermeasures? Why are all doors open within the base? Aren't there have fire control doors in the base? Why is no guy in the camera room at the beginning?

And of course, you can't loose the civil personnel, can you? If it is evacuated... than they are save, right? And why the hell, do the aliens not bombard the whole place, or flooding it with hot plasma - and even if we don't understand them... why does not AT LEAST Phalanx fear the might do or fear that they can't see them come, and planning basic base layout this way? :-)

The further advantages are:
Additional meaningful strategic decisions, risk to loose half of the base and soldiers, instead of all through if the ufo makes it to the base by bombardment, so even if you have best gear and highly trained soldiers (and good structured base) you HAVE TO fortify it, and not just let the attackers come, making it a decision to go for better aircrafts and base defense (maybe low range, high damage variants to really only defend the base).

9

Feature Requests / Re: A few ideas for bases

« on: October 22, 2013, 08:02:46 pm »

Erm...

maybe I don't make myself clear. There is a "bunker building" in my concept, not a bunch of civilian guys running around. The bunker building is something, that the evil aliens can reach, attack with heavy weapons, and if it is down, all civilians will die. Alternatively the percentage of damage on the bunker building determines the percentage of died civilians.

So you may have several strategical and tactical decisions to make, that have to be reconsidered over time:

- Anti-UFO defense vs. man on duty at the upper "hanger" level on the limited resource "building space"
- Upper soldier defense vs. lower soldier defense (vs. number of civil personnel) on the limited resource "number of personnel"
- Civil personnel vs. station (if the reactor blows up the bunker will stand) at the lower level fight
- on every fight in base: killing them fast vs. killing them with regrouped soldiers. Because the aliens raid the base.

10

Feature Requests / Re: A few ideas for bases

« on: October 22, 2013, 05:38:30 am »

We covered why there is no base personal around during a attack they leave before it starts.

Well I would prefer it not to leave, so that you have to defend your civil personnel to the last man.

11

Feature Requests / Re: A few ideas for bases

« on: October 21, 2013, 08:51:02 pm »

I thought myself a little about base design :-) (yes a little), and I have an idea to consistently explain, why not so much guys are on the map,  that no civilians running around in terror, and how the base layout can be small.

The PHALANX Bases should be (at least) two-layered. The upper layer with all the stuff, that MUST BE in contact with the surface, and a lower part, DEEP in the bedrock of the area.

The upper layer will consist of hangars, antennas, storage facilities for aircraft parts, fuel of the air craft and so on maybe a UFO-hangar directly at base (reducing the disassembly time and/or cost of an UFO), Ground2Air and Ground2Orbit base defense, automated ground defense and security facilities (including storage), where soldiers can be stationed just like on aircrafts.

The upper layer is connected with the second layer, that may consist actually of several of underground base buildings, by a long deep heavily armored elevator and of course a bunch of secret escape tunnels no one will ever find - a little bit like in stargate :-)

The underground layer consists of workshops, giant computers to analyse the radar sensor readings, internet,the hive mind link etc., the housing for all personal, laboratories and storage facilities, and in the very last corner  the command center and the reactor :-) - ah and also a very BIG bunker with rooms for the civil personnel. Maybe some well places blockade points where soldiers would have strong defense positions.

When a base is attacked, first everything happens in the upper layer, and the N soldiers (where N are all soldiers on duty at the upper layer) fight against the alien intruders. The aliens might raid or run amok a little and damage/destroy aircrafts and stuff, maybe destroy the defense. In the later game, if you can't take down an attacking UFO, maybe the aliens decide to bomb the whole side. Either way, if the aliens can manage to win the upper level, they will come down to the lower levels, where a second fight will start.

In meanwhile every civil personnel is evacuated through the tunnels or into the big bunker. The rest of the soldiers also had plenty of time to equip themselves and got in a decent defense position. parts of the most expensive equipment is sealed (so that the aliens might have to shoot several times at the doors to open them). If they really go for the lower level I'd expected the aliens to have several waves, coming in every 2 or 3 rounds, fighting their way from the central elevator in every direction.

For a good and hard fight, and for making an successful bombardment something you can go on with, the stuff in the upper level must be very ... cheap or easy to replace compared with the lower level stuff, and the civil personnel must be the crown jewels of the whole base. So that you really don't want the guys in the bunker to die - and you don't want the aliens to blast the reactor...(maybe the bunker and the reactor should be placed on opposite sides, and elevator right in the middle, when a new base is founded).

So that are my little thoughts about base design.

12

Feature Requests / Re: on capturing live aliens

« on: October 21, 2013, 07:55:29 pm »

Anyway, I think there should be at least one useable mechanism besides science, that make it worthy to think about capturing aliens at every state of the game, and make it a hard decision to throw out the the alien quarantine building, even after no things from living aliens can be learned.

This will give some additional tactical decisions to the game, make a whole tier of weapons (non lethal ones) useful, and

Two suggestions that don't exclude each other:
(A) They can be used as transmitters to hack the hive mind, which gives information sometimes of ufo positions, alien bases, or otherwise covered alien activity. This is especially useful for players who like the psi stuff :-)
(B) They can be real training material for recruits. 

13

Feature Requests / Re: on capturing live aliens

« on: October 19, 2013, 07:26:37 pm »

Well - what I would like most would be this one: "Infection of madness"

We use the caught aliens to spread fear into the hive mind... we take the aliens to a remote area far away from our base and then use special drugs to activate their pre-hive-mind instincts and fears. And then:
- torture them with exact the same methods they use to examine humans,
- hunt them down in an setting that looks similar to our base,
- use more effective weapons (that though not usable in the field, looks like our gear) to kill them
- let actors that look like children perform the stuff

That will decrease the alien moral a little on next month' operations or all operations during the setting. Also it increases alien activity near or at the place of the set up, but reduces the chance of terror and base attack UFO missions...

Hmm... I'm quite in a dark mood this evening.

14

Feature Requests / Re: "We'd rather get et by alien robot spiders, thanks anyway." (Possible spoilers!)

« on: October 19, 2013, 07:09:46 pm »

Ok, I read my stuff, and I think, I will leave it as it is. As I post here only to make myself believe, that my genius is admired by someone, I should not make it to easy for them...

No, it makes no sense, but perfectly fits in the pattern of my former posts. :-)

15

Feature Requests / Re: "We'd rather get et by alien robot spiders, thanks anyway." (Possible spoilers!)

« on: October 19, 2013, 06:47:39 pm »

Your sure you only thought about this a little?

Mostly done while writing it. ;-) So there were only time to think a little. It thus might be inconsistent, redundant, not well structured, and inconsistent. If it seems to be very well thoughted or even wise, the reason might be that English is not my native language, and a little bit like yoda so I sound.

So... let me quick read again what i've wrote, to find out what I thought. Then I will tell you if I am sure. :-)