Messages

16

Tactics / Re: Keeping the Nations Happy in 2.4

« on: January 10, 2012, 12:00:26 am »

In my experience with the latest dev version, it's ludicrously difficult to keep the nations happy in the first two or three months - their relationship with you constantly drops no matter what you do and you essentially have to shoot down every single UFO you see and do every single mission that becomes available and sell every single piece of wreckage just to keep them from shutting you down.  However, for some reason, once you hit late May/early June, it peters off, they're much more forgiving of mistakes, their satisfaction falls more slowly and is raised more easily.  I'm not sure if this is a bug, or if it's a hidden feature - the funding nations being initially skeptical of the organization but becoming more willing to support them after they've had a few months of successful operation.

I sort of confirm this, happiness is much harder to maintain in the beginning. I came to think it's because there's not many UFOs in the beginning, so you can't get enough missions to perform and remains to sell.
It's just that i never thought of it as of a bug: after all, you are supposed to try and shoot down every UFO you see, and you are supposed to do every tactical mission, and there's nothing to do with all those UFO's in the beginning other than sell them. That seems perfectly right for me.   

17

Discussion / Re: Newbie Questions / Moving Civilians

« on: December 30, 2011, 07:19:45 pm »

I think the civilians should try to hide from both aliens and player's soldiers. Look this way: your troops arrive several hours (at least) after the place is invaded by aliens. Most civilians already are evacuated or have fled by themselves, and some are already killed by aliens. Only those who hid well remain in place when you arrive. So  I think they should be hiding when noone sees them and try to run away from both aliens and phalanx soldiers on sight. After all, Phalanx agents in futuristic armor wielding alien weapons wouldn't seem any better than aliens to a panicked citizen, would they?

18

Tactics / Re: Keeping the Nations Happy in 2.4

« on: December 30, 2011, 07:45:53 am »

Here's some more feedback:
I've started a game on the very hard level half a week ago (freshly downloaded 2.4 dev version) and I never had any serious issues with nation happiness. They did sometimes fall below the limit, but never worse than a mission + a couple sold UFOs can fix. Soon enough in July i was able to get them all Exuberant and now I can even ignore any UFO  except those that land or crash by themselves, without interception.
If it's an issue on lower difficulties, I think we can suggest it's due to not enough UFO's being generated for you to shoot down and raid. That's really a bad thing if it's so, because overwhelming amount of UFOs all with the same tedious missions is imho the worst part of the game.

19

Bugs prior to release 2.3 / r29093 ERROR: LE_DoEndPathMove: Actor movement is out of sync

« on: March 21, 2010, 09:43:36 pm »

Team 1 ended round
Team 7's round started!
********************
ERROR: LE_DoEndPathMove: Actor movement is out of sync: 98:151:0 should be 97:152:0 (step 2 of 2) (team 7)
********************
Shutdown server: Server crashed.

:~/ufosvn/trunk$ svn up
At revision 29093.
:~/ufosvn/trunk$ uname -a
Linux lance 2.6.31-20-generic #58-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 12 05:23:09 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux

This bug was already reported, but in much earlier revisions, and the issue is closed in the tracker, so i thought i should write a new post.
Looks like this happened not in player's move as reported before, but in civilians' one.

20

Tactics / Re: storming corrupters?

« on: March 05, 2010, 08:30:38 pm »

i usually just rush into a corrupter with several soldiers with gas grenades.
there are usually 3-5 aliens near the entrance, and two soldiers stun them with grenades nicely and go sleep themselves. After you've rushed the entrance, the rest of corrupter is easy.

What would really help is to make gas grenades more realistic - form a cloud of gas where aliens take stun damage every turn.It would be great if gas grenades could be fired from GL, too.

21

Translating / Re: Russian translation

« on: February 25, 2010, 10:20:39 pm »

Вообще, так сложилось что согласовывать стоит со мной.

Правь смело, если что не так — будет откат и объяснение причин в юзер-талке.

Сразу могу сказать, что будет откачено: «вы» с большой буквы — у нас не сеорасты а военные; «е» вместо «ё» — у нас перевод на русский; иные кроме «командующий» обращения к игроку (так уж вышло).

По поводу индукционной винтовки — «гаусова пушка» уже давно является слегка мемом, поэтому и выбрано это имя. Если есть другие аргументы — слушаю внимательно.

Вообще-то, я собирался предложить как раз "Пушку/винтовку Гаусса". Прибор, описанный в игре, действительно является пушкой Гаусса, а в том, что это название побывало в куче других игр, я не вижу ничего плохого. Лазеры тоже побывали, и ничего. Впрочем, возможно, что я и зря так покатил бочку на "индукционную винтовку" - это название тоже неплохо.

"Needler" как "игольник" выглядит криво, на мой взгляд много лучше был бы таки "игломет".
Гранатомет ведь не называют гранатником,  пулемет - пульником, огнемет - огонником и т.д.
Добавление второго корня -мет характерно для русского языка в качестве обозначения оружия, стреляющего тем, что означает первый корень.

 "Bolter Rifle", слава богу, из 2.3 выпилили, а то переводу она действительно мало поддается. Теперь эта штука называется "Electromagnetic Rifle", и ее можно с чистой совестью обозвать "Электромагнитной винтовкой", а, принимая во внимание величину, неповоротливость и тяжеловесный дизайн - электромагнитной пушкой. Кроме того, поскольку по принципу действия это рельсотрон, рельсотроном ее тоже можно назвать.
Вы, как вижу, назвали как раз ее "Игломет", что мне представляется неоправданным. В описании про нее написано, что снарядами служат finned flechettes, согласно Webster, flechette это "small dart-shaped projectile that is clustered in an explosive warhead, dropped as a missile from an airplane, or fired from a handheld gun". Таким образом, снарядами для него служат не иглы, отчего же тогда называть его иглометом?

Перевод "Coilgun" как "Индукционная винтовка" я, подумав немного, теперь тоже считаю приемлемым.

Почему вы использовали перевод "Фуллереновая броня" вместо "Нанокомпозитная броня" для "Nanocomposite Armour"?
То, что нанотрубки тоже можно назвать фуллеренами, в голову приходит как-то не сразу, а из шарообразных молекул C₆₀
 прочной брони не сделать.

Как корректно и гладко перевести flechette, и, следовательно, flechette grenades и flechette shells - не знаю совсем, но все-таки это не "игла", скорее "дротик" или "стреловидная пуля" .
Как вам идея забить и писать "флешетные патроны" и "флешетные гранаты"?

Керр-клинок - плохо ведь. В описании написано, что название пошло от характерного звука, с которым эта штука режет бронежилеты, но какой же русскоговорящий солдат станет выговаривать такое длинное и неудобопроизносимое слово? Думаю, надо сократить до "кернож" или просто "кeр", или принять "Керблейд", если усилием воли поверить, что русскоязычные солдаты позаимствовали слово у англоязычных коллег из Commonwealth of Oceania.

Еще меня повергли в глубокое уныние названия НЛО. Оно, конечно, понятно, что Corrupter перевести трудно, но все-таки, живодер-то почему? При чем здесь живодер? Впрочем, его, говорят, выпилят до релиза 2.3.

Почему вы перевели harvester как "охотник"? "Сборщик", возможно, тоже не самый идеальный перевод, но не лучше ли, чем "охотник"?

"Gunboat" -возможно, лучше "Канонерский корабль" вместо "Канонерка", или вообще "Тяжелый истребитель".

Насчет того, что я собрался править - вот, взял первую попавшуюся статью (про F-D модуль питания). На мой взгляд, она была стилистически ужасна.

Если такие правки ок и приветствуются, то я продолжу.

22

Discussion / Re: Coilgun best weapon in Close Quarter Combat - human cqc weapon?

« on: February 24, 2010, 08:57:29 pm »

Heavy laser still performs good against medium alien armour, and you can use plasma blades and kerrblades in close combat. Even laser pistol kills them if fired long enough
Coilgun is great too, but i don't think it's "best weapon in Close Combat", as stated by the OP. Plasma blades are definitely better, and heavy needler is no worse too.

23

Tactics / Re: What's a good 2.3 squad loadout?

« on: February 24, 2010, 08:49:55 pm »

as for me, i think that phalanx soldiers miss too much in medium to long range combat. what saves is that aliens perform no better, at least until they have no needlers and PB's. So in the beginning i equip soldiers with shotr-ranged weapon, as they are not going to dealany damage from distance anyway. They get shotguns, flamethrowers, grenade launchers and SMG's with maybe one sniper and one rocket launcher. Snipers are too useless in melee and still not accurate enough for long-ranged combat, so i rarely use them. Later i tend to replace sniper rifles and rocket launchers with heavy lasers and everything other with a combination of laser pistol and kerrblade. Pistol is accurate and fast, and most of the time allow to fight effectively at long ranges, where aliens tend to miss desperately, and kerrblade slash is enough to kill almost any alien outrigth. later on, i replace kerrblades with plasma blades and all laser weaponry with PB rifles.
Hevy needler + PB pistol is good too, the first for close combat, and the second for medium to long distances.

24

Design / Antimatter-propelled aircraft

« on: February 24, 2010, 08:15:11 pm »

Hello.
When Phalanx scientists finish researching "UFO Theory", they report that its engines to generate thrust "by injecting protons and antiprotons into the reaction chamber, then channeling this explosive force out the back of the engine".
This propulsion system is in fact highly inefficient, and it can be proven with quite a few lines of formulas. Given an UFO weighs roughly 100tons and carries 1gram of antimatter, it can accelerate to a speed no faster than 6 meters per second.

This is because of the conservation of momentum. Of course, proton - antiproton annihilation yields tremendous amounts of memory, but you can't just transform it into kinetic energy of aircraft. You must have some mass to throw away to generate thrust and thus move the opposite direction. If you just channel whatever results from annihilation (gamma-radiation at most, but there may be some other particle-antiparticle pairs) back of the engine, you will not gain more than  2mc of momentum from annihilation of 1 gram of antimatter.
 
UFOs just can't fly on this type of thrusters.

I think to add some scientific credibility to the game (its science fiction after all) you should equip UFOs with ion thrusters as addition to their antimatter engines.
Antimatter engines would then just transform antimatter into electric energy and provide an astonishingly powerful source of energy for thrusters, which ionize matter and then accelerate it to relativistic speeds and throw back providing thrust.

This all turned out to be very complex when i tried to conduct even the simplest of calculations to propose a scientifically-credible scheme of space-capable aircraft which would look like in-game UFO (very heavy, carrying 1 gram of antimatter as fuel and no visible mass tanks), and now i'm not sure if it's possible at all.
 
Still, it would be much more credible if we say it's using ion propulsion, with thrusters powered by antimatter engine, and accelerates plasma to the speeds of 1000-10000 km/s. It should utilize athmospheric air to throw away and gain thrust, just because it needs to much mass to carry along. UFO should have small mass-tanks (approximately 1 to 5 tons) to be able to maneuvre in vacuum in order to get to and from the carrier, but itself it's uncapable of interstellar or even interplanetary travel - it carries just too little exhaust mass.

This would be even good, because it would give Phalanx scientist another clue that aliens should operate from some huge orbital carrier UFO.

So, for the sake of scientific credibility, i believe that in-game texts about UFOs' propelling scheme should be updated to something like this:

  The alien propulsion system is a type of rocket engine unlike any ever built on Earth. It uses energy of matter-antimatter annihilation to power ion thrusters accelerating plasma to speeds of thousands kilometers per second. In atmosphere, it can use ionized air as exhaust mass, and it also carries a mass-tank to be able to maneuvre in hard vacuum. Confusingly, amount of matter in the mass-tank is not too big, and the craft does not seems designed for interstellar travel.

 

25

Translating / Re: Russian translation

« on: February 24, 2010, 03:30:21 pm »

каков у вас порядок перевода? могу я просто взять какую-нить статью на вики, скажем, http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/СНТ/СНТ_"Арес", и править в ней стилистику, если мне покажется, что она плоха, или с кем-то принято согласовывать свои действия?

Как вы выбираете названия для всяких малопонятных устройств навроде Bolter Rifle, Needler Gun или Coilgun?

Согласно http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun, например, the name Gauss gun is sometimes used for such devices, да и с точки зрения физики это один прибор, но вы почему-то выбрали название "Индукционная винтовка", хотя оно физики действия прибора не передает и звучит как неродное.

26

Bugs prior to release 2.3 / Re: R28281 No free Inventory crash to console

« on: February 21, 2010, 07:09:36 pm »

observed this too lately , with terminal log:

 connection attempt from loopback connection
load material file: 'materials/scout_crash.mat'
Starting the game...
linad has joined team 1
music change to PsymongN2 (from karlmacklin_geoscape)
music change to PsymongO5 (from PsymongN2)
(player 0) It's team 1's round
linad has taken control over team 1.
./ufo(Sys_Backtrace+0x1f)[0x819c8fa]
./ufo(Sys_Error+0x22)[0x819badd]
./ufo[0x8170470]
./ufo[0x8170643]
./ufo(CL_InvAdd+0x135)[0x809e965]
./ufo[0x809b3b5]
./ufo(Qcommon_Frame+0x7b)[0x8146f6f]
./ufo(main+0x5c)[0x819b6eb]
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe6)[0x42bb56]
./ufo[0x806be31]
Error: INVSH_AddInvList: No free inventory space!
2.6.31-17-generic #54-Ubuntu SMP Thu Dec 10 16:20:31 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux
don't remeber exact revision sadly, bacuse i have already updated since then,
the one with bug was upated roughly 12utc 21feb.

could not reproduce after reload

27

Discussion / Re: general feedback on 2.3

« on: February 20, 2010, 01:16:41 am »

Agreed oc. And I'm glad to say that my little provocation worked out fine and made you start to *contribute*
We have a dedicated forum for this type of contributions titled 'design'. Could you plz cut&paste your suggestions there ?
Afaik that's the best place to make the responsible devs integrate your suggestions into the game. (@other devs: correct me if I'm wrong, plz)

Any gamer would gladly catch an opportunity to contribute to the game he likes, and i'd be glad too.  I'll try to make a comprehensive text and check maths again before posting there.

btw still I believe that 99,9% (including me) of our users are not able / willing to calculate the potential thrust gained from antimatter

I have been interested in spacecraft propelling since childhood :-) After all, our chemical rockets are so dirty&clumsy that you can't help dreaming about something more elegant.

Oops,...Afaik this is the first time this has been requested.
Except for getting rid of alien mats, where do you expect benefits from cmds ?? Gimme usecases !

 
What i'd like the best would be commands for assigning equipment to soldiers and aircraft
say, to equip every soldier on base  A with a medikit, placing it automatically, you's type comething like

foreach $soldier in @(base{"A"}->soldiers) equip_actor $soldier -item="medikit" -slot=autofit

To equip 2-nd craft at the same base with a PB weapon it would be

equip_craft $(base{"A"}->aircraft)[1] -item="Particle Beam Weapon" -slot=1

Of course syntax is totally arbitrary, it can be any other if it fits the game more. I do not know the game code at all.

btw, are there any docs i can read to know it better?

28

Discussion / Re: general feedback on 2.3

« on: February 18, 2010, 10:57:42 pm »

edited out a typo in formulas

A physics comment:
you forgot to square root. The correct thrust would be obtained like this:

assume the antimatter energy is totally converted into kinetic energy:
E = m c^2 = 1/2 M v^2
v = c sqrt(2 m /M)
for 1 gram of antimatter (+1 of matter) m=2*10^-3 Kg
M=100 Tonnes=10^5 Kg
c=3*10^8 m/s
v=3*10^8*sqrt(2*2*10^-3/10^5)=3*10^8*2*10^-4=
v=6*10^4 m/s, or 60 Km per second, which is quite fast.

Sorry, but this is erroneous calculation.
You are applying the law of conservations of energy. It's ok, energy does conserve, but not in the way you describe.
Energy of matter-antimatter annihilation cannot be converted totally into kinetic energy of spacecraft, and it is because momentum conserves too.
It is the conservation of momentum that i applied in my calculation.
2mc²/c= E/c = p = Mv
and that's really all.
You don't even need to solve diff.equations for reactive movement (because craft's mass changes too little during acceleration)
and you don't need to mess with relativistic kinematics either (because craft is not going to have high speed)

If the aliens have FTL drives, Einstein has already been proven to be wrong. So his formulas may not always apply

i agree that in fiction world you are not bound to obey the laws of physics, but isn't less violation of them better?
I think that several sentences about "mass tanks", used in UFOs to accelerate matter to gain thrust in vacuum and mentioning that they could use athmospheric air for this purpose, would greatly increase the credibility of the game (at least for those like me)

A game designer has to construct a nice gameplay in the first place and then find a suitable name and explanation for the 'weapon type 3' he needed for the gameplay. So feel free to come up with a better explanation why humans can't use PB very well.

I think that engineers could just mention strong recoil that doesn't allow high accuracy.
Or maybe they can claim that PB weapons themsselves are too complicated to reproduce, and then humans would be forced to use unbalanced and not-ergonomic alien guns.

How about console commands? Are there any commands to manage bases or equip soldiers/craft from command line, or is there a hope they will appear? Can i use some kind of scripting language to automate these tasks?
 

29

Bugs prior to release 2.3 / Re: R28281 No free Inventory crash to console

« on: February 14, 2010, 09:40:15 pm »

I have observed this bug several times, too.
it really can't be duplicated reliably (at least i can't), but it happens often enough to be annoing.

The error happens usually at the start of tactical missions, sometimes during tactical missions when an alien gets killed.
 please tell if there is some means to debug it more thoroughfully to help locate and duplicate the bug.

30

Discussion / Re: general feedback on 2.3

« on: February 14, 2010, 06:48:53 pm »

1. In space you have a point, they would need to lug around mass-tanks that would hold either gas or liquid that they can use with their thrusters, otherwise they can't gain any thrust (remember that in a matter-antimatter annihilation the mass transforms into energy, so the 2 grams of stuff don't contribute to thrust). On Earth, however, there is plenty of air their thrusters can use as the required mass and in case that's not enough, they can still lug around mass-tanks provided they are inside their ships and not external tanks.

Radiation has momentum (p = E/c) as well as matter, so why shouldn't radiation obtained in matter-antimatter annihilation count towards thurst?
 And you are right about the mass-tanks - they would really help by carrying enough mass to through away. But then, UFOs should really have these "mass tanks", and advisors should mention them in their reports. Not that it changes anything in gameplay, but, in my opinion, one of the strong points of the game is that descriptions of all these alien technological marvels have certain degree of credibility.They are still fantastic, but never absurd. It's like science fiction - you may have a "photon spaceship", but you are not going to see "Voodoo powered aqua-blaster" or something