Messages

796

Feature Requests / Robot/android soldier instead of HWP

« on: October 25, 2006, 12:13:36 am »

I honestly don't think this would be a good idea, as we're already planning bionic/cybernetic improvements to soldiers performed by the Hospital facility. Being able to build whole androids would make that entire mechanic seem a bit pointless.

Regards,
Winter

797

Artwork / hovernet temporary model 01?

« on: October 24, 2006, 11:56:44 pm »

So good game design it's more a question of inspiration rather than experience.

Not true. Experience counts in everything, it helps creating good things, and making good things better. What it can't do, however, is make bad things good, which is the problem you're citing in your examples.

Bad concept or bad execution, both can kill a game with equal ease.

Kaeau is pointing some important issues: if you, the designers, are creating this game with the X-COM fans in mind, as the core of your target, than you should stick to the original concept as much as possible, or at least to some key features, including UFO design.

I don't see why. As I've said, we're trying to do something a little bit different. Straight-up X-COM clones have been done and are being done; Project Xenocide, for example. I was repulsed by its slavish copying of the X-COM source. They've got near-direct copies of several of the old aliens, they just filed off the serial numbers. Even the team don't seem very excited about what they're doing.

That's my impression, anyway.

Almost everybody "knows" that an UFO hovers "magicaly" in the air and has grey aliens inside. At least, it's what people expect - It's OK that you are coming up with something else, if you are in those guidelines. Personaly I like the current aliens in the game (I hope you aren't planing on changing their models/apperance).

No changes are planned to the already-incorporated aliens. However, just because something has been done so often as to be cliche doesn't mean we have to do it too. I personally loathe cliches. A lot of people will appreciate that we're not doing more of the same old formula.

When I decided to post some of my ideas on the forum/wiki and made an account, didn't know about the progress made with the storyline and about the emphasis on realism. So I proposed some wild ideas, like Dirty Harry's Magnum (sorry about that, but I played alot of Fallout and Jagged Alliance 2 and thought it was cool).

Don't worry, no harm done. Now that you know the focus of the game, you can suggest more appropriate things.

Then, Winter did a very good thing, and stated on the wiki that no real world weapons or weapons inspired from other entertainment are considered because of the setting, and he even made a bin for rejected proposals.

Maybe instead of revealing the story to the "non-designers" Winter should add a list of guidlines or things that aren't allowed for equipment, ships, beings, research, etc.

This is a good suggestion, I'll try and get something together.

That if there still are people wanting to contribute. I see there are fewer people on the forum.

There are always fewer people on the forum, but we're slowly getting more and more activity now that the general volume of posts has increased. When I first joined, the Design forum would go for weeks without a new post.

My opinion regarding realism in video games is that realism is intented to enhance the quality of the game, but in most cases it spoils the fun, with extra complexity or boring tasks and even more bugs.

We're dedicated to maintaining fun and ease of play. Realism is not itself an obstruction to fun, only bad implementations of realism -- i.e. things that are boring, like filling out paperwork or having to click through unnecessary screens. This is not what we're doing. Hell, I'd go so far as to say that well-implemented realism increases fun by allowing a deeper level of immersion. The only requirement for good realism in any piece of fiction is that you maintain it rigidly.

I think it's quite hard to imagine something none has ever seen. It's also hard to imagine a real human spaceship that would fly to Jupiter and back even though we know how our rockets and spaceshuttles look like and how they work.

There's a lot of things that would change with improved alien technology, but there's also a lot of things that stay the same. Gravity, radiation, thrust -- things that humans know and have observed. There are fundamental concepts that are completely unchangeable. For example, precluding gravitic anomalies and extradimensional holes, you can put more stuff in a big box than a small box. This doesn't change. So if the aliens have no logical reason to make a box smaller than they have to, they wouldn't do it.

Culture or insanity are not a factor in this reasoning due to storyline concerns. The aliens as written are not culture-driven or insane, and very big on conservation of resources.

My plea to the designers is to let their imagination free, and consider less the fact that some features on a hull are a waste of material, or it's not economical to build some system or feature. Maybe you have a better idea of what's realistic and economical for alien designs, but most of the public has no clue, with the exception of saucer and cigar designs

That's why we have detailed, engaging writeups with all the necessary iinformation in them. I've done my best trying to explain away some of the nonsensical alien designs we already have, and I think I've managed to bring things into a fairly coherent system -- breaking the system would mean more headaches for me and a much less plausible game overall.

Yes, the aliens also follow the laws of physics, but because their knowledge of physics is centuries ahead of us, we don't have to fill all the gaps, explaining in detail how each of their system or tech works (and by that limiting what it can do with our "understanding" of unknown physics), because we can't know.

We can make a pretty good approximation. Some things that people knew 2000 years ago still hold true today -- our knowledge is centuries ahead of theirs, but not everything has changed because of that.

It doesn't matter that much. We won't play the game in the UFOpaedia screen.

It's intended that the player -- any who are interested -- will spend a considerable amount of time reading the UFOpaedia, getting more deeply involved with the story and gameworld.

From my experience with SF literature, the best SF writers spend very little time on describing how a future technology or how a system operates. That it's left (mostly) to the imagination of the reader, and the writer concentrates on the story and setting - the experience you are having in that writer's new universe.

This works well in story fiction, but technical writing needs more detail and a more mechanical approach -- especially if realism and plausibility is one of the aims. We're trying to make the PHALANX people look competent, so we can't leave glaring errors in their logic or have them ignore obvious possibilities for plot convenience. That's lazy writing and does a disservice to whatever it's attached to.

I would like to see ships in the game that I will imagine even after I'm done playing, and still remember them years after.[/u] That would be a great design!

I'd be willing to talk about redesigning the current UFO fleet, but I wouldn't accept flying saucers, which have been horribly overdone over the years and aren't remotely plausible with alien propulsion as we've defined it.

Regards,
Winter

798

Feature Requests / Training mission / simulation room

« on: October 24, 2006, 12:45:25 pm »

My idea for a training option in the game would be thus:

- Training missions could be started at any time at any base with a Training Simulator building.

- You could replay any past mission you've fought but you must use your current team and skill levels. You could use either your current team's equipment or your equipment as it was during the mission.

- You could simulate a mission on any Earth-based map except UFO recoveries. UFO recoveries would be unlocked by recovering the relevant UFO type in the field. The simulation would let you dictate any conditions, from number of alien troops to alien equipment to alien intelligence, even the number of civilians. However, you would never see anything that you haven't already encountered. No new aliens, no new alien equipment, nothing.

-  Obviously you wouldn't get to recover any equipment, but you also couldn't lose any soldiers. Any skill gains would have to be minor.

- The Training Simulator would continue passively training soldiers, slowly raising their skills whether the player initiates any training missions or not.

This way we allow the player greatest freedom and fun without forcing players to do training missions to stay competitive.

Regards,
Winter

799

Design / Idea: Critical Strike

« on: October 24, 2006, 11:58:15 am »

- I don't have anything against your story, setting nor do I minimise the importance of the effort you have made until now. I got used with the setting, and maybe after I'll find out more about the story, will even like it. I'm not saying that dislike your story or setting - it's OK with me, at the moment I'm neutral about it because I haven't read it. I don't know if I could have came up with something better.

That's fair. As a working writer who does a lot of RPG fiction, a subgenre that's known for its bad quality, I often have trouble being properly appreciated. When I get hired and turn out a really good story for a game, it usually gets ignored just because people expect it to be bad.

- I don't think that somebody wants to shift the direction of this project into something else - an X-Com with orcs,

This actually sort-of exists in a way, a game called Spellcross, which is really freaking awesome. I even believe it's freeware now. Highly recommended.

- Now, concerning realism - I certainly don't want a foolish game, anime soldiers, x-men, or huge guns.
How about a compromise - I want something plausible, even though it might be slightly unrealistic. Plausible instead of just plain realistic. That is my "philosophy", and don't wish to argue with you about realism in video games.

Obviously we can't make everything completely realistic, as the game we're creating is based on an alien invasion, and we aren't rocket scientists/plasma physicists/etc. But there really isn't any harm in making it as close as possible. Like I've said before, it's never been done before, X-COM games have never had a realistic or militaristic flavour. This is one of the things that we hope will make our project unique.

I wasn't refering to the realism of the story, but to the combat system which will be the core of this game. I also made some comments in a talk on the wiki about reseach pointing out some things that are quite plausible in my opinion, like some alien techs being to advanced for our scientists to understand in a couple of months, or some alien weapons to be unsuitable for human use.

We won't ignore any of these options, trust me.

- I don't want anything unreasonable so, I'll tell everybody in short what is my general wishlist:

* a wider choice of (human) weapons and equipment in the game (some I proposed on the wiki)

This would be nice, but some people (including devs) are actually arguing that we already have too many weapons.

* several human weapon types adapted from alien technology, instead of relying completely on alien's weapons

Of course. This will be in.

* an enhanced combat system (include the crawl mode for realistic sniping if it isn't to late)

Don't know about this one, it's up to the coders.

* a more intuitive skill system (e.g. split the close combat system in pistols and martial arts, optionaly removing the sniper skill)

This may be coming, though I don't know what we'd do with sniper rifles in that situation.

* sounds for actors dying and footsteps

I'm all for it.

* a wider selection base for soldiers, better soldiers available as player advances to each stage

I don't know what you mean by 'wider selection base for soldiers', but I don't think we should ratchet up soldier skills later on if we're explaining it as measured by comparison with the aliens. We're planning a rename for the skill levels, though, so your soldiers will certainly -appear- more competent in future versions.

* the option of saving the game while in missions [/list]

That would be nice!

It's just what I would like. Maybe some people don't want all these, and some others are with me. It doesn't matter. You and your team should judge if any of these requests are OK with your design, and if they are, try and implement them. If not.. there is no big deal. If you don't want developers to listen to ideas from the public, then close these topics. Anyway, if an idea is good, while fiting to the story, and might be quite fun, I think it's worthwile to have a little setback and implement it.

We certainly shouldn't be afraid to throw out old, subpar code, but we also shouldn't feel compelled to include things that don't rightly fit just because they exist. We are of course open to feature requests and rational suggestions from the public, but obviously we can't do anything with requests that entail completely changing the game concept. We've got a good thing going with a highly competent team. It'd be madness to try and reverse course now.

- I didn't want to be rude when called your story unimportant. I was pointing out the fact that in a strategy game like this one, the story is always secondary, while in adventure or RPG games, is almost everything. Maybe you got me wrong, or I was wrong, but anyway, I appologise.

It's only been secondary because stories in computer games usually suck.

Ours certainly won't!

[EDIT] As an example, you named Jagged Alliance 2, which itself is a highly story-driven game. The gameworld is very well-realised and has a clear plot and objectives. The Deidranna cutscenes, for example, were greatly entertaining and put a face on the enemy, making them much more entertaining to fight. They were also great for showing the player that his actions are having an actual effect on the gameworld. And even though JA2 has a well-defined story with a beginning and an end, it keeps people (like myself) coming back to play it again and again. [/EDIT]

Concerning the critical strike, I'm glad that we agree, and hope the developers will make close quarters combat more effective. Maybe there could be an option to aim for the head, legs or torso like in Fallout or Jagged Alliance 2.

The Fallout system was a bit too complicated and cumbersome for my liking, but the JA2 system is highly intuitive. Of course, all of this is up to the coders -- if someone is able and willing, I'd certainly support it.

Regards,
Winter

800

Design / Idea: Critical Strike

« on: October 24, 2006, 09:47:48 am »

I'm so dissapointed by your attitude...

I'm sorry for lashing out, but let me try to explain my reasons for doing so.

I don't think that me or the rest of "the crowd" are slowing you down. You can always ignore our comments like you did until now. There are just some ideas! I'm not even a member of your development team! How can I slow you down? Do we all have to share the same principles and concepts to make you happy?

Certainly not. The problem is when other developers start listening to concept-incompatible ideas and perhaps even seriously considering things that would destroy all the work I've done. That does not have a positive effect on my productivity. I can't work on a project where I might be considered surplus to requirements at any moment.

You are quite impolite to people who are trying to help or just discussing some issues, or to people who want to help by spending time doing models and other stuff (for free), just because their work doesn't fit with the concept.

Apologies, it's not my aim to be rude, but your numerous complaints and arguments against the current course of the game (going so far as to call all my work unimportant, talk about impolite) have been seriously grinding away at my patience. It's harder for me to do my work if people are actively trying to get all of it undone. You have to understand that I, too, am contributing all of this time for free, but you don't seem to have any compunction about trying to get the story thrown out. At least that's what it looks like to me, since you keep rudely deriding the effort to keep things as plausible as possible.

Also, "just because their work doesn't fit with the concept"? If a work doesn't fit with the concept, you do not use it. This seems pretty logical to me. The concept is the fundamental basis of everything you create. If you're making a realistic racing game, you don't put wheels on a spoon and include it. "But it's a game, it's not realistic in the first place, so why bother making actual cars! Let's just use large cubes with wheels!"

And yet, people buy and enjoy realistic racing games in large numbers. People also buy and enjoy 'hard' science fiction in large numbers. Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov are still two of the most respected writers in science fiction, partly because they didn't abandon plausibility when it was inconvenient. 2001: A Space Odyssey has alien monoliths, which are certainly highly unrealistic, but otherwise it sticks to real-world concepts. In fact, its entire meaning is to transplant one unrealistic element into the real world and see what happens, and by doing so has more power and impact for those of us who live in the real world. This has been a basic and highly effective premise for science-fiction for generations.

I'm not a game designer like you, just an artist, so I was proposing some concepts and ideas that made other games all time classics, and besides that - addictive and fun to play. I wasn't reinventing the wheel or the idea of critical strike. Other game designers implemented this idea successfully years ago in games that now are among the best of their kind.

I've never had a problem with the idea of critical hits. While not entirely realistic, they add a bit of variety to the gameplay, and I wouldn't oppose incorporating them. I'll always agree with you when I think you're right.

Why don't you say - the design of this game is no longer open to discussion, like you did with the story, so none will bother you anymore? I  noticed that you are quite competent in warfare, avionics, spaceships, FTL travel, and astrophysics. So, this means you are either very smart or just have browsed the wikipedia a lot.

I do a lot of research for everything I write.

Anyway, it's clear you don't need help, just people to agree with you. That's why some "bunch" nicknamed you "guru".

Disagreement is fine. I really don't mind hearing opinions I might not necessarily share. The point is that I perceive you to be trying to convince the other developers to change the entire core concept of the game to something different (despite the large body of work that's already been created), especially something of lesser quality than it currently is. This after all the effort I spent, without you even having read the actual storyline -- I know you haven't read it because I've only given it out on request. If I'm wrong about your intentions, please correct me.

I was very enthusiasthic in the begining, and appreciative towards what you were doing (honestly). But now I'm going to remove the game from my computer. I want you to feel relaxed that you are not working for a bunch - me included (by you)- "who don't even remotely appreciate the effort" you are putting into this project.

I don't want you to leave, but it would be nice if you stopped bringing up our attitude to realism and plausibility as a negative thing in almost every post you make. You don't seem to realise how hard it is to get a free open source project together and going in a consistent direction, especially one that isn't a direct copy of the source material.

I also don't want to discourage you from 'rocking the boat', but it would be nice if we didn't have to fight for everything we want to do with the game. Even more, we have to keep our momentum or risk losing the project altogether like the original team did.

Regards,
Winter

801

Design / Bolter rifle specs

« on: October 24, 2006, 07:26:52 am »

Brainstorming a bit more...

An idea to depict the firing would be a fast, slightly glowing, bullet followed by a quickly dispersing vapor trail. Imagine a miniature meteor moving horizontally...

If you want to brainstorm with me and preview articles that are not yet on the wiki, please come to the #ufo:ai IRC channel in freenode.net. I could use a few more knowledgeable feedback voices.

Regards,
Winter

802

Design / Idea: Critical Strike

« on: October 24, 2006, 12:08:32 am »

Mainly I don't disagree with you, but want to stress that this concern about realism is making people spend to much time debating and perfecting a model which will always be incomplete and flawed, while it could be made fun and simple. Games are for fun and should be fun. Don't forget that it's a game and not a pure educational simulation.

Excuse me? Debate only arises when people complain about not being able to have their own personal battle moons and star destroyers in a game which has consciously chosen realism and consistency for its design focus. Work was speeding along until the "It's just a game!" crowd started whinging. In fact, you are tying up and slowing down development by being a thorn in the side of the entire core concept, forcing us to respond to your constant complaining lest people might start listening to you.

It's quite hard to keep a positive attitude about working for a bunch who don't even remotely appreciate the effort you're putting into a project for no reward at all.

Regards,
Winter

803

Artwork / Re: opinion x and a plea

« on: October 21, 2006, 09:35:09 pm »

*sigh* Okay. Let me take it point by point again.

* look and feel: are you familiar with that expression?

Ah, condescension.

the look and feel of an artwork, design, whatever is the emotional representation of the shape, the material, the effects and so on. if you have a shape in front of you, this form is telling you a story immediatly. it is stimulating your inner archetypes, things we all share in common. we instantly know, if a shape looks elegant, brutal, cunning, friendly, and, well, foreign, strange and so on. the form transports a feeling.

Yes, I don't see how this bolsters your argument. It is more than possible to make plausible things that still look alien.

* visual categorization / design guideline:
you can find good up to perfect examples for such design guidelines in famous settings, from lord of the rings to starwars or startrek.

Do you see what you did there? All 3 settings you name are the least plausible example in their genres (with the possible exception of LOTR). In fact, Star Wars and Star Trek are known for their laughably bad science and design. The only thing they have going for them is the look. As several people have pointed out, we're trying to do more here than just the look.

* technology differences:
ok, as far as this discussion goes, the aliens should have the same tech level in general like the humans have.

No. The aliens are significantly more advanced than humans. Their technology just doesn't violate the laws of physics when it's not absolutely necessary. In story terms, it's easier to believe in something that only makes a few concessions to problematic technology than something you know is wrong and/or impossible, like for example old Buck Rogers episodes. People might enjoy the innocence or sheer badness of a Buck Rogers episode, but they would never consider it good fiction.

* realism!:
realism is fine. mostly. but at points where realism acts as a break and stops, metaphorically, the motion, it is a bad thing. so, let me define what we have:

Now you try to attack the concept of internal consistency itself. That doesn't work.

** an alien invasion from outer space

This could happen in real life. It's highly unlikely, but it is a nonzero probability.

** psi warfare

A bit more far-fetched, but also a nonzero probability, and the story treats them in a fairly realistic way; notably, the humans themselves don't suddenly develop psi talents due to the alien invasion.

** mankind in the near future, united in big power blocks

So the European Union, the USSR, NATO, do you think they are unrealistic too? Mankind certainly can unite in big power blocks under the right circumstances

** spaceships, travelling faster then light

Also theoretically possible the way we are doing it.

IF such things are possible, why not even more? because a hand full of students of aerodynamics will tell their friends: "hey, you know, this shape isnt very flyable.." never. its a game. its NOT realistic in first instance, jsut because of the setting itself.

Once again, you resort to attacking internal consistency itself. I made the analogy earlier about putting a fantasy weapon into a realistic game; by doing this you put one genre (science-fantasy) into another (modern). In the case of UFO:AI, we are using the science-fiction genre, not the science-fantasy genre. Mixing them destroys internal consistency and would render the current storyline invalid. That seems like a pretty big sacrifice to make to accomodate a model that doesn't fit the game in the first place.

if realism acts as fun-killer, because everything unusual, or everything we are not used to in reallife, is kicked out, realism is out of place.

It is hard for me to respond to this without calling it paranoid delusion. I have said again and again that it is MORE than possible to design unusual things that are real. Hovercraft, flying wings, flechette guns, tactical high-energy lasers. There are so many wondrous and alien-looking things that actually exist in our world, and yet people completely ignore this.

and the look and feel, the design guidelines, i was talking before, are tons more important then a so called realistic approach.

Only if you think looks and flash are more important than content and consistency. And if that were true, Chronicles of Riddick and a hundred other flashy action films would not have bombed at the box office. You need a good look to catch the player's attention; you need good substance to keep it.

the aliens should be foreign, strange, different, but with banging them down to something very familiar, the stay one thing: humans. and thats bad.

Absolutely. I don't see how that's a point in your favour, however. You  can design strange things that are plausible, as you can see in my Bloodspider model.

glowing green lights in the texture, and some spikes wont help very much here.

We don't want glowing green lights or spikes anyway. Spikes waste material and serve no function.

is allright, if you want to design the human side of the story most realistic, well, we can define the realism here, we know, how our technology works and how it looks like. but for a strange species from outer space, we cant make such decision about WHAT is actual realistic here.

There are some things that are true no matter where in the galaxy you are and what you know. For example, spheres are the strongest possible geometric shape. Cylinders come in second, which is -- among other things -- why aircraft have cylindrical fuselages. Giving a machine lots of surface area with little internal space forces you to slap on lots of unnecessary armour and gives you no place to put things. Human or alien, these points NEVER CHANGE.

* target audience:
ok, as you perhaps know, im running my own company for animation, design, industrial design, production design and so on since 6 years now, and there are quite many things i havent really realized, when i founded nathan : inc. for example, the importance of the target audience. if you are doning something for a greater public, you are automatically aiming for a particular group, your target audience. and, to be successful, you should aim good. here, in ufo ai, besides the xcom players, your target audience are those, who expect aliens to be alien.
yes, i know, it is no commercial project, but anyway, there are competitors, too, and success isnt something, you dont want, is it? so, my advice is at least to consider, what your players like to see.
again, this goes for the setting. if you have something different, then you can be far more unique, but an alien invasion and a xcom style game isnt unique at all. but you cant make it something special by putting the strange creatures from outer space on a level, which we can explain with nowadays physics and styles.

Your theory is flawed, and trying to name your credentials doesn't bolster your point. I myself have worked in the game industry for 6 years as a writer and game designer. It's appeal to authority, it doesn't work.

Now, as for your point. If we slavishly follow the same principles as X-COM, our game will end up no different than X-COM, and it will have nothing new or interesting to draw in players who could be spending their time on the actual old games or on any of the new commercial X-COM clones coming out. A realistic X-COM game has never been done before, and it will be a major point in attracting attention.

-> and now for something different: in the wiki, there is NO information about the storyline, almost none about defined guidelines, what the aliens are, how they work, besides the standard alien stereotypes which the antareas (sorry if misstyped), being the masters and others being the pets.

This is true, and a lot of the UFOpaedia has not settled to a finished form. It is our policy not to put unfinished material on the wiki, to avoid giving people the wrong impression and to avoid people translating things that might change.

how can you expect, that someone throwns hour after hour on thinking, planning, drawing and designing something for the greater good for nothing, and then kick it back with words like "not in storyline, cant be" or "i wont accept in any terms", without revealing the concept?

You never asked to see the concept, which I have freely shown to anyone who expressed an interest. And do you realise how many hours I've put into the storyline that you want to discard? I have spent nearly three months trying to get the entire UFOpaedia into shape, whilst trying to keep up with my non-UFO:AI work as well. Three months. So far we've finished maybe a quarter of the work.

and, in addition, you cant expect everything fitting your personal taste in visual ways, you can only do that, if you are a client and paying for the time, the designer is investing. then it is your right to act so, and its correct, for sure. but as long you are dealing with people, who are investing their precious time because of enthusiasm, such a behavior is not a team play.

It has never been a matter of personal taste. I like by far most of the models you've made. It's a matter that in the universe you and I live in, your creation could never fly or hover or be anything more than a nice sculpture. As a machine, it would be extremely inefficient, and no intelligent alien would use it.

i dont want to spill bad blood, and sure you can use the models, i already transfered like the chaingun + ammo, shotgun, buildings, and so on. but designing aliens which feel like something transformed from human to anywhere in space, isnt the thing im looking for.

That's not what I'm looking for either. We want the aliens to be different just as much as you. We simply don't want them to make huge engineering mistakes in how they design their technology.

so, my plea is to put the whole concept in the wiki, make easy-to-navigate links to particular parts of it like technology of aliens, what you never would accept designwise, etc, so another creative designer KNOWS that, before taking out the pencils and hook him / herself onto it.

I admit that the current information handling hasn't been perfect, and for that, I do apologise. We've been trying to avoid giving people the impression that the storyline information is no longer subject to change. However, putting everyting on the wiki would also have other negative effects, as we don't want to spoil the story for non-designers.

I know this isn't much comfort, but you must remember that not every model you make will be suitable for the game, just like I've written articles that we later realised we can't use. I've already had to make several sweeping changes and rewrites to my UFO:AI material to fit the game. In my work experience there's not much we can do about this, it happens on any project, commercial or otherwise.

However, I'm open to increasing coordination and cooperation. If you'd like to be able to reach me for feedback on any of your models or to read/comment on the storyline, please come to the UFO:AI IRC channel. I'm there almost all the time, and more than open for discussion.

Regards,
Winter

804

Design / Idea: Critical Strike

« on: October 21, 2006, 10:47:59 am »

There are sniper rifles, like the Barrett XM500 (.50 cal) which are lighter (11 kgs) and feature minimal recoil compared to the high caliber. I'm not saying that it's realistic to fire a sniper rifle from point blank, but it's not impossible.

Do you have any idea how heavy 11kg is, especially for a rifle? The old battle rifles like the FN-FAL were considered quite heavy and at 6kg loaded. The M16A2 is under 4.5kg. And when you factor in the extreme weapon length of anti-materiel rifles, their free-hand accuracy is uniformly terrible. Even technology can't make up for the fact that you'd be using the weapon in a way that is completely contrary to its design.

Regards,
Winter

805

Design / Idea: Critical Strike

« on: October 21, 2006, 03:34:28 am »

Do you folks have any idea how hard it is to hit a moving target at close range with a sniper rifle? You are basically either shooting blind or from the hip... A .50 caliber rifle firing antimaterial rounds can be used sitting with support or lying down, but if you are even a little bit out of position or unprepared it hurts like hell. It is difficult enough to hold it and almost impossible to follow or lead a moving target at close range, you would be lucky to hit an elephant that way. Imagine what it would be like with a 20mm gun instead. If you did manage to hit though, it would be messy.

For close combat you want a light and relatively short gun that is easy to follow the target with. It is probably easier to hit someone in the eye with a pistol or a SMG than with a sniper rifle. At long range, the opposite applies.

I know this, and my sniper rifle article most certainly reflects it. In the Recommended Doctrine segment, it's highly recommended to switch to a backup weapon rather than try to engage with the sniper rifle at close range. If the game doesn't already reflect this properly, I hope we can balance the stats so that it will. We're up for a major bugfixing of the aiming code anyway.

Regards,
Winter

806

Design / Idea: Critical Strike

« on: October 20, 2006, 11:11:07 pm »

For once I agree with sirg. You realise that two inches is more armour than some tanks had in World War 2, right?

Regards,
Winter

807

Artwork / hovernet temporary model 01?

« on: October 20, 2006, 11:01:53 pm »

Returning to the subject, I would add just a last comment, that my impression is that the actual storyline and tech concepts are a bottle neck for creative, original and fun ideas and concepts. Maybe you have finished the story to  soon, because there are so many people who still want to come with ideas. Many of the game features are in testing or aren't working yet. I'm not saying it's bad that you have a story, maybe it's a very good story, but for the moment I'm a bit sad that many things won't get into the game.
And speaking of realism - psionic warfare doesn't sound like cut from reality to me, but we all know it's fun, and there is no real X-Com based game without it...

So if someone made a fantasy plasma gun for, say, Rainbow Spear, or any other realistic military game, you would be sad that it didn't get included in the official game?

That's the kind of analogy you're drawing. You insist that the story (and, by extension, every piece of realistic design in the game) is wrong for the model, rather than the model being wrong for the story. That is pretty insane in my opinion. Do you want to change out the current guns for ridiculously oversized cartoons as well? Maybe switch the soldiers to anime characters? There are certainly SOME people out there that would want to, and if we try to cater to everyone's wishes, nothing would get done -- ever.

The fact is that we have been working steadily towards a clearly-defined goal, the goal being a game that is both as plausible and as fun as possible, and the hovernet model represents a deviation from that goal. It is so bad that its inclusion is tantamount to abandoning the goal of plausible design. If we abandon the goal, then we abandon the entire concept of the game that interested me and many others in the first place.

You don't make bad compromises that make the game less plausible and consistent -- thereby breaking suspension of disbelief -- just because they're convenient. That is what's called bad game design. You make a concept and you stick with it.

BTAxis and I were asked to make a concept, and this is what we have. If you don't want it, we can take our storyline and leave.

Regards,
Winter

808

Artwork / hovernet temporary model 01?

« on: October 20, 2006, 12:59:52 am »

Quoting from my post on the propulsion thread:

Our current plan is to use atomic or antimatter rockets for the UFOs, as they're very powerful and allow for spectacular effects for UFO destruction in mid-air. This allows us to send more UFOs at the player in every wave, as some or most of them will be destroyed instead of having to recover them all in the field.

Nuclear or antimatter engines are not suitable for infantry vehicles, and though high-powered ion thrusters might be, they require a LOT of power to keep something floating against gravity. The easiest and most power-effective way to keep something flying is via the Hovercraft concept, using high-powered air turbines and directed air for thrust. The hovercraft's usual rubber skirt isn't necessary with intelligent AI control, but still, air turbines have a minimum space for the thrust they can put out. They simply cannot fit in your new hovernet design.

Any kind of thruster that allows hovering would require FAR more fuel and power than a simple air turbine. The aliens aren't stupid, so they would go for the more economical option.

Another crit on the new hovernet design is the gun mount. It's got an extremely weak mounting, where one good blow might cause the gun to simply break off. That's not a mistake I could accept from aliens who are supposed to be smarter than us.

This is another problem I have with the new model, and I don't think I need to explain it further.

The storyline BTAxis and I are writing features technology, not magic. That means antigravity and similar concepts are not an option. The only thing we're using that's not entirely supported by physics is wormhole-based FTL, and nothing else. I don't know why I have to keep repeating this. It's not like it's more difficult to model things that could actually work in the real world.

I will not under any circumstances accept this model without changes.

Regards,
Winter

809

Artwork / ka dropzone of artworks

« on: October 19, 2006, 06:05:36 pm »

which one(s) did you mean Winter?

It was just a general caution. The flying saucer, for example, that doesn't work with our current stable of models -- but we could definitely use the 'hovertank' at the bottom of the list as a UGV, if kaeau can manage to make it look light with the texture.

The model above the hovertank would make a good Small Transport-class UFO, too. It just needs to match the general style of what we already have, unless we intend to change the UFO style.

Regards,
Winter

810

Artwork / Re: visual propulsion design

« on: October 19, 2006, 05:57:34 pm »

it has gone on quite for a while, a discussion about how the ufos and the flying / hovering equipment keeps in air.

just keep in mind that we won't be featuring any magical hovering technology, so no floating castles or flying saucers...

ok. all infos i found in wiki were "ion propulsion technology".
good. so, what actually means "ion propulsion tech"?
look at my screen below, i painted the jets and the exhausting holes on the pre models, to visualize my approach (which i consider as sensible)..

you dont expect ufos driven by conventional rockets, or hovernet elevated by .. ventilators, are you?

Ion drives are part of the old storyline, but why would they be acceptable if you're so dead set against 'conventional' rockets? Ion drives operate on nearly the same principle -- they still vent things out the back of the spaceship to push it forward.

Our current plan is to use atomic or antimatter rockets for the UFOs, as they're very powerful and allow for spectacular effects for UFO destruction in mid-air. This allows us to send more UFOs at the player in every wave, as some or most of them will be destroyed instead of having to recover them all in the field.

Both these concepts require large and clear thrust coming out the BACK of the aircraft. Flying saucers do not have rear-facing thrust nozzles, and besides, it would be VERY curious to change our entire design strategy in mid-game. If we went with flying saucers -- which are extremely cliched -- we'd have to replace all the UFOs we have so far as the two simply do not fit together.

Nuclear or antimatter engines are not suitable for infantry vehicles, and though high-powered ion thrusters might be, they require a LOT of power to keep something floating against gravity. The easiest and most power-effective way to keep something flying is via the Hovercraft concept, using high-powered air turbines and directed air for thrust. The hovercraft's usual rubber skirt isn't necessary with intelligent AI control, but still, air turbines have a minimum space for the thrust they can put out. They simply cannot fit in your new hovernet design.

Another crit on the new hovernet design is the gun mount. It's got an extremely weak mounting, where one good blow might cause the gun to simply break off. That's not a mistake I could accept from aliens who are supposed to be smarter than us.

Regards,
Winter