Messages

91

Tactics / Re: Reaction Fire

« on: June 28, 2010, 02:36:22 am »

Don't rely on it.  Develop better tactics without it.  Seriously, I saw reaction fire was bugged and just decided to never trust it like Ive done in other games like this.  I use my points on my turn to press the advantage.  I keep tabs on the enemy, position my guys for surprise attacks on their flanks, try to get them to walk into ambushes where they have zero points for reaction fire and I can unload full clips into them. 

If anything, the AI is too weak.  RF isn't needed to win.  Just better strategy.

92

Discussion / Re: reaction fire fix?

« on: June 28, 2010, 02:27:33 am »

Reaction fire is very weak, however, good strategy on the battle field will win every time.  I win 95% of my battles with zero losses and not a single reaction fire takes place, and the other 5% I either retry successfully or sacrifice a squadie to move on. 

It does seem to get better the longer you keep people alive, but I still don't rely on it.  Don't leave your soldiers exposed and make them come to you, trying to meet them at the point that you have points and they don't.  The AI is very cocky and dumb and leaves itself exposed all the time.  I think it relies on reaction fire too, and they'd be here complaining that their reaction fire isn't fast enough for me if they could.    Don't copy it. 

93

Bugs in older version (2.3.1) / Transfer of Employee bug

« on: June 28, 2010, 02:11:06 am »

Playing with 2 bases staffed and start a new base up.  I'm trying to transport a couple experienced soldiers from Base 1 to the new Base 3.  When I unload them from my aircraft, go the Transfer screen and select the soldiers to transfer, it lets me do it and I see the number of soldiers decrease by 2 on the employee screen, and the total number of employees drops by 2.  I get an a message on the Geoscape that the transfer started. 

Base 1 has two living quarters, 9 soldiers, 3 pilots, 10 workers, and 18 scientists.
Base 3 has no employees and one living quarter.

However, those soldiers never show up at the new base.  If I try to hire any new employees, I get a message that my base is full on living quarters, even though it clearly says 38/40 employees on the Employee screen.  When I try to run a mission with my team from Base 2 (that's just where I noticed the problem), I get an error message:

********************
ERROR: Game Error: Could not find character on team 1 with unique character number 1603
********************
Shutdown server: Server crashed.

Fyi, I was able to transfer two employees from Base 2 to Base 3, which only had one living quarter and about 18 employees, so it may have something to do with two living quarters or possibly something that triggered when I hit max employees, though I did try firing a few and trying again with the same results.

94

Discussion / Re: A couple issues with off-base installations.

« on: June 28, 2010, 01:59:22 am »

On the UFO yard clicking issue, to me the biggest annoyance is the selection and OK.  If it just loaded what I clicked on instead of the extra click, it wouldn't be so annoying, more like a pop-up menu. Which if there was more of a right-click functionality to the game, that might clear up some of the issues and stream line it a bit.

On the radar, yeah, they're kind of pointless.  I set one up and eventually replaced it with a base because it rarely detected anything, but I'm still early on.  I do see some utility to them in filling in some holes once I have all my bases built.

But back on the UFO yards, there needs to be more control over them.  Maybe I haven't hit this point yet, but I don't see anyway to get rid of UFO's I store there.  Clicking on the base just asks me to destroy it, and I don't see any management windows in the nearest base.  Maybe later on it will let me chose which ones to replace with new ufo's, but not sure at this point in my game.  It seems a little odd that there wasn't a better screen since the radar and SAM sites both had management windows.

95

Discussion / Re: Congratulations for the Realese UFO A.I 2.3

« on: June 19, 2010, 01:37:17 am »

Thanks devs!!!!!  Been a long wait and just letting ya know it's all still very much appreciated.

Downloading....

96

Discussion / Re: New to UFOAI have some questions / critisisms / suggestions

« on: June 13, 2010, 08:30:56 pm »

I have not played the 2.3 dev build, so limited in what I can say, but I agree with the OP that there are plenty of solid examples of how to build a RF system that have been working since this genre was introduced, and UFO:AI indeed had a good system in 2.2 that I was more than happy with.  If that has changed, then it should be investigated to see if it's the design that is the problem, or if possibly a bug has been introduced that is breaking RF.

On the recoil issue, I don't see it for the first shot.  It's the soldiers reaction time that should determine his first shot and like the other posters here, I assume the soldier is sitting with his full allotted time ready to fire.  Something comes into view, he has a fraction of a second to determine friend or foe and then it's time to fire, and soldiers are trained to get that time to it's absolute minimum, definitely well below a second.  Recoil would affect his next shot as it would add time to how quickly he could retarget and fire.  The higher the soldiers stats, the better he would be at it.  But now you've also thrown out that FoF reaction time since he now knows what he's shooting at, so it equals out somewhat.  And what of lasers?  Rail guns?  Recoil isn't as high an issue in those systems than an explosive based weapon, so now you have to take into account the weapon.

This is overcomplicating it though.  Just be consistent, and to stay within the bounds of the current design, if I select an aimed shot, my RF time should be longer than if I tell him to snap shot the first thing that comes into view.   I don't see a need to penalize them.  Should there be an override based on how close the enemy is?  For example, he's told to take an aimed shot, but he sees the enemy across the field and the creature keeps coming at him, at some point he's going to react and let lose whether he has a good shot or not.  Maybe have RF dependent on how long the enemy has been in his sights?  Each step the enemy takes would increase the likelihood of being RF'd.  The longer it is, the higher probability that he will react.

It's true that RF can become OP, but it's not a good idea to OP the enemy either with an unrealistic god mode system where they can cross an entire field with no consequences.

97

Discussion / Re: Medical staff

« on: May 03, 2010, 12:56:59 am »

I like extra work.  I view it as playing a more detailed game.  I'd have liked to see an expanded role for medics, as said a few times.  Let them boost research in various areas, perform autopsies, maybe change their names to Doctors to imply an expanded role.  Maybe give  them a reason to be on missions.  Med packs are way too overpowered as they are now, and anyone can use them.  How about medics be the ones who can really use them, or use them 3x as better or something like that?  Just an idea.

If they're gone, ok, but to me it means the game is being dumbed down... harsh, yes, and I don't mean this is a "OMG HOW DARE YOU!" issue and I understand that it's an extremely minor detail they provide right now, but I just hate when I see a function in a game removed just because someone thinks it's too much work.  Moving soldiers across a battlefield one space a time instead of just having them fight for themselves is "too much work" to some.  Managing a base instead of just having it done automatically is "too much work" to some.  The more the game does for me, the less I like it.  The whole game can be thought of as work, and that's why I like games like xcom and UFO:AI, the realism of having to manage a full scale war.

So I'd prefer to see a feature expanded instead of deleted.  Just my 2C.

btw, biologists and nanotechnologists were separated in xcom-apoc.
can you imagine how much more exciting the game was because of it?
almost not at all, i would say.

Well, I would fault that on execution, not concept. 

98

Discussion / Re: When will be the next release?

« on: March 27, 2010, 11:50:17 pm »

Rather than only waiting, it often is better to point out which things can be improved. Even if these are only little things.

Nope, point out things that are broken.  Things that can be improved should go on the backburner for the next release, or else requirements creep will prevent it from ever being done.  I know what you mean, just pointing out that things need to bound in order to complete.

And I think there is a good point that those of us who are waiting as freeloaders (I know we don't really rate as customers) just want to let the devs know their work is appreciated and there are people waiting for them to finish, as politely as we can.  It's hard to feel motivated on something that you think no one cares about, and we do!

99

Discussion / Re: UFO:AI Online

« on: March 27, 2010, 11:42:54 pm »

I'll chime in.  I'd love a good MMORG like this.  The flavors of sci-fi MMORG's kind of suck right now.  I've been looking for a good sci-fi based one for a long time and after a big disappointment with Star Trek Online, well, having an X-Com variety would be great.  The only thing I would ask is to not focus on pvp because I don't like it... though I know I'm in a minority and it will probably need some to survive.

100

Discussion / Re: When will be the next release?

« on: March 12, 2010, 12:58:31 am »

Very true
But to get 2.3 out, we need some *particular people* to do some particular things.
It's always hard in open source projects to get those last 2%...

The last 5% is always the toughest of any software projects.  Major kudo's for getting it to 2%!

Eagerly but patiently the next release.

101

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

« on: January 17, 2010, 05:09:32 pm »

I think you should implement save during combat with another difficulty mode.  And it should be called....

"Happy Happy Pony" mode.

I was going to say "Hello Kitty" mode, but that is trademarked. 

102

Discussion / Re: Release early, release often

« on: December 21, 2009, 12:46:47 am »

Thanks for the reply...

and my apologies.  Selfish selfish selfish.  Here I am asking for an early Christmas gift from you all, not even thinking you may actually want some time to enjoy it yourselves. 

Happy Holidays, should you so celebrate them, dev team.  Thanks again and best wishes to you all next year.

103

Discussion / Re: Release early, release often

« on: December 17, 2009, 11:11:17 pm »

Patiently waiting for the developers to feel it's ready for full release.  Was really hoping for a Christmas gift out of it this year, but more stability later is a good price to pay for waiting.  It looks like the change list is getting more focused now.  Thanks for all the work you guys are putting into it. 

Also, I seem to recall seeing a link where all the major releases were spelled out with exactly what features would be included in each.  Was that removed?  Or was it completed?  I can't seem to navigate to it any more.  Thanks in advance if anyone replies.

104

Discussion / Re: Steps on UFO development.

« on: July 24, 2009, 02:46:38 am »

An ending just gives a feeling of accomplishment of actually finishing something.  Doesn't have to be anything dramatic, but something that rewards you for a long campaign.  That said, I think in this type of project, an ending is a bonus, not a requirement.

105

Discussion / Re: New soldier stat increase system

« on: July 10, 2009, 12:46:33 am »

Just chiming in again as a part timer.  I was just offering an idea.  I like the planed method equally well if not better. 

Of the options listed above, if they're on the table, I think option (B) is the most straighforward, however, the "ghost instructor" option of (A) could really be thought of as team mentorship.  A new guy is recruited and everyone on the team takes him/her under their wings and crams everything they all know about surviving in the field they can think of.  He gets up to speed fast and within a few missions is battle ready, somewhat equal to the overall level of the team. 

In reality though, there would be some kind of classroom training from a qualified instructor that would bring new recruits up to speed, and option B is probably more representative of how a real military organization would go about it structurally. 

But extending the ideas just a bit further, perhaps what really happens is a mix of A and B where people really learn by instruction and by mentorship.  It may be too complicated to mix those two models, though, and just simpler to go with an assigned instructor as the main means of getting recruits up to speed.