Messages

1

Sounds and Music / Re: Adding music to "music" file in 0ufos - spacing

« on: February 20, 2012, 08:19:37 am »

The .ogg converter I use automatically puts a _ for each space in the song name, although I also am renaming the files so they are easier to type into the music list.

Any clue how the game choses the music within each music type?  For instance are songs in the front of the list played more?  I'm not looking to replace the existing music, just add to the jukebox so-to-speak.

2

Bugs in older version (2.3.1) / Re: Missing last alien in Terror mission "shelter"

« on: February 19, 2012, 10:02:48 pm »

FYI I finally got through this.  Apparently the key is to have the map spawn with the truck & lift at the bottom level.  Easy enough to save & replay before entering, rather than play through it only to find an alien stuck in a wall.

3

Sounds and Music / Adding music to "music" file in 0ufos - spacing

« on: February 18, 2012, 08:50:40 am »

I've added some music to the 0music file, then I've added the file names to the music file inside 0ufos.pk3  The first time I added just 3 songs, and tried to keep the spacing exact as I typed the new filenames into the song lists.  Since it worked, I did it again with even more songs (7 this time) but this time I lost track of the spacing between the text.  Not even sure if it matters, I'm using Winzip to open the pk3 files and notepad to open the "music" file inside 0ufos.  Does the spacing of the song titles showing up in notepad matter?  Or does it just need 1 space minimum in between each title?

4

Bugs in older version (2.3.1) / Missing last alien in Terror mission "shelter"

« on: February 17, 2012, 08:39:48 am »

I've played through this mission twice, each time going into every room (even checked the roof where the dropship is) and I cant find the last alien to end the mission.  Each time I've aborted, and it shows 1 alien still alive.  Not sure if there is a fix for this, but I remember a long time ago reading about a command you can type in to summon an alien in front of you if they are stuck in a wall or something.

This is the bomb shelter mission, the one with the gas truck in the middle of the map on a platform.

Any help would be appreciated.

5

Discussion / Re: UFO:AI needs you. Yes, you.

« on: October 09, 2010, 11:49:38 am »

Ok, I am not a programmer of any sort, however I have done some writing at an amateur level.  I've done a lot of writing for my own personal RPG gaming, as well as contributed to some fan fiction sites for MMORPGs (links provided upon request).

I am currently playing 2.3, and have noticed there are some missing descriptions for some of the later aircraft.  Is this something you are looking for contributions for, or is the focus now on the 2.4 version?

As a huge fan of the X-Coms, and put a good part of my free time in playing those, I'd be willing to help out with this project, if my limited skillsets should allow.

6

Discussion / Re: Emplaced weapons

« on: October 09, 2010, 03:44:39 am »

I think an auto-turret would be cool.  Something that takes up the whole backback space, and takes a full turn of TUs to set up, but then fires at short range at any aliens near by.  Can also be destroyed, but it would be useful to put behind troops or around corners.

7

Discussion / Re: Weapon Ideas?

« on: October 09, 2010, 03:38:57 am »

I miss the man-portable guided missile launcher from the X-Com games.  Got a bit overpowered if you equipped too many of them, but damn were they fun to fire.

8

Tactics / Re: Need help with the map "Brücke" ("Bridge")

« on: October 09, 2010, 03:33:39 am »

My standard squad makeup is: 2 Close-in soldiers, 2 Assault soldiers (laser rifles), 2 Heavy soldiers (heavy lasers), 1 Explosives soldier (HE rocket or Grenade launcher), 1 Sniper.

I have the 2 Close guys sweep the left side of the map (they sometimes get hit crossing the middle), heal up, then continue to sweep towards the back, then use the buildings there to sweep to the right.  While that is happening, I put the 2 Heavies, the Explosives & the Sniper in the center building to kill anything that moves out in the open.  The two Assault guys I put along the long wall on the right (one by the opening right, and one a few steps from the turn on the left.  They basically snipe for a while then move forward once all the aliens on the left & middle have either been killed or moved.

Generally the guys in the center building kill everything, however the sweepers sometimes get a guy hiding behind the wreck.  Generally the last couple of aliens I have are hidling behind the back wall on the right, and I generally charge everyone at them at that point.

9

Discussion / Re: Weapon Ideas?

« on: October 08, 2010, 09:17:15 am »

The problem is all weapons pale in comparison to the laser weapons.  You learn about the plasma pistol (somewhat useless), plasma rifle (pretty much useless unless close up) and plasma blaster (a completely useless weapon), but end up equiping your guys with the heavy laser.  Nothing compares when you look at the damage & accuracy.

The only problem there is that if you have a lot of bases, and lets say 2 troops per base using the heavy laser, you will have trouble keeping up with the ammo for it when you reach the dozens of missions per day stage.  You then either have to dedicate a manufacturing group to produce the ammo (sacrificing a group to get you anti-matter)  or have to occasionally forgo the heavy laser for the machine-gun on some missions (which isnt a bad weapon anyways, even later in the game).

IMO the devs made the laser weapons too powerful, and the alien weapons too weak.  The upside to that is missions where the aliens try to fire the plasma blaster at you across the map, when in reality they have an effective range of like 4 squares.

The only downside to this all is that you'd think the aliens would have a great long range weapon, as they should have the technology advantage.  But the reality of the game is that if you have a laser squad they will tear up and plasma-using alien encounter every time, if you use cover effectively.

Unlike some of the posts here, I find the aliens too easy compared to the X-Com games.  My laser-equipped squad never has to worry about range, I just fire then cover.  Even if exposed, half the time the aliens fire at me with the plasma blaster and miss horribly.  I dont care how many shots it takes to take down an armored Otnok, as long as I have the range I win.

10

Discussion / Re: Feedback 2.3

« on: October 08, 2010, 04:14:59 am »

For the people having difficulty with the game, here are the 3 biggest game changers that I've found:
1. Research and build the nanocomposite armor ASAP
2. Research and build lasers, ASAP
3. Use cover!  The game gets to a point where if you dont finish your TUs with cover, expect to get hit.  #1 can usually keep those hits from getting lethal.

Make sure everyone has a medikit.  If you start getting tore up, create an "aid station" where one or two guys are in a safe spot, and you run your hurt guys to them.  The aliens are often not too aggressive so you can take time to heal up wounded folks.

As far as suggestions, I also agree with the several of the other posters about the pace of the game.  I can understand the aliens escalating their activity, but it gets to a pretty ridiculous level when it takes several IRL hours just to get through 1 game day, when you have weeks to have something researched or broken down.  I'm not sure what the best fix for this would be.

Couple of questions:
Can 2.3 save games be transfered to 2.4?

Can terror missions or crashed UFOs be ignored once in a while, or will that result in big status hits?

11

Discussion / Re: ???Up stairs in the alien ships???

« on: October 08, 2010, 02:58:14 am »

If you would do a little search before posting, you'd know it's known bug and is being worked on...

Wow what a helpful response.  If I ran a company I'd hire this guy to run my Customer Service in a heartbeat.

Seriously though, it is an annoying bug but here is what I do when I get it:
I place guys around the central stairs all on RF.
Have one guy shoot up the stairs (doesnt need to be at an alien, just a wall).
Move the shooter behind a wall.

Usually some sort of noise, like a shot, will get them to come down the stairs.  Dont use a grenade   because if you miss you might hurt someone.  I ended up blowing 3 of my own guys up doing that.

If that doesnt work, sometimes having your entire crew exit the UFO can get them to come down.

12

Discussion / Re: Only seeing tamans and orthnoks, for a looong time

« on: October 08, 2010, 02:21:29 am »

I have to agree, the pacing of this game compared to the X-Coms leaves a lot to be desired.  I'm at the point where I only have one thing to research, and I am deconstructing UFOs in like 5 different bases, but the pace is so slow (I am getting about 5 terror missions and shooting down a half dozen UFOs PER DAY) that the game has a very repetitive feel.

Does anyone know any trick or cheat code to make the game move along a bit faster (other than to just automission everything)?  I would like to see some new tech, but it is literally dozens of hours of gameplay time (doing the same 5 maps, fighting the same alien AI) before I see anything new.

13

Sounds and Music / Re: My thoughts about music in the skirmish mode

« on: July 02, 2010, 09:16:32 pm »

I know this is an old thread, but I posted a thread about this on the Mods board.  I believe the track mentioned here is also in 2.3, the one with the cheering at the end.  Not only is the track annoyingly loud compared to the rest of the music, but at one point the cheering kicked in right after one of my soldiers got vaporized 

Not to sound like a music snob, but IMO there's two styles of music:  Music that forces you to listen to it (hard rock, rap, country, and any music with interesting lyrics) and then there is music that you can "hear" without listening to it (ambient, New Age, techno).  The latter is what I like to work and game to.

Anyways, I'm wondering where the music files are in 2.3 (I looked under "Base" and didnt see a music folder) and if it's possible for a user to customize the tracks, or add new music.

I also like the idea of an in-game track list selector.  Maybe even take that a step further and put in an uploader, so you can add downloaded tracks to the game (like an in-game Ipod)

14

User modifications / Can the music be customized?

« on: July 02, 2010, 08:55:30 pm »

I've always loved the music in the Xcoms, but there is one track in this game that's a bit annoying .  It sounds like some arena-rock tune, and for some reason it plays about twice as loud as all the other music tracks (and some of the tracks play too quiet).  I like my rock as much as the next guy, but for me the music in an Xcom game like this needs to be ambient, or at most a background techno beat.  Anyways I know with a game like Elder Scrolls: Oblivion I could go in and add or delete music files in different situational folders, and customize the music to my own tastes.  I'm pretty big into New Age and Celtic music, and find I work the best (and play the best) with it.

Just wanted to see if anyone else has done this, as I dont want to start moving files around and break something.

15

Bugs prior to release 2.3 / Re: Crashes when entering battlescape

« on: July 02, 2010, 08:40:08 pm »

I had the same problem, and scoured the boards for fixes.  Turns out there are a lot of threads about this problem.  I found this thread the most helpful: http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=4988.0

One important thing is to restart the game after any graphics change.  I started to panic when the fixes didnt work, and gave up.  Later I fired up the game again to see if I'd get lucky, and sure enough I havent had the problem since.

Another note, the Ufoconsole.log is a pain to find (at least with Vista).  The AppData folder is hidden by default, I had to log in Administrator mode, change Folders to view all.  Also strangely, the Ufoconsole.log did not show the crash, only a switch to Team (1), then nothing.  It may be that it doesnt catch all the crashes.

Anyways I hope this helps, I think there should be a consolidated thread for this problem as it seems to be a common bug.