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Messages - garthos

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1
Discussion / Re: Saving game & replacing units
« on: August 26, 2007, 11:44:45 am »
I'm with the developers on this one and tend to favour less of a save game feature. Infact I would like to see the replay battle option be tuned down some. I also think the battles would deliver better gaming experience with more casualties sustained.

I'm also more likely to replay the game again if I was beaten or financially ruined where I'm left to consider I think I could do a better job a second time around and are left with that yearning to see how the game unfolds.

As a big fan of turn based strategy games, I'm in favour of the player losing again and again until they they improve there strategy. (I certainly wouldnt have played the number of hours I have in the civilization series if it wasnt for getting my ass kicked).

I understand the argument of frustration of replaying the same level, but don't agree with a save game option as a solution. This would impact negatively on the game play experience of each battle. Loss of fear and amphosphere.

I also feel that losses need to be sustained to apply pressure on the other strategic elements of the game, geoscape management etc.

2
Feature Requests / Re: after a couple of hours play on trunk rel 10839
« on: August 24, 2007, 05:33:03 am »
Okay cool, thanks for the clarification.

Quote
You know, the more you argue about that, the more I am willing to implement this. As an option, of course, but this would be definitely THE challenge.

I shall fight on for these changes then, thanks  ;D ,I thought of name for this option. "Enhanced AI". In a roundabout way it achieves this.

Oh one last thing, I would have been interested in reading on your website how this project came about, the guys involvement in previous projects and maybe more details regarding the quake engine. Not sure if this was sourced for its suitability or because of your experience with it.

3
Feature Requests / Re: after a couple of hours play on trunk rel 10890
« on: August 17, 2007, 03:34:03 am »
Shame about the savegame as I see the dilema if people are asking for more. I've always been and advocate that savegames can impact negatively to a strategy game. Chess wouldn't be the same if you load a save game each time you lost a piece. In "my perfect world" I would like to see an auto savegame at the beginning of the month and or after a battle without the user getting to decide. This way the player is more likely to carry the casualties during a month as he will be more reluctant to lose a few hours gameplay reverting to a save game. Although I guess this can be already implemented by a disciplined player. But the repeat battle option would have to remain. It certainly plays an important function. I thought I may have detected that ufoai may have felt this way to a degree for not implementing the savegame during battle ??.
Oh well, im one for being supportive of no savegame feature in the battle scenes, I think this is a good call and hope it remains this way.

I've looked at the tracker. I know you probably have this explained through the different websites (wiki,forum,source). But I was reluctant to add to this directly as I didnt understand how you processed these from good ideas, bad ideas, maybe ideas. I understand 2.2 is feature packed so the emphasis is on debugging & testing and completing the incomplete parts. So how are you processing non bug tracker suggestions. I think I saw 2.3 todo list. But this seemed more focused on keeping momentum up when 2.2 completes. Please explain ? Also hows does the person thats its assigned to fit in? Do they implement the changes and record it in changelog or responsible for researching whether its a good/bad idea and its written into a future todo list or has that process already taken place before assigning it ?
Can a modification be made without being written into the todo list first? What is your process of deciding whats a good idea.
Is the todo list the definitive list or only a list where the community can contribute ?

4
Feature Requests / after a couple of hours play on trunk rel 10839
« on: August 16, 2007, 08:50:02 am »
Firstly, just wanted to say I'm in awe with what you have been doing here.
I've played 2.1. So many more features in 2.2, awesome. 

Thought I would share some points of interest while playing the first few hours on trunk release 10890.

1) When building a hospital the hospital icon in the menu turns green but you are unable to select it. Maybe it should remain grey until built or a message saying under construction.

2) Base Summary sections facilities, construction and research values are messy to read. Maybe should be tabbed into columns like the other sections.

3) Base Summary personnel looks like its missing personnel available i.e 3/8 maybe its on the todo.

4) Possibly my configuration but the screen isn't centered correctly, sits to the left when desktop sits perfectly.

5) Game Settings, holding cursor over one popup menu acitivate another popup menu i.e when trying to select an option for HUD Design the Language options appear. Works ok though.

6) 3D Geoscape - base icon white not yellow. Hard to see with white countries names.

7) When beginning maybe a popup should remind you that are not researching for newbees. I do remember seeing a popup on earlier version during mid game.

8)  After playing ver 2.1 these are my critical thoughts on game play. To easy. I was able to play on normal difficulty with no challenge, I didnt feel the fear that I got from XCOM: terror of the deep. I'm playing expert now and fear this will prove no better. I think the majority of people are likely to start the game on Normal difficulty and possibly not play another game (As they may spend 60+ hours on the first one). Most people once started wont want to start again to beef up the level in fear of starting over again. I think its very important to get this level balanced to provide the best atmosphere possible. A player that gets wiped out on normal difficulty can either load a save game or repeat the battle, everything is in his favour. When a difficulty level is to easy other strategy aspects of the game become nullified for example budgeting of personnel, cash and expansion. This is a strategy game.
In fairness I feel this way with most games not only ufoai.
Some ideas:
* I loved the excessive damage area of the alien grenades in XCOM terror in the deep. This created an awe for the alien technology and created that fear atmosphere.Please beefup the alien weapons.
* Create more of a disadvantage at the beginning for being so far behind in technology. Balance it so most first time players are losing more recruits than they gaining until armour or alien technology has been utilized.
* I like the repeat battle option but I I see a disadvantage that players might use it excessively at the beginning of the game not wanting to take any losses. This can unbalance the number of battles a player has fought vs the story unfolding. For example if a player has fought 20+ intercept battles using the repeat battle before he triggers an alien base attack. He may retire before the story unfolds. It also goads the player to complete the missions with absolute minimal casualties which not only means no pressure is applied to all the strategy elements cash, troop recruitment etc but also weakens the experience of the battles due to loss of fear & atmosphere.
* I would like to see a player getting through the level and be happy to have survied with 3 players and not wanting to repeat the battle incase of doing worse, and therefore triggering the management elements of the game as the player takes the casualties.
* Maybe offering repeat battle only 0 to 2 players have survived. I think u should be encouraging losses. AI is up against the save game anyway if it gets to tough for the player.
* I Didn't notice a flee option. This could be deployed as a strategic tool for the player with restricted resources. Also lets them take a crack at a mission that they may have been reluctant in trying.

Anyway, Im enjoying the good work. Let me know if this is helpful as I can continue to document what I find as I play through the trunk version.

Cheers
Garthos

 

5
Resolved problem by updating nvidia drivers as per this article

http://www.suse.de/~sndirsch/nvidia-installer-HOWTO.html


6
Hi, Can I have some help with the following problem please.
I found a similar thread "Awfully slow, full CPU usage" which described the same problem.

I have installed trunk rev 10839 via svn on to OPenSUSe 10.2
When I execute ./ufo it boots up fine but I am unable to enter my name as I cannot select this field as my mouse cursor is present but not controllable. I found Xorg to be running at 100%

I have added set gl_ext_pointparameters "0" to
~/.ufoai/2.2-dev/base/config.sys with no success.

I am running a P4 with 1GB ram and GeForce 7600 GT graphics card.

Can anyone help me please?

My consolelog looks like this

..added 3 maps to the mapcycle
...using language: en_US.UTF-8
Console initialized.

------- sound initialization -------
Loading snd_sdl sound driver
Soundsystem: SDL.
SDL version: 1.2.11
SDL audio driver is "alsa".
Bits: 16
Frequency: 48000
Samples: 4096
Channels: 2
sound sampling rate: 48000
------- Loading ref_sdl -------
Sys_LoadLibrary ("ref_sdl")
ref_gl version: GL 0.12
LoadLibrary ("libGL.so")
setting mode 6: 1024 768
SDL version: 1.2.11
Desktop resolution: 1280:1024
I: got 8 bits of stencil
GL_VENDOR: Mesa project: www.mesa3d.org
GL_RENDERER: Mesa GLX Indirect
GL_VERSION: 1.4 (1.5 Mesa 6.5.1)
GL_EXTENSIONS: GL_ARB_depth_texture GL_ARB_draw_buffers GL_ARB_fragment_program
GL_ARB_imaging GL_ARB_multisample GL_ARB_multitexture GL_ARB_occlusion_query GL_
ARB_point_parameters GL_ARB_point_sprite GL_ARB_shadow GL_ARB_shadow_ambient GL_
ARB_texture_border_clamp GL_ARB_texture_compression GL_ARB_texture_cube_map GL_A
RB_texture_env_add GL_ARB_texture_env_combine GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar GL_ARB
_texture_env_dot3 GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two
 GL_ARB_texture_rectangle GL_ARB_transpose_matrix GL_ARB_vertex_program GL_ARB_w
indow_pos GL_EXT_abgr GL_EXT_bgra GL_EXT_blend_color GL_EXT_blend_equation_separ
ate GL_EXT_blend_func_separate GL_EXT_blend_logic_op GL_EXT_blend_minmax GL_EXT_
blend_subtract GL_EXT_clip_volume_hint GL_EXT_copy_texture GL_EXT_draw_range_ele
ments GL_EXT_fog_coord GL_EXT_framebuffer_object GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays GL_EXT
_packed_pixels GL_EXT_paletted_texture GL_EXT_point_parameters GL_EXT_polygon_of
fset GL_EXT_rescale_normal GL_EXT_secondary_color GL_EXT_separate_specular_color
 GL_EXT_shadow_funcs GL_EXT_shared_texture_palette GL_EXT_stencil_wrap GL_EXT_su
btexture GL_EXT_texture GL_EXT_texture3D GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp GL_EXT_textur
e_env_add GL_EXT_texture_env_combine GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3 GL_EXT_texture_lod_
bias GL_EXT_texture_mirror_clamp GL_EXT_texture_object GL_EXT_texture_rectangle
GL_EXT_vertex_array GL_APPLE_packed_pixels GL_ATI_draw_buffers GL_ATI_texture_en
v_combine3 GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once GL_ATIX_texture_env_combine3 GL_IBM_textur
e_mirrored_repeat GL_INGR_blend_func_separate GL_MESA_pack_invert GL_MESA_ycbcr_
texture GL_NV_blend_square GL_NV_fragment_program GL_NV_light_max_exponent GL_NV
_point_sprite GL_NV_texgen_reflection GL_NV_texture_rectangle GL_NV_vertex_progr
am GL_NV_vertex_program1_1 GL_SGI_color_matrix GL_SGI_color_table GL_SGIS_genera
te_mipmap GL_SGIS_texture_border_clamp GL_SGIS_texture_edge_clamp GL_SGIS_textur
e_lod GL_SGIX_depth_texture GL_SGIX_shadow GL_SGIX_shadow_ambient GL_SUN_multi_d
raw_arrays
...GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array not found
...using GL_ARB_multitexture
...using GL_EXT_texture_env_combine
...GL_SGIS_multitexture not found
...ignoring GL_ARB_texture_compression
...GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic not found
...using GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias
...using GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
...using GL_EXT_fog_coord
...using GL_ARB_fragment_program
...GL_ARB_shading_language_100 not found
...GL_ATI_separate_stencil not found
...GL_EXT_stencil_two_side not found
...max texture size:
......cannot detect !
....................8bit image
...SDL_ttf version 2.0.8 - we need at least 2.0.7
...SDL_ttf inited
------------------------------------
Init saving subsystems
...added size subsystem (check ff)
...added base subsystem (check 0)
...added campaign subsystem (check 1)
...added hospital subsystem (check 2)
...added market subsystem (check 3)
...added research subsystem (check 4)
...added employee subsystem (check 5)
...added aliencont subsystem (check 6)
...added production subsystem (check 7)
...added aircraft subsystem (check 8)
...added messagesystem subsystem (check 9)
...added stats subsystem (check a)
...added nations subsystem (check b)
...added transfer subsystem (check c)
execing autoexec.cfg
"version" is "UFO: Alien Invasion 2.2-dev i386 Aug 15 2007 Linux DEBUG"
libcurl/7.15.5 OpenSSL/0.9.8d zlib/1.2.3 libidn/0.6.8 initialized.
Shared Client/Server Info loaded
Cinematic videos/intro.roq not found
...precaching 76 menus
CL_LanguageInit()... language settings are stored in configuration: en_US.UTF-8
====== UFO Initialized ======

Change priority to 0

Thanks
Garthos

7
Feature Requests / base invasion crash
« on: August 03, 2007, 04:31:13 am »
I too experience the same problem on the windows 2.1 version which unfortunately ends my campaign.

Mattn can you confirm this is also true for the windows version.
I am currently downloading 2.2, what is the work around ?
autobattle ???

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