Messages

1

Bugs in older version (2.3.1) / Re: Reaction fire : Possible to tweak?

« on: July 23, 2010, 01:53:48 pm »

Strange thing is, RF works just fine for me. It isn't 100% reliable of course, but it is a part of my tactics. If you can't get it working, a few hints. Two things matter, TU cost of selected RF shot and Mind stat of soldier. Give a laser rifle to soldier with mind 35+, and see the difference. Get a dedicated medic and nanocomposite armors asap, that helps your soldiers survive the first round in unfavorable setups at crash sites.

I'm quite a few hours into my most recent campaign in 2.3 and I've yet to see any of my soldiers use their reaction fire. I've tried simply using the toggle button (the one you just click), I've tried using the more detailed reaction fire reservation (where you click the button, manually select your fire mode), and I've tried activating both.

I have quite a few Lance-corporals. Do I need to get them even higher in rank?

2

Bugs in older version (2.3.1) / Re: Alien AI

« on: July 23, 2010, 01:48:34 pm »

Any ideas how line-of-sight and AI firing worked for the original X:COM / UFO Enemy Unknown? Seems like (the way I remember it) the AI behaved fairly intelligently back then. Then again, the AI could fire through almost any wall and the walls were destructible back then...

3

Bugs in older version (2.3.1) / Re: Alien AI

« on: July 22, 2010, 10:54:23 pm »

Nope. I played Normal difficulty today in 2.3 and I'm seeing Aliens trying to fire through walls almost every turn.

On a side note, reaction fire doesn't seem to be working for me at all. I've yet to see one of my soldiers fire back when being fired upon, even when an alien comes around a corner at point blank, right up against my soldier, and then fires 3 rounds from a plasma pistol. I watched two of my soldiers die yesterday like this.

4

Discussion / Re: Latest real-world weaponry

« on: July 17, 2008, 02:51:23 am »

Bunch of weapons engineers here. Sheesh.

Gay-bomb lawlawlawl

5

Tactics / Re: Use of flamethrower

« on: July 04, 2008, 04:19:18 am »

I'm impressed.

Sometimes I wonder how people know so much about things like the history of flamethrowers. Daniel?

6

Design / Re: Storyline/Final - Everything else is soooo well written. What happened?

« on: July 02, 2008, 05:24:58 am »

Emcioran, I agree with what you're saying. However, video game plot lines and "history" aren't typically renowned for being realistic, sensitive or in-tune with all the nuances or complexities of the natural or social sciences. The plot line is far fetched, the writing is good, but not phenomenal.

Some of what is written in the descriptions for the alien organisms and some of what is written for the weapon descriptions are a little far fetched too. For example, lets look at the particle beam weapons. Human beings are constantly being bombarded with solar radiation that causes spontaneous changes in the conformation of our DNA, but it takes a whole lot of these to even give us cancer, which takes several years to kill us, gone unnoticed. A weapon that fires enough particles at light speed to cause significant, immediately-realizable, damage to a living organism wouldn't just have a "nasty kick". It would likely kill the user as well. Let's remember the law of conservation of momentum. And please don't even get me started on the amount of power associated with using such a device and the fact that we will probably never see anything of the like... ever... "A particle accelerator in the palm of your hand!" Yeah... Right...

The US government has labs right now that are researching the use of incredibly high-powered lasers as weapons, but right now these things are immense. I believe maybe the government fantasizes that they will be able to mount one of these things on a satellite of some sort in the Earth's orbit, but don't believe we'll ever see human beings using lasers as an infantry weapon. Not to mention the fact that lasers would be almost completely useless if soldiers began carrying around/wearing highly-reflective mirrors, which makes "lasers" just silly. Furthermore, if an incredibly technologically advanced alien species were interested in spreading a disease amongst human beings, they would probably have very sophisticated methods of venting the disease in a weaponized form into the Earth's atmosphere en masse rather than seizing people one-by-one and shooting them up with syringes. The incongruence in having an alien civilization travel at beyond-light speed to a distant planetary system so that they can land and shoot people up with syringes of something from Night of the Living Dead makes this one of the silliest plot points of the game.

However...

It's just a game. It's for fun. Honestly, it's very difficult to see what the future will bring and there's really no value in saying that a game about the future needs to be believable in all aspects. It is enough that it carries the semblance of believability, a rough simulacrum of real natural and social science in a parallel universe that will never come to pass.

7

Tactics / Re: As capturing aliens living (with that weapon)

« on: June 14, 2008, 02:21:57 am »

An energy bola is a little too sci-fi for me, since I can't see how this would work in terms of physics, and a regular bola would obviously be ripped off by these aliens, since they tend to be bigger and stronger that human beings.

However, I like the idea of having lethal weapons occasionally rendering enemies unconscious/in shock, rather than having them always kill. This way, you could recover dying aliens, help them recover, and then do your interrogations/studies.

8

Tactics / Re: Use of flamethrower

« on: June 14, 2008, 02:14:33 am »

The flamethrower is great even on hard difficulty (I started playing the game on hard). Inferno sweep can do incredible damage to multiple targets. I had one man equipped with a flamethrower kill 4 Ornoks in one turn. I may have landed a grenade in the middle of the group before he went in, but still. He turns around the corner, turns on inferno sweep, fires twice for 24 TU's, and down go 4 Ornoks. Lets see if the SMG can do that!

Obviously, the flamethrower is situational, because the combat shotgun or assault rifle probably works better at close quarters when we're talking about single targets. I gave my flamethrower guy a laser pistol so he can cover his own advance if he's going across a large expanse with cover objects lightly scattered throughout (though I almost always advance in squads of 3 or 4). When he's about to close the distance, out comes the flamethrower. One of my favorite weapons, honestly.

-Vox

9

Tactics / Re: Blades

« on: June 14, 2008, 02:11:06 am »

In open ground close quarters would be dumb, just like in real life.

Though it would be funny to see 8 men charging across an open field with Kerr blades and Scottish kilts and woad war paint.

10

Tactics / Re: user manual

« on: June 14, 2008, 02:07:43 am »

There's a manual available (in PDF format) with the current Windows trunk version.

That being said, no offense to the writer of that manual, but it really could use some editing/revision, because the grammar is off in a few places and some of the information is a bit crudely presented.

11

Discussion / Re: Grenade Launcher

« on: June 14, 2008, 01:32:23 am »

Obviously I think we can all agree that the range of the grenade launcher shouldn't be 300 m. However, I agree that it should be capable of firing further, with less accuracy, more roll/bouncing due to grenade's momentum and a more pronounce ricochet effect when being fired at longer ranges. Right now the grenade launcher is really only good at short ranges (even with the timed option) and, even at short ranges, is only worth having when the situation calls for a weapon that can fire around corners and up onto the roofs of buildings and ledges. At short range, I'd rather have a combat shotgun or flamethrower if we're talking about straight shooting. Even with the 25mm plasma burst rounds, I've taken to removing the grenadier from my team in order to get another sniper on my team.

On the topic of the flechettes, I've always been under the impression that flechette grenades were actual grenades (and not shotgun rounds) that burst into a 360 degree flurry of small medal pins. I read about this a while ago when I read the memoir of a Navy Seal (the title of the book, if I recall correctly, is Warrior Soul) who fought in Beirut, Colombia and numerous other places. I recall clearly that he stated he and his team were pinned down by a large caliber machine gun mounted on the back of a truck when he fired a flechette grenade around the corner to take down the gunner. Of course, that has nothing to do with gameplay itself. I don't think its a bad idea to have the grenade launcher capable of close-quarters straight firing, it's just that I'm not familiar with this particular variety of flechette (since, as Winter stated, the flechette is not a good replacement for rifle rounds.

-Vox

12

Discussion / UFO recovery bug???

« on: June 14, 2008, 01:11:37 am »

Hey everyone,

Just started playing, I'm a big indie gamer, and I have to say I am so pleased with this game. I've been a long time fan of the original Xcom and I'm so psyched to see this open source revival of the game. Thanks so much to the developers for doing this. I came across what may or may not be a bug, I'm not sure. I tried to search for this and nothing came up... so...

I'm not sure if this is a bug or not:

I finished a mission with an intact harvester for the first time (and UFO hangars in 3 of my 6 bases) and sent it back to my headquarters. I checked back after my dropship returned home and the UFO wasn't available for research or disassembly. Is this a bug? Or is there something else you need to do beyond hitting the recover ufo button after the mission complete dialog comes up?

-Vox

13

Discussion / Re: Ranks - how high have you gone?

« on: June 14, 2008, 01:06:01 am »

I've been getting paranoid because all my soldiers are still stuck at rifleman. Is there any known bug having to do with this?