Messages

1

Feature Requests / Re: Melee Weapon: Laser Blade

« on: April 29, 2010, 08:38:52 pm »

i had this concept from a old FPS MMO i used to play called Neocron. i dont know if a simlar thing exists in the game you have or not. just an idea.

ive tried searching the net but theres no real ingame picture to use as reference. but they came in simlar shapes to each other. different colours for the stages that there was.

Basically a Lazer Blade (laser) not to be confused with a star wars lightsaber. as its always on when in the hand.

I think Jarkill raised a good point earlier that deserves restating.  There's nothing this weapon doesn't do that isn't already covered by the Kerrblade, mono-knife, and possibly the disposable plasma blade.

Really, there's a reason why we stopped using swords seriously when man-portable firearms were popularized; guns are more practical.  This is why the closest weapon you'll find to a sword on most modern battlefields is a combat knife.  Combat knives are both serviceable weapons and serve a number of other functions, and are portable.  For a laser-sword to be practical, it'd have to be more portable than a combat knife and useful for at least as many purposes, which I don't really see it accomplishing.

From a game balance perspective, how often would a laser-sword really be used?  Human soldiers tend to die in under 3 hits from aliens; less if your soldier has low HP or is under-armored.  The only time moving to point-blank range would be more practical than shooting is if you are guaranteed to kill the victim by getting in their face with enough TUs left to launch an attack.  This aspect of melee warfare is already covered by the disposable Plasma Blade, which is basically a 1-use instakill so long as you can get to melee range to use it.

Laser-swords are not only crazy-farfetched from a fluff/flavor standpoint, but they're also impractical from a gameplay standpoint.  I can't really support this one; sorry.

2

Feature Requests / Re: Medical Injections

« on: April 29, 2010, 08:25:46 pm »

An injection, with an serum, that has an effect of doping.
The injection is consumable and and will lost after using.

Positive Effect:
The soldier get some additional TU's. (is faster)
The Effect is only temporarly, not like an Implant. (1, 2 or 3 Rounds)

Negative Effect:
After getting the inject, the soldier lose live. (the soldier can die, if ....)
The soldier has trouble to target the enemy.
The Effect is also temporarly. (1, 2 or 3 Rounds)

I kinda like this idea.  It stands to reason that an army facing implacable foes with a serious advantage in both numbers and equipment would resort to drugs, particularly hard stimulants, to give them an edge.

My only concern is that, even though it makes sense from a fluff/flavor/environment standpoint, what will it do for game balance?  That's a bit harder to quantify.

On one hand, anything that gives soldiers more TUs makes them significantly more powerful.  TUs are the single most important resource in combat; with enough of them, even a single soldier with nothing more than a knife could theoretically lay waste to an entire legion of aliens (admittedly, this would require an absurd amount of TUs; probably more than the engine can handle comfortably and definitely more than any soldier can obtain legitimately, but still the fact stands.)  Giving the player more TUs is going to make them stronger, period.

I do like that you balance it with drawbacks, such as the stim-users losing health or potentially dying as a result of the stimulant-injections.  That's a pretty good drawback; one has to balance the immediate gain in TUs with the fact that the soldier will be more vulnerable or potentially perish.  Since replacements, and particularly good replacements are hard to come by, you have to ask yourself, "is the additional killing power worth putting my soldiers at risk if the the extra attacks/movement fail?"

In the end, the viability of the idea comes down to specifics; exactly how many bonus TUs can you get by using stimulants, how much damage each dose of stimulant causes, whether or not there's long-term effects associated with stimulant use/abuse, etc.  There's also the fact that this idea will force more work on the part of coders and possibly modellers/graphics artists if implemented, since it will likely require new research topics, new mechanics added to the battlescape, and new graphics for any equipment/interface elements involved.  Needless to say, it'll also require extensive testing from both a code and balance perspective.

Still though, interesting idea and one I would love to see seriously considered.

3

Windows / Re: lame soldiers in v2.2.1

« on: April 04, 2010, 10:20:39 am »

Whoa there, Legendman3; don't jump to conclusions.  I'm not a developer, so I don't know if there's an out-of-combat training method planned.

However, out-of-combat training was available for most of the classic X-COM series, so it'd stand to reason that it'll be included here sooner or later.  I'll go look over the wiki to see if there's any info on it.

EDIT: Aha.  Apparently they are in the works.  I've found these UFOpaedia and Wiki articles regarding soldier training.

4

Windows / Re: I dont know...

« on: April 02, 2010, 11:18:59 pm »

Instructions on compiling the SVN are available here.

5

Feature Requests / Re: A tactical benefit to autopsy research

« on: April 02, 2010, 10:13:51 am »

Advantages To This Idea: Requires no rebalancing; has no effect on battle beyond providing the player with information.

... something that improves quality of life and gives the player a tactical advantage, but requires some skill and planning to use and does not directly affect game balance.

IMHO, I'd rather deepen gameplay and provide a more subtle advantage than simply slap a few extra numbers onto that damage roll.

This gives them a tactical benefit in combat (knowledge about the enemy's condition) that does not affect damage or to-hit calculations in any way shape or form...

People keep coming into my thread and suggesting stuff that directly affects game balance; combat rolls, accuracy, damage calculations, statistics... it's starting to get to annoying.

I ask you all this: how many times, and how many ways do I have to say it before someone gets the hint?  Look, if you want to suggest your own idea of a benefit to autopsy research that affects game mechanics directly, go ahead.  However, please do it another thread.

My idea focuses around a tactical benefit to autopsy research.  Something that directly and meaningfully affects what tactics you use in the battlescape (how you pick and prioritize targets, and how you choose to deal with them), not something that changes which weapon is the latest FoTV (Flavor of The Version).  I'm trying to suggest something that encourages players to think in terms of variety and not simply spam whatever combination is most uber.  And unfortunately, when you just play with damage values, that's just what you do; you're simply changing the name and model and availability of the latest ubergun.

My side-goal is to introduce an idea that does not affect game balance, requires a minimum of testing, and hopefully takes a minimum of coding to pull off (preferably by leveraging existing functions whenever possible.)

I realize that simply slapping a modifier onto a damage roll under certain situations is easy to code.  But that's not the point of this thread.  Anybody could've suggested that.  In fact, it seems that since I brought up this topic, everyone and their mother has.  The point of this thread is to provide a benefit to autopsy that totally avoids that line of thinking.  On a personal standpoint, I'm very sick and very tired of "Nerf this!  Buff that!" thinking, especially in strategy games.

I'm not trying to say you can't suggest counter-ideas.  But I am saying they should at least accomplish all the same things as mine in a better way, if not more.  I'm tired of repeating myself.

6

Feature Requests / Re: Research and Story/Gameplay progression

« on: March 29, 2010, 12:30:46 am »

there was a mix of this in some of the ufo sequel games. you research  x and the game becomes harder aliens start using new tech. but there was also a time limit flag where the aliens would start using new tech after a certain point in time so you could not just stall

They did this in X-COM Apocalypse, and it broke the game.  Early on, you had to be careful of doing exceptionally well, or even just winning a lot of missions poorly, or the aliens would skip entire tiers of spacecraft that you needed to shoot down, capture, and research, resulting in a broke game that you could never complete because you're missing that one UFO type needed to produce a certain vehicle or piece of tech you need.  You could miss out on the necessary research topics to create the Dimension Probe, which you can't complete the game, or develop alien-based aircraft, without.

BTW - they didn't do this via research.  They actually tracked a score that was based by how many troops you lost/kept alive on your missions, whether you won or lost, how many aliens/enemies you took down, how many UFOs you shot down on the cityscape, how much research you finished, and how much alien infiltration you allowed in other organizations.  The higher your score was at the end of each monthly period, the more your funding would be adjusted (higher score = more funding) for the next month, and the faster the aliens would progress up the tech tree, up to and including skipping entire tiers of technology.  The Alien Dimension was reset monthly (with the exception of destroyed alien buildings) and the UFOs and aliens populating it would be determined by your score.

Trust me, things are better off how they stand.  At least you can't screw yourself and make the game unwinnable just by playing well.

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Windows / Re: lame soldiers in v2.2.1

« on: March 27, 2010, 04:19:25 am »

I already noticed some improvements in combat, but not in stats...

It takes awhile to accumulate significant gains from combat training.  Typically, a soldier will only gain 1-2 points in a few skills with each battle.  Freshly-hired soldiers will never really be excelsior; this is why keeping your starting soldiers alive and healthy while still sending them into combat frequently is important.  Fresh hires are only good for filling out new bases.

Right now, there's no way to train soldiers outside of combat - missions are the only way to improve a soldier.  Fortunately, all stats can improve with repeated mission successes; even health.  And as Edi said, accuracy and weapons skills synergize; characters with high accuracy will get lots of kills and thus rapidly improve their weapon skill, which improves their kill ratio even further, which leads to them improving even faster... etc.  This is how you get the howling-demon-bullet-through-tamaan-eyesocket soldiers I mentioned a few posts back.

Long range weapon + low spread + modest TU cost + mid-high damage + lots o' kills = lame soldiers don't stay lame very long.

8

Feature Requests / Re: Research and Story/Gameplay progression

« on: March 27, 2010, 04:11:47 am »

Giving the player any degree of control over what the aliens use and when is definitely bad for the game.  Players could stall at a "comfortable" location in the storyline and stockpile weapons, gear, and money, then use it to totally overwhelm the aliens once they're ready to progress.

IMO, it's best if things remain as they stand, forcing people to think smart, and think on their feet in order to stay caught up or ahead of the alien technology curve.

9

Windows / Re: lame soldiers in v2.2.1

« on: March 26, 2010, 02:05:15 am »

There are games where you pay to hire soldiers or staff, and the better they are, the most it costs. I do prefer the "trading card game" effect tough.

This is true - they did this in X-COM: Apocalypse, but mainly for scientific staff (who only had a single skill related to their profession and a fixed value in it.)  There was virtually no way you could hire a soldier with a combat stat over 30, with the sole exception of androids; they simply aren't randomly generated that high.  You could, however, easily train a soldier higher.

Especially if you exploited the organization-relationship mechanic to attack "friendly" organizations with stun weaponry; you can loot them to your heart's content and they never get angry at you because you never kill their employees.

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Discussion / Re: UFO:AI Online

« on: March 25, 2010, 11:02:13 pm »

I'm not exactly sure what to recommend, but I wouldn't mind seeing this.

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Windows / Re: lame soldiers in v2.2.1

« on: March 25, 2010, 10:52:53 pm »

Although I'll agree with you that it's rather unrealistic, having lame, talentless starting soldiers is a long-standing gameplay tradition in the UFO/X-COM series.  I can't think of a single game where any soldiers you could get started out competent or excellent in any given area.  There's no way I know outside of editing your save games to get starting soldiers that are extremely competent in one or more areas.

On the bright side, soldiers improve with combat and experience, so if you can bite the bullet, deal with the lame stats, keep them alive and win your missions, your soldiers will eventually become howling demons of men and women, capable of putting a hole through a Taman's eye at a hundred meters with a snap-shot.  Helps to use high-accuracy (low spread) weapons early on and some degree of autofire.  Sniper Rifles and Assault Rifles are great primary infantry weapons early on, alongside flamers and grenade launchers for your heavy/explosives.  Upgrade to Bolter and Laser weaponry as soon as you can, but keep the flamers and grenade launchers around.  Never, ever send a guy out without some form of armor on.  Even lowly combat armor will help you survive a shot or two early on.

12

Windows / Re: Shevaar and Taman

« on: March 25, 2010, 05:40:16 pm »

Indeed, check with your doctor.  There's more at risk in interspecies relationships that just pregnancy, after all.

13

Feature Requests / Re: A tactical benefit to autopsy research

« on: March 25, 2010, 05:24:00 pm »

what i thought of as not so nice was to bring this 'supernatural perception' thing into the game.
i got the impression that this is not this type of game where such thing would sound good.

This is hardly "supernatural perception."  This is "learning about your enemy and applying what you know in combat."  The only time anything possibly-supernatural is involved is when a character has a Superhuman (90+) MIND stat (go check it out in game; stats over 90 are described as "superhuman" by the game itself.)

Let's look at it this way: You point a gun at a human, and you know that if you put a bullet in his head or the center of his chest, he's liable to be dead meat, because that's where the brain and heart is, respectively.  You also know that if a human is pale and covered in blood, he's liable to pass out or die from blood loss.  If a human is staggering around, clutching his head and doesn't respond coherently when you talk to him, he's likely stunned, in shock, seriously drunk.  If you look at a person, you can get a rough idea of how healthy or hurt they are.  Basic anatomy and the study of human nature, right?

Well, if you apply that to aliens, it's not gonna work so well.  What if that alien keeps his heart about where we keep our intestines?  Or if they've got a heavily-protected braincase, like the Shevaar?  What if they don't react to blood loss like humans do?  Or have significantly more blood in their bodies?  In any of these cases, if you try to make judgements based on what you know about human anatomy, you're going to be wrong.  Maybe not terribly wrong, but wrong all the same.

With this feature in place, your troops will be able to use the knowledge the R&D department has gained about alien physiologies to judge your foes accurately.  This gives them a tactical benefit in combat (knowledge about the enemy's condition) that does not affect damage or to-hit calculations in any way shape or form, which means that it doesn't affect game balance at all.

After all, you may have a soldier that's capable of telling you that one of those three Ortnoks are half-dead and another is about to pass out from stun damage, but it still doesn't matter if it's their turn and all three have particle beam cannons pointed your way; you're probably gonna get turned into chunky bits regardless.  Now, if it's your turn and you want to know which Ortnok to shoot first, that's a different story.

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Feature Requests / Re: A tactical benefit to autopsy research

« on: March 19, 2010, 03:46:14 am »

the idea of increased damage on aimed shots on researched aliens is logical, though.
what do you mean by unbalancing?
the increased damage does not need to be tenfold, does it?
if it would be 1% increased damage then who would even care?
if it would be something like 20% increased damage i would guess it wouldn't unbalance anything.

Logical, maybe.  Yeah, you could make the argument that you know where to shoot them to make it hurt more, or disable them more quickly. But consider this: how much damage can you safely add to make it useful with all those weapons, without breaking any of them?  If it's only 10%, then the damage is probably not worth it; people are not going to give doing autopsies an increase in priority.  It'll have no meaningful effect on gameplay.  If it's something like 30-50%, you risk making weapons with already-high damage (like the coilgun or particle beam rifle) broken in endgame fights, since armor seems to be subtractive, rather than divisive.

also, why bring so much mind stat dependent accuracy into it?

What else does Mind do right now?  Psionics aren't implemented yet, so right now Mind is pretty useless.  This idea would give it a use, without meaningfully affecting game balance.  Even once psionics are around, this would make it beneficial to have non-psionic soldiers with higher Mind, since they can glean more info from researched enemy types.

It's also the only stat I could think of that would justifiably apply to this.  If you got a better stat for this to depend on, by all means, say so.

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Windows / Re: Shevaar and Taman

« on: March 15, 2010, 12:21:37 am »

Aww, that's adorable.  The only thing that'd be cuter would be to hit and kill them both with a grenade.