Messages

1

Feature Requests / Re: Base Improvements

« on: December 15, 2012, 05:55:27 am »

How about that every building in a base has to be built on a 'tunnel' building first. That is just an empty corridor (4-way, of course) dug out of the rock? Then you'd have a fort type building, (security zone or fortified hall) you could build which is where your soldiers would have top priority in spawning and would include, whatever, autoguns and excellent cover.

Corridors could be dug out in 2-3 days for 10000/square so you could map out your new base and build on top of the tunnels.

Think of the entrance to NORAD. It's not a ramp and then people's bedrooms. It's just a long assed tunnel carved through the rock until far down. A long assed tunnel is great for base defense, so maybe some folks would carve out their base and leave the gap between their hangars and main entrance a corridor and have a security area at the end of it?

Anyways, it costs so much and takes alot of time to get a well designed base up and running in UFOAI, my idea might make it more simple and add a bit more strategy in base-laying. Most folks will probably not leave a vacant tunnel unused just to have a clear line of fire incase of invasion, but the more paranoid will.

It sets aside using living quarters and storage rooms as buffers for defense, bases get invaded, why not have a dedicated structure used to deal with it?

2

Design / Re: Backstory question: Only six million?

« on: December 15, 2012, 05:41:18 am »

Story says they used tactical (low-yield) nukes for limited military purposes some of which were cities, not a full-on nuclear exchange.

6 million people is a lot of people considering how most conflicts in modern war get up into maybe 4 or 5 digits.

3

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

« on: December 15, 2012, 05:28:21 am »

I posted here under a different name some years or months back, before the game was playable. I was one of the first to suggest the 'UFO yard' among other things, happy to have contributed. I really like the setting and the hard-scifi gritty feel of the game. This game kicks ass. It's got almost everything right. It's the sequel to XCOM that should have happened years ago. The release of the the new name-brand 'AAA' level xcom game really made me realize how bad every remake and sequel of the original game is/was. Mass-market games are out-of-touch of what makes these originals so appealing. UFO:AI has it right, because the people making it know what they are doing. The music in UFO AI is AAA, the geoscape globe is fucking amazing to me. Needs more lights in Africa and whereever, because it's the future, but it looks very slick, well polished, no lag or nothing. Gameplay is solid.

I'd contribute to mapping. I'm really sick of playing crashed_scout. A lot of the maps, need improvement and more variation. I made maps for Doom and Starcraft, for years on end, surely not quite the same, but I think I know how to make decent game levels, I'm looking forward to the 2.5 release so the map editor actually works. Also, I'm sure to bitch and complain about things in the game that I don't like.

4

Design / Re: another story question: How come your technology is PHALANX-exclusive?

« on: December 15, 2012, 05:08:14 am »

I think this is implied, but not obvious to the player. I think you get a decent reputation boost with every nation whenever you finish a research project, you can also sell your alien tech and lasers as much as you like.

It's also implied that your bases' workshops are unparalleled in the world and no factory or team of engineers in the world can produce what you can, but the nations really appreciate the data you've provided on laser weapons and can start pondering on how to go about making them in tiny amounts, like you do, but they'd keep the lasers they make for themselves anyways, just in case, rather then try and sell them to you.

So it's not 'exclusive' technology, per se, it's just so cutting edge and revolutionary that it's beyond the other nations to implement in any meaningful fashion in any relevant time frame. It's like that with any technology.

5

Design / Re: Base defense cameras, spotting aliens.

« on: December 15, 2012, 04:57:10 am »

Maybe the aliens zapped the cameras with an EMP device on their ship, or they jam the signal with their ECM, or they shut down the power to the whole base or something. Anyways, who is watching the camera feed anyways?

Anyways, I don't even like that there is a surface level to the bases, surely there is at least a few armed security guards on the surface to chase off ufologists and documentary filmmakers and the such, if not an entire brigade of UN army forces with tanks and everything topside, if that was the case.

I'd think such secret bases would be deep underground and if everything is so sensitive, there would not be many security cameras anyways, just at the entrance and a few hallways. Not everywhere. So maybe the brigade of soldiers topside keep out most of the aliens, but a handful, (like the 5 losers you typically get early game) are enough for your elite dudes to handle, make it into the underground base entrance and that's where the player comes in?

6

Design / Re: storyline question: Why is phalanx a secret organization?

« on: December 15, 2012, 04:44:06 am »

Well, the story makes it hard to mesh with the small-scale gameplay, with the dramatic and public assault of Mumbai and everything. Story is great and the Mumbai thing is important for the theme of the game, but then you wonder why these big superpowers are not doing much and your squad of 8 guys is doing so well.

So after these bold assaults, it unfolds into a slower, less wide-scale conspiratorial shadow war between the aliens and PHALANX. Like spy vs spy, or terrorists vs police scale conflict, more subversion and skirmishes, not so much world war III.

There could be some background story to explain it, say the aliens attacked just to test the waters, or it was just an extremely violent science expedition and decided open warfare would be too costly. Maybe there are not enough of them to sustain full conflict. Or they realize Earth's governments will use nuclear weapons to render the planet sterile before they ever lose an invasion. Anyways, they are 'alien' and have unknown technology and intentions, they don't need to rationalize like people do. Maybe the violent incursions worked historically for them to cow the world into surrender most of the time and decided to try that out first?

I think nuclear war would be a good losing condition if 5 nations defect and there are no other nations above 'pleased' or somesuch. The remaining governments decide defense of earth is a lost cause and they press the red button, destroying everything else the aliens would possibly want to take, just to spite them, but losing the game for the player.

As for the non-PHALANX militaries, I'd suggest and I've always imagined that they only act if they have to. Say you shoot down a UFO and leave the crash site too long. In XCOM, the crash site would quietly go away with no complaint. Maybe the host nation was just grateful you shot it down, they blasted the site with artillery or bombing runs and salvaged what they could, either way, not your problem. I imagine during terror sites, they hold a cordon to keep it contained, but are not competent or willing enough to go in an fix it, unless you procrastinate for too long.

As for like, cops or soldiers running around on a map battling aliens, they'd be little more then red-shirts anyways, so why bother coding them in? Either way, I think the world's military would be better represented with a little message saying they assaulted and recovered that crashed UFO you never got around to, or random crash sites appear in places you don't have radar coverage of. They managed to shoot one down and they'd appreciate it if your super-soldiers would come deal with it.

I think in the current version, shooting down a UFO over land and ignoring the site is like ignoring a harvest or intentional landing, which I think is bad. In the old Xcom you got points for shooting down UFOs, even if you just left them alone afterwards, you just got more points for attacking the crash site. I think countries should OK with crashed UFOs on their land and just give you credit for shooting them down. Or they shoot them down and you attack the crash site. They give you half credit for whatever half-assed work you are doing.

7

Design / Re: Alien Tank designs ideas and proposals

« on: December 15, 2012, 04:04:16 am »

Just a thought, a legged 4x4 model will probably look pretty silly and will be a pain to model. Like a lot of games with the moon-walking sliding legs thing, going across the ground, I'm sure you've seen it. A tracked or wheeled robot drone is ok. Wheels and treads are still efficient and able compared to legs, even in the future. Treads can be covered with a skirt and easy to model.

Maybe the the alien tank is just a big sphere, it rolls around, opens up into a shooting platform when it stops and shoots when it needs to shoot. Or it just has two or three wheels, with a turret. Or maybe It's a just a wide, squat, meat-based humanoid cyborg life-form on two legs.

The game universe might not have 'antigravity' or anything, but maybe a VTOL drone with anti-matter fueled rockets keeping it level and hovering. Like an unmanned, green miniature version of the alien spacecraft, for mining asteroids or whatever, but it's just a recon drone with a plasma cutter on it, the aliens use it as a combat weapon out of desperation in the late game.

I get with sci-fi stuff, people try to think of something more interesting then a box with treads and a turret on it, but the walk'n mecha-legged thing is getting even more trite. A tank with legs and a turret is just awful.

8

Design / Re: Base Defence

« on: December 15, 2012, 03:53:10 am »

My first base defense, I was amazed there was an above ground! Before that I thought the base was some kilometer under a mountain or some such, no wonder the aliens spotted the place!

Which makes you wonder why you have an expensive entrance (just a hut and a basement) and everything has to be built in sequence adjacent to it, when everything is only basement level anyways, with just structures poking from the surface. Crazy they didn't just blow the place up with their badassed spaceship, instead they landed somewhere and sent 5 guys with plasma pistols to take the place over. I think the security guard at the gate could have probably stopped those guys.

I also hired every idiot rookie they sent me thinking I could use them during base defense, but my A-team dropship crew happened to be home at the moment so I filled up my 8 slots with them.

9

Design / Re: Improved Air Combat (coming soon...)

« on: December 15, 2012, 03:42:47 am »

I hate to be a killjoy, but I think I'd rather have something like XCOM's air combat, with just the little window that pops up. Abstracted a bit, but it tells you everything you need to know (how fast are we going, how far away is the target, which of my weapons are in range, how effective is my attack?). It also let you just shadow the UFO until more interceptors showed up, so you could gang up on particularly tough ufos.

In the game, these UFOs are hundreds of km away and are moving at speeds beyond 1000 km/ hr. No camera could show you the whole battle, every aircraft would be fast-moving specks tremendous distances away from each other at high altitude. Really, there isn't much to see there, I'd hate to see some corny Starcraft or Galciv type air combat in an otherwise gritty, realistic game. Or the UFO interception happens right over the obscure town I live in, I expect to see how house, not just some green and hills and stuff. I also don't imagine all the aircraft fighting anywhere close to the ground to see anything anyways, they'd be way up in the stratosphere and everything, with the alien craft and interceptors being unaerodynamic bricks and all.

If you want to use the 3d models, then have each aircraft shown by it's self in it's own little window (along with a menu with all the data on it, it's weapons, distances to the target, damage, ect) with clouds and whatnot rushing by it. Maybe don't have a top-down camera angle so you don't have to represent the ground. Blue skies, dusky/ dawn night. So the 3d model, with swoopy camera angles with blue, orange, purple or red or black in the background, with clouds.

Just a thought, the whole 3d modeling landscape idea thing is still better then the interception combat the way it works now, which really does need improvement.