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Topics - TrashMan

Pages: [1] 2
1
Design / Things to learn from Xenonauts?
« on: May 28, 2012, 08:44:37 pm »
With the demo out, I wonder how many of you noticed a few neat ideas that should also be in UFO:AI?

I for one like the tons of recruits, but 10 days of training + funding needed.
A lot of good UI decisions there also, showing weight an TU's for soldiers.

2
Design / On...a bunch of stuff
« on: May 25, 2012, 11:08:26 am »
Wit hthe game beign turn-based and the Pc's having tons of processing power, I'm kinda dissapointed at how currently some things seem to have LESS depth than the old X-Com did.

ARMOR:
X-com had front, rear and side armor (and below). Armor could potentially block a shot COMPLETELY. 0 damage.
A lucky shot could have also punched trough.

Just fixed percentage damage reduction doesn't feel right. Armor SHOULD compeltely stop at least some shots.

So why not have the chance to compeltely absorb a shot be dependant on the damage reduction/resistance value?
So if hte armor has 50% damage resistance, it also has a 50% chance to comeptlely block a shot. And only if that fails, does the damage reduction kick into effect.

Or have the chance to fully block depend on the power of the attack (based on the average damage a weapon does). And some luck factor.

Which bring into another interesting idea - critical hits. Normally that would be wounds, no? But I'm talkign about a change to punch trough armor/hot a weak spot...or halve the damage resistance of the armor for that shot.

The additon that one can hear actors moving around (like in JA2) and they can hear you. The enemy can't pinpoint your loaction, nor can you theirs, but if either side run around and makes noise, they might get a good idea where you are.

Soldier stats.
Stamina? Endurance? Why don't we have those? Some weapon might be real handy with that in mind (a point blank shot with a shotgun may not breach your amor, but it will knock the air out of your lungs)

Special triats.. TeamPlayer/loaner. Night Ops. Ambidextrous.Stealthy. etc..



Weapon skills. They need to be re-vamped. Especially the heavy weapons. I'll add more on that later.

3
Feature Requests / Supressive Fire
« on: May 04, 2012, 10:01:19 am »
Weapons fireing in full auto having a surpressing effect. (or have an aditional fire mode, but that would be unnecessary IMHO)
Reducing TU or reaction of the enemy.
Works both ways of course.

4
Feature Requests / customize operatives
« on: May 02, 2012, 09:51:51 am »
One feature the new X-Com game has is the ability to customize your operatives.

You can change sex, face and name. It's a cool feature that let's you create a team to your own linking (or if you're making a LP with frieds and redshirts you can re-create your friends.

Do you peopel think UFO AI would benefit from such an addition?

5
Discussion / Wounds, healing, etc...
« on: April 24, 2012, 12:12:04 pm »
A few suggestions...given how the system currently works and the proposals in the wiki.

The way I see it, the whole health/wound system should cause a sense of dread and fear - but at the same time should not be so extreeme as to frustrate. As it is now, there are no wounds and Medikits restore health too easily.


So, how I would do it is that in addition to HP damage, each hit has a chance of causing a wound. Chance would depend on the strength of the attack (damage recieved) and armor..also luck.
On hit there would be a high chance of a minor wound and a somewhat smaller chance of a critical wound. The stronger the hit, the higher the chance of a critical wound.
All wounds incure penalties.

Wounds also give an additional status effect, that depends on the weapon type. The original proposal on the wiki has all wounds bleeding, but seriously, cauterized wounds don't bleed.

guns, neelder, cutting weapons - bleeding (constant loss of HP over time unless treated)
plasma, laser - scorched flesh (morale loss, pain shock?)
fire - burning (short duration HP over time, ends by itself, panick attack?)
explosive - internal bleeding, disorinetation?
sonic,shock,blunt - loss of TU's (having the air knocked out of you)


Medikits have a limited number of uses and their use has more in common with the original X-Com.
Medikit has 5 options and comes with 5 charges: (or possibly, each option has seperate charges...usually 1 or 2)
- Treat (consumes 1 charge .. or 3 for seperate charges)
- Heal   (consumes 2 charges .. or 2 for seperate charges)
- Painkiller (consumes 1 charge .. or 2 for seperate charges)
- Stimulant (consumes 1 charge .. or 2 for seperate charges)
- Stabilise (consumes 5 charges .. or 1 for seperate charges)


Minor wounds can be treated with a medikit, and this removes the penalty.
Major wound can only be treated with a medikit (halves he penalty), but a stay in the hospital is necessary for full recovery.
Stimulants or Pinkillers can be applied to restore some TU's and morale.
Healing restores a small amount of HP and consumes 2-3 charges (we don't want people medikiting a soldier from near death to full HP)

Now, when a soldiers HP reach 0 he isn't dead (YET) be he is unconcius and in a dying state (losses HP every turn untill stabilised). He dies if his HP reach -50% of his normal health. (a soldier with 80HP would have to reach -40 to die). A weapon hit can bring a soldier beneath 0 (so a soldier with 30HP left is hit for 50 damage ends up with -20).
To save the soldier one must stabilise him (which effectively consumes a medikit). That soldiers HP are restored to 0, but he is out for the remainder of the battle and requires extensive hospital treatment.

Aside from bloodspiders, aliens genrally ignore dying soldiers.



Thoughts? 

7
Discussion / Impressions after playing the latest nightly
« on: January 18, 2012, 11:18:14 am »
Definite progress from the last time I played. However, there are still plenty of problems and areas of improvements.

For starters, balance:

- too many aliens. It becomes a chore and downright irritating - especially since you can't auto half of hte battels, and when you can it generally isn't advisable.
- no cash in the begining, swimming in $$ at the end.
- not nearly enough manpower (too little workers, scientists and soldeirs)
- close combat weapons become seruiously underpowered later in the game. Flamer is godly early-game.

How to fix it:
The number of alien raids should not increase dramaticly.
Increasing the price of alien items and UFO's would ease the financial problems in the begining, and keep a steady income near the end. Adn it makes sense - it's alien stuff, it's worth it's weight in gold.
Alternatively, an option to build milita bases that could handle any crashed UFO missions for you (in a certain radius)

The cost of producing items in your workshops should be LESS then the selling price. You should be able to earn a few bucks for a brand new, never-before-seen lazer rifle.



What the game needs or could use:
- Separating equipment of soldiers from the aircraft. A separate soldier/equipment managment screen
- more weapon options. Proper heavy wepons with proper penalties for the advantages of firepower. I would propose heavy weapon to be hip-carried and require a backpack ammo/power/fuel stachel.
That way the negatives would be: the backpack is unusable to store anything, the weapon is heavy and increases movement cost per tile, possible penalty to reaction fire? It would require new animations and modeled backpacks tough, but that shouldn't be a big problem.

- NOT spawning aliens with heavy weapons and reaction fire on, right behind your soldier. It's instant death for several of your soldeir the second you do ANYTHING.

- Maybe an explanation that Phalanx isn't the only initiative in the world. Rather one of several and most governments do not trust it will work. That helps explain the low funding and support. Helps with the immersion.

- Allies (sometimes) on the battlefield. Depending on map and mission type. Cops and soldiers. It's not hard to do. No nation standing bonuses or penalties for their deaths. Again, helps with the idea Phalanx is part of the world and that the rest of the world is doing something.
I dunno, maybe you devs want to go for a "all alone agaisnt the evil" feeling, but frankly it contradicts your own setting.

8
User modifications / Crash because of aircraft type
« on: January 06, 2012, 03:00:59 pm »
I added some weapons and made changes to hte game and everything worked fine. However, I then decided to add a newaircraft. I did thing before in the older UFO versions.

This time however, whenever I clock on their aircraft tab (in buy/sell) the game crashes stating that inter_starfire is not a known type.
tehy tpsye is set to interceptor tough.

I made the necessarsy meshes and placed them in appropriate folders, added hte craft to the research.ufo, models.ufo and aircraftmanagment.ufo.


Here:

*** aircrafttpyes***

aircraft craft_inter_starfire
{
   param {
      speed      18
      maxspeed   24
      shield      9
      ecm         110
      damage      500
      accuracy   120
      range      150
      antimatter   100
   }
   name      "_starfire-class Interceptor"
   defaultname   "_starfire"
   type      interceptor
   model      "geoscape/inter_starfire"
   numteam      0
   size      1
   price      40000
   building   building_intercept
   image      "geoscape/air_interceptor"
   slot {
      type      weapon
      position   nose_center
      size      medium
   }
   slot {
      type      weapon
      position   wing_left
      size      light
   }
   slot {
      type      weapon
      position   wing_right
      size      light
   }
   slot {
      type      electronics
      position   wing_left
   }
   slot {
      type      electronics
      position   wing_right
   }
}




*** research***

tech rs_craft_inter_starfire
{
   type   craft
   description {
      default "_inter_starfire_txt"
   }
   pre_description   {
      default "_inter_starfire_pre_txt"
   }
   up_chapter   crafts

   mail_pre
   {
      from   "_mail_from_paul_navarre"
      to   "_mail_to_base_commander"
      // subject   defined by "name"
      icon   icons/mail_tech
   }
   mail
   {
      from   "_mail_from_paul_navarre"
      to   "_mail_to_base_commander"
      // subject   defined by "name"
      icon   icons/mail_tech
   }

   provides   craft_inter_starfire
   require_AND {
      tech rs_craft_inter_dragon
   }
   time   15000
   producetime   600

   require_for_production
   {
       item alienmaterials 6000
      item   craft_alien_propulsion   2
      item   craft_alien_astrogation   1
      item   craft_alien_detection   2
   }

   mdl      inter_starfire
}



**models ***

// ============== Starfire Interceptor ======================

menu_model inter_starfire_gear
{
   model   "aircraft/inter_starfire/starfire_gear"
}
menu_model inter_starfire
{
   model   "aircraft/inter_starfire/starfire_folded"
   need   "inter_starfire_gear"
}
menu_model inter_starfire_flying
{
   model   "aircraft/inter_starfire/starfire"
}


What the hell could be causing this weird error?

9
Discussion / UFO: AI Let's play
« on: January 02, 2012, 07:58:22 am »

10
Discussion / UFO AI full installer
« on: December 24, 2011, 11:29:14 am »
A lot of time has passed since the last time I player UFO:AI, and I want to tackle it again. For this I want to get the latest files and nightly builds.

I've been looking at Git, but can't figure it out, so I went after the nightly builds section. The Full installer sez 886 MB, but when I start the download it's 1.1GB.
Is this correct? What's included into that installer?

11
Artwork / I come bearing gifts...
« on: June 17, 2011, 01:44:16 pm »
After a few months of absence, I has returned. But not completely empty-handed





More to come


12
Offtopic / Anyone seen this?
« on: June 16, 2011, 09:41:01 pm »

13
Feature Requests / Ammo, fire modes, armor penetration, energy.
« on: June 21, 2010, 08:55:05 am »
The way it works right now...it wonky

Best shown by the example of the Granade launcher, which has 3 modes of fire and 3 types of ammo, meaning 9 different entries for fire modes.

Wouldn't it be better if ammo was a separate entity, with an entry of it's own?
In that case, for an assault rifle or grenade launcher, you only need to specify the 3 basic fire modes and what type of ammo it uses (40mm grenades)

Then you have an entry for 40mm grenades, that list grenade stats.

So something like:

Code: [Select]
<ammo>
<id>40mm
<type>IC
<model>40mmIC.md2
<desc>40mmIC
<damage_type>fire
<damage>200
<radius>3
<armor_penetration>10
</ammo>

<ammo>
<id>40mm
<type>HE
<model>40mmHE.md2
<desc>40mmHE
<damage_type>explosive
<damage>200
<radius>2
<armor_penetration>15
</ammo>

<ammo>
<id>7.62mm
<type>FMJ
<model>7.62FMJ.md2
<desc>7.62FM
<damage_type>kinetic
<damage>30
<radius>2
<armor_penetration>5
</ammo>

<ammo>
<id>7.62mm
<type>AP
<model>7.62AP.md2
<desc>7.62AP
<damage_type>kinetic
<damage>20
<radius>2
<armor_penetration>25
</ammo>


So if you specify 40mm as ammo type, the granade launcher will be able to use all ammo who's main ID is 40mm.

Note I also added Armor Penetration as a bullet property, since I feel it's lacking. Just having a damage value is not enough. AP value would basicly reduce the armor value of the enemy (for damage calculation purposes). So if a guy in a armor with 50% resistance to kinetic impact is hist with a bullet with a AP value of 20, then damage is calculated as if he had 30% ballistic resistance.


And honestly, I'd go further - by giving armor durabiltiy that degrades as it takes hits, reducing it's protective values.


Also, as someone mentioned, some weapons can kick the air out of your lungs and practicly incapacitate you. JA2 had a good thing going, with health (with bleeding), energy (sorta like stamina) and morale.
To simulate heavy hits and some hard punching weapons, we could have TU penalties.
This can either be tied to damage, or to the weapon/ammo (meaning, the bullet/ammo would have it's own value, something like stopping_power, that would be basicly used in conjuction with damage, to calculate how big a TU hit one gets.
A shot in the chest from a shotgun would then slow down or knock out even a armored alien, explosions would cause disorientation, and things like stun grenades would work properly.


NOTE: Some may notice that this ties damage exclusively to ammo type and not the rifle, and would argue that some rifles simply hit harder with the same bullet compared to another. Granted.
This can be easily simulated by giving the rifle a power value, that is added on top of bullet damage.

So a rifle with power 5, fireing a bullet with 20 damage, would do 25 points of damage.

14
Feature Requests / Backpacks and heavy weaponry anims
« on: May 28, 2010, 06:47:34 pm »
1. Animation for carrying heavy weapons from the hip...think how Miniguns and flamers are carried in Fallout 3

2. Backpack models attached to the back of a soldier. What backpack is attached depends on the armor or weapon equipped. Light armors get light backpacks. Jump armor gets a jetpack (can't equip heavy weapons in this armor). Equipping a heave flamethorwer defaults your backpack to one with a gas container. Equiping a missile launcher results in a backpack with missile puches.
Equipping a gattling gun (in multi or skirmih) and you get a giant ammo box on your back.

15
User modifications / More WEAPNZ
« on: May 25, 2010, 06:30:40 pm »
I'm sure this was probably brought up  before (can't remeber)...but mhoar weaponz

Everyone likes weapons. Frak, the most popular mods for every squad-based tactical game I know are wepon mods. So why not put a few more weapons in?

I know we have some spare models laying around, why not use them? A few different assault rifles..maybe human versions of plasma weapons (after all, they weren't made for a human hand, so ergonomics much be shitty), or a few more weapons.
Maybe different types of laser..UV laser, X-ray laser, gazer...frak, there's no shortage of ideas.
For larger caliber weapons we have different types of ammo, and as far as theoreticals go:
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3x.html

We got promising technological solutions that would enable many sick weapons in the near future (once they are refined)

If nothing else, a game option like Jagged Allance 2 had - TONS OF GUNS. (bacily an option that turns on many new weapons in the main campaign)

 ;D

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