Messages

1

Discussion / Re: UFO: Female Invasion?

« on: January 30, 2010, 05:04:12 pm »

Side Note:  What is a good way of getting random numbers anyways?  One that's cross-platform and not tied to MS?
I could really use something like that for another project...

As with all things C++, boost is the answer: http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_41_0/libs/random/index.html That library will also be part of the C++ standard, offering 3 different random number generators depending on the quality you need, and will work on any platform you could possibly need.

2

Design / Re: More on the Storyline/Game mesh

« on: October 02, 2009, 09:51:55 am »

I think its just common sense, the aliens pulled out to prevent casualties and took everything to minimise the chance of PHALANX producing counters to their own technologies. If i was one of their leaders, i would do the same.

But why do they stop doing this as soon as PHALANX appears? Suddenly, they are fighting to the last man, doing nothing to prevent the capture of complete UFOs. That just doesn't make sense. Either they are so arrogant that they don't care, in which case they should never have tried to remove they bodies and equipment, or they are cautious and should always try to save what they can.

3

Bugs prior to release 2.3 / Re: Aliens behave stupidly + are stuck in parts of alien crafts (ver26236)

« on: October 01, 2009, 05:44:22 pm »

The game is getting really cool, but all the above poster said is very true. Especially on the factory floor: Last game I had 3 stuck aliens on that one. For one of them, I had to actually step in on the same tile before he was visible. Then I stepped back and flamed him, and everything worked as normal.

Just noted that this would be http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2825676&group_id=157793&atid=805242

4

Discussion / What is the mission?

« on: August 28, 2006, 11:32:31 am »

Thank you both for thoughtful replies Now the idea is tossed, I won't comment much further on it, except for trying to correct a few mistakes

1. The capture UFO thing was simply meant to be archived by killing all the aliens before they managed to take of. Say the revelstoke map ship need 2 aliens to takeoff. And say unless the ship (or similar) is actually hit, they will attempt to wait for any comrades still out there, it should only be difficult to prevent the takeoff with aggressive play. However, if you mainly stay with near you landing site, only advancing slowly... the aliens would take off the moment that all the live aliens are on the ship.
2. The examples here were just that, Examples. The goals would be entirely different for a crash site or an alien attack on a human base, e.g.
3. I agree about the camping! This was a major weakness in the original XCom

5

Discussion / What is the mission?

« on: August 26, 2006, 11:38:54 am »

1. Don't get the ship and/or technology captured

Kinda weird... as they come to kill civil. They don't expect to get counter attacked and if they do they will try to fight with us

Around the 3rd or 4th time, they should begin to expect the counter attack :p And the ship is (presumably) a valuable resource, so saving it makes a lot of sense.

With this in mind, it makes sense for the aliens to pick off the easy civilian targets

That would make game TOO hard cuz civilians are easy to hit... and they should try to shoot your mens in are instead of guys who are no danger to them

It would mean a change of playing style. You need to draw the aliens fire, you need to provide the covering fire and so forth. This behaviour is anyways not very different from today... the aliens seems to hit whoever is the easiest target, which seems to be the civilians 9 of of 10 (no surprise)

Also, as the aliens fall back in face of adversary (in my proposal), just advancing would protect the civilians to some degree.

then fall back to the ship and take off.

Many players (x-com players) are used to advance slowly(ME!), if aliens make hit&runs its gonna be difficult, as aliens can just get out of ship couple of turns and then retreat... theyr main purpose should be elimnate 60-80% of civilians and then fall back to ships... or when they start losing soldiers fast (moral runs low) they could just abdone some aliens.

Part of my goal is to change the "don't charge. Ever. Just wait them out" strategy from being the only sane choice in any situation (as it is now) to be one of several strategies, depending on your goals. New != bad

1. Make mission much more interesting... playing safe is fine in the beginning, but later when you want the ships, aggressiveness is needed!

Agressivness= lots of deaths, as most probs. ships are defended by cople of aliens. That makes rushing into the ship almost impossible as (alive on map) aliens can just outflank u. But for example killing engineer in machine room would mean that ship can't fly far and would land somewhere near the terror site to repair ship/find new engineer...

Rushing the ship would be hard, yes, but maybe worth it in the later stages? In XCom, after you had researched most things, the game was easy, bordering on boring. All the interesting battles were in the beginning, with the later one tending to be about getting some resources (the fuel, I forget the name).  But with these changes , these missions could be a challenge again. The deaths would still be possible, but with your new, hardened soldiers with much better armour, with tanks and whatnot, this can minimized this if done intelligently.

When I thought about this, I figured on three stages:
1. Early. Appear at terror sites, Try to kill an alien or 2, but mainly, just drive the aliens off.
2. Midgame. Protect the civilians to help protect your income.
3. Late: Try to capture the UFOs. Avoid civilian casualties if possible.

2. Increase credibility... why would the aliens hang around getting killed at 8:5 or worse odds? Why not take off if they start to take a beating, or even better, before?

many of aliens are "stupid warriors" in game, they have no(or have a little) free will. Theyr objective is to kill and destroy.  

Isn't it a tad strange that the aliens can produce ships that can go between stars, but not a soldier who can make a decent guerrilla attack? At least, I'd include a squad commander on the ship (that stays there) that could make the decision to fall back as appropriate.

* The aliens could leave a huge bomb

c'mon leaving bomb behind? i know it sounds cool but it's kinda useless. If I would be alien i would just prep. bomb beafore attacking and then just drop the bomb from craft on the city......

I agree this is silly. I don't understand why the aliens just doesn't bomb a few major cities. Any good ideas? Maybe a mission idea? Shoot down UFO before they bomb you?

The humans could attempt to steal the ship by killing the pilot(s)

When all aliens are killed then ship belongs to us. Why should we attempt to steal the ship? Good idea btw. BUT That would require also extra pilots + engneer + knowing how to lead the ship. as most probs not all of ur soldiers can lead the ship...

It does rather depend on the aliens trying to get away at some point If all the aliens are dead, the UFO could just be towed to the nearest base. Or driving in on a truck or something.

The aliens could try to make a trap, starting with a normal terror assault, but then calling in extra ships. The humans, realizing this would be better off falling back and regroup.

agree... that they could bring extra ships to aid (for example scouts/supplyers who are in area) theyr fellow aliens, if theyr'e under attack. Why not even puting multible ships (for example: parking on large building tops a small alien craft with 2-5 aliens getting out and craft leaving/staying(depends of craft)? Aliens who were droped to help would have no % to escape (fall back to ship) so even when main(support) ship(s) leaves humans could still get some points/tech/killed aliens and aliens killed civilians/killed soldiers/ maybe even win the mission

Sounds cool to me. Suicide backup troops sounds very alien-like to me, as the "only aliens that came with this ship are allowed back". Even sounds like a good alien strategy... 5 suicide troops attack and check the humans while we abduct this delightfully soft human over here....

2a. Attack. Used on base raids and similar. Aliens advance slowly and "coordinated", trying to kill as many soldiers as possible.

terror units (and war slave type aliens) should advance fast cuz they have only one purpose(destroy) while smart(er) aliens should duck behind objects. and yes advance more slowly or for example ending theyr moving beafore turing around the corner.

I think this is already part of the difficulty setting... the higher, the higher tendency to duck behind stuff. I like the idea that on the higher difficulty levels, there are no stupid aliens

sorry for typos ain't used to type so long replayes

Don't worry. The best I can do is promise that all the words I've typed are correct for some English word.  Is there still any browser out there that doesn't have a as-you-type spell checker built in? My words here turn a delightful red if I mistype

6

Design / Design:Intro & Storyline in Ufopedia

« on: August 25, 2006, 09:39:54 pm »

I love it, except one thing ... the story doesn't match!

It doesn't seem to me that the humans are in a all-out, armies versus armies kind of situation.  Rather, it seems the aliens are leading a guerrilla warfare against the humans. So probably,  we want something like "several unconfirmed attacks by aliens" "reports of superior technology" "local police forces killed at a punishing rate" and stuff like that. Whenever one nation gears up to kill the alien invasion, the aliens concentrate on another region. Finally, the nations agree to a joint, dedicated venture: the PHALANX.

Needs to be fleshed out by someone who can write, but isn't it more in line with the actual game?

7

Discussion / What is the mission?

« on: August 25, 2006, 09:33:43 pm »

After playing UFO:AI I realized what I thought was missing in XCom too. Each battlefield scenario needs a mission, for both sides. E.g, the terror mission could be:

Humans
1. Drive off aliens
2. Avoid civilian loses
3. Cause alien casualties
4. Capture enemy ship and technology

Aliens
1. Don't get the ship and/or technology captured
2. Maximize civilian casualties
3. Maximize human soldier casualties

With this in mind, it makes sense for the aliens to pick off the easy civilian targets, then fall back to the ship and take off.

In concrete game terms, this means that the alien should, in general try to fall back to the ship. When all aliens are either dead or aboard the ship, the ship should take off (mission ends). This could be refined, but it is the general idea. This will
1. Make mission much more interesting... playing safe is fine in the beginning, but later when you want the ships, aggressiveness is needed!
2. Increase credibility... why would the aliens hang around getting killed at 8:5 or worse odds? Why not take off if they start to take a beating, or even better, before?

Other variations include:
* The aliens could leave a huge bomb
* The aliens could attempt to abduct civilians,
* The humans could attempt to steal the ship by killing the pilot(s)
* The humans could try to abush the ufo by intercepting the ufo after takeoff
* The aliens could try to make a trap, starting with a normal terror assault, but then calling in extra ships. The humans, realizing this would be better off falling back and regroup.
* In a similar vein, multiple terror attacks make sense, if alien resources allow.

In game terms, what would be needed is:

1. Take off capability in planes (a simple option "Take off" available in special spaces would do
2. The AI teams should have strategic goals and modes, and act to follow them
2a. Attack. Used on base raids and similar. Aliens advance slowly and "coordinated", trying to kill as many soldiers as possible.
2b. Fall back. Go towards am area (ship), defending/shooting as the opportunity presents itself
3b. Flee. Running as fast as possible towards area. Soldiers already at the area provide covering fire.

Should be easy enough, no?

8

Feature Requests / Researchers no longer available after finished research

« on: August 24, 2006, 03:52:04 pm »

Here's a patch for the disappearing scientists problem

Code: [Select]


Index: src/client/cl_research.c
===================================================================
--- src/client/cl_research.c    (revision 2931)
+++ src/client/cl_research.c    (working copy)
@@ -837,8 +837,16 @@
                                MN_AddNewMessage(_("Research finished"), messageBuffer, qfalse, MSG_RESEARCH, tech);

 /*                             B_ClearBuilding(&gd.buildings[tech->base_idx][tech->lab]);*/
+                               while (tech->scientists>0) {
+                                       employee_t* employee = E_GetAssignedEmployee(&gd.bases[tech->base_idx], EMPL_SCIENTIST);
+                                       if (employee) {
+                                               employee->buildingID = -1;
+                                       } else {
+                                               Sys_Error("CL_CheckResearchStatus: More scientists assigned to tech than scientists assigned total.\n");
+                                       }
+                                       tech->scientists--; /* Moved here to avoid inf loop in case of data struction corruption*/
+                               }
                                tech->base_idx = -1;
-                               tech->scientists = 0;
                                RS_MarkResearched(tech->id);
                                researchListPos = 0;
                                newResearch++;

I tried to post this on the issue tracker on sourceforge, without much success.

9

Feature Requests / Missing models for light armour

« on: August 24, 2006, 03:40:55 pm »

The light armour turned out to be due to stuff from the tarball being in the way of a SVN checkout. So that's fixed now

10

Feature Requests / Missing models for light armour

« on: August 24, 2006, 12:33:20 pm »

It seems like it mostly works, I am just missing a few files, or maybe the system has some stale files. Could someone where the light (kevlar) rmour works please check if the files above exists in their installation, and if so, if they are from SVN or elsewhere? The checkout is a mix of a base tarball, + the current SVN. I gathered from the forums here that that was the correct procedure. If not, please enlighten me


I'm on the IRC channel as esben now

I'll take a look at the bugs and try to fix something.

11

Feature Requests / Missing models for light armour

« on: August 23, 2006, 08:50:12 pm »

I seem to have no models, and the game complains like this

Code: [Select]


FindFile: can't find models/soldiers/femalelight/light.md2

Lots of stuff in that dir, but no light.md2. Interestingly, it also complains about a few pics/menu/ that are actually there.

Code: [Select]


Can't find pics/
Can't find pics/menu/buya_ul
Can't find pics/menu/buya_ur
Can't find pics/menu/buya_ll
Can't find pics/menu/buya_lr
Can't find pics/menu/button_connect_to_ip

Not sure if this is related somehow.

Lastly, this game is amazingly made, well done! Too bad about the destructable terrain, but really, it made the XCom series too easy in the later stages, so no real tears there.

I'm having a look at the code, considering if and how I can help out.. I'm having a few crashes, but there seems to be some stuff missing in the backtraces... related to some extern refexport_t fe struct (?). A kick in the right direction for that one would be appreciated