Messages

31

Tactics / Re: Base placement and management tips requested

« on: February 10, 2016, 05:38:36 pm »

In my last game, I ended with 6-7 bases covering almost every piece of land possible. Note that I play very hard and do not reload (that changes things).
I have 2 teams of soldiers in every base. 8 for ground missions and 8 for defending if the soldiers are out. I try to spread good soldiers on every base. If I have not enough good soldiers, I use 1 good with 1 rookie (with same skill) in the base and same for mission soldiers.
IMHO, having soldiers in every base is required because in late game, there are so many UFO that you are likely to get shot while travelling. And if you are over the see (well, it never happened to me but I guess that my soldiers would be gone).

Concerning the soldiers teams, I usually use (on firebird teams):
- 1 with grenade launcher (usually not the most useful but can sometimes hit where other soldiers cannot)
- 2 snipers
- 2 assault
- 3 cannon fodders (rookies with bad stats) quipped with 1 stun rod for civilians, 1-2 plasma blades for suicidal attacks and many smokes

I equip every unit to have the TU boost (making the "strength" attribute one of the most important). I only use armor on units strong enough to have the armor and the TU boost.

Concerning reaction fire, I do not use it at all since in very hard, you have virtually no chance of killing an alien with it (with a snapshot even if you hit) and it is very expensive on TU.

32

Discussion / Re: Back to this game after a couple of years

« on: January 26, 2016, 10:20:38 pm »

You have to research them ^^

33

Discussion / Re: Do you want a save&quit option from the battlescape?

« on: December 09, 2015, 08:44:14 pm »

I don't get why everybody continues saying that the feature is not done to avoid cheating. I think geever was pretty clear about it. The saving feature is not straight forward and would require much work (which is probably true). Nobody in the team wants to do it.
Moreover, maintaining it would also require many work. That's also something the team do not want to do. That's why they would not even accept a patch implementing it.

IMHO, this vision is pretty clear and understandable. UFO AI is a free time project and the team can work on whatever it wants.

For my part, I feel many maps are becoming too big considering the fact that we cannot save in the battlescape. But that's only my opinion.

34

Discussion / Re: Shotgun in 2.6 dev

« on: November 13, 2015, 10:59:03 pm »

Having a sniper with strength near 60 or so is cool though. Can carry everything from medkit over power armor to anti matter em rifle without being burdened. You don't reach that stage without using max (e.g. with strength 39 you carry 19.5) carrying capacity always.

I never reached such a high strength, even with my best soldiers ^^

35

Discussion / Re: Shotgun in 2.6 dev

« on: November 12, 2015, 09:02:52 pm »

I thought about doing that, but the kill given to the unit is wasted

Yes but I usually use that in very dangerous situations (like corruptor wings) where I wouldn't expose my good units unless I have to.

In 2.6 armor is not only for training strength because of suffocation, which you need the nanocomp armor for to prevent it.

Extra TU are so precious, IMHO, that I prefer to not equip armor at all. Usually, I try to use only strong soldiers (39 if possible). When they reach 42, I can equip them with nanocomposite armor + assault/sniper weapons.
When I select soldiers, the first thing I look at is strength. If it is high enough, I look at assault/sniper/explosive skills. BTW, I think that the extra TU give too much importance to strenght while other caracteristics are irrelevant IMO.

36

Discussion / Re: Shotgun in 2.6 dev

« on: November 11, 2015, 08:57:13 pm »

For my part, I just don't use close combat skill at all. The situations where the shotgun would be useful are too rare to justify using it IMHO. Because of it's poor accuracy, soldiers have to come very close triggering a fatal reaction fire. Moreover, close combat soldiers are usually pretty exposed and do not live long enough to reach high levels.
In my typical firebird team, I use 3 cannon fodders, 2 assault, 2 snipers and 1 grenade launcher. I don't use armor to have the extra TU. I try to equip all cannon fodders with 1 plasma blade to one shot hiden aliens.
Because of reaction fire, I usually use smoke to cover before firing.

Note that I play in hard/very hard and never try again missions (even when I loose good soldiers).

37

Coding / Re: Using cmake to setup build env

« on: November 05, 2015, 09:52:44 pm »

Something about the Version shown on the start screen is wrong. CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE is set to Debug with cmake -i and the resulting executable after make does contain debugging information (file size is much larger, line numbers are shown in backtraces) but it keeps showing Release on the start screen.

That probably means that in debug mode, we should define some flag that we don't

38

Coding / Re: Using cmake to setup build env

« on: November 04, 2015, 12:40:52 am »

Are the CodeBlocks files in build/projects/ for Linux or windows or both ?

I guess it is for both (but tested only on windows.

The downloadable dependency package is for windows + MinGw or windows + MSVC only I presume ?

It works with both MinGW and MSVS2013 (at least - only tested). This can be checked on github by looking at appVeyor's results.

I tried setting up a environment with integrated debugging by generating a project file with cmake. win xp + MSVC 2008 seems too problematic, as UFO:AI is using newer C++ features while MSVC is behind g++/Linux or MinGw in supporting them, but Linux + CodeBlocks works pretty well.

I've not tested with MSVS2008. But if you say the code uses newer features, I guess nobody will want to rollback to such an old version.

cmake seems to find and use the dependencies from the OS rather than the ones in src/libs/.

It depends on how your PATH is set. However, src/libs are sources files AFAIK. So, the needed ones have been used. The others are not.

39

Discussion / Re: Do you want a save&quit option from the battlescape?

« on: November 03, 2015, 12:00:10 am »

how much work it would be to create a battlefield savable but cheat-free system as I have absolutely no idea what it would involve

The question is not about cheatig or not. If I want to cheat, I will overpower human weapons (or underpower alien ones).
However, geever's point about the work saving would require is perfectly valid and for having done it for another game, I can say it's not an easy task. The battlescape code architecture is probably not suited for that and will need many changes. Moreover, even once it gets done, coders will have to be very careful about not breaking the saving feature. And because UFO AI is in a release state, savegames will have to be stable and newer version compatible. That's pretty much work.
In any case, since savegames are not planned, I think maps should keep a reasonable size or the AI should be more active so that we don't spend ages searching for that last taman that just spawns from nowhere killing good soldiers because we got tired after searching for 20 turns.

40

Discussion / Re: New user, with a suggestion you've heard 100 times, and some feedback

« on: November 01, 2015, 11:13:41 pm »

Well, I would agree in almost any other code parts but this is more complicated. As the game is not yet finished, the codebase will change a lot. If we accepted patches, soon it would age, being incomplete, broken, conflicting with the upstream code. We fould find it necessary to maintain the code we agreed not maintaining to be able to make a release or simply make the software working. There is only one solution to that problem: Not accepting patches for battlescape saving.

That's an interesting vision and I agree it would not be an easy task to maintain (and I know what we are talking about here). But IMHO, UFO AI is advanced enough to such a feature. But we all know UFO AI is a spare time project so if the team do not want to have that on its shoulders, it's understandable.

41

Discussion / Re: New user, with a suggestion you've heard 100 times, and some feedback

« on: October 31, 2015, 07:57:54 pm »

If it's the map I think about: desert surface, large tunnel entrance, big main store room, and two levels of quarters, stores and offices...
I found out that doors to the big hall happen to be randomly or purposely closed. It the same for the corridor security doors. In some configurations, the securing time is dramatically reduced because you never have to watch your back, and two doors only are open to the big hall: in 5-6 turns nearly all the aliens that may reach the hall are deads. The other are most often trapped in on quarter of the map because of the closed doors, the stairs, etc. (you can hear them IF they walk, and locate them this way. Just beware 2-4 that are in the other small rooms, and who will jump out when your soldier get near. Next time, I'll count the number of turns, and the time needed.
What could help on this map, however, is to remove the metallic sound when an actor walk in the corridors, and to let it only for all the stairs, and the catwalk in the hall.

Yes, that's the map I stopped to play because it is too long (I've already won it once or twice in the same game but ATM, I don't feel like messing with it). The sound stuff is interesting because I usually play with sound turned off and I didn't know it changed depending on where the alien walks.

42

Bugs in development version (2.6-dev) / Re: contrib/map-get/update.py not getting certain maps

« on: October 30, 2015, 11:52:06 pm »

As our buildbot died some weeks ago, the precompiled maps may be not up to date. Just guessing, though.

Note that you can probably use appVeeyor/Travis as buildbots.

43

Discussion / Re: New user, with a suggestion you've heard 100 times, and some feedback

« on: October 30, 2015, 11:42:45 pm »

Well, right now you have to secure the power core and the PSI-device for some turns to win the alien base mission. As the AI actively tries to prevent the player from reaching his objectives, this plays different and thus is a nice addition
The same goes for Mansion, where you can win by securing the "panik room", instead of crawling through every chamber looking for this last, lonely Bloodspider hiding in some corner. In base defence, aliens now will try to blow up you Power Plant, Antimatter Storage or Command Center in order to win. Also, in battlescape missions your dropship (Firebird only) is now a target for aliens.

That sounds really cool. I will have a go to check how that works ^^

44

Discussion / Re: New user, with a suggestion you've heard 100 times, and some feedback

« on: October 28, 2015, 10:04:19 pm »

Until recently the fact that UFO:AI could not be compiled with MSVC while I'm not quite used to developing on Linux. As of now, more the fact that I always lacked the hardware to compile big projects as fast as I want and probably the issue that I would need MSVC 2013 for UFO:AI, using hwoarangmy's recent work.

Note that it might also work with MSVS2012 as I don't think much c++11 features are used. There might be minor changes to do (for non standard microsoft functions) but I guess it would be pretty easy to setup.
Concerning compilation with MSVS2013, I recommand to use the bundle
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ufoai/files/UFO_AI%202.x/2.5/ufoai-deps.zip/download
You just have to unzip it somewhere and set UFOAI_DEPS environment variable (or use cmake to set UFOAI_DEPENDENCIES) to the path where you unzipped the bundle.

Back to the subject, I agree being allowed to save in the battlescape would be a great improvement. For having read some UFOAI documentation, the "excuse" of the taboo is almost official and I've already seen that they ask people interested to go for a patch (as ShipIt just did).
For having done that for another open source game (Open Dungeons if you want to know), it is not straightforward and pretty hard to maintain.

For my part, I've recently tried a game with 2.6 version (I had previously finished 2.5). I stopped a few weeks ago after a little bit more than 100 battles because I have a new fight in a big map (bunker if I remember well) with many corridors. I tried to play it but after more than 1 hour, I lost patience and started to send troops everywhere to see if I could find the last remaining bloodspiders. In fact, I faced at least 1 ortnok and 1 taman. I got tired of searching for them and stopped the game.
IMHO, the worst is the alien being so passive. In big maps with small rooms, you can loose ages searching fo that last alien staying in that room. And when you send your troops, you have no choice but to suicide at least 1 canon fodder to expose it a little. I know maps are currently getting bigger and that's not a good thing IMHO.

45

Coding / Re: Using cmake to setup build env

« on: September 30, 2015, 10:06:29 pm »

Well, when I try my mingw compiled version, I get the output in the dos prompt...

Might be something with appVeyor or maybe the stage at which we launch the tests do not allow to have a command output