Hello,
On another thread, I said I would post some feedback about the game I am playing so here it comes
First, I want to thank you all for this great game. I have played it much now and I enjoyed it
Let me introduce my UFO history. I discovered on a website for old games UFO : Ennemy Unknown a while ago and played it (and none of its followers). I liked it very much so, few time ago, I started to look for a similar open source game and that's how I ended up in UFO AI's website.
So, I played a few the 2.4 then 2.5 and a little bit 2.6.
Concerning the 2.4, not much to say since I didn't play much so I don't really remember the differences between 2.4 and 2.5 except the equipment weight, which is a very good thing in my opinion.
Concerning the 2.6, I tried to play a game but it was too buggy for me (I tried in the beginning of 2014). The soldiers used to go for strange paths (for going from 1 case to the next one, they go diagonaly then horizontally so 5 TU instead of 2). I have also seen a map where I could not go inside the UFO (like if there was a wall) and I have given up on a base attack where my soldiers were not able to go to the stairs because of an invisible wall again.
But I have seen the UI and I think it is nice. It is good to see everybody's health. If it is not done yet, it would also be cool to add the TU bar so you can see in the blink of an eye if everybody has used his TU or not, which is especially good in a base attack to not forget a soldier.
Concerning the 2.5, I have played many hours now and I have an advanced game (normal difficulty) which is going very well (bases on every continent, every nations happy).
First of all, I want to say that I have seen almost no bug. Only some very annoying battlescape crashes when I was trying to capture living aliens but they were fixed by DarkRain in a thread where I posted the bug so it is not a bug anymore.
Concerning the game itself, I enjoyed it much.
I have only seen few things that could be improved (if you didn't play the game, please don't read this as you could be spoiled) :
1 - Spawning points : I played a map with the Heracles and 3 aliens (Ortnok, Taman and Sheevar) looking at me. Without smoke grenades, I would have lost all the team. I feel it is not very fair to start a map in such unfavorable situation.
2 - Reaction fire : It is pretty hard to understand how it works. The first games I played, I thought it didn't work as I never saw it trigger. I was keeping TU on every soldier to make sure they could handle any situation but I was seeing aliens come just in front, shoot, kill them and leave. After reading the forum, I have understood how it works but I believe it is much too hard to use. You cannot reserve enough TU for killing one alien (or it will kill you before it is triggered). Well, as you understood, I don't use reaction fire, which is a shame. If there was no smoke grenade, for me, the game would be unplayable.
3 - In the introduction, it is said that every nation sent its best soldiers to Phalanx. When you recruit them, it is strange to see that they are at most mediocre, even for sniper skills using a sniper riffle. IMHO, it would be better to use futuristic weapons even for the beginning (no sniper or assault riffle) used only by Phalanx.
That would explain why recruits, even being the best soldiers, are just rookies when they go to Phalanx. Or to say that the nations have revived Phalanx unit after loosing all their best soldiers.
4 - In the text, when trying to understand alien minds, it is said that some aliens are killed. in fact, their number do not change. It could be nice to really kill them so that the player as to capture some more to make more researches.
5 - In the text, it is said that some aliens (at least sheevar), do not see but have something similar to infrared detection. In fact, I have seen in game that they spot my units from far and, when I am behind smoke or behing a wall, they do not seem to detect me. It could be nice and interesting to really have different behaviours when dealing with different alien species.
6 - The game is really difficult in hard level. I have tried a game and I got a game over from the nations only after few months even having attacked every UFO I could (which are only scouts) and letting the other ones land but doing all missions. As I use many smoke grenades, civilians do not survive for long as aliens kill them fast since they do not see my units.
7 - When an Alien is in a room inside a building, it usually keeps wandering and I often have to suicide one soldier to find it or to make it come out to be able to finish it.
8 - AI.
8A - I have seen many threads talking about it and saying it is not good. I do not agree. I think it is not that bad. Even if it can seem suicide addict, it is well explained in the game so it didn't seem weird to me. For me, the only problem is that when they do not see phalanx units, they just seem being lost and not knowing where to go (most visible during base attacks when you see them through the camera going in and out without doing anything). For me, if there was some kind of destination where aliens tried to go, the AI would not seem stupid. This destination doesn't have to be really strategic but it would make player think aliens know where they go.
8B - From what I have seen, aliens do not seem to share there vision. I heavily use smoke grenades and the only aliens that kill me are the ones that go just near my units. I have never seen an alien spot me and another, without vision, fire at me. Even if I have to admit that this might be wrong since usually, the soldiers that are spotted do not survive. But if it really is, one thing that could be done coud be to check for all aliens to see if there is a good opportunity to fire when a Phalanx soldier is spotted (instead of playing alien turns one after the other). That would seem like if they were playing together instead of each one for himself.
Moreover, I would say that it is easy to make the AI seem to play better by giving aliens good stats (many TU and good accuracy as it is the case actually). But if the AI was better, and every aliens did play well, alien level should have to be decreased or the game would be unplayable.
To summarize, IMHO, to improve alien AI, there should be an objective so that they do not seem to be lost and the aliens should change their turns when they spot a soldier to let the one with the best chance to kill play.
As I didn't finished my game yet, I might post more comments later
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