Messages

31

Artwork / Re: UGV weaponry

« on: June 25, 2010, 10:00:40 am »

I have a whole bunch of turrets modeled for different ships and stuff. Mayhpas we can use some of them?

Here are some zipped images with some of the guns/turrets.
http://www.mediafire.com/?jmgmkwz5lmm

Man, you really, really love your rotary guns, don't you?

Like Mattn said, we might be able to use one or two of the smaller ones, but in that case they would need some adaptation to fit the UGV models.

Regards,
Winter

32

Artwork / Re: New here. Want to help

« on: June 25, 2010, 09:52:32 am »

@Winter

Could you list all the armors that are needed for phalanx?

Actually, BTAxis has got it wrong. It's like so:


HUMAN ARMOURS
Combat Armour (+ Advanced) -- Available at gamestart, Advanced in mid-game
Powered Armour (No advanced version) -- Available in early-game

HUMAN-ALIEN ARMOURS
Nanocomposite Armour (+ Advanced) -- Available early-to-mid-game, Advanced in mid-to-late-game
Heavy Nanoplate Suit (+ Advanced) -- Available mid-game, Advanced in late-game
Jump Armour (No advanced version) -- Available late-game

Regards,
Winter

33

Artwork / Re: New Rocket Launcher

« on: June 25, 2010, 09:36:05 am »

Niiiice work.

Regards,
Winter

34

Artwork / Re: New here. Want to help

« on: June 24, 2010, 06:21:40 pm »

Origin, I don't often say this, but I actually really like all your models and concepts. You would make a great addition to the team.

About the power armour, it's actually a little bit more complicated. What we want is both a heavy alien suit like you've drawn (what we've termed the Heavy Nanoplate Suit) and an early-game human-technology-only suit (what we call the Powered Armour). Do you think there's anything you can do with that?

Regards,
Winter

35

Artwork / Re: New Rocket Launcher

« on: June 24, 2010, 06:15:58 pm »

I think the Carl Gustav is an awesome-looking weapon, and if our launcher resembles it, that's totally fine with me.

I'd even be happy to change the writeup to name it as a descendant of the original Carl Gustav.

Regards,
Winter

36

Artwork / Re: New Rocket Launcher

« on: June 23, 2010, 05:20:29 am »

Alright then, a 120mm version of a carl gustav. Are there any more design points we want to add to this?

It doesn't have to be 120mm -- that's just a figure we chose due to the ridiculous size of the current launcher.

Winter what did you mean by an advanced recoiless rifle? Advanced as in having a range finder instead of a simple scope or iron sights, maybe?

Yes, that sort of thing is exactly what I mean.

Regards,
Winter

37

Artwork / Re: Non-Anthropomorphic Taman, Shgaar and Ortnok?

« on: June 22, 2010, 05:44:40 am »

I think that's generally accurate.

Not so. As I said, we want a nonstandard look -- that means we want to keep the Taman, but we don't it to look exactly the bloody same as the X-COM sectoid, which the submitted head from that thread did.

Regards,
Winter

38

Artwork / Re: New Rocket Launcher

« on: June 22, 2010, 05:41:29 am »

It's a good model, but as Hertzila said, it doesn't really fit either the current writeup or the general concept and art of our rocket launcher (for example, the straight-line shooting particle). We want a new model for the rocket launcher, but it has to be more like an advanced recoilless rifle than a guided weapon.

Regards,
Winter

39

Design / Re: Proposed storyline.

« on: June 22, 2010, 05:36:31 am »

CWLO is one of the few research topics that have no prereqs and are available at the beginning of the main campaign.

I know where you guys are coming from, though. It would be handy for modders to have a 'campaign' flag for research topics. Maybe post it in the feature requests?

Regards,
Winter

40

Artwork / Re: GUI Design

« on: June 19, 2010, 03:37:31 am »

Well, it does demonstrate that portraits could be small and still very visible and distinct.

In that example, there are 11 soliders and their portrait bar takes up only a small fraction of available space.

Yes, but what point is there to having a portrait bar when the portraits are randomly generated? This kind of dead, dull facelessness is perfectly demonstrated in those UFO:ET screenshots. Even if there were no duplicate portraits it would still look awful. Uncanny valley, man.

Also, strangely enough, I think the portrait bars in ET are actually a bit too small for what they are. I would've given up 1 or 2 faces for extra size and clickability. They're already tiny on 1024x768; imagine how small they'll be on higher resolutions.

Regards,
Winter

41

Artwork / Re: Easy way to make helmets with existing heads

« on: June 18, 2010, 08:06:25 am »

Heh, the first thing that came to my mind about this, especially the mouthpiece, was 'FINISH HIM!'

Regards,
Winter

42

Artwork / Re: GUI Design

« on: June 01, 2010, 07:07:05 pm »

Well, I love GUI design and I couldn't help getting in on the fun. Here are some ideas about how we can represent some useful information to the player in a way that isn't too visually distracting.

I actually really like your levels and indicator tabs, but your soldier panel is fiddly and cumbersome, with its tiny tiny buttons and forced scrolling through a list. We want to avoid arrow buttons and especially click-based scrolling.

Regards,
Winter

43

Artwork / Re: GUI Design

« on: June 01, 2010, 07:00:29 pm »

Double-clicking to change firemodes sounds like a bad idea to me. If a weapon has more than 2 firemodes (and there are many of those in the game), picking the right one becomes a chore, especially if you accidentally overshoot.

I don't think that's true, but in any case, I had a thought that we could put firemode choice to RMB over weapon. That'd make things simpler and reduce any hassle.

We can simplyfy it even more by using the same left/right hand method as the  lower mockup (one large field devided into two. Big weapons take up both field, small weapons take up one).

This is a good idea. I've always hated the two big hand windows.

Since we have so much free space left, we could add the basic inventory preview (without backup) for hte soldier, and in the space below the health/AP bars we could add a toggle for soldier stats or something.

Agreed. Keep it small and simple though, its main use will probably be switching stuff between hands and body storage/belt/holster.

Regards,
Winter

44

Artwork / Re: GUI Design

« on: June 01, 2010, 12:10:04 am »

This is going in the right direction. However, in addition to a new layout, we really want to update the bland green and grey look of the GUI for something slicker and higher-tech to help improve the feel. Blue would be the operative colour. Think there's anything you can do there?

Clicking the weapon image could be used for shooting, instead of a crosshair icon.

I'm thinking single-click on weapon for a shot, double-click to change firemode.

Next soldier and next visible enemy icon (next to the number of enemies seen by the soldier).

Works for me.

I think we can also condense the various pop-up information windows on the right -- perhaps even removing the useless EEG/ECG readout entirely.

Normal soldier screen

Was thinking adding solider nicknames as aditional ID.
Really, we should add this. Wonderfull for personalizing your team and easier to ID soldiers when you have "Shadow", "Steroid", "Scope", "Sgt. Slaughter" and such over their heads.

I don't like this idea. There's no way we could pull off a JA-style interface simply because we can't do that level of personalisation. Our troops don't have individual voice tracks and specifically-written lines to establish their characters, so if anything we just end up with a bunch of cookie-cutter faces staring blankly back at the player. Thinking as a player myself, that would actually decrease my immersion and level of emotional investment in the troops.

Regards,
Winter

45

Artwork / Re: UGV weaponry

« on: May 30, 2010, 12:04:46 pm »

And, no multi-barrelled silliness? Wouldn't it be easier to wire three heavy lasers together instead of having to build a whole new design?
At-least duel, maybe?

Many times no. It's a laser, not a machine gun; given the physics of atmospheric blooming, one stronger beam is always far more powerful and longer-ranged than multiple lesser beams. You multiply the number of beams travelling through the air, you multiply the immense loss of power over distance caused by blooming. I could come up with other reasons why a multibarrel laser wouldn't make sense but the blooming problem pretty much shuts the idea down by itself.

Regards,
Winter