Messages

91

Coding / Re: What features are still missing for UGVs?

« on: June 21, 2010, 07:29:02 pm »

skirmish minimum

    * automatic assignment of one UGV as the 8th soldier
    * some default equipment for the UGV
    * NO turning turret, NO correct origin for firing

. . .

full support

    * 2x2 spawnpoints on all maps

Expanding on what I said earlier and taking this into account, it is totally realistic and graphically doable to have some combat UGVs that are:

1) 1x1 units, just like soldiers, and utilizing the same spawns.
2) Have no turret (they turn to train their aim left or right).
3) And position weapons the same way as soldier models, supporting both upright and crouched weapon origins, if desirable.

The unit would look like those real life, compact, weapon wielding UGVs I linked a picture of above, plus a folding (or telescoping) arm coming out the top of it, wielding the weapon system (allowing it to shoot from soldier height or lower, depending on what's called for by the current situation).

I don't mean a replacement for the ares and phoenix, those are heavier, though probably less versatile (due to their size) designs that will greatly enhance depth and balance when the engine supports them. But this is a concept for a complement to them and the human soldiers, that we will see, without a doubt, in the near future of real life.

And it sounds like it is something that the engine will support sooner, probably a lot sooner.

92

Discussion / Re: A couple issues with off-base installations.

« on: June 21, 2010, 07:01:22 pm »

Radar installations are supposed to be inferior to base radar, and bases SHOULD be expensive enough that the player won't want to build them just for a better radar.
Essentially, radar installations are mainly for tracking UFOs, while base radars are for detecting them.

No I wouldn't want them to be better, just not so inferior that they are pointless, which they currently are.

I can't say I see the advantage in tracking a UFO with radar installation after it has been detected by, but left the range of a base, since pursuing interceptors should already be well under way and watching for it themselves and since UFOs very rarely change course anyway.

But even with that aside, the tracking range of a radar installation is itself too inferior to base radar to make sense. And I think someone said you can only build three off base installations for each base, whereas you would need at least 5 or 6 to comprehensively extend your tracking range around your base, and that's assuming you left those radar positions completely undefended by SAMs, which would tie up even more of your build limit (and since they are poor at detecting, you won't detect attackers inbound for the radar sites in time to launch interceptors, let alone intercept them).

apart from radar and sam installations, there is a point of view from which the ufo yards as installations seems somewhat ridiculous.

the point is that you want to build the ufo yard not anywhere in the map, but as close to your dismantling base as possible.
so preferably, you would want them to be at the exact same coordinates in the geoscape.
it looks like an ufo yard could be an extension to a base rather than an independent installation.

You make a very good point, I think I have to agree with you there.

Or at least, there needs to be serious advantages to keeping the yards farther away from your base, and not only have such strong reasons why it should be as close as possible (both worker efficiency and defense of the ufo yard from attack).

93

Discussion / Re: do explosions travel thorugh walls

« on: June 21, 2010, 06:40:15 pm »

i'm often having the problem where a alien is standing just beside the door , my shooters can not seem him so i wanted to ask if i drop a grenade next to the wall or detonate a rocket against that wall near the door will it go through and kill the alien

Your high explosives will not kill aliens hiding directly behind a wall, but they SHOULD. This should be a feature of explosive weapons, to compensate for the huge hole in gameplay balance that is the lack of destructible environments (which in turn are only there due to significant technical challenges of implementing them in the near term, not as a matter of balance design, if I am not mistaken).

It should be made a feature that explosive blasts cause some degree of damage directly through a wall, perhaps even full damage through walls not thicker than 1 tile. Because a big part of modern day infantry rocket launchers is to demolish defensive hold outs like bunkers, if the enemy insists on not relocating or counter attacking (which the aliens often don't, they simply take pot shots from their structure).

It's a vital counter to camping in many situations that's currently missing form the game, even though it would be no where near as difficult to implement as destructible environments and would thus make an excellent interim solution.

As a side benefit, the rocket launcher which is strangely about twice as accurate as the sniper rifle and almost entirely more useful, could have a more reasonable balance and realistic role if one of its primary abilities/advantages was to kill held up enemies that most weapons couldn't touch (without getting very, very close).

I would even say that to further counter structure camping in maps with sparse cover for advancing grenadiers, the high velocity electromagnetic accelerators- the railguns, coilguns and particle beams, should penetrate right though walls that are not more than one tile thick.

Then clearing a building, with one camping alien with a particle beam, where there isn't sufficient cover for a grenadier or CQC specialist to close the distance, wouldn't necessarily cost so many lives. And the aliens could and should use the same advantage against you, so that you can't always get away with simple and extended camping strategies either.

94

Discussion / Re: A couple issues with off-base installations.

« on: June 20, 2010, 04:00:42 am »

Yes, I've tried to push them into background. Unfortunately it's not that easy...

Please open a ticket for it on our Feature Tracker.

Done.

The range was design deceison. Scripted though...

I know, but it seems like that design decision makes radar installations more or less pointless, you'd be better off spending your funding, defensive arrangements and build cap on another SAM site or perhaps a UFO yard.

95

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

« on: June 20, 2010, 03:31:31 am »

I think that's hard. Any "normal" alien unit has to be able to carry and use the alien weaponry, and any model has to fit in the 1x1 box. That limits the amount of alien-ness you can put in.

True that grasping and wielding weapons requires either hands or tentacles, but there's still things you can do with those for some variations.

Fitting aliens into a 1x1x1 box isn't hard, the blood spider is already an example of this. Fitting them in a 1x1x2 can be done using a number of nonhumanoid but upright forms. Like a mantis form, bird/dinosaur form, cobra/hydralisk form, a floater-with-hanging tentacles jellyfish (or zerg overlord) form, etc.

The shagar (or whatever it's called) is almost an example of this, and its tail looks like it even might violate the 1x1 boundary a bit.

Plus, humanoid shapes have the advantage that existing animations can be used for them, and animations are even harder to come by than models.

And, well, we already have UFOPaedia articles and autopsy images for the existing aliens, so we're probably not going to replace them in any event.

That's why I ask this with the assumption that you are provided full content of similar or superior technical quality, for each replaced design- model, textures, animations and research depictions. (The UFOpedia articles would remain the same for every sentence not including words like "humanoid" or "anthropomorphic").

I want to know if you folks would be game for something like this, if content availability/quality was not an issue and the designs fit as well as or better your theme of 'realistic sci-fi-horror'?

96

Discussion / A couple issues with off-base installations.

« on: June 20, 2010, 01:47:13 am »

First off, I want to say I like off-base installations, I think they're an interesting and flexible addition to the geoscape gameplay. They could just use a couple of tweaks, IMO.

#1

It is a good strategy to build UFO yards close to bases for defensive reasons. But unfortunately, this makes it more obnoxious trying to access you base from the geoscape, because the UI keeps asking you if you want to look at the base or the close by UFO yard or SAM site, unless your click was exactly on your home base (which from high orbit, it often isn't). The same thing applies to close by SAM sites.

So I think it would be better if the new off-base installations were on a "lower layer" than bases, so that if you clicked in the general area of both, it would open up the base, not the UFO yard, since 9 times out of 10, it's the base you want to access, not an external depot or autonomous defensive structure (both of whose interfaces are not yet implemented anyway).

#2

The other issue is with radar installations-- they're simply too inferior to base radar to really be worth buying and defending. Methinks players are much better off just building a skeleton radar base than a radar installation.

So I'd suggest giving them a serious range buff, even if you need to limit them more in other ways for balancing reasons.

97

Artwork / Non-Anthropomorphic Taman, Shgaar and Ortnok?

« on: June 20, 2010, 01:28:12 am »

"Humanoid" aliens are kind of cheesy looking and not especially realistic, at least when you have more than one (in this case three) from entirely different origins, imo. I thought I saw one of the lead devs say something to a similar effect a ways back while lurking on these forums.

So my question for those in charge is, would you prefer content representing truly alien but practical morphologies over greys, dinosaur men and space orks if the content was available to you?

98

Coding / What features are still missing for UGVs?

« on: June 20, 2010, 01:01:53 am »

Is it only that the pathfinding for 2x2 units is not working or would a lot more coding need to be done in other areas as well to make UGVs an operational feature?

I ask because, if that is the only or primary hold up for UGVs, then I'm curious if 3D content for 1x1 combat UGVs could fill the gap while waiting on the pathfinding code for the larger UGVs?

It seems UCGVs such as this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SWORDS.jpg

or slightly taller designs could easily fit inside a 1x1 square and thus circumvent the pathfinding issue.

P.S. If content for such units would be desirable, lemme know.

99

Mapping / Re: [map] Tropical Harvester critical bugs

« on: June 20, 2010, 12:23:15 am »

Even though the outside tropical models are okay now, the tropical harvester model is still bugged in six hundred different ways with impassable squares. It looks like there is something other than the stock prefab harvester, because no other harvesters I've seen have had the same problems.

This needs to be fixed before the next stable release.

. . .but sadly his words went unheard.

In 2.3 stable, this bug makes it impossible to pursue aliens into the second deck of the harvester, making the mission impossible to complete. Definitely something to fix before 2.3.1.