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1

User modifications / Re: [MOD] Easy Radar Rangefinder

« on: June 09, 2013, 03:08:34 pm »

In that case, you might want to try to update... Something critical might not be included in your older build that my mod assumes is there. They may not even have had the small radar tower installations back then, or something.

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User modifications / Re: [MOD] Easy Radar Rangefinder

« on: June 02, 2013, 09:33:23 pm »

No, I made this for 2.5dev, a build from January '13 or December '12, so probably pretty outdated by now. Maybe there were some changes to scripts/scripting - I have no idea.

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User modifications / Re: [MOD] Easy Radar Rangefinder

« on: May 31, 2013, 09:05:13 pm »

I'll have to download a new build and see if this mod still works for me with all the changes that may have happened in the meantime.

I 'installed' the mod by putting it in the game folder where it is loaded automatically on startup. When I don't want to use it, I rename the file extension to something that will be ignored. I have never tried loading the mod by using the interface in-game. Try and see if you can get it to work just by putting the mod in the right place.

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Feature Requests / Re: Left click should work on mouse button release, not mouse down

« on: March 01, 2013, 03:25:18 pm »

I think the main problem is that it won't let me cancel out of a misclick in the geosphere menus. If I click on a button like 'Research', then drag the mouse away before releasing, I'm expecting to be able to avoid going to the Research screen. I may be wrong about many interfaces counting the final click location where you release the mousebutton, but I don't think I'm wrong about most contemporary interfaces letting you cancel out of a click by moving the mouse off the button before releasing.

Unlike what I wrote earlier, I think allowing the player to do that would be the best solution.

Also, I don't understand what you mean by the last bit. Where am I advocating treating left-clicks and right-clicks differently? I did say that turning a left-click into a both-click lets you cancel out of a click in many interfaces, and this is present in UFO:AI, too. But it's not good enough in this case, because it's not an intuitive action if only the click location is slightly wrong.

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Discussion / Re: 2.5 sucks completely

« on: February 15, 2013, 12:42:57 pm »

Actually I was saying that since the hit chance displayed by the game itself is only a general estimate of the actual chance to make a shot, due to the calculation necessary for an accurate estimate being more complex than can be done in a timely manner[...]

I wonder if it could be coded in such a way that the game first gives you the estimate, and then, if you continue holding the mouse over that square, it would start calculating the real accuracy, but break off if you move the mouse somewhere else. Due to the way aiming works, you don't ever need to calculate more than one accuracy value at a time, so I don't see why it should be any more complicated than actually firing.

Is it that firing doesn't actually calculate accuracy in any way, and calculating hit chance via the combat engine would amount to running a Monte Carlo Simulation with a large number of shots to approximate the hit chance? If it's like this, I could see how it's troublesome...

6

Discussion / Re: 2.5 sucks completely

« on: February 14, 2013, 09:50:17 pm »

We're planning to add a section to the ufopaedia for basic game concepts like reaction fire, wounding, etc.

Good to hear.

If you are facing alien and can't outmaneuver him before shot, drop a flashbang or smoke grenade instead.

Flashbang is really the only one you have a good chance of getting off without much risk, since it takes only 6 TU to throw unlike other grenades. By the way, does it matter whether the flashbang explodes in the target's field of vision?

As for reaction fire, I usually find it worthwhile to use for fire modes that use 8~12 TU. More than that is only really worth it if you have good cover and / or distance to work with. Is there some kind of accuracy threshold you have to hit for soldiers to bother to fire, though? Or doesn't it matter as long as that alien walks around in your field of vision?

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Discussion / Re: 2.5 sucks completely

« on: February 14, 2013, 07:21:08 pm »

No. RF is extraordinarily simple in terms of calculations and there are no die rolls involved. Please, everyone, search the forums before spreading false speculation. The RF mechanism has been explained many times and these ill-informed comments only spread misinformation.

I don't mind at all how reaction fire works, but the information about how it works really, really, should be available in-game. Either split up into several 'Tip of the day' segments, or some kind of Help section that doesn't yet exist. There could be a 'Game Mechanics' section in the UFOpaedia that spells out various basics of gameplay. Reaction fire is an integral part of how combat works, and it is not something the player should be left wondering about.

Failing that, it would be useful for that information to be easily visible on the wiki or on the forums in a sticky, rather than buried in some long-forgotten thread. If I enter 'reaction fire mechanics' or 'RF mechanics' or 'game mechanics' or other permutations of these things into the search bar, I ought to be able to find what I'm looking for, but I don't. The search engine of these forums just isn't very good - it doesn't prioritize keywords found in topic titles over keywords found in posts, and it doesn't prioritize a result with the entire search string just as you entered it over a result with the keywords strewn all over the place.

If this information was easily accessible, there wouldn't be so many questions and baseless speculations about it. This isn't sufficient for the player to base an informed decision on.

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Discussion / Re: New encumbrance/TU system

« on: February 14, 2013, 06:40:30 pm »

That wouldn't really work for this game, though, since the stat points are not equivalent to one another. They rise at different speeds, and the way encumbrance is designed requires starting strength values to be much higher than the averages for other stats. I guess you could go with a weighted total points system, or make it so a soldier with 0 strength can carry a base weight of 20kg or something to dial down the strength starting value, but it's probably easier to stick to the system that is in place.

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Bugs in stable version (2.5) / Re: dead soldiers get wounded

« on: January 24, 2013, 10:19:29 pm »

Ah, okay. Yeah, I was referring to the nightly builds.

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Feature Requests / Re: More intel-gathering items for the battlescape

« on: January 24, 2013, 10:00:00 pm »

How exactly do the 'shooting through a wall' mechanics work? Does it matter where the wall is in relation to you and the target? Does it change the trajectory / accuracy of the shot? I've tried shooting through the wall when it was very close to me and far away from the enemy, and that didn't work.

I did have one success with it - going down the staircase in the solar power plant map, there was a hovernet on the other side of the thin wall there. I shot through that wall with my sniper. The shot hit the wall, but the hovernet died.

I also tried sending a team of one sniper and one scanner back to the surface searching for the last enemy, but I found it downstairs first... the range of IR scanning one floor down / up isn't very big, is it?

(It would be nice if you actually continued to see the shot after it hit the wall, though.)

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Bugs in stable version (2.5) / Re: dead soldiers get wounded

« on: January 24, 2013, 09:40:58 pm »

Has the issue with the buildbot been resolved yet? Maybe it has struck again...

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Bugs in stable version (2.5) / [2.5_dev_13/01/19] Items dropped during battle are subject to autosell

« on: January 24, 2013, 09:37:04 pm »

If a soldier drops an item during battle that is marked as autosell and doesn't pick it back up again before the mission ends, that item is treated as dropped by the enemy and sold. This has happened to me with a plasma pistol which I dropped in order to use a medikit. Soldier equipment that was brought into the mission should be excluded from being sold automatically upon the end of the mission.

(A post has been made on the bug tracker regarding this bug.)

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Feature Requests / Re: Left click should work on mouse button release, not mouse down

« on: January 24, 2013, 12:08:42 pm »

I'm not talking about misclicks in the battlescape. I use Confirm Actions as a matter of course, so I can see the pathing before committing to a move. I'd probably be walking into aliens' reaction fire all the time if I didn't do that...

No, I'm talking primarily about menus and stuff, like clicking on Research, but missing slightly and getting Production. Moving the cursor after clicking down doesn't have any effect here.

14

Discussion / Re: Funding Nation mood whiplash

« on: January 24, 2013, 12:05:33 pm »

I've been trying stilettos with 3 aerial laser cannons equipped. ALCs do far more DPS than anything else in the early and mid game (even taking into account damage reduction on fighters and harvesters). I'm not even sure I should replace them with particle beam cannons in the heavy slots. Particle beam cannons are basically sparrowhawks without ammo costs and with better accuracy. You still have to micromanage the fight if you want to take down harvesters, but I don't see that changing for a good long while, if ever.

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Feature Requests / Re: More intel-gathering items for the battlescape

« on: January 24, 2013, 11:56:35 am »

I'll use IR goggles to gopher hunt  (there is an advantage with through wall tech = Sniper Rifle 1, EM Rifle or Bolter 2, Coil Gun 3)  like the one map where the aliens are all 1 level down in tunnels, I'll IR to find then snap shot  (1 or 2 squares off there is no reason for aimed shot)  kill.   That or on base defenses, where I use IR to acquire, then shoot UP (base is made of tinfoil?).

You can do all that? I'll have to give that a try. I didn't think you could see through UFO walls (didn't think they'd classify as 'thin walls'), or through the floor / ceiling. Going into those harvesters getting the last alien always pisses me off.

Is that the Sewerage Construction Site map you are talking about? Yeah, that one is pretty nasty once enemies stop using plasma pistols as their main armaments.So you can shoot through the ground there, too? And see through it if the enemy is within your vision range but on a different floor?