Messages

16

Tactics / Re: Soldier Skills

« on: February 19, 2009, 06:14:19 am »

I think there should be some "basic" training, able to get the skills up to perhaps 20 or so, but beyond that only from combat. That would be pretty neat.

There is - they are called downed UFO missions

All downed UFOs contain just 4 Ortnoks (in standard difficulty) - and for the smaller UFOs there's normally at least 3 out in the open at the start of your first round - basically a turkey shoot.

For the larger UFOs just hide your men in buildings for a turn or maybe two and the ortnoks will come looking for you - then you just step out of cover and pick them off - easy pickings and easy stats improval

17

Tactics / Re: tactics for druglord map

« on: February 19, 2009, 06:07:11 am »

if this is the map im thinking of, then I do what I usually do. Split my team into two squds of four. Each has a medic, sniper, heavy weapons(Grenade launcher) and heavy-close range (Flame, Machinegun). Each to a different bridge, first the sniper, the medic within running distance, and the other two a ways behind so nades dont wipe em out.
Take it slow, make sure to be able to see all directions, check under the bridges (Found that to be a favorite hidey hole).
Top squad goes along the top of the map, then camps the top of the ramp with the sniper till the other squad clears the bottom buildings and can drop infront of the shops.

I dont recall any civs on this map, so time was on my side, and I rarely lost any units. Lotsa ammo spent, but job well done.

You're thinking of the Rom(e?) map - the druglord map is the one in jungle type terrain with a very small river running left to right and 2 very small wooden bridges at opposite ends

18

Feature Requests / Equipment screen feature request

« on: February 19, 2009, 05:54:53 am »

I was thinking today how tedious moving to the equipment screen and equipping items is during combat gameplay,  - open equip screen, put grnade in hand, exit equip screen, then throw grenade

It occurred to me that it would be nice if we could have something similar to the reload option in the HUD  for misc items and perhaps secondary weapons too.
So for example if there were say a couple (say 3 or 4?)  of allocated / numbered  slots in the equip screen that during battle the items would then show in the HUD - the use that item simply click the item(either an icon depicting the item or simply a number, then the cross hair, then use the item - and have the full TU cost including equipping the item displayed and decucted. That way the equip screen need harldy ever be used during combat at all.

Here's a (very) rough mock up of what I mean

[attachment deleted by admin]

19

Feature Requests / Re: Aircraft Weapon / Ammo Bug

« on: February 19, 2009, 05:33:13 am »

You don't have to remove it but select the (equipped) weapon and add an ammo for it. He complains it's not automatically added.

-geever

You're right geever  -never realised I could do that - still you would expect your craft to be automatically rearmed as soon as there is ammo in the stores no?

Like I said - it's not a major bug, and knowing it's there means I can avoid it in future - and oddly enough I seem to recall original xcom doing something similar

20

Tactics / Re: Tip of the Day

« on: February 19, 2009, 05:14:27 am »

Important tip:

You CAN NOT shoot over the head of the soldier CROUCHING in front of you: he blocks your line of fire.

legend:
SS - standing soldier
CS - crouching soldier
^ - direction of soldier's look
tt - target

From sky to soil view under right angle:

===
tt

^
cs
^
ss
===

SS can't shoot target because CS blocks him. It's not good: I've used that tactics in different games: :EU, :AM, :Apoc, where I placed my squad members in 2-3 lines: farthest line is standing, second line is crouching-kneeling, closest to enemy - laid down. So I could have 2-3 shots simultaneously from one point. Now I must move one of soldiers to left-right in order to deblock or to become deblocked.

It's a classic infantry tactic dating back to the invention of the rifle (or muskets as they used to call them).

Perhaps it's just too 18th century for this game 

21

Tactics / Re: tactics for druglord map

« on: February 19, 2009, 05:12:11 am »

I've tried a few tactics on this map - but eventually gave up trying to use the bridge on the left - even with plenty of smoke for cover I still lose too many soldiers trying to cross it (smoke only seems to be effective at longer ranges - it's great for crossing the bridges in Rom(e) tho ).

So - euipment wise I tend to stick to longer range weapons - laser rifles for preference as they are the best all round weapon in the game - but assorted machine guns, assault rifles and sniper rifles if its earlier in the game.

2 -3 guys take out the 1 or 2 aliens that are normally in the building on the left - oncew that building is cleared I leave them near the hole in the wall under cover during the aliens turn - taking turns to step out during their turn and snipe at any targets of opportunity on the opposite side during my turn - that also prevents the aliens from making any attempt at crossing to my side - although I'd love to mine the bridge with proximity grenades and watch them try  (we're getting those soon right?)

The rest of the squad move slowly towards the building on the right near the other bridge making sure they stay in cover during aliens turn - if that isn't quite possible I improve my odds with a few smoke grenades.

After taking out the alien that's often in the right building I gradually assemble my squad on the right hand side with reaction fire set - and take the time to sort out any medical attention and reloads - this normally gives me the opportunity to take out a few on the aliens in the buildings on the right hand side of the opposite side of the river.

Then, taking advantage of the natural cover (rocks) on both sides of the bridge - and a little more smoke, I make my move across the river.
At this point I then move the 2-3 guys I have left behind in the left side building onto the roof with reaction fire set - that way they can keep the aliens in the buildings on the left pinned down while the other half of the squad clear the buildings on the right - to do that I normally split the squad with half going behind the buildings and the other half coming in from the front - pincering the remaining aliens in there.

After that it's a simple mop up if my snipers on the roof havent already done that for me

22

Feature Requests / Re: Aircraft Weapon / Ammo Bug

« on: February 18, 2009, 01:40:19 pm »

I don't think it's a bug. As you can have several types of ammo for a weapon (like Shiva). How should it determine which one should be equipped? I think it's good as it is.

-geever

the weapons I have equipped only use 1 type of ammo so iy almost crtainly is a bug - not a major one tho

23

Feature Requests / Aircraft Weapon / Ammo Bug

« on: February 18, 2009, 05:14:24 am »

Just noticed that if you equip a craft with weapons but forget to buy ammo - the weapons will not be re-armed if you subsequently buy ammo at a later date- you need to de-equip - then re-equip the weapons in order to arm the weapons and make the craft active.

version 2.2.1 windows

24

Discussion / Re: Line of sight Vs Line of Fire

« on: February 18, 2009, 03:27:45 am »

I think you misunderstood me on this. I wasn't saying I want to keep things simple. I do, it's just not what I meant. What I'm saying is, it's NOT POSSIBLE, codewise, to know what an "obvious LOS" or a "straightforward shot" is. It's not even possible to tell the LOF is being interrupted by an object no higher than the soldier's waist. All you know is that the line is interrupted. You don't know by what, or what shape the offending object has. This makes it impossible to do what you're suggesting.

I already answered this. Yes, it is possible, it's a matter of changing a value somewhere in the code. The reason why we're not doing this is, as stated, that the point of origin should match up with the model. It's not a strict necessity, but it's a hard requirement we're making, take it or leave it. Ergo, we are going to need a character animation that shows the soldier firing from the shoulder. Provide us with this, and you shall have your fix.

On a side note, don't expect that to solve everything, either. No matter what point of origin you choose, there will always be objects that are inconveniently JUST in the way when they wouldn't be if the soldier had [insert very small change here]. I remind you that it is not possible to detect this in the code, and as such impossible to avoid.

Good answer - thanks

25

Discussion / Re: Line of sight Vs Line of Fire

« on: February 18, 2009, 01:42:10 am »

That's the thing though. It ISN'T as simple as that. The game doesn't think in terms of "if there is an obvious LOS..." or "straightforward killshot". It uses routines to trace lines from one point to another, and it can detect if that line is interrupted by geometry or not. That's all we have to work with, basically. You don't seem to realize that computers don't work like humans.

You can press V for first person view. Bear in mind though that this feature is scheduled to be axed and replaced by something else.

No, it only shifts the target height, not the source height.

BTA - I meant simple as compared to building in the ability to target individual body parts - not neccesarily developing routines to determine critical hit areas on the body - I'm with you 100% on keeping things asa simple as possible.

But you have raised an important point - if the ability to change the angle of the shot can be adjusted by the player - is it such a massive stretch to make the originating point of the shot adjustable too? a simple up/down control on the vertical axis would do it

26

Discussion / Re: Line of sight Vs Line of Fire

« on: February 18, 2009, 01:30:44 am »

How do you get a FPS view like that... are you in game or the map editor?

And yes I agree, I mean it is unfair that an alien in a window can shoot at you but you can't shoot at him because of the ledge...  Someone was saying that you can use Shift to move the target up?... what is that about, would that solve the problem?

press V to toggle from the isometric view to the FPS view in the battlescape

The shift key works sometimes, but it seems to just change the angle that the weapon is held at - rather than change the elevation of the weapon - so it didn't make any difference in the screenshot I last posted

27

Discussion / Re: Line of sight Vs Line of Fire

« on: February 18, 2009, 01:18:20 am »

I would find it strange if someone complained about this type of fix.  I mean, sure sometimes in X-Com things looked a bit odd when lasers flew out of the gun at funny angles, but the most important thing is being able to shoot the alien in the window so we forgave the rest as long as the end result is what we expected. 

Of course the aliens can shoot back atcha too - which could be bloody murder walikng past - or trying to look through - those little windows in the base control centre - 3 reaction snapshots from a heavy plasma at point blank?  3 dead soldiers.

I'm not suggesting anyone go nuts and start programming ways to target individual body parts - that's over-complicating things - but if there's an obviously clear LOS to a straightforward killshot - head and/or chest - particularly if it's at close range - then LOF should be permitted too simple as that..
here's another screenshot of LOF denied just in case I haven't laboured the point enough already 



[attachment deleted by admin]

28

Discussion / Re: Line of sight Vs Line of Fire

« on: February 17, 2009, 06:45:17 pm »

Well, no. It doesn't need an animation, strictly speaking. But witout one, it'll look silly, as the point of fire won't match with the gun barrel.

perhaps - but considerably less silly that the situation shown in the picture in the OP, and not having an ani doesn't affect gameplay - having iffy LOF rules does.
Original Xcom had all manner of clunky rules - like shots spewing out of the weapon at wierd angles because the sodliers could only face in 8 directions - but it worked because it made the gameplay more realistic

29

Windows / Re: Another geoscape issue

« on: February 17, 2009, 05:58:29 pm »

You want to read this.

D'Oh! RTFM - sorry

30

Discussion / Re: Line of sight Vs Line of Fire

« on: February 17, 2009, 05:55:52 pm »

Err, yeah. My bad. I meant we have no animation for firing from the shoulder.

forgive my ignorance, but does it actually need an animation in order to fix the issue?
The original Xcom series managed to nail down some very simple but logical and effective LOS/LOF rules with a simple 1 frame "point gun" animation - if you can call that an animation