I commend the magnificent effort and energy put into the game by all the people involved in making UFO:AI. I love the game you guys have created. It may be incomplete, it may not yet even have all the features of the original, but down the road it's going, it stands to surpass UFO:EU in many regards. To think that you are doing this all during your free time for no monetary recompense is something amazing and worthy of praise.
Winter, in particular, stands out. In my opinion, his creative vision of trying to infuse realism in the game and keeping things down to Earth makes the game so much better. It feels more like I'm really in charge of an anti-alien fighting force, fighting a real desperate battle against a true alien threat.
I wish I could invite the lot of you for a drink, you deserve it.
Okay, now that I'm done saying how awesome I think you guys are, it is time for the suggestions and criticisms. I try to be polite, but please forgive me if I come-off as unnecessarily scathing, I do that on occasion. Also, I understand the game is incomplete. When I mention something that's missing, I mean it's not in the game or in the TODO lists. Note that the following are in no particular order, I just wrote them down as they came to mind.
1. The future scenario is very pie in the sky. It's basically, "yay world peace!". It really doesn't detract from the setting at all, in my opinion, but it's not exactly realistic. In particular because it completely ignores the problems that will be raised over the next century by peak oil (petroleum extraction stops going up, prices shoot through the roof, hilarity ensues), and global warming (it's happening, there's still debate over whether it's humanity's fault, but it's happening). But whatever, it's really not that big of a deal.
2. I don't like that the world has been united into six different countries. That ignores a number of geo-political realities on a large scale. I think it really is best if you just go back to the old "many sponsor nations" thing of the old game. You could probably have the European Union and US+Mexico (removes 60% of illegal immigrants by turning them into US citizens!) as new things. Along with Russia re-united with a few of their old Soviet holdings (Belarus, Kazakhstan, part of Ukraine, others). Africa, Middle-East, and Asia are never going to be united entities, at the very least not within a century. South America and Ocenia, eh maybe. It's more serious than #1 but, again, not that big of a deal.
3. Okay,
this storyline problem is very important. I'm finding it extremely inconsistent that an over attack on Mumbai, followed by overt attacks on major population centres, is followed by only covert activity on the part of the aliens as well as a covert human response. "Vague statements to ease the populace" isn't going to fly, the people are going to demand action, and they're going to demand high-profile action. I think the original's approach of a covert alien incursion being met by a covert human response is both more consistent, and more realistic.
4. Plasma weapons. You guys did a good effort at trying to make the concept work, but... it doesn't. Plasma weapons are something that sounds cool and is a staple of science fiction all over, but it's also one of the most unrealistic weapons ever. While your particular version looked more plausible than the others, I decided to ask the guys at StarDestroyer.net for their opinion (they're good about that sort of thing).
The results are not good. The most important posts are the first two in the first page, and the first two in the second page.
(BTW - don't pay attention to anything brianeyci says)
Now, I'm not suggesting that you change it this late in the development cycle. I think your plasma weapons are really cool. I just thought you guys should know they're not as realistic as you seem to believe they are.
5. The plasma blade is actually realistic, since it's basically a glorified blow-torch. However, I take issue with some of its mechanism. The foam, it's exceedingly complicated and adds several points of failure to the whole thing. It's would be much better to change that to a magnetic field, as plasma usually has an charge. The magnetic field turns-on when the weapon is activated, no need for proximity detectors. Also you don't have to worry about a magnetic field not achieving a proper seal. One of the general principles in designing stuff is KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid), and a magnetic field is far simpler than a system for deploying magical ultra-hardening paste.
6. I'm confused regarding the shotgun. The in-game UFOpedia suggests both slugs and flechettes cause "blast" type damage. The online wiki suggests they both cause "normal" type damage. Which is it? In any case it should be slugs cause normal and flechettes cause blast, no?
7. I can get head-shots halfway across the map with the sniper rifle while the user is standing-up. I'm not sure if this can be implemented, but the way it should be is sniper rifle is accurate only when used while crouching. Those things tend to be heavier than assault rifles and quite unwieldy. There's a reason why real life snipers usually lie down on the ground, and it's not just to make themselves less visible.
8. Incendiary weapons don't do the "area denial" thing described in the UFOpedia. I suppose it hasn't been implemented yet, which is understandable, but I'm not seeing it in the TODO lists. That's a bit disappointing.
9. The Aliens could use their own rocket-laucher or grenade-launcher equivalent. They had one in the original game, IIRC, it fired guided missiles. The usefulness of non line-of-sight weapons would presumably not be lost on the aliens, so I would expect them to have something to compensate their other two heavy weapons.
10. There seems to be a problem with the hospital system. I can't heal more than five soldiers at a time. I built three bases, each with its own hospital. I should be able to heal five soldiers
per base, right? Well, I can heal no more than five soldiers
globally.
11. There's a certain lack of difficulty in the later missions, when one have advanced weapons a plenty. I expect this is partly because you haven't implemented some of the more dangerous adversaries yet, but I'd also like to recommend that missions later in the game have you facing larger alien forces. The most I've seen is eight.
12. Regarding nanocomposite armour. Why is it that the males get this massive chest-plate and the girls get a puny little thing? It's supposed to be armour not a fashion statement, there's no reason whatsoever why the girl's version should show-off their boobs. By all rights it should be a solid plate like the dudes have, and one of equal thickness. The normal body armour doesn't have this problem, sure you can see that the females are females but it doesn't hug their breasts like the newer one does.
EDIT - This isn't related to the game itself, but the wiki's design is just
terrible. I should not have to click on a link that takes me to a separate page to read just a paragraph or two. Large pages covering a broad topic is much easier nd efficient than having each and every sub-division have its own page. The worst offenders are the "Damage Type" and "Skill" pages. You could easily put everything that those links lead to in the page itself.
