project-navigation
Personal tools

Author Topic: storyline question: Why is phalanx a secret organization?  (Read 36969 times)

Offline TrashMan

  • Captain
  • *****
  • Posts: 833
    • View Profile
Re: storyline question: Why is phalanx a secret organization?
« Reply #45 on: May 14, 2012, 05:05:49 pm »
That would be super cool, but probably would be quite a lot of work to implement. Remembering that much simpler changes to the same effect have already been shot down for being too laborious to make.

Allied soldiers?
No, not really. All the groundwork is there. It shouldn't be difficult to include them.

spacific mission, their intervention..that is a bit more demanding.

News tickers? Likewise.

Offline kurja

  • Captain
  • *****
  • Posts: 504
    • View Profile
Re: storyline question: Why is phalanx a secret organization?
« Reply #46 on: May 14, 2012, 06:35:46 pm »
You mean like destructible 3D environments? That's because the devs hadn't yet heard about Voronoi Shatter. Oh yeah, baby! 8)

I was referring to http://ufoai.org/forum/index.php/topic,6634.0.html

Offline geisthund

  • Squad Leader
  • ****
  • Posts: 103
    • View Profile
Re: storyline question: Why is phalanx a secret organization?
« Reply #47 on: May 14, 2012, 09:11:42 pm »
can Radiant make missions too? And is it easy to include things like AI teams in it? If so I might try my hand at it, or ask one of the TA mission creators to give it a shot

Offline headdie

  • Squad Leader
  • ****
  • Posts: 119
    • View Profile
Re: storyline question: Why is phalanx a secret organization?
« Reply #48 on: May 14, 2012, 09:17:29 pm »
So far as I know their is only 3 teams implemented Phalanx, Alien and Neutral/civilian, I understand there are plans implement additional armed friendly non player teams but afaik that is still only on the todo list

Offline ShipIt

  • Project Artist
  • Captain
  • ***
  • Posts: 906
    • View Profile
Re: storyline question: Why is phalanx a secret organization?
« Reply #49 on: May 14, 2012, 09:20:39 pm »
can Radiant make missions too? And is it easy to include things like AI teams in it? If so I might try my hand at it, or ask one of the TA mission creators to give it a shot

Radiant is only used to build the maps. You can not make a mission (aka level) with it.

Offline geisthund

  • Squad Leader
  • ****
  • Posts: 103
    • View Profile
Re: storyline question: Why is phalanx a secret organization?
« Reply #50 on: May 14, 2012, 09:45:31 pm »
thanks.

I know this is probably somewhere else in the forum or in the contribute section... could you point me where? (I can't find it)

but... how do you make a mission then? Or are all missions purely random depending on start position of the aliens. (ie a skirmish)

In the game Total Annihilation, missions could be created where individual units were scripted to react to triggers, or to build certain things at a certain time / when certain criteria were met. This meant that the missions could be created on a truly intricate scale... creating a much greater sense of realism. is this possible in UFO AI?

Offline H-Hour

  • Administrator
  • PHALANX Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 1923
    • View Profile
Re: storyline question: Why is phalanx a secret organization?
« Reply #51 on: May 14, 2012, 09:57:40 pm »
At the moment, maps and missions are effectively the same thing. We have no special objectives or scripting available. In UFORadiant you build the map (terrain/architecture), and place the starting points for aliens and players.

There is only a small text file in addition to the map that makes it available in the skirmish menu.

Check out our Mapping forum and our Mapping Wiki Section.

Offline ShipIt

  • Project Artist
  • Captain
  • ***
  • Posts: 906
    • View Profile
Re: storyline question: Why is phalanx a secret organization?
« Reply #52 on: May 15, 2012, 09:55:40 am »
I only thought about campaign missions. For skirmish and multiplayer it should be possible to build something like a 'level'. We have triggers for various events, that could be used for this. Maybe it is just nobody ever tried.

If somebody wants to be first in, I will help wherever I can.

Offline Duque Atreides

  • Rookie
  • ***
  • Posts: 80
    • View Profile
Re: storyline question: Why is phalanx a secret organization?
« Reply #53 on: July 21, 2012, 03:45:40 pm »
I was reading this post, and i think that the problem isn´t the secrecy of the Phalanx group, but the nature of the war. I think that the whole figthing must be secret to the public. What i mean? The aliens can come to Earth frecuently but don´t make a massive assault. Why? There´s many explanations, but i prefer to think that is a very bad cost/effective way to make the job. They simply can use a sickness to scrub the humanity, for example.

So, i think that the battle must be secret, the alien missions are "special operations" to achive the goal of the "sickness" (the game have a history of this) and PHALANX is a counter-alien special operations group. That´s all.

How to explain the attacks to population? That´s the point. If you fail a mission, people start to know the reallity of aliens and the nations start to have "media problems" and riots at the streets, so, the nations will cut your funds. But, if you have succeed, the "battle" can be covered and the life continue "normaly".

How to explain the fallen UFOS? well, military "secret" aircrafts :D. The attacks on cities? Terrorist group (Like Cobra? :D). Homemade videos of battles and aliens? Well, trivializing the video or hacking the Youtube :D

Some ideas...

Offline homunculus

  • Sergeant
  • *****
  • Posts: 387
    • View Profile
Re: storyline question: Why is phalanx a secret organization?
« Reply #54 on: July 24, 2012, 09:32:10 am »
@Duque Atreides
that was not a bad explanation, i am surprised.

but i'll write my own explanation anyway:
phalanx is a secret organization in order to protect phalanx from journalists asking for interviews and tv-shows, and telephone salesmen.

Offline Duque Atreides

  • Rookie
  • ***
  • Posts: 80
    • View Profile
Re: storyline question: Why is phalanx a secret organization?
« Reply #55 on: July 24, 2012, 04:04:02 pm »
@Duque Atreides
that was not a bad explanation, i am surprised.

but i'll write my own explanation anyway:
phalanx is a secret organization in order to protect phalanx from journalists asking for interviews and tv-shows, and telephone salesmen.

jejejejejeje well, that´s good :D

Offline bustead

  • Rookie
  • ***
  • Posts: 16
    • View Profile
Re: storyline question: Why is phalanx a secret organization?
« Reply #56 on: November 04, 2012, 01:01:46 pm »
I guess the whole thing is no secret. Everyone knows that it excists but the governments denys its excistance. Just like NSA

Offline Anarch Cassius

  • Squad Leader
  • ****
  • Posts: 176
    • View Profile
Re: storyline question: Why is phalanx a secret organization?
« Reply #57 on: November 17, 2012, 12:05:19 am »
I think that's about the idea. Phalanx is secret, but people know it exists. They don't know where its bases are or who is employed or likely even much about the tech they use but the fact that Phalanx exists has to be fairly common knowledge.

People know there are aliens and would alarmed if there wasn't a response. But people don't necessarily know all the details.

Why the secrecy? Even if it's no help against the aliens the people in charge will still do so out of force of habit, and keeping the location of bases secret does seem to be useful. It's not so much as the public doesn't know UFO are being shot down as no government wants another government reaching it before Phalanx, or heaven forbid "terrorists" should get their hands on a downed UFO.

Offline krilain

  • Squad Leader
  • ****
  • Posts: 171
    • View Profile
Re: storyline question: Why is phalanx a secret organization?
« Reply #58 on: December 04, 2012, 03:11:48 pm »
I suffer from the issue that doesn't allow you to read some texts so I never put to much attention on this point. Instead, I figured we were leading a public agency always in the need to have good result on his action to get some monney to continue. From that, the importance of being efficient on saving civilians and so on.

In fact, we can be stealth and not secret, just like the spies agencies thru the world. 

Offline Snowblind

  • Cannon Fodder
  • **
  • Posts: 9
    • View Profile
Re: storyline question: Why is phalanx a secret organization?
« Reply #59 on: December 15, 2012, 04:44:06 am »
Well, the story makes it hard to mesh with the small-scale gameplay, with the dramatic and public assault of Mumbai and everything. Story is great and the Mumbai thing is important for the theme of the game, but then you wonder why these big superpowers are not doing much and your squad of 8 guys is doing so well.

So after these bold assaults, it unfolds into a slower, less wide-scale conspiratorial shadow war between the aliens and PHALANX. Like spy vs spy, or terrorists vs police scale conflict, more subversion and skirmishes, not so much world war III.

There could be some background story to explain it, say the aliens attacked just to test the waters, or it was just an extremely violent science expedition and decided open warfare would be too costly. Maybe there are not enough of them to sustain full conflict. Or they realize Earth's governments will use nuclear weapons to render the planet sterile before they ever lose an invasion. Anyways, they are 'alien' and have unknown technology and intentions, they don't need to rationalize like people do. Maybe the violent incursions worked historically for them to cow the world into surrender most of the time and decided to try that out first?

I think nuclear war would be a good losing condition if 5 nations defect and there are no other nations above 'pleased' or somesuch. The remaining governments decide defense of earth is a lost cause and they press the red button, destroying everything else the aliens would possibly want to take, just to spite them, but losing the game for the player.

As for the non-PHALANX militaries, I'd suggest and I've always imagined that they only act if they have to. Say you shoot down a UFO and leave the crash site too long. In XCOM, the crash site would quietly go away with no complaint. Maybe the host nation was just grateful you shot it down, they blasted the site with artillery or bombing runs and salvaged what they could, either way, not your problem. I imagine during terror sites, they hold a cordon to keep it contained, but are not competent or willing enough to go in an fix it, unless you procrastinate for too long.

As for like, cops or soldiers running around on a map battling aliens, they'd be little more then red-shirts anyways, so why bother coding them in? Either way, I think the world's military would be better represented with a little message saying they assaulted and recovered that crashed UFO you never got around to, or random crash sites appear in places you don't have radar coverage of. They managed to shoot one down and they'd appreciate it if your super-soldiers would come deal with it.

I think in the current version, shooting down a UFO over land and ignoring the site is like ignoring a harvest or intentional landing, which I think is bad. In the old Xcom you got points for shooting down UFOs, even if you just left them alone afterwards, you just got more points for attacking the crash site. I think countries should OK with crashed UFOs on their land and just give you credit for shooting them down. Or they shoot them down and you attack the crash site. They give you half credit for whatever half-assed work you are doing.