[Suggestion]Fog Of War cosmetic polish.

I was thinking it would be interesting if, during day missions, the closest or 2 closest tiles for the black FoW to "fade into it" (the effect is already inside the game in night missions it just needs to be more rapid and not be dispelled/undone by lightscources). I want theese darkened tiles to somewhat hide the aliens standing just in range of your vision (makeing them a black silluette, tile should be as dark as possible if not completly balck) to add a bit of atmosphere of faceing the unknown. Simmilar to the effect you get in UFO:EU during night missions when you cant acctually see the alien as a player but your soldeirs can and you can mouseover to spot the tile it's on. (played a night mission in Xenonauts not sure that the darkness blends that well in this game)

This idea is a cosmetic change and should not apply any penalties, its just for the atmosphere. It also doesn't apply to going around corners and spotting aliens or anything like that it's just the edge of the black FoW that still hids the alien from the player, but still lets the soldeirs to spot it and fire at it without penalties.

Some modification to the crusor might be needed to bring out the full potential. The idea is to not be able to see the colours of the alien model but still be able to see tne contours/silluete. This might have interesteing sideffects where you can't decern if you have spotted a non combatant, guard or soldier, also raises the impact of meeting a new alien race for the first time.

Is this a good idea? Would the community be interested in this or is it just a hassle?

As a matter of fact, something along the lines of what you described popped into my mind the other day.

i like it if it's possible! =]

Btw the alien spotted icon. Is there any way to make that only pop up when the character that can see the alien is selected? Would be nice to see which of your chars has line of sight (without "aiming" at the alien).

Or has this already been discussed and decided against?

if your character can't see it then the icon is slightly faded/less bright

Perhaps the difference needs to be more obvious/extreme?

The "faded" or "graduated" FoW a la XCOM should really be done if at all possible, as it added a ton to the eerie atmosphere of the original to have that layer of almost-visible tiles lingering on the edge of your vision. Hope Chris sees this!

Indeed. I think in X-com it was done by having the soldiers able to see slightly further than the light propagated.

Liked that stalking presence of alien silhouettes in XCOM a lot. Would be really great to see it here.

The problem here is that EU did its gradients in quite a strange way (we were looking at them recently). In Xenonauts we just overlay a black tile with varying levels of opacity on each square, which gives the night / FOW effect. This is what most games do, because its easy.

UFO:EU actually seems to have different numbers of pixels display their colours (as opposed to being black) depending on how far from the soldier they are. So the fading of the tiles is not uniform as it is on Xenonauts, but sorta random. It looks much better for it though.

Perhaps we could mimic it by having an overlay for each 'fade level' where each pixel is either transparent or blacked out...

I hope it works out. The night combat is a much loved (feared) part of X-com and I'd love to have the nights similar.

Is it possible to have the fog of war not return to complete darkness after a unit leaves? I mean, if you've explored an area but don't have anyone there, can it just be greyed out? For it to be completely dark suggests that you've completely forgot a street you just left.

Currently that is in effect. black is unexplored areas (light) grey is areas you ahve explored but arent currently in any soldiers line of sight/ field of vision.

PS.Isn't this visible on a lot of screenshots available? DS.

Edit: Looking on the 3 groundcombat screenshots on the xenonaut pages 1 completly lacks grey FoW, one barely has any. Only the factory exploration screenshot showcases the grey FoW.

Been pondering this a lot when I check out the alpha builds. It's definitely a piece of polish that helped with the mood of X-COM, having the oily black Chrysalid barely visible at the edge of FoW. Curious if the possibility of an overlay has been explored yet?

Could a gradient be incorporated into the black tiles?

Would it be possible to have an overlay that acts like a filter. This could affect contrast and how different shades of each color come through.

I really think this Fog of War suggestion is a crucial aspect of UFO:EU which made it very scary. As well as its grittiness. The current Xenonauts screenshots on the other hand make everything look very clean, polished.. sterilized. The way everything looks perfectly visible even when far just takes away the suspense. There really needs to be more darkness to create a fearful mood.

I'm going so far as to say that the main reason I haven't preordered is because of this issue. It is the main flaw with every single x-com remake I've seen.

I'd also add that perhaps smoke should be used more generously. I remember the liberal use of smoke in EU made things look more chaotic and also added fear as it limited visibility.

However, the rest of the game looks absolutely wonderful, and even better than the original I'd say. So please try and get the fog of war right

I like how you reference EU but post a screenshot of TFTD

Smoke will be provided by all the explosives you are carrying

There was once a nice polished suggestion screenshot by a community member, which Chris seemed to like quite well. Can't find it now...

Edit:Ah-ha.

Gorlom, you idea is good.

I think that cosmetic change you propose will add even more athmosphere to the game.

It would be cool to have fade effect in the final release.

Buzubuzu's example is pretty spot on what I was imagining when I posted this. I'm just hopeing for the "alien silluetes" as well.

My only experience on Xenonauts is the old Kickstarter demo, but I also noticed the jarringly bad FOW effect. The black isn't that good looking atmosphere wise. The other thing is smoke: there should be lots of it around the downed ufo. And fire too.

While Xenonauts is smart looking game and captures the original X-com feel better than any other game yet, it lacks some of the atmosphere and ambience. This is mostly because too sterile and clean looking surroundings. There needs to be more random crap, blood, rocks etc. all over the place over the normal tiles. FOW effect also plays a role in this and I think it's a really important thing to fix in polish phase.

Please get it right and you have a gem in your hands.

+1

I really don't like the tetris fog.

I'm pretty sure this is something that will be addressed in the beta, but it's probably not a priority right now with them trying to get a fully functioning game for people to playtest.

Sorry for necroing this, but Is there any plans for playing around with the cosmetics of the fog of war?

I was especially hoping for something along the line of Buzubuzu's mockup: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/1243-V9.1-Ground-Combat-Fog-of-War?p=15507&viewfull=1#post15507

Yeah I loved that mockup too!