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Bobit

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Bobit last won the day on May 6 2020

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  1. Unity Navmesh is totally inappropriate for turnbased games. Instead make your own A* algorithm and render it however you want (have gamelogic position as a Vector3 separate from model/engine position). That part will be easy. Multiplayer is hard, but at least you don't have to deal with non-deterministic desync, and can just have the server puppet the clients using them for only input/output. Another hard issue is projectile physics. Other than that XCOM-likes are relatively easy to program, it's just hard to design the spawning/AI algorithms, and there's a ridiculous amount of UI. DM me for my discord username if you want to ask programming questions. Can't promise I will respond or won't say "you need to rethink this" so you can decide whether it's worth asking.
  2. They are referring to non-randomized story missions. For example in Phoenix Point you always have to fight worms alone, in XCOM1 you always have to save this annoying guy, in WoTC your first encounter with the Lost is entirely scripted. All of these ought to be entirely skippable on future plays imo, except for the final mission, as in XCOM1996. XCOMFiles has some semi-randomized story missions I think? No one is opposed to the UFOpedia or any other form of optional story. Anyhow I do love some Brogue and TGGW, and many train/economic board games, story is unnecessary to me. And sorry, Alienkiller, if there is any tension between us. You are a cool guy.
  3. It's a game with 99% randomized characters, those distributions are as balanced as they normally are, easily fixed with modding if not. As for the like 3 fixed characters, 1 is black.
  4. Harpoon was the famous air/naval strategy game back in the 90s. Now we have more like Istrolid/Highfleet/Nebulous. Or maybe you're thinking of UFO:ET, an old XCOM-like, Alienkiller mentioned its airgame a lot.
  5. I take issue with the broad claim of this statement. It's totally unfair to claim, for example, that the XCOM-Files took less work to make than TFTD. All that being a "mod" tells you is that it was built off of a more specific engine. Yes, simple mods are easy. No, mods that are basically new games are not. You can decide where X-Division stands along that spectrum, but I don't think you want to say things about it specifically. In context, yes I agree that a %-based system is essentially a flat-based system but with more complex tweakable variables. So if what is normally complex instead seems simple due to consistency, that seems like a reasonable change. And you are right that a %-based system must include more explicit penetration and shredding values, or else it will be dull, since the flat system has innate penetration properties for high-damage low-RoF weapons. And the airgame was a more unpredictable question, something that all XCOM games struggle with. Also, a tangent: You're right that this is why making a commercial game is hard. But for hobby games, consider: Non-specialized tools are already provided via Godot/Unity/etc And my general opinion is that code knowledge need not go beyond loops/conditionals/maps/IO, provided that unsolvably difficult areas like AI are avoided. Game mechanics can be copied whether you are "given" them or not. Game assets are quite unnecessary for some players. ASCII and whatnot.
  6. By "disable it" I meant disable the ability to spend an action to regenerate 30% morale. Because in classic XCOM tradition it functions as a timer, this remvoes that function.
  7. I think it's preferable to make a good stat system, especially one where the uniqueness of soldiers does not disappear as they level up and gain all sort of experience (and even get all their stats capped!) That way the abilities of a soldier are instantly readable, affect many aspects of the game in a natural way, and present training goals. However this is certainly possible to mod in for OpenXCOM, perhaps it will be possible for Xenonauts 2 one day.
  8. This sensible for Xenonauts 1, but I would suggest allowing modders to disable it in 2. Reason being that it's possible for morale to be a timer that nerfs slow play. It can only be recovered through expensive meds with equally non-recoverable side effects. The cure is to get the job done, knock the panicking crewman out for their own safety, or evacuate. This is how classic XCOM and OpenXCOM mods sometimes work, though in practice morale is often not a big factor anyways.
  9. From the Downtown games series, for any jet era: Flying high pros: Out of range of small (especially infrared as they fire instantly and without warning due to not requiring radar lock) missiles or flak, but big missiles can hit you at any range. Can gain speed by diving, for missile/lock evasion or close-range air-to-air. Flying low pros: Less detectable (even without intervening mountains). More ground attack opportunities. The tendency is to start low then climb, since "less detectable" is the only thing that's relevant in friendly territory and the game has automatic small arms fire at low altitude so most players would rather take a chance at big damage than guaranteed small damage.
  10. I would recommend playing OpenXCOM for detailed wounds. Basically when taking damaging soldiers will both bleed which results in HP loss, and having their stun and stamina regen reduced. When stun = HP, they pass out. Excessive stun makes them die. Stamina is used to run. There are various medkits to restore stamina, HP, stun. Or maybe they are better off lying down unconscious while you secure the area or carry them to safety. There are also part-based wounds which reduce movespeed or accuracy.
  11. @Alien It's mostly hours that matter not years, except for balancing purposes. Games could take 12 years... if they have just a few devs. UFO2 looks very interesting though. Air combat straight on the geoscape and destructible terrain with mortars is what I've seen so far. Also very weird aliens but I have no idea how they play. Also I think you like more than 95% of games in the XCOM-like genre. Probably everything except those made by Firaxis and Phoenix Point. Most games are decent if you are the intended audience, it's just most games don't have me or you as the intended audience. (the number of roguelites with metaprogression on Steam is appalling to me for example). Unless you count fan projects, then yeah 99.9% never get past the planning stage and plenty of OpenXCOM mods have way too little content.
  12. @Dagar The big hook of WotC is that there are 3 re-appearing bosses with randomized traits, and they get more of such traits as they defeat you and you fail to defeat them. So the ones with strong traits or traits that counter you inevitably become stronger and stronger. Meanwhile on the XCOM side you get a few levellable hero units. I am not a huge fan of vanilla but other than the tedious zombie missions and the usual balance problems everything in this expansion was perfect. I do think the kill-statistics based AI is extremely suitable for the air game, as a non-interceptor UFO's success is almost entirely based on whether it is killed, and it's not easy to simply change your plane's equipment, and compositions/roles are not so complex. For ground, well maybe it's better to reduce the complexity first, for example by considering a boss's or faction's success.
  13. I actually feel WoTC did a much better job of "adaptive AI" than Phoenix Point. Rather than changing AI based on player kill statistics, simply make the bosses (or areas, units, factions, whatever) that win even more important to beat. If the player tries extra hard to make the stronger enemies lose, well at least that is thematic and often makes for high-risk high-reward tactics as those good bosses are the most dangerous, so even when the system fails to predict what will make the game harder for the player, it still succeeds in making the game more interesting for the player. It's a very common philosophy too. Arguably any 4X has it (Long War 2 geoscape being such a 4X) as certain factions/areas get overrun it is more critical to defend against them. Games with difficult tech trees like X-Division have it as well, since it becomes more critical to capture a certain kind of unit the longer you wait, and capturing those units generally gives tools to counter them. XCOMFiles does too, as capturing a leader of a certain faction will allow you to perform research that unlocks higher-level missions of that faction and removes lower-level missions. Phoenix Point and MGSV are the only games that use kill statistics and in both cases it feels really forced, slow or not. Isn't the whole appeal of XCOM the tech race after all? So why not use a solution that focuses on the tech race?
  14. It's a good question because other games just don't have shared vision, or have vision only shared with the squad (pods in FiraxisCOM, spotter units giving sniper units LoS in OpenXCOM, to a lesser degree the cheaty intelligence stat which lets AI track any unit they spotted for a few turns). Because "good enough" really is okay when it comes to unspotted AI behavior, but there's definitely a lot of room for improvement. AI can see 60-90% of the map in this game, unlike the player, because there are so many of them, they all have extended LoS, and their starting positions are spread out. But if they did not have extended LoS, as in XCOMFiles where most foes are human, this would not be the case. Also they can only do this if they spread out, then they are easier to deal with perhaps. About the "ripple", something simple like a "shout" ability that alerts all nearby aliens (as aliens do not share vision by default) does great in Long War, Cogmind, especially if the player can visualize it. Perhaps the sound should be sourced from a random location within 3 squares, so that the AI does not know exactly where it comes from. I definitely like the idea of dynamically-formed response squads, but it would need to be simple, maybe just this: join the squad of whoever is close, sharing intel and moving together (i.e. both prefer to chase 1 recently-spotted but currently unspotted target rather than split up), and share the "sneakyAi" variable from OpenXCOM which basically means they heavily prioritize blocking enemy LoS at end of turn even if it means they don't get to fire (if one is not sneaking, none will sneak as all but one sneaking would just result in that one tanking all the fire) (of course Xenonauts has less LoS-blocking cover and more accuracy-reducing cover, so it's not quite so simple). I wouldn't expect the AI to know how long to "wait" before an "all-out assault", or to refuse to fire for fear it would reveal their position, even players often take the greedy approach so you can't expect the AI to know when not to be greedy.
  15. Or auto-fill, or have a small penalty for using weight even below encumbrance.
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