TrashMan

The "cover up" thing really doesn't work when you have alien ships landing in populated areas, killing people and so on, all as a regular occurence. To accomodate something like that in a sensible manner, you'd have to re-write and re-make half the game.

You can kinda-sorta cheat by having them being static, like the tanks in JA2.

There never is. The question becomes how much is it worth and what are pros/cons and how much value do you place on individual pros/cons. You can go with randomized tech tree (Sword of the Stars does that), randomized research costs (so you never how long something will take), tech locking (selecting one tech disables another, so you can never have everything in a single playtrough). You can go with fixed research costs, varaible research costs, breaktroughs/disaster chances/rolls based on time spent and money allocated and scientists, etc, etc... Lots of options. Picking is the hard part.

A sort of escort mission? Reminds me of Chaos Gate. You had a few mission where you had to escort a techmarine to a terminal/generator or an apothacary to a specific individual (in this case, you broke into the enemy base to rescue your captured and wounded battlebrother)

Can you just use the same 3D gun model the soldiers use?

"They didn't change it, it sucks!" VS "They changed it, now it sucks!". It's a battle you cannot win so it's pointless to try. If more of the same, or a more refined formula doesn't do it for you and you require a completely new formula, then this game isn't for you.

A game has to look functional. Pretty is somewhat subjective, and all the fancy new effects and shaders often do more harm than good. There's a subset of gamers that I personally call "graphic whores" that only care about graphics and weather the most cutting-edge stuff is used, but those kind of people were never the core audience of X1 to begin with, so I wouldn't worry about it, Chris. Your game looks more than good enough.

You don't make a game and make it moddable after, you create the game, the data and file structures, the classes, the game logic WITH modding in mind from day 1. Anything else is backwards and promises a world of hurt an a whole lot more work.

I'm in no position to argue that, given that I don't know the size of the x2 research tree. But does it technically need branches? Just the abiltiy to do multiple projects at the same time, with an optimal number of scientists/funds (where going over can help or not). On another hand, you can expand the tree by splitting research. Instead of researching laser weapons, you research each gun individaully, with a discount the more things from a family tree you researched (the first laser weapon, you get nothing. The second you get a 20% research bonus/research reduction. For the third you get 40%, etc..) This is all theoretical of course, but interesting food for thought. I like thinking about different mechanics and implementations. Oh, one more thing. Please tell me there is actually going to be varriance and soul to the weapons/tier, not just re-skins with +1, +2 stats. If I see a laser shotgun again, I'm going to scream.

I don't get the "every campaign different" argument here. As it is right now in 99% of such games, there's always the same research path, because most of the tree is linear and offers little choices and because there's obvious best picks. With a simultaneus research system, it never feels like artifacts and research is just waiting there. Does it make sense to you that anti-gravity is put on hold because you're researching lasers? With more reasearch, less optimal paths (less linear upgrades, more utility) and a system like this, where what scientists you get may affect your research choices AND where research funding is fluid (you can dump more money into research to TRY* and speed it up), it just gives the player more options. As for running out of research - that can happen by the end game in the regular game too. There's no real solution for it, other than adding generic research (something like Xenobiology 1, 2, 3, 4, where each rank grants you a small % bonus damage against an ayyy or something). In other words, things you can research after all the main items are done, but is generic and doesn't have as much benefit. You can create many research projects and items and put a time limit on the game (enemy fleet comes in 2 years, we have to defeat them by then to stand a chance or something), so the player simply cannot research everything. That works too. Master of Orion had a system where research items were semi-randomized and you could only pick 2 out of 3. You could NEVER research everything in a game, and what you have available may be slightly different the next game. Interesting mechanic, but one I'm undecided on.

Research and how it's conducted is one of the things that always kinda bugged me. Partially because scientists are treated like omnidisciplinary geniuses that can tackle anything, and partially because of the way research was handled - you research one thing at a time. A far superior way to handle research is that multiple projects can be researched at the same time, but you are limited by fields. Research into computing, high energy particles, bioengineering, construction methods, etc - they are completely separate fields. Sciences are divided into branches in RL for a reason. So, how I would envision it is that the labs you build are just nerve centers that coordinate global efforts. Scientist you hire would have a field of expertese that would limit how many projects from a branch you can tackle. If all you have are scientists that specialize in organic/biological research, then that research will progress fast, but other fields will suffer. The idea is that 1 project (of your choosing) from every branch is researched at the same time, and the progress depends on your distribution of resources AND staff. Every scientists in a field adds to a the research speed in that field (passive, you influnce this by hireing scientists with specializations). And additonaly, funding is put into projects (with diminishing returns). So something that is basically a mix between THIS: and THIS: With you allocating funding percentage and perhaps personnel (although that could be passive)

Yes. How moddable a game is is a big thing. It extends the lifetime and appeal of a game. Also, allows people to tweak actual gameplay (and mechanics to a point) to their liking. To set new limits, conditions. For example - adding weapons that have requirements to be equipped (like power armor). Changing the tech tree. Etc...

@Bobit - up to a point. I prefer a more flexible and natural system. I also detest the idea of perfect knowledge/info, since that is exactly the opposite of what a real commander would have to face.

It's not supposed to be fair. You're not inviting people to a honor duel, you're fighting for survival of your species, being "sporty" is for losers. And as I said, there are ways to balance it. By making it only available sometimes (artillery has to be brought into position, you need friendly assets nearby), depending on conditions, with costs involved. Again, if aliens bunker up in the UFO, how can you use artillery? You'd destroy all the equipment. And unnecessary destruction of civilian buildings would not be looked upon favorably (use of artillery could have a negative impact on mission performacne and country disposition)

Again, game X implementation not being good is not a good argument against a mechanic.

I disagree. Especaily on the soulful part. With actual cover and collision detection, you have full control over how covered you are. Standing, crouching, going prone or hunkering down (no return fire possible) and you position relative to the cover all dictates how covered you are and gives you great degree of flexiblity. It's not as clear cut, it doesn't give you hard numbers, so you need to think and use your head to judge. A static 50% chance to hit reduction is the epitome of soulless and brainless.

If I had to choose, I'd rather have no armor than a poor armor system. It just ruins things if it's too simple. A good, balanced system of armor and injury can give rise to very varried situations that enhance gameplay.

Game X implementation not being good is not a good argument against a mechanic. There should be a cost associated with it, limited uses and reasons why you would not want to use it (risky, need alien craft in tact, etc..). Also, alien AI would need to take it into account. You bring in mortars? They scramble inside houses, hide in bushes or fall back into the alien craft.

I very much agree with OP. Armor is so often done poorly. The one thing I'd like that should be brought in from original X-Com is armor coverage - with armor covering different body parts and each part having it's own integrity. Naturally, armor wouldn't be equally as thick everywhere (front torso is usually thickest, arms and legs usually thinnest), nor would every armor cover as much, so there's always risks involved. Front torso, back torso, left/right arm, left/right leg, head My ideal armor system would also work in the following fashion: - each armor body part has a %coverage and protection value. Depending on what weapon hits, %coverage can degrade, maybe every protection value, depending on weapon (some scy-fi weapons or compounds could weaken the armor). If a body part is hit, roll coverage to see if armor protects. If success, then apply full armor protection calcs. If fail, either full damage is done or perhaps with some minor reduction (your undersuit should provide SOME protection) - armor has a maximum damage value that it can absorb harmlessly (your high-tech power armor will shrug off pistol bullets completely, as long as no weak spot is hit). Heavy armor can render you virtually invulnerable to weak weapons, but there's always a risk of lucky shots (and shots in the back). - hits above a certain damage treshold will penetrate, but will be reduced (percentage reduction). - Weapons can have have an armor penetration multiplier that doesn't multiply final damage, only damage for armor penetration calcs. For example, a railgun would do 25 damage with a 3x armor penetration modifier, thus armor will treat it like it does 75 damage, but will still do 25 damage to the soldier, simulating overpenetration with a tiny, ultra-fast round. Thus you can simulate different kinds of weapons. The coverage degradation modifier could also be part of a weapon, which specifies how good the weapon is at stripping away armor. In the above example, a railgun round would make a very tiny wound/hole, resulting in little armor coverage degradation, while something like a plasma gun or explosive could melt/shred entire pieces off.

You're saying this as if an improved Xenonauts is a bad thing and it has to be something completely different.

I personally don't like having super-accurate data. I'd rather have rough visual cues (bleeding, enemy damage model/decals or posture/animation change) or as Jagged Alliance 2 did it, general description (Healthy, Injured, Near Death, etc..)

As good as JA2 was (and it was one of the best games ever made, period) , getting back to pixels is a lot of work and a lot of detail is lost. If you have a 3d engine, you can make full use of it to make things easier.

Why not add a "dig" function, as in prepare the area for building. It would cost a little, but you can designate as many "blocks/squares" as you want and they would be prepared fast. Once prepared you can build whatever you want. Basically, you can clear the area for all 3 hangars as you finish the lift, for a small time and cash fee. The only question is - should the adjecent squares be auto-cleared/prepared when you build an access lift?

XCOM (NUCOM) has terrible shooting implementation. The bullets are not tracked, they do not exist as physical objects. The entire burst is treated as one "hit" (either all bullets hit or all miss) and accuracy calculations are all over the place. Cover is a simple flat reduction that is as soulless as it is nonsensical. This often ends up a problem with these seemingly simple systems - they end up being not so simple requireing tons of patches and updates for special cases, and even then behave wonky. Remember Xenonuts1, all the issue with cover, corner shooting and elevation shooting? How many times it needed updating?

A good approach might be the Master of Orion or BOTF one? You can research multiple things at once (which makes sense, because omnidisciplinary scientiests really aren't a thing. That astrophsycists is going to be useless if you put him on xenobilogy research). you wouldn't have a singular lab, but SPECIFIC labs. Astrophysics lab. Biology lab. High-energy lab. Materials lab. Each lab would allow you to research a different branch: For simplicity sake, each lab would be automatically filled with proper scientists (they would be abstracted?)