TrashMan
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Posts posted by TrashMan
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On 4/12/2020 at 7:36 AM, indaris said:
Not accurate. The IR sensor or radar is on a gimbal that has a limited range. Once the missile misses a target, its lost sight of it and most of its energy in most cases. There's no way it turns back around and keeps chasing the target. It might find something else to track beyond the initial target though. A missile that constantly is updating the intercept point would be more accurate, but the distinction is almost unnecessary at the range/time involved in Xenonauts air combat. They're not launching AMRAAMs at like 20nmi or anything like that.
Missile info:
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19 hours ago, Bobit said:
" Flying low over water is a death sentence. " Why?
It makes you quite visible on radar.
Look a bit into air combat mechanics. It's very interesting.
I suggest videos like these (especially the second one). The guy explains a lot of things, especially near the end, when he does the battle overview, as he explains both combatants actions.
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18 hours ago, Rusknight said:
I agree. The same air map (no map at all) is one more reason why air combat is dull - battle conditions are always the same
Altitude and terrain topography should be a thing. There should be cons and pros to high and low altitude.
For high altitude, you're dealing with thinner air and clouds obstructing visibility.
For low altitude, you're dealing with dense air and terrain. Flying low over water is a death sentence. Hilly or mountainous terrain makes it easier to evade. Flying low over sand desert makes heat seekers less effective. Etc. Tiny bits like that could be implemented in a simple way like "what type of terrain is the aircraft over nad what altitude? Ok, apply bonuses/penalties!"
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If you study history, then you'd pretty much call half the nations stupid or lacking tactical thinking. There's thousand of examples of misscalculations, errors, terrilbe oversights, arrogance or just plain bad luck. The logical conclusion is thus, that humans are stupid.
There's also circumstance to consider. The aliens might be forced to attack before they are ready.
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On 3/26/2020 at 10:25 AM, Max_Caine said:
If the counter to camouflage is to produce abilities that neutralise camouflage then the counter to that would be to kill any neutralising agents first then you have free reign of the map.
I disagree. The enemy won't just stay still and let you take pot shots. While you are focusing on the enemy with best sensors/anti-cammo/detection range, others are moving in.
Cammo reduces detection range, it doesn't make you undetectable - even less when the shooting starts.
I see cammo more as something that lets you set up into good position.
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21 hours ago, Xeroxth said:
That’s understandable but I still think this can be improved just like decision to change the way we can equip our soldiers compare to the early beta being clunky and annoying. Maybe we could have the modular upgrade in the first two planes with them only needed to be bought from the host country (F-16 for the US and MiG-31 for the USSR) with slight armor and fuel upgrades replacing the foxtrot research with the foxhound being available for purchase from the get go. Hell we can even forego new planes completely and make huge upgrades to the starting aircrafts like shield generators, antigravity thrusters, antimatter/plasma generator replacing the engine, stealth cloaking fields,... making them in the mid-game looking nothing like when you first bought them. And whenever you decide to scrap the aircraft frame for a newly researched one with more weapon/engine slots you could transfer all upgrades to the new one with ease. Kinda like the upgrade system for the Techpriests in Mechanicus.
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On 3/30/2020 at 2:37 PM, Xeroxth said:
The scouting idea only makes sense in a secret war perspective and would sounds extremely contrived in an all out war. The DPRK didn’t scout it out when they declared war on the South and steamrolled into Seoul. The Third Reich didn’t scout it out with their weakest force when they blitzkrieged across Europe (they took down Belgium with their most elite of paratroopers in only 2 days!). In any case, most actual war scenarios will include precise strikes using troops that are way more powerful than their frontline military. And unless we are having the aliens be hit with stupid-pills right from the get go, they would wipe xenonauts or our sources of funds out of the map first. And if it takes time for their strongest units to be shipped in, why would they choose to attack with their vanguard force rather than just nuke us from orbit until the main force arrives?
On the case that the powerful units is fighting on bigger fronts, how could the world power care enough to fund a tiny organization that have the same level of tech and preparedness as they are rather than just funding the war directly? Would the US give away one of the best to a newly founded group when the aliens already set up a beach head in Chicago? And unless the Xenonauts just get a ridiculous amount of plot amor and story contrivances in equal to the Rebel alliance in Star Wars, I don’t see how that would even work and in that case will make the campaign extremely uncompelling as it doesn’t really make the organization worthwhile at all compare to the country state funded army, industry and r&d department (we take soldiers, scientists and engineers from the same source as our beneficiaries, what makes us any different?). The difference established in the first game being that we were formed to fight aliens even in the secret war phase therefore we’re more prepared is perfect good lore reason that I think shouldn’t be scrapped.
You are staring on the assumption that the aliens came fully prepared and informed with a full army.
The aliens might be a fraction of an invasion fleet that got splintered/lost/whatever. They may have stumbled onto Earth without prior plan to invade and are underestimating human resistance.
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I for one don't particually like the cold War aesthetics.
As for why the aliens aren't using the heaviest units from the get-go? Could be different reasons. Perhaps they are a scouting force and have limited resources themselves? Perhaps more advanced units need time to bring in from wherever they are coming from? Perhaps those advanced units ARE there from the get go, but deployed in more pressing theaters. Xenonauts certainly wouldn't be a big enough threat early on to warrant such resource expenditure, especially since the alien wouldn't really know who the Xenonauts are or the extent of their abilities.
If this is the case, the game should comminicate it trough messages, briefings, news reports, etc.. Make sure to not just mention, but also show in some way the world armies ARE fighting.
Something like:
"Commander, I'm sure you already read the reports about the crushing defeat of the 5th army corps? The alien invaders are deploying weapons and troops significantly more advanced than what we have encountered so far. Fortunately, they appear to have a limited number of them, and we can consider ourselves lucky our men haven't run into them yet. However, sooner or later it is bound to happen. I urge you to divert funding into weapon development to combat these threats. Trying to capture samples would be of great benefit, but bear in mind the risks involved."
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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.
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On 1/24/2020 at 11:05 PM, Chris said:
I mean, it's not quite the same as a massive ADVENT tank like in that video, but thankfully we do now have our 1-tile vehicles working in the game and they'll be included in the next build.
Larger vehicles would require us to implement pathfinding for multi-tile units ... but that's not necessarily too much work. I'm sort of tempted to put some "proper" 2x2 vehicles into the game once we have the core gameplay working properly.
You can kinda-sorta cheat by having them being static, like the tanks in JA2.
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On 2/26/2020 at 4:28 AM, maxm222 said:
No perfect approach, I guess.
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.
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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)
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Can you just use the same 3D gun model the soldiers use?
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On 12/11/2019 at 11:41 AM, fall19 said:
I am very concerned about this game, its not even xenonauts 1.5 its just the first one in 3d. None bought the first one for the graphics and the second one looks like a game from 2004 so thats not going to be a selling point. So i have to ask. whats the point of this game ? same soldiers same buildings same aliens, weapons, research, geoscope, air combat, mission types everything is the same.
Here is what they could to differently. how about a game set in the 80 after a nuclear apocalypse. the aliens land their ships in the hotspots(randomly generated) and you have to fight them off.One thing that always bugged me about xcom is how convention military is pretty much absent but in a nuclear apocalypse this makes sense. Instead of underground bases make towns, buildings are actual buildings, you get funding from the civilians in your cities(that you have to rescue). add mutating soldiers,psionics and rad resistant power armour.
Yea i know its too late now but im seriously not going to buy xenonauts 3d , its pointless
"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.
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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.
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On 2/6/2020 at 10:39 PM, Alienkiller said:
There will come a modability, after the Game is stable enough in Early Access or in Final Version. Then you can Mod it if you have the feeling there is more Potential the Dev´s haven´t seen. That will be first (if you have luck) at the Middle or End of that year. Before don´t think about it.
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.
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On 2/8/2020 at 10:07 PM, Chris said:
I've toyed with the idea of splitting the research tree into different schools of research, but every time I've tried to do so I've bumped up against the fact there's just not really that much stuff in the research tree. There's several tiers of new researchable weapons, several tiers of researchable armour, several new aircraft / aircraft weapons, a couple of vehicles, a handful of base buildings, and the plot research. It doesn't go far if you're trying to split it over different research trees.
A lot of it comes down to the setup of the game; you're not exploring and expanding and building an economic base like in a 4X game (which is where both of your screenshots come from, I believe). There's just not that many ways to interact with the Geoscape and the aliens, and it's even more limited by the specific setup of an X-Com game where you start in nominal control of the whole (fully known) world and have to defend it. Even a ostensibly game like Phoenix Point has a much more interesting setup from a tech perspective because you're exploring and expanding a world rather than trying to hold on to something you already have at the start of the game.
I doubt we'll be making fundamental changes to the research setup in vanilla X2 but if there's good ideas then it's something I'd definitely be interested in exploring in DLC for the game. But at this point I think I'd have to see cocnrete examples of an alternative tech tree rather than just vague ideas about how one might work, because my experience so far has taught me there's not enough content for it to 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.
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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.
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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)
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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...
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@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.
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18 hours ago, Max_Caine said:
Trashman, the theory does not stand up in practice. Artillery is unfair, off-map artillery would be especially unfair.
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)
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On 1/2/2020 at 2:40 PM, Max_Caine said:
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
You clearly haven't played PP. The enemy AI can run and hide from my Scarab (the starting vehicle you get that's equipped with a long-range indirect-fire weapon) but it's so easy to crack a building with it. In fact, PP is another example of just how unfair artillery is, and that's artillery that's on the map instead of off it.
Again, game X implementation not being good is not a good argument against a mechanic.
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On 12/6/2019 at 7:28 AM, Bobit said:
And you don't think PP isn't having the same problems with leaning right now? You don't think that '95COM's light cover (as in, anything other than a totally obstructing wall or a hull-down hill) is almost completely useless like the majority of influential OpenX modders?
NuCOM's system is very soulful. Hunkering down, improving dodge chance, and similar skills will let you hug cover better, or you can go for the highground with a more aggressive route. It's very powerful to get flanked, but you can also focus on stacking cover-negation like aiming, explosives. If anything it's *too* soulful, to the point that the mechanics start to feel like an impressionistic gimmick. It's "fake", yes, and ultimately realphysik will win out once people spend more time developing it. But every approach takes a lot of work, except for the hybrid one of Xenonauts 1 which was quite good by comparison.
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.
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Air combat - what's wrong with it?
in Xenonauts-2 General Discussion
Posted
Yes for a ground radar and at extreme ranges. The earth curvature does not apply in aerial fights, as missiles generally have a short effective range (10-30nm)
No if you got an enemy aircraft searching for you. Also depends on the terrain. Flat terrain won't hide you from an air radar.