TrashMan
-
Posts
1,644 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
30
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Downloads
Posts posted by TrashMan
-
-
On 9/6/2019 at 11:15 AM, Chris said:
I certainly think there's some scope to do this. Ideally, I want to try and minimise the amount of time players have to spend pausing / unpausing to try and pick the optimal split-second to do something (like rolling their planes to dodge incoming fire), so making Evasion auto-trigger on a % roll may help a lot here.
I think the best weapon to handle this is to have real-time with FIXED pauses. The game auto-pauses in fixed intervals and you can give/change orders before continuing.
This removes split-second managment, but retains the flow of combat. Check out Birth of the Federation combat on YouTube.
-
Remind me of special honors from the old Chaos Gate gate.
Your marines could get special honors/medals for specific feats.
Sequential acts of extreme accuracy would give the Marksman Honor.
Extreme killing efficiency (a single soldier kills 10 enemies in battle) would grant the Crux Terminatus badge.
I can't recall what you had to do to get the Imperial Laurel.
I'm not sure if they all had any stat-boosting effect or if they were ssut cosmetic, but the Crux Terminatus DID have one effect - only marines that had earned that honor could equip Terminator Armor.
-
Seconded. I love having friendly AI on the map. Makes the war seem larger and more involved.
Also, gives me a nice secondary goal (save my allies)
-
1
-
-
On 9/13/2019 at 1:09 AM, garyg said:
Ending with one survivor is not really winning
Saving the earth is not winning? What is?
It is the final mission, it's supposed to be hard. What exactly do you want? Having the cake and eating it too?
-
On 9/9/2019 at 4:48 AM, garyg said:
I am always disappointed by the ending of Xeno and I hope Xeno 2 does not have any suicide missions. You work hard to build your team only to have them all killed at the end mission. Even trying the alternate method by destroying the pods gives you only a very small chance of any survival. This leaves me with a very unsatified feeling and little desire to finish the end mission. Hopefully other players feel the same way.
Suicide mission?
I recall killing every alien and retreating without any casualties.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8EmBjDl_Pw
-
Storm clouds - may push the plane in a random direction, may cause missiles to loose lock (if lighting storm cloud).
Ground AA - area where UFO will take damage if it flies (or is chased) into
Things like mountain terrain, low terran, over sea having different benefits - flying over the mountains/hills reduces speed, but increases evasion.
Watching any of the DCS videos by the Grim Reapers is very informative on how dogfighting works
-
1
-
-
There's no reason why it couldn't work in xenonauts. Other tactical squad games tried many approaches. I'll bring up the LEGENDARY Jagged Alliance 2 as a great example.
-
I'm not sure I agree with that sentiment Chris.
While there is some luck/change factor, that's generally how armor works. You KNOW what it can usually take. You know modern kevlar will stop handgun rounds (unless you're using a hand cannon). If the armor is hit of course. If you hit in the face, that's a different matter. That is also why I prefer a more proper was of hit detection and shooting. ACTUAL bullet trajectories, actual collision detection, actual cones of fire, actual obstacles. Proper consequences (got hit in the arm? well, the soldier survived, but the armor is thinner there. Arm is unusuable, weapon dropped).
But I digress.. What's the point of armor otherwise if the alien with a laser gun can hit in my 1 kill almost as easily as he could if I was naked? All the time and resources spent to make that armor and all that extra weight I'm lugging around. It has to be worth it. 5% more chance to survive a hit definitely isn't.
-
On 8/30/2019 at 12:25 AM, Chris said:
It's the same discussion as for armour, really - whether armour acts as bonus HP or resistance against certain types of damage (or a combo of both) is up for debate, because there's advantages and negatives to each. There's some situations where a HP value makes much more sense and others where resistances make much more sense.
All Armor (in theory) works the same - by trying to absorb/deflect/disperse incoming energy. Both shields and body armor should have their own status. If the incoming energy is lower than it's treshhold, then the shield/armor generally take little to no damage. If it's above, they get damaged (but would still reduce damage the wearer/user takes), and the protection they offer lessens.
Completely destroying the body armor/shield is bloody unlikely - you merely create holes/weakneses. So while I wouldn't have it break unless under super-specific circumstances (insane amount of damage, like getting hit by a tank), but have it degrade to a minium value (let's say 50%).
I really want to see individual armor part tracking - front chest, back, left/right arm, left/right leg ,head
-
On 8/2/2019 at 9:16 PM, drages said:
John Wick kills mostly with pistol..
He is a fictional character. In movies you also have gun-kata, should we implement that?
Pistol are backup weapons in RL. SMG and shotgun offer more firewepower or greater RoF and more ammo, so there's a reason SWAT and Special Forces use them. About the only thing you are right about it that the pistol should be very accurate at short range and easy to bring about.
-
Anyone play EDF? I'm thinking air raider. A laser marker or marker grenades that let's you call in support. And what support you have available is somewhat random (since it depends on allies in vicinity)
Mortar/artillery strikes and gunship support (if you have a dedicated gunship with air-to-surface weapons deployed).
It can always be balanced in terms of accuracy, collateral damage, number of uses and of course, enemy numbers.
-
-
I made a mod, but haven't bothered to check if it's still out there. Can't even recall how I named it. I'll have to check.
It added more weapons of each type with altered balance. Also new planes and a minigun.
-
Quote
Oh, if the turrets don't kill or suppress all of the enemies that can offer reaction fire into the dropship on the first turn, they don't satisfy the primary purpose for which they were proposed. Making them only as good as a machinegunner is at that job is like suggesting that someone use a machinegunner to suppress aliens to prevent reaction fire from wrecking everyone.
A machingun cannot suppress everything. You can only keep it pointed at one point at a time and if the landing zone is sorounded, you are in a pickle.. A Machingunner can keep the dropship safe-ER, but that doesn't mean completely safe.
-
5 hours ago, Decius said:
Yeah, the intended gameplay change of having turrets on the dropship would be to prevent having the entire craft one-shot by good enemy positioning.
But enemy positioning can be controlled directly, and if the turrets are effective at their primary role then they will create the degenerate behavior of baiting enemies into their killzone for free kills; if the turrets aren't effective they will not accomplish their primary goal.
Primary goal? You mean supression?
Because machineguns are rather sub-bar in terms of performance. Having one or two that can fire once a turn in a limited range doesn't sound like it would influence balance or difficulty much. Especially on bigger maps.
And there are many ways to balance it - limited ammo, limited rang, enemies that keep their distance (no baiting), more enemies, etc...
-
14 hours ago, Coffee Potato said:
I don't suppose there could be an effect of the landing that the parcel in question auto-suppressed all nearby units? It would be neat to have more entry options, like a gunship that suppressed the area, a ship that had cover, or even just parachuting in at the cost of having no evac tiles.
+1
-
1
-
-
The way I see it, dissasembly can be done in 2 ways:
ON THE LOCATION - you send scientist/engineers to the UFO, kinda like a strategic operation, but you can assign the number of people. Simpler to implement, but raises issues - you are sending people out of the base and the aliens can attack and destroy the UFO, since they know where it crashed.
STORAGE - the UFO is recovered and stored in a safe location (UFO Yard, guess it could be a facility like a radar station/sam site). THEN you dissasemble from there. I guess scientist/engineer could be transfered to the yard to work there like it was another base? OR the Yard could work like a permanent Strategic Operation Location?
-
23 hours ago, Chris said:
I guess my concern about that sorta thing (and I have been experimenting with similar ideas over the past few months) is just the large amount of extra UI management it requires.
Presumably stuff like butchering corpses for materials for armour is done through a Workshop project? Is there a separate workshop project for each corpse type that produces a specific material, or is there a more elegant solution? The problem I discovered is that a complex system ends up with having dozens and dozens of workshop projects that are required to handle each possible action where the player transforms one item into another one ... and they kinda drown out the important stuff.
That's cool for players who like to have that level of detail and customisation, but not everyone wants quite that level of complexity.
UFO AI just hada simple "dissasemble" project (you would select which UFO from the UFO yard you want to dissasemble). Naturally, the time necessary would depend on the number of engineers and UFO size, and the materials you get would depend on the UFO
-
1
-
-
Alien UFO walls should not be destroyable by small weapons fire at all.
Having said that, when it comes to cover, if you're having a 3D engine and a turn-based game, but are not using actual 3d projectiles and collision detection to work with cover (and hits in general), you are doing something wrong. The only downside is calculating chance to hit, but I never considered that important since I can guesstimate (and real soliders don't know their hit chance either)
-
22 hours ago, Alienkiller said:
Use your Brain to answer your Question yourself. Then you will know why more big Bases makes no sense. And my Points are Mentiond above are the other reasons. But I will explain it to you. I have done my Military Duty, so I can answer that.
First I wanna come back to my prev. Points.
- Aliens will firstly Attack Main Military Bases to destroy Resistanceabilitys. That´s Point 2 in my prev. List. That´s not only Holywood-Fantasy, because Military Ressistance is the Main Distress.
- Secondly you need big Personal, which means that you have very high costs. That´s Point 1 in my prev. List. An Aircraftcarrier costs about 1 Million / Day to keep fully operational and is filled with only military Ranks. In the Game the Main Base (Atlas Base) is your Aircraftcarrier. There you have your Personal (Scientists, Technicans, Soldiers) and your Standard Upkeep Costs (Generators, Laboratorys, Hangar for the Transport Craft etc.) With that example you see that´s not doable incl. other Military Dutys up to the essentials.
- Thirdly the Aliens will investigate the compact Livesigns in that Areal. And if they see an military Base they will destroy it like the Standard-Military Bases in the first wave.
You see about this Points more big Bases makes no sense. But there are more.
Additional following Points:
- Big Bases needs a new big area. That won´t be unnoticed by Civilians, Police and others. That People will talk and speculate. That´s an another Reason not to build other big Bases and combines with Point 3 of my prev. Points.
- The Main Reason to the End: Xenonauts is a secret Operating Organisation. Only the highest military / political Leaders from the Financing Staates (esp. UdSSR and USA) know the existance. And they get checked and if needes seperated from the others before. That get explained (only the highest and relaiablest Politicans / Militarys) in every Game from that Gerne I have played so far. So I can´t understand why you have to build other big Bases under Water (X-Com TftD) or on Land (X-Com Enemy Unknown, UFO-Afterseries and other X-Com Clones incl. Xenonauts 1). In that Case you can say to the Aliens. Look here we are, come and destroy us.
You are wrong on all accounts. Putting all your eggs in one baskets is what makes no sense. Dispersion/redundancy is what militaries these days are aiming for. And guerilla style warfare with decentralized/spread out resources is the main way to fight a superior foe.
- Aliens have to find your bases first, and if a base is hidden it won't be easy. And given the sheer number of military baes around the world, the aliens have a LOT of work to do.
- if aliens are capable of detecting lifesigns the neither a) the secret base wont' be hidden for long, so a single one makes even LESS sense, or b) the bases will be hidden within populated areas to mask their presence
- a global defense effort against an alien invasion will require a lot of personnel anyway. Given the sizes of real world armies and miltiary budgets, especially in such a scenario, it is not only doable, but necessary
As for the other points:
- people will not gossip to aliens. And things like the A-bomb project prove that you can have big bases that remain secret.
- how can aliens tell apart a xenonauts base from a standard military base?
I suggest you quit LARPing as some military expert, since you are clearly getting everything wrong.
-
15 hours ago, Keflin said:
Conceptually I like what X-Division did. Your engineers spend most of their time reclaiming ufo wreckage and corpses and turn them into raw materials to build with. The engineers are never idle.
You bring up a good point.
Ideally, you wouldn't get the materials upon securing the crash site - you'd get the UFO that needs to be stored and then dissasembled by your engineers.
I like how UFO AI is handling it. You have a UFO storage as an installation type (can be bombed by aliens if they find it) that can store a specific number/volume. Then you assign your engineers to dissasemble them for usable parts.
-
On 6/28/2019 at 3:20 PM, Bobit said:
In your following point you emphasize detection and range. Those are geoscape-level air combat attributes. Making the actual fight between aircraft more or less automatic as it is in UFO defense does not remove those, in fact it emphasizes them. From my point of view, the geoscape part of air combat is the actually interesting part, the actual combat itself becomes quickly solvable.
They are both geoscape and tactical/strategic attributes. Or are you arguing that weapon range and detection range are irrelevant on the tactical map? Pistol vs. sniper anyone? While your ground radar can detect an UFO, the fighters own radar and missile range are what counts in combat.
-
On 6/28/2019 at 2:58 PM, Decius said:
A few hours of reading is barely enough to learn all of the subject areas you need a PhD in to fully make a decent air combat system.
If you're talking about programing knowledge to make a game, yes.
If you're talking about phsyics, no. You don't need PHD's to understand the basics or air combat.
-
On 6/28/2019 at 2:42 PM, Chris said:
Heh - yeah, literally all that is required to make a decent and interesting air combat system is a few hours of reading. Why did I never think of doing that?
That came off a bit differently than I intended. I meant mechanically (as in, planning, paper gameplay model), it doesn't take a lot to figure out the basic dogfighting rules, as in itself it is not as complicated as most people think. I mean, in a way it IS complicated, but you get down to it is really isn't.
For a simple (not 100% accurate) simulation - several variables for fighter performance and knowledge of basic dogfighting manouvers. Finding the best way to implement them and programing it in takes naturally significantly more time.
Community Discussion - V7 Balance Thread
in Xenonauts-2 General Discussion
Posted
a) have the game acknowledge you couldn't get there in time (it's simple to calculate) and not give a penalty
b) actually allow more soldiers/dropships/bases, as it should be