TrashMan
-
Posts
1,644 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
30
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Downloads
Posts posted by TrashMan
-
-
On 6/23/2019 at 6:22 AM, Bobit said:
Evading was basically used to get right behind a UFO then spam attack it. You would basically develop an optimal algorithm for every UFO vs craft combination, then spend two minutes repeating that algorithm for every fight. It didn't actually add depth once you knew what you were doing. Charon managed to make the airgame a tiny bit more varied in X-Division, but even he said air combat would be better if it was just autoresolved.
If an "optimal solution" made playing games pointless then no one would paly anything. There's always an optimal choice.
Complaining that there is na optimal solution seems very weird to me. Of course there will be. There are ways to spice it up visually and tactically (I talked about it before), but at the end of the day, there will always be an optimal approach. Same holds true for ground combat.
Should we drop ground combat completely because of that?
-
It makes no sense to sell for one simple reason - the countries of the world are already financing you, they are your boss. Any piece of alien tech you recover is already theirs. Why would they buy it from you?
Sending excess items to a country for bonuses makes sense. Selling does not.
-
Why not simple send some equipment to a country for a boost at the end of the month (which would not only be a money boost, but also boost the AI soldiers from that country/block?)
Makes more sense than selling.
-
23 hours ago, Charon said:
Why cant i send triple dropships to a single crashsite in X1 ? Or rather 10 ? 10 dropships with 8 soldiers each makes 80 soldiers vs 6 aliens. In my book that would guarantee the likelyhood of success. Seems like a good move to me.
Im just trying to point out that applying logic to video games does not work out very well.A main unattackable base would go well together with the proposed global personal/storage/whatever and the teleporter setting.
You can apply logic to a game that has logical mechanics. For example, why NOT allow multiple dropships/squads? Would make a game too easy? Only if you're unimaginative and don't program the alien response of them responding in kind. As long as you make sure that are prices to pay for everything, and consequnces, you can go really wild.
In this paragraph i would like to point out that teleportation and dropships are fundamentally the same mechanic. Whether a dropship takes 2 hours to get to a crashsite, or a teleporter needs 2 hours to zero in on the crashsite coordinance is gameplaywise the same thing. You can even add UFOs which jamm the teleporter in an radius around it to prevent taking on a crashsite before the UFO is taken out. This would be the fighter shooting down dropship equivalent. Everything has a solution.
I dont mind dropships nor teleporting. You can make the same mechanics for both of them. Faster dropships ? Just manufacture an upgrade module to faster zero in on the crashsites coordinance ( for a single connection ). Increase troop size ? Just manufacture a higher energy module. It basically really is the same thing. You just have to be creative.Only at one point in development you have to decide whether you go with a teleporter setting, or a dropship setting. MECHANICALLY you can realise the same mechanics for both of them.
You are fundamentally wrong. Just because they serve the same end goal (moving things), does not make them the same.
Dropships move over the worldmap, they can be intercepted AND defended. They are an ACTIVE component. At any time you can change their course, escort them. It's is not a zero-sum game with no player input, so no, it's is no the same. I could pull the dropship out in the last second, if lucky, manage to defend against a fighter, I can have multiple dropships and target several sites simoultaneously.
Also, the implication for the lore and beleviablility of the setting are vastly different.
QuoteMy 3k+ hours of Xenonauts and X-Division + the one thousand hours of various other youtubers agree on the following points below.
It is not viable to have more than one production base. Since items are automatically transfered to the base the dropship starts from, and you usually have your main team in your main base + shot down interceptor items are automatically recovered to the first base you put down the game doesnt incentivise you to have have more than one production base - having a global item storage which items get transfered to and from would solve that and motivate the player to experiment with more setups.
Getting your second/third/fourth strike team up and running is mostly a chore. And just a a candy bonus ontop - having a global pool of soldiers to choose from would mean you could build a deeper, more complex rooster of soldiers instead of saying all the time "Oh, I really would like to send soldier X on this mission. Too bad he is in another base."
Base attacks were arguably the least fun part of the game. Read about it here:
https://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/index.php?/topic/13414-165xce-v0350-x-division-100-beta/&do=findComment&comment=173187
having a global defensive system would make the whole thing a more fun, approachable situation, where you take on the surviving aliens after the batteries (?) reduced the numbers. Having the option to pull out would mean these kind of missions could become a well integrated part of the game, instead of either people never actually seeing a base attack because the whole threat is too weak, or base attacks killing every campaign.Your appeal to authority/number falls on deaf ears here. Especially YouTubers that usually have the attention spawn and skill of a goldfish.
The idea that having a single supremely optimal solution contradicts the notion of experimentation with different setups.
Not building proper teams for you major bases is a failure on the player side and is indicitave of poor human resource managment, not a failure of the game. After all, resource managment IS what a proper commander would have to deal with. Simply removing the need for making such choices rewards lazy players with no attention spans, since they will always have everything they need (personel and materials) available at all times - this is in complete contrast with the basic concept of logistics AND in complete contrast to the whole "global strategic defense simulator"
Base attacks were the least fun? Sez who? You jus have to do base attacks good with variosu degrees of severity, and not having it be an instant game over. I belive I posted a decent proposal of how to handle it, but so oyu dont' have to look for it, here:
Every base should be attackable by the enemy. And not just by troops, but also air bombardment. This wouldn't destroy the base outright (since most facilites are underground), but would damage it, take it off-line for a while. Either the entire base could be unusable for a while (burried entrance?) or there could be a random dice roll to see which buildings were damaged, depending on how strong the attack was (how many alien craft and of which type were involved). Some buildings like hangars and airstrips would have a higher weight to get damaged, since they are more exposed. To me this seems like a good balance as it's not TOO punishing, especially early on. You could also make it so that a base can be fully destroyed if bombed twice (again, giving the player time and opportunity to stop it with air intercepts)
EDIT: WTF is it with this forum and constantly messing up quotes? I can't even edit them after. Why can't I see the post in code, with tags?
-
Quote
YES - to a single main unattackable base. This would house ALL personell, including soldiers, scientist, engineers and other possible specialists. This base will be mainly responsible for power management and other, global upgrades.
YES - to multiple (possibly infinite ) secondary bases which house radars, hangars, laboratories, workshops, possible generators, and all other, "real" tangible buildings. These are attackable bases and aliens can and will be able to attack them. Making them small, operatable bases with interesting building layouts, eg. being able to place corrdidors, and defensive structures in addition to the main buildings will make for more interesting decisions. Secondary bases are essential if you want to get any research, manufacture or other project done. It houses hangars for the aircraft which are essential to shoot down UFOs, and the planes have real range limitations ( at first - similar to X1 ). Since they are small players should be expected to place at least 2 - 3 right at the start, maybe make one science and one engineering base preloaded for the player to place at the start of the game.
So you want small attackable bases and a single main base that is unattackable? How does that make sense? Why would the alien refuse to attack the most important place?
Seems to me you just want an easy mode that does look like one.
Every base should be attackable by the enemy. And not just by troops, but also air bombardment. This wouldn't destroy the base outright (since most facilites are underground), but would damage it, take it off-line for a while. Either the entire base could be unusable for a while (burried entrance?) or there could be a random dice roll to see which buildings were damaged, depending on how strong the attack was (how many alien craft and of which type were involved). Some buildings like hangars and airstrips would have a higher weight to get damaged, since they are more exposed.
To me this seems like a good balance as it's not TOO punishing, especially early on. You could also make it so that a base can be fully destroyed if bombed twice (again, giving the player time and opportunity to stop it with air intercepts)
-
1
-
-
16 hours ago, Max_Caine said:
It took me a while to find when the skyranger started teleporting, (because it didn't always). It started teleporting in Build v3. To quote from the build:
If you're not keen on teleportation you aren't going to like X2 seeing as how teleportation appears to be a core tenet of the narrative and some of the mechanics. Teleportation has been tossed around as a concept on the boards for quite a while. If I remember correctly from the previous discussions, teleportation waves away a number of narrative issues such as the capability to reach crash sites at abnormally long distances, etc. If the objection to the Skyranger teleporting is a satisfying narrative reason, rather than a gameplay reason then I'm sure narratives could be spun out of thin air. I mean, off the top of my head, teleportation on the Kardashev scale could belong to a civilisation that rates much, much higher than humans so any examples of teleportation are dimly understood at best, and treated as "it just works". The Elder race trope has a long and distinguished history, no reason why X2 could drink from its well. I mean, Stargate did.
Teleportation was a solution to the terrible 1-base decision, since you had to reach every apart of the globe from 1 location. If multi-bases are in, then teleportation is not needed.
I despise teleportation, not only because of narrative and world-building reasons and the the massive can of worms it opens, but because of the mechanical implications. (Also, Stargate turned to trash, the only thing saving it was good cast chemistry and banter. And the elder race tropes are in my opinion generally terrible - anything that treats science as magic is)
X-Com games have NOT been just about squad-level tactics. If that is what one is after, there are many games that do it a LOT better (Jagged Alliance 2 for example). Planning and logistics on a grander scale are - to me - the defining aspect of X-Com. Hence, when such is trivilized with magitech teleportation that makes logistic utterly irrelevant (base location does not matter, travel time does not matter, local resource managment does not matter) it leaves a poor taste in my mouth. Also, having a single base, a single point of faliure is a really bad idea for any military group.
-
3
-
-
On 6/17/2019 at 8:08 PM, jonyjonas said:
I don't mind having to kit out multiple squads - in fact, one of the things I loved about Xenonauts 1 is that you always felt like your soldiers were expendable and easily killed, so you never relied on any one soldier too much (at least I didn't, was always leveling up rookies alongside more experienced squaddies). In XCOM, when you lose a few high-level team members everything just breaks down and you feel like you have to start all over again just because of that.
Now that you mention it, this should be a mechanic. Lower-level soldiers get an EXP bonus when deployed with higher-level ones. Like mentorship. Makes sense and would make recovering from losses easier.
-
On 6/17/2019 at 7:19 PM, luckytron said:
To be honest, most of the secondary bases will probably continue to be Aircraft Hangars and Radar Outposts, while Atlas Base will become the Research/Manufacture/A-Team Hub, since unless having certain structures in the other bases will be better than having them in the main base, they simply wont be built.
Maybe to encourage more variety, there could be buildings that have an effect on the region where the base is built, like shortening the duration of Resource missions, or increase local force presence/give bonuses to local forces, or even spawning an "ambush mission" where with help from the Xenonauts, local authorities lure Aliens into a prepared site, where (almost) any mission type can occur, except with all civilians replaced with local forces.
Or being able to construct a purely defensive structure, with more defensive deployment options (more places for turrets or other such things), which would do nothing outside of base attacks.
In any case, I thought the Side-Ways view of the main base was a nice take, as well as having the Hangar/Radar Bases, and it justified only having one dropship at any time, but being able to construct more full bases makes the One dropship rule kind of arbitrary.
I don't see a need to centralize research, since scientist working in different bases can easily coordinate over the internet. Ergo, dumping all research into one base yields no real benefit.
I guess what you could do is have it so that labs and engineering rooms are affected by a region or give a bonus to a region.
A lab in Asia might increase the speed at which new tech is researched in a region, and engeneering could increase it's spread (so ally solder might get laser rifles sooner and have more of them). Or placing a lab there gives YOU a bonus of somekind. Or both.
Additionally, you could make it so that 1 engeneering bay can only make 1 thing, thus stacking multiple in one base does not increase the speed at which you build that thing, but you can build several of the thing. If it takes 5 days to build a laser rifle, it takes 5 days. Throwing more money and men wont' speed it up.
OR you could make aliens target the biggest base we have, even bomb it from orbit at some point, making sure that putting your eggs in one basket is a REALLY bad idea. Ideally, even a good player should loose a base or two, but the game should provide a good player with enough resources to be able to bounce back. The fight should feel desperate.
-
On 6/17/2019 at 12:33 PM, Chris said:
As I said, supporting multiple dropships like in X1 is something we may end up adding before development is done but it's a bigger task with more knock-on effects than most people realise so I don't want to tackle it right now. For example, it involves:
- Quite a substantial code rewrite, as the code currently assumes that there's only ever one dropship
- Some UI changes, because you'd need to specify which dropship to use each time you launch a ground mission
- Potentially some changes to the Armory screen so you can manage soldier assignments to the dropship (although as soldiers aren't permanently assigned to dropships like they were in X1, this might not be too bad)
More problematic would be not having a global pool of personnel, which would also be required if you want to have the full X1 system of only being able to assign soldiers to dropships stationed that the same base:
- This makes the more in-depth building assignment system a bit of a pain, because you have to make sure the scientists / engineers you want to assign to a particular base are already in the correct base
- You need an additional UI screen (or element) for shuffling staff between bases
- Strategic Operations become much more awkward, because travel time is calculated from the closest base but obviously in that case you'd only be able to assign soldiers from that base to that strategic operation - which means you'd need to have more soldiers at each base, rather than having a group of operatives specialised for a particular task able to operate globally - which potentially runs the risk of making strategic operations an annoying exercise in micromanagement rather than something interesting
- You've also got problems when a Strategic Operation recruits staff - what base do they go back to? What if the base where the team were dispatched from doesn't have any living capacity? etc
Sure, we could work around these problems if we wanted to, but it would definitely be a lot of work. It's therefore not something I want to do as part of the main batch of changes as we don't yet know exactly how big a role the base staff assignment system or the strategic operations will play in the game. If we wait a few more months, some of the problems might solve themselves.
Reading everything you wrote so far and honestly... I'm dissapointed.
I'm going to be perfectly honest here, so excuse some harsh criticism, but you DEFINITELY started building Xenonauts 2 by copying the Nu-Com, which is/was a terrible idea and a giant red flag for me, since that is a big departure from the original Xenonauts and original X-Com. And now because of that you're running into problems with the code and big chunks having to be re-written.
I realize companies want to earn money and you want the game to be "accessable" (corporate speak for so simplified everyone can play.. or in other words, dumbing down for the lowest common denominator, which Nu-Com was), so I guess people like me are a dying breed.
The second issue I have is you seem to think micromanagment is a bad things, when that is the core of the game. You're running a global operation. Bases, personnel, research. It's supposed to be a lot of micromanagment. You'll find plenty of old-school players that like that. But a lot of new "gamers" have no patience for it.
So you really need to decide who your target audience is.
-
3 hours ago, Max_Caine said:
To make using more than one dropship viable, there would have to be a deliberate effort to sabotage the teleporter, either through the introduction of mechanics that make the teleporter less and less valuable, or by scrapping the mechanic all together. Is that really what people want?
Since I HATE teleportation, that would be a big YES from me.
-
Quote
We're also making a couple of simplifications to the mechanics in other areas.
- Personnel and Base Stores are global across all bases (assume the bases are linked by alien-derived translocator gates)
- The Xenonauts only have one troop dropship at a time
Can't say I'm too fond of this. ESPECIALLY the second one.
First is better without any silly magitech explanation (just gamepaly mechanics for player convenience), but I liked the logistics aspect of it in X1. Making sure the material you need is where you need it most IS a crucial aspect of high-level warfare. Logistics is king that reigns above tactics and strategy.
Being limited to just one dropship when you have multiple bases...just no.
And lastly, personally I'd have two types of bases - general bases and air bases. General bases would not contain any aircraft (or at least not any that isn't VTOL)
Air bases could contain barracks, radar, defenses and similar, have long runways and hangars, but would not contain research, containment or similar.
The reasoning behind it quite simple - it makes little sense to put your hidden HQ in a place that is highly visible and easily detected - and anything that has a lot of aircraft and runways is going to be just that. However, how something like that would end up feeling during actual gameplay is questionable. I have no idea if it's a good idea or a bad one.
EDIT: WHY the frak can't I edit the quotes??
-
21 hours ago, Decius said:
It's the same design issue as not having close air support; at some point you just trivialize the game parts of the game.
CAS could be added (a helicopter/VTOL vehicle that you can periodically call in - but that again comes at a cost - another hangar space, another aircraft to maintain, and it wouldn't be of use on many maps), but at the same time, what about alien CAS? Just because you were able to land troops, doesn't mean you have air dominance.
Basically, there are 3 scenarios:
1 - you have a support craft, the aliens don't: Every X turns you can call in support
2 - you don't have support craft, the aliens do: Every X turns, the aliens can call in support
3 - both side have support craft - the support craft duke it out, air support is either unavailable or sporadic
Then comes the question of power. If CAS has the big guns, then regular cover is NOT going to keep your troops safe, and suddenly the entire dynamic breaks. Loosing your troops to attacks you cannot counter is no fun. Thus there would have to be a way to keep your troops safe (perhaps a way outside of your own CAS). Soldiers with AA missiles that project a BUBBLE inside which the enemy CAS cannot operate?
It becomes a complicated issue or how do I make it fun, engaging AND make sense?
-
13 hours ago, Kindred192 said:
I always found it odd in these games that your organization can own multiple dropships, but can't seem to figure out how to send them all on the same mission together.
Makes sense from a game balance perspective. Not so much from a real world logic perspective
I'd say it is balanced by the need for two hangars, two dropship and twice as many troops (and $$$ to pay for it all).
I find it is bad design when the player has the resources, but the game does not let you use them.
-
On 5/31/2019 at 2:13 PM, Kaiphus_Kain said:
I disagree with you here, unless you know programming well, specifically the medium Chris and the team are using and how or what would need to be done then you can't suggest it is simple enough, it could be fairly minor or it could mean creating a massive amount of work in all layers of the game to add a system that effects both ground combat and the geoscape etc. What sounds simple enough may in effect be stupidly complicated or time consuming, only Chris and the team can know that one.
I do know programming, which is why I'm saying it. If altering this require massive work on multiple layers, then that would speak very poorly on the initial implementation of the system. There shouldn't BE multiple layers to a simple string display.
-
45 minutes ago, Kaiphus_Kain said:
Whilst I understand where you are coming from here I believe there would have to be a fairly major re write of large portions of the game to make any changes to the rank anything more than cosmetic, at this point I doubt highly that there is the time or money to do a major overhaul and creation of a completely new way of dealing with the way soldiers work, I could be wrong but based on past posts I cannot see it happening.
Edit: To put it another way, currently the Rank system and its names are like painting a wall of your house, completely cosmetic, what you are talking about is rebuilding all the walls while the roof is still on, major engineering.
Given that rank is not tied mechanically to anything, re-writing it should be simple. As well as adding promotions.
The mechanics behind it are simple enough. A promotion bottun that appears on eligible xenonauts (level being the measure) that changes their rank. SHOULD be a quick and simple job. But every hour of work time is precious, so the eternal question of allocation of time and resources and worth rears it's ugly head.
-
21 hours ago, Kaiphus_Kain said:
There is also no good reason to mess with them since they are essentially meaningless, it's an aesthetics point only. You could just change it to something like Operative and Specialist etc, it still wouldn't make any real difference.
Edit2: To Clarify, changing the ranks serves no purpose unless you change a hell of a lot more to make it do something other than be a basic visual aid to a units experience/progression.
If something doesn't have a mechanical purpose, then the only purpose it can have is aesthetics/clarity and worldbuilding/sense.
-
13 hours ago, Max_Caine said:
If you implying that's autistic, then you need an actual definition. Here you go.
I'm aware of the definition. But I'm also aware of a colloquial/free/common use.
Also, I don't think Ruggerman mentioned aesthetics. He simply said the rank feel odd and make no sense, and I agree. That's good enough of a reason for the simple reason there there IS no reason for them to be like they are in the first place. It certainly isn't for clarity, because while most people have heard of miltiary ranks, most also don't really understand those ranks.
-
Sorry, I don't have photographic memory of every conversation I had on every forum (have you any idea how many game/modding forums I'm on and how many discussions on mechanics I had?). Right now, I don't recall that discussion at all.
That you went trough all the trouble to search and dig up all those threads is very....autistic?
Either way, if a simple level number is too bland, how about special badges? Does not have to be real-work rank badge, but something made-up.
Would be nice if one can track stats for soldiers - total aliens killed, kills by types, times wounded, average accuracy, etc..
-
On 5/25/2019 at 10:32 PM, Max_Caine said:
We went through all of this with X1. With X1, we asked "why are real world ranks being used?". The answer was that using ranks was a very quick way for someone to see how potent a solider was. We asked about offficer/solider structure. We were told no. I see quite a few people who followed X1's development. I'm surprised those people don't remember how often the topic came up, and how often it was shot down. Anyone remember the thread where a load of us suggested different rank titles because none of us liked the aesthetic of using real-world rank titles? None of it mattered. If you think you can get a rank structure into X2, good luck to you but you'll need a REALLY COMPELLING reason.
Rank is not a proper representation of potency, so if THAT was the reason back in X1, it was a really stupid one. No offense to the devs, but what's wrong with simple levels? A number is even MORE informative than rank, because your average player won't know the military rank structure.
Level is a soliders level (actual power), Rank is their Rank (and in small squads there would be only a few anyway).
-
Most things are "not a big deal", but the devil is in the details.
Heck, those little tiny things you can pul off are the best things about games.
Anyone remember the live c4/grenade hot potato trick you could do in some old games?
-
All the walls of texts, and nothing really changed in the end.
Geoscape is still real-time by any sane, workable definition.
Either way, planes work very differently for humans, so even if you made air combat turn-based, it would STILL require a separate set of mechanics anyway. Same holds true for geoscape. The time, scale and requirements of all 3 are completely different.
-
1
-
-
21 hours ago, Chris said:
Strength gain hasn't been implemented because I don't know exactly how it should work quite yet. The fundamental problem is actually exactly what you outlined in your post Wyldfyre - strength is very important for which soldiers get heavy weapons and heavy armour, but after a four or five missions in X1 any soldier will gain +10 strength and even a weak soldier ends up being fairly strong and can carry whatever they want (because obviously I can't make weapons and armour too heavy, otherwise rookie soldiers won't be able to use most of their equipment).
Whereas a soldier that starts with high strength and can carry heavy things right from the start doesn't gain much advantage from further strength gain ... which makes strong soldiers kinda pointless. After a few missions, everyone becomes an Olympic weightlifter and it's irrelevant. More variance in the starting stats might mitigate this to some extent, but I'm not really sure. Or maybe a system where armour can become somewhat more protective at the cost of more weight. Something that makes Strength more interesting than in X1.
Something like extra protective plates that a soldier can carry?
You can go that route...or you can have encumbrance affect AP's. That way a stronger soldier does get a benefit.
Something like AP = Max AP - MaxAP*(carried weight/optimal weight*10)
If a soldier has a standard max carry/optimal weight of 100 (before becoming encumbered), but is carrying 150, then his AP are reduced by150/100 = 1,25*10 = 12,5%
Conversely if he carried 50, then his AP penalty would be 50/100 = 0,5*10 = 5%
Or both??
-
So it doesn't really have turns then? You do realize that by that definition, everything is turn based, since the computer calculates things in intervals. Might be 10miliseconds or however small, but it does. Time itself can be cut down into minimal intervals (Plank time, the smallest measurable time unit in which something can happen), so you can say Reality is turn-based by that logic.
Turn-based games have distinct phases that are recognized by the system and part of gameplay. And while there are some hybrid systems, what is and is not turn-based is not rocket science. The Geoscape is NOT turn-based by any definition.
-
Have ranking be separate. Have the player be the one to pick and promote.
You don't need a rank to indicate the power of indivudual solider. You can just show level. OR maybe a different badge for each level (NOT a rank badge, a completely separate badge)
I loved it so much :( (Air combat)
in Xenonauts-2 General Discussion
Posted
Heck, lets get a bit more detailed. Air combat (and dogfighting) all rests on a set of simple rules that could be simulated, but that also requires roughly modeling plane performance.
It all comes down to speed, detection, manouverability (a broad category) and range.
What manouvers you want to employ and at which range you want to engage would depend on your an enemy craft and capabilities.
Capabilities of an aircraft would be things like nose authority (how easily/quickly you can bring your nose up), turning speed (air speed and air density at which your aircraft turns the best), climbing speed, endurance, thrust/weight ratio and weaponry.
If your aircraft has long-range missiles and good detection, you want to fly high (in thin air, good for missiles) and lob missiles while maintaining distance. IF not, you'd want to close the range while evading missiles (by going low, pulling the missiles into dense air where they will loose energy fast), and so on.
It sounds complicated, but it really isn't, as there aren't that many factors that go into it. Anyone who puts a few hours of research into how air combat works could make a decent and interesting system.