thixotrop
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Posts posted by thixotrop
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Just want to spread some info about this game in development at kickstarter.
"InSomnia RPG is a dystopia carried out in a murky, retrofuturistic style. The game takes place on a colossal, semi-deserted interplanetary space station. Having left their dying planet behind, this space metropolis, along with its inhabitants, has been moving towards the distant, ghost-like Evacuation Point for the past 400 years, where the descendants of the once great people hope to start over the history of mankind."
A bit like Fallout, with exploration, some quests, crafting and survival (?) in a heavily weared down SciFi environment or more like the junkyard of it.
The graphics look fantastic in my eyes.
Here you can find a playable demo
Yes I am hyped. Yes I pledged on kickstarter. And no, I am not affiliated to them.
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"Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder" is an old Greek saying by Plato or some other guy.
When I read this:
I shudder inside with pictures of rainbow-color-paletteously, chewing-gum-fantastic, Warcraft-like comic-book graphics that are too typically nowadays to portrait "futuristic" environment. (I know that Warcraft and "future" are biting each other here).... don't expect Xenonauts 2 to look as good as X-COM 2 or even X-COM 1...Satellite Reign has that approach too, although the mood is a bit differently.
I could have written this on the Firaxis forum for X-COM2: "..don't expect X-COM 2 to look as good as Xenonauts", but I didn't. There are people who likes this and then there are those who like something else.
The picture that Chris posted is a good example:
I think it is a stupid style, simplistic water-color Kindergarten in every graphical way. Boring to look at despite the intension of the artist. Others like it, I don't.
I guess Plato was right.
On Xenonauts:
In respect to the game setting the graphical presentation of Xenonauts (1) was really great, in my eyes. I loved the hand drawn art and the look of the 2D animations. Everything was a neutral mood and in lack of a word...non-chearfully, fitting to the 70's setting and the alien terror. Yes the overall gameplay did not convey this as much, but the art could compensate a lot for me.
And there was even a (visual) mod that dragged everything down even more. More dark, more depressing, more sinister mood themed. I guess it was from Skitso.
Ah and yes: Hire Skitso for mapping!
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Yes, I am really interested in this. Will go pre-release or even earlier with you, no problem.
You know why? I trust you. Not like the "other company" where I will wait for at least a year after release to buy anything from them.
Why? With Xenonauts you excelled in being a close listener to the community and things changed in reasonable time and with reasonable explanations. Even if you did not do anything that I wanted to be changed, there was always a good reason for it that you expressed well.
I trust you to be the same here. Three cheers.
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@kabil
Maybe all the little explanations are there. As I just watched Lets-Plays only it might be lost to me. The 20 years was afaik announced after the tutorial mission when you (the commander) are updated to your new/old position. However it just feels stupid to not even have ADVENT technology or anything better than ballistics.
@MasterZelgadis
Overall agree with your thoughts on time limits. Crawling-through is not what I want, some time limits ar ok; like bombs to defuse, rescue missions or if certain things need to be brought quickly to safety (live organs, computer codes that becomes invalid, living biotech etc.). Starting the timer with the initial combat would totally explain it and will go well with the guerilla theme. However a timer does not mean to end the mission directly. Maybe backup comes in more and more with time. You can take it only for so long then you have to leave. No dead end failure because a number reaches zero.
I understand what drages means...though I don't care so much (am already burnt here with X-Com1)
And why not compare XCOM with the original?
The original was named X-COM.
They have choosen the name to have a connection. If they want to cash in some credibilities and breath some ghost of the legend here then they damn well have to observe some obligations.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts about your competitor (?).
I do not have XCOM2 and do not plan to buy it unless it will be at least one year old. Not because of special sale, but due to the typically not-avoidable-bugs of 2K/Firaxis Games. I was furiously enraged from XCOM1 (and Civ5 before) and their inability and/or unwillingness of react/answer to customer complains about not-running software that were bought for full price.
However, I have watched a couple of Lets-Plays and read some reviews from on Steam and elsewhere and found most of my doubts about the game confirmed in some way. I don't want to go into details here, it is my opinion and it is biased in some way...
Although I don't think bugs will ever be rooted out prior release anymore nowadays, I think it is a sad trend...
Before the internet, a game came out in a box. You had to install it and it worked. Don't want to say that all was good back then, now you much more choice on games and better availability, but unplayable games were rare.
Now nearly every game has those issues. "ARK:Survival Evolved" was a nice exception, unfinished but playable.
As an engineer I know about quality control, but in software this seems to be of lesser importance, because of the "you can always fix later" attitude; definitely against my nature.
Now what I think is really annoying about XCOM2, and what I hope will not enter Xenonauts2 in any way:
- "Trivialize the tactical game" as Chris said above with artificial round limits.
Yes it can add some stress level, which I see valid with bomb timers, but not when choosing your own way to plan other missions. It is not logical when having the rebel character and guerilla tactics in mind. You have few ressources, have to hide, capture essential technology and avoiding direct contact. Why time limits? So you have to play the game in only one way, not your own. Stealth does not help here as I have seen a lot. Consequence: Low replayability!
The tactical game was the core of the ground combat in the original game and Xenonauts1. Here it is watered down dramatically.
Please don't weaken the tactical game to some easy solutions like that.
- Logical errors
XCOM2 is 20 years after the first, ok. The current XCOM organisation says that they hide and keep on working hiddenly since then, ok. But your soldiers beginn with the same ballistic weapons as before!!
Where are the inventions like plasma guns from the past? Confiscated? Could be but not mentioned. Lost? Possible but not mentioned. Impossible to rebuild? Definitly not! Even if it is not possible to achieve all components, the least start would be to have similar weapons like Advent. There are more stupids like that...
Please maintain a reasonable chain of events and decissions during the game, even if you don't use Xenonauts1 as a prequel.
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The roof symbol in your UI, below the coloured stat bars and right side of the backpack icon, should hide all structures above your current level. One click more should make everything kind of transparent to look through blocking structures like walls and with another click everything comes back to normal view.
At least that's how I remember it.
Does that work?
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Regarding the "crossing point"...
Thanks for the clarification.
I did somehow overlook that US and USSR are the only safe zones, I expected every nation has their own.
And now I see that when gathering the remains of humanity you can find specialists more easily to take care of infrastructure and so on.
However I still think it will not be possible to regain previos civilization standards with 10% left.
You just can't find enough technical or scientific personal in a reduced population to maintain the same level of operation. The demand of for instance engineers will be as high as before the loss, the complexity of the tasks stay the same and the amount of tasks will be much more than before I guess. Even with or because of the relation to the shrinked population.
If you could simply pick those personal out of the population there wouldn't be shortage of those nowadays (at least in Germany there is a severe lack of junior technical/scientific personal).
But enough of that, not every small effect must be transported into the game.
Nevertheless, you can/want to implement the shortage of personal into your strategy options. In the beginning the people are still on its way and only small parts of government, infrastructure and so on are active or on regular duty. With more and more people arriving you have more options - electrical power, production and research abiliies - along with special characters to grant boni, as it was described elsewhere.
Hmm, will it be possible to influence the two "safe zone powers" (SZP) to your advantage? Meaning, with political capital you could trigger more/better research and production centers, military backup and so on. The SZP would then build that rather than bringing another power plant back in action.
Will the SZP have their own (hidden?) agenda, next to establich order and keeping civilization?
It could have a nice background-feeling/side effect if you could steer the regrowing civilization a bit away from the hostility of pre-virus cold war mentality.
If the superpowers doesn't compete anymore, what is the use of political capital? Would you still have to balance the two powers somehow (and then why?) or only farm your benefits?
I would prefer to use the politcal capital to harness combined effects, giving that side certain productions and the other certain research topics to speed things up and get boni. Exchange/trade the results and unlock things - by political influence or other means - like an additional seaport that will be back on duty to support your patrols/attack missions and so on.
Something completey different...
How to cover the globe with surveillance if only US and USSR will be sort of operative?
The aliens could have vast cities in Africa and nobody will know.
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I get the feeling all of your "strategic design" posts are test balloons for audience reaction and to find the final mixture you want to create in the game. Fine by me.
Hence I will regard this here as a stand-alone issue, though there are clearly elements of the former posts.
Ok, the overall feeling I get is that of an UFO:Aftermath type of game. A world after the apocalypse with collaspsed government and destroyed cities and so on. Maybe you don't visualize it that way, but with 90% of the population gone it will be near that. I have nothing against that setting. A weak position start is a bit more compelling to me than overkill-boom-bang.
What I don't get:
If only 10% of mankind remains, I guess all nations lost equally, there would not be any superpowers anymore. At least not in the sense of a cold war setting.
Who will steer the ships, planes, military bases and so on? Will there be an extreme shortage of air support, local forces, weapons and ammunition?
With such manpower for that, who will make food, clothing, medics, running water and everything else? No I don't talk about new consumer technology, only about keeping the people alive and healthy. The few people would be distributed all over their individual countries and will need to gather to survive with the above mentioned infrastructure.
And thats why they need to wander towards safe zones as you mentioned, agreed. But if this is not finished, there are even less people to control and maintain the power of the "superpower".
I guess the opposing nations - before the virus incident - will have much more pressing problems than competing with each other. I guess the Xenonauts organization makes a lot more sense with that in mind. The "superpowers" have to deal with their diminished people, keeping the rest alive and civilization intact. Hence, they have not as much time to deal with the aliens on their own.
The wandering towards the safe zones is also something I have my problems with.
Why do groups of people go through safe pathways? They are spread all over the land, they wouldn't gather and march along certain paths, would they?
I understand what you want to achieve with the crossing points, keeping them safe and open new ones as an strategic goal stretching towards to, but somehow it doesn't make sense to me.
And with the "not-so-super-anymore-powers" mentioned above, it is also questionable if each nation has their own safe zone(s). Maybe some nations will need to combine their efforts for a common one. Will those nations still grant "political capital" in favour to one or the other faction?
Maybe my things above sound nit-picking, but this is what I see directly. A believeable backstory and reasonable causes are more important to me than if an ammo pack has 5 or 8 bullets.
And before I make my own proposals here, maybe you have all that sorted that out already...
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Very interesting ideas.
Local Science Teams
Can only support that idea, as I think this will give more reasons to defend these science centers (yes they are not bases anymore) and having an additional task to protect them, GC or AC. Linked with the strategic layer this will become more important during the progress of the game.
Will the production centers be local too?
Aircraft and Bases
Your idea of localized airforces was discussed before in different setups. One question that was not addressed so far (I guess) is how you will upgrade the jets, either the jets itselfes or the weaponry?
Once you have discovered a new missle, how fast will they be produced, delivered and mounted?
I don't want an auto-update.
There should be some time for production and delivery. Also, it sould be possible to choose which weapon is mounted, so you can combat the "smaller" UFOs with weaker weapons and more jets, using the more expensive better weapons for the larger UFOs.
Maintaining shelfed missles at the airbases, so they don't have to wait for single deliveries to rearm, could be covered with a continuous budget (production and delivery) you have to pay each month. Furthermore you might have to manage these "airbase missle retail orders" throughout your production sites. So if three airbases demand X amount of missles or "upgrade package A" you have to produce those in total, devided by your production sites. Other productions, like rifles for instance, have to be managed too. So it will be necessary to prioritize the production list. If a base will not receive their deliveries, the jets will use standard ammunition, and might not be able to tackle larger UFOs.
Sure stock production may be a possible thing then, to have the time to produce something else.
Selling those is something for the economic approach, which may interfere/play with you political aspects.
Teleporting
Sounds valid but feels a bit like a "because of plot"-reason nevertheless. However, I totally agree on you statement of "more fun". Can only hope that it will feel correct in gameplay (if you will use this idea).
And yes, the aliens should use this technology too.
But a possible way for upgrading this technology is a must in my eyes. Maybe you have to steal an intact UFO for this as you cannot upgrade without some rare components that only the aliens have. It might be a one-time-only mission to do this, with some pre-missions to have a pilot learning to fly it, locate such an UFO, attack without damaging it and bring it to some hidden base.
GC and Grinding
I Don't Like Grinding. For me story goes over grind. Although I love the GC in Xenonauts1 and have done a lot of them, after some time it felt like grinding just to get the special alien resources. I know that there are others that love grinding (maybe because it is an easy way to proceed in games, from player or developer point of view), but in my eyes it is rather an "occupational therapy" than playing.
On the other side gaining everything for free is a lame method too. Airstrikes and salvaging the remains are a good way not to grind and still proceed.
So having something to do in GC independent from resource farming will be a better solution.
Cold War Theme
I agree with Max_Caine to "rub it in. Massage it into the strategic layer." Also have GCs that support that too.
If there would be two ways of the game:
1) Me against the aliens and some distractions.
2) Me against the aliens and juggling the others to help me.
I would take 2) as it sounds like the more interesting, more interwoven, more complex game. There are enough simple games out there.
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Hmm. The other article seemed to imply they only used it for anti-armor rounds.
And your first article seems to imply that as well (only mentions vehicle mounted weaponry) - and the second doesn't mention personal arms either.
Eh, that was what I was on about, the pistol and rifle; if you equipped those, it would make your standard weapons more powerful. (DU is a self-sharpening penetrator, and is flammable, so pretty much all around win, except for possible exposure, which, the replacement (tungsten cobalt or tungsten nickel cobalt) is much much worse, according to your first article.
Hmm, interesting stuff, all this. Anywho.
Correct, they used it to smash armored units.
Regardless of the use in video games I think it should be banned as its irresponsible.
As cruel as poison gas and other weapons are, think about all the remnants, fragments and particles of those bullets lying around emanating radiation to nearly infinity. What happens if there is heavy rain or wind and those particles gather in wells or fields some time in the future. A hidden danger for manifold generations to come.
I know this is not the place to discuss that, just wanted to mention it. Sounds cool but has some evil side effects.
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I agree with Max about avoiding the zoo.
But having the same 3 to X missions just with different alien races - hopefully without seeing the same map again - would feel a bit cheap. Although, if seeing GC simply this way every other method would show similar repetitions...
As far as I see it you will have the Praetors as the leaders, the main races of aliens (Caesans, Sebillians, Wraiths, Reaper, Harridans and Androns) and support roles like the drones. Maybe Androns will be a support role in itself too, but they could operate quite autonomously.
Same applies in some manner for Reapers, although a leader class should be something else, unless you create a Reaper Queen - but that would be some kind of rival to the Praetor I guess. I could see Harridans in that role.
One main races should dominate a mission. A Preator could assists with their special properties of other races, but it should not be a regular occurance in GCs.
The main races could get some special abilities that scale with present numbers of specimen, like mentioned above with the hive mind psi power enhancement of the Caesans. Maybe the commander class can grant these abilities, but a Praetor should definitely grant those or additional others. The Sebillians could get a bravery bonus when a commander is present (more TUs, lower suppresion weakness or other).
Throw in the support role races to mix up the recipe.
They could have different jobs in GC when accompanying other races. Drones repair/scout, Androns guard the UFO, Harridans snipe and so on.
A lot of abilities have been mentioned in this thread already. Finding the best set of abilities for the different alien races and the workable mix of GC races is just the thing now.
Unless you are not convinced and are looking for something special. Are you?
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Yeah, and in none of those instances did nuclear war actually happen because fundamentally people act cautiously when it comes to actually pressing the button that ends the world imo.
Stands to reason humanity would be even more cautious if they suspected there was a third party meddling in their affairs too.
Maybe, if the cautious people were not pure back luck then...
I guess you are right about "being more cautious if they suspect a third party", but only with the condition that they actually know about. Meaning the people with their fingers on the trigger have to know about. And this requires that the respective government or military leaders know about and tell all their subordinates down to the low echelons about it.
I doubt that such a secret could be maintained for long and will slowly drain into general public. But hey, then you have the perfect source for UFO sightings and government mistrust.
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If that was the case they would have a far easier job. Put a couple of imminent attack rumours in the right ears and then drop a couple of space rocks onto the planet, maybe near Washington and Moscow, and watch the humans kill each other. Maybe even just pick a couple of slightly bigger rocks and do it for us. They could send a small force to attack a single Cuban missile silo and force (or fake) a launch and this pebble we live on would be suddenly empty. There is no real reason for a complicated infiltration scenario if the enemy have the technology to deal with whatever happens.
Sure it would be the easier job for the aliens to drop asteroids, but that would also be the best way to unite the two human parties against them. Because I guess that as soon as aliens are known to the authorities they will watch the skies and presumably plan worst case scenarios where raining asteroids is one of them, hence they will know about in advance or very early and might do something against it.
(I remember an old movie where such an asteroid approaches earth and USA and USSR turning their nuclear missle satellites (yes it was stated that those exist...) around to destroy it. In that movie the distrust atmosphere was there and both parties wanted to withhold some of their missles.)
If I would be the alien commander I would expect that. And if the asteroid-plan fails having a somewhat united planet against me would complicate and prolong my plans. So the covert strategy might be the better one.
But I admit, the nuke-end is a bit lame. It is used a lot in movies, books and video games.
Whatever story Chris might come up with, I hope it will be something new and innovative.
And therefore I go back to Mordobbs post; have a reasonable cause for what the aliens do and a believeable chain of actions of both parties and Xenonauts. But please not: ...because of plot.
Sidenote:
A really powerful demonstration of the alien technologic capacity would be having a nuke provoked on them, like in the gruesome Independence Day movie, but aliens would stop the explosion in the middle, revert or nullify it without any blast destruction or radiation. Hence nukes will be obsolete and therfore no option anymore.
Having the "best toy taken from you" would be a real downer for the military and then they would have high hopes on the Xenonauts organization, but might also demand more from them in shorter time.
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I don't think that all ideology based rivaltry would be gone when the alien threat surfaces, as Mordobb said in some way above.
I guess the aliens will be watched closely when they are revealed and that both parties will try to contact them on their own, to get advantages out of it for different reasons. Being the "representative of humans on earth to contact the aliens" and having the first saying about them in whatever comes next, technology boni or else.
When it reveals that they are hostile and so dangerous that one party cannot counter their force, then they would try to contact the other side and a Xenonauts organization would be a result. Maybe only after some failed or nearly failed cooperative operations. No side would allow the other to get domination over the Xenonauts organization, hence it would be something like an independent thing, but with a military and political observation board to monitor that nothing will go to the other party alone.
This ambience of distrust wouldn't vanish just because it "makes sense". Cold war era was not really an age of reason. And today isn't too as Mordobb illustrated quite well...
Just look that as the end of WW2 was in sight both later cold war parties were looking for german technology loot and science personal to get on their side before the other did. So there was a rivaltry regardless of being allies.
So I would totally understand having the reluctance of the parties to work together as a background atmosphere throughout the whole game. Maybe they also could interfere sometimes to get their hands on some technology, alien species or else.
Nevertheless I agree with Mordobb to avoid black and white nation states of mind. There should be a way to tweak that by missions, "sourced out" productions as mentioned above or handing away technology.
One thought about radiation. Why wouldn't the aliens want to let human race nuke themselves to oblivion, if they have some technology to overcome radiation? Maybe they have an "insert unbelievable futuristic technolgy here"-beam to illuminate terrain and radiation is gone.
Also, they could want something deep inside the earth or harness the magnetosphere of the earth for whatever reasons. Not many planets have such a strong magnetic field as earth. Hence they would not care about the surface. Just want get rid of us to not get in their way.
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...It would be more interesting if alien where sapping ressources, like....non salted water. And slowly starting a planetary "alienforming" (oposite to terraforming) a bot like the last supermen which is an idea taken from an old 90' alien movie. Where an infiltrated alien quote: " a specie that doesn t preserve its original planet is not worth of living on it"
Things could unfold to a full planetary cooperation. but if the threat is non capable military then what? How to justify?
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I guess you mean The Arrival. Where the aliens were all covert operation and infiltration style.
A small but decent B-movie with Charlie Sheen, before he did that tv series.
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That looks quite similar to the T-1 robot of the Terminator 3 movie, though caterpillars and arms are not quite the same.
Nevertheless, cool!
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I thought a bit over the suppression scatter and what StellarRat said.
Came up with this:
Your target (red circle) will be the center point of your hit calculation (there was a thread about this sometime ago but I can't find it). Anything that doesn't hit and should causing suppression is distributed inside a 3d spread cone with the 2d hit calculation circle inside.
The calculation can be based on the ellipse around the circle followed by a two plane calculation as shown with blue and light-blue surfaces. Simple triangles will do the same job for the planes. The planes will be clipped somewhere behind the target to limit the area to calculate suppression based on the fired bullets.
The ellipse could also be filled with un-hit bullets in a random fashion I guess as the hit calculation covers the main bulk of bullets already.
If an object is within this 3d cone and between gun and the end of the cone area it is hit, obviously the foremost object will be hit only, unless it is destroyed or let the bullet through. This applies to hits to the target as well here. Heavy suppression is caused everywhere within the cone area.
If bullets go through the cone area a simple distance calculation after the end of the cone can treat the lesser suppression. I guess even if a wall would be between end of cone and next suppressible target some suppression will apply.
With this you don't have to care about the whole way a bullet flies.
Instead of the cone area around the target the cone can stretch directly from the gun, although it should then start with an elliptical surface and not with a point to allow the scattering start properly.
Surely Davion Fuxas idea of flanking and crossing malus can be used too.
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If something you take part in feels to be too long, it is typically because you get bored by it on some unconscious level. It may be because it is a tedious thing to do or plain uninteresting after some time.
Doing the same thing all over again will become that type of boring. However, different people have different boredom thresholds and also for different things.
This applies to games as well.
Comparing with Xenonauts 1: One person may think the GC is boring after 30 UFOs, another already after 10 and another can't get enough.
I think a game feels long if there isn't enough diversity. If you see different GC missions - UFO-types, terrain, alien species, mission goals, night/day, equipment, units - and avoid repitions of for instance maps so you don't know where to go and what to expect, then you don't get that feeling of overdoing the same thing all over.
For me the GC was always the backbone of an Xcom game, so I don't want to see that limited to a lesser role in the game. In fact the mix of GC, research and base management will do the trick.
Turning the GC into an interesting task throughout the whole game will be an effort and a quality issue in some way for the development team, I am certain about that.
So I vote for a long game as long as I can enjoy it for the whole distance. A short game to enjoy is great, but quickly forgotten and has reduced replayabilty for me.
If "speeding up the GC" means dropping the soldiers right in front of the enemies, I am against it. The tactical approach is a necessary item. If the map hasn't to be searched for the last lurking alien after the main battle, I am for that.
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What if certain soldiers stay repeatedly and for longer time on low morale levels?
Maybe they are weaker right from the beginning. Or they react more sensible to bravery changes when officers die or psi attacks happen. I am not sure if the bravery stat supports that correctly.
Would it be possible to gain negative traits in the style of the kabill-system? Berserking could be such a trait, although I am not quite certain what would trigger it.
- All die around me => Having seen too much comrades die in battle (-x% bravery stat/../..)
- Psi attack magnet => Suffered from diverse psi attacks (../../..)
- Papertiger => Frightened when nailed down by suppression (- reaction fire stat/../..)
- and other
So when soldiers have too much of these red herring traits you have to get rid of them as they weak the whole group, use them for selected GC or keep them in base defense.
But don't make them occur as often as "good traits" like in Darkest Dungeon. There, it seems to be unfair and hard as your units often have as much negative traits as positive, and it is quite expensive to get rid of them. Hence you have to recycle units on a constant basis; and it is just no fun using cannonfodder characters all the time. Possible levelling makes just no sense then.
However in Xenonauts2 the levelling of the soldiers should not be the focus, management of soldiers should be more important.
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Something on research and production:
Xenonauts force is based on an international team. What if they have to response to research and/or production orders of their funding nations?
Now I don't think that the production of for example laser rifles would be possible without a large production factory behind it. But one nation could want that you implement it for them in their factories. So their side can have those for their local forces. You have to send over a team of engineers for some time. And as a result you can order those weapons without own production. You could still do it, but it would require more time or effort.
Sure the other block would soon take notice and want that too or want you to give the informations of that production.
Same applies to research.
You have to hand over informations and research material to one nation so they can research it. You send out some scientists for project lead to a research center of that nation. Result is that you get all informations.
Still you could do the research yourself, but..as above.
So what you do with your scientists and engineers the rest of the time?
You research all you want if the above doesn't occur and the important stuff about alien plans, races and everything not based on immediate combat items. Especially all the funding nations don't care so much about in their focus on cold war strategy.
Same applies to production of small upgrades for your stuff: weapon items, radar, jet upgrades, base defenses etc.
This leads to:
- You have a main base to manage, including production and research.
- No satellite bases but global distributed production centers and research facilities for some time to protect.
- You can order new scientists and engineers after those farway projects.
- Have a tool for national politics.
- Local forces will be upgraded slowly.
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And with equipment limited by volume/compartement space of your armour there will come the cry for extra backpacks as it happened in Xenonauts1.
It could/should be added with some movement penality I guess.
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I think you're going to get buried by suggestions on weapons and armour.
...snip
Exactly...and a lot of ideas can be found in kabills thread here or other similar threads.
So I won't go too much into weapons, but as you said:
snip...
I do think the idea of having a relatively flat tech tree that basically overwhelms the player with choice in the early game could be cool - the idea being you just don't have time to research everything. If lasers, plasmas, Wolf armour and Predator armour all became available at the same time you'd have to make some pretty tough choices about what you wanted to work on first! However it might make the late game a bit less interesting as much of the research would be frontloaded.
...snip
I can see that too, although the open weapon tree with the requirement to chosse and focus on one/some weapon tiers adds to the replayability of the game. But it also poses the danger (allows for different game play?) of not having the right weapon for some tasks. Can the Super-Heavy-Andron be downed by enhanced ballistics or will this be a mission to retreat from?
Therefore I propose to add in each weapon tree some "out-of-line" addon weapons, like RPG or launcher upgrades. One example only: Have ballistic rifles possible to be equipped with launcher (like M203 launcher) or rifle grenades to shoot a plasma/EMP/poison gas/whatever grenade to the enemy.
Hence you can have some "missed" weapon advantages compensated in every tree, so that the tree will not fail.
Don't get me wrong, with one weapon path to progress the combat should feel different.
Ok now to armours.
I never liked the Sentinel armour in Xenonauts because of its 360° vision. Sure it was a powerful armour but it pulled out some GC threat feeling for me. Seeing the enemy regardless where it was around me as long as in LOS was kind of dull (after some time) and overpowered.
Dull because it is quite unrealistic. If you would have a technical aid to see 360° in your normal human vision, everything would like distorted like a fish eye objective, see here for some examples. Call me pessimistic but I doubt that anyone is able to shoot and hit an alien or throw a grenade towards it if it comes out of a door because of the distortion.
Meaning that direction and weapon elevation will be guesswork. Jumping into cover or just checking ammo would be a huge effort. Ok it could be that soldiers can get used to this armour after some time but it will still need a lot of experience to master it.
A better solution, in my eyes, is to have a normal view of 90° or so and the rest of a scanner-like behaviour.
It could show the map in LOS in some edge line view (similar to Invisible Inc or Satellite Reign, I guess you get the idea) that will only show motion, heat rources, impact directions like in District 9 (see here 4:22 to 4:25) or other things that can be researched during the game.
With your Predator suits being slow and able to run out of ammo, can the wearer/driver get out, grab a spare weapon from his comrades and continue to fight? What armor will this soldier then have? Jackal?
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In general I like the presented changes, although I am no modder who has played with the stats...so I guess those guys are better judges than me.
However, I want to comment a bit on some points.
Perks:
I agree with Soulficher about Promotion 2 are better than Promotion 1.
Just please don't go the XCOM 2012 way where you had to level to get new crucial abilities:
"Oh you are a Heavy-class? You have to level 2 times to use a second rocket, but it is not the same as the other one. Boy you want to use 2 grenades, wait to level 5. Damn ok you get your a real second rocket, but then you have to wait 7 levels."
This was so annoying. As some people including Chris mentioned that game to be "gamey", this mechanic stuck out for me.
So please make those "perks" a selection of passive boosts that don't depend on another like "take 3 of those perks and open up perk X for your next level up"!
*EDIT: kabills system sounds even better than Promotion 2
On complexity:
In my opinion a complex game doesn't have to feel like one.
Meaning I am not a fan of a simplified game (see example above), but I am also not that "hardcore"...*cough*...that intense micromanagement is welcome or complex combat stats are a indication of a sophisticated system.
The middle way seems to be the better one I guess.
It is always how the game presents itself to the player. Reasonable information that are shown where necessary, like tooltips and easy to understand descriptions, are a keyfeature here.
An example of the weapon skills, which will have a certain complexity the player needs to know about:
A soldier uses the sniper rifle and is good with it. Then changes to laser sniper and is initially not so good with it. This should be shown on the soldier equipment screen, as a flag/icon/weapon border or background color with a decently written note for the player. A red background says "inexperienced", yellow means "improving", green "experienced".
Maybe the learning procession can be noted there too, like "quick learner" or it is a stat that is referred to. But don't make it too complex like "21% to next level" and the learning curve is flattening in the end.
These skill levels should be kept up even if the weapon is changed and noted in a visible weapon skill list.
The reason is, that you could then choose the right soldier for the use of lasers against the Androns when necessary.
And keep the color indicators and tooltip also in the GC weapon icons so that the player will recognize the color.
That way a somewhat complex system is presented in a simple way.
If that goes more simpler than that it will be gamey, I guess.
And maybe for modders you could implement empty stats they could play with, like genericstat1, genericstat2 and so on.
InSomnia
in Off-Topic
Posted
Their budget goal was reached today, hooray!!!
48h still to go...Bonus time!