Search the Community

What has always confused me is the fact that upon arrival onto a mission there is no initial vision of the landscape. One would imagine that Charlie would due a fly-about of the crash zone to give the landing crew a chance to become familiar with the LZ, perhaps even a chance to lay down some machine gun fire on any visible extra terrestrials. How does everyone else feel about this?

I was thinking it would be interesting if, during day missions, the closest or 2 closest tiles for the black FoW to "fade into it" (the effect is already inside the game in night missions it just needs to be more rapid and not be dispelled/undone by lightscources). I want theese darkened tiles to somewhat hide the aliens standing just in range of your vision (makeing them a black silluette, tile should be as dark as possible if not completly balck) to add a bit of atmosphere of faceing the unknown. Simmilar to the effect you get in UFO:EU during night missions when you cant acctually see the alien as a player but your soldeirs can and you can mouseover to spot the tile it's on. (played a night mission in Xenonauts not sure that the darkness blends that well in this game) This idea is a cosmetic change and should not apply any penalties, its just for the atmosphere. It also doesn't apply to going around corners and spotting aliens or anything like that it's just the edge of the black FoW that still hids the alien from the player, but still lets the soldeirs to spot it and fire at it without penalties. Some modification to the crusor might be needed to bring out the full potential. The idea is to not be able to see the colours of the alien model but still be able to see tne contours/silluete. This might have interesteing sideffects where you can't decern if you have spotted a non combatant, guard or soldier, also raises the impact of meeting a new alien race for the first time. Is this a good idea? Would the community be interested in this or is it just a hassle?

Just enough so that you can know what the area around the ship looks like and have an idea of where the aliens might be the second you step off the ship. Not entirely revealed, either, just the greyed out like when a soldier sees reveals terrain but no longer has line of sight on it. This can be explained with the pilot giving the soldiers intel while on approach... or just the soldiers looking out the window before touching down.

I think that for a special forces unit to not have drones/UAV's scan the area prior to actually landing troops there is a bit unusual. If the map was entirely visible so people wouldn't find the edge and go "Oh, wait they are the other way." but the fog of war was still in effect to keep the element of surprise for the enemies that would be handy. I would love to see if people agree with me or if it's just me who wants this.

Related thread: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/6119-so-I-just-flew-over-a-field-in-a-chinook-and-I-have-no-idea-where-the-nearest Since the pilots at the very least would be able to see where the UFO was when they landed, should the nauts know where it is? How much info about the map should the nauts have when they land? How much is realistic?

I want to try to modify how the fog of war works including its color, transparency and geometry.

flying saucer is? Hmm, that don't seem quite right. I propose that the any part of the map that would be visible from the air is revealed (but fogged) when the combat session starts. Makes a lot more sense. At the very least it seems like I'd know what direction the saucer is in.

What I have a bit of a problem with is the Fog of War, you don't even know the rough outline of the area you're about to attack even though you must have gotten a pretty awesome aerial view of it as you are approaching the area. So how about that outside missions already give you the map discovered, but greyed out to indicate you don't know where the aliens are. And as you move around you get a clear view just as normal, the only difference being you already know the terrain. You would still have to discover what it looks like inside buildings because you wouldn't see that coming in with the dropship.

While there is certainly an argument for not knowing what is going on inside of buildings, or exactly where MOBs are on the battlefield, the terrain fog is a little off-kilter, especially given the incredibly short sight distance portrayed in the game. I know, it's a game (and a small, indie) and all that, but it just strikes me as wrong for a game designed in the 21st Century. But even Firaxis' reboot of the original X-Com IP forgot that we have satellites and photo recon and all kinds of surveillance stuff. JA2 did a much better job, using full view of maps overlain with FoW sight templates. My suggestion would be increasing the sight distance, but making it harder to spot enemies if they are not moving or in concealment. Implementing a mechanic like that might not be feasible at this stage of development, as it would be a substantial redesign. Something to think about for future expansions or newer versions.

Currently, explored areas turn gray when you are not actively looking at them, but unexplored areas are pitch black. This can create a confusing mix of visible tiles and black tiles depending on the line of sight. Instead of pitch black unexplored tiles, I propose, at the very least, unexplored tiles could have a grid pattern. The grid could be as large as the current tiles, or smaller to set it off further. I would hope a grid pattern in unexplored tiles would make such tiles less jarring. Currently, the blackness feels very inexplicable given the lovely hand painted graphics. Alternatively, maybe a cloudy black to gray effect is called for. Something to either imply fog, or which leans to the unknown depths and fears of the people who cannot observe those unobserved tiles.

Tried searching "Fog of war", but the words are too short. SO apologies if this gets asked and answered all the time. Is there any way to disable to FoW? I've been playing with Lightgemini's sight mod and I really like being able to see most of the map. What I don't like is mowing down the poor aliens from a distance. I know I could mess with weapon ranges or accuracy, but what I'd probably want to do is change the drop-off after the optimum range is exceeded, and that's hardcoded. So turning sight ranges back and FoW off might be a compromise.

I just wondered if there is a way to remove or toggle away the hidden movement picture. I just find that it puts me off to hear sounds of combat and not see my guys. It takes my attention away from the combat scenario. There is also a minor issue to me that soldiers would go into battle without at least knowing the lay of the land, and i find myself sending guys to the edge of the map instead of going to points of more interest. Could there be a fog of war that was not so black and dense? At least for the lower difficulty settings would be nice. While i realize that its a departure from the standard or classic xcom esque scenario these things do detract from my experience and i don`t think either of these things would be hard to implement as optional features.

Hi,i watched this game on youtube and this game have become interesting for me. But it is possible to have BattleMaps without black points but without NPC and UFO aircraft ? Just like in Fallout Tactic for example, where you can see terrain,buildings but no NPC.It looks like really odd with black points. With this i will not be able to see where UFO is so but i will se terrain like in real life. It will be nice to see only terrain and big buildings (Soldiers have maps ets.) But no vehicles ets.

Hi, I think that the fog of war (greyed out places in the ground missions) doesn't seem to be balanced well. Under normal conditions, clear sky etc., soldiers should see miles far away. Do they all have a sight problem? I understand that such a game feature might be there for a more balanced gameplay, however isn't it limited too much? Perhaps binoculars would help - I think it would be a really nice add on to the gameplay. Can you imagine a sniper seconded by an observer equipped with binoculars? Also some people do have sight problems, not sure if they would be in the army, but I would suggest to work on the sight distance a bit. Maybe each soldier could see into a different distance based on their precondition. Cheers

I had a thought; when , coming in to land at the site, surely the pilot / soldiers would look out the window & get an idea of the area, therefore, maybe the fog of war should be a greyed out area instead of a complete black out? Looking forward to this games development, have supported via the kickstart & have the demo. Oh & I'm hoping you'll be able to save while in the middle of a tactical mission? At the moment, loading a save from a tactical mission loads up the geoscape BEFORE the mission : \ That's not so good. Cheers, J

I'm curious as to why the battle map is entirely blank after you arrive in your helicopter. It would be nice if some landmarks were filled in - as they would have been seen by someone aboard when landing at the destination. Crash site, buildings etc...

Just a suggestion, but I would think that, once the troops leave their delivery vehicle/chopper, I for one think that the immediate area around it (the landing zone or LZ) should not go "dark" as unknown or unobserved territory. This is because, presumably, there would be a crew left on it who can keep an eye on the immediate area and there would in real life be some sort of radio contact kept with the ground element which would advise them if hostiles were to approach the landing zone. Just my 2 bits, you may feel differently about it.

Fog Of War is ok but level should stay visible once we discover it. Just level not the characters. Sometimes we dont know where we have been. It will be very useful.