Jump to content

Your Xenonauts 2 wishlist?


Recommended Posts

I did an X2 UI mockup in a hidden thread at least one years ago, may be two.  Here it is.

I was also proposing a slightly more flexible secondary scheme, so you'll see three tools instead of two.  That was before X2 reverted to backpack.
Otherwise, I hope it would be pretty intuitive.  It may be too late in the development cycle to revamp now, but for what it is worth:

(Click to Enlarge. Image is 1920x1080.)

830946380_X2UI_q90.thumb.jpg.e83447ea2b43ca529f85fe29a10e3cfc.jpg

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/14/2019 at 4:31 AM, TrashMan said:

 

This often ends up a problem with these seemingly simple systems - they end up being not so simple requireing tons of patches and updates for special cases, and even then behave wonky.

And you don't think PP isn't having the same problems with leaning right now? You don't think that '95COM's light cover (as in, anything other than a totally obstructing wall or a hull-down hill) is almost completely useless like the majority of influential OpenX modders?

NuCOM's system is very soulful. Hunkering down, improving dodge chance, and similar skills will let you hug cover better, or you can go for the highground with a more aggressive route. It's very powerful to get flanked, but you can also focus on stacking cover-negation like aiming, explosives. If anything it's *too* soulful, to the point that the mechanics start to feel like an impressionistic gimmick. It's "fake", yes, and ultimately realphysik will win out once people spend more time developing it. But every approach takes a lot of work, except for the hybrid one of Xenonauts 1 which was quite good by comparison.

Edited by Bobit
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whatever soulful means. FiraXCOM has its fair share of problems, which were not all adressed form FiraXCOM2, like not being able to lean out from a slightly elevated position (a step up, so to say) or cover destruction being basically the only meaningful tactic in the highest difficulty and Long War, because dashing into the unknown for a flanking manoeuvre leads to coffins full of Assault soldiers.

I found FiraXCOMs systems enjoyable at first (it was my entry into the genre after all), but it gets very formulaic fast. In your defense, so does Xenonauts' system. I would call neither "soulful".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/29/2019 at 1:09 AM, Sheepy said:

I did an X2 UI mockup in a hidden thread at least one years ago, may be two.  Here it is.

I was also proposing a slightly more flexible secondary scheme, so you'll see three tools instead of two.  That was before X2 reverted to backpack.
Otherwise, I hope it would be pretty intuitive.  It may be too late in the development cycle to revamp now, but for what it is worth:

(Click to Enlarge. Image is 1920x1080.)

830946380_X2UI_q90.thumb.jpg.e83447ea2b43ca529f85fe29a10e3cfc.jpg

Your UI mockup looks very interesting - health bars near to the units and equipment displayed.

If it really is too late in the development cycle to revamp now, your work might qualify as a cool Mod. I really like it.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/26/2019 at 11:36 AM, squeezechart said:

I think this may have been discussed before,

I want to have health bars of soldiers and enemies right above the person as it is in XCOM2.

The players might find this more practical than the bars on the top of ground combat screen.

This is a very nice QoL feature.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

I'd like to have a good reason to play at night. For example, a crashed UFO could have several stages:

Stage 1: you get there in the minimal amount of time -- all aliens and artifacts are recovered.

Stage 2: you get there a little late. Some artifacts have been stashed by the aliens or the locals, and some aliens may have escaped.

Stage 3: only the bare essentials are left.

Stage 4: UFO gone.

This would encourage committing to the engagement ASAP, or possibly nuking the site in fear that the alien could infiltrate the local government.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/15/2019 at 10:57 AM, TrashMan said:

As good as JA2 was (and it was one of the best games ever made, period) , getting back to pixels is a lot of work and a lot of detail is lost. If you have a 3d engine, you can make full use of it to make things easier.

When it comes to shooting and obstacles, JA2 is very much 3D. Every tile object on the map, comes with a small set of voxels, afaik 3x3x4. Bullets are not traced only on the same grid that is used for moving but are checked against the Voxel representation of the world, which is more granular.
Combined with shooting distances relatively large to the distance that one unit can run, you get a rather good cover simulation. I’m mentioning this because developers of Phoenix Point screwed it over in their game. As soldiers don’t lean or stick to obstacles, to minimize profile, some cover like trees is pretty much useless as it’s extremely easy to get an angle to someone behind such cover. Simply because engagement distance is very short compared to how much you can move in a single turn.

At the same time, leaning against cover requires directional placement of your troops, so you could choose against which direction you need to get into cover.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On ‎12‎/‎6‎/‎2019 at 7:28 AM, Bobit said:

And you don't think PP isn't having the same problems with leaning right now? You don't think that '95COM's light cover (as in, anything other than a totally obstructing wall or a hull-down hill) is almost completely useless like the majority of influential OpenX modders?

NuCOM's system is very soulful. Hunkering down, improving dodge chance, and similar skills will let you hug cover better, or you can go for the highground with a more aggressive route. It's very powerful to get flanked, but you can also focus on stacking cover-negation like aiming, explosives. If anything it's *too* soulful, to the point that the mechanics start to feel like an impressionistic gimmick. It's "fake", yes, and ultimately realphysik will win out once people spend more time developing it. But every approach takes a lot of work, except for the hybrid one of Xenonauts 1 which was quite good by comparison.

I disagree. Especaily on the soulful part.

With actual cover and collision detection, you have full control over how covered you are. Standing, crouching, going prone or hunkering down (no return fire possible) and you position relative to the cover all dictates how covered you are and gives you great degree of flexiblity. It's not as clear cut, it doesn't give you hard numbers, so you need to think and use your head to judge.

A static 50% chance to hit reduction is the epitome of soulless and brainless.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

@TrashMan, it's like capping resists in an ARPG. In isolation it is brainless. But then you realize that the difference between 90->100% and 10-20% is massive. Then you have to consider enemy aim, your dodge/defense (when the chance for those stats to apply actually interact with cover), and various status effects (do you want to cap/near-cap miss/resists all the time or just when smoked). Additive resists are awesome.

Having played Phoenix Point though they're actually handling the realphysik system well enough for it to be very interesting. Everything else has terrible balance though. The only things I don't like about realphysiks atm is the way cover in between is always treated as just as important, there's no advantage to running, and lean problems.

But the original XCOM's low-cover system is broken, surely you must see that. Skilled players recommend completely ignoring it except for hills... crouching barely exists. Your like of it is based on what it could be in theory, not what it has ever been in practice. Proning in particular doesn't work in a game where the player gets no punishment for stalling. XCOM2 actually has hunkerdown, because of how easy it was without realphysik.

Edited by Bobit
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On that note, I'd like to have either a menu, or pop-up, or something that lets you see armor condition and resistances.

Would be nice to see the XD thing of a separate armor mitigation stat on weapons. Loved having Axes as an armor piercing melee attack, get those awesome moments of running out of shots, and seeing your international party suddenly all become Danish for a minute. 

Always wanted a shield push. 

More medals. I want to be able to do a run where a unit can't be promoted to top rank until they capture one of every unit or something. Or have someone recognized for shotgunning 3 reapers in one round. There's just so much more that can be done with that. 

Air game has what I always wanted now. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, TrashMan said:

@Bobit - up to a point.

I prefer a more flexible and natural system. I also detest the idea of perfect knowledge/info, since that is exactly the opposite of what a real commander would have to face.

It would be cool to have vaguer info on units and enemies, but have a location map. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...