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Fog of war / Greyed out map


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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

Edited by Jonofwrath
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Haha, perhaps have it as an option - I'm big on options - you can have it 'classic' - totally blacked out and...unrealistic :P Or you can have it so that on the way down the crew peeped out the window and got a general idea of the surroundings!

Couple of thoughts on your proposal:

- Just because the pilot sees it, doesn't mean the team sees it (you could argue that they'd have maps)

- You'd have to differentiate between outdoor and indoor (pilot can't see inside buildings)

- The pilots might be too afraid to hover for too long as to not getting shot down ;)

- If this gets implemented, maybe we could have both types (no overview for night missions, getting the overview when it's a sunny day)

Anyhow, I think it's a design decision, you could find arguments for both approaches being more "realistic" ... ;)

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Thanks for your ideas.

I did mention in my OP that I'm talking about the soldiers looking out the window as well as the pilot. But you're right - you'd think one of them would have a smart phone with google maps at least! :P

I agree - indoors should remain blank - having said that, for those who wanted the whole map, you could argue that blueprints etc are available allowing the team to get the layouts for buildings. But I like the indoors blank option better - you still get that element of the totally unknown without the whole, 'really? None of you looked out the window?!' thing.

Haha, true! - in the new Enemy Unknown (which I've pre-ordered via Play.com already!) the delivery craft doesn't land - the squad repels off the side! Also, just noticed...is there actually a pilot as such? Correct me if wrong but I think the pilot/co-pilot chairs are empty, meaning I suppose that the soldiers fly themselves to the site? Over think much? Yes.

Night time with more fog of war makes sense unless you go the whole google maps rationale, but the landing craft would have spotlights to find the ground in all likelyhood so maybe you could have something cool like there is fog of war except in a path from the drop site to the edge of the map - simulating the path the craft flew in on! That'd be cool - realism!

You're totally right tho - it's a design thing - some would like it, others would prefer the 'classic' Xcom way. Can't imagine it'd be a massive thing to enable but then I know nada about programming this sort of thing.

...It's good to have ideas tho!

Edited by Jonofwrath
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Couple of thoughts on your proposal:

- Just because the pilot sees it, doesn't mean the team sees it (you could argue that they'd have maps)

- You'd have to differentiate between outdoor and indoor (pilot can't see inside buildings)

- The pilots might be too afraid to hover for too long as to not getting shot down ;)

- If this gets implemented, maybe we could have both types (no overview for night missions, getting the overview when it's a sunny day)

Anyhow, I think it's a design decision, you could find arguments for both approaches being more "realistic" ... ;)

I always thought, that a rough layout or even a more detailed map with everything except people and aliens would make sense. This could be offered depending on day/night time or if it's an indoor mission. You could even factor technology into this by getting access to cool scanners that allow a preview of the battlefield.

Discovering the battlefield as you go is kind of fun though. Also we don't know if something like that planned at all and if it's too much of a drag to implement.

Its part of what keeps you tense and nervous as you are exploring the area. You dont want to take that away from me, I love that!!

You´re right about the excitement, of course but I always thought that this is what the Iron Man game mode is for. Seems kind of redundant now. And not everyone enjoy this tension. If you get to play once or twice a week it's nice to make some headway instead of repeating the same mission six times because your guys fall prey to the famous plasma shot from the dark.

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I hate the plasma shot from the dark! I do like that some of the Aliens (at least) have inferior senses to us (sight) so that they're less likely to pull off the lethal headshot-from-across-the-map shot.

Btw, I pledged $20 in the kickstarter and seeing your shiny gold badge reminded me that I should be getting a shiny silver one...no?

Just checked:

"Pledge Summary

Amount pledged: $20.00

Reward: Standard Pre-Order: A digital copy of Xenonauts on release (retail price $25), plus access to our development builds and beta testing until the game is complete! This also includes a special silver forum medal for our forums.

Est. Delivery: Oct 2012

When your reward is ready, Goldhawk Interactive will send you a survey via email to request any info needed to deliver your reward (mailing address, T-shirt size, etc)."

Guess just got to wait for the survey...

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I hate the plasma shot from the dark! I do like that some of the Aliens (at least) have inferior senses to us (sight) so that they're less likely to pull off the lethal headshot-from-across-the-map shot.

Btw, I pledged $20 in the kickstarter and seeing your shiny gold badge reminded me that I should be getting a shiny silver one...no?

Just checked:

"Pledge Summary

Amount pledged: $20.00

Reward: Standard Pre-Order: A digital copy of Xenonauts on release (retail price $25), plus access to our development builds and beta testing until the game is complete! This also includes a special silver forum medal for our forums.

Est. Delivery: Oct 2012

When your reward is ready, Goldhawk Interactive will send you a survey via email to request any info needed to deliver your reward (mailing address, T-shirt size, etc)."

Guess just got to wait for the survey...

hmm, dunno really. I'm from pre kickstarter. There was a page here where Chris explained how it worked. I remember activating something via Desura. I'll look it up.

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I always thought, that a rough layout or even a more detailed map with everything except people and aliens would make sense. This could be offered depending on day/night time or if it's an indoor mission. You could even factor technology into this by getting access to cool scanners that allow a preview of the battlefield.

Discovering the battlefield as you go is kind of fun though. Also we don't know if something like that planned at all and if it's too much of a drag to implement.

People tend to forget that we didn't have google maps (or that new ios thingy ;)) up until ~5 years ago... I think it would be a great research opportunity (battlefield PDAs). Having the alien technology available could mean that the neccessary technology for good battlefield communication could have been developed much earlier... ;)

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-Yes, it will be possible to save during ground combat (unless you are playing ironman mode)

- No, THe complete black will be kept this has been brought up before and while it may seem realistic or exciting it goes against the feel of the game and not something the developers are interested in. And quite frankly you wouldn't enjoy it if you got it, despite what you may think. Rule of fun is in play here making every soldier and your pilots being blind on the way in be an acceptable break from reality.

- Smart phone in 1979? Are you being sarcastic?

- You will not be getting a survey Jonowrath. you havent pledged for a high enough tier that Goldhawk needs any information from you. You will be sent a desura activation code directly when Goldhawk is ready to send them out. (visit the kickstarters latest update to see why they haven't done it the instant kickstarter ended.)

You will be getting your forum medal after you activate the desura code and link your forum account to your desura account.

There is a sticky thread on how to do this.

Edited by Gorlom
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Re Fog...ok (you sure told me!)

Yes; being funny about google maps, but there *was* GPS and there were...MAPS in 1979 too. But meh...

...that wasn't the point...they could just look out the window...

"And quite frankly you wouldn't enjoy it if you got it, despite what you may think", can you also tell me if I'd enjoy pie & chips or chicken & mash tonight - I just can't decide and you seem to have the pulse on my likes and dislikes! ;)

Yeah I got the email about people not paying up causing delays. No problem.

Thanks, I'll check out how to link things up.

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- Smart phone in 1979? Are you being sarcastic?

Not sure if that was meant for me, but no... I never said anything about a smartphone (in the form of a iphone/android device), but early forms of pocket computers were available in the 1980s already. It's certainly not a further stretch than laser pistols.

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Think that was aimed at my gag about using google maps or street view, but you raise a good point - these guys are going to be using some tech decades beyond their time anyway...as you say it's not a massive leap from laser/plasma rifles to GPS with linked in map display!

But I've been firmly told that the developer isn't 'interested' in this so nevermind!

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