UFOs & Being Horrible

[StellarRat]

Sorry dude, but if XCOM:EU doesn't take off, and XCOM: the FPS does, then good luck seeing anything like the turn-based squad/platoon level game we all know and love ever coming back from 2K.

And I would care about that why??? They've already sold out to the FPS crowd anyway. Plenty of smaller companies make great turn based games. Xenonauts is going to be awesome. Edited September 21, 2012 by StellarRat

[Max_Caine]

Ok, I think we're going a little off-target here. I don't think tiles are friendly to anything but boxes. That's if a multi-million dollar game based on X-com ideas developed for 4 years with a team of 40-60 developers behind it using an engine that grants far more freedom than the engine that Xenonauts uses ever will appears to have large-ish UFOs with only a single deck (that's going off the preview which had the Outsider captured and other previews which showed crashed UFOs) because an organically round shape is difficult to produce upper decks for.

[StellarRat]

Ok, I think we're going a little off-target here. I don't think tiles are friendly to anything but boxes. That's if a multi-million dollar game based on X-com ideas developed for 4 years with a team of 40-60 developers behind it using an engine that grants far more freedom than the engine that Xenonauts uses ever will appears to have large-ish UFOs with only a single deck (that's going off the preview which had the Outsider captured and other previews which showed crashed UFOs) because an organically round shape is difficult to produce upper decks for.

So you agree that we would just fine with big one level ships instead of split missions?

BTW, I'd be happy with any shape of ship. Round only matters if you care about aerodynamics. If you have powerful enough engines, shape is unimportant. You can fly a brick.

Edited September 21, 2012 by StellarRat

[Max_Caine]

Mmmmmmmno. It would be alright to start with but given there are what, 8-9 different UFOs that can be boarded one-level only goes so far, especially as Chris has revealed that the HUARGE UFOs would occupy most of the light-scout map alone! Again, it's one of these things that "makes sense". It doesn't "make sense" that a UFO the size of a few blocks is thematically, as flat as a pancake.

[StellarRat]

It doesn't "make sense" that a UFO the size of a few blocks is thematically, as flat as a pancake.

Ah! You are an ARTIST! And cannot work like theezzz... LOL!

[Gauddlike]

Maybe these space faring, plasma wielding, technologically advanced aliens never managed to invent stairs?

I for one have NEVER yet seen an enemy on any of the upper levels on a map in Xenonauts.

Just saying.

[Max_Caine]

GJ, the gauntlet has been thrown. Do you accept?

[StellarRat]

Maybe these space faring, plasma wielding, technologically advanced aliens never managed to invent stairs?

I for one have NEVER yet seen an enemy on any of the upper levels on a map in Xenonauts.

Just saying.

Maybe they are smart enough to know that upper floors are generally less safe then lower floors??

But you are right about the AI not going there. An alien sniper with a heavy plasma gun and clear LOF on an upper floor could really be a bummer.

[XenoMask]

Does this new one really count???? From what I've seen it is the Jar-Jar-Binx of XCOM.

I generally find it funny how people on this forum tends to be more hostile about this than people on 2K forums(as in, people on xenonauts forum tends to be hostile towards XCOM EU while people on forum of XCOM EU don't seem to be hostile towards Xenonauts few times when they remember it exists) Which is kind of understandable since both are filled with XCOM fans, but still.

Anyhoo, I would say that you haven't seen enough. Its actually rather faithful to original despite changes.(it is also made by devs who were fans of original, if you don't believe that then you can dig up that video where they show cased prototypes of earlier version, one of which is pretty much original game in 3D.) Also, since there ARE two store buildings and multiple levels in XCOM: EU, I would assume that later game UFOs also have multiple levels. But yeah, XCOM: EU scout is a lot huger than original game's scout.

[Voidfoam]

Xenomask i cant find that video you talked about when they show rhe earlier builds of new X-Com. Link pls. I am interested. And i dont think its strange at all people here being more hostile towards X-com than vice-versa. Xenonauts is the underdog in being tha smaller game. The very announcment way back spelled doom for Xenonauts. Until people realized they are very unalike in almost every aspect. I am glad i get two great and very diffrent games based on one i loved. Couldnt be better. And why shouldnt there be several floors on the Ufos in EU. From what i gathered there will be huge ships.

[XenoMask]

That video

And yeah, they don't have huger buildings than two store buildings because of limitations, but I don't see why someone would assume that there are only one level ufos when smallest(? I'm assuming there isn't smaller ship unlike in first game with that one man ufo) ufo in game is rather large.

[Gauddlike]

GJ, the gauntlet has been thrown. Do you accept?

I mentioned something about this once before and he did say that enemies with sniper type weapons should prefer and seek out higher vantage points.

Hopefully their scientists can finish the stair research in time for beta.

[Gijs-Jan]

GJ, the gauntlet has been thrown. Do you accept?

I wouldn't recommend challenging the guy with his hand on the difficulty control knob ;-)

[Thann]

I have some additional ideas for the new system. But depending on how much of the ideas are implemented, it could need a lot of time to program it and find possible errors in it. Just see it as a food for thought.

General idea:

After clearing the exterior of the UFO, you could show an interactive mission screen with three functions (Ship, Inventory, Tactics). Either there could be three buttons to change between these functions or there could be just ohne button Continue to change to the next screen.

Short description of the functions:

1. Ship: satellite picture or artwork of the ship and a mission description.

2. Inventory: change equipment of the soldiers

3. Tactics: assign soldiers to UFO entrances for the assault (normal entrances and perhaps semi-random hull breaches)

More details:

- The ship screen should show the ship very detailed. It would be a substitute for seeing the whole ship in the ground battle. If possible it should also look like it would look in ground combat (especially it should be a crashed version of the ship if the ship crashed).

- Optional: Perhaps you could also show a tiny version of the exterior battle map next to the ship or a small chinook/transporter on the proper side to it and with the right scale. Then you could see how big the ship is and where you landed.

- On the inventory screen you can only rearrange the items, that the soldiers already carry. Perhaps there could be some limited extra items that are stored in the Chinook.

- The tactics screen could show a satellite picture of the UFO or a tactical map with marked entrances. You assign the soldiers like in the aircraft screen of the Chinook, where you change the positions of the soldiers in the transporter.

- The entrances should be clearly connected to the soldier slots and you should see approximately, where these entrances will be on the combat map and how far they are from each other (to arrange the soldiers tactically).

- The allocation of the soldier slots should also be the positioning of the soldiers in the second battle, so you should see to which side the aliens are.

- In addition to the entrances there should also be soldier slots for the Chinook. There you can move the soldiers, that should not continue the attack (wounded soldiers ... or all soldiers, if you want to retreat).

Advantages:

- You can see the big ships (crashed) as a whole

- You can change weapons before the second attack (but if you want to give a sniper another weapon, then this weapon must be carried by one of the soldiers or it has to be a weapon, that is stored by the Chinook)

- If there are several entrances then you can decide if you want to attack the UFO in one large group or with more groups from several entrances

- You can position your soldiers for the second attack like you positioned them in the Chinook for normal battles (slot based)

- You can leave wounded soldiers in the Chinook

Disadvantages:

- You always have to position your soldiers before the second battle (perhaps there should be a standard positioning for those who want to begin the battle at once ... one possibility would be all soldiers at the main entrance and positioned like in the Chinook)

- The ship screen is not as large as the ship would be in a ground combat (but you don't have to scroll and don't have problems with tiles)

- Much work for programming and art. This includes:

* Positioning of the units in the tactics screen (if there are random entrances like hull breaches this is much work for the programmers to make it work and to arrange it clearly and intuitive on the tactics screen ... if the entrances are semi-random/predefined there should be several possibilities for each ship and this is much work for the level-designers)

* The tactics screen is highly dependant on the number and the position of the entrances. This means a lot of error potential and therefore the system must be thought out well.

* Detailed Artworks/satellite-photos for the crashed/landed ships

* many things i didn't think of

Edit: made it better readable

Edited September 22, 2012 by Thann

[Belmakor]

I am not completely against the idea. I would have suggested something similar to what Gazz said (i think).

Perhaps active map should be as current with the ufo visible in full (on an a revealed fog of war that is not accessible) but with part of the structure available to enter. The inaccessible fog of war could be the crash zone/large impact crater around the rear of the spaceship - with appropriate art. Perhaps the ground could be split/chasm next to the ufo explaining why you can't get further back - valid for the large spaceships due to their mass.

The UFO internal is obviously only revealed once you breach or get inside but if this was sitting on a 100x100 map (with half of it under black FOW) then you only have a 50x50 but have 50x50 to play with inside the UFO. Which could be anything without requiring a separate loading screen. This would be a seamless transition to the UFO from the battle map keeping the tension, breaching, load-outs and stats etc.

No need to enter fighters, bombers or light scouts. You could make it look like it has a pod or canopy that has been ejected much like earth craft (just a little more roomy) and visibly empty. The scout could have a drop pod something akin to thunder-bird 4 which is basically just a room like the chinook interior for the scouts, perhaps with a panel blown off in the crash or a tele-lift underneath it (stick it on stilts like thunder-bird 2 again!) if its landed

Also that makes sense as surely a scout ship would have something akin to a moon lander because sometimes your going to be exploring hostile worlds and its a waste of energy to take down all that mass onto a planet when all your trying to do is get a few bodies down there with some probes...

No idea how to do the corvette (maybe just keep as current), but everything larger can go with the previous part.

[erutan]

I like the idea of keeping mediumish UFOs as is, that breaching moment is fun and it keeps things shorter.

To explain away making the large UOFs two part missions, there could be increased defenses/armor etc on the doors that would have to disabled by a specialist team (or a breach made) on the larger UFOs that aren't present on the smaller ones. Thought that makes a little less sense if you've shot a big one down already I suppose.

[Gorzahg]

I like the idea of keeping mediumish UFOs as is, that breaching moment is fun and it keeps things shorter.

To explain away making the large UOFs two part missions, there could be increased defenses/armor etc on the doors that would have to disabled by a specialist team (or a breach made) on the larger UFOs that aren't present on the smaller ones. Thought that makes a little less sense if you've shot a big one down already I suppose.

In UFO: Aftermath, you had to research a way to get into UFOs because the aliens used a teleporter to get in and out of the UFO.

[zzz1010]

Forgot my pass, but can't not to say

Chris, I think it's bad decision, if your ufo have too many decoration part - than make them more bulky. And there no reason to make ufo more than 60x60x2(or 80x40). If you ufo design hard to translate into map - better to remake ufos than maps mechanic.

1-2 tile decoration border and all else can be interior, and its already can be random generated, with big ufos there not many possibilities to place crashsite anyway, just make 3 maps (for big one) with defined(static) ufo border in different places, random outer tiles and random ufo intrioir tiles.

Try to look in this direction more.

And with alien bases i prefer to have one map with five tiles "deep" and access lift on ground than multistage or teleport.

Edited September 26, 2012 by zzz1010

[JDirtyMoney]

In my opinion I would prefer the landed/crashed ufo to be part of the larger map area, not a separate map. When playing UFO and TFTD I enjoyed blasting holes in the ufos rather than using a door.

If the ufos are going to be huge, very cool, but if that means that I cant decide to blast my way in where I want to I’ll be disappointed.

Also if some ufos are going to be huge, I would like plenty of variety in terms of how they are arranged inside. hopefully not all craft of the same class will be identical within. I found the identical ships sometimes became a chore to clear. Some variety could spice things up.

[XenoMask]

How do you even blast holes in ufo?

I mean, from what I've seen ufo walls seem to be almost immune to damage, not even blaster bombs do much... Heck, they are only destroyed inside not outside in crashes...

[JDirtyMoney]

How do you even blast holes in ufo?

I mean, from what I've seen ufo walls seem to be almost immune to damage, not even blaster bombs do much... Heck, they are only destroyed inside not outside in crashes...

In TFTD you could blast holes in uso with very powerful weapons like sonic disruptors or disruptor pulse etc. An old trick was to go in through the roof or simply hole the roof and lob grenades in.

I'd like to be able to damage/destroy the walls and doors of ufos in xenonauts so I can choose where to breach. it'd be consistent with the rest of the damageable terrain (but ufo outer skin would obviously be much tougher). Its a way to avoid the opening ufo door = reaction fire from within deathtrap

[XenoMask]

Oh, I meant original game. I do remember USOs being slightly more destroyable, unless I remember wrong...

[StellarRat]

I believe even the Demo charges could breach them in the older games. Sometimes it took more than one though.

[anotherdevil]

I'll throw in my 2 cents (sorry if I only skim read some of your posts and am repeating ideas).

If it makes more sense to have missions in 2 parts for large UFOs, then so be it. It may not be liked by all, but if it's a technological consideration, then I'm happy to live with it.

I would just like to make sure some things happen:

1. don't repeat mistakes from the past! All equipment should carry on from the previous mission as is, or you should get a chance to re-stock.

2. Make sure it's not like battling 2x as many aliens. If a battleship holds 30 aliens, and 6 died in the crash, then there should only be 24 left. For both maps.

3. And randomise the split! Sometimes many more will go outside and defend. Perhaps if the UFO has only minor damage more would stay inside, trying to repair it, etc.

4. Some sort of breaching tension must be maintained. Even if it is just a single room of the UFO in the first half of the mission.

Also Chris, how will the extra breach entrances work? Will it depend on where your men end the 1st part of the mission as to where they spawn?

As for 2+ floors, I personally think it'd be silly not to have them. But again technical limitations. And if they're already 50x50 big... I can't imagine exploring that twice or three times...

[Betuor]

I'd to maybe see it as something like the mainly assisstant aliens still being in the ship (engineer, non-com) and the leaders while most of the combatants being outside all of the terror units. Also, if the ufos are a seperate map, maybe add some turrets or other defences, possibly a robot spawner. Also, if there is any robots on the ship, they should be outside.

2nd, for a possible explaination as to why the Xenonauts don't outmaticly breach the ufo is maybe they sealed it all up. I mean, if the humans were raiding my ufos and killing my people, I'd lock the doors.