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UFOs & Being Horrible


Chris

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I'm strongly in favour of keeping UFO's, even if just the medium ones, accessible on the map. Clearing out/locating UFO's as part of the sweep is always fun, and after all, this ship carried the aliens you are hunting down to earth, and then let them walk out of it. Smaller UFO's having cramped interiors would actually make more sense than having them as flying eggshells. (the smallest being inacessible also makes sense, just like a crashed fighter-jet).

Big maps for big UFO's is good, personally speaking - X-Com Apoc had maps where most of it was the UFO. Perhaps only have a small portion of the map be external - if the larger ships will be at least partially procedurally generated, then this would simply be explained as your team being dropped off by the closest breach/portal.

If two part missions on large UFO's becomes the final decision, then what anotherdevil said is true - make it clear it's the same mission. Most games I've played like that ending up feeling like two independant missions that the designers just bolted together.

Edited by Dix
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Hm, i chose wrong reference, I thought about battleship size but it's cruiser - I think it supposed to be smaller - 45x30x2, I think. But no matter, I just has to much spare time

Umm, lot of people keep talking about the size of the ufo's but isn't the problems not "the ships are too big" but isn't it "the shipped didn't work with tiles when adding more floors" the issuse?

I don't think so, ship is just submap for now, like any other building, Chris said so, but I don't see how this can be problem. If it work with buildings - what can be wrong with ufos - maybe i will try if will have nothing to do.

It can be too much work to cut all this ships to tiles, it will be hundreds uniqe sprites - just place decorative big one much easier.

And, if, after a while, most time we will deal with only all this gigantic ships, and map it will be just ufo most time - there will be not too much place to maps itself, for all this map work, randomess, civilians and soldiers.

Apocalipsis, where ufo crash sites was just ufo, has many non ufo missions. If this "whole map" ships will be rare and most time we will deal with "quarter of map" and smaller - it will be ok.

If there no any possibilities to make it another way -- I will understand, but it would be a pity, and it can't be possible to revert this back

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zzz1010. The big difference between a building and a UFO is that a building is a box. A UFO is anything but a box. Take the landing ship - that's a large dome. There's probably strong issues with trying to make a convincing and/or workable 2nd level submap within the boundaries of the engine, or Chris would have never brought it up.

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Man, putting a mid-mission transition in the middle of an operation would completely break up the flow of the game. I don't think it'd work, especially considering the amount of fun it was blowing holes in the ceiling of a UFO in the original X-Com and flying guys in with jet suits.

There's gotta be some way to figure this out without compromising the integrity of the source material, surely? Wish I could offer something more constructive :/

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Eh, I don't think two parter UFO missions compromise "integrity of the source material", TFTD had two parter missions too. Though they weren't with USOs.

Anyway, you can't blow up walls to UFOs in this game anyway, so even if they put it on on map you wouldn't be able to do same as in original game.

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Hmm, well, it depends on how they do the "single unaccessible huge tile to have ufo scale" thing Chris mentioned, but I do get what you mean.

Its one fun thing in Apocalypse regarding to ufos, UFOs are darn huge(smallest ones(which would probably still be huger than large scout) don't even have mission or alien control systems, apparently they all died in crash and equipment got scrapped so only thing you do with them is retrieve them and research them to find what type of ufo they are) so every ground mission has them in big scale. Sadly, its trade off for unique terrain as you usually spawn near ufo entry point and there is little area around it but no point going there as aliens are inside the UFO waiting to kill you.

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Some hate it, I like it better than the 2 predecessors.

Lots of gaming goodness. And just like other games it has it's bugs or stupid design decisions.

There's an editor out there that lets you (for instance) make the super-super fragile roads in the game indestructible, which is pretty much required for a lot of the game to function.

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Well, it depends on how hardcore XCOM fan you are. And I don't mean in positive way(note that I love Apocalypse), I mean if you consider change of artstyle to retro future and from geoscape to cityscape worst thing ever, then you might not like it.(also, some people say game is balanced for real time mode, but I have no clue what they are talking about and always play in turn based mode. I mean, what, brainsuckers and poppers are harder in turn based? How is that good reason, chrysalids are loved for being hard... ANYWAY) And game did get tons of stuff cut out because of developing problems, but you might not notice that if you don't know about it.(most of stuff cut out have to do with corporates, capturing VIPs, interrogating them and such other human enemy stuff)

...Ahem, anyway, game does improve on some stuff on original game, for example when you choose where to move it displays how many tu you are gonna have left after moving so you don't need to count it yourself. Also, buildings are this time completely destructible meaning you can destroy first floor(and assuming your computer can handle it) and then watch apartment building(note: There are maps with HUGE amount of floors, up to 9 I think) crash down. Of course, corporates don't like you destroying their property, but its still fun. Also, you can go prone.

Also, aliens this time around are completely original(like, no greys or aliens based on any other existing alien lore or in case of TFTD, Lovecraft's books) and don't look like b scifi movie aliens.(or horror movie in case of TFTD, gillman I mean) Instead, they look alien in alieny way, but some people think art style makes them look like muppets(I have no clue why would anyone get reminded of muppets, they all look rather grotesque)

But yeah, if you ask me, its best of original three as I have childhood nostalgia for it and it is good game even if it has its flaws. As XCOM fan I think its worth to try it out at least even if you don't end up liking it. But if you love original two games very much, be aware of that while they improved upon some mechanics on original, they did change up lots of stuff. Whether they changed too much or whether you like the changes is up to you.

@Gazz: Huh, much does making roads last more than one hit change? I know that it would make tanks more useful(Tanks have great stats, but they die in one hit as every road vehicle dies at the moment road gets destroyed, and since to shoot at tank you shoot also at road...) but does it change anything else? Also where I can get that editor?

Edited by XenoMask
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Search for "apoc'd apocalypse editor".

The roads are important because personnel and new recruits can only arrive by road and there is no way to protect roads. (or repair them)

Even the police can destroy them while shooting some criminal or other. Or one of the various gangs, or...

Road (combat) vehicles are useless either way. If you do in-city missions you can just as well deploy your squad in multiple air limos. Travel like a boss. =)

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Huh, so tanks are useless even with roads? Well, I guess they move too slow to fight ufos, but I figured out they are useful for other stuff as they have good stats.

Eh, maybe they were more useful in original concept for game... I mean, bike vehicle was probably for corporate spying or something as its completely useless on its own to send lone agent to mission. Unless you like challenge or something.

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This thread got me to register and reply. Personally. I'd prefer to have the UFO interior be seamless with the exterior map. Redesign the UFOs if you need to. Hell, go back to squared off boxes like X-Com had if you need to. I don't have any problem with multi-part missions, as a rule, but I can't see any legitimate excuse as to why you can't have the interior of a UFO be on the same map as the exterior. Cutting it up like that just breaks the immersion and ruins one of the best parts of any UFO mission, the entry. If you're not allowed to choose when and where you enter a UFO(within your abilities), then what's the point? X-Com even had extra holes poked in the UFO if it were particularly badly damaged, giving you natural extra entry points... without special interior maps. If the devs can't at the very least meet the same feature set of a game that's nearly 20 years old, when trying to do a remake of that game, then there's something wrong. Now, I just seriously sat down to play the alpha a few days ago, I gave the kickstarter demo a try and loved it, that's why I invested in the full game just recently. And while I do love a lot of it, and love the feeling it brings back, there are still many cases where I find myself thinking, "Well, X-Com did this better..." It's slowly getting to the point where I might as well just go back and play the old one.

I'm just now getting to missions where I have more than 1 or 2 aliens to kill on a map, so I admit, my experience is still lacking compared to many of you on these forums. But just judging from the small and normal scout crashes. They generally feel right. Maps are a bit repetitive at times(Even worse than X-Com, but hopefully that's being worked on). I wouldn't mind seeing a few more holes in the hull of the UFO, but this is generally how an assault on a small, lightly crewed UFO should feel. I'll continue playing and continue waiting and while the current state of the game, at least what I've seen, gives me much hope, these forums put some fear into me that this is heading in a direction I won't like.

I also realize, this being my first post, and being critical may come off badly, I don't mean to be that way. I want to be supportive, I wouldn't have paid for the game if I didn't, I love anyone who has this kind of respect for the early X-Com games, even if their vision isn't the same as my own. I'm just putting my own opinion out there, one more voice among the masses that may or may not get listened to.

Edit: Missed the size part of the opening post, but if scale is a problem for the larger ships... then perhaps you're thinking a little too big...

Edited by sluissa
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I reserve the right to change my mind if the final product is awesome, but I'm also disappointed with the proposed change. I agree with Sluissa. Making a tactical entry of a UFO without knowing if there was an alien ready to pop his head out of the door and take your face off was one of the most tense moments in the original game. I think you're losing more than you're gaining by getting rid of it for the ability to have what sounds like better artwork.

I would suggest, if you absolutely must separate the upper floors, you make the first floor of the UFO part of the original map that must be cleaned out. Then start your second half of the mission on the 2nd floor. Don't make the cutoff point outside the UFO.

Edited by Mathalor
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