Hidden movement picture on/off. Fog of war?

[FruitEater]

I find the hidden movment screen EXTREMLY annoying, i dont know exactly why, but its really uncomfortable for me, it takes me out of the exparience. I much rather have a bit of transparent text on the screen ( think "alien movement" in XCOM: EU) as an option.

Overall i enjoy the game, but for the long haul the hiddenmovement screen might be a game breaker for me.

And yes, i never played the original xcom, XCOM: EU introduced me to the franschise and i very much enjoyed it.

[thothkins]

is it the setting the picture is in? or is it that there's a picture there at all for you?

[Gauddlike]

I would think the hidden movement screen (HMS) staying or being removed would depend entirely on what alternatives are available.

For example the game engine used may not support moving the enemy units instantly and simultaneously so there may have to be a delay in order for them to act.

If that is the case then it comes down to leaving the screen sat looking at the playing area with nothing happening for the duration or switching out to the HMS.

Personally I would prefer the HMS (especially if there were multiple images used) in that situation, partly because of the nostalgia for the way x-com did it.

I also feel it is far less interesting to sit and stare at your own troops just standing around doing nothing when it looks like you should be able to be playing.

The HMS takes that away and demonstrates quite well that you are not the one in control at this point.

I do think however that the order of the enemy actions could take into account what will be seen by the player.

Maybe all actions that will remove the HMS should be taken together (first or last?) so there is less switching.

[Safe-Keeper]

Never had a problem with the Hidden Movement image in the original X-Com games, honestly don't see why so many people are all of a sudden complaining now. Was it like this with the original games, too, or is it something that the overly long "alpha turns" of Xenonauts has brought about?

[Gorlom]

I thought it was something that XCOM2012 brought about...

[Buzzles]

After recently playing UFO:AI 2.5 for a bit, a game without the HMS, I have to say I'm very much in favour of it being in this game.

Mostly because it makes it much more obvious when it's your turn again.

[HWP]

For example the game engine used may not support moving the enemy units instantly and simultaneously so there may have to be a delay in order for them to act.

It certainly doesn't. So what? Each move should take microseconds for a well-written engine and maybe 5 milliseconds for crude .net code. You don't have to redraw in between. I don't imagine the whole sequence taking more than half a second or so on a modern PC.

I just want to press "end turn", see if anyone's shooting at me, and have the next turn. No sitting in black trying to listen to sounds of things I don't care about.

[Gauddlike]

It certainly doesn't. So what? Each move should take microseconds for a well-written engine and maybe 5 milliseconds for crude .net code.

What information are you basing your estimates on?

Does it have any relation to the game engine that is in use?

So what?

Well if the game engine does not support the kind of movement you are talking about then it is not possible for it to work in the way you suggest it should.

It may not be designed to allow movement that is hidden from the player at all.

If that is the case then it may need to draw, animate, and move each entity individually (in the same way it does the players units) with only the blackness of the fog of war preventing the player seeing it.

The only speed increase would be the lack of thinking time the computer needs.

Just because you assume it could work in one way does not mean it does in fact work like that.

It has been pointed out many times in various threads that the game engine is dated, and not high quality even when it was new.

It has also been pointed out that the dev team have no rights over the engine and cannot legally make any alterations to the way it operates.

The original creators and rights holders of the engine have been unreachable and not contacted Goldhawk or responded to them.

The engine will only work in the way it was originally designed to work almost a decade ago, and for a different game type at that.

If that did not include a way to instantaneously (or close enough) move some entities then it is not possible, despite wishing it were otherwise.

Your guesses on the time taken for enemy turns assume that the engine is capable of performing those movements without being forced to go through the actual time consuming drawing/animation/movement process.

It is not clear if this is in fact the case.

Hopefully it will be able to skip at least some of the slow parts at least.

[erutan]

Maybe have some logic check: if turn = enemy and alien = non-visible then use special ability teleport which takes up TUs to move to a point w/ no animation.

Some kind of EU2012 functionality would be what I'd hope for (sans the overlong listening bit) but part of the problem now is that hidden movement is kinda bugged, so that'll get better anyways. I really don't need to spend hours of my life looking at "hidden movement" artworks if it can be avoided though.

[Gorlom]

Maybe have some logic check: if turn = enemy and alien = non-visible then use special ability teleport which takes up TUs to move to a point w/ no animation.

That sounds like if the alien move into visible parts it will still teleport the remainder of that distance. What if the start and stop is hidden but the part in between is into visible areas?

I assume shooting will not be part of this logic check/teleport function? so we will still be waiting for aliens and friendly AIs shooting at each other.

[Chris]

In the future we'll be looking to see if we can reduce the time on the HM screen. Unfortunately at the moment the game plays every animation for every unit on the battlefield, either under HM if it is out of line of sight or revealed if it is in line of sight.

It's not possible to "replay" actions, so you have to show them live - but hopefully we can speed the animations that are hidden up so they take 0 seconds and then just have a fixed minimum HM screen which plays a few relevant sounds. But we'll see.

[HWP]

What information are you basing your estimates on?

Just some programming experiences. These were around the cycle times for implementation of similar routines in native cpp and .net.

If that is the case then it may need to draw, animate, and move each entity individually (in the same way it does the players units) with only the blackness of the fog of war preventing the player seeing it.

It can be moving entities that, for the time being, have no animations.

Anyway, from Chris' response, that seems to be the case, and the intended solution similar to that.

[Gauddlike]

That was the way it appeared to work just from observing the way the game works.

Hopefully once some time is spent on optimising the system then it won't be an issue for anyone.

[TrashMan]

Maybe cycle a few different HM screens, just for diversity sake.. And for nice art.

[GizmoGomez]

I still like the idea of it taking just as much time for the hidden movement to happen as it would if you could see the enemies. That way you can time the explosions, door opening sounds, misc noises, etc, to what is or could actually be happening. If I get a say, I say leave it like the original game. It added more to the whole atmosphere, plus it's more useful tactically if you can know roughly how long the enemy was walking around, then just skipping that information for the sake of "modernising" or whatever.

[GizmoGomez]

That wasn't very well structured (I'm dead tired), but you get my point, right?

[Gauddlike]

I do remember sitting there and estimating how far the enemy could have gone from the door that had opened or civilian that had been killed.

Or using the time taken for the hidden movement to estimate how many enemies were left.

[GizmoGomez]

Exactly my point! We should leave it alone, and have it happen in "real time." I do like the idea of having different pictures to correspond with different maps, though. Like, there could be ones for desert terrain, urban areas, forests, etc. It would add some variety to the game, hopefully appeasing those that want it gone totally.

One other thought, the time would probably not be that long anyway, because we'll have "modern" computers working on it (N=not certain exactly what that will end up meaning), and not über-slow ones that took too long to do everything, leading to the longer-than-is-enjoyable HM screen.

[erutan]

But how realistic is it that you can count footsteps of an alien halfway around the map you can't even see? I'm not saying there wasn't any worth, but if you have 20-30sec hidden movement screens every turn that quickly adds up to hours or days of life. I assume it's a relic of having made a game in 1994 (move each unit real time + just overlay the screen with a big graphic). I appreciate that old friction of listening for what type of alien it was, etc, but taking that out isn't just mindless modern streamlining.

Maybe there could be a toggle to not skip the shortening of non-visible alien actors, but imho by default it should be kept as short as possible.

[thothkins]

Having sat through a horde of civvies go through the hidden movement, it can certainly drag on. However, a balance where little flashes of aliens can be seen and appropriate sounds, a la EU1994, would be just fine.

[GizmoGomez]

That is a good point, I had forgotten about those useless civvies. I do like the idea of toggling it, though. It'd be even better if you could have three different settings: 1) Everyone, including civvies, gets a real time turn, 2) only aliens get the real time turn, 3) speed everything up. Whichever one you chose, it would still go back to real time movement if you saw anything, as one would expect. I dunno if the engine will allow that, though. I remember reading that it's real finicky.

[Gauddlike]

You couldn't really hear movement that far away, it seemed to be dependent on range from your troops.

Plasma shots could be heard from a long distance while footsteps seemed to be close, same building sort of distance rather than half the map away.

I would be happy if the npcs could support two different movement speeds (real time not AP) for each npc type.

If they are visible then they move at the same speed as Xenonauts, if not then they move at 10x speed or whatever you set in the xml.

Having both speeds available for easy tweaking would mean you could speed up the hidden movement section by quite a lot and have aliens visible movements be faster than normal and civilians blur past to save time or you could have both in real time if you, as the player, felt like it.

By npcs I mean anything that the player doesn't move, aliens, civvies, npc guards etc.

[thothkins]

"I would be happy if the npcs could support two different movement speeds (real time not AP) for each npc type."

it could also inspire hilarious Keystone Cops chases round the battlescape

[djlogue]

In EU, what was the hidden movement pic ment to be?? was It a crysalid zombie?? or just some completely unrelated pic like the artwork on the fron of the UFO GOLD release (the huge fly type thing)

[Tacobandit]

In EU, what was the hidden movement pic ment to be?? was It a crysalid zombie?? or just some completely unrelated pic like the artwork on the fron of the UFO GOLD release (the huge fly type thing)

You mean the OG? It was a soldier in a gimp suit with a muton behind him.

In the new game, it was just a camera centered around your soldiers, that highlighted visible activity.