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UFOs & Being Horrible (part 2)


Chris

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Sorry if it become annoying. Or looks like criticism. Its not a suggestion, just attempt to make it more similar to art( I mean existed ingame picture). Tile shapes is very close to existed, map the same - 20x15. Its removing main scout feature - two separated zones, but it not big lost I think. Main fault of my design - how to find door.

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Are you currently looking for work? If so, I have one suggestion. . .:rolleyes:

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I'm becoming slightly concerned (perhaps unnecessarily) that there is an underlying danger here in how long these big ship missions will take, especially if they become 2 parters.

I loved the hell out of the original X-Com games, but there were 2 things that I really didn't like. The first was missions that lasted too long because the maps were too large with too many tiny places for aliens to hide (I'm looking at you ship terror mission). I think Chris has done a great thing by adding the alternative mission objective to avoid these, and I hope they will exist even on the two parters.

However the second thing was that stage at the late game where you had all the items you needed to research, but were just waiting for however long it took to research and manufacture the final stuff. In this time you ended up with quite a few large UFO's flying around that you then had to clear out when you downed them. This became incredibly tedious after a while. In Apocalypse you could at least destroy the ship entirely on the overworld map which I thought was a good solution.

I guess what I'm getting at with this is that if the large UFO missions are going to be really long slogs, they either need to be really varied, or somehow skippable (this problem has arisen in the new X-Com game, with reviewers asking for the ability to auto-resolve battles). I totally understand that we won't be able to make our own breaches in the UFOs for technical reasons, but if thereis no variety in how we can tackle the large UFOs each time I think it could get dull. Because of this I'm getting more convinced by the idea ducttape had, or just a 1 part mission inside the UFO.

If there are two part missions, how do you see the positioning setup of the second stage going? I always found it irrating in Apocalypse where your squad would just start randomly across the map. At least there though you could arrange people in squads that would appear together.

I'd also be interested to see if people have ideas of how to keep those final missions interesting.

Edited by Kasferatu
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Could you have one big ufo cover the whole map but on the second or third level so that you still have a mp with buildings and whatnot below that? That way you have to fight your way to the access point of the UFO without making it a 2 parter.

(PS. I haven't read either this or the part 1 thread :P)

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Disqualified! ;)

btw how it could be on 2nd floor when it was shot down? Alien scum should follow Earth physic laws means destroyed crap allways fall down till it hits ground :)

A) It's supported by the buildings/hills/objects beneath it.

B) The great big giant landing gears didn't get damaged in the fight and automatically deployed on low altitude.

C) It still has rudimentary levitation (like the small captured area 51 fighter in independence day) but it only works on low altitude and has no propulsion anymore.

D) It's partially crashed and buried but a large part is sticking up above the rest of the map. <-- that one can probably be a bit hard to do now that I think about it :P

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I think that the smaller craft should remain as they are.

Medium size craft scaled to make them playable on a single map.

Large and Massive craft to be two part missions. The end of the first part would be entering the craft entrance much like the final Cydonia map in the original. The entrance part could be at a random edge/ corner of the map

I see Gorlom has already posted this, but in the original the Battleships were supported on a number of smaller "legs" including the elevator. Now you could adjust the height of those to place a map with buildings underneath, then that could be an alternative.

Also posted is the need to retain tension in the two parters. While they are massive, there's little fun in being led by the nose down endless corridors to find the last alien/ command room. Particularly if there's nothing else to do and if you've just taken down four other battleships in the last day. On the other hand, maintaining a constant threat in such a large craft would result in a pretty high Xenonaut body count. So, alternate winning options, blast routes to command posts, looking at the frequency of these giant ships and if they really need to be that large would be worth it.

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Scale suggestion

Spoilers alert(?)

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And i still think it's better to handle target maps as submap array

Maps, also can be little bigger if you wish, , it possible to make 80x80 for "high tier" or also medium , some times ago I did 80Ñ…80 "factories" and it was quite viable. Maybe because I just like to walk around.

Terror town is 60x70

And need to define how many aliens will be on map? It will determinate. 10? 30? 50? If there 10 then 80x80 is too huge, if 50 - near to tight

Are you wish fast battle missons or long? Need take this into account.

If you want it fast - why you need to make ships bigger, if you wish long - why afraid to make maps bigger.

Edited by zzz1010
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Nice work again zzz1010.

Well i don't think those maps look too big. And the ships look nice in size, added there are several floors.

According to me, bigger is too big, and maybe i am wrong. Maybe these are too big as well?

Hard to say without being able to test a map.

Are this the planned size by development team or is it your own vision of the size?

And are this your own shapes or the shapes of what was planned? If it is what was planned, i can still only see problems in the shape

of the cruiser? But maybe i misunderstood the issues involved.

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Maybe these are too big as well?

Hard to say without being able to test a map.

Are this the planned size by development team or is it your own vision of the size?

And are this your own shapes or the shapes of what was planned?

Last ones is supposed to be big, I think. I not sure what is planned - at first thread Chis said about 50x50 cruiser. This is my suggestion of sizes I think will be enough and still big and keep the progression . Yes, this my own vision.

The pictures are drawn by goldhawk artist for for interception fight. I didn't develop them.

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If you ignore them on the geoscape long enough they are taken out (I assume by local military).

I suppose the question should be what kind of penalty should you get for that?

Do they reduce your standing, and potentially your funding, because you made them do the work you are getting paid for?

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If you ignore them on the geoscape long enough they are taken out (I assume by local military).

I always assumed the aliens to have some sort of a SAR equivalent, so they would rescue their downed UFO crews, or the crews could repair their craft and take off, or they could simply scatter too far away from the crash site to chase.

As for the penalty, IMHO not getting the goodies is enough. There could be a more explicit choice to finish the downed UFO off, and take a penalty if you don't and then don't follow up, but it's largely extraneous.

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Thinking of it, running away is out, you could get the UFO then, unless they managed to destroy it.

But whatever the case, that crash site shouldn't be waiting for you forever. In aliens' shoes, what policy would you set? Some form of sanitization would probably be in order. But then we're back to the whole "rocks from space" thing.

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Or they get forgotten by the hive mind, achieve self awareness, and open a bookshop on the outskirts of Ipswich.

Obviously not all at the same time, there are only so many bookshops required by Ipswich.

I reckon some end up in Hull as well. Possibly Staines. They'd blend in easily enough.

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If you ignore them on the geoscape long enough they are taken out (I assume by local military).

I suppose the question should be what kind of penalty should you get for that?

Do they reduce your standing, and potentially your funding, because you made them do the work you are getting paid for?

Didn't Chris comment on that it wouldn't have any penalty. I might have dreamed this but I got the impression that later on in the game crash sites would be so plentiful that you wouldn't have time to reach them all.

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I suppose most the surviving aliens meet a bad fate of some kind or start bookshops in England. The crash is probably carted by the responsible government and souvenir hunters. Good thing their aren't any highly radioactive parts in the alien ships. One has to imagine the occasional accident when a villager fires an alien weapon unintentionally. :D

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"Oh so that's what the little lever does!, Madge, did you see that? Madge, Madge...uh oh..."

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boom.jpg.a364e9f5ae73d411ed78d9f28ea16d8

Edited by StellarRat
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