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Not just intercept... I want PATROL!


eobet

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In the original UFO, the ufo:s were simulated and flew around the planet even if your radar stations didn't see them.

However, there was one more way to spot an ufo and that was to fly around with your aircraft and hope to cross the path of one, since they had a small, built-in radar.

I was fanatical in doing this, patrolling day and night, and I encountered quite a number of ships this way. It wasn't much fun with the relentless clicking though.

I'm sad to see that Xenonauts have not improved on this part of the game. The obvious route would of course be to add a "Patrol" action in addition to the "Intercept".

My proposal would be that this would allow you to setup regular radar sweeps of a particular area (country) of interest and get rid of the tedious clicking.

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That functionality was definitely working back in version 12 at least.

I haven't tried it recently but last time I looked it was working.

Click the intercept tab and you should get a message to click on a map waypoint.

You select your squadron as normal and they should fly to the set location.

When they arrive you get a pop up window saying they are patrolling and you get the return to base, centre on target or cancel options.

Give that a try, I would be interested to know if it still works.

*edit* cancel cancels the window, not the patrol.

They will stay there until engaged, out of fuel, or you click on them to give new orders.

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That functionality was definitely working back in version 12 at least.

I haven't tried it recently but last time I looked it was working.

Click the intercept tab and you should get a message to click on a map waypoint.

You select your squadron as normal and they should fly to the set location.

When they arrive you get a pop up window saying they are patrolling and you get the return to base, centre on target or cancel options.

Give that a try, I would be interested to know if it still works.

*edit* cancel cancels the window, not the patrol.

They will stay there until engaged, out of fuel, or you click on them to give new orders.

That patrol means that the plan circles that spot right? It won't be paroling a route will it?

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That functionality was definitely working back in version 12 at least.

I haven't tried it recently but last time I looked it was working.

Click the intercept tab and you should get a message to click on a map waypoint.

You select your squadron as normal and they should fly to the set location.

When they arrive you get a pop up window saying they are patrolling and you get the return to base, centre on target or cancel options.

Give that a try, I would be interested to know if it still works.

*edit* cancel cancels the window, not the patrol.

They will stay there until engaged, out of fuel, or you click on them to give new orders.

Yes, that is the way it also worked in the original UFO as I mentioned.

What I want, however, is to be able to schedule it.

Or, the simplest way, as you describe it, is to add a button saying "continuous patrolling", which automatically flies the same aircraft out to the same spot repeatedly as it gets refuelled (until I chose to click on the aircraft again and cancel the route).

Edited by eobet
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Ah so it was a repeating patrol you were after.

Rather than a specific patrol point that sort of system would work better with waypoints I reckon.

Set your path, click patrol until further orders and let them get on with it.

Although with the numbers of air superiority missions around that could well be suicide at the moment :)

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This isn't really the functionality that aircraft are designed for, so I don't think its worth the coding time to add scheduling. You can manually do it with the waypoints with Shift-click but really you're meant to be using base radars to discover the UFOs.

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That's understood, but I'd still like to say - the game isn't just about what you're meant to do. It's also about what you can do, giving the player multiple options. Being able to play in different ways would, at the very least, add to replay value.

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Although if every little feature people requested was added just to give players multiple replay options the game would never get finished and none of us would be able to play it at all :P

Perhaps. Some features are easier to add than others, however, and have disproportionate effect on replayability.

I know commercial manufacturing isn't making it back in, that's fine, it can be modded in. Fighter patrols can't, they have to be coded in. And it's a big change, if you can use patrols, it can let you choose between many-bases and one-main-base paths. More precisely to dedicate less resources to radar sites in the second case.

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This isn't really the functionality that aircraft are designed for, so I don't think its worth the coding time to add scheduling. You can manually do it with the waypoints with Shift-click but really you're meant to be using base radars to discover the UFOs.

Clicking like crazy it is then... because aircraft still has built in radar and chance to detect UFOs in their path, I hope?

Regarding the "isn't really... designed for". I'm not sure how to put it but... what was Minecraft really designed for? What was Twitter really designed for? Users invented what turned out to be their major selling points. From your inital comment, I'd say it's much, much, muuuuch more common that people use something for a different purpose than you think and I would loathe to live in a world where people weren't allowed to use things for other things than what they were designed for. So I will be continuing relentlessly patrolling the skies to make sure I grab every single UFO, thank you very much. :)

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He didn't say you shouldn't be doing it or that you would be prevented.

He simply said that extra functionality would not be added to go further in that direction.

Everyone would love something extra that complements their own play style and the things they would have in their ideal game.

It is rarely possible to add everything though.

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Regarding the "isn't really... designed for". I'm not sure how to put it but... what was Minecraft really designed for? What was Twitter really designed for? Users invented what turned out to be their major selling points. From your inital comment, I'd say it's much, much, muuuuch more common that people use something for a different purpose than you think and I would loathe to live in a world where people weren't allowed to use things for other things than what they were designed for.

Technically if the game officially supported patrolling via special options that would mean that the game intends for you to do patrols which would defeat the point you made above.

It is by not having dedicated patrol functionality that the game enables you to think/work outside the box and go beyond "intended functionality". So you win after all. :)

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Is the aircraft radar range moddable?? If so, just have someone mod up an AWACS plane and use that for your flying patrol. You should be able to cover about 400 mile radius around the AWACS. You'd still have to move it manually, but it could cover a huge search area and has good endurance. This system was available in the late 70's.

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