Battle log during ground combat.

[Vernum]

Would it be possible to have a battle log during ground combat to show how much damage we dealt to a unit, death of a unit, unit detected etc.. ?

If against the idea of showing exact damage number maybe just show how effective was a shot against a target.

[RotGtIE]

One of the things I hated in X-com was having someone die in the aliens' turn and forgetting who it was, never knowing who got wasted unless I regularly kept track of the roster myself. I'd like a feature like this since it would tell me who ate it the moment it happened.

[Vernum]

Yes, I agree with rotgtie and for the other log informations reasons, here is a screen that represents a bit what I meant. I think it actually adds a bit to the game atmosphere.

One of our soldier could hear some sounds coming from a direction but it could be a civilian or an alien or even a dog.

If our soldier hurts an alien, the game could write something like bob hit an alien for 30 damage, his right arm is severely injured ( we now know that the alien has lost some accuracy)

Edited December 27, 2011 by Vernum

[anotherdevil]

It could be done in the style of the original fallout, very unobtrusive that was. And it had some funny text in it too, and the descriptions given really made you fell you'd done well!

[Sathra]

Not a bad idea, can be jarring though. Personally, I'd rather there weren't any damage numbers listed, adds to the mystery.

[anotherdevil]

Perhaps numbers could be replaced by simple descriptors?

Grazed = 0-25% damage

flesh wound = 25-50%

winced with pain = 50-75%... etc.

add a few variables so it doesn't get old real fast, and a few weapon specific ones (Rocket launchers 'blowing them apart etc.) and it could work quite nicely

[Chris]

"Wow, I sure have a lot of blood in me...or I used to."

I did quite like the Fallout style stuff, but it might deaden the tension a little. It's something to look at in the beta. The mission end screen should show which soldiers died in the mission though - perhaps it'd be worth making the OK button move the debrief screen to the Soldier Progression screen before it exits to the Geoscape?

[BlackObsidian]

Good idea, especially once the progression screen also shows promotions, medals received, etc as well as deaths. Nothing like some good news when you've barely scraped through a mission.

[anotherdevil]

Yeah I always thought the humour wouldn't fit, but something similar could always work. Have a think about it, that's all we ask =]

[Gorlom]

Personally ive allways been annoyed by the "alien movement" part of x-com. the hidden part taking a bit too long but the worst part was allways the very slow projectiles shooting from some aliens hiding place. It wasnt so bad if it hit and kileld your guy but the times when they keept missing and went across the whole map were annoying.

I was thinking you could skip showing the aliens on their turn and generate their movement in a combatlog that has some kind of replay feature.

"Alien *** misses Trooper Leroy Jenkins" showing up in the combatlog. and if you want to see where it came from to get a general idea of the direction you click it for a replay. and if its from an alien outside of los it shows up as "Hidden *** kills [Rank] [soldier's name]"

(*** chould either be removed or replaced with some indicator used to differentiate different aliens so you dont have to look through all the replays to see if some alien shot from a different direction)

And ofc include "[soldier] spotted an aliens movement " if one moves in (and out of) the of line of sight on the alien turn.

Although this is probably more annoying to code the clickable replay links then the worth of the effect =P

PS. Hmm. this probably is only partly relevant to the topic. Sorry if this counts as hijacking the thread. I just thought it was relevant. DS.

[anotherdevil]

I think the hidden movement has got various improvements planned to make it friendlier, and less tedious. There were a couple of threads on it in the old forums, with different methods examined etc. so hopefully you wont be so annoyed with it this time around.

but I do likle the idea of the battle-log letting you know what occurred during the hidden movement phase though

[Gorlom]

Only for the parts of their actions perciveble by your agents right? =)

[anotherdevil]

Of course!