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Tighter maps, modern urban maps


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There's something which I think will improve the game, especially ground combat, a hundredfold.

The maps are almost all very open. even the urban/semi urban ones are very open...

What makes these types of games fun is never this type of map design. Remember JA2? Or even the urban environments of the original Xcom? very tight maps, lots of buildings close together with sometimes passages just 1 tile wide between them... Those are the most fun, and they're missing completely from xenonauts.

These types of maps also offer significantly different gameplay than what's currently available... giving much more of a place for tactical manouvering, close combat (shotguns etc), and much more unique character to certain enemies (like sibelians) while offsetting the strengths of others (long-sighted ceaseans)

I think these is something the game desperately needs. Esp. given that all colonized lands are currently farms, which is annoyingly repetitive, I've grown to despise farms.

(crash maps though, not terror. which btw are also way too open for my taste)

love!

Edited by Lightzy
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I would like to see more close in maps as well.

If nothing else it would make rocket launchers and MGs a bit less appealing in some situations.

Reapers would be a much more frightening enemy if they were appearing from the next room only a few steps away rather than wandering across a field with lots of time to shoot them down.

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Its part of the map design requirement to allow the aliens to give you hell with squadsight (or you to do with them). Or something.

I did play an early map with more buildings (one of Moxar's) and really enjoyed it, though I did find it much easier since I wasn't getting shots from all over the place.

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well, an open map can be very easy to deal with if you fight inaccurate aliens (sebbies, plasmapistols...).

On the opposite, a close map with only sebbies and reapers could be hellish.

I think that both design are valuable, and does'nt need to fetch with all alien types. I kinda enjoy "very easy" missions between two hard missions. Who did not enjoy the little scout filled with floaters between a muton terror and a etheral base attack in XCOM:EU-1994 ?

I think we need both design, or a continuum from very claustrophobic to very open. I intend to create a middleeast bazzar map, to have a claustrophobic map in ME.

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If I knew my craft was tough enough to survive the landing on some flimsy buildings and that it would give me better defensive cover on the ground I would do it.
Maybe I'm mistaken, I thought you guys were talking like a major city with big concrete buildings like New York.
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There aren't a huge amount of tiles that would represent that kind of metropolis so I would lean more towards landing in the town square or the car park of a shopping mall.

Some of the big ones could probably land on a residential area and flatten a few brick houses completely.

Even more likely if it was an industrial area with low rent prefab buildings and warehouses.

If a UFO could survive a nuke hit then I imagine it could survive landing on a house or a glancing blow from a concrete building.

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According to lore the xenonaut missiles are nukes (iceland incident)

I don't care about the logic of it. I'm fine with the logic that a crashed ship crashes uncontrollably sometimes. and that quite a large part of the USA is city.

but it's a gameplay thing.

the tight maps give you tight, tense, accurate tactical gameplay, which most importantly, is DIFFERENT than anything currently in xenonauts. the difference and refreshing change alone is enough.. though personally I enjoy JA2 town maps a lot more than I enjoy the open maps with some trees, and I know exactly why

Edited by Lightzy
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Both the original Iceland Incident and Crimson Dagger specify that (several) nukes were used to down the craft over Iceland and that one obviously survived (at least structurally) both the nukes and a crash onto volcanic terrain.

They may not have been hits but even a near miss is likely to be more damage than building would do.

As Lightzy says though the presence of enclosed maps would be beneficial to the gameplay outside of any kind of rationalisation you put on it.

Not every crash site should be in a field, sometimes being in the middle of dense structures (or dense woodland) would make a nice change of pace.

And you are correct Stellar, the current missiles are not nukes.

I can only assume some technological leaps have been made in the past 30 years of pre-game time.

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I'd also add another thought...

Terror missions are supposed to spread terror. I don't see our current crop of terrorists targeting little villages and farms and open areas. They go for crowds. You get crowds in tight urban environments. Attacking a shopping centre, or a marathon, or a rock & roll gig is what they'd do.

Sod damage to my UFO.. i'd bloody land the thing on top of a crowd of a people, turn them into ketchup then send my troops out shooting indiscriminately at anything that moves. If a building is in the way, I'd blast it to rubble with my plasma's then land in the crater.

If you really want to inspire terror in the players, then instead of the 5 or so civilian casualties on a mission have dozens. Get the player so worked-up and upset about losing so many people they'll do whatever they can to intercept the aliens before they ever get on the ground.

If you think about how much damage a single untrained maniac with an automatic can do... then what damage could a group of highly organised, trained and heavily armed aliens do? Add that my charlie flight can be in the air for a few hours and a good mission is one where there are only hundreds dead, not thousands. After all, if the government is prepared to nuke their own city if you fail the mission, then the aliens really must be doing a lot of harm.

I think XCom EU did this fairly well by having a lot of their maps look like warzones and you're rushing around trying to save what's left.

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Terror missions could do with a lot more damaged buildings as you say.

Fly over the site first in the UFO spraying plasma around then send in the group troops to mop up.

Arriving at a terror mission where everything is quiet and there are civilians wandering around doesn't give the right feel of terror.

We need fires for the civvies to run into, buildings that have been turned to rubble, speakers blasting the Ceasan version of Justin Bieber on loop, bodies in the streets.

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...Ceasan version of Justin Bieber on loop...
Stop! I can't take it anymore! The non-alien version is enough to cause our civilians to shoot themselves willingly. :cool:

All kidding aside. I'm not opposed to more urban maps. That will give me more chances to use my (hopefully non-nerfed) shotgun...MAWAHAHAHA!

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More restriction on long ranged weapons (restricted by situation, not nerfed) means more places for the short range ones to shine for me.

It is even possible (although not likely) that the pistol might be useful in some situations.

Although maybe only for handing to a civilian who couldn't find any ear plugs in time.

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You have to be careful with more urban maps. I have some soviet terror ones that I will rework with the updated official submaps. However, the more buildings = more floors and more rooms and when the aliens finally start using upstairs, it could turn a 15 minute map into an hour bug hunt.

Clever use of fake levels and limited seconds floors is needed to give buildings height but without the annoyance

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If you have a large amount of floor space because of taller buildings then I think it would be justified to make the map dimensions smaller.

A 60x60 map all on one level one time or a 40x40 map with some multi-floor warehouses/flats the next time for example.

As you say though, some of them might end up being a nightmare if the enemy ended up hiding out.

Tighter maps don't have to mean taller buildings though, the enclosing areas can be warehouses or factories where the open areas inside are fairly large but contained.

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I definitely agree. The only time I ever feel like I'm engaging in urban, door-to-door combat is when an alien is hiding inside a building (which makes sense), but all too often the urban combat is just the usual long range outdoors engagement on the streets with the alien hiding behind a concrete traffic slab. Some scenarios where space management is important can add some really fun variation to the usual.

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Is there a possibility of two stage maps? If anyone is familiar with the UFO series, remember the base missions with upper levels that you need to then get to the "exit" zone to go to the actual base underground?

They were a possible option to be added but I don't know if it ever got past the suggestion stage.

If they never got around to coding the transition part then it would not be possible to add them in as a mod.

I think the idea of using them has been ditched now in favour of a simpler single stage approach.

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