[poll] should UFO position be known when the dropship lands?

[Gauddlike]

No game time does not advance during ground combat.

That also has no bearing on what I was saying in reply to the other poster.

Game time would only be an issue if you had to wait for your squad to recover from wounds or rearm after each fight.

If we both play for an hour (real time) and you manage to do four full clearance missions while I manage to do six take and hold missions then I would potentially have all of the advantages I talked about.

There are factors to influence that, such as if holding the UFO gave significantly less mission score than killing every last alien or if you managed to kill less than 75% of enemies on each take and hold so got lower gear rewards.

Incidentally I guess game time would also move along more as I would be out of ground combat more times in the same real time period and would need to travel between sites but that doesn't really matter to the example.

The statement that capturing the UFO is a bad idea only applies if the game is balanced to make killing every last alien give enough of an additional reward to make up for the time it takes the player.

If it takes you 10 minutes to capture the ship or 15 minutes to hunt down all aliens then you are better off capturing in that situation if the capture is worth more than two thirds of the reward of the other mission.

This is going off at a bit of a tangent to the thread though now.

[Mytheos]

@Guaddlike

If we both play for 6 hours and I clear every mission and you UFO cap every mission, you will be further ahead in the game than me, such as a month or so ahead of me in the Geoscope.

But if you went to bed at that point, and I continued playing until our Geoscope dates matched, I would have more money than you. (Assuming we played the EXACT same game, meaning the UFOs were not random, and we were both equally successful at Air Combat)

Therefore a player that clears and plays equally well as a player that caps, will always have more money, and the gap will increase over the number of missions played.

-----

This is a thread poll really, and somewhere in our conversation is understanding why capping every UFO is a bad idea...which I agree with...maybe not "bad" but obviously not as effective and has no advantages vs clearing the whole map.

[RawCode]

Mytheos this called "ability to choose how to play", if i want to max score i will hunt down allien units on map (for this reason game shoud provide more roaming units to make this action a bit more challenging) if i want to skip ground mission without reputation impact, i navigate to ufo and capture it.

Decision how to play up to me, currently game force me to explore same maps and lose time on boring actions.

[Mytheos]

Those boring actions are the core of the game tho, I do understand you feel the game is grindy and repetitive however.

I usually dont play games I find boring and repetitive tho.

And if I am just skipping through a large chunk of the game to get to the end, I avoid those games as well as I obvious am not really enjoying them.

Some people like grinding, some people dont sure, but every game has a certain level of grind to it...I guess it just comes off to me like asking for Auto-Leveling in an RPG because you think leveling up your character is boring.

[Mytheos]

@RawCode

Also the maps are not done yet, we all know this, nor is the Alien AI, Alien Stats, Alien Behavior Pattern and so forth.

So yes the game is more grindy feeling now than it will be later.

But wouldnt the logical conclusion be to wait and see how grindy the game feels when it is more complete vs trying to waste development time to include features that may not even be needed?

[RawCode]

"maps not done", "nostalgy", "in real life" and other nonsense argumens instrument of trolling and nothing more, currently discussion about current beta build.

NOT BUILD THAT MAY SHIP AT DAY OF HL3 RELEASE!!111

Complex AI, 100500 patterns, 999 maps and other stuff not really needed to make game fun and challenging, just imagine situation:

1) You know where UFO is, directly from start, chinook pilot told you that it parked next to big red building on toleft side of map.

2) You know that over 13 allien units placed on random positions all over map, with plasma blasters for 100 damage and 90 accuracy each (you have psionic unit in party and he told you)

3) You know, if you touch UFO door (it will ring theft alarm and) all allien units will come to defend it at same time.

4) Will you risk taking UFO without cleaning map or you will explore map and take allien units one by one?

this will make ground combat interesting, especially if "clues" about ufo location and allien units numbers can be incorrect.

obviously you will evaluate your skill and allien power and will have many options, like taking building next to ufo, setting snipers and send redshirt for ufo door, or move all your units inside at one turn and hold ufo from inside, or something else.

more options provided to player == better, current build provide no options.

[Mytheos]

@RawCode

So for example, if you had a squad that you felt wasnt reasonably capable to do a mission...either because of lack of equipment or too many rookies due to losses and so forth...

You might feel like clearing the map might be too dangerous, and would rather go for the UFO to minimize your risk.

I can understand this, and that is a valid tactical decision.

[C. jejuni]

No, he's talking about the choice between doing the short but hard route -rush for the UFO, alert every alien to your position and prepare for a xeno wave- or taking it slow and comparatively easy -sneak around and pick them off one by one-.

Arguably if the UFO only has one entryway that's easy to control then that makes it the short and easy route. It should have severe hull damage or several entry points to begin with.

Edited July 11, 2013 by C. jejuni

[Mytheos]

No, he's talking about the choice between doing the short but hard route -rush for the UFO, alert every alien to your position and prepare for a xeno wave- or taking it slow and comparatively easy -sneak around and pick them off one by one-.

Arguably if the UFO only has one entryway that's easy to control then that makes it the short and easy route. It should have severe hull damage or several entry points to begin with.

Rushing to the UFO can get you flanked of course, and would be more dangerous in some situations...but if you feel you can handle it thats fine.

But Aliens dont "Alert" and converge on your position creating a Xeno Wave.

So the sum result would be a quicker mission with certain dangers and less reward, or a slower mission with its own set of dangers, and more reward.

(Every Alien you encounter increases the chance of you getting killed vs Encountering fewer Aliens but doing so in a more dangerous way)

But I think the general idea would be to clear safely to the UFO, Cap it and win...thereby having to encounter and deal with fewer Aliens.

Which you might do if you felt your current team wasnt quite where you wanted them....which is a valid Tactical choice.

Edited July 11, 2013 by Mytheos

[RawCode]

it require minor AI tweak to work as i stated, currently allien units wong gang you.

ufo have one entry, but, remember, allien weapons much more powerfull at close range, fighting xeno run at point blank will be hard.

[Person012345]

Honestly, I just want to know where it is at the beginning. Whilst I actually have a general idea on all the maps so far, there will be new ones added IIRC and it's frankly just irritating heading in one direction so carefully for 5 - 10 minutes and finding it's a dead end. It's easy enough to work out in strip-type maps from scrolling to the edges of the map and going in the long direction, but on the squarish maps it can get pretty tedious just trying to find the giant alien spaceship that you just flew over yet somehow have no idea where is. Perhaps, in conjunction with slightly reducing the difficulty curve of night missions compared to day ones, they could remain unknown at night time.

That being said, the xenonauts can apparently barely see 20ft in front of them even on the brightest day, so it makes sense they wouldn't be able to see the crash site from a helicopter...

Edited July 12, 2013 by Person012345