UFO Design

[ventuswings]

Hello, I am writing this because while reading some of comments on this forum, I saw one that advocated maps encouraging close quarter combats to improve shot gun. It made me reflect on how lacking the current interior of Xenonaut UFO is.

On retrospect, one of the factors that made UFO breach difficult in original game was the way they were designed, allowing aliens ample opportunity of ambush. There are narrow hallways of Abductor that curve all the way around UFO exterior, random rooms that go nowhere, lots of nooks and crannies. In open rooms there are commonly props - like Alien Food canisters at Harvester and Supply Ship - placed one space apart that provides full cover and prevent long range shootout. Even UFO as early as Large Scout introduces some element of choice; I fondly recall wondering which of two doors would be wise to take. Clearing them out can be challenging but fun.

In Xenonauts (at least up to Landing Ships), you can see large percentage of UFO right from the entrance and the ship design is very linear.

Not only does such design eliminate valuable opportunity of introducing unique style of close combat unlikely to occur anywhere else, I feel the fact that most of the ship is visible from the start makes UFO makes them vulnerable to 'shooting gallery' strategy; you line up entire squad of Xenonauts right outside the door, open the door, throw grenades to suppress them as necessary, take potshots, close the door then end turn, rinse and repeat.

Redesigning wall placements keeping these considerations in mind would eliminate such strategy and force player to actually enter the UFO in order to clear out the hostiles - in extreme example, just simply placing a wall in front of the door would drastically reduce amount of hostiles player could eliminate in safety of outside. Since the area of UFO is not very big (or at least it feels like it to me due to there being many open spaces), I believe their quality will not suffer from having corners, 2-tile wide hallways and such.

Thanks for reading. I am not sure what other players feel about this topic, but with UFO breach being one of engaging experiences that make up Xcom UFO Defense, I felt any way to improve their battlescape counterpart could be worthy of debate.

[GizmoGomez]

Good points.

[thothkins]

I don't know if it was my shotgun related posts you were referring to, but the UFOs of EU1994 were what I was thinking about when I was typing

- narrow twisty corridors

- large interior structures to investigate. Think how useful it would be in X-Com Apocalypse.

- obstructions that rule out use of rocket launchers, grenades etc. Like corners!

take the Large scout from EU1994:-

In order to get to the control room you have a choice of two directions. One has a tiny box room, followed by a very sharp corner. The other allows you to see the navigation, but the navigators can also lie in wait for your soldiers. Then there's the power source room itself. Enclosed and dangerous. Not to mention that an alien hiding behind a power source won't be spotted until you are on top of it.

Now, I imagine it's too late to see changes in the Xenonauts UFOs, but we could possibly get some maps like emulate the above. It would really make lots of use of both shield/pistol as well as the shotgun.

[DNK]

Yes, yes. The XCOM UFOs were all levels in themselves, generally as non-linear and with as many corridors/"surprises" as their size would allow, and varied, with plenty of props cluttering their interiors. Arguments can be made for the realism of that, but for gameplay it was awesome.

Other UFOs:

[ventuswings]

I must admit I also snuck a peek at Ufopedia to elaborate what exactly I liked about older UFOs.

Even with more map designs having complex buildings, it'd be unfortunate to see Xenonauts UFOs as is. UFO benefit much more from complicated designs than random buildings since they cannot be bypassed, defended heavily by aliens, and cannot just be blown through. Moreover I say sniper rifle has opportunity to be useful on every map: perhaps not on hypothetical slum-like maps with buildings compactly sprawled about haphazardly, which I assume will be fiendishly difficult to devise due to restrictions caused by 3x3 Hunter. Unless there are significant increase in the number of maps having needlessly complex buildings - do note suspension of disbelief can be stretched less with human architecture - in the map pool, I fear close quarter weapons like shot gun may as well remain barely situational.

I know the game supports user to generate custom maps. Can the mappers do that for UFO design also? If the development is too far along for them to be changed, it'd be quite unfortunate but at least it could be solved with little bit of editing. Also allowing us to brainstorm several designs would alleviate the burden this demand would place on developers should they choose to consider it - just pick the best designed UFO, make minor tweaks and necessary, then replace it with basic UFO template. Of course, I have no experience with programming so I don't know how it exactly works... Think ability to make UFO maps would be great regardless since this game is so heavily mod-able!

[TheTuninator]

I do agree that UFOs could use significantly more clutter and cover in the interior. As you observe, I shouldn't be able to clear out a good chunk of a UFO by raining fire through a doorway. My men should need to go inside.

I've often missed the prop-filled interiors of X-COM UFOs as well; the clutter made the ships feel more alive and lived in, and touches like chairs in front of consoles really lent the feeling that you were trespassing in another species' world. The cavernous empty spaces you find in some Xenonauts UFOs are unfortunately rather bland by comparison.

I understand if UFO interiors cannot be given a dramatic overhaul at this point due to needs to prep for launch, but should Xenonauts be financially successful enough to justify continued work on the game I would strongly urge Chris and the team to consider overhauling interiors once they've had time to grab a breather post-launch. UFO interiors are a huge part of any X-COM style game, and revisiting the Xenonauts interiors to make them more like the UFO deathtraps of X-COM would greatly improve the game. Xenonauts has absolutely gorgeous UFO exteriors; the interiors should be just as neat!

[Mytheos]

I know its late in the dev process, and I have voiced my thoughts on all this several times before.

But I and MANY others would rather have a UFO they can breach and explore vs one that just "Looked neat on the outside".

I understand the Devs would hate to have wasted all that artwork and time spent with the current UFOs...but it is one part of the game that desperately needs improved.

And settling for it as it is, has created MANY other problems and created a great deal of extra work for the Dev Team.

Close Combat and Grenade Balance just to name a couple.

[TheTuninator]

It's a bit of a silly thing, but one of the details I miss the most are the chairs. The ships feel so empty without them.

Edited July 30, 2013 by TheTuninator

[GizmoGomez]

It's a bit of a silly thing, but one of the details I miss the most are the chairs. The ships feel so empty without them.

Yeah, we need chairs! No joke, that's a good point.

[thothkins]

Alien Commander: Earth will be hours. Our invasion fleet will be unstoppable. Come soldiers. Our conquest begins.

Alien Grunt: In that? You want seven of us to go 40 light years in a light scout? Are you mental? You know G'Razal has a bladder problem.

Alien Commander: Would it help if we put in seats?

Alien Grunt: Never mind seats! What are we going to eat?

Alien Commander: uh, edible seats?

Alien Grunt: That's it! I quit. I'm off to start bounty hunting for the Empire...

[Gauddlike]

Well the UFO layouts are designed in the same way as any other submap so I am pretty sure there will be multiple interiors for each one, if not as an official change then someone from the community will make their own versions.

[TheTuninator]

As long as the community can map out interiors I'm not too worried. I'd just really like to see the chairs come back as a prop. They're a small detail but go such a long way toward creating the atmosphere of an alien ship.

[smoitessier]

There were chairs in previous builds? Agreed it's cool

Also maybe they were taken out to save space, since I think the ships on the ground battles have (sadly) been shrunk since the Kickstarter build.

[Gauddlike]

As long as the community can map out interiors I'm not too worried. I'd just really like to see the chairs come back as a prop. They're a small detail but go such a long way toward creating the atmosphere of an alien ship.

I agree, one little chair can make a big difference to atmosphere.

[TheTuninator]

There were chairs in previous builds? Agreed it's cool

Also maybe they were taken out to save space, since I think the ships on the ground battles have (sadly) been shrunk since the Kickstarter build.

Sorry, when I said "come back" I was referring to the chairs in X-COM.

[ventuswings]

Yeah, I don't think there is need for such drastic change as exterior change.

[Chris]

It's too late to change the UFO designs, I'm afraid. In hindsight it would have been much better to do something more geometric than we actually did. If we ever do a Xenonauts 2, the lesson will very much have been learned.

The current UFO interior maps will get a bit of love though. Chairs are indeed planned.

[thothkins]

It's too late to change the UFO designs, I'm afraid. In hindsight it would have been much better to do something more geometric than we actually did.

there are still plenty of buildings/ maps to be played around with to achieve a similar effect though. So, it's not the end of the world. Heck, terror missions that take place practically inside larger complexes., a la apocalypse and variations on the earlier Industrial Maps would do nicely.

I recall doing zzz's Aliens mod through a Warehouse Complex Quickbattle. The shotgun was very handy indeed... for close encounters.

[ventuswings]

The current UFO interior maps will get a bit of love though. Chairs are indeed planned.

Glad to hear so!

[Anon_Spartan]

Would it be possible take ships like the landing ships and fill them with cargo to create a maze effect? That way there is no big change, just adding destructible environments that can make a twisting maze?

[Queamin]

Would it be possible take ships like the landing ships and fill them with cargo to create a maze effect? That way there is no big change, just adding destructible environments that can make a twisting maze?

Yeah like warehouses in xcom94

[TheTuninator]

The current UFO interior maps will get a bit of love though. Chairs are indeed planned.

Great to hear! It should still be quite possible to achieve something similar to the maze-like layout of the original X-COM ships. Just throw in some walls, random compartments, LoS blockers, etc.

[Black Cat]

It's too late to change the UFO designs, I'm afraid. In hindsight it would have been much better to do something more geometric than we actually did. If we ever do a Xenonauts 2, the lesson will very much have been learned.

The current UFO interior maps will get a bit of love though. Chairs are indeed planned.

I am curious as to why this is. I'll be the first to admit when it comes to programming I won't even pretend to know anything close to you guys. But having played with the map editor and submap editor, I would assume you could just change the alien ships maps and submaps and footprints. Again I realize it is never just "that" easy but if someone would explain the technical reasons as why not I am honestly curious.

[Rogueywon]

I think there's a need to be careful with adding too much "clutter" to UFO interiors. The cover system in Xenonauts means that random bits of furniture potentially have a much bigger effect on balance than they did in XCom 1994.

I'd really love to see aliens making more use of the middle floors of Carriers and Battleships. Those have some quite narrow, twisty areas which are quite reminiscent of some of the UFO designs in XCom 1994 and TftD - great for tense battles and ambushes. Unfortunately, the aliens at present just tend to cluster around the entrances and the command centre.

[Max_Caine]

Black Cat, Chris explained, oh, ages ago, that the external UFO "shell" has to be divided up into lots of small fragments then painstakingly reassembled to form the UFO submap, so once an external silouette is decided upon and worked started, the amount of labour required to change the external shell makes changing it non-viable. I believe Aaron was the poor shlub who pieced the UFOs together.

Edited August 1, 2013 by Max_Caine