3D World Geoscape

[Wolfy]

Like the original X-COM, I think a full world Geoscape would look pretty darn good in the game. I like this one, but it's underdone, mostly just the fact that its flat as paper.

Thanks for reading,

- Wolfy

[anotherdevil]

It's supposed to be like a wall map etc. Didn't have holograms in the 70s =p

[Langy]

The only real problem I have with the flat map Geoscape is the completely unrealistic speeds/radar ranges that occur near the poles. If I have a base on the South Pole, it should cover everything below a certain latitude, not just something that appears as a circle on a flat map but would be a very odd oval on a globe. I brought this up on the old forums long ago, but Chris et. al. decided against implementing it, probably because it'd be hard to visualize.

[Chris]

In retrospect a 3D Geoscape might have been a good idea but it'd be a royal pain in the ass to code it all again (lots of stuff relies on 2D map co-ordinates), so we won't. That's it in a nutshell I'm afraid.

[UltimaVirus]

I actually quite enjoy the 2D Geoscape.

[RunningDownhill]

I admit that I had a similar concern to Langy's, but as long as events have a chance of occurring anywhere on the geoscape equally, we'll just have to imagine the world as a flat rectangle and not worry about realism with regard to the actual earth. Greenland may be too big, but that's the world of the game, and if they've coded so things happen equally across the rectangle of the map, it'll be fine. But yes, as a geography nerd, I was a bit concerned at first.

[thothkins]

I think it's easier to see all of the UFO impacts on shipping etc on the flat map. If it was on 3d I'd have a concern that the globe would swing round for every incident, while I'm trying to do something. I guess you could turn that off, but then you'd miss out on the incidents.

The 2d one grew on me.