Open Doors Give Cover?

[Ishantil]

Especially when he's 70 degrees off angle. Hell, even 30 degrees is a really big jerk to the side.

I cannot remember examining the way that X-COM worked back in 1994. Could you miss through a square?

[kabill]

I think in the OG shots could pass through a target square. Units had a height stat; it mattered somehow:

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Height

[Ishantil]

I thought you could miss through squares, but I couldn't remember exactly if that was right nor not.

[StellarRat]

I think in the OG shots could pass through a target square. Units had a height stat; it mattered somehow:

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Height

I think Kabill is correct. Also, you could hit the ground right in front of their feet when you missed. In Xenonauts it seems there is only one geometric plane for all shots. That was another proposal of mine, to have misses go high or low. Actually, that's a much more common error in long range shooting. Humans have a much harder time judging distance/drop than they do left/right offset. Probably because we developed our eyesight for close in danger/and hunting with handheld weapons not stuff hundreds of yards away. Not to be overly critical, but there seems to be some fairly major parts "missing" from the Xenonauts space model or they simply are not being used. They can be worked around, but I'm not exactly sure why they haven't been there from the beginning. Examples: Aliens don't use stairs, alien ship can't have two decks, etc... Edited August 14, 2013 by StellarRat

[Ishantil]

Yeah, it's given me an even greater appreciation for what Goldhawk is trying to do here. Microprose was a funded studio, so...

Edit: Under Spectrum/Holobyte, in 1994.

Edited August 14, 2013 by Ishantil

[StellarRat]

Yeah, it's given me an even greater appreciation for what Goldhawk is trying to do here. Microprose was a funded studio, so...

Edit: Under Spectrum/Holobyte, in 1994.

Nearly all the game coding for XCom was done by two guys. A "funded" studio back then was not much. I would say Goldhawk has AT LEAST the same amount of resources. It should be easier given that you can buy a great deal of capabilty just by purchasing a game engine. When we did our game we had to write every graphics routine from scratch, the only things "provided" were simple line and pixel placement commands. We even wrote Assembly code to speed up stuff that the compiler couldn't do fast enough even though it was "provided", like blanking the whole screen to start drawing the next frame and drawing the sprites in video memory. Also, back then there were no specialized graphics cards that could do a lot of the work very quickly. Mainly what's happened is the graphics have been upgraded in modern games because the hardware can do some much more and provides a lot of built in functionality and you can buy engines to do make the coding much simpler. A development team now is very heavy in artists vs. programmers, back then it was the other way around (and a lot less people overall.) Edited August 14, 2013 by StellarRat

[Ishantil]

In many ways, XCOM1994 was a very sophisticated game. Kind of amazing that they had all the stuff in that they did in 1994.

[StellarRat]

In many ways, XCOM1994 was a very sophisticated game. Kind of amazing that they had all the stuff in that they did in 1994.

It was, but I think of the concepts they added as real sophistication. Destructable terrain, strategic and tactical modes, soldier progression, individual inventory, a working sim of the globe, etc... pulling that all together into one game was amazing. Not to mention, the very excellent and fun game design with good balance. It was definitely an amazing piece of work. I think the video says they did the whole game with less than $300K of development money and it made well over $2 million in the end. Imagine what they could have done with a little more time and more resources!

You might enjoy this:

[Ishantil]

And to think that it's had several sequels, a complete remake, and several games in the same style.

Good stuff. Thanks for the link, I will watch it when I get home from work.

[Josip Broz Tito]

Replicated what you guys are talking about...yeah, that's a thing. I have an old habit of never having my soldiers closer than 2 tiles distance (TFTD taught me the hard way): in 50 hrs I've never had this happen.

Stuck a machine gunner diagonally next to another soldier, then shot at roughly 45 degrees= dead soldier.

[StellarRat]

Replicated what you guys are talking about...yeah, that's a thing. I have an old habit of never having my soldiers closer than 2 tiles distance (TFTD taught me the hard way): in 50 hrs I've never had this happen.

Stuck a machine gunner diagonally next to another soldier, then shot at roughly 45 degrees= dead soldier.

Yep. I hate that. What's really funny is that the closer the target is the more dangerous a miss becomes. Makes absolutely no sense.

[Ishantil]

Too bad the best solution means a combat engine overhaul.

[StellarRat]

Too bad the best solution means a combat engine overhaul.

I'm not so sure about that. I've been a programmer for a long time and we have "ways". The question is what unintended consequences will it have. You really can't tell sometimes until you try and test.

[crusherven]

Back to the thread topic (at least going by the thread title)... I haven't played in a while. So the reduced accuracy when shooting through doors, eg into a UFO, is still a thing?

[Ishantil]

I never actually got a clear answer on whether the UFO doors are supposed to grant 50% cover or if that's a mistake (it's not a bug, because it's working, just not sure if intended or not).

Seems to me that I should be able to shoot through an open doorway without a 50% cover penalty. But hey, that's just me.

[Chris]

No, they shouldn't give 50% cover. That's probably a mis-set sprite or an error in the code somewhere. I'd report it as a bug. Open doors should provide 10% cover at most.

[Ishantil]

Will do, Chris. Thanks.