Messages

226

Work In Progress / Re: Some thoughts for after version 1.0

« on: September 26, 2011, 04:36:59 am »

I had this idea while jogging:

Since we're eventually extending the resolution of the battlescape to modern resolutions to show more of the map...could we one day get battlescape maps that are twice the area of Original X-COM?

And with that doubling of map size; could it be possible to accomodate multiple UFOs or X-COM craft in the same battle? For example, you could send two Skyrangers to handle that terror site in Shanghai, because your best team got killed a few missions ago, and you now have a whole bunch of rookies...

Other ideas I had were:

Introducing time limits (of sorts).

Right now, you can take all the time you want to clear that Alien Battleship. That makes sense if the battleship was heavily damaged in a shootout with your Firestorm squadron; but what if you caught it on the ground undamaged?

Shouldn't the aliens be starting up the drive systems of the UFO so they can escape?

This would introduce a pretty neat mechanic; having to destroy the majority of UFO power sources on a battleship to prevent it from taking off with your unfortunate squaddies inside.

Likewise, shouldn't the Aliens be calling in friends to help them? If you take too long in clearing a shot down harvester, you might have to deal with a medium scout or two landing to provide reinforcements...or worse.

[Think about how the crash sites disappear after a few days -- why do they disappear? It's certainly not because of rednecks with shotguns feeding sectoids to alligators.]

227

Work In Progress / Modded Weapon Ideas/Concepts

« on: September 26, 2011, 04:29:29 am »

General thread for hacking together new weapons from the original images:



(image blown up 400 percent with pixel resize in PSP for clarity at modern web resolutions)

Essentially, take the heavy cannon, and turn it into something more like a 40mm to 50mm grenade launcher (aka M79 Bloop Gun) but with a semi automatic capability.

Quick and dirty stats:

Weight: 10
Snap: 30% TU (Acc 60%)
Aimed: 80% TU (Acc 90%)

Ammo Weight: 4 or 5?
Ammo Damage: 50~
Ammo Count: 4

The AP round is changed over to a knockout gas round that provides 35~ stun.

Taking away the AP capability of this weapon slot gives players more reasons to use the Auto Cannon / Rocket Launcher to deal with Mutons early on, and it also gives X-COM a ranged stun attack from the beginning of the game, but is clearly inferior to the alien Small Launcher.

[Perhaps eventually a survivability factor could be coded in for stun weapons it so that different aliens have different reactions to each weapon. For example, all the races in the game have a 95% chance of survival if stunned by a Small Launcher; while Sectoids are 90% likely to survive being stunned by human knockout gas, and Etherals only have a 5% chance of survial. This makes acquiring the Small Launcher even more useful.]

Right now there's no real reason to pick the heavy cannon, unless you know before hand you're going up against Mutons without plasma weaponry; relegating the weapon to a very niche role.

The Grenade Rifle replacement, in addition to filling a hole in X-COM's human inventory (ranged stun), would provide a relatively lightweight explosive/inciendary weapon to your troopers that would complement the heavier autocannon and rocket launcher.

You'd be able to hand it to your generic troopers, instead of having to search for those squaddies with beefcake stats who can handle Rokkits or AutoCannons to provide hanging back covering fire.

228

Suggestions / Re: Extended debriefing screen - soldier stats progression

« on: September 24, 2011, 07:53:36 pm »

Why not make it an option: Detailed reports / Simple Reports for in game log presentation?

Detailed is like what you posited; Yasuaki Okamoto's Snap Shot hits Sectoid Soldier for 16..

Simple doesn't reveal as much like you also posited: Yasuaki Okamoto's Snap Shot critically hits Alien.

Of course, I'd have the detailed report also generated and automatically appended to a TXT log file that is attached to that savegame.

If anything else, the text logging would make debugging a lot easier; to find pesky bugs regarding weapons formulae, etc.

229

Suggestions / Re: Extended debriefing screen - soldier stats progression

« on: September 23, 2011, 09:54:46 pm »

The 3 medals an agent can earn are : Expert Marksman, Expert Explosives, Expert Medical.

Do you want me to work on the medals?

Do you want a ribbon only, or both a ribbon and medal -- and what dimensions are you looking at?

(also what palette would be the best for the medals itself?)

230

Suggestions / Re: Extended debriefing screen - soldier stats progression

« on: September 23, 2011, 06:49:21 pm »

What about a "roll of the dead" showing:

Soldier Name
Recruitment Date
Death Date
Killed by [Alien] using [Weapon]

A lot of people on the net like to play "LetsPlay!" semi role playing games in which they use the names of forumgoers (or suggestions from said forumgoers), for XCOM operatives; and the death count can get pretty grim at times.

231

Work In Progress / Re: Some thoughts for after version 1.0

« on: September 21, 2011, 04:11:37 pm »

a) Claymore type of device (small circular blast-range. triggered by movement on that tile)

Claymores are directional, not omni; with the majority of the blast going in the direction it's set up in; though it's not healthy to be behind a claymore when it fires.

232

Suggestions / Re: realistic fires

« on: May 29, 2011, 09:53:07 pm »

True. A much more realistic implementation of fires as an option would be useful. It would make inciendary rounds even more useful, because you could then burn down a building with only a few shots; or flush the aliens out of it from the smoke and fire.

233

Suggestions / Re: variable bullet speed

« on: May 20, 2011, 12:35:38 pm »

Options, Options! Make it an option to be configured, so people can choose stock UFO behavior or this.

234

Fan-Stuff / What can non-programmers do to help?

« on: April 18, 2011, 11:17:53 pm »

Besides contributing soldier names? I want to contribute to OpenXCOM, but my programming knowledge begins and ends at:

Code: [Select]

10 GOTO 20
20 GOTO 10
 

One idea I had now, was to get out my old X-COM Game Guide and start typing everything out into a sort of Pseudo XHTML:

Code: [Select]

<WeaponName>Blaster Launcher</WeaponName>
<WeaponWeight>TOO MUCH</WeaponWeight>
to assist in the externalizations, because there's a lot of raw data that needs to be externalized at some point in easily readable files.

235

Fan-Stuff / Re: Soldier names

« on: April 03, 2011, 02:18:03 am »

Since you plan to have independent lists for each nationality, would there be some way to incorporate this into the game itself? E.g. you would be able to see maybe a little flag symbol showing their nationality; so that you can have a North American base manned with 90% Americans and so on?

236

Suggestions / Re: The weapon upgrade idea.

« on: March 19, 2011, 03:57:41 am »

Since we're in the 'lets change significant gameplay parts', why not rework the Heavy X's in the game?

Right now, Heavy Lasers are pretty much useless; and the Heavy Plasma is UberGod, and there's the amusing image of sectoids carrying a Heavy Plasma that's half their height!

Some rough ideas I had to fix this in random order:

1.) Rework the Strength stats.

Currently they are:

Base Strength Stat Range (Median)

X-COM Rookies: 20-40 (30)
Sectoids: 30-32 (31)
Floater: 40-51 (46)
Snakeman: 47-50 (49)
Muton: 70-75 (73)
Ethereal: 48-52 (50)

Some of it makes sense, like the Mutons. Others don't make sense.

Why should Sectoids, who are little weak skinny midgets; have a minimum strength of 30, when X-COM rookies have a minimum strength of 20?

The weakest X-COM rookie should be able to pick up a sectoid and drop kick them into the next state without too much trouble.

I would suggest shaving the stats downward for all the alien races by about 10~ points; with sectoids being between 14-20 and lowering the STRENGTH cap for humans to about maybe 57 or so.

Humans should never be able to come close to matching mutons in Strength, no matter how much you exercise them.

2A.) Set minimum strength requirements to equip weapons. Use this to 'price' certain things out of the reach of various X-COM personnel or aliens unless they meet strength standards. You won't see sectoids with heavy plasmas; and you will see some variation in the other races; with most aliens having plasma rifles, and the outliers having heavy plasmas. Of course, Mutons would be 100% heavy plasma. That's what makes them so deadly.

2B). Increase the armor of cyberdiscs and sectopods, along with the human HWPs so that you need a heavy weapon like rocket launcher, heavy laser, heavy plasma, etc to reliably damage them. It gives you a reason to develop the heavy weapons or to have someone lugging them around. Yes, you can eventually kill a cyberdisk/sectopod/HWP with a plasma rifle or laser rifle; but it will take many many hits. A heavy weapon can kill it much easier.

237

Suggestions / Re: The weapon upgrade idea.

« on: March 18, 2011, 05:25:03 am »

Rework the Rocket Launcher -- the UFOPedia says:

The rocket launcher is a laser guided system which can fire three different sizes of missile.

Use the code for the blaster launcher with the rocket launcher with some modifications and the following limitations:

* You get only two waypoints.
* The waypoints must be within the soldier's line of sight.
* Passing through smoke makes the rocket go 'dumb' and nose to the ground.
* You cannot make sudden and sharp vector changes with the waypoints (90 degree turn in one square).

With this, the Aliens still retain the upper hand. They have a 200~ damage weapon that can fire through smoke; go up stairs, attack targets from beyond the soldier's LOS, and with unlimited waypoints.

238

Suggestions / Re: The weapon upgrade idea.

« on: March 18, 2011, 05:10:44 am »

Another idea I had just now was to give humanity a ranged stun weapon.

It was kind of dumb that all we had was a cattle prod literally starting out; and we had to reverse engineer SMALL LAUNCHER to get the capability to stun from a distance.

BZ Gas --In small doses, this makes you stupid, literally. You take your clothes off and mumble incoherently. At higher doses, you get knocked unconscious.

Kolokol-1 Agent -- Kolokol-1 takes effect within one to three seconds, rendering the subject unconscious for two to six hours. Kills a certain amount of people anyway.

So how about this for human ranged stun weapons:

* Proximity Gas Grenade. (there were actually special VX Nerve Gas landmines made in the Cold War and stockpiled).

* Gas Grenade.

* Heavy Cannon -- Reworked to to be conceptually like a 40mm grenade launcher. Very inaccurate, due to the need for low recoil as it's hand held. But since it's now a 40mm grenade launcher, you could have it fire a whole range of payload grenades:

--Explosive Grenades
--Proximity Grenades
--Gas Grenades
--Bean Bag Rounds (Ow, what just hit me?)
--Conventional Flare Grenade (a lot more light than electro flare, but can set something on fire)
--Electro-Flare Grenade (less light than electroflare, but won't set an area on fire)

The gas weapons that humanity has at the start of the game are a mix of BZ and Kolokol-1 in effects.

Aliens have about say 15-20% chance of being affected by it during each game turn. Humans, 90%.

You roll to see if the unit is affected, then proceed to the random choice table:

*Unit becomes disoriented. They walk off into a random nonsensical direction. They drop their equipment at random.

*Unit takes stun damage.

*Unit takes health damage.

So basically, the aliens still retain a solid advantage with their Small Launchers, as they inflict massive stun damage in one turn; and are 100% safe.

Human ranged stun (at least in the early game) should be unreliable and dangerous.

Mutons could be totally unaffected by early human gas grenades.

You could find an Ethereal commander and try to stun him with a gas grenade, only to find that he had an adverse reaction to the BZ/Kolokol-1 and died. Likewise, you could toss a gas grenade into a convience store to knock out some sectoids, and instead end up killing a bunch of civilians.

Whoops.

239

Suggestions / Re: The weapon upgrade idea.

« on: March 18, 2011, 04:47:15 am »

I always found that the conventional weapons (pistol, grenade, rifle, auto-cannon, heavy cannon, rocket launcher, stun rod, grenade, proximity grenade) became obsolete too fast in the game. It just feels more rewarding to me to kill an alien with my own technology rather than theirs.

You're not the only one!

How about this fairly basic upgrade idea:

ALIEN ALLOYS:

--->Improved Pistol/Rifle/HC/AC/Rocket Launcher
--->Improved Pistol/Rifle/HC/AC armor piercing ammo
--->Improved Skyranger
--->Improved Interceptor
--->Improved HWPs

Basically, humanity uses alien alloys to upgrade it's starting fleet.

WEAPONS: They get a little bit lighter, and have better accuracy and lower TU cost due to them being lighter and easier to handle.

AIRCRAFT: A bit more durable and longer ranged; due to the alien alloys allowing for dry weight reduction, increasing the fuel fraction, and the alien alloys are a bit more durable than aluminum.

HWPs: Bit more durable, due to alien alloys.

Improved Armor Piercing Ammo: Due to alien alloys being better; you can have improved bullets that punch harder.

Also, make autopsying and capturing aliens for research a bit more important.

There are five primary alien races (Sectoid/Floater/Snakemen/Muton/Etheral) in the game, plus their terrorist units, for 10 aliens in the game.

When you've autopsied about maybe 30% of the aliens in the game, you get access to improved hollowpoint ammunition that's brought about by research from firing countless bullets into alien corpses.

40% of live aliens researched let you get specialized chemical weapons that harm only aliens -- you can use recolored smoke particles for this. Useful for terror sites.

Likewise, you could also tie alien research (dead and live) into other areas, like the poor motion detector and proximity grenade.

Motion Detector/Prox Grenade Mk I: As we have them in XCOM now. Unable to differentate between civilians/aliens. Blow up anyone who passes nearby.

Motion Detector/Prox Grenade Mk II: We've videotaped and analyzed the motion, gait, IR signature, etc of aliens that we have captured; so we now offer you this new model. It can tell you if that's a human or alien. Likewise, the prox grenade shouldn't blow up a human. Most of the time....(error rate of 50% or so).

Motion Detector/Prox Grenade Mk III: Accuracy has improved, and we can now tell what type of alien we detected. Grenades can be set to a specific species of alien, so you can have prox grenades target chyssalids only.