Messages

1

Offtopic / Re: How would YOU handle creating a X-COM where you are the aliens?(What if)

« on: June 05, 2014, 05:28:08 pm »

It seems there are a lot of assumptions from X-COM side of view.
But imo a lot of concepts could just be turned around...

What if the aliens (as a galactic empire) have to get their funds from some kind of government as well? As invading earth is probably just one of many invasions, it may be stopped if the council is not pleased with the economic and martial results. Now i´m probably still missing a link there, but something like that could be measured in the overall fear/desperation of humans (like X-COM rating, only not country specific), caused through alien missions. So there you have the score system for funding.
(Well terror missions would be kinda nasty, as your goal would be to kill as many civilians as you can, as X-COM is already present. Maybe even with tanks etc...)

For research on the other hand, it might be handy to assume the aliens are not *that* advanced from the beginning, so you´d start with sectoids and plasma pistols and have to research how to aquire other species (its mostly genetic engineering anyway). It might just be that you need lots of certain materials you´d only find in cows or humans... Also as we could see from X-COM side already, better UFOs and weapons need to be researched as well. Or UFOs only being built or granted by the council, which may take large amounts of whatsoever to collect/earn...

Cloning aliens costs ressources as well as building weapons, as well as constructing bases. Which may harvest ressources, they´re not just there to look pretty i´d guess.

So in the end we´d just need to discover logical reasons on why are the aliens doing what they´re doing, instead of just invading earth with 10 battle ships on first day. They´re pretty sure not doing any of that just for their entertainment...
On the other hand, some concepts might need to be adapted. For example, X-COM does lots of patrolling flights around earth you may encounter or want to shoot down. Also maybe better weapons than just laser and what they can get from you if you loose a mission.
And i´d suggest for difficulty reasons, when starting a game as aliens, X-COM more or less has control of the whole planet at start and multiple bases.

2

Suggestions / Re: Damage types

« on: November 18, 2013, 05:03:47 pm »

oh, that explains. good to know these numbers ^^
Seriously pissed off by recent chrysalids surviving more than 15 shots (heavy plasma and laser rifle). Could not think of any way that was possible, but kinda makes sense now. Still, tough guy...

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Suggestions / Re: Damage types

« on: November 18, 2013, 02:54:10 pm »

Then there seems to be some kind of more powerful random factor...
I wouldn't call it "vulnerable to lasers" if it still stands after more than a dozen laser rifle hits. ^^
Never would have thought that actually works as described, since i never found any evidence for that.
(played the original several years)
How big is the actual difference?

4

Suggestions / Damage types

« on: November 18, 2013, 03:29:11 am »

As it states in the ufopedia, some aliens are more vulnerable to damage certain damage types than others.
Why not make that real? A Snakeman for example won't mind an AP bullet making a small hole in its soft body, but explosive will rip him apart...
Chrysalids the other way around. Ethereals are probably burning good, because of their long robes ^^
Anyone got a good idea on how to make that not too complicated?
(especially since armor values apply differently to each damage type)

5

Suggestions / Re: Augmentations

« on: November 17, 2013, 05:30:48 pm »

The idea of augmentations isn't bad. But imo there needs to be a simpler way for the details, otherwise it might just put too much work/depth into a very small part of the game.
I remember the androids in apoc... they were kinda nice, since you can't mind control or panic them. in lack of improvement they got useless in lategame though.
(what about some augmentations for female soldiers only? to um... distract the aliens... >_>)

6

Suggestions / Re: TU usage as absolute, not relative

« on: November 14, 2013, 03:46:25 pm »

Yes but your hiring soldiers, not untrained civvies.

judging from the hit ratio of rookies, are you sure about that?

7

Suggestions / Re: TU usage as absolute, not relative

« on: November 13, 2013, 11:37:43 pm »

as expected, a lot of different and valid views on that
what got me thinking about this first time was actually decades ago in the original game. i had a guy that was that well trained, he had actually enough health to survive a direct blaster shot, not kidding (was like a year in the hospital after that ^^).
enough TUs to run about anywhere on the map, so completely OP and ridiculously superhuman. but no matter what, he could not fire more than anyone else, out of a fully automatic weapon...
so, a new thought on that:
if TUs are the measurement of the speed of a unit and each round has the same duration (in ingame time)...
then anything that could be trained to do it faster would have a fixed TU cost, since TUs get more for an experienced unit and it can do it more often then.
but anything that is limited by pure time or the used equipment (e.g. scanner, non-automatic weapon, etc) would use a percentage based TU cost, so it´d never be possible more often, no matter how fast the unit is.
that may probably be interesting just to see in a test ruleset...
someone did mention that it might do funny stuff with the AI, but since their units can't get any more TUs, it might be easy just to balance the fixed costs on the percentages they´re reserving.
would probably be interesting to have the aliens get increased TU count later in game anyway ^^

8

Suggestions / Re: TU usage as absolute, not relative

« on: November 10, 2013, 01:44:37 am »

yes, that is the point... ^^
firing one shot of a laser pistol costs like 30% of your available TUs, no matter if they´re just enough to walk 2 steps or 2 times across the map.
This does seem kinda silly to me.
(And reminds me of Windows Vista, always takes up 60% of the available RAM, no matter how much there is available )

9

Suggestions / TU usage as absolute, not relative

« on: November 08, 2013, 09:15:37 pm »

So this is a long shot, i´m not sure about it myself, but maybe someone else has a better view on the implications...

What would be, if the TU consumption (e.g. for firing a weapon) weren't relative to the maximum TUs a unit has, but an absolute value.
It strikes me that even if a soldier has way more TUs than average, all he can do is walk further (Well and more inventory re-arrangement).
Why not fire more often or throw more stuff?
Of course there are a lot ways to interprete TUs in a round based game, but it makes sense that "has a lot of TUs" means just "is faster".
That should imo apply to everything, not just walking.

Balancing should not be a problem (in terms of possible, not saying it requires no work).
Now lets not even stop there, since there are other stats, that can be included...
Lets say a soldier with 50 in firing skills takes 40 TUs for an aimed shot with an autocannon.
A soldier with 75 on firing skills may just aim faster and just use 35 TUs, so it may be possible, if he´s got really good stats he can fire aimed twice.
(left aside that autoshot would probably be better in this case )
Same may go for about any other action.

So, how about it?

10

Suggestions / Re: Alien sight range

« on: November 06, 2013, 10:21:08 am »

Soldier can see to distance up to 20 tiles.
If alien will have (for example) view distance 22 tiles, then the game will extremely difficult. Because alien can do 2-3 reaction shots, before soldier will able to see him. You can try night mission without flash-lights.

that is the point in that.
Nothing like having to flank aliens, since you´d die on a direct approach or having to fire (or throw 'nades) at a a location you suppose an alien stands.
With the first reaction fire you do know the exact location anyway.
I´ve never used flares and such, way too lazy

11

Suggestions / Alien sight range

« on: November 05, 2013, 09:55:05 pm »

As i´ve read, the alien sight range is constant. How about changing that, as per alien race and/or game difficulty?

12

Suggestions / Alien troop carrier

« on: November 05, 2013, 09:53:48 pm »

So the suggestion is a new UFO, plain on the inside, not strong in battle and kinda big. It needs to be big, since it carries a (metric) ****ton of alien soldiers around...
More than a battleship, thought about 35-45.
The idea behind that is to have even lategame a really hard tactical battle that needs all your skills, even with good equipment.
Needs to be lategame though, since before lasers you´d run out of ammo and before researching plasma you´d have no chance if it accidentally contains mutons... ^^
Could be used on alien terror missions well, since there you´d at least have a lot of possibilities to take cover.