Messages

1

Suggestions / Re: Separate Game Difficulty into Geoscape and Battlescape

« on: August 16, 2017, 03:09:37 pm »

The idea is to make it undefeatable, but so rare that it will not seriously impact the course of the game.

In alienMissions.rul there is
 - type: STR_ALIEN_RETALIATION
    points: 0
    objective: 4
    spawnUfo: STR_BATTLESHIP

Which I gather spawns a battleship to attack your discovered base.
   
UFO spawned is the BATTLESHIP which selects a battleship or one from a list of different interior styles if using a mod such as DARKENED UFO's.
   
 However all battleship maps alienDeplyments.rul have a certain number of aliens aboard and hitpoints, that is I do not know how one UFO type style  can be modded to have more aliens or hitpoints  than another style  of the same type without defining another ship type entirely.
 
 We do not want  all ALIEN RETALIATION missions spawning DREADNOUGHTs except rarely.
[...]

So how should this works in the big picture?

Such over the top ship would only attack base- but it still would had to fly to it, right? And what if it gets shoot down- you can loot it, right? Or you could just ignore such potentially extremely hard to claim wrecked ship, right? And if you defend the base, you get weapons and points, right?

So all in all just an another kind of ship / attack based on the already existing options could actually speed things things up instead of slowing the player down [aside from the the actual extra gameplay time]?


So it seems that only bad things coming out from the script, that cannot be averted and can only be repaired / restored afterwards would do the trick [like the destruction of some of the hangars even after successfully defending a base]. Or literally a insanely costly ticket to Mars- be it in money [millions spend on modification for the Cydonia flight] or in Elerium [thousands needed for the flight itself]

2

Suggestions / Re: Separate Game Difficulty into Geoscape and Battlescape

« on: August 14, 2017, 03:25:05 pm »

[...]

--DREADNAUGHT shows up rarely but essentially it is packed with twice the aliens making it much harder to defeat than a battleship,  in fact defeat in that battle for the the player  is almost guaranteed, causing a base loss. However the  DREADNAUGHT is so rare it  while it causes concern perhaps forestalling victory, it does not negate it.

Sort of like prior to Battle of the Bulge when the Allied thought crossing into Germany and their defeat was an inevitability, the surprise offensive through the Ardennes stirred things up.

But if you defeat a Dreadnought attack then you will be left with enormous amounts of stuff to sell? So instead of being kicked in the leg and slowing down, you would be kicked in the butt and starting to move even faster?

What would really hurt and / or slow down: mandatory [inevitable] destruction of facilities; especially of hangars

3

Suggestions / Re: Separate Game Difficulty into Geoscape and Battlescape

« on: August 02, 2017, 02:13:41 pm »

[...]
The problem with huge resource stage  there are few things to sufficiently challenge the player at this point with out being viewed as frustrating; and the player certainly would not stand to be kicked back to stage 1 or 2 if, for example, aliens suddenly launched a string of successful retaliation missions
[...]

How about if the game took notice of player being able or nearing to be  to go do Cydonia and the Aliens would make a desperate but successful strike?


If the game would require to interrogate one more Commander then the Aliens could plant a bomb inside him- and during interrogation a whole base would be destroyed. Or Commander would self destruct while still in Alien base or in flight to X-COM base. Then the player would have to research some type of screening / neutralizing process to prevent it from happening again. But the first one would be inevitable


Or they could infiltrate the defenses with a human [hybrid] agent who would make a suicide attack, blowing up something like 25% of random facilities; in all of bases or in all but one. [After which a story would tell the player that a screening process would has been developed to prevent it from reoccurring]


Or they could spread a virus during such mission and X-COM operatives would start to die off one by one, until a cure would be researched



Overall: something to kick the player in the leg when the crossing line is in the eyesight

4

Suggestions / Re: Separate Game Difficulty into Geoscape and Battlescape

« on: July 29, 2017, 03:10:07 pm »

[...]
In my mod
[...]
I make the Avenger cost over $12 million (more expensive than you might think after you've been playing a game in which everything else is also expensive, and income is reduced in some areas), but the Firestorm and Lightning are closer to $3 million so you can meet your minimums more cheaply, or gain high-end performance by spending more. Also, handheld plasma guns are cheap (since you're getting it from the aliens) which ensures the poorest of players can benefit from plasma technology, while plasma craft weapons and their ammo is much more expensive, so with money you can use plasma to blow everything out of the sky and lessen your workload. It also has the natural effect in which the poorer player who goes on more ground missions gets more money, while the richer player who just shoots everything out of the sky is spending money faster, helping to balance different playstyles within one game
[...]

I think that is a very neat solution

This is how it should be done!


I just hate in a games, be it RPG or a turn-based strategy, when near the end you just do not have means to spend all your money. And you do not do side quests or do not bather anymore with micromanagement or skip levels, because you can always buy stuff or ignore all kind of penalties. At the beginning you have to really think and be careful - but later on you just do not bother anymore; and thus get bored

I remember that in one of the Might And Magic games [not the Heroes series] to progress the main plot you had to acquire a couple of some kind of items plus a large amount of money- to be able to buy a castle. And if I am remembering correctly, overall there were more of those items than you really needed for that task. So the game made you do some of the side quests [of your choosing] plus demanded points [money] from whatever sources. While in Elders Scrolls III [Morrowind] there was also an option for buying a castle with a huge sum of money- that very soon became pennies to me; and on top of that [if I remember correctly] the castle itself served no vital purpose

[...]
In my mod
[...]
I make the Avenger cost over $12 million (more expensive than you might think after you've been playing a game in which everything else is also expensive, and income is reduced in some areas), but the Firestorm and Lightning are closer to $3 million so you can meet your minimums more cheaply, or gain high-end performance by spending more. Also, handheld plasma guns are cheap (since you're getting it from the aliens) which ensures the poorest of players can benefit from plasma technology, while plasma craft weapons and their ammo is much more expensive, so with money you can use plasma to blow everything out of the sky and lessen your workload. It also has the natural effect in which the poorer player who goes on more ground missions gets more money, while the richer player who just shoots everything out of the sky is spending money faster, helping to balance different playstyles within one game
[...]

I think that is a very neat solution

This is how it should be done


I just hate in a games, be it RPG or a turn-based strategy, when near the end you just do not have means to spend all your money. And you do not do side quests or do not bather anymore with micromanagement or skip levels, because you can always buy stuff or ignore all kind of penalties. At the beginning you have to really think and be careful - but later on you just do not bother anymore; and thus get bored

I remember that in one of the Might And Magic games [not the Heroes series] to progress the main plot you had to acquire a couple of some kind of items plus a large amount of money- to be able to buy a castle. And if I am remembering correctly, overall there were more of those items than you really needed for that task. So the game made you do some of the side quests [of your choosing] plus demanded points [money] from whatever sources. While in Elders Scrolls III [Morrowind] there was also an option for buying a castle- with a sum of money that very soon became pennies to me; and on top of that [if I remember correctly] the castle itself served no vital purpose


And it is somewhat similar for me in the final stages of X-COM when I have the means to go to Cydonia and I am just prolonging the gameplay with maxed out soldiers and equipment [because it's the revenge time] but without the need to really do so. So I wish that the final mission would require something like 25 000 000 $ "ticket" to Mars [for example in form of very special navigation system to the ship or whatever]. This way I would have to play [toy] with Aliens [while still having to defend against attacks on bases, one way or another]

5

Suggestions / Re: Music folder

« on: July 28, 2017, 03:15:48 pm »

Just rename the other tracks GMGEO2, GMGEO3, GMGEO4, etc.
The game will pick one randomly.

And it is possible to use for example GMTACTIC99?

Still, a folder would be better because you can copy to it your various non-UFO tracks


And it would be a big wish that the game would have an option or reading the tag fields and displaying them for a selected amount of time [so that the player would know what was randomly choosen]; or at least the name of the files [which could be re-named by the player accordingly like for example >>X-COM II Geoscape #6<<]. By I know that is a long shot because such display would have to be available on many screens [base, geo, ufopedia etc.]

6

Suggestions / Re: WWII

« on: July 28, 2017, 03:01:42 pm »

Anyone ever consider doing a world war 2 mod for Xcom? It has been done for every other game out there, why not Xcom. Instead of fighting aliens, you fight the Germans (there could be the occasional Foo fighter spotted).

How about an alternative world where Nazis made a pact with Aliens or went to Mars before Americans went to Moon and / or we are fighting alien Nazis? The would throw at us humans, alien and hybrids / uber-soldiers

7

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: Soldier's nationality

« on: July 28, 2017, 02:56:27 pm »

But that should have some effect- soldier from a given area should receive a temporary [small] boost in statistics in a ground mission

8

Suggestions / Re: Aliens for the players

« on: July 28, 2017, 02:48:50 pm »

There is a game called Evil Genius from 2004, when we are put in the role of cartoonish evil mastermind figthing against James Bond types. And there was also Dungeon Keeper

So why on earth we do not get to invade Earth?!


We, the Aliens, would have limited sources coming out from the fact that we do not have enough Elerium-115. And that is why we cannot strike Earth with full force [Battleships etc.]

Out task could be to maintain bases and harvest minerals, geo-heat / cows / whatever. Our strike forces would perform terror missions and rescue mission for shot down UFO's [as most of the UFO's would be controlled by the AI]

Research would be for making hybrids, awakening of better alien races [as there was some malfunction / loss of data in alien world], building bigger ships


The ultimate goal would be to sign a pact with every nation and also to destroy every single X-COM base that would be left. We should also a some point have to defend Cydonia

X-COM with time would of course acquire alien technologies



The big question is: should alien soldier level up or be just random cannon fodder? There are so many races do what- we would have 30 commanders, split among them?

9

Suggestions / Re: Separate Game Difficulty into Geoscape and Battlescape

« on: July 28, 2017, 02:29:21 pm »

Here is another proposal: what if game would look at our income / available funds and give accordingly to that

At the later stages of games money is not a problem while at beginning it is. So why not maybe not boost at the beginning but limit near the end? Simply make less income from looting later on and maybe make new donations from nations in smaller amounts

10

Suggestions / Music folder

« on: July 28, 2017, 02:23:05 pm »

It's great that there are all those various versions of the X-COM score out there and that OpenXcom allows for importing them to data\SOUND folder


But what if instead of searching for a file named GMGEO1, the game would search first for a folder named in a such way? And then took randomly whatever was in that folder and simply play it?

That way the player could listen to different versions of the same track