Messages

1

Open Feedback / Re: OpenXcom code history

« on: April 26, 2019, 10:25:07 pm »

When I started coding the battlescape for OpenXCom I had great help from people that really turned the original game inside out:
"Zombie" was a guy that took testing to the next level, he spend days letting stuff explode in the game and documented the results. We discussed all this stuff on the weirdest times of the night on our IRC channel, talking about how close openXcom should stick to the original. This ment even trying to mimic "bugs" of the original like explosions being restricted to one level only.
We had our vanilla-purist "Volutar", while not easy to work with him, he actually reverse-enginered algorithms from the original game for us and proved a great help when we were stuck on something.

As far as I remember the most difficult part to mimic was the AI and there I basically started from scratch and observations.

Here is a list of the differences between original and OpenXCom by the way, not sure how up to date this is:
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Differences_to_X-COM_(OpenXcom)

2

Offtopic / Re: Goodbye

« on: November 05, 2015, 07:54:39 pm »

We both had or own views on things, but I always respected yours. If I had the knowledge and tools to reverse engineer the original game from the start, I wouldn't have wasted a lot of time playtesting the original game trying to figure out mechanics and "go my own way". True. But I don't call it wasted time, it was fun and a learning process.
But at the time I started there was simply no battlescape, so someone *had* to pick it up, and you were not around ;-)
good luck in your future projects

Daiky

3

Suggestions / Re: a thought from a c++ software developper

« on: September 21, 2013, 10:28:03 pm »

Hello djemon_lda, I have had not yet the chance to say hi.

Let me first introduce you to my background and the battlescape code First of all, I've never learnt how to code from books (I quit school at 18), but mostly from looking at other people's code. I kinda tumbled into a developers job, first programming PLCs, assembler, C, and then some Basic, Pascal, Java, etc. Before openxcom I did now C++ somewhat, but never heard of STL. I know basics of OOP, but once people start saying words like polymorphism, I have to google them to see what they mean.
Basically, I'm a man of making stuff work and it doesn't have to look pretty on the inside. It's how we do things in the software company I'm working 12 years for now. The customer wants to see results fast, he doesn't care about the code. I get the job done, customer is happy, my boss is happy

In my hobby projects it's exactly the same. I really tried my best to follow SupSuper's guidelines and I learned a lot from looking at his code and I was just happy things compiled and it could run and the battlescape came to life... a lot of people were happy with openxcom having a battlescape

But anyhow, I'm not -yet- too old to learn new tricks, so I'll be reading your comments with interest and hopefully learn someting from it. Or from your code if you have plans to start refactoring things. However I think it will take a lot of courage to start refactoring things in a project like this, at a stage where everything kinda works. It's almost like starting all over again...

4

Work In Progress / Re: OpenXcom - War

« on: September 05, 2013, 11:00:21 am »

You can get rather deep into AI for a turn-based game, I hope he has set some goal to work towards, otherwise it can become like an endless black hole where you get sucked into and never get out

5

Translations / Re: Dutch translation

« on: September 02, 2013, 11:00:19 pm »

I would call them Ethereal, because it's how I know them from the beginning... I think you have to ask someone who doesn't know the game

6

Offtopic / Re: OpenXCOM article in Pelit magazine August 2013

« on: September 02, 2013, 10:52:54 pm »

Under the 5 sectoids hand in hand at the end of the article: "Paras versio parhaasta pelistä" - "The best version of the best game"

7

Tools / Re: Playing comfortable with a dual screen.

« on: September 02, 2013, 03:11:30 pm »

what will you do if two transport craft land at two crashsites within seconds?

You'll need a third screen for that - playing two battles simultaneously

8

Translations / Re: Dutch translation

« on: September 01, 2013, 11:48:22 pm »

I've added a partial Dutch translation to the repository, I had a newer version with more labels translated on my work laptop, but after a laptop swap I didn't think of making a backup of the file. Oh well.
Note that I sometimes skipped a series of labels and then continued with another series further down in the file.

9

Translations / Re: Dutch translation

« on: August 25, 2013, 01:16:58 am »

Hehe, so we are with 3 people here that speak Dutch but prefer to play the game in English. I don't think that translation is ever going to be finished, but if anyone would be interested, I can mail or put online somewhere the partial translation.

10

Fan-Stuff / Re: All-New X-Com Soundtrack! (Sans-intro music)

« on: August 19, 2013, 03:45:50 pm »

Any chance you would release the ableton live project file(or as a midi). I could dust off a few old synths and try re-recording your tracks with them (once my hobby room is finished, it's under construction atm)

11

Fan-Stuff / Re: All-New X-Com Soundtrack! (Sans-intro music)

« on: August 14, 2013, 02:28:55 pm »

I'm listening at them on a pair of KRK RP8 studio monitors and it sounds good enough for a game I think, I'm no specialist at mastering tracks though. The lo-fi / retro sound really fits the game. You should really check out this soundtrack, I think you will like as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8SM3aWjRZ8 

I started remaking some tracks from the xcom game a while ago (also using ableton live btw) , but they ended up very similar than the original, using the same notes, actually stealing whole melodies, mostly replacing the instruments... You used some new tunes, so that's a lot more creative. great job.

12

Offtopic / Re: Door Kickers - Tactical indie game

« on: August 01, 2013, 10:43:22 pm »

My vote was already in.
My respect to Dan (and the others), formerly working at Ubi (on the Silent Hunter titles that I have enjoyed a lot) but then deciding to go indie and his first game already has the potential to become a succes... I wish him (and his team) all the best.

13

Offtopic / Re: Open Source X-Com Apocalypse !!!

« on: July 26, 2013, 12:36:36 am »

My list will never be full, but I'll never accomplish 1% of them either. I'm getting rather disheartened by it all...

Anyway... care to share your new direction?

I know the feeling - one has too many idea's to all turn them into reality. But it shouldn't discourage you to go 100% after one idea and leave the others alone for a while

My new direction is mostly a change of genre: "construction and management simulation" is the genre officially called I think. I also decided that it will not be an opensource remake of a game. I can probably write a whole page about it, but it would be very offtopic here The biggest challenge is to keep the whole thing achievable.

ontopic: I don't know a lot about apoc, only tried it for a few minutes, but wouldn't it be possible to get apoc stuff into openxcom, so have an openxcom slowly transforming into apocalypse? They can't be *that* different from eachother that you would need to start from scratch... Just putting graphics aside and only looking at some gameplay aspects for example.

14

Offtopic / Re: Open Source X-Com Apocalypse !!!

« on: July 25, 2013, 02:33:09 pm »

my list of "Games I Want to Make" is full.. I'm sorry. It would have been a nice step up from openxcom, but I've gone in a totally different direction.

15

Suggestions / Re: Few general ideas from old x-com fan

« on: July 23, 2013, 02:40:58 pm »

I've read your post and a lot of your ideas sound very reasonable.

Aliens cannot be wounded (not even when MC'ed) and you cannot crouch when flying - these are not bugs, but intentionally taken from the original game. I also don't see the logic in crouching while flying There has been discussion about aliens getting fatal wounds, but I think it was agreed to keep this true to the original, except from the MC effect. MC'ed aliens in the original could suddenly get fatal wounds, which sounded more like a bug than a feature.

Also when suggesting to put more information on the screen, you have to take into account that the resolution is very limited.