Topics

16

Open Feedback / Range based accuracy for grenades?

« on: January 21, 2014, 10:50:58 am »

With the current range based accuracy model, rookies have almost no chance to hit their target, however they can throw grenades half across the map and they will land right before the alien's feet.
Same of course for alien terrorists.
I think this seems a bit unfair as it gives grenades - especially the alien ones - far too much power. What do you think about limiting throwing range and accuracy?

17

Open Feedback / changing difficulty in savegames

« on: April 07, 2013, 03:07:35 am »

Is it possible to change difficulty by editing a savegeme?

I would like to see how alien behavior changes on different levels.

18

Suggestions / Make identification of alien ranks harder / more logical

« on: March 31, 2013, 03:19:50 am »

As we had the discussion about color schemes for different alien ranks here
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,737.0.html
I always wondered how even the dumbest Rookie who had never seen an alien before could easily identify it's rank as soon as he was standing over a stunned one.

My suggestion:
A) give the different ranks some differences in color (only partly explains how the rookie could identify the rank of an unknown alien species)
B) treat stunned aliens like alien artifacts - as long as they are not researched only the species should be displayed in the inventory screen - like in corpses.
This would make it harder to catch the desired ranks as you'd only know what you caught after completing the mission.

19

Offtopic / Anyone still got the original XCOM games?

« on: March 06, 2013, 10:19:46 pm »

When I first stumbled across this great project about half a year ago, first thing I did was recovering my old XCOM games from the attic.
Even after more than 10 years up there they still look pretty good and even though the CDs are badly scratched, they all work.

Anyone got other/older versions?
A friend of mine had the floppy version but the disks became unreadable a long time ago so he threw them away.

20

Programming / Question on alien appearance ratios

« on: March 05, 2013, 08:05:43 pm »

I've always wondered how the appearance ratios of alien races are calculated.

While they are very different from game to game they are clearly nonrandom and also different from the original game.
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Alien_Appearance_Ratios

Is this set at the start of a new game or have I simply experienced some statistical freak events?

I've started a couple of new games with modified instantly built hyperwave decoders and monitored everything that appeared on the globe for the first few months.
The majority of games starts with either floaters, sectoids or a mixture of both as expected, other races join in later.
But I've also had games with only floaters or only sectoids for the first 4-5 months, in one case it was only snakemen from the beginning to July.
Another combination was only sectoids and etherals but nothing else in 6 months.
Generally, snakemen and especially mutons were rare, I've only seen very very few ships with mutons so far.

21

Suggestions / Make ufos smarter an tougher

« on: March 05, 2013, 07:41:42 pm »

While the game is really fun to play in the current state, I think UFOs are way too weak and harmless.

Basically they ignore whatever you do and neither try to evade nor attack your craft.
Even a single Interceptor with Stingrays can (and will) safely shoot down everything smaller than a supply ship and with several Interceptors, avalanches and some luck even a battleship will eventually go down.
So while I really like interceptors (I'd even say they are my favorite item in the game and a masterpiece of human technology), you should need a bit more to take out every alien spaceship equipped with far more superior technology.
I think this currently makes Firestorm and Lightning nearly obsolete. Sure, Avengers are much more convenient but except for going to mars you don't really need them either if you have enough bases (which are easily affordable since it's a no-brainer to shoot down and raid masses of UFOs with a handful of Interceptors).

As far as I remember this also was the case in the original game but I'd really appreciate a possibility in options.cfg to make UFOs smarter and stronger.
Maybe things can also change with game difficulty - the more difficult the game, the smarter the aliens and UFOs. This would make it much more fun to play on higher levels of difficulty.

.)small UFOs should try to get away (they are all faster than the interceptor anyway)

.)large UFOs could either ignore you and speed away continuing their mission or actively attack you even if you try to hold them at a distance

.)a great idea would be a new small UFO type as escort for otherwise defenseless small-med UFOs carrying out missions.
Should be very fast and aggressive so you cannot evade it and go after the UFO it is meant to protect.
Armed in a way to likely damage but not destroy an interceptor and not too hard to shoot down. It's main job is to distract attention from the mission-UFO and make you waste ammunition. Equipping it with little crew with only basic weaponry would mean only very little value if recovered.  This would force you to send multiple crafts to prevent an alien mission from being carried out and to raid valuable artifacts.

.)retaliate on Skyranger while on the way to crash site (alien rescue mission), this would force you to send Interceptors to escort your Skyranger

.)aliens should evaluate their missions - if you constantly get shot down in one region try to avoid it and go to another, if successful intensify your presence. If you have to send small UFOS to dangerous places give them escort.
In my current game, alien activity is largely limited to the regions around my 2 bases while the rest of the globe is neglected (mid-game on veteran).
This is absurd as the aliens are digging their own grave by supplying me with loads of items and money from easily downed crafts.



So much for my Ideas, I'd love to help but I've no clue about coding and my drawing skills are somewhat limited. If there's anything I can do except hunting for bugs let me know!