Author Topic: Remove the limit of 80 items?  (Read 28740 times)

Offline Warboy1982

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Re: Remove the limit of 80 items?
« Reply #15 on: October 23, 2013, 05:29:15 pm »
220 items on the ground, 10 soldiers with heavy plasma rifles and alien grenades, that's 250 items + whatever the aliens brought with them.

i get the impression you were still playing the original xcom. OpenXCom doesn't run through dosbox.

Offline SupSuper

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Re: Remove the limit of 80 items?
« Reply #16 on: October 23, 2013, 06:15:39 pm »
There should be a limit, it makes for better strategy... Like in TTS it was raised to 110... ^^

You should really need to choose what items to keep/use and such. it adds strategy... :P
No.

Offline moriarty

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Re: Remove the limit of 80 items?
« Reply #17 on: October 23, 2013, 06:22:42 pm »
No.

LOL

you know, it might actually make sense to define a certain amount of "storage space" that a transport craft has, if only to define how much stuff that transport craft is capable of carrying back to the base.
but personal equipment shouldn't subtract from that space, since the soldier is carrying that on his body. and those transport craft are huge, if you think about it - it should never be a problem to pack a few crates of grenades extra.

so, item limit? no. :)

Offline Danny

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Re: Remove the limit of 80 items?
« Reply #18 on: October 23, 2013, 08:28:56 pm »
What about still an 80 item limit, but everything a soldier carrying themselves will not add to that limit.

So you can pack all soldiers full of crap and still have 80 items to be just in the ship... ^^
How much more do you need? A soldier can only carry so much anyway.

Fully equip all soldiers and still have 80 items to spare...

Offline Sharp

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Re: Remove the limit of 80 items?
« Reply #19 on: October 23, 2013, 08:57:02 pm »
How much more do you need? A soldier can only carry so much anyway.

Exactly, so why bother implementing a limit? All a limit would do is limit gameplay. Why bother wasting time of somehow implementing some arbitrary limit (while somehow making it so soldiers don't count) of what you can bring when usually you don't even bother picking up anything from a skyranger once your in battle anyway.

Originally the limit was necessary simply because of limitations of computers and memory at the time, we don't have that now. It just detracts from gameplay and adds nothing but a failed sense of realism while requiring players to do even more micro-management for no gameplay value.


Offline Kain13

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Re: Remove the limit of 80 items?
« Reply #20 on: October 23, 2013, 10:28:02 pm »
Exactly, so why bother implementing a limit? All a limit would do is limit gameplay. Why bother wasting time of somehow implementing some arbitrary limit (while somehow making it so soldiers don't count) of what you can bring when usually you don't even bother picking up anything from a skyranger once your in battle anyway.

Originally the limit was necessary simply because of limitations of computers and memory at the time, we don't have that now. It just detracts from gameplay and adds nothing but a failed sense of realism while requiring players to do even more micro-management for no gameplay value.

+ Good words :)

Offline myk002

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Re: Remove the limit of 80 items?
« Reply #21 on: October 24, 2013, 12:57:56 am »
anyways, there is already a (rational) weight limit per soldier, and IMHO that is quite sufficient

Offline Danny

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Re: Remove the limit of 80 items?
« Reply #22 on: October 24, 2013, 02:34:50 pm »
Exactly, so why bother implementing a limit? All a limit would do is limit gameplay. Why bother wasting time of somehow implementing some arbitrary limit (while somehow making it so soldiers don't count) of what you can bring when usually you don't even bother picking up anything from a skyranger once your in battle anyway.

Originally the limit was necessary simply because of limitations of computers and memory at the time, we don't have that now. It just detracts from gameplay and adds nothing but a failed sense of realism while requiring players to do even more micro-management for no gameplay value.

Okay, then make it so you can ONLY use a soldiers inventory...
Any more room in the plane is used for the loot you bring back home... ^^

Just like the 2012 Xcom ;)

Offline Sharp

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Re: Remove the limit of 80 items?
« Reply #23 on: October 24, 2013, 03:54:42 pm »

Offline Danny

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Re: Remove the limit of 80 items?
« Reply #24 on: October 25, 2013, 12:37:14 am »
So is that a yes or no? XD

Offline Svanh

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Re: Remove the limit of 80 items?
« Reply #25 on: October 25, 2013, 02:35:51 am »
So is that a yes or no? XD

I think Sharp is wondering why you would bother implementing such a silly system. The current system works fine and doesn't require much micromanagement. If you want more strategic choices for equipment, mod some of the weapons.

Offline Danny

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Re: Remove the limit of 80 items?
« Reply #26 on: October 25, 2013, 11:01:37 am »
I think Sharp is wondering why you would bother implementing such a silly system. The current system works fine and doesn't require much micromanagement. If you want more strategic choices for equipment, mod some of the weapons.

Thanks but I prefer my way... ^^

Offline Hobbit Lord

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Re: Remove the limit of 80 items?
« Reply #27 on: November 09, 2013, 06:15:12 pm »
Okay, then make it so you can ONLY use a soldiers inventory...
Any more room in the plane is used for the loot you bring back home... ^^

Just like the 2012 Xcom ;)
Yeah and if you end up with more equipment at the end of the mission than at the start you have to decide what to take back.

Or, even better combine/integrate soldier carrying capacity with weight/item count. If you want to bring these 5 unknown alien artefacts back that you don't have room for in the Skyranger storage, it's possible but one soldier may have to stay behind

If you want to bring the captured sectoid commander back to base, Jimmy rookie #14 will have to give up his seat

Offline Man in the Funny Hat

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Re: Remove the limit of 80 items?
« Reply #28 on: November 09, 2013, 08:19:54 pm »
As the man said upthread: no.

The 80-item limit is probably THE best thing to go and the first thing that DESERVED to go.  Saying the game NEEDS an item limit?  When taken to the extreme you get a game like Xcom 2012 where for each trooper you have to choose between carrying ONE grenade or having a scope on your weapon.  Yeah, it makes for game strategy but it's absolute and intolerable bollocks.

If there's an item limit for the amount of gear that the AIRCRAFT can carry to a site then if soldier 'A' carries an additional electroflare then soldier 'B' has to give up one of his heavy rockets.  And the item limit for a skyranger CANNOT sensibly be identical to the item limit for an avenger, because then you DO get asinine instances where the more men you take to a site the less gear they can carry.  80 items divided among 26 troops instead of 14 means that everyone is pretty much restricted to 1 weapon, 1 ammo for that weapon, and 1 grenade because the AIRCRAFT can't carry any more than that.  No scanners, no medkits, no stunrods or stun launchers, no spare clips, no extra grenades and having to choose between smoke, regualar, alien, proximity, or HE for each because more is not allowed.  And then when you replace 4 troops with 1 HWP then inexplicably all the troops can carry MORE STUFF defying all logic but certainly adding another tactical choice - using HWP's simply to be able to bring more gear.

The game always did have a useful and sensible limit to the amount of gear that a soldier can carry - strength.  You give your heavy weapons to the soldiers who can physically handle the weight.  You give your extra gear to the ones who CAN carry it and limit the amount of gear carried by those who can't because if overloaded they lose TU's.  You don't need an artificial item limit on top of that for ANY strategic or tactical game reason other than to arbitrarily and needlessly frustrate the player who has enough concerns than overcoming deliberately non-realistic blocks in the name of "strategery!".

That same item limit applied to base defense missions too didn't it?  Any arguments about simply not being able to fit it on the aircraft no longer apply.  Worse, it forced you to use the first 80 items in the inventory list for the base and not even choosing the 80 items you would deem actually useful.  Nothing so satisfying as having to defend your base with starter rifles and pistols against mutons because they are the first items in inventory despite having heavy plasma rifles that you take to every crash site.

The 80 item limit was not there because it made a lick of sense or because it was actually desired for some bent idea of "strategy".  It was there because it was a programming limitation that in 1994 couldn't be overcome.  IBM PC's were at the time still using the 486 - we didn't even have the Pentium processor yet.  Memory capacity was still being measured in megabytes rather than gigabytes.  Most games were still fitting onto one or two 3.5" floppy discs, and cd-rom games were mostly just ones like Myst that were built around graphics that would otherwise require dozens of floppies.  We were still mucking about with autoexec.bat files in DOS in order to free up enough memory to even run games at all.  We had to manually set IRQ's and other settings for peripherals like our sound cards because there was no such thing as plug-and-play.  And if you hadn't bought a major brand like Soundblaster or Adlib for your sound card you might just be SOL for sound at all and make do with a few beeps and boops from the built-in speaker on your case.  Not that it wasn't a crapshoot as to whether your combination of hardware would cooperate with any given game no matter what you'd bought because device drivers would simply conflict with each other anyway.

The 80-item limit was never included for purposes of being a strategic or tactical rule.  Let it lie dead where it belonged in the first place.
« Last Edit: November 13, 2013, 05:44:39 pm by Man in the Funny Hat »

Offline BobTheBreaker

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Re: Remove the limit of 80 items?
« Reply #29 on: November 13, 2013, 09:13:49 am »
The 80-Item Limit's passing has not been (and shall not be) mourned.