It makes no sense that alien ships have no outward damage.

[Dioxine]

For me, ideally there would be an additional tileset that'd replace random UFO walls with damaged versions - burnt, peppered with holes, mangled, etc, but basically staying impassable and usually blocking LOS (with armor reduced to 90, 80, in extreme cases even 50 so you can break through with a HE charge). Actual hull breaches should only happen with the "maximum fuck" weapons (I'd add Avalanche to that category, since Plasma Cannon is an end-game weapon, and nobody is using Fusion Bollocks, so, anything with 100+ damage); maybe a very small chance of a 1x1 breach with the middle-ground weapons (say, 40-99 damage).

[LeBashar]

I totally agree with this idea. 

[pkrcel]

Dioxine nailed it, no actual holes (or at least not TOO many) but a damaged UFO nonetheless.

+2

[Sturm]

Actually, these descriptions were right there in the original game! They just weren't displayed. I discovered them around 1998, at my first attempt to localize the game, and was quite surprised.

Oh my God XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD !
I suspect that the descriptions caused so much embarrassment that the writer was immediately fired and they couldn't find anyone who wanted to look at them while correcting the text files so they simply disabled them in code .

For me, ideally there would be an additional tileset that'd replace random UFO walls with damaged versions - burnt, peppered with holes, mangled, etc, but basically staying impassable and usually blocking LOS (with armor reduced to 90, 80, in extreme cases even 50 so you can break through with a HE charge). Actual hull breaches should only happen with the "maximum fuck" weapons (I'd add Avalanche to that category, since Plasma Cannon is an end-game weapon, and nobody is using Fusion Bollocks, so, anything with 100+ damage); maybe a very small chance of a 1x1 breach with the middle-ground weapons (say, 40-99 damage).

Fusion balls could be interesting if they'd be remade into "UFO Destroyer" weapons. Something like: you can destroy a Battleship with one hit but there won't be anything left to salvage. Generally, all Elerium explosives are ridiculously under-powered in game especially in relation to their names.
By the way, the highest ranking alien in the UFO could have some Elerium explosive which he would use to destroy the ship if 20 turns pass or something like that.

actually,  given the mostly-circular design of UFOs as well as the fact that the air combat window can only be a gross simplification of what's really going on, I'd say that a random damage system is perfectly fine. UFOs use a gravitational propulsion system, they can very well rotate in-flight to fire at you, exposing different sides to incoming fire.

I don't think it's a gross oversimplification. They UFOs simply don't react in any way except by firing back if in range or running away. I'm not sure if they have to rotate - there are no visible weapons on UFOs so the attacks could somehow be generated by the power sources.

my table above is a suggestion of in-game mechanics that try to make sense within the game setting. it will have to be playtested, of course. too many holes in UFO walls may be a terrible idea... on the other hand, I think it increases the tactical depth of the game: use overly powerful weapons, and you get less loot. a 3x3 hole in the wall of a medium-sized UFO is perfectly capable of destroying stuff inside the UFO that you want to recover. (the next step would be to tie power source explosions to the power of the shots that hit the UFO... if you want to recover elerium, you better wear it down instead of nuking it).

Personally, I made power source explosions much more powerful. Capable of often gutting the UFO or in extreme examples obliterating the outer shell in smaller UFOs. So, loot is usually drastically decreased when not waiting for UFO to land.

[moriarty]

I think we are mixing up several issues here.

for clarification:

1) I think we all agree that geoscape dogfight weapon damage should be in some way visible on the UFO. right?

2) It is possible to create random explosions only on hull tiles, re-utilizing the power source explosion source code.

3) There is some discussion about which weapons or hit damage levels should be able to cause what kind of damage. --> we should leave that to the ruleset

4) Yes, "damaged" UFO wall tiles would be nice. Anybody willing (and able) to create them?
(I'd suggest a system with 3-4 levels of destruction, from "undamaged" to "scratched" to "dented" to "punctured" (holes in the LOF templates, too!) to "breached")


Question @Sturm: If you create smaller explosions with a low strength, do the tiles stay intact or does the code always destroy the tile itself?

[Solarius Scorch]

1) I think we all agree that geoscape dogfight weapon damage should be in some way visible on the UFO. right?

Right!

2) It is possible to create random explosions only on hull tiles, re-utilizing the power source explosion source code.

Yep, sounds fine... But wouldn't the blasts damage the terrain near the UFO as well? This shouldn't happen.

3) There is some discussion about which weapons or hit damage levels should be able to cause what kind of damage. --> we should leave that to the ruleset

Fair enough.

4) Yes, "damaged" UFO wall tiles would be nice. Anybody willing (and able) to create them? (I'd suggest a system with 3-4 levels of destruction, from "undamaged" to "scratched" to "dented" to "punctured" (holes in the LOF templates, too!) to "breached")

Making the graphics is fairly trivial, the main problem is the tileset. If you add any new tiles to one, the tile order gets messed up and the entire map would have to be made from scratch. This is unacceptable for many reasons.
While you could add a completely new tileset to each UFO, this would also require soime modification of the maps, even if less externsive. This is still a no-no.
Therefore this would have to be done by hardcoding... But of course it would limit modding possibilities, like adding new wall types.

[Sturm]

Yep, sounds fine... But wouldn't the blasts damage the terrain near the UFO as well? This shouldn't happen.

Yeah, it''s a serious problem.

It would be the best if it would be possible to deploy the UFO first with all the aliens deployed on spawnpoints inside the UFO. Then battle damage would be applied. Then terrain would be applied. Then aliens would start deploying. Power sources could overload during the deployment. There could be a check of whenever the aliens notice bad state of power sources and evacuate the UFO which could result in everyone trying to get out. Then the power sources would explode. Then if long enough time has passed before Skyranger landing, smoke and fires would be removed. Then the X-Com craft would be put down. Then aliens within visual range would turn towards the X-Com craft.

This way, there could be different situations before landing.

[moriarty]

That would be really cool. Especially if the aliens could get some advantages from being left alone for too long... better "ambush" positions? Re-distribution of weapons (aliens picking up better weapons from dead comrades)?

But for now I could live with the terrain damage.

Btw, could you use the modified code to create impact damage to the terrain all around the UFO? Low-power explosion on all hull tiles? Or would this remove the hull tiles?

[Sturm]

That would be really cool. Especially if the aliens could get some advantages from being left alone for too long... better "ambush" positions? Re-distribution of weapons (aliens picking up better weapons from dead comrades)?

But for now I could live with the terrain damage.

Btw, could you use the modified code to create impact damage to the terrain all around the UFO? Low-power explosion on all hull tiles? Or would this remove the hull tiles?

It doesn't remove the hull tiles.

[moriarty]

Okay, cool... but I guess the southern walls somehow don't count as walls (=containing alien alloys), right? Could you post a screenshot of this UFO with all tiles revealed (debug mode, for example)?

[Sturm]

Okay, cool... but I guess the southern walls somehow don't count as walls (=containing alien alloys), right? Could you post a screenshot of this UFO with all tiles revealed (debug mode, for example)?

True. I have noticed it.

[Solarius Scorch]

Hmmm, nice effect. Pity it's unlikely to actually damage anything.

[moriarty]

Okay... so if we use that method to make holes in UFOs, we will never get holes in south and east walls, right? Because this method only finds "objects", I guess.

Can you define an explosion size limit? Or is it only possible to define explosion strength?

[Yankes]

Using some ugly hack is possible to ignore all no ufo components during explosion, but its not wise approach.
One way I see to handle it is create dummy level where is only ufo, blast it, and after that copy/paste result to landing spot.

[Sturm]

Okay... so if we use that method to make holes in UFOs, we will never get holes in south and east walls, right? Because this method only finds "objects", I guess.

True. And accidentally only external walls are objects. So, if the method would also search for walls, it would also create explosions on internal walls.

Can you define an explosion size limit? Or is it only possible to define explosion strength?

It is possible to define radius.