Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N9.7.7 12-Sep-2024 Second Coming

[Zharkov]

I am still alive. Got a new job, then got an even newer job. Now I am going to buy a new car. ^^

I've made a choice for the final version of the armor - sorry if it feels unfair, since some work was wasted but I have to make the choices, being ultimatively responsible for everything. Example attached.

It might be to late for this, but would be a touch of gold/yellow be more fitting with the sprites?

Zharkov, I've finished the Images, but haven't made the Inventory Pix yet, I want to see if you or Dioxine have any last moment requests.

Well, on the greyish version, the boobs look a bit like holes to me! Would you change that before making an inv pic?

[Dioxine]

Good thing to hear that you're doing well, man

About the gold accents - I've wanted to do that, but decided against it - too much work. And then I've moved to other pastures - so many things to make in this mod At least the battlefield sprite is properly gold/red, it required some pixel-by-pixel fixes since it was getting recolored by skin/hair recoloring routine... If someone modifies the armor after my release, I might include it.

Here's a new idea I'm playing with, born from the discussion with Hellrazor on a random topic:

farming tactics make me wonder if I shouldn't put a pre-primed 'nuclear bomb' on each UFO engine. Loiter around past Turn 20, you'll get vaporized Wouldn't be a problem for myself since my UFO raids seldomly take over 10 turns.

[Solarius Scorch]

I am still alive. Got a new job, then got an even newer job. Now I am going to buy a new car. ^^

According to the member map (yeah, I'm stalking people) you live in Antarctica. Does your new car have tracks or sleighs?

Here's a new idea I'm playing with, born from the discussion with Hellrazor on a random topic:

farming tactics make me wonder if I shouldn't put a pre-primed 'nuclear bomb' on each UFO engine. Loiter around past Turn 20, you'll get vaporized Wouldn't be a problem for myself since my UFO raids seldomly take over 10 turns.

I think it's a bit extreme; even if it would be rare to see such long missions, a time limit is a time limit and nobody likes them, especially in large quantities. I'm just unsure if it would be taken well. How about making a pilot test by only adding it on some special mission, or a type of mission, so that it wouldn't overwhelm the whole game but allowed to get some feedback? But I know it would be technically difficult.

[Rince Wind]

And what would happen to those engines that are already destroyed when the UFO crashes?
I also think it is too much, especially the big UFO can take longer, and you make one playstyle impossible. Haven't tried the harder difficulties, but on those it probably take more time to whittle the enemy down as well. Maybe it would be an idea for special missions? Like you follow a probe to a UFO with valuable cargo that will explode soon, out if it is possible, you get a notification that a spike in nuclear energy is detected somewhere, most nations probably would not have the equipment to do that anymore.

[Zharkov]

Here's a new idea I'm playing with, born from the discussion with Hellrazor on a random topic:

farming tactics make me wonder if I shouldn't put a pre-primed 'nuclear bomb' on each UFO engine. Loiter around past Turn 20, you'll get vaporized Wouldn't be a problem for myself since my UFO raids seldomly take over 10 turns.

Ah, you are still mean! Good!

I thought about that problem, too. In a recent game, I took out one academy cruiser after another with very low losses, resulting in lots of resources. I did not think about it as farming, but felt an imbalance in the game and it was beginning to become tedious. Maybe there is an other solution to this problem, than blowing up everyone and everything (compelling as it might be...).
How about a counter, of how many ships of a certain type a faction fields in a given time. No sane being would sent the same type of ship on the same type of mission indefinitely, when it is captured by pirates every time.
Then, maybe a new mission type could be implemented that yields a high reward and stops a faction's activity for some time (e.g., raiding the academy's hq would certainly slow them down), thus making farming a bad (i.e., inefficient) choice.
Would any of this be feasible?

According to the member map (yeah, I'm stalking people) you live in Antarctica. Does your new car have tracks or sleighs?

Yeah, you got me on this one! Actually, it's not about a new car, but about a new dog sleigh -  I just said car, because that does not need further explanation.

[Dioxine]

Yeah I'm thinking about these 'counters' but this requires huge amount of work - both code-wise (mission scripts) and gfx-wise (new ships, new enemies...)

Blowing ships up is more straighforward; not all of them, naturally, just some (probably, for starters, Supply Ships and Cruisers, maybe also Heavy Gunships and Frigates).

Naturally, I have no idea what'll happen if the power core is destroyed by an interceptor. Time for experiments.

[Boltgun]

You could have fire spreading from the ufo, and the remaining engines could explode over time. In the end a lot of money worth of booty would be lost if we turtle too much.

[Dioxine]

Preliminary fire explosions that warn that the core breach is imminent. I like it!

[DracoGriffin]

This doesn't sound great; maybe for the special Imperial Probe missions or Star Governor missions... but for rank-and-file missions? It'd make most missions even more tedious and unrewarding; might as well just crash ships and not risk anything at all; better to just wait it for the next ship.

Honestly, why punish if people want to take their time? That's their time to waste; it shouldn't be used to disincentivize players into playing a certain way. If the "turtling" tactic is an issue, it's not going to fix much because savescumming will replace it so as to finish the mission within the "time limit" or unmodding it through ruleset editing.

Not to mention sometimes you NEED that extra time when you've lost a few Hands and it takes time to regroup your gals for a breach into the UFO or as you secure floors (like in a Cruiser). Especially against factions like Star Gods or Mercenaries, those extra turns can be the difference between victory or "well screw this, why even bother?".

If the goal is to reduce the amount of salvage for players (due to turtling for X turns), then reduce the amount of salvage from ships; increase Crackdown waves, or have a faction start fielding "military-grade" ships sooner for Retaliations in response to fewer downed ships. Push the player into "cherry-picking" targets until research/tech is at end-game, rather than punishing time-consuming tactical methods.

Just my two cents.

As an aside per Dev Changes/player strategies: Long War mod is great and all for XCOM2012, but if played on Classic/Impossible (like Beaglerush does), having to play an EXACT way everytime is EXTREMELY fatiguing. His experience may be a bit long-winded, but there's some core ideas there to consider.

Eventually, after fifteen versions and more than a couple changes that expressly targeted tactics and strategies I favoured, I think it finally feels to me like there's nothing more to iterate on. The space for ingenuity or inventiveness feels lost to me.

[Dioxine]

It's not about the salvage; it's about AI weakness. A slow-played mission is always beneficial to the attacker, as a prolonged siege can be put up. Why securing floors, risking your skin, if you can always just mine all entrances and wait for a hundred turns. Why act quickly, if you can just smoke everything and slowly proceed with hammers and stun rods? Why give a damn if an armor slows me down, if I have all the time in the world? Or you can idulge in reaction shooting training on disarmed people. This is not in the interest of discouraging good tactics; it's in the name of more variability. But it might not be the best solution.
However, this won't be an out-of the blue explosion; there will be a "plasma vent" which warns you that only 2-8 turns remain to the core breach. If you clear the ship by 10-20 tiles, you will be safe (no total annihilation, just within 20 tiles of the power core).
Still, people do hate time limits, including myself. Even more I hate games with enemies who blow themselves up. For now, I'm consigning this behaviour to Supply Ships only, as a special situation. Your solutions are better, naturally, just much, much more difficult to add (which doesn't mean I won't be working on them)

[Yankes]

I think better would be "soft" limit. e.g. each power core will explode in range 15 - 25 of turns. Some will explode at 15 some at 25.
Another thing could be mines plated by crew in case your assault. Until you reach it and disarm it can explode and destroy all cargo.

[DracoGriffin]

It's not about the salvage; it's about AI weakness. A slow-played mission is always beneficial to the attacker, as a prolonged siege can be put up. Why securing floors, risking your skin, if you can always just mine all entrances and wait for a hundred turns. Why act quickly, if you can just smoke everything and slowly proceed with hammers and stun rods? Why give a damn if an armor slows me down, if I have all the time in the world? Or you can idulge in reaction shooting training on disarmed people.

That's my point: if people want to play that way and take however long it takes or however many quicksave/quickloads, why try to punish the "normal" players in an effort to punish the "problem" players?

A (weak, tbh) comparison would be like game piracy: the only true victims are the customers who buy the product and suffer through DRM, CD-Keys, etc... while the pirates use cracks to get around the "obstacles".

As an aside, this is why I hardly ever suggested any gameplay changes.

[LexThorn]

It's not about the salvage; it's about AI weakness. A slow-played mission is always beneficial to the attacker, as a prolonged siege can be put up. Why securing floors, risking your skin, if you can always just mine all entrances and wait for a hundred turns. Why act quickly, if you can just smoke everything and slowly proceed with hammers and stun rods? Why give a damn if an armor slows me down, if I have all the time in the world? Or you can idulge in reaction shooting training on disarmed people. This is not in the interest of discouraging good tactics; it's in the name of more variability. But it might not be the best solution.
However, this won't be an out-of the blue explosion; there will be a "plasma vent" which warns you that only 2-8 turns remain to the core breach. If you clear the ship by 10-20 tiles, you will be safe (no total annihilation, just within 20 tiles of the power core).
Still, people do hate time limits, including myself. Even more I hate games with enemies who blow themselves up. For now, I'm consigning this behaviour to Supply Ships only, as a special situation. Your solutions are better, naturally, just much, much more difficult to add (which doesn't mean I won't be working on them)

And i think that it should be no more than option, that player can disable if he wish. Personally i hate any time limits and using slow, relaxing style of playing, with maximum profit, of corse. 

[Boltgun]

This reminded me that the AI weaknesses sometimes drag out combat for longer than intended. From memory it is set to either move forward, shoot or pull back and it may randomly decide to pull back a lot. I had to spend many turns chasing "that guy" to the corners of the map sometimes.

But an alternative would be to use primed bombs in addition to fire to add to the danger. You have a gal pick up the "damaged power core" as in "I succeed my assault and defused the situation" to prevent its explosion, then have the rest of the team finish the job. The core weighting 99, you have one less gal on your team in exchange of this.

[DracoGriffin]

But an alternative would be to use primed bombs in addition to fire to add to the danger. You have a gal pick up the "damaged power core" as in "I succeed my assault and defused the situation" to prevent its explosion, then have the rest of the team finish the job. The core weighting 99, you have one less gal on your team in exchange of this.

Now... that is genius. This is a great idea; I'd even take it further to have one gal "work" on the power core, another on a "computer" and some other stations to simulate them working control panels to avoid self-destruct sequence or meltdown or some kind of "dead man switch" thingy. Bigger ships, more things to "defuse" (like a cooling system); like Cruisers with 4 Power Cores: any not destroyed by interceptors would need "defusal", UFO Navigation pieces for working control panels (re-routing power or reversing security codes, etc), and even those Red Pods (explode when damaged, not sure what they are referenced as; mainly on Cruisers/Terror Ships; I think they may be "Fuel Pods") could be like... cooling units or something?

You might even have to commit a bodyguard or two if an enemy pops up out of nowhere or one of the stunned enemies comes back. Especially because primed explosives don't go off if they are carried; essentially halting the countdown sequence, and the higher the weight, the less TUs the Gal carrying it will have for the next turn so they'd basically be unable to defend themselves (easy way to test this is to pick up a Guild Bodyguard or Mercenaries with a low Strength soldier).

Boltgun... I like you, buddy. I like you a lot, and I liked you back when you made Succubi whip goblins and summon demons in Dwarf Fortress. Right after Kobold Camp... bam, Succubus Dungeon.