That new moon terrain looks tasty.
Thanks!
The recolour literally took me two minutes, but then Finnik made some nice hills.
Would you mind if add my two cents regarding commendations and random events?
As far as I can tell these differ from the existing commendation mod in that they add stats and aren't commendations in the usual sense (as in something you'd get a medal for). Plase don't take this the wrong way - I'd love to have XCF-specific commendations - but I'm not particularely fond of them adding/modifying stats and the way they are awarded (or rather the naming/description). Would you consider using a sub-mod for commendations instead of integrating them into the mod (akin to how the geoscape palette is optional)?
Let me explain using a gross exaggeration. Please don't take it as a mockery, I am just trying to illustrate something.
Imagine it's 1993, and
Doom is about to be released. And ID Software get a letter like this:
"Dear Mr. Carmack and Mr. Romero,
I really like your new project, it looks fantastic! The graphics are so much better than in your previous game, Wolfenstein 3D. The weapons, the effects, level design, everything is so crispy. I can't wait to play it!
However, I must say I don't like the enemies much. Shooting Nazis was so much fun, why change it? Could you perhaps make Doom with the German soldiers, and release the demons as a separate add-on for those who like this kind of thing? That would be the best way to appease anyone!
I wish all you the best with your project!
- Wolfenfan"
So, to summarize: from a technical point of view it would be quite easy to separate this part of the mod and move it outside. Easier than most such things anyway. But from a design perspective, it's simply ridiculous. This is not how you make games, even as an amateur. The reasons are so painfully obvious that I won't even describe them.
Also, this system has been designed in details
years ago, long before there was any hope it would even be possible. IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE THERE BY DESIGN.
I'm also not sure about gaining/losing points directly from random events - right now the player always has a choice or at least a (hypothetical) option to avoid losing points. Random events take that choice away from players. I'd rather see them tied to missions (or event chains, research unlocks etc.) than affecting the player score directly. X-COM is about having ultimate control about the direction of your agency by the decisions you make as a commander.
OK, now we're straight into bullshit territory. X-Com is and has always been precisely about not having much control. If anything, XCF has been too predictable and too controllable, especially for a game about goddamn world conspiracies. I tried to mix things up by randomizing everything, but many such decisions only served to annoy the player (Syndicate hunting anyone?). Now we have way better tools to achieve that.
Random events itself are a good addition if you give your players an option to actually react to them or mitigate their consequences - that way they add interactivity and force the player to make decisions concerning that event. Simply adding/deducting points as a totally random action fails to accomplish that.
What a boring idea.
I don't want to play chess. I want some excitement in my life. This is supposed to be fun, not an exercise in... well, whatever it is. (The internet calls it "autism", but I really dislike this term.)
You've posted the "Old Crop Circles" event as a teaser/example - looking at that I'm not sure what the take away from that is supposed to be. Do I have an option to avoid such events in the future? Why am I being 'punished' for something that was - apparently outside of my control? To me this feels more like something that should happen if the player ignores/fails to get to a crop circle site in time.
Some of these events are unavoidable. The world around you is unavoidable. As I said, if you had total control over such things, it would be a bad X-Com game. This is not what I want, and I happen to have the last word here.
But then again, most events are preventable by for example shutting down the offending organization, or by research, etc. In fact, many events are specifically designed to harm you if you stall with your progress (especially when doing so is some sort of exploit, like for example not destroying some cult because it's a source of some resource). So it's not uncoupled from player's actions and you're supposed to react to them.
Existing mechanics have the player actively invested in the possible outcomes (e.g. you can chose to ignore missions sites, you can win or fail missions). The game - at least at some level - has or wants players to care about mechanics. I'm not sure taking that away is a good idea. This practically amounts to to telling the player that they lost points because of {x} without actually giving the player a reason why they should care about {x} as you are not offering them an option to influence the outcome of those events.
Gosh, now you're such a drama queen. "Waaah, I lost 50 points, now the game is unplayable!"
Feedback is great. Good feedback is priceless. Your feedback is and has always been very good. But in this case I think you've built some sort of a model of how the game will look like which is not supported by much evidence and likely off. Why not give it a try first? Lots of people play the GitHub (unreleased) version - it's buggy, but perfectly playable. (Will require the latest OXCE, also unreleased but available from Meridian.)
I checked some more example events through the Github page, and I can confirm there's order within the chaos. Some random events are... Random, as the name says, but others can be results of your actions (or lack of thereof). For example, delaying to destroy a cult when you had the chance to do so originally had the chance of spawning missions that did lots of damage to your score (as in, spreading misinformation and such to hurt your organization). Now though, there are random events that can spawn that are related to that, which make you lose a bit of score.
That's all true. I didn't have to write this after all
By the way Solarius, you did say you were considering to implement rubber bullets for shotguns. What about an equivalent for rifles? Also, what about disposable rocket launchers? There's one here that would make perfect sense for XCOM to have once you get to max promotion level and have access to military gear:
http://openxcommods.weebly.com/downloads11.html
I can do that. I'm not sure how it works in real life, though.
It's time to introduce rewards. I would suggest two types of awards: military awards (do not give any skills, serve as a sign of merit) and personality traits (give an increase in skills, are given in especially difficult situations). It is perfectly acceptable to receive both types of rewards at the same time in the mission.
Yeah, I think some of these (stormtrooper for example) would be more fitting as traits than as regular commendations.
Sorry, I have no idea what the difference is between the two.
Whatever it is, the engine supports commendations (and transformations), not whatever else you have in mind, so it's pointless to discuss.
