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Author Topic: UFO and TFTD in the single sequential campaign  (Read 20973 times)

Offline tkzv

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UFO and TFTD in the single sequential campaign
« on: December 11, 2017, 01:19:37 am »
Has anybody tried merging the two games in a single mod?

It would go something like this. Just a normal UFO game until you win at Cydonia, but then the game continues. Probably your funding is cut, and you spend several month doing nothing. Maybe all your Avengers are requisitioned. Maybe there's a timeskip a few days or weeks long (to travel to Mars and back).

And then Aquatoids start appearing.

You retain all your technologies, but cannot use most of them underwater. You cannot get more ellerium — whatever is transported from Mars isn't yours.

I know of Dr.Crowley's mod: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,5811.0.html , which uses a similar idea, but it is TFTD-only, separate from UFO, starting in 2037.

P.S. The X-COM Files tries a parallel approach with Deep Ones as early as 1997. I asked about serial one.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2017, 11:37:34 am by tkzv »

Offline Warboy1982

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Re: UFO and TFTD in the single campaign
« Reply #1 on: December 11, 2017, 02:12:14 am »
this comes up all the time and the simple answer is "it can't work"

Offline Hobbes

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Re: UFO and TFTD in the single campaign
« Reply #2 on: December 11, 2017, 02:58:27 am »
It's the Holy Grail of OpenXCom. Many have tried finding it, but all have failed in this quest.

Offline tkzv

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Re: UFO and TFTD in the single campaign
« Reply #3 on: December 11, 2017, 10:55:06 am »
this comes up all the time and the simple answer is "it can't work"
It's the Holy Grail of OpenXCom. Many have tried finding it, but all have failed in this quest.
Any names or links to failed attempts? What made them fail? Other than the amount of work.

Offline Warboy1982

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Re: UFO and TFTD in the single campaign
« Reply #4 on: December 11, 2017, 12:38:58 pm »
simply put: they both follow the same arc, instead of one being the continuation of the other.

Offline Hobbes

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Re: UFO and TFTD in the single campaign
« Reply #5 on: December 11, 2017, 03:55:03 pm »
Any names or links to failed attempts? What made them fail? Other than the amount of work.

Just search the forums and you'll find the discussions.

Offline tkzv

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Re: UFO and TFTD in the single campaign
« Reply #6 on: December 11, 2017, 07:44:13 pm »
simply put: they both follow the same arc, instead of one being the continuation of the other.
What key featues distinguish the arc? Having to start from scratch? What else?

Offline The Reaver of Darkness

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Re: UFO and TFTD in the single campaign
« Reply #7 on: December 11, 2017, 11:27:07 pm »
You'd have to drastically change the gameplay for a while, otherwise it's going to be a long 40 years before you get going again.

In the original storyline, X-Com was put on hold at some point and revived out of a sudden need in 2040. I'd guess that there was a time after the first war in which X-Com became a rapidly expanding international military service which could help explain where Barracuda technology comes from, and why X-Com already had an underwater base before the attacks began. If you wanted to feature that story in a game, it might make more sense to be a political strategy game similar to the Caesar series in which you gradually expand through keeping your people happy and appeasing other people, and you generate wealth through economic success and trade. Maybe you'd have the explicit goal of world peace while your major duties involve keeping positive ties with major nations and using those positive ties to gain access to goods and tools that can help you appease the other nations. You'd perhaps explore applications of alien technology to help people while also trying to prevent other nations from abusing it. Various nations would fight over the remaining elerium and you'd try to keep the peace, but in your economically weak position your best bet is probably to design the technology to enable spaceflight to Mars without using it, so that the Elerium mines can be started before everybody blows each other sky high over an infantile resource grab.

Offline Warboy1982

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Re: UFO and TFTD in the single campaign
« Reply #8 on: December 12, 2017, 12:07:49 am »
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,3025.0.html
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,1851.0.html
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,372.0.html

This must rank up there with the most suggested ideas ever. :)

...and that was in 2012!

By arc, i mean in both games you start with a single base with only meager facilities, a handful of untrained rookies, a minimal science and engineering staff, no access to armour or advanced equipment, and all the funding nations supporting you.
generally speaking by the end of the game, none of these will still hold true.

they are for all intents and purposes, the same game with a different name.

but that's just the structure of the game, the governing rules add a whole other layer of dichotomy, for example:
UFO only allows bases on land, TFTD only allows them at sea.
UFOs shot down over the ocean in UFO disappear, USOs in TFTD disallow engagement over land.
The regions that govern scoring and the country borders are completely different between the two games.
The waypoint areas for UFOs and USOs are in completely different parts of the globe.
and so on...

the structure is too similar and the rules are too different.
« Last Edit: December 12, 2017, 12:54:35 am by Warboy1982 »

Offline tkzv

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Re: UFO and TFTD in the single campaign
« Reply #9 on: December 12, 2017, 03:48:59 am »
You'd have to drastically change the gameplay for a while, otherwise it's going to be a long 40 years before you get going again.
I said above. The signal is sent right after the victory and Aquatoids start attacking within weeks.

In the original storyline, X-Com was put on hold at some point and revived out of a sudden need in 2040. I'd guess that there was a time after the first war in which X-Com became a rapidly expanding international military service which could help explain where Barracuda technology comes from, and why X-Com already had an underwater base before the attacks began.
The manual says that X-COM was shoved aside and ended up becoming a salvage company searching for elerium in underwater UFO wrecks.

If you wanted to feature that story in a game, it might make more sense to be a political strategy game similar to the Caesar series in which you gradually expand through keeping your people happy and appeasing other people, and you generate wealth through economic success and trade. Maybe you'd have the explicit goal of world peace while your major duties involve keeping positive ties with major nations and using those positive ties to gain access to goods and tools that can help you appease the other nations. You'd perhaps explore applications of alien technology to help people while also trying to prevent other nations from abusing it. Various nations would fight over the remaining elerium and you'd try to keep the peace, but in your economically weak position your best bet is probably to design the technology to enable spaceflight to Mars without using it, so that the Elerium mines can be started before everybody blows each other sky high over an infantile resource grab.
No time for that — underwater aliens are attacking! There may be funding drop between the victory and first attacks.

Although, now that you mentioned it, I wonder if anybody tried implementing X-COM clone on Caesaria engine. There were rumours of stranger things back in 2000s :)



https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,3025.0.html
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,1851.0.html
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,372.0.html
Thanks.


By arc, i mean in both games you start with a single base with only meager facilities, a handful of untrained rookies, a minimal science and engineering staff, no access to armour or advanced equipment, and all the funding nations supporting you.
generally speaking by the end of the game, none of these will still hold true.
Correct, this would be a game with lots of trained people (which may change if funding is cut), many research and production facilities, but weapons and equipment inadequate for underwater missions.

they are for all intents and purposes, the same game with a different name.
Hence the desire to combine them :)

but that's just the structure of the game, the governing rules add a whole other layer of dichotomy,
Then some rules need to change :) The sum game needs to combine them somehow.
for example:
UFO only allows bases on land, TFTD only allows them at sea.
I never really understood why do they need deep underwater bases if their subs can fly. Let them be only on land, for example.
UFOs shot down over the ocean in UFO disappear, USOs in TFTD disallow engagement over land.
Let UFOs downed in water stay there a few days, until they disappear, like any other downed UFO. Another thing that irked me from the start :)
The regions that govern scoring and the country borders are completely different between the two games.
Since the second part follows right after the first, the countries are the same. Let each founding country have a big piece of sea as its territory. Guess, that would affect the 1st half of the game somewhat.
If the spheres of influence over the seas follow current political situation, that would give USA a lot of sea territories, wouldn't it?
The waypoint areas for UFOs and USOs are in completely different parts of the globe.
Is there a limit on numbers of waypoints? Can those sets coexist for different missions?

To sum it up: there is more work than I anticipated, namely reworking the globe. But people wanted this game right from the start. I'm going to find if anybody actually went beyond suggestions...

Offline The Reaver of Darkness

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Re: UFO and TFTD in the single campaign
« Reply #10 on: December 15, 2017, 03:05:13 pm »
I said above. The signal is sent right after the victory and Aquatoids start attacking within weeks.
You could make the second war pick up immediately after the end of the first, but you'd have to break canon to do so. At that point, anything goes, you can make the game any way you want, since it's not really tied to canon anymore.

Offline tkzv

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Re: UFO and TFTD in the single campaign
« Reply #11 on: December 19, 2017, 11:32:02 am »
You could make the second war pick up immediately after the end of the first, but you'd have to break canon to do so. At that point, anything goes, you can make the game any way you want, since it's not really tied to canon anymore.
The closer to the canon this stays, the better.

It should go something like this. Right from the start there's an option to research recovering UFOs shot down over the sea. This could be something like a helicopter that carries a boat with divers. Or maybe skip the intermediate stages and give X-COM a tilt-rotor seaplane. Seas are partitioned between funders like the land and recovering gives score.

There were discussions in other threads who and what should and should not survive a water crash landing. Long story short: there always should be armed aquanauts. Unlike the land crash sites, they last much longer.

After Cydonia there's a funding drop, but a new type of mission appears. Various countries are declassifying the locations of UFOs they shot down and X-COM is tasked with recovering them. This is where Aquatoids and Gillmen start appearing. Then come USO sightings, attacks on ships and so on.

The perfect game would be where X-COM is underprepared to each new challenge and barely manages to catch up.

P.S. A possible way to drive funding down: a lot of cheap missions that quickly expire and give penalty. The problem would be to keep the score negative, but not too low. And to keep doing this for a fixed number of months after the victory.

P.P.S. Possible missions after the victory: recovering UFOs shot down by various armies of the world and fighting people that want to keep the wreck. Or fighting living terror weapons that survived the crash and thrive in the wild. Cryssalids would die quickly, but if they keep infecting large wild animals at a steady rate, that might last long. Reapers would have no problems surviving. No idea about celatids and silacoids.

P.P.P.S. Interceptors should be able to shoot USOs with rockets in the air and possibly with torpedoes at low depth. Flying subs should carry torpedoes and maybe air-to-air rockets too.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2017, 02:36:09 am by tkzv »

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: UFO and TFTD in the single sequential campaign
« Reply #12 on: December 19, 2017, 12:04:16 pm »
If you seriously consider doing this, I suggest you start with a list of specific code changes that would be necessary for this. Then look for a coder willing to help - the viability of this depends heavily on how difficult it would be, and how vanilla-friendly.

Offline tkzv

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Re: UFO and TFTD in the single sequential campaign
« Reply #13 on: December 19, 2017, 01:17:50 pm »
If you seriously consider doing this, I suggest you start with a list of specific code changes that would be necessary for this. Then look for a coder willing to help - the viability of this depends heavily on how difficult it would be, and how vanilla-friendly.
Not serious yet. But yes, the list of what the engine can and cannot do will be the start.

Offline Meridian

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Re: UFO and TFTD in the single sequential campaign
« Reply #14 on: December 21, 2017, 11:56:13 am »
There are many approaches of how to merge the two together:
- from the simplest of just starting TFTD new game automatically after win at cydonia (which is nothing else than saving the user two or three clicks to do it manually)
- to a complete engine rewrite (and potentially completely new artwork)

First the idea needs to be formulated, then reviewed for feasibility, then compromises will inevitably be made... and then a lot of time will be required for both coding and modding.

In my humble opinion a "complete" merge is too much effort for little to no gain.