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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Time Up! Crashed Ufo Gone!


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One time when I was playing an early game of X-com, I shot down a medium scout and my Skyranger was already on the way to a terror site or somesuch. After a long flight across an ocean and back (it was my only squad at this point) I was twiddling my thumbs getting the craft refueled. And just as soon as it's ready to head back out, the marker showing the crash site of that little ufo vanishes.

 

My thoughts immediately turned to "Where the eff did they go?" and a whole range of possibilities opened up. What would be cool in the 1.+ versions, would be messages detailing the crash sites before you get there since I'm sure a super secret international organization can get their hands on surveillance of any kind, including satellite imagery. It would also be cool to click on the crash site and get updates on the situation like how many people have reported disturbance, level of government/civic knowledge and response, and stuff like that.

 

Then, in the case of a crash site being too small to deal with in the midst of intense ufo activity to the point that it gets forgotten about, you would recieve a pop-up message letting you know just what happened to that ufo, ranging from "It's vanished without explanation" to "The local government mopped it up." I would presume that in each case it would be a bad mark against the Xcom-equivalent organization. I think it would be a good bit of immersion that wouldn't be too difficult to code, though not completely necessary, so it could go in afterwards.

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It's always considered repairable?

 

What if they were rescued when not repairable. You show up thinking, it's a simple medium scout and you've got it and "something else" to deal with.

 

Personally I've always assumed they were rescued.

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It's always considered repairable?

 

What if they were rescued when not repairable. You show up thinking, it's a simple medium scout and you've got it and "something else" to deal with.

 

Personally I've always assumed they were rescued.

 

The twelve hours thing till they get repairs done works for me, though it's a good point to bring up damages. Like for instance, in the case of those especially satisfying mop-up jobs when the ufo is completely shattered and you have but one or two aliens to sweep up (One I downed didn't even give me any alien alloys) I don't think they'd be able to put their stuff together and go home. It would just be super sweet to have that kind of variety in every aspect of the game. hehe, I forsee mods out the wazou for this game down the line :)

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repairing an UFO would be a nice feature, however it should all depend on the amount of damage the UFO has taken.

 

for example

damage is 10-20% it takes 12 hours to repair

damage is 20-30% it takes 14 hours to repair

damage is 30-40% it takes 18 hours to repair

damage is 40-50% it takes 22 hours to repair

damage is >50% ufo is not repairable, thus the alien needs to send a rescue force to recover its units.

 

This will introduce multiple alien vessels at one crash site and you ahveing to fight both. Assuming you arrive there just after the rescue UFO landed maybe you have a 2 hours time frame.

 

This will allow time for the aliens to recover their units and also recover anything serviceable from the crashed ufo.

 

Just an idea.

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Well, at the moment, the UFO remains flying until it hits 50% damage, then it crashes. Unless the damage is 100%. In which case it's completely destroyed.

Also, the amount of salvage is proportional to damage. So at 90% damage, there isn't much salvage.

However, the surviving crew is only slightly reduced due to damage. i.e. at 90% damage 60% of crew will survive. (On average.)

 

However, if you want to have the aliens mount UFO recovery missions, by all means feel free to write the code to do so. You should be able to do this now, as all the UFO stuffs already in there.

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What kind of distance can a "skyranger" cover in twelve hours? This in a sense limits it's range. Maybe we should boost that to, say, 24 hours.
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Well, at the moment, the UFO remains flying until it hits 50% damage, then it crashes. Unless the damage is 100%. In which case it's completely destroyed.

Also, the amount of salvage is proportional to damage. So at 90% damage, there isn't much salvage.

Well, I guess this is appropriate to gauge how much stuff is salvageable at the end of the mission. In the original game, if the UFO goes down and the power source explodes, the amount of recoverable items depends on a number of factors: a roll to determine if the crash causes the power source to explode in the first place, the distance the item is to the PS, the blast power of the PS (which is slightly variable), and whether there are objects in the way which could absorb the blast (ie walls, ceilings, doors). On a small craft, yes, damage can be quite extensive due to proximity to the PS and relative lack of objects which can neutralize some of the explosion. But on larger UFO's the blast is localized due to position (all PS's are on the ground floor) and UFO layout (functions of the craft are isolated from each other in task-specific rooms or areas). So at 90% damage, a lot of the items on the ground floor would be damaged or vaporized if the PS exploded, but on higher floors the damage would be relatively minor. ;)

 

However, the surviving crew is only slightly reduced due to damage. i.e. at 90% damage 60% of crew will survive. (On average.)

Just for comparison, in the original game the survival rate of the crew depended on completely on where the alien spawned. Engineers are usually spawned near a PS so obviously they would be the only casualties. Other ranks are spawned in different locations throughout the ship and the landscape and didn't suffer the high casualty rates. If you wanted to be realistic, give each alien a percentage chance to die simply from the crash itself and location. =b

 

- Zombie

Edited by Zombie
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