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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Ok, Sir, Craft X Has Been Refueled


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At this rate the entire screen will be filled with buttons that cater for every conceivable situation, however remote.

Dang pop ups!

 

Well, maybe when xcom does arrive, the assumption is that people have already been killed. To maybe make it look a little better, we should have a few more bodies lying around and maybe a building burning already, instead of the 'totally undamaged' look. This'll at least make it look like that the aliens have been a little busy. But it doesn't have to change gameplay.

 

As for skyranger launching with not enough fuel, why not just put a message that says 'Skyranger does not have enough fuel' pop up. As soon as sky ranger has enough fuel and you send it out, that little pop us doesn't have to show anymore.

 

But really, I know it doesn't take that long to refuel an airplane, unless they're using a bucket and a funnel to gas up the dang thing. Even jumbo jets on long international flights don't take half a day just to gas up (strictly gas up).

 

Hey! I've been demoted! Hehe. :cussing:

Edited by warhamster
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I must say that warhamster's idea is a good one.

But should you be penalized if your skyranger can't get to the dammed terrosite in time? I don't think so, because if you are, what happens when moscow is attacked and your skyranger is in your central us base?

 

And a fuel warning is a good idea.

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Replying to several things here. The craft can't launch when it's being repaired, as the plane will be disassembled to reach damaged inside areas. It would take a couple hours to reassemble and then refuel, and by then you're too late.

 

Terror sites are randomly chosen it would seem, and I don't think they'd attack major cities since that's also where the major defenses are at. Smaller towns with little resistance are ideal. They can kill everyone and leave before regional defenses can be assembled and sent. The time limit is also important, as it doesn't take forever to kill the locals. If you can't get to a site within 12 hours, then it should go away and your score reflects a total loss. If you can't reach the site, you obviously need to build another base for a transport. Also build 2 or 3 workshops at that base and produce the most valuable items you can sell to support it. You can easily make enough money by selling items you produce to support the rest of the base. Just build the workshops first and get your money flowing, then rent the transport and hire the soldiers. You can also have armor waiting when they get there that way too. I tended to have 3 bases with transports to get to sites as well as deal with multiple downed craft. And once you have the hyperwave decoder, no terror ships should even be landing before they're blasted out of the sky.

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OK, first the admission: It's been so long since I played either X-COM that I don't remember how vehicles are selected to dispatch for intercepts or dispatches.

 

Perhaps we should consider reworking how that occurs, so here is my idea on how to work it:

 

- You click on an alien vehicle or landing site.

- A window pops up, the window is tabbed (interceptors and transports) with the default tab based on the current alien ship status (interceptor if flying, transport if on ground).

- In the window is a list, sorted by time-on-target of all the appropriate vehicles. They are green if the vehicle can reach the target, and red if it cannot (not enough fuel, under repair, etc).

- As the status changes (if, for example, a vehicle complete repairs while you stare at the flying UFO) its status changes red to green.

- Since the screen should stay up during flight (unless closed by player), there should be a status for "in flight" (blinking amber?)

 

Of course the usual stuff (the ability to bring up ship info from this screen, etc).

 

This would seem to give an elegent solution with a minimum number of pop-windows (one) and a maximum of useful information.

 

As to the other comments. Weather more people should be dead should be related both to time and to weather killing people was the alien mission. I do think that how happy people are about X-COMs work should be related to the impact the aliens had (IOW shot-down and captured aliens make a happier public than ones gotten during terror raids, and how long the raid went on should matter too).

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A nice option might be to have terror sites stay up for 24 hours on beginner level, and the time drops on higher difficulties. At superhuman it's up for like 8-10 hours, so you have to go right away, even if it means a night mission. Then you don't have to kill civs before they arrive, but assume they all die if nobody responds.
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I think the aliens would try to infiltrate the most influencial nations first and harvest from the remote areas... and terrorize poor, populous areas where they don't have an on call military ready to mobilize... and once they gain significant influence over the military industrial complexes of powerful nations they can start terrorizing and collecting from them.
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  • 3 weeks later...

Did any of you ever play Transport Tycoon Deluxe? That had a way of reporting non-essential news items by displaying them in a ticker-tape format across the bottom of the screen. I think this would be ideal for messages such as "craft X has been refueled", or "stores arriving at base Y".

 

Being able to select a target before the craft is fully refuelled is also a good idea. How about drawing a faint shaded area on the globe which is where the craft is able to go to? For a fully-fuelled skyranger, the whole world would be shaded (I envisage a sort of red covering.. hard to explain, I guess), whereas if it only had 50% fuel, there would perhaps be certain places it was unable to reach. The circle displaying its range could also be shaded to different brightnesses to represent how long it could patrol in a particular area.

 

Mike

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Welcome to the forums!

 

Didn't apoc and simcity 3000 have tickertape message things? Hmm, I must look again, it might work in xeno, it might not. I think it might work.

Apoc did and it worked well, tho i'd imagine that these ticker messages would be displayed in the greenscreen space.

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instead of red, maybe a green boundary??? Also, maybe you CAN run out of fuel, and you need to rescue said aircraft via battlescape :D

course if it is your only skyranger...... or if it crashes into water... :D

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I don't think the pilot's would be stupid enough 2 follow an order knowing that they haven't enough fuel, tho maybe the interceptor's could follow the suicide missions seen in WW2 and the Falklands.
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I think there ought to be a harsh fuel warning that doesn't go away until there isn't enough fuel to RTB and then it stops and there is a silence... no music, all you hear are the sound effects.

 

Having the choice in the hands of the player would make the decision making process more stressful, especially if you blew it out of proportion with klaxons and warnings.

 

Running out of fuel in a jet isn't a death sentence. All you have to do is put the airplane into a shallow dive until it slow down enough for you to eject. The bad part would be losing the expensive aircraft.

 

They ought to be EXPENSIVE, damnit!

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Wait a second, im not too keen on losing my veteran squad because the damn skyranger ran out of gas!

 

Actually, couldn't you put the aircraft down gently when they are out of fuel? Just put an interceptor down on the nearest airstrip, skyranger down in the nearest clearing. I don't want to lose my big expensive interceptor (not to mention that it is leased :() because the damn thing ran out of fuel. Wouldn't the interceptors and other aircraft have parachutes to slow their rate of descent?

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No aircraft today except ultralights have parachutes meant to save the entire airplane. Deploying a parachute at mach 3 would most like just result in having flaming tatters trailing an airplane.

 

If jets run out of gas they tend to fall like stones after they reach their stall speed.

 

I don't know if xcom would touch down outside their base for fear of being captured by aliens.... but who knows. Setting down in a field would be easy for the stovl Skyranger, but the very high speed interceptors would need a considerable runway/carrier deck.

 

Something that comes to me as I write this: CTD, if the interceptor is not a stovl aircraft and the xcom runnway runs on catapults and drag lines, be sure to include a passage about the structure and undercarriage being hardened to withstand carrier landings.

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Good idea Jim.

 

Edit: Why would they need to be launchable from carriers? Xcom doesn't have carriers. Or are you saying that the launch system in the hangar is adapted from a carrier's?

Edited by Cpl. Facehugger
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It would have to be, if the interceptor's aren't stovl and xcom base doesn't have long runways (they tend to be noticed, and are easily damaged). Having a catapult system and arrestor wires would be the easiest option. (maybe in stead of a catapult a rato, rocket assisted take off)
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Then we will change it from a pde! That simple!

Besides, I was thinking about full VTOL which is probably just as impossible with a pde but this is the future, so we can say whatever we want. We just have to be vague, like a pde with some such part added to allow it to take off and land vertically.

 

We can essientially say whatever we want, as long as we are vague about how it happens... :D

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I'd rather we didn't say whatever we want, we aren't talking about 2100 we are talking 2013 which isn't far off. Technology advances aren't gonna jump that much, probably very little. Stick with what is in development right now as noone is stupid enough 2 throw some technology that ain't been in development 4 a while at the threat of extinction of mankind.
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Actually, Id think they would use any and all tech, even tech that isn't proven yet. Take lasers for example. We have never had a laser weapon that is portable (by human standards, a tank is another story) so that is an unproven tech. But it is necesary because the normal human rifles cant do squat against aliens with armor, so they devlope a new weapon with more power.

 

Or take uhh, proximity grenades. They don't exist (in any reliable form) currently, but they are made available to xcom because they are necesary when combating a force with better weapons, troops (in beginning) and numbers than you.

 

Actually, tactics is the only thing xcom has in its advantage against the bugs...

 

Sorry if I didn't make sense, but im really tired and havn't had my caffine this morning... :rolleyes:

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Due to the shape that the pde's have to be you can't duct their thrust nozzles. To make them vtol engines.

 

They don't have proximity grenades but they do have robotic mines that sit in pods on the ground that broadcast to a gps network. They have seismic and accoustic sensors and calculate the direction and types of vehicles it by accessing an internal library of accoustic signatures. When they detect land vehicles that have been declared as targets, they connect to a network of other hornets (is what they are called) and relays the information to the rest of the mines. They then turn to face them and fire an infrared guided ordinance over top of them that then homes in on them and strikes them from the top down.

 

What I got out of the xcom games is that what we have over the aliens is ingenuity.

Edited by fux0r666
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You seem to be right.

So we must merely change the engine from a pde, to something cooler!

 

And those smart mines are primarily anti-vehicle right? They wouldn't have much place in xcom's armories, unless dealing with sectopods or something.

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Well let's try not to be to pessimistic about what possible technological developments might come up in 10 years or so. Remember, the evolution of the PC from green screens to what it is now took little more than 15 years. Know what I mean? Remeber those days when a hard drive of 300mb, in 10 years we've developed HD's with more than 100 times that capability. So if the tech exists now, then it might just be mainstream in a few years.

 

VTOL is not so much a prereq in an interceptor, but doing away with a long runway basically means faster deployment. And if XCOM is going to be a really secret organization, it helps not to have a runway that can be found. I agree, a carrier-like launching and arresting system might be a solution.

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U r right in that computers have been growing in power exponetially since 1993, but what new aircraft tech has been concieved, tested and put into service since 1993? None. Stealth tech is the most recent tech to be implemented and that was being concieved in the 80's so using the computer analogy is a little off the mark.

 

Edit: It is more than possible to have a short runway without using VTOL, the F-16 has been doing it for years with the help of afterburners for takeoff and a tensile steel rope ( dunno what it is called ) to aid in slowing down. Since I think a slingshot method is gonna be used for takeoff the only thing needed is the tensile steel rope. I question how secret an organisation who reguarly have aircraft taking off, no matter from a run way or whatever, would be anyway. The only explination is that they restrict access for about a mile and say it is just another military base, there are hundreds of em in England alone, so who knows how many there are in other countries? I remember going to a beach in Cornwall where I couldn't go beyond a certain point because there was a military weapons test base there.

 

Edit2: Basically u just said about the arrestor thing, so ignore that :hammer:

Edited by Jim69
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True, Jim. Since computers are faster and more powerful, they have been put into calculating and compensating for the instabilities of flight. So while aircraft of today might superficially be similar to aircraft of the 80's, we are talking about totally different animals here. The advent of variable geometry now goes far beyond just sweep wings like the tomcat.

 

I saw once in discovery channel's extreme machines the YF23 flying backwards. Said that the on board computers manipulate the aircraft's geometric configuration to compensate for stall. I'm not exactly sure how it's goes but something like that.

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Im not totally sure, but I think that fly by wire systems aren't in full useage yet? Onboard computers have got better yes, but all that will improve is things that don't effect us. Save from the computer chips that economise fuel etc. and advanced targeting, which would be accounted for anyway, very little has actually changed in the actual fighters. Certainly not what peeps are suggesting at the moment.
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Well, it depends on where you look for fly by wire. If you look at the iraqui airforce, then no, but in other more advanced airforces, most of the aircraft have been upgraded to use fbw. I think. Correct me if im wrong... :D
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Fly by wire has evolved to going beyond just sending electrical signals to actuators to make your tail planes do this and that. It now involves the computer compensating for instabilities created by certain maneuvers. That's how Variable Flight Geometry was made possible. The computer basically executes what the pilot wants to do. This is only possible now because of tech that was not really foreseen less than a decade ago.
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I'm sure all this fly by wire conversation is very interesting, but exactly how does it effect the XC-1? There may be a few little things that have been thought of in the last 10 years, but can u tell me right now that there is something that 12 years ago that had not even got the basic principles thought out and is now in full working service for mainstream combat aircraft?
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This is my last post before retireing to bed. :D

 

IRT to you Jim, I think that the advanced are smaller steps, like improving the quality and power of onboard computers.

Also, these advanced computers allow the plane to manouver quite a bit more than a f14, or similar aircraft. This is because the computer can make minute adjustments to the aircraft while the pilot is occupied trying to shoot down some enemy aircraft.

 

If some of my previous posts don't make sense, or If I seemed hostile, I apologize now, its just that recently the damn slavedriving teachers have been giving me huge amounts of homework. :( So, im in a bad mood.

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  • 1 year later...
I don't personally see the problem with having initial terror sites close to the X-COM base. It's already been mentioned on this board that terror sites could only represent those incidents that local government forces can't handle. If we use that assumption, we could assume that local forces are able to contain the initial terror sites reasonably well, and only ask for your help when you're close enough to get there in time. As the threat escalates, the terror sites become harder and harder for local forces to handle, and they're more likely to ask for X-COM support until at last you have sites that only X-COM can handle appearing all over the globe. The need for further reaching forces would be another aspect of increasing difficulty as the game goes on, like the appearance of bigger ships and tougher baddies - and if done right it could improve the sense of desparation.
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  • 3 months later...
In the playstation version of XCom the terror sites do dissappear after a set time no matter what. I remember that because the first time I ever played XCom, the first month all I did was chase down a UFO only to have it outrun my Interceptors when I tried to bring it down, then there was a terror site in Russia (Novosibirsk) and my Skyranger in Central USA couldn't reach it in time. Then I shot down a UFO and the real torture began. Have you ever played XCom on PS? Don't, it's painfully slow and hard to control (for some games a mouse beats a gamepad any day.) But, yeah, the Terror Site bug was fixed in the PS version (so the creators must have interpreted it as a bug.)
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  • 5 months later...

Looks that I'm kinda late on the subject, but nevertheless, I hope that someone will read this... :) Here are some of my thoughts on the discussed subject:

 

1) Any craft can be sent out for a mission regardless of the fuel tank status - it should just show a nice circle on the Geoscape, representing the maximum range it could get to with the current fuel level.

1.1) As a thought, an aircraft COULD make a landing beyond the point of no return, and have some other craft go there and refuel it. Unless it's water, in which case it's a hard decision - let'em go and save the craft, or let'em die together.

 

2) Skyranger should be able to go on more than one mission per flight. Like, if you have only one Skyranger, and there are two juicy missions, like a landed VeryLarge and a terror mission at the same time - if you wait till the Skyranger goes on one, gets back and refuels, one of them will surely be gone. Again, as mentioned in par.1, clicking on any aircraft should show the radius it can get to with it's current fuel tank status.

 

3) Terror missions should have this nice little feature of counting down the time it took from when the mission is available, to the time the carrier(s) have landed. The more you wait - the less there's to save (reality bites).

3.1) Just a thought - on the terror missions I never see the UFO craft that had unloaded the alien troops - it'd be a nice add-on to the game to have it on the Battlefield.

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1) Any craft can be sent out for a mission regardless of the fuel tank status - it should just show a nice circle on the Geoscape, representing the maximum range it could get to with the current fuel level.

1.1) As a thought, an aircraft COULD make a landing beyond the point of no return, and have some other craft go there and refuel it. Unless it's water, in which case it's a hard decision - let'em go and save the craft, or let'em die together.

 

My slightly similar interpretation:

If the aircraft doesn't have enough fuel to reach mission site and return to base
   If the aircraft doesn't have enough fuel to reach mission site at all
       If the aircraft's built-in fuel capacity is insufficient //craft can never reach the site
           //Theoretically this shouldn't ever be possible
           Display message "[CRAFTNAME] cannot carry enough fuel to arrive at the given destination."
           Cancel launch
       Else //craft doesn't have enough fuel to reach the site
           Display message "[CRAFTNAME] is not carrying enough fuel to arrive at [location].  [CRAFTNAME] should have enough fuel to arrive directly in [45] minutes, and should have enough fuel to complete a full return trip in [135] minutes."
           Cancel launch
   Else //craft has fuel to arrive but not enough to return to base
       Display message "[CRAFTNAME] is carrying enough fuel to arrive at [location], but does not have enough fuel for the return trip.  It should have enough fuel to complete a full return trip in [50] minutes."
       Prompt "Launch immediately" "Wait for fuel"
       If choice is to "Launch immediately"
           Launch craft.
           //Craft will travel until it cannot travel any farther and then land safely (or scuttle if over water).
           //A Skyranger is required in order to recover a landed craft.  A scuttled craft cannot be retrieved.
           //A landed craft will disappear after time, like a regular crashed UFO.
           //If the craft "disappears" in a funding nation, then it is found by the government
           // and returned to X-Corps (for a nominal transportation fee).
           //If the craft disappears elsewhere, it is found by a non-funding nation and
           // will not be returned.
       Else //wait for fuel
           Cancel launch
Else //craft can complete round trip
   Launch normally without any messages or popups

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My slightly similar interpretation:
If the aircraft doesn't have enough fuel to reach mission site and return to base

    If the aircraft doesn't have enough fuel to reach mission site at all

        If the aircraft's built-in fuel capacity is insufficient //craft can never reach the site

            //Theoretically this shouldn't ever be possible

            Display message "[CRAFTNAME] cannot carry enough fuel to arrive at the given destination."

            Cancel launch

[right][post=128369]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right]

 

What about the firestorm (or whatever its called) - that can't reach say, austalia from the uk :) (I think)

 

So that one would be called a bit :)

 

Ta

Ben

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re: The "damaged" discussion, for infantry. I was thinking, maybe if the craft is damaged, when it attempts a landing, the more damage it has, the more likely it is to crash on landing. If it crashes, the battle still goes on as normal, although some of your crew may be killed/stunned, depending on the severity of the crash. This encourages a "No surrender" game, where if you surrender, you automatically lose your whole team, and the only option is to wipe out all the aliens. Once you kill them, you can use their UFO to get home, if it's been researched, or you get a civilian air-flight home.
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Receptionist: "Bonjour. Bienvenue à Air France. Comment est-ce que je peut assister?"

X-Corps Agent (glancing at nametag): "Hello ...Natalie. We'd like to charter a flight to the middle of the Gobi desert."

Receptionist raises an eyebrow, unsure of whether it's a joke or not.

Receptionist: "Um... I do not believe that we 'ave any flights going au middle of the Gobi desert, monsieur."

X-Corps Agent (aside): "Hey, Johnson, be careful with that suitcase! Those blaster bombs can explode at the drop of a hat!"

Receptionist goes as white as a sheet.

X-Corps Agent (turning back): "So, hmm. Any locations somewhere near the middle of the Gobi, like Ürümqi or-- ...Is something wrong?"

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