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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Radar Ranges?


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Just a simple idea, how about having the radar range of each base displayed on the geomap? That way you could get an idea of what sort of coverage you are getting of the Earth. If this has been discussed before, sorry for the duplicate post!

-wolfman
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That would be VERY practical while establishing a new base. You click on "build new base", and automatically every existing base gets a few circles around it, and the spot where you hold the cursor (aka the place where you want that new base) shows those circles too. I was thinking: yellow for a small radar, red for a large one and blue for the hyperwave decoder or whatever it's going to be called.
The range of existing radar facilities would show in a continuous line, while not yet build radars would show a dotted line (obviously hyperwave decoders wouldn't show until you actually researched them)
So before you got HW Decoder you could get something like this (ok the picture is very basic but should get the message across... I hope ^_^ ) Edited by j'ordos
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Yeah, I like that a lot. Your draw-ring is exactly what I'd most love to see. On a side note, what was up with X-com saying radar range was, like, 100km or something really sad, and then you detect ships halfway across the globe? :rolleyes:
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great jordos! thats an awesome feature to include, hopefull in the first outing of Xenocide.
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There is a neat idea i had sloshing around in my head for a long time. It started when i was thinking about just how an alien ship, which was supposedly trying to operate clandestinely in our atmosphere, could be picked up so easily on earth based radar. One would think an advanced race would utilize some form of stealth tech. Then i thought hey, why not add the ability for "false positives" in the first type of radar. IE you get "UFO" detected, scramble your fighter... Only to realize it was just a military aircraft, or a "weather balloon". This of course would not be too common, lest it annoy people, but would be a nice touch for early game.
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  • 9 months later...
Just as for radars, there comes the question for weapon ranges...
I think it should be up to the player to choose. I am personnally in two minds on this: sometimes I just want to see if I can fire or not; sometimes I just think real life does not show you until you have tried to shoot.

Anyone mentionned about weapons before?
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  • 3 months later...
Radar Ranges are a must!!
It really lacked in XCOM1 & XCOM2, and it would be so simple to implement...

About Weapons range, the fact that your avalanches will sometimes miss because your craft backed off was really annoying. It would be nice if interceptors waited for the last misilies to reach their targets before backing off (even if, technically, weapon range does not work like that at all, you'd have to figure out relative airspeeds...)
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  • 7 months later...
Radar Ranges would be useful. Also the Range should not change based on how many radars you have. I don't know exactly how the original game worked, but in the base information screen it seemed that the range extended for each new one you'd build. I figure one long range radar or ten sould have the same range, but with ten you have a higher chance of picking something up. But then with Hyperwave Decoder it should not matter. But the HWD should have no range itself, it should just be an attachment you hook up to your radar to make it detect 100% of everything within range.
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I saw this thread after Robodojo's, but I'm a fan of this idea. I hadn't considered though the option of having the radar range thing toggled on for the purposes of planting a base (centered around your icon before placement) to better plant that next new base/radar outpost. I dig the not-yet built expected radar coverage indicator too.

@Durandal, I disagree about not showing HWD ranges. In the first game, range was implied since there still were pockets existing where you couldn't detect anything. What I do agree with is I think it should work together with other types of radar to get further identification - i.e. radars track the blips, but the HWDs decode what the blip's mission etc. is. It keeps the radar facilities useful longer and helps in the challenge of base construction/layout planning. Edited by Snakeman
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I reckon they should have a HUGE range, but not excessively so - eg (although I do not remember the radar ranges) I think the HWD should be able to detect all across the USA, when in the middle of it, but not any further really...
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  • 1 month later...
I think the craft should show their radar ranges also. Different vehicles would of course have different ranges. It might be a good idea to put some of those radar / surveilance planes in the game available for lease or purchase. They have long flight times and decent radar ranges with the added bonus of being mobile. The fighter / transport craft only have small ranges like the f-14 or f-22 with the nose cone radar system. I guess the plane radar should be toggleable too. Just a thought.
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Yes, good point Garak, the (togglable) radar range indicator ought to extend to craft equipped with a radar as well. Interesting thought here too that some planes may not be able to see directly behind them, where others would. i.e. some can see directly in front of them in a smaller cone of view (180 degrees or something) or see downward. Specialized craft that have those dishes on them that are designed for that role could see everything in their spherical coverage.

 

I was wondering as well about other potential plane type leases that could be afforded to X-COM like this. Weigh the differences you'd need in radar coverage with combat abilities in such a thing. And give the special planes like this the most limited armorments i.e. only countermeasures.

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About Radar, you could think about installing antennas far from bases to improve their radar ranges. I.e. you can build a base in the midle of Asia continent but can see every territory installing radar antennas at Japan, India and Siberia for example. Of course if there is communications facilities to do it. You can't put a base on Brazil and an antenna on Africa.

About HWD, since it has a different system of EM waves you can't use the same antennas and so you can't relate the range of each system. Here you can think about instaling antennas for the HWD in the same place where you put the radar antennas.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Maybe you should be able to lease radar coverage from countries that already have it. America certainly isn't lacking for radar coverage, why only xcorp can see and shoot down these things is beyond me. Perhaps it shouldn't even be a lease. As long as you are being funded by first world nations, you share their radar coverage. If they sign a pact, you lose that coverage.

 

You're correct Snakeman, some planes only have forward facing radar. Which brings up an interesting point, the planes should have a "search pattern" option, where they will fly in larger and larger circles starting from the waypoint until they either engage a craft or run low on fuel. I did something similiar in xcom manually. Sometimes it actually worked.

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