Guest stewart Posted January 18, 2003 Report Share Posted January 18, 2003 In the original game there are five difficulty levels but does anyone have a clue what they mean; what changes from one level to the next? I don't I would guess overall the changes might be:* UFO behavior during interception varing from stupid to chicken.* Alien to hit "secret bonus" varying from blind to just plain unfair.* Increase in overall alien activity.* Inflitrations and Invasion missions happening sooner and so on. But what are the particular settings at any level, fvckifIknow! So at the beginning we can have a "Settings" page with controls for each of these plus other stuff we come up with like the pick up weapons thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devatar Posted January 19, 2003 Report Share Posted January 19, 2003 Cool it, guys. You're scaring the bunny.BTW I used to eat bunnies for lunch. :devilsmile:You evil, evil man! Our patron, the Purple Dancing Sausage, will surely punish you in the afterlife. (And I think the only things that change with the difficulty levels is the time it takes for different aliens and alien technology to appear, as well as the number of alien bases and the kinds of craft you encounter early.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gangsta Posted January 19, 2003 Report Share Posted January 19, 2003 btw this guy c4t says cats are cooler than wabbits. *starting trouble* As with the dificulty thing that's the only thing I noticed too. But I think it was fatal error who said he didn't play super human and then that he felt it didn't make sense for something to get disable based on dificulty. So I guess if it was him he knows more about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devatar Posted January 19, 2003 Report Share Posted January 19, 2003 Cats are mean and smelly! *smells trouble* Us bunnies are sweet and cute and horny. What's there to decide??? Hmm... I've never really felt a difference in the AI when it comes to different difficulty levels... Much of the deaths I suffer still comes from TRAINED soldiers missing something less than a meter in front of them with a rifle. The UFOs act the same too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest stewart Posted January 19, 2003 Report Share Posted January 19, 2003 The game was shipped with difficulty levels not enabled. I've got an old version so I don't know if this was ever fixed, but in my case XcomUtil repairs the bug, the only difference I've noticed is that on SH level scout UFOs have the sense to run away. It's really annoying having to use my dual Avs interceptor to take out one of those one-man jobs, but if I send the Stingray/Cannon interceptor that damn thing buggers off just at maximum stingray range. Oh I'm definite cat hater too! Dev is that actually your pet bunny? I think any man who has enough confedence in his masculinety to have a pet bunny or wear a pink shirt for that matter, is probably a pretty cool guy, indeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gangsta Posted January 19, 2003 Report Share Posted January 19, 2003 Cats are mean and smelly! *smells trouble* Us bunnies are sweet and cute and horny. What's there to decide??? Hmm... I've never really felt a difference in the AI when it comes to different difficulty levels... Much of the deaths I suffer still comes from TRAINED soldiers missing something less than a meter in front of them with a rifle. The UFOs act the same too.yeah why I said all real X-Com fans play the game in superhuman.. but I think things do happen earlier and the missions are slightly easier even (easiest level) from what I remeber playing around. with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gangsta Posted January 19, 2003 Report Share Posted January 19, 2003 Oh I'm definite cat hater too! Dev is that actually your pet bunny? I think any man who has enough confedence in his masculinety to have a pet bunny or wear a pink shirt for that matter, is probably a pretty cool guy, indeed.what you talking about? That's an actual pic of dev himself. :ugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest stewart Posted January 19, 2003 Report Share Posted January 19, 2003 Smart bunny! He can type. That does explain the spelling though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fatal_Error Posted January 19, 2003 Report Share Posted January 19, 2003 Devatar, theoretically anti-matter IS included in the game. It's not quite star-trek style where the antimatter core is responsible for the ship and all, but the elerium power source of the ships in x-com allowed them to produce anti-gravity waves. following the formula for gravity m1 x m2(d)^2 OK, the formula looks lame, but what is says is that mass1 times mass2 divided by the distance between them squared gives you the force of gravity that is exerted on every object. The only way to reverse that force is to make one of the terms negative. So, for you creative minds out there, come up with a reason that elerium (either as a side reaction, or as a product of reaction) emits or becomes anti-matter (for a brief time, if it was indefinate you'd never run out of fuel)as far as i know that is not gravity formula but formula for the force with what 2 bodyes affect each other if the distance between 'em is d theres always the possibility that im wrong Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devatar Posted January 19, 2003 Report Share Posted January 19, 2003 Yes Error, you are correct. This is applicable only to massive bodies, though, since gravitational fields are detestable little friggers. And yes, that is me, taken on my 12th birthday. Us british giant rabbits are extremely long-lived. (Any man who is man enough to admit that he is a giant british rabbit is MANLY indeed. :aliencool: ) And hey! I got a 5 star rating on last year's bunny show! Whoohah! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maverick Posted January 19, 2003 Report Share Posted January 19, 2003 That is the simplified formula based on the theory of gravity. It actually varies a little more and there are other considerations; however, the idea is valid, gravity must exert a force from one object to another. It's 2 am and I don't feel like getting the full explaination out right now. The difficulty is that anti-gravity is still theoretical; as far as I know, no one has succeeded in producing a force that reverses the attraction. Specifically that was offered as a question as to how anyone plans on explaining the anti-gravity of the ships power source. However, currently I think the best bet with the alien technology is NOT to explain it. To put it out there (as the game originally did) and trust that people will say "wow that's cool" and accept it because it is more powerful than what we have available. They've been using it a while, it must work. Why mess with a good thing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devatar Posted January 19, 2003 Report Share Posted January 19, 2003 Yeah, we shouldn't go into detail, but still I think we should say at least a rough estimate of how things happen. (do this, this happens, why?) Oh, and that formula forgot to put in the gravitational constant. And besides, making that value negative isn't a viable option. Neither mass nor distance can be negative in actuality. All we need to have is an anti-gravity field, really. Ironically, very massive objects produce that when they spin, such as blach holes. It wouldn't be cute to say that elerium is that massive, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maverick Posted January 19, 2003 Report Share Posted January 19, 2003 right, so the solution is that we do what was done originally. Tell them that it happens, vaguely describe the process, and leave it up to them to believe. Elerium is a newly discovered element that has several unique properties. It's molecular structure seems to defy the laws of physics and after studying Elerium, it has become clear that our scientists cannot synthesize it nor can it cannot be found in our solar system. When it is bombarded with certain particles it releases anti-gravity waves in addition to more conventional forms of energy; converting matter to energy with 99% efficiency. this is a sample UFOpedia style article that could explain that elerium has a reaction that defy's everything we think we know. That way any questioning mind that says "but that's impossible" has to understand that this is not bound by the laws we adhere to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devatar Posted January 19, 2003 Report Share Posted January 19, 2003 Okay. It still sounds iffy to me, but I guess this way we'll get somewhere faster. But let's use another name, not elerium. And let's modify the iffy properties. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maverick Posted January 19, 2003 Report Share Posted January 19, 2003 tell the bunny that I'm on it I'll try and come up with another name and a solid explaination of the properties. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xcen Posted January 19, 2003 Report Share Posted January 19, 2003 How about Xenium? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stnuke Posted January 19, 2003 Report Share Posted January 19, 2003 The difficulty is that anti-gravity is still theoretical; as far as I know, no one has succeeded in producing a force that reverses the attraction. Specifically that was offered as a question as to how anyone plans on explaining the anti-gravity of the ships power source. However, currently I think the best bet with the alien technology is NOT to explain it. To put it out there (as the game originally did) and trust that people will say "wow that's cool" and accept it because it is more powerful than what we have available. They've been using it a while, it must work. Why mess with a good thing?Russian Evgeny Podkletnov claims to have reduced the effect of gravity by using a fast spinning superconducting magnet. Rumour has it that Boeing is researching the concept although they deny it. That's just the kind of fringe science/conspiracy theory type stuff that xcom (and the x-files) is made of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devatar Posted January 19, 2003 Report Share Posted January 19, 2003 tell the bunny that I'm on it I'll try and come up with another name and a solid explaination of the properties.Ooh, can we make it like I suggested? huh? huh? Imagine: POOPIUM (yeah, I'm just flakey. :freak: ) Anyway, Stnuke is right, antigravity has been observed already. (though I've already forgotten where.) I hear Boeing is already on top of the research, and are planning to use it for future aerospacecraft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stnuke Posted January 20, 2003 Report Share Posted January 20, 2003 Anyway, Stnuke is right, antigravity has been observed already. (though I've already forgotten where.) I hear Boeing is already on top of the research, and are planning to use it for future aerospacecraft.heh, well to be clear, some claim to have observed it. I wouldn't put money on it actually having worked. But it's a basis for the fiction side of the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadowHawk Posted January 20, 2003 Author Report Share Posted January 20, 2003 Let's discuss the difficulty settings in a new thread. Also, I'll be emailing off another version of the tech tree today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maverick Posted January 20, 2003 Report Share Posted January 20, 2003 That's good enough for me. My suggestion for the name is Penderium. Remember this when judging the name: if we do a good job with the game, little stuff like the name of the element won't matter. People won't sit there and say "penderium sounds stupid, this game sucks"...just a thought. We need a realistic sounding name that accomplishes the goal of identifying a substance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xcen Posted January 20, 2003 Report Share Posted January 20, 2003 Find the project leader than make an element with his last name... That's what they do most of the time for real elements ;P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maverick Posted January 20, 2003 Report Share Posted January 20, 2003 last name of discoverer, latin description, greek description...at least that's where I noticed them coming from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devatar Posted January 20, 2003 Report Share Posted January 20, 2003 Vividarium... Intervigillum... Viator... I just couldn't resist. I go for Acerbium. It means dark metal. (since it produces antimatter) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikker Posted April 12, 2003 Report Share Posted April 12, 2003 Kventaratium Cemixonium Zibbitonitium Jamplusium Kellomatium Lemmodratarium Quakeamoriom (A part of the brain that indicates our bloodthirst ) Binklamorium Gaslucium Vakolium Hemborium Bystrabium (dunno what they mean, but they sound cool) By the way, i noticed all that discussion about plasma weapons, and antimatter (contraterrain if you like). Back in WW2 (or was it WW1?) a german (or am i wrong?) scientist invented the ion engine for rockets. I dunno if they got into them, or the idea was dismissed. Then the space fictions came, and in some of them (AKA startrek) the ships had ion engines. Scientists noticed this, and was going to make a spaceship with such an engine. What did we get? We got the Deep Space 1. Invention of technology can be splitted in two groups: Acident, and inspiration. Acident, is when you get another result of your reserch then planned, but they work. A good eksamble is Alexander Grayham Bell. He was researching on telegrafs. Inspiration is when you get inspiret by something, like a movie, or other science fiction stuff, and acturly make something out of that. AKA DS1. What i am saying is, that if we found a way to control element 115 in a way to control gravity, and antimatter, we COULD go out there and build Heavy Plasmas, and big, big battleships, by simply playing X-com. Imagine THAT! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deimos Posted April 13, 2003 Report Share Posted April 13, 2003 The game was shipped with difficulty levels not enabled. I've got an old version so I don't know if this was ever fixed, but in my case XcomUtil repairs the bug, the only difference I've noticed is that on SH level scout UFOs have the sense to run away. It's really annoying having to use my dual Avs interceptor to take out one of those one-man jobs, but if I send the Stingray/Cannon interceptor that damn thing buggers off just at maximum stingray range. Oh I'm definite cat hater too! Dev is that actually your pet bunny? I think any man who has enough confedence in his masculinety to have a pet bunny or wear a pink shirt for that matter, is probably a pretty cool guy, indeed.I'm a bit late on this difficulty discussion. First thing I'll say is you guys obviously haven't played the Uk version, especially on the playstation. Easy was just that, dumb aliens, hardly any outrunning and maybe once in around ten games a base attack. The difficulty increased progressively to superhuman where I wouldn't go on a night mission without smoke grenades and flares. Night terror missions I would regularly skip because they were so nasty. Lots of aliens raiding bases and etherals and mutons were downright evil and buggers to kill. For what it's worth about difficulty settings, I like the KISS method. I'd rather have the choice of easy, medium, hard and Superhuman as I'll know roughly what I'll be getting. We can decide on which settings are switched on and off for each of the settings. IE mostly all settings off on easy and all switched on at superhuman. I for one would get bored with endless tickboxes of options and be very tempted to either switch them all off or on, definitely reducing the fun. Who realistically wants to go through loads of options before getting into play. I want to set the resolution turn all the details to max and get on with the game. Remember we're going to release the game to the MTV generation, attention spans measured in miliseconds :devilsmile: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judge_Deadd Posted May 14, 2003 Report Share Posted May 14, 2003 Shadowhawk. According to your first post, why would DEAD Enslaved Human give info about these MIB? Mind scanning... probably? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breunor Posted May 14, 2003 Report Share Posted May 14, 2003 Perhaps elerium/substanceX is relatively inert normally, but when bombarded or mixed with some other item it starts to decay, and rather than giving off toxic radiation it emits powerful magnetic fields similar to superconductive materials. Perhaps you mix it with milk! Why else do the aliens always mutilate cattle? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikker Posted May 14, 2003 Report Share Posted May 14, 2003 good point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[dipstick] Posted May 17, 2003 Report Share Posted May 17, 2003 how about making heavy plasma take longer to research straigh up then researching plasma gun, rifle and then heavy? I definitely agree with that! Also, I have set up a new topic in the 'UFOPedia' section, would anyone like to peruse it?? While I am here, I may as well take the time to say a few things about what I have looked at here: I personally don't think advanced quantum physics should even BEGIN to enter a computer game; although I love science, this game should not be perfectly scientifically based, otherwise where would the fun be?? I know that there should be a basis of fact, but, should that rule the game?? I also believe that only one of the plasma/gauss/anti-matter techs should be included; and a plasma tech is a little bit tooooo much like the original, how about using an 'original' tech like anti-matter instead? If I think of anything else, or I actually get around to making my own tech tree , I will let you lot know. Oh, and if you really want to contact me, I would email me; I don't often check all the boards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breunor Posted May 19, 2003 Report Share Posted May 19, 2003 I think the more the research is based in "bleeding edge" tech the better. Strong magnetic fields have levitated a frog on the Discovery channel (something about the science of X-Men I think), so maybe we find a new way that allows much stronger fields to exist, but we don't have to say how. So a flying suit can emit those fields for flight, etc. So long as the basic ideas can be linked to something in reality, even if it's totally theoretical, then the rest can be based in Xenocide reality. It is a game after all! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikker Posted May 29, 2003 Report Share Posted May 29, 2003 ? I thought this were real! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zwn Posted June 2, 2003 Report Share Posted June 2, 2003 talking about difficulty levels:what about an Iron Man Mode meaning that you CANNOT save during a battlescape mission ?now that would be something for the real nasty strategy dude, superhuman iron man. should be optional for every difficulty level - maybe some kind of reward (better soldier stat advancement) for using this option... just a suggestion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikker Posted June 5, 2003 Report Share Posted June 5, 2003 Ironman = superhuman = hardcore mode = super duper insainly hard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deimos Posted June 5, 2003 Report Share Posted June 5, 2003 Heh or as in the case of Metal gear solid have a new difficulty pop up after you've finished the game on the hardest setting called European Extreme Ok in our case we'd have to call it something else but basically it'd be no saves available anywhere and autosaves once a month only with all the difficulty settings switched to maximum. Maybe we could call it "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreatGold Posted June 5, 2003 Report Share Posted June 5, 2003 Call it "Reality Bites Mode" Gold Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judge_Deadd Posted June 6, 2003 Report Share Posted June 6, 2003 "Impossible". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Puasonen Posted June 7, 2003 Report Share Posted June 7, 2003 Idea of having an "bonus difficulty" if you play it through in superhuman sounds really nice.. Let's think about this a bit. Definitely it should be "unsaveble", except every first day of the month or so.. You don't have to make an autosave, popupscreen asking "would you like to save now?" would be good enough. Maybe make psi-amp unresearchable also and make the aliens have blaster launchers on terror site I always wondered why they don't have any blasters on terror sites if they are there only to kill civilians. So it would rock if on first 5 alien turns they would wipe the whole city down with blasters. Good buy pathetic little humans Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Puasonen Posted June 7, 2003 Report Share Posted June 7, 2003 "Good buy pathetic little humans" I can't believe I just wrote that.. *Good bye* is what I meant.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikker Posted June 7, 2003 Report Share Posted June 7, 2003 "IWBTYCCGTD" it is shortened, and it means "I Would Bet That You Cannot Comlede the Game on This Difficulty" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoopher Posted June 7, 2003 Report Share Posted June 7, 2003 I think it should be like from flashpoint, you can only save once in a mission. I was one for destroying the game play by saving if I was ok after the aliens turn, or letting them paly their turn again until I was ok, after they had missed loads. Perhaps the hardest mode should be called (as mentioned before) "reality bites (yous donkey) hard". Because lets face it, the only place we humans ever win agains vastly superior agressive alien races is in films and this game. If one really came along, we'ld be screwed to the nth degree. Basing things on real technology is a great idea because it really lets you get into the pretend universe. This is why star trek is so appealling. (Not a fan actually). All the stuff they ever did was based on some form of known or proposed/possible theory. mobile phones have happened, PDA's have and so have hyposprays, (no really I'm not a fan, in any way, was once). I think it would be good to have prerequisite technologies on a "discovery/theory plane" (2D plane of 3D space) None of these would yield direct results, but would provide sources of base technologies. This would be a plane of fields of sciece. The gamer could create new fields of science. (e.g. grafting nerve cells to silicon). This would be good because you could set up relationships with other research agencies around the world and trade tech/money/services/goods with them for base tech. perhap early on in the game while the assualts are insanely difficult, this is what keep the gamer going. The other advantageous of this are the items which could be invented in a secondary reasearch space which I call the "invention plane" (again 2 or 3D). In discovery space, discoveries occur with any for warning. Sometimes a technology that is closely related to two other discovered technologies then a team may accidentally discover it if still working on that technology. Scientists would expend manhours there, and you might have no idea whether expending manhours in a field is productive or not. even better still, it might be that leaving a team on a discovery or theory for a while after it has been discovered might yield a small discovery of an increase in efficiency for technologyX. Especially if that science team then has an efficiency scientist drafted in(a thermo-dynamicist to you, or rather Mechanical engineer (cos we mechs do everything)). Invention space is different because the science/engineering team sets out to discover an item, and so then discover it. discovery space is ful of your pre-requisites. This set up is good because it allows us to toy with a mechanism of radical discovery. This is to say that the gamer could set a team on inventing/developing a new item, and could choose from a series of options. Say the gamer could choose a new kind of weapon, that is for X purpose (snipe, covering, general purpose, close combat, for stopping power) and is based on technology-(ies) Y-(P,K,N....) so we might have a sniper rifle with telscopic sight and auto image enhancer that it IR sensitive to see hot bodies through walls, that launches a slow moving self guided bio-toxin bee like items to target round corners. Mixing bio/light/chemical metallurgy and microporcessing technologies. (Apologies if this is too ridiculous an example, but it can allow your imagination to see the potential) This is where the item produced is based on the technologies discovered. Sorry for the big post Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred the Goat Posted June 13, 2003 Report Share Posted June 13, 2003 In general, I'd think that both in-game customization of research, as well as technology trading with corporations, would be...well...version 1+, at any rate. Cool ideas, though. I'd certainly love to see a game where I could customize the weapon I was researching. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
decklen Posted June 22, 2003 Report Share Posted June 22, 2003 just wanted to add..should have 'mind control' reasearch.. as ive posted something on about CIA and Communist countries in the 1977 testing with mind control and psyh ops ... so its real.. and just something like that i dunno pm with any comments Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A_dxman Posted August 25, 2003 Report Share Posted August 25, 2003 First I think that we need to build V1.0 and stick with the original technology tree.By the time V1.1 or at least V2.0 comes out we should have an entirely new set of technologies!Heres some of my ideas, its not finished and I will do A LOT more work on it in the next couple of days. LASER weapons => Laser => LASER Cannon => Heavy LASER => LASER Rifle => LASER Pistol => LASER initialised Fusion grenade (LIFG) Alien Alloys + LASER weapons => Mulit-LASER Technology => ML Cannon => Heavy ML => Heavy Armour Alien Alloys + LASER weapons => XC-2 Heavy Armour + Flying suit => Tactical Armour Psi Technology + Alien navigation => Advanced radar XC-2 + Heavy Armour + Advanced radar => XC-3 Not all to good yet. but its getting there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judge_Deadd Posted August 25, 2003 Report Share Posted August 25, 2003 New techs, eh? What are parameters of, for example, Heavy or Tactical Armour? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A_dxman Posted August 26, 2003 Report Share Posted August 26, 2003 (edited) i'm yet to work all that out. but to answer you questions... Heavy armour - New armour technology based on hybred metalurgic theory - allow you to build better crafts and tanks. Tatical armour - the intergration of technologies. the best armour available. more than capable of absorbing heavy plasma shots (posiably even BB fire) EDIT: The attached file is one of my ideas for an new HWP. its is weired and i'd like you imput on the picture.It has two main features:1 a mulit stunn-close combat device in the arm at the back2 a heavy laser / ML cannon on the other arm. (the knife is just cause' it looks kool) Edited August 26, 2003 by A_dxman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpl. Facehugger Posted August 26, 2003 Report Share Posted August 26, 2003 Hmm, that looks a lot like a mech! Personally I like 'mech hwps, but most of the other project members seem to think it would take away from the game, based on their reactions to my mech concept... Wouldn't the laser's prigression go from concept-prototype-pistol-rifle-hvy laser- l. Cannon- LIFG? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jim69 Posted August 26, 2003 Report Share Posted August 26, 2003 Yeah, I'd prefer it if there weren't ne mech's personally, tho I speak 4 noone but myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fux0r666 Posted August 26, 2003 Report Share Posted August 26, 2003 Once you have the laser technology you don't have to build it small first. I think that the tree should branch of to all of the weapon types at once, unless one type is special... like you have to research compact batteries to have an energy pistol, or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpl. Facehugger Posted August 27, 2003 Report Share Posted August 27, 2003 Well, you start small because you are learning how to manufacture a technology. The laser pistol is the first refinement, then the design of laser weapons is more refined to produce a laser rifle and so on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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