Track Ufo Trail And Retrace Ufo Course

[Robo Dojo 58]

To be honest, the "show last known UFO position" from the original X-COM isn't very useful. It's just one dot, that doesn't say anything about what the UFO is doing. Instead, you should be able to retrace the UFO course.

 

Retracing will show a colored line across the planetview, showing the known course the UFO has travelled. A dot is marked on the line every 5 or 10 minutes. The time intervals may change as you zoom in or out. The spacing of the dots shows how fast the UFO was travelling, and gives a rough idea of when it was there.

 

There will be several different line colors, so you can easily track several UFO courses at once. By mousing over the line or UFO, you bring it into focus, and the dots will change color. Using a color code, it will show the altitude the UFO was at in those positions. This will be handy to know if a UFO was going to land, or was still going long distance when you lost track of it.

 

There will be several ways to show the UFO course. One, it could be shown by simply mousing over the UFO. Just by focusing on the UFO, you'll be able to see everywhere it has been. Another, could be an option independent to every UFO. You would be able to decide which UFOs need a constant history of its course. Lastly, the default setting would be on or off.

 

As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

[Snakeman]

I think this would be useful for where to send patrols once you lost them. Plus its an excuse to burn more fuel when you think about it. After all, you still may or may not find it or its base presuming its course didn't change again after you'd lost the signal, but its good to have a starting base line for patrol missions.

 

Also since we're talking about a kind of overlay feature to see these courses, another thing I would like to see in this respect are our radar ranges indicated by circles or something radiating outward from our bases, to show their coverages. Again a togglable affair. I think it'd help us to know where to set up other bases if not just radar coverage. Like the above concept, it'd further help I feel where to dispatch patrols. I mean, if you didn't have courses to go on, at least you could do some patrols in those blind spots while you wait.

Edited February 28, 2005 by Snakeman