The Technology Tree

[ShadowHawk]

Those crazy timezones are always bothering us - Anyway, at 3:07 in the morning right now, I'm gonna post my first litte draft of the tech tree, including a few extra story points that I have drafted (to be posted later). I haven't yet tackled the issue of how long each node of the tree should take, since we can always tweak that later. I would, however, advise the following: it is better to have more nodes (with relevant story points in them) with less research time associated to get to a certain tech than to have a single tech with a long research time.

 

But, it appears that a rough document is needed to gather input and generate a discussion, so I'm giving you the contents of my rough draft text file as it currently stands right before I go to bed. I'll tend to the thread in the morning

 

 

Live Alien Types:

Soldier

Elite Soldier

Terrorist

Medic

Engineer

Lieutennant (equivilent of Squad Leader, large scout + higher)

Captain (equivilent of Leader, medium + higher)

Chief Engineer (equivilent of navigator, large + higher)

Admiral (one per battleship)

Commander (base, perhaps also on battleship during base construction)

 

Note that I have added two aditional ranks in. I think this will be fortuitous for several reasons.

 

Aliens:

Sectoid (Soldier, Medic, Lieutennant, Captain, Engineer, Chief Engineer, Admiral, Commander)

-Cyberdisk (blank)

-Enslaved Human (Soldier, Elite Soldier) :: Story later: Basically, these are humans that are under mind control of the aliens permanently.

Floater (Soldier, Medic, Engineer, Chief Engineer, Lieutennant, Captain)

-Reaper (Terrorist)

Snakeman (Soldier, Elite Soldier, Engineer, Lieutennant)

-Chryssallid (Terrorist)

-Zombie (blank, Armored)

Muton (Soldier, Elite Soldier, Engineer, Lieutennant, Captain)

-Silacoid (Terrorist)

-Celatid (Terrorist)

Etherial (Soldier, Lieutennant, Captain, Admiral, Commander)

-Sectopod (blank)

 

Research Order:

 

Dead Sectoid -> Live Sectoid -> Alien Origins

-Live Captain + Alien Origins -> Area 51

-Note: On the Area 51 mission one can find enslaved humans rather early. They won't start showing up in terror missions, craft, and such until much later in the game. This will be the way most players start accessing the alien weapons branch of the tech tree.

 

UFO Power Source -> Consolidated Power Source -> Engineer

-Engineer -> Elerium -> Chief Engineer -> Navigation Systems

-Consolidated Power Source -> Laser Weapons -> Laser Pistol -> Laser Rifle -> Heavy Laser -> Laser Cannon (and Laser Defences)

-Alien Origins + Engineer -> Alien Learning Arrays

--Live Enslaved Human + Alien Learning Arrays -> Alien Mind Control -> Alien Implanter

 

(hole): Somehow mind control and implanter, as well as etherial/sectoid leader autopsies and studies will lead to psylabs and such. Not sure as to the particulars yet...it is 3 in the morning

 

Dead Enslaved Human -> The Men in Black*

The Men in Black -> Alien Control Methods

-Alien Control Methods + Elerium -> Alien Weaponry -> Plasma Pistol (and clip) -> Plasma Rifle (and clip) -> Heavy Plasma (and clip) -> Plasma Cannon (and Plasma Defences)

--Alien Weaponry -> Alien Explosives -> Fusion Grenade

Chief Engineer + Alien Weaponry -> Alien Guidance Systems

--Alien Guidance Systems + Fusion Grenade -> Blaster Launcher -> Fusion Ball Launcher (and Fusion Defences)

*story to come soon. You'll like it

 

(hole): More plot lines, such as how the mission to mars is carried out, and the purpose of the admirals/commanders will be explained in a bit.

 

(hole): How new XCOM craft are researched is yet to be finalized. Look for this one within 12 hours.

 

Note: Tanks and Hovertanks will have a weapon slot and some ammo slots. This weapon can be the tank equivilent of Heavy Cannon, Rocket Launcher, Heavy Laser, Heavy Plasma, or Blaster Launcher, which can be bought/manufactored at the same time as the respective weapons.

 

 

Live Aliens:

Engineers will provide a random ship info, but will be more likely to provide info of the smaller ships, unless it is already known. I'll write a formula for this. Also, engineers will have a small chance of instead giving live medical data on technical alien terrorists, such as cyberdiscs and sectopods.

 

Chief engineers will be the same as regular engineers, except their formulas will be more biased towards the higher end stuff (one will be more likely to learn about a battleship from a chief engineer than a normal one, particularly before one has studied the smaller craft.) The same goes for the even rarer alien terrorists.

 

Lieutennants, captains, admirals and commanders will provide information on alien missions, scaled like the situation with engineers and chief engineers is. Admirals and commanders also have a small chance of revealing alien base locations.

 

Medic will provide random autopsy information, and possibly live information too. Different medics of different species will have different probabilities of various aliens (eg: sectoid medic will be more likely to have Etherial information, and floater medics will be more likely to have Reaper information.)

 

Perhaps some aliens should not be researchable unless they will provide some help once finished.

 

Whether or not to have captured aliens accellerate research like XCOM will be examined later.

[Devatar]

Hey Shadowhawk, here's the tech tree I've been working on. It focuses a lot on equipment.

 

Some basic guidelines about how I made the tech tree:

-Laser and a few other weapons use THE SAME fuel cells as ammo. Fuel cells come in three generations,

 

each having more energy capacity than the one before. I decided it was more realistic this way.

-All craft weaponry and equipment draw energy from the craft's auxillary energy supply, replenished

 

continously by the engines, and there are a few generations of engines, each with more energy output than the

 

one before. This means that craft ENERGY weapons do not have ammo of their own, since this is not realistic.

 

Missile weapon systems still require their own ammo, of course.

-Craft engines have a rate at which they replenish the craft's energy supplies. Each new equipment that

 

you hook onto the craft puts a drain on this energy supply, and therefore slows down the rate at which it

 

replenishes. Energy weapons only use up energy when firing. So, if you install too many systems into your craft,

 

or if you fire weapons like the fourth of july, you will deplete your craft's energy reserves. The craft's

 

propulsion and navigation run using a separate power supply, however, so there is no danger of using your energy

 

supply to the point of suddenly falling from the sky.

-Note: Players will have to monitor the energy supply of their ships inside of combat. This means that

 

if you plan on using your Field Destabilizer to remove a target's shields, you better make sure you have some

 

energy left to fire your Laser Cannons in the next few seconds lest the shields become operational again.

-Note: If you hook too many systems on the ship, exceeding the auxillary power production of the

 

engines, you won't be able to use all of those systems. You will probably be given the option to turn off some

 

systems, though still maintaining them onboard.

-Anyway I think these values need some tweaking, but the numbers and stats here are just relative to

 

each other.

-Oh, and I didn't put the alien autopsies and biopsies here, as well as alien-only technology like

 

anti-human toxins.

-I divided the tech tree into different fields, just for cuteness. (previously it was for clarity, but I

 

somehow kept dumping stuff in the engineering section, so I went ahead with it.)

-I'd like to thank Pringle for the portable Force field generator. ^^

-I'd also like to thank Shadowhawk for the tank idea.

 

 

Format:

 

***The first line is the name of the technology to be researched, followed by the requirements. The second line

 

is the equipment that will be available for your use and manufacturing after you have completed the research.

 

The third and succeeding lines are the stats of that equipment. Sometimes, researching a technology will give

 

you more that one equipment, and it is stated at the same indent as the first equipment.

 

---Gauss Cannon (Requires captured alien Gauss Cannon and Gauss Technology)

-Gauss Cannon (Craft Weapon)

= Damage: 100

= Ammo capacity: 50

= Accuracy: 70%

= Reload time: 3s

 

***If the req's are stated in this manner: "Requires captures alien blahblah", that means that you need the

 

artifact in your base to research the tech.

 

 

---Gauss Turret (Requires Gauss Cannon)

-Gauss Turret (Base Module)

= Damage: 250

= Accuracy: 70%

= Reload time: 3s

= Range: Long

 

***In here, the req is stated in the following manner: "Requires blahblah", that means that you have to have

 

researched the technology called "blahblah" beforehand to research this tech.

 

***so basically, the absence of "captured alien blahblah" means that the prereq is a technology too. I just

 

clarified that to avoid confusion.

 

 

********************************************************************************

****

 

Physics:

 

---Lasers (X-com basic tech)

 

---Cold Fusion (Requires UFO Propulsion and Fusion Missile)

 

---Field Unification (Requires any Gauss Technology, and Force Field Generator)

 

---Gauss Technology (Requires any captured alien Gauss weaponry)

 

 

 

Chemistry:

 

---Alien Composites (Requires captured Alien Composite)

 

 

Biology:

 

---Medikit (Requires Nanotechnology)

-Medikit (Personnel Equipment)

= Uses Energy Cells, drains 10 charges per use.

= Action: Heal = TU cost: 25%

= Action: Stimulant = TU cost: 25%

= Action: Pain Killers = TU cost: 25%

 

---Psionics (Requires Ethereal autopsy)

 

 

Engineering:

 

---Nanotechnology (X-com basic tech)

 

---Motion Scanner (X-com Basic Tech)

-Motion Scanner (Personnel Equipment)

= Remarks: Not very useful, but a classic!

 

---Basic Energy Cells (X-com basic tech)

-Basic Energy Cell (Personnel Weapon Ammunition)

= Ammo Capacity: 50

 

---Laser Pistol (Requires Lasers)

-Laser Pistol (Personnel Weapon)

= Damage: 40 (Laser Beam)

= Uses Energy Cells, drains 2 ammo per shot.

= Accuracy: Auto: 40% Snap: 55% Aimed: 70%

= TU cost: Auto: 25% Snap: 20% Aimed: 30%

= Range: Medium

 

 

---Laser Rifle (Requires Laser Pistol)

-Laser Rifle (Personnel Weapon)

= Damage: 60 (Laser Beam)

= Uses Energy Cells, drains 5 ammo per shot.

= Accuracy: Snap: 70% Aimed: 100%

= TU cost: Snap: 30% Aimed: 50%

= Range: Very Long

 

---Gatling Laser (Requires Laser Rifle)

-Gatling Laser (Personnel Weapon)

= Damage: 20 (Laser Beam)

= Uses Energy Cells, drains 1 ammo per shot.

= Accuracy: Auto: 50%

= TU cost: Auto: 10%

= Range: Medium

= Remarks: Techno-Buff Rambo.

 

---Laser Cannon (Requires Lasers)

-Laser Cannon (Craft Armament)

= Damage: 70 (Laser Beam)

= Drains 2 energy units per shot.

= Accuracy: 80%

= Reload time: 3s

= Range: Medium

 

---Laser Defense System (Requires Laser Cannon)

-Laser Turret (Base Module)

= Damage: 150

= Accuracy: 80%

= Reload time: 3s

= Range: Long

 

---Laser Targetting System (Requires Lasers)

-Laser Targetting System (Craft Equipment)

= Increases weapon accuracy by 10%

= Drains 1 energy unit. (Continous)

 

---Point Defense Laser (Requires Laser Cannon)

-Point Defense Laser (Craft Equipment)

= Has a 10% chance of destroying an incoming missile. Cumulative.

= Drains 2 energy units. (continous)

= Remarks: Not a craft weapon. This system is designed to track and shoot incoming missiles.

 

---Psi Lab (Requires Psionics)

-Psi Lab (Base Module)

= Grafts Psi-Amp implants on soldiers. (only after area 51 mission, Shadowhawk?)

= Trains soldiers in psionics.

= Allows alien interrogarion.

= Note: Only soldiers with Psi-Amp Implants can use psionics.

 

---Composite Armor (Requires Alien Composites)

-Composite Armor (Personnel Armor)

= Armor Rating: Front: 50 Sides: 40 Back: 40

 

---UFO Navigation (Requires a captured alien UFO)

 

---UFO Engineering (Requires UFO Navigation, UFO Propulsion, Fusion Engine, and Alien Composites)

 

---UFO Propulsion (Requires a captured alien UFO)

 

---Fusion Missile (Requires a captured alien Fusion Missile)

-Fusion Missile (Craft Weapon)

= Damage: 150

= Ammo capacity: 12

= Accuracy: 70%

= Reload time: 10s

 

---Fusion Energy Cells (Requires Cold Fusion)

-Fusion Energy Cell (Personnel Weapon Ammunition)

= Ammo Capacity: 150

 

---Gauss Ammunition Clip (Requires captured alien Gauss Ammunition Clip)

-Gauss Ammunition Clip (Personnel Weapon Ammunition)

= Ammo Capacity: 30

 

 

---Gauss Rifle (Requires captured alien Gauss Rifle and Gauss Technology)

-Gauss Rifle (Personnel Weapon)

= Damage: 100 (Gauss)

= Uses Gauss Ammunition Clip

= Accuracy: Auto: 40% Snap: 60% Aimed: 90%

= TU cost: Auto: 40% Snap: 30% Aimed: 50%

= Range: Very Long

 

---Gauss Pistol (Requires captured alien Gauss Pistol and Gauss Technology)

-Gauss Pistol (Personnel Weapon)

= Damage: 60 (Gauss)

= Uses Gauss Ammunition Clip

= Accuracy: Auto: 30% Snap: 45% Aimed: 60%

= TU cost: Auto: 25% Snap: 20% Aimed: 30%

= Range: Short

 

 

---Gauss Cannon (Requires captured alien Gauss Cannon and Gauss Technology)

-Gauss Cannon (Craft Weapon)

= Damage: 100

= Ammo capacity: 50

= Accuracy: 70%

= Reload time: 3s

 

---Gauss Turret (Requires Gauss Cannon)

-Gauss Turret (Base Module)

= Damage: 250

= Accuracy: 70%

= Reload time: 3s

= Range: Long

 

---Force Field Generator (Requires captured alien Force Field Generator)

-Force Field Generator (Craft Equipment)

= Absorbs 300 damage points before failing.

= Regains strength at 15 points/sec.

= Drains 10 energy units. (continous)

 

---Firestorm (Requires UFO Engineering)

-Firestorm (Craft)

= No specs yet.

 

---Fusion Engine (Requires Cold Fusion)

-Fusion Engine (Craft Engine)

= No specs yet.

 

---Fusion Bomb Launcher (Requires captured alien Fusion Bomb Launcher)

-Fusion Bomb Launcher (Personnel Weapon)

= Damage: 150 (Explosion)

= Uses Fusion Bomb Launcher

= Accuracy: Aimed: 80%

= TU cost: Aimed: 80%

= Range: Very Long

-Fusion Bomb (Personnel Weapon Ammunition)

= Ammo Capacity: 1

 

---Portable Force Field Generator (Requires Field Unification)

-Portable Force Field Generator (Personnel Equipment)

= Action: Generate Force Wall = TU cost: 70% Drains 30 charges per use. (Activation)

= Barrier absorbs 500 damage before failing.

= Regains strength at 50 points/turn.

= Uses Energy Cells.

= Drains 15 charges per turn.

 

---Personal Force Field (Requires Field Unification)

-Personal Force Field (Personnel Equipment)

= Action: Force Bubble = TU cost: 30% Drains 10 charges per use. (Activation)

= Barrier absorbs 200 damage before failing.

= Regains strength at 20 points per turn.

= Uses Energy Cells.

= Drains 5 charges per turn.

 

---Force Armor (Requires Field Unification, Cold Fusion, and UFO Engineering)

-Force Armor (Personnel Armor)

= Built-in force field: Absorbs 200 damage, regains strength at 20 points per turn.

= Armor rating: Front: 80 Sides: 70 Back: 70

= Remarks: Built-in fusion cells to power the force field. Force field always on.

 

---Anti-Grav Armor (Requires Field Unification, Cold Fusion, and UFO Engineering)

-Anti-Grav Armor (Personnel Armor)

= Armor rating: Front: 60 Sides: 60 Back: 60

= Remarks: Capable of flight.

 

---Hover Tank (Requires Anti-Grav Armor and UFO Engineering)

-Hover Tank (HWP)

= Time units: 100

= Health: 100

= Front Armor: 120

= Side Armor: 100

= Rear Armor: 100

= Under Armor: 100

= Weapon Slots: 2

= Remarks: Capable of hovering over any terrain, but not flight.

 

---Cloaking Device (Requires captured alien Cloaking Device)

-Cloaking Device (Craft Equipment)

= Lessens chance of enemies to hit the craft by 10%. (cumulative)

= Drains 15 energy units. (continous)

 

 

I'M DRAINED. I'M ABOUT HALWAY THROUGH, AND I'LL CONTINUE THIS TOMORROW.

[Guest stewart]

It might be good for single player games to allow the research tree to be editable. Then you can use the default, the traditional, and your personally one.

[gangsta]

well this probably goes back to the diffrent modes of gameplay thing. each mode could have it's own research tree and there is a default one too so that if you keep out a research tree in a mode data file it would use the default. less bloat that way

[Devatar]

Okee. I just thought I'd play with the idea a little.

[Guest Guest]

well that's ok this stuff could go into the default research tree. was just responding to stewart about making the research tree editable. Now the research tree will probably be in either XML or berkley's db2 format. bah hate saying berkley db2 format but If I say db2 people prolly will think of IBM's DBase II :b

[ShadowHawk]

Basically, my research tree is being designed around the principle that it should be as much like the original game as possible, with three caveats:

 

1) Slow down the advancement to the "good" techs by requiring advancement to other story techs (rebranching and writing will cover this)

2) Don't add anything until we are ready to implement it, unless it is crucial to story (although straying from this is tempting, we should adhere to this until we get a fairly working product)

3) Have (and then write) an understanding of why the techs move in this way

4) Make the game more progressive than the original - by constructing the research tree properly, have tech advance in vaugely identifiable phases such as beginning, lasers, plasma, high, etc. rather than the original game's "beginning and heavy plasma"

[gangsta]

Well that's alright because we are going to implement the game like the original two first before really adding more bell's and whistles. Best to stick to what is known to work first before experimenting with new things.

[Guest Maverick]

I think a major thing to consider is to provide a greater draw to continue to use earth based technology even in the "heavy plasma phase". Some people, in the original, liked to continue using the laser weapons (especially the rifle) even after researching the plasma technology. There needs to be some advantage to laser technology (or a composite technology born of all the technologies that x-com has researched (like an energy weapon the equivalent of toxin type c).

 

OK, as far as research phases.

-In general, when researching and creating weapons, the simplest weapon is the easiest to analyze. So if we assume that the pistol is the simplest impementation of laser and plasma technology, you must start there. Now you have a written reason for needing to start with pistol technology.

 

NOTE: In reality you could start anywhere in the tech tree, but without the conceptual fundamentals provided by the simpler technologies in the field the higher ones become so complex that they would take a prohibitively long amount of time to complete.

 

-From a design perspective (to back up my claim) a laser pistol is designed to fire the laser directly, research only needs to develop a basic lense to focus the laser, a method of compressing the gasses needed to create it, and a power source large enough to support the laser and replenish it without excessive time. A laser rifle on the other hand would use a longer barrel with more elaborate focusing mechanisms (mirrors, additional gasses, precise lenses, etc) and a more accelerated power source. Finaly a heavy laser rifle would use an amplification chamber to combine multiple (perhaps three) pistol strength beams into a single shot (thereby creating much more power) and channel it through the same elaborate focusing methods used in the rifle to provide greater range. Obviously, with technology designs that get progressively more complex the fastest way to reasearch the highest form is to gain the fundamentals of each of the lower forms. (once you understand the pistol, you only need to research the focus in the rifle, and then finally the combination mechanism and power source of the heavy version.)

 

This way it makes sense that while you may be ABLE to research heavy plasma first, it is much faster to take it in steps. (because honestly I've beaten the game without researching plasma pistols, or laser weapons)

[Guest stewart]

For what it's worth, my XCOM1 research tree (the restrictions I artificially impose):

 

- alien race info requires that alien corpse first, unless recieved from a medic.

(In the remake all aliens of a race should die in the alien containment until a corpse is researched - we don't know their environmental needs which we discover through autopsy).

- no alien tech can be researched unless a live alien has been researched.

- anything that reuqires aliens alloys to build requires alien alloys to research.

- ditto elerium.

- HWD requires: mind probe, the five major races, all UFOs, and all alien missions first.

- Cydonia or Bust makes reference to the Avenger in it's text so avenger must be researched first. (I can't believe QA missed that one!)

- UFO construction requires all UFO components.

- Psionics require mind probe, and all alien races be researched first (including terrorists).

- Plasma stuff requires the "Equivalent" laser stuff first.

- Heavy Plasma requires Plasma Rifle.

- small launcher and ammo require alien grenade

- Blaster/Fusion requires equivalent Plasma with Blaster Launcher requiring Heavy Plasma and small launcher (Blaster bombs require stun bombs).

 

I think that covers it.

[gangsta]

Sound mostly good.

 

why do you need an alien researched to research alien tech?

Also I agree that you have to research the rifle before the heavy but I don't think laser should have to be researched before plasma. The two technologies complement each other and you just make it so you need laser in some situations. As for laser and plasma they have nothing to do with each other one has to do with light and the other with hot gas.

[Guest stewart]

An alien has to tell you what the stuff does before you can figure out how it works.

 

Both weapon technogies require stored non-chemical energy, lots of it, and it have to draw and channel large amounts of energy quickly. The heart of the Plasma weapon is a laser weapon which super-heats the gas.

[Guest Maverick]

Anything can become a plasma. Plasma is actually a pretty fluid subject, there isn't really a definate definition of plasma, because there are many different things that claim to be plasmas (blood plasma for example). Plasma is most commonly defined as superheated matter that is neither solid, liquid, nor gas that is capable of carrying an electric charge. Gases are the easiest to turn to plasma, and all matter may have to go through the gas phase to reach a plasma form, but when it reaches plasma it has properties all its own.

 

I just wanted to throw that in there for clarification. If plasma were a Human technology it would require lasers, because lasers would probably be needed to generate the intense heat needed for plasma state. (rocket exaust is a plasma, and that is the combustion of liquid H2 and O2) If they are just learning how to replicate a technology then I don't think lasers should be required. However, as I stated last time I think that there should be a reason that you would want to use lasers in some cases instead of plasma. Something that would make you want to research lasers, not just so you have something better before you get to plasma.

[Guest stewart]

Fire is a plasma too I think.

 

The idea of having to research laser weapons is because making a hand held laser powerful enough to kill a person is a pretty good trick indeed. Hense we should know how to do that first.

 

On the other hand, if as you say we should be able to replicate stuff without having to research lasers first then really we can go straight to Heavy Plasma, or Plasma Rifle for that matter, in fact we can go straight to Laser Cannon then too and start making money right away.

 

If we're having a hard time figuring out when you'd want a laser rifle instead of a plasma one, we're gonna have a heck of time figuring out when we'd want Laser Defense instead of Plasma Defense.

[Guest Maverick]

check out that post I made earlier in regard to why lower technologies should be researched first. Basically what it says though is that yeah, you could just start on heavy plasma as soon as you lay hands on the weapon, but it would take so long that it isn't worth the time. It would take as much time to research a heavy plasma as it would to research all three. And then after you finish heavy plasma, you can go research plasma rifle and plasma pistol. As for the plasma defense, you need almost a complete understanding of the technology to be able to create a new application for it, so you probably need to research all three before you can get plasma defenses.

[gangsta]

Anything can become a plasma.  Plasma is actually a pretty fluid subject, there isn't really a definate definition of plasma, because there are many different things that claim to be plasmas (blood plasma for example).  Plasma is most commonly defined as superheated matter that is neither solid, liquid, nor gas that is capable of carrying an electric charge.  Gases are the easiest to turn to plasma, and all matter may have to go through the gas phase to reach a plasma form, but when it reaches plasma it has properties all its own.

 

I just wanted to throw that in there for clarification.  If plasma were a Human technology it would require lasers, because lasers would probably be needed to generate the intense heat needed for plasma state.  (rocket exaust is a plasma, and that is the combustion of liquid H2 and O2)  If they are just learning how to replicate a technology then I don't think lasers should be required.  However, as I stated last time I think that there should be a reason that you would want to use lasers in some cases instead of plasma.  Something that would make you want to research lasers, not just so you have something better before you get to plasma.

ok guys you are talking about a diffrent plasma there. When talking about the 4 states of mater there is only one type of plasma. Plasma is the state after gas. If I remeber correctly I also think Plasma is hydrogen because at that temp everything breaks down to hydrogen but I'm not sure about taht anymore. I'm a computer scientist .. Anyways I do know Plasma is really hot gas basically..

[gangsta]

Fire is a plasma too I think.

 

The idea of having to research laser weapons is because making a hand held laser powerful enough to kill a person is a pretty good trick indeed.  Hense we should know how to do that first.

 

On the other hand, if as you say we should be able to replicate stuff without having to research lasers first then really we can go straight to Heavy Plasma, or Plasma Rifle for that matter, in fact we can go straight to Laser Cannon then too and start making money right away.

 

If we're having a hard time figuring out when you'd want a laser rifle instead of a plasma one, we're gonna have a heck of time figuring out when we'd want Laser Defense instead of Plasma Defense.

how about making heavy plasma take longer to research straigh up then researching plasma gun, rifle and then heavy?

[Guest Maverick]

OK, this is the real lowdown on plasmas: they can form out of anything, they don't necessarily need to be hot, and they are controlled by electric and magnetic fields. To illustrate: some plasmas exist only at temperatures approaching absolute zero, they act almost like a solid; some plasmas are extremely hot and as dense as solids (the core of a star); and based on pressure and energy put into the plasma they can even exist near room temperature. The energy source of plasma is electric, heat, or light. Plasmas are some of the most energy filled types of matter possible to achieve. For conventional application "plasma" refers to matter that carries an electric current with a temperature over 100,000 celcius. Currently plasma's are formed from ionized neutral gas. The gas molecules are ionized (lose or gain electrons) and the free electrons stay within the plasma. The polarized forces of the electrons and ionized gas molecules draws the molecules closer, giving the gas some liquid-like properties while a density close to that of solids.

 

For the purpose of the game: Because of the way that plasma technology acts in the game this is my theory on their design. Elerium (which is radioactive) is bombarded with particles (probably neutrons) creating an energetic reaction. This produces enough energy to create an electromagnetic field capable of containing, accelerating, and directing the plasma. Extremely small amounts of elerium are used as "bullets" and brought to a plasma state with controlled pressure environments, and either high intensity lights (like lasers) electric currents (which could travel through the containment field) or by being further bombarded with other particles. To fire the gun it gets a burst of energy (from the above chosen method) and the polarity of its containment field is sequentially reversed forcing the expanding material (containing huge amounts of energy stored as electricity, as light, and as heat--the last of which causing the most damage) out in the direction that it is pointed. The limitation of plasma is the amount of material fired, as outside forces opperating on the plasma (wind resistance, etc) not to mention the natural loss of particles from the material outside of its containment field, gravity, and anything else you can think of, cause it to disperse over the area fired and speed up the energy loss from the "bullet". Its only accuracy limitation would be due to gravity and wind resistance like a normal bullet, but somewhat lessened because of the speed that it travels. Basically plasma guns are rail guns that use plasma instead of metal bars. Using rail guns as a point for comparison, the exit velocity of the plasma would be upwards of 1.5 km/s. With that speed, anything within range of conventional weapons would be within negatable range of the dispersion effects of the plasma. Simply put, pistols, rifles and heavy plasma could fire the same amount of ammo with accuracy related directly to the amount of control of the containment field and length of the barrel. Power is related to the amount of energy put into the plasma with diminishing returns after a point because the material can't store any more energy. The final aspect of plasma technology (which is neglected in the entire X-com series) is dealing with the heat. The only way to allow it to fire in a controlled environment without having to wait between each bullet for the gun to charge, is to pre-charge the bullets. That means that the gun will over-heat if it isn't used within a certain amount of time, unless there is suitable method of reducing the temperature within the gun. That means a coolant system.

 

So within the gun there are two sources of elerium, one of which lasts almost indefinately. The power source for the gun lasts a really really really long time, the ammo of the gun runs out in direct proportion to how much is fired out. For thirty-five shots from the gun at 5 grams per shot it takes about 1/3 lb of elerium per clip. Which is reasonable because 1 mole of Elerium (following the periodic table's increase of atomic weight with respect to atomic number, i assumed the atomic weight of elerium to be about 285 g/mol) would weigh 6.27 lb.

 

As a side note: plasma guns would leave an ion trail from the point they were fired at. Consider giving humans the ability to develop a system for viewing that ion trail (like ion goggles or something) so that even though they might not be able to see as far as the aliens they can at least see where they are....Just a thought (especially cause I always wondered what that green goggle was for on the power and flying suits.)

[Devatar]

Yep, Maverick you hit the spot oh-so-well.

 

If you examine the tech tree I was working on, you'd realize that the technologies under physics are actually heading for plasma.

 

You see, we need to unify the four fields before we can make something that can coontain and create plasma and keep it within the weight limit of hand-held guns. And I included Gauss technology since it deals with using electro-magnetic fields to propel particles to near-light speed, something that we will need to accomplish if we want to make somethging more than a plasma stink bomb. I was going for unifying all the fields step by step in the research tree, starting with the electro-weak theory to destabilize particles for fusion reactions, but I figured this would make for a very long game, and people aren't gonna appreciate it anyway.

 

And one problem all weapon systems face, be it projectile, missile, or energy, is heat accumulation, as Maverick stated. Well, if we unify all the fields, it'd be easy as pie to contain heat and boson particles within the plasma chamber, making for a very efficient weapon.

 

Also, charging the bullets wouldn't require much time, since with all the energy produced during an antimatter reaction, anything would become plasma in a fraction of a second.

 

I agree with gangsta about not linking laser and plasma technology. They CAN be used in conjunction with each other. You CAN use lasers to heat plasma, but that would be tantamount to plugging a water pump to a socket then using that to pump water into a water mill to produce electricity to power a TV set. Ockham's razor, people.

 

I think that weapon systems should be usable throughout the game too, and not just for fashion. Lasers DEFINATELY have an advantage over gauss, since gauss is particulate and laser is pure energy, hence lasers can punch through force fields more effectively. Laser on plasma, we can use the same reasoning. Photons aren't affected by polarity, since they are the ones responsible for it, but plasma is, so a force field would probably hinder plasma a lot more. Plasma on gauss? I have no idea. We could use the range argument, since plasma would slowly disperse on long voyages to the target, but as as pringle and I discussed earlier, we are planning to use field emitter bullets to circumvent this problem. So I have no ideas on this one.

 

Hmm... but one thing keeps bothering me.

 

Antimatter.

 

Should we put it in, or not? (If we do, then something elerium-like is definately gonna go in too.)

[Guest stewart]

You can also make decision from a game mechanics point of view and then figure out the bull$hit explanation afterwards (it's what they did for every single episode of Star Trek after all). From a game mechanics point of view it makes sense to have to research lasers first.

 

But it's not as bad as you think in the tech-tree I use. You can go from Laser Pistol to either laser Rifle or Plasma Pistol for example.

[red knight]

It might be good for single player games to allow the research tree to be editable.  Then you can use the default, the traditional, and your personally one.

Making it editable is needed to tweak it without recompiling, and using a XML like format should be the best way because we can track changes on the CVS. We cannot do that using a binary approach.

 

For the ones that are working on the tech tree, it is better if you write it in a standarized fashion (and easily parseable fashion as well).

 

It should look like this, its pretty easy to understand and to modify. I can code a parser to this language in almost no time. Have all the source needed to do it fast, but first we have to identify all the stuff needed.

 

// This is a comment to document everything that is needed
<technology equipment>
 <name> Laser Pistol </name>
 <description> All the UFOPaedia stuff goes here </description>
 <requires> Laser Technology </requires>
 <requires> Whatever is required </requires>
 <techtype weapon>
       <accuracy snap>70</accuracy>
       <accuracy aimed>80</accuracy>
       <accuracy auto>40</accuracy>
       <cliptype armorpiercing>
          <clipcharges>255</clipcharges>
          <damage>150</damage>
       </cliptype>
 </techtype>
</technology>

 

I hope this will give you a hint of what programmers need to make a editable tech tree.

 

Greetings

Red Knight

[LordT]

// This is a comment to document everything that is needed
<technology equipment>
 <name> Laser Pistol </name>
 <description> All the UFOPaedia stuff goes here </description>
 <requires> Laser Technology </requires>
 <requires> Whatever is required </requires>
 <techtype weapon>
       <accuracy snap>70</accuracy>
       <accuracy aimed>80</accuracy>
       <accuracy auto>40</accuracy>
       <cliptype armorpiercing>
          <clipcharges>255</clipcharges>
          <damage>150</damage>
       </cliptype>
 </techtype>
</technology>

Heh, so now I'm a picky but what the heck...

According to the latest w3c standards of html and xhtml and i think xml too, no "compact" attributes are allowed i.e.

<accuracy snap>

should be like

<accuracy type="snap/aimed/auto">

Just wanted to tell

[red knight]

Heh, so now I'm a picky but what the heck...

According to the latest w3c standards of html and xhtml and i think xml too, no "compact" attributes are allowed i.e.

<accuracy snap>

should be like

<accuracy type="snap/aimed/auto">

Just wanted to tell  

The same for me, it was only a proposal... i dont even know what w3c had said . It is just a format that looks good to me (and its easily parseable) not more than that. And easy for non programmers to follow, the ones that are writing the tech tree, just agree on a format and let us know to implement the parser.

 

Compact attributes look better because you dont have to add the type construct if what you want is a single attribute all the time... Type constructs are the best for multiattributes tags, but if we dont really need them just take the simple way arround the problem.

 

The only thing that you should take in account is that the more complex the language the more difficult the parser and syntax checker is to implement. And be aware of redundancy pitfalls (it is easy to go down that road), if you have any doubt just ask.

 

Greetings

Red Knight

[LordT]

Heyey, no worries, I'm just saying it

Dunno anything about "redundancy pitfalls" anyways, you'll have to enlighten me sometime

[Maverick]

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)

[Guest stewart]

This (oh man what's with this $hitty small text!) any way, this ought to do the trick!

 

Ununpentium (Element 115) is a group 15 element more commonly known by it's commercial name

Elerium 115

[ShadowHawk]

It might be good for single player games to allow the research tree to be editable.  Then you can use the default, the traditional, and your personally one.

Making it editable is needed to tweak it without recompiling, and using a XML like format should be the best way because we can track changes on the CVS. We cannot do that using a binary approach.

 

For the ones that are working on the tech tree, it is better if you write it in a standarized fashion (and easily parseable fashion as well)....

 

I hope this will give you a hint of what programmers need to make a editable tech tree.

Using your guidelines for a basis, I'm going to render a more finished version of my techtree in XML now.

 

I'll make a few changes though, such as keeping the research and equipment seperate, and instead have them reference eachother. It can always be edited later.

 

Stay tuned!

[red knight]

Heyey, no worries, I'm just saying it 

Dunno anything about "redundancy pitfalls" anyways, you'll have to enlighten me sometime

In the process of design and implementation of a language and its tools (parsers, syntax checkers, compilers, interpreters, etc) you sometimes (most of the time) add features that look promising but they are useless or need very complex rules to make them work, or sometimes they are just plain redundant. They are redundant because there are more than one way to say the same. For example in C you could find this:

 

if (a == 0) 
   { c = 0; }
   else 
   { c = 1; }

 

and you can say the same like this

 

c = (a == 0) ? 0 : 1;

 

Correct me if the syntax is wrong, i dont use this resource, i prefer the if constructor.

 

Greetings

Red Knight

[ShadowHawk]

Ok, first, here comes a provisional format for the technology XML, as well as a rough format for the basemodule and equipment XML.

 

The file is in rich text format, which should be viewable by just about everything.

XML_Format_Outline.rtf

[Guest Guest]

c = (a == 0) ? 0 : 1;

 

Correct me if the syntax is wrong, i dont use this resource, i prefer the if constructor.

code is correct and to me in this case easier to look at but then I'm used to it

[Guest Guest]

c = (a == 0) ? 0 : 1;

 

Correct me if the syntax is wrong, i dont use this resource, i prefer the if constructor.

code is correct and to me in this case easier to look at but then I'm used to it <G>

hey talking about XML since this is obviously going to be a client/server program are we going to use soap to distribute the XML code from server to client? also does soap compress said code? I mean it would be pretty smart to compress the xml packet with zlib I think.

[gangsta]

bah that was me

[LordT]

bah that was me

"Why don't " you "just log in"?

 

Wouldn't it be easier to write all the stuff in a database and then export it as xml? I'm pretty sure newer versions of MSAccess can do that. Probably other office-like programs too.

That way you don't need to type all the elements/tags over and over and over again.

[ShadowHawk]

Hello gents I have officially started work on the techtree.xml file. At the top, in comments, it includes a sample of all the possible things that could be in a technology entry. Red Knight, if there are any problems with implementation of this please contact me and I will change the format.

 

If I can get cvs working at sourceforge, the techtree file will go there from now on, but for now I'm uploading it to the forums.

 

Note that there have been a few changes to the XML since the above post, notably the requirements time = x field and that the descriptions/ufopedia entries for the various techs have been outsourced to textfiles in a subfolder to be created.

 

Sometime tomorrow I'll create a skeleton of the UFOPedia, and then I can start assigning UFOPedia entries to various people.

 

 

Furthermore, if someone could look at the above file and come up with a good format for the and type things, please do so.

 

Thanks!

 

edit: the forums don't like uploading .xml files so I'll just put it onto the code mailing list. Check your email everybody.

[Devatar]

Hmm... Well I can't think of any reason why elerium would produce antimatter upon bombardment, since in reality elements never act like that. (well they do, actually, but that happens in particle accelerators a few miles long and only a miniscule amount of antimatter is produced, not even enough to tickle stewart.)

 

There is one thing, though. If we use the ol' classic E=mc2, we could theorize that if an element, such as elerium, were in a state so charged with energy, it would easily be able to reach the critical energy level required for matter to energy transition. If, say, a simple neutron bombardment would occur, that would cause a fission reaction within the elerium, and since elerium is theoretically swimming in energy to that point that it just needs a few more newtons to reach energy state....

 

BANG.

 

You got Energy.

 

After a few milliseconds, the energy would again reunite to form matter and antimatter in equal amounts, again decipherable through E=mc2. The energy that becomes antimatter could be then be extracted. (it is very important to note here that in very energetic systems, positrons and anti-protons would be produced, instead of just anti-matter quarks. They are both charged, so we can use simple electrophoresis to scoop them out.) First we fuse them to form Anti-Hydrogen, which is more stable and unaffected by e-m fields. Then the making of the gun clip comes. we could just put separate containers for both H and anti-H particles inside the magazine. The gun's engine would be responsible for the union of the two for energy, then.

 

We aren't supposed to carry around elerium then, just the antimatter it produced in the in an x-com base or some such.

 

So that's my theory. Elerium is a VERY energetic element, almost reaching the E requirement for matter to energy transition, and a simple fission reaction pushes it beyond this limit, creating pure energy, then matter and antimatter.

 

(again, I don't wanna mislead anyone. this isn't really feasible in reality, since an element this energetic would be VERY heavy and VERY unstable, if it did exist, it would do so only a few millionths of a second, then form a mini black hole and then just go *poof*)

[Guest stewart]

Let me change something:

 

rather than Elerium being the commercial name, it turns out that Ununpentium (which means one-one-five, in Latin) is a temporary name. Once the element is officially created then the team that does so gets to name it. So in this case Elerium is the name given by the XCOM scientist after identification of the AlienUnunpentium sample as such.

 

One way we could handle how-to-describe-how-Elerium-is-used is to say something like it's the lightest of the elements after Uranium which is not radio active. It is used to control matter-antimatter mixes to keep them from going boom! So infact Elerium is then conviently taken out of the power equation entirely, the actal power generation can be simple Helium-AntiHelium, moderated by Elerium control rods or whatever.

[Devatar]

Well that would leave us with another problem, where to get antimatter. We certainly can't mass produce antimatter using the elements available to us, that wouldn't be scientifically feasible since we don't have elements occuring naturally in high energy states. (it would take too much energy input to produce antimatter in industrial amounts using high energy collisions, in fact it would take a few megawatts to produce a single positron.)

[Maverick]

OK, here is a good point to note: while I couldn't go out today (or any time real soon) and buy an anti-matter reactor any time in the near future, the aliens have been using this technology for a long time. If I remember the original UFOpedia article correctly there was better than 99% efficiency in the reactions, so a 50/50 hydrogen reaction is good, but its missing something.

 

Elerium, which we already know can be ionized, is chared to ionization and suspended in a containment field within the generator. The power source itself is a near vacuum (as close as we can get it) allowing more energy to flow through the Elerium without it de-stabilizing, and more specifically without dramatic heat increase within the containment field. (here's the tricky part) when the ionized particles reach a certain energy level the intermollecular forces bond the elerium atoms together leaving a super-dense, HIGHLY energized (and probably unstable) material. The reaction total gives off light in large quantities, heat in small quantities, electricity in the form of extra electrons, and anti-matter that is only stable for a few seconds until it breaks apart and its energized state accelerates its decay. After a single use the elerium becomes useless. The 99% efficiency is including the energy released as light, heat, and electricity, all which can be utilized as auxiliary power sources for normal technology.

 

NOTE: There's pretty much no way this would work...there are too many missing elements of the reaction. But it sounds impressive, and it makes sense as long as you don't try to deconstruct it.

[ShadowHawk]

Well that would leave us with another problem, where to get antimatter.

From the aliens, duh!

 

[Guest stewart]

As far as manufacturing Antimatter. We can just use a hand-waving argument and say, somehow, we actually could mass produce it except that there is no safe way to store it and feed it through a system. Placing it in a vacuum while suspending it in an electro-magnetic field (so as to not touch the sides of the container) has the problem of the power going out on the containment field and oblitterating, say, New Jersey.

 

We can say that somehow Elerium can come in contact with Antimatter because, I don't know let's say, since it is a really big atom (beyond some critical atomic number) that it's electron cloud is so large that it can resist the antiprotons of antiHydrogen from contacting the Nucleus of the Elerium atom. Since Elerium would be on the right side of the periodic table it would form covalent bounds so all the electrons in the lump would be available for this as were. However, some get through, and the Elerium is turned into say element 114. In this case the reaction does not turn into a chain-reaction since, the element is still above the critical atomic number. Element 114 decays snuffing out any building of the reaction.

 

The 99% effiiency would actually be the matter/Antimatter (actually I like the orginal term for antimatter, Contraterrain) efficiency. The Elerium would be used to "make the engine block", although it is slowly consumed by the antimatter.

 

There that ought to do it! (cracks his knuckles)

[Devatar]

Hmmm... well again, ockham's razor. If we use that line of thinking, Stew, then we can use pretty much any heavy atom to do the trick. So why not just use uranium-235? Being even bigger than Elerium, it would have the same effect, and be available locally. (Besides, in the amounts that we need for considerable energy production, no atom, even if it had a thousand electrons, could withstand the energy generated in a matter-antimatter reaction of this scale.)

 

Also, elerium-115 doesn't necessarily have a large number of electrons. That 115 just indicates the number of neutrons the atom has, and in theory, a hydrogen atom at very high enegy levels could hold a few hundred electrons, and still maintain 1 electron and 1 proton.

 

I dunno, I think that if we were to put in a fantasy substance, why not just eliminate the need to make more fantasies and put it all in that one box? I mean, if we were gonna add elerium anyway, why not just make it responsible for the things that we cannot make up ourselves? Like antimatter production. Wouldn't it be easier to just blame that on elerium and eliminate the need to say that people just produce antimatter miraculously? (Just saying that humans or aliens make humongous amounts of antimatter and ending the conversation there doesn't make for a very strong story.)

[Maverick]

*Very loud applause is heard from Maverick in the peanut gallery*

 

Ok, I like that explaination. Granted, we arbitrarily decided that its a high enough elemental number, but i like it none-the-less. It covers pretty much everything. I'd like to change one detail, that instead of Elerium being the container for the reaction to take place in, it is a catalyst for the reaction to occur. The Elerium decays from the reaction as stated, but also stabilizes the reaction allowing the anti-matter that can be produced to exist longer and without the detracting effect of obliterating...well New Jersey. Finally, it being a catalyst allows for complete control of the reaction process--if you remove the elerium entirely you get the anti-matter boom (that happens in fusion ball launchers, blaster bombs, and when you toss an alien grenade at a power source) if you flood the reaction with elerium it quickly absorbs the antimatter and the reaction is nullified (a safeguard for the whole process). Since the Elerium is slowly used up as it bonds with the antimatter, you also have a max range on your ships. Elerium is already very heavy (6.27 lb/mol) so you can't carry a whole lot of it and maintain control of the reactions. Simply put, you fly too far, and you can't come back....the ship's power source goes boom! while you are still in it. (hence the reason the ship MAKES you return to base when the fuel drops below 40%).

 

*Mav pats Stewart on the back one more time*

 

Alright, time for Calc II....i'll check back here later.

[Devatar]

You know, the reason for New Jersey blowing up is the antimatter being in contact with matter and obliterating in a flurry of energy. And elerium is matter. If it absorbs any of that antimatter, parts of it would turn into energy and blow the other parts sky-high, making even more energy in a fission reaction. After a few moments, the high temperature would make fusion reactions possible and you'd have yet ANOTHER mass explosion of energy in New Jersey. Nope, New Jersey does not want antimatter to be in contact with elerium.

[Guest stewart]

. . . buuuuut the atomic number of New Jersey is below the critical atomic number. I think I forgot to mension that Elerium would also be the lightest element above Uranium that is not Radioactive.

 

Really this is just competing Star Trek explanations.

 

A thought: we can just ditch Contraterrain altogether and think of Elerium as some Uranium like thing.

[Devatar]

So we stick to nuclear reactions, then?

[Guest stewart]

Actually I kind of like the idea of the

passive-containment-and-conduction-system-made-out-of-Elerium idea.

 

But that's probably just because I made it up.

 

In actuality I could care less about any of this.

[Devatar]

NOT CARE ABOUT PARTICLE PHYSICS???? :o

 

(yeah, yeah. It is kinda boring.)

 

Anyway lets just make a list of techs we wanna put in, then make the explanations like you said. I guess it's how well the techs are gonna blend in the game that matters, and not really the feasibility. (much )

 

So guys, what do you think should go in? (Lasers are a definative go-go.)

[gangsta]

I've mentioned this a few times before but I don't think you should have to research the plasma tree in order to use plasma guns you find. Mean It doesn't take a scientist to figure out how to shoot a gun. Instead I suggest that plasma weapons require heavy care taking at the X-Com base. If you haven't researched Plasma and the weapon type then those weapons become useless after return to your base from a mission. I've made a joke about this before about having to research rock before being able to throw it

[Guest stewart]

You'll be opening up a can of worms there plus unbalancing the game. Sure you're right but . . . .

 

You can also go further. Why would a gun with charges left in it suddenly go bad at a base. Shouldn't we be allowed to use it until it's empty.

 

. . . and then, Gee if I can use a gun until it's empty, since a gun is an obvoius thing wouldn't a clip also be an obvious thing, so why can't I replace clips I find in the field.

 

and on and on.

 

Realistically though you are right.

[gangsta]

ok lets say the clips don't need maint. but however the guns have to be put into a special maint. system to keep them working or they break?