X-net Operatives Database

[GreatGold]

Hey All -

 

Heres a very! basic concept screen of what a possible X-Net Operatives Database could look like. For those of you who missed the threads where this was discussed, heres a short snyopsis.

 

Basically, since we are going to have an X-Net for items and research, it shouldnt be much of an added (coding) burden to create one for your operatives. Yes, operatives, not just soldiers. This will allow expandablility with all the ideas flying around about various tiers of scientists, pilots, engineers, etc. So this database will keep track of all you people.

 

Its main function, I hope, will be to bond players to their characters. You can name them, follow their carrers in detail, and perhaps modify them eventually from this database(purely their looks). What I mean by this is: the database will include a small preX-Com Bio for each soldier, their nationality, previous military experience, a 2D picture, a 3D model. Thats the basic stuff. It will also keep a DETAILED X-Com history of the individual ( think dates and types of missions), aliens killed, what type of alien, aliens stunned, accuracy, stats, medals, etc etc. Im sure as development proceeds more items could be added, or trashed (for all I know the whole Concept may be disliked...).

 

So heres the Concept, like I said a very rough draft. It is based on Breuners X-Net Concept, so if his changes I imagine so would this.

 

So let me know what you all think, comments and critism very welcome. Once again, I'm new to graphics, even 2D ones, so bear with me...

 

Gold

Edited May 13, 2003 by GreatGold

[GreatGold]

Yeah so -

 

Just a quick addition. The main purpose of this database is to increase player interaction with their forces. It was always a highlight for me in the orginal, building up a character or squad. This just allows the player that much more information, and hopefully attachment. Perhaps this is overkill, but I personally would love the ability to track a soldier throughout a game. With a detailed file on his missions, stats, kills, etc.

 

Gold

[Cubik]

Just spank in as much info and background story as you can, the game needs stuff allows the player to bond with his troops.

[Guest drewid]

Yes to all. Backstory is important, but I don't think we have to write loads, just some bullet points to give more character. stuff like age, where they came from, where they were before x-com.

 

If we keep it in a list for it will convey the same information, look like an official dossier, and most important, be possible to randomise in code relatively easily.

 

More important I think is to have the character history build as the game progresses. Lists of campaigns they have taken part in , kills awards won, all in military report list style. All info we can get easily from the game, like:

 

"20/03/2025 London, Rapid strike force, Killed 2 greys, wounded in action.

 

30/03/2025 Paris, Rapid Strike Force, killed 1 reaper, won snipers award."

 

 

Oh Yeah. The screen looks pretty good too.

[Breunor]

Very nice concept, most credit goes to Deimos for the UI design. If we end up using the organic/animated menu system, it would be easy enough to have a high level link to personnel/operatives in there. I was thinking the menu could be near full screen, and when you select operatives, perhaps it can show bases with soldiers, you select a base and up comes your screen with the first soldier listed. Then you could have either arrows that go to next soldier or maybe a drop down list to choose soldiers.

 

Very nice concept!

[GreatGold]

Hey -

 

Someone mentioned a while ago attaching names to missions. Let me explain, if I remeber correctly: say your operative takes part in a Terror Mission, but 8 members of the assault squad are lost. That becomes a "Massacre" for the soldiers dossier.

 

"19/7/03 - The Terror Massacre at Cairo: kills 3 snakes, medkits wounded soldier"

 

If the squad sweeps and takes no casualties, we could come up for a name to. Makes things that much more personal. Perhaps we should allow players to name larger battles as they like. I know I definately had a few "Hamburger Hill Redux" missions...and I would have loved to have named them such.

 

As to the GUI, it definatley needs a LOT more work, and more so every time I look at it. There definately needs more organization in terms of bases and wheree soldiers are based, and using that to select them. Likewise, we should come up with a hard list of subjects that WILL be included in the dossier. This way the coders can take this into account.

 

I really have very little graphics skills though, so I'll try to put something together, but it takes me forever. To begin, heres a list I think should be in the Dossier:

 

Name

Nationality

Date of Birth

Previous Military Service

-GS9, CIA, Secret Service, SWAT, Delta, FBI, Army, Marine, Navy, Air Force, to name a cery few possibilities

Previous Military Rank

Date of X-COM Enlistment

Detailed Carreer/Mission Report

-missions, kills, injuries, time healing, etc

Stats

-all that are currently in X-Com, as well as "intelligence" if that is implemented

Kills

-broken down by species

Accuracy

-perhaps broken down by weapon, perhaps kills per weapon

Most Used Weapon

Current Base

Current Aircraft Assigned

Psi Training

what else?

 

Another thing that would nice is perhaps converting these stats into graphs. Thats very easy, and could be a neat little feature. All these things should be easily tracked by the game, so its just a matter of converting the data into the read word. Theres a lot more we can do with this as well, so lets think!

 

Gold

[Breunor]

I like the idea of the dossier, but I would warn against putting too much detail into it. For example, it would be easy to list the accuracy for every weapon, but that would make quite a list of stats. I guess it doesn't matter how long the list is, you just scroll down it. And it probably isn't much different code-wise to show a few or all of them. Something for version 1+ could be to track the kills per weapon, and give a bonus for that weapon if it exceeds a certain number, above and beyond the normal stats. You become an ace with the weapon and you get an extra 10% accuracy for example. That would encourage people to specialize their soldiers' weapon use, and might tie in with the idea of a soldier recruitment pool, where you could look for a soldier with certain stats to fit with the specialist you're looking for.

[GreatGold]

Hey All -

 

This topic has been dormant for a while, and I was just hoping to keep it alive. More specifically, I want to know if people think this is worthing going with. If it is, I think it's up to the CTD to get it working, in terms of content, and this could be a lot of work.

 

So, what do you all think? Is it a go, is it too much? Let's get some opinions, and if people do want to give it a try and implement it, I have some ideas we can play with.

 

Thanks,

Gold

[Breunor]

Since the original had a screen to show soldier stats and the like, it will be in the game. You can certainly put more info in there, I expect that for bullet point items they could be randomly assigned the same way the name lists would work. I can't speak for the programmers, but maybe you could create a "fill in the blanks" report for character background if the bullet points don't float your boat. Then the blanks could be the bullet points just put into a narrative. The programming might be a hassle though, as you wouldn't want a combination that wouldn't make sense.

[Denevive]

I for one love the idea of a more intricate soldier screen, especially the suggestion to give a bonus on a weapon after so many (30+?) kills with it.

 

Also, as for the CTD creating a basic list of design elements (what goes with what), and a mission naming system, I'm all for it.(athough, I would recommend just putting the number of kills, with a list of each type of kill at the end og all the stats). I personally volunteer myself to get a list of names from different countries, (first and last), and breakdown the naming conventions for missions. I have plenty of time to do so between X-Net entries. I could probably knock this out in a day or so. I'll even collect flags for each country if you guys give me a .jpg or .bmp size.

 

I guess that the program, when designing names would figure:

 

Soldier ordered:

1. Order date stamped as date of recruitment

2. Randomly select male or female (0 or 1)

3. Randomly select country of origin (1 - ?)

4. Select first and last name list alloted for country

5. Randomly select first and last name.

 

Wheras, when determining mission names, certain words/phrases would be assigined a point value, with both side's casualties caluculated to give that score.

 

If a programmer would like to supply me with a string of code, I'll format all of the information into it. That way all you have to do is cut and paste.

 

If this sounds equitable to all, just say the word.

[GreatGold]

Hey -

 

I believe the name issue, along with nationality, has already been tackled and overcome. The issue lies within the fact, that to do more, will require some original problem solving, programming, and creative work.

 

The first thing needed, though, is a go-ahead from the senior members. I'll be asking them shortly.

 

Gold

[red knight]

Check the latest names database design....

 

Database Post

 

Greetings

Red Knight

[Breunor]

As to the size of flag pics, that screen above is based on 800x600, but could eventually be larger (v1+has multiple resolutions). So if you created the pics at 250px wide and as tall as proportions require, we can scale them down later to fit. This size should work for the higher res once we get there. As to the details of combat, the simpler layout would just be a total of kills and number of missions. If you want a step by step format, it should be possible to get what country the mission occured in, and perhaps each alien killed. But that will make a rediculously long list later in the game. I think the programmers would much rather design a counter for each soldier in battle, and the counter total is added to the running total when the mission's over. So the dossier would show total kills and total missions. It could also have date joined of course.

[GreatGold]

Hey -

 

I think Breunor's suggestion is a good base, but would not be much of an improvement upon the original "Stat Sheet".

 

What I would like to implement is a soldier dossier, with a complete combat record for the soldier under Xenocide's command. This does not mean a break-down of every weapon used to kill an alien. What it does entail, as discussed in the above threads, is a recored of all missions and kills on that mission. At the very least. If you look at the list above, that would be a much more complete record. What I think we need is a compromise imbetween the two.

 

Something like:

Name

Date of Birth

Current Age

Gender

Nationality

Xenocide Recruitment

Base and Squad (as in where assigned, Skyranger 1-1 / Berlin)

Xenocide Combat Record

Record of Injuries

Kills

 

I figure all this information would be on the left side fo the screen, with a scrollable interface. On the top right quadrant would be the 3D model of the soldier. And on the bottom right would be the "Quick Stats" that you can currently see in X-Com (such as energy, TU's, accuracy, etc).

 

I also think it would be neat if the the nationality flag was behind the 3D model in the right upper corner, sort of blowing in the breaze. In fact we could have two flags there, one the nationality and the other would be Xenocide's coat of arms.

 

Gold

[hippyjon]

i do like this idea alot, especialy showing the agents battle history. but i think that the stats should take precedent, maybe just having the quick bullet points of name/age/kills date/ect visible at first with a tab to look at stuff like what they were doing before, battle history, wounds history, more in depth kills listing. that way you could have alot of info, without distracting from whats important. the stats.

 

oh yeh, and loose the rotatable 3d model, hes a man not a mesh

[GreatGold]

Hey -

 

The "Quick Stats", or importnant ones that actually matter, would be promanantly displayed in the lower right quadrant. Inthe picture above, imagine that the 3D model was removed, and in its place was the stats. I agree with you, that the stats need to be easily accessable, because when I'm actually preparing for a battle, I'd rather know that important stuff, than the operatives age.

 

Keep in mind though, that at some point (probably v6.8 ), we may be able to have entries for engineers and scientists as well. Depending on how the final Research concept end up, and they would all be seen in the database as well.

 

I think this could have a lot of potential!

Gold

[hippyjon]

agreed

[Breunor]

If you create a list of items you want to track, those items can be presented to the programmers. They will have to tie in those points and track them in each battle, and then output the data to a file which would then be referenced when you open the soldier screen.

 

Edit: And due to that, it's up to them as to how much data you can put into the soldier screens...

Edited June 25, 2003 by Breunor

[GreatGold]

Hey -

 

Yeah, I know -_- At the mercy of the programmers yet again . But I think this is a very easy thing to do, I have thought about it a bit and have some ideas.

 

Who is currently working, or planning to, on the Battlescape coding? I'll have a chat with them asap.

 

Gold

[[[Micah]]]

No one is working on the battlescape code because we are endeavoring to complete the geoscape as much as possible before focusing on the battlescape. So though he may not be sure what will be possible to track in the battlescape, RK can probably still give you a good target.

[stoopher]

I think that the games should track everything and monitor everything and as tech nology progresses the engine can reveal more of what it knows each time.

 

Idea?

[Cpt. Boxershorts]

Here's the start of a list:

(this is per mission)

 

Type of mission

 

Kills/hits/captures

-By Alien/civilian/othe xeno-personnel

-by weapon

-by Distance

 

hit/miss ratio

 

average morale

 

wounds/hits taken

 

other helped (healed/stimmed, ect)

[stoopher]

Back history is important because it can be a source of future story line. It would be good to be able to file and retreive info on each mission plus some in game shots opeing kill, closing kill, man of the match in action kind of thing. So each mission has a selecteion of papers/images/data on it.

 

It it were done using php to spew out web pages then we could use an already implemeted html engine straight into one of our windows in the xnet directory. This would allow us to jump from mission data to soldier to weapon to alien to historical notes, and would allow the gamer to spot trends and themes that may let him/her geuss new twists in the stroy line.

 

Is the story static or will it vary each time you play?

 

second better.

[Nickisimo]

I actually really like this idea. I play full seasons on NHL vid games a lot and it's a nice feature to actually keep stat tracking for every game played in my virtual season.

 

For example, an Oct. 24th terror site cleanup against snakemen/chrys's where your Rocket-Tank owned with 4 kills might compell you to bring IT along instead of those 4 squaddies who would make for juicy targets in the night sky...I dunno, just a thought. People like stats though, and it would be easy enough to compile that info. I think it would also go an extra step into making the individual soldiers have more of a "career" feel.

 

Maybe even in V1.0+ we could go so far as to add like GoldenEye type tags to each char based on given stats, like "Sectoid Shredder" for the char with the most sectiod kills, or the humorous "Most Scared" to the char with the least bravery. Just a silly thought. Could be kinda nice to charge at some baddies with your "Most Lethal" trooper. :happybanana:

[Breunor]

I like the accuracy, helping others, and most effective stats, sounds like a sports team:

 

"Trooper X was 0 for 3 from the field, with a shooting accuracy of 42% and 2 medkit assists. He could have performed better, but the pressure exerted by the ethereals made him crack under the pressure. I wouldn't be surprised to see him sit out a couple missions after a performance like that..."

[Nickisimo]

...Here they are...your CentCom Zappers!

 

"Put me in coach! I know I can get that last Muton!"

 

Seriously though...we already name our chars based on real ppl(or at least I do...) in an attempt to humanize them a bit, why not add some character traits to the poor guys? :happybanana:

[Guest drewid]

Having a personal history for each trooper certainly gives the player more "buy in" to that character.

 

MY favorite character isn't just a face and a bunch of stats. She was great with heavy weapons, kicked donkey on that terror mission and saved Fred's neck when they were cornered in that alien base.

 

In other words history gives that character a story, that makes them more of a real person that you have seen develop / achieve / fail over the months.

That's one on the games great strengths anyhow, because you remember that stuff. but having is in writing in a dossier reinforces it even more.

Edited June 26, 2003 by drewid

[GreatGold]

Hey -

 

I'm glad people like this idea, I will get on it, with anyone who would like to help, immediately. The above ideas are great, and I can think of a few ways to implement them. And also, there is another reason for this that has not been brought up, and could be immensely important.

 

Alien AI is only as good as what we give it to work with. Now, in a MP game against another human, you begin after a few missions to read their trends. For instance, if I was playng Micah and he liked to sweep from around the left of the Battlescape on a regular basis, I sure as heck would have an ambush waiting by the third mission! Likewise, if he continually like to use grenades to clear a path, I sure as heck would not be waiting around the corner for him.

 

If we track all this infromation, about how particular operatives act, then the AI can use it on harder levels, to at least even the playing field. I know a human would.

 

Knowing that Operative X has immense accuracy with a Laser Rifle would be good for the apposing AI to know. Now, some might say this is cheating... but realistically if we dont want the AI to be ridicously easy it will already be all-knowing in the first place. Might as well make it harder on SuperHuman.

 

So now the tags gave a functional side, apart from just building the players love for his operatives! In anycase, as Cpt. Boxershorts already pointed out, there are a number of actions that need to be tagged. Thats the easy part. The harder part is spitting that taged information out in an interesting and fun to read fotmat, that is so repetitive it hurts.

 

Also, there DOES need to be a balance between what is recorded for the players database, and for the AI's use. We really don't need to know that Operative X shot 47 times in mission A and 24 times in mission 2, all we need to know is his cumulative accuracy over the range of missions.

 

So, to begin with, lets get a list of "Tags" started.

 

Gold

[GreatGold]

Hey -

 

Here is a start, including those already suggested above (more is better for now, we can widdle away at the ridiculous one later):

 

PER OPERATIVE (no Tags needed from Battlescape)

1.) Name

2.) Nationality

3.) Date of Birth

3a.) Current Age

3b.) Gender

4.) Date of Xenocide Commission

5.) Previous Military Service

-GS9, CIA, Secret Service, SWAT, Delta, FBI, Army, Marine, Navy, Air Force, to name a cery few possibilities

6.) Previous Military Rank

7.) Stats (at that exact moment)

8.) Current Base

9.) Current Aircraft Assigned

10.) Psi Training

11.) Health Status

 

PER MISSION (tags needed; combat record)

1.) Mission Type

2.) Mission Date and Time (start time, end time)

3.) Mission Location

4.) Mision Weather

4.) Alien Type

 

**I think each player should name every mission as they like. Here is the reason: if the player names it, we don't need to come up with a list of a thousand possible names, and then still end up sounding repetitive. Lets say it was a terror mission that the player really messed up, they can name it "Massacre of the America, 4-12-11". At the same time, if they don't care about creativity, they could just as easily name it "Terror Mission 4-12-11". In any case, when the player looks into the dossier, it will be more personal and easier to remember the mission.

**Here is a possible example of how the above info would be presented:

"Operative X engaged Etherials at the battle of the Massacre of the Americas on April 12, 2011. The battle was fought in the great city of New York, which was reduced to ruble, during the night time raid. The battle lasted from 2342 Zulu to 0121 Zulu under fair conditions."

[A description of the battle, such as "reduced to ruble", could be deterined from the missions score roughly]

 

Also, there should be an option to enter notes about the battle in the dossier, on a scratch-pad type thing, if the player chooses. These notes could be about the operative, or the battle.

 

5.) Alien Kills

a. Weapon

b. Range

6.) Alien Captures

a. Weapon

7.) Weapon Accuracy

a. Type of Weapon

b. Total Shots/Total Hits (and a percentage)

c. Psi Attacks

8.) Injuries/Psi Take-Overs

a. Length of Psi take-over

b. Times hit

c. Weapon hit with

d. If healed, and by whom

9.) Misc.

a. Helped to heal

10.) Stat Improvements

a. Before/After mission

 

Cumulative Carreer

 

Same as above, but obviously a cumultaive table at the bottom of entry.

 

These are some rough first draft ideas, lets get some more. These aren't the order they would be in, as I think it should be PER OPERATIVE, CUMULATIVE CARREER, and then last the individual PER MISSION info.

 

Gold

Edited June 26, 2003 by GreatGold

[hippyjon]

id prefer it if the game named the missions for me. for most it could just refer to em as battle, or mission or whatever, only giving it a special name if there was something special about it, this would help extend the novelty too.

that "city reduced to rubble" thing could be linked in to civilian deaths and the structure damage calcultor thing (if we are implementing that in v1)

 

itd be cool if on the mission debreifing screen their was a "deaths" tab wich gave a fitting tribute to each person who died

 

"[name] was born on the [date] and joined xcorps one the [date2]. during his extrardinary/brilliant/sucsesful/brief :D/undistinguished/ect carear he bagged # aliens ectectect"

 

i guess you creative text guess are pretty busy then? hehe

[Nickisimo]

Nah, we'll do anything to get a good headline for our 11 o'clock news...

 

This is another idea I like that goes a long way to improve the drab titles like, "Terror Site - 14" or "UFO - 145". These mission headlines might also be scooped up into the monthly newspaper idea.

 

For example, if during the previous month your troops had a particularly successful UFO recovery, you might see an article headline that says, "Mutons Mashed in Canada - Xenocide's CentCom team takes down 8 Sectiods in Manitoba". And don't we all love Canada? :happybanana:

[stoopher]

I like the articles about personalising the troops. It would be good to have a little text string engine which creates sentences based on the troopers histroy. The style of the test could be like a sports commentator, that would certainly give it a slightly comic feel, and I don't think that would be out of place. A bit like the commentator from the pod race in episode one. Alternatively it could be the general (gamer) military style with military lingo. This would keep up the high pressure side of the game. An equaly valid alternative.

 

Could even have a module that turns soldier data pages into trump card you can print out (Oh yes Perleeeaase!!)

[GreatGold]

itd be cool if on the mission debreifing screen their was a "deaths" tab wich gave a fitting tribute to each person who died

 

Hey -

 

This is an excellent point. I think there should definately be a "Retired Operatives" tab, which allows you to review the records of soldiers lost.

 

Very easy to implement, as all the data would have been collected anyway.

 

Gold

[Nickisimo]

Not only retired, but troops that are KIA, MIA...what about medals? That might just be going a bit overboard, but how cool would that be?

[GreatGold]

Hey -

 

What do you think I meant by "retired" ....

 

Medals have been discussed, although not in a very serious way to my knowledge.

 

Gold

[Cpt. Boxershorts]

I think GreatGold's list is pretty comprehensive, in terms of things to keep track of. How about total hospital time, number of missions (maybe successful/unsuccessful). On second thought, I guess you can infer that from the 'per mission' data.

 

Maybe leave slots (depending on how easy it is to add them later) for combat training, or other v1+ things.

 

I think that the best mission-naming technique would be a compromise. At the begining of the mission, it's a generic name (Terror-4, ect). After the mission, generate a more descriptive name based on the score break-down. The player can edit that if they really want to.

 

I can't think of many soldiers that would retire, I have to say. Generally (in my games, at least), they just get killed. :laser:

 

I guess some get fired occasionally. :flame: Heh.

[GreatGold]

Hehe -

 

Just to clarify, by "retired" I meant retired from the realm of the living.

 

Gold

[Kenshiro]

Here's a repost from a misplaced discussion of these on another thread:

 

From Mikker:

i just got a neat idea....what if the soldiers can earn medals for certain very hard things? It would really be something someone would try to get their commander to do.

 

like:

 

-if you kill 5 aliens in a battle

-if you kill 10 aliens in a battle

-if you kill 15 aliens in a battle

-if you kill 20 aliens in a battle

-if you kill all aliens in a battle, and there were at least 20 aliens

-if you aid a soldier with a medikit when he has 10 or less hp, and at least 2 fetal wounds

-if you destroy the command centre in an alien base before the battle ends

-if you have information if an alien is a leader,(mind prope,eg) and you kill him

-if you have information if an alien is a commander, and you kill him

-if you have atleast 60 points for a certain stat (health, strength, psi skill, eg)

-if you have atleast 100 points for a certain stat

-if you have atleast 150 points for a certain stat

 

 

 

 

From myself:

 

I'd like to see a little service jacket on the stats screen with ribbons. I think that would really add to the sense that your guys are individuals progressing along and increase the player's attachment to the soldiers.

 

For additional ideas, you could award medals for things like:

 

Finishing Psi and/or other training

Getting wounded (Purple Heart type ribbon)

Longevity (You get a ribbon when you complete 3 missions, then every 3 missions you get a bronze star on your ribbon, then a silver stars replacing each 5 of those, etc)

World regional service medals (Southwest Asia, Central Asia, North America, South America, Central America, etc) - either for missions in those places or alternately, serving at bases in the region

Rescuing all civilians on a terror mission (Defender Medal)

 

Let me know if you like the idea and I will invent some ribbons for these awards.

 

I think these would augment the career progression ideas discussed here already nicely.

[Cpt. Boxershorts]

I like it....that was something I liked in Apoc (although it wasn't this detailed).

 

Maybe also for surviving a massacre (more than 75% of soldiers dead)?

 

--The Captain

[mikker]

hehe....take with you 1 commander, a blaster launcher, and 13 rokiees. That was easy!

[Cpt. Boxershorts]

Well, maybe we can code for demotions, too...any high-ranking survivor get's docked a level.

 

If we have an MIA/KIA screen, posthumous medals might be cool too.

 

--The Captain

[GreatGold]

Hey -

 

I agree with some personal medals for operatives, but I disagree with some of the list you've created. Getting a medal should not be like tieing your shoe, and killing five aliens in a mission with one soldier just isnt that hard.

 

Another thing is, to make medals more realstic, we can have both PER MISSION and CUMULATIVE CAREER medals. For instace, if you kill 15 alines in one mission you definately deserve a medal. But lets say you kill 100 over the course of 30 missions, then you still averaged three and a third alines a mission. Now that is a LOT more worthy.

 

Another note, there is a difference between service ribbons and medals. I like the idea of service ribbions, which should be easy to get. Here is alist of those as well, and they are not a PER MISSION thing, your soldier just gets them for finishing a task.

 

SERVICE RIBBONS

- Induction into Xenocide

- One Ribbon for each promotion

- First Successful Mission

- First Kill

- Improvement of Stats past a certain point

=== for example, if yor soldier has 75 accuracy he recieves the accuracy ribbon; smae idea with strenght, TU's, etc. Each gets a ribbon

- Completetion of Campaign (I suppose all surviving soldiers would get this after Cydonia)

 

 

So here is your list, with some new things and changes:

PER MISSION

- if you kill 15 aliens in a battle

- if you kill all aliens in a battle

- If you heal 10 fatal wounds (any distribtion of soldiers)

- if you capture 3 or more aliens

- Purple Heart

 

CUMULIATIVE CAREER

- 100 confirmed alien kills

- 200 confirmed alien kills

- 400 confirmed alien kills

- Survive 30 missions

- Survive 60 missions

- Survive 120 missions

- Cumulative total of 100 healed fatal wounds

 

Thats all I could think of for now.

Gold

[mikker]

agreed.

 

Now, we just need some pictures of them...

 

...and where do they fit on the database screen???

[GreatGold]

Hey -

 

I think that the actual physical representation of them is the easy part. W could easily just havea button that brings up a new screen. This screen could be a close-up of either the Xenocide Standard Issue Battle Dress Uniform, or a more formal attire, superimposed on a pure black background.

 

The medals and ribbons would then just be placed on the uniform, as recieved, and whenever the player wants to view them they can just press the button and go to that view.

 

I think in terms of notifying the player of an operatives award, ribbon, etc - this could be done in the Mission De-Brief screen where promotions are usually noted.

 

Gold

[Nickisimo]

True...I don't know if you guys have ever played the original X-Wing or TIE Fighter games, but both games had a little "Medals" button that would showcase your char's achievements. I think in X-Wing it was an actual uniform pic with a sash, and in TF it was a box. Pretty cool though. Coming up with medals for the X-Net team to win would be kinda neat too.

 

"The Congressional Stun Rod of Honor"

[mikker]

yes.

 

 

-killing a mutton with the socom

 

-killing a battleship full of ethernals with 0 psi skill and strength....

 

 

or.......what?

[GreatGold]

Hey -

 

Some good news. I just spoke with stjones, breifly, and he said he was aware of this thread. I cought him at a rushed moment, so we havent discussed anything in detail, but he said he would keep an operatives database in mind when designing the code.

 

So who knows, this may actually make it into v1.0, which I feel it is very worthy of.

 

When he has some more time, we'll discuss it again.

Gold

[Kenshiro]

Here's an idea for the ribbons that would appear in the personnel jacket. We can work out the specifics of which one is awarded for what exactly, but the general idea is that ribbons are awarded for routine types of things and denote service accomplishments, whereas medals and other decorations are for exceptional things. I kept the suggestions throughout this thread in mind and I think we should have enough with this list for at least an amalgam of everyone's ideas.

 

Please let me know if any of these match up with real world decorations; I tried to avoid decorations that were exactly like real service medals. Of course, this IS only a game, but it'd be nice to keep things seperate.

 

Edit: Forgot to mention, Blood Cross is intended to act as Purple Heart-type dec.

[GreatGold]

Hey -

 

Those are some intense ribbons, would it be possible to simplify them a little? Perhaps larger blocks of colors, and less stripes? Or even some that ar a single color? Also, if you have photoshop, it would be really neat to see how they look with a "fabric-sih" filter.

 

Great work!

Gold

[Kenshiro]

Actually, I made these busy intentionally, as that seems to be the way of real ribbons. I think they look better that way when you stick them on the rack. Of course, I could redo them, but let's open it up to the forum.

 

I'm considering doing an actual medal version, for when they get presented to the player in a pop-up window ("Attention to orders - For conspicous gallantry, Jonas Dunlon has been awarded: Order of Riflemen").

 

Also, in my mind's eye, I picture an assembled rack in the personnel jacket that shows the name each ribbon as the player mouses over them including the devices.

 

By the way, here's a sample of what one of the ribbons might look like with a ribbon texture overlaid: