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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Surface Level


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How about, when you click on your base on the globescape you wouldn't be instantly taken into the underground layout of the buildings, but a surface view of the base instead. This view would have scenery matching the position of the base (pyramids in egypt, huts in africa and reindeer shepherds in finland for example :D) and day/morning/evening/night lightning depending on the current time. You could see life on the surface too, trucks driving in and out from the base, patrols guarding the perimeter, interceptors taking off and landing, and base defences shooting occasional unidentified flying object. :) You could also see and hear weather effects such as rain and thunderstorms. This screen could also be used to view some small bits of information concerning the base, for example number of soldiers, facilities etc.

 

Once you click on the base facilities button this view would fade away and would only reappear if you clicked the Base Info button.

pl__hup.jpg

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I love this idea. Plus, there has been talk of making base defenses as well as base attacks two parters, where the aliens have to fight their way to your access lift. This would fit in nicely with that, I think. Heck, it may even make it into V1.
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I fancy this idea too, though it would require quite some programming to make things you're talking about realistic in the sense they were not in Apocalypse (infinite amounts of vehicles entering/leaving a building, etc.). And it would be great to see the base defences shooting down crop dusters as unidentified objects :naughty:
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There is also the tactical challange of pulling back to your base if the aliens look like they're going to take the surface. Which then takes you to your origina; underground view with your men reloaded and repositioned as the alien's break down the doors.

 

 

And let's not forget that the reverse may be true. If your attacking an alien base.... :rolleyes:

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I don't know if it's needed for base view but I think base attacks should definately be at the surface level first and then go down as the aliens penetrate the base.
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Maybe a few extra challenges can be thrown in at the surface. Like, the invading battleship bombards the base with plasma cannon fire. You wouldn't want your guys getting blasted from the battleship, but you don't want the aliens destroying your base, either. Tough call.
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yeah. it could be done for v1 as a presentation thing. (see the top surface, then it fades to show the base). You could do this whenever you go to a different base, so it would have to be really quick. (probably optional).
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  • 5 months later...

If we do decide to show a little animation of the defenses firing we'd have to give an option of skipping it. After all, if you've seen one ufo get blown out of the sky, you've seen em all. :P (I am of course refering to the similar situation in UFO: Aftermath. Those animations got real old, real fast.

 

(It could just be one frame of the appropiate defense firing, and then the next frame showing either A: The ufo dodging, or B: The ufo getting hit)

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After all, if you've seen one ufo get blown out of the sky, you've seen em all. :P (I am of course refering to the similar situation in UFO: Aftermath. Those animations got real old, real fast.

Unless, of course, we don't use prebuilt animations but generate them at real-time (or at least during the flashy announcement of "Base attack!"), in which case they won't get old so fast (even then there should be an option to turn it off).

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I like the use of the word "simply".

camera scripting, object scripting, effects scripting, AI.........

 

Oh, I suppose camera and effects scripting would be a pain. I had remembered that you were planning to have a system to calculate damage to UFOs to simulate the crash and aerial combat damage, however, so I thought it wouldn't be much of a problem in that respect, as the code could simply be re-used. But yeah, the other scripting and coding would be a pain, unless it was the "hard" coding and not the scripting that the project was waiting on the most.

 

I'd have no problem with the AI for such an event simply being the effect of preset chances, like in XCOM. There's no need for anything fancy, but the effects scripting, lack of much effect on the actual game, and repetitiveness of such an idea probably makes it a bit of a low-priority suggestion. At the least, we should have the menu background show a render of the base-surface, and the defences firing. Maybe even of a UFO being hit.

 

There's also the possibility of avoiding this entirely and either removing defences from the game entirely, or using the UFO crash/UFO land mission schemes and mixing them with a map of the "base surface" to make both base defence and base attack be two-stagers. I think taking the latter option would be great if the Art team was well ahead of the programming team, (as it wouldn't take [m]any extra programming resources, right?) as a two-stager base defence would only depend on the surface art and the coding for a two-stager mission.

 

Any special controls relevant to only base defence, like which items to put in the selection pool if there's a lowish equipment limit, and which agents should be used could be added later at Programming's discretion...

Edited by 54x
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I find the whole idea Awesome!!

How about being able to see your base on the surface and underground while in Basescape!!

It always gripped me not to be able to familiarise myself with my cool base design when not under attack...

Terrific eye-candy, and real cool, immersing feel to it... :D

 

Showing generated Base defense shots would also be real cool, but probably post V1+...

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