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Technology Tree (brainstorming)


gangsta

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Ok I deleted the old topic about the technology tree after having talked with RK and both of us agreeing that we need a technology tree that is diffrent. Anyway here from scratch is a technology tree brainstorming post. Please do not go too wishlisty here. We still want things like laser weapons, gauss guns, plasma guns too.
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Here's what I suggest:

 

First of all, it *might* be a good idea to make it so that plasma weapons can be used by your soldiers after they're researched, but not built. It would make sense that they're too complex for your guys to duplicate, and could add an interesting dimension to the game. Then again, this could really screw things up too. Still, it's worth considering.

 

Also require the heavy laser or laser rifle (not sure which) before getting plasma weapons. You should have to research plasma pistol/clip, plasma rifle/clip, and heavy plasma/clip in that order.

 

The heavy laser needs to be improved. It's practically worthless. I reccomend +10 damage, more accuracy, and maybe a tiny bit less TUs. Read the ufopedia description - does the weapon match it? Nope.

 

To make pistols more useful, give them all a semi-autofire (two-round burst).

 

Heavy plasma needs to be a LOT heavier, maybe 5% more TUs cost for firing, and maybe a tiny bit less damage. Then the plasma rifle would be a much more useful weapon.

 

Blaster launcher is insane. It should be reduced a ton in damage (like -70 or -80). Also increase the cost of its ammo, and require alien grenade and stun bomb/launcher first before researching it. Maybe three to five less waypoints too, and it should take a few more hits from a blaster launcher to blow open a ufo or flatten a house. Those things are unbalanced. The ability to give it a guided path is enough without the crazy amount of damage it does!

 

Laser cannon's range should be almost as much as the avalanche's. Does anybody put those things on their fighters right now?

 

Give the basic pistol a built-in flaregun, the ability to reaction fire a snap shot with the conventional pistol even if you have no TUs, and make it have a semi-autofire like I suggested before. Increase the range of the basic rifle a whole lot and its accuracy a little (doesn't the ufopedia refer to it as a sniper rifle?) If you combine these tweaks with not being able to manufacture plasma stuff, then conventional weapons, alien weapons, and plasma weapons could all become viable. That would be nice, wouldn't it?

 

Rocket launcher should get a new kind of rocket that you can research. This rocket should be about equal in power, raw destructive ability, and blast radius to the old blaster launcher, minus the waypoints.

 

 

This is a bit long and some of it might be too much of a change, but that's what I think should be done.

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Blaster launcher is insane. It should be reduced a ton in damage (like -70 or -80).  Also increase the cost of its ammo, and require alien grenade and stun bomb/launcher first before researching it.  Maybe three to five less waypoints too, and it should take a few more hits from a blaster launcher to blow open a ufo or flatten a house.  Those things are unbalanced. The ability to give it a guided path is enough without the crazy amount of damage it does!

Blaster launcher is supposed to be insane in damage, what we can leverage is the next:

 

First: You cannot replicate its technology, only use it... because of that you will be extra careful not abusing its power...

 

Second: The guiding system to be a little more fuzzy, or maybe do not let the ammo to change direction that easy in the waypoints. IE make them more difficulty to use them...

 

Greetings

Red Knight

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Pulse and beam weapons would probably be an expansion on the Laser field of technology, whereas I'm fairly sure it'd be hard to have a beam of projected plasma (let alone control it.)

 

Anyway, in my opinion, laser weaponry was seriously underrated in X-COM, more specifically, its accuracy. A laser is projected in a straight beam of light, and would realistically have no recoil. Plasma, while still projected in a straight line, would definitely have recoil (more so than a rifle,) considering the electromagnetic (or something else, maybe?) discharge that would be present in order to fire the superheated projectile without destroying the weapon.

 

On researching plasma, I never did understand why it was necessary to research the weapon before you were able to use it, as it works exactly the same way (in terms of picking it up and firing) as a rifle. It's like the scientists decided that they were going to be greedy and disallow the soldiers to use the equipment until they had their way with it (so they could, in turn, give the soldiers pages upon pages of technical briefs so that by the time they're done reading them, they'll have forgotten how to actually fire the thing.) I think researching certain alien technology (IE blaster bombs) should be necessary before using it, but plasma rifles and the like should be useable right off the bat, in my opinion. Research should gain you the ability to produce plasma (or at least make those blood-thirsty scientist guys happy,) but maybe not Blasters?

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I always was for being able to use the plasma before researching them too. There were other people who agreed with me but at the time the majority was against it. Although now it seems opinions are shifting in favor. My suggestion was that plasma weapons required research of a maintanace system or else they would become useless after a certain period of time. Like I said picking up a plasma gun during a mission is just added strategy that doesn't make the game any easier because when I play you can get killed trying to get to a weapon and alot of times when you do get there that guy is too far away from other aliens to be useful. So it isn't always helpful to pick them up during a mission so you would want to research them so your guys can start out a mission with them.
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Why call them plasma? As far as i know, plasma is something inside the body, with controls the blood flew. So why the hack use elerium??? Just chop some civilians to pieces, and drain them! A few more heavy plasma clips! :devilsmile:

 

What about *random science name* Ion weapons?

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Why call them plasma? As far as i know, plasma is something inside the body, with controls the blood flew. So why the hack use elerium??? Just chop some civilians to pieces, and drain them! A few more heavy plasma clips! :devilsmile:

 

What about *random science name* Ion weapons?

Plasma is the fourth state of matter, and also the name of the special torches used in cutting thick metal, I believe. The actual definition is as follows:

 

-(Physics) An electrically neutral, highly ionized gas composed of ions, electrons, and neutral particles. It is a phase of matter distinct from solids, liquids, and normal gases.

 

Needless to say, Plasma is extremely hot, and a blast of plasma will practically disintigrate most of what it touches. Considering Plasma weapons in X-COM are projected at high speeds (probably by using a complex set of electromagnets to contain it and prevent it from destroying the weapon,) it would work almost like a flaming arrow, only much more effective, and much more deadly.

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Maybe using unreserched weapon and unprepared to using by humans weapon will be modifying the character accuracy? Because of diffrent "point of balance" o greater mass of weapon or alien "interface" ? Only when you take weapon to the base the enginners will modify it and make it usable after sciencetists reserch it. The modifying will take aprox 1/8 time of building new weapon.
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I don't like the accuracy penelty for plasma weapons because it doesn't make sense logically. A gun is a gun and someone in a war that uses an M-16 should be able to pick up an AK-47. For Plasma I think it is penelty enough to try to pick up a weapon because it takes TUs getting there, TUs dropping a weapon and TUs picking one up. All those TU's could have been spent better otherwise in the heat of a battle and could end up getting you killed. For other weapons the penelty could be more creative like a stun grenade launcher you could make those stun grenades fragile so loading them without training could cause the ammo to go off if you try to load the gun. The guidence system on the blaster launcher is complex so the cause of trying to use it could be the input of random waypoints
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I'd like to be able to pick up the guns and use them too. Maybe put in a 1 in 6 chance 'gun explodes when trying to fire it' modifier when picking up unresearched alien tech. Because to be honset they are alien weapons and your average ground pounding stubble hopper isn't going to know wheter that trigger fires it or makes it explode.

 

In the fifth element, Zorg says something like "When X picked up the ZF-1 he immediately asked about the little red button" Boom :D

 

It'd add 'russian roulette' to pickingup alien weapons.

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:) well I just don't like doing things that don't make sense like a 1 in 5 chance of blowing up just because ya a player. Now that makes sense for trying to load a stunbomb launcher while trying to load it but a plasma gun should be simular to a laser gun which is simular to a regular gun. I would like to first see if being able to pick up a plasma gun right away gives the player any kind of advatage in a real game before thinking of penalties to give the play. Like I keep bringing up walking TUs, Droping TUS and Picking up TUs are pretty big penelties. shoot your turn can end just dropping a weapon and picking another one up without moving in the regular X-Com
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maybe add to soldier's statistics something like "luck"? low luck = BIG chance of kaboom, high luck = low chace of kaboom :D. this may also affect the chance of "critical hit" if of course we want something like that :). How about killing Muton with a single headshot? :)
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There's no such thing as "luck" (oh, i sneaked in another one :)), and if there were it should be universal, not limited to one soldiers stats.

I think "luck" already is there in the % to hit and such so there's no need for a new stat for the same thing.

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About the kaboomy thinggy, i don't think the aliens put self eksploding mekanisms, because they think: "We better put this very heavy alien granade inside, and a big red button, if those primates are acturly going to steal it" :blink:

 

 

Hmmm...What about new alien tech through time? It could be diffrent in the matter if difficulty.

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About the kaboomy thinggy, i don't think the aliens put self eksploding mekanisms, because they think: "We better put this very heavy alien granade inside, and a big red button, if those primates are acturly going to steal it"  :blink:

 

 

Hmmm...What about new alien tech through time? It could be diffrent in the matter if difficulty.

Why not? The viet cong did in the Vietnam war. Well not always a grenade but they used to put a small amount of explosives in the last three rounds of a clip.

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Well I think this "exploding weapon" is a great idea. Maybe the aliens have put a alien crenade (or something explosive) to the weapon so that it wouldn't become useless when you run out of ammo. If you run out of ammo, you push the red button and throw the weapon :P

That way it really COULD explode if someone tryes to use it without researching! And, why they don't learn from one explosion that the red button is a "selfdestruct button"? Because when the user pushes it, there won't be anyone to tell what happens if you push it :devilsmile:

That's just my opinion of course, great idea!

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I don't think the aliens would do that because they are arogrant and figure that us humans wouldn't be a problem when it comes to their weapons. If humans went Ape hunting ;) I'm sure they wouldn't add little red buttons in fear that the Apes might get a hold of the weapons.
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hmm but if the aliens see that they are fighting with quite intelligent race which is very curious they may add such things :). And this may be the surpise for most players. Because most of them feel that THEY are hunters ;). Aliens should be unpredictable. This will prevent from getting bored during the play. Alien tech also should be advancing during play and there shouldn't be the ultimate weapon. Heavy plasma can be a powerful weapon but it must have some disadventages. Aliens must also change they combat-style. If player uses only plasma then aliens armor will be modified to better resistance agains plasma etc.
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hmm but if the aliens see that they are fighting with quite intelligent race which is very curious they may add such things :). And this may be the surpise for most players. Because most of them feel that THEY are hunters ;). Aliens should be unpredictable. This will prevent from getting bored during the play. Alien tech also should be advancing during play and there shouldn't be the ultimate weapon. Heavy plasma can be a powerful weapon but it must have some disadventages. Aliens must also change they combat-style. If player uses only plasma then aliens armor will be modified to better resistance agains plasma etc.

Now this is an idea I like. Even if the aliens are arrogent (not seen that mentioned anywhere else or hinted at) they aren't stupid. It makes good sense to have saftey systems on weapons and military operations in hostile territory never leave any weaponry for the enemy to use regardless of whether it's enemy or friendly weapons.

 

If the aliens have been watching since before roswell they would have documented all our wars since then. They'd know our tactics from our conflicts. So they wouldn't be stupid enough to leave highly powerful weaponry way in advance of anything humans have just to be picked up and used.

 

Thats why alien weaponry needed to be researched before use in x-com I think.

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I don't think they would consider a plasma gun to be an advanced weapons. to them that's probably just like a regular gun is to us. Also using that logic they would make weapons explode because they don't want us getting our hands on the technology that would mean that they would be more likely to make UFO explode when captured than weapons since that is far more technologically advanced. In fact, any alien technology they would do build in an explosion mechnism. I'm sure nobody here wants the captured UFO to blow up after they kill the last alien. But that is the thing that would logically be more likely to have the self destruct than the plasma rifle which isn't that high of technology to the aliens.
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I don't think they would consider a plasma gun to be an advanced weapons.  to them that's probably just like a regular gun is to us.  Also using that logic they would make weapons explode because they don't want us getting our hands on the technology that would mean that they would be more likely to make UFO explode when captured than weapons since that is far more technologically advanced.  In fact, any alien technology they would do build in an explosion mechnism.  I'm sure nobody here wants the captured UFO to blow up after they kill the last alien.  But that is the thing that would logically be more likely to have the self destruct than the plasma rifle which isn't that high of technology to the aliens.

No you misunderstood. A plasma weapon to a human is an advanced weapon. They would see that and act accordingly. Why would an alien want some barely concious human just picking up their weapon and firing on their own men.

 

Simpler to stick to the formula of researching alien weaponry before being able to use it.

 

Yes they would set ufo's to self destruct hence why Ufo's don't stay on the map indefinitely in Xcom once they've been shot down.

 

As for the idea that the ufo would self destruct after the last alien dies, where did that come from? Any self respecting destruction mechanism is going to take time to set off especially if the craft was shot down. The systems would be damaged and they'd have to repair them before being able to blow the ship up. Not only that but the commander of the ship might have been wounded or killed on impact and wouldn't be able to set the destruct mechanism.

 

So if the player shoots down the ufo it wouldn't explode, certainly not in the way you describe which is just a way to deny the player access to technology. As I've said before a developer that does that is going to have a lot of annoyed players. Your argument holds no weight. It sounds like you're arguing for the sake of it.

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agree. It would be most fair to let the good guys get the weapons . But we could get a longer tech time, or perhaps, set the tech to like;

____________________________

plasma pistol___|________________

plasma pistol clip|--->--P concept------P reconstruction------P HWP/P cannon----UFO reconstruction

_____________.|________.||______

_________||____________.||______

______|plasma riffle___|___||______

______|plasma riffle clip|--->||______

______|____________.|___||______

________||_____________.||______

________||_____________.||______

heavy plasma___|_______...||______

heavy plasma clip|------>------||______

_____________..|________.||______

 

 

 

You must firste get one of the P weapons, and also the clip, before you can use them (after plasma concept) then the plasma reconstruction, to be able to construct them. The same thing is the small luncher (with should also carry some sort of attacking ammo), and the Blaster louncher (with could also use more then one type of ammo. If we are going to use diffrent types, then you should only need to reserch 1 type of ammo). The plasma line should also be used for the UFO reconstruction, along with the other stuff. The B luncher should also be used to do the Avenger (or what?)

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I don't think they would consider a plasma gun to be an advanced weapons.  to them that's probably just like a regular gun is to us.  Also using that logic they would make weapons explode because they don't want us getting our hands on the technology that would mean that they would be more likely to make UFO explode when captured than weapons since that is far more technologically advanced.  In fact, any alien technology they would do build in an explosion mechnism.  I'm sure nobody here wants the captured UFO to blow up after they kill the last alien.  But that is the thing that would logically be more likely to have the self destruct than the plasma rifle which isn't that high of technology to the aliens.

No you misunderstood. A plasma weapon to a human is an advanced weapon. They would see that and act accordingly. Why would an alien want some barely concious human just picking up their weapon and firing on their own men.

 

Simpler to stick to the formula of researching alien weaponry before being able to use it.

 

Yes they would set ufo's to self destruct hence why Ufo's don't stay on the map indefinitely in Xcom once they've been shot down.

 

As for the idea that the ufo would self destruct after the last alien dies, where did that come from? Any self respecting destruction mechanism is going to take time to set off especially if the craft was shot down. The systems would be damaged and they'd have to repair them before being able to blow the ship up. Not only that but the commander of the ship might have been wounded or killed on impact and wouldn't be able to set the destruct mechanism.

 

So if the player shoots down the ufo it wouldn't explode, certainly not in the way you describe which is just a way to deny the player access to technology. As I've said before a developer that does that is going to have a lot of annoyed players. Your argument holds no weight. It sounds like you're arguing for the sake of it.

If we are using the same logic then the Alien UFO could look for alien biosigns before deciding to explode or scan for human biosigns entering the UFO to explode. Usually aliens repair UFOs after a crash landing and then take back off after repairs are done. Having a timer based self destruct seems a bit primitive when the aliens could have the UFO self destruct whenever it is in danger of being captured. I don't think that the aliens are too woried about us getting a plasma gun. and then if it was booby trapped to explode by a human pressing the wrong button then it would be more likely that the weapons would self destruct as soon as the aliens owner dies if they really are that worried about humans getting the technology. I mean what diffrence does it make to the aliens if the humans gain the weapon on the battlefield or a few hours later at Xenocide HQ. when the scientist figures out the boobytrap and soldiers are informed on how to not make it setoff on the battlefield. Doing that requires alot less research than figuring out elerium and the inner workings of the gun. It's alot easier to crack a game's protection and play it than it is for you to write the same type of game is another comparison.

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One thing I want to know, are us humans so cheap that all we use is alien tech? Like come on, from all this advanced technology you think we would of thought up something creative? Like how about using those elecotro magnets to direct light from soldiers making them invisable, expect for maybe snake men (I talked about it earlier, have stealth suit replace armour, and only invisible if you diddnt move the previous round). There has to be somethings we can think of on our own.
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Well about cloaks that something that greatly unbalances the game for X-Com. I don't know how exactly you can balance the game with cloaks. :) We want the game to be somewhat hard and I'm for being able to pick up aliens weapons and using them right away but that would be something that needed to be tested before implementing. If it makes the game too easy then it shouldn't be used.
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We want the game to be somewhat hard and I'm for being able to pick up aliens weapons and using them right away but that would be something that needed to be tested before implementing.  If it makes the game too easy then it shouldn't be used.

I go for testing it, but my bet is that it will unbalance the game a lot.

 

Greetings

Red Knight

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Guest stewart

I don't care what the "official" tech-tree looks like as long as it is editable before play, that way if you don't like the default version you can change it. All that would be needed is:

*a way to "lock" the particular tree to a particular game,

*a way to "propogate and install" the personalized techtree "file" before multiplayer play.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest drewid

It was never worth really getting much into heavy armour IIRC. THe flying armour was relatively close and it was better to wait for that.

 

Perhaps the heavy armour should be slightly less protective, and the flying armout harder to research, and more expensive, perhaps even expensive enough that you'd want to have a squad mostly in "heavy", with just a couple in "flying"

 

Just to make heavy armour worth it y know?

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Check out my post in 'propose your technology' I've played around with armour and values in there. As for research times, I'd say make the flight suits really expensive, both in cost and scientist time and the power armour relatively cheap in comparison.
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For variety, the aliens could have weapons that they can use easily enough, but due to positions of triggers or maybe even a lack of a physical trigger a human can't fire easily in combat. You troops saw that it was used as a weapon, but have to bring it back home to have it researched, etc. Then the basic technology of it (plasma, etc) can be integrated into a new weapon familiar to humans, ie plasma rifle.

 

What about reversing the research based on this, so that the first plasma/laser/whatever weapon is a big, heavy weapon that takes more TU and strength to use, and as you research more you learn more efficient ways to implement it so your weapon can be smaller and more powerful. You can have to paths, one for power output and the other for miniaturization. So the ultimate weapon after lots of research would be a pistol with low TU that packs a powerful punch. The trade-off is the extreme cost in cash and manufacturing time for these items, which makes lesser tech viable unless you're rolling in cash, supplies, and engineers.

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Breunor, it seams cool. But instand of ending with a pistol, you could get a beta plasma, with really looks like something in the very early development. It would be heavier then a rocket launcher, and it would be proberly the power of proberly 20 - 50. It should have no auto fire. You have to have it into battle, and shoot at least ONE alien in battle (IE, no shooting rokiees :P). Then when you get BTB, you could have a text box, like when your reseach crew find new tech. Then you could start reaserching, like my plasma tech tree. It could be the same with laser.

 

BTW: It should take long to build it at the workshop, and cost alot. It would balance the deficulty, of getting HP at your first recovery.

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I'm thinking Psi-Capable aliens should have very powerful weapons that are only usable with psi powers. I'm not sure if psi can control matter, it might be limited to other 'creature's minds, in which case this might not work. If they could control matter, It would probably be easier for them to think "Shoot" rather than press a button, especially considering the two psi alien races are both physically weak.

 

Possibly instead of holding a psi-amp, the humans can have psi type things implanted in their brains. It will be expensive and take some time (like wound recovery time), but that would free the soldiers hands for other things, like killing aliens. It would most likely be reserved for only the most accomplished psi-soldiers.

 

Also, this isn't really too related, but maybe there could be a way to make custom ranks.

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The psi amp could be a modified helmet connected to a backpack for the power source/emitter. There was talk about adding a targeting helmet for the blaster launcher, this would prevent you from using both without swicthing them. But you'd free up your hands. If the psi powers only affect living things, just embed microscopic creatures into all matter, and then you control them and they affect the matter for you. It worked for George Lucas, right? If the aliens are from a galaxy far, far away; and they left there a long time ago; by now they'd be getting here, so that would work just fine! :rolleyes:
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I'm thinking Psi-Capable aliens should have very powerful weapons that are only usable with psi powers. I'm not sure if psi can control matter, it might be limited to other 'creature's minds, in which case this might not work. If they could control matter, It would probably be easier for them to think "Shoot" rather than press a button, especially considering the two psi alien races are both physically weak.

 

Possibly instead of holding a psi-amp, the humans can have psi type things implanted in their brains. It will be expensive and take some time (like wound recovery time), but that would free the soldiers hands for other things, like killing aliens. It would most likely be reserved for only the most accomplished psi-soldiers.

 

Also, this isn't really too related, but maybe there could be a way to make custom ranks.

Maybe to be able to actually mind control each of the alien races, the player has to research both the alien corpses and live aliens. That would give researching dead aliens a use in game. Why dead aliens? Autopsy on the makeup and structure of each alien brain. Live alien research? Guinea pigs.

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I would like to write my ideas about technology and game (sorry if posted in wrong topic) I think xenocide should have realistic technologies and mixed human alien technologies. In ufo we had realistic technologies becouse some of the techologies were purely human like laser weapon. Ufo we had also alien technologies like plasma guns but this technologies were not purely alien.Humans were able to understand the way they are working and would develop them without alien "help". Problem was that humans were lacking few key items like elerium.

So my idea is to create realistic technology and purely alien technology. Realistic technology should be a technology created in purpose to counter alien technology but using human way of thinking and inventing.Base for this technology should be a knowledge gained by examining alien technology.

Another thing should be an alien technology, obtainable, reserchable but not buildable by player.(buildable or not this depends of game balancing and other things).So you should be able to use alien blasters but you can't build them.

 

Now i will explain particular technology regions and game ideas

 

AIRCRAFTS.

 

1.Should have weapons (weapon hard points)

-not guided weapon like machine guns , lasers , plasma, gausse gun, and so on

Guided

-various missiles, small tactical nuclear weapons, antimater missiles .

using nuclear weapons should lower your prestige in contacts with united nations.

 

2.Armour

titanium ,fuleren armour, active and passive armour , camouflage, force fields

 

3.energy production unit or fuel

aircraft fuel, rocket fuel,nuclear plant,thermonuclear plant, antimater plant

 

4.Airship engine

rotor engine, jet engine,rocket engine antigravity engine, laser engine

 

So plane with nuclear plant can fly using rotor drive or jet,rocket drive or antigravity drive.

 

Of course for simplicity you can merge fuel with engine so for example you can say that antigravity engine is only driven by antimater or you can create in game two separate hard points for fuel and engine.

Using nuclear engines should lower your prestige in contacts with united nations becouse every plane crash would polute land.

planes fueled by rocket,jet fuel should have very limited range. thermonuclear , nuclear, antimater planes should have almost unlimited range.

So fuel should be responsible for range of the plane, cost of fuel.

Engines should be responsible for speed and agility of planes, energy for some weapons and force fields

5 Other hardpoints like transportation space, radar,ecm

 

BASE

1 Powerplant

coal plant, nuclear plant, thermonuclear plant,, antimater plant.

Every building in base should need some level of energy and some hi tech buildings should need for example antimater plant.

Alien commando atacking you base should try to destroy power plant to destroy whole base.

There should be a few version of plants for example antimater plant lv 1 , antimater plant lv2, lv3. More advenced power plants should give more power and should be armoured against weapons

 

2 other buildings

Few levels of radars , few levels of medical rooms (higher levels should heal your men faster)

weapons, armouries - some weapons need special way of storeing and it would be fun if aliens would blow out the armoury

few level of research centers- newer would research faster

......

MAP

You should be able to lunch space satelites, and it should be possible that armies of various countrys could take off alien crafts without your help. So then you should only lunch crash site mission.

 

Aliens

Aliens should have been created for special battle conditons becouse they are send to earth to do special missions like -terror, spying ,assault , commando ,revenge and so on. in

special environment -Water aliens , desert aliens , night aliens , psi aliens

 

Soldiers

Should have various weapons , psi technology or even biological enhantsments (using alien dna)

armours - cevlar jacket , metal and composite armour (without any mobility enhantsment, exoskeleton armour, exoskeleton armour with fields, antigravity exoskeleton with fields.

Night vision and targeting equipment

 

This are my general ideas

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There's a lot of good ideas presented there, but I think many of those items should be considered for after version 1 due to all the balance issues that would have to be tested. I think it would be relatively easy to have modified models depending on the technology being used. For example, upgrading the weapons on an interceptor would change the model to show the different weapon pod. So as long as enough modellers are available, things like that should be possible.
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I was going to say more or less the same thing, there are good snippets here... but mostly whishy. Mav can you add the post of at least the features to in a "Wanna check after V1 stuff" kind of document...

 

Thanks

 

Greetings

Red Knight

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Rather than make a suggestion for new technology or equipment, I would like to propose a different way of representing the research tree and production tables. A few years ago I added a page to my XcomUtil Homepage which described what would now be called an Open Source game framework called ZUGS (Zalbahr Universal Game System). Xenocide is to Xcom what ZUGS was to ISC, a way to recreate ISC without violating my contract which prohibited me from ever creating another product based on ISC or even its documentation.

 

In creating ZUGS, I defined a system for representing all the relationships between all of the objects in the game. I have been planning to rewrite it using XML if I ever got back to working on that project, but I never have. You can access the ZUGS High Level Design using this link. The section entitled "Creation/Junking/Use/Building/Destruction Lists" is the place where the definitions are described. Basically, those five lists define what happens during each of those operations. Each list is further defined in terms of lists of preconditions and items consumed, produced, destroyed, and created, in that order.

 

I implemented this logic engine in C++ about 10 years ago, when I created a working prototype of an ISC personality for ZUGS. If the group is interested, I can provide examples of the complete ISC personality definition. Then if you like, I could port it to Xenocide. Do you see what happens when an employer finally unchains a rabid programmer after almost 30 years?

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We had been talking about doing the research tree more user modable via a XML like system, the same for the X-Net (aka Ufopaedia :erm: ).. So post whatever you think it can be useful... At least I personally would like to take a look at the system...

 

Greetings

Red Knight

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OK, here are the pertinent parts, taken directly from the ZUGS high level design document. It may be a little overwhelming at first, but it gives you the ability to define virtually any relationship among any set of items, including by-products and random side effects. A "pool" in ZUGS terminology is any repository for items, like the hold of an aircraft or the general stores of a base. I have Java class definitions for all of these things. Most of the lists for most items are trivial, but they can be as complicated as necessary to achieve your goals. Converting this to XML should not be difficult. I just never got around to doing it, since I never got any volunteers to work on ZUGS with me. I was going to look at it again after I retire, which I am eligible to do in another 437 days, not that I am counting.

 

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Creation/Junking/Use/Building/Destruction Lists:

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Five lists and a priority can be defined for each of the creation, junking, use, building, and destruction actions of every item. These lists define the conditions and effects of the automatic creation, ordered junking, automatic use, ordered building, or automatic destruction actions.

 

Creation lists are consulted whenever an item is created, either as the result of a normal automatic action or as a by-product of some other action.

 

Junking lists are consulted whenever items are sold, dismantled, or removed as a result of a player's orders.

 

Use lists are consulted whenever an item is used. To be used, an item must be marked as usable.

 

Building lists are consulted whenever an item is purchased, mounted, or installed as a result of a player's orders.

 

Destruction lists are consulted whenever items are automatically destroyed, either as the result of a normal automatic action or as a by-product of some other action, such as combat.

 

Condition lists define the conditions that must be true before creation, use, or destruction can begin (like the presence of required technology or the absence of excess objects of the same type). See the format of condition lists for more information.

 

Consumed items must be present to be consumed in the creation, use, or destruction of the target item (like a fully-charged power pack for a weapon). The target item itself must be listed as a Consumed item for Destruction actions.

 

Produced items are the by-products of the creation, use, or destruction of the target item (like a depleted power pack for a weapon). The target item itself must be listed as a Produced item for Creation actions.

 

Destroyed items are like Consumed items, except that their own destruction lists must be satisfied before they can be destroyed. If these conditions are not satisfied, the Destroyed item is not consumed and the target item is not created, used, or destroyed.

 

Created items are like Produced items, except that their own creation lists must be satisfied. If these conditions are not satisfied, the Created item is not produced.

 

When processing actions, the lists are used in the following order:

 

The ?Pri= determines the priority and phase during which the action will occur. Except for the automatic creation and destruction of items as a by-product of other actions, all operations occur only during their defined priority and phase. The phases are named for the actions they follow, such as BMV and BST, for BGNMOVE and BGNSTEP, respectively. The priorities within each phase range from 0 thru 999, with a default of 500. Step ACT operations are never executed automatically, only as the result of other actions through the use of the ?Cre= and ?Des= lists defined below.

 

The ?Cnd= list is evaluated first. If the conditions are not met, the action terminates.

 

The ?Cns= list is evaluated as another condition list. If these conditions are not met, the action terminates.

 

The amount of free space in all available pools after processing of the ?Cns= list is computed.

 

The ?Prd= list is evaluated to determine if there is enough space in the the available pools to hold the produced items. If there is not enough space for all of these items, the action terminates.

 

The ?Cns= list is consulted and the items are consumed.

 

The ?Prd= list is consulted and the items are produced.

 

A Destruction action is attempted for each item in the ?Des= list. The success or failure of any given attempt is ignored.

 

A Creation action is attempted for each item in the ?Cre= list. The success or failure of any given attempt is ignored.

 

Note that by careful use of ?Cnd= you can select a range of valid values, since ?Cnd=XYZ*2 actually tests XYZ >= 2 and ?Cnd=!XYZ*2 tests XYZ

 

 

Action Lists:

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ActionLists consist of entries of the form:

 

[prob%][!]itemid[.owner][*[mult][*refid[.refowner]]]

 

where:

 

prob is the probability the entry is used. The default is 100%. This feature is used to distribute random items like renegade vehicles and plagues.

 

! indicates that the truth value of the entry should be negated. If this is used in a ?Prd= list, it indicates that this is a message.

 

itemid selects the item to be used. If itemid is an itemattr, it refers to any item with that attribute. If ! was specified in a ?Prd= list, the itemid is interpreted as a message id.

 

owner indicates that only items of the specified owner are to be considered. The default is the current player. For example, XYZ.ABC represents an XYZ owned by ABC.

 

mult is the number of items to be used. The default is 1. If num is 0, an infinite number of items is used.

 

refid is the itemid of the reference item. If refid is an itemattr, it refers to any item with that attribute. The number of reference items found is used as a multiplier for num. For example, ABC**XYZ refers to the same number of items of ABC as there are items of XYZ and ABC*4*XYZ refers to 4 times the number of items of ABC as items of XYZ.

 

refowner selects the owner of the reference item. The default is the current player.

 

Since the pool of an item cannot be selected, only items in the current pool are considered. Only items from the current vehicle, the current location, and the current player can be considered unless the items are mounted on some vehicle.

 

Condition Lists:

----------------

 

A condlist is a special kind of itemlist where each list entry has a value of true or false. All entries separated by commas have an implied logical AND performed on them. A double comma (,,) is used to separate sublists which have an implied logical OR performed on them. A list entry of RND*nn is true nn percent of the time, where nn has the same meaning as in an itemlist entry.

 

Count Lists:

------------

 

CountLists are simplified lists which merely record the existence of items using entries of the form:

 

key[*mult]

 

where:

 

key identifies the item present.

 

mult is the number of items. The default is 1.

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  • 2 months later...

This thought was in reference to why the player gets to research plasma tech out of order, and how it leads to the player jumping straight to heavy plasma. Some suggest a plasma tech first, then each of the three weapons, similar to the laser field. But since you have plasma samples, the conceptual tech entry isn't needed, you just reverse engineer the plasma stuff. My proposal for getting the player to start with the pistol first is to have a reduction in research time based on how many items in that field you've already researched. For example, say it takes the following in total hours to research each:

Plasma Pistol=7000

Plasma Rifle=25000

Heavy Plasma=50000

For each item you've already done, you get a 10% reduction towards the following plasma entry. So If you research pistol, then rifle, then heavy, you'll save 2500 hours on the rifle, and 10000 hours when you do the heavy plasma. Unless you never research the smaller items, this is the way to go. The player can still jump straight to the heavy, but loses the overall bonus.

 

To further encourage this, perhaps you require all 3 be done before plasma defense/cannon/HWP can be researched? Or you also give the bonuses for those items. This is balanced by increasing the number of hours needed to normally research the plasma tech significantly. It will take such a long time to research that the player will do the pistol or rifle first, just to get it done and be able to use something. Once a player knows this is the most efficient research order, they'll typically use it. Another comment made was to space out the introduction of each plasma tech in the battlescape. Have the pistols show up for a few weeks, then the rifles for a few weeks, etc.

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I like the reduction idea...it's realistic, and has the appropriate gameplay effect. I'd suggest for cannon/defense/HWP that only the largest must be researched prior to them, but that the reduction is only in effect if all of the lesser items are researched. SO using Bruenor's numbers:

 

You ignore the pistol and rifle, and jump straight to the heavy plasma. 50000 man-hours later, you have access to the cannon branch (which will take another 50000 hours), for a total of 100k hours to get to the plasma cannon (the most effective craft weapon).

 

Now, if you did it step by step, you'd get:

 

7000 (pistol) [base cost]

22500 (rifle) [25000 - 10%]

40000(Heavy) [50000 - 20%]

35000(Cannon) [50000 - 30%]

 

Total = 104500

 

Only slightly longer for all than for just the last two. You could even make the clips worth a couple percent too, and that would probably make it faster to research everything step-by-step than to jump ahead.

 

-The Captain

 

Edit: by the way, is there a formal, maybe finalized tech tree around somewhere?

Edited by Cpt. Boxershorts
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