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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Some Basic Thoughts


GreatGold

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Hey -

 

So I have noticed that this area of development is a tad bit slower than the rest, rightfully so at this point :) . But I'd like to see if anyone else on this board has an interest in this aspect of development. Since it seems that aim of the first release is more to emulate X-COM than improve it, a lot of this is already done...but there are definately some things I personally would like to improve on, and I'd like all your thoughts!

 

So A.) Who else is interested in this aspect?

 

B.) One of the larger things that would need to happen, at this very early stage, is a correlation of artwork and Research/Technology/Aliens/etc with the artists. So if an artist happens to read this, what are your thoughts and do you guys have any idea how far along this path you are? I'll post this to your forum as well.

 

C.) What types of improvements are there that people would like to see. The main types I can think of are research and technology interface (which has a lot of potential with the new 3D world you programers and artists are creating), and the actual tech tree and its application. In all honesty, I'd like to see what can be done with the first category to start with...since a lot of good ideas can sprout from that I think. Plus, it keeps with the goal of sticking true to the orginal X-COM-like atmosphere.

 

So, before I get way ahead of myself, I'd like to see some responces to this. Do you all feel that "screw-it, it was good in the orginal so lets not fittle" or more of a "lets go with it and see what fundamental improvements can be made (other than graphic-wise obviously)".

 

So, what ya think?

 

Gold

 

---

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

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LOL -

 

Thats the thing, I did read through it and there is no real way to know what is done, what is going to be done, what people want to be done, or who is really doing it. Other than with the graphics and programming, which seems to be right on. So yes, I did read, ESPECIALLY the FAQ :P , and no, not many of my questions have been answered.

 

Sooooooooooooo, point me in the right direction please?!

 

Thanks,

GOLD, not Goldie!!!! :rock:

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So A.) Who else is interested in this aspect?

 

To sey it on french: Moi.

 

 

B.) One of the larger things that would need to happen, at this very early stage, is a correlation of artwork and Research/Technology/Aliens/etc with the artists. So if an artist happens to read this, what are your thoughts and do you guys have any idea how far along this path you are? I'll post this to your forum as well.

 

We are making 3D stuff for the techs, and stuff of the original X-com. We are mostly looking at craft, at this point, but some of us, includes me :D, are working on the weapons. Nothing of the proposed tech have been made yet. A single or two aliens are there too.

 

 

C.) What types of improvements are there that people would like to see. The main types I can think of are research and technology interface (which has a lot of potential with the new 3D world you programers and artists are creating), and the actual tech tree and its application. In all honesty, I'd like to see what can be done with the first category to start with...since a lot of good ideas can sprout from that I think. Plus, it keeps with the goal of sticking true to the orginal X-COM-like atmosphere.

 

The envirement in X-com, was based on more or less sci-fic stuff, like lasers, and plasma weapons, not to forget aliens. Nowdays, stuff like that is out there, but it is not as in the game. Also the globe was ugly :P. I belive most people want nice grafics, and moddels, with nice textures, and stuff, while the more sciencetific players are more for the technology descriptions and such. If you happen to look at the "How elerium works" post, you could see what i mean with the second one :).

 

Anything else you want to know

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Hey,

 

Thanks for the info. But what I mean by interface is...there is a whole world of options on how to implement the actual research phase in Xenocide. Will it be identical to X-COM, or have som basic differences? Will there be more options, more techs, more categories of research...more WAYS of doing research?

 

Example, you like plasma rifles...so you research them..but you'd like them to be more ergonomic for better accuracy....if that could be added as an researc option (perhaps more money, time) you could make specific adaptations to your tactical squads...could be interesting...same for aircraft, etc.

 

I dont know if that made sense, I'm late for class as it is..;)

 

Thanks,

Gold

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Guest drewid

OK I see where you are coming from.

 

The drift seems to be to adjust the original rather than be too radical for v1.

Though everyone is up for improving stuff that could be better.

 

There is talk of adding a sickbay base facility, and having medics.

 

There has also been some thought on research, and when equipment becomes available. eg. flying armour should be later and more expensive, otherwise heavy armour isn't really worth making. The same for the lightning, perhaps should be bigger and faster to make it worth it, and making the avenger later too would also help that.

 

These are suggestions at the moment, nothing has been decided on, nor should it be till we can givre it a proper testing.

 

So to research biology you need to hire a biochemist and so on? I like that.

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Hey -

 

You just gave me a thought...

 

I really like your idea of needing a specific scientist for a specific type of research. Now, how about if you want a higher rated scientist in the field, you need to pay more. You want a nobel laureate doing your research, you gotta pay his/her price. Likewise, say you dont really care weather or not you have a stun bomb, so you stick some chum researcher on it (takes longer, but costs reasonably less). Not a huge deviation from X-COM, but could add some strategy to your research metheds.

 

Gold

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Interesting -

 

Yeah, makes sense. The same principles could hold true for engineers as well. It would make you plan out your research cost/benefit ratio and then production/benifit ratio to a higher degree.

 

And if the medics ever make it into the equation, perhaps this type of system would just be the norm for all indivuals hired for the cause...

 

The way I see it, is that the orginal X-COM was incredably immersive for its time, just lacking in the non-combat roles. This wasnt its main goal, though, so it makes sense. But if you played your cards right, being good at research and manufacturing management could be incredably helpful. It would be nice if this played a larger role. Perhaps not till after v1 or later, but something to think about.

 

I dont know how the coding is done, but it would be real nice if the coders worked such a way that the research aspect of the game was highly modable.

 

Gold

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Guest drewid

Yeah, but there aren't so many big brains around.

People with real skills are harder to find because they are rarer, as well as being more expensive. So maybe they don't turn up so often.

 

It's also possilbe to pay waaay too much compared to the "skills return", but that would be outside the scope of v1 I think.

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There have been a couple games where you have a recruit pool (I think Master of Orion was one of them), where there are several 'heros' available for a limited amount of time. They are rotated out with others heros say every month. So if you decided to customize the research/manufacturing aspect of the game to require specialists, you could use such a system, and then pay an extra fee to bring a person onto the payroll for that month. You get their benefit and could elect to keep them on as long as you like. Say you can have up to 3 at one time. And of course, they'd be somewhere in the base during a base attack, and could be hunted down and killed :devillaugh:

 

Since all this would require testing for balance and function, it would be version 1+, as anything that would possibly unbalance the game.

 

Stewart's comment that your questions may have been answered I think suggests that version 1 is going to be inspired by the original in that the same screens will be there, the same research will be there, just superficial things like names will be different. The research tree will have the same or very similar progression as well. There may be small tweaks like adjusting the speed/armor/capacity of the Lightning, or the research needed to build certain crafts as already mentioned. These are pretty small changes overall though.

 

One of the areas where we are not keeping up is with the sourceforge tasks, that is where all the progress and lists of who's doing what/what needs to be done should be kept. It should be linked to from here, but since that's where the code will be...

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Guest stewart

MAJOR game change won't be in the first version for two reasons:

 

1) It's A LOT more work.

2) They'd need to be tested. New ideas are easier to test when you already have a game to tweak.

 

Talk to Scott Jones stjones, it is possible that some of the ideas floating around may be testable using XcomUtil on Xcom. Or maybe easily added features to XcomUtil. For example I've asked him to complete the programmable reasearch tree option in XcomUtil (okay I shamelessly begged) anyway this will allow testing of many expressed ideas.

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I'll agree with Stewy here. :)

 

As far as I know our design spec for v1.0 is to recreate the atmosphere and feel of UFO with updated graphics and the defects in the game fixed. I think if we stray away from this we're going to get lost in development heck and nothing will get released. I know its a bit on the harsh side but we have to stay focussed on the plan.

 

Once we've got the game released and running, then we'll let the imagination run wild and see what we can come up with.

 

On a side note, which might be helpful to you Gold is to spend a couple of weeks reading everything in the forums (with the possible exclusion of the offtopic area, if you've a weak disposition). When I turned up I did just that and I ended up with a clear idea of what was going on. It's not so bad now as everything has been sorted into subforums and is pretty easy to digest. (Which wasn't the case when I arrived :))

 

Hope it helps :)

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Hey -

 

Yup, got it all under control now. There actually isnt that much to read at this point, thankfully, but I can only imagine what a new member would have to go through to "get up to date" in a few months.

 

I'm sure this is being taken care of though, so I'm looking foward to seeing th official organizational map.

 

Gold

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  • 1 month later...

I gotta afeeling this shouldn't be in this forum, but it says BASICS

 

Yeah I love the idea of stats prof/doc/nobel laureate on everyone so if you want hawking doing your work you have to make it worthit for him, heck he might not want money but some political event staged, which is of course where a decent political engine would add real fuel to the non-assualt half of the game. It might be that he cannot aggree to going dead silent and being totally withdrawn from the world so that no-one knows where he is.

 

Remeber x-com is a totaly secretive organization in the first one. and you can bet it had better stay that way. Here's a juicy bit of story line to say why, that could be included. If the aliens can do their bidding through scionic attacks and cause people to fight against each other in the cause of terrorism and religious extremism and destroy each other this way then taking over then world is easier for them (that so strangely sounds like now). If they keep their presence unknown to the masses and can expose you then the people will see (wrongly) that you are spending their money fighting a non existant enemy. And will call for your blood. Coming out in the open can only harm you. everything needs to be done through others agencies who don't know what you are really doing or why you are there, or know enough not to ask. You may need to protect yourself by knocking off memebers of the press who my inadvertantly expose you. You need these agencies, you need the world, but it cannot know about you because it wont accept you. going solo and not using the agencies/'friends' can be done but you will be severely limited. getting politcal supporting secretly (so hard!!) should be critical to success.

 

Here's the juicy thing. You may need to infiltrate other labs who you are working with to see if they are giving you good research and not crap to confuse you. You never know when the aliens will swoop down on one of our own and feed you, the press and the friendly lab exactly what the aliens want s to hear. Insidious and scary? yeah but so juicy!! I think this ought to be made as a randon element so that you don't know the story line if you play a second time. This would make it indefinitely playable.

 

It gets better, you could secretively secondarily infiltrate a friendly organization not to the knowledge of your first infiltrant (is that the word?), in order to see whos side the 1st infiltrant is on. Playing a game of truth and half truths, testing and checking everything, Can you see how much colour is added to the game here? Scary, juicy rich, on the edge of your seat. forget the geoscape, forget the assualt missions: who do you trust? who is on your side, who will fall first? who can be bought back, did you really buy them back or are they still under alien control? this kind of screwing with your head could add such a dizy rush to the game, especially when you generally get really good at kicking donkey in the assualt missions. kicking donkey is good a few times but it gets boring. no fear, no fun, why do you thinkn AVP is so popular? Certainly a fear of the unknown is what attracted me to the original xcom1. Cool eh?

 

Candidate for recruiting, don't know they are candidates. they might agree and then turn bad and run away. Maybe at this point you needs to use some "gov. agancies" like MIB's to "quiet" them or use a press agency to 'ridicule' them or debunk them. Scared? "you should be!" The dizzy rush comes from feeling like you are always on the edge of your seat. It is good to vary this with periods of ability to kick donkey, but then take it away again, and then return it with a new technology.

 

Sorry if this doesn't relate to the forum, if someone wise can put it in a better forum...

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Guest Jim69
I don't see why the recruiting from a pool of people and splitting research up into 2 can't be done in v1. It already was in Apocalypse and worked really well. I think everyone should look into all 3 games ( there are more I know but the others are crap ) for ideas of what worked and what didn't.
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  • 2 weeks later...
I don't see why the recruiting from a pool of people and splitting research up into 2 can't be done in v1. It already was in Apocalypse and worked really well. I think everyone should look into all 3 games ( there are more I know but the others are crap ) for ideas of what worked and what didn't.

I agree mostly, surely it cannot be tooooo much trouble to adopt an Apoc style interface with scientists, and even with other people(v1+). I am not a progammer, but surely a random generation sequence can be set up to pick numbers? But I do think that there should be a flat rate (like in Apoc) because that should just reflect an agency's fees, and you have to try and get the best people. In v1+ it would be good if contracts played a part? Haggling, strikes etc?

 

Also Interceptor was NOT, I repeat NOT a bad game. In fact it is the only one I have finished, so far. I do try Apoc from time to time, and have got very far with it. (by the way, has anyone annihiated the entire alien force in one go? :devillaugh: ) Also Alliance sounded good, until it was cancelled :explode:

 

Now I got that off of my chest I feel much better. :happybanana: :happybanana: :happybanana: :happybanana: :happybanana: :happybanana:

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