Multiple Interceptors Engaging A Single Ufo

[fracture]

There is a youtube good video of how X-COM worked when more than one interceptor attacked the same ufo:

 

[[Mad]]

So you are volunteering to write a patch that allows this?

[fracture]

So you are volunteering to write a patch that allows this?

 

Kinda, sorta, maybe.

 

I noticed discussion about it in one of the other threads. People didn't seem to know how it had been done. I wanted people to take a look, and then decide if the same thing makes sense for Xenocide, or if the UI should be different. I was also curious if Zombie or someone knows what is actually happening while the Aeroscape is maximised. Does time pass? If so, how fast?

[[Mad]]

So you are volunteering to write a patch that allows this?

 

Kinda, sorta, maybe.

 

I noticed discussion about it in one of the other threads. People didn't seem to know how it had been done. I wanted people to take a look, and then decide if the same thing makes sense for Xenocide, or if the UI should be different. I was also curious if Zombie or someone knows what is actually happening while the Aeroscape is maximised. Does time pass? If so, how fast?

A different UI might be desirable, but anyway, the UI for the Aeroscape is far from done...

And, to answer your question, yes, time passes when one interceptor is minimized and the other has not yet reached the UFO. Time passes as fast as you have selected previously, before engaging the UFO, which usually would be the "5 sec" setting. As soon as the second (or third or whatever) interceptor engages, the time is holded again, and you can highlight the previously minimized intercepting window of the other interceptors. Anyway, you can re-open the minimized interceptor windows any time of your liking.

[kafros]

When at least one Aerospace screen is maximized, the game is paused. If they are all minimised, time passes as normal. Just look at the wonderful video you posted, time: 1:07 . That's what happened in UFO: EU, and that's what Xenocide does at the moment

 

Concerning the UI, nothing is standard, it can be changed to fit our needs.

 

You can see my naive try here:

http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?sh...st&p=174463

http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?ac...ost&id=9990

 

They'll possibly confuse you more than help, but give them a try and comment plz

 

edit:

I re-read the posted picture and there are some errors there, pass them by *shy*

Edited May 13, 2008 by kafros

[[Mad]]

Concerning the UI, nothing is standard, it can be changed to fit our needs.

 

You can see my naive try here:

http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?sh...st&p=174463

http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?ac...ost&id=9990

ahh, but you are missing the "Attack causiously" option. However, I guess we are miles away from having different attack modes, or are we not?

Buttons and indicators on the UFO:EU Aeroscape:

 

Edited May 13, 2008 by Mad

[fracture]

When at least one Aerospace screen is maximized, the game is paused. If they are all minimised, time passes as normal. Just look at the wonderful video you posted, time: 1:07 . That's what happened in UFO: EU, and that's what Xenocide does at the moment

 

Concerning the UI, nothing is standard, it can be changed to fit our needs.

 

You can see my naive try here:

http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?sh...st&p=174463

http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?ac...ost&id=9990

 

 

Yes! Those are the pictures that partially prompted this thread.

 

I very much like the idea of having more than one craft on the one screen. I was worried that you were suggesting that the interceptors should "queue up" and fight one at a time. Reading it again, that wasn't your intention.

 

However, I guess we are miles away from having different attack modes, or are we not?

 

Yes, I think you're right Mad. I suppose making the existing system real-time is one of the earlier steps to take. No harm in revising the UI though, either.

[[Mad]]

No harm in revising the UI though, either.

No, absolutely not, and, if you would like to start with that, don't worry about having buttons that are not working. We have had those before, and so what, we'll have them again. So if you would like to get started with the UI rather than making the interception screen realtime, get started with that - but I guess it wouldn't harm if you would consider working on both... I guess that would make things much more efficient and easy... But that's just me - dteviot has to make the calls...

Edited May 13, 2008 by Mad

[Darkhomb]

Technically it is in real time if you choose the advance in real time option. It just needs to be converted graphically. For instance when it says miss have a 3d missile or bullets fire past the UFO etc.

 

I do not think we are that far off on aeroscape. It has the basic code. Really the different modes of attack just move the craft to a different range allowing it to stay out of UFO range or allowing a short range weapon to be used.

 

(This is not counting multiple crafts, that is farther down the road)

Edited May 13, 2008 by Darkhomb

[[dteviot]]

No harm in revising the UI though, either.

No, absolutely not, and, if you would like to start with that, don't worry about having buttons that are not working. We have had those before, and so what, we'll have them again. So if you would like to get started with the UI rather than making the interception screen realtime, get started with that - but I guess it wouldn't harm if you would consider working on both... I guess that would make things much more efficient and easy... But that's just me - dteviot has to make the calls...

I'm willing to consider all suggestions on how to get the Aeroscape working. And will accept anything that sounds reasonable.

Note that having one aircraft "shadowing" a UFO while waiting for another aircraft to get close enough to do a combined attack on the UFO is probably going to need changes to the aircraft state machines. And that the UI engine does NOT support multiple simultaneous active dialogs.

[[Mad]]

I'm willing to consider all suggestions on how to get the Aeroscape working. And will accept anything that sounds reasonable.

Note that having one aircraft "shadowing" a UFO while waiting for another aircraft to get close enough to do a combined attack on the UFO is probably going to need changes to the aircraft state machines. And that the UI engine does NOT support multiple simultaneous active dialogs.

We have had many discussions about how to design the aeroscape. We have considered a Battlescape-like design, a mini game, even a "X-COM Intercepor" like approach was discussed, but I guess for now, we would do best to just stay the way UFO:EU did it.

About the UI not supporting more than one active dialog: I am not sure if this is necessary, there are several possibilities to handle this:

• a squad based approach, that is, a second interceptor just joins the first one, and effectively doubles his hitpoints and adds his weapons to the pool, but the squad is commanded like one aircraft (cheap but effective)
  
• a single fighter approach, where the UI dialog gets extended once a new fighter joins
  
• a hybrid of those two, where we already have (greyed out) buttons to command up to four fighters and a small status indicator for each fighter in the dialog, but only one "radar".
  

[[Mad]]

I do not think we are that far off on aeroscape. It has the basic code. Really the different modes of attack just move the craft to a different range allowing it to stay out of UFO range or allowing a short range weapon to be used.

I think the different attack modes also modify the hit probability for both, the Interceptor and the UFO. Not sure though, I guess we'll have to run this by Zombie.

[Zombie]

I ran some tests on this scenario a very long time ago, but only against UFO's. Basically I was after the "true" firing accuracy of X-COM ship weapons against the different types of UFO's. I only tested on Aggressive attack though. Results indicate that the size of the UFO plays a role in the chance to hit%.

 

To answer your question about attack modes though, the mode doesn't (AFAIK) affect ultimate accuracy of a ship weapon. But it does affect the number of shots which you can get off in a static time frame. For example, if you are able to get off 10 shots on Cautious, you might get off 15 on Standard and 20 on Aggressive (highly generalized and not tested yet). This is because the weapons fire at different rates depending on mode. I don't think UFOs have different attack modes though - only one.

 

- Zombie