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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Something's Missing


SgtTim

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The game doesn't have biplanes either.

 

The reason why they never had shotguns in the first two games is because these games can only launch and track one bullet at a time. They're old games, so their game engines (and the hardware the games were built for) don't quite have the same oomph as some of the more modern games.

 

In the battlescape, it might not be immediately obvious, but you'll notice that only one action can happen at any given time (i.e. a unit moves, a unit reacts and everything else halts, only a single bullet is tracked across the screen). That's probably why automatic weapons only go as high as 3-round bursts. It's a reasonable number of bullets (in relation to the amount of ammo - which is quite low by real weapon standards) and you don't get tired of watching the weapon fire each and every bullet. (And before anyone says 3-round bursts for all weapons is unrealistic - stop for a second. Just because your sprite looks like the weapon is lowered after the attack, that's only because it is your default sprite look when you're not actively attacking anything, and it doesn't mean you've stopped firing if you plan to resume your move with another round of automatic fire)

 

 

A shotgun could probably send a fan of wild 10 metal pellets in a single shot. By the way the game's set up, it would've had to fire each shot sequentially. Can you imagine how long you'd have to wait for all the missed pellets to fly off the map?

 

Apocalypse is mainly constructed around a pausable real-time engine, so lots of objects can be updated at any given moment, even in its turn based mode. Unfortunately, the weapons can only produce bullets sequentially rather than simultaneously. That is to say, it can only be fired one after the other. Were you able to launch multiple bullets at the same time, then you'd be able to make your shotgun. If only we had the source code - this would indeed be possible.

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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Can't remember correctly, does the multibomb (geoscape vehicle weapon) launch only 1 purple missile (and that breaks up into several) or does it launch many small missiles in quick succession?

 

You could perhaps try hacking that for a shotgun, but it wouldn't look that cool I bet.

 

In TFTD, I consider the hydro jet cannon (you know, the thing that has 3 different ammo, explodes for a mild grenade effect -haven't played game in a long time so I can't remember) to be the equivalent of shotguns (although technically they are not, but they are very similar).

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  • 3 weeks later...

I don't think the multi splits up at all. Rack it up to one of the many things they wanted in Apoc that never made it. Not that it would be useful for you against the aliens if it did. They don't attack with swarms anyway. Not sure what they were thinking of with the alien missile weapons in Apoc. The only good reason to use missile weapons is so that light easily killed vehicles can continue to fire steadily while evading or from really far away with Justice missiles. Since the alien missiles won't fit on a hover car or a bike, the damage, range, and infinite ammo bennies of the medium and heavy disruptors makes aliens missiles junk.

 

Seriously, though, shotguns are for horror movies, cops w/ rubber bullets, and duck hunting. Why would a professional soldier choose a shotgun over an assault rifle or a rocket launcher. Don't get me wrong. I love John Wu, Parasite Eve, and Doom's take on the shotgun as much as the next guy, but unless it's a plot like Aftermath where you're scrounging for weapons, it doesn't really fit.

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