94 replies to this topic

[hippyjon]

just a little idea, you could have a red-alert button in your base, so if you think a ship is coming to attack you then you press the alert and all you scientists and people bugger off to safety. if not, then they are still around the place and liable to get a slaughtering

[c4t]

or we could have the game do that for us because some peoples point and click skills are so bad that they cant press buttons under pressure.



edit: actually, i like the idea of the scientists being there though. i think they should somehow be involved. i heard in apoc you could make them help you kill things. we shoudl do that

Edited by c4t, 23 June 2003 - 09:34 PM.

[mikker]

living shields?

[Breunor]

That's one of the ideas for v1+. To make base defenses more like terror sites, with helpless scientists and engineers. If they are killed, you have to replace them after the fight. Eventually there could be facility damage that would require repairs after a fight as well.

[mikker]

hmmm.....yeah... How many of them should run arround? 1 for each factery, minus hangars, and the acess lift?

What if you shoot a missile? :o


EDIT: hehe...got an idea for a easter egg....what about, if you have an unfinnished factury, that it shows up semi-build, and unconnected, in the battlescape? You would have to blast your way in there!

Edited by mikker, 24 June 2003 - 12:37 PM.

[hippyjon]

EDIT: hehe...got an idea for a easter egg....what about, if you have an unfinnished factury, that it shows up semi-build, and unconnected, in the battlescape? You would have to blast your way in there!

yeh that kind of thing would be cool. i never felt like the bases in tftd were real living bases, just another place to have a fight they seemed. stuff like that could make all the difference.

[Deimos]

I always figured that when a battleship attacked, your scientists and engineers hid or ran off down some secret tunnel. however the interceptors and transport craft are never there so I guess they hitch a ride on them.

How about when a battleship attacks and is successful the lighting changes. Surely those huge ships would cause some serious damage to the base so I reckon there should be lots of sparks and flashing overhead lights to represnt the electricity supply being damaged in the attack. That would be pretty atmospheric especially if the base is well lit in the baseview.

[GreatGold]

if you think a ship is coming to attack you then you press the alert and all you scientists and people bugger off to safety.

Hey -

I actually really like that idea. I mean, there have been many times when I see a "large" UFO fly directly over my base... And when we impliment the engineers and scientists as in-battlescape for base raids, I think you should have a chance to get them out of there. The down-side should be, that if you guessed wrong, you loose a day or two of production and research, for your scientists and engineers to get settled back in.

Gold

[Aosar]

Hi there I'm new and blah blah blah...

Down to bisness...
I recently - after reading a little on these wery boards - started to wonder why are the X-Com bases so poorly designed... Survailence at all, think about it, what kind of a military facility is has no security cameras or movement sensors? In gameplay terms these could be accessible from securityconsoles, from some special equipment or from a specified security station. These could be easily balanced and would also bring a bundle of intresting features with them...

-Aosar

[hippyjon]

the whole thing about base attacks is that they are really really nasty missons to have, if you loose, you loose the game or at least the base. if you could see where the aliens were then that would make it not tense at all....

unless we had it that the aliens generaly attacked your base in large numbers and could sometimes break through somewhere else unexpected during the battle

[GreatGold]

Hey -

We've explaned this phenomenom in the CTD boards. The basic idea is this: when the base was designed, it was in fact as high tech as possible. All the designers and programs were top notch, the best the world had to offer. From artificial sentinent software and automated weapons posts to seismic sensors. So, they said, feel safe.

Then the aliens attack, and somehow, they have shutdown these systems. You get an addendum added to the facilities X-Net entries, sopmething to the tune of "Wooooops, we don't know what went wrong, we are looking into it! Sorry...."

So, the game balance is kept, and no one has to wonder why you didnt have all these fancy smancy base defense systems.

Gold

[Aosar]

Then the aliens attack, and somehow, they have shutdown these systems.

Hmm, maybe, but still you should be able to reboot it... Oh yes! They should be bootable. Well, I must admit that I didn't go into that as much as I intended to...
What I had in mind was that you can scan certain facilities in the base, but only a few at the time, depending on the level of the survailance system and that ofcourse could be updatable trough research. And not to make it too easy the systems should be only bootable manually from security stations whitin the facilities themselves, aliens should also be able to deactivate the systems should they reach these security stations. And yes, the access to the survailance system should be confined to specific facilities.

I still have few more ideas to tell, but I'll save them for later...

[hippyjon]

hehe, forgot about that Gold, its a good idea, funny but not too silly to be taken seriously. still like my idea though...

[c4t]

let r be saying that you tried to scan a room and it says "security scanners have been disabled" lets think for a minute. hmmm, those scanners probly just shut off by themselves, there are no aliens in there, LIES, ALL LIES. though, the idea of base defences is actually cool.

[Micah]

The 'excuse' for the security systems failing that GreatGold posted is the one that we will be using to explain why you can't see the aliens. You will be able to see the design of your base, but the fog of war will hide anything that your soldiers' lines of sight can't see. We've also discussed being able to see at least the outlines of buildings in the terror site missions (you'd have a map of the city, wouldn't you?) but we will probably leave those missions in the black, too, to increase suspense.

[Kexpakki]

If you dont want to see the Aliens you can just say they had EMP and blamo all your systems are down.
But if you want to have them you can say they were deactivated with a EMP or something and you have to activate every camera manually. that way you will only see rooms you have enterd

[Puasonen]

nah, it's better left as it was.. you only see aliens your soldiers see. that way the intense is better and the game is challenging.

The "aliens shutted down all security systems somehow" theory is good enough excuse for this..

[c4t]

those aliens are trickey ones arent they now? :happybanana: :wink:

[dipstick]

Going back to the turrets, the ones in Apoc did it well. They were capable of holding the entire alien force at bay for a little while, not really killing many, but gave you the opportunity to get your men there to kill the aliens. Of course you had to build specific security stations to do this, plus they looked cool.

[j'ordos]

Only trouble is: they were absolutely worthless in turn-based mode
I didn't really care for the lack of security stations/cameras in the original. I was just grateful the aliens hadn't any notion of base security either...

[GreatGold]

Hey -

I like that comment. I'm putting it in my notes for the Alien Bases entry. That apparently Base Security never occured to them. Ir should make the entry more interesting.

Gold

[dipstick]

They'd be good just to locate the aliens!

[j'ordos]

I like that comment. I'm putting it in my notes for the Alien Bases entry. That apparently Base Security never occured to them. Ir should make the entry more interesting.

But that's when it gets complicated: if they don't know about base security, how come they have weapons to overcome OUR base security???

[dipstick]

Maybe they don't, they just crash into the aerial or something! ::

[j'ordos]

I was just referring to how it would be explained that base security would be offline.

Edited by j'ordos, 06 July 2003 - 01:53 PM.

[revenant4]

Duke Nukem tried to implement the security cameras in a game to see where your enemy might be...almost no one used them for fear that you'd get shot while staring at the camera...I think we should rely on sounds in the base more than some cameras...I also think it would make the game too off balanced for the aliens...we've got to get the buggers a chance don't we???

[Aosar]

Only way I can think of that the security systems could be shut down like in UFO is by hacking the system or inserting a virus in the system... For instance if you use EMP it should knock out all the systems, including lights and doors!

And about the doors, I wonder why you can't lock any doors in the game? But then again, if they could be locked that would require quite much advanced AI...

[c4t]

even if they were locked you could always get through with high explosive and plasma

i just got a kewl idea. next time aliens raid my base im goin gto mind controll the last one and put him somewhere where he cant escape, then im going to blow my base up with bb and high explosiavs

[Deimos]

As a battleship isn't just landing on the base, it'll be firing its versions of the plasma cannons all the way down. Therefore it'll casue all kinds of emp disruption as the plasma discharge would include EMP effects. So there's one explanation for why the base security cams are offline.

Another way is that there is always a weak point in any defence. The small 'hubcap' scout ufo doesn't only fly over to find the base but also any weaknesses in the setup.

With that in mind, the battleship would attack the electricity supply and backup generators, sending and EM pulse frying the security systems and taking out the electricity supply leaving the base in almost darkness for the attack.

So the player will get a dark base and fog of war to contend with when the tactical part kicks in and it'll explain why the player doesn't get lighting and security.

Maybe even a little cutscene vid instead of showing the battleship laying down curtains of fire on the base area. Think an ID4 kind of clip. That'd be instead of the little text display showing 'base hit' and so on.

[Aosar]

Maybe the soldiers could have a light strapped to their helmets or summint...

Reminds me of the shoulderlamp in AvP, scary... And creates a great atmosphere...

If the aliens knock out all the electric systems then the base should be really dark.

Doesn't really explain how the door still work, or are the doors on a different system and if the doors are on a protected system, why aren't the security stuff on it?

Unless ofcourse the doors work with some sort of hydraulic thingy that is easily opened when not powered, thus small TU use...

even if they were locked you could always get through with high explosive and plasma

That's what I meant when I said it would need advanced AI, so that the aliens would understand to blast the doors open! And that would cause all sorts of cinematique scenes!

[Aosar]

1. Yeah, but not so much so that it makes the game impossible, remember aliens can see in the dark. A lot of burning things inside base would look REALLY cool, almost like a candle lit base

Yes! Then you could draw a pentagram on the floor with the blood of the innocent and sacrifise virgins to the Lord of Darkness!!! Mwha wah wah waa!!!

Um... Sorry about that...

Anyways, the base should be dark, but not completely pitch black, maybe littered with those red 'emergency' lights. And that combined with the shoulderlamps - or whatever the x-com/xenoside operatives use during night missions - the base would be dark, jet not too dark...

[j'ordos]

Yes! Then you could draw a pentagram on the floor with the blood of the innocent and sacrifise virgins to the Lord of Darkness!!! Mwha wah wah waa!!!

There are no innocent people in an xcom-base. They're all responsible for killing aliens (or even civilians, on purpose or not ), either directly or indirectly.
They could use the blood of those aliens though, take pictures of it and mail them to the nearest alien base That should either get them berserk OR they wouldn't feel like attacking your base ever again

Edited by j'ordos, 07 July 2003 - 11:25 AM.

[GreatGold]

Hey -

All this talk about the bases has got me thinking. Perhaps we should have another "Alien Research" entry, that wasn't in the orginal game. Yep, "Base Raids" could be its category, and when researched... perhaps from a soldier... it would clear up all these questions (or give the person more of them)? It would be a nice entry, and I always felt there weren't enough of that type anyhow.

Gold

[c4t]

gold! thats a brillaint idea. there werent many entries explaining alien behavier at all, not as many as tftd. you guys should write as many as you can

[Tain]

I would also add, that perhaps the propulsion side effects (magnetic fields, wave anomolies, what have you) of such a large ship hovering directly over ones base, may have an adverse effect on the more sensitive gear inside.

[c4t]

*raises eyebrows* good point, very good point.

[mikker]

yeah, like a lightning that struck the electricity. The alien power source simply gives off so much energy, that the cables cant take it, and it shut down itself.

I think we got a winner! :happybanana:

[j'ordos]

Yep. After action report: all electric/electronic equipment has been fried. Estimated total repair cost, about half the cost of a new base... :crying:

[miceless]

Yep. After action report: all electric/electronic equipment has been fried. Estimated total repair cost, about half the cost of a new base... :crying:

Factor in the damage caused by the 17 blaster bombs that went off, and you may aswell build a new base!

Perhaps damage to the base could be tracked during the battle scenes and afterwards you could get the cleanup bill? I mean, ive completely demolished whole sections of my base in some base defenses. It must cost a bit.

[Micah]

Yep. After action report: all electric/electronic equipment has been fried. Estimated total repair cost, about half the cost of a new base... :crying:

I think that would drive to player more to seek to take the ufos down before they attack the base. that would be a nice way to force the player into tough situations: either take down that battleship and damage your four avengers in the process, or spend half the cost of the assaulted base fixing it.... that would get scary

[j'ordos]

And forces trigger happy people to cool down on the blaster bombs
You would actually have an incentive NOT to use grenades, HE-ammo and the like :flame:

Maybe like in Apoc, governments would make you pay for the damage you cause in cities... :crying:

Edited by j'ordos, 08 July 2003 - 09:25 AM.

[warhamster]

Interesting points people. My only complaint is that if you get base raided early in the game (like in TFTD), you could go bankrupt and the game would end way to fast.

Point on the side, I noticed that soldiers can never open doors without going through into the next room.that's kinda stupid. Can anyone do something about that?

[j'ordos]

They already solved that door-thingy in TFTD, just put your soldier next to a door, and right-click on the other side of it. That opens the door without your guy going through immediately.

And perhaps Base Raids could be a thing that doesn't happen until your doing quite good, and at least not the first few moths or something like that.

Edit: IIRC the original Laser Squad had a button to open doors, I have no idea why they decided to leave it out in Xcom

Edited by j'ordos, 08 July 2003 - 09:32 AM.

[miceless]

And forces trigger happy people to cool down on the blaster bombs

Are you saying im trigger happy?

Interesting points people. My only complaint is that if you get base raided early in the game (like in TFTD), you could go bankrupt and the game would end way to fast.

Except you dont tend to have blaster bombs at that point, or even very powerful grenades. Shouldnt be a problem. And if they are short on cash then they need to preserve the base. Its still realistic.

Point on the side, I noticed that soldiers can never open doors without going through into the next room.that's kinda stupid. Can anyone do something about that?

In TftD you can open a door just standing in front of it and I think we should try and make it the same in Xenocide.

Oh, j'ordos beat me to it.

[mikker]

Except you dont tend to have blaster bombs at that point, or even very powerful grenades. Shouldnt be a problem. And if they are short on cash then they need to preserve the base. Its still realistic.

Its also VERY realistic, that a very small force below 400 people saves the earth from an alien invasion (with has billions of aliens). Realism is not a great factor in X-com/xenocide.



Realistic.....Uh! i got an idea! Why not give blasterbombs 99 waypoints, have capasility of 20 bombs, and allow auto shot! :happybanana: :happybanana:

Edited by mikker, 08 July 2003 - 09:45 AM.