th15

For teh explosion algorithm, I'm thinking of using a reverse sequence to figure things out. Pick all the objects within the range of an explosion and sort them with the objects furthest from the explosion first. Then, go down the list and do damage to each object after checking if there's any intervening objects. Intervening objects would reduce the amount of damage done to the current object. So, if a trooper is 5 squares away from the centre of an explosion with two walls between, he would take the damage of the explosion, first reduced by range then reduced by the total health of the walls. This may well be a negative number which means that he doesn't take any damage at all.

Umm the walls won't help you against the explosion damage at all. As in your screenshot, even the toughest walls will allow damage through. So hiding behind a wall just makes it that much easier to hit you. You need to hide behind whole buildings for cover. UFO2000's hitbox engine is also far more compelx than that. Each square is made up of a 3d matrix of individual points. Sort of a really lo-fi raster polygon. In my opinion, the simplest way to implement in a realistic explosion is to just use the firing algorithm and fire a bunch of projectiles outward from the explosion point.

Umm I'm pretty sure damage is reduced by range. There's a fixed progression defined in the ammunition type I believe (i.e. 5 squares range = 30 dmg). The problem is that explosives go through walls and always damage under armour (the weakest point of all armour). That's what makes taking cover pointless because the closer you are to a big hulking object, the easier you are to catch in the explosion.

I got mine from fileplanet. My reasoning is that if fileplanet posted it, it's gotta be legal, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CS_gas 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile (chemical formula: C10H5ClN2) I've been exposed to this as part of military training. We were required to enter a chamber containing the stuff in a gas mask, take off and replace the mask then finally report rank name ID number with eyes open before leaving the chamber. It works by reacting with sweat from your body and produces this terrific burning sensation. You also start tearing and leaking from your nose uncontrollably. It's not fun, especially since exposed skin will be affected as well, not just your facial orifices. Of course one must wonder what effect it may have on aliens since sectoids probably don't have sweat glands.

You probably want to create a folder witht eh same name as the rar. As in: C:\...\UFO2000beta\extensions\Weapons_ufo2000fixed\ This is teh directory the .lua file and folder should be in.

You only see bullets if the tile that they're in is within your line of sight. That's why the keep disappearing. This was put in place to prevent you from broadcasting your position whenever you fire. Previously, you wouldn't even need scouts since you could jsut spam shots at the point where enemy fire came from. As for shooting, it isn't buggy, you just aren't used to the way hit detection happens in UFO2000 and xcom. The terrain sprites aren't used for hit detection of all, all tiles instead have a collision box defined for them. There's a button to hold down when firing that allows precise aiming.

It's unfair to serge and any of the developers to demand that they put in work. The current state of the game represents oodles of hard work and dedication as it is. It is a fantastic independent project and has gotten far, far further than countless other projects. On top of that, it has remained true to its vision throughout the process. Honestly, other similar projects have gotten so diluted and sidetracked that they've lost the appeal of the franchise. They've so busy kibitzing with shiny new baubles that they've gone off track. UFO2000 however has stayed on the right path and has shown steady progress over the years. My original point is that we'd like to be kept in the loop a bit. Previously, the developer's changelog was available from a link from the website. That way even though we weren't getting a new release, we could see what was going on with the game and where it was going. When the website was re-written when lxnt died, this link disappeared. And sporb, it's good to hear that you've finally succumbed to our ramblings Your weaponset has given a new lease of life to the game as the original weapons were flawed because they weren't designed for competitive play. Your UFO2000 set has added both variety and viability to the core gameplay.

I think frequency of use of weapons would be useful as a gauge for balancing. I realise that this would be dependent on the weapon set but since the UFO2000 set is the most widespread we might as well consider that the de-facto weaponset. Saturn, ELO scores are stored indefinitely. But only the results for the players who have played recently are shown. Most of my ELO comes from beating Hobbes a couple of times a VERY long time ago.

Well thanks for posting, just making sure there's still someone at the wheel. We appreciate all the hard work that you've put into this project and by no means do you have any obligation to us to put precious time into UFO2000. It's just been a long break and work has usually been quite steady. I'd love to help, but being ignorant of LUA means that I can't do very much. I've tried providing in other ways in the form of the quickstartguide but frankly, I don't think anyone needs any work that isn't adding code to the engine.

I know this must get annoying after awhile, but does anyone know that status on the next version? It's been pretty long since the last version and the developer changelog is no longer available (or at least, I can't find it) so we haven't had any news on new developments in some time. Perhaps someone can clue us in?

I don't know. Unlimited weapon range was one thing that set Xcom apart. Even TFTD had only very arbitrary range restrictions. The truth is, Xcom maps really are quite small. A trooper can move, on average, about 4/5 of a full map tile each turn. Possibly further. Now, we assume that he's slightly bogged down by his equipment (Xcom troops dont carry a lot and their armour does not hinder them in any way). A decently fit fighter could do a 100 metre sprint unhindered in at most 15 seconds. Say he's hindered and moving slowly. Maybe 50 metres in that time. I'd say that each Xcom turn is about 5 seconds long. So, by this comparison, a 4x4 map would be about 150 metres? With the effective range of most modern assault rifles already twice that length, it's not hard to see that weapons have essentially unlimited range in the close confines of the xcom setting. I'd also add that adding a range restriction on weapons is futile. If I wanted to hit something 20 tiles away but was limited to a 10 tile range, I'd just shoot 10 tiles in the target's direction. The bullet would still score. As for true ballistic arcs for projectiles, that'd be a major pain in the donkey to code and would not really solve the problem since I'd just start shooting 10 tiles in my target's direction and a few levels up. True, having scouts that can somehow, telepathically share the position of spotted enemies to everyone on his team is rather impossible to justify, but that's just the way xcom plays. I would say that the problem doesn't lie in the way weapons or sight works. Even within that framework, there's plenty of strategy to work out. You could hide cheap anti-scouts around corners with high reaction to shoot down those pesky sectoid scouts. You could smoke the area up and hinder his exploration. The thing about explosives is that they don't even need a visual sighting to do damage. You just need to know the general direction that your enemy is coming from and a bit of luck. This is further compounded by the fact that the entire minimap is revealed to you at the start of the game. This allows a shrewd opponent to simply memorize where the major obstacles in the middle of the map are and avoid shooting into the map tile (this is made even easier by using the minimap to aim shots). The ratio of explosive power to points cost is still too high! It's too easy for a team to pack enough explosive to completely level half the map. What's the use of strategy in an open field? There is simply no opportunity for "duck and cover" in a blasted, empty plain. On top of that, explosives essentially ignore most of a trooper's armour making armour rather ineffective at combating explosives. Destructible terrain is nice, but being able to level the entire map in a few turns just doesn't make sense. I propose that the explosives in the weapon sets be toned down significantly until a proper explosive algorithm is figured out. It's a stopgap measure, but until a proper volumetric explosives algorithm is done, there's no choice.

The explosion algorithm isn't accurate as it is. Everything in the radius takes the damage, regardless of how many intervening walls and obstacles there are. Also, explosions always hit a trooper's under armour. A realistic explosion algorithm was tried for a short while, but it kinda buggy so we're back to this simple one. Until the explosion algorithm is done or the stats of objects are taken care of in the interim, explosives will remain to be this ridiculous.

I dont believe that the game resolution is very much of an advantage. Sure you might see a little more of that shot aimed at your head, but it won't make you shoot any better. I think the main problem with lower resolutions is that a lot of times you can't see the full path of your bullet being displayed with the ALT key. It would be nice if the ALT key display would leave a little red dot or something where the shot trace was obstructed. This way, if you were firing across the entire map, you can still tell what's blocking your shot. Finally, despite how obnoxious LDZ was being in the other thread, I have to agree with him that an increased default resolution is the way to go. The battlescape view should also be resized appropriately to fill as much of the screen as possible (I can't remember what keys did this, but I had to do this manually a long time ago).

About accurate explosion algorithms, did anyone try firing a child-shot at each square within the radius and just capping the max damage? Actually if the damage wasn't capped it'd be more realistic. This wouldn't be overly difficult to do since it'd just use the existing scripts for firing.