Alien subs not appearing after a while

[sp1ke]

Yes I completely agree that the base defences should be rebalanced until they are useful. At the very least, a kill by base defence weapons should terminate the ongoing Retaliation mission in the same way that an air to air kill does.

 

I was talking to one of the guys on here who said UFO (and thus TFTD) was effectively an Alpha version, a prototype, pitched by the designers to Microprose to get more money to fix the known bugs and flaws. To the designers' shock, Microprose published the game without further development. The amazing thing is that despite its flaws, the game is still one of the best ever made. And for 20 years this fan community has been working tirelessly to understand, and where possible fix, the bugs and flaws.

[Bansheedragon]

The copy/paste of the patch files I did seems to have screwed up the game.

Game hangs/freezes when I click yes to land by a terror site.

 

As I started by copy/pasting individual files, I may have placed them in the wrong place.

Though it didnt seem to make a difference, as magnetic navigation was not available for research as soon as I had it in my stores which it should have been with the 2.0 patch.

 

I'm gonna reinstall the game and try again.

[sp1ke]

Are you sure the patch is even a DOS patch?

I think the Steam version is like $5 and includes the Windows version as well as the DOS. And then you can use TFTD Extender.

[Bansheedragon]

I'm not too fond of steam, and too many games recently has a steam requirement.

Call me old fashioned if you like, but I prefer games that dont require some kind of 3rd party mumbo jumbo to be installed on my computer to play.

However looking at the bug fix list for TFTD extender I'm tempted to get it

However I read something somewhere about something that would only work with the DOS version, I just cant remember what that was.

 

I reinstalled the game, and copy/pasted the files and folders from the folder I unziped them to and into the TFTD folder.

The patch has been applied and working as intended and th e terror mission freeze s gone.

It was simply the result of human error, as in my copying and replacing the wrong files.

[sp1ke]

Ah, great you are up and running.

 

If you want additional options and bug fixes for the DOS version, probably your best bet is XComUtil. It is very much "old fashioned" as it is a command line driven DOS utility.

 

Personally I've never had any problems with Steam. They are free and very dependable. However in the case of UFO/TFTD, I believe you can just take the Steam binaries and run them directly without Steam. That's certainly true of the DOS executables. I believe it's also true of the Windows binaries.

[Bansheedragon]

Its not that I have anything against Steam, I'm just old fashioned.

Part of the reason I dislike steam is all the DRM crap I despise so much.

 

You have to explain these binaries to me.

My knowledge of computers dont extend much beyond everyday use and the most basic of troubleshooting.

If I can get the game to work under windows without the need for dosbox or steam, then I'm all for it.

[Zombie]

I was talking to one of the guys on here who said UFO (and thus TFTD) was effectively an Alpha version, a prototype, pitched by the designers to Microprose to get more money to fix the known bugs and flaws. To the designers' shock, Microprose published the game without further development. The amazing thing is that despite its flaws, the game is still one of the best ever made. And for 20 years this fan community has been working tirelessly to understand, and where possible fix, the bugs and flaws.

 

Quite wrong actually. Before the game was even called UFO: Enemy Unknown (or X-COM UFO Defense) it was a Laser Squad 2 title in development. Sure, it was a demo, but most games start there. It was not pitched to MicroProse to get money to fix bugs or flaws, it was pitched to them because Julian and Nick Gollop needed a better publisher and MicroProse (at that time) was king. MicroProse didn't shoot the game out the door as a demo, the Gollops showed the game to Pete Moreland, who said he liked it, but it needed to be bigger (think Civilization). Pete suggested the UFO theme, Julian liked it, did some research on the topic, wrote a 12 page design document and programmed the game. The rest is history.

 

You can't really lump TFTD into this argument either. MicroProse wanted the Gollops to write a sequel in 6 months which was quite impossible - Julian mentioned that they could only really change the graphics and locations, but that was about it in the time constraints given. MicroProse still insisted and Julian said (and I'm paraphrasing here) "no, take our code and write it yourself with your in-house team and we'll work on the third game instead". So don't blame Julian or Nick for bugs in TFTD - that rests squarely on MicroProse's shoulders. My info comes from a interview with Julian Gollop for NowGamer (which was a different company before, don't remember the old name - sorry).

 

- Zombie

[sp1ke]

I think the point is not how the relationship with MicroProse started, but how it ended. Not how they first approached MicroProse, but the *last* time they approached MicroProse for money. So the question is, did the Gollop Bros think UFO was ready to ship, or did they want more money from MicroProse to do more work before they shipped it. And did MicroProse say "enough is enough" and ship it before the Gollops thought it was ready. That's the point I'm passing on here. It doesn't contradict those historical facts at all. And most of the bugs from UFO were still there in TFTD, so the decision to ship UFO effectively put those bugs there in TFTD too - plus the new bugs the in house MicroProse team added. And to be fair, a few they fixed.

[Zombie]

I think the point is not how the relationship with MicroProse started, but how it ended. Not how they first approached MicroProse, but the *last* time they approached MicroProse for money. So the question is, did the Gollop Bros think UFO was ready to ship, or did they want more money from MicroProse to do more work before they shipped it. And did MicroProse say "enough is enough" and ship it before the Gollops thought it was ready.

 

I haven't read anything in which the Gollops asked MicroProse for more money for the development of UFO. Ever. More time? Perhaps.

 

I do know they were on a schedule (and pretty tight one for that matter) to release the game by a certain date. So my guess is they just plumb ran out of time to rigorously QC (Quality Control, Dave Ellis says QA - Quality Assurance, same thing really) test the game for bugs. That's all, no money issues, no ultimatums, just time constraints.

 

Edit: I had a whole page of thoughts written down about this, but it was basically a rehash of an interview from Edge-online.com which I read ages ago.

 

Gollop remembers the last two months of development, January and February of 1994, as a particularly difficult and intense time. Having relocated to work at MicroProse’s Chipping Sodbury offices, twelve-hour sessions seven days a week were the norm. “We went to MicroProse to finish the game in-house with something that was barely playable,” admits Gollop. “We had to finish the coding and do all the testing at the same time, and so were making changes right to the end. It’s definitely not the right way to do things, and the game would have benefited enormously from another couple of months of testing and tweaking without major changes to the code.

 

“It’s a miracle it turned out so well, but there was a slightly embarrassing bug – the difficulty level setting made no difference. When you saved the game and reloaded, the difficulty was set back to the lowest. However, it didn’t make much difference because the game had internal balancing mechanisms, which made it challenging. The other bug was the one that allowed your soldiers to become superhumans, sometimes to such an extent the values could overflow to zero and make your supermen instantly useless.”

 

 

- Zombie

[Bomb Bloke]

Regarding the Gallop/Microprose thing, Zombie's take on the story matches my memory. Kinda worth noting that Apocalypse was certainly rushed out the door unfinished - though it still managed to be a far more in-depth game in every regard. Drewid's posts are tangentially related.

 

I suspect if UFO had received more polish it wouldn't've been quite the hit it was. Half the fun of the game is that you start out massively disadvantaged, and then the tables turn completely and you get to have your well-earned revenge. Too many games keep you from the "well-earned revenge" bit, or downplay it to the last five minutes. "Challenge" and "balance" should take a back seat to "fun".

 

Yeah I never use it myself so I don't know for sure. But AFAIK if you do shoot down the battleship they just send another and it doesn't stop until you defeat them in your base. AFAIK. And partial hits on the battleship don't reduce their assault force strength. And you can never guarantee successful base defence, so you always need to be prepared for a base defence tactical mission. Unless you are willing to abandon the base, in which case why bother building base defences. And if you need to prepare for a tactical defence, why bother with base defence weapons?

 

Given that a base defense mission consists of an alien commander wandering into your full force in a pre-explored map (granted, he brings company, but it's still an ideal chance to capture one), I practically encourage them to come in.

 

If memory serves, this is one of the things UFO/TFTD Extender can tweak (so that blowing up invading UFOs doesn't lead to a constant succession of more coming at you).

 

(quoting the wiki) It has been proven that about 6 or 7 Fusion Ball Defences with Grav Shield (total defensive strength 6000) can hold off incoming battleships (hull strength 3000) indefinitely,

 

... I'll have to go and correct that. Granted, the odds of anything penetrating that sort of wall are pretty slim, but ultimately there's a dice roll governing whether each shot hits or not.

 

I'm not too fond of steam, and too many games recently has a steam requirement.

Call me old fashioned if you like, but I prefer games that dont require some kind of 3rd party mumbo jumbo to be installed on my computer to play.

 

I avoided Steam as best I could until Firaxis released their take on X-COM. Then

within like a week of me setting it up and well...

 

In some cases, Steam does not apply DRM to games. For example, anything that requires DOSBox typically doesn't have it (because of the DOSBox license requirements).

[Bansheedragon]

I buy most my games either from Gamersgte or GOG.com.

Unfortunately most games I buy from Gamersgate has Steamworks DRM, or some other kind of DRM.

The Xcom series here are one of a few exceptions.

 

Its an interesting conversation about Gallop/Microprose, and I enjoy learning some history about the games I play.

At least the older ones, the newer ones dont have much interesting about them.

 

However it seems my question about binaries has been lost in the history lesson here , could someone explain that for me please?

[Bomb Bloke]

"Binaries", in this instance, are referring to "executable files".

 

An executable is a bunch of data piled into a file which represents code a given computer's operating system should be able to run. Because there are multiple operating systems out there, many programs have different releases - the main difference between them is that they come with different executables, each intended for whatever OS the program is to be used with.

 

Note that I'm not just talking about the difference between Windows, Mac, Linux, etc operating systems. Even within the Windows environment not all releases are the same - Windows 3.11 was merely a shell for DOS, which ran 16bit executables (or 32bit ones, if you installed certain extensions). Windows 95 and up ran 32bit executables (with the option of 16bit ones, via a virtual machine). These days, 64bit operating systems have all but taken over - these have dropped support for 16bit executables entirely (making the likes of DOSBox a requirement for running code that old), and instead work with 32 and 64 bit executables.

 

On top of all that, you've got game distribution agencies like Steam. Many games they distribute have their executables further altered in order to incorporate DRM. The earlier X-COM games do not fall into this set (because they need DOSBox to work, and DOSBox can't be distributed with DRM), but most anything 32bit and up should be considered patched in this manner (though the choice is up to the publisher submitting the work to Steam - Valve doesn't force it on them).

 

Now aren't you glad you asked?

[sp1ke]

Basically if you get the Steam version, you can run Windows-based UFO and TFTD without Steam. I got the Steam versions and I run them directly from the Windows Explorer, or directly from UFO Extender / TFTD Extender. Steam does not exert any DRM over the DOS or Windows versions of the XCOM games. In theory, if you were a Bad Person , you could copy your Steam folder of this game and give it to someone else. It is also very easy to make multiple copies of the game on your own PC, which is very handy for trying out different mods, different loaders or loader versions or loader config settings, etc. And it's a way round only having ten save game slots!! :-)

[magic9mushroom]

In theory, if you were a Bad Person , you could copy your Steam folder of this game and give it to someone else.

 

We all know piracy's illegal. Let's not get into the ethical can of worms over whether it's immoral or not. We could spend 20 pages on it and not get anywhere.

[NKF]

If Steam have DRM-ified the game then it will most likely be with the copy of Dosbox that they've included or whatever program that invokes Dosbox. The game binaries aren't modified. All you need to do is copy out the game files to a more convenient location and supply your own copy of Dosbox or UFO/TFTD Extender.

 

If you want additional options and bug fixes for the DOS version, probably your best bet is XComUtil. It is very much "old fashioned" as it is a command line driven DOS utility.

 

I'm not slamming XComutil as I have had good fun with it in the past , but I would highly advise against using XComutil with TFTD for a more serious play-through.

 

My main problem with it is with the fix it provides for the vanishing equipment bug in v1.0 for the multi-part missions. More to the point, the fix creates a new bug that causes your carried ammo to vanish and/or appear on the floor in odd places. A fair number of the Let's Plays I've seen of TFTD using Xcomutil were quite badly damaged in the 2-part missions and T'Leth thanks to it. I mean, having little to no ammo when you reach the second part does make it quite challenging, wouldn't you say?

 

Additionally, the X-Comuitl version T'Leth level 3 is, er, to be diplomatic about it, not that good. It gives you almost immediate access to the final chamber from the starting point.

 

In any case, TFTD doesn't have all the major bugs from Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense that XComutil was originally created to address, so it is more for convenience (and to do cool things like the hybrid games, insane difficulty levels, etc) than for stability.

 

But if you really do want something, TFTD Extender for the Windows version is probably the better option.

 

- NKF

[Bansheedragon]

"Binaries", in this instance, are referring to "executable files".

 

An executable is a bunch of data piled into a file which represents code a given computer's operating system should be able to run. Because there are multiple operating systems out there, many programs have different releases - the main difference between them is that they come with different executables, each intended for whatever OS the program is to be used with.

 

Note that I'm not just talking about the difference between Windows, Mac, Linux, etc operating systems. Even within the Windows environment not all releases are the same - Windows 3.11 was merely a shell for DOS, which ran 16bit executables (or 32bit ones, if you installed certain extensions). Windows 95 and up ran 32bit executables (with the option of 16bit ones, via a virtual machine). These days, 64bit operating systems have all but taken over - these have dropped support for 16bit executables entirely (making the likes of DOSBox a requirement for running code that old), and instead work with 32 and 64 bit executables.

 

On top of all that, you've got game distribution agencies like Steam. Many games they distribute have their executables further altered in order to incorporate DRM. The earlier X-COM games do not fall into this set (because they need DOSBox to work, and DOSBox can't be distributed with DRM), but most anything 32bit and up should be considered patched in this manner (though the choice is up to the publisher submitting the work to Steam - Valve doesn't force it on them).

 

Now aren't you glad you asked?

 

Your first sentence was enough to make me understand what binaries are.

My question was in reference to what Sp1ke was talking about regrading steam vs dos versions of the game.

But I still appreciate the explanations.

[Bansheedragon]

Basically if you get the Steam version, you can run Windows-based UFO and TFTD without Steam. I got the Steam versions and I run them directly from the Windows Explorer, or directly from UFO Extender / TFTD Extender. Steam does not exert any DRM over the DOS or Windows versions of the XCOM games. In theory, if you were a Bad Person ™, you could copy your Steam folder of this game and give it to someone else. It is also very easy to make multiple copies of the game on your own PC, which is very handy for trying out different mods, different loaders or loader versions or loader config settings, etc. And it's a way round only having ten save game slots!! :-)

 

You're gonna have to take this one from the top.

In your previous post you talked about steam running a windows based version while here you talk about steam running dosbox to run the game, now I'm a little confused here.

 

You say the extender is worth getting for bug fixes, and fro what I read of it that seems like a good idea.

However extender requires a windows version of the game.

And I'm honestly not sure if I got the dos or windows version, though I assume its dos as it runs through dosbox from windows.

 

If the steam version is windows based, then I could from what I understand just copy/paste the folders to the existing one and run it with the extender?

[sp1ke]

You're gonna have to take this one from the top.

In your previous post you talked about steam running a windows based version while here you talk about steam running dosbox to run the game, now I'm a little confused here.

 

You say the extender is worth getting for bug fixes, and fro what I read of it that seems like a good idea.

However extender requires a windows version of the game.

And I'm honestly not sure if I got the dos or windows version, though I assume its dos as it runs through dosbox from windows.

 

If the steam version is windows based, then I could from what I understand just copy/paste the folders to the existing one and run it with the extender?

 

Yes, like Zombie said. Exactly.

 

The Steam distributions come with fully functional non DRM DOS and Windows versions that you can copy anywhere and run anywhere.

[NKF]

Steam version of UFO and TFTD = Dos version and the Windows Collectors Edition smushed together.

 

Except for the music files, all the game resources like the graphics, sprites, maps and sound effects are the same. The game binaries and music files for the two different versions don't conflict with each other so Steam is able to package them together into one for their release.

 

If you play the game through Steam, it defaults to using the Dos version. The Windows version has to be manually launched.

 

- NKF

[Bansheedragon]

Thanks for the tip, I had expected steam to default to the windows version..

I went ahead and bought the X-COM collection at steam yesterday, only cost 15 Euro for the full collection(5 games)

[Bomb Bloke]

If you right-click the game in your library it'll show you the option to boot the Windows release. Though that was somewhat botched - you'll then be prompted to manually select the actual CE game EXE. Probably easier to ignore the Steam launcher.

[magic9mushroom]

... I'll have to go and correct that. Granted, the odds of anything penetrating that sort of wall are pretty slim, but ultimately there's a dice roll governing whether each shot hits or not.

 

Yeah, it's a die roll, but I think I calculated that for 6 Fusion Ball Defences + Grav Shield (12 80%-accurate shots dealing average 1200 each vs. 3000 HP) it's under 0.001% for a Battleship to get through. They drop by about once a week, so it takes 20 years for the overall confidence to degrade even to 99%. "Indefinitely" is pretty accurate.