Thoughts on the tactical interface

[Fulby]

What do you mean by reaction fire? Do you mean like in X-COM 1 and 2?

 

There's no need to have automatic firing like X-COM 1's reaction fire because you can always give your soldiers orders (except for game world reasons such as panicing or psi-controlled if they're in the game).

 

Apologies if you were meaning something else.

 

Fulby

[Pete]

I was under the impression from one interview or another that there would be no panicking on the battlefield as your troops are so battle-hardened. Well, not under normal circumstances anyway. I suppose psionics will have a lot of say in this topic.

[Fulby]

ALTAR mentioned in a thread on the main board a while ago (so it may not still be valid) that morale wouldn't be a major factor.

 

While I completely agree with you that the morale is a single most important factor in combat value of a soldier, I think this really plays greater role in "larger-scale" games, say from the level of company up.

 

In our game, your team is composed of seven elite soldiers, the best you could get. I would rather assume that their morale is so high that they will not break down in face of the enemy.

From thread:

Combat System, post 10, Feb 24th

 

One of the concept art pics is labeled "Reticulan with psi gun", but I don't know what type of psionic attacks will be in, whether it's psionic control/panicing etc or if it just does "psionic damage".

 

Fulby

[Pete]

That's the post I must've read Well spotted!

 

I hope the psionic attacks ahve a panic effect. It's be pretty rough on the player if all the enemy ever did wasmind control your best soldier and get him to rake down your squad with an AK47.

 

Besides, there's not that many soldiers in the game, so I doubt it would just be limited to that.

 

Ah well... i'm talking to myself again (or rather arguing with myself ).

[Hurlshot]

I'm a little upset about the lack of panicking soldiers. I understand these are supposed to be the best of the best, but how does that work when 90% of the world has been wiped out? It seems like ALTAR is opting for the less frustrating rather than the less realistic. Even a battle-hardened troop will be affected if thier whole squad is getting wiped out. I'm not talking about just dropping your gun and running, but maybe shooting wildly and not responding to commands. I would love for that to get in the game, but it sounds like ALTAR made thier decision.

 

Hurlshot

[The Doctor]

I agree with the moral. It must be included into the game.

 

But, to be balanced, for both sides!!!

 

I love to see alienz running around without any weapon,

sceaming...

 

If same thing happen with my soldier, bah, that's a shame...

[Hellbound_PT]

Thanks for the credit on the screenshots Pete.

I really found them by accident , i was going to the official Aftermath site and accidentally clicked on that one... hehe

[Pete]

Well here's hoping that morale does play some part then

 

No probs Hellbound_PT If you see anything else, gimme a prod

[YautjaGod]

Maybe moral could be handled by just effecting the move points and accuracy if your moral is really low cuz your team has been wiped out. Imagine if that happened to you...I'd have my rifle shaking like popcorn under pressure and wouldn't be able to shoot a truck 10 feet infront of me

 

But I reckon if a soldier had low moral they should have it boosted whenever they waste an alien. Seeing them die should get the blood pumpin up a bit.

[Bimbo]

Hi all!

 

I think soliders with high morale should shoot better but they could also have a slower reaction time. If the morale goes to panic they should walk more quickly (for fast redraw ) and have a much quicker reaction rate. Maybe in very high states of both they should have a JA2-psycho-like burst fire action. Imagine a man fiering a whole round in a alinen which would have died after 2 hits . Or o nother one fiering on each movement he sees.

 

Bimbo

 

For the records: my first post!

[Pete]

Welcome Bimbo!

 

I saw Jiri Rydl was online browsing through all the topics this morning (he's UFO:A's public relations chap in case you didn't know) and Evan's been posting a bit here and there as well (he's also from Altar, but not directly involved with UFO:A IIRC ) so all comments will most likely be read at some point.

 

There's some interesting ideas for morale here. Anyone got any more?

[The Veteran]

Ar! four pages of discussion! Can someone give me a quick recap of what exactly is going on here? I have no time to read unfortunately. What has everyone learnt about the gameplay so far?

[Bimbo]

At the moment we the topic is morale.

And for the gamplay: since no one has seen some real action every thing exept the combat system is speculation. If you want to read something about it, follow the links in the recent news.

 

Bimbo

[The Veteran]

Cheers bimbo... Bimbo... Hehe, nice name.

I think morale is definitely a requirement. Do we know if we will have similar things to panicking and beserking? And something else I'd like to know would be if there is any mind control or anything. It might be nice if there was a game when the aliens have evolved to use it. That way the human soldiers could never use it and the game would remain hard even at the end.

[Mazdek]

Yeah, the X-COMs (1-3) became pretty easy once psi was developed and your squad had 1 or 2 troopers good at it. Everyone else was just a spotter at that point... mind control the alien, if he's got a good weapon then he can shoot his buddies. 'specially with all the Blaster Bombs that were around that late in the game.

[Bimbo]

But I think the mind control was a funny and interessning thing. I allways loved to have men with whom I could do what I want without worieing about "live" . In fact all I had to worry was to ensure theyr death in the next turn (prime grenade to 0, and then let them "fight", hehehe...)

 

Bimbo

[Bomb Bloke]

Lesse... no reaction fire! Argh. I didn't think about that, I'll miss it

 

Panicing an moral. Hmm. I guess no matter how tough you are suppiosed to be, having the aliens rip up the rest of the squad should make any trooper edgy.

 

Then they can panic. On the other hand, that might involve troop AI...

 

Haha!

 

They act stupic when panicing anyway!

 

In the originals, panicking troops sometimes end up with a freak 300 time units. I had one guy with a laser rifle, and he decided to start firing round in circles. Due to infinite ammo, when he was done there was a lotta craters.

 

He didn't hit *anyone*, though.

 

Same thing happened another time. Dude spotted a civilian, and fired for ages: the civilian died. Yes. Very definitely so...

 

Mind control makes me invincible in XCom 1-2, but not 3. In the originals, if you know where an alien is, you can mind control them.

 

But not in number 3. Only troops seeing an alien can mind control that alien.

 

Veteran: In TFTD, the aliens are controled by chips. To control the aliens, you troops take control of these chips. They need to have chips of their own implanted to do this, but: same for the original, but the aliens have no chips. So that why the humans can do mind control.

 

Note this, but: if humans have no chips, why can civilians and x-com units be MC'd in TFTD?

[Hellbound_PT]

There's a new article on UFO:AFTERMATH at

computerandvideogames.com

 

Nothing new there... but what the hell right?

[YautjaGod]

MMMMmmmm.... "sees mind controlled alien prime a grenade in his pack and runs screaming into the crashed ufo"

 

I'll be raining grey chunks of flesh for weeks :devil:

[The Veteran]

Hmm... Sound explanation blokey, I'm impressed... Confused but impressed. You're right ith your little query. If they have no chips how do the aliens do it? Maybe the alien chips are simply to enhance their abilities. The way they control humans is completely biological.

The humans however need a way to do it that doesn't rely on natural skills. So they use their chip implant to control the implant of an alien...

What you think?

[Alan]

Note this, but: if humans have no chips, why can civilians and x-com units be MC'd in TFTD?

 

what exactly does MC stand for? IIRC its molecular control... so they controll humans by makeing tiny tweaks in their brains. (having found out which bits to tweak from abductees)

 

sounds feasible?

 

[Bomb Bloke]

MC is molecular control. The bits which are tweaked are in the chips.

 

MC works like this. Aliens each have chip, which allows the big aliens guy in the tomb thing to control them. *All* aliens are controlled by the big guy.

 

Since humans don't have this chip, MC shouldn't work on them: unless the MC guy is very, very skilled. Try controling all the parts of a human by just moving single molecules. The concept works in UFO, as the aliens are under their own control, and use psionic attacks, as oposed to TFTD.

 

This also makes a problem, in that aliens in TFTD should not be able to panic.

 

The reason they can is that TFTD is UFO with an entirely new graphics set.

 

Nearly. Take a screen shot of a troop in ufo (facing front of screen), and one from tftd. In paint brush, put them on top of each other. The sprites are nearly exactly the same shape!

 

Humans such at both psi and MC, but with implants (MC/psi lab) and special booster items (psi amp/MC disrupter) they can pull it off.