How to prevent an Armageddon?

[Kozlov]

Hi there.

 

Well, i've got to the forums onlly now and its kinda late to criticize the already built product.

 

However, i wonder, why the storyline is so unrealistic? I mean - Ok you are dealing with science fiction, but when you're done with fiction elements (huge UFO, spores, biomass, etc.) you have to make it to sound like something, that is really happening. That's the science fiction basics.

 

What do we have here? After the death of mankind we recruite the army of 7 men ??? . Those 7 (i understood that it is even too much for the most missions) take some light weapons and start to capture city after city (!), clearing them of mutants and aliens. I live in Jerusalem now, its about half-million city and from my army experience i can tell, that it will take me weeks (with some 20 men) if not month to simply search it for enemy, i'm not talking about the streetfights.

 

Well, maybe the aliens are not yet walking the Earth, waiting for biomass (for some cause), maybe we're not talking about large cities - military bases only, still 7, or 70 or 700 is TOO FEW for world domination.

 

I know, i know it's a gameplay issues - i'm addressing it in the end. By the way, X-Com said it was alien infiltrtation into living cities, and we simply played some anti-alien SWAT team to clear the landing sites, or alien bases

 

Another point is taking various Ufos down. it's somehow understood in X-Com with its small/not armored/relying on stealth UFOs infiltration plot, but here - how, the hell, our F-16, MIGs or whatever are taking down battle UFOs that reign in the sky? By the way, do we have 7 pilots too?

The sweet and fun thing is, that the concept of such air fight is almost the same in the games and movies: UFOs that fire untargetted desperate energy beams and human planes that use rockets to bring the enemy down. Do you think that aliens unable to build rocket? In the air better technology always wins (between equally skilled pilots and who the f.. aliens are - playstation funs?)

 

And finally, to RESEARCH. It is nice, this modern concept of science. I work now in biological lab and it takes us years upon years to prove ourselves and the world very VERY small things. And it takes thousands of researchers around the world and dosens of thousands of work hours to come up with proven theory of some specific mechanism (i'm talking about theory how protein complex A affects complex B, not quantum theory ) and it is still long way to practical implementations :lashes: . However the research in the game takes at most a few days. With 7 academy mages, probably

 

This issue is so easy to change: for example it will take short time to find how to USE the alien item (push a trigger here and insert this oval thing here), but long time to know HOW IT WORKS and implementions. The time is speeded up anyway.

 

Now to Gameplay issues. The gameplay can be terrific, but when storyline and game process (research and Ufos taking down for ex.) is dumb it takes a lot of pleasure away. I can propose here some gameplay tweaks to make a good storyline after the proposed start:

 

You and some other thousands/millions of men survive. You, naturally, rising up the resistance movement. You start with some 10-15 bases all over the world. Those bases are under constant attacks of mutant forces. you have to defend them with human salavged weaponry, loosing many men. You build some research and engineer facilities. You can't resist the aliens in open combat, but you can go out for intel: those aliens don't open an invasion, instead they wait until biomass and mutants finish you, they land here and there to invastigate - oops you come, took the equipment and dissapeared. You don't even think of capturing cities, hardly being able to defend your own bases. With time, aliens see that you're still alive and increase their pressure - here is the game progression, when it happens you have already researched some alien technology - and so on and so forth

 

The secret of those golden age games is the good storyline, which appealed to you, you believed in it and wanted more - we want to read good stories, computer affrods us sometimes to be their part. Will someone make me believe? :devil:

 

P.S By the way Terror from the deep killed me - they fought with harpoons in the year 2100 - even on the ground

[Slaughter]

I'm not sure you've gotten this right. Let's see.

 

The aliens attack earth. The spores rain down, and kill 99% of Earth population. Then the boimass starts to grow. That's okay, isn't it?

 

After this, the game starts. You control two remaining military bases to begin with. Your objective is to capture other bases, and get rid of the alien and biomass threat. And it's not like there's aliens in every city on earth. There are however a few mutants in most. So what do you do? You create two elite teams of the best soldiers available to you consisting of seven soldiers each. These teams investigate small parts of cities, woodlands, deserts and so on, and collect stuff. They collect mutants and mutant bodies in the beginning, as well as equipment from downed UFO's and aliens. They never free and capture whole cities.

 

But, you are not the only one. All over the world groups of men are fighting mutants and aliens. If you for instance do not investigate a downed UFO, someone else will. And it's not so strange that you don't have contact with more bases to begin with. You think the aliens left all communication gear in order?

 

So, anyway, slowly you capture new bases, and gain control in areas by owning the bases there, and taking tactical missions.

 

Regarding the research, things go a little fast I guess. But remember, there are dozens of bases working together with the research after you've played for a bit. And nothing makes research go quicker than war...

 

As for the F16s and MiGs, I guess that is kind of strange. But, even though the aliens have better technology than us, they don't have to be superior. Maybe their UFOs does radiate heat. And maybe they can't stand the impact of a rocket. If that's the case, than a fighter would be capable of downing a UFO.

 

Even in UFO:Enemy Unknown you can down UFOs to begin with. Why aren't the aliens superior there? So you can't down the largest ones, but you can down a medium sized just fine... Is this okay just because they called the craft a Interceptor and made it look like a space shuttle?

 

Oh, and welcome to the boards!

[rocksk]

Welcome to the broad Kozlov,

 

Can i be harsh? mmm... let see... ok i will be harsh then.

 

MR KOZLOV, PLEASE READ MORE BEFORE COMMENTING.

 

Ok that it

 

Your post does show that you need more reading up first, and your comments and understand unjusted and misleaded.

[Ghostrider]

You have got some good ideas but IT IS STIL a Game and - today the perfect SCIFI game cannot be developed - only a few people like us would buy it - SO THEY have to make accesable for more players ... You have to use your fantasy in a lot of points ... For example maybe the UFOS downed by the Fighers were not ready for opposition at all - Maybe Aliens used this tactics before and no resistance ever had a chance to fight back so they underestimated that . BUT anyway THAKS for the OPPINION ... PS>Terror and first UFO were a little bit COMICS style GAME so maybe you can bear that harpoones - anyway those harpoons were dart PROJECTILES * something like extremely powerfull crossbow weapon projectile ... PS> IDF/AF surely got some pilots controling the fighters in UFO AM

[Kozlov]

Thanks for replies, people, didn't expect for them so quickly. :inlove:

 

I did read the story, Rocksk, though didn't pay attention to the existance of another resistance groups (thanks, Slaughter) - that's make the story MUCH more believable. By the way, Kozlov - is not my real surname.

 

So, the concept is like this, i think: the mothership UFO, that we see spreading spores doesn't contain much of the aliens - small numbers only. Ok, give 'em to us, we can handle it

 

UFOs bringing down and research stuff remains not that good for me: first - after all the ufological articles of different kinds and reliability (after most of them you doubt our ability to bring them down with a rocket or something else at our posession) and movies, and fiction. Anyway - if you equal the aliens in power from the beginning its not THAT interesting; second - even many labs, spread on dying Earth, without communications (as you tell, Slaughter), even at war don't research, say - laser weapons in 2 days. For historical example - it took years to germans to develope jet engine for planes - and that with all the previous knowlege (the first ideas of jet engine are dated back to 18 century, as i know). You'll say that if thay HAD the already BUILT jet and only had to reconstruct it - it would take less. Still, not days, or weeks my friend.

 

Again - changing those issues is NOT going to affect the gameplay. For example, you can't bring UFO's down in the beginning, - you only atteck landed vehicles, but after you research some "quark alien supercannon" you mount it on your old Wildcat .. eeeh F-16 and, with good pray, - boom. The change for research i already proposed (short time to USE an item but long time to know how it works and being able to reconstruct) - by the way, till you can't reconstruct you depend on scavenging, save alien weapons for aliens and fight with mutants with human ones, which adds more tension and strategical thinking.

 

My point is, after all - as long as you feel the desperate fight for Earth - it is a good game. And i think that all those small things make it. Surely I can pump up my imagination, thats all computer games about after all, but why to do it to make up for not so polished storyline?

 

And the last thing. Alien mind is, well.. alien , so we don't understand their reasoning anyway (do we understand ours?) All the criticizm as for the alien invasion and progression is built on the assumption, that their logic is similar to ours.

X-com series contributed a lot for such a perception. This may not be true and all of "why didn't they killed us from the beginning?" may not be relevant. I addressed more for the human factors believability (research). I know people addressing another factors as well (buildings entrance, transportation) all these - don't affect the gameplay, but add to the atmosphere. Anyway, they (Altar) didn't have time to finish all of these. I hope the success of UFO:AM will draw the follow-ups.

 

Waiting for some interesting end.

 

P.S I finished TFTD several times anyway (Ghostrider)

 

P.P.S They won't have israeli edition, i think - it's not enough place here for alien landings (Ghostrider)

[Ghostrider]

Hmmm ... Well said ... I think same as you about ALTAR and THE INSUFFICIENT TIME they after all had to finish the game with all the details .

 

PS: I was meaning that some pilots of our planes are surely Israelis ... Who knows after all how to run your F16 on maximum more precisely than ISRAELI AIR FORCE jockeys ...

[Ghostrider]

And GOOD POINT with that ALIEN Logic - Remember that in first UFO we were not able to determine the Alien motivation after all ... UNKNOWN even at the end of the game

[Slaughter]

Agree on the research part Kozlov, and the story surely have it's holes. But we can't expect everything to be perfect, can we? The sequel could be if AM do well though...

[Kozlov]

We can't. (Slaughter)

 

Its good to have modern X-com remake anyway (with all the respect to Altar claims, that it is not remake). Can they make some patch later? Probably not. Patches affect some bugs usually, - don't change storyline.

 

IDF rules where are you from, Ghostrider?

[Captain John Ferigad]

Let us say that easy:

 

If the Aliens would have the Superior Technology to Destroy the whole World Army of Earth, they would not use a Biological Weapon for there First attack.

 

They would simple land, kill all MIlitary Instalations, destroy all Army's, etc..and then they would beginn to terraform the Earth or what they do with there biomass.

 

I mean ok...there is no need to Capture citis, there is no need to Controll complete terretorys and to clean them out..i mean..hey.....Why this Soldier should beginn to regain the complete controll of Citi's and areas if there are still the Aliens out there?

 

The First Objectiv is to destroy the Alien Invasion, or to destroy the Alien Mothership that beginn this Bio Attack. Otherwise, a Restart of Humanity would make no sence.

 

And i think a Armor Piercing Rocket is able to penetrate a alien armor. At last there are still uranium warhead rockets , this kind of ammonition breaks all known Armor's =P

 

So it is not very unrealistic, a Rocket is still a Warhead that fly with a very high velocity into his target, with a special designed warhead for armor penetrating. The chances that a Rocket can penetrate a Alien Armor is higher than the chances that this Aliens use a unknown form of Armor that can not be penetratet and absorbing sutch a high kinetical energy.

 

And if this aliens would be Overpowered, this game would not make sence eh? Hrhr.....wanna read a really good Scince Fiction Book?

 

It is a little bit like Ufo:Aftermath, written from a German Autor called Wolfgang Hohlbein, the Story is that a Female Space Captain from the NASA find a huge Spaceship near the Moon, they check it, then they are recalled to earth, the spaceship lands on the Northpol and then it is silence..after 3 Months all Signals from the Outposts near this aliens ships are break..than 280 Alien Crafts fly into the Space and beginn to spread over the earth, after they reached they positions they selfdestruct all, every fighter was equiqed with a Fusion Reactor. A Super EMP burns the complete electronical from earth and the Earth lies in Darkness, they kill over 95% of Humanity, and after that the Female Space captain flee into a "Goverment Shelter" for the U.S. President. She can make it into a Stasis Tank and beginn to sleep over 30 Years...after awaking the Earth is overrun, only 4% survived the Invasion.

 

Then a Rebellion beginns under the controll of this Female SpaceCaptain, her name, Charity Laird.

 

Very Intressting, it is very good Scince Fiction, and it shows that a Alien race must not be So Powerfull and great like the most think.....

 

I mean...give us another 100 or 200 Years with Peace and Devolopment, it's a matter of time before we find a possibility of Cold Fusion, it's the next logical Step. And the Ion Drive for Interplanetary Travel is allready devoloped and tested..i mean a Alien Race must not be so advanced like you think..they must only be live under a United State or World..

 

We could allready do mutch thinks in space..the only reason why we do not the final step's into the space is that our States and World is dominated from the Industry....Go in Space? Pfff, why we should, the Costs would to high and we would have nothing from that.....but if they would find high mineral ressources on the Moon or the Mars, i am very sure that we would see a boom in the Space Travel Industry

 

It's all a matter of time and Money.... :angel:

 

[Ghostrider]

RE: KOZLOV

 

I am from Czech Republic - Altar country ...

 

I am a big aviation fan SO I like Air force in general and the best are ISRAELI + US Air Force ... I also studied history of Israel as one of my projects at the university :angel:

 

And to Captain John Ferigad - I personally think ALtars red Wolfgang Hohlbein's BOOK and got inspired especially by the SURVIVAL PART ... I know Tomas Kucerovsky ( graphics designer from ALTAR ) - and I know that he red almost 99.34% of ALL SCIFI BOOKS ever published

[Captain John Ferigad]

Hmm, i could talk with him over Hours and Hours, reading many many Scince fiction Book's, English Scince Fiction book's, too, but they are a little bit hard to understand for me.

 

Ehm, hey, by the way with the Fighters, for the Guy who open the plot if this nobody allready say, you will see that it is very hard to shoot down a Ufo, after my first Intercept Mission (20 mins ago) i had some...eh..difficults and many looses , so mutch to "Shoot down quick a UFO" :alien2:

[Ghostrider]

Hmmm --- Looking Forward to anything with PLANES involved ... and tough INTERCEPTIONS could be interesting . I will see soon myself I hope .

[Kozlov]

Tough interceptions you say? (Captain) Well that sounds good. I'll dissotiate myself from the air combat discussions, though stable inability of alien aircraft to stand or dodge rocket hits still seems to me ... our last hope in air fight

 

As for city capturing: you 're perfectly right (Captain), that it is no need to capture all the cities or large parts of territory to bring the alien invasion down by some means (destroying the "Mothership", constructing some biological or chemical weapons against them). But the whole game concept relies on the control of the territory. You don't control the territory if the enemy is moving freely within. That's why i addressed the idea of capturing the territory by small squad as far fetched. The existance of other resistanse groups makes up for it a little.

 

Your point that the use of biological weapons by aliens declares that they are not technologically superior is not so right: by using the weapons of mass destruction they killed all the humanity in one blow with no need to shoot every man, hiding beneath his car with their "gravitation ultrawave double action blaster enhanced head-mounted super cannon"

 

Again, alien logic is different one, we cannot blame them for not killing us

Here comes another interesting notation: aliens are always foes in computer games. They only want to kill/enslave us and rule the Earth. In psychology it is called "transference" - forwarding of OUR OWN traits to somebody else. The fear of aliens/AI/jewish conspiracy/machines - is the fear of ourselves. Science fiction is much more diverse, but it is off the topic.

 

The interesting questions like: can they really have the biological weapons? (we're able to construct one only for protein based lifeforms, with cellular composition similar to ours. And such constructs, viruses mainly, demand a lot of research. If aliens have different DNA (say including 7 base instead of 4 in ours) they'll need to make ALL the research we made and more - they may do it NOW ) - are beyond this topic.

 

P.S Ghostrider: What do you study? I'm making my DMD (dental medicine) in Hebrew university, Jerusalem.

 

P.P.S Captain: I was great science fiction fan while my teenages, still love it, but it is kinda out of themes now - indefinite repeats of already used ideas. Azimov and Bredbery are still my ideals.

 

P.P.P.S Ghostrider : books, by the way do you like Milan Kundera?

[Captain John Ferigad]

Ok, but the Dark Fall wasnt really a Biological Weapon..it was some kind of a Virus....we see all the Mutants, that cant be normal...a normal biological weapon would just kill the body with some kind of virus that attack the body self, not the DNA....

 

This Spores was some kind of Lifeform...some kind maybe of a Virus or a Parasite...the humans died....moste of them...some overlive it..some others was in sealed bunkers....the Spores are more than a bio weapon...they used the Humans as a basis for there mutations....maybe it's mutch more complicatet as we think....

 

 

Maybe the Dark Fall was the First Step for a great Terraforming..the Mutants are a new kind of Life for the Planet, needed for the time after the biomass eat the whole earth...maybe this Race needs simply space..and take what they want...it's simple......hrhr

[Ghostrider]

To KOZLOV> I study UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS in Prague - Major Business Administration - and I have choosen subjects considering FOREIGN RELATIONS and problems mixing ECONOMICS+POLITICS . I wrotte a Semestral work called ISRAELI and PALESTINIAN Conflict - It's history and present - from 1945-2001 - Economic background of Forming of the STATE OF ISRAEL . I remember I was optimistic at that time about the future ... But now it looks stuck on a dead point ... Let us hope it improves .

 

PS>Do you know that Czech Republic was of GREAT importance in the process of forming Independent Israel - I mean people were able to migrate to Palestine through CR + Then in the First Israeli-Arab WAR our planes and weapons were of big help to Israel ... Our cooperation was cut due to COMUNISM COUP after the communists found out Israel is of no help in their "RED" expansion policy in midle East area ... Could talk a lot about this time of history .

 

PSS>My Brother is quite an expert on Israeli Air Force and Israel * Considering the Fact that we are not Jewish we know quite a lot about ISRAELI People - for example that they play UFO

 

PSSS> I know Kundera - I red some of his books at my high school times .

[mentora]

Hi all,

 

First time here and been following your topics. I'm from Malaysia and been following the news for umpteenth months. Will be a while till I get a copy of UFO:AM.

 

Very exiting and interesting topics. Especially regarding the ability of the humans to actually go toe to toe with the aliens. Well I have some teories which I would like to discuss.

 

As we can notice almost always, alien weaponary have been classified loosly as 'beam weapons' (eg. lasers, ion cannons, plasma, etc...) Now, space is vacuum and this will enable such weaponary to perform to it's optimum potential. So probability is weaponary were design for 'space combat' for max. impact.

 

Thus when going against local fighters, these UFO's with superior tech. may come across some difficulities due to several espects:

 

1. There is no vacuum here. We have air, gravity and all kind of forces that may effect results and efficiencies.

 

2. Though UFO generaly travel at exteme speed, friction does not happen in space. But on Earth, it's another matter. We can only guess what kind of negative effect it has.

 

3. The fighters were designed in accordance with the laws with governs earth. The pilots knows the pro and cons while the alien.... who knows what they think. Even if they had done research, I'm talking academic discovery vs pure experience in combat warfare.

 

4. That still leave the part about our conventional weaponary being able to actually shoot down UFO. Well nothing so bizzare about it. If any of you have read or seen the movie 'DUNE' by Frank Herbert, you know that the Artedis has a kind of personal shield which is impenetratble by beam weaponary. But just for the sake of punching a hole in the shield, the Harkonen designed a weapon which sort of 'drills' it's way into the shield. The way I see it, these shields protects against beam weapons but fails miserabely against projectiles or 'impact weapons'. This may be due to the defects of beings possessing superior tech. If I have something that can stop big beam, what can a tiny bullet do to me.

 

5. Accuracy of their weaponary effected due to world conditions, high speed battles and such which my guess are not caliberated for dog fights or should I say not meant for fighting inside atmospheric conditions. By the time the aliens have adapted themselves, humans already have researched higher impact weaponary and fitting it to their fighters. Callabration will be fast and minimal as these weapons will be set to fit Earth conditions (or should I say due to limited human intelligence but still work to our advantage)

 

Even if the aliens have experience in earth type warfare in different world, no two world have the same criteria and physics.

 

Hope you guys didn't fall asleep. Great to be here and greater still to have inputs from you guys and (gals).

 

signing off.

[Captain John Ferigad]

Yes, thats true.

 

But, in the future of the Game and the Research you will notice how they comapnsate it.

 

The Aliens use Biological Createt Technology, Hybrid in some times with tecch and Biologic. They also got a Shield Technology, not very high designed, but enough to prevent the negativ effects from gravitation and Tempertare.

 

They also will not use Plasmaweapons for the Air Battles i think, maybe somekind of hybrid weapon between Laser and Hybrid. A Super Heat Plasmaball could not have the range to make a real trouble for a Fighter, first the fighter is to quick, second the Plasmaball would very quick cool down and become harmless.

 

Other thing is a Laser, a Laser works in all situations at 100% , it's simply focused light on a high level. A Laser got higher accuracy and a better perfomance, specialy agains Air Fighters like a F-16, Euro fighter or a Mig , a laser works very good. It must simple heat up the Full of a Fighter and then, Booom, it exploders in the Air, quick, efficent, no evate if the Aliens got a good Targeting System.

 

In Fact, gravity might be a problem, but not if the Aliens use some kind of Gravity Fields or Magnetic Focused Field to move around.

 

The Aliend Crafts are still stronger then the Human Counterparts, but...at the end...you are right...i think Trained Pilots will have better skills in the Dog Fights at the Sky of Earth. THis will be the main reason why it is still possible for the Humans to shoot down the Ufo's , harhar ;D

[Sindre]

you guys should really play more before commentin so hashly on the plotline, newsflash, it isn't a great alien-empire that attacks us, it's a rather small renegede force, which aim is not to conquer earth, but to do their own research based on biomass.

 

 

and for the comments about science etc, come on, it's a game, I for sure wouldn't want to wait thousand years for that plasma rifle

[Captain John Ferigad]

We talk only about logical thinks..if you allready see it, the makers of Ufo:Aftermath was intressted to make the game logical as possible, with many little details like the different Fighters, or the Weapons you find in the bases in the different continents.

 

It's a Game, but it has something that the moste Games today not have...a good, Deep, Logical Story.

[Ghostrider]

:bomber: worthwhile discussion you have here my Friends ... I red it and good ideas - I know it is just a game but why not to stretch our brains a bit in thinking about the background ...

[Captain John Ferigad]

Allready stretched my brain a little bit longer and wrote some story's, but on german only -_- hrhr, Aftermath is the perfect background to write some kewl story's around end time, apocalypse and fight for the live and the mankind

[Ghostrider]

Don't you think Captain that when you do such things like writting stories from the background and watching all news about the game and simply said THINKING ABOUT it you find the FINAL ATMOSPHERE EVEN much better than it is without those activities ... I think by me this have a big impact on my final impression from the game ... And to improve it * THAT is of course great + I think those discussions are great due to this fact mentioned before - We are simply improving our experience AFTERMATH ... LIVING THE GAME ...

[Mike]

The aliens do not in fact compensate for gravity, they can't as is said in one of the research descriptions. Thats why they move so slowly, they are physically weak when on Earth.

[Kozlov]

My topic is enlarging and developing :inlove:

 

I don't have a copy of the game now, so it is interesting to know, that alien force came from smaller planet (have to deal with larger gravity) , it is rather tough to intercept their aircraft etc, it is only a small renegade force, that attacking us. (thanks to Sindre, Ferigad). By the way, Sindre the topic started before the game release. The possible believable research mechanism was proposed at the beginning by me :angel:

 

As for biological weapons (Ferigad) - the biological weapon is a weapon that uses biologically active factor/s to bring an enemy into incompatible of combat state. You can use influenza clone to make 'em sneeze a week . Mutants? - even better, we (humans) can't make it (all the mutant super-Rambo's in films make me laugh - it is sooo driven away from reality. All in all - people don't have a clue sometimes what do they, scientists do - they DON't make superman elixirs, -maybe in area 51 only they have too much money to waste.)

 

About our atmospherical flight experience (Mentora): Aliens came from planet, right? Don't know how they evolved but I give my arm that it (planet) has an atmosphere too. They know atmospherical flight. Some adgustments for bigger gravity (say, bigger engine) - and WE are down.

 

Here I'll cease to say the following: game came out and i don't know the storyline. So it will be stupid to criticize it. I opened this topic to say that atmosphere of the game, which was to come out has to be DARK. You must loose many men before you come up with newly researched technology. You don't stand a chance.

 

Imagine that 13th century knight trained all his life to ride that horse and to swing the sword. Imagine him even on some planet with gravity 1.5 times bigger and atmosphere made of nitrogene. Here WE come with space-suits and automatic rifles, hit 'em with chemical weapons (the developement was tough ) and ...

then a few thousands/dozens of thousands of spread survivors repel our troops?

 

THE FIGHT MUST BE DESPERATE!!! :devil: :devil: :devil: