ufo the two sides

[ufonef]

Hello,

i'd like to interest you with my little project here : https://ufotts.ninex.info/

it's another remake, hopefully you'll like it.

cheers.

[Gimli]

That's quite nice, but I have to wonder... why are you copying the interface? I understand you want it to look as close as possible to the original, but I think you can improve the interface without losing anything. Obviously, it's ultimately your choice.

[ufonef]

Improve the look or improve the usability?

I played one of the other remakes, can't remember which one was it, but every button was re-arranged and placed somewhere else. I must say it annoyed me, as that remake didnt introduce much new functionality (at least at my first glance, as i didnt play it for too long). So it was a kind of 'look for a key you already know what should look like, but in a completly different place' thing. And sure, if the new interface would be better than why not, but since my game itself does not introduce too many new functions for the x-com player, i didnt find much to improve. Although there are a couple of little changes that make it less clickfest than before. For example Soldiers memorise last held weapons in each slot, so you dont have to re-equip them every time. If something was annoying in the original, im trying to make it better, but if i didnt find it annoying, i try to make it the same as it was.

Could you perhaps give an example of what you had in mind?

[Gimli]

Oooh, that won't be easy off the top of my head... haven't played in a while.

 

Can you reload during missions? It could come in handy, especially for testing purposes.

 

How about keyboard hotkeys? A for auto shot for example. E for the equipment screen and so on.

 

Unite the soldier equipment and stats screen. This works for the missions as well as the base.

 

The buy/sell and soldier equipment screens could also be fixed. I would suggest doing what Apocalypse did (horizontal scrollbar) and optionally a box where you could enter the exact number.

You could also unite the purchase and sell screens. It's easier when you don't have to switch from one to another.

 

OK, there's more I can think of, but instead I simply suggest you take a look at the interface in Apocalypse nad take hints from there. There are a LOT of improvements there.

[ufonef]

I must had been a really patient player it seemes. Very good suggestions. Also, it's been a while since i touched Apocalypse. Well, hotkeys are planned, that's for sure, as that did bother me. Joining equipment and stats screen sound really good, and i didnt think about it before, but now that i do it actually was bothering me when trying to equip weapons on proper soldiers for a given task. Thanks, that suggestion i'll implement for sure. As to the rest, i'll take a look.

[Gimli]

Yeah, I got used to them, too. But hotkeys alone are a huge leap compared to UFO.

I like your ideas, by the way.

 

What are you writing the code in? C++? Java? C#? Something else?

[ufonef]

C++ (and directx).

[Thunder_Gr]

I would like to see a way to change the arangement of the soldiers on the craft, as well. And more information regarding the soldier's encoumberance on the equipment screen.

[ufonef]

Second thing sounds great, will do as you suggest. About the first one, although its also interesting, it would require quite a lot more coding. I'll add it to my list, but will leave it for the future. Anyways, i havent really done much thinking about the interface, except the basic stuff, so i'm happy to hear such good remarks.

[hsbckb]

Hello,

i'd like to interest you with my little project here : https://nefurii.my-place.us/

it's another remake, hopefully you'll like it.

cheers.

 

I like it and I will bookmark you page

[Gimli]

Second thing sounds great, will do as you suggest. About the first one, although its also interesting, it would require quite a lot more coding. I'll add it to my list, but will leave it for the future. Anyways, i havent really done much thinking about the interface, except the basic stuff, so i'm happy to hear such good remarks.

 

Do you intend to do this alone or are you looking for help?

 

On a separate note, it may be a good idea to try and build the game in a way that will allow modding. I can't guess how much extra coding that will require, but it could pay off in the end.

[ufonef]

Do you intend to do this alone or are you looking for help?

 

On a separate note, it may be a good idea to try and build the game in a way that will allow modding. I can't guess how much extra coding that will require, but it could pay off in the end.

 

In terms of coding, i'm doing this alone. I will need some help with graphics later on, though (alien buildings in base view, air combat icons and animation. Not much work fortunetly).

Modding depends on scale. Real modding would require some additional scripting language, which is somewhat more code. However, personally, i never liked modes, so i'm not putting much effort into it. The easily modable parts are currently all the graphics (open format bmp pictures), and terrain setup (open format text files). Item's stats, alien's stats and so forth are hardcoded. There is actually a second reason for that. This is intented to be multiplayer game primarly (singleplayer will, hopefully, be made, but mp is the priority). The more the game is moddable, the more mechanics i have to make to check if both players are using the same version, or, if one is not simply cheating. So, the less modable the game, the less i will have to worry about easy cheating, or even accidental changes.

EDIT: in screen's section, there is new equipment screen with your suggestions implemented.

https://nefurii.my-place.us/index.php?optio...1&Itemid=53

I'm sorry for the poor quality, but that hosting site is free, and therefore limits the bandwidth i can use, thus, i'm minimasing all the pictures as much as possible.

[hsbckb]

In terms of coding, i'm doing this alone. I will need some help with graphics later on, though (alien buildings in base view, air combat icons and animation. Not much work fortunetly).

Modding depends on scale. Real modding would require some additional scripting language, which is somewhat more code. However, personally, i never liked modes, so i'm not putting much effort into it. The easily modable parts are currently all the graphics (open format bmp pictures), and terrain setup (open format text files). Item's stats, alien's stats and so forth are hardcoded. There is actually a second reason for that. This is intented to be multiplayer game primarly (singleplayer will, hopefully, be made, but mp is the priority). The more the game is moddable, the more mechanics i have to make to check if both players are using the same version, or, if one is not simply cheating. So, the less modable the game, the less i will have to worry about easy cheating, or even accidental changes.

EDIT: in screen's section, there is new equipment screen with your suggestions implemented.

https://nefurii.my-place.us/index.php?optio...1&Itemid=53

I'm sorry for the poor quality, but that hosting site is free, and therefore limits the bandwidth i can use, thus, i'm minimasing all the pictures as much as possible.

 

 

I am looking forward to see the alien's equipment screen. Thanks for your update.

[ufonef]

I am looking forward to see the alien's equipment screen. Thanks for your update.

 

 

Don't be dissapointed, but alien's will use the same screen. Only instead of human, you will see that alien (picture taken from ufopedia).

[Thunder_Gr]

The best modding fascilitation will be to provide the source code .

[Gimli]

In terms of coding, i'm doing this alone. I will need some help with graphics later on, though (alien buildings in base view, air combat icons and animation. Not much work fortunetly).

Modding depends on scale. Real modding would require some additional scripting language, which is somewhat more code. However, personally, i never liked modes, so i'm not putting much effort into it. The easily modable parts are currently all the graphics (open format bmp pictures), and terrain setup (open format text files). Item's stats, alien's stats and so forth are hardcoded. There is actually a second reason for that. This is intented to be multiplayer game primarly (singleplayer will, hopefully, be made, but mp is the priority). The more the game is moddable, the more mechanics i have to make to check if both players are using the same version, or, if one is not simply cheating. So, the less modable the game, the less i will have to worry about easy cheating, or even accidental changes.

EDIT: in screen's section, there is new equipment screen with your suggestions implemented.

https://nefurii.my-place.us/index.php?optio...1&Itemid=53

I'm sorry for the poor quality, but that hosting site is free, and therefore limits the bandwidth i can use, thus, i'm minimasing all the pictures as much as possible.

 

Too bad about the mods, but I can't say it's unexpected, given the amount of work. Reasonable decision.

 

As for the equipment screen, it looks excellent. Maybe you could also fit weapon stats somewhere. I suggest on the right side or bottom-right. It looks like there's enough space for that. Or you can have a floating window which appears when you hold the mouse over a piece of equipment.

 

One more thing I thought of. How about a TU display on the battlefield? For example, you select a soldier and point the box on the intended destination and you get the amount of TUs required to get there. As I recall, Apoc calculated up to 10 squares. It's up to you to decide how far you want to go, but I take it it's not exactly a heavy calculation compared to processing speed nowadays.

In fact, if you follow Apoc's idea, you could get rid of the stat section below the buttons and replace it with soldier faces for quick selection (you could have the names displayed when you mouse over). Each row would contain up to 7 faces (1 Skyranger).* The four stats would then be put where the arrow pointing on the soldier is now. A simple rectangle with 4 bars and optionally a number next to each one would do.

 

* Although, this would mean that for the Avenger, not all soldier faces would fit, so you'd have to use scrolling arrows for the other two rows.

 

Also, I'm taking the liberty of posting this over on the Steam forums as well as xcomufo.com, maybe someone will want to help out with the graphics.

 

Oh and, I take it the terrain is destructible?

[ufonef]

As for the equipment screen, it looks excellent. Maybe you could also fit weapon stats somewhere. I suggest on the right side or bottom-right. It looks like there's enough space for that. Or you can have a floating window which appears when you hold the mouse over a piece of equipment.

Can be done, but this works good for games with huge ammounts of various weapons. Ufo weapons were somewhat self descriptory by name. You could easily guess that 'earth rifle' is more powerful than pistol, but less than laser...etc. So, again, going to the list 'for later'.

One more thing I thought of. How about a TU display on the battlefield? For example, you select a soldier and point the box on the intended destination and you get the amount of TUs required to get there. As I recall, Apoc calculated up to 10 squares. It's up to you to decide how far you want to go, but I take it it's not exactly a heavy calculation compared to processing speed nowadays.

In fact, if you follow Apoc's idea, you could get rid of the stat section below the buttons and replace it with soldier faces for quick selection (you could have the names displayed when you mouse over). Each row would contain up to 7 faces (1 Skyranger).* The four stats would then be put where the arrow pointing on the soldier is now. A simple rectangle with 4 bars and optionally a number next to each one would do.

 

* Although, this would mean that for the Avenger, not all soldier faces would fit, so you'd have to use scrolling arrows for the other two rows.

I had a similar idea, but with accuracy (this was done in one other remake too). Since the actual hit accuracy was dependant on more factors, and the displayed number when picking attack mode was false. Well, i already done that actually. It's just not displayed in a user friendly way yet.

Also, I'm taking the liberty of posting this over on the Steam forums as well as xcomufo.com, maybe someone will want to help out with the graphics.

Ok, but i posted this on xcomufo.com, so maybe skip that one, as that would double post it.

Oh and, I take it the terrain is destructible?

 

Sure. Like on that youtube movie clip. Those green fences are destroyed with bullets. Terrain does not however follow any physics, like (i believe) apocalypse did. So if you demolish an entire level, upper levels will float in the air. It's quite much coding to make this more realistic.

[Gimli]

Yeah, that's what I meant. I realize what Apoc did is too much work, so I skipped it. This works just fine, too.

[ufonef]

I've added 'sack' button on soldier's stats screen when in base. Getting rid of soldiers you didnt like took some time always. This will actually save me some work, as I wont have to add it to the sell/sack list now.

[Gimli]

Yeah, it always got clogged up because of each soldier appearing there. On the other hand, this may confuse people a little, because you'd expect to sell them at the sell screen. You could always introduce tabs to the sell screen. So you could switch between soldiers and the rest. This wouldn't affect your current solution, and in fact you can keep both.

[ufonef]

Good idea with tabs, but what i thought is that:

Indeed sell screen is more obvious for getting rid of unwanted staff, but on the other hand player would have to memorise his soldiers names or change them before selling, so he would go to the appropriate screen and do that there. So most of the cases for selling soldiers in sell/sack screen would be for those players that visit the screen for the first time not knowing the interface. Player that discovered that he can sack soldiers via status screen probably wont use normal sell screen for that too often, if ever. Sure, it's more elegant to place it in both places but for now it's another feature for the 'in the future' list.

Speaking of this...a funny thing happened recently. On the buy/sell screen every item is treated the same. I changed couple of things in the code, and forgot to rearange indexes. And it happend that i was testing air combat. My interceptor flew bravely towards his target. But when faced with the alien threat, he proved to be quite ineffective in cobat. Wondering what happened I rechecked my interceptor's status and to my surprise i found out that instead of missiles, my stingray launcher was loaded....with scientists. Quite a sight to see stingray launcher loaded with six scientists. Result? Against ufo's outer armour: Warheads > Scientists's heads

[Gimli]

 

That reminds me of a story from the development of Fallout 1. I think it was pretty much the same thing, so the rocket launcher ended up shooting puppies or something like that.

[Bomb Bloke]

Don't be dissapointed, but alien's will use the same screen. Only instead of human, you will see that alien (picture taken from ufopedia).

I've got some pre-made alien screens in my toolpack if they're any use to you.

[ufonef]

I've got some pre-made alien screens in my toolpack if they're any use to you.

 

Thanks. They look great, and will be useful.

[ufonef]

To anyone still interested in this: simple demo version is up for download on https://nefurii.my-place.us