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Konsek posted:This is the only turn based strategy game I've played other than Civilization and Alpha Centauri and I'm loving it. Is there anything that's similar, but less demanding on the hardware, that I can play on the laptop? UFO: Enemy Unknown?
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# ¿ Jan 26, 2013 11:58 |
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# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 00:29 |
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Klyith posted:So it turns out that Chryssalids are actually a bunch of imported Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts of Traal. If you stand with your face against a large object and your arms over your head, the Chryssalid will assume that since you can't see it, it can't see you. The beast will be rendered harmless and completely unable to attack. If only Xcom had the foresight to equip their soldiers with towels! Wow. This just turned the most terrifying alien in the game into a joke! I assume this is a bug?
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# ¿ Jan 26, 2013 22:20 |
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John Dough posted:The best is when a country is offering you money for a satellite, and it's a country that was getting a satellite anyway. Free money! Wait, this works? I thought a country requesting a satellite just buys the satellite and doesn't launch it?
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# ¿ Feb 16, 2013 21:21 |
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Spiffo posted:The satellite requests are special. All they want is coverage, and they're willing to give you a big fat bonus in order to get it (in addition to what they normally give you every month). Well, I just learned something new, then! I've always ignored satellite requests since I thought they would just be buying the satellite like they buy everything else, and I would then need to build a new satellite to launch for actual coverage. Is it made clear in the request that they're not buying the satellite? I could swear the request text is similar to any other request text?
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# ¿ Feb 16, 2013 22:46 |
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CommissarMega posted:Hell, ahve a crashed ship in a city, that'd be nice. They specifically mention that in the video, so yay! All this new stuff is really going to make my repeated playthroughs even more fun! Though the $30 price tag is a bit steep.
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# ¿ Aug 21, 2013 12:11 |
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I think the campaign is the same? Though it would make sense to throw in a mission or two that's specifically centered around introducing this new Meld resource. If you want to continue playing for longer, just hold up on doing the plot missions for a while. Or do the Marathon Second Wave option.
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# ¿ Aug 21, 2013 12:18 |
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:They said they're doing some major changes to the campaign but they haven't said how. Really? That's great. It's weird that they don't just come out and clear up the confusion, though. Maybe they're still at a point in development where it's not 100% locked down yet?
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# ¿ Aug 21, 2013 12:51 |
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:Here's an IGN article that mentions it: http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/21/xcom-enemy-within-announced-tons-of-details Changes to the strategic layer aren't necessarily changes to the campaign, though. It could just be stuff like the genetics lab they've already talked about. In fact, the start of the article kinda implies that the campaign is unchanged: quote:Like a Civilization expansion, the basic structure of saving the Earth will remain unchanged: we'll still capture an enemy, attack the alien base, and take the fight to them, but we're getting more options for how to get there. "The campaign is the same, you've just got some new toys to play with during it," is how I'm reading that. Slashrat posted:Or they have months to go until release still, and PR needs stuff to keep the buzz going in all that time. Sure, but announcing a price tag of $30 and leaving people wondering whether or not it's "just" for some new weapons, abilities and units seems like a weird move. They could easily just say that "the campaign has been expanded" without spoiling anything.
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# ¿ Aug 21, 2013 13:15 |
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:The kinds of changes I'm expecting are some additional story missions thrown in the actual campaign proper to extend it another couple of months, to alter the enemy progression, and that kind of stuff. That's what I'm hoping for as well. I just wish they'd confirm this. Otherwise that $30 price tag seems pretty steep.
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# ¿ Aug 21, 2013 13:36 |
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They said that the Meld canisters will just be part of existing mission types.
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# ¿ Aug 21, 2013 13:40 |
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Like I said before, it just seems weird to me to announce the price without making it perfectly clear how substantial this expansion actually is (which can easily be done without spoiling anything and still leave stuff to reveal).
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# ¿ Aug 21, 2013 14:21 |
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I honestly couldn't care less about base invasions. The already existing alien base invasion isn't all that different from any other mission in the game already -- the environment just uses different assets. I can't imagine a mission where your base is invaded actually using your layout, it being vertical and all. So it would probably just be like most other missions, but built from a 'home base' asset set. And you can't actually lose your base, since it's the only one you've got, so what would the fail state be? The aliens manage to destroy some of your facilities that you have to rebuild? That would be massively annoying.
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# ¿ Aug 21, 2013 14:54 |
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Edgecase posted:My guess is that Enemy Within adds the new mechanic of a forced split between gene alteration and technological augmentation, with the choice inducing a split in humanity's reception to XCOM. A counter-faction will emerge, championing the side opposite the player's. This will provide a rival faction, competing for funding and Council support (or competing against the Council altogether). It's likely the rival faction will also actively work to sabotage XCOM infrastructure and operations, opening the way for Base (or at least Facility) Defense missions, which the team has avoided commenting on so far. It also makes great game design sense to introduce a counterbalancing force against player power inflation, and to do so in the mid-late game where Enemy Unknown lacked depth. No way. That's like a whole new game. They've also said that you don't choose between gene alteration and technological augmentation. You can do both. But you just can't fully go down both paths.
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# ¿ Aug 21, 2013 18:12 |
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Edgecase posted:No, just a whole new endgame, which is probably a good thing. Once you beat the satellite coverage portion of the game, it makes more sense to introduce a new challenge than to try and squeeze more life out of the same mechanic. Adding a new faction that competes for council funding and sabotages your process isn't just a simple new mechanic. That's a drastic overhaul of the game. That's not what this is. It could simply be research holding you back from going all the way down both tech trees. You capture a device that the scientists can either use to research gene mods or augmentations.
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# ¿ Aug 21, 2013 18:26 |
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Cythereal posted:Alternatively, using too many of one modification type on one trooper might make them incompatible with the other type. Yeah, they could just be talking about a single unit when saying that you can't go all the way with both -- and not the overall research.
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# ¿ Aug 21, 2013 18:30 |
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Hace posted:Calling it now, any soldier that you use Gene Mods on will probably become dependent on monthly Meld infusions so that their body doesn't reject the new parts and explode into goo. That could become pretty infuriating since you're then dependent on the game's RNG deciding to give you a bunch of abduction missions each month. And what if you've got full satellite coverage?
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# ¿ Aug 21, 2013 20:13 |
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I imagine the team at Firaxis being just as giddy when they came up with this as we are right now.
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# ¿ Aug 21, 2013 20:34 |
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Andre Banzai posted:Anyway, I think it's pretty clear that Apocalypse wasn't thought, from the beginning, as a sequel to UFO:EU. It was, as I stated previously, "supposed to be a Judge Dredd game that just got adapted to receive an XCOM makeover". What? That's not at all what Gollop is saying. Apocalypse started out as an X-COM game. He just used some ideas and concepts he had for a Judge Dredd game that -- as far as I can tell from that interview -- was never in actual development.
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# ¿ Aug 22, 2013 23:29 |
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Oh dear. There goes my sanity.
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# ¿ Aug 23, 2013 20:51 |
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My dream solution for knowing who you have LOS to when moving to another tile is to have discreet arrows protruding from the tile selection circle (when playing with a controller). There would be an arrow pointing in the direction of each alien you'd have LOS to, and the length of the arrows would indicate how close the aliens are (so if there are two aliens in roughly the same direction but at different distances, you'd know which one you'd have LOS to).
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# ¿ Sep 5, 2013 17:25 |
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Christian Knudsen posted:My dream solution for knowing who you have LOS to when moving to another tile is to have discreet arrows protruding from the tile selection circle (when playing with a controller). There would be an arrow pointing in the direction of each alien you'd have LOS to, and the length of the arrows would indicate how close the aliens are (so if there are two aliens in roughly the same direction but at different distances, you'd know which one you'd have LOS to). I made a terrible mockup. The red blobs are enemy units.
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# ¿ Sep 5, 2013 17:46 |
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necrobobsledder posted:I think they could add a function where if you hover on a spot for a long time / click and hold right or something similar that requires actual purposeful effort, they could attempt to at least show the number of alien heads. You could do so by basically making a pseudo invisible soldier that has line of sight, doesn't trip anything like mines or poison, etc. and then perform your LoS calculations. Trying to do this dynamically is rather CPU intensive probably though and the amount of memory consumed to make it less intensive would be silly for the little player benefit. You could just have it do the calculations like it does the pathfinding calculation (notice how the path line only shows up when you've hovered over a tile for a short moment, instead of constantly doing pathfinding calculations as you move the cursor around). But it really would be piss-easy to implement. I wonder why they opted not to do this? Some of the footage they've shown of early X-COM versions had the 'candy cane' LOS indicators, which they took out. It's like they took out something that was clearly overkill... but then didn't replace it with something simpler.
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# ¿ Sep 5, 2013 18:21 |
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Edgecase posted:FWIW, console and PC gamepad interfaces do constantly recalculate the pathing line as you move the cursor around; deferring the calculation is mouse-only, and buggy as (*%(Q&@%. Recalculating LOS is also apparently a very slow process for some reason, especially after changes in the terrain. If you fire a rocket at concealed enemies, and the destruction of their cover reveals them, it will still take a while (sometimes upward of 20 seconds) for the game to realize that your soldiers now have LOS to fire on them. Huh, you're right. I think I've been watching too many multiplayer matches on YouTube and got it stuck in my head that the pathing line didn't show up all the time. You're also right about LOS apparently being really slow sometimes. I've definitely had a wall blown out, but the alien behind it not being visible until a good few seconds later. Edgecase posted:That said, I distinctly remember an interview in which they said they took out those sorts of indicators because they made the UI cluttered and didn't bring enough to gameplay to make it worth the tradeoff. That's the 'candy cane' indicators I was referring to (I believe that's what they called them).
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# ¿ Sep 5, 2013 18:42 |
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amanasleep posted:I get that, but you can already do this just by looking at the map. The only reason that you might fail to get LOS is that the map itself is bugged and doesn't give you the LOS it would appear to. This is a problem with the coding of the maps, not the UI. All they need to do is remove LOS bugs from maps and problem solved without needlessly adding stuff to the UI. Sometimes it's not a bug, but just hard to assess from an isometric view if a car halfway between your future position and your target is blocking your LOS or not.
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# ¿ Sep 5, 2013 18:56 |
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amanasleep posted:It is not really that unintuitive to say that a rule is: "to see around a corner, you must be at that corner and not far away from it". It certainly does not justify reworking the UI. But that's not what's going on in the posted screenshot that you said makes perfect sense?
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# ¿ Sep 5, 2013 20:58 |
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amanasleep posted:The MEC is not at the corner in that screenshot. Ah, I see what you're saying. The wheel of the tractor is blocking LOS and they need to move 1 tile closer along the tractor to be at the corner?
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# ¿ Sep 5, 2013 21:05 |
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I'll give amanasleep that in that video, given the rules and that the wheel counts for full cover, it makes perfect sense that there isn't LOS. I'd still want LOS indicators for the kind of situations I referred to earlier, though:Christian Knudsen posted:Sometimes it's not a bug, but just hard to assess from an isometric view if a car halfway between your future position and your target is blocking your LOS or not.
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# ¿ Sep 5, 2013 21:23 |
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How's an Exalt soldier going to inject himself when he's been stunned? Does he do it right before the actual stunning? That'd be weird.
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# ¿ Oct 15, 2013 14:19 |
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# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 00:29 |
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Darkrenown posted:Voltage triggered bomb? Dead-man switch? Plenty of ways to set it up so they get killed when you stun them which will go off without further effort from the stunnee. I was replying to the achievement showing an Exalt soldier injecting himself. That achievement might be something completely different, though, so we'll see, I guees.
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# ¿ Oct 16, 2013 12:29 |