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Oh, sightlines in the first, old-rear end X-Com? That's a favorite topic of mine, because sight is wonky as poo poo in the original X-Com. First, you have to know that by design, sightlines were intended to be a symmetrical thing in the first X-Com. You can sneak up behind someone, but if they're facing you, you should be able to see each other equally well. Keyword should. Due to design limitations/programming oversights, assymetrical lines of sight are occasionally possible in the first X-Com, and worse still, darkness was handled...unusually. Aliens weren't properly hindered by darkness on maps like they should have been, meaning you were always at a distinct disadvantage at night or on base maps (which are naturally slightly dark), as the aliens got full sight on their turn and didn't need to play around with things like electroflares to find and shoot you. Secondly, even though sight was (mostly) uniform and symmetrical, cover still mattered. Why? Because old X-Com is loving crazy, that's why. Everything you see in game just appears as flat sprites, but the game had a crude 3-d model of every object, which factored into blocking shots or line of sight. Every time you fire a shot, it's ray-traced through this 3-d gameworld to determine what it actually hit. Not all of the models perfectly matched the sprites, however, leading to things like translucent walls or shots that passed through objects anomalously. This also meant you could use surprisingly intuitive tactics like crouching behind low obstacles for cover, or crouching in a field of crops for concealment. Third, back on the topic of limitations, a LOT of wonky mechanics were clodges to accommodate the simple AI (programming AI is usually legitimately difficult). One of these was the fact that if the aliens saw a soldier, they would 'remember' (ie, magically know) that soldier's position at all times for a number of turns based on difficulty. This means the AI will happily snipe at someone from out of sight because they saw them three turns ago. Note that this does not mean the AI is necessarily smart about doing so; they will still often bumble straight into soldiers they 'know' are there in order to spot them, and get reaction shot for their trouble when they retreat. In a related vein, that appears to be why almost all alien units have a glut of time units compared to their low energy and low energy recovery; rather than intelligently deciding when to move and when to stay put, they're fairly hyper-active at the start of the map, but then are forced to hunker in place for protracted periods to deal with their slow energy recovery. Finally, it's worth pointing out that as much as the symmetrical sightlines can be a bitch to work with early on, with lots and lots of soldier attrition, mid to late-game strategies usually revolve around spotters allowing the team to strike from outside the alien's range at all times, using mind control to prevent them from EVER seeing more than one of your units, or even just blind-firing across the map to use the glass parking lot strategy. Shady Amish Terror fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Mar 7, 2016 |
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Mar 7, 2016 04:45
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Just for fun, some more armchair dev   Add an additional state to the aliens, "semi-active", that happens to all aliens once you break concealment. Semi-active aliens always move into cover relative to your last seen location. If you move into a semi-active pod, they're presumably already in cover unless you got sneaky and flanked 'em, so no need to give them a free move. If they move into YOU, then they get to continue moving into cover, but to be fair, they don't get to shoot until next turn... but they do get to overwatch-- the aliens' reward for finding you, to balance the fact that you can now get a flanking jump on them sometimes. And hey, struggling to get a flank on an enemy might even add strategic depth! I also think that semi-active aliens should be allowed to move purposefully. I can see why they don't... having the entire map bum-rush you the moment you break concealment would be horrible. That said, you could always crib from PacMan's AI... assuming 4 remaining pods, one of them hunts you (makes a bee-line for your currently known, or last known, position), one of them tries to flank you (takes a circuitous route to get to your last known position), another goes to guard the objective (maybe even allow them to overwatch before you see them-- it'd be fair because these guys wouldn't be just anywhere, they'd be sitting next to the objective, so you could anticipate them), and the final pod moves randomly. Different mission types could make certain AI objectives more likely... blacksites might be more prone to guard, for example, or retaliation missions more likely to wander randomly, and easy campaigns might never allow flankers, that sort of thing. I wonder if OG X-Com style aim mechanics could be brought back too-- with everything between you and the target acting as potential cover, instead of just things you're pressed up against. Might be too difficult to convey to the player though... there's definitely an appeal to simpler mechanics, just in terms of being able to meaningfully plan for things.
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Mar 7, 2016 06:21
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 Youtube Link
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Mar 7, 2016 14:59
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An awful lot of  in these rolls...
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Mar 7, 2016 16:18
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I think Spudd might need to have his nickname changed to Buggs at this point with all the turnabout going on. Seriously though, two hours of edited footage? It's been said before and I'll say it again, Long War really gets to be a marathon.
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Mar 7, 2016 17:54
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 Oh jeez, that's a lot of key soldiers out for the next few weeks...
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Mar 7, 2016 18:05
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gently caress that was brutal
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Mar 7, 2016 18:14
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Jesus gently caress. The defeated silence when you went for that last run 'n gun... Man that was scary. You handled that crazy well. I wanna see Spudd vs Mechtoids in realtime. Ducking and dodging overwatches, Dookie taking potshots over Spudd's head... cool.
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Mar 7, 2016 18:14
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i blame kidneyman for not supporting the team
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Mar 7, 2016 18:14
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SaffronKit posted:I think Spudd might need to have his nickname changed to Buggs at this point with all the turnabout going on. Seriously though, two hours of edited footage? It's been said before and I'll say it again, Long War really gets to be a marathon. The length is pretty bad, but I find that doing two or three missions a week makes the game a lot more enjoyable. I feel kind of burnt out after a session, then somewhere half-way through the week I start really looking forward to playing again. I can see why a lot of people who do crazy stuff like pump out daily videos would have trouble going on at some point.
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Mar 7, 2016 19:10
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Paul.Power posted:Oh jeez, that's a lot of key soldiers out for the next few weeks...[/spoiler] I'd say welcome to the medbay, but it looks like I'm almost done convalescing!
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Mar 7, 2016 19:27
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SaffronKit posted:I think Spudd might need to have his nickname changed to Buggs at this point I think it should be changed to Dooky 
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Mar 7, 2016 19:41
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ProfessorBooty posted:The length is pretty bad, but I find that doing two or three missions a week makes the game a lot more enjoyable. I feel kind of burnt out after a session, then somewhere half-way through the week I start really looking forward to playing again. I can see why a lot of people who do crazy stuff like pump out daily videos would have trouble going on at some point. I can't imagine pumping out daily videos when a single mission can go on for 2+ hours, especially if they do multiple missions a day. If you take this as a long haul game I can definitely see the appeal, doing a mission every other day sort of thing but I'm personally sort of ADD about long rear end games and I'd probably stop playing it after a bit. Which is why I'm very glad you're here to show it all off Booty, because I'd never see it myself!
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Mar 7, 2016 20:01
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edit: Decided to take my licks (even if the licks are BS).
ProfessorBooty fucked around with this message at 09:15 on Mar 8, 2016 |
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Mar 7, 2016 22:50
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Man that isn't cool, that's so weird. If you'd reloaded right away I don't think anyone would've had a problem with it. But as you did the mission and no one died I'd say carry on. Though it's a shame about the base assault. I don't know. Poor Classtoise.
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Mar 7, 2016 22:59
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Eh, my instinct is reload and redo. But I work a super high-stress job and I have no patience for games pulling crap like that on me anymore. Plus I wanna see the base assault! I predict the thread will want you to press on, though. And I can understand that.
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Mar 7, 2016 23:27
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I'd reload just to do the base assault sooner. Otherwise guarantees a fatigue spiral and base defense before your gear is repaired.
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Mar 7, 2016 23:38
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Reload - Long War gets enough bullshit to throw against you without adding weird bug/UI shenanigans to the mix. I also want to see the base assault sooner rather than later.
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Mar 8, 2016 00:10
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Reload When the game bugs out, its only fair to go around it.
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Mar 8, 2016 00:14
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Third for reloading. Even though I'd kinda like to see the video of how that guy got so up in your faces to start with, I'd rather see a base defense, and that is clearly a glitch. Speaking of glitches, when I do missions sometimes one of my soldiers starts floating outside the mission area, immobile. That never seems to happen to you... or does it and you just do cuts I'm not noticing when it does?
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Mar 8, 2016 00:17
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Reload because we want a fair game. But also because we want this LP to finish before 2017.
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Mar 8, 2016 00:22
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Play on playa!
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Mar 8, 2016 00:45
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Akratic Method posted:Speaking of glitches, when I do missions sometimes one of my soldiers starts floating outside the mission area, immobile. That never seems to happen to you... or does it and you just do cuts I'm not noticing when it does? I've heard of something like that, but I've never had it happen to me. I just get other weird glitches. It's too bad that XCOM does have so many glitches. Its so bold for Firaxis to put 'ironman' modes in their games at all, because there are times that it seems the whole experience is being held up by used bubblegum and scotch tape. edit: And I had an ironman/commander XCOM 2 game abruptly end due to some weird bug. Too much stuff going on for the engine to handle I reckon.
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Mar 8, 2016 01:08
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RELOAD, because when the game throws bullshit at you, the only proper response is to give that bullshit back to it.
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Mar 8, 2016 01:13
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There's a huge difference between reloading due to a bad roll and reloading due to a game bug. Here, reload.
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Mar 8, 2016 01:30
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Reload, because that is some serious bullshit.
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Mar 8, 2016 01:42
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I appreciate everyone's input, and after taking a nap on it and thinking about it we're just better off pressing on. Until then I'm going to see if I can recreate what happened so I know how to prevent it in the future. I don't think its a bug, but whoever thought it was a good idea to allow a soldier to shoot while the player is in the F1 screen is stupid. The repairs will set us back 4 days. I have the crew for the base assault figured out and we just have to not send those folks on missions, so as soon as items are repaired we can go on the base assault. In retrospect I tried to beg the thread for a reload because of timing - Next weekend I plan on us doing the base assault, and that being the only mission we do, because two weeks after that we won't be recording at all, and I know people prefer to have videos with Kidneyman in them. It would be too much for us to do one or two missions before the base assault, but we'll just have to figure things out by ear. The mission is pretty crazy, and I think folks will be interested in watching it.
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Mar 8, 2016 01:42
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Holy poo poo, 2 weeks!?!? How am I gonna get my XCOM fix???? If Beaglerush doesn't post something during the break I might go into withdrawal.
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Mar 8, 2016 01:48
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Rick_Hunter posted:Holy poo poo, 2 weeks!?!? How am I gonna get my XCOM fix???? We'll continue to have updates  . I plan this stuff out.
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Mar 8, 2016 01:51
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ProfessorBooty posted:We'll continue to have updates 
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Mar 8, 2016 01:52
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ProfessorBooty posted:I've heard of something like that, but I've never had it happen to me. I just get other weird glitches. Only happens on particular maps (two of the scout UFO crashes, and the Trash Mountain raider-size UFO site) and after getting both squad size upgrades in LW, but for those maps and the particular starting positions it's very consistent for me. I always chalked it up to the initial placement code not knowing how to put more people than are allowed in the base game and was grudgingly impressed that at least the game was robust enough to not crash because someone was outside the map, and indeed even allow them to function in every way that doesn't require movement. Once it was the sniper who was floating in the void-beyond-the-mission and I just went ahead and played the map since it was open enough for her to still shoot stuff.
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Mar 8, 2016 02:12
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As for the info menu, that's really poor design, but in the grand scheme of X-Com, I doubt you could call it a 'bug' per se. This game does appear to unfortunately keep the tradition of its predecessors in having lots of annoying mechanical/UI gotchas. I'd bet that the entire screen containing the alien's info is actually invisible in input terms except for the scroll bar itself, meaning a misclick (or possibly even the tail end of unclicking from using the scroll bar) can send erroneous commands based on whatever's behind the box, or that there's at least some window for doing so while the game is displaying other text or something. I would still call that worth reloading, personally, but if you don't feel so then it IS your boat, after all. As for the soldiers outside the map issue, that might at least be somewhat of an oversight. Some kind of sanity check should probably be performed to force units back into the map, because otherwise that situation could probably be abused. Granted, it's a pretty minor oversight if it can never normally happen in regular, unmodded gameplay... Shady Amish Terror fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Mar 8, 2016 |
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Mar 8, 2016 02:48
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I tried my best to recreate what happened. It seems that normally its impossible to intentionally fire in the F1 menu. I thought maybe something was happening with my USB hub, so I was doing things like slowly unplugging the mouse while clicking down and none of that happened. Classtoise was like, 'gently caress it! I'm shooting him commander!'. If I had weird troop spawn-ins I would see if I could teleport the unit into a sane place using the dev console.
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Mar 8, 2016 02:57
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Huh, interesting. Could be any sort of other weirdness then. Hard to tell with X-Com, sometimes...
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Mar 8, 2016 04:36
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Hoooly poo poo that video had me going as soon as I saw the mechtoid, and then Classtoise just went crazy. I look forward to seeing this mission unfold now, it looks like it's going to be fun. I hope I'm one of the folks in for the base assualt!
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Mar 8, 2016 04:40
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SaffronKit posted:Hoooly poo poo that video had me going as soon as I saw the mechtoid, and then Classtoise just went crazy. I look forward to seeing this mission unfold now, it looks like it's going to be fun. I hope I'm one of the folks in for the base assualt! Funny, the aliens are hoping the exact opposite. 
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Mar 8, 2016 11:53
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JJjpeyIv40 Part 3 of stream.
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Mar 8, 2016 23:26
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 Youtube Link
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Mar 9, 2016 15:00
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Literally cheering, "Lemme take the shot! I can kill him" And then someone replaced my Gauss rounds with .22LR or something.  Guys, equipment pranks aren't funny!
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Mar 9, 2016 15:43
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I love how we're so jaded by expecting shots to miss that a 69% is considered shooting the moon.
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Mar 9, 2016 16:37
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