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[Kyzrati]

I still hear 'Zatcom' in my head when I see the name.

Later on I'll put together a list of promising alternatives and start an in-depth discussion, since it'll probably have to change eventually, unless it turns out that a majority of people want to keep the current name. I'd rather get far enough into development that players can first see more of how the game will play overall.

[forsaken1111]

I don't actually mind the name, and that wasn't a criticism.

I just can't help but try to work out words in my head... and this one gives my phonetics center a fit.

[Kyzrati]

I didn't take it as criticism, but have wanted to change it mostly so that it shows up in web searches (though most people seem pretty good about just searching for "xcom rl"), and to at least give it a subtitle to better reflect the content. Not sure yet. It's definitely low priority, either way...

[Kyzrati]

X@COM-watching Baywatchers!

New release is out! It comes with a new scenario, "Exodus": Assist the National Guard during the evacuation of a city overrun by aliens--Replayability is high as the city layout and opposition forces are randomly generated. You now also have FULL INVENTORY ACCESS, which should help a lot, and I've added remote charges for fun.

Check out the blog post for more details, or download directly HERE.

Also, I'm sure a fair number of people here probably already know about the voting (after all DF is on the list, too), but if you haven't heard, show your support for X@COM and vote over at Roguelike of the Year! X@COM won't win (DF and a dozen other games will crush X@COM at this stage), but it's not all about winning, it's about awareness. After all, you can vote for more than one title--show support for all the roguelikes you, um... like!

[Tarran]

...city layout and opposition forces are randomly generated... ...FULL INVENTORY ACCESS...

Wow, I need to get back into this.

And, if it turns out to be fun, then I'll vote for you along with some other RLs.

[Kyzrati]

And, if it turns out to be fun, then I'll vote for you along with some other RLs.

Damnit, I knew I should've actually tried to make the game fun

Whatever the verdict, thanks for playing! From a development perspective, I wouldn't say it's necessarily pointless to make a game if no one plays it, but with X@COM the whole point is to make something for the fans, so not fun would be very bad indeed (need I mention pointless? ).

[Tarran]

Current win/loss ratio:

3/3 games lost.

And I'm still smiling slightly all the meanwhile.

You know it's a good game when you're losing and smiling at the same time. You earned my vote.



On another note: Gatling laser sucks with only a burst function. My guy is usually left with half a turn and unable to fire again...

Can you make it so either: 1, There's a snap fire mode; or 2, the laser takes up less TU for each burst?

Because as it stands, I'm losing a lot of TUs on the Gatling laser guy.

[Kyzrati]

Yeah, X-COM should be fun to lose as well as win, though I hope your game picks up It's meant to be on the hard side, but luck can play a big part since there's quite a bit of randomness. I had the game running on full auto this morning to check for bugs, and X-COM still managed to win, albeit generally with a negative score.

I agree on the Gatling laser. There was a bit of a dilemma with its design, since it was easier to restrict it to the burst only for the visual effect; at the same time I wanted it to be more powerful, but to balance correctly for that I had to up the TU cost to much higher than normal burst modes (60% for the laser, while all normal X-COM weapons are <= 40%). Another difference from other weapons is it can't be used for reaction fire with only a burst mode, also intentional.

Thanks for the vote.

...

I've reduced its TU cost to 45% and decreased its power to compensate. That should be better. I made the change in the online file, so if you want to play some more you can download a new copy.

[sambojin]

Damn, one of the few games I'd love to make a roguelike out of and someone has already done it. Congrats though. I've just d/l'ed the new version, so I'll give it a whirl over the next couple of days.

Also, with the modding extension, I bagsy making a WH40k mod for this. There, I said it first.

Also, would you consider making some "underground" z-levels for maps? A couple of negative z-levels might be cool from time to time (DF rubbing off on me I guess). Sewers for cities, viet-cong style tunnels for jungles, etc? It might give a bit more "depth" to the maps, so to speak. Up and over, down the street, or do the sewer gauntlet...... Just a thought.

[Tarran]

Kyzrati, Area 51 is very prone to crashing. After a certain amount of turns (Not sure how many) the game promptly crashes. I have run it 4 times so far.

[stabbymcstabstab]

It crashes about around turn five or six for me

[Kyzrati]

It crashes about around turn five or six for me

Just to confirm: Are you also referring to Area 51 like Tarran? I didn't go back and test it after the new update, so I probably screwed something up with all the changes. I know Exodus should run normally since I played all the way through that one. I'll find out what's up with Area 51 and fix it today.

EDIT: I found the problem and fixed it already, but I can't access my server at the moment, so I'll upload the new version as soon as I can, probably sometime within the next few hours.

Also, with the modding extension, I bagsy making a WH40k mod for this. There, I said it first.

WH40k sounds like a good idea! Just so you know, there's already someone working on a WH40k RL. Different from what could be produced with an X@COM mod, of course, but since you brought it up...

Also, would you consider making some "underground" z-levels for maps? A couple of negative z-levels might be cool from time to time (DF rubbing off on me I guess). Sewers for cities, viet-cong style tunnels for jungles, etc? It might give a bit more "depth" to the maps, so to speak. Up and over, down the street, or do the sewer gauntlet...... Just a thought.

Yeah, I was going to try some underground stuff in a future test scenario. It's already doable in the game--you can have as many z-levels as you want, and you can easily make some of them underground by simply putting the "ground level" somewhere above 0. In Area 51, for example, most of the action is on level 1, and below that is "underground." I'll eventually make it so that you can specify what z-level counts as the ground, and the ones below that will be referred to with negative numbers, so it'll be more obvious.

One issue with underground fighting would be cave-ins, which would be pretty easily caused with powerful weaponry... You can see for yourself by loading up the sandbox level and tunneling your way into the SW hill. Terrain provides certain amounts of support for that above and near it, but it's a terrain-set value, so perhaps dirt further underground could be stronger and it would be less of a problem. Either way, for now it doesn't matter too much since dirt actually doesn't reconstitute once destroyed, so cave-ins don't actually fill in areas below them--they just leave holes above the area. Will have to do some testing to see later. I'll add in a scenario with underground combat in a future alpha release.

[Kyzrati]

Uploaded a fixed version (same filename). Happy alien-killing.

[Tarran]

Nice, it works.

Two things:

Area 51 is extremely difficult.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Sectopod MKII is less effective than the captured ones by a long shot (three hits with the Laser MKII, no effect on captured ones which already took multiple cannon and rocket hits, MKII took one burst to the backside with standard sectopod laser and died instantly). The "Reinforcements" are worthless. The two backside Sectopods make things nearly impossible.

And after losing, in my own turn (due to reaction fire) and before the results screen, pressing Tab crashed the game. Game type is Area 51.

[Kyzrati]

Thanks for the tab crash notice--I've gotten few to no bug reports in the past, and just have to find everything myself, so every little bit helps. I'll look into it.

As for balance, I'm not worried too much about it right now since all these crazy new weapons and aliens I'm adding are just temporary. They'll eventually all be removed and replaced by purely standard X-Com fare, followed by gradual introduction of new properly balanced content after 1.0.

That said, while Area 51 may be difficult, it's not impossible, as some players have been able to beat it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

All the Sectopods, including captured and MkII, have exactly the same armor values, the difference is that the MkII has an area effect laser weapon which is far less effective against heavily-armored targets (and Sectopods are the most heavily-armored out there); it's great against groups of weaker aliens, and its laser is effective against the Colossus. Also, Sectopods are weak against lasers, and their Sectopods are armed with lasers while yours doesn't have a primary laser.

The reinforcements usually just land right in the middle of things and get chewed up; they're mostly to draw fire

Big hint if you're having trouble: If you don't think the MkII is worth it, you should probably stay away from it, because as soon as you activate it, the aliens send in a *huge* force of reinforcements to compensate. They *really* want that thing dead. I agree that the Sectopod could use a more powerful non-AOE weapon, so I've increased its cannon damage significantly (60 -> 100, but it's still doing armor-piercing damage--still less effective than lasers against other Sectopods). I put the change in the current version online.

Another hint: The captured Sectopods are not re-patriated until the aliens breach the base, so if you can slow them down... Or, you can even try to take out the captured Sectopods before they're activated.

Anyone who wants to can tweak the game data for testing/fun. It'll be easier later once I document everything, but it's too early to mess with that since things are always changing. Probably the most pertinent data is located in data/objects/*.* (More specifically entities.xt (units) and items.xt.) Open them as text files, and make sure your editor uses a fixed-width font and has line wrapping disabled.