UFO: CF Interview Has Landed!

[Pete]

The interview we announced back in September 2007 the team behind UFO: Cydonias Fall has finally arrived!

 

This extensive chat with the dev team covers various aspects of the game and the development process with over 30 questions, and if that wasn't enough we've also got the following goodies for you as well:

• Storyboard graphics & concept artwork
  
• New music and sound effects
  
• Early mock-up of part of the intro sequence
  

You can read the interview here, head over to the UFO: CF project pages we've added to see all the extra stuff we've added and discuss the game in the new project forum.

 

[Gimli]

It's about time! Now on to reading it.

[Space Voyager]

Great interview! I hope they find the time and resources for the AI. It would be a shame to make it look nice but play bad.

[Slaughter]

Stay with turn-based guys. There's enough RTwP games in the world already (including X-COM inspired), and having both RT and TB is a recipe for disaster.

[Gimli]

I think they would be more likely to hit a chord with the fans if they went for turn based. Really, TB and RT mean quite a different approach. Not only that, they'll have to balance each of them, and then rebalance them so that neither has an advantage over the other. That's twice more work and then some. And it would be even more of a shame given how good X-COM's combat engine is. You just need to combine the best of UFO's combat engine and Apoc's TB part of the combat (improved reactions, running, better psi etc.) and that would already be great.

Think about it this way: nobody is going to complain if you go turn based, but if you go for RT you will turn a lot of people off. I'm basing this on observations I've made on other forums.

You have to be aware that by taking so much from the original, there are expectations and turn based is definitely one of them.

[Bomb Bloke]

I dunno, I really liked Apoc's use of the two modes.

 

Though the difference between Apoc and CF is that this is a free project... It doesn't have to be released and then patched once or twice before finally being forgotten. It can be upgraded no end.

 

If it's built from the ground up as a RT engine (which only lets you play in TB mode), you get many of the perks of both modes without the need to balance the two. This also makes it easier to incorporate a RT mode later on should you wish to have one because the multitask support is already present.

 

If the game is built with a TB engine... Then it'd be very difficult to add RT mode later should it be wanted, and you lose such features as the ability to move more then one unit at a time...

[Cpl. Facehugger]

I dunno, I really liked Apoc's use of the two modes.

 

In principle, I agree, however in practice I found myself using Apoc's RT mode because I felt it gave me a sizable tactical advantage. Therein lies the problem -Balance. Something that's perfectly balanced in RT mode can all too easily become a terrible imbalance in turnbased mode, or vice-versa.

 

Though the difference between Apoc and CF is that this is a free project... It doesn't have to be released and then patched once or twice before finally being forgotten. It can be upgraded no end.

 

Yes, however, conversely, being a free project, man-hours are spread over a much greater period of time. They don't have a half-dozen codemonkeys working nine to five to get the game out within a reasonable period of time. Adding RT mode, along with all of the balance issues that entails, only exacerbates this problem.

 

I'd rather they focus on just one combat system (preferably pure TB) and only think about doing other combat systems when they've got version 1 out the door.

 

If it's built from the ground up as a RT engine (which only lets you play in TB mode), you get many of the perks of both modes without the need to balance the two.

 

I don't quite understand what you mean here. How can an RT engine play in TB mode? The closest I can think of is Fallout: Tactics, but that system was about as far from X-Com as you can get, and, to be honest, I think it would fail utterly in maintaining the 'feel' of X-Com unless there was a 'classic' option available for actual TB combat.

 

Also, I don't quite understand what the 'perks' of a RT engine would be if limiting the game to TB combat.

 

This also makes it easier to incorporate a RT mode later on should you wish to have one because the multitask support is already present.

 

Why would an engine have to be realtime in order to have multiple tasks going at once? UFO: ET is purely TB but it lets you move multiple men at once as I recall.

 

and you lose such features as the ability to move more then one unit at a time...

 

Why? I don't understand why this has to be the case with a TB engine.

[Azrael Strife]

Cpl, AFAIK, in TB, no two units ever move at the same time, they always move one at a time, always, am I mistaken?

[Gimli]

I believe you can, but I'm too lazy to fire up Apocalypse. You can check there, though. Though there's really no reason that you couldn't add it even if it hadn't been done.

[Bomb Bloke]

Lemme put it another way:

 

In traditional TB, only one unit can move at a time, and the players take turns making moves.

 

In traditional RT, all units can move at the same time, and the two players give their orders at the same time. A multitasking engine is required for this.

 

Apocalypse dealt with the matter by using the same RT-capable engine for everything... but in TB mode the units are assigned TUs dependant on their speed and only one player can move at once. Small changes slapped onto the same system.

 

And yes, you can move multiple units at a time in TB mode. Remember that Apocalypse used a squad based system? Group a few men together, give 'em an order, they'll all do it at the same time. While you wait you can even go give another group orders.

 

Compare this to UFO, where only one unit can move at a time, only one bullet can fly at a time, only one explosion can happen at a time... Everything happens one after the other. There's no multitasking at all and so even with the source you'd need to do a significant amount of re-writing to create a RT version.

[Prostetiche]

Hello, i have to say I'm really glad i finally found some people resurecting ye olde X-Com!

I was wondering if you needed a concept artist, but i see you already have that position taken, annyway i'll send you some of my work if you're intrested.

 

Snakeman (left) and Muton (right)

https://img407.imageshack.us/img407/6435/mutonsnaketd8.jpg

 

Floater

 

https://img264.imageshack.us/img264/4048/floatersx9.jpg

[Azrael Strife]

Hello, i have to say I'm really glad i finally found some people resurecting ye olde X-Com!

I was wondering if you needed a concept artist, but i see you already have that position taken, annyway i'll send you some of my work if you're intrested.

You'll have better luck at their site than at our forum, I don't think they drop by very often.