AlanatXcomHQ

While X-com fans know of Fnotte for his remix of the classic X-Com 1 theme (Here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClChdixjwUs) Not many know of his recent remix (Here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtyvh-DeQYs&feature=channel&list=UL) And now an X-Com fan has mixed the latest XCOM: Enemy Unknown Trailer to the recent remix (Here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEGcHC3LueA&feature=channel&list=UL) Enjoy

A solid tactic I have is to always bring 2 heavies, 2 medics and 2 snipers and then pair off into 2 groups of 3 (1 Heavy, 1 Medic and 1 Sniper). Assaults are practically useless and I don't usually see a point in using them to be honest.

I've also had a few bugs that have mostly been around the saving mechanic on the PC version of the game. 1:) Autosaves appear to become disabled partway though the game. This has occurred roughly about 75% of the way into the game and it occurred on the Easy Difficulty as well. Whether or not it was caused by having so many autosaves and so many saves that the game "ran out" of space for more autosaves I'm not sure of. But it meant that the game would not save to a new file and I was forced to overwrite previously saved games in order to save my progression. Tried deleting some of the save games and it did help, a LITTLE bit, but the problem came back quickly. 2:) Sniper's Battle Scanner. All you have to do to reproduce this bug is to use the battle scanner, save the game and then reload the save, apparently it'll treat it as if the sniper has thrown the battle scanner directly at the Sniper's feet instead of where it had originally landed. 2b:) Never throw the Battle Scanner into the UFO, noticed it went through the UFO floor and the scanning graphic never appeared. 3:) Chance is NOT RANDOM I know this sounds really stupid, but there IS a way to ensure you ALWAYS hit an alien, despite the % you have to hit. I've noted while using the saves that certain moves will always ensure a solider will hit an alien or not. Not once have I come across a situation where on one save, the solider will hit on the first turn and then on the reload of that save, miss that alien on the first turn. Bare this in mind. This was done on Easy Difficulty, however, like any old school X-COM player. I do abuse the saves in this game. Here's an example of what I meant. Situation: Solider A, Solider B and Alien A Alien A appears and you SAVE THE GAME. Solider A uses both turns (Using Bullet Swarm to ensure that you can fire your weapon on both turns), misses the first and hits on the second. Solider B misses both turns (Again using Bullet Swarm). RELOAD the save. Solider B uses one turn and misses. Solider A uses one turn and HITS. The chance to hit an alien is not random. Also, having an alien at low health (3HP or lower) will pretty much always ensure that alien will die. Set up your snipers to have the skill "In the Zone" and thus be weaking the aliens down to 3 HP with your other soliders, your snipers can take them out, one kill shot after another. 3b:) Aliens don't randomly move Again, abusing save games here. I've noted several times where the aliens will perform the same movement patterns when they appear or move to during the alien phase. Meaning that you could potentially "ambush" aliens into a killzone of overwatch if your extremely lucky and use save games to "foresee" events. 4:) The Darkness can be your friend. Indeed it can. Sometimes finding an alien on the edge of the fog of war and then reloading the autosave or save before you discovered the alien means that sometimes the alien does not always move and thus follows a "trigger" pattern (eg. it won't move till discovered.) This can also work where on terror missions if you move a solider to a specific spot, certain civilians won't die during the Alien Activity phase. (I know its weird, but it HAS HAPPENED.) Also look at the Tactics section of this page and see that it mentions the alien squad script bugs I've noted. http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Gameplay_Mechanics_(EU2012)

From the looks of it all, the game is pretty much in its Alpha build stage (The initial build of the game that the devs work on.) As for Screenshot 3, the Battlescape shot, its more than likely they haven't made any enemy models or even properly rigged them yet, so its easy to expect placeholder models for the aliens until later. For Screenshot 1, it does remind me of UFO Aftershock though I would not be surprised if this screenshot was used as a loading screen for missions.

What has been said in the interview is that its "An Origin story like Batman Begins" eg, their basically starting the story over again, starting from fresh from a previous point in the time line. As many of you know, in the original game. You start with X-COM literally STARTING OUT and having to PROVE to the countries that you can defend earth against the alien threat. Even in the X-COM 1 manual it states that UFO's have "RECENTLY" made an appearance (it is inferred from the manual to be at least within the previous 2 years) and that JAPAN made the start with a dedicated force in 1998, yet didn't find one UFO. Thus after 2 years they made it a global effort. Now they are SEVERELY ret-conning that entire premise with AMERICA making a start and first battling DIFFERENT aliens in the 1950's/1960's. Sorry, even I have to sometimes turn around and call BS.

http://spoonyexperiment.com/2011/06/23/e3-...nterviews-xcom/ Another video concerning the new X-COM, this time Angry Joe interviews a member of the team. Here are a few bullet points from the interview questions: 1:) You have Power and Squad Management like in Mass Effect, however, one of your "team" may now have a steal tech ability 2:) Psi-control or MC. They haven't implemented such a mechanic yet, though apparently the team member said it will be under consideration. (My guess is No) 3:) No Interceptors. You no longer have any input as to when a UFO crashes, you have no interceptors to shoot them down, the crashes come up on the board every so often. 4:) Mission progression. It is now as I feared in a previous post. Main story missions are ALWAYS present on the board and you are "allowed" to do the exp/research missions as and when they are available. Basically a variation on the Mass Effect mission structure. 5:) Aliens. At the moment they are "considering" other alien types in their game for more variety, though they will be new alien types, though the team member, when asked about the old aliens, said that the old aliens weren't alien anymore, its an Origin story "PRE-DATING X-COM 1" and that its all new aliens and that no appearance has been planned for the old aliens to return. 6:) Alien containment units. It was stated that in an early build they had the aliens in containment units for you to look into at your base. Though now they are still deciding whether or not to put those in the final game.

To be honest, I know I said alot and I know I quoted Spoony alot, but he and I have a very similar outlook on this game. Pretty much 90% of what he said is something I would have said as well. So I have alot of the same opinions as he does. But I will humor you on what I think if this game wasn't named X-COM. My honest opinion is that if they had made this a "Spiritual Successor" like Bioshock is to System Shock 2. Then yes, this game will gain a point in my favor. BUT... I would still have an issue with the setting of the game. This studio has only worked on that time period in their previous games. And it just doesn't show any variety at all. If in the years to come, they KEPT taking on projects and giving them this 1950's/1960's setting, I would be VERY concerned about any project title they are producing. It doesn't inspire confidence in me that they are trying something new. Overall however, this game doesn't feel like a full game as well. In fact it has a feeling of being a Mod of something, rather than a full game. Like a DLC for Fallout 3 (Fallout: New Vegas as an example) or Call of Duty: Black Ops. (The Zombie Mode) It just does not give the impression of a full title. If this game didn't carry the X-COM title, I would possibly decide to pick this game up in about 2-4 years time. When I can get it cheap. But unfortunately, I won't.

Just putting in my own opinion out there about this game. First off, I do have to agree with Spoony (http://spoonyexperiment.com/2011/06/16/e3-2011-xcom/), his opinion on the game that he has seen so far is totally right. Now I've played my fair share of games, I have played Mass Effect as well as playing all of the X-COM games you can buy on Steam and I have a university degree on making games. My honest opinion on this game, based on the trailer and what has been described by Spoony himself? I am very disappointed and disinterested in this game. These are the reasons I'd like to add as to what I think about this game. Firstly, from a purely technical standpoint. My opinions on the animations and textures are that they are HORRIBLE. I mean, they are BAD. You look at the new trailer, and you can clearly see that there is stuttering and missed body movements in the animations, they don't flow smoothly at all, you can clearly see an effect on the performance of this game as well in the somewhat less then average FPS (Frames Per Second). And the textures look bad as well. I mean, they are BAD. This is pre-Fallout 3 kind of graphical quality and to be honest it doesn't look good at all, it looks outdated by about 3-4 years. Another thing that urks me, quite strongly in fact, is the setting and location of this game. They are putting across that this game is meant to be 1950's-1960's era of America, which means that is has some inspiration from the incident at Roswell, New Mexico. The problem comes from the fact that, X-COM, the unit you control in all of the previous games, usually is global organisation in those previous games and in this game, it seems to be strictly inside of America. Now I have nothing against America itself, but on the bigger picture, that is a bit of MAJOR step-down from global victory against an alien menace. Plus, when you look at the games that the studio creating this game has done, its comprised of nothing BUT Bioshock and Bioshock 2, both of which have a similar time setting. My point being that this studio hardly seems to be diversifying in its art style or location and setting within its games. Another thing that disinterests me is the fact that Spoony mentioned "tactical elements" which, in the most simplest of terms, means they are taking some HEAVY inspiration from Mass Effect, and not in a completely good way either. When you look at the trailer, you can see in the running animations of the enemies that the stance and run animations seem to be "copied" from enemy movements in the Mass Effect games. If you know of the creatures called "Husks" in Mass Effect and how they run in that game, you know what I'm talking about. Also, Spoony mentioned "Powers" that the team members can use at your command, essentially boiling the combat missions in this new game to be nothing more then a Mass Effect battle in the First Person perspective. Which I personally feel, does not work. Mostly because it doesn't offer something different that what I've already experienced in another game and doesn't offer anything new. One more thing I want to mention is the "rewards" given to you at the end of each mission you undertake. Spoony said that some would progress the story, others would give lots of XP and some would give you weapons or research. The main problem with this is that it feels like the mission structures are gonna be based mostly around either Mass Effect or Starcraft 2. To the point where "Mission progression" type of missions are the only ones that do not have a "time limit" whilst the other two types may have that time limit and thus are open to an issue where you could finish all of the XP / research missions and plow through the "storyline" missions with ease because of what you have earned in the other missions. This is not fact, this is what I personally think will happen within this game. Another issue with these "rewards" is that it is clearly defined what we earn, and all of the X-COM games previously have not had that. In the previous games, it was up to the player to decide what awards they got from a mission based on what weapons and items they bring to said mission. Weapons to stun aliens and psi-amps are brought to bring in important live aliens whilst lethal weapons are brought to kill aliens, it was that simple. In this game, it feels like you just shoot everything that moves and get a bunch of stuff regardless of any research paths you can take. Which certainly does not feel like you have as much of a contribution to the way you wish to take your research compared to the original games. Even Mass Effect 2 with its boring scanning and probing planets for resources give the player a much bigger contribution to what that player wants researched then what has so far been described about in this game. On one final, final note about this game, I know its still a year off from now, but I would have to agree with Spoony on the non-appearance of the old Alien favorites from the previous X-COM games, I do want to see Sectoids and Snakemen and Mutoids and Cyberdiscs and all the old favorites from the old games. I mean, even DUKE NUKEM FOREVER did just that. It remade nearly ALL of the aliens from Duke Nukem 3D. And that's saying something. My honest opinion. I myself will not buy this game. Unless they pull a miracle out of their rear within 10 months that will drastically turn things around. I'm not buying it. I'll buy something else. That's my final say.

Well there is the http://www.projectcolonisation.co.uk/ URL you can look at, its not dead at all as its the most recent, but there isn't any page to contact team members on it. It used to have a page with the names of the most recent team members and such, but that was taken down in the newest version of the site. The best bet I can say is try to contact Tim ("The The Veteran" on these forums) and try and get contact details from him.

Made another vid, intro concept music

Hey all, just thought to share the music track I made some time ago for this project, might get some interest in the project as a result

Mind you, thinking outside of the box for perhaps a moment here and maybe taking too much inspiration from other sources. Perhaps we could think about expanding into Particular TYPES of SPV's. Perhaps one kind of SPV would be based on the design of the APC from the Aliens film, that is to be a personal troop carrier that is capable of fitting into the underside of a flying craft. Perhaps we could literally have it so that the APC has a HUGE amount of armor, like the tanks, so they can withstand a few hits, but with no weapons though, and perhaps have a feature of the flying craft hovering high above for missile strikes on specific targets Other kinds of SPV's would be things like Tanks, or converted Riot Vehicles, and perhaps have a feature, much like in Apocalypse, where we could modulate the weapons and armour systems on a vehicle.

Found this on youtube a while back and thought to place this video in the forums for everyone to have a listen, pretty good remix if you ask me

I'm interested in the concept that it holds. Essentially, what you are asking is for something of a hybrid that wasn't truly touched upon in X-com 1 and X-com 2. In both games, there are tank units that the player can put in the squad. They come in various types like Heavy Cannon, Rocket, Plasma types, Laser types, even tanks that fly later on in the game and so forth. What this concept you are asking is, is essentially a tank that does not have a lethal weapon, but rather a stun grenade, very much like the Stun Launcher weapon from X-com 1.

Personally, I think this new game could very well be a Bioshock / Rainbox Six: Vegas 2 kind of hybrid, using ability / stat strategy of Bioshock's for potential stat increase like in X-com 1 and 2 and for FPS strategy gameplay like Vegas 2

Not to ruin anyone's bubble, but just to confirm to both Bloodmoney and Space Voyager that X-com Colonisation is NOT a sequel Chronologically speaking (ie not taking place AFTER any x-com game) but rather a chronological PREQUEL taking place some 65 million years BEFORE x-com 1 / UFO:EU There was an interview about Colonisation that took place way back in August 2006 where this chronological date was stated. On the notion on multiple alien races all competing with each other, this seems to spring to mind the large amount of "companies / groups" in X-com: Apoc that you could either please / displease or out and out trash them. Now I am not one to suddenly suggest that you can pay off / buy / bribe a particular alien race from attacking you, simply on the notion that cause this game follows the formula that X-com 1 and 2 had, Colonisation would have the same sort of alien Hierarchy meaning the psychic overlords of the aliens make the point of buying an alien race out mute. PLUS, X-com itself never ever negotiated with aliens in X-com 1 and 2 and Colonisation will more then likely follow the same route.

The only problem I can see about the other side (The AI) knowing where the base is, is a particular scenario of the AI being able to locate and at least attempt a raid on each base X-com owns and thus "remembering" where each base is and sending their heaviest and strongest alien ships to attack it. Unless the AI is programmed to forget after a set time, this may lead to the AI being ruthless and effectively "haunting" the player's bases throughout the world.

Zombie: "If more bases are allowed, I'd suggest lowering the detection radius of the radars and hyperwave decoder. Otherwise it would be too easy to gain the upper hand in detecting." Currently, in X-com 1 and 2, the image below shows the rough estimate on the detection radius. Also consider that short and long range radars only have a 10-20% CHANCE of detecting alien ships, and apparently only check the radius once every half hour, everything else (Like craft and hyperwave) has a 100% detection chance. http://www.ufopaedia.org/images/5/57/Detection_and_tracking_ranges.png Yellow = craft, Green = Short range, Blue = Long range and Red = Hyperwave decoder. I found this image from www.ufopaedia.org and thought it would certainly be a helpful guide. Perhaps as a suggestion, what if the player was given an in-game representation of their radar radius, X-com 1 and 2 didn't show this, but the first hint of a radar radius I believe came from X-com Interceptor. Perhaps an image of a rotating sonar like radar above the base to show the player just how far they can scan. Plus the rotation can be done based on the speed the player decides to go through day. So short range can rotate like 4 time an hour, whilst long range could do 2 times an hour. As for reducing the radius of the scans, how much do you want to reduce it by? Because too many bases may very well make the player to have 1 main base with high-stat soldiers whilst the rest become nothing more then listening posts with interceptor hangers and psi/brave screens for raw recruits. Plus could alien owned bases have radars? Or should there be a limit on what facilities can be made in an alien base?

While lifting the 8-base limit seems like a good idea, one question did come to mind: "At what point does it become financially become a burden on the player?" What I mean is, if the 8-base limit is removed and the player decides to generate 20 bases, whilst they may have radar superiority over the world map, enabling them to find aliens instantly, it would be financially redundant to the player since the cost of maintaining 20 X-com bases and lets say another 20 Alien bases (so 40 in total) would be a huge financial burn in the X-com wallet. Perhaps as a suggestion, what if the cap was raised to 10 X-com bases, with 20 alien bases? With each alien base costing roughly half of an X-com base (essentially 2 alien bases for the price of 1 X-com base) Meaning on a financial scale, the X-com wallet would in total have to maintain the equivalent on 20 X-com bases in total. And as for the retrofit, what if facilities cost half in money to "retrofit" and half the time to "build"? So for example, say a normal X-com facility took 20 days to build, in an alien base, the same facility would cost half as much and take 10 days to build. Although the function within them would still take the same amount of time (Like research could take 10 days to finish in both X-com and alien bases)

There is an interesting thought in that last post "the base remains either in my hands or deserted for whoever can grab it" Perhaps after an alien base is raided and cleaned out of hostile aliens, what if X-com had the option (during the debriefing after the mission) to "move in". It would certainly allow X-com essentially a free base without having to BUILD a new one. The only advantage / disadvantage I think that should come with that decision is that: Whilst you gain TONS of alien materials, corpses and tech to use at your disposal, they remain in the alien base in a "general stores" facility already made after the mission is completed and the player chooses to take the base (live aliens get taken back to your own base for study) However, the disadvantage I think should be that the aliens will not hesitate in trying to get their base back quickly after your forces have taken it from them. Meaning if you want to keep it, leave a few soldiers there to make sure no alien raids suddenly take over your recently acquired base. Another thing to consider with this is, should an alien base take up a slot in one of the 8 main bases X-com can have? Or should alien bases have their own set, in effect, lets say for example, the player can manage 8 X-com bases and 16 Alien Bases that they've taken over? Another thing to consider is, if the player loses an X-com owned base made by the player (Like the one the player starts the game with, the HQ) do they have the option to take that base back and regain the facilities there? Or like in X-com 1 and 2 that as soon as you lose the base, you have to build a new one?

Let us also not forget the in-battlescape options in both X-com 1 and 2 also has several "speed settings" ranging from shot speed of x-com troops, shot speedof aliens, movement speed of x-com troops and movement speed of aliens. In a sense, allowing players to make soldiers zip around the map at lighting pace and make the aliens move in slow motion. As well as slowing the speed in which an alien blast travels so that you had a slight advantage in knowing where it came from and where to direct your firepower to. Perhaps these kind of options should make a return, allowing players to dictate how fast or slow something moves in the battlescape regardless of TU. Plus, if we are to implement destructible environments (of any kind) it probably would be cool to have the option of seeing a building or an object explode in fiery goodness in slow motion

I think your probably right to doubt the usefulness of the pip system within this game. Cause then we'd be going into stats pages and manually adjusting things when X-com really just makes things simple and either you have the skills or not. There really isn't any sort of control on the player's part about that. Although perhaps a good suggestion based on Psi training would be to perhaps increase the Psi units bar in much the same way soldiers train their TU's in X-com 1 and 2 whilst having set levels of psi profiency that are awarded in much the same way as ranks are within X-com 1 and 2. So like a Commander, you can only really have like say 1 super powerful psi user with all psi skills in 1 base, whereas several weaker psi users have access to psi skills based on their "psi rank". This sort of example proves more clearer in this sort of context. A) a soldier that, while they may have the most units of Psi (lets say 250 units of Psi for arguments sake), that soldier can only do ONE specific psi skill like create illusion because their a "Rookie-ranked" Psi soldier whereas; B) a "Sergeant-ranked" Psi soldier or "Commander-Ranked" Psi soldier would have access to more psi skills because they have a higher "rank" in psi. To some degree, this kind of prevents "psi training and farming skills" to much the same way that it prevents players from achieving 50 commander-ranked human units in X-com 1 and 2. In basic, preventing players from actively trying to force better psi abilities to soldiers rather then earn them with experience the long way.

Thanks for understanding on not disclosing such info Certainly, having a illusion the player can actually distinquish as fake isn't good, I was thinking something along the lines of about 90-95% opacity so the player has an actual HARD time to distinquish its a fake, I certianly like the idea of an illusion taking about 2-3 shots before dissapating. As for WHAT aliens can appear, it would certainly be a bit too easy for players if their playing a mission with a specific type of species and then find one completely different alien in the mix. Usually X-com has missions where aliens are usually either 1-2 species dependant on the species included, such as Sectoids and Cyberdiscs and Snakemen and Chryssalids. To put this into a clear example, lets say we're in a Sectoid and Cyberdisc mission, it would be VERY unusal to see a Celatid thrown in cause they go with Mutons So perhaps any illusions made are of the aliens that create the illusion, like a mirror image of them, or creating the illusion of the species accompanying them.

This reply is in direct reply to NKF's post on line-of-sight psi and to Thor's suggestions on Player Paranoia and "OMEGA" threat level creatures. NKF: Considering that this game is set 65 millions previous to X-com 1, then yes psi abilities should be limited, but not full blown mind-control and you've got an alien do puppet dances for yea. (Sorry to sound rude) I think cause the soldiers themselves are just learning these psi skills themselves (Not to the extent the aliens do) then perhaps having them use the same level of "suggestion" and "paranoia" as the aliens do would be a more feasible handicap. Also, in X-com 1 and 2, you only really had enough TU's on one soldier (even with maxed out TU's) to technically only be able to affect one alien, 2 pushing it before your TU's ran out. (Since mind control basically took half of that's soldier's TU's to work) Now I know that was mostly TU based, but for RT Apoc wise (of which I'm not familiar with completely) Let me suggest perhaps that the psi-recharging bar be "Based" on the amount of total TU a soldier has, so that if a soldier has 51 TU units, the psi bar also has 51 "units" of psi energy the player can use seperate from the TU the soldier has. However, for options like Stun/Panic/Suggest/Create illusion/Scare(Fear)/Paranoia perhaps a *set amount* of Psi unit could be used and then have a constant "maintenence" fee to continue effects over time. Like for example Soldier A uses 10 psi units to "Create Illusion" and then has 2 psi units drain every second to keep that illusion on. What about that? Thorondor: In regards to your suggestions on a) player paranoia and b) predator and prey. I don't want to go into specific details simply cause if I were to, then we'd be going onto the realms of the creature list for this game, which, if I recall, hasn't been finalised or even "unclassified" for others to know of yet. So far the only people that know of the creatures in the creature list is: Myself, Vetern and a few others from the last time the Colonisation Project was working. However, I will TRY to reply to this post as best as I can. A) Player paranoia You noted about alien parasites in this section and their function and purpose remind me of the G'uold from Stargate-1 or the Las Plagas from Resident Evil 4 and 5, however, so FAR no such "creature" exists in our current creature list, so no Chryssalid's or Tentaculat's on the list to turn your soldier's into walking timebombs. This game is 65 millions years BEFORE they appeared in the alien force. As for psi illusions, I think it would be extremely unfair for players to see an enemy unit and unload all their bullets on that illusion expecting it to go down and find out its not real. Personally I feel its TOO unfair, perhaps by giving the player at least some form of hint as to it being an actual illusion, like being partly see-through or something to the same sortof affect. Just to give the players some hint or clue that its not real. B) Predator to prey Again, another thing that I hesitate to say upon cause of the Creature list, BUT I will say there is definately some creatures on the creature list that certainly qualify for "OMEGA" threat level. Some creatures earn it physically and others mentally with their Psi abilites. So that's as far as I'm gonna go on that. Oh yes and one more thing, you mentioned Android units, as far as I know, the player only has control over human units, no androids or hybrids to hire or anything like that, pure and simple human units. With the odd tank thrown in

Considering that Colonisation is going to be 65 millions years previous to the first X-com game, then its definately feasible that psychic abilities aren't of the terrifying level they were in X-com 1 and X-com Interceptor. I'm not gonna go into the stats, but its certainly looks like you've definately thought about it stat wise. For the last paragraph, the use of visual or audio cues from the units to signify their under psi attack sounds like an interesting idea. Definately reminds me of messeges from wing-mates in X-com Interceptor letting you know they were under psi attacks, obviously your suggestion leaves the player clueless onto which specific unit is being assulted mentally and just how severe it is and definately going to make the player unsure on how to handle their units. I certainly like the idea of that.