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[Frocto]

Well, you were close, except it's set in Ansby

[JDigital]

That would be pretty dang sweet, though Esperath has a point: What would the "research tree" look like? Logically speaking you shouldn't even have one.

Mediaeval peasants wouldn't have the science or engineering to reverse-engineer alien technology, nor the airplanes necessary for shooting down UFOs and troop transport. The solution I came up with is that the peasants can capture the first UFO they encounter, which serves as both a transport and fighter craft.

On board the UFO is an Alien Entertainment, which serves as a download-shit-to-your-brain. A limited number of people at a time can use the device to gain understanding of a certain field of technology. This time-consuming process works like research. It can also be used to learn how to pilot the ship and control its systems.

Perhaps the ship also contains limited facilities to produce technology, or else the "engineers" need sit in the Alien Entertainment to learn how to make it themselves.

[TA]

[Mothra]

A way better way of doing medieval research would be to just have your knights club this smart-looking grays over the head and make them do the space science for them.

The research screen would just be a massive guy with a knife standing next to a floater trying to smelt pieces for a plasma rifle from steel.

Well I suppose your guys wouldn't really be using guns. It would totally be "demon-wizards cafting flaming swords (of raw plasma)" and explosive-tipped pikes.

[Mongrel]

I think it might be more interesting if you skip any conventional notion of research at all. Like you can only use alien-made items, but you can't build any yourself. After a while, you might learn enough to better maintain the weapons you buy, but at first your guys will handle them clumsily and may ruin them inadvertently.

The best advice I can give is to think of real occasions where less-developed civilizations came into abrupt contact with high technology. Like native americans and rifles or south pacific cargo cults.

Of course, it also depends on what route you'd want to go with such a game. My ideas only apply if you're trying to make a somewhat realistic simulation. You can use all the silly rationalization you want, if you just want an excuse for medieval dudes with laser swords and plasma pikes.

If you do go for a "high realism" kind of thing then, you would have to give the humans some kind of trump card, be it human germs, the "we're good at melee" thing from the book linked above, or something else,

[Mothra]

I dunno, it would kind of be awesome if they used the same dumb brute-force tactics they did in the crusades to counter a similarly large threat. You'd treat your troops like you'd treat pirates in a pirate game, as disposable (loyal) subjects.

Also for some reason I picture you having to knock in the front door of a UFO with four dudes on a battering ram and it being totally gnilly.

[Bongo Bill]

In cases like those, individuals from the less-developed civilization could integrate into the intellectual circles of the more-developed one, but the civilization as a whole could only reach that level, at great cost, if it made a deliberate, concerted, and holistic, effort to modernize. Typically it'd take a minimum of a generation before the tremendous costs started to pay off, with the advancement achievable only by importing experts from the rival civilization, and even then the sustainability of the progress can be called into question. Obviously during this time the senior civilization is capable of putting the kibosh on things if it so chooses.

The prerequisites for understanding a given technological artifact are the same as those for inventing it: you must first understand, recursively, all the technology it depends on for its creation and use.

[JDigital]

I like the idea of villagers gaining fragments of knowledge far too advanced for its time, and the effect that knowledge might have. It can be a way to explore man's relationship with science and the dehumanizing effect of technology on mankind. Or something.

No research works too (perhaps nothing much more advanced than plate armour made from alien alloys), but I think X-Com might lose something without alien tech.

[Shinra]

The only way I could see this game ending is the fallout ending.

You try to return to your people after beating back the aliens, but because you've seen space, what lies beyond it, and the technology of another far more advanced race, you're deemed heretics by the church for implying any race is greater than man, who was made in god's image, and are forced into the depths of space, to hunt down the alien threat.

The followup game would be a 4-d/space shooter hybrid called Ye X-Comme Interceptore: Fpace Crufade.

[Mothra]

No bullshit

This would be the ultimate game.

[Smiler]

So I was trying out the UFO Extender mod today, and even though it can add a ton of cool stuff to the game, I can't get past one thing. The mod uses the windows exe file. The windows collectors edition fixed the difficulty bug, but the geoscape time scale is messed up. The time ticks smoothly, so it goes faster than the dos version. The time scales from 5 seconds per 1, which is true, but then you get to 5 minutes per 1 second, which is actually 180 minutes per 1 second. Anything faster than that and HOLY SHIT MARTY WE'RE GOING BACK TO THE FUTURE!

[Mothra]

Alright well, unfortunately, the new Julian Gollop title for the 3DS isn't an X-Com, but rather, "Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars". It's turn-based and it'll probably be pretty good, but I DUNNO FOLKS.

[Smiler]

Someone on Something Awful was talking about how part of the charm of X-Com was the story you make in your head as your characters get slaughtered or survived. Someone replies with this:

Jimmy sprung from bed, the distinct buop buop buop buop buop buop buop buop buop buop buop buop buop buop getting closer. He ran downstairs to his mother in the kitchen and yelled, "Mom! The XCOM Laser Cannon Truck is here! I want a laser cannon!" With a sigh she reached into her purse and moments later Jimmy ran after the truck, $182,000 in hand.

[JDigital]

If only Jimmy built his own laser cannons, which are one of the most profitable items in the game, he'd learn the value of a dollar.

[Mothra]

Xenonauts update

Oh god fuck yes fuck yisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

[Mothra]

More screens

Jesus this thing is looking sexy

[Smiler]

None of these links work.

[Mothra]

Alright, fixed them. I guess the URL tag adds "http://" before everything now?

[Smiler]

Have you see the air combat yet? I'm afraid it is going to be a little wonky, what with the turn based combat.

[Mothra]

I mean it'll very likely just be what they did in X-Com, where you just press a button and watch the UFO get shot down. It'll be great if they do something better, but I wouldn't expect so.