UFO: Alien Invasion version 2.4

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H-Hour
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UFO: Alien Invasion version 2.4

Post by H-Hour »

The UFO: Alien Invasion development team is proud to announce the release of UFO: Alien Invasion version 2.4.

With more than a dozen new maps and dramatic speed improvements behind the scenes, 2.4 is a major step forward in our quest to build a fully free and open source tactical squad shooter and earth survival strategy game.

Image

While the lore behind UFO: Alien Invasion is very different from Wesnoth, I think there's a lot of crossover appeal. It's a macro-strategy base-building game built on top of tiled, turn-based tactical battles. It's built for those who like turn-based strategy and open-source gaming.

Version 2.4 supports a singleplayer campaign and multiplayer tactical battles. Here are just a few of the changes in 2.4:
  • A dozen new maps to battle aliens
  • Rescue soldiers in dropships shot down by aliens and retreat from battles
  • New particle and sound effects for weapons
  • Support for smoke and incendiary effects
  • New skirmish options to save squads and respawn aliens
  • Battlescape render speed dramatically improved
Download UFO:AI 2.4

UFO:AI 2.4 Changelog
Claes
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Re: UFO: Alien Invasion version 2.4

Post by Claes »

I love the aforementioned game. Not only is it a great game, like Wesnoth, it is freeware/open source, and though it has less of a vibrant community supporting the game, I think, they did a great job putting it together. Bottom line, if you like strategy games, especially in the vein of the X-com/UFO series, it is worth a download.

Also, like Wesnoth, it provides me with countless hours of free strategy / mind candy. I love it.
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The_Other
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Re: UFO: Alien Invasion version 2.4

Post by The_Other »

I've been trying to download this forever as I loved the early XCOM games (they lost it a bit with Interceptor), but for some reason it's never worked before. Hopefully the new version will work properly for me!
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H-Hour
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Re: UFO: Alien Invasion version 2.4

Post by H-Hour »

The_Other: what system are you on? We have struggled to find a Mac wiz who can provide good MacOS distributions, but 2.4 is the best yet for Macs (though some still have problems).

Win32 is pretty stable and I haven't heard of anyone actually unable to get it working. (Linux is beyond my competence, but most of our developers are on it so I'm sure you can find help installing it.)
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The_Other
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Re: UFO: Alien Invasion version 2.4

Post by The_Other »

I use Windows (7, currently - previously XP until this year). The problem I have is that, with every previous version I have tried to download, I attempt to install it only to be told that the file is corrupt and unusable. I don't know if this is a problem with the program itself, the downloading process or simply a peculiarity of my computer, but I've never been able to run the thing.
I have to admit, though, that my technical understanding of computers is equivalent to that of a slightly-above-average jellyfish, so I may be missing something really obvious!
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Max
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Re: UFO: Alien Invasion version 2.4

Post by Max »

try to use a download manager.

filse size (and checksums) are available here (click on info button):
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ufoai/f ... 202.x/2.4/
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The_Other
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Re: UFO: Alien Invasion version 2.4

Post by The_Other »

It works!
*Dances around, whooping and clapping like a lunatic*

Okay, so I'm not quitethat excited - but I just played a skirmish and it rocks (ewww, I sound like a teenager... :lol2: )
I haven't tried the campaign yet but plan to give it a go tonight. Compared to the original game, it really benefits from modern graphics - as I recall, the first two XCOMs were great fun but looked awful, while UFOAI looks a lot better.
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H-Hour
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Re: UFO: Alien Invasion version 2.4

Post by H-Hour »

Cool! Glad it's working for you.

Our graphics content is always in the process of being upgraded. Much of it is outdated and its difficult to attract 3D talent to an older engine, but we're making progress. Just yesterday we merged our pretty new soldier models into the development version.
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Dixie
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Re: UFO: Alien Invasion version 2.4

Post by Dixie »

It looks pretty awesome, but I've never played the original game and there are just so many things you have to manage/you can do! Also, I've found that which actions you can take/skirmish (or call it however you like) objectives are not really clear. I often was at a loss at what I should be doing and what to expect. Should I try to somehow put the civilians on my dropship to save them and retreat? Am I to entrench myself and wait for aliens to appear so that I can blast them? etc. It could seriously use a tutorial :/ But keep it up, it's looking good!
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The_Other
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Re: UFO: Alien Invasion version 2.4

Post by The_Other »

Dixie wrote:Should I try to somehow put the civilians on my dropship to save them and retreat? Am I to entrench myself and wait for aliens to appear...?
Simple seek-and-destroy seems to work just fine for me!
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H-Hour
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Re: UFO: Alien Invasion version 2.4

Post by H-Hour »

Dixie wrote:It looks pretty awesome, but I've never played the original game and there are just so many things you have to manage/you can do! Also, I've found that which actions you can take/skirmish (or call it however you like) objectives are not really clear. I often was at a loss at what I should be doing and what to expect. Should I try to somehow put the civilians on my dropship to save them and retreat? Am I to entrench myself and wait for aliens to appear so that I can blast them? etc.
If only! We call that the "battlescape" (as opposed to the geoscape -- the world view during a campaign). I dream of some day having a robust scriptable events and objectives system like Wesnoth, but for now the battlescape is just a straight up kill or be killed affair. Even the AI (alien and civilian) is damnably stupid -- no herding the civilians to safety, yet. But the real core of the battlescape is in soldier fire and movement. Some players prefer to let the aliens come to them, some like to move in and take them down. Whichever you choose, how you find and use cover and the different weapons will make a big difference. In the campaign, the number of civilians killed effects the happiness of your funders, so there is an incentive to get on with it.
Dixie wrote:It could seriously use a tutorial
Yes, it really needs a proper one! You might find this Let's Play video made by a player to be helpful. It's just him playing the game.
Insinuator
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Re: UFO: Alien Invasion version 2.4

Post by Insinuator »

Downloading this right now. I'm a huge fan of the first three X-COM games and have been following all the different resurrection attempts that are out there. Haven't played Alien Invasion in several years though and am a little surprised it is still in development. I assume this game is from the same people who put out "UFO: Afterlight" and "UFO: Extraterrestrials"?

I would ask you, H-Hour, what makes UFO: Alien Invasion different from/superior to other X-COM iterations like "Xenonauts", "UFO2000", or "Xenocide"? And what would be your comments on "X-COM: Enemy Unknown"(a game which seems to have a lot of promise)?
H-Hour
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Re: UFO: Alien Invasion version 2.4

Post by H-Hour »

No, we have nothing to do with UFO: Afterlight or UFO: Extraterrestrials.

Xenonaughts: I can't really say. From videos, it looks like Xenonaughts is much more faithful to the feel of the original battlescape scenarios -- destructable terrain, isometric tiles, etc. Personally, I am very excited about it. Probably the only advantage we will have on it is the fact that we're open source -- our game will never stop being developed and anyone can join that development if they want. To give you a sense of this, I think of plans for the project that probably won't even be on our radar for the next 3-5 years.

UFO2000: My understanding is that this is a multiplayer-only game with few changes from X-COM's battlescape. In contrast, multiplayer is the least developed aspect of UFO:AI, though a couple of us are hoping to improve its handling for 2.5. UFO:AI has a pretty involved campaign with a lot to research and build -- an average campaign will take place over 200 missions in 2.4.

Project Xenocide: Unfortunately, they folded back in 2010. I've tried to get permission to use some of the art assets, but no luck.

Although it may not sound like a ringing endorsement, probably our greatest advantage is simply that the game has been in development since 2005 and is still alive. That means that a lot of our art assets are old and not as pretty, but we've got a lot of them. We can offer more maps, more weapons, a more developed campaign story (still not completed), more of most of everything than many open-source variants, and we're still moving forward. As an open-source project we suffer from problems of people coming and going, leaving features half-implemented or critical leadership problems like game balancing. But in spite of this we've got a solid game in place that is faithful to the sandbox combat and earth defense gameplay of the old X-COM (minus the one thing we get criticized the most for from old X-COM players: no destructable terrain).
H-Hour
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Re: UFO: Alien Invasion version 2.4

Post by H-Hour »

Insinuator wrote:And what would be your comments on "X-COM: Enemy Unknown"(a game which seems to have a lot of promise)?
I missed this question when I replied this morning. Personally, I'm very excited for it. It looks like there is a lot of cool stuff there. I'm not as much of an original X-COM purist as some. I don't reject categorically the loss of time units, multiple bases, etc. The graphics certainly look gorgeous. We will see if they get the gameplay right.
Insinuator
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Re: UFO: Alien Invasion version 2.4

Post by Insinuator »

Hmm, cool. Thanks for taking the time to reply intelligently. :)

I'm glad that you're not focusing on multiplayer development. That's not at all what X-COM was about. I mean, it would be cool if you could play a whole campaign against another human, with one side as the aliens, but you'd have to invent a whole different system of deployment for the aliens. Actually, the more I think about, the cooler it seems. But that's a huge amount of new effort. Perhaps in the distant future.

I agree with you about "Enemy Unknown". Personally, I think the best X-COM game was Apocalypse. I'm not sure why so many disliked it, but the city implementation was neat. I hope Enemy Unknown pulls some lessons from that. I didn't know they were using only one base, though. That's a bit disappointing. One of my favorite times in X-COM was setting up my second base. Which would then get promptly invaded and massacred. :) Graphics aren't really that important compared to capturing the feel of the combat: tense, dark, and punishing.

Still haven't opened Alien Invasion yet(sorry), but I'll get to it soon.
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