Talk:XVI

SPOILER WARNING! Do not read this if you are not a developer and don't want to be spoiled on the story.

XVI Infection - Display on Geoscape (and elsewhere)

Ok, here some facts: We currently have some problems with displaying overlaid "infection state" on the earth-image on the geoscape. This has to to with multi-texture support and I do not know enough about that to comment if (or when) this might be possible. Looking purely at the technical side I would say it's just a matter of time until this works as well, but that's me :)

Until this is cleared there are some other ways how we can display infection state of each nation:

• The easiest way is of course displaying the infection-percentage as text
  • Place(s) is/are irrelevant for now, but suggestions are welcome (text next to nation-name on geoscape, in a nation-overview (funding), etc...)
  • This will be implemented no matter what else we add from the other.
• Status bars similar to the ones in the team-screen
  • Places are up for discussion
• Custom images for each 'state' My personal favourite --Hoehrer
  • e.g. A human face where the skin get's more and more XVI-like (See TODO/XVI for more on that) the more infected the nation gets.
  • Placement is up for discussion.
  • Save thing could also be done for "Happiness" of the nation with PHALANX (but only with "smiling" -> "raging" human face)

If I remember the discussion about the story-progress correctly the display of XVI-spread will only be shown after a certain point in the story. i.e. either after some research has been done or a similar event. Any ideas on that?

--Hoehrer 14:25, 8 August 2007 (CEST)

• my idea: add new button to the geoscape buttons (near the "create new base" button), which will open "Nations" menu; such menu should contain several things, namely:
  • nation happiness: bars (current/max), an icon which will be graphical representation of happiness (and which could be used anywhere else), and "happiness name" as it is in our code
  • nation funding, which will point the montly fundings and new recruitements of the nation - maybe in the future we could this way block something, for example "we do not need more scientists, thank you"?
  • after certain campaign event, the XVI progress - which would be similar to the nation happiness

--Zenerka 14:40, 8 August 2007 (CEST)

• Yes, such a "nations" screen is needed anyway, because there just isn't a good way to display all the nation-specific information directly in any existing screen. But some things just look better if they are visible directly on the geoscape (display most important information about a nation on mouse-over; either as a tooltip or in a field like the "mission description" field) --Hoehrer 15:03, 8 August 2007 (CEST)
  • I actually already started such a screen yesterday. It is only reachable by typing mn_push nations right now (WARNING: Do not try to use this and then save. The graph displays random values and messes up the happiness values for testing purpose!). So this will be another place to show infection-status once available. --Hoehrer 08:58, 10 August 2007 (CEST)

XVI Infection - Display on Battlescape

"Display" not game-mechanics (such as soldiers getting infected):

• One thing I personally would like to see is civilians with unmistakable symptoms (or completed transformations) of XVI as described in TODO/XVI ---Hoehrer 14:25, 8 August 2007 (CEST)
  • That's kind of tough. XVI does not really have external symptoms (a large part of the XVI research branch is centered around that principle), so it would be hard to make infected civilians easily recognizable. In fact, it might even be interesting to NOT distinguish infected civilians from "clean" civilians - imagine suddenly being attacked by the civilian you're trying to protect!
    • Good point and nice idea. Although I'm not sure about this part of the description then: "Eventually the skin will turn entirely pink-grey as XVI eliminates the remnants of the old immune system." Is something not matching up here, or is this the phase _before_ XVI takes over compeltely? Also 'no external symptoms' really depends on the state of the infection we find the civilias in (first few minutes?) --Hoehrer 14:58, 8 August 2007 (CEST)
      • I had forgotten about that bit. We can use that. However, I should think that only applies to humans who have been infected by XVI for an appreciable amount of time (several days). Humans who have been recently infected should not appear differently from clean ones. Winter may want to give some input about this. --BTAxis 15:13, 8 August 2007 (CEST)
        • This is where my "first few minutes?" comment from above comes in ... quote from the XVI page: "This results in a feeling of extreme illness for the victim, lasting anywhere between 30 seconds and 30 minutes, depending on the severity of infection. This period is marked by severe vomiting, erratic behaviour, and discolouration of the skin in the form of red and grey blotches." An I would think PHALANX is fast enought to reach most sites in this time-frame? Anyway, yes I think Winter should have a look at this before we continue :). --Hoehrer 16:33, 8 August 2007 (CEST)
          • Hm, you're right. Anyway, PHALANX can't get to most sites within 30 minutes - with the first dropship it takes hours to get anywhere and even with faster ships you can't cover everything with a response time of 30 minutes or less unless you built very many bases. Not to mention that the player may wait before dispatching the ships. I suppose that means that for all means and purposes, we can just give infected humans a different skin. --BTAxis 16:50, 8 August 2007 (CEST)

• Something I would like to note also is that I'd prefer if XVI infection was not on a per-nation basis, but on a per-region basis, with every nation consisting of several regions. This is not really necessary for 2.2, but I feel it should be taken into consideration for later, more sophisticated versions. --BTAxis 12:07, 4 September 2007 (CEST)

Grammar

"virii" in not an English or Latin word. In English, "viruses" is the proper plural, and there is no proper plural for it in Classic Latin. In New Latin, "vira" is the (commonly unused) proper plural.