Newbie queries on Xcom Ufo Defense settings...

[FrontForce15]

I've been trying Bfox's recommended mods and so far I am liking what I see --- the ability to window the game was one of my wishes and now it's done. This is the first time I'm playing this game so having the manual open beside the game is a great help.

Three more things I am looking for:
1. Ability to "zoom out" on the ground battle map. Is this possible? The restricted view is really... restricting.
2. Ability to "slow down" the game - The alien turn took just like 2 milliseconds, all I heard was a laser shot and then that was it.
3. Tooltips - I'm still getting the hang of the icons, any possibility of a tooltip so that I know what each button does/means?

I'm looking for more mods as well, maybe something to smoothen out the graphics a bit. I know this is an old game but anything to make it more "modern" (of course without losing the feel!) would be great.

THanks!

[Radical_Danny]

1. not possible as far as I know (a multiplayer remake of UFO defence called UFO:TTS is more zoomed out though it has single player too)

2. You sure it wasnt just one alien? otherwise you can check the ingame and in battlescape settings or you need to slow it down with DOSBOX settings.

3. I dont think this game has tool tips in game.

[Whiplashr]

Ya, if you are using dosbox, there really are no hard and fast "best settings" for the cycles.. it depends on the game, and your own cpu speed.

I've had games in dosbox that, when tuning to get to the most accurate representation of a computer from that era, was anywhere from as low as 1000 cycles, to as high as 30,000 cycles. You gotta just experiment till you find the one that is best.

I believe you can change cycles on the fly with function keys. F11 and F12 I think, don't remember for sure.

The original of this game came out when it was like 386/486 computers, IIRC. It'll probably work best at extremely low cycles. It sounds like you have it too fast.

Also, I think the manual is probably available on the steam menu. It is for many other games, and there are pictures and description of all the hud elements in there somewhere.

[NKF]

It's an old game, so it doesn't have a lot of the mod-cons that are common features of modern games.

As for the icons, most of the Geoscape icons are fairly self explanatory. The Battlescape icons however aren't, but they're easy to remember once you know what they do.

Have a look at:

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Battlescape#Battlescape_Interface

That article shows you all the elements on the screen and what they are for. Some of the descriptions are using a bit of a board-game analogy like 'playing board' or 'pieces'. This merely refers to the map and the units on it.

- NKF