OpenXcom - War

[Warboy1982]

I Guess i should start an official thread for this, so i can keep people informed of what i'm up to, and also have a convenient place to keep track of feature requests.

small preamble to what i'm doing:

you see all this awesome content here on the forums?
i'm putting it all together in one big centralized mod.
while i'm at it, i'm adding any feature i can think of, and then some.

here's a short feature list to whet your appetite:
new armor (additional, not a replacer)
new weapons (flamethrowers, shotguns, grenade launchers, knives, more!)
new tanks (build your own sectopods!)
new alien weapons (disruptors and gauss rifles)
new units (police and soldiers, who will show up on terror missions and help fight the aliens)
FLASHBANGS! (instant-detonation, reduces target's reactions, accuracy, and view distance)
and much, much more.

for a full feature list of what i'm up to, click the following link:
List Of Things.txt

please excuse the random nature of this document, i am not a sane person.

to download the latest build, that is, the latest one i got around to uploading, click this one:
OpenXcomWar.rar

if you don't want me to use your sprites/artwork/maps/whatever, then please let me know and i'll remove it and question your sanity for having uploaded it in the first place if you didn't want people to use it.

[michal]

I've made your topic sticky

[pmprog]

if you don't want me to use your sprites/artwork/maps/whatever, then please let me know and i'll remove it and question your sanity for having uploaded it in the first place if you didn't want people to use it.

I don't want to sound a killjoy, but that's not really how it works. Unless they explicitly say it's an open license, you need to ask permission. I'm sure most people would be more than happy for you to use their work, but it's better to check first.

[Warboy1982]

i know that's not how it works. that's why this was never intended for release, and why my desire to stay in the mod scene lessens daily. i upload each and every mod i make with the express intent that people use it, and if they like it, perhaps include it (or aspects thereof) in a mod of their own. this is how the mod community grows and develops, the free sharing of ideas and resources. personally i am THRILLED to see anything i have made get used by someone else, that's what makes it all worthwhile. anything and everything i release is with this in mind.

and i know it may sound pig-headed, but i'd rather scrap the project entirely or keep it internal-only than have to go running round asking each and every person's permission and dealing with intellectual property grievances.

i will TRY to compile a list of "contributors" to give credit where credit is due, if i miss a name, i'm sorry, i'm human. also, please forgive my ignorance, i had figured that anything i found on the forums would be implicitly open-licensed, given the open-source nature of the project.

none of the artwork is mine, i never claimed it was, i never will.
unless it is.
but it won't be.

[LCSand]

True as long as he does not redistribute stuff copyright does not matter.
But to get this problem out of the way maybe everyone should explicitly state a licence under wich he releases his work.
Well Openxcom is GPL as far as I know, so all of Warboy1982s code additions are too.
Maybe someone could make a sticky with licence recomendations in the cotributions part of the forum. You know like one of the CC licenses for example https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ for artwork.
Does not work for derivative work though...

[Warboy1982]

i really enjoy discussions over legality and copyright issues, please fill this thread up with as much of it as you can, because feature requests and on-topic discussion are totally boring.

[LCSand]

Yea, sorry. Point taken.

I saw you want to enable Brainwashing of aliens. Maybe a clone your own type of facility(after researching alien reproduction) would be better and opens up the path to the whole gene maipulation too.
So I think using aliens on earth could be fun but how about if you take them to mars the big alien brain would then take control of all the aliens you bring? So if you rely too much on aliens and do not train humans you fail. 

I always thought a scanner tank would be good. It always has surround view and no weapon. But you can enable an active scan and that would be like looking through walls (like the motion scaner just better). Give it lots of armor too. Maybe let it fire electro flares.

[Warboy1982]

now THAT is a feature request, i like it and it's going in. scanner tanks, hells yes.

i'm thinking that handling converted aliens is going do be difficult enough, let alone introducing a whole bunch of hybrid units, (i mean, unless anyone has some sprites to volunteer). i could of course simply not have it represented, but where's the fun in that?
also, lore-wise, i'd rather that the scientists exhibit at least some kind of morality, currently they will refuse to clone a living soldier, and i'm thinking some of them would rather resign than splice human DNA with that of aliens (the funding nations should probably also frown upon this). this could possibly lead to a scientist revolt type mission where the scientists break into the storage facilities and steal a bunch of crowbars or something.

thanks for the suggestion!

[AndO3131]

I have a question for you @Warboy1982 - will you merge fixes from SupSuper's branch?

[Warboy1982]

yes.

[michal]

I always thought a scanner tank would be good. It always has surround view and no weapon. But you can enable an active scan and that would be like looking through walls (like the motion scaner just better). Give it lots of armor too. Maybe let it fire electro flares.

Wouldn't it give too much advantage to humans? Maybe better some weak scanner drone? But flying It could be thrown / dropped by soldier and then remote controlled by him for couple of turns (like 3 - 5 max)? Remote controlling would consume soldier (who control drone) time units. So basically it's more advanced motion scanner.

[Volutar]

scanner drone (tank?) IMHO would be too much of an advantage. i suppose it should have some sort of flaws (like camouflaged aliens) and/or be enabled in later stages of game.

[LCSand]

I do not know. Aliens can look through walls anyway? Maybe that is just cheating AI, maybe it is a psi power. How else can the aliens find targets for psi contol all over the map? Making it a psi power could be fun too, like sense thoughts in an area.
It would make sense that the aliens see xcom landing(can not be very stealthy) so the general area oposition comes from would be known to the aliens.
And the scaner tanks vision range would be limited anyway, I think balancing would be possible. It would just remove the hassle of searching for that last alien who probably hid in the fridge or something. Also for terror missions as first unit out of the craft.
Warboy do you plan to implement the exchangable turrets for weapon platform idea?
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,374.msg2950.html

Mmmhhh about missions being time critical. Maybe when you shoot down an ufo and you are not quick enough the local army would take care of it. Wich of course would have consequenses for xcom. Like the locals get alien tech in addition to seeing xcom as pointless and reducing funding. Also selling alien stuff could increase alien tech availible to normal people.
This could have some political effect, wich would make the game more complicated.

[Warboy1982]

the detector tanks could always have a chance to fail to detect a target, especially if it isn't moving, and hell it could even give false positives, or just reveal units as "blips" maybe it could just be a motion scanner type item for a tank's left hand slot? nobody ever uses motion scanners, maybe if they're built in, people will.

battle mechs - perfect, i was using sectopods with disruptors/railguns, but seeing those mock-ups...

i think i could probably cheat turrets on to the existing sectopod sprites without too much hassle, removing the need to alter them. i'll just add turret sprites from the tank.pck to the sectopod.pck, alter the drawing routine a little to allow for using them and... mission accomplished?

time criticality - this is where the cult of sirius comes in. if they make it to the crash site first, they get a tech level bump, and the crash site disappears, then, next time you see them, they suddenly have disruptors and plasma rifles instead of shotguns and rifles. (allowing them to recover a ufo will also make them more likely to launch an attack against you. if you don't make it to a terror site in time, all the civilians will be dead, and the military will have moved in to occupy with orders to shoot anything that moves on sight (that means you too). terror missions disappearing will be as a result of the military firebombing the area, resulting in a MASSIVE funding hit for the next quarter (the cost of those bombs comes out of your funding).
other time criticalities include: alien battleships descending to establish bases. if it lands, you have about a 15 minute window to get there before the crew have begun installation of the facilities. supply ships, likewise, they were always time critical, but now after a small window the elerium will have been moved OFF the ship, and raids on supply vessels will be somewhat fruitless.

and lastly: i think the best and easiest way to make things more time critical is to lower the speed of all xcom craft by... a lot.... the troop transports, at least. make them giant air-whales. maybe make their air-speed a function of the weight of the equipment and troops on board?

[LCSand]

the detector tanks could always have a chance to fail to detect a target, especially if it isn't moving, and hell it could even give false positives, or just reveal units as "blips" maybe it could just be a motion scanner type item for a tank's left hand slot? nobody ever uses motion scanners, maybe if they're built in, people will.

I use motion scanners quite a bit, everyone gets a medi kit and a motion scanner also electro flares when doing night missions.
I do not use smoke grenades though. I would use proximity mines if they were actually useful, maybe used to trigger a chain explosion(other explosives like alien grenades in the area of effect).
Motion scanner is great in combination with flying suit.
I like the blips idea and false posives if the area is still all black, like seeing a false blip just to find out it is a lamp or a tv set.

and lastly: i think the best and easiest way to make things more time critical is to lower the speed of all xcom craft by... a lot.... the troop transports, at least. make them giant air-whales. maybe make their air-speed a function of the weight of the equipment and troops on board?

I think they are already plenty slow. If you make them slower it have to be balanced though.