[CRAFT] Tactical Lightning V3

[x60mmx]

This mod remakes the Lightning into the perfect night ops and tactical insertion dropship, including a complete graphics overhaul in the Battlescape, a custom graphic for the Basecape and a new UFOpaedia image and text.


Features

• Grav-Lifts for deployment behind wheels for cover or onto roof for sniper positioning and denies enemies firing into craft
• Lights surrounding area for night operations
• Expanded fuel for global strike range
• Increased speed and acceleration for fast response
• Smaller footprint allowing it to land in tighter areas than previously possible.
• Carries up to 8 soldiers or 1 HWP and 4 soldiers

Manufacturing Requirements

• $600,000
• 25 Alien Alloys
• 2 UFO Power Sources
• 1 UFO Navigation

Keep in mind that since it carries much more fuel, it will also need more to be refueled should you fly it for long periods of time.  I would like to change the UFOpaedia image as well but not sure if I have the graphics skills to do so.  If anyone likes this and has the skill, hit me up!

Enjoy the Tactical Lightning,

60mm

https://www.openxcom.com/mod/tactical-lightning-v3

[ivandogovich]

Nice work! Well thought out!

[DoxaLogos (JG)]

I agree! Pretty sweet looking!

[x60mmx]

Thanks guys.  Truth be told, it has been done for nearly half a year I believe.  I've been playing Xcom for 20 years and have a cycle of getting the urge to play and starting a game only to abruptly forget it one day a week later.  This mod happened over the course of a few of those and was promptly forgotten before publishing it haha.

I know the 8 soldier limit may sound lame to some, but I honestly find the craft a bit OP in battlescape when it is used to it's full extent.  Hope you guys enjoyed it.  Now my 12 year old self's disappointment at the Lightning's pointlessness has been relieved

I also rebalanced all the weapons to make all laser and plasma viable, including reworking the alien stats to accomodate the changes, plus changing loadouts for various UFOs to reflect their missions.  I would like to tweak and publish that someday, as well as a Hovertank with a Laser Cannon and a slightly re-vamped Avenger.  The only thing that ever irked me about Xcom was how much stuff in the game just isn't viable, so I would like to fix that.  I'd love for Personal Armor with a Laser Pistol and Scanner have a viable role, just like a Power Armor and Plasma Rifle.  Flying Suit and Heavy Plasma or crap doesn't cut it for me!

Thanks for the support.

[Arthanor]

That's interesting.. Did you previously publish a version that looks like this?



This one has room for 12 soldiers, I think, which is a good number for small missions. Also, I have craft deployment rules for it, to make the soldiers face the exit, if you're interested.

If you are willing to tweak it more, do you think it would be possible to have a more octagonal design instead of the "square with corners chopped"? Maybe with the smaller walls 3 tiles long instead of one. It would make it look more like the UFOPaedia picture of the lightning.

[x60mmx]

Arhtanor, that was indeed mine, I had it posted in the WIP thread I believe.  I'm not going to make it octagonal because it would necessitate the craft becoming larger and I want to keep it's footprint small.  I also do not feel 12 soldier slots works for it.  At that point it really steps on the toes of the Skyranger and Avenger, and redundancy is the one thing I really hate about X-Com.  Users can change it easily if they'd like so I will leave it up to them.  Ialso have the soldier facings sorted out now, but thanks for the offer

[Arthanor]

Oh, alright. Numbers are indeed easy to change. I did not mean making it bigger, but smaller. Keeping the same "diameter" and chopping the "corners" more.

[x60mmx]

I want to keep the inside of the craft looking good and plausible, making it smaller would force me to remove internal components or just make it really crunched looking.  If I crunched the corners in and kept the grav-lifts centered, for example, the bottom most grav-lift would be hidden. 

Btw, V3 will come with a new UFOpaedia page.  Once I figure out how to do some decent art or find someone who will.

[Arthanor]

Good reasons..! Looking forward to V3.

[MKSheppard]

THIS I like!

Especially the "night operations optimized" angle you've got going here.

Is there anyway to make the lights even brighter, to cover more of the battlescape?

[jackstraw2323]

Nice. I've got something very similar in my mod, but haven't posted much about the craft yet. Are you using light source values of 1? I've not found good documentation but I'm under the impression that lower values are better? I love the look of this, much better exterior than the vanilla lightning walls which look more like the satellite of love.

[x60mmx]

The light is eminating from the white areas in the light band at a strength of 15, the max.  According to MCD Edit, higher is stronger on a scale from 0-15.  I toyed with other methods of increasing it's light output, but really the only way to do it would be to increase the map size so that light sources could be put out further, and that is not a direction I want to take for a number of reasons.  Honestly, the light put out by the Tactical Lightning really isn't leaps and bounds beyond what the engine provides by default for the Skyranger, and I'm ok with that.   Those extra handful of squares being illuminated will most often help knowing where to send your soldiers in the first place, but will occasionally alert you to a Sectoid you would have discovered too-late otherwise.  There's always the daytime missions only option for those not into night missions.

Glad you guys enjoy it
 

[bloodman123726]

hey dude nice mod i like the idea and i went ahead and downloaded but suddenly, this happens. Can you help?

[x60mmx]

hey dude nice mod i like the idea and i went ahead and downloaded but suddenly, this happens. Can you help?

I have no idea how, but the zip on the mod portal somehow no longer contained the needed terrain files.  Strange since it had them before.  Fixed now.

[Jstank]

  That is some sexy craft!

Hopefully that will be rolled into fmp at some point!