[TFTD]Terrain Expansion

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This is a collection of new terrains and maps for Terror from the Deep, some original, some integrated from other mods, and some originally intended for UFO. So far it also makes a few modifications to the geoscape with new cities and a few changes to the regions and countries. Current status is a work in progress with testing still to be done, especially on the gameplay and thematic sides.

List of terrains:
    -Polar Island Terror
    -Polar Island Artefact Site (unused in game)
    -Seabed-Mountain
    -Industrial Port
    -Urban Beach
    -Commercial

Changelog:

0.1
    -Polar Island Terror terrain with experimental above ground artefact site
    -North atlantic region extended south
    -Alaska extended into north pacific. USA extended to cover new york and bermuda
    -Fed Korea replaced with Pan Pacifica centred around Hawaii, Free China given former territory
    -Added some new cities around the atlantic and poles
    -Converted and modified desert-mountain  into seabed mountain
    -Added small chance of plane, galleon, pipes, and msunk on all geoscape textures.
    -Optimised routes for several atlantis and mu maps
    -Integrated additional artefact sites by Civilian
    -Extended Atlantis and Coral with new maps
    -Converted terrains: Comercial
    -Modified Urban into beachfront with new beach tiles
    -Converted Alien Hive terrain as alternative to alien colony level 2
    -Converted Industrial as additional port map with new coast tiles
    -Integrated additional liner ship maps

CREDITS:
Hobbes - Many terrains created and compiled for Area51/Terrain Pack
New_Civilian - Mu and Atlantis artefact sites; Adaptation of Urban for tftd; Additional liner maps.
Robin - Human suit civilians, adapted by Hobbes
Bagirov - Industrial terrain design (originally developed for UFO2000 via Area51/Terrain pack)
Solaris Scorch - additional maps and tile images for Commercial terrain
Dioxine - tile images for Commercial terrain and civilian sprites
Tentacular- tile images for Commercial terrain taken designed for other mods

USAGE:
This represents old work that may need updating although it might also work just fine. Credits may need looking at again.
For my part, my intention was to create resources that can could be freely used within the openxcom community. Any work that is my own (especially original .RMP and .MAP files for Polar Island) can be freely used by anyone, as long they do not prevent others from doing the same. Any work based on other peoples work in your own work, adapted or otherwise, including UFO and TFTD, should be used at your own risk

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First thing to note is the new terrain; Polar Island Research Station. It uses UFO's polar terrain and the Polar-mountain tileset but most of the map tiles seen in game are completely new. The mapscript for it determines the mix of natural to urbanised tiles. Play testing of it so far hasn't revealed anything truly remarkable about it in my opinion unfortunately. It might be worth playing with the spawn nodes and have more aliens bunker up inside the buildings instead of starting outside the doors ready to burst in and slaughter the civilians inside? There's also an experimental artefact site version in which scientists discover things under the ice best left undisturbed. It might worth converting back to UFO and dropping the coast tiles. It probably wouldn't be too hard to make a desert reskin.

The Urban beach came about because I didn't think the plain urban terrain suited TFTD enough. I need to make it bigger but that involves changing other things to but it's on my to-do list.

[Hobbes]

On the urban beach, instead of the street you could make a canal with bridges to connect both sides of the map

I'm going to have a deep look at the Polar Island Research Station since I wanted this type of map for a while. One improvement that would be very nice would be some graphic harmonization, currently it's a mixmatch of UFO/TFTD tiles (at least for me, since I know all of them )

EDIT: Polar Research Station looks better in TFTD than I imagined it for UFO. Probably you could design a main building 20x20, if there isn't one already. I like the detail of all buildings being placed on pillars instead of directly over the ice, since that's very realistic (helps prevent the building from moving/collapsing if the ice/permafrost melts).



One thing about the helipad: it may look good to place the pad on an elevated position but in real life the building and its roof would need to be reinforced, otherwise you'd risk that the roof would cave in under the weight and stress of an helicopter landing.

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Yeah, I was looking at a bunch of those Antarctic stations for inspiration. Just designed another large 20x20 building for a 'proper' main building looking at this one:



Also added a normal version of the dig site entrance to the terror sites for more variety. Reinforced the helipad with a thick central support for more realism, plus breaks up the terrain.

For the beach, I guess you're suggesting something like this?:

Potentially the Beach Urban could spin off into it's own new thing although to be honest I only intended it to be a quick and dirty way of giving the urban terrain a nautical theme to make it fit in with TFTD better.

Things to do:
Play with the frequencies of map tiles in the mapscript
Adjust the lighting
Adjust the spawn points (ever torn about making the aliens start in the best positions vs keeping it unpredictable vs logic)
Playtest

[Hobbes]

For the beach, I guess you're suggesting something like this?:

Potentially the Beach Urban could spin off into it's own new thing although to be honest I only intended it to be a quick and dirty way of giving the urban terrain a nautical theme to make it fit in with TFTD better.

Eh, that was exactly what I was thinking of

At a certain point I wanted to design a seaside town, with boats, piers and buildings along a water front but I never had time to work on that idea. The same for the Arctic Research station, although I wanted to make it more closer to 'The Thing''s station but your designs are looking great too.

[Blank]

Oh, The Thing was totally another inspiration which is why I didn't go for the ultra modern space age look (using TFTD's pipe terrain or some of robin's tilesets). I'm pretty sure I put 'huskie kennels' in my initial notes.

May need some more bits to make a good canal, this kind of asymmetry is  going to bug me although technically probably okay:

Other potential ideas, more made difficult by elevation issues. I'm picturing this terrain as something like miami or LA beachside:


A more involved seaside town would be great. One of the issues I've noticed is the TFTD coast areas don't actually get used a lot either because there's little tactical value or because aliens just don't spawn there. There's like only one tile out of the 8 coastal tiles from the port terrain that ever seems to get used in my game and the island coast tiles are also known as the most annoying map tiles ever. And I haven't worked out how to give my own coastal tiles much value either, other than the beach being that place where civilians go to die.

[harre]

Looking good! I'll try it out when I get the time.

[Hobbes]

May need some more bits to make a good canal, this kind of asymmetry is  going to bug me although technically probably okay:

The issue is that 2x2 units can only move in one direction, if they start on the top left they can't go up the stairs to cross the bridge to the other side. You can always redesign it like this:

Other potential ideas, more made difficult by elevation issues. I'm picturing this terrain as something like miami or LA beachside:

You might like the attached image: it contains the images for a sewer system that was designed for the original UFO2000 version of Dawn City. So far I haven't been able to use them properly (adding a subterranean level prevents you from using vanilla craft for deployments) but it might inspire you.

A more involved seaside town would be great. One of the issues I've noticed is the TFTD coast areas don't actually get used a lot either because there's little tactical value or because aliens just don't spawn there. There's like only one tile out of the 8 coastal tiles from the port terrain that ever seems to get used in my game and the island coast tiles are also known as the most annoying map tiles ever. And I haven't worked out how to give my own coastal tiles much value either, other than the beach being that place where civilians go to die.

That's why I wanted to add piers to a coastal city: you'd need to clear them also and bring the fight closer to the coastal areas. To me Port's coastal area actually has some tactical value to the player since you can use the fences for cover while clearing that side of the battlefield although any aliens there will slow your progress. Island's coast is more designed like several bunkers (the rooms under the statues) that you need to clear one by one, usually with painful results.

On UFO the Urban terrain had the roads to give freedom of movement, in TFTD the 'roads' (coastal areas) are more designed to slow your advance while clearing out an entire side of the map.

[Solarius Scorch]

Blank, dibs on the Polar Station/The Thing.

[Blank]

The sewers do give me ideas for something more ambitious, that'll have to leave for another time. I'm having fun with the mapscripts and two new coast tiles for the polar island: a smaller island with either a lighthouse or bare rock. The script will place one of them on either the east or west edge of the map, with a chance of none at all. Changed the lighting how I wanted and changed the alien spawn points again: they should be scattered fairly evenly across the map with only a very few high priority spawns.

Play testing on superhuman has been difficult:


Simple canal implemented for the urban beach map and size increased to 60x50

[Hobbes]

I'm thinking of adding the Polar Research Station as a terrain to Area 51's Council missions if that's OK with you. I like your maps a lot, so I've just converted the colors, and recolored/edited a bit

[Blank]

That is certainly excellent! I have always kept the thought of conversion to UFO in mind. Only slightly related, I've just added the complex/facility map and it happens that TFTD ships fit under the pipes and walkways just fine:



I'm uploading the latest version I've got here with the lighthouse and main building maps, along with the basis for a UFO recovery version (no coast, no 'soldier' spawn points, more weight to natural terrain). The rest of the mod is still unstable since I was in the middle of adding new civilians which turned out to be way more of headache than expected. By the way, I'm seeing an issue along the coast in your screenshots which is to do with the first MCD entry in COLDISLEA1: it's supposed to be an invisible tile used to block access to the sea. I'm guessing the converter just deleted the entry from the pck file or something similar?

0.1.1
    -Improvements to Polar Island terrain
    -Canal added to beach urban
    -Integrated map and route fixes from combo patch
    -Modified Cargo ship part 1 with more spawn points so civilians don't look like they're being lined up to be shot
    -Adapted Complex terrain as port terror
    -Added more civilians
    -Modified bikini civilian to work with randomized skintones and hair colours plus alt version in red bathing suit

[Hobbes]

That is certainly excellent! I've just added the complex/facility map and it happens that TFTD ships fit under the pipes and walkways just fine:

I designed the landing zones for Complex trying to fit the XCom craft into them and the only one I could fit was the Lightning because it has a different orientation than all other crafts. On TFTD they all have the same orientation, because of the ships

That should be a fun terrain for terror missions on TFTD

I'm uploading the latest version I've got here with the lighthouse and main building maps, along with the basis for a UFO recovery version (no coast, no 'soldier' spawn points, more weight to natural terrain). The rest of the mod is still unstable since I was in the middle of adding new civilians which turned out to be way more of headache than expected.

I *might* add the beach city, depending on the final version, but it will go in the Island Terror Attack alienDeployment, so it can be added easier when you finished it. But with the Cold Isle terrain I needed to make changes to the mission structure, so it was better to add them already.

You can control the number of aliens that start inside/outside UFOs by setting a percentage for each on alienDeployments. Probably easier than creating terrains with different RMP settings.

By the way, I'm seeing an issue along the coast in your screenshots which is to do with the first MCD entry in COLDISLEA1: it's supposed to be an invisible tile used to block access to the sea. I'm guessing the converter just deleted the entry from the pck file or something similar?

Yeah, I had wondered what was that about, but I decided to leave it for now since I'm also considering removing the 'wave' effect. I only use it for ships at sea since for me it works better on TFTD and not in UFO

I'm very curious about the 'lighthouse' maps. This terrain should also be great as the first part of an artifact site or a multistage mission.

[GrossorMD]

I think beachfront is bugged. One of the bungalows had stairs that went upward but not downward (AKA: you could go to floor two, but not back to floor one). An alien trapped there made the terror mission unwinnable.

[Blank]

You can control the number of aliens that start inside/outside UFOs by setting a percentage for each on alienDeployments. Probably easier than creating terrains with different RMP settings.

Ah, I had just assumed that having soldier spawn points on the terrain would mess that setting up but I haven't really tested that. Still, having two versions around means twice as much work fixing any bugs.

Yeah, I had wondered what was that about, but I decided to leave it for now since I'm also considering removing the 'wave' effect. I only use it for ships at sea since for me it works better on TFTD and not in UFO

Probably a good idea, for TFTD I think it makes the sea look like a menacing place that monsters crawl out of but not needed for UFO. Plus the sea tiles repeat in an awkward 3x3 pattern, if you switch to normal flat water the coast tiles won't need to be placed in a specific order. Those invisible wall tiles are still a good idea for higher elevations since I think otherwise you can drop down onto the impassible sea tiles and get stuck.

I think beachfront is bugged. One of the bungalows had stairs that went upward but not downward (AKA: you could go to floor two, but not back to floor one). An alien trapped there made the terror mission unwinnable.

Which bungalow is it? Do you have screenshot? And was it a bio-drone that was stuck out of curiosity?