Messages

46

Work In Progress / Re: Doable? Laser Weapon internal power supply (not clips)

« on: February 25, 2014, 09:01:45 am »

Standard power cells don't have enough capacity for high power lasers which are, instead, often pumped by chemical reaction.  I remember one experimental model used hydrogen and fluorine.

What about advanced power packs that recharge automatically by tapping the zero point vacuum energy, a la  Apocalypse?

...because xcom tech obviously thrives on realism?

47

Released Mods / Re: [HWP] Scout Drone

« on: February 01, 2014, 10:59:06 pm »

- It costs 200k vs 40k for usual "scout lamb", takes as much time to arrive.
- Armor is pretty much useless - both rookie and vehicle gets one-shotted.
- After the very early game stage, rookies have better armor and still cost way less.
- Gives much worse score penalty for loosing - 50 vs 20 - 2.5 cannon fodder people make much better scouts, even unarmed.
- It gets no xp and gives no chance of nice stats (i.e. 99psi), surviving rookies (good chance) should always be better than vehicle.
- Sacrificial rookies can and actually do shoot, and not that ineffectively.
? Given that aliens see better through smoke, not sure which side actually gets advantage from mounted smoke launcher.
+ 70 AP is slightly better than rookie, but only by 10-15 AP, which is kinda negligible.
+ Should be immune to psi attacks.

some things to note:
Aliens can't see through 4 tiles of smoke. which is the same for xcom. Smoke does work both ways, but xcom can choose where and when to pop smoke, so thats advantage xcom.
Just because it takes the space of one unit and behaves like a unit (ie - can move/spot/die) it's still not really comparable to a unit. A tank is a tank... it's designed to take hits and provide fire support... this is not tank. think of it more as a deployable tool.

that said, it is kinda flimsy... a good shot with just about anything can take it out. I suppose the problem with that is aliens are only armed with plasma weapons... so you need good-decent armour just to survive a hit anyway, so increasing the drones armor wouldn't stop it being one-shotted unless it got a good buff. However... it's not a tank, high armor doesn't really make sense. It's tricky...

sacrificial rookie tactics... I don't really use 'sacrificial' cannon fodder, so for me this helps save lives. and in terms of lives saved... if you use the drone cleverly, you can avoid meat grinder situations where 3-4 rookies run blindly into danger and get killed. these lives saved add up too. Ideally I'd like the drone to be stealthy, I tried to implement that by giving it high reactions (to avoid incoming reaction fire) but a side effect of that is the drone wastes its smoke shooting at aliens as reaction fire too ._. It's also a smaller target, so aliens will have a harder time hitting it. these little things help it's survivability, atleast thats the theory.

as for delivery times... it's standard delivery time for a tank if I recall, I could up it to standard delivery for equipment I guess.
I'm not sure if I can monkey around with the score since the game treats it as a HWP, i'll look into it.
It should definitely be immune to psi attacks since its basically the same as an RC car.

48

Suggestions / Re: [CORE] Research affecting ruleset

« on: December 21, 2013, 01:57:41 am »

true, but.. we can do this kind of thing in the mean time. When/if you *could* link things to research progression, you can use this method. just replacing after x months with, after x research.

49

Suggestions / Re: [CORE] Research affecting ruleset

« on: December 21, 2013, 01:17:17 am »

I imagine you can simulate 'alien progression' by adding several versions of the same alien race to a ruleset. for example, you have:
alienRaces:
  - id: STR_SECTOID
    members:
      - STR_SECTOID_COMMANDER
      - STR_SECTOID_LEADER
      - STR_SECTOID_ENGINEER
      - STR_SECTOID_MEDIC
      - STR_SECTOID_NAVIGATOR
      - STR_SECTOID_SOLDIER
      - STR_CYBERDISC_TERRORIST
      - STR_CYBERDISC_TERRORIST
you could simply change this to be [STR_SECTOID0] this is wave one.
the next wave [STR_SECTOID1] introduced after x months will feature say... leaders instead of navigators - aka the threat of psi in standard ufo's, not just terror/base missions. and soldiers with actual armor, maybe introduce the player to celatids as well as giving them cyberdisks or something? and after x months, this new sectoid loadout fully replaces the original.

just my thoughts.

50

Released Mods / Re: [INVENTORY] Quick-Draw Hip Slot

« on: December 20, 2013, 03:31:08 am »

Updated.

51

Released Mods / Re: [INVENTORY] Quick-Draw Hip Slot

« on: December 20, 2013, 12:55:00 am »

oh awesomes! yeah I'll do that, originally I didn't want to give any extra space. even if it was only 2. but since the belt needed to be left alone, it didn't make much sense taking it from somewhere else. I did contemplate stealing a column from the backpack... But I think that would have annoyed people >.>

anyway! shouldn't take long.
...maybe I should leave the current one up there too. Pro-choice.

52

Suggestions / Re: [new mechanics] making pistols more useful

« on: December 16, 2013, 12:42:09 am »

Yes you can make new damage types. use damageType: 10 or above (-1 works too)
the new type won't do any damage to units until you can units a resistance value to it however.
but... the weapon will still damage terrain, and it will revert itself to HE damage if you give it a blast radius value.
The UFOpedia will list these new damTypes as "unknown" dunno if you can change that or not.

Uses...
you could give robotic enemies a resistance to this new damType... Creating EMP that only affects robotics.
you could make a weapon that only affects terrain...
Limitations...
can't give it a stun effect or a blast radius.
Example ruleset item included

Edit: yeah... I sorta forgot to define clipSize in that ruleset -_-' it's fixed now.

53

Work In Progress / Re: Reaction fire and shooting modes

« on: December 11, 2013, 07:03:47 am »

did you test an auto-only weapon as well?

54

Released Mods / [INVENTORY] Quick-Draw Hip Slot

« on: December 08, 2013, 10:13:47 pm »

What is this mod?:
Adds a quick-draw holster to the soldier inventory space.
Allowing fast access from holster-to-hand [0-TUs] and hand-to-holster [2-TUs]
Ideal for medkits and sidearms.

      -- Layout A uses space from the belt (does not give extra inventory) --
-- Layout B adds the holster as extra space (in addition to everything else) --

How to Install a ruleset/mod:
- download your mod containing the ruleset (OXC Quickdraw/Quickdraw.rul in this case)
- move the relevant .rul into the OpenXComs Ruleset folder. Move any extra resources into the Resources folder.
- make sure to update your options.cnfg by adding the name of the new ruleset at the bottom/end like so:
  '  - QuickdrawA' and save changes.

Notes:
- there is a general problem with accessing the inventory screen from the equipcraft/basescape.
  It corrects itself once you get into a mission, you can also try making the craft refuel.
  It's not game breaking/doesn't cause a crash so you shouldn't need to worry.

Feel free to use/reuse/spread/change/include/pumpkin this mod any way you see fit.

55

Suggestions / Re: [new mechanics] making pistols more useful

« on: December 08, 2013, 09:54:11 pm »

not bad for about 5 minutes work
I'll throw this up in the mod section then >.>

56

Suggestions / Re: HipSters

« on: December 08, 2013, 09:40:14 pm »

How's this?
You can use it for quick access to grenades, a sidearm or a medkit. I'd rather it not be used for grenades but theres really no way to do that within current rulesets. I didn't think it would be a good idea to provide *more* inventory even if it was only 2. So I split it off from the belt. The TU costs are the same as the belt, however hand-to-hip is 0 TU and hip-to-hand is 2 TUs.

edit:
It turns out this creates problems with the game auto-equipping to the belt, so you shouldn't really mess with the belts slots. Also it does this odd thing where it won't allow access to the inventory from the craft-equip in base-scape until you've refueled or gone on a mission :/

57

Released Mods / Re: [HWP] Scout Drone

« on: December 06, 2013, 05:35:54 am »

i guess ill try to do some balances for that drone, maybe have same amount of TU's like the orginal tanks have (70 TUs if i remember right) or even less ( to 50 TUs)
Also increasing the price for the scout drone to... around 200 000 credits? ... (it has to be worth of 4 agents atleast )

This i can do. I'll Update the first post with the changes. As for if it's still OP in early game. I have tested it for functionality, but further feedback based on use in campaign would be useful *wink wink*

58

Released Mods / Re: [HWP] Scout Drone

« on: December 05, 2013, 04:29:36 am »

yes, it can open doors, use the elevator and scout the inside of a ufo just fine... i checked to make sure >.>

59

Released Mods / Re: [HWP] Scout Drone

« on: December 04, 2013, 04:59:17 pm »

unfortunately yeah, all HWP's take 4 slots on a craft regardless of size

60

Released Mods / [HWP] Scout Drone

« on: December 04, 2013, 11:20:07 am »

So I've now got this working flawlessly (everything working as intended) so it probably wants to go up here in the finished section o_o
Small automated drone, featuring an integral smoke launcher. Designed to scout out enemy positions and provide smoke cover for ground troops.

feel free to use/share/change/question/cheddar - and dont forget all Credit to Ryskeliini for the spritework/concept. I just put the ruleset stuff together.

Edit: Just checked to make sure this is all ship-shape and ready for 1.0
Addressed the tracked plasma tank having no clip. Increased drone smoke clip and zero'd off reactions. amended documentation
viva la revolution >.<