I considered getting really nasty and requiring any alien corpse research to unlock the Alien Containment facility as well, but that might be a tad much.
Ah, back to my version, to clarify it further: you need basic plasma tech to retrofit an alien plasma weapon (simply replace the trigger with something humans can handle). Those retrofitted weapons use the same ammo, but they aren't as accurate as the alien weapons. Once you researched advanced plasma tech and basic elerium tech, you can manufacture your own plasma weapons.On one hand I really like this idea, on the other hand all non-terror-aliens have "normal" hands with fingers & opposable thumbs, so a plasma weapon should be pretty easy to use so restricting its use would make little sense lore-wise.
I was actually thinking that those weapons don't have a mechanical trigger at all, instead relying on some kind of psi-related activation circuit, possibly available after researching psi (or perhaps mind probe?).
I had also thought about actually needing an alien weapon and a mind probe to construct a human weapon - would finally give some use to the mind probe :)
I too like the idea that you need an alien body to research alien containment before you can hold a live alien. Actually, I think you should have researched alien alloys before being able to contain a chryssalid or a silacoid :D
I'm still slightly skeptical about the retrofitting stuff; I don't think there's an airtight explanation as to why it's necessary. The psionics angle is smart, but half the gun-wielding aliens have no psionic ability. Mutons in particular are pretty explicitly handicapped in this area.
Gameplaywise, I also think a lot of this stuff would get unnecessarily convoluted, and hard to present clearly in-game. I still think the best way to go is to have it mirror laser research, but perhaps give each weapon a manufacturing restriction which must be unblocked by a separate tech.
I'd ditch having to research the clip entirely, though - that always struck me as rather arbitrary (why would you only research every part of the gun except the part that can actually kill things?). Just roll the time into the gun research (which is what I did myself).
alien weapon destruction high chances at aliens death just like in XCOM: EU
I'm still slightly skeptical about the retrofitting stuff; I don't think there's an airtight explanation as to why it's necessary. The psionics angle is smart, but half the gun-wielding aliens have no psionic ability. Mutons in particular are pretty explicitly handicapped in this area.
as OwenQ already said, I wouldn't tie this into psionics, more like an application of the circuitry of the mind probe, which isn't tied into the whole psionic story.
I would agree if it was a technology line that was being developed by humans, but since we are only reverse-engineering it, there really isn't a reason we would need plasma pistol research in order to use a heavy plasma, if we have a heavy plasma to take apart. my reasoning was: once we have a weapon plus its ammo researched, we know how it works in general. at that point we should be able to use it (which is the way the original game does it).
if we opt for simply adding a "manufacturing XY" step, I'd vote for making the following things the requirement for the research of "manufacturing XY":
- weapon XY clip
- weapon XY
- elerium-115
- alien alloys
- elerium-115 plasma technology (for plasma weapons) or elerium-115 fusion technology (for blaster bomb) or elerium-115 stun technology (for small launcher)
...interesting point: should you also need elerium-115 fusion technology for manufacturing of alien grenades?
okay, after a lot of trial-and-error I have started playtesting a ruleset that I think does what I want it to do... I'll share it with you, but since it is very much work-in-progress, don't expect it to be perfect.
I'll try to sum the included changes up tomorrow, but right now I'm just going to throw it at you in case you want to try it :)
research:
- name: STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT
cost: 150
points: 15
dependencies:
- STR_SECTOID_AUTOPSY
- STR_SNAKEMAN_AUTOPSY
- STR_FLOATER_AUTOPSY
- STR_MUTON_AUTOPSY
- STR_ETHEREAL_AUTOPSY
- STR_CHRYSSALID_AUTOPSY
- STR_REAPER_AUTOPSY
- STR_CELATID_AUTOPSY
...
- name: STR_SECTOID_AUTOPSY
cost: 0
points: 50
needItem: true
unlocks:
- STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT
(and so on for the other autopsies)
...
ufopaedia:
- id: STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT
type_id: 6
section: STR_BASE_FACILITIES
requires:
- STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT
text: STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT_UFOPEDIA
...
facilities:
- type: STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT
requires:
- STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT
spriteShape: 1
spriteFacility: 25
buildCost: 400000
buildTime: 18
monthlyCost: 15000
aliens: 10
mapName: XBASE_08
well, you only require an alien autopsy, whereas Hadan wants Alien Alloys as an additional requirement...Ah, my bad. Then you want the autopsies to unlock the dependency tech, and have the proper tech depend on alloys and the dependency tech (neither should unlock the proper tech).
Thanks for your help.
There still seems to be an error.
I tried hooking the dependencies to CORPSE and AUTOPSY, but the research for Alien containment doesnt show up.
I attached the ruleset, maybe you could be so good and have a look on it.
- name: STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT
cost: 500
points: 15
dependencies:
- STR_ALIEN_ALLOYS
- ALIEN_CONTAINMENT_DEP1it would be nice if there was a way to include building upgrades and special requirements... like the necessity to improve your alien containment with alien alloy shielding in order to contain the more... volatile... aliens (chryssalids, silacoids).I wouldnt worry too much about Aliens with only "melee" weapons. Think about what an ethereal commander could do, even behind thick wall :o
Basically, if the Psi trigger detects that it's authorised user has expired suddenly; and if it doesn't get "reset" by an engineer within a certain amount of time; then it automatically destroys itself. You'd still be able to figure out some rudiments of how the system works from the self-destroyed guns, but you'd be missing a lot.
Wouldn't it be plausible that the alien weapons would have biometric sensors to lock them against misuse, and even to trigger self-destruction? All the game needs is for it to be explained in a believable way.
Well, if they use the plasma clip to overload and vaporize the weapon... I guess?
1. add a 2nd level of ballistic weapon that you can research after the "Alien Alloy" tech
2. Laser Weapon requires the "Elerium 115" tech
3. add a 3rd level of ballistic weapon requiring both "Laser Weapon", "Elerium115" and a new "Elerium powered ballistic" tech, ala 2mm EC from Fallout
well, you only require an alien autopsy, whereas Hadan wants Alien Alloys as an additional requirement...
it would be nice if there was a way to include building upgrades and special requirements... like the necessity to improve your alien containment with alien alloy shielding in order to contain the more... volatile... aliens (chryssalids, silacoids).
unfortunately, we don't have a way to prevent only certain aliens from being put in the standard containment, and we don't have building upgrades, and I don't think we have the possibility to have buildings require special materials for building, or do we?
REBOOT
okay, modders, let's try and compile a list of ideas for a longer research story arc!
what I'd like to achieve:
- slower technological progression, forcing the prolonged use of earth-tech weapons
- a way to include other weapon rulesets so they gradually become available
- something that stops heavy plasmas from being kill-all super weapons :)
No matter how long you make research, as a player you will still determine "the" best research order, and use only this one for all your games...
For more variety, I tried something that would introduce a random element, but I didn't have the will to complete it...
The idea was to make some aliens carry "bit of knowledge" items that are tagged liveAlien (this is necessary so you can research more than one).
For example an "Alien weapon technology data" would use the "getOneFree" system to unlock a random item in the list:
- plasma pistol,
- plasma rifle,
etc.
if you add more clases STR_SECTOID_ENGINEER1, STR_SECTOID_ENGINEER2, STR_SECTOID_ENGINEER3, STR_FLOATER_ENGINEER1, .. that unlock (invisible?) ufotech[1-3] and name them the same as the original STR_SECTOID_ENGINEER,STR_FLOATER_ENGINEER,..
you cant differentiate between engineers with or without "extra-knowledge" and have to research until you got all 3 parts
at least i think it should work "with ruleset only" and i am not alone :)
You're adding new units that are copies of old ones, but with a unique "type". As far as I know, you would not need to create new ranks (although I am sure you can mod that).
If it's possible to introduce new Aliens in this way (and I agree, they would be new ranks. if it's an "alternate engineer", that can only mean a new rank.), it would emulate a kind of random research result. that would be nice.
however, back to the problem of slowing the technological progression without introducing "empty layers"... maybe the introduction of "empty layers" is actually the only way? if we fluff the empty layers out with some text, and form a true research tree with diverting and re-combining branches, we could use the empty layers as starting points for new weapons.
Sorry, but what is "type" exactly? We have the races, which are then subdivided into ranks (called "members" - STR_SNAKEMAN_SOLDIER, STR_SNAKEMAN_NAVIGATOR etc.). Neither seem to be applicable here.
I've been lurking with this thread for a couple of weeks, but I just had an idea earlier today which (hopefully) could be useful. I have no idea about how actually making mods works, so this might be impossible, but here it goes.
It seems to me that there are two primary goals in mind here. One is to make the game longer, without just putting a lock on research. Two is to keep players from just going the "heavy plasma= win" route. Might it be possible to make some new aliens which are heavily resistant to plasma, and mix them into some missions?
This would encourage players to diversify their loadouts, and would give some older equipment a chance to shine.
You could even combine it with the gauss weapon mod which popped up earlier today.
Now you've got a few new tech branches and weapons, a reason to carry plasma, lasers, and armor piercing weapons into battle, and the new alines could break up the monotony which might seep into an extra long game.
Does this seem like it might be possible to do, or is it just asking too much from the old engine?
Well, I was kind of thinking that we could keep lasers in the mix, in addition to plasma weapons and the new gauss weapons. The old laser rifles don't pack quite the punch that the plasma guns do, but they've still got enough output that they're not totally worthless (like the starting firearms would be by the midgame). Perhaps there could be an "advanced laser weapons" tech branch that could up their power a bit? Maybe a laser machine gun which fires off larger bursts than the standard 3? Just something to spice things up a bit.
As for the Terror from the Deep units, I think that's a great idea. I was actually playing the Piratez mod an hour ago, and I ran into a terror unit from TFTD, so it seems like it's possible to use them. If nothing else, it shouldn't be that hard to just make a pallet swap of a preexisting race and give it new stats to use as a placeholder until some new aliens pop up, right?
In regards to keeping the player from progressing too quickly early on in the game, I'm not totally certain what can be done, other than adding a couple of empty layers towards progression (which has already been suggested). I do agree that something should be done though. The community has put a ton of effort into making new guns, but almost all of them wind up getting tossed by the wayside. I downloaded a bunch of the new guns the other day (submachine gun, machine pistol, magnum, assault rifle, and so on), but I literally had laser pistols by the time I had my first mission, and the lasers were better across the board. By the second mission I had laser rifles, and the only reason to keep using conventional guns was as a self imposed challenge.
- name: STR_FLOATER_NAVIGATOR
[..]
getOneFree:
- STR_ALIEN_RESEARCH
- STR_ALIEN_HARVEST
- STR_ALIEN_ABDUCTION
- STR_ALIEN_INFILTRATION
- STR_ALIEN_BASE
- STR_ALIEN_TERROR
- STR_ALIEN_RETALIATION
- STR_ALIEN_SUPPLY
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH00
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH01
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH02
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH03
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH04
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH05
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH06
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH07
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH08
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH09
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH00
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH11
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH12
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH13
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH14
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH15
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH16
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH17
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH18
- STR_EMPTY_NAV_TECH19
in the example there are 20 "empty" techs - now you have to research a lot of navigators and hope you get the right (UFO) knowledge .. each researched empty tech increases the chance to get a useful one
If we want to do it the brutal way, then instead of including empty research, why not simply increase the cost of the Laser Weapons tech (and possibly each laser weapon tech too)drastically - say, by 400%? The result would be the same, but it would be much neater.
I have yet to find a single use for the motion scanner,It can really make it easier for your entry team if a teammate is hugging a UFO wall (outside) and gives you a reading of what's happening inside. Works even better in late game if you fly on top of a UFO to get a very wide reading. Remember that this gadget is light and resistant : don't hesitate to THROW IT across the battlefield to a soldier who is in a good place to use it.
and in the early game medikits are useless because every shot is a kill shot.More like 50%-50%, from a plasma pistol shot. Survivors however are almost guaranteed to suffer from fatal wounds.
basic guns (which get thrown away after the first mission)I wonder if we have played the same game... Pistol and Rifle have the best accuracy/time ratio of the entire game, and they stay useful even when strong enemies appear, for accuracy training.
It can really make it easier for your entry team if a teammate is hugging a UFO wall (outside) and gives you a reading of what's happening inside. Works even better in late game if you fly on top of a UFO to get a very wide reading. Remember that this gadget is light and resistant : don't hesitate to THROW IT across the battlefield to a soldier who is in a good place to use it.
More like 50%-50%, from a plasma pistol shot. Survivors however are almost guaranteed to suffer from fatal wounds.
I usually research either medikit or scanner first, just so my engineers can start building something to earn their wage.
I wonder if we have played the same game... Pistol and Rifle have the best accuracy/time ratio of the entire game, and they stay useful even when strong enemies appear, for accuracy training.
also, I think the knowledge of how to manufacture alien alloys comes too easily. you simply get some alien stuff, your scientists take a look, and then they are able to replicate it perfectly? I don't think so.
about the lasers: I would think it totally believable if you would need alien alloys to research laser technology. perhaps the alloys are needed for lossless reflectors in the amplification chamber, as well as for the capacitors needed for the laser power cells.
another thing that comes to my mind: we could try and split the alien alloy research into several parts. for game-lore purposes, we could make the alien alloys into the holy grail of material sciences: stuff that, depending on the circumstances, can act as a perfect conductor, perfect insulator, super-strong yet lightweight building material, perhaps even as an energy converter (electrical-to-mechanical, heat-to-light, gravity-wave-shaping, whatever). the trick is that you don't discover all properties right away, but in stages. the different properties can then act as principles upon which other technologies are based (new weapons, new armor, etc.).
this way, one of the first properties discovered could lead to "conventional weapon improvements", another to "laser weapon research", and only later discoveries unlock stuff like plasma containment principles and UFO propulsion.
something like this:
[item: Alien Debris] --> (research: Alien Debris)
(research: Alien Debris) --> (discovery: Alien Alloys)
(discovery: Alien Alloys) --> (manufacture: Alien Alloy Salvaging) | "manufacture: Alien Alloy Salvaging" allows conversion of 3 units Alien Debris to 1 unit Alien Alloys
(discovery: Alien Alloys) --> (research: Alien Alloy Properties)
(research: Alien Alloy Properties) --> (discovery: Super-Strong Materials), (research: Further Alien Alloy Properties)
(discovery: Super-Strong Materials) --> (manufacture: <some advanced human weapons or ammo, armor, craft>)
(research: Further Alien Alloy Properties) --> (discovery: Alien Alloy Electrical Properties), (research: Even More Alien Alloy Properties)
(discovery: Alien Alloy Electrical Properties) --> (research: Advanced Power Systems)
(research: Advanced Power Systems) --> (discovery: Laser Weapons), (manufacture: <some other advanced human craft>)
(research: Even More Alien Alloy Properties) --> (discovery: Alien Alloy Power Conversion), (manufacture: >some other advanced weapons or other>)
Fair point, although I never really produce Alien Alloys anyway. There's just no need to.
I don't think we can make the Alien Alloys responsible for everything; they'd become a "kitchen sink" tech, and that's not right. I do not recall the Alloys to have any particular qualities beyond their durability, flexibility and conductivity. Honestly, I'd prefer a separate tech, even if it was empty.
Hmm, this could work. :) the problem is that it would need coding, because either Alien Alloys are what you get from the UFO or they aren't. Unless someone like Falko has another ingenious idea how to go about it. :) We could of course force the player to make Alien Alloys from Alien Debris before they can be used for construction, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not.hmmm... if we still wanted to do it, we could leave "Alien Alloys" as the stuff that gets recovered, but you have to turn it into "Usable Alien Alloys" before using it :P :D
thats the way i would do itHmm, this could work. :) the problem is that it would need coding, because either Alien Alloys are what you get from the UFO or they aren't. Unless someone like Falko has another ingenious idea how to go about it. :) We could of course force the player to make Alien Alloys from Alien Debris before they can be used for construction, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not.hmmm... if we still wanted to do it, we could leave "Alien Alloys" as the stuff that gets recovered, but you have to turn it into "Usable Alien Alloys" before using it :P :D
here an idea how a more complex tech tree could be
3 types:
- original
- with more dependencies/alien life forms needed [only existing items used]
- with some already existing or possible mods included
i added the source file (dia (https://sourceforge.net/projects/dia-installer/) needed) in the zip file
sorry for the bad export quality in the pdf