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Modding => Released Mods => Topic started by: moriarty on October 27, 2013, 10:28:40 pm

Title: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: moriarty on October 27, 2013, 10:28:40 pm
best used in conjunction with any kind of mod that delays availability of plasma weapons... this mod allows you to research and manufacture special ammo for the human conventional weapons, increasing their usefulness. once the "alloy ammunition" research is completed, alien alloys can be manufactured into specialized ammunition (higher damage, more bullets per clip). also, you can manufacture an alloy cannon for your craft, which is basically a cannon with slightly higher damage and higher range.


I'm still struggling with one issue, though: if you manufacture ammunition, somehow you end up with less than there should be. for example, a "Rifle Alien Alloy Ammo Clip" holds 30 bullets.
If I manufacture 100 clips, I end up with 32 clips.
If I manufacture 10 clips, I end up with 4.
If I manufacture 1, I end up with 1.
Not only do I get less than I ordered (most of the time), but it's also inconsistent... maybe it's about the "can manufacture more than one item per hour" thing? haven't tried if it changes when that's turned on in the advanced options.



EDIT for ease of access:

here's the final (or at least most recent) version of this mod. I'll try to keep it updated.

note that the alloy ammunition suffers heavily from the fact that manufacturing projects that are completed in under an hour create problems - it is strongly recommended to use the advanced option "TFTD manufacture rules"

"alloy_ammo.rul"
alloy ammo ruleset with updated research costs etc., alloy cannon for craft uses special alloy ammo that needs to be manufactured

https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1684.0;attach=6400 (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1684.0;attach=6400)


"alloy_ammo_2.rul"
craft alloy cannon uses alien alloys directly to re-load; UFOpedia text changed accordingly.

https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1684.0;attach=6390 (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1684.0;attach=6390)
Title: Re: alloy ammo
Post by: moriarty on October 27, 2013, 11:46:10 pm
I'm still struggling with one issue, though: if you manufacture ammunition, somehow you end up with less than there should be. for example, a "Rifle Alien Alloy Ammo Clip" holds 30 bullets.
If I manufacture 100 clips, I end up with 32 clips.
If I manufacture 10 clips, I end up with 4.
If I manufacture 1, I end up with 1.
Not only do I get less than I ordered (most of the time), but it's also inconsistent... maybe it's about the "can manufacture more than one item per hour" thing? haven't tried if it changes when that's turned on in the advanced options.

yep, that's it. so, in order to use this ruleset properly, you need to have "sub-hour manufacture" turned ON. otherwise, you won't get what you ordered. this is kinda weird behavior, isn't it? shouldn't it just take longer instead, but produce the correct amount of clips?
Title: Re: alloy ammo
Post by: Align on October 28, 2013, 11:43:38 am
Definitely sounds like a bug. If it acted like this in vanilla xcom, that option probably shouldn't be optional, since it fixes a bug.
Title: Re: alloy ammo
Post by: mercy on October 28, 2013, 12:05:54 pm
OMG! I'm so trying this out! :DD
Title: Re: alloy ammo
Post by: Hadan on October 28, 2013, 12:57:12 pm
*adjust tinfoil hat* Can you read my mind?  :o I was planning to do the exact same thing.
Glad to see you did it, my freetime is too limited atm.

greetz
Hadan
Title: Re: alloy ammo
Post by: moriarty on October 28, 2013, 01:20:54 pm
feel free to post suggestions for balancing issues like damage, cost, production time, range and speed (for the craft weapon) and so on... I mostly tried to guesstimate decent values, but may be completely off balance-wise :)
Title: Re: alloy ammo
Post by: Shadow on October 28, 2013, 05:04:14 pm
feel free to post suggestions for balancing issues like damage, cost, production time, range and speed (for the craft weapon) and so on... I mostly tried to guesstimate decent values, but may be completely off balance-wise :)

From my point of view, there's just not enough room for this technology to be an intermediate step between standard and laser weapons. Alloy ammo should compete with lasers, probably dealing somewhat more damage, which is balanced with the fact there's a logistical need for ammunition production.

You should revise the costs a bit, compare with existing items (even Gauss ammo from TFTD) whenever you can and try to scale with some degree of accuracy, but not too much. I only skimmed the ruleset, but it seemed the Alloy Cannon's cost was too high at $300k, if you consider the Laser Cannon's only $182k and needs no ammo.

I'd also possibly remove the Alien Alloys cost from Pistol AA clips, since early in the game it may nudge a player with a limited supply of materials to just move on to Laser Pistols.
Title: Re: alloy ammo
Post by: Sharp on October 28, 2013, 05:57:49 pm
The research time looks quite high as well, granted you get all the manufacturing capabilities except craft cannon once the research is done but it's still very long in comparison to laser and even plasma. I mean the research time is the same as researching blaster bomb and blaster bomb launcher combined which is very much late-game tech.

Unless your balancing it for a specific extended research time mod it's quite a long time for little. The concept is pretty sweet though, I was thinking alien alloys are supposed to be light so might not make the best bullets, but they are supposed to be durable so will need a lot more resistance to deform on impact which might make up for the low weight if shaped like flechettes.
Title: Re: alloy ammo
Post by: mercy on October 28, 2013, 06:17:25 pm
The research time is only long until >100 scientist are on the project. If a player makes a big research team a priority from day one, not much can go wrong.
Title: Re: alloy ammo
Post by: mercy on October 28, 2013, 06:28:53 pm
From my point of view, there's just not enough room for this technology to be an intermediate step between standard and laser weapons. Alloy ammo should compete with lasers, probably dealing somewhat more damage, which is balanced with the fact there's a logistical need for ammunition production.

You should revise the costs a bit, compare with existing items (even Gauss ammo from TFTD) whenever you can and try to scale with some degree of accuracy, but not too much. I only skimmed the ruleset, but it seemed the Alloy Cannon's cost was too high at $300k, if you consider the Laser Cannon's only $182k and needs no ammo.

I'd also possibly remove the Alien Alloys cost from Pistol AA clips, since early in the game it may nudge a player with a limited supply of materials to just move on to Laser Pistols.

It was a good decision from Moriarty's part to insert Alloy weapons before laser technology. Laser is too boring, we have been playing that for almost 20 years. Every new weapon type is super exciting, I think.

Therefore Alloy weapons are an excellent way to slow technological progress and infuse / enhance lowest tech human weapons with alien Alloy tech.

After all that's what the US gov. has been and is doing: reversing UFO tech and slowly, step by step including it into their own tech. 

Similar to nowadays application of nuclear waste - Depleted Uranium - to shells and bullets. Its easily available.

The first step is obvious:  if XCOM can acquire UFO alloy the easiest, it makes a lot of sense to immediately command scientists and engineers to devise ways to improve bullets & conventional weapons.

So the way Moriarty is doing this MOD so we can have something special that feels "OUR ACHIEVEMENT" before lasers, is alloy is perfect. IMO
Title: Re: alloy ammo
Post by: Shadow on October 28, 2013, 06:39:49 pm
The research time is only long until >100 scientist are on the project. If a player makes a big research team a priority from day one, not much can go wrong.

That's not much of a justification. You shouldn't need over 100 scientists to research such early tech in a reasonable timeframe. Let alone something that, as it stands, is weaker and less accessible than lasers.

It was a good decision from Moriarty's part to insert Alloy weapons before laser technology. Laser is too boring, we have been playing that for almost 20 years. Every new weapon type is super exciting, I think.

Therefore Alloy weapons are an excellent way to slow technological progress and infuse / enhance lowest tech human weapons with alien Alloy tech.

Game-wise, unless alloy ammunition is a solid competitor to laser weapons, there's not much point in using it unless you purposefully want to make things harder on yourself.

But overall, it's a neat concept and that's why I presented my suggestions to help it find its place in the game's balance.
Title: Re: alloy ammo
Post by: SupSuper on October 28, 2013, 07:06:43 pm
I'm still struggling with one issue, though: if you manufacture ammunition, somehow you end up with less than there should be. for example, a "Rifle Alien Alloy Ammo Clip" holds 30 bullets.
If I manufacture 100 clips, I end up with 32 clips.
If I manufacture 10 clips, I end up with 4.
If I manufacture 1, I end up with 1.
Not only do I get less than I ordered (most of the time), but it's also inconsistent... maybe it's about the "can manufacture more than one item per hour" thing? haven't tried if it changes when that's turned on in the advanced options.
We are looking into this. It's likely that your manufactures are too fast for the "one item per hour" rule. Until we iron it out, I'd suggest sticking to manufacture costs already in use by other items.
Title: Re: alloy ammo
Post by: moriarty on October 28, 2013, 07:15:12 pm
I'm thinking that you are right, the research time should be way less. I mean, you already know how to manufacture and process those alloys, how hard can it be to make them into ammunition?

and yes, they are probably too expensive, considering that they also use alien alloys as raw materials. I'll make them cheaper in production. entirely removing the need for alien alloys for the pistol ammo would kind of defeat the whole concept, wouldn't it? I mean, yes, that makes them disproportionally expensive, but manufacturing alien alloy ammo without alien alloys would be kinda weird. it would be nice if you could define a manufacture project that uses 1 alloy unit but produces 10 pistol clips.

oh, and I thought that maybe I would remove the necessity for manufacturing the craft alloy cannon clips entirely, instead relying on using the alien alloys directly, much in the same way that the plasma beam uses elerium. I'm still trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for that, though :) maybe the cannon manufactures its own ammunition pellets from the alloys, and uses magnetic acceleration to propel it or something. :D


Quote
We are looking into this. It's likely that your manufactures are too fast for the "one item per hour" rule. Until we iron it out, I'd suggest sticking to manufacture costs already in use by other items.

SupSuper, I thought that must be the case. as I said, I would expect it to manufacture only one item per hour, but still reach the full number ordered - simply taking longer. instead, it stops at the wrong computed time. I honestly have no idea how that used to work in the vanilla game :)
Title: Re: alloy ammo
Post by: Shadow on October 28, 2013, 07:54:40 pm
(...)entirely removing the need for alien alloys for the pistol ammo would kind of defeat the whole concept, wouldn't it? I mean, yes, that makes them disproportionally expensive, but manufacturing alien alloy ammo without alien alloys would be kinda weird.

Yeah, it's tricky business. I ran into a similar matter trying to balance Plasma Pistol Clip production, which costs Elerium by default, and making it viable.

I guess one way for you is to keep the Alien Alloys requirement but increase the bullet count per clip (say +50%), so you wouldn't need to produce as many.

oh, and I thought that maybe I would remove the necessity for manufacturing the craft alloy cannon clips entirely, instead relying on using the alien alloys directly, much in the same way that the plasma beam uses elerium. I'm still trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for that, though :) maybe the cannon manufactures its own ammunition pellets from the alloys, and uses magnetic acceleration to propel it or something. :D

Personally, I see nothing wrong with having to manufacture Alloy Cannon ammo in x50 chunks. That's how the standard craft cannon works, and it's fine to mimic that behaviour.

And Plasma Beams don't consume Elerium to rearm, by the way.

I also made a sheet of battlescape items you can use. ;)
Title: Re: alloy ammo
Post by: moriarty on October 28, 2013, 09:28:54 pm
I guess one way for you is to keep the Alien Alloys requirement but increase the bullet count per clip (say +50%), so you wouldn't need to produce as many.

I already did that :)

Personally, I see nothing wrong with having to manufacture Alloy Cannon ammo in x50 chunks. That's how the standard craft cannon works, and it's fine to mimic that behaviour.

true, there's nothing wrong with it, but I kind of like my new idea :P what do the others think of that?

And Plasma Beams don't consume Elerium to rearm, by the way.

whoops, you're right - I always thought they did, was kind of disappointed when I found out they didn't, and went ahead and simply forgot they didn't :)


I also made a sheet of battlescape items you can use. ;)

way cool! I'll see about implementing them.

for now, here's the updated version with the alloy craft cannon using Alien Alloys to reload. (1 Unit Alien Alloys = 75 Shots; full capacity 300 Shots)

new research times:
Alloy Ammo:  600 Scientist hours
Alloy Cannon (Craft Weapon):  600 Scientist hours

new manufacture times&costs:
Alloy Cannon (Craft Weapon):  300 Engineer hours, 95000$, 1 Unit Alien Alloys
Pistol Alloy Ammo Clip:  20 Engineer Hours, 100$, 1 Unit Alien Alloys (18 bullets)
Rifle Alloy Ammo Clip:  25 Engineer hours, 150$, 1 Unit Alien Alloys (30 bullets)
Heavy Cannon Alloy Ammo Clip:  30 Engineer hours, 300$, 1 Unit Alien Alloys (9 bullets)
Auto Cannon Alloy Ammo Clip:  30 Engineer hours, 300$, 1 Unit Alien Alloys (14 bullets)
Title: Re: alloy ammo
Post by: moriarty on October 28, 2013, 09:38:31 pm
The concept is pretty sweet though, I was thinking alien alloys are supposed to be light so might not make the best bullets, but they are supposed to be durable so will need a lot more resistance to deform on impact which might make up for the low weight if shaped like flechettes.

Sharp, yeah, I was thinking about that, too, how can such low-weight materials be used for decent ammunition? then I thought, maybe it's kind of an inverse flechette principle: instead of using a heavy bullet with a strong core, the alloy ammunition would actually encase conventional bullets in alloy "hulls". that way, the bullet can be accelerated with stronger propellant charges without risking deformation by inertial forces alone. at the same time, the cartridge uses an alloy case, so the stronger charge doesn't destroy the weapon.
In the end, you get higher kinetic energies transferred to the target, which is all that matters :)
Title: Re: alloy ammo
Post by: mercy on October 28, 2013, 09:51:31 pm
This way the alloy can act like a super-high speed memory metal with "bubble gum softness" on impact.
Title: Re: alloy ammo
Post by: moriarty on October 28, 2013, 10:12:45 pm
yes, exactly. plus a very pointy, very durable tip that can penetrate armor.

okay, here's again two versions:

"alloy_ammo.rul"
alloy ammo ruleset with updated research costs etc., alloy cannon for craft uses special alloy ammo that needs to be manufactured

"alloy_ammo_2.rul"
craft alloy cannon uses alien alloys directly to re-load; UFOpedia text changed accordingly.
Title: Re: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: SupSuper on November 05, 2013, 06:35:19 pm
There's a bug in your "alloy_ammo.rul".
Your crafts and manufactures refer to a "STR_ALLOY_CANNON_ROUNDS_X75", but in your items there's a "STR_ALLOY_CANNON_ROUNDS_X50" instead.
Title: Re: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: moriarty on November 05, 2013, 07:01:06 pm
Whoops. I thought I had 'em all... I started by copying the standard cannon stuff, of course, but then increased the capacity by half, then adjusted the ammo chunk size, and obviously forgot to change the item itself.
I'm on my phone right now, but I'll try to change it ASAP.

Anything else you found? Balancing issues?
Title: Re: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: mercy on November 05, 2013, 07:53:52 pm
Thank You SupSuper!

I want to enhance the Magnum and Sniper Rifle mods to use alloy ammo.

No luck so far: it seems item types defined in alloy_ammo.rul isn't known "outside" of that rul file. When I try to define a new alloy ammo for the magnum and copy the research and manufacture requirements for it from alloy_ammo.rul the game crashes when going to the soldier inventory.

I was thinking of fusing alloy_ammo.rul + Magnum + Sniper Rifle so there are only single manufacture and research and item type sections, not multiple rul files.
Title: Re: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: moriarty on November 05, 2013, 11:00:31 pm
I want to enhance the Magnum and Sniper Rifle mods to use alloy ammo.

No luck so far: it seems item types defined in alloy_ammo.rul isn't known "outside" of that rul file. When I try to define a new alloy ammo for the magnum and copy the research and manufacture requirements for it from alloy_ammo.rul the game crashes when going to the soldier inventory.

interesting - could you post your ruleset? I thought things defined in one ruleset should be accessible by other rulesets... perhaps something else is going wrong here.

I updated the post above with the correct "_x75" item ruleset part (and the first post in this thread, too) :)
Title: Re: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: mercy on November 06, 2013, 08:29:03 pm
Magnum AA Drum done! The only thing missing now is an awesome Alloy Ammo sprite. How to change the magnum AA drums color? Where is a palette of alternative colors?

Built the Magnum into your alloy_ammo.rul . It seems to work. Which is wonderful.

Can research AA Drum = Check
Can manufacture Magnum AA Drum = Check
Can go to Soldier Inventory and Load Magnum AA Drum into Magnum = Check
Can shoot Magnum AA ammo on missions = Check

It seems to eat away armor nicely! >:]

I deleted the
- Magnum line from my options.cfg since its no longer needed.

Will infuse a Sniper Rifle Alloy cartridge into this one, just Natuk (https://www.proudft.com/tod.html) has me in tight grips right now. (Turn based tactical fantasy RPG.) I've improved its sound effects and will do more as I go.
Title: Re: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: SeanEBlog on November 07, 2013, 12:27:59 am
I've notice that this is a similar concept to some graphics I made for alien alloy Terran weaponry (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,1266.msg11387.htm), I didn't think of them using alloy ammunition though.
Title: Re: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: mercy on November 07, 2013, 10:11:56 am
@SeanEBlog  Your weapons look really good! Would love to see a MOD. Maybe fuse your graphics with this mod?
Title: Re: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: yrizoud on December 10, 2013, 10:02:48 pm
About Alloy Cannon, it's a specific weapon only because the engine doesn't give a way to choose multiple ammo, but in game world it is actually the same weapon, taking ammo of identical caliber.
So I'd rather make it a manufacturing formula that converts an existing Craft Cannon, using no money and not much time : It represents the tweaking by mechanics for the modified temperature, pressure, etc.
An opposite formula could revert an alloy cannon into a Craft Cannon, in case the player runs out of alien alloys (The player then has to dismount the weapon, convert it manually and reattach it).

Apologies if the idea has already been mentioned and I missed it.
Title: Re: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: Solarius Scorch on May 29, 2014, 08:23:19 pm
I made bigobs for the new alloy clips. Hopefully they'll be useful to you guys.

(Contains basic ammo and some clips from mods.)

On pics below you'll find a sample of 4 clips; the zip file has them too and everything else.
Title: Re: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: Aldorn on May 30, 2014, 03:47:20 pm
Good job, do not be afraid, this will be useful  :)
Title: Re: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: Solarius Scorch on May 30, 2014, 04:01:15 pm
Good job, do not be afraid, this will be useful  :)

I'm glad they will :)

I made them for the Final Mod Pack project, but naturally they can be used elsewhere.
Title: Re: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: DanosP on January 08, 2015, 11:06:51 am
Hi,

At first, thank you for great mod. This made the game more differentiated. I likied to use rifles and auto-cannons even at Cydonia.

The second, did you try to integrate Sniper Rifle? I tried to extract data from FMP and integrated it with your mod. It seems that it works - checked with OXC 1.0 us and pl.
I did not publish it because I do not know about license limitations.
Title: Re: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: moriarty on January 08, 2015, 11:22:16 am
Hi DanosP,

thanks and please, use and modify the mod however you want. I'm sure others will appreciate the integration of sniper rifle alloy ammo. Just make sure it doesn't cause any trouble if the alloy ammo mod is used without the sniper rifle mod... :)
Title: Re: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: DanosP on January 14, 2015, 12:00:12 am
Hi,

I finished integration of sniper rifle into Alloy Ammo mod files.

I used graphics from toshiaki2115 sniper rifle mod, rulesets from Final Mod Pack and of course files from moriarty's Alloy Ammo mod.

Recommended settings:
- TFTD manufacture rules
- Sneaky AI
- UFO Extender accuracy

Optional settings:
- Explosion height:3
- TFTD Damage Formula

I use the "modified" mod with following mods:

Acid weaponry
Air combat rebalanced
AlienArmouryExpanded
AlienArmouryExpanded UFOs
Aliens Pick Up Weapons
AlloyCrafts
Alloy Tanks
BirdOfPrey
CraftMissileSound
DOS Version 1.0 Sounds
Enforcer
Heavy Laser Rebalance
Laser Clips (my favourite!)
LaserSectopod
LaserRifleRecolor
Mechtoids
PowerArmorReb
PowerSuitHelmOff
RecycledAlienCollection
Retaliator
Sniper DD
Tank
Thunder
TinyResearchMod
ViperAssaultCannon
anthropod alien
armored vest
gazer alien

Ufopaedia entry below:
Title: Re: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: moriarty on January 14, 2015, 04:20:37 pm
I guess a mod containing alloy ammo AND sniper rifle is somewhat beyond what I was trying to do with the alloy ammo mod. maybe it would make more sense to add the necessary dependencies for alloy sniper ammunition to the sniper rifle mod? if done correctly, the sniper rifle mod will be unchanged unless the alloy ammo mod is also active.
Title: Re: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: yrizoud on January 14, 2015, 06:24:54 pm
Yes, you can add the optional alloy ammo for any weapon, in the relevant weapon's ruleset :
1) In "manufacture:", add "requires:\n      - STR_ALLOY_AMMO"
2) In "ufopedia", add "requires:\n      - STR_ALLOY_AMMO"

Title: Re: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: DanosP on January 15, 2015, 11:14:58 pm
Hi,

Thank you for suggestions. I added sniper rifle to Alloy Ammo mod because there are rifle, cannon, autocannon already. Integrating sniper rifle seemed logical.

Yes, I know it may be standalone mod, and it can be done that way. I try this way if time allows.

After some debugging there are the files:

- Sniper_Std.rul - ruleset file, copy it to data/Ruleset
- SniperRifle folder - resources, copy it to data/Resources folder

Enable it in the Mod Menu.

I changed manufacture rules. The Sniper HE clip needs Alloys, sniper rifle clip and AC HE clip.

Enjoy!
Title: Re: [WEAPON] alloy ammo
Post by: Arthanor on February 12, 2015, 08:48:52 pm
The rifle, autocannon and heavy cannon are just copy and paste of the vanilla ruleset though. In fact, they should not contain all the properties for them, but only the ammunition changes. The Craft Alloy Cannon is there because craft weapons can currently only use one type of ammo, so if you want to be consistent and allow crafts to have an alloy ammo weapon, it needs an entirely new weapon. You can't just add alloy ammo to the old cannon.

A sniper rifle mod that contains resources to have alloy ammo IF the alloy ammo mod is there (but not in the absence of alloy ammo) is indeed possible and preferable. This mod adds alloy ammo, the sniper rifle mod adds a sniper rifle and its ammo, everything is self contained and there is no clutter or megamod. The sniper rifle mod just needs to reference the research project for alloy ammo for the sniper rifle alloy clip.

It would be a good thing to package and distribute your contribution as an updated sniper rifle mod (with credits). Or look into a mod collections like the FMP or the XAE which already have alloy ammo for sniper rifles.