OpenXcom Forum
Modding => Released Mods => Topic started by: Arpia on December 04, 2013, 11:20:07 am
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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 >.<
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Still takes 4 slots on craft though right?
Pretty cool drone though
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unfortunately yeah, all HWP's take 4 slots on a craft regardless of size
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Can it open doors?
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yes, it can open doors, use the elevator and scout the inside of a ufo just fine... i checked to make sure >.>
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Just came back from the long trip and tried this mod, very well done Arpia! Just tested it for couple quick matches and noticed, maybe its bit too overpowered?
By meaning overpowered, its quite fast drone (cos of the large amount of TUs) to spot aliens and thus causing them aliens getting killed straight away by agent from long distance... EVEN it was my idea to do so, maybe it was bad decision :P (just blame me for that)
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 :D )
Probably at current state, its quite easy for early game with this sccout, but at the later state...?... good? ..or too OP at then also?
But all 'n' all nicely done :) ...couldnt made it better back then... i think those "4-grid-spaces-needed" will be taken care of in the future. ..(and Research images)
well done, cu!
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unfortunately yeah, all HWP's take 4 slots on a craft regardless of size
latest git build takes care of this imposed restriction
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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 :D )
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*
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Played a few missions with current version and came up with these points:
- - 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.
Did I miss anything?
Given the list, I think there's little reason for a thing with current stats to be more useful than a couple of rookies with basic guns (or just stun rods in case of psi enemies - "primum non nocere") and (later) plastic armor to send ahead.
I realize it seem to contrast with Ryskeliini's opinion, but maybe some buff is in order? ;)
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Aliens are pretty bad with seeing through smoke, so it helps a lot in some missions.
Other than that... Well, I find these points hard to argue with :) Maybe some major decrease in price and penalty points should do the trick.
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hi mk-fg! thanks for the constructive feedback, i see you have used it more than i am :) ... i havent tested it a lot ingame so this is important information whay you have given.
-- It costs 200k vs 40k for usual "scout lamb", takes as much time to arrive.
- Pending on that... tho it has superior way to go trough alien ships to seek whats in there as vanilla HWPs cannot do. Maybe that can be lowered. i agree timing to arrive to base should be halfed.
-- Armor is pretty much useless - both rookie and vehicle gets one-shotted.
-i didnt want to be this as fighting vehicle, more likely spot and hide one. Spotting is one factor that gets aliens killed by snipers. (atleast in my game i can easily spot then kill them with sniper fire wich imo causes huge unbalance... it shouldent get easy!
-- After the very early game stage, rookies have better armor and still cost way less.
- Saving rookies will get "trained" to better class, so saving them is useful? DONT YOU LOVE YOUR SOLDIERS! :D
--- Gives much worse score penalty for loosing - 50 vs 20 - 2.5 cannon fodder people make much better scouts, even unarmed.
- ok, needs to be looked on this. (if i understood correctly what you ment)
-- It gets no xp and gives no chance of nice stats (i.e. 99psi), surviving rookies (good chance) should always be better than vehicle.
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-- Sacrificial rookies can and actually do shoot, and not that ineffectively.
----drone shoots smoke at them aliens :> .. hilarious for me atleast when it has extra TU to use :)
--Given that aliens see better through smoke, not sure which side actually gets advantage from mounted smoke launcher.
- Not completely sure about that, i think its completely the same as Xcom units have. IF there is a smoke screen aliens cannot see trough it, atleast in my gameplay experience.
-- 70 AP is slightly better than rookie, but only by 10-15 AP, which is kinda negligible.
- So it should be more?... it was in the first rule version ,and scouts completely overrunned aliesn instantly by spotting them in first turn, and thus getting killed by agents running from skyranger and shooting from distant places. Disacree in this point. i think scouts should have EVEN less AP. But notice taken, be pending on this..
-- Should be immune to psi attacks.
- i have no exprience on this but totally agree (if this is mindcontrol thingy) :)
Sorry for my harsh awful english, im finnish and drunk at the monemt ;p ... But afterall, thanks your feedback is very good :) Lets try to fix it :>
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- 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.
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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.
I don't have much experience with smoke, so you are probably right here.
Come to think of it, disposable soldier with smoke grenades seem to be somewhat worse alternative due to need to prime these, but then again, it can be done in advance and throwing usually gets better accuracy (than 0% for vehicle launcher) with same TU costs.
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.
I should've probably stated clearly that all comparison points above are to using soldiers in place of a vehicle, not tank scouts, which are much worse than soldiers at that, at least until hovertanks.
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...
One potential I see for such tool being useful is advanced sensors - always-on night vision (like aliens have, presumably through biotech and/or implants) might be nice (<insert comparison with flare-packed rookies here>).
Maybe an even better vision? Built-in motion scanner?
Other sensory equipment that don't fit on humans?
Not sure how much of that can be done from the mod though.
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.
I didn't realize there was a height difference, that should be another "+" point, though not sure if it affects the actual aim either.
After casual glance at Projectile::calculateTrajectory, I think it should, as what seem to be calculated there is not just whether shot will be hit or miss, but "target voxel" (which I assume is smaller than 3d tile, given that projectiles hit fences, window frames and such) - the point in 3d space which projectile will actually fly to.
"sacrificial" can be replaced by "first out of the door" usually - someone/thing has to go and spot aliens at the end of the day, and that one/thing has good chance to die, so no point sending best shooters there - they are much more useful at shooting spotted stuff and will become even better at it (as they get kills).
-- After the very early game stage, rookies have better armor and still cost way less.
- Saving rookies will get "trained" to better class, so saving them is useful? DONT YOU LOVE YOUR SOLDIERS! :D
Putting extra value on human life in this case seem to be at odds with game mechanics, where you get "TANKS DESTROYED (1): -50" vs "X-COM OPERATIVES KILLED (1): -20" - clearly lives of even most experienced and decorated humans aren't worth even half of fried silicone and gears they put in that tank, further confirmed by the actual price tag of soldiers vs tanks ;)
Guess overpopulation, mass indoctrination and lack of raw materials for good tech in the world of x-com might explain how such thing came to be.
Another "+" for fair comparison would be that you don't pay monthly wage to the tanks, like you do for soldiers - at least cruel world of x-com doesn't have them die as slaves or battle thralls.
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.
Don't think it's that huge of a deal, but might be one more advantage over meatbags.
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I edited ListOrder, now it should behave more properly and not separate vanilla weapons from its ammo. :)
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Great job on this mod!
I just installed it today and tested it out and turned out very well.. I'm currently using it when I farm supply ships for their Elerium. Send two scouts to clear a safe path, and mind control and unarm any aliens in the area.. Send one rookie through this clear path the scout made, all the way into the power sources. With the help of my psi units in the Avenger, the first level of the supply ship is cleared.. Rookie runs in, pops off all 3 power sources, and grabs the Elerium.. He runs out with two drone escorts ensuring safe delivery of the precious goods.
Sweet raiding glory! Looks like the sectoids are pissed.
I have 6 bases providing me a nice flow of Elerium now.
I edited ListOrder, now it should behave more properly and not separate vanilla weapons from its ammo. :)
Hey Solarius, what kind of changes did ya make?
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Hey Solarius, what kind of changes did ya make?
Well, as I said, I changed ListOrder numbers to make the tank and its ammo appear in the right place on the buy/sell/equip list. I can't remember right now what the numbers were and what I entered to make it better, but this is all I did (and it works in my game).
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Hey, I'm getting a strange bug in my game and I'm absolutely sure it has to do with this mod, but I'm not sure if it's a problem with the mod or a problem with how the game counts troops in a transport.
The problem is this: if I have X scout tanks included in the craft's equipment, then I can't equip the bottom X soldiers in the craft's troop list while I'm at the base. I can equip them normally before a battle with the scouts having been brought with, or back at base normally IF the scouts are removed from the craft first. Clearly, that's not right.
I wasn't sure exactly where I should post this, but it is very closely related to this mod, so I'm posting it here.
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sounds like a bug with one of the ruleset flags the scout uses... I'll poke around with it when I get the brain capacity back for ruleset stuff
Edit: anyone else having this issue still?? I cannot find/replicate this, so i can only assume the issue was resolved in one of the nightly's.
@Fox105iwsp
It would require the spritework to go with it. I'm not saying no, but I'm not a sprite artist. (Ryskeliini did the graphics for this mod)
If someone provided the extra graphics then I'd happily put the ruleset together for it.
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I've been meaning to ask this, can this be turned into the SHIV unit? Except maybe we equip it with a LMG. Might be a bit more useful in the beginning of the game.
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One of the most useful starting game mods i know of. Good work! :)
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Random thought that was inspired by the locked blast radius thread:
What if Scout Drones also had "EXPLODE" button?
Basically, a grenade integrated into the chassis and triggered remotely which would destroy the scout drone, but also kill anything nearby.
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Random thought that was inspired by the locked blast radius thread:
What if Scout Drones also had "EXPLODE" button?
Basically, a grenade integrated into the chassis and triggered remotely which would destroy the scout drone, but also kill anything nearby.
I guess it would be much easier to do do if the "two weapons per tank" rule was allowed in a future build.
Just make a launcher with maxRang 0, bam. (Of course it would have to be powerful enough to destroy the drone itself.)
I'm just not sure if it'd be balanced...
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What if Scout Drones also had "EXPLODE" button?
Basically, a grenade integrated into the chassis and triggered remotely which would destroy the scout drone, but also kill anything nearby.
I apologize in advance for the dark humor, but rookies with accuracy=43% and psi=2 will make wonderful bomb carriers...
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Hey Arpia, your plasma tank lacks the
clipSize: -1
So it never has any ammo.
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There's a bug regarding scout drones and Chryssalids. If a scout is killed by the Chryssalid, it will turn into a zombie. Which doesn't really make any sense.
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There's a bug regarding scout drones and Chryssalids. If a scout is killed by the Chryssalid, it will turn into a zombie. Which doesn't really make any sense.
There's a tiny soldier in the vehicle, you didn't know?
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(https://www.thisisnotporn.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Kenny-Baker-as-R2D2-and-Anthony-Daniels-as-C-3PO.jpg)
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What about giving the scout drone an integrated motion scanner with lower TU cost?
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Hey Arpia, your plasma tank lacks the
So it never has any ammo.
fixed.
...also... to the self destruct stuff... I could totally add A new drone thats basically A high explosive pack on wheels you people are sick!!
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Excellent mod,
Just a couple of (minor) issues.
When it gets destroyed, a message comes up saying "it has been killed".... Is it possible to change this to destroyed rather than killed?
Finally, when the drone is destroyed, and standing over it with a soldier, in the inventory screen is a tiny.... cuplike image filling up one slot, compared to a deceased soldier/alien taking up six slots on the ground?
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been a while since I've even touched this to be honest.
I don't remember its 'corpse' having an icon... maybe that's problem - since there's no image it's just assigning that 'cup' thing instead.
the spritework isn't my area of expertise so I'd just be reusing the smokelauncher icon as the corpse icon. unless someone wants to make a corpse BigOb??
the killed/destroyed... I imagine that is because of the way the game handles things. 1x1 units are not seen as 'tanks' so the unit is classed as 'killed' instead of 'destroyed'
but. stuff has changed and been optimised a whole bunch since I dabbled with rulesets, so I could/should probably make a new set.
but as always, this and any other thing with my name on it is open to be used and changed and spread if you want to try and fix it for yourself.
-Harpy-
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Noticed a little bug when I enter combat with more than required Smoke Grenades for the scout drone while testing out TDS. I imagine it's because when there's more than 6 smoke grenades for one drone, which was at my base when the aliens attack, their nature is to be on the ground. However, since there is no FLOOROBJ, then the game crashes.
Or at least that's my theory :P
Let me explain. My base was being attacked by aliens, and I had 100 smoke bombs and one Scout Drone. The game crashed. At first I thought it was the Waspite aliens, but then I realized they were working perfectly fine, alongside the Scout Drone in regular combat. I loaded up a pre-battle save and sold all but six of the smoke bombs. The game didn't crash and the Scout Drone was there in the base.
EDIT:
They attacked the same base twice in a row and the Scout Drone had less than six smoke bombs and the game crashed. Seems as if the thing isn't suitable for Base Defence :P
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-_-' I imagine it's more case of 1x1 units aren't considered "hwp's" thus their ammo should be accounted for with a floorob like regular weapons. if it was treated like a tank... tank weapon ammo dont have floorob's ...hence why the drone never had one to begin with I imagine... probably...
if I were to redesign the ruleset which I really probably should... *sighs* I'd probably remove the need to load ammo and just make the launcher clipless like lasers are.
...well... actually to make it a little more chaotic I'd probably make the smoke cloud smaller and make it shoot 3/4 pellets at once with the shotgun ruleset
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Try this code:
- type: STR_SCOUT_DRONE
size: 6
costBuy: 200000
costSell: 140000
transferTime: 72
weight: 10
bigSprite: 90
bulletSprite: 3
fireSound: 72
compatibleAmmo:
- STR_SCOUT_SMOKE
accuracySnap: 100
tuSnap: 20
battleType: 1
fixedWeapon: true
arcingShot: true
invWidth: 2
invHeight: 3
listOrder: 1090
- type: STR_SCOUT_SMOKE
size: 0.1
costBuy: 100
costSell: 50
transferTime: 48
weight: 0
bigSprite: -1
floorSprite: 12
power: 55
clipSize: 6
damageType: 9
battleType: 2
maxRange: 3
listOrder: 1091
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I reworked this quite a bit in an effort to remove the "clip" issue. I configured it like the Laser Tank w/o another weapon.
I also changed the BulletSprite back to a vanilla as Falko's mod tester kept flagging it.
I also tried to put the UfoPedia Back image in the rules, but it flags as wrong pallet. I haven't tested it, and it may be an easy fix.
(Edit: this is based on the Scout Drone that Ryskeliini packaged in his Guns & Gadgets Pack.)
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I also changed the BulletSprite back to a vanilla as Falko's mod tester kept flagging it.
The modtester is not the standard for mods and errors/warnings there are not always a problem in your case it sees a projectile sprite with 9 different projectiles - thats unusual but not "wrong"
so with a ruleset like this
# - type: Projectiles
height: 27
width: 105
subX: 3
subY: 3
files:
385: Resources/ScoutDrone/ProjectileSprite.png the file ids are filled with projectiles from 385 to 700 so you can use bulletSprite ids 11-20 its a bit of waste if you only use one projectile of the 9 but its not really wrong
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Does killing a drone incur a morale hit like for the tanks?
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I'd have to check but i'm 90% sure it affects morale on death.
the game seems to consider single tile units as people rather than tanks... so if it died, it'd have the same affect as a rookie being killed.
though I'm pretty sure thats what happens when a tank dies aswell...
-Harpy-
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I was asking just like for that very reason...I already find alittle senseless that a tank destoried incurs a morale hit since it is an automated drone, but I explain that to myself thinking that the HWP is sturdy and a sodlier seeing that destroyed may REALLY worry about his fate in battle.....but the scout drone giving a morale hit equal or even greater than the tanks does not suit me well, since I think of it as a disposable device (as it SHOULD be also by my squaddies ;D ).
Anybody knows a way to have it NOT affect morale? like say, a dead civilian in terror missions? :P
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dont get it shot? :P
for for more theory you could also say... it's a tool that gives you an edge over the aliens, losing it means that the squadies have to venture into that deep darkness blind... thats pretty daunting when only moments before you could see what was out there lurking in the shadows... now its your turn to step into the waiting jaws of some depraved alien machination waiting to slap your body on a table and strip the skin from your bones and find out what it is that makes you tick just so they can use it against it in more despicable ways... *cackles maniacally and sinks back into a dark corner...*
o_O sorry... got a bit carried away there O_O
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Rationalization beyond reason always works :o
But I was looking for some pragmatims :P
By the way, hving the scout drone shot should BOOST morale: "Oh thank god we brought that little bastard to be shot instead of our sorry a--es!"
j/k of course. ;D ;D
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In other news, I make a dirty job of a bigob for the drone corpse. :P
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Errr... what happens to a stunned scout drone??
The scenario is this: The drone scoots up next to a building and then a friendly sectoid walks off the roof and lands on the mechanical marvel. "Scout Drone has become unconscious" flashes on the screen. ET walks away, the drone recovers his senses and continues on with the mission.
Would that cause any adverse effects? ie.. attempting to drop the smoke popper, etc?
Cheers, Ivan :D
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Super Sectoid Brothers.
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is this hypothetical? or did it actually happen to you? because honestly... I have no idea. I dont think the drone can be stunned... so it'd probably be destroyed if anything... i think... o_O
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is this hypothetical? or did it actually happen to you? because honestly... I have no idea. I dont think the drone can be stunned... so it'd probably be destroyed if anything... i think... o_O
Yeah, aliens jumping down on X-Com personnel make this happen. Sadly, you can't do the same. ;)
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Oh man! That's too bad! But XCom being able to would be easier to abuse..
This also lends credence to someone who said they had seen a civilian stun a sectoid that way.. If alien AI can do it, it seems likely civilians can too..
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Yeah, it has happened to me, a couple times... the drones are out first, and tend to hug walls, so they tend to get landed on a bit.
and it crashes with the Commendations mod at the moment. :(
Cheers, Ivan :D
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XCom CAN do it... but only when running in panic. I wish the option to jump on alien's head would be enabled, it takes way too much luck and thinking to make it happen for any abuse to be possible.
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This thing is SO OBNOXIOUS! I can't believe no one's complained about it. I gave it super reactions as a way to avoid alien reaction fire (aka psuedo stealth) but all it does is unload its popper at the first thing to cross its path -_-'
anyway... i'm gonna give the thing an update. fix that for one thing. stupid pop launcher... those rounds aren't free! thats tax payer's money you know?!
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Remove the Snap shot option, leave just the Aimed shot. This way the drone won't reaction-fire any longer.
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yeah thats what i've done, thanks though >.>