OpenXcom Forum

Modding => Work In Progress => Topic started by: Solarius Scorch on May 26, 2014, 05:39:37 pm

Title: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: Solarius Scorch on May 26, 2014, 05:39:37 pm
Hi all,

In the same cheap way I made Reptoids, I would like to make another alien race made from recoloured TFTD sprites: this time, it's the Gillmen. However, since they're brown, I would like to make them into a subtrerranean-themed species, with the working name of Chtonites.

(https://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa43/SolariusScorch/Modding/chtonite.jpg)

Still, apart from the race itself - which will be fairly low-tier - I'm out of ideas for their terror unit. And since this a cheap mod, I would like it to be something that's already made, for TFTD or something.

Help, please?


EDIT: A test version of the mod in the attachment. It should work as intended.

EDIT: This mod was incorporated into the Recycled Alien Collection (https://www.openxcom.com/mod/recycled-alien-collection) mod, and is therefore discontinued as a standalone feature.
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: NeXaXeN on May 26, 2014, 06:19:54 pm
If you're looking for quick and dirty, I have two ideas to go with the subterranean thing (I leave the color schemes to your capable skills):

1. Proposed name: Tunlun
Model: Deep One Terrorist
Idea: The Tunlun has a large tube for a mouth. Tunluns burrow through the earth by spitting acid to corrode rocks for digestion. The "flippers" from the deep one model are actually biological shovels to move dissolved earth aside. They are used by the Chtonites to hollow out cavernous holes for their UFOs to appear and disappear undetected. However, their acidic spit makes them perfect terror weapons.

2. Proposed name: Dulcean
Model: Aqautoid
Idea: The Dulceans are a quasi-sapient hald-breed race crafted as humanoid drones. Normally used for menial labor to construct the Chtonite undergound caverns, they are also capable (with supervision) of being used as foot soldiers. While not as terrifying as Chryssalids they are conveniently expendable.
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: LouisdeFuines on May 26, 2014, 06:39:14 pm
Both mods cry out for OpenTFTD ;)
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: Solarius Scorch on May 26, 2014, 06:44:09 pm
Thanks, NeXaXeN! The Dulceans are too obviously Sectoid-like, but Tunluns definitely have potential. I'll try to experiment with these.

Louis, I would love to see a hybrid game (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=1851.0) :)
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: moriarty on May 26, 2014, 07:30:40 pm
actually, the perfect terror unit for these would be the silacoids. too bad they're already taken :)
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: NeXaXeN on May 26, 2014, 09:20:11 pm
Thanks, NeXaXeN! The Dulceans are too obviously Sectoid-like, but Tunluns definitely have potential. I'll try to experiment with these.

Louis, I would love to see a hybrid game (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=1851.0) :)

THANK YOU Solarius, for giving us more aliens to play with! As for the hybrid game, when Open TFTD hits I'd be all over that--ESPECIALLY with a compilation mod on top of it! Oh man... I'm having fangasms just thinking about it...
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: Solarius Scorch on May 27, 2014, 02:35:05 am
actually, the perfect terror unit for these would be the silacoids. too bad they're already taken :)

Hmm... I don't really want to change vanilla items... But hmm... :)

THANK YOU Solarius, for giving us more aliens to play with! As for the hybrid game, when Open TFTD hits I'd be all over that--ESPECIALLY with a compilation mod on top of it! Oh man... I'm having fangasms just thinking about it...

Hehe, no problem. This mod is such dirty work anyway, I'm kinda ashamed of myself. :P


EDIT:

I think I have the race finished, though it's not tested much. I'm putting it here (first post) for brave testers to try it out b efore I upload it to the Finished Mods section.

(Next race: tentaculats. You're going to hate them - no zombification, but no equipment either, since they'll use psionic blasts only.)
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: NeXaXeN on May 27, 2014, 08:58:24 pm
Tunlun Terrorist doesn't show results when researched, and no entry in the UFOpedia.
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: Solarius Scorch on May 27, 2014, 09:42:19 pm
Tunlun Terrorist doesn't show results when researched, and no entry in the UFOpedia.

Indeed, it was missing the lookup: STR_TUNLUN string. Apologies, should be fixed now (and old saves should work too).
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: Sectoid_Soldier on May 27, 2014, 11:50:41 pm
A terror unit based on TFTD's Lobstermen might be good.
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: NeXaXeN on May 28, 2014, 12:45:16 am
Indeed, it was missing the lookup: STR_TUNLUN string. Apologies, should be fixed now (and old saves should work too).

Confirmed, works fine now.

And no worries--I gave up trying to get an Alien Ranks research mod going... I couldn't even get it to load. XD
Your stuff is Einsteinian by comparison.
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: Solarius Scorch on May 28, 2014, 03:39:15 am
Confirmed, works fine now.

And no worries--I gave up trying to get an Alien Ranks research mod going... I couldn't even get it to load. XD
Your stuff is Einsteinian by comparison.

Haha, thanks, but this particular mod (just like Reptoids) was stolen from Robin and rewritten :)

Anyway, what do you think of Tunluns? I think their sprite is somehow weird, like there was a problem with the drawing routine...
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: NeXaXeN on May 29, 2014, 01:17:47 am
The Tunluns look fine to me-- light sandy-brown but that goes with the subterranean thing.

Odd thing though: when they die now, they don't leave a corpse, and the Cthnite Corpse looks like a Reptoid...
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: Solarius Scorch on May 29, 2014, 01:27:54 am
The Tunluns look fine to me-- light sandy-brown but that goes with the subterranean thing.

Odd thing though: when they die now, they don't leave a corpse, and the Cthnite Corpse looks like a Reptoid...

Weird. I checked the file and it looks okay.

I guess it must be some sort of a conflict between mods... Which is mighty strange, since there should be no conflict between mods, ever - each uses its own system. Have you perhaps tried merging this mod with other mods or something?
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: NeXaXeN on May 29, 2014, 01:56:12 am
I have the Reptoid, MiB, Gazer, and Waspite mods as well as your Gauss Mod (Gauss Cannon Ufopedia causes a crash, but it always did that) and some other non-alien related mods. I've never seen this high strangeness with the corpses before.
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: Solarius Scorch on May 29, 2014, 02:09:17 am
I have the Reptoid, MiB, Gazer, and Waspite mods as well as your Gauss Mod (Gauss Cannon Ufopedia causes a crash, but it always did that) and some other non-alien related mods. I've never seen this high strangeness with the corpses before.

I've spoken to Dioxine about this and he told me it's probably a game problem, since it tends to mix up some elements from different mods. If it's true, then the best solution to avoid such weird behaviour would be to combine all races mods into one mod, or at least change file numbers for the relevant races. I'll try doing that.

As for the Gauss Cannon Ufopedia crashing... this shouldn't happen since 1.0.1. :o Make sure you have the latest version 1.1 - it's attached to the opening post in the Gauss thread (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=2031.msg19624#msg19624).
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: NeXaXeN on May 29, 2014, 02:53:37 am
OK, that numbering thing makes sense. As for a combined alien modpack, I don't see that as a bad thing AT ALL. Megamod material anyone? *wink wink*

Yeeeeah... Stupidity on my part not scoring the Gauss Cannon upgrade--I only mentioned it in case that might've done some cross-mod something or other. EDIT I'll update it to be sure I updated it and the Ufopedia shows up just fine(!), but I think that numbering thing you pointed out is probably what's going on with the aliens. My bad again there going mod crazy but, I wants meh some nuu alienz! XD
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: Solarius Scorch on May 29, 2014, 03:15:33 am
Hey, I'm doing the same thing. ;)

You know what, I guess I'll put all my new races into one mod. Some people will whine that they want one of them but not the others, but we can't please everyone, can we.

But before this happens, I want to make some more aliens.

(Oh, and I'm actually using a race compilation mod... But it features Robin's races too, so I'll have to remove them first.)
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: SupSuper on May 29, 2014, 12:04:18 pm
Weird. I checked the file and it looks okay.

I guess it must be some sort of a conflict between mods... Which is mighty strange, since there should be no conflict between mods, ever - each uses its own system. Have you perhaps tried merging this mod with other mods or something?
If there are separate mods with sprite IDs higher than 1000, they will conflict with one another. Merging mods can be even more dangerous, as you now have to ensure the IDs of all the combined mods don't overlap and still don't exceed 1000.
The only other conflict possible is multiple mods using the same string IDs, though that is fairly more unlikely.
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: Solarius Scorch on June 20, 2014, 04:39:15 am
If there are separate mods with sprite IDs higher than 1000, they will conflict with one another. Merging mods can be even more dangerous, as you now have to ensure the IDs of all the combined mods don't overlap and still don't exceed 1000.
The only other conflict possible is multiple mods using the same string IDs, though that is fairly more unlikely.

Thanks, but they don't have such high IDs. The numbers in question are 303 and 304.

And there aren't any duplicate lines (I hope), after all both mods are mine.


EDIT:

I am completing a larger compilation of alien races, which will feature Reptoids. Therefore this mod will be discontinued from now on.
From now on, for Reptoids and more, check my Recycled Alien Collection mod (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=2338.0)!
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: Jstank on June 21, 2014, 01:28:14 am
https://punverse.blogspot.jp/2013/02/graboids-part-i.html

One word for you...


Graboid.
Title: Re: Chtonite race: terror unit ideas needed
Post by: Solarius Scorch on June 21, 2014, 01:56:59 am
https://punverse.blogspot.jp/2013/02/graboids-part-i.html

One word for you...


Graboid.

Seriously, this should be made.