OpenXcom Forum

Modding => Work In Progress => Topic started by: Hobbes on January 12, 2015, 05:10:53 pm

Title: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Hobbes on January 12, 2015, 05:10:53 pm
Hello all :)

I've been working on a top secret new project called 'UFO Redux', which will be an expansion of the original game, using the current nightly version. This project has 4 objectives:
1) Enlarging and diversifying the game universe - new missions & factions.
2) Redesigning the research tree, adding more requirements to complete key topics, with a special focus on the capture of live aliens to advance research.
3) Increasing the tension while playing.
4) Fixing idiosyncrasies of the original game, such as Heavy Lasers being nearly useless and others.

I've started designing by using elements of my Alien Remix and Missions Pack mods but I've also been using elements from a lot of mods developed by other people like robin's MiB or Dioxine's Piratez. And this expansion will certainly also include the Terrain Pack. 

But since there's a ton of other mods and I don't have time to try them all out, I've decided to ask for suggestions or ideas from the forum.

So I ask: what mods of weapons/aliens/etc. do you really like to use and why are they so fun/meaningful? Also feel free to add suggestions about the original game features that could be improved. Keep in mind though that this will not be a compilation like the Final Mod Pack where everything goes and please keep suggestions to things that are achievable with the currently nightly builds.

Thanks for your help :)
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: ivandogovich on January 12, 2015, 06:14:24 pm
Neat Idea, Hobbes!! :)  (Have you checked out HellRaiser's research mod that he has been working on in the past week?)

Mods to include:
- Combat Knife (the ability to add melee kills is a great little expansion of the game)
- Incendiary grenade  (nice tool, not game breaking)

Game feature improvement:
- Better handobs.  i.e. Medikit, HE Pack, Motion Scanner, etc.  These all use the default grenade handob, and it just looks silly.  I have already created a Medikit handob mod, and will post an HE Pack handob mod this evening.  Motion scanner to be worked on soon as well.

Overall, I think that the items that are added into the mod shouldn't fundamentally change the game or unbalance it.  I know that this can be very tricky, (i.e. Sniper Rifle can dominate early game, etc) but I think the effort is worth it.

Cheers, Ivan :D
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: bladum on January 12, 2015, 06:18:02 pm
i am not sure if this will help you but... i will give a try :-)

in my fork https://github.com/Bladum/OpenXcom i merged several different improvements from other devs (guys you are awesome !!) and try to keep code similar to vanilla to still get fixes from standard.

I have two main rules about this fork:

1) fork that supports a community edition with single mod that is non configurable. This means all players have similar experience. There is no need to maintain vanilla compatibility or other mods compatibility. Mod that is using all new features is already inside the repo, actually if you look into resources it has completely "singleton" structure.

2) i do not judge if feature is vanilla or not neither if this is needed or not nor do i like it or not. I just judge how much time it will take or if it will break any standard inside code for any future growth. So if you have any requests which are not breaking the game from technical point of view, then i am glad to add them. I do not care if there are 10 or 100 aliens unless performance drops a lot.

If you think this will help you in achieving your goal then lets talk about it.

If not just ignore my post.... and sorry for wasting a minute for reading this ;)

Tom
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Hobbes on January 12, 2015, 06:48:53 pm
Neat Idea, Hobbes!! :)  (Have you checked out HellRaiser's research mod that he has been working on in the past week?)

Just read it. He has some nice ideas about those UFO components that have no utility but others are impracticable with the tree I'm designing, specially his requirements for the Alien Containment. I've also looked already into the Tiny Research Mod and the Alternate Weapon Tech and got a few elements from both.

To reveal the main change I've introduced, the research tree I've designed has 8 techs (7 new, 1 existing one) that are required for the advanced projects (weapons, UFOs, Psionics, etc.) and can only be unlocked by capturing aliens. And to help with this requirement, there is a new alien rank of Scientist, which when interrogated will randomly give 1 of these techs. And other ranks can also randomly give a few of these techs (e.g. Alien Engineer can unlock Plasma Weapons).

One of the things that annoyed me in the original game was how easy it was for Earth to develop Plasma Weapons or UFOs. With these requirements at least you'll need the *active* collaboration of an alien to get those techs.

And there's also minor additions, such as Heavy Laser + Elerium unlocking Advanced Heavy Laser (which uses XComUtil's stats).

Quote
Mods to include:
- Combat Knife (the ability to add melee kills is a great little expansion of the game)
- Incendiary grenade  (nice tool, not game breaking)

Game feature improvement:
- Better handobs.  i.e. Medikit, HE Pack, Motion Scanner, etc.  These all use the default grenade handob, and it just looks silly.  I have already created a Medikit handob mod, and will post an HE Pack handob mod this evening.  Motion scanner to be worked on soon as well.

Already got all 3 on my personal list. I will add the HE Pack and Scanner Handobs to the list when you add them.

Quote
Overall, I think that the items that are added into the mod shouldn't fundamentally change the game or unbalance it.  I know that this can be very tricky, (i.e. Sniper Rifle can dominate early game, etc) but I think the effort is worth it.

Unless the item fills a specific niche (like Incendiary Grenade), it's unlikely that I'll add it to the XCom standard equipment, if it's just a variation of the original equipment (Sniper Rifles, Shotguns, Machineguns, RPGs would fit this description). However, I'll be adding additional human factions and there's plenty of room there for alternative gear that could be later be recovered and used by XCom.

Thanks! :)

i am not sure if this will help you but... i will give a try :-)

in my fork https://github.com/Bladum/OpenXcom i merged several different improvements from other devs (guys you are awesome !!) and try to keep code similar to vanilla to still get fixes from standard.

I have two main rules about this fork:

1) fork that supports a community edition with single mod that is non configurable. This means all players have similar experience. There is no need to maintain vanilla compatibility or other mods compatibility. Mod that is using all new features is already inside the repo, actually if you look into resources it has completely "singleton" structure.

2) i do not judge if feature is vanilla or not neither if this is needed or not nor do i like it or not. I just judge how much time it will take or if it will break any standard inside code for any future growth. So if you have any requests which are not breaking the game from technical point of view, then i am glad to add them. I do not care if there are 10 or 100 aliens unless performance drops a lot.

If you think this will help you in achieving your goal then lets talk about it.

If not just ignore my post.... and sorry for wasting a minute for reading this ;)

Tom

I'd love to use a specialized build to change things like alien mission frequency buuuuuut going that route would complicate things for players. At this point that isn't on the plans since I already come up with temporary solutions for a couple of issues but thanks for the offer :)
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: yrizoud on January 12, 2015, 08:09:02 pm
Be sure to leave a long line of human tech researchable. So that even if the player doesn't manage to catch the required items or live aliens, the scientists still have something to do.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: bladum on January 12, 2015, 08:16:34 pm
@Hobbes

i can try to create another fork and add such requests to master to be used on your ideas. What do you have in mind exactly ?
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Hobbes on January 12, 2015, 09:24:30 pm
Be sure to leave a long line of human tech researchable. So that even if the player doesn't manage to catch the required items or live aliens, the scientists still have something to do.

Could you be a little more specific about the kind of human tech items? Better yet, imagine that Laser Weapons can only be unlocked through capturing an alien: what else could you add to human tech items, besides lasers?

@Hobbes

i can try to create another fork and add such requests to master to be used on your ideas. What do you have in mind exactly ?

The ability to be able to edit on the ruleset the number and type of alien missions which are generated each month. More specifically, this deals with the determineAlienMissions and time1Month funcions on GeoscapeState.cpp.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: yrizoud on January 13, 2015, 02:30:54 am
Could you be a little more specific about the kind of human tech items? Better yet, imagine that Laser Weapons can only be unlocked through capturing an alien: what else could you add to human tech items, besides lasers?
No specific idea in mind. From having tested the FMP which requires many captures before you can use any alien item, I just want to warn that it's frustrating when you "starve" the tech topics.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Hobbes on January 13, 2015, 02:54:20 am
No specific idea in mind. From having tested the FMP which requires many captures before you can use any alien item, I just want to warn that it's frustrating when you "starve" the tech topics.

I'm actually planning for this to happen in the initial months. Lets see how that idea works out.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Gifty on January 13, 2015, 03:26:38 am
I actually had an idea like this kicking around months ago; my rough list included:

-incendiary grenade
-Robin's extra aliens
-improved handobs
-Luke's extra UFO layouts
-smoke bomb for the small launcher
-some kind of terrain destroying acid gun derived from Celatids (late-game tool for breaching UFO hulls)
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: ivandogovich on January 13, 2015, 04:47:48 am
I actually had an idea like this kicking around months ago; my rough list included:
<snip>
-improved handobs


@Gifty: Is there another improved Handobs mod? or am I reinventing the wheel with my medikit Handob and HE Handob mods?
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Gifty on January 13, 2015, 05:30:21 am
Oh, no, as far as I'm aware you're the first one to do it. It was just something I thought should be included.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: ivandogovich on January 13, 2015, 05:42:17 am
@Gifty, Lol.   </threadjack>

And Here is the link for the HE Handob: https://www.openxcom.com/mod/he-handob
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: davide on January 13, 2015, 02:50:14 pm
...
But since there's a ton of other mods and I don't have time to try them all out, I've decided to ask for suggestions or ideas from the forum.


+100 for the idea

I will appreciate if you could consider

thanks
[/list]
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: yrizoud on January 13, 2015, 04:36:13 pm
About plasma balance, instead of relying on captures, you could tweak the alien tech levels so that the Heavy Plasma simply doesn't appear on day 1...
For example, start with a tier of plasma weapons which do 50% the damage of vanilla, while the humans take 200% plasma damage. (resulting in the same kind of overkill).
Then, over the course of months, when the alien bring a new tier of plasma weapons (75%, 100% of the "reference" weapons), the player is underpowered until the research of this weapon's category unlocks armor with better plasma resistance (133%, 100%).
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Hobbes on January 13, 2015, 05:00:33 pm
-Robin's extra aliens
-Luke's extra UFO layouts
-smoke bomb for the small launcher
-some kind of terrain destroying acid gun derived from Celatids (late-game tool for breaching UFO hulls)

Robin's extra aliens can be latter added as an additional faction with their own specific UFOs. I'm thinking of using some of Luke's Extra UFOs, specially those that show the vanilla UFOs from different perspectives. Smoke bomb... yeah, that would fit also with the explosive ammo for the Small Launcher.
But terrain destroying (or UFO breaching) weapons are a no, in my opinion due to the fact that they can be also used by players as very effective melee weapons.

  • Luke's UFOs or as alternative,  the compilation "YET MORE UFOS!"
  • Luke's Terrains (at least the new maps of alien base)
  • new aliens race
  • the incoming new Apocalypse inspired maps of Robin
Regarding UFOs, I'm thinking now that one option is to retain modularity, so that people can choose between either UFO compilation. Luke's terrains are a bit of a pickle: the underground levels on the terror sites mess everything up, but I would be fine with using an alternative Alien Base.
New aliens can go into a new alien faction rather than being added to the original ones. And I love Robin's Apocalypse maps but I've got a new faction called MJ-12 with its own maps and units. But the assets on the MIB mod are simply too good, so they'll appear in one way or the other.

About plasma balance, instead of relying on captures, you could tweak the alien tech levels so that the Heavy Plasma simply doesn't appear on day 1...
For example, start with a tier of plasma weapons which do 50% the damage of vanilla, while the humans take 200% plasma damage. (resulting in the same kind of overkill).
Then, over the course of months, when the alien bring a new tier of plasma weapons (75%, 100% of the "reference" weapons), the player is underpowered until the research of this weapon's category unlocks armor with better plasma resistance (133%, 100%).

Yup, tweaking the alien tech levels will be necessary since I'm planning on reducing the carrying capability of the Skyranger and Avenger to bring less units. But changing the damage of the weapons I'm less convinced since that involves a ton of changes and it can get confusing. I'll keep this idea in mind though in case the initial game gets too brutal.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: ChainsawAardvark on January 13, 2015, 08:11:25 pm
Try to think of ways to make things more specialized and niche - there should be a reason to avoid having everyone in flying suits with heavy plasma cannons.

As long as we're brainstorming, how about this: turn around the tech 180 degrees. Aliens use plasma because it limits friendly fire - they're fairly immune to it and the energy dissipates without damaging internal parts of the ship. Although its a step up from nitrocellulose guns for the humans (or at least has higher ammo capacities than usual) the real advancement is when your scientists reverse engineer the internal parts. Ignition coils lead to lasers and containment bottles reveal Gauss weapons.

Do you know how the night visibility is coded - scout armor with light intensifiers to see in darkness might be neat.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Hobbes on January 13, 2015, 09:27:00 pm
Try to think of ways to make things more specialized and niche - there should be a reason to avoid having everyone in flying suits with heavy plasma cannons.

The issue I found is that it can be hard to come up with new additions that aren't simply a variation of something that already exists. And speaking of the Heavy Plasma, so far the best way I've seen of limiting its usage is to remove the Auto fire mode and increase its aim to make it similar to TFTD's Sonic Cannon.

Quote
As long as we're brainstorming, how about this: turn around the tech 180 degrees. Aliens use plasma because it limits friendly fire - they're fairly immune to it and the energy dissipates without damaging internal parts of the ship. Although its a step up from nitrocellulose guns for the humans (or at least has higher ammo capacities than usual) the real advancement is when your scientists reverse engineer the internal parts. Ignition coils lead to lasers and containment bottles reveal Gauss weapons.

Do you know how the night visibility is coded - scout armor with light intensifiers to see in darkness might be neat.

Aliens receiving limited damage from plasma is quite an intriguing idea but that would be changing a lot of things. Adding new weapon tiers is something that I've considered but the new research paths can also set you straight towards plasma weapons and skipping lasers outright, if you're lucky with the interrogation results from your captures.

The scout armor is a nice idea, but it's impossible to achieve without editing the engine code.

Finally, I've been adding one of the new factions when suddenly my squad found itself in the wrong plane (see pic below) :)
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: NeXaXeN on January 14, 2015, 02:37:56 am
To avoid an essay, I'll give my ideas hard and fast:

1) Mod combo I liked: Terran Plasma Weapons + Elerium breakdown Mod:

Why: Once you research alien plasma weapons your workshop is really nothing more than an Avenger factory. Terran Plasma weapons forces me to build my own plasma weapons and ammo--this made some missions REALLY tense as my operatives ran out of ammo and couldn't just mug a Muton for his gun.  The elerium breakdown mod made this one bearable as I could deconstruct alien artifacts to get 25-75% (based on mod parameters) of the item's elerium construction cost.


2) Mod Combo I liked: Alloy Craft (Retaliator and Sky Marshall):

Why: These two "in-between" craft made so much sense to me, and were VERY practical: After alien alloy research XCOM makes its own improved Interceptor and Transport based on existing designs. Each is improved (better speed, range, and HP with Interceptor, Skymarshall actually had more carrying capacity). And, lore-wise, XCOM would logically have to master human craft and alien technology integration BEFORE moving on to reverse engineering UFOs. And Elerium-wise it was nice to have somewhat improved jet-fuel using craft (that didn't have a rental fee for the Retaliator--I edited the Skymarshall to also not require a rental fee).   


3) Mod I Like: Alien Alloy Ammo + Mod Suggestion: Alien Alloy Weaponry:

Why: I liked the alien alloy mod lore-wise as it was XCOM's baby-steps into alien technology--trying to force alien ideas into a human template. I like the idea of a pre-laser alien alloy ammo weapon as a stepping stone for the same reason. Plus, if done right I think alien alloy weapons could be a laser weapon alternative or complement: Lasers have unlimited ammo, whereas alloy weapons would take ammo but do more damage (or something).


4) Mass Accelerator Weapons + My own personal Armor mods:

Why: I liked this combo because I think it encapsulates the spirit of the XCOM story. The Mass Accelerator weapons are BETTER than alien plasma, and my personal armor mods gave soldiers the protection and stat boosts to stand toe-to-toe with Mutons.

How does this combo capture the XCOM spirit? The aliens have been using the same technology for millions of years in a unified, slavish existence under a single hive-mind. Humans are different. We're divided into a council of funding nations. We adapt. We change and grow. And we improve the living @#$% out of the alien technology until WE SEND E.T. HOME--IN A BODY BAG!  8)


5) Mod I like: PSIONIC ARMOR:

Why: A mod of a mod, someone took the purple power armor recolor, reduced the stat protection (to around personal armor!) but added psionic resistance to make the wearer impervious to mind control. This made my cannon fodder troops useful as they wouldn't be MC'd, but more vulnerable than 70+ psionic strength operatives in regular armor. Was it worth the elerium to have that 60 accuracy new recruit? Very very tense scenarios.


6) Suggestion: Research Guidance

Why: When I got XCOM nearly 20 years ago it was odd to me that I needed to buy a strategy guide or a PC Gamer mag to figure out the research order. I would suggest that research items have XCOM scientist suggestions as to your next course of action.

EXAMPLES:

"We will need to capture and interrogate an ALIEN LEADER if we want to discover more about ALIEN PSIONICS.*

"We should take possession of a UFO POWER SOURCE and research it to derive more advanced XCOM craft."


Good luck with your mod!
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Hobbes on January 14, 2015, 06:58:17 am
1) Mod combo I liked: Terran Plasma Weapons + Elerium breakdown Mod

I've checked it out. I'm not against the idea but at the moment there's a ton of things I'm trying to get together at the moment. Just choosing weapons is... insane because I keep discovering new cool stuff.

Quote
2) Mod Combo I liked: Alloy Craft (Retaliator and Sky Marshall):

Why: These two "in-between" craft made so much sense to me, and were VERY practical: After alien alloy research XCOM makes its own improved Interceptor and Transport based on existing designs. Each is improved (better speed, range, and HP with Interceptor, Skymarshall actually had more carrying capacity). And, lore-wise, XCOM would logically have to master human craft and alien technology integration BEFORE moving on to reverse engineering UFOs. And Elerium-wise it was nice to have somewhat improved jet-fuel using craft (that didn't have a rental fee for the Retaliator--I edited the Skymarshall to also not require a rental fee).   

3) Mod I Like: Alien Alloy Ammo + Mod Suggestion: Alien Alloy Weaponry:

Why: I liked the alien alloy mod lore-wise as it was XCOM's baby-steps into alien technology--trying to force alien ideas into a human template. I like the idea of a pre-laser alien alloy ammo weapon as a stepping stone for the same reason. Plus, if done right I think alien alloy weapons could be a laser weapon alternative or complement: Lasers have unlimited ammo, whereas alloy weapons would take ammo but do more damage (or something).

Both mods seem also nice but right now I've already added clips to Laser weapons, but I've introduced Improved Lasers, which require Elerium both for research and manufacturing, and are half-way between Lasers and Plasmas regarding performance (plus they get back unlimited ammo). Again, maybe in the future but adding a lot of these half-tiers start getting on my nerves.

Quote
]4) Mass Accelerator Weapons + My own personal Armor mods:

Why: I liked this combo because I think it encapsulates the spirit of the XCOM story. The Mass Accelerator weapons are BETTER than alien plasma, and my personal armor mods gave soldiers the protection and stat boosts to stand toe-to-toe with Mutons.

How does this combo capture the XCOM spirit? The aliens have been using the same technology for millions of years in a unified, slavish existence under a single hive-mind. Humans are different. We're divided into a council of funding nations. We adapt. We change and grow. And we improve the living @#$% out of the alien technology until WE SEND E.T. HOME--IN A BODY BAG!  8)[/quote

Your opinion. I prefer winning and still having the worst tech :)

Quote
5) Mod I like: PSIONIC ARMOR:

Why: A mod of a mod, someone took the purple power armor recolor, reduced the stat protection (to around personal armor!) but added psionic resistance to make the wearer impervious to mind control. This made my cannon fodder troops useful as they wouldn't be MC'd, but more vulnerable than 70+ psionic strength operatives in regular armor. Was it worth the elerium to have that 60 accuracy new recruit? Very very tense scenarios.

Nope. Psionics is one of the few fields were the AI can stand its ground. This helps a player a lot when the AI will already have trouble.

Quote
6) Suggestion: Research Guidance

Why: When I got XCOM nearly 20 years ago it was odd to me that I needed to buy a strategy guide or a PC Gamer mag to figure out the research order. I would suggest that research items have XCOM scientist suggestions as to your next course of action.

EXAMPLES:

"We will need to capture and interrogate an ALIEN LEADER if we want to discover more about ALIEN PSIONICS.*

"We should take possession of a UFO POWER SOURCE and research it to derive more advanced XCOM craft."

Good luck with your mod!

This is something I'm already trying to do when writing new UFOpedia articles. And thanks for the suggestions :)
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: ChainsawAardvark on January 14, 2015, 08:32:57 am
As to an idea for adding some factions - what if you had sub-mods that would let you alter the price of new personnel or the delivery time? I don't think you can make soldiers available only at the beginning of the month, but if it takes two or three weeks for replacements - you can't be so picky about who you choose, and tanks take an escalated importance. Starting with cheaper soldiers, and a craft bigger than a sky ranger makes human wave tactics a little more plausible.

What about an airdrop/fast rope deployment craft? Its in mission appearance is just some flat tiles on the ground for the deployment zone (like when you start a base mission) The soldiers have nowhere to hide, but almost every one of them can move on turn one, rather than queuing up to exit like the Skyranger and Avenger. You could have possible variants like an eight person UH-1, sixteen for a KA-29, or some tanks with a CH-47.

The vanilla Skyranger has always seemed a little too good - able to cross the world and loiter for days, while still a fuel hungry VTOL. What if there were some more early game choices for transports? A rapid response craft with a small team (yes I know, lightning) or a huge slow craft that delivers many troops, but basically needs to be kept on patrol or it will never get to a mission in time.

Even without adding a bunch of new craft, simply lowering the fuel load of the vanilla craft makes the rush to build new bases all the more pressing and prevents people from loitering around waiting for daylight. Add in the modest re-balance mod's altered funding - or include some more nations, and the opening moves become truly tense as you must chose between research or new locations.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Hobbes on January 14, 2015, 05:06:15 pm
As to an idea for adding some factions - what if you had sub-mods that would let you alter the price of new personnel or the delivery time? I don't think you can make soldiers available only at the beginning of the month, but if it takes two or three weeks for replacements - you can't be so picky about who you choose, and tanks take an escalated importance. Starting with cheaper soldiers, and a craft bigger than a sky ranger makes human wave tactics a little more plausible.

Do you realize how much people would hate having to waiting so long for reinforcements to arrive? :D

The only issue is that you can overcome this by buying large batches of soldiers. Which then would have to be limited by increasing their price or limiting the Living Quarters capacity, which then would cause other issues?

Quote
What about an airdrop/fast rope deployment craft? Its in mission appearance is just some flat tiles on the ground for the deployment zone (like when you start a base mission) The soldiers have nowhere to hide, but almost every one of them can move on turn one, rather than queuing up to exit like the Skyranger and Avenger. You could have possible variants like an eight person UH-1, sixteen for a KA-29, or some tanks with a CH-47.

It is already possible to do deployments without craft on UFO missions or terror sites but doing it on a randomly generated map is challenging. You can start in the middle of the map without any cover (that will be a quick mission) but the main challenge is that you need the exit areas, otherwise you'll have to fight until either side wins (and if you lose you'll still lose the transport craft due to the game's mechanics).

The main issue with the exit areas would be that they would have to be placed on the map edges to make sense. Overall this idea has been done but works better if you're fighting inside buildings rather than outside fights. Adding helicopters only depends on having the sprites.

Quote
The vanilla Skyranger has always seemed a little too good - able to cross the world and loiter for days, while still a fuel hungry VTOL. What if there were some more early game choices for transports? A rapid response craft with a small team (yes I know, lightning) or a huge slow craft that delivers many troops, but basically needs to be kept on patrol or it will never get to a mission in time.

Even without adding a bunch of new craft, simply lowering the fuel load of the vanilla craft makes the rush to build new bases all the more pressing and prevents people from loitering around waiting for daylight. Add in the modest re-balance mod's altered funding - or include some more nations, and the opening moves become truly tense as you must chose between research or new locations.

I actually hardly use the Skyranger for loitering around because in OpenXcom, IIRC, the Terror Sites will disappear once the timer is gone, whether you have a craft targeting the site or not. The main factor that determines choosing between research/manufacturing or new locations is the need to detect and shoot down UFOs.

The funding rebalance (the one I've seen is ibanix's Modest Rebalance) doesn't really solve the issue of certain locations (Europe/East Asia) being more attractive than others due to the number of countries present, despite the increases to other countries and even worsens it, IMO, by reducing the USA's funding, since it can be a popular choice to place the starting base, but not an optimal one. And all of this is also tied in to the RegionWeights that the engine uses when selecting a region for an alien mission, which are higher for the more populated locations, so any changes to funding/new countries would need to have that also rebalanced. And the Terrain Pack deals with this since it allows some UFO missions on the Indian and Atlantic oceans, so now radars need to be placed by the coastlines rather than in the interior.

As for new craft, I'm considering it in the future since the Skyranger might need an upgrade regarding troop capacity.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: ivandogovich on January 14, 2015, 05:37:35 pm
I actually hardly use the Skyranger for loitering around because in OpenXcom, IIRC, the Terror Sites will disappear once the timer is gone, whether you have a craft targeting the site or not. 

Actually, stalling or delaying terror sites with multiple craft still works just fine in OXC.  I have it on video in my YouTube series, and NecroScope does it many times in his series too.

Cheers, Ivan :D
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Hobbes on January 14, 2015, 06:40:13 pm
Actually, stalling or delaying terror sites with multiple craft still works just fine in OXC.  I have it on video in my YouTube series, and NecroScope does it many times in his series too.

Cheers, Ivan :D

You're right, I've just checked the code to be sure. I must have misinterpreted someone's words since I was under the impression that they had fixed all those exploits but apparently they left that one alone. Thanks!
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Hobbes on January 14, 2015, 08:31:47 pm
Just made a list of changes to mark off progress.

Countries
* Several countries had their areas redesigned to better fit their borders
Regions
* Several new cities have been added, with the possibility of adding more by uncommenting their entries on the ruleset
* North Atlantic, South Atlantic and Indian oceans can now be assigned alien missions at the beginning of the month (only Alien Research & Terror at the moment).
Terrains
* 15 new terrains added from the Terrain Pack.
Facilities
* Alien Containment requires Alien Biology research before it can be built
Items
* Clips added for all Laser Weapons
* Elerium Bomb and Stun Grenade added (require research)
* Improved Laser Weapons added (require research, unlimited ammo, improved power and aim)
* Sniper Rifle, LMG, Combat Knife and Incendiary Grenade added to starting XCom items.
* Uzi, AK47, RPG, Minigun, Snubnose Pistol, Multi-Launcher added to Cult's (new faction) items.
* MJ12 Pistol, Machine Pistol, Magnum, PDW, LMG, Rifle, Sniper Rifle, Laser Pistol, Laser Rifle, Heavy Laser, Grenade and Incendiary Grenade added to MJ12's (new faction) arsenal.
* Faction specific weapons can't be bought or manufactured, only sold.   
* HandOb images to be added to grenades and other small items.   
* Still haven't made my mind about adding Shotguns and SMGs, since the Shotgun is really no different from a rifle regarding game mechanics (except no Auto fire) and the SMG is also the same.
* Also considering Alloy ammo, but at the moment doesn't seem relevant since Alien Alloy research now isn't easily reachable (requires getting Alien Materials through capture) and the ballistic MJ12 weapons are all upgraded and can be used without research after being recovered. 
Crafts
* Skyranger capacity reduced to 10 units & Avenger capacity reduced to 16. This was made for several reasons: maps work better with less units present, the Lightning gets more useful, usually the units at the back of the craft are only used as a reserve, and with less units you get more attached to your soldiers. Plus, you'll need to think twice whether to bring the HWP or not.
* There will be later adjustments to the number of aliens present during missions to compensate for the reduced squads.
* AWACS craft under consideration, along with other possible crafts.
UFOs
* Transport Plane added for human faction missions (a Skyranger that can be easily shot down if detected, but that carries a Cannon for self-defense)
* Overseer UFO added (variant of Battleship)
Armors
* Alien inventory images to be added
Units
* Muton Commander and Leader added
* Alien Scientists (Sectoid, Ethereal, Snakeman and Floater) added
* MJ12 Mercenary added, more ranks will be added later
AlienRaces
* Mixed crews can now appear on all types of alien missions. The first appearance of the alien species still follows the vanilla game's progression, with the exception of Celatids and Sillycoids which can be encountered from the beginning. It is still possible to get vanilla crews of a single crew 
* Created 2 versions of each crew, so that you can see alien Commanders or Scientists during a mission but not both.
* An additional alien tier will be added, consisting of upgraded versions of the aliens, to appear on the late game. 
* Additional aliens will be added later, but as their own faction.
AlienDeployments
* Added Alien Scientists to both the Abductor and Harvesters
* Removed Alien Commanders from Base Defense missions. Commanders can now only appear during Alien Base missions or the Overseer UFO.
* Added 3 'types' of MJ12 missions: one with their Skyranger, another on an urban setting and the 3rd one on a large building
* Cult missions to be added, with their own specific terrain.
* I haven't deliberately added any content from the MiB mod so that it can be used as a plug-in for this mod.
* The final Cydonia mission will be redesigned for a bigger battlescape (70x70 size) and the alien composition will be changed to make it more challenging
Research
* Alien Containment depends on Alien Biology.
* Any Alien Autopsy unlocks Alien Biology
* Medics automatically unlock Mind Probe, Small Launcher & Stun Bomb, plus give a random Autopsy/Species.
* Navigators automatically unlock Alien Origins, plus give a random mission or Alien Physics.
* Engineers automatically unlock Alien Origins, plus give a random UFO or one of: Alien Materials, Alien Engineering, Laser, Plasma or Fusion Weapons.
* Scientists automatically unlock Alien Origins, plus a random tech of of these: Alien Physics, Alien Materials, Alien Engineering, Laser, Plasma or Fusion Weapons. Sectoid Scientists can also randomly unlock Psionics.
* Psionics can still be automatically unlocked by any Ethereal or a Sectoid Leader/Commander.
* Leaders automatically unlock Alien Origins and Leader Plus, except Muton Leaders
* Commanders automatically unlock Alien Origins, Leader Plus and Alien Operations, except Ethereal ones, which only give Alien Origins and Leader Plus, and Muton ones, which only give Alien Origins. Non-Muton Commanders may also randomly give Plasma or Fusion Weapons.
* Overseer UFO depend on both Alien Operations and The Martian Solution.
* Commander Plus depend on both Alien Operations +  Ethereal Commander Interrogation.
* Psi Lab depend on Psionics + Mind Probe
* Hyper-Wave Decoder depends on UFO Navigation and Alien Physics
* Blaster Launcher and Blaster Bomb depends on Fusion Weapons and Elerium.
* Alien Grenade depends on Elerium
* Elerium Bomb depends on Elerium, Fusion Weapons and Small Launcher
* Stun Grenade depends on Stun Bomb
* Plasma Pistol and Clip depend on Plasma Weapons. Plasma Rifle and Clip depend on Plasma Pistol and Clip. Heavy Plasma and Clip depend on Plasma Rifle and Clip. Plasma Cannon can depend on either Plasma Rifle or Heavy Plasma (as before)
* Laser Pistol depends on Laser Weapons, Laser Rifle on Laser Pistol, etc.
* Laser clips are automatically unlocked when you finish research on the weapon.
* Capturing a MJ12 Researcher can randomly unlock Alien Materials or Laser Weapons through interrogation
* Laser Weapons can also be unlocked by researching a captured MJ12 laser weapon.
* Improved Heavy Laser depends on both Heavy Laser and Elerium.
* Improved Laser Rifle depends on both Laser Rifle and Alien Alloys.
* Elerium-115 depend on Alien Physics.
* UFO Navigation and UFO Power Source depend on Alien Engineering.
* Alien Alloys depend on Alien Materials.
UFOPedia
* Faction weapons (MJ12, Cult) entries only appear on the UFOPedia after you've recovered those items.
AlienMissions
* Added human faction missions
* Overseer UFO mission to be added.
* Alien missions will be redesigned so that some species will appear later than in vanilla for balancing proposes.
ExtraStrings
* Rewriting existing strings to keep them consistent with the changes above.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: volutar on January 14, 2015, 09:23:27 pm
Hobbes you might be willing to combine your super mod with some robin's assets (I'm sure he will give you permission and gratitude), and it may become superior oxc mod. With your community level of respect it might become community edition.
Btw, shotgun pellets spread mechanics is slightly off. It's subject to revise. And it's not like a rifle considering that. But it's not that nice and fancy without pellet cloud trace animation. So not including is wise decision.

Cheers for your work.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Meridian on January 14, 2015, 10:31:01 pm
@Hobbes: I have just briefly seen the list of changes (without studying them in detail) and immediately thought of FMP modpack. Can you tell me in 2-3 sentences if they are similar or different, or in general which one would you recommend to me if I wanted to do a Let's Play series with a heavily modded OpenXcom... and why?

PS: without spoiling too much, if that is even possible
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Hobbes on January 14, 2015, 11:27:16 pm
Hobbes you might be willing to combine your super mod with some robin's assets (I'm sure he will give you permission and gratitude), and it may become superior oxc mod. With your community level of respect it might become community edition.
Btw, shotgun pellets spread mechanics is slightly off. It's subject to revise. And it's not like a rifle considering that. But it's not that nice and fancy without pellet cloud trace animation. So not including is wise decision.

Cheers for your work.

Thanks :)

It would be a little pretentious of me to consider this to end up like community edition, since there are already a ton of nice mods around, I'm just creating something that I'd like to play.

@Hobbes: I just quickly saw a list of changes (without studying them in detail) and immediately thought of FMP modpack. Can you tell me in 2-3 sentences if they similar or different, or in general which one would you recommend to me if I want to do a Let's Play series with a heavily modded OpenXcom and why?

PS: without spoiling too much, if that is even possible

A lot of content has been taken from the FMP, Solaris Scorch did a heck of a job organizing all mods into a single pack, so you'll recognize quite a few things. But when I think of this mod, I don't it to be several mods piled together like the FMP, but go for quality rather than quantity, and only add changes after considering if they really add something meaningful and how they overall fit. I wouldn't recommend this mod since it will take some time before it is finished and tested, but I'd recommend you have a look at XOps' XenoOperations (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,2913.0.html) mod, since graphically it seems one of the best mods around (I've taken a lot of content from there as well):
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: yrizoud on January 15, 2015, 12:38:10 am
Quote
Medics automatically unlock Mind Probe
I think it makes the early game infuriatingly more difficult, taking great risks to capture dozens of aliens which are then revealed to be useless soldiers.

Consider the default Openxcom deployments, here are the chances of getting a medic if you capture 3 aliens in a mission :
- In 3 ships, 0%. If you don't know the theoric team of the ship, you'll keep trying uselessly...
- In 3 ships, 30-33% chance
- In the harvester, 66%... but this one ship happens only in one Alien Mission. If no such mission is planned in the first 6 month, or if you thwart it by shooting the scouts early, you involuntarily cripple your own research.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Hobbes on January 15, 2015, 01:27:39 am
I think it makes the early game infuriatingly more difficult, taking great risks to capture dozens of aliens which are then revealed to be useless soldiers.

Consider the default Openxcom deployments, here are the chances of getting a medic if you capture 3 aliens in a mission :
- In 3 ships, 0%. If you don't know the theoric team of the ship, you'll keep trying uselessly...
- In 3 ships, 30-33% chance
- In the harvester, 66%... but this one ship happens only in one Alien Mission. If no such mission is planned in the first 6 month, or if you thwart it by shooting the scouts early, you involuntarily cripple your own research.

You're right about it making the early game more difficult. I used to play a lot the original game with XComUtil's Research Help From Captured Aliens option, where the research times were doubled or trebled for most topics, but capturing aliens would cut down the remaining research time by a percentage, which could vary between 10%-70% depending on the alien rank and topic. Unfortunately, this mechanic can't be replicated in OpenXcom, so I come up with the idea of the Alien Scientists (and other ranks) being required to unlock very important topics.

I'm still not 100% sure though of certain aspects of this approach, specially regarding Laser Weapons but this is something that needs to be properly tested, and corrected in case the game gets too hard.

But, in any case, the fun of this approach is that you basically need to stun every alien you can find until you get what you need. When I played the original game, my guys would all switch to Stun Rods when entering the UFO. Find an alien, zap him, step over him to check his rank by picking the body on the inventory screen (no Mind Probe needed). If it's a soldier leave a primed grenade on its body and move to the next alien (or move its body to a room with only 1 door, or wait until it wakes up for your rookies to get some live target practice). Naturally, this could lead to several dead rookies if the alien was facing your way when you approached it. But that was also part of the challenge: when you opened the door of a Medium Scout and found 5 aliens there, you'd need to think first which should be the first target to avoid a blood bath. 

And to help there are also little things you learn about the alien ranks: anyone carrying a Small Launcher or Blaster Launcher is important enough to capture, with the former usually being in the hands of Medics.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Hobbes on January 16, 2015, 08:48:56 pm
This post is about the new factions that this mod will introduce. It contains a few spoilers, so be warned before reading it.

MJ-12
This faction is very similar to robin's Men In Black mod, being a secret group with its own agenda involving Earth and the aliens. But my main inspiration for this faction comes from its role in the Unknown Menace, the 692 pages fanfic I wrote about the original game a long time ago, and MJ-12 was also a very important piece of UFO folklore in the 1990s.

Without spoiling too much, MJ-12 is a highly professional and secret organization, whose research can be ahead of XCom's. Another way I see them is as XCom's evil twin. As the game progresses, you'll see them using better weapons and engaging on more complex activities. They use a set of weaponry where the weapons look very similar graphically, since they were all developed together (recovered items can be used by XCom straight away, so that the player can also have those really nice looking guns).

They fly around in their own Skyranger transports, which can be easily be destroyed by your interceptors when detected, but you may want to consider letting them land. Besides the weapons, captured and interrogated MJ-12 personnel can unlock some critical alien research for XCom, since their own scientists have already been working on advanced weaponry for a while. Their missions will also take place in some new settings, such as their Skyranger also being present on the map, plus new maps I will create later. And to find out more about the organization, you can always capture their higher ranking officers.

Cultists

The clear inspiration for those is the Cult of Sirius from XCom: Apocalypse, being a human fifth column that sees the aliens as saviors. According to their initial description, "The aliens have had a profound effect on human society, with new and existing groups appearing as a result of the invasion. While most of these groups are benign or harmless in nature, others are clearly looking to change the old balance of power on Earth and will take any means necessary to achieve their goals, including becoming allies with the aliens. The cultist movement propaganda poses their actions as a crusade against the corruption of Earth and even gives religious overtones to the alien's appearance. While recognizing its threat, Earth's governments have chosen not to get involved in an effort not to lend credibility to their claims, and have assigned XCom to privately deal with the cultists".

During missions Cultists will initially be more like a civilian mob, being armed with everything they can lay their hands on (Pistols, AK-47s, Hunting Rifles, etc.). But as the game progresses, their alien 'friends' will take notice and start equipping them with advanced tech, and even using them during their own missions. Cultists will also fly around in Transport Planes, have their specific maps, and capturing some of its members can unlock key research topics.

Other Aliens

Finally, it will be possible to encounter new alien races. Those aliens are not allied with the main aliens but they have taken notice of Earth because of the invasion and have also decided to join the party. They will fly around in their own UFOs and it is also possible to unlock key research topics through them. I won't reveal more but these aliens will basically pop up unexpectedly and they can be quite a challenge.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Solarius Scorch on January 28, 2015, 09:47:28 pm
I just saw this and it looks really good. Can't say much more at this point, it's too complex for me to judge but it looks pretty potent.

As for lose ideas, perhaps you'd want to read this thread of mine (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,2961.0.html) - it contains some ideas meant to add more content to the game by making it start earlier, where X-Com is more of an X-Files group (to investigate aliens) than military and slowly develops from there into what we know. It may be a bit too much, but it's the best new stuff I can come up with.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Hobbes on January 28, 2015, 11:43:51 pm
I just saw this and it looks really good. Can't say much more at this point, it's too complex for me to judge but it looks pretty potent.

As for lose ideas, perhaps you'd want to read this thread of mine (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,2961.0.html) - it contains some ideas meant to add more content to the game by making it start earlier, where X-Com is more of an X-Files group (to investigate aliens) than military and slowly develops from there into what we know. It may be a bit too much, but it's the best new stuff I can come up with.

I had already checked that topic when I was getting an overview of what was already existent. :)

Not really interested into something that large, both because several of your suggestions can't be implemented but also because it almost seems 3 separate games put together. Plus the FMP is a great effort of organization all these mods together (it's going to be listed on my credits because it really helped) but it's simply too much variety.

I've basically finished the design phase at this point and I'm implementing everything. It is taking longer than I expected though because of graphic work and ruleset bugs, but hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll be able to release a beta for playtesting.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: davide on January 29, 2015, 02:36:20 pm
I read something of interesting:

https://colabti.org/irclogger/irclogger_log/openxcom?date=2015-01-29#l16 (https://colabti.org/irclogger/irclogger_log/openxcom?date=2015-01-29#l16)

 8)
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Hobbes on February 02, 2015, 09:39:38 pm
I read something of interesting:

https://colabti.org/irclogger/irclogger_log/openxcom?date=2015-01-29#l16 (https://colabti.org/irclogger/irclogger_log/openxcom?date=2015-01-29#l16)

 8)

This will be interesting when implemented.

Meanwhile, I've added a ton of stuff over the weekend and in the next week I hope I can finally release a beta testing version. 8)
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Arthanor on February 03, 2015, 07:31:28 pm
I am surprised they only got a passing mention, but a mod I would not play without anymore is the Gauss weapons mod. in mid-game, having a choice between two weapon techs is really neat. It does slow your research down somewhat since you need to research both weapon trees, but I enjoy having different weapons for different roles.

As it is usually implemented, Gauss having higher power, slower shots makes its heavy and sniper variants more appealing (until you meet ap resistant aliens) while lasers remain good spray and pray pew-pew/breaching weapons. Gunslinger operatives becomes relevant (one pistol is good up close, one for medium range shots, so they make great breachers), odd weapons like the laser sniper rifle become good designated marksmen rifle for competent operatives supporting the front line scouts.

Keeping all the weapons balanced and relevant in the face of plasma weapons is tricky, but gives a very rewarding multi-tier play instead of rushing for the "best" weapon type.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Hobbes on February 03, 2015, 08:10:56 pm
I am surprised they only got a passing mention, but a mod I would not play without anymore is the Gauss weapons mod. in mid-game, having a choice between two weapon techs is really neat. It does slow your research down somewhat since you need to research both weapon trees, but I enjoy having different weapons for different roles.

As it is usually implemented, Gauss having higher power, slower shots makes its heavy and sniper variants more appealing (until you meet ap resistant aliens) while lasers remain good spray and pray pew-pew/breaching weapons. Gunslinger operatives becomes relevant (one pistol is good up close, one for medium range shots, so they make great breachers), odd weapons like the laser sniper rifle become good designated marksmen rifle for competent operatives supporting the front line scouts.

Keeping all the weapons balanced and relevant in the face of plasma weapons is tricky, but gives a very rewarding multi-tier play instead of rushing for the "best" weapon type.

So far I've went instead with a different approach than adding a new weapons tier: you can capture (but not manufacture) upgraded versions of conventional weapons, or capture and, use, after completing their research, downgraded versions of plasmas. Or upgrade your lasers through research.

It is possible to add a new tech to the 2nd tier of weapons but I'll need to lock it to Alien Materials research and it will have to be a Tier II minus. It would be better though to have a different name than Gauss, since that is a TFTD specific tech and I'm avoiding using any of those.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Solarius Scorch on February 04, 2015, 02:06:13 pm
Modding weaponry becomes more significant if you also play around with alien armours. For example, Gauss weapons as I made them are relatively high-powered, but they're also armour-piercing, and some aliens are highly resistant to this damage type (primarily Mutons). Just saying.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Hobbes on February 04, 2015, 03:13:07 pm
Modding weaponry becomes more significant if you also play around with alien armours. For example, Gauss weapons as I made them are relatively high-powered, but they're also armour-piercing, and some aliens are highly resistant to this damage type (primarily Mutons). Just saying.

Rock-paper-scissors logic :)

At this stage I'm done with adding new stuff though and I'm focused on getting everything to work since there's a ton of new content (weapons, units, missions, research). I just need to finish debugging the research and write several UFOPedia entries and the expansion will be ready for some serious testing.
Title: Re: [BRAINSTORMING] Suggestions and ideas for an expansion
Post by: Solarius Scorch on February 04, 2015, 05:29:37 pm
Rock-paper-scissors logic :)

It's true, but it's still IMO better than linear logic, and besides it's sort of written into the engine. I think it's fine as long as you don't go overboard and weave it into the tech tree properly.

At this stage I'm done with adding new stuff though and I'm focused on getting everything to work since there's a ton of new content (weapons, units, missions, research). I just need to finish debugging the research and write several UFOPedia entries and the expansion will be ready for some serious testing.

Yes! :)