This mod is somewhat inspired by Wolfenstein: The New Order, System Shock 2, and Deus Ex.
So what makes this different than other OXC total conversions, you ask? Well, nothing!
Story Intro:
This takes place in 2028, in a different timeline, in a more darker future. Most of the world powers are locked in a second Cold War, with new nations emerging from other countries. A mysterious attack on a random city leaves the world very close to a thermonuclear apocalypse. A meeting of the world powers is called to discuss the recent events that occurred. To everyone's surprise, none of the nations commenced the attack. They all agreed to create and fund the new organization, which will fight this new threat, and destroy it once and for all.
So far, I have made a new world map, but the image is too big to attach, so I will upload it whenever I can.
And here's the planned enemy factions and units, 0-7 signifies rank, * means that the unit has its own spritesheet:
0: Commander to 5: Soldier, 6-7: Terror Units
BlackAngel PMC : Typical Mercenary Faction. Used as footsoldiers. Standard Equipment.
0 Field Commander
1 Squadron Leader
2 Armored Engineer *
3 Medic
4 Air Marshal *
5 Soldier *
6 Terrorist
7 Anti-Infantry Tank *
Joint Strike Operatives : Flying Units.
0 Section Commander
1 Field Marshal
2 Chief of Engineering
3 Medic Specialist
4 Wing Commodore
5 Winged Scout
6 Terror Drone?
Scientology Syndicate : Does twisted experiments that humanity would never approve of. More Advanced.
0 Commander of the Covert
1 High Priest
2 Foreman
3 Zealot
4 Advisor
5 Neophyte
6 Fanatic
Forced Evolution Brotherhood : Mutants, byproducts of failed experiments that the Scientology Syndicate created. Ability to turn humans into mutants.
2 Nuclear Specialist
3 Virus Breeder
4 Advisor
5 Mutant Soldier
The Blessed : Psionic Units. So far I have:
7 Mastermind Tank
Cybernetic Collective : Cyborgs, with attacks that transform humans. So far:
6 Deconstructor
There will be new weapons introduced in the game. When I have time, I will make a list of new weapons that are planned or already in the mod.
My goal right now is to get the mod planned out and functional first before making new art assets. I'm currently using some assets from Dioxine's Piratez mod and UFO2000 as placeholders.
Credits
Dioxine, for his Piratez mod. I used several resources from that mod.
The sprite creators for UFO 2000. Again, I used several resources from that.
The Soldier with Green Vest and Helmet is from Ryskeliinis, so credit goes out to him.
For now, here is one screenshot. More will come later.
Not sure if someone mentioned it before, but some resources/ideas from the Syndicate game series would fit well in your TC, especially the style is similar to what you seem to work on. :) :)
Hmm, I might have to take a look at that game then.
Alright then, here's the story structure planning, but I'm thinking of a different way to do this, since I'm pretty sure that you can't lock certain groups to appear until x event shows up. Also, most of these names are temporary, because I believe I can do better.
Part 1:
BlackAngel PMC
Joint Strike Operatives
!==Milestone 1==!
Part 2:
Scientology Syndicate
Forced Evolution Brotherhood
Mixed Tier 1
!==Milestone 2==!
Part 3:
The Blessed
Cybernetic Collective
Mixed Tier 1
Mixed Tier 2
!==Final Mission==!
Part 1 on the story:
Short version (More optional objectives will be added soon:
Start game > Investigate/Freeform
| (Terror Mission)
Capture Secondary Leader * > - - - - Interrogate * > - - - - * Raid Primary Base * > - - - END Part 1
Long version:
Tensions are high between all countries, as civil unrest is becoming more common in this era of uncertainty and the looming threat of war. A couple of days ago, a mysterious group of well-equipped soldiers attacked a city (???) and left no survivors. All nations quickly prepared for war, not knowing who or what was the enemy. An emergency summit meeting was already underway, and all world leaders demanded the perpetrator who lead the attacks to show himself. Every World leader was pointing fingers at each other at the meeting, behaving like little children. The summit meeting didn't resolve anything, instead made tensions worse. World War III is becoming a reality.
The game starts out with a message from the Council of Twelve (how original), stating that there is evidence that a new global terrorist group, that if left unchecked, will tear the world asunder. Your mission is to find these terrorist and eliminate them, for the humanity sake.
You start out by placing a base and so forth, or the investigate/freeform part. To advance the story, you have to capture the secondary leader (???) and interrogate him. In the first month, he shows up only in the terror missions. His uniform will be different than the other soldiers. The secondary leader (???) will reveal information about the primary base of operations.
However, he will only reveal this information if your research in interrogation is high enough, otherwise, he will partially reveal this information, or not at all. Side note: I'm not sure if I'm able to implement this. If I can't, then I'll just make it a requirement to research interrogation techniques beforehand.
After you get this information, you'll have the option to raid this base. The base is pretty big, so it'll just be a one part mission. The mission's objective is to destroy the 4 reactors in the base. The location is randomized. You don't need to kill everyone in the base. After that, you get aboard the ship to escape before the entire base blows up.
The personnel in the base celebrates their victory against the terror cell, but then... a image on the screen appears; a face that's covered with traces of circuits. It begins to speak with a deep, distorted, menacing voice, "Do not be fooled that destroying those puppets marks the end, as I still have other plans to cleanse this planet of this... filth, you call humanity. Your premature celebration will become your permanent undoing." The screen returns to normal, and the base personnel begins their work once more. Several countries begins to ease their tensions and opens talks of peace, while the superpowers stays on high alert and their military on the ready.
This is the end of part 1.
It's rough around the edges right now, but I would like to hear suggestions on how to improve this.
I'll try to improve on the campaign flow map in the meantime.
You start out by placing a base and so forth, or the investigate/freeform part. To advance the story, you have to capture the secondary leader (???) and interrogate him. In the first month, he shows up only in the terror missions. His uniform will be different than the other soldiers. The secondary leader (???) will reveal information about the primary base of operations.
However, he will only reveal this information if your research in interrogation is high enough, otherwise, he will partially reveal this information, or not at all. Side note: I'm not sure if I'm able to implement this. If I can't, then I'll just make it a requirement to research interrogation techniques beforehand.
Research is all about dependencies - topics A and B are both required to unlock topic C, etc. Topic A can be the secondary leader, and you can set topic C (base's coordinates) can be used to trigger a mission for the base raid. Topic B can either be interrogation techniques, or capturing a pilot, or recovering an item from a mission.
After you get this information, you'll have the option to raid this base. The base is pretty big, so it'll just be a one part mission. The mission's objective is to destroy the 4 reactors in the base. The location is randomized. You don't need to kill everyone in the base. After that, you get aboard the ship to escape before the entire base blows up.
You actually have several ways to design the base, depending on the position of the generators. You can either place all the generators together on a 20x20 map block, or split them up on 4 10x10 blocks. Then you can either set the reactor map(s) on fixed, random or semi-random positions, and that all also depend on whether you're using craft or entry/exit areas.
You also need to consider this on the map size, since you're saying that it will be pretty big: like the original game, OpenXcom is hardcoded so that after turn 20 the AI knows the location of all your soldiers. And the bigger the map size the higher the chances that a mission will last longer than 20 turns. And if there are still a lot of aliens around, all of them now always know where your soldiers are.
You can lock them out by research; a research that disables previous mission(s) and enables new ones - naturally, with new enemies instead of old. To make sure a player researches something as soon as he completes a milestone mission, make it an item (might be hidden/indestructible) with 0 research cost. Well, a player may always sell the item... It's a free country :)
Thanks for the advice, I'll look into that.
Research is all about dependencies - topics A and B are both required to unlock topic C, etc. Topic A can be the secondary leader, and you can set topic C (base's coordinates) can be used to trigger a mission for the base raid. Topic B can either be interrogation techniques, or capturing a pilot, or recovering an item from a mission.
Yeah, I'll need to sort that out, and probably expand upon this.
You actually have several ways to design the base, depending on the position of the generators. You can either place all the generators together on a 20x20 map block, or split them up on 4 10x10 blocks. Then you can either set the reactor map(s) on fixed, random or semi-random positions, and that all also depend on whether you're using craft or entry/exit areas.
You also need to consider this on the map size, since you're saying that it will be pretty big: like the original game, OpenXcom is hardcoded so that after turn 20 the AI knows the location of all your soldiers. And the bigger the map size the higher the chances that a mission will last longer than 20 turns. And if there are still a lot of aliens around, all of them now always know where your soldiers are.
Well, another way around this is to make it a multi part map. The first map would be the entrance, and the second part would be the main base with the power plant, or have a third level as a seperate power plant level.
Another idea is to say that the aliens/enemies will have complete coverage over the mission area via satellites in 20 turns in the mission briefing. They do have that technology after all. If I do that, I'll have to edit all mission briefings to state that though, since it's hardcoded.
Well, another way around this is to make it a multi part map. The first map would be the entrance, and the second part would be the main base with the power plant, or have a third level as a seperate power plant level.
With multimap missions you'll still have to take the same decisions I mentioned before regarding where to place everything for a single mission. The best example to visualize this is the Alien Base terrain, where you have a 20x20 map block for the alien command center and 2 10x10 map blocks where your units start (and can abort the mission), and all are placed randomly.
Another idea is to say that the aliens/enemies will have complete coverage over the mission area via satellites in 20 turns in the mission briefing. They do have that technology after all. If I do that, I'll have to edit all mission briefings to state that though, since it's hardcoded.
You don't actually need to give this information to the player, I just mentioned it because it is useful to understand how the AI works when designing missions. In fact it can be better not to reveal this because the player can think that the AI is 'smarter' than it really is when he/she encounters all the aliens rushing towards its soldiers. ;)
With multimap missions you'll still have to take the same decisions I mentioned before regarding where to place everything for a single mission. The best example to visualize this is the Alien Base terrain, where you have a 20x20 map block for the alien command center and 2 10x10 map blocks where your units start (and can abort the mission), and all are placed randomly.
You don't actually need to give this information to the player, I just mentioned it because it is useful to understand how the AI works when designing missions. In fact it can be better not to reveal this because the player can think that the AI is 'smarter' than it really is when he/she encounters all the aliens rushing towards its soldiers. ;)
I'll keep this in mind when designing the mission maps. I'll look at some tutorials to get started on map making.