OpenXcom Forum
Modding => Released Mods => Topic started by: chaosshade on October 12, 2017, 08:18:39 am
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Good news everyone! I finally have my own topic for Arsenal Expanded; no more piggy-backing on Rockfish's topic!
Current version is 1.63
Read the changelog first!
Link to Mod: https://openxcom.mod.io/arsenal-expanded (https://openxcom.mod.io/arsenal-expanded)
List of contributors:
Rockfish - the original creator who made the original skeleton
XOps - Mass Drivers and some conventional weapons
hellrazor - debugging and formatting (file merging between version 0.9 and 1.0)
Warboy - debugging and coding assistance
Hobbes - debugging and coding assistance
nadir - pistol and magazine sprites and data slate floorobs
Dioxine - Heavy Cannon Mk2, Alien Multi-Launcher, Alien Auto-Launcher
ohartenstine - Tau weapons
!WARNING!
DO NOT ADD THIS MOD MID-PLAYTHROUGH. IT REQUIRES A FRESH GAME!
THIS MOD IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH ANY MOD THAT CHANGES THE ALIEN DEPLOYMENTS!
THIS MOD IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH OPENXCOM VERSION 1.0!
THIS MOD IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH TERRAIN PACK 3.7!
DO NOT ADD THIS MOD MID-PLAYTHROUGH. IT REQUIRES A FRESH GAME!
!WARNING!
1.63 change log:
- Fixed: multiple code errors
- Fixed: incorrect pallet colours
- Fixed: Tau Assault Cannon Clip unable to be manufactured
- Nerfed: Plasma Grenade
- Nerfed: Tau Assault Cannon auto shot removed (it was just so hilarious OP!)
1.62 change log:
- Fixed (hopefully): Racial bases not spawning with the correct items (may be biased toward certain races.) Special thanks to Hobbes for helping me with this one!
Alert! New game required for it to properly apply the patch!
1.61 change log:
- Fixed: Sound error with Heavy Machine Gun
1.6 change log:
- Fixed: Tau Shotgun unplayable
- Fixed: Multi Launcher ammunition unable to be manufactured
- Fixed: Auto Launcher ammunition unable to be manufactured
- Fixed: Alien Research no longer suffers from the "missing pistol" problem
- New: Compatibility with UFO Extender Accuracy
- New: New sprites for the Tau Weapons courtesy of ohartenstein
- New: New hitSound for the Tau Weapons
- Update: Heavy Machine Gun flogged with the Nerf Bat to better fit its role as a middle ground between Rifle and Auto-Cannon
1.51 change log:
- Fixed: racial alien bases not spawning!
1.5 change log:
- New: Multiple Grenade Launcher, three ammo types, HE, Stun, and Smoke.
- New: Heavy Machine Gun, three ammo types, AP, HE, and IN. Lighter, faster, and more accurate than the Auto-Cannon, but doesn't hit as hard.
- New: Multi Launcher (Alien Heavy Cannon), three ammo types, AP, HE, IN! Enjoy!
- New: Auto Launcher (Alien Auto Cannon), three ammo types, AP, HE, IN! Enjoy!
- New: Plasma Grenade, twice as much boom as the Alien Grenade~
- New: Stasis Grenade, not all grenades are lethal!
- New: Alien Gauss Weapons! Seven new weapons that can screw up your day with unique sounds, sprites, and animations!
- New: Laser Sniper Rifle! Finally!
- New: Tau Weapons! Research pays off! Strike back at the aliens with these unique weapons! They're hard to get though, so have fun~
- New: Flechette Weapons have a unique firing sound to tell them apart!
- New: Elerium Slugs! The Plasma Shotgun now has a single, accurate, high damage round it can fire in addition to the plasma burst from Cydonia!
- Restored: Heavy Cannon! A favourite heavy weapon has returned, complete with a new sprite and buffs!
- Restored: Auto Cannon! A new set of sprites and new sounds!
- Updated: Heavy Pistol has a new sprite!
- Updated: Small Rocket changed to Guided Rocket, two waypoints and 65 damage!
- Updated: Heavy Launcher can totally make your day suck!
- Updated: Racial alien bases! All aliens now have unique weapon sets for their bases! (makes getting Data Slates less obnoxious)
- Removed: Blaster Launcher. (I truly apologize for this one, but it was WAY broken!)
Please, for the love of all things holy to us alien-hating humans, report bugs immediately and with detail so I can fix them properly!
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With the caveat that I haven't played much with this mod at all, there are a few things I've noticed about the balance of the weapons looking through the 'pedia articles:
- The shotguns are incredibly powerful compared to other weapons at their same level. I'd be worried that this would make equivalent-level autoshot weapons obsolete. Why take the autocannon with AP rounds (45x3, twice per turn), when you can use the combat shotgun (50x8, thrice per turn, greater accuracy)?
- The heavy machine gun seems to outclass the autocannon in everything but raw power. The x5 autoshot with higher accuracy makes it very useful, especially in my favorite autocannon role, incendiary vs. cyberdiscs and reapers. Perhaps the autcannon needs a bit of a buff, or the heavy machine gun should be toned down?
- Stun rounds on an arcing grenade launcher, available for purchase from the beginning, make getting aliens for interrogation much easier. The arcing AoE shot makes it more reliable than the small launcher, and the power won't be a concern when you have 6 rounds/clip and can use it from behind cover effectively. You might want to gate that behind some research, unless you want to take away the "fun" of having to use stun rods.
Beyond that, I like the fleshing out of weapons variety before you get heavy plasma - having a nice continuum of choices in the firepower/speed/accuracy trade-off makes for less railroaded gameplay.
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Thanks for the feedback, ohartenstein!
The shotguns are hilariously OP because the mod isn't designed to work with OXCE+, so they don't have access to the accuracy bonuses included in that. I admit they are a bit metal on the alien side of things (have fun facing the plasma shotgun) but I feel like that helps to balance the game some at the same time.
The heavy machine gun is meant to be a middle ground between the rifle and the auto cannon. I will freely admit that it fills its role too well, but the damage drops off pretty heavily in the mid-game when the Mutons start showing up and, like most weapons, it's more or less rendered useless against Sectopods. (HMG-IN?)
The stun rounds were meant to take the edge off capturing aliens. I admit they do allow for a lot of other utility uses as well, but given the variety of alien weapons you'll be up against when playing, you might be better off trying to stun them from afar than you will from exposing yourself to get clear shots.
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I really like these sprites ;D But I'm going need to mod this mod before I can use it.
Have you considered lending your work to complement a major mod? I'm seriously going to jack this into Area51...
But as for my opinions!
The shotguns are hilariously OP because the mod isn't designed to work with OXCE+, so they don't have access to the accuracy bonuses included in that. I admit they are a bit metal on the alien side of things (have fun facing the plasma shotgun) but I feel like that helps to balance the game some at the same time.
Yeah, I will have to adjust the shotguns to work with UFOextender accuracy mod. Right now your shotguns wipe out enemies even at mid range. Which eliminates the need for rifles and such.
The heavy machine gun is meant to be a middle ground between the rifle and the auto cannon. I will freely admit that it fills its role too well, but the damage drops off pretty heavily in the mid-game when the Mutons start showing up and, like most weapons, it's more or less rendered useless against Sectopods. (HMG-IN?)
The way Area51 balances out the machine gun vs the AC, is that the AC keeps it's unique ammo, and has better accuracy in all modes. In return, the MG does less damage, and has no aimed shot-but has a very cheap TU cost (16%) for firing extended bullet auto-shots. Essentially the only way to make them really unique from each other is to make the MG a primary auto-attack weapon. Of course this requires UFOEx accuracy compatibility, which might be beyond the scope of this mod.
The stun rounds were meant to take the edge off capturing aliens. I admit they do allow for a lot of other utility uses as well, but given the variety of alien weapons you'll be up against when playing, you might be better off trying to stun them from afar than you will from exposing yourself to get clear shots.
I think the stun damage is fine. I actually used a variant of this weapon in a TFTD Mod, it was useful for clearing out the field, but not so much in close quarters. It was also much less effective against any aliens higher than Aquatoids, due to the fact that most aliens in TFTD seem to have better armor and HP than their XCOM UFO Defense kin, and the base damage was slightly lower.
On the other hand, money is so tight in that game I needed to capture aliens alive in vast numbers just to pay the bills...
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Also, have you considered adding SolariusScorches Plasma Blades to your mod? That seems to be the only thing your aliens lack, melee weapons with which to kill XCOM even more efficiently. :P
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I just found this, looks neat!
I was reading some of the old posts on Rockfish's thread. I think there's no need to use an elerium crystal for the laser shotgun. Why not just use a diamond crystal? Elerium is supposed to be for producing gravity waves and it also probably releases a lot of total energy. People use it for too many other things that it's becoming the generic phlebotinum of X-Com. Diamond crystals would work great for refracting lasers, however, as they have a high transparency as well as a high heat tolerance, they're very rigid, and best of all they can be produced at very high quality without costing much.
Sometimes I like to design background lore and explanations behind weapons. My current explanation for laser weapons is that they're based on some alien technology found in ancient crash sites uncovered by older X-Com divisions.
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I have Elerium as a requirement for Laser Weapons because of the need to create ultra-pure crystals in a sharply reduced amount of time. I like to tailor the lore as well, but everyone has their own interpretation of it. Your lore sounds cool though.
I wonder if the admins would spring for a "lore" section where we could each take our shots at it and see what we like best.
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I wonder if the admins would spring for a "lore" section where we could each take our shots at it and see what we like best.
That would be great! I want to get an X-Com Extended Universe we can agree on, to get people on the same page and make more content cross-compatible!
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Had some more time to test the starting weapons:
- The two aimed shots on the basic assault rifle is really nice for the rookies, makes the tradeoff between the damage of the marksman's rifle and the speed of the assault rifle meaningful. As a result though, I might suggest bumping up the accuracy of the marksman's rifle and maybe the snap shot range for those using the extender accuracy option.
- Ten more damage on large rockets is certainly nice against cyberdiscs, but the turning the small rocket into a guided rocket with two waypoints was a stroke of genius. It might be a bit too powerful,
but given all of the other powerful options you've created, it's right at home. - Thank you for the increased clip size on AC-AP, it doesn't feel like as much a bad idea to waste ammo on an autoshot at longer ranges.
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I don't use UFOExtender accuracy, so it's just using the default values. I should probably update it because it seems to be a fairly popular add-on.
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I installed the mod and loaded a saved game and found UFO Navigation, Power Source, Small Launcher and stun bombs were removed from my research choices. Do I have to start a fresh game?
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I installed the mod and loaded a saved game and found UFO Navigation, Power Source, Small Launcher and stun bombs were removed from my research choices. Do I have to start a fresh game?
You shouldn't have to to start a new game, buuut it'll take the mod about a month to kick in. Weapons (and some equipment) are now locked behind certain research requirements. You can't just rush research now.
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I do not know how to ask but I have some troubles with this mod on Android version, so I can't research new alien weapons, but i can max laser research, meybe it's some your's rebalanse, but I'd like to hear is it maded specially, or not? I have no installed same working mods, also it's OXCE+ app.
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You won't be able to research the newer alien weapons in this mod until you do some alien bases and get some specific stuff from there.
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New update! Check the first post!
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What does the "compatibility with UFOExtender accuracy" mean? Is the mod only balanced when it's turned on? Is it balanced for both on and off?
Edit:
The game crashed on my first mission when trying to autofire the heavy machine gun with HE ammo loaded:
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Oopsie! Sorry about that, little artefact leftover from playing with some new sounds in the development version. Should be all fixed now! (download in first post)
The compatibility means that it has custom ranges set up for UFO Extender Accuracy instead of using the default values because the default values make some weapons, like shotguns, kind of wonky.
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Are slates recovered from alien bases random, or determined by alien race and/or game month? Did 2 bases so far, recoved 1 slate, and it is the plasma one, the most "boring" one. A shame slates are destructible by explosions, losing such rare items to exploding cyberdisks feels terrible.
Also, laser shotgun is hilariously broken, and the plasma one appears to be even worse. In the absense of heavily armoured aliens, multipellet weapons do truly idiotic amounts of damage.
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Slates are supposed to be paired with whatever weapon the commander-type alien has. They can't be destroyed by explosions, so don't worry about that. I know the shotguns are hilariously broken, try using UFO Extender Accuracy, it kneecaps them nicely.
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They can't be destroyed by explosions, so don't worry about that
Wait, so how come I didn't recover a slate the first time I did an alien base then? Can they just not spawn at all?
Slates are supposed to be paired with whatever weapon the commander-type alien has
And how is the weapon for the commander determined? Is THAT random or not? Basically, is it worth doing another snakeman base if I did one already or will I get a duplicate of the slate I have already?
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You should get two slates every time you do an alien base, a Rosetta Slate (required to translate the other data slates) and a slate that unlocks weapons (might be duplicates because of randomization.) It is, unfortunately, random, but keep in mind that I play this mod as well so I have to play by the same rules.
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Then it's probably a bug I didn't recover any slates from the first base I did, isn't it? Not sure what happened here, I've assumed the slates were destroyed by a random cyberdisk explosion or something. I have a save file, in case you (or the person maintaining the mod if it's not you?) want to take a look. It's made near the very end of the mission, and finishing it yields no slates (yes, I did finish the mission with 2 soldiers alive... :-[).
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It's because you're using mixed crews, the mod clearly states that it doesn't work with mods that change alien deployments.
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Really? All mods except this one are turned off, I've just checked. Is it in the options instead of mods?
Edit: Also, all enemies in that mission (and all other missions in the campaign) were sectoids and cyberdisks, nothing "mixed", or so it seemed. The base itself was somewhat weird in that there were 2 different bases (this sectoid one and a snakeman one that DID have slates) exactly on top of one another.
Edit2: the aliens in the base were also wielding the new weapons from the mod, so the deployment was 100% from this mod.
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Double check everything. The save shows that you have mixed crews for UFO so you won't get data slates. You absolutely cannot use any mod that changes alien deployments if you want to use Arsenal Expanded.
EDIT: That sounds like a bug... I'll need to look into it.
EDIT 2: Did you add Arsenal Expanded mid-run? That'll cause a lot of weird things to happen.
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Double checked, no other mods enabled. In fact, I wasn't even aware a mod that added mixed crews and nothing else existed, so I don't have it installed or anything.
The arsenal mod was 100% percent installed before I created the campaign. Everything else was 100% turned off at that time. I DID update the mod from 1.6 to 1.61 after reporting the sound bug, though.
Found a save before the base mission started. Going there, entering debug mode (ctrl+D) reveals some surprising stuff. The sectoid commander doesn't carry any slates on him at all. Killing all aliens (ctrl+k) doesn't recover slates, so they weren't destroyed either. Magic. :-X
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Hmm... methinks there's a typo somewhere... bother. I thought all that code was solid... I'll post an update when I find it. Stop by the OXC Discord while you wait.
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I know the shotguns are hilariously broken, try using UFO Extender Accuracy, it kneecaps them nicely.
Did you know about the new shotgun algorithm for OXCE? You can get them to work properly regardless of UFO Extender Accuracy (as in: one shotgun works well in both settings) if you use the new code:
items:
- type: STR_SHOTGUN_SHELLS
shotgunSpread: 10
shotgunBehavior: 1
shotgunChoke: 100The above settings makes the shotgun use the new algorithm in which the first pellet uses the accuracy calculation to determine its path, and the rest travel near to it. It also ensures that the soldier accuracy does not affect the shotgun spread.
shotgunSpread: 10 gives a decent shotgun spread. If you set this value to 0, the pellets all hit the same spot. If you set it to 100, the pellets spread pretty evenly over the entire cone in front of the soldier, regardless of where the initial pellet went. You'll want to set it to 50 or lower to ensure that the initial pellet actually affects where the rest go.
shotgunChoke: 100 doesn't use the choke effect. Lower values force the soldier to aim closer to the target, even at very low accuracy. shotgunChoke: 0 will make every shot perfect even at 1% effective accuracy.
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Basically, I believe there is a bug in the mission scripts that leads to alien bases spawned from infiltrations (as opposed to base construction missions) having wrong, vanilla deployments.
I've managed to fix the bug on my end by editing STR_RACE_ALIEN_INFILTRATION entries. Zip is included with the post. Please, check it and consider replacing the current version with the fixed one. I'm leaving this here in case I don't see your replies on the Discord.
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Did you know about the new shotgun algorithm for OXCE? You can get them to work properly regardless of UFO Extender Accuracy (as in: one shotgun works well in both settings) if you use the new code:
items:
- type: STR_SHOTGUN_SHELLS
shotgunSpread: 10
shotgunBehavior: 1
shotgunChoke: 100The above settings makes the shotgun use the new algorithm in which the first pellet uses the accuracy calculation to determine its path, and the rest travel near to it. It also ensures that the soldier accuracy does not affect the shotgun spread.
shotgunSpread: 10 gives a decent shotgun spread. If you set this value to 0, the pellets all hit the same spot. If you set it to 100, the pellets spread pretty evenly over the entire cone in front of the soldier, regardless of where the initial pellet went. You'll want to set it to 50 or lower to ensure that the initial pellet actually affects where the rest go.
shotgunChoke: 100 doesn't use the choke effect. Lower values force the soldier to aim closer to the target, even at very low accuracy. shotgunChoke: 0 will make every shot perfect even at 1% effective accuracy.
I am aware of the OXCE+ features and I plan to include them in later versions. I need to test them extensively in the dev version first though so I can get them just right.
Announcement:
After extensive help from Hobbes, Warboy, SupSuper, and ohartenstein, I think I've FINALLY killed the bug with the racial bases not spawning! From now on, if a major update (like this one) is released, you WILL need to create a new save file!
Update in first post!
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So yeah, I updated the mod on mod.io almost a year ago and I didn't update the topic on the forum. Check the first post like usual for updates.