Topics

16

Suggestions / Disabling Live alien research topics when all topics are discovered

« on: May 04, 2014, 05:38:37 pm »

The vanilla game lets you keep researching live aliens even when there's nothing more to research.
I wonder if it would be a good idea to have the game stops proposing alien interrogations when there's nothing more to research.
I know there can't be a perfect safety against useless research, because for example you can research a medic, and the last unknown autopsy gets completed before the medic interrogation is over.

17

Work In Progress / Kill-based experience

« on: April 30, 2014, 02:05:28 am »

(This is a source modification, not a ruleset-based mod)
Latest release : 11/11/2014

I've made an experiment for a different system of soldier experience : The stats would be directly affected by the unit's kill count. Basically, the kill count acts as a "Level".
The main goal is to give me an enticement to play ironman mode, by providing more efficient troops to replace the heavy casualties.
A secondary goal is to remove the weird tactics for raising units' experience (quick bullet weapons for accuracy, firing squads on helpless aliens for reactions)

I chose an experience formula that provides hefty gains initially, but by 3-5 kills, the unit is a veteran who improves slower, 2% or less per kill. Also, unskilled soldiers grow quicker to catch up : by 10 kills, a lousy shot raises from accuracy 40 to 78 (+38), while an ace will have increased from 70 to 92 (+22)

About stunned aliens, I first wanted to attribute a kill to the stunner on mission end, but it involved saving more data in save games. I resolved a simpler system that seems to work well : each capture awards an extra kill to one of your surviving soldiers at random.

I added a tiny bonus for rookies who survive battles but don't manage to get a kill. It's enough to see them improve a little, but it's quickly capped and disappears on the "real" level-up anyway.

So far I'm pretty glad with it. I'm in my 4th month of gameplay, having heavy armors and raided my first alien base (no commander capture though), which cost me 3 dead and 2 wounded. I hired 40 soldiers total, 16 are in the memorial and all the others are somewhat experienced (1-7 kills)

I attach here the compiled exe on Windows, in case somebody wants to see for himself. Requires the files from the same build :
https://openxcom.org/git_builds/openxcom_git_master_2014_04_17_2135.zip

Edit: Here's a chart with the gain formulas. It's supposed to be randomized, but I think the link will only show the last soldier I generated with it.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10RtfLG4JFXqXqvv3oUugGJdKUAD9yfa0KxbAyo1uhRo/edit?usp=sharing

18

Translations / French

« on: April 02, 2014, 12:43:15 am »

A little call to fellow French translators :
Please somebody vote for something else than "BOUTON  MILIEU SOURIS" for the original "Drag Scroll"...

19

Released Mods / [WEAPON] Machine pistol

« on: March 05, 2014, 12:41:09 am »

Here's a 2x2 one-handed automatic weapon, for close combat specialists. The shooting stats are the same as the Gauss pistol from TFTD, and the clips hold 24 pistol bullets.

I pixelled the sprites from scratch, and hereby put them in the public domain - so feel free to re-use !

Languages : English, French, Spanish

Updated: 18/06/2014

20

Work In Progress / [WIP] Nova Robotics SAINT

« on: January 30, 2014, 02:34:10 am »

The latest prototype from our favorite HWP contractor.

This is mostly an occasion of seeing again those sprites from an old Amstrad game.
https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=1931

21

Work In Progress / Modular rulesets : "startingBase" node

« on: January 03, 2014, 02:26:21 am »

I'm trying to add items in starting base, using something like this:
startingBase:
  items:
    STR_FUEL: 200

But not only it removes all other starting items, it looks as if I emptied all the other entries of startingBase: facilities, randomSoldiers, crafts, scientists, engineers
--> The base is completely empty
Am I missing something in the format ?

22

Released Mods / [WEAPON] Clips for laser weapons

« on: December 30, 2013, 06:49:57 am »

Why? Well, I played TFTD first, so when I discovered UFO's laser weapons, the infinite ammo looked like "easy mode". OpenXCom removes the 80-item limit anyway.
Stats are mostly based on TFTD gauss clips. I reduced the manufacturing costs (time and money) of the 3 laser weapons by "2 clips" each, so it's not too hard in early game, when you just become able to build them.

I pixelled clips based on the weapon's colors, so it should be easy to see which one goes where.
The "ListOrder" is set, so the clips appear in the right position for ship equipment and manufacturing.
Translations are given for en-US and fr.

License: Public domain

23

Translations / Uppercase accents (French, and probably other languages)

« on: December 26, 2013, 07:04:48 pm »

I really don't like the accented characters that have a different height than their non-accented counterpart.
Linguistically, accents should be kept in uppercase French, but it's very common to skip them (Most people think that it's an error to keep them) Especially when there is not much room, like in game that plays in 320x200.

Here are 2 rather obvious cases :

(dégâts, équipage, équipement)

(énergétique, fumée)

Here I've tested reducing the entire fonts to match the accents' sizes :


The words look much better. But I can't say it's overall better, because the originals looked... well, bolder. I attach the font files to this post, in case somebody wants to see for himself.

I think I'm going with a 2nd option : to keep copies of the fonts that replace the accented uppercase vowels with their non-accented version.

24

Work In Progress / [WIP] Alien melee sprites

« on: December 19, 2013, 05:35:25 pm »

I saw that a Psi-controlled Chtyssalid had a "stun rod" image as a melee image, so I started drawing melee sprites for aliens.


I looked at the in-game ufopedia for reference, but I drew it from scratch (not a copy/transform of the original art). I release it to public domain - feel free to use or modify.

Still have zombie and reaper to, from what I can see of the rul files (entries that use "bigSprite: 26")

25

Troubleshooting / healing and melee don't like stairs

« on: December 17, 2013, 01:46:05 am »

Soldiers A and B can't heal each other using medi-kit, they get the message "There's nobody here".
Function ActionMenuState::btnActionMenuItemClick() checks that units are on the same "map level", it ignores the units heights and whether they stand on a "stair" block. This is probably going to be annoying on long slopes like mountains (TFTD had quite a few)
 
More strangely, A can't strike B with a stun rod with the same message, and if B tries to strike A he loses TUs but nothing happens.
In this case the first check is TileEngine::validMeleeRange(), and the actual hit, I don't know where it is.

26

Work In Progress / Civilian medi-kit

« on: December 14, 2013, 08:25:25 pm »

In the early days of the alien invasion, XCOM could use civilian-grade medi-kits. They provided 3 uses of HEALING, STIMULANT and PAIN KILLER. However, their bulk and weight limited their use to dedicated "Combat medics". Soon, XCOM felt the need to invent more efficient healing tools.


This expensive kit (10000$) may be used if you feel the need to save some rookie's life before medikit become available. Weight is 15 (!) and the 2x2 box can only fit in hand and backpack.
The Ufopedia text points to the other medikit's, so it uses available translations. I originally called it Medipack but the action "Use medi-kit" can't be customized by item.

I don't know what's the norm for modders to number new resources (like bigSprite), so I picked my member number (1020) and started counting at 00 for any sprite I may add. This should avoid conflicts.

Caveat:
The auto-equip system assumes that any healing item (battleType 6 = BT_MEDIKIT) is 1x2 and should be auto-equipped in top-right slot of belt...
I'm really not sure what to suggest to coders to make auto-equip more mod-friendly, because it's just impossible to be future-proof. Maybe, just maybe, it would already solve a lot of cases by providing a "no auto-equip" flag that modders can put on all items that auto-equip can't handle by itself. Anyway, auto-equip was only useful in vanilla because it didn't remember soldiers' equipments.

I drew the graphic from scratch, I put all this in public domain : Feel free to re-use, tweak to your liking, or use as a base for anything.

27

Work In Progress / Random events (idea)

« on: December 12, 2013, 06:22:48 pm »

An idea for variety.
Anybody else feels like the Geoscape is a bit empty, with only "new UFO sighted" happening over time ?

I wondered a bit about random events that could spice up the monotony, like "Luck" card in monopoly. They could be good or bad surprises, or things that can be turned to your advantage if you adapt your plans accordingly.
Here are some that don't need deep UI or engine change, nothing more complicated than a message and aletering the existing game state :
- Accidental damage on a Hyperwave decoder or Mind shield brings it back to construction state, with 7 days remaining. This can really spice up the later game if a base is suddenly blind or vulnerable to UFO assault again.
- Theft in a XCOM store. Usually only a time/money annoyance, but be wary of systematically selling all-but-one unresearched alien artefacts.
- A funding country has a volunteer soldier to propose (one free soldier on its way, you'll pay him normally each month).
- Personal defection : a few searchers or engineers didn't report this morning. This may look like 'just a time/money loss', but if the living quarters were full, you can consider buying other category of personal instead.
- Opportunity hires : 5 searchers or engineers are available at a discount, or a known soldier is on the job market - you can see his stats up front, but if you want him, it's "now".
- Unexpected advance on a research topic that you weren't actively working on. I like the effect that it gives a veteran player a reason to break from his optimal research order.

28

Work In Progress / Reaction fire and shooting modes

« on: December 11, 2013, 03:28:10 am »

According to Ufopaedia, in vanilla UFO Reaction fire (for the player side) only takes Snap shots. I think OpenXCom also picks auto fire, but I'm not sure.
I tested a custom weapon that only provides "aimed shot", and indeed, reaction fire doesn't happen at all. As a result,  I'd have two pieces of advice for weapon modders out there :

1) If you make a weapon with only one shooting mode (and not auto), make it a "snap" mode or it will not work for reaction fire.

2) If you make a sniper weapon, don't balance the snap shot for "reflex shooting when you bump on a sectoid". If you do, your camping snipers who catch sight of an alien at extreme range will empty their clip and miss, instead of shooting the single bullet that you'd expect - and hit.

29

Open Feedback / Graphs "trick"

« on: December 07, 2013, 05:04:18 pm »

The original UFO and/or TFTD had a tiny bug in the "Graphs" screen : the top-right button that returns to geoscape was effectively larger than it looked like (it extended maybe 8 extra pixels down).

The extra space overlapped with the position of the "graphs" button in geoscape. So if you placed your mouse cursor there, you no longer had to move the mouse : you could click click click repeatedly, and keep your eyes on the graph lines to watch for any rising UFO activity.

OpenXcom doesn't have this bug, so you have to move the mouse cursor each time (and see where you click).

I can't find this piece of information anywhere (even on Ufopaedia), so I thought it was worth sharing here.