Messages

106

Help / Re: Better to start a new topic or continue an old or stale one on the same topic?

« on: December 16, 2023, 07:34:51 pm »

OK, that's very helpful feedback.

Thank you both for your time and thoughts replying to my questions and supporting this community. I greatly appreciate it.

107

Help / Better to start a new topic or continue an old or stale one on the same topic?

« on: December 15, 2023, 08:25:56 pm »

I have a help request about some inventory questions...

I was wondering if it would be more likely answered, read, creating a new topic or adding it to an older post that is specifically discussing inventories?

My thought was to put it in the old discussion because then there's a more singular post about inventories?

Anyway I put my request in this discussion
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,7981.0.html

If I should have started a new discussion please let me know, thanks!

108

OXCE Support / [Answered] How to implement active animations on units in game play?

« on: December 15, 2023, 08:20:58 pm »

Experiments and hack for creations specific weapon

Yankes,

Wow, that's pretty cool!  look forward to seeing it in my on game play

Do you by change have an recommendations on how to implement active animations on players or enemies in game play?  A specific example is the purple fade in fade out glow of the aliens in X-Com Files?

109

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.12.1

« on: December 15, 2023, 07:43:06 pm »

Crashes just the same. It might be related to mods you are using which I don't have.I haven't uploaded it.
Does anyone know of a good editing-software, that doesn't take ages to recompress after cutting? All I want to do is just throwing away the last 5 seconds of the video. But with everyhting I tried that requires a very long process.

Here's a good list of software that I use for video editing:
https://obsproject.com/wiki/Post-Production-Tools-you-can-use

No matter how you look at it, cutting a portion off of a video, I've always had to re-encode the entire video.  Maybe Handbreak could do that? I use it to legally back up DVDs I own. It also might have features to cut or remove a section of the video...but I haven't looked into it.
https://handbrake.fr/

My preferred tool is Camtasia, I have an older version which works great for post production video editing and is fairly fast. Downside is I had to pay for it, it's not free. I've tried the demo of their newer versions and think they are too bloated and also are too expensive.

You can download older versions here, but I'm not sure if they'd still sell licenses for older versions?
https://www.techsmith.com/download/oldversions

110

Help / Re: How to make a mod

« on: December 15, 2023, 06:52:08 pm »

Here's some examples on how to create a mod that will modify another mod, for example X-Com Files with directly editing the X-Com Files mod files.

Create your own folder in the mods directory, and make sure to add your own `metadata.yml` file, then I'd suggest downloading other peoples mods and reviewing the files, content, organization structure etc.  I've done some mods in the past, but over time the format and structure, like what to name the files (optional, but more clarifying what in the files, like picture names or .rul file names can be very helpful.)

Code: [Select]

.../openxcom/
.../openxcom/mods/
.../openxcom/mods/my_new_mod/
.../openxcom/mods/my_new_mod/metadata.yml

Then in your mod folder create a Ruleset directory where all the .rul files go , etc for Resources (images), Language (text and translations), etc...

I'd recommend starting small on just trying to make a mod that changes a single aspect, property, image, etc and build from there.

Solarius Scorch has done an amazing job on the X-Com Files mod... I'm constantly going to and referencing his mods source files as an example of a change or aspect that I want to implement in my mod work.

111

Help / Re: Inventory

« on: December 15, 2023, 05:07:12 am »

Yes, the text can be moved... check some TFTD interface.rul ruleset how to do it.

The relevant interface code is "textItem" (without quotes).

Thanks, I'll look into the "textItem", do you know if the ability to move medical and ammo info is an optional configuration as well?

Like this

112

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [Suggestion] Research menu - include base name and base navigation.

« on: December 14, 2023, 12:03:54 am »

You can enable this option: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,7715.msg153872.html#msg153872
to show you which base has finished which research.

thanks!  that's great

113

Brutal AI / Re: Alternative way to display armor-stats in UfoPedia

« on: December 13, 2023, 10:54:26 pm »

..., did any of you even try it?

@0xebjc: XCF will be unaffected, he changed only TFTD-style armor articles

Sorry for the confusion on my part... I did not try it and was just following the form conversations from here

And which armor would you show for let's say Lobsterman autopsy?

There are several of them.
Do you take one at random?

I missed the following:

Another option is to list multiple armors with their names: (soldier, technician, etc.). Will be a long list.

I do think this is a elegant solution to label each enemy type, soldier, engineer, etc. based off their different stats and or ranges.

@Alpha: modders will sure notice it, you made it incompatible with OXCE (and their mods, e.g. TWoTS)

I haven't played TWoTS yet, I'll have to look at what breaking changes this make to other mods, previously I've appreciated that BRUTAL has been backwards compatible with OXCE mods.

114

OXCE Suggestions DONE / [DONE][Suggestion] Research menu - include base name and base navigation.

« on: December 13, 2023, 10:37:40 pm »

Often when speeding up the clock and a research pop's then following I get the option to research a new topic, the research menu opens up for the base that just completed the research...

Problem:
I can't recall or don't know which base research menu I'm at or want to check what research is currently on going at other bases. When exiting the research menu I am taken back to the geoscape, and not the basescape so I still don't know which base I was at other than navigation to each base research menu and looking for the base that has spare scientists.

Reason this is important:
Some research is available globally and some is only available at a base dependent on if the base has an enemy, alien, or item at that base.  If I have specific bases for research topics I want to make sure I don't specific global research at a base I want to research specific items or enemies at.


Suggested Solution:
1.) Place the name of the base in the Research Menu.
2.) Have <-- --> left right arrows in research menu to move between bases without going back to the main base GUI.

115

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [Suggestion] Hide Research

« on: December 13, 2023, 10:17:51 pm »

There could be one more possible solution for this: special click to gray-out text of a topic.
Right now LMB highlights topics, but also they get highlighted if clicked onto.
Gray-out, contrary, will make all this research poo (like 10 types of revolvers) at least not that eye-irritating.

Yeah, this would meet the intent of the original request and possibly be the simplest to implement? 


For example, have a third color to highlight gray by right-clicking to cycle colors from 'pink' --> 'white' --> 'gray' --^ 'pink'
'pink' = new / unresearched
'white' = research started or clicked on etc...
'gray' = third color option to right click on (just to denote ..." I want to ignore for now ") and be able to tell the difference between all the other 'white' items.

Without this feature, I'm left with right clicking a ton of research to change to white which I wan't to ignore for now or maybe never research and it's really hard to tell between what I'm currently researching ( which shows up as a research option at other bases in white ) or research topics that can be completed multiple times like cult enemies. In X-Com Files I can have somewhere between 20-40 topics or more that I want to ignore.

116

Brutal AI / Re: Alternative way to display armor-stats in UfoPedia

« on: December 13, 2023, 10:07:15 pm »

Xilmi,

Now when you merged my PR, do you want to add these alien armor articles right into base game so they are available to all mods on top of it?
Or leave it to ruleset modders? In this case it will probably be unnoticed for many.

Since this is a non-standard GUI change I would recommend a .rul flag to enable this so that the mod developer or by default this feature is not enabled and explicitly enabled per *.rul file for globally through advanced settings.

One reason is that I think that X-Com Files already provides all the battle and armor stats for enemies and NPCs once researched, but as separate UFOPedia pages.  I would find it real annoying to have the info duplicated on multiple pages from ones that X-Com Files provides and on the Enemy's main graphic page.  Also, although this is a neat idea, how do you address what Meridian' pointed out about an enemy that can have multiple armor's or stats?

117

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.12.1

« on: December 13, 2023, 09:30:34 pm »

Well, I'd say this behavior still hints to something systemic being wrong with the AI.
Their positioning-code still thinks it can attack them with melee and tries to reposition to do it.
The question is how this should be handled. I see 2 possibilities.

One is to teach the positioning-code about the hit-chance-reduction too, so it doesn't even try.
The other is to ignore the circumstance that they can't hit by internally limiting what they think the dodge chance reduces their accuracy too.

With armor-mitigation the AI does attack anyways, even if it calculates that their attacks will be fully mitigated by the armor.

So should they attack anyways or should they not even try and do something else instead?

First I want to say thank you... your work is great... I appreciate your time and don't want you to think I'm 'expecting' anything other than 'gladly thankful'

I'm not sure how much effort it would be, but here's some thoughts / suggestions:
1.) Maybe something that the AI would 'learn' where if AI controlled units attack at first don't know that they will miss or if it's a 'dumb' actions then ignore learned behavior.  After x# of tries (how ever you decide) then the AI stops that behavior, i.e. melee against a target where melee doesn't work like attacking a tank with a knife and low stats that will never hit or do dmg.  'Learned' actions could reset across battlescape sessions, especially for enemies, or be retained for player AI or not.  Also, I think it would be helpful to warn the player if their isn't a good action to take and pause auto player AI... for example all player agents only have melee weapons equipped and there is an enemy like swarmoids.  Or should the AI recognize they can't melee a target and go 'looking' for a capable range weapon... and what if the battlescape was started with only melee weapons and the only enemy is something like swarmoids and no civilians of any other npc that contains a usable weapon to kill or incapacitate the swarmoid like enemy.

2.) or just do the calc to hit and if it's a 'smart' action then don't attack, and if no sufficient actions could be taken, then pause autoplay player ai and prompt with message about not being able to take a successful actions?


Also not sure if you have looked at the keyboard short cut for entering and exiting auto-play player AI (default ctrl+a) but I've noticed a 'significant' difference between pressing excape to goto the menu which works almost always under heavy cpu load of the auto AI, and when trying to press ctrl+a to stop the auto AI under heavy cpu load it doesn't pickup the command.  I'm guessing it's how it polling and looking for the keyboard shortcut during each iteration of computing the ai actions or possibly not storing the keyboard command until a specific iteration is completed to decide to exit the auto  ai.  Sorry for bring this up again, not trying to be annoying but this has been a significant issue for me trying to exit auto ai player action in the middle of a battle.  And which I thought it was interesting that pressing escape to menu didn't have the same issue.

On another thought about the hang with the keyboard shortcut, is there a way no matter how much the cpu is taxed with the AI calc, to give priority to the GUI, mouse and keyboard shortcuts or even moving the battlescape position?

Again, thank you!

118

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.12.1

« on: December 13, 2023, 02:53:04 am »

Edit 2: Even with the fixed formula, there still doesn't seem to be any chance to hit the Swarmoids.

I have hit swarmoids before with melee, but I forget how, thinking it was because the agent was enhanced with transformations, using a better armor like the synthsuit and probably using something like the electric club which does a calculation based off reaction for hit bonus.

Anyway, thanks for looking into this, I thought there was something more systemic possibly wrong with the AI which is why I pointed it out, didn't  know the AI calculates the hit change before determining to take a swing.

119

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.12.1

« on: December 13, 2023, 12:51:49 am »

What was the Auto-play-aggressivity this happened on?

I think this can happen on the highest aggresivity when they don't have enough TUs to perform a melee-attack once they reach the enemy. But they are forced to change position instead of just ending their turn.

A savegame of this situation would help greatly identifying and fixing the issue. Do you have one?

TUs were 100+ standing next to the enemy.  Play er is going back and for many times until TUs run out...  I have only see this issue with swarmoids so far.  Two things come to mind.  Swamoids have a very low chance to take melee damage which might be affecting the AI.  I've also noticed the AI will got around the back of enemies, or tanks to get in a better attack.  Maybe how swarmoids are defined the have no back side just front on every side so the AI keeps moving back and forth to find how to reposition around the back of the swarmoid enemy?

The Auto-play aggressiveness is set to 3

let me know if you wanted to know more of the AI settings.

120

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.12.1

« on: December 12, 2023, 08:50:10 pm »

Regarding AI improvements or observed issues

In auto player mode, against swarmoids the players just pace back and forth one tile then back to the other next to a swarmoid when trying to melee or stunrod them and take no attack action but use up their TUs.

also in auto player mode I think there should be a higher polling for keyboard interrupt, sometimes it's almost impossible to get the game to receive a ctrl+a to disable the auto player mode once activated.  Escape to menu still seams to function fairly quickly.