Messages

46

OXCE Suggestions Archive / Re: [Suggestion] Display missing health/mana in SoldierInfo screen.

« on: March 03, 2023, 05:54:02 pm »

Quick demo of this concept:


I'm not sure I love it though. To do this I sub-classed the Bar class into a BarR class that can handle drawing a reverse bar, which works but is kind of clunky. I could instead just modify the bar class to give all instances this functionality, or just do it manually (though getting the draw code mixed in with the other code is kind of gross). Will also need to find a way to specify the color for this "reverse" segment of the bar. Adding a color3 tag to the rules would work, but feels kind of clunky as well.

An alternative way of displaying this might be not to overlap the entire bar, and instead only cover maybe the bottom half.

47

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [Suggestion] Manual Promotions

« on: March 03, 2023, 10:29:20 am »

Hey, sorry to ask a million questions, just want to get a better picture of what ya'll want in patches going forward. Like, when making this feature the dialog is basically a carbon copy of the existing Armor choice dialog. So it's an obvious candidate for refactoring both of them (and possibly others) into a shared "listItem" class or something, with the differences handled via composition or inheritance. I refrained from doing so, because I wanted to be minimally invasive, but would such refactoring be desirable? Or would you prefer I leave well enough alone for the most part?

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OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [Suggestion] Manual Promotions

« on: March 02, 2023, 01:26:14 pm »

Could you check how it will work for mods like xpiratez? I recall that it have more custom ranks than normal game.

I've tested it with XPZ (that's the main mod I'm playing), no issues. Custom rank titles are reflected and perform normally. In addition, soldier types with limited sets of rank titles (like named dogs) have a limited set of promotion opportunities, as expected.

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OXCE Suggestions Archive / [Suggestion] Display missing health/mana in SoldierInfo screen.

« on: March 02, 2023, 01:20:12 pm »

Another small one while you're chewing on the last bigger one: a way to display the health/mana a soldier is missing while recovering in the Soldier Info screen. Currently, this information is tracked, but not presented to the player in any concrete way beyond the return to service countdown. I am envisioning displaying this by having a 3rd segment of the stat bar that proceeded from the right end towards the left, to visualize the missing health.

While admittedly, the utility of this information is low, I think it would be a neat "nice to have" feature. And in addition, the features I would have to build to support this, likely an extension of the bar class to support this 3rd bar could be useful elsewhere, such as the alternate take on painkillers discussed elsewhere that appeared interesting to me.

Open questions with this enhancement would be: Should the number displayed for health/mana reflect this figure? It seems like it should, though you are somewhat inaccurate information. But, OTOH, the numbers already reflect modifications due to armor, and the utility of knowing the "true" health score of a wounded soldier seem somewhat limited.

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OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [Suggestion] Manual Promotions

« on: March 02, 2023, 03:52:30 am »

Okay my version is more or less feature complete I think. Pull request sent. Here is a demo

.

Some minor style changes from the clip posted before. Ranks now show in the color2 color (configurable) if they aren't eligible for promotion. I removed the notation of if a rank was a promotion or a demotion, since it's kind of obvious and the ranks on the screen anyways. Quicksearch works, and you can middle-click on a rank to bring up the ufopedia article, if any.

I blather on more in the pull request, but the demo above shows how everything works.

The only other major design decision I made was to enforce rank limits in both promotion and demotion. Currently, you can still demote down to rookie, but then you cannot promote back up again afterward. I could go either way on this decision. I can imagine some people wanting to do it, but the behavior is somewhat surprising, I think.

51

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [Suggestion] Manual Promotions

« on: March 01, 2023, 03:43:01 pm »

Its more a free thoughts about this, I simply consider mods that some how put more "meat" behind rank (aka give more bonuses to given solder).
And without limitation manual or automatic promotion could be problematic as it could allow abuses or have unhappy players when wrong unit get promotion.

For now this have small impact on game as ranks AFAIR are only used in morale lose calculations.

One solution I would see is link it to commendations, like each rank require specific list of them to progress (best if we could have `or`/`and` handling).
We could have different set of requirement for automatic and manual promotion (where manual one are easier to get).

Image case xpiratez where to get biggest rank you need kill Ethereal or alterative kill previous captain

Yeah, I am all for that, and plan to look into implementing something like that after I finish this. But the two features I feel are independent. Customizing ranks and what they mean mechanically can exist with or without automatic promotions, though I think it would work better with. But when customizing what a rank "means" would feel like the natural time to also add restrictions as to who could have what rank, to prevent the kind of abuse you talk about.

52

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [Suggestion] Manual Promotions

« on: March 01, 2023, 02:54:57 pm »

in current iteration you can buy 100 soldiers on day one and promote every one to grain one commander?

I think would be preferred that manual promotion have some requirements that are needed to allow it.
And it could be different than used in normal promotions, probably less hard to grain.
Like you would normally need 10 mission to promote automatically some specific solder but after 6th mission you can manually do it.

Well, you are still restricted by living space, so you cannot literally hire 100 soldiers day 1. Likewise, the rule that you cannot promote rookies is enforced, so anyone you want to promote to a higher rank must first participate in some combat to obtain that promotion naturally. However, at that point, yes, you could promote them to whatever rank you have available, given the current ranks filled and the number of soldiers you have on staff.

I think, in practice, this kind of "abuse" doesn't seem like that big a deal. Your ability to expand your ranks is limited by space in your living quarters, which also have to compete with scientists and engineers. Given this constraint, unless you actively worked against it, or suffer truly horrendous losses, your soldiers will naturally gain some xp and get promoted to rookie. At that point, ascending up the ranks is automatic, so long as you go on any missions. You only need to keep 10 squaddies out of 30 to fill the ranks. Or guess put another way, I don't think your ability to manually promote soldiers is unlikely to greatly exceed the rate they would be naturally promoted in most situations.

Instead, people wanting to abuse the system are more likely they would go the other way, and simply not promote anyone. That's the exploit that gets brought up in conversations with me. But if you want to avoid having high-ranking soldiers on missions, there are already other ways to do this.

Anyways, I do think that allowing mods to customize requirements for promotions is a good concept and something I'm interested in adding later if desired. Like you might have to have a certain soldier score (using the base game algorithm) or meet some arbitrary stat requirements in order to be eligible for promotion, but that's beyond the scope of what I wanted to do right now. Other then that, I guess I don't really understand what kind of system you are proposing.

53

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [Suggestion] Manual Promotions

« on: March 01, 2023, 10:08:57 am »

I guess I do have some questions, though:

• To what degree is feedback and/or negative feedback desirable? IE, if you select a rank that you cannot promote to, what should happen?
• Should ranks that are ineligible for promotion even show up on the list?
• I do not think any feedback is necessary when you successfully promote someone, the result is obvious, but I'm open to other opinions.
• Obviously it should have an on-off switch. But it occurs to me that you might want automatic promotions on and manual promotions on. Since if demotion is possible, you can just change who is promoted anyways. So it wouldn't just be a binary switch of automatic promotions off, manual promotions on, but two switches. Thoughts about this?"
• It also occurs to me though, that if there is a on/off switch for automatic promotions, it would make sense for that option to be combined with field promotions (which implies automatic promotions), as that option doesn't make sense without automatic promotions being on. However, actually implementing a 3 value switch is somewhat more complicated, and it would be somewhat difficult to do in a backwards compatible manner.

54

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [Suggestion] Manual Promotions

« on: March 01, 2023, 07:43:39 am »

So, still, some work to do, but feature complete enough to demonstrate functionality.

https://imgur.com/ZDG0yV8

Not much to comment on here. In the current incarnation, you can promote to any open rank, and demote to any rank, though if you demote to rookie, you cannot promote back up again. Not sure if I want to prevent that or not. Ideally, I think these sorts of rules would be configurable, but that's beyond the scope of what I want to do right now.

In creating this, I ripped into existing code a fair bit more than I intended to initially, so I'll want to do a fair amount of testing before I submit. I'm unsure to what degree getting into the guts of my changes to the code is appropriate here.

(sorry for all the edits, had some difficulty embedding the video)

55

XPiratez / Re: some sprite reskins

« on: February 28, 2023, 06:03:32 am »

I have a minigun equipped NPC armored car for a personal tweak, not sure if anyone would be interested. But in the process I came up with a cool worthwhile minigun/chaingun hand object barrel assembly that could be used for them.

(the tweak involves the armored car shooting pistol bullets at a high rate "because they're cheap" in bursts of 24 or aimed shot x8)

I would love to see this! The concept of a Minigun-equipped armored car is very appealing to me. I'd love to have a sprite I could use to play around with various numbers for the gun to see how it plays out.

56

XPiratez / [submod] Aquacuffs

« on: February 28, 2023, 05:47:46 am »

So I have always loved the idea of manacles. Very piratey, and I'm taking a lot of prisoners anyways. However, in practice, they are kind of borderline unusable, requiring both hands and a lot of TUs, meaning it's almost an entire turn to use them. And they are kind of heavy to boot.

However, through the wonders of technology, the gals could reasonably do better, so introducing Aquacuffs^TM.

Basically, these are high-tech zip ties. Identical to Manacles in function, but they weigh only 2, come 3 to a bundle, and require only 45% of your TU to use, one-handed. Strength is identical to manacles, 50 (though honestly, I'm not entirely sure what this means in practice, haven't investigated the script deeply.

They are unlocked for free when you get Aquaplastics. Manufacture requires 1 Aquaplastic and produces 5 bundles at a time. (Aquaplastics being rather precious to start makes this another balancing factor). Also, coming 3 to a bundle is also kind of a stealth nerf, in a way, since you have to stash them after use.

Mod comes with a custom graphic and sound effect. I'm happy enough with the new graphic, but I am admittedly no artist.

I think there is some design space left for even more sophisticated "smart cuffs" that would be stronger and even faster to use, but the entire concept is kind of marginal, so unless there is a lot of desire/interest, I don't think I'll extend it any further.

Also included is another rule file that buffs regular manacles only to require one hand and 65% of your TU, making them not quite as painful to use. Simply delete the file if you don't want these changes.

Fair warning, this doesn't crash, but I haven't tested it extensively yet.

57

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [Suggestion] A way to display statCaps on the soldier info screen

« on: February 23, 2023, 06:40:26 am »

I will remove the standard mod though. OXCE doesn't provide any standard mods... if we did, there would be thousands of them already and that's not my goal.

I'll make some tiny changes in the code and merge manually.

Sorry to double-post, but do you mind if I ask what changes were desired in the code I wrote? I was hesitant to rewrite so much of the existing method in a lambda,  but my dummie brain was having trouble with copy-paste errors, and I got a bit fed up with it (I also saw that the existing code was like C++03 so lambda's weren't even an option at the time). A-okay with hacking up whatever, I just want to conform to existing styles/preferences as much as possible, so possible future submissions could hopefully be accepted with a minimum of friction (I'm also fairly new to C++, so I don't know what style sins I might inadvertently be committing).

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OXCE Suggestions DONE / [DONE][Suggestion] Manual Promotions

« on: February 23, 2023, 06:25:51 am »

So a feature I have often wanted is a way to handle promotions manually. I know some people don't mind/appreciate the automatic promotions, but I've never been a fan, and I can dislike how sometimes an inferior soldier ends up promoted simply because they had seniority when a position became available (maybe this is realistic, never the less, I dislike it).

As I see it, implementation would be fairly straightforward. The existing `SaveGame::handlePromotions` function would get split into two functions, one that identifies openings (the current first half of the method) returning a `PromotionInfo` object with the available openings and one that then processes the promotions. When this feature is enabled, the debriefing screen will instead display new openings (if any) after a battle. I think new generic translation strings may be necessary for these openings as I know the rank titles can be overridden on a per-soldierType basis (I haven't investigated this yet, though). Some fallback option is probably possible to not-break existing mods.

To actually perform the promotions, I envision clicking on the rank icon (turning it into an interactive surface), which would open up a screen very similar to the SoldierArmorState window, except it would be populated with possible promotions. Clicking on the rank would then promote the soldier. Additionally, it might be desirable to have a "Promotions" view accessible via the combo-drop-down from the soldier screen in the same way the transformation overview screen is. This has the advantage of being more visible as the fact that you can promote via clicking the rank icon wouldn't be immediately obvious, I think. This implementation would be more work, however, so I do not envision creating this screen in an initial implementation.

Questions I have:

• If I was to implement this, would it be a patch OXCE would be open to accepting? To be clear, I'm motivated to make this modification simply for my own desires, but I'd be more motivated if chances were good it could be accepted more wildly.
• As I laid it out, the promotion screen would display all open positions, allowing (potentially) a rookie to be promoted to commander if desired. This is not typically how it works in the game. So instead, the promotion screen might simply give an option to promote to the next rank, if available. Ironically I think this would be somewhat more work to write, as I can't just crib off the existing windows (though there is probably a "confirmation" type window someplace I can crib-off of). Promotion from rookie to commander would still be possible, it would simply take more clicks.
• Should demotions be possible? A "demote" option could easily be added to the list of possible new ranks. In a "single-step" promotion scenario, the window that pops up could give promotion and demotion options. Alternatively, one might right-click on the rank to demote and left-click on the rank to promote.
• Should the existing promotion pyramid be enforced? That is, should it be impossible to promote a soldier to say sergant until an existing captain vacancy was filled?
• To what extent is it desirable for the above rules to be configurable? Should the ability to demote be an additional configurable option? How about the ability to promote from Rookie to Squadie?

So yeah, mostly concerned about the shape of the UI and configuration options. My inclination is, of course, to do the easiest possible implementation for a 1.0 feature, but I don't want to road-block future decisions with decisions made now (which probably means going for single-step promotion since I can later switch to multi-step promotion, but switching back would probably be disruptive).

Looking further down the road, it occurs to me that making ranks more configurable in general is probably desirable, and it's something I might be motivated to work on later, so I also want to avoid getting in the way of any configuration in that respect. However, it does occur to me that manual promotion might be a desirable feature in such a future, even for people who dislike the concept, if ranks were to become more unified with transformations in general, and so that, for example, a promotion might be a "transformation" that comes with both a benefit and a cost. For example, promoting a soldier to Captain or whatever gives them bonus stats, but requires them to be transferred off base for a week at Officer School, or whatever. I know some mods already do this via the transformation screen, but unifying the two might be desirable and could help make the drop-down not become so cluttered.

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OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [Suggestion] A way to display statCaps on the soldier info screen

« on: February 21, 2023, 08:31:42 pm »

PS: welcome to the forum Max

Good to be here.

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OXCE Suggestions DONE / [DONE][Suggestion] A way to display statCaps on the soldier info screen

« on: February 21, 2023, 04:58:55 pm »

While playing xpz (and I assume it would be similar for any other long-running mod), I have often desired to see if a soldier has reached the cap of their stat. But this information is not displayed anywhere, and it can be hard to keep track of mentally what a soldier's stat caps are when there are many different soldier types in play.

This enhancement was so mild I thought it would be a good low-hanging fruit to try and do myself, so I did. I have already sent in a pull request with this new "stat cap" feature. When a soldier's stat is at its cap, it will be displayed in the color2 color, which is configurable. A demonstration mod is also included in the pull request.