Messages

61

Resources / Re: Drages Weapon Sprite Collection

« on: July 02, 2017, 01:44:00 am »

The sectopods seem neat, especially the steel one, but it's hard to tell through these wonky filters. Try disabling them before doing anything serious

Good point. I worked on them more.. I gave more blacker colors to dark-disc.. I worked on Triscene from TFTD. I made some pixel and color editing, tongue when walking and some more bloody teeth. The ones i saw at FMD got bad quality, noisy color pixels, so i wanted to make a right one. Photoshop did not allow me to create a green one for no-actual reason.. but i am fighting for it..

Cyberdisk got some falling blue things on top of it.. don't know how to correct it. Any ideas?

62

Resources / Re: Drages Weapon Sprite Collection

« on: July 01, 2017, 11:39:19 pm »

I tried some HW recoloring for alien recovered units. Cyberdisc and Sectopod were always my nightmares so having them at our side or giving more fearsome versions to the enemy would be a good option..

I tried Falco's tools but i got a problem with cyberdisc.. any help about that?

Here is the example.. i can make more if needed or i am open for all critic or suggestions.

63

Work In Progress / Re: AI and weapon range/hit chance stats

« on: June 30, 2017, 10:57:38 pm »

Also, by sniping, I just mean firing beyond visual range (20 tiles without any of the OXCE stuff), something players do quite often but aliens cannot without psi attacks or blaster launchers.  Letting a few aliens fire when their buddies see a target but they don't would go quite a ways towards leveling the playing field for the AI.

Hmm this is something new and nice.

64

Work In Progress / Re: AI and weapon range/hit chance stats

« on: June 30, 2017, 07:05:00 pm »

As long as real life^tm allows, and I see potential in the modder (i.e. their spirit lasts for more than 3 months ), I will gladly help if I can. I can't promise everything, but we did some really cool things with piratez already, no reason to stop now. There are boundaries tho, be prepared for compromises.

Yeah that 3 month life span of the modder.. I done it for 2+ years at xenonauts to make"perfect" game for me, with nearly not playing it at all.. heh.. paradox.. I stopped because i saw that i done more then it should as game wise.. it's like "more is not better" so everything should have a limit, a line where it should stop.. i should do less.. some people can get confused with 1000+ research and it's xpedias.. I finished my part and other people still continue to improve it. So as short, i hope i can go more then 3 month , at least i know what i want and use to mod this kind of games.

The biggest problem is being alone at making a mod for a game. XCOM modding is still alive, i can ask you something, we can discuss it.. Sadly i was very late to xenonauts modding when there are people who is modding it.. that hype is important. I am an old guy anyway as 35+... i like to create and see it working on a game rather then playing it. But as i said, i overdone it more then enough and i start to not like what i done... i wish i go back and change things, make it more simple, more wise..  It's still something crazy but not for my dream anymore.. but i was too late so i stop it and wanted to give a chance to myself at openxcom..

So back to the topic. I will see what AI can do after i handled the weapon coding.. Thanks for your helping with patience.

We're also having a discussion to add some spotter/sniper tactics the the AI in OXCE+, this might be useful for you.

XCOM map sizes and styles are not so good for sniping.. for both sides.. as vanilla game, every alien with plasma rifle or heavy plasma are simply "snipers" because they can shoot you well enough from far points as the map allows.. so you try to counter it with tons of auto shots with praying hit chance god to kill a single guy.. As a vanilla style lover and FMP player, i saw that maps are already very crowded.. I mean at terror sites, there are tons of buildings, at small ufo sites, there is tons of natural blocks with different highs, at big ufos, there is just ufo.. i try to say that, there is not much maps for range play as i see..

I am not a map maker, never was. I won't create maps in the future too so i stuck with what i can have from others.

As i said, the vanilla AI is already snipers at my eyes.. it could improve of course. BUT the real deal is close combat AI where the AI can ambush you or wait/find best time to attack. And an aggressive AI which will make you stuck where you are with suppression firing non-stop..

another question is.. if i give an alien more then one ranged weapon, like a long range mid damage and short range high damage gun, will it change that weapons? Can AI swap weapons to choose the best as ranged?

65

Work In Progress / Re: AI and weapon range/hit chance stats

« on: June 30, 2017, 05:32:02 pm »

Best is to try it out.

Enable "traceAI" option in options.cfg, turn on debug mode and see what the aliens do exactly (on the screen and in the log file).

To be honest, I don't see any "modern" weapon being limited in range... it's just... unrealistic?
Maybe throwing knives, or some sort of flamethrowers could have limited range, but the rest?

20 tiles corresponds to "a small building", so 20-40 meters? Many people can throw a rock that far....

To answer your specific question: if you set max range 10 on a heavy plasma, the alien 20 tiles away will decide to shoot... and fail to shoot (please correct me if I'm wrong on this one).

Yes as range, the ballistic bullets goes mostly far then you can see. But the problem is the hit chance here. So you can shoot a rifle which got about 500 meter range, but the bullet would go crazy even you shoot it from a stable point. If you add human accuracy, the chance go really bad. As a navy officer, i know it a bit (not gun expert, just we shoot and i got some experience from that)...

So as game wise, we need something tactical for chess play, with simulating some realism. I am against pure realism at this kind of games, but i would like to have own tactical rules.

So as your example, even within the biggest map of XCOM, a SMG or bigger weapon can easily shoot far then map size. But with the hit chance dropoff, even you can have the range, your chance will be zero after a while.. as number example: you got a simple rifle with limitless range but gets "0" hit chance after 20 tile.  So a new player who does not this, could try to fire everywhere with his rifle. You can tell me that "the game shows you the acc per tile, so the player would not shoot if he saw zero.." and yeah.. maybe.. i am still at planning phase.. i can just use maxAimed, maxSnap, maxAuto.. which is possible..

If i use unlimited range for mid to large weapons but acc dropoff then Aliens could start to shoot with 0 percent.. so it's important to code it right for both sides. Most of alien weapons could not be used by XCOM directly so i can code them different.. this was the reason i asked the AI.. and the dropoff in percentage..

My poor english does not allow me to explain myself well enough at complex things. I am a modder who plans and thinks every possiblity probably like PirateZ.. so don't expect something simple from me..

66

Work In Progress / Re: AI and weapon range/hit chance stats

« on: June 30, 2017, 05:03:47 pm »

There is no such thing as alien snipers.
They can shoot at 20 tiles max, that's it.

You _could_ increase global vision ranges up to 35 or 40 in OXCE/OXCE+ (but no more, that will kill the game performance, even with the great optimisations Stiansel made for us) and then rebalance everything... but, it's a lot of work, with an unpredictable result (success/failure).

The problem is not about the snipers, it's short rangers.. think about a heavy plasma with 10 max range and an alien with that gun who saw you from far.. so what will happen? will he rush to shoot? will he try to assault me from shadows? will he wait? or go mad.. and simulate this with 5-6 tile range weapons.. 20 is more then enough for an alien..

67

Work In Progress / Re: AI and weapon range/hit chance stats

« on: June 30, 2017, 04:50:46 pm »

Don't get me wrong. I am at aliens side.

I just want to give them powerful weapons, but I don't want them to snipe me from far. So I nerfed badly the player weapons with range mostly. So when you can only shoot 5 tile with a pistol, it would be absurd to get hit by alien pistol from snipe range. It's same for enemies uses human weapons.

I plan to make a real short mid and long  range combat for players and I wanted to know what happens if I do this to aliens for balance.

68

Work In Progress / AI and weapon range/hit chance stats

« on: June 30, 2017, 12:10:40 am »

I don't have any slightest idea about the Xcom AI.. and as i see there is no AI file to edit.

So if there is people who knows how the AI works, please enlighten me. I want to edit the alien weapon stats with ranges and hit chances and even damage dropoffs.. What does AI care when it's shooting? Does it check for a hit chance limit? Does it calculate the possibility of killing the target?

For example, at Xenonauts, the AI got an acceptable hit chance limit before hit fires, like the enemy goes near you to get that chance or run out to safety. So if you give a poor acc weapon to aliens, they do not attack you, or rush you without firing until they hug you (something you don't want to see). Another example is, if the enemy thinks that, his fire power is not enough to kill, it just don't go aggressive too and go hiding or near to his other fellas.

So if i give low acc weapons, will the Xcom aliens stop shooting? What will they react to limited range weapons? Does "dropoff" work to aliens shooting too? Should i avoid some important things when coding alien weapons then?

Thx.

69

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [Suggestion] Dropoff in Percent and powerRangeReduction doesn't go minus.

« on: June 30, 2017, 12:00:55 am »

As a percentage of what?

Hmm it's a good point. I would like to see it the total hit change of the unit who fires the gun. Please correct me if i know wrong, the calculation of the hit possibility is:

 "units acc * %weapon's acc of shooting type=hit chance".

So this weapon's acc is changing per weapon and it's shooting types. I think dropoff should use the % of the "hit chance". With this i can say that, my hit chance will go "0" after 5 tile when i use dropoff:0.2. Otherwise, when you use flat numbers, you can have "0" chances even inside the weapon range. This will help to the balance calculations. I would like to have a choice to use it as % at least, if i can have it.

Yeah capping 0 would be very nice and not confusing.

70

OXCE Suggestions DONE / [DONE] [Suggestion] Dropoff in Percent and powerRangeReduction doesn't go minus.

« on: June 29, 2017, 11:42:20 pm »

Hey

I am working on my mod's coding part and i want to use all the tactical stats of a weapon to make every weapon really unique and like more real life versions. I am using all the armour destroying, armor penetrating, power ranges, max ranges, dropoff, to stun,time,armour.. anything.. so a pistol will be a really short range weapon with fast shooting, a LMG with armour destroying bullets and a shotgun which paralyze the target with some TU damage and stun damage support (as they are mostly non-lethal using at RL)..

So everything is as percentage and it's very nice. Just one thing.. As i know that, dropoff is still flat at xce and xce+. It's really pain to try to calculate dropoff for every weapon/weapontype as flat numbers.. It would be much useful if the hit change drops as percentage.

And when i use powerRangeReduction and check it with pressing CTRL in game, i see that i goes "minus" damage. I do not know it's healing or not after it became minus, but it does not make sense even it's visual.. just seeing your gun makes "-8" damage is not right. So let it stop at 0 like the acc dropoff..

thx!

71

OXCE Support / Re: Any Way to turn off "shot following"?

« on: June 29, 2017, 11:31:09 pm »

Shift Click to make your soldier walk, ignoring previously spotted enemies.  Its a feature of OXCE+

Is there a way to make this default? It's lame to press something more for every movement.

72

Suggestions / Re: Can we get some weapon codes from XCE+ to Nightly?

« on: June 28, 2017, 10:17:10 am »

PS: what may happen someday is a merge of OXCE and OXCE+ ... but it's a bit early to talk about that

Everyone got his answers and everybody is right. There is only different point of views.

Merging xce and xce+ is a very good idea. Yankes and you are dedicated and talented artists who got nearly same goals about giving more options to this game. I can clearly see that. With you, this game became one of best tactical and strategical game ever done.

So for this reason, as a new moder who wants to create something good with all options under my hand, I don't see a reason to have xce and xce+ plus separately. Xce should be a project done by all the coders who knows what they do, how to test it and how to make it bug free.

You are inside this for years and probably get use to it how to work like this as a developer and moder same time. But it's really mass for new comers with no reason.

If you ask me, there should be only nightly and xce+. Nightly for default openxcom devs and moders with key features which xce got time to time, and Xce+ should have all the everything and more for other people.

Simple solutions are always better.

73

Suggestions / Re: Can we get some weapon codes from XCE+ to Nightly?

« on: June 28, 2017, 09:06:52 am »

Heh. I expected this question.

I can counter this with a question too, as if we got xce+ which got everything, why do we have xce, nightlies, and even 1.0? Just let all the great devs work on xce+ and make the biggest and only one.

I will use xce+, there is no problem but I checked the new additions and I figure out that I will use only %3 of it and those are a tactical game needs in its core. So If I had them at the core build, I could live with it with a more simple way.

But my main reason is, those codes are very important and tactical with fitting to the vanilla play. So it would be useful to have them at more simple and core build.

74

Suggestions / Can we get some weapon codes from XCE+ to Nightly?

« on: June 28, 2017, 12:50:39 am »

Hey!

There is some codes which will be very important and a "must" for tactical gameplay i saw at XCE.

powerRangeReduction: 0.0 #how much power a bullet loses per tile. - Weapon types with range involved.
powerRangeThreshold: 0.0 #how far in tiles bullet need fly to start appling `powerRangeReduction`.

ArmorEffectiveness: 0.5   #how effective armor is against this damage. -Real Armor penetrating
ToArmor: 0.25     #how much damage is done to armor. Default `0.0` for stun, smoke, fire, none, `0.25` for rest. -Armor destroying weapons..
ToArmorPre: 0.0   #how much damage is done to armor before applying armor protection. Default `0.0`.

Is there a chance that we can get those to nightlies? thx!

75

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: obsolete tag

« on: June 28, 2017, 12:35:52 am »

I can imagine using this for straight up upgrades to tech. Make laser rifles MKII that are a bit better than normal ones but take the same resources. No point of keeping old versions in manufacturing list because it's just clutter at this point. Or you could use it to outsource tech to civilian companies meaning that after selling the contract you can't build it anymore, but can buy it for same or less money.

This is a good point and I was thinking to ask same thing.

This is a problem with items with many updates. I done the MK thing, at my huge Xenonauts mod. Xenonauts got a command at research code named "replace", this replaces some item to the other item. But it's not good enough and sadly it's only works right at infinity items. With numbered items, only the items in storage replaces and the ones at soldier inventory just disappears. This became huge problems if the item is something important. And the manufacture code gets problem because the manufacture still try to manufacture the old one.

This is mostly for UI problems. You can keep the old version but this means you will have it everywhere even you would never use it. For example you got a weapon tier with 10 weapon inside it. When you want "2" more update to that weapon with all the manufacture and everything will be same but the weapon only will get some buffs, you will have 20 weapons (as MK1 and MK2) without any reason to stay in the game.

Xenonauts does not have different ammo for same weapon, which is one of the worst thing of that game. So you need to update the weapon itself for any kind of buff, you need to make a totally new weapon. So OpenXcom got ammos to help about that but it can't buff all the weapon stats like fire types.

So for that reason, a soft replace code could be usefull. With this code, when you replace the ID, it will replace it at everywhere.. from researches to manufactures.. so you will update the weapon only when you won't need the old one anymore.