Messages

1

Work In Progress / Re: [TC][OXCE] Terminator: Tech-Comm - version 0.34 released December 6th

« on: June 04, 2019, 05:59:00 am »

Feeling extremely pessimistic adding this in when I could be more helpful, but I'm imagining "Search Mode" missions where the HKs don't even show up sometimes. Sometimes you notice where an HK will be next, other times your TechCom troops wait for 60+ turns for nothing to even happen. Maybe some ambushes by HK Tanks as the games evolves. Would be very true to life given the nightmares of Iraq and Afghanistan.

2

IDT Modding Hub / Re: [TC] [WIP] [OXCE] The Great War of the Worlds

« on: May 29, 2019, 10:33:47 pm »

Not sure if this has already been posted, but has anyone seen this? I swear it relates:

Orchestral versions of the Geoscape theme have been done to death, but this one reminds me a great deal of the full-orchestra version of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. It feels like it could easily be period-appropriate and I immediately thought of this mod.

3

XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - J12 - 24 Feb - Wetworks

« on: March 03, 2019, 08:11:50 pm »

Just updated after another hiatus, wanted to say the new Geoscape looks great, especially the touched-up menu buttons and stuff. Normally I think stuff like shadowing and fancier interface buttons are annoying and pointless but here that little bit of extra detail actually really adds something. In general the game feels a bit more vibrant now.

This is kind of off-topic but I really wanted to share this anecdote: About three-ish years back, Fallout 4 had just come out and I was talking to a friend who'd purchased it. I got on the topic of how the "laser-muskets" in the game were a goofy idea and mentioned that it would have been more interesting if the game started you off with actual muskets to show just how badly things had degraded and how primitive the survivors had become. We concluded Fallout 4 just wasn't that kind of game, I think. Literal days later I downloaded X-Piratez from some backwater site with zero idea of what to expect, went on my first mission and found... you start off with actual muskets. Mind blown.

I still can't believe the sheer density of content in the mod and finding something I have an interest in made it into the mod is always a sweet surprise (ex. the raygun from Forbidden Planet, werewolves, Flash Gordon references). You've gotta be in the running for maximum number of references and content rolled into one game by this point. But the one that's always gonna stick with me is seeing that random idea I had just materialize by some insane coincidence. I was grinning like an idiot. Well, at least until my troops were slaughtered to almost nothing on the first mission, but that comes with the territory.

4

Work In Progress / Re: [TC][OXCE] Terminator: Tech-Comm - version 0.34 released December 6th

« on: March 03, 2019, 04:50:11 am »

Just some further musings, but: I dunno if the air combat really needs to be "fixed". The HKs (in either of the movies) seem to function more like jet versions of modern attack helicopters. Which are infact vulnerable to being shot down by interceptors and proper jet fighters. If you want to limit this, perhaps have the jets and stuff be limited to the endgame only, when Tech-Comm acquires enough resources to fix up an old jet or two? The air-war thing is extremely cool, but it would make more sense as an endgame element, some kind of triumphant goal reached where the player can *finally* start shooting down the seemingly invincible HKs.

In the mean time, perhaps instead of shooting HK Aerials down, the players start by attacking HK tanks? If you can't get something so big to move through the map, making it a UFO with turrets would be reasonably close. HK Aerials could be a hazard that shows up if you take too long. Something you can't kill just starts shooting your troops with 100%+ accuracy one soldier per turn after it shows up, and you have to suffer that throughout the game until you get a working jet and get to pay it back.

I also thought a bit more about Chris's micro-Terminators, and I realized a sprite only about 5-10 pixels in size would be the most brutal and annoying X-Com enemy ever created and would defintely fit here, even if it would only be killed in one shot from any weapon. Even if such a creation looks like a clump of indistinct pixels, I think this might be a really cool and easy way to start the campaign off. Just a bunch of cellphone-sized enemies that die in one hit, but can still kill your troops if they needle them. Forcing the player to pay attention if they aren't using OXCE's tools, or if their eyesight is as bad as mine.

5

Work In Progress / Re: [TC][OXCE] Terminator: Tech-Comm - version 0.34 released December 6th

« on: March 01, 2019, 03:40:20 am »

I feel kind of dumb suggesting this because I have nothing to contribute but ideas here (unfortunately I can't sprite, code, etc) but I think some of the progession is kind of wrong. Shooting down HKs as the main conciet of the game is actually a novel idea, and makes sense given the fact that they seem more like attack helijets than anything that could really hold its own in a dogfight. Even though the mod seems to be having the same issues for me as the dude above, that first couple of interceptions was really intense and seeing an HK through the scope was wild. My game crashes unpredictably after a few minutes of play though.

I did get one ground mission done, and while I like it, facing Terminators, even T-600s and earlier models right off just feels wrong. I always imagined that the HK Aerials and HK Tanks we see in the movie were the real forces of Skynet's arsenal. If Skynet would fill its craft with defense drones, they'd probably be compact, especially the early ones. Small, weakly armored, lightly armed, dare I say "boring" robots that are basically just a machine gun or rocket launcher on treads, kind of like some military prototypes today. The Terminators are supposed to be "The newest. The worst." Chris actually discussed this on one of his musings, concluding that Skynet's arsenal must have started out with more recognizable robots first and moved to Terminators later. Chris's intial conception of Skynet's first drones are as tiny rodent-sized poison needle-shooting paranoia machines, which I would imagine is next to impossible to emulate in XCOM. Some of the robot artwork from the original Wasteland videogame might be a good cross-reference if I had to point to anything else that tried the abstract robot route.

I don't really think James Cameron actually thought the whole scenario all the way through like this, so it can be argued a lot one way or the other, and Terminator 2 definitely implies the Endoskeletons fought on the front lines so who knows. Also, I know what I'm suggesting would entail different sprite work and probably a significant change in mechanics to accomodate it, so please take this as friendly input and not demanding. My jaw just about hit the floor when I even heard there's a Terminator mod out for OpenXCOM, and I have no doubt that once its finished it'll probably be the closest a Terminator game will ever come to the Fight For the Future even if it remains a strict XCOM clone. This is a bit of fantasizing, mostly. Though when it comes to sprite work a box on treads with a gun sticking out of it might be easier to draw and animate than trying to invent 6-8 unique Endoskeleton variants.

Either way I look forward to seeing where this goes and I hope the issues with the mod get ironed out. I'm surprised anyone else even knew about Chris's website let alone was basing an XCOM mod off of it (will the Buster show up?) but I suppose Terminator fans really stick together more than I thought. Love the redesigned Geoscape by the way, instantly puts me in the mood.

(PS: To whoever put the soundtrack together, the music from the first movie used is taken from The Definitive Edition, which sounds a little bit different from the movie's actual soundtrack. Brad Fidel did a closer version to it later, though some tracks sound better on The Definitive Edition since its basically a remix. Not a really a criticism, I enjoy both versions, I just figure its only a matter of time before some music snob points this out so I figured I'd beat them to the punch.)

6

XPiratez / Re: Important: Upgrading Saves Between Versions

« on: November 19, 2018, 05:08:21 pm »

The wise option is to start from the beginning. That's going to be a completely different game with all the changes given

Would you consider it as radical as the change between the very old version of Piratez where you started with the Bonaventura right off and the current edition? Otherwise, like a lot of overly sentimental XCOM players I've gotten attached to the few veterans that have managed to survive. Additionally, the game feels like it just opened up for me.

7

XPiratez / Re: Important: Upgrading Saves Between Versions

« on: November 18, 2018, 06:14:10 pm »

Hello, I downloaded version 99j1, played for a bit, then took a break because I figured like most mods that development was going to proceed at a snail's pace. What I didn't count on was Dioxine's excellent turnover time, and now I'm multiple updates behind. I figure getting into the minutae of each update at this point would just be a giant headache for everyone involved so, to simplify, would it be a better idea to track down all of the legacy versions and Upgrade->Open Save->Save Game->Upgrade->Etc or should I be reasonably fine just jumping to the latest version?

For the record, all I'm concerned with is bugs that will either crash the game or bug the research tree and otherwise make the game impossible to complete. A few items transforming or going missing is always something I can recover from. My tech tree progress is 18%, if that matters.