Messages

1

Suggestions / Re: Adaption for Battle Tech?

« on: March 23, 2014, 02:39:44 am »

ASCII might not be your thing, but there's a Battletech-inspired mod for X@COM, so essentially it's mech warfare (with infantry mixed in) using X-COM mechanics.

The standalone mod is named "Union", and can be found further down on the files page.

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Offtopic / Re: X@Com - Xcom as roguelike

« on: April 01, 2013, 06:18:21 am »

New release, X@COM now comes with sound effects! One of these days I'll catch up to OXC

And pmprog, to avoid that issue with new players having trouble figuring out how to disembark, I recently made it so targeting the air for movement moves to the ground below that space--should have done that a while ago...

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Suggestions / Re: Pathfinder

« on: February 13, 2013, 03:28:06 am »

Let me guess, the working chair is the one without built-in speakers and joystick ;p

@redv: Love the dialogue.

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Offtopic / Re: X@Com - Xcom as roguelike

« on: January 08, 2013, 10:18:49 am »

Cool, it's mouse wheel, btw (or numpad +/-). It highlights the level you're currently viewing off to the right on the HUD, and if you're based on a level higher than 1, it's likely lots of areas will be shaded in blue because they're below your current elevation.

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Offtopic / Re: X@Com - Xcom as roguelike

« on: January 07, 2013, 06:41:37 pm »

Ah yes, that gets a lot of people since the tutorial is in its infancy and the default mission starts you on level 2 (Skyranger). You have to switch to level 1 elevation if you want to move there. It'll be nicer once we've gotten beyond the simple UI, and have a tutorial intro to familiarize new players with how to use it.

A graphical tileset will be nice, though I haven't added official support for one yet, so anything done now would end up being extremely limited, merely replacing letters rather than assigning images to an arbitrary number of objects. At this stage that part of the game is not even as far along as Cogmind (for which tileset support took less than a day to add--for X@COM I have to wait until the full interface and data structure are in place ).

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Offtopic / Re: X@Com - Xcom as roguelike

« on: January 07, 2013, 05:59:30 pm »

Just uploaded something a little different: X-COM turned fantasy. Mostly a way to expand the engine and test out lots of crazy interactive possibilities. Later all this fun stuff can be applied to sci-fi/X-COM, both in the core game and through modding--no coding experience required!

On the sci-fi side, we already have a modder working on a WH40k version, too.

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Programming / Re: Aliens should see further

« on: November 07, 2012, 02:50:49 am »

I would suggest something more flexible: a visibilty range and a nightvision flag that is dependant of alien race. Keeping it default to what it's original xcom + you are able to add some interesting tactics if you want a different gameplay.

That what I'd do I did

Race determines whether or not they can see without light, and each unit has its own sight range value. You could also do interesting things with that like lowering a specific unit's SR due to a head/eye injury (X-COM already reduces accuracy for head injuries), or increasing it with special gear.

I always thought its just an illustration, and not really emitting light. (so the user can actually see what the soldier see around)

I think it comes from the armor, so I have it attached to that--remove your armor and the light goes off.

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Offtopic / Re: X@Com - Xcom as roguelike

« on: October 19, 2012, 07:23:24 pm »

Hehe, good point, he did mention later: "more like the DF raws actually, although that format is even stranger than yours "

Since this question will undoubtedly come up countless times in the future, I thought I'd write up the full answer in a convenient place I can point to if asked again ;p

I'll no doubt have to take a stance similar to your own about some aspects, at least once the project gains a bit more attention, otherwise I'll spend all my time answering these kinds of questions...

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Offtopic / Re: X@Com - Xcom as roguelike

« on: October 19, 2012, 03:39:55 pm »

Me too

I've spent years doing lots of custom syntax highlighting schemes for various editors, because I can't live without pretty colors telling me what everything is. How I used to code in a simple text editor back in the day beats me! (Actually, back then I had no idea what I was doing, so I guess it didn't matter =p)

And for further perusal, today someone else asked the *exact* same question as you on Bay 12. You can read here for a more in-depth discussion of "why not yaml," and other data/scripting ideas.

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Suggestions / Re: Balancing Psionics ?

« on: October 19, 2012, 02:19:06 pm »

Ah, true. I just refer to it as stamina in general, after the stat which defines it, but use the abbreviation "EN" in game to represent it since it is variable. Bad habit on my part, perhaps.

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Suggestions / Re: Balancing Psionics ?

« on: October 19, 2012, 11:48:38 am »

Yeah, stamina cost is how I'd do it, though 100% may be a bit harsh.

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Suggestions / Re: Balancing Psionics ?

« on: October 19, 2012, 07:33:57 am »

also, range-based difficulty for psionics was suggested and sounds logical

Actually, the original success rate is already range-based. See psionic formulas here.

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Suggestions / Re: Balancing Psionics ?

« on: October 19, 2012, 05:32:51 am »

I agree it's unbalanced--always one of the things I like to remove from the original completely using xcomutil.

It does still have its fun points and uses, so inclusion with proper limitations/tweaks make sense.

I really like your suggestion #4.

Reducing the chance of success (#1) by too much would make psionic attacks a lot less viable, though, so no one would even bother to use them.

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Offtopic / Re: X@Com - Xcom as roguelike

« on: October 14, 2012, 02:52:09 pm »

Yeah, it'll be months at the earliest probably. And that's just where I *try* it. I also have to actually get it to work


About the text files, I don't like to be restricted by other formats, since writing your own format is always more flexible. No convenient tools for parsing, true, but I can write my own when necessary.

I'm also obsessive about proper formatting and making things look exactly the way I want them to, so I like the generally cleaner look of my own files (which are tab-delimited files, btw, easily imported into spreadsheet software for analysis).

Since I use notepad++ with my own syntax highlighting scheme (as you've seen), scripting is also fairly easy in text mode.

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Offtopic / Re: X@Com - Xcom as roguelike

« on: October 14, 2012, 02:38:24 pm »

You asked that 10 posts ago

Would putting it somewhere on the roadmap appease you for the time being?

It does cross my mind occasionally... did just earlier today, in fact (no kidding!).

One day I will summon the courage to dive in, I promise.

However, I'm afraid that day will not be "soon."