Messages

1

Released Mods / Re: [WEAPON] Terran Plasma Weapons

« on: November 12, 2015, 03:59:11 pm »

Will 'borrow' your images and sounds when I get to my system. What can I use to recolour the weapons to a grayer blue / green colour?

No problem. Just be sure to credit me and Chiko, the original creator of the designs.

2

Released Mods / Re: [CRAFT] Improved Interceptor

« on: November 12, 2015, 03:30:25 am »

Updated in accordance to the new mod structure.

3

Released Mods / Re: [CRAFT] Firestorm Restyle

« on: November 12, 2015, 03:30:14 am »

Updated in accordance to the new mod structure.

4

Released Mods / Re: [GRAPHICS] Helm-off Power Suits (inventory screen)

« on: November 12, 2015, 03:29:58 am »

Updated in accordance to the new mod structure.

5

Released Mods / Re: [WEAPON] Terran Plasma Weapons

« on: November 12, 2015, 03:29:36 am »

Updated in accordance to the new mod structure.

Posted it at the mod site as well, but the system seems to be buggy at the moment.

6

Offtopic / Re: If X-COM was real, would you enlist?

« on: November 24, 2013, 05:12:04 pm »

The salaries would be great, but mostly for the future and/or to help your family, since you'd be living in an underground base for the duration of the war and could only make use of your awesome savings yourself once and if the war's won (or if you're sacked). I suppose it's an additional incentive to work 23 hours a day.

You wouldn't enlist, though. X-COM would come to you with their offer if you're among the best and brightest in the global military/scientific community (cue useless rookie jokes).

7

Programming / Re: Features: Show chance to hitting and the throw trajectory

« on: November 19, 2013, 07:55:51 pm »

A tile overlay (like in path preview) might be more accurate(...).

I agree. It can even be somewhat misleading since the outer tiles would only be partly covered by the circle, leaving it unclear whether a given fringe tile is affected.

And regardless of colour, the circle looks jarring and out of place because the battlescape deals in squares.

8

Suggestions / Re: [CORE] Replacing TFTD "Expend Remaining TUs" button with "Hold Fire" function

« on: November 19, 2013, 07:44:10 pm »

While the idea has some merit, I really don't think this is much of an issue, and I must say I've never had a problem with it in all my years of playing TFTD. The button itself is only useful in few, select situations, and the perceived disadvantages pointed out seem overblown:

- The fact the player's "forced" to apply it at the end of the turn is a tiny inconvenience.
- That it requires a failsafe is actually a positive detail, and the player can be informed of the RMB requirement just adding three words to the button's tooltip.
- I really can't see how it's prone to accidents, given the player would have to land a specialized right-click on a small, very specific part of the interface (a very narrow button quite removed from the map view) to trigger the function accidentally. How's that likely at all?

9

Work In Progress / Re: Empty magazines and belts.

« on: November 16, 2013, 01:13:58 am »

Seems like pointless micromanagement to me. Increased complexity has to add more to the game than just clicks and repetition.

Reloading is manual enough as it is (unless you use the R hotkey), so I can trust the trooper to press the button to drop the empty clip to the ground on his own.

10

Released Mods / Re: [WEAPON] Terran Plasma Weapons

« on: November 10, 2013, 09:09:26 pm »

What about requiring an "alien gun" to make any other gun? Or at least a gun as big as the alien gun. So even if only heavy plasmas are around, you can still take one and gut it for parts to build a regular plasma rifle.

Not sure. And I don't think manufacturing requirements work like that.

11

Suggestions / Re: TU usage as absolute, not relative

« on: November 10, 2013, 08:07:54 pm »

I agree with Sharp in that TU use percentages are supposed to represent the technical limitations of the items a soldier is using, and that their physical stats have no bearing on the weapon's speed.

I don't find it silly at all. A more athletic trooper won't make his rifle's bullets fly faster. A weapon needs a fixed amount of time to fire a fixed amount of bullets, and whether the soldier could run 20 or 50 metres in the same time doesn't change that fact. Yes, you could say a more experienced shooter can achieve the same accuracy as a lesser one faster, but X-COM opts for simply making skilled marksmen more precise. A mod implementing a system in which you can trade TUs for accuracy and viceversa would be neat, but quite the task.

Still, if you want to experiment, you could make a custom ruleset, set all the battlescape items to flatRate: true, tinker with various fixed TU values and see what happens. I can't promise the AI will adapt flawlessly: not sure how its logic works in this regard, but in a couple of previous occasions I've found out it plans around saving percentages of their TU reserves, as opposed to fixed figures.

12

Suggestions / Re: Make identification of alien ranks harder / more logical

« on: November 10, 2013, 07:40:29 pm »

I believe this would finally give the players a reason to research and use the Mind Probe in the field. I personally felt the Mind Probe to be pretty underused.

I'm not sure why you think the Mind Probe is underused. It's a critical piece of equipment when looking to capture aliens with specific ranks, which itself is a vital part of the game. The alternative is running around blindly stunning anyone and everyone, which is terribly inefficient and far from ideal.

13

Released Mods / Re: [WEAPON] Terran Plasma Weapons

« on: November 10, 2013, 06:43:15 pm »

Shadow what do you think about to produce human plasma weapon you need use alien weapon as base?
Logic behind this would be that we cant recreate alien weapon exactly and we need some parts form original to create human version.
It could be more than one alien gun to create new one.

As I said earlier, that makes sense in theory, but in practice eventually you'll only be able to build Heavy Plasmas, because that's all the aliens field after a certain point. I don't like to take that choice away from the player, and besides it dilutes the economic challenge and clashes with my intent to dethrone the Heavy Plasma as the be-all-and-end-all infantry weapon.

14

Released Mods / Re: [WEAPON] Terran Plasma Weapons

« on: November 09, 2013, 04:07:53 am »

Visually speaking, why does the Heavy Plasma has a scope if it has such poor accuracy? Also, I'd spice up its auto-fire accuracy a little. It's might weak now. You seriously nerfed one of the best weapons in the game to a nigh-useless status. Remember that in higher difficulties, the heavy plasma is one of the few guns that can successfully pierce sectopod armor. So either make the Heavy Laser a little more accurate, or keep the Heavy Plasma damage the same with a little better accuracy or maybe no auto-fire mode, like TFTD did with sonic weapons.

By default, the Heavy Plasma's accuracy is second only to the Plasma Rifle's except in aimed shots, in which it's the clear best. For the Terran variants, I only broadened that accuracy gap a bit by making the Plasma Rifle a tad (+10%) more accurate. The Heavy Plasma is unchanged on the precision front, and remains the second-most accurate weapon in the game. Aimed shots, which are the ones that benefit the most from a scope, still have the best accuracy, only now matched by the Plasma Rifle's.

And while it's 0-20 points weaker, it's faster to use and in optimal conditions provides the opportunity to fire a devastating 9-round burst (3 auto shots) in a single turn. It isn't as overpowered as it sounds, and it's a good option to have in some cases. Not to mention allowing troopers to be a bit more mobile and still be able to get shots off.

Going back to the damage front, I'd assume the inability to destroy inner UFO walls is a larger disadvantage than having to fire more shots to kill a Sectopod, an alien unit particularly resistant to plasma weaponry: by default, the Laser Rifle is virtually just as powerful as a Heavy Plasma against Sectopods (90 vs. 92, respectively, which is 90 vs. 84 with this mod). Heavy Lasers are still the best option against them (120)*.


*While Heavy Lasers are otherwise rather underpowered in the vanilla game, they're not made more so by this mod. And modding them is outside the scope of this project.

15

Released Mods / Re: [WEAPON] Terran Plasma Weapons

« on: November 08, 2013, 05:10:06 pm »

K, sorry I haven't used plasma pistols lol.  Great mod tho, i love it soo much

Thanks!