Messages

1

Hardmode Expansion / Re: Hardmode Expansion - Bugreports

« on: November 06, 2024, 05:00:40 pm »

Had multiple maps close to this, but now I got a map with no path to the UFO. Those map tiles with 85% water on is a bit much.
See screenshot.

On that subject I would like to feeback on the "pyramid" map tiles that you can walk in to.
They are super annoying, no fun in any way. Challenge is one thing, but this is just timedemanding and yea, annoying.

Can you give a shor explination on how to edit this? I do some mod editing (for myself).
But I do not know how the map generation works. Can I simply remove the map tiles I do not want to have ingame, or would that break something in the code?

Cheers for the mod  =)

Hello there.

Yes this can happen. It will also happen with the vanilla polar maps in the artic.

It did reduce the chance of this happening in Hardmode Expansion via Mapscripts but it can and will still happen.
The tiles on the map are placed in a random order so any possible configuration can happen.
What i can do is tell the mapscript how often a tile is used and under which conditions but in the end its still procedural generated randomness.

Just hunker in Smoke and throw some proxies and wait until turn 14+, when the aliens will move out, then you can kill from the distance.

2

Hardmode Expansion / Re: [EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion -- General Feedback Thread

« on: November 06, 2024, 04:55:25 pm »

Never played this mod before, are there any submods I should load right away or can they all be considered optional?

All so titeled SUBMODS on the Hardmode Expansion Board are a part of the Mod.
The SUBMODs only exist in seperate forms so vanilla Players, can also use them as mods alone, without Hardmode Expansion.

Just to make that clear

Submods are by definition optional.

Hardmode Expansion gaves birth to standalone SUBMODs and all of them are a part of Hardmode Expansion.

3

Hardmode Expansion / Re: Is there an equivalency for TFTD?

« on: July 04, 2024, 12:46:33 am »

Was interested if there might be a mod already or if anyone is working on one. :^)

I am not planning to make a Hardmode Expansion Mod for TFTD. This one here for UFO Defense is enough work for me

There other TFTD Mods out there, but I never tried those out. TFTD is not my thing. I like UFO Defense more

4

Hardmode Expansion / Re: [SUBMOD][EQUIPMENT]Advanced Medikit Mod - mod repack

« on: June 26, 2024, 09:02:33 am »

Is this integrated into Hardmode expansion?

Yes. Every Submod listed here. Submods are birthed from the big Mod.

They are basically small standalone mods for people who are hesitant to use a big mod back or just want something specific for their vanilla play.

5

Hardmode Expansion / Re: [EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion -- General Feedback Thread

« on: June 17, 2024, 02:28:59 pm »

I would always take two to three inexperienced/sacrificial guys as psi sponges on missions where sectoid leaders would show up. I just wanted to see how psionically strong soldiers would fare against the eths. After all, there won't be enough psi sponges if it's not just the leaders who are psychics. And 90+ psi soldiers are hard to come by (less than 20 of them across three main bases so far).

Screening for High PSI Str is a costly process, but totally worth it.
I usually start with a Team of 80+ and a Secondary Team of 69+, the secondary Team with some PSi Skill Training in the lab can be used relatively safely against Sectoids and the occasional mixed in Ethereal.
I screen for high psi 90+ and gather rookies and train them on the field, everyone else PSI Str 68- gets used for attacking alien bases  of non Psi races until they died a honorable Death on the battlefield.

Or you turn on the Option of PSI Str Improvement and let the 69+ guys slowly become 90ish
The Psi Str improvement can be done in the Psilab or on the battelfield (even thou the battelfield is way more effective.) and can be combined with bravery training. Obviously everyone below 69 is just trash.

On an unrelated note, I have a suggestion: the HWP limits for crafts don't apply just for 2x2 tanks, but also for drones. I was scrolling through the ruleset reference and saw that  parameters such as maxSmallVehicles and maxLargeVehicles exist. How about making use of this so that more drones can be carried by each type of craft?

I am hesitant regarding his change. Would need some testing. And you can bring at least 3 Drones/Tanks and a Maximum of 4 totally with the vanilla setting.

Here a suggestion on how it could be changed as a example:
Skyranger - Max 2 Drones and Max 2 Tanks
Skystriker - Max 4 Drones and Max 2 Tanks
Thunder - Max 4 Drones and Max 2 Tanks
Avenger - Max 6 Drones and Max 3 Tanks

No clue how to balance this at the moment.

The problem is which spaces on the Craft do they occupy on the Battelfield Map, it would requiere some testing to see how it behaves.

6

Hardmode Expansion / Re: [EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion -- General Feedback Thread

« on: June 14, 2024, 11:22:51 pm »

Does Bravery play a role in Psi Defence? AFAIK the psi attack and defence formulas are moddable. In my first Ethereal encounter, a Fighter UFO landing site in February 2000, they managed to get my high psi strength soldiers (one at 83 PST/49 PSK/10 BRV, another at 88/23/20) to panic like it was nothing. I would put it down to the relatively short distance due to the small map size or the controlling aliens being Eth leaders substituted for the lacking officer ranks, but they seemed to go for the low bravery ones to perform their mind tricks on.

We are using vanilla PSI rules here. Bravery does not play a role in any PSI checks. Just to make that clear.
It gets checked after the morale is lowered (from PSI Panic e.g.) below 50 to see if any Panic action will happen (running in Panic, going berserk etc..) see: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Panic

I recommend Soldiers with PSI-Str 90+ against Ethereals. Usually you are safe with this for an distance at least against mind control.

Using 1 or 2 Psi weak Soldiers as Lightningrods is really helpful

Also do not forget that distance plays a significant role in Psi Attacks. The more distance the lower the chance of any attack to succeed.

So yes smaller craft have smaller maps, so Ethereals might be more powerful on those (also depends on your random chance as usual).

Hope this answered your question

7

Released Mods / Re: [RESEARCH] Research Alive Aliens - v1.54 Final - Translators needed

« on: June 14, 2024, 11:11:56 pm »

when will be a https://mod.io/g/openxcom/ release ?

This mod was the precursor of my Hardmode Expansion Mod

This thread here only exists as a historic project.

So yes it it true it does not exist on its own anymore, but it was the basis of development of my: Hardmode Expansion Mod

Any features in it exist there and even more so.

I am not gonna update this as a standalone.

EDIT: If you wish to do this on your own feel free to do so (Giving CREDIT is highly recommended Thanks.)

8

Hardmode Expansion / Re: Hardmode Expansion - Bugreports

« on: June 09, 2024, 05:06:19 am »

Yes and this is intentionally so!
This is not a Oversight.

The first Mission the game starts in Hardmode Expansion is a Alien Base Building mission.
To make sure the player will get the Alien Base and is able to progress in the research tree.
The Alien base is also structured in a specific way, so specific maps modules will appear, to provide specific recoverable modules.

On second thought, i could split this gameStart part into a total unique mission, with separate mapScript and deployment.
To unify the mechanics so that such confusions do not occur in the future. It would also unify the behaviour ingame, so it would make sense for the player.

EDIT: Added towards Future Development Plan

EDIT2: Why is the Email notification for new post on the forum so delayed? Anyway back to bed...zzzZZzzzz

9

Hardmode Expansion / Re: Hardmode Expansion - Bugreports

« on: June 09, 2024, 05:02:28 am »

Just went through the files, the mechanism in question has been applied for STR_ALIEN_INFILTRATION and for STR_ALIEN_BASE_BASE_MISSION but not for the regular STR_ALIEN_BASE which is the one that's showing in your log. It has no interruption chances and no dummy UFO that would delay the base spawn.

Yes and this is intentionally so!
This is not a Oversight.

The first Mission the game starts in Hardmode Expansion is a Alien Base Building mission.
To make sure the player will get the Alien Base and is able to progress in the research tree.
The Alien base is also structured in a specific way, so specific maps modules will appear, to provide specific recoverable modules.

Thanks for pointing this out. I've located the ruleset file and taken the liberty to edit it so the plain base mission gets the same dummy UFO since this seems to be an oversight on hellrazor's part.

You assumption in this regard is wrong. This was not a oversight but intentionally. Reasons see above.

It is clearly stated in the README.txt that this interruption chance only applies for Alien Base Building Missions started from Alien Bases. To give the player the opportunity to limit self replication of alien bases, because the plain existence of a alien base implies a score penalty ~1k per month.
Thats also the reason why the player gets this chance for Alien Infiltrations, since Alien Infiltrations will never stop and Alien Bases from Alien Infiltrations will just keep coming until oblivion.

I'm running the version 0.99.9.5 (with all the QoL changes and stuff) and the mechanism you've described here clearly doesn't exist. I'm still getting an alien base the moment the battleship shows up:

Code: [Select]

  - "gameTime: 2000-01-31 13:30:00 ufoId: 308 ufoType: STR_BATTLESHIP race: STR_MUTON_ELITE region: STR_SOUTH_ATLANTIC trajectory: P6 missionId: 62 missionType: STR_ALIEN_BASE"
  - "gameTime: 2000-01-31 13:30:00 baseId: 13 baseType: STR_ALIEN_BASE race: STR_MUTON_ELITE region: STR_SOUTH_ATLANTIC deployment: STR_ALIEN_BASE_ASSAULT missionId: 62 missionType: STR_ALIEN_BASE"
The mod.io page says it's been a while since the last update and the Github repository doesn't seem to contain any commits more recent than that. I wonder if I'm missing out on something here.

And that is totally fine for the vanilla Alien Base Mission.

On a further note, even with the recent QoL update the Ufopedia hides the fact that melee weapons get a bonus from strength. I was unaware of this until I checked the stats for nerds. Other mods have the pedia entries display accuracy and firepower bonus formulas at the bottom of the page. All this time I thought melee was utterly useless in this mod.

Stats for nerds is a recommended Option and turned on when first loading the mods. How to display this info in the UFOpaedia article, I will have todo some research (probably creating new strings or so). It certainly does not hurt to make sure the player knows this. Melee weapons are actually pretty effective, even the mighty Armored Sectopod can be killed by it.
You can consider this a oversight, due to mod creator knowledge.

10

Hardmode Expansion / Re: Hardmode Expansion - Bugreports

« on: June 05, 2024, 09:57:28 am »

A couple things:

1 - Not exactly a bug, but soldier armour sprites on the Craft screen are all the same, you can't tell what armours they're wearing (see attachment where the crew is a mix of power suits, reinforced power suits and flying suits).
[Edit: I've just downloaded the recent version and seen it fix this particular issue.]

You probably pulled the github Version before and what you used was most likely out of date or incomplete.
Please if in doubt always use the HardmodeExpansion on mod.io
It is usually complete and correct.

2 - The readme file says:
An alien base is generated the moment the final battleship arrives (as the geoscapeDebugLog shows), so this mechanic doesn't work as advertised. Though it does with the other mission types and destroying a pact-generated base does return the country. By the way, does destroying such a base before the end of month prevent the defection from ever taking place?

The percentage is 33% for each mission. Please recheck the README.txt. I found a way to make this mechanic work. The Alien Base will now spawn with a extra Dummy UFO, a maximum of 2 days after the battleship shows up. The delay is neccessary, since the battelship needs a few hours to find a landing point and it stays landed around a max of 12 hours.
I had to make sure that the player has enough time to cancel the mission by attacking or shooting down the batleship, before the next missionwave (the dummy UFO, which you won't see), gets exceuted or is cancelled. To make this mechanic work I had to do it this way.
So in case you defeated a battleship on a infiltration mission or a Alien Base building Mission (which originated from a alien base, no Scouts!) you should check the region for a alien base 2 days later to see if it occured or not. Usually once you defeat the battleship and you trigger the interruptionchance, all other UFO's from the same mission will take off immediatly, so you know it has been cancelled.

3 - Something trivial, but still. One of the medics I interrogated gave for free Sectopod corpse (and the lookup autopsy). Sectopod corpse is still on the research topic list. I believe this is not supposed to happen.

Sectopod Corpse is dependency together with alive Sectopod to unlock Walkertanks. Its totally fine to still be researchable, even after you got the lookup from medic.
No worries there

11

Hardmode Expansion / Re: [EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion -- General Feedback Thread

« on: May 31, 2024, 05:28:45 pm »

Hardmode Expansion 0.99.9.5 - Quality of Life - Balancing and Bugfixes

Download Link: Hardmode Expansion 0.99.9.5 - Quality of Life - Balancing and Bugfixes

I call this Quality Of Life because we fully arrived in the OXCE world now with Hardmode Expansion Mod.
I enabled a lot QOL features on the Battlescape and Geoscape. Some Screenshots see HERE
I also added a lot Graphics found nice GUI enhancement mods, which i deemed worthy to be absorbed.
The Ufopaedia good a boost, with images for all Tanks and Drones.

And of course i fixed some more bugs, some critical (game crash!). So please feel free to update.

I wanted to focus on missions and terrains but it was QOL first

I am looking forward to mix and match terrains with the OXCE possibilities.
Also I found a sprite of Chryssalid hatching from the ground. Now guess what this will become *evilgrin*

I will now focus on Terrain first an then Missions. For real! (I will have to reinstall my desktop computer for this, so please be patient this takes ages for me todo.)

And there is now a Wiki!
Wiki (Automatically generated from github): Hardmode Expansion Wiki - trigramreactor
(Big Thanks to noblebright from Discord, which set this one up for me)

I hope you all have a great summer, I am looking forward for further feedbacks, critique points and curses and praises.
I will keep the vanilla theme of this as it is. Added Graphics and better GUI some more features will not change that whatsoever!
Please help translating the Mod, if you can and if you want.

Further development of the mod will follow, since I am planning to add some stuff. See: Future Development Plan

Modfile also attached towards this post: Hardmode Expansion v0.99.9.5

If you wanna help translate, the mod is on Transifex

Please use newest OXCE Version, or at least OXCE Version: OXCE 7.12

Documentation:
Future Development Plan
Credit List
Changelog

Changelog:

Version 0.99.9.5
 - Fix Game Crash due to Mission invocation
 - Fix UFO waterlanding possibilities
 - Fix Heavy Plasma Manufacture unlock error
 - Fix Wrong Deathsound for all Female Civilians
 - Fix Typos for Weaponlists
 - Fix Typos in extraSprites
 - Fix Position of Magadan City
 - Fix Missing BT_PSIAMP for Psi Panic and Mind Control Commendations
 - Fix Background for some Drone/AlloyDrones Sprites
 - Fix not working Cancel on Infiltration and Base building Alien Base
 - Adjust all Shotguns to behave like proper Ones
 - Add Fire Extinguisher Item
 - Add Armed Civilian to Terrorsites
 - Add Army Soldiers to Military Bases
 - Add TerrainHint DayNightIndicator
 - Add Stun, Burn and Bleeding Indicators for Battlescape
 - Add Avatars and TinyRanks for Battlescape
 - Add OXCE Armor Preview for Craft Equip Screen
 - Add OXCE Tank/Drone Preview for Craft Equip Screen
 - Add SoldierNames and SoldierCountryFlags
 - Add Inventory images for all Civilians
 - Add Inventory images for all Aliens
 - Add Inventory images for all Tanks
 - Add Ufopaedia images for all Tanks
 - Add Ufopaedia images for all Drones
 - Add Enhanced GUI Buttons and Backgrounds
 - Add Final Version of the Commendation sprite provided by cevaralien
 - Add higher salaries for officers (10% increase per rank compare to base salary)

12

Hardmode Expansion / Re: [EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion -- General Feedback Thread

« on: May 31, 2024, 01:26:44 pm »

Some Screenshot from the Quality Of Live stuff and some UserInterface enhancements I found or made myself and added.

Of course we also have Avatars now and I added a lot of Inventory Pictures for the Right Click Preview in OXCE.
I am still missing those for all Drones sadly.
There are some Bugs which I fixed which were pretty servere.

Oh and btw I got a new Wiki: https://hardmode-expansion.trigramreactor.net/master (Big Thanks to: noblebright fropm Discord)

New Release comes soon!

[Spoiler]

13

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [Suggestion] Sell/Buy price coefficients for items

« on: May 18, 2024, 01:04:36 pm »

Sample Y-script below and attached:

Spoiler:

extended:
  tags:
    RuleItem:
      HELLRAZOR_SUPERHUMAN_SELL_PRICE: int

  scripts:
    sellCostItem:
      - offset: 12
        code: |
          var int temp;

          geoscape_game.difficultyLevel temp;  # get difficulty
          if eq temp DIFF_SUPERHUMAN;
            item_rule.getTag temp Tag.HELLRAZOR_SUPERHUMAN_SELL_PRICE;  # custom item sell price
            if neq temp 0;
              set cost_current temp;
            end;
          end;

          return cost_current;

items:
  - type: STR_RIFLE
    tags:
      HELLRAZOR_SUPERHUMAN_SELL_PRICE: 999
  - type: STR_RIFLE_CLIP
    tags:
      HELLRAZOR_SUPERHUMAN_SELL_PRICE: 88

Thanks for the example. I think i can work with the example you provided and play around with it until I get my desired result.

The Polish Notation is kinda hard to read btw, if you are not used to it.

I am more used to stuff like this

Code: [Select]

void init (int elem[], int nelems)
{
int i;

for (i=0; i < nelems; i++)
elem[i] = i;
}


14

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [Suggestion] Sell/Buy price coefficients for items

« on: May 15, 2024, 11:47:10 am »

Basic info about script is available here: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Script_(OpenXcom)

For functionality, yes, you can return arbitrary price, this mean disable default scaling, add custom scalling is possible too.
Scripts hooks itself expose:

`cost_current` -> current cost, after difficulty coefficient and possible change by other scripts hooks
`cost_base` -> original cost from item ruleset
`difficualty_coefficient` -> difficulty multiplier,

to have always control over default behavior.

[ps]

I see I make typo in `difficualty_coefficient`, I probaby soon push new version that will fix it as there is not lot of mods that depend on this.

Thanks but: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Script_(OpenXcom) is not really understandable for me.
User Perspective vs Programmer perspective I guess.

15

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [Suggestion] Sell/Buy price coefficients for items

« on: May 15, 2024, 08:45:09 am »

This should be available in OXCE 7.12.6

Code: [Select]

extended:
  scripts:
    sellCostItem:
      - offset: 12
        code: |
          var ptr Time t;
          geoscape_game.getTime t;
          t.getDaysPastEpoch cost_current;
          mod cost_current 100;
          add cost_current 100;
          return cost_current;
This is very dumb version that set all items cost to values from 100 to 200 based on current day.

Thanks. Is it possible to define the price reduction effect, for only a specific list of items (defined via strings in the script), and sell price reduction is then handled depending on difficultylevel, via a defined percentage?

Is there any description or help in regard of scripting parameters and valid syntax??