Topics

1

Suggestions / Grenade Ideas/Tweaks

« on: June 11, 2014, 11:48:41 pm »

I find grenades to be a very unique tactical option in this game, and can make or break your squad. I use them with Instant Grenades ON, but they are like sniper weapons that must be used by someone who has not moved yet and is strong enough to put it where it needs to go, or primed before battle which, while being an excellent option, can be very dangerous to your operatives/assets. I've never used the famous Grenade Relay before because I like Instant Grenades and the relay tactic is pretty ineffective with that option, but I have an idea that could fix that----what if grenades that are set to 0 explode on impact but if set to 1 wait for the end of the current Soldier turn before exploding, and set to 2 explode on the end of the next alien turn and so on? That way Instant Grenades doesn't effectively negate relay tactics.

Currently, set to 0 explodes instantly but set to 1 lets the aliens move and attack before they explode, while 2 makes it explode directly after the soldiers next turn and 3 waits for the aliens again. Seems inconsistent. Also, for the sake of completing my idea, it should also ignore the Civvie turn for this (I think it does already, but I'm not sure). It would look something like this: end soldier turn--> explosion timer reduced (if 0 it explodes), then the alien turn goes and ends, explosion timer reduced, Civvie turn, Soldier turn, explosion timer reduced and so on. I'm sure someone smarter than I could simplify what I'm saying here, but I hope I'm coming across right.

Also could the throw animation speed be slowed down compared to the firing animation speed? I'd like to see a thrown object sail through the air for a time before it lands, right now they're thrown with the velocity of a bullet, which is unrealistic.

And one more request: Can the TUs it takes to prime a grenade be moved to the ruleset? I'd like to mod in and play around with the balancing of a flat-rate cost of priming, the idea here is so that veterans can use them with greater efficiency than rookies.

Ideas, suggestions, feedback?

2

Released Mods / [RESEARCH/PROGRESSION] Plasma Needs Elerium-115

« on: May 24, 2014, 12:40:44 am »

This is a very simple, tiny mod that was inspired by everyone who ever thought or said anything about making plasma weapons tech take longer to obtain. I don't like weapon self destruction, but I also think it's ridiculous to be able to research heavy plasma as soon as you get one. Of course this can be used with the self destruction option, but it was made for those who don't like it.

This mod makes alien plasma weapons impossible to research without first-hand knowledge of their main functional component, Elerium-115, while keeping them recoverable in missions for the moolah boost. Also makes the weapon research progression like that of Lasers, each higher tier needing the previous tier of weapon. Clips, too.

Plasma Pistol requires Elerium-115 to research, and unlocks Plasma Rifle and Plasma Pistol Clip research.
Plasma Rifle requires Plasma Pistol to research, and unlocks Heavy Plasma and Plasma Rifle Clip research.
Heavy Plasma requires Plasma Rifle to research, and unlocks Heavy Plasma Clip research.
Plasma Rifle Clip requires Plasma Pistol Clip, and Heavy Plasma Clip requires Plasma Rifle Clip.

All topics still require the actual item.
ALSO makes it impossible to manufacture anything that uses Elerium until that is researched (like Stun Bombs and Mind Probes) but the research of those still allows the use of that type of captured equipment.

It's only a bit tested, but it should be complete.

Installation: Just stick it in your Ruleset folder and enable!

Please feel free to use or modify this in any way.

3

Suggestions / Misc Ideas For Geoscape/Basescape

« on: May 22, 2014, 09:23:08 am »

1. Allow mouse wheel scrolling over arrows in Craft/crew screen to move soldiers up or down without clicking?
2. Allow Human player to manually name discovered Alien Bases?
3. Allow Engineers to be assigned to damaged craft to decrease repair time?
4. When advanced option "Storage Limits" is OFF, display Alien Containment (current/max) storage in Base Info screen anyway?

Opinions, comments?

4

Suggestions / Couple of map fixes here, merge maybe?

« on: May 18, 2014, 10:23:55 am »

The XComUtil mods, Interceptor and Firestorm battlescape maps, are riddled with bugs that were fixed on the bigger ships. This is my attempt to fix them for these ships as well.

INTERC uses the Skyranger's map data set PLANE, and FIRES uses LIGHTNIN. This was necessary for the fixes to use the XCom1Ruleset and its MCDPatches for all that good stuff. This could be added though:

MCDPatches:
  - type: PLANE
    data:
      - MCDIndex: 13
        bigWall: 6
      - MCDIndex: 14
        bigWall: 6

In the zip are the FIRES and INTERC that have the fixes, and the ruleset to use them correctly. That one is XcomUtil_Fighter_Transports.rul
XcomUtil_Fighter_Transports_Extra.rul uses my take on the Firestorm, pictured below. I made it slightly better, IMHO.
Both rulesets use the same Interceptor map.

Extract it to your Data folder and overwrite the flawed maps there. PlaneFix.rul is the tiny little piece of text I mentioned earlier, and I would love if anything good here could be added to the main branch.

5

Suggestions / Geoscape Ideas

« on: April 20, 2014, 09:07:43 am »

I have a few things that have been in my brain for a while, things I'd like to see in the Geoscape but didn't know if they were dumb or not. As the release of 1.0 nears, I feel I have to let my ideas out, to see what is feasible and what is not and what is just dumb. Just some ideas.

Geoscape:
1. Bases that show their name by them, like Cities on the map do?
2. Ability to go into basescape for a base from that base's interception window?
3. Alien Bases that are affected by the Hyperwave Decoder? (Knowledge of species available on click?)
4. Ability for Alien Bases to save their RandomSeed on base generation and use that for the map, and slightly alter it +/-2 at random or something for enemy spawns when it is assaulted? This way if an assault is going badly and you have to leave, the base won't be a totally different base when you return? Or the base could even be farmed by crazy people. Make it optional for purists?

Would anybody else enjoy these things?

Ideas, viewpoints, logistics?

6

Suggestions / Overhaul accuracy training?

« on: April 16, 2014, 11:46:43 pm »

I have noticed a prevailing trend in my tactics, and part of my brain likes it and another part doesn't. The part that doesn't is writing this. If I have a soldier, whom I would like to be more accurate, I equip them with a shotgun. This is because I can sneak up behind a sectoid or muton or snakeman and, BLAM BLAM, max out my firing XP. I used to do something similar with grenades, throwing them at reapers, sectopods, and cyberdiscs for 4 XP per grenade, per target. Of course you need a terrorist mission, but either way, neither of these tactics makes any damn sense if looked at.

What I am proposing is an overhaul of the firing experience system, to account for new weapon types, and to balance soldier improvement across the board. I don't have a set idea what it should look like, but here are a few ideas, some food for thought:

 - Aimed fire could give extra experience, say 2 or 3 XP per hit, instead of just 1. That would increase the tactical value of this firing mode (probably my favorite).

 - Aimed and snap firing in general could be given 1 extra XP per 10 tile distance the projectile travels before hitting the intended target, making long shots more worth attempting (second favorite, not sure how hard coding that would be).

 - Shotguns could be nerfed, such that if someone fires once and hits what they are shooting at, they get 1 XP regardless of number of hits. Autofire would still be counted as firing 3 times. (I'm not entirely fond of this idea, says the part of my brain that likes the grossly exaggerated XP from shotguns.)

 - Make each weapon have specific XP per firing mode hit (probably the most difficult example to implement).

Just throwing stuff out there. Any thoughts? Ideas? Perspectives?

7

Released Mods / [UFO MAPS] Luke's Extra UFOs (52 working maps!)

« on: April 09, 2014, 09:31:29 am »

It's been a long time coming, but it is finally here! Luke83's Phase 1 UFOs are now available for download! Luke83 set out on an ambitious path full of complicated hurdles that took many long hours to get this mod to 0.6, and for a long time there it sat.

Life happens to all of us.

I was driven mostly by selfish reasons, I was quite sick of the supply ship invariability since those seemed to be my most raided ship with the 7 or 8 alien bases I have active, but after the week of work I spent just figuring out how to work with MapEdit felt my project needed to be shared. It'd be a shame to waste all this work on just me. 

I basically just took everything Luke had made and went through it with a fine toothed comb, updating or creating all new routes, and vanillafying the maps as much as I could in terms of alien presence and loot. I also didn't want them to be easy. It was all for me. I hope you like them. 

Included: 7 Medium Scouts, 12 Large Scouts, 11 Harvesters, 10 Abductors, 8 Terror Ships, and 4 Supply Ships.

To install: Extract the data folder into your OpenXCom folder.

To Enable: Modify your options.cfg file with "  - LukesextraUFOs" under rulesets (the old, lame way), or you can do it from the main menu by going to Options --> Mods and selecting LukesextraUFOs! Groovy. 

Now available on the Mod Portal!
https://www.corelabrat.com/oxc-mods/mod/lukes-extra-ufos
https://www.openxcom.com/mod/lukes-extra-ufos
And his darker brother...
https://www.corelabrat.com/oxc-mods/mod/lukes-dark-ufos
https://www.openxcom.com/mod/lukes-dark-ufos

Credits and special thanks:

Luke83 did most of the work here and I can't give him enough props. He made all the new sprites for these ships, organized it all nice and drew up a lot of different layouts of each ship and most of 'em with w/ patrol routes. I'm not even sure how he did a lot of what he did, but he sure gave me a lot to work with. This mod wouldn't be here if he hadn't started it & said I could.  I actually feel very honored to help bring this to the community.

TurkishSwede polished it up, vanillafied and balanced everything.

Solarius Scorch came up with the idea of putting the loading doors in Supply Ships. He's such a cool guy.

Thanks LouisDeFuines and Warboy1982 for the idea to "darken" the interiors.

This should by all means be bug free (I've deliberated long enough posting this on a last minute bug hunt) but please let me know if anything weird happens. (EDIT: One bug was found and fixed re: abductors. EDIT2: Bug in terror ships fixed, also all file names are now lowercase to help prevent a case discrepancy on Mac and Linux. Updated file below.)

The alien war just got interesting. 

EDIT: New MODsite is UP! Links updated. Also added: LukesExtraUFOs_lite.rul for those who only want rotated ships appearing and not all the crazy new layouts.