Topics

1

XPiratez / rss sprites, the legend continues

« on: January 10, 2024, 09:57:54 pm »

Here are some new things.

Dynamite Package - dynamite that does 130 damage, weight 15, size 2x2
made from 4 packs of dynamite, can be disassembled back into dynamite (mostly a good use for spare dynamite and alternative to satchel charges before you get them, so you can really blow that lokknar barn up)

Repeating Musket - a musket with six barrels which is roughly equivalent to a flintlock pistol but fast to reload (tu 12). Like a clockwork gun but it can shoot one at a time or do a double tap for almost twice the time.

Bullet sparks replacement, suitable to be shortened to 4 frames or less, inspired by tiny bullet puffs such as the ones in Blood and Quake 2.

Shotgun bullet impact for my mod that removes shotgun pellets from most shotguns (consolidated damage, high health damage alter, loses power over distance to simulate spread, mostly i did this so shotguns only do as much shield damage as high powered rifles and wont blow through multiple walls).

Ol Carbine that looks more like a brass-clad version, and with a longer barrel.

Snubby from before that looks more blued/black.

2

OXCE Support / vaporColorSurface (dont work) OXCE 7.0

« on: November 10, 2023, 11:09:54 pm »

i dont want to upgrade because it might break my version of xpz (L9)
but the hypervelocity mod says its compatible with 6.8+...
yet after adding transparency LUTs and setting vapor colors they do not appear.

wat do?

3

Resources / request - TFTD sounds

« on: October 14, 2023, 12:16:15 pm »

Although I have tftd I only have an android device right now and cant do any recording. Id really like to get a few of the sound effects recorded in good quality format the way oxc plays them (with sampling or harmonics stuff). Or in the format that it will apply the conditioning.

Specifically im looking for:
- Explosion and Large Explosion during dry terror missions. BOOM!
- Dart/Harpoon hit and Calcinite Punch hit (same sound).
- Gauss/Sonic hit (electric sound), good for zapper type weapons.
- DPL launch and Hallucinoid melee hit (electric sound), this is the blaster launcher of the game, a terror inducing sound effect.

anything else like the harpoon shot or gas cannon firing or sonic weapons would be bonus, but the explosion sfx and impacts are actually pretty darn good and deserve to be in (xcom 1) too.

4

Offtopic / Aqua Plastics IRL

« on: June 20, 2023, 11:37:28 pm »

grabbed some good videos about emerging tech stuff thats being done at the grassroots level... some guy making graphene plastic thats twice as strong as steel

one trick was to mix some Whey powder + Graphite in a blender with water for 1/2 hour straight and let it sit for awhile to separate... end up with Graphene suspended in water but coated in proteins (so that it doesn't turn back into simple graphite) can be easily mixed in with other things, mainly they tested it by mixing it with concrete and it was 10-50% stronger.

then using the graphene from that it could be mixed in as an additive with Bakelite (casein) a homemade plastic... it has to be dried into flakes and heated then put in a 20 ton press but it produces plastic that'll stop a 9mm round with just a 3mm plate of it. Except for the 20 ton press, all of that is so simple it can be done in a garage, and a machine shop can have the press. Its also stab-proof which is what I guess they first considered since they live in the UK.

its 2 times stronger than steel by volume
10 times stronger than steel by weight.

Somehow this guy or his videos haven't been offed yet...


https://youtu.be/7q4UQL5k4wI

5

Offtopic / I found the Heavy Cannon

« on: November 12, 2022, 11:32:13 pm »

The STA-50 which is designed for use by special forces, with a 5 shot magazine. The large barrel shroud is a combination suppressor and muzzle brake. I believe it weighs in the 20 pounds range.

Sure bears a strong resemblance.

6

XPiratez / some sprite reskins

« on: September 02, 2022, 10:25:30 pm »

Been really busy with things and haven't updated my X-P for a good while. Dunno if there were any changes to these, but just figured id post in case anyone thought they were cool.

The govt elite soldier is actually a replacement for standard juggernaut armor, I thivkened the legs slightly and put some glint on the armor. I always felt the power armor should look darker.

The armored car has a modified turret for machineguns which looks pretty snazzy.

7

XPiratez / Short Anims for truncated bullet strikes

« on: June 21, 2021, 10:41:08 pm »

Since this is a thing now I figured id cook up some better looking hit anims for bullet impacts. By reducing them to 1, 2, or 3 frames the standard bullet anim looks terrible (ooh its a pale white "dot").

Ive got a few colors. One of the golden ones is abit rebated for the first frame. Another is more pale yellow than gold. Have a red and a blue one too. Im sure these will look pretty good even if they're only 2 frames displayed.
(should note that guns like MAG ammo and Skorpion which cause fire effects will cause noticeable delay on impact even if the animation is truncated, which in practice seems to make the 1st frame display slightly longer with a lag onscreen)

Im sure these sprites can be played with by someone with better tool than I currently have.
I dont think the rest of the frames (for a 10 set) need to be declared, if you add the file separately from the main smoke.pck replacement. Just take care to index each 10 higher.

8

Tools / photoshop

« on: April 23, 2021, 11:14:28 pm »

Found a curious piece of software on Archive.org
Just figured id share that without posting any exact links to it.
(Its a 396mb download. Grabbed me a backup copy of it since I own it but ive lost my computer and dunno if my hard drives still work.)

9

XPiratez / request: Broken Windows (tileset)

« on: March 30, 2021, 09:22:29 pm »

This concerns vehicles like Aircars, Airspeeders, Snake, and so on which have big windshields and other porthole windows. Presumably even though you can see through them it would be Very Difficult to actually shoot through them because they'd have to be made of some pretty tough stuff (like ALON, etc).

Im suggesting a Broken state be added as the destroy-tile to default to, for at least the windshields. And maybe set the toughness on it somewhere around 60 damage so an explosion will blast them out but most small arms wont.

As for the hit cross section is there some way to make it an extremely small hole so you can see through but shooting through is unlikely?

Currently its just plain obnoxious, its like living in a glass house, to the point id rather not even be able to see out of the windows.

10

XPiratez / Yay My First Hero

« on: March 01, 2021, 07:07:23 pm »

Got my first Hero the other day, somehow it hasn't rolled at all until now.
What a badass.
I only gave him a bandaid kit because "yeahh, healing people and making them feel better really isnt his job, just look at that face, he's not supposed to make you feel better"

11

XPiratez / Small Plasma Hit (Mod/Test)

« on: February 16, 2021, 09:58:40 pm »

I really like the big green bfg-style flash used for the stargod plasma weapons, back when I made it I figured itd be used for the fusion torch or somesuch. Its entirely fitting for the heavy duty plasmas but I find it sorta obtrusive and overzealous for the lower end plasma guns that are far more numerous. So I made this smaller version with sparks and modded it to work on top of X-P.
(affects green plasma guns that do less damage than the Heavy Plasma).

tools used:  GrafX2 for android, QuickEdit for android

12

XPiratez / Car Bombing

« on: January 01, 2021, 11:43:39 pm »

Just wanted to share a technique I learned using Armored Cars since you can pilot them now. The gal has a full 4x3 size backpack to use, presumably to carry extra ammo for the gun. But she can pick things up off the northwest tile of the car and can DROP things off from the backpack too. It costs 20 TUs but the armored car gives a massive amount of them, my gals usually are sitting at 260-280 or such.

I caught onto this idea because I figured itd be groovy to have her carry the X-Grog for rapid deployment. But, being that I often use this technique normally in battle (prime grenade, drop on the ground, run away) I figured it could be done even more effectively with bigger Bombs because she can get quite clear of the blast. In fact with pre-priming I can set them to go off in stages, 2 turns, 3 turns, 4 turns into the battle, and I know which one is which because of where I put it. Im even planning on using it with a timed baby nuke, set several turns out so I can get far enough away, which sounds like an infinitely better option than actually trying to launch the thing.

It can be hazardous, but its easy enough to manage, ive only been bitten with it a couple times. Im able to sweep in and barrel bomb the lokk'narr Barn on the first turn, and using cheap Firebombs I can raise hell even worse than a mortar crew. With such high TU and Reactions NOBODY is going to reaction fire until ive already dropped the bombs off, at least not until im near the end and ive already done my damage. The limitation is having real estate to run around in, being able to get around, sometimes its an issue but the Gun on the car can help with it and sometimes I can have other gals shoot and detonate a clean path through the obstacles.

This gal has picked up multiple ranks of Bomber just because of this trick, without throwing a single one of them.

13

Released Mods / X-Piratez High Quality Sounds (unofficial)

« on: December 11, 2020, 10:07:02 pm »

https://openxcom.mod.io/x-piratez-high-quality-sounds-unofficial

Enjoy and dig in.
Just in time to get comfy with L6 over the holidays as you shelter in place.
Happy Christmas.

As it says, there is room for growth but I think theres so much here that its not really wanting for anything currently. Quite refreshing.

If the mod site messes up here's a filedropper link but I dont know how long those stay up.
http://www.filedropper.com/piratezhighqualitysounds

14

Help / Item Transformations

« on: November 20, 2020, 10:37:10 pm »

I know Armor Transformations are possible but can you do the same thing with Items? So that when you go in various environments the items change look or capability?
(Eg a Glock that works fine, but underwater the Glock loses firepower rapidly and only has a range of like 4-5 tiles).

Also how do you turn off Throwing? (Set Throw Cost to time to 0?)

15

Tools / Android Editing Tools

« on: November 10, 2020, 06:58:11 pm »

Granted it isnt ideal but it IS possible to do editing on Android. At the moment im using a phone because I dont have a comp, and ive gotta say OpenXcom is a great game app to have for it, it really blows away most of the modern game apps.

Grafx2 has an android version and ive been doing minor sprite work. Also QuickEdit has YAML editing capacity, no thread collapsing like Notepad++ but it does syntax.

Ill also mention again the Falco OpenXcom tools website.

Question I have is are there any Online image converters that will convert an image to a specific 8bit palette? Because Grafx2 doesn't have the ability to save/load palettes or convert them. Im not sure if Gimp has an android version but its palette stuff has never been trustworthy.