Topics

1

Suggestions / Graphic Format Standardization

« on: April 01, 2015, 04:18:45 am »

Not sure exactly why this is the case, but at least on OSX all battlescape items should be PNG's with the first index color set to something that's not used. I'm using green at 255 personally. But basebits set to this generate corrupted GFX, but transparent GIF files do not. Not sure why one format works in one context but not the other and vice-versa. What I'm seeing with the PNG is what I usually see with GIF files on OSX.

Of course maybe this isn't possible because of some of the original xcom limitations?

EDIT, clarification. PNG still works, but background must be transparent, not green 255 in order to work.

2

Work In Progress / Map generator encountered an error: no xcom units could be placed on the map.

« on: March 29, 2015, 10:18:16 pm »

So playtesting my TC Mod and I get this error when facing a supply ship in the polar region. Basically everything at this point is custom, but a quick test of turning off the UFO map replacement makes this work.

I'm able to run the exact same scenario with new battle and it launches fine, so I'm assuming it's something about how the maps are building in this one instance.

I did make my supply ship as large as the battle ship, but I don't know if that should matter since it does work pretty much every time I test in the simulator.

Is there something I'm missing configuring in my rule files or is this strictly a matter of the game expects a 20x30 map even though I set it to 30x30 for the UFO and it's somehow knocking my craft off screen? Looking at the map with the standard supply ship map there's a lot of water, so maybe with my larger ship map there's just no place left for the xcom craft to spawn? I suppose I can resize my ship, but would prefer to keep it as it is if possible.

3

Open Feedback / STUN/RECOVER

« on: February 03, 2015, 04:43:12 pm »

Working through some issues with my research tree mod, and I've just stunned an alien, but it's not listed on the end mission report. Is there a bug in the system or something else I'm not considering? I ran a battle with vanilla rules and used stun bombs, and there was no mention of captured sectoid. Should I be seeing the capture on that screen? I can't remember. But the alien is clearly stunned as no death sound is triggered, but standing over the body it's labeled corpse.

4

Open Feedback / Hard Coded Alien Mission Races

« on: January 28, 2015, 04:36:50 pm »

Is there a way to unset the hard coded alien races? I have deleted the floater race from aliens, and not used it in my alien missions file, but the game is crashing on a terror mission because it's still trying to place them. If I remove the deletion and set to a 0% encounter the game doesn't crash, but the floaters appear even though I haven't defined them. Or do I need to run a delete on all alien missions before defining? I'm assuming there's a workaround because TFTD has different aliens, unless the plan is to reuse the strings for the race names, which I can do but feels wrong.

5

Open Feedback / North East and North West facing UFO Doors.

« on: January 27, 2015, 10:43:35 pm »

Are these even possible for UFO doors? I'm working on a mod and while everything is there, I don't get the animation, nor am I able to right click to open the door. Not sure if I've got something misconfigured or if it's just not possible in the game engine?

Modfiles attached for reference. I moved the north facing door inward to see if there was some kind of floor trigger. But so far no dice.

6

Open Feedback / Craft Maps

« on: January 07, 2015, 06:17:14 am »

Is there a good resource for figuring out how to change the rulefiles to match up with sprites for crafts? I'm not seeing anything but maybe I'm not looking in the right place. I've seen a couple of examples, but haven't been able to decode how the sprites are assembled in space, and what the numbers in the deployment array mean. I've got MCDedit running in wine now so I can do some graphic tweaking, just not sure how to implement any work I do on graphics.

7

Open Feedback / Unit Indicator?

« on: December 24, 2014, 05:42:17 pm »

Looking to mod the yellow current selection indicator. Not really sure if that's baked in or if I can override in the ruleset. Looking at the xCom1 ruleset there's a TFTD timeunit reserve, so I imagine it's set up that if I use the correct namespace I can replace UI elements. Also wondering where that graphic lives? I've not been able to find it in the PCK files so far, but maybe I'm not looking in the right place, as it could be a map element?

Just want to drop in something a little less solid so as not to cover up my extra tall HWP units. Hopefully will look a little nicer as well.

8

Open Feedback / List of DrawRoutines?

« on: December 14, 2014, 05:32:51 pm »

The wiki isnt up to date, but I'm looking for the drawroutine for biodrones. I see Routine19 listed in the source, but it's not labelled.

9

Open Feedback / HANDOB Position

« on: December 07, 2014, 09:51:34 pm »

Is HANDOB position configured per draw routine? Is it configurable? Is it a dynamically generated y position? I'm working on a sprite derivative of the arthropod, which looks to be a derivative of the muton. the HANDOB sits lower than it should, and the length of the torso is longer on my sprite so not sure if it's calculating something there based on the first non blank pixel it finds on the y axis, or if it's always positioned at something like 20 pixels from the bottom. Just trying to figure out if this is something I fix in code or if I need to adjust the sprites?

Attached is both units overlaid, so you can see the height difference between the two layers. although onion skinning these should still result in everything lining up properly for the unit sprite, just not the default HANDOBS.

10

Open Feedback / DeathFrames

« on: December 03, 2014, 08:12:23 pm »

How does the deathFrames mechanic work? Can I add to any unit so long as I tack on the correct number of frames at the end of the sprite sheet? How about for a 2x2 unit? I've used the existing model but wasn't sure if it only applied to the zombie drawing routine.

11

Suggestions / Forced Melee Targeting

« on: November 26, 2014, 04:40:20 am »

Not sure how involved it would be, but it would be great to be able to force a specific block for melee targeting so I can have my giant robot smash a terrain item. My current workaround is a max range 3 weapon without any bulletsprite. Unfortunately since ranges are calculated from the top center block, you need a minimum range of three to hit a unit directly below you with a shot.

12

Work In Progress / [Total Conversion][WIP] oXc - War of Shadows v0.92

« on: November 09, 2014, 05:54:40 am »

REPO opened on bitbucket
https://bitbucket.org/thridda/openxcom-war-of-shadows

Wanted to start a conversation about what I'm working on.

Background: It sort of bugged me that we never really got a sequel with decent continuity. I.E. you start off in TFTD with more junk equipment...So here's my take.

Overview: After the end of the First Alien War and the colonization of mars the alien forces are in disarray. There needs to be some kind of response but the amount of blood and treasure spent doesn't leave them with many options. Into this power vacuum steps an ethereal with a unique vision of how to proceed. Plasma based weapons will not be used due to their expense, and other alien races will not be flown in. A small team will establish a base on planet and begin building a new army from an array of local materials. There will be an entirely new set of races to contend with. In the interim without a direct threat, X-com will have had funding cut and materials scrapped or sold. Starting players will have 3 or 4 old plasma rifles and maybe 6 clips. Elerium has been mined almost to exhaustion on Mars and is available for purchase at very high rates. (My current estimate is something like 60,000 for 1 unit of Elerium as I'm trying to simulate the expense of mining and shipping a super rare energy source in a capitalist structure).

Status: I'm planning on setting up a public repo, possibly on bitbucket, maybe github. So far I've got the groundwork laid for 2 sets of aliens and their terror units. I think they are interesting enough conceptually and tactically to seem distinct from the previous game. Artwork assets are in progress for the aliens, and I've got the prelims done on a new HWP mech.

Clearly there's tons to do, outside of just aliens and weapons. I haven't even started looking at research trees, translation strings, or deployments. I'm trying to work in a modular way so that each piece can be used standalone for playtesting.

A quick Question
1. Is it possible to change the rewards for UFO capture? I's like to change the economy and keep elerium super rare, or even remove completely from the alien transports.

Edit: 7-29-19 added revised rules from Meridian (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1702)

13

Troubleshooting / Waypoint Weapons and Living Weapons

« on: November 08, 2014, 06:45:18 am »

If you give a terrorist unit with living weapon a waypoint option, they never will never fire the weapon.

14

Work In Progress / specab

« on: November 05, 2014, 05:42:44 am »

I've been working with a few mixes of the unit special abilities and running into some shortcomings.

specab: 1 explosions, would it be possible to extend this to include other damage types, i.e. incineration, smoke, stun? Since the blast radius and power are determined on the corpse item, it seems like maybe that could be added. So far it seems that damage type is ignored in my experiments

specab: 3 hatching. When set, the hatched unit is already placed on the field, before the initial host unit is killed. Following the zombie model works, but setting anything other than a crysalllid will crash on the turn end.

15

Suggestions / Dependencies, Configuration, OOP or Rules for Rules

« on: November 01, 2014, 04:26:03 pm »

Forgive me if this has been discussed elsewhere, or if it already exists and I'm just not aware. Would it be possible to have a .rul file define what other .rul files should be loaded/enabled? I.E. a master manifesto for a whole set of smaller mods that makes up the larger package? Looking through Piratez conversion ruleset to determine how some things were done and the ruleset is insanely long. It seems like having a more modular approach would be beneficial. Should help narrow down troubleshooting in the development phase and just make for more reusable parts for new mods.