Topics

1

Help / Funny names for my OpenXCom LP

« on: December 17, 2023, 03:41:15 pm »

Hi!

I'm planning to start a new series on my YouTube channel playing Reaver's mod, and I decided to throw in, as a joke, and as a treat to my viewers, new name files which contain pop culture and free software references, as well as the names of the viewers, in the mix. I don't want to delete the original name files from the game (I run Linux, installed OXCE into the root filesystem with the package manager, I don't want to touch it, and also for other games, keeping the names is good), so I made a "mod" with the new files for the SoldierNames. Testing this, I managed to get a few names from the mod files, but most still comes from the original game files.

Is there a way to not have names from the original files, only for the ones that are in the mod? If I put empty files with the same names in the mod's SoldierName  directory, it breaks the game. If I put one first name and one last name in all of them (I put "No" as first name and "Name" as last name in files that has the same file names as the ones in the game) and still got two soldiers named "No Name" in the game.

Thanks in advance!

2

Released Mods / Looking for the next mod to play (for 3 years)

« on: November 07, 2021, 04:46:10 am »

Hi Guys!
I've been playing OpenXCom on my YouTube channel for about 3 years now, and well, it's the same game (I don't have that much time and I'm not that good at it okay?  ). It is the Area 51 mod which I really enjoy, and it's being discontinued, so I already have some trouble as OpenXCom is getting updated but the mod isn't. Anyways, I will be finishing the game (hopefully with a victory soon), so I'm looking for options for the next 3 years to enjoy  .

The things I loved from the way Area 51 was, and would be happy to see in an other mod (in decreasing order of importance):
- more aliens, UFO models than vanilla,
- more diverse weapons and stuff to research, manufacture and use that gives new tactical possibilities,
- more diverse tile sets for terrains, terror and base missions than vanilla,
- more diverse missions, not just the UFO recovery, base defense, alien base assault and terror missions,
- doesn't rewrite the whole game, keeps the spirit of the original and builds on top of it.

I'm planning to play on OXCE.
So here's a list I've found fascinating and interesting, please correct me if I'm wrong, or add more suggestions.
1. The X-Com Files -- (pros) The new terrains, equipment, factions, missions all seem amazing. (cons) It seems like a major departure from the original X-Com, and might end up a very very long game.
2. Hardmode Expansion -- (pros) Seems like hitting all the major points I want from a mod. (cons) It might be lacking in new mission types and it is advertised for its extreme difficulty, which is not what I'm looking for.
3. Final Modpack -- (pros) Seems very similar in spirit to the Area 51 mod. (cons) I'm not sure what the "new missions" would entail, how much diversity would that bring. I don't know how much time the author has to fix bugs as they're working on the X-Com Files now.
4. Reaver's Harmony or Reaver's Faithful -- (pros) Seems very similar in spirit to the Area 51 mod. (cons) Can't figure out the difference between Harmony and Faithful.

Thank you for reading, and if you're a developer of any of these mods or someone who played any of these and would want to share how you'd think the mods you played would match with my list of "expectations", I'm interested in reading your opinions!

3

Troubleshooting / Weird behavior in certain terrains (very unique setup)

« on: October 31, 2021, 02:52:19 pm »

All right, my problem is going to be very specific, and very weird, so, strap in!

I've been playing one specific play-through I started sometime in 2018 on Windows, with the then-actively developed Area 51 mod. Then in 2019, I have moved to Arch Linux, upgraded to the then-current build (2911_g47700c398), had to fiddle with the mod files (rulesets), with the help of the then-actively developing Hobbes. As I was streaming the game on my YouTube channel, I wanted to just keep going with the same rules, that's why I didn't just switch to the then-current version of the mod. And things were all fine and dandy until today.
During the last update, Arch Linux got a new version of yaml-cpp (bumped to 0.7.0), which resulted in an error, of openxcom not being able to run, as the libyaml-cpp.so.0.6 was not available in the system anymore. So, what I did is that I just grabbed the newest openxcom version from github (3050_g6ef797008), built it against the new dependency files. Now, openxcom ran well, I finished up my mission, and went on a new one, finished that too, and then went on a third one, a base / hive map, that relies heavily on tileset from the now unmaintained Area 51 mod. That mission became super weird, some tiles that were under the ground level and should have worked as solid blocks (or as empty ones to fall through?), let me move through them.
Then I realized something was up, so cut the game, and went back to get the 2911_g47700c398 commit from github, and compile that against the new dependencies. Now, if I load any save games where I'm on a mission, the mission is just dark black emptiness with soldiers, dead bodies and aliens visible (WTF). However, if I load a save state with the geoscape, go on the same base/hive mission, the game acts in a bit more reasonable way, such as, i can't traverse the underground tiles that should be untraversable, and sometime the soldiers fall down as stepping on a hole (and at this point I can't tell if that is desired behavior or not). However, as I said, the save games from the battlescape (even if saved from this version) fail to load.

So after describing my situation, I have a few questions. And I am fully aware that this might be just one of those "doesn't worth attempting to solve", and I am prepared to accept if the community refuses to help. So:

1. Is there any way to salvage the situation, or should I just say f*** it, start a new game with a supported mod and hope to finish it in less than 3 years next time (dubious with my usual 1-2 hours play time per week lol).
2. Does anyone have any clue, what changed with yaml-cpp, that suddenly screws up the file loading system for battlescape savegames? Is there a commit that was done specifically to counter this issue? Maybe I could just get that specific modification and apply it to the old version and make it work?
3. Does anyone have any clue, what changed in the battlescape handling that modified the behavior of certain tiles?
4. Would it be possible to edit the savefile so that specific base mission has a different tile set, one that maybe doesn't involve the newly broken stuff?

If you read this post to the end, I already owe you one.
Thank you very much.

4

Programming / Alien randomizer

« on: September 02, 2021, 06:39:23 pm »

Hi!

I will never forget the first time when I played the Area 51 mod and first met the phaser android and spent ungodly amounts of ordinance just to take one down and then taking the corpse home for analysis and figuring out their weakness.

I am afraid that the fact that all mods need to hard code their aliens, might reduce the enjoyability of replaying the game.

Is there anyone out there who would be interested in an alien randomizer? Maybe a Python script you run before starting the game, that selects from a pool of different options the final aliens. Maybe you have three different stats + ufopaedia entries for sectoids, and the script choses one and puts it in the mod directory, so you don’t know which one you got when you start the game.

This would of course require multiple meaningful descriptions and meaningful stats for multiple aliens, and probably on a mod-by-mod basis, so I wouldn’t want to do it alone, but if others are interested, I’d be happy to collab on this idea for the basic game or the more popularly appearing added alien species.

Unless of course if something like this already exists and I just missed it, in which case please point me to the direction.

5

Released Mods / Comparision of mega mods

« on: September 28, 2018, 02:31:02 pm »

Hi!

As some might know, I'm very much in love with the Area 51 mod, and recently I was browsing around the site, and figured, that there is a mod similar in what it seems to be, the Final Mod Pack. There is not much info though what exactly have been modified there, and there are also some other mods out there (UNEXCOM and Reaver's Faithful) that seem to be similar in concept.
What I reckon is that X-Piratez and the X-Com Files are changing the game in fundamental way, while the Area 51, FMP, UNEXCOM and Reaver's Faithful leave the general gameplay and feel of the game, and the modifications are generally subtle (more difficult and diverse research paths, etc.), and mostly add new things to the game to make it more diverse.

So to compare (for me and for other busy people who want to make a fast decision on which mod to try first), could we make a table, that shows which of these mods offer which of these features (my list is based on a not finished Area 51 playthrough, so add more options, if other mods offer something important I might have left out)?

* Expanded starting weapons for X-Com
* Expanded tech tree for research
* Expanded aircraft / HWP choices
* More base facilities
* More diverse terrain
* Modified Geoscape (more cities etc)
* New alien races
* Modified / new alien weapons
* More alien UFO layouts
* More alien UFO types
* More alien mission types
* Added story elements
* Added story driven missions

Thank you.