Topics

1

XPiratez / Bladum's ideas compilation

« on: October 30, 2016, 10:35:52 am »

Some my ideas for OXCE+ collected from different posts.

My proposition is:

• If you like idea, please comment 1) +
• If you don't, just ignore it

Ideas moved to google.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yzyycRJ6Nq_SC3bE5sdq41aq_x7GgkQ9eAyoulpJYoI/edit#gid=0

Github repo
https://github.com/Bladum/OXCE-Bladum

EDIT: all ideas moved to gogle excel above

2

Suggestions / alternative formats of maps / terrain packs

« on: October 29, 2016, 06:06:03 pm »

i have few questions regarding formats of file used by game. I understand backwards compatibility but how about:

1) map files converted to yaml / xml / lua file, to be able to edit them WYSIWYG (map files, route files)
2) map files loaded from point 1) into game, instead of original files
3) same story with terrains (pck files files)

Thanks

3

Resources / Resources data base or portal ?

« on: September 15, 2016, 05:07:50 pm »

Hello,

I would like to ask about idea to create resources portal / resources category on mod portal / any other way to share resources to mods ?

1) What is the difference between resource and mod ?

* Resource is single image file, single text file (ruleset), single sound. They are grouped in bunch of files of the same type without any further connection between them. Group of images for laser weapons, group of sounds that could be used for lasers, group of background that could be used for laser weapons etc... In other way we can call it mod that contains only one type of data.

* Mods are pack of images, ruleset and sounds to provide some functionality. This works great on the mod portal so far.

2) Why such approach ? What problem it resolved ?

By exchanging resources between mods we lose time to integrate same resources to our needs. This would help to remove this element and help people on creating resources, which may be then used on mods without need to heavy integration

What do you think ?
Tom

4

Tools / does OXC has autogenerated offline ufopedia from mod content ?

« on: September 15, 2016, 09:42:03 am »

hello

Does OXC has any kind of automatic documentation / offline ufopedia generator ?

I am thinking about script that would search thru all content like items / armors / crafts / aliens etc and then put text and image together into one page for example html file. Something like https://canadianbeaver.github.io/AwesomeGuns/ but much simpler and made automatically.

Thanks
Tom

5

Work In Progress / Bladum mod [UNFINISHED] [RESOURCES]

« on: March 25, 2015, 02:22:14 pm »

Folks,

I made my mod but its unfinished / Work in process. I am sharing it as i don't have time to work on it anymore. It was designed to be used with my own build based on nighties, at least it was working in January.

Most of the content is taken from forum, i just tweak it a bit. So most of the credits are actually to you

I change almost every aspect of the game so there are new maps, new globe, new units, new weapons etc...  purpose was not to make a mod but to learn all about modding the game it self. My idea was to create a community mod but idea failed.

My own build in git
https://github.com/Bladum/OpenXcom

Complete mod files, should be used only with custom build
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B11cNCkGdEJfUk9hb3BrV0NuUUU/view?usp=sharing

I am also adding some screens from mod. I also converted TFTD images to UFO palette.

Regards
Tom

6

Programming / how to externalize all MCD data ?

« on: January 13, 2015, 01:11:51 pm »

1) Is it possible to load all data from MCD files using MCDPatch + png files exported by MCD Editor ? Do not ask me why i need it Just i wonder if this is possible using current night build.

2) If not possible does anyone really need such functionality or is it just me ?

7

Programming / how to build to single exe with all dll embedded inside using MS VS 2010 ?

« on: January 09, 2015, 08:29:09 pm »

how to build to single exe with all dll embedded inside using MS VS 2010 and without need to use *.rc files ?

Tom

8

Work In Progress / proposition how damage, damage type and armor could be processed

« on: January 08, 2015, 12:04:19 pm »

Folks, What do you think about my below analysis how damage could be processed. This is even for vanilla game.

Every type of armor has resistances. Every type of damage has also few parameters.

Formula:

Code: [Select]

Damage = Weapon Power * armor resistance * random factor
DamageToArmor= Damage * damage to armor factor
armor value = armor value - DamageToArmor
Damage = Damage - armor value
DamageAsStun = Damage * damage as stun factor
DamageAsHP = Damage - DamageAsStun
Health = Health - DamageAsHP * damage as hp factor
StunDamage = StunDamage + DamageAsStun

Lets say we shoot with a pistol 26 AP to a floater (hp 40 and armor 10). Resistance is 80%.

Effective power is then:
   20 = 26 * 80%
Then we calculate damage to armor in this area:
   4 = 20 * 20%
Which means that armor is now 6 instead of 10. Now calculate damage to unit it self:
   14 = 20 - 6
Calculate stun damage from rest of damage:
   1 = 14 * 10%
Rest damage goes to HP:
   15 = 20 - 4 - 1
Summary:
   Alien lost 4 units of armor, 15 HP and 1 stun point. And have 15/12 chance to have a 1-3 wounds.

This would be damage type matrix for vanilla:

Code: [Select]

          ARMOR   STUN   HP    ENERGY WOUND_CHANCE
0 none
1 ap      20%     10%    70%   0%     12
2 fire    20%     20%    60%   0%     10       (fire makes smoke)
3 he      0%      30%    70%   0%     8        (explosives gives more internal wounds)
4 laser   10%     0%     90%   0%     50       (laser surgeon laser does makes wounds or pain)
5 plasma  10%     20%    70%   0%     10       (plasma should be universal for aliens)
6 melee   30%     30%    40%   0%     8        (close combat is brutal)
7 stun    0%      100%   0%    0%     50
8 acid    40%     20%    40%   0%     8        (acid was designed for wounds)
9 smoke   0%      80%    0%    20%    50     

Possible new types of damages:

Code: [Select]

          ARMOR   STUN   HP    ENERGY WOUND_CHANCE
10 psi    0%      80%    20%   0%     50      (PSI damage from UFO apocalypse)
11 emp    0%      0%     100%  0%     50      (works only on mechanic units)
12 bio    0%      0%     100%  0%     50      (works only on organic unit)
13 soft   0%      20%    80%   0%     10      (special type for shotguns)
14 slow   0%      20%    0%    80%    50      (usefull to stop units)
15 ent    100%    0%     0%    0%     50      (entropia from ufo apocalypse)

ENERGY loss is optional for any custom damage type.

PS: sorry if such topic was already discussed before. I am going to use this feature in my build anyway.

9

Work In Progress / animation for standard terrain tiles

« on: January 07, 2015, 10:20:26 pm »

Simple thing I made.

I duplicate larger vegetation images and add simple effect of moving by wind. Similar to what was made in settlers 1. Effect is almost noticeable during battlescape but gives feeling that environment is more alive. Still different plant objects have its animation shifted so they are not moving at the same time.

What do you think about it ? hot or not ? Does anyone care about it ? Does any one want to improve tilesets to add animations properly ?

PS: just don't kill me for the "settlers 1" thing

Tin

10

Suggestions / Sniper mode during battlescape

« on: January 02, 2015, 08:26:07 pm »

Hi,

Devs, Please consider adding "sniper mode" which is showing screen made from F10 in popup during battlescape. This image is available in documents folder anyway ... so it could be used in game too just to speed up its usage.

Tom

11

Work In Progress / palette RGB values in text format

« on: December 31, 2014, 05:07:44 pm »

Folks,

Can someone (like Falko) can share RGB values of battlescape palettes used in UFO and TFTD (depth 0) ? Could be as arrays in any format or language like Java or C or YAML. Just need it as a text not a palette file it self.

Thanks and have a happy new year

Thanks
Tom

12

Troubleshooting / [Bug] Problem with transparency in latest night build

« on: December 27, 2014, 04:09:20 pm »

Using https://falkooxc2.pythonanywhere.com/spritepalette with latest night build

All png seems to be ok they are converted by Falko tool but when loaded inside game they overlap each other. Transparency is ok but one item covers others regardless of item width / height. Please help.

Windows 7, png files created by Falko site, GIMP used with export option that does not change palette data.

Tom

[Spoiler]

13

Troubleshooting / score system issues

« on: December 19, 2014, 05:20:56 pm »

First of all sorry if this topic was created before but i was unable to find something similar.

I found that different missions are scored in very different way. Some of them use same score value with some modifiers, some without and some are hardcoded. It wasn't easy to collect this information and few items were quite surprising.

Is this a temporary / target solution from technical point of view and from gameplay point of view ??

Spoiler:

last UFO infiltration mission = sign alien pact for 150 points + build new base
last UFO alien base mission = build new base = mission score
ignore terror mission = 100 * mission score
terror UFO lands = starts terror mission = mission score
any UFO landed = 2 point per 30 minutes
any UFO flying = 1 point per 30 minutes
any UFO other then alien base lift the ground = mission score
each day of existing alien base = mission score / 10

[Spoiler]

14

Suggestions / stealth UFO and instant ground missions

« on: December 17, 2014, 12:46:01 pm »

Hi,

My idea is simple: alien UFO has a flag "stealth", that makes this UFO invisible for detectors when in air. Or in general this is detectionModifier other then size and altitude.

This is actual possible to create something similar without this flag. Size is very_small, altitude is very low, speed is like 100000, and trajectory is to land on the ground for long time. But there is always a chance that player would somehow by luck intercept this UFO, which will ruin the afford. Actually by design there should be no interception fight at all. Problem is that if UFO is hard to detect in the air it is also hard to detect on the ground at the same time.

So i created a UFO that is very hard to be detected, is very fast and lands on the ground ASAP, stays on ground for long time. Battlescape does not contains normal UFO instead of this it contains special mapBlocks like Man In Black Base. This could give us missions like "rescue pilot" or "defense factory" without need to code anything else.

What do you think about it ?

Spoiler:

int Ufo::getVisibility() const
{

   if ( _rules->getStealthStatus() )
        {
      if (_altitude == "STR_GROUND")
         return 100;
      else
         return -100;
   }
   
   int size = 0;
   https:// size = 15*(3-ufosize);
   if (_rules->getSize() == "STR_VERY_SMALL")
      size = -30;
   else if (_rules->getSize() == "STR_SMALL")
      size = -15;
   else if (_rules->getSize() == "STR_MEDIUM_UC")
      size = 0;
   else if (_rules->getSize() == "STR_LARGE")
      size = 15;
   else if (_rules->getSize() == "STR_VERY_LARGE")
      size = 30;

   int visibility = 0;
   if (_altitude == "STR_GROUND")
      visibility = -30;
   else if (_altitude == "STR_VERY_LOW")
      visibility = size - 20;
   else if (_altitude == "STR_LOW_UC")
      visibility = size - 10;
   else if (_altitude == "STR_HIGH_UC")
      visibility = size;
   else if (_altitude == "STR_VERY_HIGH")
      visibility = size - 10;

   return visibility;
}

15

Work In Progress / palette optimization

« on: December 16, 2014, 10:09:16 pm »

Hi,

Anyone tried to optimize default palette ? I mean small tweaks to colors for improved curve from light color to dark color or small changes in green / orange / yellow colors as they are similar in original palette.

I am not saying that vanilla palette is bad i am ask curious if someone tried to optimize it ?

Tom