Messages

46

Released Mods / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.73

« on: June 17, 2014, 03:09:13 am »

Well I guess different countries have different taboos.
In the US it's anything remotely resembling nudity, in Germany (and Austria where I live) it's anything remotely resembling Nazi symbols. It's pretty hard to create content that doesn't offend anyone nowadays.

So just do your thing and ignore the whiners, to me the Piratez mod is my absolutely favorite game, I dare to say I even had more more fun with it  than playing the original XCOM in the mid 90s - and that means a lot.

47

Released Mods / Re: [SAVEGAME] Hundred Million Dollar Savegame

« on: June 17, 2014, 02:22:09 am »

Nice!

The top score I reached so far was about 185M but at some point I got bored and started a new game. I've built bases packed with grav shields or fusion defences just for fun.

We should think about modding some luxury items for the game that XCOM commanders can spend our fortunes on.

48

Released Mods / Re: [WEAPON] Fusion Torch

« on: June 17, 2014, 01:18:58 am »

Thany you, Russian translation has been added.

49

Released Mods / Re: [WEAPON] Recolored Laser and Plasma Bullet Sprites

« on: June 17, 2014, 01:06:58 am »

But of course!

I just deleted too much from the TestGun Ruleset I had already created some weeks ago, my mistake. All should work now.

50

Released Mods / Re: [WEAPON] Recolored Laser and Plasma Bullet Sprites

« on: June 17, 2014, 12:55:25 am »

I present the Test Gun
It lets you load different types of ammo which represent all included laser and plasma hit and bullet sprites.

51

Released Mods / Re: [WEAPON] Recolored Laser and Plasma Bullet Sprites

« on: June 17, 2014, 12:45:16 am »

I'm sorry, I tried to explain what to do as good as I could.
Of course you can use these sprites for any weapon including the original ones.
You'd need to edit the ruleset  by adding all features of your weapon of choice except those already existing in the ruleset.
As example I've attached a ruleset which gives you red Heavy Plasma.
Just install Plasma_recolored from 1st posting and replace the included ruleset with the one attached below.

Blue:

Code: [Select]

bulletSprite:12
hitAnimation: 210
Purple:

Code: [Select]

bulletSprite:13
hitAnimation: 220
EDIT: The ruseset missed some important sections, it works now.

52

Released Mods / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.73

« on: June 16, 2014, 11:25:57 pm »

Of course you get negative scores when you attack the local Government, they are the guys who pay you protection racket every month so you leave them unharmed.

53

Offtopic / Re: Introduce yourself

« on: June 16, 2014, 12:12:33 am »

Welcome to the forum!

Don't worry, I am no computer scientist either,  I have a degree in Ecology and even I managed to create some basic mods and helped to improve the more advanced ones. It's easier than you think.

54

Released Mods / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.73

« on: June 15, 2014, 11:59:43 pm »

Check resources folder, find hardcore porn
However you need to edit the Ruleset to actually use the NSFW version.

I'm with Solarius - you shouldn't be playing at work anyway, and what you do at home is your personal decision.

We have enough politically correct and family friendly games, that this mod is not part of them is what I like most about it. It has almost nude girls, Swastika UFOs, a deeply perverted Church and the overall goal to kill and plunder as much as you can.

55

Offtopic / Re: How would YOU handle creating a X-COM where you are the aliens?(What if)

« on: June 05, 2014, 04:28:57 am »

Marxist aliens - I bet it was them who sent Lenin to Russia in 1917, it was an infiltration mission!

Besides that, It would be really fun to have a reverse XCOM game. Same style but you play the aliens.
There are of course several difficulties.
.)What are you supposed to research when you already have the alien technology?
Learning about the detailed anatomy of humans and cows isn't really that exciting

.)Generally, what do you do on your missions?
Abducting or terrorizing defenseless creatures seems fun in the beginning but gets pretty lame soon. Maybe you'd just set the course for your UFO, it will start, land and return while battlescape only comes into play if you run into trouble with XCOM or other armed factions.

.) How is funding going to work? Do the aliens have money if they are Marxists?
Will items gathered from XCOM be worth anything? Who will buy this primitive stuff?

.) Will you have a base on earth or will UFOs come directly from Mars?
Will you have individual aliens which can improve their stats or just indistinguishable clone masses which will be replaced after each mission?

Indeed more questions than answers, I still hope we will be able to play the aliens someday.

56

Suggestions / Re: exponential difficulty

« on: June 05, 2014, 03:31:59 am »

I don't see a trivial fix.
Personally I don't see why aliens themselves should get stronger over time but UFO activity should simply increase to a level that cannot be dealt with anymore. Once the invasion has gained momentum you will indeed be fighting a losing battle and even your proud Avenger fleet will simply be swept away.
That's the gameplay I'd like to experience. The beginning is very tough but as you learn about the alien technology everything gets a lot easier. You feel confident you have the situation under control and relax - until the aliens step up their efforts and the tide turns.

Falko has a good point, but this would require to completely re-balance the game. Surely an interesting project as a mod but lots of work.
Slowing down research, making everything more expensive, many items non-manufacturable or only being able to build crude imitations which are heavier, weaker and less accurate would be an option. I never liked that you could build weapons and crafts which are even better than the original alien technology. The Piratez-Mod has pretty much of this.

A simpler approach which retains the original game:
You can do my favorite trick and increase difficulty to 10 or more, this will make aliens and UFOs pretty tough, but of course this will apply from the start and make the first months reeeally hard.
Better yet would be to manually increase difficulty in your savegames from month to month, this would give some of the desired effect. Would like to see that as an option. Try it out, I had lots of fun playing at 2-digit difficulty levels.
But then again I am just insane as Solarius already stated... 

57

Suggestions / exponential difficulty

« on: June 04, 2014, 01:53:53 am »

What has always bothered me in the game is that you can can basically keep it going forever, as aliens pose no real threat once you reach a certain level. You learn that you are "fighting a losing battle on earth" but in fact aliens are barely able to complete a single mission in the later months if you do your job right.

So while not as standard, I'd like to see an option of continuously increasing alien activity once you have played for a certain time. Either you make it to mars by then or you are going to lose.

58

Released Mods / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.73

« on: June 04, 2014, 01:35:49 am »

I've played through half the game on superhuman, its really hard in the beginning but it can be done. However this was in the times of the first versions of this great mod, have not tried it with the current one. Unfortunately I have little time to play atm but I will certainly start a new campaign with the newest version when I find the time.

59

Work In Progress / Re: Alternative explosion sprite

« on: May 22, 2014, 01:55:21 am »

Ah, that makes sense!
Will try that tomorrow.

I wish those things were documented somewhere. The Ufopaedia ruleset resource is a great introduction but such details are beyond me.
When working on rulesets I sometimes feel like a monkey hammering on a typewriter until Shakespeare's collected works are produced.
There's always a chance it will work out, but it usually takes a looong time...

60

Work In Progress / Re: Alternative explosion sprite

« on: May 18, 2014, 10:23:51 pm »

But doesn't that replace all explosions?
I want to make different explosion sprites for some weapons but I can't define explosionAnimation in the weapons section.
And hitAnimation uses SMOKE.pck so it's no help either.

EDIT: Actually it's really strange - I defined the new explosion as 1 and a blue version as 0.
What I get is a mixture of yellow explosions with a bit of blue for every weapon.

The same happened with the recolored hit sprites when I tried to create a gun which can take all possible color-forms as ammo.
The bullets work perfectly but the hitsprites are a firework of overlays, all sprites being displayed in the order of filenames, the last one on top.