Messages

5401

Work In Progress / Re: Can Medics heal themselves?

« on: February 20, 2014, 03:18:06 am »

Seconded, there should be an (alternate) option to "use" the medicine on oneself, especially if the healing is some form of hypo-injection... winners say no to drugs, but what about when humanity's fate is at stake?

5402

Work In Progress / Re: The Piratez Mod!

« on: February 13, 2014, 12:04:53 am »

Making new tilesets is a lot of work (of which I have no shortage), also many ships still have to be shared between factions. But eventually, yes. At least the new ships will have their own interception pictures (eventually with a faction's logo displayed, for visual ident)

5403

Work In Progress / Re: The Piratez Mod!

« on: February 12, 2014, 03:51:36 am »

A major milestone today - new UFOs constructed and introduced, along with new missions and loadouts, which will allow to more closely tie the danger and reward to the faction attacked...

5404

Work In Progress / Re: The Piratez Mod!

« on: February 10, 2014, 09:55:38 am »

I've been working on the inventory pictures for the enemy factions, here's today's crop:



Classic Civilian made flesh - here working as a Church of Sirius Neophyte;



Academy's Security Guard;



Academy's high-ranking member - as of now, Medics, Engineers, Espers (leaders) and VIPs (commanders) are all using it;



Academy's low-ranking member.



Church's heavy trooper.



Church's Reverend - Leader/Commander, not sure as of yet.



Traders' Rep (Leader).



Trader's Engineer.

5405

Released Mods / Re: [ARMOR] Improved Uniforms, Kevlars, Dragon Skin & Combat Armor ^_^

« on: February 10, 2014, 08:16:12 am »

I just like to point out that you went by the most generous weight estimates. If we took the loaded rifle as a watermark, the results would be wholly different...
- A rifle weighs 11 weight units (8+3 for the clip)
- A heavy rifle could easily weigh 11 lbs
- 1 game unit = 1 lbs :3

However, nobody would wear an armor weighing 50 or even 25 game units...

5406

Work In Progress / Re: The Piratez Mod!

« on: February 09, 2014, 03:55:33 am »

The work is progressing slowly onwards, I've resolved the issue with crashes (caused by Mutons, not their tanks, as it turned out). Next stage: making new UFOs for the factions to fly... Here's a couple of screenshots:

5407

Released Mods / Re: [ARMOR] Combat Armor

« on: February 08, 2014, 05:14:29 am »

Maybe just use the same colors as for the pants? They're close enough.

5408

Released Mods / Re: [ARMOR] Combat Armor

« on: February 06, 2014, 11:43:37 pm »

Here's what I'm doing to at least get an approximately good palette (I ripped tftd sprites that way):

1. Use Photoshop if you can. Create macros for everything.
2. Rip the bmp files with pckview. Make sure you set the right palette (ufo battle if it's UFO sprite, tftd battle if it's TFTD)
2. Convert all the files to gif format straight away. I use interlaced gif, not sure if it's important.
3. copy the image to memory, THEN convert to the attached palette, THEN paste it back (to preserve placing)
4. remove all background colour/s

Step 3 can sometimes be ommited - if the palette was close enough, just convert to RGB, then convert back to Indexed using said palette. This way removing the background is easier later.

PS. The palette is posted as a fake .png, change the extension to .act to have a working file.

5409

Released Mods / Re: [WEAPON] [WEAPON] Sir, the arms dealer has arrived.

« on: February 05, 2014, 07:05:41 pm »

I've changed the setting on the SSRL to recover: false, to end the problem of them being spent and magically reloaded at the base. The downside is, EVERY SSRL taken on a mission is lost, used or not. So use it or lose it, warranty void if you remove the seal :3

EDIT: the bigobs for SMG and its clip didn't seem to work for me in Ufopaedia (wrong palette), so I've updated them - this is for people who might have similar problem:

5410

Released Mods / Re: [ARMOR] Combat Armor

« on: February 05, 2014, 04:12:58 pm »

Afair the frontal armor value of the X-Com overalls is 12, compare that with the hitting power of a standard-issue pistol (26) or a rifle (30). Here, we can't really tell what's 'realistic', but in-game this armor completely fails to protect against these weapons.
In real life, of course, even if an Interceptor armor can withstand repeated hits with 5.56 rounds, it hardly makes a soldier invincible - a bullet can hit in the face, or drill through an arm into one's chest... not even to mention that there's no such thing as non-lethal area when firearms are concerned, hits to the extremities being only *usually* non-lethal. And there's the issue of incapacitating shots that knock people unconscious - a rare sight in X-Com, that is, unless someone is beaten within an inch of their life. We probably need to compare statistics, as each point can be argued over and back again. I remember statistics gathered by the Israeli military, stating that the introduction of body armor increased survival rates of their soldiers by 30%. But the grander case is, how we can even compare the modern battlefield to the alien war battlefield. Surely plate armor increased survival rates back in the Renaissance, but in this day and age, it would probably *decrease* them, as any slight protection against bullets and flak it might give is more than offset by worse mobility and lack of camouflage. Same could happen here - sure, wear an Interceptor or Dragonscale (which might be actually better, since it's made of metal), but your TU's and reactions should be affected... does the extra armor offset these disadvantages?

@Solar:
Yes and no. Remember, X-COM aren't army, they start with a modest armory and have to buy everything, and pay for everything. And top-notch body armor is more expensive than rifles. Otoh if they have experimental anti-alien weapons like Autocannon, why not experimental armor as well? If you have the cash to buy it from the developer...

@Fox:
What about Dragonscale armor? It's made of metal, it doesn't burn like Kevlar ^^

5411

Released Mods / Re: [WEAPON] Minigun

« on: February 05, 2014, 01:22:18 am »

Almost forgot the Floorob! Here ya go:

5412

Resources / [GRAPHICS] A lot of new Guns&Ammo Bigobs... for free!

« on: February 05, 2014, 01:06:35 am »

So, while working on the Piratez mod, I had to draw a lot of new weapons & other stuff, so why not to share them with the world? These are just BIGOBS, so it's more like a modding resource than a full mod. Feel free to use them in any way you please (preferably further upgrade them), just don't claim you've made them :3

1. Shotgun & classic feel shells for it. Slightly different from Warboy's, better? Worse? you decide

 

2. DShK 12.7mm HMG. A picture taken from the Net and completely redrawn in PS, as I usually do, plus ammo for it (based on Ryskeliini's)



3. AK assault rifle + the iconic banana clip



4. A snubnose revolver (I reccomend Ryskeliini's ammo drum for it)



5. Brown laser rifle + recolors of the excellent Yrizoud's laser clips:



6. Flamethrower and a fuel tank for it, stolen from somewhere and drawn over:



7. Dynamite. Dyna-mite. The sound. Of the word.



And finally, a rar archive with all the stuff together. Enjoy!

5413

Released Mods / Re: [WEAPON] Minigun

« on: February 05, 2014, 12:35:54 am »

Adding my 2 cents to the minigun hype, I've redesigned the Bigobs for it (flashy neon light might be over the top, but it's easy to remove), and also I drew a backpack (yet again using nice Ryskelinii's LMG clip as a base :3 ) Feel free to use it if you like it, Solar!

5414

Work In Progress / Re: The Piratez Mod!

« on: February 04, 2014, 04:47:23 am »

Thanks! It worked! Sort of, at least Some photo material from testing (but not many new enemies, I had no time to actually test the game at any lenght yet):



The Traders' trained dinosaur with incendiary missiles (ripped from tftd) - assigning the weapon worked, however the AI isn't using this unit very clevelry... well, it's just a stupid dinosaur



Traders' Engineer, based on Luke83's sprite;



The unique experience of finding oneself on the other end of a HWP's barrel. And here's the problem: the weapon works when I MC the tank (PSi Str lowered for test purposes), but 1) the engine fails to draw the turret, 2) more puzzlingly, the game crashes when the AI tries to fire the gun (presumably; I have no idea what causes the crash, except it only happens when AI has these tanks, and while I've seen them moving around, I haven't witnessed them being fired by the AI).
Oh, and in the background, Mercenary Commando, based on Warboy's (?) Dark Mutons with added jetpack and a more human-like face (not pictured).

5415

Work In Progress / Re: The Piratez Mod!

« on: February 03, 2014, 02:59:17 pm »

I've spent most of the last night overhauling the "factions" (races), now each has their own new sprites. The first playable version should be ready in a week or two; however, I've ran into a hurdle when trying to add new terror units. In short, they deploy unarmed (in the case of tanks, turretless) and I have no idea how to associate a weapon with a terror unit. Is it even possible through the current ruleset? Can anyone help?