Messages

2056

Open Feedback / Re: Is there a way to change the size of the maps?

« on: June 19, 2014, 06:04:40 pm »

This mod looks awesome. It does add extra maps, right? It doesn't remove the original maps. Can i still play the original terror site maps?

The Mad City terrain consists of the original maps, plus versions of its buildings facing the 3 other possible directions.

2057

Open Feedback / Re: Is there a way to change the size of the maps?

« on: June 19, 2014, 04:28:25 pm »

I like to play terror missions but the map feels small. Is there a way to change terror mission map size but crash site missions map size stay same?

Try this mod. I enlarged the size of Terror Sites from 50x50 to 60x60 because I also feel that they were too small.

2058

Released Mods / Re: [ENEMY] Men in Black 3.3 | Cover Alien 1.9u | Gazer Alien 1.2u

« on: June 19, 2014, 04:04:16 pm »

100 stands for "100%" and it is the speed of the ufo. Check the rusleset reference: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Ruleset_Reference_%28OpenXcom%29
The first coordinate (1, 1, 100) is the "enter point", it is needed but, as you said, it immediately lands following the instructions  given by the second (1, 0 , 100) coordinate.

Yup, somehow I got confused with that 100 setting.

About the size of the maps: frankly I think that UFO map sizes are perfect. Bigger maps means the missions will drag on too long, especially when hunting down the last alien alive hidden somewhere and you have only few men left (because of the casualties you had during the mission) to search for it.  TFTD already had maps too big (Gollop said so too and I agree). So I personally would be VERY careful about adding "big maps".

This is a very interesting discussion.

The issue with TFTD's maps that suffered from that problem (ship attacks, artifact sites and alien colonies) had less to do with their sizes, but more with being multi level missions and how the maps and AI were designed (too cramped, making it harder to find the last alien). Considering that Gollop enlarged slightly the map sizes on Apocalypse (specially using more levels) but at the same time redesigned the AI to make it more likely to meet the player says a bit of how these different factors play out.

Another main reason on why I prefer to use slightly enlarged maps (60x60x4 on the terrain pack) is my experience with Enemy Unknown 2012 and UFO2000. On EU2012 the maps are, on average, bigger than those used in UFO but at the same time having less units. The combat system is different sure, allowing for more movement and preventing most uses of free firing. But at the same time, with UFO2000 (the multiplayer version of UFO, with the same combat system) players eventually settled on the best battle conditions being 6-8 units per side on a 50x50 map, so the combat system isn't the most important factor.

Cramped maps (lots of small rooms, hard to reach locations, built in levels, etc.) are also a no-go. I learned that by designing several terrains that way (Hive, The City) when I started modding and I will not include those on the Terrain Pack for that reason. The interesting thing about TFTD is while it had several maps designed this way, it also included some terrains exactly the opposite, like Port (which I consider the best terrain of both UFO/TFTD) or Island, but those tend to be overlooked by the chore of having to clear all the rooms of the Cruise Liners.

The conclusion I draw from all of this is really that slightly enlarged maps (60x60) can be better than the current map sizes due to the squad sizes in UFO, by allowing more movement and less '1 large group advancing and shooting non-stop to targets at the distance from the moment they land' (which is the most effective tactic in most maps but that gets boring after a while) if properly designed.

2059

Work In Progress / Re: Map Modding Questions

« on: June 19, 2014, 02:59:48 pm »

after some testing i got a error message that the map height is to high
my hexeditor+wiki says the map is build for height 4
i changed the 3rd bit and deleted stuff from the map to make it a 2level map but after that it (still) crashed and i suppose without "something" in the RMP file it will not work

My mistake. The file attached has the right proportions.

2060

Released Mods / Re: [ENEMY] Men in Black 3.3 | Cover Alien 1.9u | Gazer Alien 1.2u

« on: June 19, 2014, 02:55:59 pm »

1) You can't shoot those down because they spawn already on the ground (landed state).

This is excellent to hear. But if I'm understanding the relevant part correctly:
id: B0
    groundTimer: 50000000
    waypoints:
      - [1, 1 , 100]
      - [1, 0 , 100]

The UFOs are actually first generated with a Low altitude but land immediately (how much 100 translates into seconds of game time?)

I was thinking of adding something akin to the Abductions/Council missions on Enemy Unknown 2012 since getting so many UFO ground missions gets tiring after a while. I have a terrain that consists of several 50x50 and 60x60 buildings but I would prefer not to use those for terror missions.

2061

Work In Progress / Re: Map Modding Questions

« on: June 19, 2014, 05:11:57 am »

thanks
unfortunately with XBASE_21 the complete hangar was replaced with dirt
its not something i really really need right now but some day... i would like to have/make something like that

I just had a look at the facilities section of the XCom1 ruleset and it only has listed X_BASE16 so it will definitely need 9 separate maps and most likely the order for placing them will be:
16 17 18
19 20 21
22 23 24

Which also implies that the Dirt module will have to be renamed X_BASE25 and the corresponding entry updated but I can't find a definition for it on the ruleset, so the alternative is renaming the hangar modules to 21-29. Plus updating the BASEBITS.PCK with graphiocs of these 9 modules.

2062

Work In Progress / Re: Map Modding Questions

« on: June 19, 2014, 04:57:19 am »

it's been a while since i dabbled in the map generation code, i'd have to look at it to give you proper answers about the maxcount and frequency but i'd say stick with one or the other.

Yeah, that's what sound logical to me since one merely defines the probability of the map block being chosen while the other defines the probability and checks how many times it has been used. Although I suspect it may be possible to create two independent map blocks, if one creates a group of blocks with frequency = 0 and a value on mapCount. I may try this later in the future to see what happens.

2063

Work In Progress / Re: Alien mission/alien deployment questions

« on: June 19, 2014, 04:50:44 am »

I've had a bit of a look at alien deployments and nextStage doesn't work for anything that isn't Cydonia. If OpenXCom updates how deployments work in the future I'd suggest adding previousStage, missionType and missionSubtype (0 - UFO, 1 - Base assault, 2 - Terror mission, 3 - Base defense, 4 - Multipart, 5 - Cydonia etc.) tags.

How deployments work currently:

• You must define a UFO of the same name.
• You must define alien ranks, weapon sets, spawn numbers (For aliens to show up)
• You may define the number of civilians present
• You may define (constant) terrain and light levels or exclude those tags to receive that information from the geoscape
• You must define map dimensions
• nextStage doesn't work for non-Cydonia missions

For your custom deployment/ufo to appear ingame you must:

• Define an alien mission featuring it as a wave
• Give that mission a weighting in at least one geoscape region

OK, sorry for the thread necromancy but I was looking exactly for this type of info. Too bad it isn't possible to add missions using the Terror Site deployment where the UFO drops off the crew and goes away. Or even the multipart missions

2064

Released Mods / Re: [ENEMY] Men in Black 3.3 | Cover Alien 1.9u | Gazer Alien 1.2u

« on: June 19, 2014, 04:32:30 am »

Hey, I've been lookin at your MiB mod to try to learn to do a couple of things regarding mission generation and I got a couple of questions I'd like to ask.

1) Your MIB_TERROR_MISSION and MIB_BASE_LANDING essentially take place even if you manage to shoot down the UFO right?
2) This missions can take place in any terrain, but if they land on a specific texture (3) they'll use the Urban map instead?
3) The map that uses Area51's tiles you posted above is one of those UFOs?
4) Since you're using 40x40 and 30x30 maps, does the Skyranger usually lands on one edge of the map?

2065

Work In Progress / Re: Map Modding Questions

« on: June 19, 2014, 03:14:50 am »

Try the file in attachment it is basically the hangar i posted previously. The thing is that I have no idea how the engine will deal with the .MAP file since it is supposed to automatically create the openings connecting the hangar to the other base modules. Most likely it will require 9 separate 10x10 files the same way that the current hangars are made of 4 10x10 map blocks.

The map block doesn't have any spawn points defined yet so don't expect to see aliens on the hangar.

2066

Released Mods / Re: [MAPS] (UPDATE v1.4) Hobbes Terrain Mods for OpenXCom

« on: June 18, 2014, 10:49:42 pm »

Fair enough. However, sorry if this sounds egocentric, but this clashes with my Alien Armoury expanded mod which a lot of people use, and it does it in a way that isn't obvious. Perhaps it would be better to at least mention it in a readme?

I did mention it on the readme

Ah I see. Well I can remove the changes to the aliens weapons loadouts since that isn't that important right now but I'd really like to keep the higher alien numbers because of the increased map size. Would that conflict with your mod?

EDIT: I just downloaded your mod and checked, it will conflict and I'll need to remove everything since itemSets is required for alien configurations on AlienDeployments.

OK, I'll remove this for now since I don't need so many aliens for testing the maps.

2067

Released Mods / Re: [MAPS] (UPDATE v1.4) Hobbes Terrain Mods for OpenXCom

« on: June 18, 2014, 10:27:08 pm »

Nice! Can't wait to test this!

Hobbes, would you mind putting a link to your mod at the mod portal in the original post?

EDIT: May I ask why exactly did you add alien deployments? How does it relate to terrain? Or is this unrelated and you simply wanted to make a better deployment?

I cannot edit the 1st post of this thread but I'll post the link on the post I announced V1.8

I changed the alien deployments because I always thought that if aliens wanted to terrorize the public they'd bring heavier weapons rather than stun launchers. I also prefer the challenge since UFO has gone easy for me a long time ago

2068

Released Mods / Re: [MAPS] (UPDATE v1.4) Hobbes Terrain Mods for OpenXCom

« on: June 18, 2014, 10:08:45 pm »

Terrain Pack v1.8 published. Expect bugs, specially with the new Industrial terrain since it really needs testing.

Change Log v1.8:
- Added Industrial terrain (designed by Bagirov)
- Increased Battlescape size of Terror Sites from 50x50 to 60x60
- Increased number of aliens by roughly 33% to 50% due to the bigger map, and doubled the number of possible civilians to 24
- Changed the alien loadouts: alien Engineers & Leaders will now carry Blaster Launchers on the highest alien technology level, as well as Plasma Pistols for sidearms, on medium level they'll carry Heavy Plasmas and at the lowest level Plasma Rifles; Medics will also carry Plasma Pistols as sidearms when carrying Stun Launchers; deleted/replaced 2nd ammo clip with Alien Grenades;

You can get v1.8 at this link

2069

Released Mods / Re: [MAPS] (UPDATE v1.4) Hobbes Terrain Mods for OpenXCom

« on: June 18, 2014, 06:44:17 pm »

EDIT : a question
You say it is not compliant with other mods
Do you see any risk for me to do so :

Code: [Select]

alienDeployments:
  - type: STR_TERROR_MISSION
    terrains:
      - MADURBAN
      - DAWNURBAN
      - PORTURBAN
      - NATIVEURBAN
      - URBAN
      - URBAN2

URBAN is vanilla, URBAN2 is Luke's mod (assuming that I already added related routes, terrains, ...)

There shouldn't be a problem with URBAN since the game has already loaded the necessary map block info from the Xcom1 ruleset. However, you'll need to ensure that Luke's mod gets loaded before mine in order to be able to use the URBAN2 terrain.

Something completely different: just discovered how to enlarge the battlescape size of Terror Sites from 50x50 to 60x60! Oh my...

2070

Work In Progress / Re: Map Modding Questions

« on: June 18, 2014, 05:58:08 pm »

EDIT : original idea was to put some wall with window, like in attached screen shot

Yeah, I read that but there isn't any walls with windows on the XBase tileset so it would be required to design the graphic and add it to a tileset. Which is certainly possible but at the moment I have 50 maps that need their AI route notes to be designed so that I can add those terrains to the terrain pack. I can give assistance but I'm a bit with other priorities at the moment