Messages

16

Builds & Ports / Re: OpenXcom for Android - new official thread

« on: July 22, 2014, 10:22:21 pm »

oh my god... it´s getting worse. Deleted all real vision files from Android OpenXCom folder. Deleted CFG file. Deleted Xcom1Ruleset.rul (the only file Real Vision installed in the data folder) and replaced it with the same file from the PC OpenXCom installation folder.


Now when entering battlescape, it doesn´t even reach the loading screen, it crashes as soon as soon as you click YES in "Begin Mission". (the loading screen it crashed before was that one between the "Begin Mission" screen and the inventory screen.

Did you save your game while you used the Real Vision mod? It adds new stat to the units: nightvision. And that can cause some problems.

17

Released Mods / Re: Real Vision Mod

« on: July 22, 2014, 10:03:10 pm »

Ok... so I downloaded the model and installed without checking out the instructions. I never realized it would have a .exe inside.

Anyway, I did it on my Android OpenXCom folder, which doesn´t even have a .exe inside.

And now the game is crashing.

What files can I delete, which ones should I replace?

Open the .zip file. You can see all the files that you did overwrite. You should be safe if you replace those back to the original ones.

Edit:

And that means the main Ruleset file. Other files are dlls and exe.

About .exe and dll files I can not say anything as I don't know anything about android. If the game does not start, then you should remove those files and put back your android files if android uses dll files.

18

Offtopic / Re: happy 2014 summer holidays

« on: July 21, 2014, 08:52:47 pm »

a good XCOM commander, doing a GLOBAL fight against aliens, should realize it´s winter in the southern hemisphere.

Ah yes. How much snow you got there?

19

Work In Progress / Re: Mercenaries - Total Conversion

« on: July 21, 2014, 06:24:58 pm »

I have thought about camouflage and about implementing it on my real vision mod.

I have the algorithms for line of sight trajectories in my head. That is not the hard part. The problem is that it would make the game more easy. Unless someone could make the AI much more intelligent so it could use those good cover spots too. Light/shade would also affect this, how well the unit can be seen.

--------------

Actually now when I think about it, the AI part is not too hard. I could program it, but not sure if I can make c++ cpde of it.
-the enemies simply calculate the visions of your visible soldiers, with the new cover los algorithm.
-then they add those values into new cover map, and simply choose the best spots where to go. The AI could even gain some advantage from this as it could calculate the covers more precisely. But the AI would probably still be prone to flanking and other more advanced tactics.

After realising that, the hardest part would be actually to add the cover value for every tile and wall. I have not studied this aspect yet, so I can't say anything about it. How many different tiles there are in the game?

If the AI could not be done, another way to compensate it could be to make the enemies more tough. Something like "terminators", you would really need to work to eliminate them.

-------------

About the cover los code:

A--------------X--B

A = soldier A
B = enemy alien
X = bush, cover
- = los

Lets say that bush has cover value of 10.

When B calculates if he sees A. We can see that the bush is almost next to B. So the bush decreases his vision with cover value 10 and lets add 2 extra for the range the bush is. Total block of sight 12.

When A calculates his own los, the bush again has basic value of 10, but because it is farther away from him, he gets a much higher extra penalty from it. Lets just say now it is 20 with that range. This penalty could then be enough for A not to see B, while B can see A.

You could also add value for weapons, that determined how much firing them made your unit more easily visible. Then we could have silencers and other silent weapons like crossbows.

20

Released Mods / Re: Real Vision Mod

« on: July 21, 2014, 09:03:33 am »

I just wanted to say this mod has changed the way I play X-cOm in a few ways and I'm enjoying it very much. The smoke cover is like creating a wall though, so I feel like I'm cheating when I take advantage of it, because in vanilla smoke, the aliens can still see you. Maybe you should make it so it takes a few turns for the smoke to completely come out.

I just read your answer. I really like the ideas you put out, just need more thought put into this.

@Warboy please improve the AI so they blind fire in the direction they last saw X-COM movement before fading into the darkness or into a building.

Yeah, something must be done for the smoke or AI.

I also started today a campaign with it and I have to say that I like it And the smoke actually backfired on my first terror mission. I could not see couple of reapers and they got easily too close and ate some of my soldiers

I don't have too much experience with AI so easiest solution would probably be to make somekind of "REAL SMOKE" add-on for this.

3rd option to solve this could also be that if you don't really see the enemy, you get huge penalty on your accuracy.

I also thought about making the smoke more hazardous to be in. Meaning more stun damage than it now does.

PS:

On the generated skirmish battles there seems to be a bug with the soldiers nightvision not working. I try to fix this on the next version.

21

Work In Progress / Re: Mercenaries - Total Conversion

« on: July 21, 2014, 08:39:03 am »

The idea is great, but you're basically writing a new game here, losing all the OpenXcom devs/community support... can you really do better? If so, I definitely could help, but for now, I remain skeptical.

Better than xcom? Well probably not, I don't think anybody has done clearly better yet, while games like Jagged Alliance could be thought to be on the same or almost the same level.

Yes, it is basically a new game. Something I have wanted to make for a long time ( or wanted for Gollop to make something like that ). It is a huge project to make alone and I thought that with Openxcom code and all the mods there has already been done I could actually make this. Another option would be to make a completely new independent game and code it's own engine.

I worked on this yesterday, but today felt exhausted and wanted to make something more crazy and fun. So I spent my coding time examining the battlescape code and thinking how much work it would be to turn it into Real Time Openxcom

But yeah, I have to weight the scales and think what is possible to do and what is too much. And I should try out your Piratez mod. I watched one video of it and it sure looked interesting Though I have not even finished the vanilla Openxcom campaign yet

22

Offtopic / Re: Would a real-time (with pause) XCOM style battlescape work?

« on: July 19, 2014, 05:56:52 pm »

you switch between mods, option and forks wildly in your post
e.g. "mods like explosions working on many levels" explosionheight is no mod but an option

how many easily available and frequently updated/maintained forks of openxcom are there?
i only know of the commendation/soldier diary - fork

do you want two additional subforums about forks (complete + in development)
+ two subforums about options (in game  + suggestion/development)

or is this a "it not 100% vanilla and i got confused by too much choice"-rant
[i admit the option/mod screens should get some GUI overhaul but reducing/removing existing options is not the way to got in my opinion]

Yes, I think that was what I was trying to say. It is not very clear what is what and it might cause people to make unnecessary negative comments on mods that would not affect their lives. Though not saying that everyone should be a "yes man" either.

About the forks. I predict that in the near future there will be many. For years people have wanted to mod X-Com but the modding has ended on two words: "hard coded". Openxcom 1.0 is still quite new and as people get aware that the hard coded is no more a problem, I believe we will see lots of crazy mods/forks. Even something like this topic speculated about, real time.

About the forums. I do not want anything. I am not so familiar yet with this forum. I was just thinking that maybe it should be more clear what is a mod and what is going to be implemented as an option in the main game. I have been against some suggestions because I thought they were to be added on the main game as an option. But as mods I would not be against them.

And yes, it was a "rant" about being vanilla. I think the main non modded version not being vanilla is the biggest threat for Openxcom. I see that it complicates everything. Separate mods, mod packs and forks is the way to go and to keep things maintainable.

Yes for real time fork.
No for real time option.

23

Offtopic / Re: Would a real-time (with pause) XCOM style battlescape work?

« on: July 19, 2014, 04:10:19 pm »

The main devs should have a hard line and only add options that make the interface, moddability and playability better and options that allow high resolutions and hopefully someday .png pictures without palette madness. My opinion is that the vanilla Openxcom has already too much options and mods and it would be best to try and put most of them on the mod site instead. I don't understand why there is default mods like always day or always night? On the other hand I can really well understand mods like explosions working on many levels. Instant grenades again no, non-instant was very clear how they designed it and they could have done it to work instantly even in Laser Squad but they did not want to.

But I think this is now the best Xcom project and site that there is and it is gathering more people like me, that can do some coding. We can make those crazy ideas like real time mode if we want to and it will not take anything away from the main game as long as they stay as their own forked projects and mods. In that way there is no reasons to be against mods, just don't download them. But at the same time there is lots of reasons to be against the main project implementing new mods. Maybe the forum should separate these two different things more clearly?

24

Offtopic / Re: Would a real-time (with pause) XCOM style battlescape work?

« on: July 19, 2014, 05:21:38 am »

This keeps on popping up. The more I think about it the more I want to code a real time version of the original XCOM. As crazy idea as it is.

It would be a different game, yet almost the same. You would need new tactics to beat the classic Xcom.

25

Offtopic / Re: Would a real-time (with pause) XCOM style battlescape work?

« on: July 19, 2014, 12:18:40 am »

I never played Apocalypse. I remember seeing it at a friend´s house, back in the day, and being turned down by the graphics, which I remember to be too colorful and bright, with lots of reds and yellows and blues. Don´t know if my memory serves me well there. Plus, I remember thinking this new geoscape (it was inside a single city, or something, wasn´t it?) to be quite weird.

Yes, the graphics ruined the game. But the engine behind graphics was good. Realtime support. Buildings would collapse if you destroyed the bottom levels.

About the realism aspect and compromises, one solution would be to adjust it with difficulty:

with HARD no pause or bullettime
MEDIUM 15 second pause possible at every 30 seconds of game time, bullettime possible
EASY pause possible at all times
EXTREME voice control only "SQUAD ONE SHOOT THAT ALIEN!" "NO THAT OTHER ALIEN YOU DUMBAS**S!11!"

and yes, Apoc made it possible to make squads and give orders for squads without controlling them one by one.

and with bullettime I mean the slow mode of Apoc. It was not actual bullettime but I think it was half-speed or something like that.

26

Offtopic / Re: Would a real-time (with pause) XCOM style battlescape work?

« on: July 18, 2014, 09:16:59 pm »

Yes it works. There was a game: X-com Apocalypse that had this real time feature

It is ofcourse different than turn based.

I think the Apoc engine was very good. Only things that did not make sense was that you could access your inventory instantly without having to spend any time grabbing those grenades from your backpack.

+ it makes more realistic simulation
+ it also allows bigger maps to be played without taking too much time

- it is harder to control and you miss some of the action if it all happens at the same time

27

Offtopic / Re: What's your final verdict on Firaxis' X-com: Enemy Unknown?

« on: July 18, 2014, 07:43:18 pm »

Only tried it, not played too much.

Final verdict?

Well, another game I wish was not X-Com game. I am quite fanatic that X-com game should be a simulation where all kinds of things can happen. Firaxis ideology has been heavily against this and they instead want to limit the possibilities and make the games very simple. Something like card games that must be simple in order to be playable and they fail to see that computers allows us to use very complex simulations.

As a light weight tactical game it could be ok, but the final thing that killed it for me was the 3d animations and loading times. It is nice to see them once, but after seeing them you want to play the game instead of watching animations where dudes walk.

Civ 5 suffered from the same problems. I still like Civ 2 most.

So yeah, not a game for me.

Gollop made something great. Destructible generated terrain, clips and ammo, equipping your soldiers, morale, panic, berserk, soldiers losing consciousness, deciding if you want to send some units back to the alien base and try to save that unconscious team mate or leaving him because you already have suffered heavy casualties, with good simulation like that you don't need scripts, the game writes itself.

28

Released Mods / Re: [ENEMY] Recycled Alien Collection 1.0

« on: July 18, 2014, 06:09:47 am »

I am not sure, but I think there is some small palette issues with these Gillmen.

I have seen lots of them and some of them look like ghosts. = Looks like some pixels are transparent.

29

Work In Progress / Re: Mercenaries - Total Conversion - Development

« on: July 18, 2014, 04:29:04 am »

Ok.

Worked couple of days on this. Tried to make a new Mercscape and remove all the stuff I don't need including the globe. Well, could not get even the starting base working. Wasted 2 days, but probably learned little bit of C++ and YAML. Though it still feels like a gibberish and dirty language with all the STDs and crazy syntax.

Started again with more down to earth attitude and with the globe. Finally started to make slow but steady progress.

Here comes the first earliest of the earlies version 0.1, if somebody is interested in this.

Installation:
Make a new folder again. This is new .exe and will overwrite  rule files.

You can't do much yet, but by clicking INTERCEPT and then selecting craft, it will send it on a mission. The missions are randomly generated from what there is available. Nothing special yet. Basic alien hunting only.

30

Offtopic / Re: Introduce yourself

« on: July 17, 2014, 10:50:11 pm »

Hello all, I am 34 (35 in 9 days  ) from southern Brazil... you know, that country that was raped 7-1 by Germany while hosting the World Cup. But since I am from a city called Novo Hamburgo, there were quite a few people celebrating here haha.

You must mean BRA71L?

Well, I am almost the same age, but from Finland.

Started with Laser Squad. First played xcom on Amiga CD32 I always dislike the new Firaxis XCOM because it is too "console" game, but then again I used to play Laser Squad with joystick and Xcom with Amiga CD32 gamepad but yeah never got too far on the game back then. Started to like it more with PC and it was excellent game to play with friends when kids.

Originally Gollop was going to make Laser Squad 2 and Microprose wanted to publish UFO game instead. I have at times thought about LS2 and now with the Openxcom open code I can try to make something like I thought it could have been. Maybe even better than Xcom game.