Messages

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Work In Progress / Re: [ALIENS] Mechtoids - armored and upgraded Sectoids

« on: July 22, 2015, 09:43:29 am »

Okay, version 0.62 is finally available. Hardly anything new, but I've added a version that should be compatible with other mods that use 5 to 7 alien item levels; as always, such mods must be loaded *after* Mechtoids.

On a side note, I've had to reupload the latest files like three times and the only way I've been able to make the files actually downloadable was to replace spaces in filenames with underscores. I have no idea why, and maybe there was some other random influence, but I guess that the modsite code has changed in a way that makes this happen.

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Work In Progress / Re: [UNITS] Unmanned Ground Vehicles, or UGVs

« on: July 21, 2015, 10:54:24 pm »

I am wondering how those units would be fitting in into my Mod.

I could make Tanks Researchable and let the player start with those Small robots for example, but just a thought/idea.

Feel free to reuse/rewrite the mod (or parts of it) however you see fit. All the stats, prices etc are now just wild guesses, so the mod probably needs testing and balancing, but that might be less of an issue if you nerf them a bit and remake them into stepping stones towards full HWPs.

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Open Feedback / Effects of negative weapon power

« on: July 21, 2015, 10:48:23 pm »

Is there any chance somebody might wish to devote some time to rewrite the code that deals with effects of modding in negative weapon power?

I've created a stun weapon with negative power, my reasoning being that maybe this could create a long-range *unstunning* item. Honestly, I was expecting either no effect or a crash. Imagine my surprise when the shots became one-hit takedowns and the misses destroyed Skyranger walls.

I do realize this is a low-priority problem but the behavior is kind of weird.

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Work In Progress / Re: [UNITS] Unmanned Ground Vehicles, or UGVs

« on: July 21, 2015, 10:22:51 pm »

@new_civilian: yes, I do know those, in fact I've already mentioned the TALON, which SWORDS is based on. Added bonus is that the TALON was available roughly around the same time as the game begins 

Truth is SWORDS was one of the reasons I've decided to create this mod.

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Work In Progress / Re: [ALIENS] Mechtoids - armored and upgraded Sectoids

« on: July 21, 2015, 08:15:19 pm »

And believe me you will pray for some normal Sectoid mission when Waspites and Gazers to appear. :>

Well, I've met both already. They're tougher than Sectoids but not *that* tough. In fact Gazer armor is even a little weaker than Mechtoid battlesuits, althought not all Mechtoids wear those. Heavy lasers/auto work just fine against all of those guys.

The species I'm afraid of in Hardmode are those with psionics, which includes Sectoids. You see, I'm in a habit of not researching medics so I've only researched Psilab in December (let me say in my defence that this is my first time playing Hardmode). I'm sure you can imagine how... interesting... some missions are 

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Work In Progress / Re: [ALIENS] Mechtoids - armored and upgraded Sectoids

« on: July 21, 2015, 01:50:39 pm »

Btw, there's a broken 0.61 link on the downloadpage atm....

Thanks for the info. However, the server is not mine, so...

Anyway, I'm planning to tweak it a bit later today to make a subversion that'd be compatible with seven item levels so I'll try to reupload then. Meanwhile, the 0.6 version should be compatible with both vanilla game and all the four-item-levels mods out there as long as you load them *after* Mechtoids (because I've defined my own three-level table).

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Hardmode Expansion / Re: [Beta][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - v0.88 Release - Testplayers needed

« on: July 21, 2015, 12:51:10 am »

No problems but so you don't completely panic 0-2 seems to be the norm for a lot of mods though FMP uses 0-3. I may be out of date on some of these facts so apologies in advance if I'm wrong on anything.

Yup, no problem here either and no panic too 

It is just that I've created the mod with 0-2 levels to remain compatible with vanilla and I've added that fourth level precisely to become compatible with FMP. It never occured to me that Hardmode might be using seven levels and it is quite annoying to discover this minutes after uploading a version that's compatible with the five levels in the Hardmode Expansion 0.84 that I have installed.

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Work In Progress / Re: [UNITS] Unmanned Ground Vehicles, or UGVs

« on: July 21, 2015, 12:44:48 am »

Yes, I do know the scout drone mod, but I never liked the fact that the drone is basically unarmed. The Enforcer and Power-suit drones are late-game mods, requiring research like Sectopod autopsy or power suits. And all the other 1x1 drones I can recall are alien units, not something xcom can buy off the shelf.

So maybe there's been some talk about such drones but I'm unaware of there being existing downloadable working mods that do what my mod does. But if they do exist I'll gladly give them a try too.

As for this being owerpowered, well, that's one of the reasons I'm calling this version 0.5. Front armor 45 plus health 40 make these resistant but not immune to plasma pistols, one-hit front-arc deathl probability against plasma rifles is approx. 47% compared to 72% for an unarmored rookie. But even the cheapest UGV costs 60000, which is more than a sacrificial rookie, and it can't perform many of the things a rookie can. And UGVs never gain experience and you can never up-armor them to the powersuit levels.

So I'd say they have both their ups and their downs and the concept needs some playtesting to balance it. And changing things like armor values is easy once the mod works.

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Hardmode Expansion / Re: [Beta][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - v0.88 Release - Testplayers needed

« on: July 21, 2015, 12:12:13 am »

Oh, @^#$#&! this, Hardmode now uses *7* item levels? The version I'm still using (I'm not keen on updating during a playthrough) uses 5....

Okay, back to the drawing board. I guess I'll simply create a version *designed* to work with more item levels, because deployments designed for three levels simply won't stay sensible with seven. Should have time to do that tomorrow.

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Hardmode Expansion / Re: [Beta][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - v0.88 Release - Testplayers needed

« on: July 20, 2015, 11:46:54 pm »

Especially since it has been updated there today, any chance of including "Mechtoids" as I don't think I could have it on at the same time as Hardmode due to Mectoids only having 0-2 Alien Item Levels?

The Mechtoids use 0-2 alien item levels to stay compatible with vanilla game but they're written to work with 0-3 too. The same method can be used to make them work with 0-4 levels that Hardmode uses so you can simply rewrite the mod yourself by copying level 3 as level 4. Just make sure you load Hardmode *after* Mechtoids.

Or I can post a newer version of the mod that would do the same, I guess... 

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Work In Progress / [UNITS] Unmanned Ground Vehicles, or UGVs

« on: July 20, 2015, 11:29:01 pm »

The purpose of this mod is to give the player the option of using miniature 1x1-sized armed Unmanned Ground Vehicles, or UGVs, somewhat similar to real-world TALON bots. I'm still not sure there's much need for that but I wouldn't be able to test the idea without actually creating the mod, so...

Any feedback, both positive and negative, is welcome. Try to be gentle regarding the graphics, though. My pixel-art skills suck so I've resorted to 3D modelling the thing; resizing the results and forcing them into the XCOM color palette leaves something to be desired. I'm numbering the first published version 0.5 even though it should work right out of the box. I've playtested it a little, yes, but not well enough to call it 0.8 or somesuch.

The mod should be found here:
https://www.openxcom.com/mod/ugvs

The UGVs are much lighter than X-COM HWPs but also noticeably cheaper, hopefully creating a viable scouting option that has some firepower too. A basic UGV is about as tough as a soldier wearing Personal Armor, making it (I guess) a reasonable early-game compromise between using HWPs and using rookies. The downside is that any hits scored by UGVs mean less experience for living soldiers and UGV stats never improve.

Weapon options are a machine gun, a grenade launcher (which has arcing shots) and later a laser rifle.

The mod also contains upgraded versions of those basic UGVs that use alien alloys to improve performance. Even those are less armored than basic HWPs, though.

The mod should be compatible with most other mods. However, UGVs count as HWPs for the purpose of determining aircraft capacity, meaning that a classic Skyranger can only carry three of them (or a two plus one HWP/UGV combo ) and HWP capacity 1 aircraft would have to sacrifice HWP capacity to carry UGVs.

Any comments?

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Work In Progress / Re: [ALIENS] Mechtoids - armored and upgraded Sectoids

« on: July 20, 2015, 03:24:41 pm »

Okay, version 0.6 is up here: https://www.openxcom.com/mod/mechtoids

No new content, I've just made it work with the new modsystem, tweaked a few values and corrected some graphics a bit.

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Work In Progress / Re: [ALIENS] Mechtoids - armored and upgraded Sectoids

« on: July 17, 2015, 11:52:45 am »

Thanks.

And well, I should be having some free time soon, so I'll clean it up a little and upload a new version sometime this month.

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Hardmode Expansion / Re: [Beta][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - Testplayers needed

« on: June 01, 2015, 11:30:47 pm »

Well the alien reproduction... the naming might be a little bit weird, but it is actually in the vanilla game, it even has a ufopaedia article etc.. but since no maptiles were ever linked to it it could not be recovered.
And i am not throwing away vanilla content, well i tried to make it a little bit logical with the Alien Biology Research description, too why you need Alien Reproduction.
But i guess not everyone like's the logic :>

Yep, that would be me 
The thing I would do would be to add Alien Regeneration Vats (or some other such tech) as a separate research topic, one that requires something that can only be obtained by raiding a base, be it a data slate or alien reproduction or whatever. The result would be the same, i.e. the player has to raid a base, but the logic wouldn't grate on my nerves 

On further notice how was your experience with the mod so far?
Any suggestions stuff to add or to change (not Alien Reproduction)?

I'm liking it so far, though it is really too early to judge the mod. The thing I like the most is the fact that I'm only fighting floaters. Early sectoids were something I've always disliked about the original game - they are supposed to be the second smartest race after the Ethereals, so why are they cannon fodder? Maybe I've been lucky but I've only had to fight floaters so far and I like that. I know I'll hate it later, because this means no early psilabs for me, but I like it story-wise.

I'm still trying to make up my mind about flashbangs. I like the idea but it is a bit frustrating to have access to them and no reason to use them (they're weaker then regular grenades so I'll only use them once I can keep the aliens alive).

Oh, and I'll try to remember to post here again after a few more months of ingame time.

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Hardmode Expansion / Re: [Beta][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - Testplayers needed

« on: June 01, 2015, 10:06:56 pm »

Hmmm, I took a look into the savefile and I'd say the mission is still active. But I've attached the savefile too, just in case. Thanks for your help with this.

I've seen *one* very large ufo - the battleship that attacked my base. Maybe those floaters were just lazy and thought they could save themselves some effort and take over my base instead of building their own 

About those supply ship - okay, I should have phrased that differently: I've shot down one and took out a landed one too.

Soooo.... I know I'm probably being a smartass but I would like to ask you to reconsider requiring alien reproduction for alien containment. I do understand the reasoning for requiring a base assault, as such a mission makes the game harder. But alien *reproduction*?!? Maybe you might rename it to something like Regeneration Vats and write a blurb about the aliens dying faster than their willpower can be broken unless we gain access to such tech. The current name is so illogical it makes my brain hurt.