Messages

46

Released Mods / Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part

« on: January 09, 2015, 05:06:12 pm »

either use the old version linked a few pages back or wait for it to get updated

Problem is the nightlies that work with FMP are now so old that the files are no longer available for download :-(

Would it be OK for somebody to upload a relevant nightly elsewhere and post a link here?

47

Released Mods / Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part

« on: December 29, 2014, 07:49:25 pm »

Thanks for all the answers Falko, your dedication really shows. Sadly, it only highlights that without proper documentation, this mod can only be abandoned. I am not going to spend days over something like that, because I do not have the time.

Not that I'm telling you what to do with your time but... How about leaving out, at least for the time being, the parts that cause these problems, i.e. the new maps, and keeping everything else? You can always add them back in once the other mod authors update their map mods, right?

48

Released Mods / Re: Recommendation for Mods which work well together (general game upgrade)

« on: December 27, 2014, 11:30:00 am »

Any idea what build FMP is compatible with?

The latest nightly I know to be compatible with FMP is 2014_11_17_1232. I play on windows, though.

49

Released Mods / Re: [HWP/Resource] Alloy Ground Tanks v1.2

« on: December 14, 2014, 01:32:26 pm »

I guess hardly anybody used alloy laser tanks, because I've just discovered a bug in their code after the game crashed on me while loading a base defense mission.

Their unit and race names were STR_TANK_LASER_CANNON instead of STR_TANK_LASER_CANNON_ALLOY.

50

Released Mods / Re: Crypto's Vanilla MinMods - Slower Research, Battletanks, Cyberdiscs are Bull****

« on: October 17, 2014, 07:44:41 pm »

But.. Sectoids have guns. It's a huge advantage over the Chryssalid when it comes to engaging flying units. You don't need to fly if you can just shoot things down.

This debate reminds me of a strip from one of my favorite webcomics:

https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2011-10-02

51

Work In Progress / Re: Agents used in manufacturing

« on: October 17, 2014, 04:54:35 pm »

Thing is, armor with resistance is also good for increasing the chance a soldier stays unharmed. Again, let me use my own mod as an example. My Ablative Armor is a Personal Armor variant that has front armor 40 and plasma resistance 0.7. This means that a Health 40 soldier hit by a plasma rifle has about 36% chance of no injury and 71% chance of survival. The downside (to keep it more balanced) is that such armor is more vulnerable to some other damage types, e.g. HE or melee.

Resistance lowers both the damage maximum and average damage of a weapon, which makes it possible to create armor that has both greater chances of no injury and greater chances of survival than a similar vanilla armor. You can also create armor that will increase chances of survival but not chances of no harm, e.g. armor 30 and resistance 0.6 has virtually the same chance of no harm as vanilla armor 50 but greater chances of survival. The reason for this is that the damage that penetrates the armor is lowered too.

If you need more help with such numbercrunching, just ask :-)

52

Work In Progress / Re: Agents used in manufacturing

« on: October 16, 2014, 08:41:11 pm »

The problem here is that game mechanics and plasma weapon stats make armors weaker than personal armor nearly useless.

Say you're facing a plasma rifle and your soldier has 40 health. Personal armor has about 30% chance of keeping the soldier unharmed and about 55% chance of keeping him alive (assuming front armor hits). Armor 40 (somewhere between the Armored Vest and Personal Armor) means about 25% chance of no harm and 50% chance of survival, which makes it too similar to Personal Armor to to create a perceptible difference.

53

Work In Progress / Re: Agents used in manufacturing

« on: October 16, 2014, 08:02:12 pm »

This is a fact about the game that I'm not terribly fond of. It's neat to have the awesome armor, but it's too dramatic a transition and never made sense that humans would be able to suddenly make armor that was better than any alien design as soon as they discovered the new material to make it.

Mind if I point you towards my own Personal Armor variants mod?

https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=2611.0

As for the armor being better than what the aliens use, I'd put that down to their design philosophy. And to game balance issues, because a player has to kill way more aliens than he can lose soldiers.

54

Work In Progress / Re: Agents used in manufacturing

« on: October 16, 2014, 07:23:44 pm »

I'm not really sure that using alien corpses to manufacture armor is a good idea, given that the only alien tougher than a power suit is the Sectopod. In fact all aliens except Sectopods and Ethereal Commanders are less armored than personal armor.

Using the corpses for other purposes, like the toxic ammo, is a better idea. However, I'm afraid that in near-vanilla mods this will be limited mostly to toys or specialty equipment, given how good the powersuit/heavy plasma combo is and how weak the aliens are as individuals. Sure, one could create items that are even better than vanilla items, e.g. a powersuit upgrade that uses muton cyberimplants to grant +5 to Firing or one that uses a sectopod wreck to build powerarmor with 0.9 plasma resistance. But every such toy one gives to the player makes the game easier, so a modder has to think about game balance too.

Mmmmm... Come to think of it... I guess it is time to create a mod that would rip the lascannon out of the Sectopod wreck and rebuild it into a man-portable superheavy laser. Say Power 100 and weight 20, so it is both weaker and heavier than a heavy plasma plus all the ammo you can shoot during a sensible mission. But it would still make a good endgame laser weapon....

55

Released Mods / Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part

« on: October 07, 2014, 08:39:04 pm »

- How does a code looks like what give weapons to specific alien races exclusively (instead of plasma to use)?

You can't, unless you use built-in weapons. That is, you need to create new mission types, new UFOs and new alien deployments. And you only let say new race X appear in NewMissionX. Trouble is, the mission might come up even in January, so you might have to let e.g. Floaters take race X's place for the first few months and use vanilla weapons on the first itemlevel. Not a perfect solution, though, as some floaters will be seen with the new weapons too. Or you might create the first itemlevel and the new race as a whole weak enough to remain reasonably beatable with human weapons.

- Where need to put the descriptive codes of the second terror races? Afterall, there is need some order in the ruleset to keep or the game could handle no matter how mixed the code is (I mean some codes for research is in the end while a few other entries in the beginning and such)? I saw that different mods' rulesets use different shorting methods for the codes...

Does this help?

Code: [Select]

alienRaces:
  - id: STR_NEWRACE
    members:
      - STR_NEWRACE_COMMANDER
      - STR_NEWRACE_LEADER
      - STR_NEWRACE_ENGINEER
      - STR_NEWRACE_MEDIC
      - STR_NEWRACE_NAVIGATOR
      - STR_NEWRACE_SOLDIER
      - STR_TERRORIST1
      - STR_TERRORIST2

This is where you define what string ID/unit name fills which role. Say you create a unit named STR_Galaxy_Overlord. You use this name instead of the STR_NEWRACE_COMMANDER in the example above and the Galaxy Overlord will serve as that race's commander.

There's no set order for the various sections in a ruleset file. You can use IDs in a rulefile even if you define them fifty lines later. Just make sure you never define a section twice in one file, i.e. you should never put say two "regions:" into one rulefile.

56

Suggestions / Re: Disabling mutual surprise rule

« on: October 03, 2014, 02:35:14 pm »

Well...

Say you're holed up somewhere and you know that anyone possibly coming in through the only entrance is an enemy. You've got your weapon aimed in that direction.

And you're surprised when an enemy shows up?

57

Released Mods / Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part

« on: October 02, 2014, 09:06:08 pm »

Why would Psi-Amp require Elerium?

I guess because manufacturing Psi-Amps requires Elerium. Otherwise, no idea...

58

Work In Progress / Re: [Idea] New Alien and Alien Weaponry

« on: October 01, 2014, 09:17:44 pm »

1. Cyberneticly enhanced Chryssalids. Cyberlids.

Yeah, I'm a terrible person. But, seriously giving a bug a built in plasma gun and armoring him up. Ugh... I dread it, so I bet many people would probably like it. Also, when it attacks, it doesn't spawn a Cyberlid but  a Chryssalid after the zombie thing. I'm not sure how the AI would work. If it would favor the Plasma gun too much and not do what it was intended for, which is spread bug love. Any insight on the AI? Anyone?

Okay, I'll confess. My first idea was to build my Weapondrones with plasma rifles for long-range work and egg-implanters for close-in work. But it turned out that terrorist units can only use *one* built-in weapon, at least as far as I know.

And you can't give an alien two regular weapons either. I *tried* giving them two weapons, say a rocket launcher and a plasma pistol. The game only places one into their inventory.

So the only option I can think of would be to create a weapon, let's call it Biospitter, and create two clips for it. One that simply causes damage, say acid. And another one that zombifies.

59

Released Mods / Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part

« on: October 01, 2014, 12:18:56 am »

I guess I simply got unlucky. But recently I've tried to make an effort to finish my campaign and it seemed like I was either getting battleships with no usable commnders (read e.g. Mutons) or the commanders blew themselves up or something else killed them. The only alien base I know of is, guess what, Mutons.

I do know this is most likely another case of RNG being bitchy but I'm playing on ironman so every commanderless battleship assault makes me grumpy. I'm in February now, crashed ufo assault count is something like 130  and the urge to ignore other ufo types is strong. But I don't want to risk fscking up.

And while I do realize this suicide problem has little to do with FMP, at least directly, the amount of Raider crews which contain no commanders makes the wait for a say Sectoid battleship even longer. So commanders *are* harder to come by in FMP than in vanilla. Hence the idea that maybe I could do something to increase their survivability.

60

Released Mods / Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part

« on: September 30, 2014, 06:41:09 pm »

I have to admit I'm seriously tempted to increase bravery of commanders. I've stormed several commander-carrying battleships by now and every single one of them died before my troops saw him.

Unintentional commander suicides, coupled with the fact that new crew mixtures mean too many battleships carry no useful commanders, are making me bored. I have *everything* ready for Cydonia, I've researched everything but Commanders and Cybermites.

So what should I do? Use psiamps to disarm everyone but terrorists but keep them alive so the commander doesn't panic? Up the bravery? Anything else?