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Topics - The Reaver of Darkness

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16
Help / How many rows on each spritesheet?
« on: September 02, 2018, 03:11:39 pm »
I am encountering a problem when trying to make alien sprite sheets: the tool I use to extract the images makes every unit on the sprite sheet into a single image. I can use Falko's Sprite Combiner to merge the images into a spritesheet, however I need to know how many rows each alien has in their spritesheet, because it's different for every one. Is there some guide somewhere I can use to find out what each arbitrary value is?

17
Resources / X-Com Images Archive
« on: August 12, 2018, 08:19:02 pm »
I've been making an archive of the images found in the original X-Com games, and I want to share it with the community. Here's my dropbox link.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/d9g42iwxp92o6ou/AABIyF2QJE02ahiIoTxovDIra?dl=0


It doesn't have everything yet, I'm gradually adding to it over time. Let me know if there are any problems, or if there's a specific thing you want right away.

18
OXCE Support / [Solved] Different Retaliation Missions/Deployments
« on: August 06, 2018, 10:09:41 pm »
I discussed this topic in the past and I believe the answer I got was that the game is hardcoded against this so it can't easily be done. I had an idea though: perhaps you can change part of the mission and leave other parts unchanged. The important part I want to change is the deployment; specifically I want to be able to set in a retaliation mission which deployment it uses. All of the other parts of the base defense scenario can be left unchanged.


I don't know how the game sets up the base defense mission on the code end, but my thinking went like this:
The game selects Retaliation Mission X and you're at the point where the final UFO got past base defenses. It draws from built-in code and your save to determine the battlescape tilesets and layout. When it comes time to spawn aliens, the game checks Retaliation Mission X for a line of code declaring the final deployment set; if no response it defaults to the standard value. It then deploys the aliens from the given deployment set, and completes other functions as standard before starting the battlescape mission.

19
Help / [IDEAS] How much should an aircraft rental cost?
« on: August 04, 2018, 03:26:34 am »
I'm on a campaign to solve X-Com costs and budget, to ultimately redesign the numbers from the ground up to make an end result that is much more believable as budget/expense numbers. I am willing to stretch the values a bit to make up for such scale differences as the cost of an aircraft versus a squad of soldiers, but in the end I want something that doesn't ask you to considerably suspend your disbelief. At worst, I should not have to stretch the numbers any further than the choice between the real-life bottom budget price and the real-life top-quality cost. Can I get some input on price realism?


Aircraft
Aircraft is going to be a tough one, which is why I want to start there. I've got some headcanon going that the council of funding nations has got the support of powerful militaries to create an aircraft program just for X-Com in which they are provided at substantially reduced price on the caveat that X-Com does not own the craft. As an insurance program to enable X-Com to make maximal usage of the aircraft, any losses are eaten by the provider, and X-Com incurs only a score penalty. Furthermore, aircraft fuel is provided in unlimited quantities at no expense.

The price of the aircraft should not entirely reflect its actual cost, as X-Com is receiving a substantial discount; rather the amount it does cost is designed in part to restrict the X-Com Commander from over-use of aircraft, and in part to reduce the amount lost to the provider if a craft does get shot down. Even still, I fully expect reasonable prices for such top-of-the-line experimental aircraft to be completely out of scale with many of the other expenses of running an X-Com base; correct me if I'm wrong on this because I hope I am.

So what do these sorts of aircraft actually cost to produce/operate? How much do smaller/cheaper fighters cost, and how much price variance is there across different types of fighters? I want to use this info to choose a rental price point for aircraft, and feel free to suggest your own rental price point as well.


Base Facilities
The only other thing I think could rival the cost of aircraft are the actual base facilities. In fact, I can accept the cost of personnel and equipment being much lower if the cost of aircraft and facilities are at least balanced with each other. Personnel/equipment costs have plenty of flexibility anyway which I'll get into further down this post. I don't have much understanding of the cost of constructing or operating facilities such as is present in an X-Com base. Do you guys know much about such costs? Consider the extra expense of putting the same facility underground in a secret rural location. Or don't. If you have any numbers at all, they will be helpful!


Personnel - Soldiers
Obviously the paychecks of ten soldiers would be trivial next to the cost of operating a base containing multiple advanced aircraft. But the net cost of the soldier can go far beyond their pay. If you assume we're getting top-scoring volunteers who are signing their own death warrant potentially for reasons other than saving the world they may not live to appreciate, then you can assume a high paycheck, a lot of money being dumped into an insurance fund, money to pay for their training and basic resource use, the cost of maintaining their morale within a tight space while the threat of death by incompetent commander looms overhead; you can figure the cost per soldier is a lot more than one might expect. We can scale the numbers up a bit further if needed, on the basis that the small squad size is itself unrealistic and done for the purpose of gameplay quality.

It is also conceivable that the majority of soldier cost might be their life insurance payout. When you have no idea their chance of campaign survival and every reason to believe it's grim, it could be mandatory to set aside 100% life insurance payout for every soldier until either they die or the campaign ends. I'm more familiar with these numbers so I don't need help here as much, but feel free to offer some numbers.


Personnel - Scientists and Engineers
Much like the soldiers, the net cost of the scientists and engineers will be drastically higher than their paychecks. While their pay is probably higher than that of soldiers, the improved life expectancy can lead to major insurance savings. I expect the primary cost of scientists and engineers is the equipment they use and, in many cases, expend. Since there is top emphasis on getting the job done quickly while using a small and cramped facility, there will probably be a logistics and storage division which maintains a less-secret equipment warehouse near the base which has lots of expensive research and manufacturing equipment available for rapid delivery as needed. High-end equipment like this is often custom-designed for a specific purpose and doesn't normally sit unused in a warehouse, so there will be fees going to the companies which have been temporarily deprived of the machinery. Expenses such as these can factor into both the cost of the laboratory or workshop maintenance cost as well as the monthly cost of each scientist or engineer.

I'm not particularly familiar with the costs of either high-end techies or the equipment they operate, so any number help you guys have would be much appreciated!


Equipment
I used to believe that the costs of the guns and such were higher than normal gun prices of the time due to X-Com sourcing the best, not the cheapest. But after some actual examination and comparison, I discovered many of their prices are bottom-end if not unreasonably low. Example: $1500 for a rifle, including all of the optional equipment that goes with it, is actually a fairly standard rate for a basic military assault rifle, in which much of the design consideration went into trying to reduce the cost. It is much more believable that X-Com would consider the cost of an assault rifle to be essentially no object, with the performance considerations being paramount. Not only can a better rifle enable the X-Com Project to maintain a harder assault against the alien forces, even in the short term a few extra grand spent on a rifle could have a 5% greater chance of keeping a soldier alive and pay for itself on insurance savings alone.

I have some experience with these numbers (and they are just easier to check via Google), but I'm still interested in your input! A few things in particular I'd like to hear about are:
1.) How much would custom weaponry cost? Example: the autocannon doesn't seem like a real weapon. It can easily be explained as a special weapon designed for the needs of the X-Com project, but due to a low market demand the cost of the weapon can be greatly increased, even if the bulk of its parts are in stock for other weapons.
2.) How much would alien artifacts sell for? The primary considerations here are how far X-Com could up-sell such extremely limited items, a reduction in buyer competition due to the secrecy of the project, and perhaps the Council taking a cut of the profit in order to offset the expense of running X-Com. One possibility I can think of is the Council setting a price point per artifact, well beneath its initial value but guaranteeing the immediate sale at that price no matter how many X-Com can collect. In this way the Council can offset some costs by carefully merchandising the artifacts, and X-Com Command can divert their attention away from such capitalistic pursuits. This would explain the unvarying sell value of the artifacts.




So let me know what you know about costs and prices. Don't shoot yourself down if you lack experience; any and all input is welcome!

20
EDIT by Meridian: split from: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,6456.0.html

Excellent! However, can you make it also do an interrupt check from a successful ground mission at the UFO landing site?

21
OXCE Bugs FIXED / [FIXED] Interception: make last shot hit [OXC]
« on: July 26, 2018, 11:41:26 am »
As many of you know, when on cautious or standard attack, if your interceptor runs out of ammo, it immediately disengages, causing the last shot to miss unless you hit aggressive soon enough.

I want to be able to choose a setting that makes aircraft automatically wait while the last shot is in flight, not disengaging until the shot either hits or misses.

Now I thought this had already been implemented, but I don't see an option for it anywhere. I don't remember where it was discussed, and I can't find the topic or anything else related.

22
Work In Progress / Reaver's Harmony Total Conversion - pre-alpha
« on: April 08, 2018, 07:41:08 pm »
I'm just posting this here for a friend. You can download if you want, but the mod is full of spoilers, it'll spoil the full mod when I release it.

Don't board the hype train yet.

23
OXCE Support / [Solved] Can I change Psionic Attack Difficulty?
« on: April 06, 2018, 10:41:08 pm »
In the base game, Mind Control has a bonus +30 difficulty over the base Panic Unit. Is there a way I can modify the difficulty of either move, so that I can alter how far apart they are?

24
OXCE Support / [Answered] Difficulty-based features for geoscape?
« on: April 02, 2018, 11:54:18 am »
Are there any features that enable me to make the difficulty setting affect Geoscape gameplay much? What options do I have here?


I had an idea for a feature: change UFO speed based on game difficulty. It could be done like the alien attributes:
The mod states: +25% per difficulty level
Large Scout modified top speed: 1800 knots

Beginner: 1800
Experienced: 2250
Veteran: 2700
Genius: 3150
Superhuman: 3600

25
The original scale is pretty much useless for vanilla defense attributes. It lists increments of 160 up to 1120. The vanilla battleship has 3000 hit points, so it takes 1500 to crash it. You have to push your defense bar pretty close to the end of the page in order to even start to have a chance of shooting the ship down, and that's assuming nothing misses. But even the vanilla fusion defense singlehandedly fills the entire bar.

Has anyone else thought about this? Is there a way I could change the scaling? I can doodle on the background image if necessary. I'm thinking a good set of numbers should be increments of 1000, with the final increment reading 7000. In original vanilla attributes, a base defense value of ~3000 is ideal to have a decent chance of shooting down a battleship. Or I could see reason to go a bit further and multiply the increments by 10, raising them to 1600, with the final number reading 11200. At that scale, there's room for even larger ships with more hit points, meanwhile even the missile defense at 500 will show at least a few pixels on the chart.

I think to change this, we need to change both the background image as well as the code determining how it scales. The first one of those is probably by far the easiest.

26
Help / [FIXED] Soldier torso and head is invisible in battlescape
« on: February 08, 2018, 06:32:29 am »
Error: spritesheets were 256 pixels, or 8 pieces wide.
Solution: ensure soldier spritesheets are 512 pixels or 16 pieces wide. Falko's sprite combiner defaults to 8 columns but you can set it to 16.






Code: [Select]
extraSprites:
  - type: AlloyArmor.PCK
    width: 512
    height: 720
    subX: 32
    subY: 40
    files:
      0: Resources/ReaversArmors/AlloyArmor.png
  - type: DarkSuit.PCK
    width: 512
    height: 720
    subX: 32
    subY: 40
    files:
      0: Resources/ReaversArmors/DarkSuit.png
armors:
  - type: STR_PERSONAL_ARMOR_HEAVY_UC
    spriteSheet: AlloyArmor.PCK
    spriteInv: MAN_5
    spriteFaceGroup: 6
    spriteFaceColor: [96, 96, 96, 96, 160, 160, 163, 163, 96, 96, 96, 96, 160, 160, 163, 163] #M0 F0 M1 F1 M2 F2 M3 F3 M4 F4 M5 F5 M6 F6 M7 F7
    spriteHairGroup: 9
    spriteHairColor: [144, 144, 102, 164, 245, 245, 166, 166, 96, 245, 245, 102, 245, 245, 163, 245] #M0 F0 M1 F1 M2 F2 M3 F3 M4 F4 M5 F5 M6 F6 M7 F7
    corpseBattle:
      - STR_CORPSE_ARMOR_ALLOY
    storeItem: STR_PERSONAL_ARMOR
    weight: 10
    stats:
      tu: -8
    frontArmor: 70
    sideArmor: 55
    rearArmor: 40
    underArmor: 40
    damageModifier:
      - 1.0
      - 1.0
      - 0.5
      - 1.0
      - 1.0
      - 1.0
      - 0.9
      - 1.0
      - 1.1
      - 1.0
    loftempsSet: [ 3 ]
  - type: STR_POWER_SUIT_UC
    spriteSheet: DarkSuit.PCK
    spriteInv: MAN_2_1
    stats:
      tu: 10
      strength: 20
    frontArmor: 110
    sideArmor: 90
    rearArmor: 80
    underArmor: 70
    damageModifier:
      - 1.0
      - 1.0
      - 0.2
      - 1.0
      - 1.0
      - 1.0
      - 0.8
      - 1.0
      - 1.0
      - 0.0


I can't figure out what I've done wrong. All I did was recolor the armor spritesheets using Falko's tools. It has worked fine with everything else so far, including tank spritesheets.

27
Work In Progress / Alien Habitat and Reproduction
« on: January 25, 2018, 04:21:42 am »
I've been doing some work to put these items into the game. Both had an MCD tile designation all along, and Alien Reproduction had a UFOPedia entry, but neither were assigned to any tiles, thus you could never obtain them in-game through normal play.

I made a fairly decent palette-convert image of the habitat from a screenshot:


Many thanks to Falko for his palette converter tool which made this image possible. Nonetheless, it took a few hours just to get the palette figured out. I wish I could save it but I don't see an option for it. I did manage to copy this:
Code: [Select]
- name: transform_NEW(ufo-research)
  op: transform
  pal: ufo-research
  maketrans: false
  cols:
    0: [48, 16]
    16: [16, 16]
    32: [208, 16]
    48: [208, 16]
    64: [64, 16]
    80: [192, 16]
    96: [192, 16]
    112: [144, 16]
    128: [144, 16]
    144: [192, 16]
    160: [64, 16]
    176: [160, 16]
    192: [160, 16]
    208: [144, 16]
    224: [96, 16]
    240: [48, 16]

























- name: transform_NEX(ufo-research)
  op: transform
  pal: ufo-research
  maketrans: false
  cols:
    0: [48, 1]
    1: [49, 1]
    2: [50, 1]
    3: [51, 1]
    4: [52, 1]
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    15: [111, 1]
    16: [208, 1]
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I'm working on adding the Alien Reproduction unit from this post to the alien bases and maybe battleships.
edit: Added!




There's no mod being offered yet, it still needs a lot of work before it's playable in my latest mod. Let me know if you want a standalone copy.

This is part of a larger project in which I'm giving all of the UFO Components a use. I'm trying to fill in a few of the holes in the UFOPedia lore while also making all of the items have some use. To that end, I am also making a slight adjustment to component spawning. Food can be found in Harvesters and Supply Ships, while Entertainment can be found in Abductors and Terror Ships. Battleships carry both plus Alien Habitat. Most other ships can rarely carry Alien Habitat.

You research Food and Entertainment to research Alien Containment, however if you research Habitat you can bypass the other two. Research Alien Medic, Alien Abduction, and Examination Room to get Super Soldiers, genetically modified humans. I haven't come up with a use for Alien Surgery and Alien Reproduction yet. Let me know if you have any ideas!



- - - - - -

Here's my view on the lore of each item:


Alien Food: Storage containers and processing units all in one which can preserve organic matter (mostly humans and cattle) and gradually absorb it to produce a nutrient solution perfect to inject directly into the aliens' bloodstream. The aliens are more energy efficient and lighter because they remove "unnecessary" organs such as digestive systems. This makes them dependent on this foodstuff to survive, because they cannot eat on their own. Some of the aliens still have the ability to eat, but may have special care needs in other areas. All of the aliens are fed this nutrient solution at all times, however, so even those with intact digestive systems have lived their entire lives without eating. This means their body is not ready to accept food, and they may not survive without either these nutrients or under the care of a nurse who can administer specially prepared foodstuffs to get their digestive system prepared to handle normal eating. Since X-Com scientists don't know anything about raising these aliens, they would undoubtedly be unable to keep one alive without having access to the nutrient solution or the recipe.



Alien Entertainment: Mis-labeled by X-Com scientists who reasonably perceived it to be for entertainment, this device is actually intrinsically connected to alien health. Their connection to psionic control makes them dependent on regular psionic stimulation to survive and remain sane. The "entertainment" devices oversee their health and well-being, acting as a diagnostic tool while also providing mental exercise. It strengthens their overseer's psionic control over them while making them resistant to outside psionic influence. Their physical health is generally improved by this improved mental health, and the machine can remotely assist their bodies in fighting infection and disease.



Alien Habitat: The parts of alien bases with the plants are their habitat areas. These are special surgically or genetically modified or engineered "plants", alien organisms which can provide for the aliens' needs. They are symbiotic with the aliens. A habitat thrives when it has aliens to care for regularly. The habitat is more effective and more energy efficient than the machinery, aliens who live near these habitats are healthier and stronger. This difference is most noticeable in early developmental weeks after hatching. For this reason, controlled alien spawning is almost exclusively performed in facilities with habitats. The food and entertainment machinery is less effective but is more space efficient and doesn't rely on constant contact with aliens, making it ideal for placing in the medium ships for short-term deployments.

Luke83 added an Alien Habitat tile to several of his UFO variants. It looks like a piece of machinery containing a fluid. I imagine it is a fluid microbiome which provides some of the bonus functionality of the habitat while also being portable. The aliens would put these on ships that are going out for a longer mission.



Examination Room: This isn't a medical table, and the "alien medics" aren't medics. This is a special tool that can perform diagnostics on humans and interface with us to make surgery easier. The "medics" are aliens who specialize in the study of genetically modifying humans. The aliens are interested in incorporating us into their ranks as a servant race. They which to make changes to us in order to take advantage of our strong points while fixing up our weak points. They find us particularly useful because we are an agile high-gravity race with excellent manual dexterity and visual-spacial perception. We are effective as soldiers, particularly on high-gravity worlds, and we are intelligent enough to perform many skilled work functions. Undoubtedly the aliens wish to use us to conquer worlds which are currently out of their reach. That is the best reason we can think of that they would risk so much trying to control us.



Alien Surgery: This is a tool the aliens use to quickly and precisely chop food animals (usually cows and humans) into portions which can be placed into food chambers. The tool uses little tractor beams to immobilize the animal and hoist it into the air while a laser cuts the animal into several pieces. These animals are cut up while alive and placed into storage while fresh. They are so well preserved that the flesh remains alive for months in storage, slowly being absorbed by the machine to feed aliens. The aliens primarily eat cows because they are abundant and provide for all of the aliens' nutritional needs, plus they are usually kept in abundance near human settlements. Humans aren't the best food source for the aliens, however we are both convenient and a nutritionally balanced source of food. They don't hunt us specifically for food, but rather spend a lot of time abducting us for other reasons, and simply eat the humans when they are done with them. They also frequently operate in populated areas and will gather humans simply out of opportunity. While we're inefficient as a farm animal, the aliens have no need to farm us as we greatly outnumber them already.

The aliens don't have any actual medics for each other. When an alien is damaged beyond their ability to recover naturally, they are killed and eaten.

This is the only mention of aliens using laser technology that I'm aware of. I've long held the idea that our own laser weapons technology is in part from alien technology. I expect the aliens to be able to craft sophisticated laser tools and even laser weapons if they wanted to. Perhaps studying iterations of alien laser technology will improve our own lasers. Maybe studying Alien Surgery will improve our engineers or scientists, or perhaps it could lead to a humanitarian breakthrough which can yield a lot of points.



Alien Reproduction: Most of the aliens have their genitals surgically removed. Sectoids don't even grow genitals. This equipment can combine alien DNA and produce an artificial fertilized egg which can grow in one of these chambers until the alien is large enough to "hatch" and be removed from the chamber. Alternatively, the chamber can produce aliens by copying saved DNA and making clones. Many if not most of the aliens we meet are clones, but the sexual reproduction (DNA combining) method is also commonly used in order to get genetic drift which can patch over cloning defects and potentially reveal new beneficial traits.

The UFOPedia article says the chamber can easily be used by us. I haven't yet thought of a good use but I'm sure we could find one.

28
In the original game, when a soldier first spots an alien, they stop running immediately, sometimes wasting time units. If you tell the soldier to turn around and move, they will turn and promptly stop, having moved no tiles at all and wasting 3-4 time units. This only happens the first time the alien is spotted this turn. When other soldiers see the alien for the first time, they do not interrupt their movement because it has already been previously spotted this turn.

In OXC, soldiers interrupt their movement the first time they see any alien in a given turn, even if that alien has been spotted previously by other soldiers.

Please fix.

29
OXCE Bugs FIXED / [FIXED] Armor reverts to Veteran difficulty value
« on: January 22, 2018, 08:35:37 am »
When I shoot a target in Genius or Superhuman difficulty, their armor value reverts to the Veteran-difficulty amount even if they didn't take any damage. My guess is they already have Veteran armor but are displaying the amount they should have until a hit triggers an update which reveals the true amount. If the difficulty gives them less armor, it seems to work correctly. They take the right amount of damage and their armor stays where it should.

This does not happen in OXC. I cannot test if it happens in unmodded OXCE+ because all difficulties other than Beginner have the same armor values for aliens.


To reproduce this bug, equip pistols or some other weak weapon to soldiers and have them shoot a sectopod. Use mind probe to check armor before and after shooting it. Make sure you have higher armor setting in difficulty.rul, example:
Code: [Select]
aimAndArmorMultipliers: [0.5, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.5]

P.S.: I'm also getting a small calculation error in armor value. On Genius difficulty, the Sectopod is showing its armor at 173/155/119 when it should be exactly 174/156/120 (20% increase over 145/130/115). My guess: some kind of floating point error rounding down instead of rounding to nearest.

30
Offtopic / X-Com Explosions are skulls
« on: January 18, 2018, 04:42:37 am »
I love that the explosion graphic is somewhere between a mushroom cloud and a skull. It makes for a neat easter egg when you manage to notice it. The easiest way to see it is by screenshotting or slowing the game down, but I first began to notice it as a nearly subliminal skull that seemed to pop up and disappear just barely too fast to see.

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