Messages

166

Work In Progress / Re: Weapon Rework/Expansion - Version 0.8

« on: March 25, 2015, 08:07:59 am »

All right, I can see this getting me nowhere... hellrazor pointed out I should suggest a Scatter Laser instead of a laser shotgun.  In XCOM2012 (hereafter referred to as 2012) they used that as a laser shotgun and it has the same shotgun limitations.  The alien version is the Alloy Cannon but Warboy kind of covered that in his shotgun mod w/ the Reinforced Shotgun and the Alloy Ammunition.

167

Work In Progress / Re: Weapon Rework/Expansion - Version 0.8

« on: March 25, 2015, 07:37:54 am »

That's why I'm suggesting splitting with an Elerium crystal.  The "unknown" properties of the material could serve to make the light beams more powerful.  I'd also like to point out that the entire point of a shotgun (at least in most video games) is to have a large damage count achieved by having having many smaller projectiles make contact.  You are certainly right that the point of a laser is to have a super concentrated beam of light hit all in one spot.  However, I'd like to point out that a flashlight is an ineffective "weapon" because it uses all the wave lengths of light at once (though tungsten filaments typically give off a slightly yellow hue) where a laser is typically tuned for the red (laser pointers,) blue (Blu-Ray,) or Green (laser pointers, military LTADS) wavelengths.  In game it's in the yellow range.

For those who are curious, here's a "table" that details the light wavelengths in relation to their colours... this kind of has nothing to do w/ the aforementioned argument, I just thought it was a fun piece of trivia.  These wavelengths pertain specifically to visible light and produce "true" colours.
Violet Light = 400nm
Indigo Light = 445nm
Blue Light = 475nm
Green Light = 510nm
Yellow Light = 470-489nm
Orange Light = 590nm
Red Light = 650nm

Notes:
Above 400nm is the ultraviolet, x-ray, and gamma ray spectrum (the wavelength decreases and the power increases)
Below 700nm is the infrared, microwave, and radio wave spectrum (the wavelength increases the power decreases)
489nm wavelength is noted in the yellow range because it's about the yellow-orange colour that sodium-fueled street lamps emit.

168

Work In Progress / Re: Weapon Rework/Expansion - Version 0.8

« on: March 25, 2015, 06:02:09 am »

A laser shotguns is a really weird concept. (It deflects the laser beam in a "random" direction?!) A high rate of fire, low accuracy weapon would be easier to conceive of.

Beyond that, there are plasma shotguns and sniper rifles, and a variety of extra laser weapons in the "Armoury Expanded" mods that you could use (as inspiration or to tweak).

I've sat and given this a lot of thought actually.  Like I said, I want to cater to a bunch of different play styles as the ultimate goal of this mod.  I know it needs A LOT of tweaking for the sake of balance but I feel like I should get all the weapon concepts together first before I sit down and finalize the project.

I'm aware there's a lot of weapons available in the Alien Arsenal Expanded mod, that, combined with this mod, is what gave me the drive to take over what Rockfish abandoned.  If he comes back I'll work to negotiate some kind of deal with him but until then I'll pick up where he left off.  I want to make a large weapon mod that's fun to play and makes the game more challenging.  Even on superhuman, I find the game isn't challenging enough for me, so why not change it up by giving the aliens a veritable fun-house of weapons?  I know some of these won't even penetrate the armour provided by the Power and Flying Suits, but that's half the fun isn't it?  I need to sit down and rework the game's deployment so that as you progress further into the game the aliens have more and more powerful weapons.

As for making a "laser shotgun" you can split a laser beam irl with a prism, so why not split it with a piece of Elerium as the prism?  As far as I can tell, Elerium is a [transparent] crystalline material of unknown properties, so why not use it as a splitting prism?  The Thermal weapons are actually shotgun-like weapons (although I think in the most recent iteration I have them set as single projectile weapons) and they're kind of interesting with how effective they are.

Call for help:
I need help from spriters, please contact me.  I've realized that my "skill" with spriting simply won't cut it for a project this massive, especially if I want to change out a large number of existing skins/sprites.

169

Work In Progress / Re: Weapon Rework/Expansion - Version 0.8

« on: March 24, 2015, 05:44:12 pm »

Update to chaosshade version 0.2

Thanks to having Warboy's help w/ the mod we figured out why the Thermal Weapons were crashing the game.  It turned out there was a bug w/ the engine itself that was causing problems.  The aliens have a huge selection of weapons now, although Heavy Plasmas and Blaster Launchers are still quite rare.

Notable Fixes:
-All weapons fully implemented and working.

Upcoming features:
I wanted to implement some more new weapons and possibly improve upon the rather crappy shotgun in the mod.  I frankly like Warboy's shotgun mod a lot more and I use that instead, lol.  What I really need is an artist to do the handob sprites for the battlescape.  I can do the bigobs sprites myself (in fact I really enjoy it) so I don't need help on that front.

Planned:
-Laser Shotgun (because, c'mon, Laser Shotgun!)
-Laser Sniper Rifle (I have this working as a stand-alone but I need to merge and reskin it)
-Plasma Shotgun (see Laser Shotgun)
-Plasma Sniper Rifle

I know that "arsenal expansion" mods typically end up with a huge selection basically junk items but ideally a weapon mod should allow players to experiment w/ new play styles.  I hope I can reach that goal in the end.

170

Work In Progress / Re: Weapon Rework/Expansion - Version 0.8

« on: March 22, 2015, 11:39:00 pm »

I know this is a necro post, but I feel I should let everyone know that I've started working on this mod again.  I've mostly done debug stuff so it's in way better shape than when Rockfish stopped working on it.

Notable Fixes:
-All weapons can be researched now
-Weapon balance heavily adjusted
-Crashy weapons have been disabled to stabilize the game

Notable Bugs:
-Blaster Launcher cannot be used by the player, although it can be researched (still haven't figured this one out...)
-Thermal weapons cause the game to crash
-Arc Projector causes the game to crash
-Heavy Launcher causes the game to crash
-Shotgun causes the game to crash

If anyone can figure out WHY the noted weapons make the game crash, PLEASE don't hesitate to fix it and PLEASE post the fixed code either on the forum or on the mod page!