Messages

121

Open Feedback / Re: Ruleset Editing Questions (& Some mOrz Qestions)

« on: August 18, 2015, 05:18:04 am »

Thanks, Warboy! It now seems so obvious! It appears the problem lied right here, what I had done was (snippet example):

Code: [Select]

alienMissions:
  - type: STR_ALIEN_RESEARCH
    points: 0
    raceWeights:
      0:
        STR_SECTOID: 70
        STR_GAZER: 10
        STR_WASPITE: 20
I thought I was replacing STR_SNAKEMAN with STR_GAZER (and FLOATER with WASPITE)! Clearly not, as I was merely adding into the original 'raceWeights' which already included Snakeman and Floater by default. How silly of me. So what I have now done was keep Snakeman & Floater but gave them 0 chance of being triggered by the game:

Code: [Select]

  - type: STR_ALIEN_RESEARCH
    points: 0
    raceWeights:
      0:
        STR_SECTOID: 70
        STR_GAZER: 10
        STR_WASPITE: 20
        STR_SNAKEMAN: 0
        STR_FLOATER: 0
This seems to have finally fixed the problem. I've been able to last 5+ months without inconveniences before I lost the game due to multiple failures to intercept/crash UFOs and flagrant avoidance of terror attacks

PS: Out of curiosity now, why is it that if I evade or abort a terror site, all UFO activity ceases next month and the only thing that occurs is another terror attack?

PPS: And where did Arthanor go?!

122

Open Feedback / Re: Ruleset Editing Questions (& Some mOrz Qestions)

« on: August 18, 2015, 02:11:32 am »

So I have tested this crashing issue a few more times after doing:

Code: [Select]

alienRaces:
  - id: STR_FLOATER
    members: ""
  - id: STR_SNAKEMAN
    members: ""
Although the pop-up error message didn't come up anymore, the game would still sometimes crash when entering a terror mission. I couldn't/cannot find any reason why this may be happening since it doesn't seem to be related to 'missionScript' and Floaters & Snakemen have been completely removed/replaced in 'alienMissions' and elsewhere.

So I went back to alienRaces (the above code) and did this:

Code: [Select]

alienRaces:
  - id: STR_FLOATER
    members:
      - STR_MUTON_COMMANDER
  - id: STR_SNAKEMAN
    members:
      - STR_MUTON_COMMANDER
And I have lasted over 3 months without crashing in any terror mission.

The crash is obviously related to the deletion of Floater and Snakeman races and the generation of terror missions somehow. I fail to see the connection, however. Are Floaters and Snakemen hard-coded into the game so that they cannot be actually removed?

How would one go about deleting an alien race entirely then?

PS: A less important question, does the ordering of aliens under 'members' in 'alienRaces' matter? I don't think it would, but just to be absolutely sure.

123

Open Feedback / Re: Ruleset Editing Questions (& Some mOrz Qestions)

« on: August 17, 2015, 07:44:54 am »

you'll have to alter the raceweights to remove floaters from the table, you might have to delete stuff first

You mean, raceWeights in alienMissions? Because I had already taken care of that prior to encountering this issue. And I had also already deleted (delete: STR_ID) every instance having STR_FLOATER, STR_SNAKEMAN and STR_REAPER from every other ruleset.

Perhaps the problem lied here:

Code: [Select]

alienRaces:
  - delete: STR_FLOATER
  - delete: STR_SNAKEMAN
'alienRaces' and 'ufopaedia' are the only (?) rulesets which define by 'id:' rather than 'type:", which leads me to believe 'delete: STR_ID' doesn't apply here for some reason (?). So I did a little experiment and changed the above to:

Code: [Select]

alienRaces:
  - id: STR_FLOATER
    members: ""
  - id: STR_SNAKEMAN
    members: ""
And that seems to have done the trick. Or at least the game didn't crash for 2 months (previously it could crash right at the start or before the first month was over). I have only tried once, though, as I should be retiring to bed now. But hopefully this is it.

as for the armor, there are two written forms, STR_SOME_ARMOR and STR_SOME_ARMOR_UC (UC standing for UPPER CASE)

Thanks, that got it done!

124

Open Feedback / Re: Ruleset Editing Questions (& Some mOrz Qestions)

« on: August 17, 2015, 05:31:47 am »

Thanks, Warboy. That's good to know. I'd still keep it a nice, round 100%.

Now, a small issue has popped up. I've been modding UFO/EU quite a bit. One of the things I've done was completely remove Floaters, Snakemen and Reapers (I've left Chrysallids exclusively for terror missions). I've never kind of liked them very much. Besides, I'm adding robin's 3 new aliens and I don't want to have way too many alien races flying around. The problem I encountered was when I started a new game, immediately after placing the base, I get the following error message:



Sometimes, this doesn't happen and I can carry on playing as normal, but after a few days I'll get the following:



This is of course due to something in missionScripts, such as (for the first example):

Code: [Select]

  - type: recurringTerror
    missionWeights:
      0:
        STR_ALIEN_TERROR: 100
Is there any way to work around that?

Also, although I can rename armors (via extraStrings), they will still appear with their vanilla name when equipping them. For example, I've renamed Personal Armor: Tactical Armor. It appears as such in my item storage, but when equipping it to a soldier it appears as Personal Armor.

Am I missing something?

125

Open Feedback / Re: Ruleset Editing Questions (& Some mOrz Qestions)

« on: August 17, 2015, 01:24:29 am »

I have another question now, this time regarding 'raceWeights' (in alienMissions): do the percentages listed under raceWeights have to amount to 100%?

Let's take the following example from vanilla:

Code: [Select]

  - type: STR_ALIEN_RESEARCH
    points: 0
    raceWeights:
      0:
        STR_SECTOID: 70
        STR_SNAKEMAN: 10
        STR_FLOATER: 20
Alright, so that's 100% total. But what happens if I apply robin's Anthropod mod?

Code: [Select]

  - type: STR_ALIEN_RESEARCH
    raceWeights:
      0:
          STR_ANTHROPOD: 10
How does this affect the original code? Does it just add 10% to 100%?  Why doesn't it come in conflict with the other code?

Thanks!

126

Open Feedback / Re: Ruleset Editing Questions (& Some mOrz Qestions)

« on: August 15, 2015, 07:31:13 am »

Unfortunately, the game isn't clever enough to realize that it is of race Tasoth and rank Commander and so should be displayed as "Tasoth Commander" You need to define what to display for STR_TASOTH_COMMANDER in the extraStrings section.

Much appreciated. I got it done like so:

Code: [Select]

extraStrings:
  - type: en-US
    strings:
      STR_ID: Name
A couple new questions have risen. Although the mod is still being tested and works perfectly for the most part, I have experienced a couple random crashes. Now, I am aware OpenTFTD is still in beta and, as such, should not quite yet fully support modding. Furthermore, I am not even sure if these 2-3 crashes were due to some buggy coding of my own, or some buggy coding in OpenTFTD itself. I have reloaded the game again just to see if I could maybe pinpoint what caused the issue, but in some instances the crash would simply not occur again, so I guess there's no way to be totally sure, right?

Just now I was playing a random skirmish and when the first alien came out (Lobsterman), the game crashed. Earlier, the game crashed after a terror mission came up. (I have not modified the AI, missions or alien deployment in any way.)

Perhaps the following questions should be easier to address:

Is there a way to change TU-cost for priming/throwing grenades separately (say, make Proximity Grenade cheaper/faster to prime n' throw than regular Grenades)? Is this possible? If so, I have not discovered how!

Following the same line of thought: can Psi-Amp's TU-cost be differentiated between Panic and Mind Control or are they absolutely bound under Psi-Amp's singular TU-cost? In other words, could I make Panic cost 25 TUs and Mind Control 60?

And directly related to the above: can psionics be given a range-based accuracy (like weapons) instead of either (a) having you and the aliens be capable of MC'ing anyone across the map from the comfort of one's ship as in vanilla, or (b) reducing MC to line of sight only as in current mod (which makes it a bit underpowered, I must say, for both aliens and human players)? How about something in between?

127

Open Feedback / Re: Ruleset Editing Questions (& Some mOrz Qestions)

« on: August 14, 2015, 02:48:27 am »

About researching Aliens, you can do nice stuff with dependencies and such.

Indeed! That's what I was aiming for: making live alien captures slightly more useful/important.

in some cases, "" won't work, because it's adding to an array rather than replacing a string, so you need to delete and redefine.

Thanks. Will keep that in mind!

Are you trying to say that the ruleset should follow the vanilla screencap? If you don't identify what you show, it is very difficult to understand you. This screenshot could have come from OpenXCom (any version of it) and that code snippet could be from any ruleset too. If you don't say anything, the assumption is that they are from the same version, which they weren't.

You are absolutely right. I thoughtlessly assumed the screenshot being from the vanilla game was a given. I should have clarified! My bad

As you showed, the coelacanth had power 110 wrongly displayed, so OpenXCom devs decided to give the coelacanth the same power, but OpenXCom works better than the original and displays the right info. As far as I can tell, it always displays exactly the info there. The UFOPaedia in OpenXCom will pull its values from the ruleset it uses.

Fantastic. I seemed to have forgot that OpenXCom is not using the same engine as the vanilla game with all its buggy innards and whatnot!

Now, I do have a question. This time I've tried pretty much everything I could think of, but I've run out of ideas! I must have overlooked something. To make a long story short: I have added all 6 ranks to every non-terrorist alien race. That is, I have added Gillman Medic & Navigator, Lobsterman Medic, and Tasoth Medic, Technician, Navigator & Commander. I have cross-checked to make sure everything was in order between rulesets (items, units, research, etc) quite extensively. I was just now testing if I could research the aliens without problem, so I assigned a couple live aliens to my base's storage using startingBase.rul

Everything works fine (I get the associated UFOpedia entries, getOneFree's, etc), but their names appear as STR_ALIEN_RANK in the research and storage lists.

This happens only with the ones I have added myself, of course. It doesn't happen with an Aquatoid Medic or Lobsterman Navigator, for example.

Is there something I'm overlooking?

128

Open Feedback / Re: Ruleset Editing Questions (& Some mOrz Qestions)

« on: August 13, 2015, 02:07:14 am »

Don't worry, I managed to get it done by using the good ol' delete: STR_ID trick!

Code: [Select]

  - delete: STR_PARTICLE_DISTURBANCE_SENSOR
  - id: STR_PARTICLE_DISTURBANCE_SENSOR
    type_id: 14
    section: STR_WEAPONS_AND_EQUIPMENT
    text: STR_PARTICLE_DISTURBANCE_SENSOR_UFOPEDIA
    image_id: UP030.BDY
  - delete: STR_MEDI_KIT
  - id: STR_MEDI_KIT
    type_id: 14
    section: STR_WEAPONS_AND_EQUIPMENT
    text: STR_MEDI_KIT_UFOPEDIA
    image_id: UP052.BDY
I still don't know why it wouldn't work otherwise. Maybe... I'm not using "" correctly? if that's the case, then I'll need to fix a couple other entries in which I've used "" to delete some requirement.

129

Open Feedback / Re: Ruleset Editing Questions (& Some mOrz Qestions)

« on: August 13, 2015, 01:44:03 am »

Fire damage ignores armor (but not damage modifiers), so if you have a 2x2 unit that is not immune to fire, that's ~24 damage per hit which is sometimes more than you can deal otherwise

Good to know.

The power listing of smoke is also for the area (and I think the smoke density. Not all smoked tiles are equal.). The damage done is 1-3/turn and only affected by the damage multiplier.

Alright, but to be clear: this is stun-damage only, correct?

I'm pretty sure you will get the aquatoid entry and also something from getOneFree. An example is researching an engineer where you get the race and also some other stuff, usually UFO stats or something.

Perhaps I should have phrased my question somewhat differently. What I meant to ask was: I know the two entries will be added to the UFOpedia, but will they pop-up on screen, one first, then the other (immediately after you exit the first one)? Or will the game just notify you for the first unlocked entry only?

It's a bit of a silly question, I know. I just do not remember getting two UFOpedia entries simultaneously.

I think someone altered the code to enable this at some point, at my request even. To change it to Rearm, Refuel, Repair so they are completed from fastest to longest. But I don't know of an option for that (even though I would like it rather than having to change the code).

It would be very useful if this could be implemented with rulesets.

As for your USOPaedia questions, you're sure you're comparing the picture with the ruleset that generated it? If so, that's really weird.. Or are you comparing your picture (with a dated, wrong ruleset, it seems) with the new ruleset from Github (where it would have been fixed)?

No, that's a screencap from the vanilla game. Sure, it may be fixed now. Regardless, why would the actual data state 110 and UFOpedia 130? I mean, I'm just asking because I want to be absolutely sure that any changes I make to items will be automatically reflected in UFOpedia without me needing to go out of my way and be on the lookout for any errors!

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Displacer/Sonic

Notes
The UFOpedia.orgrmation on the power of the Displacer/Sonic's weapon is incorrect. Its true power is 110.

Alright, I've been heavily (but lightly) modding the game—just aiming for a more balanced, improved, perhaps slightly more difficult re-playability. And so far, everything works to perfection (considering the hundred little changes and all the cross-referencing between rulesets). I've believe I've satisfactorily got research, manufacture, facilities, items, itemLevels, alienRaces, units and armors down.

I thought I had ufopaedia.rul down too, but I've come upon a slight predicament now. For some reason I'm unaware of, I cannot make Particle Disturbance Sensor and Medi-Kit appear on UFOpedia right from the start. Any thoughts on that?

All I've done was this:

Code: [Select]

ufopaedia:
  - id: STR_PARTICLE_DISTURBANCE_SENSOR
    requires: ""
  - id: STR_MEDI_KIT
    requires: ""
The only other changes I've done were:

Code: [Select]

research:
  - delete: STR_PARTICLE_DISTURBANCE_SENSOR
  - delete: STR_MEDI_KIT

Code: [Select]

manufacture:
  - delete: STR_PARTICLE_DISTURBANCE_SENSOR    #Particle Disturbance Sensor #
  - delete: STR_MEDI_KIT    #Medi-Kit #
And of course, I can already purchase these items as normal. Their UFOpaedia entries just don't show.

130

Open Feedback / Re: Ruleset Editing Questions (& Some mOrz Qestions)

« on: August 11, 2015, 11:17:34 pm »

Digressing momentarily back to the UFOpedia question:

I noticed Disruptor Pulse Launcher shows 75% TU Cost in UFOpedia, but it's actually 66% in the code:

Code: [Select]

    compatibleAmmo:
      - STR_DISRUPTOR_AMMO
    accuracyAimed: 120
    tuAimed: 66
    battleType: 1
Similarly, Displacer/Sonic shows a Weapon Power of 130, but it's actually 110:

Code: [Select]

  - type: STR_DISPLACER_SONIC
    size: 6
    costSell: 980000
    transferTime: 96
    bigSprite: 54
    bulletSprite: 8
    fireSound: 36
    hitSound: 31
    power: 110
    damageType: 5

So why did UFOpedia get that wrong?

Thanks

131

Open Feedback / Re: Ruleset Editing Questions (& Some mOrz Qestions)

« on: August 11, 2015, 09:51:50 pm »

With the TftD damage rule, both AP and Explosives do 50% to 150% of listed damage on impact (at ground zero for the explosive, which also means it is hitting under armor instead of whatever facing was hit). That means 30 to 90 damage on hit (neglecting damage modifiers and armor).

With EU damage rule, AP does 0% to 200% damage, so 0 to 120 damage for your 60 listed power. By opposition, explosives still do 50% to 150% damage. On average, they both do 60, in practice, the HE is a lot more reliable, especially since at ground zero it is hitting under armor which is generally lower.

For both formulas, In/Ph rounds do variable damage on hit, about 6 on average, and will do damage over time. The only thing that the listed power does is determine the size of the area to be covered in fire.

Alright, that answers everything pretty nicely! I was aware of the 50-150% of TFTD and the 0-200% of EU. Also knew HE's quirk (other than AOE) is that it hits under armor (which is usually weaker). I did not understand how In/Ph worked, though. The damage value is quite misleading! No wonder I couldn't kill anything with Phosphorous when I first played TFTD! So there's basically little benefit other than illuminating big patches of terrain with it, right? It's not like you can count on 6 points of damage per turn to kill the enemy for you... (which is a shame, because I would have wanted it to have a more compelling reason to actually be useful)

And while I'm at it, I might as well ask: does smoke damage (like making Dye Grenade do 60 smoke damage instead of 10) also determine blast radius, or is there something else to it? Actually, is there any smoke health damage at all, or is does it only build up stunning over time? I'm a bit confused now since armor's damage modifiers do list smoke as if a unit could be strong/weak against it somehow. I can understand 0.0 would mean totally invulnerable, but to what exactly? In other words, what does smoke really do, damage-wise?

No, getOneFree will be executed once, and if you have two defined in the ruleset the second should overwrite the first. It's not getTwoFree

Ah, would've been nice if it worked. On a tangential note, can 2 or more UFOpaedia articles pop-up at the same time? For example, you research an Aquatoid Medic and get the Aquatoid UFOpaedia entry proper (provided you never research any Aquatoid before) + some random autopsy due to the Medic's 'geOneFree'? Does this happen or do you get both unlocked but just one pops up? I do not recall getting any more than one at once...

I believe that this is hard coded.

I do not know where I had read this, but I remember refuel, repair and rearming priorities could be re-ordered...?

You mean in the manufacture section I guess? Yes, that should work. The option to manufacture the Coelacanth should pop when you research the gauss canon. Note that you will need to also change the dependencies of the USOPaedia article if you want to get that at the same time.

It is a bit different since the coelacanth does not have its own research project. If it did, with dependencies on the cannon and sub construction, and both the manufacture and UFOPaedia had depended on that research topic, all you would have had to do is change the dependencies, but alas

Right. Same with making Medi-Kit and Particle Disturbance Sensor available from the start (which is what I've just done): remove ('delete: STR_ID') their research, manufacture and UFOpedia entries.

Well, I've exhausted all my questions for now! I should be back with some mOrz later

Thanks for all the help.

132

Open Feedback / Re: Ruleset Editing Questions (& Some mOrz Qestions)

« on: August 11, 2015, 06:29:37 pm »

OK, mOrz questions.

If I wanted to remove the New Fighter Flying Sub from Coelacanth/Gauss' dependencies (to make it more worthwhile), but leave Gauss Cannon intact, would this do it?

Code: [Select]

  - name: STR_COELACANTH_GAUSS    #Coelacanth/Gauss #
    requires:
     - STR_GAUSS_CANNON
In other words: whatever I list under 'requires' (even if multiple items, or same items as the base ruleset but with additions or omissions) would override the 'requires' found in the base ruleset, correct?

133

Open Feedback / Re: Ruleset Editing Questions (& Some mOrz Qestions)

« on: August 11, 2015, 06:00:35 pm »

Researching project B will make item C researchable even if you haven't completed project A, but you will still need to have item C in your storage, otherwise the project will not show up. All that unlocks does is get rid of dependencies if there is no require.

Fabulous. Well, I believe you've answered all my questions!

Now, you wouldn't happen to know how AP, HE & Incendiary/Phosphorous actually differ from each other, would you? To make it simple: what does more damage; an AP round of power value 60, an HE round of 60, or a In/Ph round of 60? (I'm asking about direct hit damage—AOE or subsequent fire damage aside.)

Oh, actually: this is not terribly important, but can I use two getOneFree's in order to unlock 2 random UFO files at a time, as an example, instead of just 1? Or would they come in conflict with each other? I wouldn't think there'd be a problem, but just to be sure.

And would you happen to know where the repair, fuel, rearm order for crafts is located? I haven't been able to find it...

Good catch on the research. It does not seem to have been corrected. For reference, if you want to see the most up to date code without having to update, you can go to the git repository and look there for the ruleset in bin/standard/xcom2.

Awesome, will keep an eye on it!

134

Open Feedback / Re: Ruleset Editing Questions (& Some mOrz Qestions)

« on: August 11, 2015, 02:40:04 am »

In order to research the vibroblade, you do not need to have a calcinite corpse at your base, but you need to already have researched a calcinite corpse (which is different from getting a calcinite autopsy article from an alien medic, you need to have researched the actual corpse). You also need to have a vibroblade in your storage at the base.

You are of course absolutely right. I just realized it, but you beat me to it! I was thinking CORPSE meant the actual item in storage (which didn't make too much sense, but I was willing to go with that), when in fact it means the "Alien Corpse" research topic unlocked (which invariably unlocks the corresponding UFOpaedia article). Everything makes much more sense now.

Code: [Select]

- delete: STR_AQUA_PLASTICS
- name: STR_AQUA_PLASTICS
  cost: 400
    points: 30
    needItem: true
That doesn't look bad at all. I was worried the second would conflict with the first and get itself deleted too

By the way, does it matter in which order they are listed? What if you did "delete: STR_ID" after "name: STR_ID"? Or is "delete" just removing the previous/older iteration (which would be found in the base ruleset) regardless?

Code: [Select]

- name: STR_AQUA_PLASTICS
  dependencies: []
And if I did the above to replace old dependencies for new ones, would it still work? Like this:

Code: [Select]

- name: STR_AQUA_PLASTICS
  dependencies: []
  - STR_SONIC_PISTOL
Would that cancel out Deep-One Corpse and add in Sonic Pistol?

Or perhaps I should just stick to the good ol' "delete: STR_ID" method!

I do have totally different question now: when I change weapon stats, does that reflect in the corresponding UFOpedia entry or do I have to update the UFOpedia file separately? Like, if I change Dart Gun's meager power value of 16 to 24 or whatever, would UFOpaedia show this?

PS: One more question. Does 'unlock' override 'needItem'? Or do I still need to have said item before 'unlock' can come into effect? For example, Sonic Pistol could have Zrbite, Aqua Plastics and Gilman dependencies while research on Gilman Corpse can independently 'unlock' Sonic Pistol. But if Sonic Pistol has 'needItem', does Gilman Corpse research till 'unlock' it or do I have to have Sonic Pistol first?

By the way, Warboy (or anyone else working on OpenXcom), by the time I write this it may have already been fixed, but I found this:

Code: [Select]

- name: STR_MAGNETIC_NAVIGATION
cost: 450
points: 30
needItem: true
- name: STR_ION_BEAM_ACCELERATORS
cost: 450
needItem: true
ION_BEAMS is missing its 30 points research value.

135

Open Feedback / Re: Ruleset Editing Questions (& Some mOrz Qestions)

« on: August 11, 2015, 01:13:58 am »

If a research has a "needItem: true", it simply means that this item needs to be in storage for the research to be available. It is in addition to other dependencies or requirements, which also have to be met. If you have the item in storage when the project's last dependency is satisfied, you should get the "We can now research" popup. If you didn't, but later on acquire one, you will never get a popup but it will be there next time you check after acquiring the item.

That's exactly what I wanted to find out.

If you were you add "needItem: true" to the vibro blade, you would need to research a calcinite corpse, and then, then next time you go in the lab while having a vibro blade in your storage, you will see the research topic.

Great, as I figured!

EDIT: just to be clear, STR_CALCINITE_CORPSE would mean just having a corpse in storage, correct? Not the same as STR_CALCINITE_AUTOPSY.

Note that this doesn't work in this case, since aliens don't use the vibro blade, so you will never have one in storage before you made one, but you will never make one before researching it, but you will never research it before having one, etc.

Are you sure about that? Maybe it's because I have never played vanilla TFTP, only TFTDextender, but I am 100% certain aliens do carry drill-type weapons quite a lot. In fact, I've gotten all 3 types of drills way before I even begun research on them.

As I mentioned before, I would otherwise have deleted the whole project and redefined it straight away.

Well, that may perhaps be less troublesome! So, I do ask you again, just to have an idea, what would you do code-wise to delete the project and then redefine it? I still don't quite see how it should look like in my mind. An example would be appreciated

If a research "unlocks" something, you will usually see it as a dependency for the projects it unlocks. This is done because otherwise, the unlocked project would have no dependency so could be researched from the beginning.

Ah, so I noticed. That's why I was wondering if there was a mutual relationship between 'unlocks' and 'dependencies' where canceling one would cancel the other out.

In this case, since there is only one project that can unlock Aqua Plastics, I honestly don't see why the corpse would need to unlock it. As soon as the Deep-One Corpse project is finished, all (of one) dependencies of Aqua Plastics have been satisfied and it should become available any ways.

Exactly, that's why I was/am a bit confused.

If you remove the dependency, you should also remove the unlock, yes. More for simplicity and "cleanliness" than because it is needed in this case, but in others where there could be new dependencies defined, having an odd unlock will probably still unlock the project and mess up your research tree.

Right, I'll play it safe. Just wanted to understand the "logic" behind it.