Messages

31

Released Mods / Re: [FULL MOD] UFO & TFTD Rework (latest update: March 14)

« on: March 14, 2016, 06:44:48 pm »

1) Looks like plastic aqua battlescape sprites <> inv sprites (inv dolls & corpses are darker)

I know. I would ideally wanna make them all snow-white, but I haven't gotten around to making the inventory/ragdoll sprites look good enough (or white enough, for that matter) yet.

2) Planning to put Asians? 

Nope. I'm pretty sure you got that covered on your end

Small update, BTW. New links and changelog as usual.

March 20: Quick n' Silent Update Pic: New Laser Clips

32

Work In Progress / Re: [WIP][MOD] From the Apocalypse 0.1a

« on: March 12, 2016, 05:40:30 pm »

Downloaded just to take a sneak peek and it just looks so absolutely gorgeous! I could never get into X-Com: Apoc due to the clunky interface and "ugly" graphics (much like other 3rd-in-the-series games of the time: Star Control 3 and Master of Orion 3).

I especially like the "interdimensional" and more "biological/organic" aspect of Apoc's aliens.

Hope this comes out fully fledged in the not too distant future!

33

Released Mods / Re: [FULL MOD] UFO & TFTD Rework (latest update: March 31)

« on: March 12, 2016, 04:31:46 pm »

Because maximum character length has been exceeded in changelog post, it'll be continued here:

March 1 mostly TFTD-oriented update
— [UFO/TFTD] Increased height of all UFO/SUB maps to 6 (meaning only closed environments will have a vanilla height limits now). Also increased shade of TFTD's Alien Colony Pt.2 to 5 (from 0) to add to the "hidden movement" feel

— [UFO/TFTD] Live alien research reworked: now ranks plays a more important role in unlocking alien technologies and it works great. Still haven't figured out how to improve getting alien missions and UFO craft entries.

— [UFO/TFTD] Personal & Aqua Armor made more like each other in terms of damage modifiers, same goes for Flying/Power Suit & Mag/Ion Armor.

— [UFO/TFTD] Very minor weapons review (specifically, decreased weight of HC/GC & AU/HJC a bit).

— [TFTD only] Added meleeSound for Drills and all melee Terror Unit attacks so you can tell when they miss.

— [TFTD only] Removed fixed race restrictions to Alien Colony (both parts, previously vanilla Aqua/Gill pt.1 and Lobster/Tas pt.2). I actually really liked it vanilla, but making it more like UFO/EU adds the unpredictability factor. Plus, you'd get to meet mixed races later on anyway.

— [TFTD only] Lotsa people bitching about Ship Lane Attacks, so reduced occurrence chances to 30% (from 60%). I also personally prefer Artefact Sites or regular Terrors over Cargo/Cruise missions.

— [TFTD only] Fixed oversight in alienMissions where Lobsters were appearing too early. The order should be Aquatoid/Gillman early, then Tasoth coming into the mix and them Lobster.

— [TFTD only] Coela/Gauss got yellow re-color. Tried white, grey/silver, blue, green, black & white, but yellow seemed best in the end. (UFOpedia re-color still pending.)

— [TFTD only] Based on some user feedback, decided to add Calcinite's "protoplasm" form (even though it's still missing transitory death sprites from dying Calcinite to spawning Protoform, but it doesn't look that bad as it is).

— [TFTD only] Reverted Plastic Aqua Armor to original vanilla colors with some minor changes: made the white whiter (where previously it was light creamy brownish/yellow, specifically on shoulder plates) and fixed inventory sprites as well. I REALLY wanted to go for snow-white Plastic Aqua Armors (I mean, I still do), but I haven't managed to make inventory sprites look good yet all in white... something feels/looks off, so if anyone wants to help! (And we can probably disregard UFOpedia entry since it has a reputation for getting colors wrong anyway.)

— [TFTD only] Tasoth goth a reskin. Now they look like pretty little seahorses No, seriously, it was too much yellow-overload previously with all the Lobsterman and Ion Armors end-game. Now Tasoth looks like chameleon-like seahorses salamanders.

— [TFTD only] Added new Lobsterman Tomb Guard to final T'leth Level (tried a few color variations, but stuck with red lobsters for now) just to spiff things up a little since that final level is easiest of all T'leth missions. Tomb Guards are basically like Soldiers on steroids and they won't panic.

March 12 update
— [UFO/TFTD] FINALLY improved/rebalanced/spiffed up interception/air combat. Overall, UFOs got more range and X-Com weapons (more specifically, Plasma/Sonic) were nerfed a bit. Fusion/PWT got a big buff, however. Also, all cannons have 3 rates of fire now (cautions, standard, aggressive). And even Scout/Survey Ship can poke fun at you now

— [UFO/TFTD] Re-reviewed live alien research for alien missions and crafts. In essence, lower ranks give out info on smaller UFOs and less "covert" missions. Medics and Engins/Techs are the only ones who stick to vanilla. In turn, Leaders/Navs & Commanders disclose more "covert" missions and larger UFOs. Been playtesting and it definitely makes a difference now.

— [UFO/TFTD] Re-reviewed alien deployment numbers in some loeadouts, just minor changes for more logical distribution according to craft size/type.

— [UFO/TFTD] Increased Elerium/Zrbite refuel rate of all craft to 10 (from 5). Also increased FIRESTORMS's max fuel to 30 (from 20), LIGHTNING's to 60 (from 50) and AVENGER to 90 (from 60). As for TFTD, just LEVIA to 90 (from 50). Also other very minor changes (except dropping damage capacities for LIGHTN/HAMMER to 560, from 800 and 960, respectively).

— [UFO/TFTD] Reworked starting base's facilities layout and re-reviewed starting items (basically added some more supplies).

— [UFO/TFTD] Corrected Alien Containment & Psi/MC-Lab UFOpedia texts (15 capacity each, instead of 10).

— [UFO/TFTD] Based on player feedback, reverted previous soldier/aqua's Firing/Reaction nerf (80) to 100.

— [UFO/TFTD] Auto accuracy of Heavy Laser/Gauss and Heavy Plasma/Sonic reduced to 60 and 70, from 65 and 75, respectively.

— [UFO/TFTD] Increased buy/sell prices for Heavy/Gas Cannon, Rocket/Torpedo Launcher and High/Magna Explosives (+10K).

— [UFO/TFTD] Reduced sell costs of Laser/Gauss guns since they easily became the best cash-cow items.

— [UFO/TFTD] Decreased build time of Small Radar/Sonar further to 8 (from previous 10), otherwise there is very little reason to build it and it should be encouraged for new bases.

— [TFTD only] Brought TFTD's sonar/resolver range to UFO/EU's standards. (Although fixed already by latest nightly too now).

— [TFTD only] Nerfed Mag/Ion Armor's front to 120/130 (I mean, 132/142 was waaay too high compared to UFO/EU's Flying/Power Suit).

— [TFTD only] Removed Commander from Alien Colony pt.1.

— [TFTD only] Diving Suit, Plastic Aqua & Mag/Ion Armor helmets in inventory screen went from black to blue (now they match battlescape sprites).

— [TFTD only] *Slightly* increased frequency rate of some terrains (as all terrains had a 50% chance of occurrence only, otherwise you got Seabed/Coral at a 25/25% chance, and some terrains are hardly ever seen because of this).

— [TFTD only] Rearranged aquanaut's ethnicities (head/hair) to be more in line with UFO/EU (reason being soldiernames are based upon UFO/EU's blonde > brown > asian/indian > black and TFTD has looks mixed up quite a bit, even between male/females).

— [UFO only] Targeted retaliation missions begin earlier for Genius & Superhuman difficulties, like in TFTD.

— [UFO only] Laser clips color change to match weapon palette better.

— [UFO/TFTD] Implemented UFOpedia 2-in-1 for Laser/Gauss & alien weapons. Meaning, clip pages no longer needed: weapon + clip all in one page (no longer requires two separate researches: now research weapon and unlock clip with it). This makes browsing through UFOpedia more smooth and weapons comparison more seamless.

(Currently thinking about removing Anthropod from UFO/EU and leaving just 5 alien races as vanilla, with just Waspites replacing Floaters and Gazers replacing Snakemen.)

March 14 quick update
— [UFO/TFTD] Rebalanced Laser/Gauss manufacture profitability (each item is 10K less profitable now).

— [TFTD only] Re-reviewed aquanauts' ethnicities and reverted back to vanilla style mostly. Reason: the racial intermixing of vanilla TFTD actually made it much more interesting (I mean, it's 2040, not 1999!) Plus, some memorable faces were appearing less frequently (namely: black dude, bald smiley dude & red headband gal) by making TFTD more UFO/EU style. Besides, who cares if the black guy is named Henrik Lindqvist anyway?

— [TFTD only] Returned Tasoth's former Gauss resistance and dropped former Sonic weakness to normal (Tasoth may still need a bit more health, though).

— [UFO/TFTD] Re-reviewed alien missions racial odds: endeavoured to keep ratios as close to vanilla as possible while only adding more mixed crews. Additionally [UFO only], instead of removing Anthropod altogether (yet?), reduced its presence so that it doesn't overshadow Mutons & Ethereals.

— [UFO only] Re-reviewed alien races and settled for just 6 custom/mixes/combinations (rather than 4 additional separate ones for terror missions).

March 20 quick n' silent update
— [UFO only] Completely redesigned Laser Clips (third time's the charm?) and gave Plasma Clips proxy floor sprites (since they were using the same brown/red clip in vanilla, which didn't match at all). Not that anyone would run around the battlefield with clips in hand just to flash them out in all their pixelated glory

— [UFO/TFTD] Fixed Naked Spitter & Calcinite Protoform Corpse item names: "Naked" and "Protoform" in parentheses only kept/required for Soldier Diaries, otherwise removed from store/sell screen.

— [UFO/TFTD] Reduced weight of Avalanche/DUP Missiles from 1.5 to 0.8 (effectively reducing starting base's stores from 41 to 36).

— [UFO/TFTD] Reduced Laser/Gauss Cannon's damage from 60 to 45.

— [UFO/TFTD] Doubled Large Rocket/Torpedo buy/sell cost.

— [UFO/TFTD] Increased Plasma/Sonic Pistol power by 5.

— [UFO/TFTD] Fixed "MALE_CIVILIAN" and FEMALE_CIVILIAN" display name to "Civilian" for Soldier Diaries.

— [Hobbe's Terrain Pack Edit] Removed TFTD Port maps from Terrain Pack (left in separate folder for those who wanna add it back). Reason: increase chances of other custom terror maps (Area 51, Industrial, Dawn City, etc). Besides, you see Port Attacks in TFTD all the time!

March 31 BIGGIE update: v1.3d
— [UFO/TFTD] Add Mind Probe/MC Reader as req item to manufacture Psi-Amp/MC-Disruptor.

— [UFO/TFTD] Increase HC/Gas Cannon AP damage by 10. Reason: make it still viable even after you get Laser/Gauss Rifle. Also improved AC/HJ-Cannon AP & HE damage slightly.
 
— [UFO] Fixed oversight on Ethereal's damage modifiers (where they should have been higher).

— [TFTD] Swapped yellow Coela for orange so that orange is now Gauss one. Just looked better.

— [TFTD] Roxis213 updated HAMMERHEAD & LEVIA, changes to MCD files & ruleset, now aquanauts can walk onto the roofs (where applicable) and walk along the northwest and northeast walls without problem.

— [UFO/TFTD] Returned Hovertank/Blaster & Displacer/PWT ammo to 8 (from 6). I would ideally prefer to leave it at 6 (or 4) if I could give them Plasma/Sonic secondary weapon.

— [UFO/TFTD] Reduced manufacture time of Heavy Laser/Gauss by 100 hrs and increased manufacture time of Laser/Gauss Cannon (also increased sell price by 10K), Plasma Beam/Sonic Oscillator & Fusion-Ball/PWT Launcher.

— [UFO/TFTD] Also swapped back Mind Probe/MC-Reader's and Psi-Amp/Disruptor's times as vanilla. Reason: Mind Probe, although intended as an early game profitable item, and even at half the sell price and Elerium/Alloys costs notwithstanding, had become the most profitable item in the whole game by a *LARGE* margin, this will make it less so but still unsurpassed #1 (if you can spare the Elerium/Alloys). The Shadow Gov must really enjoy spying on its citizens

— [UFO/TFTD] Lastly, substantially increased sell price of all new X-Com fighter/transport craft to compensate for their workshop space, manufacture time and special item requirements. This way one can even make profit out of them, at a harsh cost.

— [UFO/TFTD] Swapped Hunters for Heavy Cruisers in Alien Interdiction and Resource Raid, respectively. Reason: as in-game UFOpedia (and vanilla UFO/EU) can attest, Heavy Cruisers (Harvesters in UFO/EU) were supposed to be used for Alien Interdiction (Alien Harvest in UFO/EU) and Hunters (Abductors) for Resource Raid (Abduction).

— [UFO/TFTD] Also added one Battleship/Dreadnought at the end of the Abduction/Resource Raid UFO waves. Reason: slightly increase chances of coming across Battleship/Dreadnought (besides, most other missions have Battleship/Dreadnought for the final wave anyway).

— [UFO/TFTD] Added Coveralls & Diving Suit UFOpedia entries. However, could not manage to set a good image for Diving Suit (and importing custom pics messes up the background palette color), so left a proxy instead for now.

— [UFO/TFTD] Armors now increase certain stats: Personal/Plastic Armor: +5 TUs, +5 Stamina +5 , +5 Reactions. Power/Ion Armors: +10 TUs, +10 Strength (but then reduced soldier's statCap for Strength from 70 to 60) to match UFOpedia description ("greatly amplifies the speed and strength of the wearer"). I was very leery of doing this, so let's consider it an experiment for now. Keep in mind that 5 TUs equals only 1 more step (4 TUs each step), and the small Stamina & Reactions increment of Personal/Plastic Armor isn't that big of a deal either (it may offer some negligible "advantage" to scouts and field medics at best).

— [UFO] Small aesthetic changes to Plasma Weapons + Clips to make them all more "standardized" (and perhaps slightly more "threatening").

— [TFTD] Yet other small aesthetic changes to some inventory sprites were all guys except smiley bald dude on Ion Armor had their heads misaligned by 1 pixel to the right (was really bothering me) and red headband gal in Mag Ion Armor had missing bit of her "grav-pack" right next to her neck/ear (looked like a chink in the armor and was also getting on my nerves).

— [UFO/TFTD] Re-reviwed alien item levels and stepped it up a bit mid-game (August), otherwise it drags and you're out-teching aliens before they can pwn you properly (and I really miss how menacing/threatening aliens were in vanilla—they were already getting full-tier 3 weapons by October).

— [TFTD] Finally did alternate color explosions for smoke/dye, HE and stun/freeze and integrated Arthanor's own to UFO Rework also.

— [UFO] More deadly Mutons: now they can rend & tear you to death with their new melee attack! (Thinking of adding melee attack to Gazer's own Holodrone companions, like TFTD's Biodrones?)

— [UFO/TFTD] Did Calcinite-to-Protoplasm transitional "spawn" animation.

— [TFTD] Thanks to Liberation, TRITON was removed from Sub-Pens during Base Defense (just looked weird when you have crafts other than TRITON or totally empty Sub-Pens).

(Still thinking about removing Anthropod from UFO/EU and leaving just 5 alien races as vanilla, with just Waspites replacing Floaters and Gazers replacing Snakemen.)


Also, attached right below are Hobbe's Terrain Pack and Civilian's TFTD Sub Variations made compatible with UFO & TFTD Rework (highly recommended) in case anyone missed them earlier:

34

Work In Progress / Re: TFTD 2-in-1 UFOpedia Issue

« on: March 11, 2016, 09:01:56 pm »

It is possible, XOps has it set up that way in his weapon addition mods for TFTD, take a look at his code.

Thanks, that did it! The trick was adding section: STR_NOT_AVAILABLE to all clips/ammo. This makes them invisibly "unlocked" from the start without showing up anywhere, so when you research the weapon itself and the UFOpedia entry comes up, it'll include the corresponding clip damage/power.

The wonderful capabilities OpenXcom don't cease to surprise me <3

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Work In Progress / TFTD 2-in-1 UFOpedia Issue *SOLVED*

« on: March 11, 2016, 12:48:05 am »

So one of the last things I wanted to do for TFTD was integrate weapons/clips for Gauss & Alien tech into one UFOpedia page, like so (just one example, same for all the rest):



Alas, I encountered a problem. See, TFTD pedia entries require distinct images_id, whereas UFO/EU does not. I guess that's the problem? In UFO/EU, I simply make research of Laser Pistol unlock both weapon and clip for pedia and it displays just fine: the weapon with its statistics (fire mode, TU, accuracy) and the clip with its power value and damage type all on the same page. This is basically the same as vanilla, of course, except what I do is remove the secondary "clip page" so that everything is confined to just the main/weapon page itself (no need for two pages or two separate researches, I say, when you can do everything in one).

In TFTD, however, although I can have Gauss Pistol unlock both weapon and clip, I can either have it pull up the weapon statistics page (with the above image) or the clip type/power page (with the same image above, if I want). The problem is either one will be lacking the other's info. I mean, the whole purpose behind this was to simplify everything into one page!

I still don't understand how vanilla TFTD manages to add the "GAUSS BEAM X DAMAGE" piece of text from the clip into the main weapon page after the clip is researched. That's exactly what I'm missing, and it seems I can only get it from researching the clip properly.

I even tried having Gauss Pistol unlock the clip with cost:0 (to override it appearing in the research screen and make it count as being researched as opposed to simply removing clip research altogether and unlocking everything through the weapon itself), but that's still not doing it.

I hope that's been clear enough!

How can I solve this?

I need a lifesaver

--- posts merged ---

Unless there is another way around it, I guess I must resolve to putting the DAMAGE TYPE X on the image_id itself:



Problem is, of course, that if you want to change the damage type or power later you'd have to create a new image_id with the new values. At least it's a makeshift solution for the time being.

Modding UFO/EU is so much easier.

36

Suggestions / Re: [SUGGESTION/REQUEST/QOL] Alien Interrogations

« on: March 04, 2016, 11:35:41 pm »

The first improvement I'd like to see for this message is to display WTF the research topic is that just was completed. I find it incredibly annoying not to know.

This too, definitely. I believe I had brought that up in another suggestion/request a while ago.

37

Playthroughs / Re: And I proceeded to slaughter innocent civilians...... (To be continued in post)

« on: March 04, 2016, 07:18:30 pm »

that means anything that isn't in immediate danger gets hit by a stunrod.

Ah, yes, the various and wondrous uses of the Stun Rod! Also good for putting psi-weak soldiers to sleep when you either forgot or didn't know you were taking on Ethereals or the like.

38

Open Feedback / Re: Is it me or... (TFTD vs UFO/EU comparison question)

« on: March 04, 2016, 07:14:30 pm »

the discrepancy in the detection radii is more likely oversight on our behalf than anything else, adjusting one ruleset and not the other.

Meaning... what, TFTD's sonar ranges are smaller than they should be? Were they a copy/paste of UFO/EU in vanilla?

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Suggestions / [SUGGESTION/REQUEST/QOL] Alien Interrogations

« on: March 04, 2016, 07:09:44 pm »

When a particular alien rank runs out of getOneFrees to unlock, the "view report" button will bring up nothing (for obvious reasons). So the suggestion/request is simple: pop up a window similar to the "not enough ammo for HWP" saying something along the lines of: "no further information can be gathered/obtained from interrogating this particular alien rank or soldiers/navigators/whichever rank applies" (as a way of saying "don't bother milking these dudes for intel anymore, you've exhausted their brains, go fetch different ranks now").

It'd also make the game more user friendly (especially for new players).

40

Open Feedback / Re: Is it me or... (TFTD vs UFO/EU comparison question)

« on: March 02, 2016, 06:05:01 pm »

I do use the graphs, but I wanted more solid, calculable numbers to compare, so I ran a few tests as Athanor suggested and I'm getting roughly the same results for both games, for example: 9 UFOs by Feb, 20 by March, 29 by April in UFO/EU; and 9, 16, 31 in TFTD, respectively.

The issue may then be TFTD's lower detection range:

Code: [Select]

Standard Sonar
    radarRange: 1500
Wide Array Sonar
    radarRange: 2250
Transmission Resolver
    radarRange: 2400
Whereas UFO/EU is:

Code: [Select]

Small Radar
    radarRange: 1695
Large Radar
    radarRange: 2577
Hyper-wave Decoder
    radarRange: 2759
And the "fix" would obviously be: bring up TFTD's detection range to UFO/EU standards.

On a sidenote, anyone know if the range (nautical miles for UFO/EU and kilometers for TFTD) as described in UFOpedia is accurate?

41

Released Mods / Re: [STAT TRACKING] Soldier Diaries 1.0

« on: March 02, 2016, 02:17:28 am »

I was going to ask how you managed to "accidentally" kill a civilian with a vibroblade. Those are pretty deliberate weapons. But fair enough. Careful with the justification though. Makes you sound like a xeno fish scum.

Thanks, that'll give me something interesting to read later. I always had an eye for Warhammer 40K, but never quite got into it. Curiously, though, from a brief overview I did on the races/factions, the Tau stood from the crowd for me :O

But the main point of my writing here was to check: Did you define a value for "MALE_CIVILIAN" or "STR_MALE_CIVILIAN" ? The first should work, the second will not.

Yes, indeed, that fixed it!

42

Released Mods / Re: [STAT TRACKING] Soldier Diaries 1.0

« on: March 02, 2016, 01:29:12 am »

What do you mean by rank order; are you talking about the diary screens, listing who you've killed? The lists aren't really ordered as far as I remember, I think it's more of a first come first serve.

OMG, I totally missed this! Late reply, but yes, that's exactly what I meant.


But I come here now to report a totally unrelated issue, though. I think this is a Soldier Diaries' issue since me fixing the string on my end for Male Civilian still won't change what is displayed here:



Minor bug, but should display correctly as in UFO/EU. Not sure if the same issue would affect Female Civilian as I haven't "accidentally" killed any.

As an aside, I didn't intend to kill the above dude on purpose; but you see, it was kind of a bottleneck situation and the dude wouldn't budge and my guys needed to pass through or an alien would get away next turn. It was for the greater good, I promise

43

Open Feedback / Is it me or... (TFTD vs UFO/EU comparison question)

« on: March 02, 2016, 01:21:24 am »

...are there significantly less USOs zipping around in TFTD as opposed to UFO/EU? Shouldn't there be an equal (or near equal) amount of alien crafts popping up in the radar both games? Radar detection chances are the same (and in my mods, you should get Decoder/Resolver roughly at the same time too). So what accounts for this discrepancy? This is really happening every game, and my starting base is always on different locations.

I mean, it's August here and it's only my 7th crash site. That's less than 1 crash site per month!



Unfortunately, I don't have a UFO/EU pic to compare, but I am under the impression that by this time I'd have at least 20 crashed sites in the other game. They just seem to be harder to come by in TFTD for some reason, and I was thinking that's one aspect I like more about UFO/EU.

I know TFTD isn't played much, but anyone noticed this by any chance?

44

Released Mods / Re: [FULL MOD] UFO & TFTD Rework (latest update: March 1)

« on: March 02, 2016, 12:18:33 am »

The yellow spots make a bad first impression. Not sure how it'd work in the long run.

I was thinking more along the lines of...



But hey, we can't all like freckles It can easily be changed for the next update (perhaps just blend in the spots by using some other shade of blue or even green).

Does the Tasoth colour also blend with other battlescape elements? Seabed, corals?

Not really, just UFO walls mostly.


But anyway, Tasoth's reskin has already been "corrected" and I'm liking it better too:

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Open Feedback / Re: Female Head/Hair Sprite issue (Enhanced soldier sprites)

« on: March 02, 2016, 12:00:28 am »

Thanks a LOT, both of ya! It's all fixed now