Messages

16

Released Mods / [UFO MEGAMOD] XCR: X-COM Classic Remastered

« on: June 04, 2019, 01:04:14 am »

X-COM Classic Remastered
An OpenXcom mod that rebalances all original features of classic X-COM.
Every existing technology is situational, and gameplay is more varied.

Download: https://github.com/Coincident/XCOMClassicRemastered/archive/master.zip
Mod portal: https://openxcom.mod.io/x-com-classic-remastered
Official manual: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w74mm2hztQEn1fmIWZpCMQYygq-xuDaVMDJ6RyDEJ_U/edit#
(contains detailed installation instructions, research trees, balance calculations, and explanations of all the changes made)

Install:
 - download and extract to mods folder
 - start OpenXcom and go to options
 - activate X-COM Classic Remastered mod
 - set UFO Extender accuracy = YES
 - set Explosion Height = 2

Works with a nightly build of vanilla OpenXcom, or OXCE.



A complete rebalance of all the features in the classic game to sharpen the gameplay experience variety. Designed for people who want to experience only the original content of the game, without the severe balance problems and with enhanced quality. This mod addresses the blatant balance problems of the original, for example: late-game psionics, the blaster launcher, and the plasma beam’s long range making every interception a cake-walk.
No new content is added, and no old content is removed. There are no new weapons*, alien races, crafts or UFOs. There’s some recoloring & new graphics for original content to increase the quality, and the LukesExtraUFOs + Terrain Pack for some more battlescape scenario variety.
The game is a lot harder - if you want to win the war, be prepared to lose a few battles. Each battle is much more important, and has a greater impact on the entire course of the game. Each choice you take is much more important, because there is much less margin for error. As a result, each victory is so much more satisfying - you won’t win just because you have 10 über-soldiers with flying armor and imba heavy plasmas (there is no such thing now).
Make the wrong decisions, and you will lose.
Make the right decisions, and you might win…






So... this has been in the making, off-line, for about 4 years. There were many pauses and interruptions, but I finally took care of the final details and decided to publish it, since I'm taking another break from the game, and will probably not return for another 2 years.
Not sure if this qualifies as a "megamod" or not, but it's a complete remake of the game. I copied literally every ruleset available into spreadsheet formulas to compare and correlate data, and rebalance everything as accurately as possible.
The mod is fully functional and was heavily tested.

17

Playthroughs / Muton-zerg base attack nightmare

« on: August 01, 2018, 02:13:44 am »

3 months in a game, when I still had only laser tecnology and personal armors... and this is how I made my first acquaintance of Mutons (see attachment)
I defended the base with 20 soldiers and 1 tank. After an hour of meticulous shooting-and-retreating-tactics, 6 soldiers survived and killed off the aliens. One of the most challenging missions I ever did.
PS - This is superhuman in a "harder difficulty mod" that boosts the Mutons' armor and resistances to make them similar to TFTD's Lobstermen.

18

Troubleshooting / Re: Sound distortion after interception

« on: June 24, 2016, 09:34:55 pm »

I'm sorry to bring this old topic back, but I found the cause of this bug.

This only happens if you drag the music volume slider all the way to the maximum (100%).
So, if you set the music volume to, for example, 90%, and increase the volume a bit in windows, the problem will never occur.

(Nevertheless, it would be nice to see this fixed in OpenXcom in the future )

19

Suggestions / Re: Instant instant grenades option

« on: January 26, 2016, 07:37:44 pm »

It's especially unfair that the AI doesn't really benefit from instant grenades.

I understand your point; you're right. It does raise a balance issue.
However, balance can be easily tweaked through modding. IMO it does not justify this engine limitation with the instant grenades option.

In extended version you can have different favors of grenades. Some explode at end of turn other when hit ground (and some that have fixed delay).

Ok, thanks for the info. At the moment I'm using the nightly build.

But to be totally honest I have mixed feelings about there being 2 versions: nightly build VS extended version.
Isn't it bad to have the (small to begin with) community split in 2? (off-topic, nevermind)

20

Suggestions / Re: Instant instant grenades option

« on: January 26, 2016, 04:48:26 pm »

If you want to eat the cake (instant grenades) and still have it (normal-behaviour grenades), you can turn the instant grenade option off to revert back to normal, then turn it back on when needed. At least put your back into it when you're cheating

No, I'm actually playing without instant grenades at all because of the limitation being discussed in this thread.
It is extremely disruptive (and doesn't make sense) to ask the player to change the game options every 2 turns or so...

Why do you consider that having two choices is cheating?
This is a tactical/strategy game so giving the player multiple choices, so that he has to make non-trivial and situational decisions, is a natural part of the game.
In my opinion removing choices from the player only makes the game more linear, and less interesting.

21

Suggestions / Re: Instant instant grenades option

« on: January 26, 2016, 11:46:45 am »

Well, that wouldn't be instant grenades, right?

Yes, it would. Priming "0" would make grenades instant, just like it does now.

I'm not sure what do you meant there.

22

Suggestions / Re: Instant instant grenades option

« on: January 26, 2016, 03:21:11 am »

I was thinking about creating a new thread, but I found this. I believe this suggestion from EditorRUS is important.

At the moment, the instant grenades option remove the choice of using the grenade relay tactic.
It is also important to have the choice of grenades exploding at the end of xcom turn, which is very useful for heavy explosives: short distance throw, but the soldier needs time to run before the end of turn explosion. At the moment this is impossible; if you prime with "0" (instant) the soldier has no time to run away, and if you prime with "1" (end of alien turn), the aliens will move away from the explosive.

Personally, I think that a "-1" option would look weird, and would require reworking the interface graphics.

I believe there's an easier way to solve this:
 - Make the "0" act like instant grenade.
 - Make the "1" act like the old "0" (end of xcom turn - supports grenade relay).
 - Make the "2" act like the old "1" (end of alien turn).
etc.

No graphics change required, and the player does not lose any tactical option.

(okay he loses the 23 turn prime, which acts like 22... but who uses that anyway?)

23

Troubleshooting / Re: Possible bug in projectile collision detection

« on: January 25, 2016, 10:27:07 pm »

A much more serious problem is that the game very often allows you to shoot when hitting is impossible, due to the difference between position of eyes and weapon. But this cannot be fixed with rulesets.

Yes, I've also come across that, indeed, serious problem. It is related to, but different from the problem being discussed here.

I've also reported that different bug before, with a savegame:
https://openxcom.org/bugs/openxcom/issues/1122
But even for that bug, I'm sure that a easy feasible solution will present itself, eventually.

24

Troubleshooting / Re: Possible bug in projectile collision detection

« on: January 25, 2016, 09:28:52 pm »

I see. I understand the situation now.

`loftempsSet:`in armor

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=LOFTEMPS#Template_Tables
This is very interesting, exactly what I was looking for.
I checked the standard armors.rul and noticed that every unit uses template 3 (small cylinder), except Sectoids that use 2 (even smaller), and Silacoids that use 5 (large cylinder, although they have low height).

So this can be modded! Using template 4 (medium cylinder) or 5 for Mutons and Snakemen will make them large enough to make this situation not happen so often, and be less frustrating for the player with these near-misses.
(To be balanced, X-Com Soldiers should be 4 too, since I've seen this bug happen to the aliens shooting at my soldiers. And probably Chrysalids and Zombies, I will try changing a few and test some more)

It's a pity that it won't be changed directly in OpenXcom, but if the argument is sticking faithfully to vanilla, so be it...



Thank you Arthanor and Yankes for the info. 

25

Troubleshooting / Re: Possible bug in projectile collision detection

« on: January 25, 2016, 01:58:11 am »

How do you want map 2d world to 3d world?

I did not mean that would need / want to map a 2D world into a 3D world.
I meant that no problem is "impossible" to fix, there are always multiple ways to solve things - some more complicated than others... it's just a matter of "looking outside the box", and finding a different - easier way to fix things. (Unless of course if you can't bother to look.) And sometimes it's just not worth to fix things at all, because some fixes can cause more trouble than improvement, as Meridian was trying to point out...

Anyway, don't get me wrong. All I want is to help make OpenXCom a better game for everyone.
Obviously I don't decide if something should or not be "fixed". For now, all that I want is identify a problem, and understand what's going on. After that, if there's something that can be fixed/changed to improve the game, all the better. If not, I would only like to understand why.

The problem that I've identified is:
 - Occasionally, bullets appear to go inside the aliens but do not hit, which can be frustrating for the player and cause detriment to the overall game-play experience.



Yankes: I have to confess I've had some trouble understanding what you wrote previously, so I went back and read things a few more times. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but to sum things up:

In the 3D voxel world, all units are represented as a fixed-radius cylinder. This cylinder is used for collision detection, correct?
I presume this was made so, for simplification purposes, it would be too much work to support customized voxel hit-boxes for each alien, correct?

This means that all aliens are cylinders, regardless of how they look like to the player.
So I could go and make a custom Super-Fat-Snakeman sprite that is 2 times larger than normal - the cylinder would remain the same size, correct?

26

Troubleshooting / Re: Possible bug in projectile collision detection

« on: January 24, 2016, 11:22:08 pm »

You should also only fix things that need fixing.

Also true.

Is that just a general observation, or are you implying that it applies to this case?
If so, could you please explain why?

[Spoiler]

27

Troubleshooting / Re: Possible bug in projectile collision detection

« on: January 24, 2016, 11:13:19 pm »

EditorRUS has already said this before actually. 2nd post on this thread.

What's even more interesting is that it's definitely possible to hit that snakemen using autoshot but bullets seem to hit his back.

I'm sorry, but you guys are mistaken.
There IS a line of fire, and it IS possible to actually hit the Snakeman from that position.

Try it yourselves: load the game, and take 6 snapshots. The 6th snapshot will hit.

You need the following ruleset to test it:

SpoilerInfinite-Shots-Rifle:

items:
  - type: STR_RIFLE
    tuSnap: 1

You can't fix it

The only things you cannot fix are those you do not want to fix.

28

Troubleshooting / Re: Possible bug in projectile collision detection

« on: January 24, 2016, 06:47:54 pm »

I was using the sabr-xcomified scaler for higher-quality graphics.
The scalers should only make the edges smoother (like anti-aliasing), not change the apparent size of units.

Anyway, to leave no doubts open, I took the screenshots again without any scaler:

Snapshot 1:


Snapshot 2:

29

Troubleshooting / Re: Possible bug in projectile collision detection

« on: January 24, 2016, 06:14:12 pm »

If it depends on where you choose to put the start and end line, how can you say for sure that I miss by 1 voxel?
Even if that were true for the first shot, which enters the snakeman closer to its right side:


...the second shot is several voxels closer to the center of the snakemen:


I don't know if this has been discussed before, or if there's a problem in the targeting algorithm.

The way I see it, there's either a problem:
1 - Detecting projectile collisions (my initial guess)
2 - Drawing the trajectory of projectiles (those shots did miss but were drawn as a hit)
3 - With the aliens' voxel hit-boxes (is there such a thing?)
4 - Drawing aliens (snakeman too fat? or any alien for that matter; this bug happens with all aliens and humans too)

I believe that 4 makes no sense because the snakemen graphics are identical to vanilla XCom:EU, where I've never seen this bug happen...
So it's either 1, 2, or 3.

30

Troubleshooting / Re: Possible bug in projectile collision detection

« on: January 24, 2016, 01:50:21 pm »

The shadow is under the Snakeman.

I went back to the save-game and made 2 more screenshots of the 2 snapshots that have this collision problem:





In both shots you can see the shadow from the "head" of the bullet appearing behing the Snakeman.