Messages

31

Offtopic / Re: X@Com - Xcom as roguelike

« on: September 19, 2012, 09:11:02 am »

Glad you like it michal--I was wondering if you've been playing, since I've never heard you comment on specifics even though you've always been quite an advocate for the game

I do have a YouTube channel where I occasionally post videos, and I'm actually making a new video *right now* to show off all the latest UI features and current state of the game.

The existing UI is going to be improved so much in the future--I haven't even started dedicated UI work yet (getting closer to that dev branch, though)--so hopefully you'll like what it becomes even more!

Ha I know how that feels, everytime I even consider adding a library to OpenXcom it's a nightmare waiting to happen. At least in Linux you'll find packages reasdy-to-go for the popular libraries.

A nightmare I'm happy to stall on for as long as possible... By my estimates about 8-10% of X@COM players use Linux, though, so it'll probably be worth it eventually. I don't use a standard build system so getting libraries compatible with my games is doubly annoying. I've always enjoyed reinventing the wheel, anyway, so at least third-party library use is not too rampant

I do like the idea of Linux source packages being easy to acquire and deal with, but I have to become more proficient with Linux itself before I could do it without derailing the project out of shame =p

32

Offtopic / Re: X@Com - Xcom as roguelike

« on: September 17, 2012, 03:45:59 am »

Gee, thanks michal

Actually, the fact that X@COM sits on the OpenXCom sidebar has always consistently driven a fair amount of traffic my way. A good number of visitors on your site apparently click down that list looking at other X-COM-related games--what a great idea to list them all there! Of course, a dedicated blog post has already given me three times as many forwards as usual in the past 6 hrs or so

I do plan on releasing a Linux version some day, but it'll take a bit of doing since I'll have to recompile a bunch of different libraries (which generally makes me want to rip my hair out) and rewrite a bit of windows-only system code. So it's non-trivial despite the fact that the 99% of the code is cross-platform.

33

Offtopic / Re: X@Com - Xcom as roguelike

« on: September 16, 2012, 07:14:08 pm »

R7 released.

34

Offtopic / Re: X@Com - Xcom as roguelike

« on: September 15, 2012, 10:38:26 am »

Ah yes, that's what I was thinking, but haven't been following the new XCOM, so wasn't aware of anything specific that might've triggered the increase. PAX would do it.

Hey, their publicity is our publicity

35

Offtopic / Re: X@Com - Xcom as roguelike

« on: September 15, 2012, 10:20:26 am »

Ya, I noticed, but that was a month ago.

36

Offtopic / Re: X@Com - Xcom as roguelike

« on: September 15, 2012, 09:31:58 am »

Nice screenshot michal, where'd you get that?!

On a side note: Strangely, the OpenXCom forum failed to notify me about your post in this thread--I just happened to come by today and saw it as I was browsing the forum normally... Wonder what's up with that? The forum/site been busy with all the recent X-COM hype on the web? Seems like the project has become a lot more popular lately, since I've also been getting more link hits from NineX than usual.

37

Suggestions / Re: hand-to-hand fight

« on: August 30, 2012, 11:25:32 am »

Haha! Good one.

Well, we're talking about X-COM snipers, who would never be able to fit all that stuff because inventory items require a minimum of one "space" and 3 points of encumbrance each. (Now don't go overlaying all that stuff onto an X-COM inventory screen just to prove a point )

38

Suggestions / Re: hand-to-hand fight

« on: August 30, 2012, 11:01:27 am »

You do if you're out of ammo and they've snuck up on your position!

It would be great to smash an alien in the face with the butt of your sniper rifle. Or better yet, jam it down his throat.

39

Suggestions / Re: hand-to-hand fight

« on: August 30, 2012, 10:46:29 am »

Yeah, I was thinking of that as well, but UI isn't really a limiting factor since you wouldn't likely have weapons that are capable of every single possible type of attack--instead they have a smaller subset, but the range of the total set can be much larger. For example a sniper rifle that lacks other normal firing modes in favor of two kinds of aimed shots, one slightly quicker and one more careful. That would still only require maybe four actions: Throw, Aimed, Snipe, and Melee (assuming the addition of melee attacks for most weapons).

40

Suggestions / Re: hand-to-hand fight

« on: August 30, 2012, 03:23:28 am »

Yeah, it's basically what I meant with At the time of implementing it, I didn't realize that firearms or any other object for that matter could be used as a melee weapon next to it's default function. So an item only has 1 "battleType". A second(ary) battletype needs to be added if this is needed.

"battleType", which is different from damageType by the way !
It is possible to have battleType "melee", but damageType "stun". Which makes a stun rod. You could make battleType "melee" with damageType "incendiary", which makes a cigarette lighter :p

PS. I'm not good at inventing variable (and class) names, I always think of better ones, later on when I'm actually using them. But I hope they are clear enough :p

I should've said nice code SupSuper AND DAIKY, sorry

Although yeah, "battleType" could've perhaps been called something more intuitive like "attackType"--that's what I called it, anyway, but of course then I ended up adding throwing to the mix, since its another combat action, even though it's technically not an "attack"... meh. "combatActionType"?

In any case, in the interest of making things as expandable as possible, Daiky, you should simply allow almost any number of usage methods instead of just one or two (as you've suggested). May as well have a vector of battleTypes for a given item and check them all. (That's what I've done--allowed any item in the game to theoretically be used in any manner. Now I'm not saying we should turn OpenXCom into a roguelike  , but it would make it much easier to add unique features in the future.)

Edit: But no one's answered moriarty's question: Why would the stun rod always be hitting if its accuracyMelee is only set to 100 in the ruleset? Or do even the most unskilled rookies still have sufficient firing accuracy skill to always hit their target if weapon accuracy is 100? Or are point blank attacks always hitting? Or has simply no one tested it enough?

41

Suggestions / Re: hand-to-hand fight

« on: August 29, 2012, 05:06:23 pm »

OK, I looked a little longer b/c otherwise that was kind of a lame response

I found that as long as a weapon's type is set to melee, OpenXCom uses its melee accuracy to determine the hit chance, but it actually does calculate it normally, no differently from projectile weapons, so I would think a value of "100" should miss sometimes (esp. since it's using a soldier's firing accuracy skill as a base).

By the way, nice code SupSuper! Looks like it'll definitely stand the test of time and be a great base for modders etc to build on.

42

Suggestions / Re: hand-to-hand fight

« on: August 29, 2012, 04:55:27 pm »

Hm, not familiar with the OpenXCom source, so I downloaded it and did a [real] quick search, but didn't see exactly where the stun rod attack might be carried out. If I remember correctly, this was actually hard coded in the original since its behavior is quite different from most weapons. I'm sure OpenXCom will change that at some point, if that's how it is currently.

43

Suggestions / Re: hand-to-hand fight

« on: August 29, 2012, 04:34:24 pm »

EDIT: oh, btw, the "accuracyMelee"... on the one hand I know that even 100% accuracy doesn't mean a guaranteed hit in xcom, but on the other hand I have never seen a Stun Rod miss, either... how is accuracy handled for melee attacks? 

Since stun rods actually don't miss in X-COM, you could always just set the accuracy to 200 or so, which is enough to ensure it will always hit assuming the same rules as projectile fire. Or you can make it at least somewhat interesting/realistic by setting it at 140-150 or so, so that if a soldier is *really* unskilled, they could still miss occasionally.

44

Suggestions / Re: hand-to-hand fight

« on: August 26, 2012, 04:31:46 am »

I noticed the original melee stat dropped from the original game, and added it back in for X@COM, so pretty much *any* item can be used for a melee attack.

The default data I'm using right now (not necessarily balanced properly) has most items with 100% base accuracy (note that by X-COM rules that doesn't mean you always hit) and take 30 TU (unique melee items and terror unit melee attacks are different, of course). It only works if you are adjacent to the enemy, duh. (Unless you're using a throwing weapon like the throwing knives, but those are really designed using projectile weapon properties.)

The damage done by the default melee attacks depends on the attacker's strength, though again this can be overridden for special items. I also added some standard damage types (bludgeoning/slashing/piercing) that can be used for melee attacks.

Not as deadly as actually shooting a weapon (makes sense), of course, but it allows for lots of fun new mechanics, like dedicated melee weapons (e.g. knives, light sabres, etc.) and bashing down weak terrain (or even sturdy terrain like walls using a sledge hammer!). Melee attacks also cause knockback on the target if your strength is greater than theirs, and if your strength is also great enough to smash through whatever is behind the defender, then you'll smash them right through it. So you can, for example, whack an alien with a baseball bat and send him flying out a third-story window so he hopefully falls to his death from impact damage In fact, if you had superhuman strength, you could theoretically smash aliens right through walls, and if it collapsed part of the structure the debris would even fall on them, which would be pretty funny... Of course, you have to watch out for powerful aliens doing the same things to you

There are other fun melee mechanics, but they go a bit further from X-COM territory (ex: volatile items that explode on contact, including melee impact).

45

Open Feedback / Re: An interview on XCOM: Enemy Unknown at StrategyCore

« on: May 31, 2012, 08:17:01 pm »

I bet he's been lurking around on our forums picking up ideas 

I certainly know I have! Actually, before starting work on my own project, I visited *all* the remake sites with forums and went through every page of suggestions, linking and copying ideas into a huge file which... hopefully... one day... I'll be able to actually go through and combine with my own ideas to expand the game a lot more. But for now, just getting the basics in is plenty of work, as you guys already know

Fortunately I don't have to worry as much about graphics, which are a pain.

It is very good to hear about "official" devs being supportive of the mod/remake community.