And speaking of a remade Ethereal, here's something new for you.
Thought I'd show up a draft process here, minus my own prep thumbnote doodling.
-- First, the design aspects and themes: --
My idea for a new Ethereal was to go for a slimmer and taller profile, while keeping the "overlord" feeling that the broad shoulders of the original had. The slimness adds to their underlying "braniac" fragility that the species has, yet the tallness and ornateness still emphasizes their great power.
I think the original has a monk or buddhist theme going for it with that brown/orange robe, which work well enough for creating a disconcerting aura (a little like the Black Monolith video) - but less so to give off the "these are the boss guys".
I picked a white colour theme to symbolize their pureness, they are the great lords of their empire and these guys don't like to get their own hands dirty unless they really have to - so when they actually show up on the battlefield I want to create that unnerving sense of "Huh, what is this?" by having something that really stands out from the other aliens. Which is also why I didn't go with the obvious "black = evil" theme, it would just look really dark. These guys think pretty highly of themselves, I figure - and want to present themselves as such too.
-- Starting the actual spritesmithing: --
I started out with the leftmost white cloaked dude from scratch - no idea about the proper height or anything other than the general shape and theme I was going for.
Then I dragged out the original and took its measurements, increasing the height of the second leftmost white sprite.
For the fourth (or third new) sprite I started fleshing out the cloak and hood, at first picking a dark green for the folding to give a stronger contrast between the white fabric and shading. I decided on to widen the opening, creating this foreboding center of darkness in the model and constrast with the white parts. White exterior, dark interior. Simple message.
I kinda ditched that idea because the dark green clashed a little too much with the white, so the fifth sprite had more of a grey thing, and also a bigger hood.
I wanted them to erradiate a sense of looking down on the humans, which is the purpose of the steep slope of the rightmost two designs. The only difference being a barely noticable "dark aura" on the last sprite (would be more noticable against the battlefield background, too bad you can't do gradual transparency within the game).
--
Now, I'm not quite satisfied with how the shoulders are looking on the later models - the two last ones have less "sharp" drop between hood and shoulders which doesn't quite support the broad shoulderness that gives the main design it's Lordish "oomph". On the other hand, it does enhance the "looking down on you" posture. The jaggy cut between the main bulk of the cloak and the broader bottom is a little too sharp too, I think.
What do you guys think? It's still an early draft and I'm open to suggestions!
Something I'd like to see (if it's not already in) is fully modable percentages chances for the individual terror units appearing in a mission, so you could conceivably mix either all the terror units and simply have a far higher likelyhood for certain matchings - or - have rather long lists for each race with a few nasties with really low % chance of appearing.
How does that work right now? I know Mutons got two terror units, is it a 50/50 divide on the number of "terror unit slots" for the given mission/ship size?
(A black rectangle is probably not copyrighted and could work as a nice little homage, but the "eeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeEEEEEEEEEEeEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEE" music probably is protected)
Tried chopping off a bit of the long one for the death frame (upper right) and showing it behind the thing for some added volume (upper left), looks so-so. Hard to work with straight edges in the diagonal when working with sprites at this resolution. Might not be all that noticable at "100%", but the game resolution will close up and the diagonal jaggies become a lot more noticable.
At 200%
I tried another idea I had for the Iron-Maiden, more of a egg shape.
First version to the left, looked rather unremarkable so I added some doors and other detailing (right version).
Last three are various death frames for the egg version, the left one being my first attempt were I haven't added door wreckage or similar like in the rightward two versions.
The interior shows some "ribbing", going for a bit of a fishbones/rib-cage/stuffing look - the purpose is to keep the human in place once inside.
I guess the "upright" version might work as a sort of "died and sank into the ground like a lead weight after the hover engine cut out, but will need some work to not look weird. Egg serves as a nice headstone for the corpse that way though!
The two rightward version are just different lighting, darker is better to not draw as much attention to a mere corpse - living/active threats should should look brighter (I believe you see this effect with the muton corpse for example).
The heavy egg, or at least the upper part, have semi-collapsed unto itself and isl eaning over, with one of the doors stuck into the ground just behind the corpse that was thrown free. The bright liquid is the animating fluid to keep the human alive inside. Should probably darken that up a bit too for the Death Frame.
I might change the corpse pose for the egg to more of a "thrown forwards" position, might look better with that concept.
Maybe add two long "arms" coming out of the interior, nestled around some limbs of the body to show how the Iron-maiden catches its' victims and give a little more connect between the fore- and backgrounds.
Special thanks to: Bohemonds excellent Unit Sprite Studio for making this manageable. Buschers help with playtesting and balancing. The Martian for the Battlesprite of the Viracoid (based of the UFO Defense concept art). And the rest of the openxcom community for all the coding and spriting tricks I've found by looking around.
This species pack is a standalone submod that introduces the Veronians.
These biomechanial aliens are the workaholic team players of the Alien invasion. The Support player that happily buries their teammates under a mountain of free ammo packs in that online FPS. They may appear cold, indifferent or even threatening, but inside their hard shells live a goey mass of tang that only wants to be best buds with everyone... but you, filthy human!
The Veronian menace are introduced with their own weapons and terror units as a primarily mid-to-late game species, but have a low % chance of appearing teamed up with various other aliens - providing new unique challenges for the veteran X-Com player.
The intention is for these guys to be challenging opponents in themselves, and provide new threats. But they should still fit in with other Aliens.
A step or two (or three) above Snakemen in capabilities, they have tough frontal armor, but less health than Mutons.
As for their method of combat, well it´s a spoiler:
Spoiler:
They are meant to provide a different type of threat than the Mutons, they will only rarely kill your soldiers outright, instead bypassing or damaging your armor and slowly chipping away at your soldiers ability to fight. Some of them, especially at high tech tiers, have the ability to Turn your soldiers against you! But not by means of psi... for the specifics, there´s further spoilers down below.
They have a couple of weaknesses, and tactics that should work well against pure Veronian lists... which is why I´ve also added some mixed late game lists! Very spicy.
This mod packs consists of (spoilers for special abilities and weapons):
-Each rank has their own color coded sprite sets (Purple, Green, Brown, Black, Blue and Red respectively) with slight detail differences for the higher ranks.
-Three new Veronian alien guns and a grenade with new visuals and sound effects.
Spoiler:
The Veronian guns are effective against armor and draining, but do little direct health damage. The Disruptors do laser type damage.
Tactics: As these weapons are unlikely to kill in one shot, but cripples (freezes/stuns/panics) the target, using sacrificial decoys may work well.
You can research and unlock these guns for use, and you can unlock a new X-COM Disruptor tech, which allows you to research the X-Com Disruptor Gun and a manufacturing topic. Note, this requires both alien disruptor research (the heavy variant will unlock the XCOM research topic) as well as elerium and alloy research.
-The X-Com Disruptor Gun is effective both against and past armor, does little direct health damage but cripples the target. Good for helping you capture enemies. For balance it´s expensive, single shot (with heavy drop off to accuracy), aimed shot only (so no reaction fire and 55% TU cost) and relies on captured Veronian power cells (it can use both types).
-The Viracoid terror unit, a ranged variant of the Silacoid, based on the unused Concept Art "Glowing Silacoid" sprite sets (battlesprite set provided by the Martian). The Viracoid acts as a "blocking" unit.
Spoiler:
-A Viracoid weapon
Spoiler:
spit, launching a arcing Area of Effect acid-type globule that like the Veronian guns, do little direct damage but all kinds of crippling status effects.
-The Turned Ones, a terror unit for the Veronians. These former humans have been turned by
Spoiler:
the fearsome Veronian Conversion Beam, an alternate ranged attack that their high ranking and specialist units use (Depending on tech level).
-The Conversion Beam Cell can be used by any Veronian gun, and has a chance of turning any target they hit into a Turned One, lobotomizing and genetically altering the victim on the spot - turning them into an alien puppet!
Do the Veronians intend to turn all of mankind into pasty smurfs, or aggressive teletubbies? Yes, yes they do.
-The Turned Ones are tough melee enemies, who´s attack both drain their targets (locking them in place) and has a chance of also turning their victims into another Turned One! They are slightly faster and healthier than chryssalid Zombies (but do not spawn anything on death). -The Veronians have a special raceList with the Turned Ones mixed into a lot of lower slots, for early-mid game Abduction and Research missions primarily. While Turned Ones go down easily enough to more Advanced X-Com weapons, early game they may prove quite threatening.
-Ufopaedia and autopsy articles for the new aliens and weapons. -Research integration: With commander, leader, navigator etc unlocks as usual for aliens. -Campaign integration included, with several different racelists including some mixed ones.
Spoiler:
Basic Veronians will appear in the early months, but the full list only later (with a very small % chance of later Veronian lists popping up early to keep that nice element of "That´s X-Com!"). Veronians will also happily team up with other alien species fairly often (5-10% chance early months), depending on the mission type. They may even build a base together! Who knows what commander you´ll find in such a base, could prove fruitful? After month 7 and 9, a more dangerous Mixed Veronian lists may appear with Ethereal leadership present in small quantities, along with some Muton muscle and mechanized forces. Veronians least favorite mission is the infiltration type (not being very social), so they have lower chance of appearing there.
Here´s a little run down briefing on the Veronians and their lore, hard to fit in the ufopaedia and its fun to have some background to the weird purple aliens you´ll be shooting at/get shot by.
Cranking up my best Comicbook-Straightfaced-Concerned-but-possibly-crazy Scientist persona for this one.
Spoiler:
The Veronians: The Veronians possess tough biomechanical bodies, with precise movements and seemingly fearless behavious at first categorized them as a new combat class alien. However, upon further analysis of the living specimen we can conclude that they are more of a semi-biological machine, with the bodies made or or grown from an alien silicate-alloy, acting as a exoskeleton for the viscous silicate-ethane Veronian lifeform inside. We have not been able to determine if this techno-organic exo-skeleton grows naturally from the Veronian life-form, or is produced by some other means. We can determine a number of embedded cybernetic modules and implants, differing from caste to caste or even individual Veronian. While speculative, their precision, focus and affinity for the alien technology, especially their spacecraft, mean the Veronians have some form of engineering or production focused role within the Alien Empire. Their combat presence in raids, and structured organisation with unique weapon technology hint at some further purpose and origins apart from that of other alien species encountered. They are fully combat capable, if poor melee fighters, and are sent on preprogrammed abduction missions. They make for poor infiltrators, providing only a support role during such missions. Veronians are highly resistant to psi-attacks, but incapable of carrying them out. Its possible that their lack of a central brain make them incompatible with at least human forms of psionics. The Alien leadership appear ot have some means of control, possibly implanted or a specific weakness that allows the Veronians to be commanded. Disturbingly, it is also possible that they are cooperating as allies with the other Aliens and are not under direct control. In the field, the Veronians most commonly follow their own command structure, with clear color coded ranks and functions. Their higher ranking members appear to possess slightly greater capabilities. It appears unlikely that Veronians care about honour or ranks other than as a function of their organisation. Integrated with other aliens, or using Turned Humans, the Veronians treat all allies in the same calculating manner. They show no willingness to communicate with us and indeed, have no direct biological means of doing so aside for writing or possibly sign language. The Veronians high intelligence, complete lack of empathy for humans and high degree of integration with the Alien designs for Earth means they must be destroyed wherever encountered."
The Veronian arsenal differ from that of the other alien forces encountered. Armed with Phased Disintegrator beam weaponry, more akin to emitted lasers than plasma particles, with less of a focus on direct damage or destruction hints that the Veronians approach to battle and tactics is also different. Veronians can be encountered on any form of mission, although they seem less interested, or capable off, infiltration missions. When carrying out research, harvest or abduction missions, the Veronians combine swift raids with a focus on controlling the battlefield. Ensuring no civilians escape the mission area before closing the net. The Veronian missions appear mostly focused on capturing large quantities of humans, taking hundreds or even thousands with them. How they manage this considering the limited size of even the largest alien craft can only have unpleasant answers. They also appear to provide most of the labor and technical expertise for swiftly constructing and assembling the many alien bases. It is possible that they have one or several manufacturing plants or craft nearby that assist the alien campaign. When threatened, Veronians will organise counterattacks, designed at neutralizing whatever they consider a threat. For this purpose, they will amass not only their greatest weapons and soldiers, but also employ allied forces. Combined with Aliens with other capabilities, the Veronian presence could prove a significant problem to our forces.
The Viracoid The Viracoid are a variant or possibly an advancement of the Silacoid lifeform, a living mass of muscles and redundant organs protecting a biogenerator at its silicon core. Veronian bioliquid is present throughout the Viracoid, giving it added resilience, intelligence and possibly facilitating communication with its more humanoid kin. Produced as a living bioweapon, the Viracoid is extremely hard to kill or cripple and is resistant against most forms of damage. Only overwhelming firepower can render it inert. Its primary means of attack is discharing large viral globules at surprisingly long range and with a decent area of effect. The Viracoid attack globule consists of an exterior biomatter wall that breaks down on contact, releasing a hot blast of alien neurotoxic viral load to anything within its vicinity. The viruses within this mixture have been engineered to attack both matter and biological targets, breaking down armor and dead matter as swiftly as molecular acid. We suspect this ability can be modified by the Aliens, either between missions or even in the field. Against human victims the viruses attack the nervous system, primarily the brain and spinal cord, causing crippling neural damage. Victims muscles convulse with crippling strength, eventually paralyzing the motorfunctions or send them into a coma, from which only the most advanced technology can hope to revive them. It is believed that this attack primary purpose is for capturing large numbers humans for abductions. This fits the pattern of Veronian armament capabilities and focus, even if the means differ. A common side effect to exposure is a state of neural shock with unpredictable mental consequences, with long term permanent psychological trauma, memory loss or even brain deterioration as a result. The Viracoid hardiness means that the enemy can air drop hundreds of these from any of their craft, to quickly subdue an entire town or city centre population of people.
The Turned Ones The Turned Ones hint at the Veronians part of the aliens masterplan for mankind. The Turned Ones are originally human victims exposed to Veronian conversion beams, suffering permanent mental and physiological changes brought on by rapid mutation. These changes appear the be preprogrammed, as each Turned One are eerily similar in both external and interior appearance, only traces of their original DNA allowing us to track down who they used to be. Any resemblanceto their original appearance is minor at best. Intentional neural damage has made the Turned less susceptible to feeling pain, steroid and adrenalin changes in the body have significantly strengthened them. We suspect that the Aliens can produce a effective grunt soldier with this method in a very short timespan. Memories and personality are erased or altered, making the victim susceptible to alien command and mental domination. Those Turned that are brought back to an Alien base are further modified genetically with retroviruses, steroids and alien-cybernetic implants or organs, for specific purposes. Earlier samples captured indicate a less precise turning process, brute forcing and leaving the Turned damaged permanently and less capable as a result from the process. Later samples show frighting advances, both in advances to the beam conversion changes, and physiological modification. The Aliens may have been experimenting with hundreds of abductees over decades to perfect this method. Short of manpower, we suspect the Aliens are using thousands of abducted and Turned humans for simple labor, combat and even food resources. While capable of acting with unflinching aggression when commanded, the Turned are otherwise emotional nulls, lobotomized by the conversion process and no longer respondant to human interaction. Left alone they passively stand waiting for new commands from their alien masters."
The corpses of the Turned are obviously human in origin, yet display several physiological changes. Hardened skin, engorged musculature, slowed metabolism and enlargened pupils. Their brain matter display permanent changes in structure compared to a normal human brain, with several areas associated with memory and emotions appearing shrivelled and decayed. The result of human exposure to alien nerve disruption technology, these internal alterations significantly shorten the Turned humans lifespan and like most aliens encountered, are rendered sterile."
Reports of abductions across the globe and evidence from the field suggest that the Veronians are now turning thousands of humans with their conversion weapons, altering their minds and mutating their bodies to suit the purposes of their alien masters. Aboard alien craft and bases, the Turned appear to serve both in a simple labor capacity and even more disturbingly, serve as walking emergency rations for other aliens. These observations hint at the Aliens true intentions for humanity, and should they be able to scale up this process, entire cities could fall."
Reusing this mod or assets: You may include, mix or modify it for your own mods as you please (just write a mention in the credits or something). I´ve modified the zombie and Viracoid attack sprites and some particle effects, but unsure about their original source/creator. The more X-Com the merrier is the way I like it.
Feedback: Balancing and bug hunting is hard on my own, so if you have bug reports or balancing feedback, post them to the thread and I'll take a look at it as soon as possible. Possibly even faster than 9 years!
Old first post:
Spoiler:
I say this project doesn't have nearly enough new pixels going for it yet. Let's do something about that shall we?
Here's something I've been working on the last couple of days:
The Veronian (there's a homage hidden here), a three-eyed and mouthless alien with some bug-characteristics:
Main sheet with "alternative" sprite variants boxed in yellow (that I haven't really settled on yet) and pink boxes marking showcase or comparisons.
Threat-wise I'd place them somewhere between the Snakeman and Muton, with a few low/high outliers in stats and gimmicks. Only the commanders and leaders have limited psi-ability (worse than a Sectoid) but they are all very resistant to psi-attacks.
Running animation, front and back:
The first angles I did so probably the most wonky.
Death animation(s):
A couple of ideas here, might want to edit a frame to have the collapse be a little more gradual. Not sure.
#1 Terror unit, the Iron-maiden (working name):
Might look better shortened a little and a bit too tall and broad (death frame) anyways if 32x40 is an absolute limit for units.
A flying coffin that is powered by human life-juice, likes to zip around and shoot people in the face on its free time when not abducting civilians for the Veronians sinister experiments.
Defense profile: Tough exterior with the front being the weakest, squishy insides and slim profile for an overall rather survivable terror unit. Mobility profile: It's fast and can fly so it's highly mobile with good energy regen. Attack profile: The armament is a slightly more rapid firing heavy laser, not super powerful but accurate.
#2 Terror unit, the Mobile Assault Fortress [The MAF, is a working name] - Only got a concept for this but leaning towards a non-flying one-tile terror unit a step up from the Iron-Maiden on the "oh shit, it's a terror unit"-scale.
Only got some doodles on it so no sprites yet. Tougher but a much slower, non-flying version of the Iron-maiden. A little more alien looking, will see if I can fit it within the frame limits.
Once I'm satisfied with this set I'm going to start ripping it apart and make something with PCKVIEW that's importable. OpenXcom aint done yet and I have even less clue about the programming side than I do about the graphical side, but I feel there's plenty of potential for cool new stuff if OpenXcom rips the interior open and allows easy modding and adding entirely new sprites (and species).
I also got some doodles for reworks of the Snakemen, Mutons and some terror units. Either to serve as new species or to replace the old ones.
Criticism and improvement suggestions to existing sprite work is always welcome, it's easy to become blind to your own work (and getting those damn legs looking decent in all angles is a story unto itself).
Yeah, the light armor is probably rather pointless regardless of that but it would feel a little better than sending in guys without any armor - perhaps simply change the basic jumpsuit sprite to include some sort of "basic vest" which would explain the tiny armor that the basic soldier get. When I first designed them I also had in mind adding some weapons, along the lines of aliens getting some sort of laser / pulse laser weapon for early encounters. Still strong guns, but the ballistic armor would have a point then (until the aliens upgraded weapons).
Another idea in that vein is to play around with armor vurnabilities / strengths (I think UFO: Aftermath did this a little). Not much point as long as the aliens are only packing plasma (and explosives), but with more weapon and damage type we could have armor that is engineered towards giving high protection against a specific damage type, versus an armor "line" that gives decent protection against most weapon types.
If you don't know what you're up against you pick the decent one, but if you know what you'll be facing (if it would be possible to have various aliens favour different weapons) you could equip the niché stuff.
Granted, that could be needless complexity - but it could probably be fun the other way around. Picking the right gun for the job and not merely make it a "Heavy Plasma for everyone" kinda deal. That's not this thread though
How's this: Medium Ballistic Vest Type III Front 25 (+5) Right 15 (+3) Left 15 (+3) Rear 15 Under 0 Weight: 10
Heavy Ballistic Vest Type IV Front 55 (+20) Right 25 (+10) Left 25 (+10) Rear 15 Under 0 Weight: 20 (Possibly 25, or even 30 - to keep it from seeing mass-deployment - A rifle and some mags should basically be it for anyone wearing this)
Light Personal Armour Front 35 (+10) Right 20 Left 20 Rear 15 Under 10 Weight: 7 Alien Alloys Required 10
Medium Personal Armour Front 50 Right 40 Left 40 Rear 30 Under 15 Weight: 12 Alien Alloys Required 25
This way the Heavy Ballistic Vest is *mostly* inferior to the Standard Personal Armour (short of the front armor), yet you might still want to pack it for a few "door busters" (and of course, it would be a lot cheaper) until the Heavy Personal Armour becomes available.
The Light Personal Armour is ideal for the riff-raff, as it is better than the Type III ballistic vest yet a lot lighter than the Heavy Ballistic vest.
The main difference in modern ballistic vests lies mostly with the plating (or lack of, but kevlar alone aint gonna do much against rifle bullets!), those plates are usually inserted (in the Russian case) into pockets "inside" the kevlar vest. I believe western designs may come with the plates "included" from production but there are modular constructions too. Then there's stuff like optional/removable groin protection and throat guards. In short, changing up the legs and arms isn't all that necessary because nobody bothers to armor those parts due to mobility and weight issues (although the options exist).
In summary: Something like a Type II (or Type I) may stop pistol rounds and is what cops usually wear and is more comfortable than vests with stiff ballistic plating. Type III is rated for rifle rounds. Type IV is rated for Armor Piercing Rifles.
And with "rated" it means they can take at least 1 shot, at certain velocities, bullet mass and distance.
As for the sprites in specific, with X-Com being its own thing there's really no reason why they can't get their stuff in whatever color they might want. With there being relatively little visual difference between the different Ballistics Vests (At least Sprite Sized) there might not be all that much work involved.
These first three do not require any research and are available from the start to purchase or manufacture.
The idea is that their respective armor values should be balanced by both Weight and (to a lesser extent) cost. (Doesn't mean the values presented here are final or anything)
Human Armor Protection Light Ballistic Vest Type II Front 15 Right 8 Left 8 Rear 8 Under 0 Weight: 5
Medium Ballistic Vest Type III Front 20 Right 12 Left 12 Rear 15 Under 0 Weight: 10
Heavy Ballistic Vest Type IV Front 35 Right 15 Left 15 Rear 20 Under 0 Weight: 20
Only the beefier soldiers can use the heaviest one effectively, to prevent just throwing on "the best" option right from the get-go. Yeah, they'll probably not save anyone from anything heavier than a plasma pistol and friendly fire but at least you got some options.
Next up is the personal armor. I decided to split up the one armor into several, but I haven't decided upon if splitting the research should also be a requirement, possibly for the heaviest variant.
Note the reduced weight despite higher armor values due to the use of Alien Alloys (and also the cost of constructing the suits being balanced by Alloy requirements):
Light Personal Armour Front 30 Right 20 Left 20 Rear 15 Under 10 Weight: 7 Alien Alloys Required 10
Medium Personal Armour Front 50 Right 40 Left 40 Rear 30 Under 15 Weight: 12 Alien Alloys Required 25
Heavy Personal Armour Front 60 Right 45 Left 45 Rear 35 Under 25 Weight: 18 Alien Alloys Required 50
Finally the powered suits. these I thought could use a little rebalancing to make it less of a clear choice of which to pick. The Allow cost is also cranked up to keep the Personal armor variants competitive for your less elite troops.
The Power Suit got generally heavier armor (Except for the bottom), but costs more Alloys. The flying suit got a higher Elerium cost and especially weak rear armor.
I was also thinking that maybe the "Power" Armor could actually grant the wearer some added strength, allowing them to run around with more gear and maybe make some "really big" weapons that only power armor wearing people can use effectively (allowing them to wield HWP-type guns or something).
Power Suit Front 110 Right 80 Left 80 Rear 80 Under 60 Strength bonus: 20 (over the item weight) Alien Alloys Required 100 Elerium 115 required 5
Flying Suit Front 100 Right 75 Left 75 Rear 60 Under 70 Strength bonus: 15 (over the item weight) Alien Alloys Required 80 Elerium 115 required 15
As for sprite work, The heaviest ballistic vest could have some Russian style torso armor / Bombsuit + helmet and maybe a palette swap for the legs and arms. The Light Personal Armor could use the torso and head section only of the personal armor sprites and combine it with the jumpsuit legs and arms. The Heavy variant could get a proper helmet and maybe slightly thicker torso protection.
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