[WEAPON] Clips for laser weapons

[yrizoud]

Why? Well, I played TFTD first, so when I discovered UFO's laser weapons, the infinite ammo looked like "easy mode". OpenXCom removes the 80-item limit anyway.
Stats are mostly based on TFTD gauss clips. I reduced the manufacturing costs (time and money) of the 3 laser weapons by "2 clips" each, so it's not too hard in early game, when you just become able to build them.

I pixelled clips based on the weapon's colors, so it should be easy to see which one goes where.
The "ListOrder" is set, so the clips appear in the right position for ship equipment and manufacturing.
Translations are given for en-US and fr.

License: Public domain

[xracer]

how about instead of making it a"clip" you make it a power source "aka a battery" so that with better tech maybe the batteries can be improved, more capacity, more power, etc... i always thought about this but never did anything about it.

[yrizoud]

OpenXCOM allows you to test many such ideas very easily
About tiered technology, I'm not sure, mainly because of the way the research works : Many topics are critical and should be researched with as little delay as possible.
Also, the game kinda penalizes you if your team uses many different kinds of ammo, as you waste more clips (as many as in the original game).

[xracer]

hahaha well options options options, if the player can't manage them, its their problem

About the research tree, you are correct but the problem is one plasma becomes available everything else is obsolete, so if you can extend the life of a tech why not? Furthermore in this case their are not different kind of ammo, is simply a power source the power source gets depleted you need to replace it. With better tech you could R&D better unit allowing either more damage more shots. I know this won't be part of the main code but like you said, OpenXcom allows you to test many ideas

[tuszek]

Hi!
I like what you did here.

Im learning how to mod, and had an idea with your stuff, i hope you dont mind it...
Its basically a scenario on pushing the limit of laser tech to the limit, resarching a clip technology with different trade offs.
Graphics are not implemented yet, so your stuff is used for both kinds of ammo.
Care to take a look?

[yrizoud]

Nice !This is 3 additional clips for the laser weapons. They are about 30-45% more damaging, but with a very tight ammo restriction : 6 for pistol, 4 for rifle and 2 for heavy laser.

The pistol clip is nice, it has enough for 2 auto-shots before reloading, so even at close range it feels quite safe. It plays a bit like a "magnum" pistol.
The heavy one is also good : two shots of 125 damage is quite significant.
The rifle one isn't as good... With only 4 shots, you basically lose the spray-and-pray usage. I'd rather make it 6 or 9, a multiple of 3. And then for consistency you can make the heavy clip 3, because it's often under-used

[Ascadix]

Nice evolution,

But i can't build any "capacitor (level 2)" for rifle and heavy laser.


For what i understand in ruleset, it seems to be better to use this:

Code: [Select]

  - name: STR_LASER_RIFLE_CLIP2
    category: STR_AMMUNITION
    requires:
      - STR_LASER_2
      - STR_LASER_RIFLE

instead of:

Code: [Select]

  - name: STR_LASER_RIFLE_CLIP2
    category: STR_AMMUNITION
    requires:
      - STR_LASER_RIFLE_CLIP2

Since STR_LASER_RIFLE_CLIP2 isn't a research.

[tuszek]

Thank you Ascadix!
Corrected the file. Also decided to need only rifle and alloys for resarching the new clips. Seems reasonable for me.

Thans for the input Yrizoud!
Well my idea was to use the new clips for specialised purposes rather than all round replacement for prewious technology. Well except the heavy...
You see the pistol was a spray and pray thing to begin with, so the clip reflects this.
But the rifle clip was designed mainly for sniping use, where it can give 2 turns worth of aimed fire or 1 turn of snaps. (best case) But if you really want to use it for breaching you could either take a sidearm in case you run out... Or just go with 2 rifles and shoot a wolley from each! Which tactic is pretty usless in any other case. Anyway, i feel it would be op, well it is already like a more accurate and quicker hl.
The heavy is a bit too much perhaps, but that weapon need some serious love to be usable. Aimed fire shold be good now, and snaps should work well on larger targets if you can feed the beast...

[MFive]

i really like this mod, and i have attempted to add LiPo and LiFe battery variants to the rule set

but for some reason it does not work, could any one help me with this?

EDIT: oops, forgot the file!

[tuszek]

Well now it kinda works. But the ufopaedia is still wierd. I have no idea how to solve it. 

[MFive]

Well now it kinda works. But the ufopaedia is still wierd. I have no idea how to solve it. 

how did you fix/change it? was it the UFOpaedia braking it?

[tuszek]

Aded ufopedia lines, removed dependencies and requirements here and there. And there were same listnumbers i think. There was something else maybe too but i dont remember which was what solved it. Take a look maybe you find what i did. (im just learning this stuff too)

[niculinux]

how about instead of making it a"clip" you make it a power source "aka a battery" [..]

Well simply update the mod by renaming them as "laser pistol battery" , "rifle pistol battery" etc. Improvements would not make sense since research goes on in other fields....

Plus, since we have a new cool laser weapons reskin mod I think a brand new mod may be created, aside from  the existing clip mod, so that the "battery" sprites should be all the same color, but different size only

[niculinux]

...and i've taken the liberty to modify a bit the mod: now all the clips have the same appearance - all are a copy of laser rifle clip, but they differ slightly as for the size (sry i really don't know how to sharp things in xcom) plus i reduced a bit the power of the pistol's one (from 46 to 40)


attached here are the sprites

Edit: please feel free to modify in game item description description as suggested above (battey pistol clip, etc) since I'm afraid of messing around 

[niculinux]

..but eventually seems i messed up he palette...ah i give up sry...:,(