[Solved] Installation location on Linux and mod questions for OXCE

[Leprechaun]

I'm installing OXCE and am interested in playing XComFiles, War Hammer 40,000, and XPirates, not all at the same time, but selectable. Do I need 3 separate installations? I can manage this easily enough, but I was hoping for one location and the ability to turn on the appropriate mod from the rule set selection menu. (/usr/share/xpirates, /usr/share/wh40000, and /usr/share/xcomfiles will work fine [I assume] but it does seem wasteful.)

Linux users, do you place OXCE in /usr/share/openxcom, or in your home directory? Suggestions? I assume the $XDG_DATA_DIRS variable from OXC doesn't work for OXCE.

Are some of the mods available in the Hardmode Expansion available in XComFiles? In particular, I like the harder research tree and expanded weapons. I also think PSI needs to be limited to LOS. I just finished an OXC game where I PSI controlled a Chrysallid, marched him to an Ethereal, controlled him and marched him to the Brain's lair, controlled a second Ethereal, and he auto heavy plasmaed the brain. Cute and amusing, but unrealistic and not rewarding, especially since my PSI characters were halfway across the base.

Thanks

[R1dO]

Generally speaking separate installations are not needed. Once installed under the "mods" folder you can select them as master (via selection button under the mod menu, as visible in the attached screenshot for UFO and TFTD).
For as far as i know the mods you mentioned are all masters (if not they should be visible in the scroll list below the button).

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Linux users, do you place OXCE in /usr/share/openxcom, or in your home directory? Suggestions? I assume the $XDG_DATA_DIRS variable from OXC doesn't work for OXCE.
...

I usually prefer to install under my home directory. Makes updates easier (no need for sudo) and less likely to cause access denied errors.
But it depends a bit on your use-case: for instance you might have a strong desire to make OXCE available for multiple users (and dislike duplication of files between users), in that case go for the "/usr/" route.

$XDG_DATA_DIRS user variable is a convention between Linux distro's that tells applications where to read/write certain files, it should work for both OXC and OXCE.

Sidepoint: "/usr/share" is normally the domain of the distribution. For files you put in manually it is better to use "/usr/local/share", less chance that a system update messes with your files (although unlikely for this specific use case).

As for the PSI. You can make your own submod forcing "LOSRequired" only for equipment used by x-com, for example (vanilla UFO):

Code: [Select]

items:                                                                                             
  - type: STR_PSI_AMP                                                                               
    LOSRequired: true
Downside of this is that you first have to find out which mod items you have to override. Those are likely mod specific.
 
Hope this helps.

[ohartenstein23]

I similarly run multiple mods on Ubuntu, I put a single installation under my home folder that also contains OXCE's user/mods and config folders. That is, everything OXCE is all in one directory. Then I just run the program with different command line options:

Code: [Select]

./OpenXcomEx -user "./user" -config "./config" # for UFO
./OpenXcomEx -user "./user" -config "./config_40k" # for WH40k
./OpenXcomEx -user "./user" -config "./config_xcomfiles" # for X-Com Files
# ... etc.


[Leprechaun]

Sidepoint: "/usr/share" is normally the domain of the distribution. For files you put in manually it is better to use "/usr/local/share", less chance that a system update messes with your files (although unlikely for this specific use case).

As for the PSI. You can make your own submod forcing "LOSRequired" only for equipment used by x-com, for example (vanilla UFO):

Code: [Select]

items:                                                                                             
  - type: STR_PSI_AMP                                                                               
    LOSRequired: true
Downside of this is that you first have to find out which mod items you have to override. Those are likely mod specific.

Thanks, R1dO for the excellent information.

Many years ago there was a PPA for OXC and it placed things in /usr/share. Just wanted to know if that was any kind of standard.

As far as PSI goes, I want LOS for both sides. It was fun to return some of the grief that Commanders do to my soldiers from the safety of their cubicle, but doesn't make the game more interesting or playable to me. It's time they came out and faced the music.

I think Ethereal provided the answer in another thread, which suggests modifying ALIEN_PSI_WEAPON in the items.rul file.  I don't suppose I actually have to search for that much, since any PSI weapon I don't get modified, I wasn't planning on using anyway.

Thanks again!

[Leprechaun]

I similarly run multiple mods on Ubuntu, I put a single installation under my home folder that also contains OXCE's user/mods and config folders. That is, everything OXCE is all in one directory. Then I just run the program with different command line options:

Code: [Select]

./OpenXcomEx -user "./user" -config "./config" # for UFO
./OpenXcomEx -user "./user" -config "./config_40k" # for WH40k
./OpenXcomEx -user "./user" -config "./config_xcomfiles" # for X-Com Files
# ... etc.


Thanks, ohartenstein23 for your excellent suggestion. This would actually allow me to play games simultaneously, which of course means I have to be careful to name my save game files so I don't load them into the wrong mod set. Just expanding on your idea, but you could define an alias in your .bashrc for each entry you have above, and then have unique commands.

[ohartenstein23]

I do have some .bashrc aliases, but I don't use them much since I do some dev work on the executable. For mods that use the drop-down at the top of the mods menu, e.g. "master" mods like 40k, XCF, and Piratez, they create a separate folder within "user" so you don't have to worry about save file names between them.

[R1dO]

...
Many years ago there was a PPA for OXC and it placed things in /usr/share. Just wanted to know if that was any kind of standard.
...

PPA's (and debs) are kinda special, they integrate with the normal update tooling. From the users point of view they will just behave like system updates.
It is the responsibility of the author to make sure things do not break, this also gives them more flexibility in the choice of install locations. Not sure what the guidelines recommend for PPA's.

...
As far as PSI goes, I want LOS for both sides.
...

In that case you can use a standard mod that comes with the game (at least for OXC, not sure if OXCE removed them).
The mod is called: "XcomUtil: No Psionics".
Mind you it was designed only for vanilla UFO/TFTD, for the bigger mods you still have to do ruleset diving (or ask the authors politely if they will consider a LOS submod).