[WIP] Xeno Operations LEGACY

[B1ackwolf]

New update 0.97.06 uploaded now (Feb-12th-2024)!
Check the bottom of this post for the file, and the last page for the updated changelog


Many of you may already be aware that the original mod of XENO Operations, has been semi-retired, and his creator XOPS is dedicating a significant amount of time to his youtube channel (which I highly recommend following, as it features excellent content).

As of now, Meridian is the sole individual working on updates to ensure compatibility with the latest OXCE updates. This means that while the mod isn't completely dormant, it owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to him for keeping it alive and kicking.

Initially, this project began as a personal endeavor, involving minor tweaks and adjustments for my own use. Over time, I found myself adding more and more features, steadily increasing its size and scope. Eventually, I decided to share it with the community in the hopes that you might find it enjoyable.

The mod is currently compatible with OXCE version 7.9.11, and it's essential to use this specific version to prevent any potential issues or crashes. I want to extend another big thank you to Meridian for his incredible work on OXCE, which serves as the foundation for many features in this mod.

XENO Operations incorporates content created by other talented members of this forum, with notable contributions from efrenespartano and solarius scorch, among many others (I'm actively working to ensure proper credit is given where it's due).

Balancing remains a work in progress, especially since the mod is still somewhat barebones. However, I plan to continue making improvements whenever possible. Your feedback, especially regarding balancing, is highly appreciated. I made some adjustments in the early game, but I'm well aware that there's a lot more work to be done. Please excuse any missing text in the ufopaedia; English is not my primary language, and my grammar isn't perfect, to be honest.

My intention is to honor the hard work put in by XOps in the original mod and to see where I can take it by incorporating additional elements. Initially, I had considered posting this in the original thread, but due to certain reasons, that didn't work out. However, this might actually be a better approach, as it's viewed as a derivative or an "overhaul" of the original mod, allowing both versions to coexist separately.

Currently, there are plans to continue adding and enhancing content, primarily focusing on new paper dolls and soldier sprites, though this may take some time. I'll do my best to keep this mod updated as frequently as possible.

Installation:

**To properly run the mod, you'll need an OXCE installation (currently version 7.8.7 at the time of finishing this post).
** BRUTAL AI MOD by Xilmi is highly recommended, and at this point, I consider it a must-have. I encourage you to check it out.

- Download the file from the site XOPS LEGACY by Blackwolf in MOD.io Portal or the file attached (the difference in size is irrelevant, its the same , just that i found a way to better compress it and evade the size limitation in the forum)
- Unzip and Drop the content inside your MOD folder.
- When updating from previous versions of the mod, it's recommended to delete the old folder completely (rather than simply overwriting it) and use the newer version, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED (for hotfixes and patches).


Main Features from the Original Mod and LEGACY Version:

• New weapons with unique spritework, categorized into seven tiers.
• Improved artwork and a redone UI both in geoscape,base management and battle escape, almost every screen has been changed.
• Improved ammo compatibility between weapons and tiers.
• New armors with different appearances, balances, niches, and pocket configurations.
• A layered paperdoll system, increasing the number of unique soldier appearances from 8 to 110.
• New base buildings and revamped the original.
• New XCOM fighter and transport planes including a new custom made starting plane.
• New Alien units and UFO sprites and artwork.
• Entirely revamped Xcom base facilities artwork, using improved tiles and assets.
• New supporting units, including a variety of drones and tanks.
• Dog units (currently featuring 4 different breeds).
• New soldier types and revamped soldier nationalities, featuring 115 unique flags and name files, with approximately 500 names per gender and 1000 surnames. Every soldier should now be unique.
• New ufopedia articles and lore.
• Unique campaign with distinct lore, alien motivation, and CODEX mechanics to achieve victory.
• Tons of new features from OXCE.

[Solarius Scorch]

I really appreciate your effort. No idea what you're going to do with the mod, but I wish you best luck!

[B1ackwolf]

I really appreciate your effort. No idea what you're going to do with the mod, but I wish you best luck!

Thanks, really appreciate coming from you, To be honest, i want to keep the mod updated to the current OXCE version, and try to spice up adding new content but keeping it on the lines of the original work XOPS did, and fix some exploits and balance issues left on the original version. At least thats the plan tho

[efrenespartano]

I wish you the best of luck on your new project, mi amigo! Any question, feel free to ask.

[Scamps]

Thank you for your work, Blackwolf! Streamlining amo seems the right way to go. Less micro is always good.

Would you kindly look into a crash on starting terror mission? It could be from original mod, or not.

Also, happy New Year!

[edit] correct log

[B1ackwolf]

Would you kindly look into a crash on starting terror mission? It could be from original mod, or not.

Hi fam, happy new Year for you too.

I tried your savefile and could end the terror mision without any ctds, are you using other mods? Wich version of OXCE are you using?

[Scamps]

Thanks for looking! Version is 7.1.4, as can be seen from log. Tried clean reinstall, tried version 7.3 - same result.
No other mods except for statstrings.
Crash is right at map generation. Looks like some map block is missing a size definition (see log).
Reliably reproduced wtih option "Enable save scumming" set to OFF. Setting it to ON allowed to start mission. (And here I was thinking it only influenced hit or miss RNG...)

[B1ackwolf]

Yep, it seems to be something in the generation proccess, the Weird thing is i already tried to load your file and play the terror mision múltiple times . Also tried to find the culprit on quickbattle loading all the posible permutations of terror missions and maps types and it seems to Work as intended.

Really earie, i'll take a closer look also. Check your PM box

[B1ackwolf]

New Version posted again....apologies for keeping a seemingly random schedule i keep posting stuff, i'll try to save all the changes and post it on maybe a weekly period.

With V4 its finished the first sweep of weaponry , mostly to add some QoL, i'll add later some features of stuff but i want to focus on other aspects of this mod first. Thanks again to @efrenespartano , man, for real your patience is ungodly  , im glad to count with your continous support and insights.

[B1ackwolf]

another week, another update, it wasnt as meaty as i intended, but caught 'Rona and yadda yadda isolation , had to stay away from Pc for some days. There are some graphical and minor features added (check changelogs) including diversified inventories per armor. Thanks a lot to  @efrenespartano for the ideas and examples of how to add this, you saved me again compadre

Spoiler:

   -Some fixes, tweaks and changes to SPRITES:
    °Taser pistol fliped (so itsnt the only weapon facing the other way around)
   °Basic heavy cannon replaced and centered (it was too mucho into a side and ended cliping in some situations)
    °compac tpistol, auto pistol , X1a pistol and x2 auto pistol got the magazines sprites reduced in size so it look compatible between each other (used the clip for the auto before, was too long compared to compact pistol for example)
    °hybrid compact and auto hybrid pistols had the same change as above. it should fits better now.
   °the basic smg and the x5 smg now has a "straighter" mag on the sprite (it shares ammo with the uzi and it looked weird having a banana curved in the main sprite yet straight mags on the pockets)
    °PDW and x5a PDW got their mags size increased (only graphically) same as above, its suposed it used 5.56 ammo yet had a tiny mag attached, it looks like a bullpup now (as intended)
    °Pilots basic flight suit changed from moss green into a purplish blue, every tier has this purple blueish color so i thought it would be cool if this was to identify pilots.
   ° Nerve Armors got their sprites slighty modified, until i retouch it further, it doesnt share the exact same sprite with personal armors (googles were changed from GREEN to PURPLE)
   -Power armors lost their ability to FLOAT (they were too op, maybe i'll add an upgraded version of the skystrike later)
   -Every armor got another tweak pass:
    °Every armor class has different pocket configurations, therefore adding an extra tradeoff for them (ex: alloy armor has increased defenses, but has around half the pockets of the personal armour, therefore the first would better be used for vanguards or frontline troopers)
   °Different atributes added in terms of vision for some armors:
    *XOps armors has slighty better night vision
    *personal armors has slighty better night vision and basic thermal vision (ignores smoke)
    *alloy armors has improved night vision and basic thermals
    *skystrike and power armors has improved night vision and advanced thermals
    *nerve armors has PsiVision (they "sense" units even through walls)

[efrenespartano]

another week, another update, it wasnt as meaty as i intended, but caught 'Rona and yadda yadda isolation , had to stay away from Pc for some days. There are some graphical and minor features added (check changelogs) including diversified inventories per armor. Thanks a lot to  @efrenespartano for the ideas and examples of how to add this, you saved me again compadre

Vatos locos por siempre |V|mL

[B1ackwolf]

Pretty small update. Mostly visual updates.

Im currently having lot of problems migrating armors into layers system (therefore, adding more faces doesnt add an unfathomable ammount of effort).
All the paperdolls work its done, but keeps struggling making the .rul files   (hopefully finish it by this week).

On another front i made slight changes to aliens sprites:

MUTONS:

Spoiler:

*All pajamas are gone , now they are divided (roughly) on three tiers with correct armors

Tier 1:
-Basic ones uses green armor with facemask (reused the armored mutons sprites made by XOPS)
-Mutons Leaders has RED and yellow armors (like those in the intro or in XCOM 2012, again repurposed Xops sprites)

Tier2:
-Armoured mutons(name change pending) uses new armos sprites (more purplish-alloy like, removed facemask and added some light studs on their forehead, to dignify their ranks)
-mutons leaders also lead these deploys.

Tier3:
-Commandos (gray armors)
-Centurions (blue armors)
-Supreme Comanders (new mutons with gold-eleriumish hue armors)

Sectoids:

Spoiler:

*Augmented constrast a bit (so they dont like a brown splat imho), slighty more defined features and pitch black eyes (to match the sclera on the ufopaedia images)
*Also i keep working on an commander version, but im not satisfied with the results yet. The idea is to have them being big shining brained (with tons of elerium pumped on their bloodstream , explaining the glow and superior psionic abilities)

Also there is some WIP trying to retouch snakemans so they are more "slithery" an eely instead of the current snails/caterpillars chonky on vainilla.


Xcom sprites got a few edits which will be applied when the layers system got online (more like correcting oversights and misscontinuities , Prolly because the sheer ammount of base sprites, checking everyone must've taxing and some slip off were expected).

Right now only the pilots are implemented(heavily inspired and retouched sprites made previously by NeoWorm and Efrenespartano) , hopefully nerve facemask and "purple wire" will be finished soon.

Just upack and drop on the current xeno operations folders you might have, as everything up to this point, its all save compatible tho.

Vatos locos por siempre |V|mL

Ya know how it is bro, for the barrio vivo , For the compas muero  . Thanks for all your patience and constant support V_


Installation:

**To properly run the mod, you'll need an OXCE installation (currently version 7.8.7 at the time of finishing this post).
** BRUTAL AI MOD by Xilmi is highly recommended, and at this point, I consider it a must-have. I encourage you to check it out.

- Download the file from the site XOPS LEGACY by Blackwolf in MOD.io Portal or the file attached (the difference in size is irrelevant, its the same , just that i found a way to better compress it and evade the size limitation in the forum)
- Unzip and Drop the content inside your MOD folder.
- When updating from previous versions of the mod, it's recommended to delete the old folder completely (rather than simply overwriting it) and use the newer version, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED (for hotfixes and patches).

[B1ackwolf]

Sorry for the long time without posting. Took a much needed vacations from job and went afk from a while.


I give up (for now) with the .rul layers implementations, i feel like i wasnt making any progress and isntead of wasting time, retook plans of altering sprites.

Nerver armors are half done, faceplates done and purple wiring just need a bit up of color retouching , then can be copy pasted on every other color variations.
(posted a paperdoll for reference). Hopefully will be finished soon.

On another spark of not focusing in the same thing for more than a few hours, decided to mingle with one of NeoWorm Sprites and added more fans to the hoover drone ,now scout one is a basic quadcopter drone and the rocket  uses the sprite already made by Xops (a mq9-reaper like, thinking in increasing the size of the Uav just an small bit, maybe later).

Already added and implemented in game, just post it before i make an update in case anyone is interested on using it.

And thats is for now.

[EleriumWard]

Good evening. I would just like to report an error I encountered. I just tried to play the latest version, but I got this.

[13-04-2022_18-12-29]   [INFO]   Supressed Error for 'STR_ELITE_SECTOPOD_TERRORIST': This unit can be recovered (in theory), but there is no corresponding item to recover.
[13-04-2022_18-12-29]   [ERROR]   During linking rulesets of soldiers:
Error for 'STR_DOG': Wrong index 1994 for sound set BATTLE.CAT

[B1ackwolf]

Hi guys, nice to be back, sorry i had to take a few time out, i had to move to a new deparment and that needed my entire attention... just now i kinda finished it(just waiting the internet provider to come and install the fiber)

In the meantime i worked on  some bits in the mod, so because i might be an extra week until i got the internet installed, i just wanna try and post a beta candidate (i dont know how to call it tbh) until i can get my work station online again.


this is still a lot of work to be done but the barebones of the changes i wanted to do with the paperdolls system is in place and hopefully will be finished soon^TM, i noticed there is a lot of clippings so just wait a bit until i finish all the armors to report any visual bug related to that.

Again thanks a lot to SOLARIUS SCORCH , i took a lot of assets from his XFILES mod and actually its one of the things that inspired me at the beggining. So all credits to him.
All the assets in this mod are free to be reused just remember to credit him and XOPS cuz they made the original files, i just retouch a bit in some corners so its not a big deal tbh.

Changes made

Spoiler:

v0.96.v6 LE:
    -Slowly but steadely restructurating some .RUL files (eliminated redundant ones, cleaning, merging and organizing others, tbh they were a mess and dear lord, i increased this mess), still a lot to do tho
   -Updated Death sounds, now all races (should) be consistent on the sound deparment, used firaxis 2012 XCOM sounds  (corrected basic mutons using new sound but more advanced versions using vainilla instead)
     °Fixed some crashes related to death sounds (thanks a lot to eleriumWard for pointing this)
   -Changed armors , finally into layers system!
   (so many thanks to SolariusScorch, his amazing work with XFILES mod helped me a lot to understand what the hell i was doing wrong)
    (used his body sprites as basis for every edit i made to the armors sprites,to assure the maximum compatibility possible.... so hopefully , he or anyone who whises to include this armors on their mod shouldnt have bigger problems      
    °pilots only use blue variants
    °other classes cant use pilot variants (gonna edit them further to make them more unique visually and conceptually)
    °custom preview mini sprite for every armor (with the exception of skystrike and the nerve ones, this is on the to do list)
    °First two tiers done up to this moment (with some cliping issues that are curently being worked, specially the hair parts)
    °other tiers have A LOT OF CLIPPING (there is still a lot of work to be done, but will be fixed when those sprites are retouched)
   -Replaced some ufopaedia images (more work its being done in this department, but its low priority until layers are done)
   -Replaced basic drone with a four rotors quadcopter version (added unique sound, so it buzz like commercial drones and differentiate from the rocket drone)
   -Replaced Basic sectoid sprites:
    °Sectoids now uses a recoloured version of AQUATOIDS (my favorite alien from tftd), imho they had a more striking and unique profile, im happy with the results but currently thinking on changing the color into a more blueish gray (so the brown/kaki/coyote/ scheme is "reserved" for xcom units), kinda the palette of xcom2012 firaxis sectoids.
    °no matter how much i tried, i wasnt satisfied with any change made to sectoids (they kept looking like a brown splat)
   -Finally changed the ranks to be more consistent:
     °every rank have an unique sprite:
     *a single stud for rookies up to master sergeants with chevrons and stuff (also retouched background a bit)
      *retouched the pilots ranks sprites a bit and renamed them(also retouched the background into a more blueish scheme to diferentiate of standard soldiers)
     *Officers ranks renamed and updated sprites (to avoid some misleading or confusing situations, like having a third lieutenant being promoted to a THIRD lieutenant again)
     *ranks sprites and flags of doggos retouched a bit (so it alings better with ui and keeps the same general appearence)
    °there is still a bug related to ranks, if you see the ranks on the base, the ui colors some parts of the studs incorrectly(easily appreciated with captains double bar for example), it works correclty in battlescape, so i guess is something related to palettes.
   -Added a new unit type, a land drone armed with a small smoke launcher, useful for scouting ahead and helping with the deployment phase, you can set up some screening before sending rookies to their (assured) death
     °eliminated mortar tank (seemed redundant, thinking on doing the same with the MRLS and repurporsed in another variant )
     °currently thinking pushing the standard tank into requiring A-Alloys to construct and delay their apparition a bit later (kinda like the laser tank on vainilla)
    -Tried adding new flags but couldnt find a way to make it work (i decided to stop making new flags, they are free to use by anyone, they took me less than 10 minutes each so if anyone is interested of making more, just DM and i would gladly help
   - citing a very wise modder i know: Several Bugfixes done. (sorry a lot of RLI happened so i lost track of some changes made)

Just extract and replace over older mod folder, Be sure to not being on a battlescape mission with a mortar (or a mrls maybe) tank , you'll get a ctd, finish the mission, go to geoscape, save and then update (in case you dont want to restart your campaing)


Installation:

**To properly run the mod, you'll need an OXCE installation (currently version 7.8.7 at the time of finishing this post).
** BRUTAL AI MOD by Xilmi is highly recommended, and at this point, I consider it a must-have. I encourage you to check it out.

- Download the file from the site XOPS LEGACY by Blackwolf in MOD.io Portal or the file attached (the difference in size is irrelevant, its the same , just that i found a way to better compress it and evade the size limitation in the forum)
- Unzip and Drop the content inside your MOD folder.
- When updating from previous versions of the mod, it's recommended to delete the old folder completely (rather than simply overwriting it) and use the newer version, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED (for hotfixes and patches).