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Author Topic: [TFTD][OXCE][Major] TFTD: Vanilla Plus  (Read 10011 times)

Offline Daev

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[TFTD][OXCE][Major] TFTD: Vanilla Plus
« on: November 19, 2023, 10:15:53 pm »


https://mod.io/g/openxcom/m/tftd-vanilla-plus

REQUIRES OXCE

The main goal of the V+ project is to create a fun experience for TFTD, while keeping the original atmosphere and gameplay of the game. This is done through a variety of ways, all of them having the main goal of increasing variety, decreasing frustration, and providing interesting decisions to make. while some of my decisions can be controversial, such as removing some 2 stage missions, modifying alien bases, etc. This does not make the game easier, but makes the decision of doing a mission different. For Example, doing an alien base before getting DPL is usually a death sentence, due to the abundance of Tentaculate and the permanent darkness. By making alien bases closer to UFO, being a 1 stage complex with the race based on the mission that made it, allows for alien bases to be done earlier, while still being challenging, as you don't have a DPL to cheese with.

Some features are mainly to provide variety or lore building, such as the Hybrid Geoscape for surface USO activity, and new research topics and the like.

While I think the mod is in a good state and very close to my vision, DEVELOPMENT IS NOT DONE, and new features will be added in time, and balance is updated consistently




Features:
New Hybrid Globe and Lite Features, USOs can be shot down over land and recovered!

Tweaked balance, enemies will have hard counters, and lobstermen are no longer ball crushers.

Building system has been tweaked, empty rooms can be buit over, and rooms directly upgraded for faster construction times.

Alien Bases overhauled, starting out as small outposts that grow in size, alien race is no longer fixed on bases.

New weapons and tweaked tech tree, such as surface only lasers.

New Armors to provide stronger protection in exchange for stats.

New enemies to add variety and fill out rosters, less tentaculates as well.

New missions, provided by "Maps of the Deep", and Some missions are only 1 part.

New Base Facilites to provide a way to "Catch up" from mistakes, such as training pools and medbays.

New Crafts, Fighter and Troop Carrier, to bridge the gap between the new alien subs and you.

New Icons for Geoscape crafts and USOs, to provide diversity to the Geoscape.

Alien weapons cannot be used in any way, must be converted into their human counterparts, as well as a nerf in sale price, making a real choice between selling them or making weapons.

Tweaked Manufacturing Costs, making certain items harder or easier to get.

Many QOL mods, like status indicators, day or night indicators, enhacned solider previews, Armed Civilians and more.



BALANCE ISSUES WILL EXIST, I would love balance issues, comments, feedback, etc, as i will be expanding on this mod with time.

See Github for experimental changes:
https://github.com/NeonNito/TFTD-Vanilla-Plus



Incorporated mods/Credits:

All my previous mods:
Expanded Arsenal, Human Sonic Weapons, Alien Rank Variants, Expanded Aliens

Parts of XCOM Visual Upgrade by Xross

Easier TFTD by Reaver

Hybrid Globe by Luke83

Better Small Torpedoes by Starving_Poet

Maps of the Deep by TheMartian

Enhanced Sub Reskin by Roxis231

Various sprites and mods by TheMartian

Various old mods (Moray, Training Pool, Large QTRS, ETC) by Authors

IF I MISSED ANY, LET ME KNOW AND I WILL UPDATE CREDITS
« Last Edit: November 28, 2023, 08:12:58 pm by Daev »

Offline ontherun

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Re: [TFTD] TFTD: Vanilla Plus
« Reply #1 on: November 20, 2023, 12:35:37 am »
Oh yes, more screenshot please!!!

Offline efrenespartano

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Re: [TFTD] TFTD: Vanilla Plus
« Reply #2 on: November 20, 2023, 12:43:40 am »
Congrats on your new release, mate!

I've enjoying your previous TFTD mods, I'm glad to see them all together! :D

Offline ontherun

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Re: [TFTD] TFTD: Vanilla Plus
« Reply #3 on: November 21, 2023, 10:19:34 am »
First interception with acquatoid, all acquanauts died and triton lost!! Damn cannot remembre tftd was so hard! Diff level: veteran  :'(

Oh yes, more screenshot please!!!

anyway here are some. Don't know whether acquatoid in battlescape mode is displayed as black is a bug or because it has not been researched it yet...

Edit: for those who want a tftd experience without the eccessive hassle of twots  :P
« Last Edit: November 21, 2023, 11:49:03 am by ontherun »

Offline Daev

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Re: [TFTD] TFTD: Vanilla Plus
« Reply #4 on: November 21, 2023, 06:41:52 pm »
First interception with acquatoid, all acquanauts died and triton lost!! Damn cannot remembre tftd was so hard! Diff level: veteran  :'(

anyway here are some. Don't know whether acquatoid in battlescape mode is displayed as black is a bug or because it has not been researched it yet...

Edit: for those who want a tftd experience without the eccessive hassle of twots  :P

Thanks for more images! And yeah, i haven't incorporated alien inventory images as of yet, that is on the list!
I have some goals i am working on, but small things like that should be in soon.

And it shouldnt be too hard, as i based all the balancing off of "Easier TFTD" by reaver, but its still no cakewalk to be sure!

Let me know if you find any bugs/crashes, and i have been doing frequent updates, so the SMG for example shoots 5 auto shots now, dont forget to update!

Offline ontherun

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Re: [TFTD] TFTD: Vanilla Plus
« Reply #5 on: November 22, 2023, 01:54:21 am »
Let me know if you find any bugs/crashes, and i have been doing frequent updates, so the SMG for example shoots 5 auto shots now, dont forget to update!

Sure, version i quickly. tested Is 1.003  :)

Offline Daev

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Re: [TFTD] TFTD: Vanilla Plus
« Reply #6 on: November 23, 2023, 07:32:57 am »
Sure, version i quickly. tested Is 1.003  :)

New update, you might like it:

1.02
Secret Addition for later update :)
Implemented Geoscape Icons, -Thanks Reaver!
Implemented Inventory Sprites for Aliens and Tanks
Added 2 New Facilities: Large Workshop, Large Laboratory
Fixed BLMG Clip size
Fixed Strings for Some Facilities
Fixed Order of Facilities
Buffed Minigun Clip to 100
Changed GMLG autoshots to 6
Changed GMLG snap tu from 25 to 20
Modified HitFrames for Automatic Weapons
Modified Bigobs and UFO for LMGs
Changed Jet Repeater to be more different from AutoPistol
Change All SMGS to shoot 4 Shots each
Adjusted GSMG and Clip Sprites
Buffed GLMG Clip size to 42
Buffed BLMG Clip size to 48
Buffed GSMG Clip size to 28
Buffed DMPISTOL Clip size to 20
Buffed DSMG Clip size to 24

Offline ontherun

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Re: [TFTD][OXCE][Major] TFTD: Vanilla Plus
« Reply #7 on: November 24, 2023, 02:35:41 am »
Good! Hey does this mod incorporate "tftd expanded arsenal"?
https://mod.io/g/openxcom/m/tftd-expanded-arsenal

Offline Daev

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Re: [TFTD][OXCE][Major] TFTD: Vanilla Plus
« Reply #8 on: November 24, 2023, 05:05:04 am »
Good! Hey does this mod incorporate "tftd expanded arsenal"?
https://mod.io/g/openxcom/m/tftd-expanded-arsenal

It is! a more updated version with better fixes is include, and so are all my other mods, i would consider the old mods unsupported at this time.

I will edit the main post at some point to include those!

Offline Daev

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Re: [TFTD][OXCE][Major] TFTD: Vanilla Plus
« Reply #9 on: November 24, 2023, 08:11:46 am »
Not to spam, but Large update, Hybrid Geoscape update allows you to shoot down USOs over land!

Full changelog

Code: [Select]
1.03
Big Feature: New Geoscape and Lite Hybrid elements
Can shoot down USOs over land and assault them using surface only weapons
Terrains and maps from UFO have been ported

Implemented Reaver’s building systems, build-over, empty rooms, ETC
(Thanks again Reaver, love your work!)

Implemented a few OXCE features, such as Bughunt more and Surrendering
Implemented a few UI tweaks from “Enhanced Visuals”

Fixes and Tweaks:
Hotfixed a few issues
Buffed Large Stores
GMPistol Accuracy was bugged
Fixed Color issue on displacer armor feet
Fixed Routes on some XBASE maps, so Xcom units can spawn there

Offline Macaras

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Re: [TFTD][OXCE][Major] TFTD: Vanilla Plus
« Reply #10 on: November 25, 2023, 05:29:33 pm »
Daev, that's a great idea for the mod and good job! I just played TFTD after many, many years and I enjoy it a lot. I have one suggestion regarding balancing - ION armor is available immediately after plastic aqua armor, maybe there should be some additional dependency - for example the lobster technician? Otherwise, it doesn't make sense to manufacture plastic armor, ion is much better.
« Last Edit: November 26, 2023, 01:21:26 am by Macaras »

Offline Daev

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Re: [TFTD][OXCE][Major] TFTD: Vanilla Plus
« Reply #11 on: November 27, 2023, 01:43:35 am »
Daev, that's a great idea for the mod and good job! I just played TFTD after many, many years and I enjoy it a lot. I have one suggestion regarding balancing - ION armor is available immediately after plastic aqua armor, maybe there should be some additional dependency - for example the lobster technician? Otherwise, it doesn't make sense to manufacture plastic armor, ion is much better.

Thanks! I have plans to do a small research "overhaul" to make the tree take longer to research, requiring multiple bases, as well as making more techs useful. I am still writing up my design document on it, but i think that is a good idea! My goal at the end is to make every research useful, so weather by having techs harder to get, or by making ion armor harder to manufacturer, making aqua plastic armor more economical, I am still working it out.

Offline Xilmi

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Re: [TFTD][OXCE][Major] TFTD: Vanilla Plus
« Reply #12 on: November 27, 2023, 10:47:55 am »
The ugly yellow-globe and restriction to coastal-cities and islands as land-missions was my major pet-peeve with TFTD.
So seeing how you fixed that with the hybrid-globe definitely makes me want to try it out.

Offline psavola

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Re: [TFTD][OXCE][Major] TFTD: Vanilla Plus
« Reply #13 on: November 27, 2023, 06:31:26 pm »
Based on the original post and being based on or inspired by "Easier TFTD" mod, I thought the intent was to make the mod easier than vanilla TFTD. (Which I'm not personally that interested in.)

But it appears that is not the purpose, but rather make the game somewhat longer, balance it differently and make it more sensible. Whether it becomes somewhat easier or harder is immaterial. (As a TFTD veteran I'd say the vanilla game is not all that difficult, if you know how to play it, but rather some missions are just so tedious and dangerous that you want to avoid them, because you don't need to complete them.) I definitely think the idea of different (and easier) Alien Base missions sounds promising. The same applies to 2-stage terror ship missions.

Significant increase in variety is also something I'm looking forward to. Wrt. TFTD I have liked TWoTS a lot but its one drawback is that the progress might end up being very slow and sluggish repeat of hundreds of essentially identical and easy-ish USO missions (unless you just shoot down and ignore). If there would be more variety (compare, for example, to X-Com Files), I suppose that could avoid getting bored by the game too quickly.

When looking out for balancing and making various things more relevant, you may also want to check out, compare and contrast to how this was accomplished in TFTD Evolution by Alpha Centauri Bear. The purpose of that mod was also to make the game more difficult (even excessively so, I think): https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,8661.0.html


Offline QuakeSlayer

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Re: [TFTD][OXCE][Major] TFTD: Vanilla Plus
« Reply #14 on: November 27, 2023, 07:57:45 pm »
Based on the original post and being based on or inspired by "Easier TFTD" mod, I thought the intent was to make the mod easier than vanilla TFTD. (Which I'm not personally that interested in.)

But it appears that is not the purpose, but rather make the game somewhat longer, balance it differently and make it more sensible. Whether it becomes somewhat easier or harder is immaterial. (As a TFTD veteran I'd say the vanilla game is not all that difficult, if you know how to play it, but rather some missions are just so tedious and dangerous that you want to avoid them, because you don't need to complete them.) I definitely think the idea of different (and easier) Alien Base missions sounds promising. The same applies to 2-stage terror ship missions.

Significant increase in variety is also something I'm looking forward to. Wrt. TFTD I have liked TWoTS a lot but its one drawback is that the progress might end up being very slow and sluggish repeat of hundreds of essentially identical and easy-ish USO missions (unless you just shoot down and ignore). If there would be more variety (compare, for example, to X-Com Files), I suppose that could avoid getting bored by the game too quickly.

When looking out for balancing and making various things more relevant, you may also want to check out, compare and contrast to how this was accomplished in TFTD Evolution by Alpha Centauri Bear. The purpose of that mod was also to make the game more difficult (even excessively so, I think): https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,8661.0.html

Oh I had asked about having elements of the Vanilla Plus into TWoTS like Hybrid globe and land mission with the aliens from there into TWoTS.