New soldier?

[ZaricaLP]

Does anyone know if it is possible to make a new soldier for the player, i was planning on making it so there is a cheaper soldier (basically a local militia type thing) you could buy to start off with, but the flaw with them would be they have no training, so stats would be horrible at first. If this IS possible, can someone help me with it, Thanks.

[Phezzan]

You will need to edit the source and recompile to make a second type of purchasable soldier.

There's probably a lot of other mods that you would enjoy that would be easier to accomplish.
Brainstorm a bit and if you're set on it I'll help you out.

Note: the SkyRanger costs 600,000 per month. Each Interceptor costs 500,000 per month - if you have money problems aircraft is probably your most significant cost.

Phez

[ZaricaLP]

i already knew i would have to do that, i was just wanting to know how to. i make small games in my spare time, so i have a bit of knowledge with scripting some things. thanks anyway.

[Phezzan]

Well in that case, you need a second set of min-max stats and then you'll modify Basescape/PurchaseState.cpp::btnOkClick()

The for the stats you'll need another soldier in the ruleset - right now there's only 'XCOM'.
You can copy that chunk into a new rule file, and rename it to 'WEAK_XCOM' or something

Code: [Select]

soldiers:
  - type: WEAK_XCOM
    minStats:
      tu: 40
      stamina: 30
      health: 20
      bravery: 10
      reactions: 20
      firing: 30
      throwing: 40
      strength: 20
      psiStrength: 0
      psiSkill: 0
      melee: 10
    maxStats:
      tu: 50
      stamina: 50
      health: 30
      bravery: 40
      reactions: 40
      firing: 60
      throwing: 60
      strength: 30
      psiStrength: 100
      psiSkill: 16
      melee: 30
    statCaps:
      tu: 80
      stamina: 100
      health: 60
      bravery: 100
      reactions: 100
      firing: 120
      throwing: 120
      strength: 70
      psiStrength: 0
      psiSkill: 100
      melee: 120
    armor: STR_NONE_UC
    standHeight: 22
    kneelHeight: 14


[ZaricaLP]

thanks. 

[MKSheppard]

Actually, this would be a splendid idea to work into stock XCOM as an "advanced option" -- "Enable purchase of trained operatives".

It always bugged me how you were supposedly recruiting the best of the best from special forces around the world, yet they always panicked or couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

Same issue with Mass Effect 1 --Shepard was supposedly a top grade special operative (the whole N7 thing on your suit), but shot like a rookie at the beginning of the game.

If you could buy decently trained operatives, it would I think help alleviate the 'save-scumming' so prevalent in X-COM -- because then losing someone wouldn't be a critical blow to your organization; since you could just buy a replacement "Falcon" (Chengdu Military Region Special Forces Unit) from the PRC.

Of course, you'd have to design it so that it wouldn't break the game horribly -- maybe work in a cool-down factor so you can't just purchase 30 top flight soldiers in a single month -- because I imagine the global pool of special forces operators capable of being "scrubbed" is pretty small!

[By scrubbed, I mean all traces of their existence were wiped from all global government databases. Why? Just imagine the stink if a former US Delta Force operative was found dead in mainland China with a 10cm plasma hole in his chest, or vice versa!]

[moriarty]

trained units for sale? hmmm... I don't know, they'd have to be pretty expensive, else we might run into balancing issues.

perhaps we could mod "special missions" into the game, where you can recruit elite units? that's something I liked about XCOM2012. thwart an alien terror mission in the U.S. and get Chuck Norris as a reward...

[Align]

Really, it'd be enough if they just had higher minimums... I can accept a guy with a mediocre 56 firing accuracy if he also has decent bravery and strength etc.

[Amunak]

I think that making several (three?) tiers of soldiers available for purchase would be a sensible thing. It'd also add a great variety and numerous tactical options into the game. But I also think that for balancing reasons the soldiers would have to not only cost more, but they'd have to have greater wages. So they'd have to keep their "skill level" so their payment could be based on it. Then you could add the option to recruit highly-trained soldiers (limited on stock perhaps?), for a very high price AND with monthly cost of three general soldiers.

Alternatively all soldiers could have monthly costs determined by their skills - just assign every skill a value, multiply it by the skill level, add some little base and you'll get screwed if you have many highly trained soldiers  Should this scale logarithmically, though, it could work.