[WEAPON] [CRAFT] Tyran_nick's mods

[moriarty]

About the coding part: how do manufacturing requirements work, anyway? Is it possible to have a manufacture that uses an item other than alloys or elerium as a "material"? If it's not possible yet, I think we should add it. Think about weapon improvements: using a plasma rifle and an advanced scope to manufacture a plasma sniper rifle... or a mod that only allows use of alien weapon after "modifying" them for human use... endless possibilities

EDIT: hmmm... looking at the ruleset, the manufacture part lists "requiredItems: ... ". I guess you can list anything here, right? so it should be perfectly possible to create a "fusion cell" item that can be manufactured with "requiredItems: STR_PLASMA_PISTOL: 1".

I don't know if it would also possible to make elerium able to be manufactured from several other items, though... like having multiple "Elerium" items in the "manufacture" category with different requirements (one with requiredItems: plasma pistol clip, one with requiredItems: plasma rifle clip and so on)... probably not.


EDIT 2: okay, yes, it is absolutely possible to have an item require any other item for manufacture. I just quickly changed the Laser Rifle to need a Laser Pistol for manufacture, and it works just fine.

EDIT 3: okay, and it is perfectly possible adding a manufacturable Elerium that requires for example a Plasma Pistol Clip. So it should be perfectly possible to create small/medium/large "Fusion Cell" items that can be "extracted" from the Plasma Pistol/Rifle/Heavy, and that are then raw materials for human weapons. if you put "UFO Components" as the item type for those Fusion Cells, you don't even need to create an image for them, as they will never appear in the battlefield.
however, it is not possible to have one item that can be "manufactured" in more than one way. so you couldn't make Elerium extractable from more than one item. too bad. I guess adding that functionality would require some code changes, possibly affecting the ruleset, too, because the "manufacture" entries would need to take into account that a manufacturing process has a name that differs from the end product (for example, the manufacture process would be "disassemble Plasma Pistol Clip", "Disassemble Plasma Rifle Clip" or "Disassemble Heavy Plasma" while the end product would be "Elerium 115"... which in turn would affect the language files...

[mercy]

As suggested, two simple rulesets that will remove plasma weapons from the game:

• NoPlasma.rul: Xcom can no longer research plasma technology. Since we do not understand how to use the weapons their price is reduced to 1/3. Good luck...
• NoPlasmaMass.rul: Same as above, but removes plasma dependencies from mass weapons. Human tech replaces need for plasma, but you will need to use elerium like there is no tomorrow!

Install as standard mods. NoPlasmaMass.rul requires the Mass Accelerator Weapons mod. I guess NoPlasmaMass has to be listed after it in the options.cfg, otherwise the overrides will not work correctly.

And now for something completely different..! I have made a replacement for lightning following the style of firestorm (only base and intercept graphics yet). Opinions? In particular, do you think it is possible to make a map piece that will sort of resemble it? I am not looking for a very close fit, something similar to how the Avenger looks in base and in battlescape (i.e. rather different!). I have not attempted any map modding, so any suggestions or help is welcome!

These ships do look really beautiful!  Looking forward for more graphics MODs from you!

[wsmithjr]

As suggested, two simple rulesets that will remove plasma weapons from the game:

• NoPlasma.rul: Xcom can no longer research plasma technology. Since we do not understand how to use the weapons their price is reduced to 1/3. Good luck...
• NoPlasmaMass.rul: Same as above, but removes plasma dependencies from mass weapons. Human tech replaces need for plasma, but you will need to use elerium like there is no tomorrow!

Great. Thanks.  I couldn't think outside the box enough to figure out how to do it.  I was kind of thinking you'd need to research the entire plasma tree to understand how to do the Mass Accelerator weapons, but perhaps my idea is too severe of a requirement.  As for the high Elerium usage, I had been fiddling with changing the plasma cannons to use Elerium as a fuel anyway, so that works for me.

I'm useless with graphics.  Any chance to re-work the Hovertank/Plasma turret graphic to use the Mass Accelerator cannon?  Can use the same graphic in the interim but it'd be nice to have a new one.

As for the Lightning, it's nice.  I'm not sure the similarity to the Firestorm is much of an issue.  Yes, it's very similar in the base display but that doesn't affect anything.  When accessing it for equipping/loading/intercepting, you use menus with the name, not the graphics, so I don't see it as much of a problem.  However, adjusting the geoscape display would probably be a challenge.  Truth be told, I don't think I've ever used a Lightning anyway, aside from initial curiosity.  Now, if in the process it was made more tank friendly, then it'd hold more appeal to me.

[tyran_nick]

Yes, normally you need to research the plasma research tree. Were you thinking of still keeping the plasma research, but not getting to use the weapons? Its probably possible by creating fake research/ufopedia entries that are not tied to the weapons.

I am planning to work on the hovertank sprites. I want to redo those and then I'll build a turret for a mass accelerator cannon.

Regarding the lightning I am still trying to think the battlescape map design and then I'll adjust the sprite more if needed. I think that its not really important to make them too different (though I think they already are!), as the only important case to distinguish between crafts, without text, would be if you have them minimised in geoscape. Nonetheless, what kind of revisions would you suggest to make them more dissimilar?

[xracer]

you can create a lot of weapons and not linking to the manufacturing process as such you would not be able to manufacture it,

for example this is what i am doing
research:
.
.
.
  - name: STR_GAUSS_WEAPONS
    cost: 60
    points: 15
    dependencies:
      - STR_ALIEN_PLASMA_PISTOL
      - STR_LASER_RIFLE


  - name: STR_RAIL_WEAPONS
    cost: 50
    points: 10
    dependencies:
      - STR_HEAVY_LASER
      - STR_ALIEN_ALLOYS

  - name: STR_EMP_WEAPONS
    cost: 50
    points: 10
    dependencies:
      - STR_RAIL_PISTOL
      - STR_HEAVY_PLASMA

  - name: STR_DISRUPTOR_WEAPONS
    cost: 50
    points: 10
    dependencies:
      - STR_EMP_PISTOL
      - STR_GAUSS_DEFENSE

This branches will allow me to start research on weapons of each category and then create the manufacturing items based on the subsequent research items.

Furthermore i have attempted to create this

  - name: STR_PLASMA_WEAPONS
    cost: 60
    points: 15
    dependencies:
      - STR_ALIEN_PLASMA_PISTOL
  - name: STR_ALIEN_PLASMA_PISTOL
    cost: 600
    points: 20
    needItem: true

what this does it allows me to create the humans plasma weapons research based on the alien plasma tech
  - name: STR_PLASMA_PISTOL
    cost: 600
    points: 20
    dependencies:
      - STR_PLASMA_WEAPONS
      - ALIEN_PLASMA_PISTOL

I know this last alien plasma pistol statement is some what redundant but it forces me to have at least 2 pistols before i can research the human plasma pistol
Also i removed the Alien plasma pistol from the manufacture section and added the humans. (by the way the dependencies are there as a trial, i think i need to change them)

So you can create a multitude of tech to depend on several factors, and you can manufacture them independently. But you are not able to dismantle an item and create multiple item for it, which is what i was hoping for
 

[tyran_nick]

You might be able to do that. I think if you create a zero cost research that consumes the item you want to use and then put that research as prerequisite for the others it should do it. It has to be zero cost so that it does not show up in the research list.

[wsmithjr]

Just noticed that the new research topics are not showing up with the correct titles in the game.  The Mass Accelerator Weapons technology shows up on the research screen as STR_MASS_ACCELERATOR_WEAPONS.  This happens to other mods as well, so it could be an artifact of the recent source updates.

[tyran_nick]

Yes, it seems there is still a problem with loading mod rulesets.
I noticed that the last ruleset you load in options.cfg is fine, while any previous ones do not load properly, at least regarding the string names.
Haven't found a way around it yet.

EDIT: SupSuper fixed this!

[tyran_nick]

Just finished a new interceptor. Weaker than alien based ones, but more useful than the starting interceptor. Requires alien alloys to research.

Thunderstorm Interceptor
Thunderstorm uses refined earth technology with alien alloys. The ultra-durable alien alloys are the basis for the powerful scramjets that allow thunderstorm to match the speed of most UFOs, giving us a fighting chance. Weight and aerodynamic considerations have limited the weapon hardpoints.

Download:
https://openxcommods.weebly.com/tyran_nick-mods.html

[moriarty]

nice, I like it.

now it needs to be combined with a ruleset that delays elerium-based tech so you don't skip it and jump straight to the firestorm...

I was thinking about re-structuring the tech tree so that there are several stages of elerium/plasma tech, first you are only capable of manufacturing clips, then small firearms, then Heavy Plasma, then plasma beam craft weapons, and finally elerium-based craft propulsion... if I find the time

[xracer]

ooooooooooooohhhhhhh!!! I like it!!
can i use it on my compilation mod!!!

by the way were in the tree are you placing it, i guess is a one-to-one replacement for the interceptor.   

[tyran_nick]

I did a bit of playtesting with Thunderstorm. It allows for interesting tactics. Early in the game you have the problem of carrying limited armament, often requiring to scramble squadrons of Thunderstorms to take down medium ufos (or even small ones with a few misses), which is quite fun. For the same reason interceptors and sentinels (if you use them) are not directly obsolete, but compliment nicely. When plasma beams become available, Thunderstorms are useful to save some elerium when hunting smaller ufos and fully replacing older interceptors. A big advantage is that they have no upkeep so it makes it easy to stock squadrons of them relatively early in the game.

I was tempted to create a new missile launcher to support thunderstorm between avalance and stingray, middle power and more missile capacity, but as it is now seems to be more fun. Any suggestions welcome!

Moriaty that's a good idea. I would like to see the game development slow down a bit as well and keep full plasma tech for later in the game. Maybe require full laser tech before being able to research plasma and then require pistol, to research rifle and so on...? Somewhere else it was also suggested to remove auto from plasma.

Xracer, this is researchable once you are finished with alien alloys, so relatively early. I don't think it fully replaces interceptors, unless you have enough Thunderstorms to launch as squadrons, due to the limited weapon payload I mentioned before. In my playtest thunderstorms replaced interceptors mid-game, when i had enough of them to launch if needed.

As always feel free to use any of my mods or assets for yours! 

[mercy]

Wow, very nice!  Now the game needs just a Winning AI!

[tyran_nick]

I had an idea about a couple of "upgrade" items. You can create a new item in a ruleset and then in the manufacturing section put an old item as requiredItems. To manufacture the upgraded version you would need to consume the old one, so in a way upgrading it. That's easy and it works. What I am now trying to figure out is whether I can access with the "requiredItems" bit of the ruleset either crafts or soldiers. My initial experiments have failed. Has anybody tried this successfully?

I can access these "items" in either transfer or sell screens but not in manufacture. Actually I am not even sure what is the internal string name for soldiers.

[MKSheppard]

Here's my take on the Thunderstorm, using an X-30 NASP image as a starting base, with some redone fluff. Have yet to do the other images required for full implementation (base hangar image and intercept button).