[HWP] Drones - Power suit HWPs

[Svanh]

A small mod adding some 1x1 HWPs for later game.

Assault Drone - Decent robotic soldier, armed with plasma weapon halfway between heavy plasma and plasma rifle

Scout Drone - High TUs and strength with a laser rifle, good for getting heavy supplies across the map.

Hammer Heavy Artillery Drone - Fires explosive or incendiary shells in an arc. Explosive shells have a blast radius of 2 and can punch through UFOs, incendiary shells set a very, very large area on fire. You can't unload shells without firing them due to the limitations of fixed weapons.

All three require you to research the power suit and mind probe. The Assault Drone requires plasma cannon research, the Scout Drone requires laser rifle research and the Hammer requires blaster launcher research with blaster bomb research for the ammunition.

You will also need a power/flying suit corpse in your base's inventory to unlock one of the necessary research topics and to build each drone.

While a Medic Drone is in the ruleset it doesn't work due to a quirk of battleType and inventory placement.

To install:
Extract Drone.zip to ...\openxcom\data and add
 

Code: [Select]

rulesets:
  - Droneto the config file

OR

Place Drone (PLAIN).rul in your ...\openxcom\data\rulesets folder and add
 

Code: [Select]

rulesets:
  - Drone (PLAIN)
to the config file.

The Drone (PLAIN) ruleset uses the original X-com power suit sprites while the .zip uses MKSheppard's recoloured power suit sprites.

Last updated: 03/11/2013

[tyran_nick]

That's a nice idea!
Maybe you could use some of the recoloured armor sets for the graphs?

[Svanh]

Thanks for the suggestion. I've updated the mod with some of MKSheppard's X-COM recolours and changed some stats.

[Hobbit Lord]

What might be pretty useful  is an HWP with an 'inventory slot' which can carry extra equipment so your troopers don't need to carry it all. Additional heavy weapons, rockets, medikits, high explosives, stun rods etc which can come in handy but usually don't

[Svanh]

What might be pretty useful  is an HWP with an 'inventory slot' which can carry extra equipment so your troopers don't need to carry it all. Additional heavy weapons, rockets, medikits, high explosives, stun rods etc which can come in handy but usually don't

All three drones have the standard inventory slots for carrying items/ammo minus a hand slot (Fixed weapons can't be moved/removed). Part of the Scout Drone's purpose is to carry large amounts of equipment very quickly. Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be a way to make inventory slots apply only to certain units so I can't add anything past the basic soldier inventory without giving it to X-COM soldiers as well.

[MKSheppard]

May I suggest something to make this more unique and extend the original game's functionality?

I'm sure all of you wondered whatever happened to the Power/Flying Suits after someone got killed in them. It made no sense that an incredibly valuable piece of equipment was never reused after the previous occupant was killed in them -- they were rare enough (used enough elerium 115) to make it worth recycling.

WHAT IF.....

Nobody wants to be in a "previously used" power suit? I imagine that alien alloy metallurgy is still kind of experimental, meaning that if you can cover over the hole in the power suit from a plasma bolt; there's going to be a big area of shiny bare metal that doesn't match the rest of the suit -- hence the painting of it -- to hide the repairs.

After the tenth squaddie in a row refused to get into a "slightly used" power suit; what if the XCOM engineers suggested that these "slightly used" suits could be recycled into combat drones? You were already most of the way there with the power-assist mechanisms required to make the suits not impair the user when worn -- it's just a matter of having a computer drive that functionality instead of a human.

You'd need to include code to change the stock ruleset:

Code: [Select]

  - type: STR_CORPSE_SUIT
    recover: true

and then design up a research project that requires a suited corpse to be researched -- followed by changing the manufacture rules of the drones to require one suited corpse + 1 Plasma weapon + several dozen engineer manhours to retrofit it (along with a small amount of alien alloy to cover up the plasma holes).

[Svanh]

May I suggest something to make this more unique and extend the original game's functionality?

Corpse bots!

Done! Main post updated.
Several omitted requirements in the UFOpedia, manufacturing requirements and some extra inventory slots added in addition to basing the drones on corpses.

[Hobbit Lord]

Wow really cool!

[MKSheppard]

There are only two issues now:

1.) When you add a drone HWP to a skyranger, it subtracts four seats

2.) It uses the same tank sprite as a stock HWP.

[mercy]

There are only two issues now:

1.) When you add a drone HWP to a skyranger, it subtracts four seats

2.) It uses the same tank sprite as a stock HWP.

But it should use the Power Suit graphics, right?

[Svanh]

There are only two issues now:

1.) When you add a drone HWP to a skyranger, it subtracts four seats

2.) It uses the same tank sprite as a stock HWP.

Unfortunately I don't really know how to fix that. Those issues seem to be hardcoded limitations of HWPs. I might buff the drones to make up for the 4 seat issue.

But it should use the Power Suit graphics, right?

It uses the power suit sprites ingame, but displays the standard tank image next to "equipment" on the "equip craft" menu.

[Svanh]

Unfortunately I don't really know how to fix that. Those issues seem to be hardcoded limitations of HWPs. I might buff the drones to make up for the 4 seat issue.

Finally got around to that buff. Drones have more health, TUs and are generally better shots except for the Hammer (Artillery isn't on the front lines and it's already 100% accurate).

Still have no idea how to fix those issues though.

Main post updated!

[Hobbit Lord]

Downloaded it just now and the research project is not coming up (I have laser rifle + power armor + mind probe, scout drone doesn't appear)

Is a new game required?

[Hobbit Lord]

Drones require power suit research along with weapons research specific to each drone. All require the corpse of a soldier who died wearing a power suit or flying suit to be manufactured along with a handful of other requirements.

Just found this, would that be the problem?

[Svanh]

Just found this, would that be the problem?

You need to have the corpse of a soldier who died while wearing a power suit or flying suit in your base inventory. Then you get a research project (Sort of like an autopsy) which uses one corpse and unlocks drone manufacture.

EDIT: Or that's how it would work if I ever implemented that functionality. At the moment you shouldn't need any research projects that aren't in the vanilla game. Have you checked to see if you can manufacture drones?

EDIT RELOADED: Actually the version with the recoloured power suit graphics requires the corpse research while the plain version doesn't. I'll probably update that version soon.