[MERGED] Soldier Diaries 1.0

[ivandogovich]

I had basically sorted the medals by category too:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1HrWtmUwEo1nwn-tgo2IH9zvWNU32SV3QV5G5ggXqGnU/edit?usp=sharing

This may be another way to order them.

[wsmithjr]

I've installed the recent Extended + Commendations install found in another thread.  I've just noticed, that after 3 completed missions, a few of my soldiers have not been promoted.  One guy has 3 missions completed and 1 kill and another 2 kills and they are still Rookies.  In fact, I noticed that I have no Squaddies in the roster at all.  They are either Rookies or Sergeants/Captains.

Anybody else noticing similar behavior?

[Shoes]

I haven't messed with promotions like that, so I can't be sure what's going on. Maybe Extended got rid of Squaddies because it's not reallya rank?

[wsmithjr]

I haven't messed with promotions like that, so I can't be sure what's going on. Maybe Extended got rid of Squaddies because it's not reallya rank?

Very next battle I had a bunch promoted to Squaddie.  Still, it's weird that guys with kills were not at least squaddies and I have a dead soldier in the memorial who was in 6 battles with 6 kills and is still a Rookie.  I'll set up Commendations with vanilla and see if the behavior is different.  Some other odd things were going on, but I'm sure it's because of other mods I'm using.

On another note, is there an explanation somewhere of how the score is calculated for soldiers?  Just curious.

Thanks.

[Shoes]

The score for soldiers is the same as the score for missions; each soldier is given that score. So a rookie that sits in the back of the skyranger will still get a good score at the end of the month!

[Arthanor]

I had basically sorted the medals by category too:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1HrWtmUwEo1nwn-tgo2IH9zvWNU32SV3QV5G5ggXqGnU/edit?usp=sharing

This may be another way to order them.

Hum.. Interesting! It's hard to organize everything using those categories since the names are not uniform. Maybe I could change the UFOPaedia display names to something like:

Attack - Inferno Star
Attack - Order of the Hammer
Attack - XenoCide
Heroism - Order of Glory
Heroism - Valiant Cross
Sacrifice - Black Cross
Sacrifice - Purple Heart
Support - Honor Cross
Support - Terran Cross

But then the Medal of Heroism needs to go from Wounds to Heroism.

[Arthanor]

Well.. I decided to go with the "order by commendation type, alphabetically" scheme. Let me know what you think!

Shoes, do you think it would be possible to add a new UFOPaedia section for commendations instead of moving HWPs?

I would love to use commendations for the XAE, but I'm not sure about distributing 2 rulesets, 1 for vanilla, 1 for commendations.

[Shoes]

Ivangodovich did all the ufopaedia work, and at the time it was much much simpler to shuffle around existing links instead of creating a new one. I can take another look, but at my present pace I wouldn't count on anything soon!

Also, the reason I distribute a vanilla ruleset as well is because I hope to one day have this mod, specifically the stat tracking portion, be a part of the source code. It might be possible to move everything to have one ruleset again!

[Arthanor]

No rush

The comment on rulesets was in order to make other mods that have HWPs compatible with the Commendation mod. Currently, other mods have HWPs in the HWP section, which means that they would show up with medals if Commendations is enabled.

This makes other mods require two rulesets: One for HWPs in the craft section to use with Commendations, one for HWPs in the HWPs section to use with vanilla. It's not much work, but it is a bit of a hindrance in terms of compatibility (and you can bet some people will enable both, then complain that the ufopedia is wonky! ).

If you were to add an extra "Commendations" section, then other mods would not have to change anything in order to work. Make it enabled through ruleset and you get a fully compatible vanilla+mods code, which is a step further to being integrated.

I fully support your attempt to get this rolled into the source. I think it is amazing in terms of immersion and motivation. You care even more for your soldiers, but at the same time it adds more value to not-reloading, since otherwise every soldier will end up "the same".

[Shoes]

Good point! I'll add it to my list of things to do ;p

[Arthanor]

Bug report!

Got a soldier (Jan Fuglestad) who killed an engineer and navigator and somehow managed to get himself awarded the "Taking names" commendation, which was promptly taken away with a letter blaming an intern who doesn't work at XCom anymore.

I kept some record though, see save attached.

Edit:
The stats tracking side of things seems to work very well, except for being a bit generous with what's a "Night Op". I've got some other issues with the awards though and I am still not well versed enough in this to figure them out (See Com1 save attached):
1 - More "Taking names" were awarded. It seems like killing any 2 ranks awards it?
2 - The Order of Earth is awarded if you fight a medium scout + 2 large scouts. In the logs the missions are properly identified, but the soldiers got the award any ways.
3 - The criterion for night is a bit loose. I often wait until dawn to raid UFOs, so I am not at a disadvantage vision-wise. But that still seems to be considered night for the awards.

Maybe there could be the "Night Stalker" award for when it's dark enough to impair soldiers' vision range, and a "Dawn and Dusk Raider" for raids conducted at low light but full vision?

[wsmithjr]

Don't know if it affects anything, but there's a string error in Commendations with the latest nightly.  In the Options - Mods screen, putting the cursor over any of the mods shows the string "STR_MODS_TOOLTIPS" instead of a description of the mod.  I'm using the 2015-05-25-Nightly version with the latest OXC nightly.  I've checked and I don't see the same problem with vanilla OXC.  I think I have it installed correctly as everything else seems to work.

[Shoes]

Don't know if it affects anything, but there's a string error in Commendations with the latest nightly.  In the Options - Mods screen, putting the cursor over any of the mods shows the string "STR_MODS_TOOLTIPS" instead of a description of the mod.  I'm using the 2015-05-25-Nightly version with the latest OXC nightly.  I've checked and I don't see the same problem with vanilla OXC.  I think I have it installed correctly as everything else seems to work.

That means there's a string missing. I think it used to work, so double check that you've installed things correctly. I know the folder structure for mods have changed too, so you might need to do a clean install to make sure everything is working right.

[Arthanor]

I just checked on my install (made using git and compiled/installed locally) and everything works fine. Seems like it's either something from the pre-compiled Windows version or a mistake while installing.

[Shoes]

Good news! I've added commendations button to the ufopaedia: https://imgur.com/f5XHegJ,wPiBdkh,LbwPi4f

Now that it works, I can make it pretty.