Author Topic: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.9.j - 9 May - Holiday Edition  (Read 749975 times)

Offline Dioxine

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.85 - 24 Sep - NEW COUNTRIES
« Reply #540 on: October 01, 2014, 03:51:44 am »
Sure, no problem, the brig could easily fit 40 soldiers if you want :)

And no, you're not missing anything, there are no special tilesets for it.

Bloggy thing: since the Deep Ones really piss me off, I've updated one of a million missing things instead, namely, craft weapon icons. Each of currently existing 13 or so craft weapons has an unique icon now:


Offline guille1434

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.85 - 24 Sep - NEW COUNTRIES
« Reply #541 on: October 01, 2014, 04:51:48 am »
Thanks, man! Again, great job with the craft weapons icons! 8)

Offline cjones

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.85 - 24 Sep - NEW COUNTRIES
« Reply #542 on: October 02, 2014, 12:35:07 am »
Gonna do another playthru soon as I finish Xeno Ops.   can't wait to see the new stuff!

Offline Dioxine

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.85 - 24 Sep - NEW COUNTRIES
« Reply #543 on: October 02, 2014, 02:02:40 am »
I think with 0.86 the early game will finally be very close to what I want to have in 1.0, so it'll be a really good point to start a new campaign. Just a couple days more :)

Offline Dioxine

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.86 - 3 Oct - DEEP ONES
« Reply #544 on: October 03, 2014, 11:18:16 am »
Finally, 0.86 is up. Early game now works as intended, things gonna get hard but you'll be using more "crappy" weapons... out of neccessity :)

A ton of less noticeable changes and upgrades too, amongst them Deep Ones and, finally, the Tamed Boomosaurus :) As always, check the changelog in the first post, this time it is a really fat one.

I hope all the subtlety and wise decision making will be needed to survive first half year when playing on high difficulties. Good luck :)
« Last Edit: October 03, 2014, 11:26:46 am by Dioxine »

Offline VodkaBear

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.86 - 3 Oct - DEEP ONES
« Reply #545 on: October 03, 2014, 12:36:16 pm »
Wow,  nice to hear, hope my crash problem will go away. And where can I read about soldiers stat progression, not sure but I don't remember my members have 15-20 str, always been higher, so should I dump them(when choosing mid-armor+medium-weight weapon, so 15-20 str not enough) or how can make them progress(if possible) faster? Give them overweight and make run around or what? And what about different map for same types UFO(Like LUKE's) it really boring when you same planned fuel-trading shuttle after 2-3 similar missions at row. Also, last time I hoped re-install will help me I've make it through battle, then successfully opened market, then Large Barraks became researched, I've opened rsrch info - hello mr. Crash.
« Last Edit: October 03, 2014, 01:02:41 pm by VodkaBear »

Offline Dioxine

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.86 - 3 Oct - DEEP ONES
« Reply #546 on: October 03, 2014, 03:28:09 pm »
Soldier progression is done by hitting enemies (guns, melee, explosives, whatever) and reaction-firing (and using Psi). This increases relevant accuracy skills (reactions, psi skill). When and only when these skills increase, the rest of the stats increase (strength, stamina, HP, TU). 2-3 good missions can bump strength from 10 to 25-ish.

The girls aren't trained personnel, so the minimums on stats are more severe, especially on Strength and Stamina (but maximums and caps are increased). If you have a promising soldier with lousy strength, there are also suits of armor that increase carrying capacity, so they can at least lift a decent gun. Or try experimenting with nonorthodox suits (the ones which give little armor but good stat boosts)... You get a ton of possibilities and a ton of shortfalls, that's how this mod is supposed to work.

There might be some variant maps in the future, maybe. Especially if someone does them for me. My time isn't unlimited and this mod already took many hundreds workhours :)

The large LQ crash is most likely caused by leftover garbage from old mod versions. It won't magically go away as it has been already fixed a few versions ago. Kill all Piratez assets and re-install the mod. If that fails let me know, but it has been tested that properly installed mod is free of that crash. Also make sure no other base-modification mods are running, that's including my own Improved Quarters mod (Piratez have it integrated).
« Last Edit: October 03, 2014, 03:31:51 pm by Dioxine »

Offline cjones

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.86 - 3 Oct - DEEP ONES
« Reply #547 on: October 03, 2014, 05:00:45 pm »
New piratez UPDATE?! awesome sauce, once I finish my xeno ops playthru I am gonna start a new campaign.

Just a quick question, this may be irrelevant but what difficulty do you recommend this mod is most balanced for.  What I mean is, if I understand how most mods are created, everything is balanced just so to work together.  I usually play on experienced, maybe veteran, as I find that at superhuman especially, all the extra aliens per mission just get tedious.

I also noticed insane low stats for my recruits in previous versions, but also insane high levels for others, I chalked it up to the fact that my girls were just a buncha mutie misfits.  I find the best way to really enjoy this mod is to realize that you won't really be able to create uniform troops.  you really have to improvise.  the girls stats contribute to this but also the difficulty and randomness of getting bits to manu stuff.  I almost drove myself insane trying to get my squad full annahillator (spelling?) armor for cydonia.  I stopped at about 6 sets, as it was taking forever to find enough wrecked power armor.

I find this mix/match loadout/skillsets really adds to the flavor of piratez.  Think about it, ragtag pirates in real history didn't all carry same weapon/armor or come from same backgrounds.  Sure that one pirate was an ex soldier and has great fire accuracy, meanwhile that other was a blacksmith apprentice and has massive str but low fire accuracy.

If you really think about, pirates would have weapons they looted from enemies, or cobbled together uniquely.  this adds to the overall flavor also as each battlescape battle plays out like  a cool movie in my head.  I am sure we have all seen movies where a band of pirates attacks a ship, they are all ragtag going against the navy or maybe just civvy security, then out of a cloud of smoke a huge pirate comes lumbering out with a massive weapon the other pirates don't have, completely changing the battle.  Or a scrappy pirate, about 100lbs soaking weight, sinks the enemy's morale by running at their captain with dynamite.

On another note, one of the funniest things for me personally in Piratez is when you get your first "power" armor.  Its called juggernaut I believe and it looks like something out of warhammer, specifically Orks armor.  Its obviously cobbled together from bits and stuff.  Its amazing how that armor changes the playing field.  most of the low to mid tier enemies simply don't have the firepower to even put a dent in you, on the low tier stuff, say a shuttle attack, you can simply walk up to the enemies while their bullets bounce off.  of course you have to watch for those trade engineers with their hi ex, but I digress.

This is fun as heck, battle plays out with your regular troops leaping out of transport in pirate gear, followed by a lumbering power armor armed only with a cutlass, running around stabbing enemy while bullets bounce off of it.

So, in summary, or TLDR, best advice I can really give to someone playing this mod for first time, is throw everything you know about xcom out the door and enjoy this game for what it is, a whole new game with the xcom engine.  Its a blast, and I promise you won't regret it!

Thank for letting me ramble here, I cant sing the praises of this mod enough!  I love it and all you other awesome modders!

Offline guille1434

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.86 - 3 Oct - DEEP ONES
« Reply #548 on: October 03, 2014, 05:27:07 pm »
Hello Dioxine! I just want to report what it looks like a map prblem with the Brig assault craft... I ported the craft to my FMP modded game without a problem. I gave this craft a cargo capacity of 32 troops (including 4 HWP), with the idea of transporting 4 HWP and a max of 16 troops to any mission... Everything is Ok if I load 14 troops and 3 HWP (my current testing loadout), but the game crashes in the exact moment when the battlescape map is about to be shown in the screen at the start of a ufo recovery mission if I load one more troop, i.e. 15 troops and 3 HWPs. Any idea what can be the cause of this? I hope is will be easy to fix, because I like this craft very much!
I noticed that the BRIG ruleset section has no deployment numbers included in it... May be this has something to do with this problem?

I would really appreciate some ideas about how to fix this...

Thanks very much!! 8)

Offline Edrick

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.86 - 3 Oct - DEEP ONES
« Reply #549 on: October 03, 2014, 05:45:14 pm »
I must say I still have consistent problems, after killing with fire and reinstalling OpenXcom whole. Earth-filled crafts in Campaign, palette issues in New Battle, Dead Bug and crashes with Large Vaults/Living Quarters. Thank you in advance for any answer.

Besides all that, must say this mod is pure gold. Keep up the more-than-awesome work. And, when will we getting these fancy factions you mentioned like 10 topic pages ago? Mystery melee faction, tribal Sectoids, Aquatoids... ? :D

Offline cjones

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.86 - 3 Oct - DEEP ONES
« Reply #550 on: October 03, 2014, 09:18:26 pm »
Edrick,

I recall similar probs when I first started the piratez mod back in .85.

As for the dirt filled crafts and stuff I recall you had to load another mod/update fix, think it was a MCD file.  the open xcom mod site has the instructions for using that.

I also had map not found crashes that dioxine was nice enough to fix by attaching all the maps a few posts back on this thread.

I also recall that the mod needed the last nightly, as I was getting crashes due to large living quarters.  actually I think that was FMP that I had that prob, but may apply here as well.

On a side note, I just finished another mod and am looking forward to firing up another piratez campaign!

Yarr!

Offline VodkaBear

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.86 - 3 Oct - DEEP ONES
« Reply #551 on: October 03, 2014, 10:53:05 pm »
Nope, same crash after battle end again. Tried completly clear, last nightly, last patched original, only piratez, no advanced settings - still same crash after battle. I know that sort of against the rules, but cant anyone make build original+piratez(x64) and upload somewhere?

Offline cjones

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.86 - 3 Oct - DEEP ONES
« Reply #552 on: October 04, 2014, 12:08:14 am »
That's odd, I just did a clean install, loaded up piratez and everything is gravy so far.  Course, I haven't built any large quarters, still in first month, so who knows. 

It crashes after any battle? Or just since you built large quarters?  Are you getting error code or crash to desktop with no warning?

I have found from playing many mods that there are a million and one things that can go funky with em, whats always helped me is being as detailed as possible on the forums. also doesn't hurt to try and attach a save game and/or cfg file that has as savestate just before the crash.

The peeps that are on this board are superhelpful when it comes to getting these mods to work, I am sure someone knows exactly what the prob is.

That being said, I will try and outline how I installed mod, just to see if maybe you left a step out? 

Before I do though, I am sure this isn't the easiest way but this is how I load mods.

1. Clean install of openxcom using v1.0 installer with data patch
2. Grab latest nightly
3. install mods per mod creator instructions, really, be very THOROUGH to make sure you read all mod creators notes.  Dioxine does a very good job of explaining everything just so on the mod portal.  Other modders also are usually very detailed. 

It also doesn't hurt to be a board lurker like me, you would be amazed the stuff you pick up.  Heck, I have even learned some basic editing (with supervision by these wonderful peeps) myself using notepad++. 

IMO playing with mods on openxcom is kinda like restoring and building custom hot rods.  You really don't just go and grab a fully functioning one of the shelf, you might take someone else's plans and build your own version, tinkering all the while to get utmost performance and tuning.  Heck, half the fun for me of playing all these cool mods is getting them setup to work properly, its like tuning a performance engine.

As for the idea of someone uploading a ufo defense+mod file, I am pretty sure that would be a violation of some copyright laws.  and I would hate to see this site taken down by a DCMA act complaint or some such. 

Enjoy the ride and don't lose hope, these mods are worth it!

Offline VodkaBear

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.86 - 3 Oct - DEEP ONES
« Reply #553 on: October 04, 2014, 11:54:40 am »
Yep, I've done everything you described, actually I'm coder(c#, java) myself, so it no big chance I've made really stupid mistake, ofcourse I've tried completly clear install. Game crash after first battle, without building\bying\researching\changing ship setup\etc. Just start new game - choose base location - increase time - shotdown first ufo - win battle - crash or go to the base, open market - crash. That the story. Tried few different original x-com versions - no result.

Offline Dioxine

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.86 - 3 Oct - DEEP ONES
« Reply #554 on: October 04, 2014, 01:50:42 pm »
@guille1434

This crash is consistent with ship's layout, that much I can tell. There are 28 spaces on the lower floor, and you're getting a crash when trying to put 29th soldier... The thing is, on my machine, the 29th and next soldiers are getting deployed on the second floor without any problems, I've even tried 50 soldiers... I have no idea what could be causing the problem for you. Try using my AVENGER and LIGHTNIN tilesets provided in the TERRAIN_FIX directory?
As for the ruleset deployment, it is a very unruly beast. You don't *need* it since it's just an override: normally the game simply deploys units on xcom craft floor tiles, starting with the NW corner of the lowest floor. When there is no more space in the nortmost row, it starts deploy in the next row. If there is no space left on the lowest floor, it goes (or should I say, it SHOULD go) to the next floor.
You can try overriding this with ruleset to see what happens. Just remember that 1st, 5th, 9th (and so on, as many iterations as you have tanks) soldiers need to be deployed in a NW corner of a 4x4 floor space else the game will go haywire when trying to deploy 2x2 units.

Oh yeah and here's question for cjones and other people: do you want custom deployment in Bonaventura instead of how currently the soldiers are just haphazardly thrown there (which sometimes makes planning hard)? And if, what the deployment should look like, who should be facing where? The 2nd floor is also useable, and the Bonaventura could fit even 24 or so soldiers, the 18 cap is there for balance reasons.

@VodkaBear

Frankly I have no idea. By the description, the crash seems to be caused by missing resources. This sounds like you don't have the latest nightly / you haven't activated Piratez_factions.rul ??? Piratez.rul and Piratez_Factions are BOTH vital. Also, you can grab this map pack cjones mentioned, as it is basically a copy of my own terrain-related folders.

@Edrick

Grab the map pack, this is the only remaining solution that comes to my mind (or version lite, use files provided in the TERRAIN_FIX folder, this will take care of earth-filled craft). About the palette, I am powerless, I haven't tinkered with it in any way. Must be a peculiarity of you hardware/OS/filters... are you using any display filters? Still thanks for appreciating the mod despite the problems :)

@cjones

First of all, I am deeply grateful for all the praise. Seems you're enjoying this mod as much as I do, with all the little things and a proper approach to the whole thing. Indeed, everything you know about XCOM is only of limited use with this mod. Trying to create uniform squads is only fighting the game. It's better to go with the flow and try to fight with what the gods of random throw at you. That's why most weapons aren't manufactureable. That's why all armor depends on what you can seize from the enemy. The goals are twofold - first, each pirate is a personality. Second, no two campaigns should look alike. And generally, it's about being awesome, for good or bad. Sadly, I have no real control over Pogrom and Crackdown missions and so they tend to dominate the games... much of it is hardcoded. I'd prefer more standard shipping to be happening, but the engine doesn't allow for that.

As for the difficulty level, it's entirelly up to you. I try to make the game balanced for all difficulty levels. It's basically about how hardcore you feel. On Beginner/Experienced, you'll be getting small enemy crews with lo-end stats, but this also means they'll be less likely to panic en masse (as panic depends flatly on how many enemies you kill, and how fast - Bonaventura has been designed to deploy quickly and start wholesome slaughter as early as turn 1; it's an ofensive craft, which is a major difference compared to all vanilla crafts, which are all defensive in nature), BUT a gauss round will kill you as reliably as on any other difficulty. On Superhuman, the slaughter is close to surreal, as you leave battlefields strewn with dozens of bodies... but the danger lurks everywhere, and some enemies won't panic no matter what (this makes Star Gods most true to their name), and all enemies have seriously buffed stats... on the other hand, getting a full complement of Annihilator suits is much, much easier, as you reap tremendous earnings out of your missions, both in money and rare resources. (although Annihilator is a swag-deluxe armor, you wear it for pride since much easier to get Brute armor is already overpowering against most threats, if, as even the name implies, much less imaginative than Harbinger or Blitz). Sooo... I think indeed veteran might be the best level to play it (and most random, as you can never tell how large will the enemy crew be - you can get beginner-sized as often as full Superhuman-sized), but as for myself I play on Superhuman as I enjoy the carnage.