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Author Topic: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.9.j - 9 May - Holiday Edition  (Read 750424 times)

Offline Dioxine

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.9.h - 1 May - Red Edition
« Reply #1155 on: May 01, 2015, 10:44:56 pm »
Just remember the training and everyone will be fine. One smoke grenade from the corner through the front, one down the hatch, end first turn :)

Offline ivandogovich

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.9.g - 24 Apr - Crewed fighters
« Reply #1156 on: May 01, 2015, 10:55:04 pm »


Side note: Is there a way to make statstrings with melee skill? I tried "melee: [50, 70]" but it does not work.. For Piratez, that's a pretty important stat!


So I did some digging, found the code, and created a fix.

There is a new Pull Request in to allow Statstrings to report Melee attributes: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,3605.0.html

I have a custom .exe that Meridian mastered for me from the 4/30 nightly if anyone is interested.

Cheers, Ivan :D

Offline eatthepath

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.9.h - 1 May - Red Edition
« Reply #1157 on: May 01, 2015, 11:17:13 pm »
The probe text definitely means what it says, but I'd argue that it isn't as explicit about it as it could be. I present as evidence the fact that Talhydras, Icefox, I, and another friend of ours all got locked into an alternate explanation until coming here and getting it clarified. The idea being that the probe is surveying sights where the stargods might decide to do something, and then they'd show up in some semi-magical fashion rather than riding a conventional spaceship there.

I'm not going to keep picking at it past this post, just thought I'd chip in.

My campaign status: Led an all-melee all-capture raid on a guild base. Flush with that success, I went to the next mutant progrom with the same load. It was the star gods. O_O. I need to get some decoders up.

Offline Arthanor

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.9.g - 24 Apr - Crewed fighters
« Reply #1158 on: May 01, 2015, 11:33:24 pm »
Big of a mass reply after the quick save upload while at work:

Hehe I wonder what that was! TFTD technology wasn't lost, it got upgraded :)
The continuity with the universe we all know and love is an awesome part of this mod. Great work!

I spent 1 hour playing in the smoke, trying to get a corpse from those guys for research from another landing site. Savannah is not a great terrain for melee gals and my ranged weapons don't seem to do anything.. A guy even tanked 2 high explosives! Had to pull back after, lost a dog and a whole bunch of ammo, but luckily all the gals went home safe (yeah, I'm that careful!). Luckily they don't seem to have explosives, "just" gauss.

Okay fixed version is up. Danger: contains a bit less timid AI, slightly more cavalier in use of explosives. Hence the red edition.
That will be a blast :D Now to decide if I should restart or what.. maybe import the gals back into the game or something.. I got attached to them now.. Burning Pants is murder with her heavy flamer!! And Shameless Nipple has been great at distracting traders. (I did give her armour though.. metal armour is pretty nice!). Taking about her.. is there any use for mutant porn?

I've been holding on to it in case it will tell me something about the society or something, but nothing has come up yet.

Just remember the training and everyone will be fine. One smoke grenade from the corner through the front, one down the hatch, end first turn :)
Then everyone move out! Fast! Because you're all gonna pass out in the smoke :P

So I did some digging, found the code, and created a fix.

There is a new Pull Request in to allow Statstrings to report Melee attributes: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,3605.0.html
Nice work! I'll compile a new version over the weekend with that fix.

Otherwise..

Dioxine, did you consider adding the smoke explosion I made for Extra Explosions to Piratez? I noticed you added the stun one already.

Also, which damage rule do you recommend? TftD is nice for reliable damage (and face tanking) but UFO might be more as intended, with highly variable damage making it more adventurous and helping a bit against armored ennemies.

And a random question to finish: how do range 1 "shooting" weapons like the hammer and chainsaw work? With flat or ranged accuracy?
« Last Edit: May 02, 2015, 04:42:00 am by Arthanor »

Offline pilot00

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.9.h - 1 May - Red Edition
« Reply #1159 on: May 02, 2015, 01:06:15 am »
Dioxine thanks for your work dude.

Offline Dioxine

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.9.g - 24 Apr - Crewed fighters
« Reply #1160 on: May 02, 2015, 01:47:35 pm »
The probe text definitely means what it says, but I'd argue that it isn't as explicit about it as it could be. I present as evidence the fact that Talhydras, Icefox, I, and another friend of ours all got locked into an alternate explanation until coming here and getting it clarified. The idea being that the probe is surveying sights where the stargods might decide to do something, and then they'd show up in some semi-magical fashion rather than riding a conventional spaceship there.

There is no magic in X-Com universe, and I want it to stay that way :P
Seriously though, I agree that the probe mechanics is confusing. On the other hand, it is the best way of making Deep Ones/Dark Ones missions possible. I don't want them to fly their own ships (it can happen on a Crackdown, especially with Dark Ones, but that's it), and creating activity sites would be a major pain in the a**, if even possible at all. Moreover, activity sites would give you an instant indication which makes little sense, the only intelligence you can rely on is Mutant Alliance. With a probe, there is a patient hunt element. Having said all that, I'm not even a native English speaker; if you think you can write a better Imperial Probe description, please do so and I will include it in the mod.

Taking about her.. is there any use for mutant porn?
Of course not, don't be ridiculous :) Not from a tactical point of view anyway :)

Dioxine, did you consider adding the smoke explosion I made for Extra Explosions to Piratez? I noticed you added the stun one already.

I did consider and discard. Reason: smoke is released by pyrotechnics, so fire explosion is the proper one for smoke weapons. Thanks again for making the stun explosion! It really looks good. I will probably add some more custom explosions for things like the BFG.

Also, which damage rule do you recommend? TftD is nice for reliable damage (and face tanking) but UFO might be more as intended, with highly variable damage making it more adventurous and helping a bit against armored ennemies.

In this mod, where armored units are the norm, TFTD damage rules would very often result in an unit (either pirate or enemy) being untouchable by certain weapons. They will make heavy armor undefeatable (as it often was designed to be damaged only by 150%-200% damage roll) and light armor pointless. Notice how TFTD authours had to sort of double-back on their own design decision by making armor with atrocious side defence, just to make it defeatable by light Sonic weapons, while in Piratez, side defence is usually in the middle between frontal and back, which is in line with UFO.

And a random question to finish: how do range 1 "shooting" weapons like the hammer and chainsaw work? With flat or ranged accuracy?

Ranged acc, but it makes no difference since you cannot ever miss from 1 tile with a ranged attack.

Final word: some armors are indeed undefeatable by some weapons. That's why you need research said weapons and armor, to see their stats and vulnerabilities. Use some common sense too: do not engage powered armor with small arms, chainsaws and buckshot. Also there is no known enemy in this mod who cannot be killed by a repeated application of HE-pack :)
« Last Edit: May 02, 2015, 02:06:45 pm by Dioxine »

Offline Arthanor

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.9.h - 1 May - Red Edition
« Reply #1161 on: May 02, 2015, 05:11:01 pm »
Sounds good. You're very welcome for the stun explosion. I am honored it made it in Piratez. Although I agree that there is some explosive quality to it,  since it does no damage I picture it more as an explosive (in the sense of rapid) release of smoke making little fire or shockwave. So I like smoke grenades having a different animation, but that's easy to tweak on my end!

Once I find out more about the society in Piratez, I'll see if I could design a quick research and UFOpedia entry linked with the item that says something on the mutant/human societies. Something to be gained from reading the articles ;) The flavor text on the new world you designed are an awesome part of the mod.

Thanks for the advice on the damage. I'll change that for my reboot. And now I know hammers are good tools for gals with bad accuracy. They can practice "shooting" it straight in the face of the enemies.

Another thing, regarding firearms especially: I quite like the variety but many are rather difficult to use. For a bunch of the flavor guns, there's not really any source of ammo even after you research rifle bullet manufacturing (which also unlocks ammunition that I don't know goes with which guns). It makes the early game ranged combat quite confusing logistically and, combined with melee being more reliable and greed making me want to capture everything, I ended up going for a few gals with scoped rifles and ignoring almost every other gun, which is a shame.

Offline Dioxine

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.9.h - 1 May - Red Edition
« Reply #1162 on: May 02, 2015, 05:24:30 pm »
You're welcome to write some stuff, although it will only be included if it fits my vision :)

As for the firearms, remember that many of them are there mainly to add variety to the enemies (I fully realize that the player won't be using almost any of the standard shotguns or pistols). Also: ammunition is grouped with proper weapons on the craft equip screen, fence screen etc, not even mentioning it's kinda, you know, named :P Anyway, enjoy the golden age of melee while it lasts! :)

BTW, has anyone's base been ever attacked by a Boarding Torpedo or an Assault Transport? Or is it all-Cruiser? No idea if the varied-Crackdown setup works at all (the OXCom mission scripting module is still in developement).
« Last Edit: May 02, 2015, 05:36:31 pm by Dioxine »

Offline pilot00

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.9.h - 1 May - Red Edition
« Reply #1163 on: May 04, 2015, 03:22:21 am »
Dioxine, you might want to increase the howitzer tanks shell speed. When it fires the projectile goes in slow motion.

Offline the_third_curry

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.9.h - 1 May - Red Edition
« Reply #1164 on: May 04, 2015, 04:47:04 am »
I remember seeing the aliens (generally mutons) use blasters without line of sight a few times in the PlayStation version of the game, but it usually wasn't pretty. They didn't seem to understand the drift of the blaster bomb and generally ended up nuking themselves.

Offline eatthepath

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.9.g - 24 Apr - Crewed fighters
« Reply #1165 on: May 04, 2015, 07:33:47 am »
There is no magic in X-Com universe, and I want it to stay that way :P

Seriously though, I agree that the probe mechanics is confusing. ... I'm not even a native English speaker; if you think you can write a better Imperial Probe description, please do so and I will include it in the mod.

Re magic: Oh of course. I mean magic in the sufficiently advanced technology sense. We do have voodoo, after all.

Re the rest: Well, let me take a crack at it.

"The Empire launches these shiny things to investigate activities their lackeys can't deal with. They're slow enough to follow and might lead us to exciting new booty. But remember cap'n, too much excitement isn't always healthy."

I think it makes it clear that you'll be finding something that's not normal and not the star gods. I tried to inject a bit more pirate flavor, too.

Offline Dioxine

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.9.g - 24 Apr - Crewed fighters
« Reply #1166 on: May 04, 2015, 09:00:16 am »
Dioxine, you might want to increase the howitzer tanks shell speed. When it fires the projectile goes in slow motion.

It is slo-mo by design.

I remember seeing the aliens (generally mutons) use blasters without line of sight a few times in the PlayStation version of the game, but it usually wasn't pretty. They didn't seem to understand the drift of the blaster bomb and generally ended up nuking themselves.

I'm quite sure the AI in the old game (PC version here) was able to attack out of direct LoS, not only with Blaster but also with grenades and firearms (provided you were seen by some aliens, others could attack you too, even from far away). Volutar says the OXCom AI can do it as well, but I've never seen anything to confirm that (except for psionic attacks).

"The Empire launches these shiny things to investigate activities their lackeys can't deal with. They're slow enough to follow and might lead us to exciting new booty. But remember cap'n, too much excitement isn't always healthy."

I think it makes it clear that you'll be finding something that's not normal and not the star gods. I tried to inject a bit more pirate flavor, too.

Okeee, pulling this in.

EDIT: you wanted it, you have it. You can upgrade your pet Reapers now:
« Last Edit: May 04, 2015, 11:54:57 am by Dioxine »

Offline pilot00

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.9.g - 24 Apr - Crewed fighters
« Reply #1167 on: May 04, 2015, 01:59:22 pm »
It is slo-mo by design.

Can I ask the reason plox? I am currious is all.

EDIT: you wanted it, you have it. You can upgrade your pet Reapers now:

And I was thinking yesterday about been able to make the boomasaurus have different rocket load outs (before training them naturally). Can we have that too if you have spare time?

Offline Dioxine

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.9.g - 24 Apr - Crewed fighters
« Reply #1168 on: May 04, 2015, 02:13:15 pm »
Can I ask the reason plox? I am currious is all.

Isn't that obvious. Because it looks cool.

And I was thinking yesterday about been able to make the boomasaurus have different rocket load outs (before training them naturally). Can we have that too if you have spare time?

Pretty much pointless IMO, Boomosaurus is a curiosity, no point in trying to make it a viable combat unit. Especially considering the amount of work required. Maybe some other time.

Also regarding Mutant Alliance volunteers and similar ideas - rendered impossible by recent builds: their weapons would not be displayed on sprite (HWP-style units don't display weapon handobs any longer).

Offline Arthanor

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Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.9.h - 1 May - Red Edition
« Reply #1169 on: May 04, 2015, 03:22:45 pm »
Regarding attacks from outside of Los, I've had a security guy throw a grenade at my gals through smoke (on turn 2! Hehe) because he remembered where they were.

Luckily my gal had skin of steel and survived (although bets are being taken as to if she'll be prettier or uglier when the bandages come off) and the guy was taken care of with liberal application of fisticuffs.