aliens

Author Topic: [COMPILATION] Final Mod Pack (FMP)  (Read 1581081 times)

Offline Quinch

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #930 on: November 26, 2014, 09:05:10 am »
Chtonites are done, in theory. I'm not sure whether the color difference between soldiers and commanders is too subtle. Thoughts?

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/33551029/FinalModPack.rar {hopefully I packed the folder hierarchy correctly}
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/33551029/screen013.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/33551029/screen014.png

Offline Arthanor

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #931 on: November 26, 2014, 05:41:24 pm »
Although it's cool to have variety in the colors, going by rank may be the wrong way. Need to capture a leader? That's the blue one! An engineer? Red one! No more waiting for the Mind Probe squad to Id your targets before picking which weapon to shoot it with.

Our military forces have learned about a century ago that it was a bad idea to highlight your officers by giving them big hats and stuff, because it just makes them easier to snipe out. Why would the aliens not know this?

In some cases it can be interesting (reproducing the muton commander from the intro, having an extra tough "muton black guard" or "darth vader floaters") but I think a blanket application turns it into smarties easy mode.
« Last Edit: November 26, 2014, 05:43:09 pm by Arthanor »

Offline Quinch

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #932 on: November 26, 2014, 09:36:16 pm »
That's actually the issue it's supposed to address - FMP's research tree is based around acquisition of rare {and thus high-value} aliens. The initial stun tools are of middish potency, and their improvements require very specific breakthroughs from very specific aliens to unlock, increasing the need for raw luck. Identifying those targets creates a much more deterministic playstyle, which I consider preferable to luck of the draw.

In theory, the color-coding could be contained within a separate ruleset that could be turned on or off?

Offline endersblade

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #933 on: November 26, 2014, 10:20:12 pm »
Although it's cool to have variety in the colors, going by rank may be the wrong way. Need to capture a leader? That's the blue one! An engineer? Red one! No more waiting for the Mind Probe squad to Id your targets before picking which weapon to shoot it with.

Our military forces have learned about a century ago that it was a bad idea to highlight your officers by giving them big hats and stuff, because it just makes them easier to snipe out. Why would the aliens not know this?

In some cases it can be interesting (reproducing the muton commander from the intro, having an extra tough "muton black guard" or "darth vader floaters") but I think a blanket application turns it into smarties easy mode.

Who uses a mind probe?  I just run in and stun EVERYTHING.  Let the scientists sort them out, and sell the ones I don't need.

Also, you're trying to bring real life into a game.  STAHP.  This mod requires you to capture specific ranks, and having them colored makes things easier.  It does not make it cheese-level easy.  The problem is, there is no true hierarchy, per se, amongst the aliens.  You'd think Engineers would stay near the engine room, Leaders/Commanders in the command room, etc, but a lot of the time they're all out fighting with the soldiers.  How many times have you found engies and squad leaders and such running around outside the ship?  I do all the time.  Commanders, obviously, less so.  Point being, having to sacrifice a gun slot in order to take a mind probe, or just stunning everything like I do, isn't as challenging as trying to find that one specific alien you need, and make sure you get him back alive.

I think this mod should be a separate rule set though.  Obviously there will be some people who want to use the mod, but not this particular type, and being able to turn it on or off would make things a lot easier.

Offline Arthanor

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #934 on: November 26, 2014, 10:36:16 pm »
The ability to identify targets is supposed to be a breakthrough in itself: The Mind Probe. Who uses it? People who want to stun the right alien and like a challenge instead of having them paint a target over their whole body? Stunning everything also works, of course, and is in general worth it IF you can do it.

Of course at the beginning it's supposed to be hard to find the right alien. It's the first time you see them, you're not supposed to know who's who. Nor that the red one is the one you need either. As you say, it makes the game easier. I don't get the claim that having free information makes the game more challenging than having to work for that information (TUs spent on the mindprobe are not spent killing/stunning aliens) or work with a limited subset of weapons (only stun ones). Maybe what you meant is that it made the game less entertaining for you and more like a chore. It makes it more of a challenge for me, and thus more entertaining.

It all comes down to preferences, indeed. Play the game this way, sure. I'm just pointing out that making it an innate feature of the FMP would make it less attractive to some of us.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #935 on: November 26, 2014, 10:46:16 pm »
OK, took me like two weeks to find the time to post here... Needless to say, the mod hasn't made much progress. :P

the definition where a craft can land is not "type: 1" anymore but "group: 1"
so adding "group: 1" for all "type: 1" should help
group 2-4 is used for the operation addline (to make roads)
so here hopefully one can do a similar fix
i did not see anything in the scripts in reagerd to the old "type: 5...8" i assume its not used anymore

That would explain a lot.

How do you know this, Falko? The Ufopaedia says nothing on the matter. Is there any further info available? Can I delete the "type: 1" entry, or does it need to stay? Do I change "type: 2" to "group: 2" etc.?

Question, do Muton Praetorians fall under the leader category for research purposes? {a glance at the ruleaset implies no, but I might be misreading}

No, they shouldn't give you Leader-only information. They only fill the leader slot.

Also, what are the steps required for adding/replacing a new alien sprite? I did some basic race recolors a while back, but I realized that I need to recolor the inventory sprites as well {at the very least}. Is there a tutorial or something one might recommend?

Sadly, I do not know any tutorial. The most important partis to stick to the same palette, so using an appropriate image editor is essential; Photoshop would be good, and reportedly some other software that I can't remember (but not GIMP, unless you really know well how to work with it, and certainly not Paint).

Looking for some info. I'm cheesing by playing with the 'always daytime' mod on, but I noticed rather quickly that several missions were still at night. I've managed to find a couple of them and add them to the daytime mod, buy I'm still missing a few. Could you please list off all the different ground missions that this mod adds? I've tried going through the .rul file but again I'm still missing some. Most if not all of the missing ones have to do with MiB.

Are you looking for a list of custom missions added to the FMP? Please specify, and I'll help as I can.

I've been experimenting with the dart rifle requirements a bit. The idea is that, because of the increasing variety of alien species being introduced into the mod {no complaints there!}, locking research behind specific aliens puts too much emphasis on random chance of those aliens appearing {last game, for example, I didn't encounter floaters until the following year}. So, I've tried hammering out a different approach.

The idea is to break the aliens into specific brackets for mid and late game, then require the dart research to depend on either of several aliens for each prerequisite.

To simplify, for example, for dart clip B, one needs to autopsy a Floater OR a Chtonite, plus a Reaper/Spitter, a Sectoid/Anthropod, Waspite/Tunlun, Snakeman/Reptoid and finally Chrysalis/Salamandron.

The tweaked ruleset is in the attachment - I'm testing it right now.

It's certainly a good idea which I should have implemented some time ago, but I never found the time. I'll gladly accept some help here. For now I won't be integrating anything, so please take your time with the testing, and I'll certainly consider you a helping hand!

Can I make the suggestion of, as the game progresses, either increasing the weight of mixed crew craft, or increasing the frequency of alien medics? Swapping one of the navigators for a medic in the fighter ship deployments might make them less useless.

Sure, this could be changed. I like mixed crews too, I'm just hesitating on the exact percentages.

My biggest complaint has got to be research and pacing. I got the research done to go to mars before I ever got power armor, plasma weapons, or even the avenger.

Well, it happens; not always, but sumetimes it does. But is this really bad? While discovering alien conspiracy is difficult, it's definitely as hard as actually going to a different planet with decent gear and blow up their HQ! Sure, in the vanilla game you usually could get the best stuff before you were able to crack most of these secrets, and it made some sense too, plot-wise, but I think it wasn't exactly better. But these are just my musings; I won't be defending this position to the death, so changes are possible.

Of the original aliens, I've seen chryssalids, snakes, floaters, and ethereals. Cyberdiscs, reapers and sectoids. I haven't seen a muton, silicoid, and possibly others? I didnt see chryssalids until november, floaters in september. I can't recall all of them. I keep getting MiB missions, when they are really nothing more than an annoyance.

I LOVE all the new races, while I know you aren't responsible for their existence, it is really nice to have so many. But researching most of them seems to be pointless.

This is just random number gods' work. The way the game works, you can repeatedly fight the same two or three races over a bigger part of the year and not see anything else. There's not much I can do here!

And I personally think MiBs are more dangerous than many aliens, especially when they use plasma guns.

And to go along with aliens, spitters seem to have at least three different corpses. Only one of them gives you the UFOpaedia insert, the rest do nothing.

Sadly, I don't know how to fix this. It's the same in Robin's original mod.

A lot of the research seems to just be fluff and filler. Trying to figure out what is needed to research certain weapons is annoying. I got the stun launcher researchedz but never did figure out what gave me the research for the stun bomb. And stun the crap out of everything! I usually bring back at least 80% of the aliens on a mission alive. (Selling live aliens nets twice as much as dead with that mod on.)

Yeah, I added some empty techs to move plasma weapons further away and also organize the progress more logically. I'll try to add some fun stuff to some of these techs, but it ain't easy.

RE: Alien Remix

I love this mod, adds a lot of randomness to missions. However, FMP currently uses a lot of user made aliens as well, would they get the remix treatment as well?

I haven't worked on the Alien remix yet. For now we have mixed crews, which is sort of the same thing.

Yes. Unfortunaltelly, the same mistake appears (returning to Windows on starting terrorsites, without error information)

Might be related to the recent changes in the terrain code. Or maybe you're just missing some files?

Oh, and Quinch: have fun with recolouring. :) I actually want to change the chtonites' sprite to adjust it to the inventory picture by Duke Falcon (with metal pauldrons and goggles), but it's a lot of work.

Offline Falko

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #936 on: November 26, 2014, 11:40:05 pm »
How do you know this, Falko? The Ufopaedia says nothing on the matter. Is there any further info available? Can I delete the "type: 1" entry, or does it need to stay? Do I change "type: 2" to "group: 2" etc.?
Warboy answered a lot of my questions https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=3138.0 in irc
i plan to add the newest commits / ruleset changes to the modtester and will take a look at the code/test the new stuff then so my advice is untested (on my part)
as soon as i find the time for this i can document a bit and perhaps make an example map script

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #937 on: November 26, 2014, 11:56:11 pm »
Warboy answered a lot of my questions https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=3138.0 in irc
i plan to add the newest commits / ruleset changes to the modtester and will take a look at the code/test the new stuff then so my advice is untested (on my part)
as soon as i find the time for this i can document a bit and perhaps make an example map script

Awesome.
But I still hope this'll go into Ufopaedia too :)

Offline endersblade

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #938 on: November 27, 2014, 06:49:37 am »
Now that I'm starting to hit battleships, I'm running across all sorts of map problems.  I keep getting CTDs with an error message "Something is wrong in your map definitions, craft/ufo map too tall?"  And on other UFOs, particularly larger ones (and sometimes including battleships) my Ironfist or Avenger will appear stuck inside the terrain as well as the UFO.  Like, all three of them are connected.  Some missions I've had to abort because a wall from a building or the UFO was completely obstructing the offramp, and I had no way of getting out.

Again, FMP is still the only major mod I'm running.  My personal mod has no affect on anything of this nature.  Running 9.7.1 on current (11/26) nightly.

Offline Quinch

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #939 on: November 27, 2014, 08:02:42 am »
Quote from: Solarius Scorch
Oh, and Quinch: have fun with recolouring. :) I actually want to change the chtonites' sprite to adjust it to the inventory picture by Duke Falcon (with metal pauldrons and goggles), but it's a lot of work.

Yeah, palette swaps are as far as I'm willing to go for now. Any chance you have the original Tasoth sprite sheet on hand, by the way?

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #940 on: November 27, 2014, 07:41:11 pm »
Now that I'm starting to hit battleships, I'm running across all sorts of map problems.  I keep getting CTDs with an error message "Something is wrong in your map definitions, craft/ufo map too tall?"  And on other UFOs, particularly larger ones (and sometimes including battleships) my Ironfist or Avenger will appear stuck inside the terrain as well as the UFO.  Like, all three of them are connected.  Some missions I've had to abort because a wall from a building or the UFO was completely obstructing the offramp, and I had no way of getting out.

Yeah, I'll try to fix this new problem according to Falko's info, when 1) I have the time and 2) when I gather more info on the new ruleset definitions. For now, I suggest using older nightlies, preferably from October; the newer ones don't introduce any features that FMP would use.

Yeah, palette swaps are as far as I'm willing to go for now. Any chance you have the original Tasoth sprite sheet on hand, by the way?

Sadly, no. This can be extracted from TFTD, but the tool doesn't work for my PCs.

EDIT:

Falko sent me a message that his awesome tool actually works with pcks. Check it here: https://falkooxc2.pythonanywhere.com/spriteconvert
Now you can do it yourself :)

Offline Quinch

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #941 on: November 27, 2014, 07:46:50 pm »
Yep, he sent me the link too!

{I didn't realize I had to upload both TAB and PCK files, derp}

Offline davoguha

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #942 on: November 28, 2014, 08:39:00 am »
Yeah, I'll try to fix this new problem according to Falko's info, when 1) I have the time and 2) when I gather more info on the new ruleset definitions. For now, I suggest using older nightlies, preferably from October; the newer ones don't introduce any features that FMP would use.

I was having the same problem, with the map glitches and definitions problems, following your advice I went through the nightly list;

I found that the "openxcom_git_master_2014_11_17_1232.zip - built 2014-11-17 11:36" works quite smoothly.
https://openxcom.org/git_builds/openxcom_git_master_2014_11_17_1232.zip

The immediate following nightly mentions major mapping changes, I imagine that is where the problems started.


On a side note: Just got back into UFO a couple of months ago, after a few rounds of the normal game, decided to look into mods for the game... I am thoroughly impressed with what I have found! I understand the work is not all yours, however I'd extend the same gratitude to all contributors - Thank you for the amazing work! I look forward to seeing where it goes!

Offline yrizoud

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #943 on: November 28, 2014, 10:01:01 pm »
Solarius: I didn't find credits for the AK, I dunno if it's originally yours.
Here's my cleaned version, based on image references for "akm"
Not sure if I should make the metal one shade darker

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #944 on: November 29, 2014, 12:50:29 pm »
I was having the same problem, with the map glitches and definitions problems, following your advice I went through the nightly list;

I found that the "openxcom_git_master_2014_11_17_1232.zip - built 2014-11-17 11:36" works quite smoothly.
https://openxcom.org/git_builds/openxcom_git_master_2014_11_17_1232.zip

The immediate following nightly mentions major mapping changes, I imagine that is where the problems started.


On a side note: Just got back into UFO a couple of months ago, after a few rounds of the normal game, decided to look into mods for the game... I am thoroughly impressed with what I have found! I understand the work is not all yours, however I'd extend the same gratitude to all contributors - Thank you for the amazing work! I look forward to seeing where it goes!

Thank you! This is a temporary measure, but it's certainly helpful.

Solarius: I didn't find credits for the AK, I dunno if it's originally yours.
Here's my cleaned version, based on image references for "akm"
Not sure if I should make the metal one shade darker

Danke :) It was actually made by Dioxine, I'll notify him too.

And I like the colour as it is, after all the background is black.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2014, 01:05:39 pm by Solarius Scorch »