aliens

Author Topic: [COMPILATION] Final Mod Pack (FMP)  (Read 1580225 times)

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #495 on: August 15, 2014, 02:38:43 pm »
Hi!

Sorry, it took me a while, since a new job is taking a lot of my time and energy. I'm still here though, and as determined to work on the FMP as ever!

Thanks for all the feedback, it's priceless. I'll try to address all your questions.

Quote from: Harald_Gray link=topic=20%27.msg29502#msg29502 date=140%779325%5%
I've started myself a new game, using FMP and my own mods, set it to ironman superhuman. Now it is April, all I've got is alloy ammo and some armors (not even enough personal armors for the whole squad) and BLAM comes main base defense against sectoids and cyberdiscs. I've barely survived and reinforcements from my other bases are on their way and BLAM a second helping of the same. Two thirds of my men are dead, all the tanks are scrap metal and I still have no living leader or commander.

Where is your base located? I learned the hard way that putting your first base in France is a guaranteed way to get a visit from the aliens once a month. :P Normally I start in south-western Russia, around Crimea
Spoiler:
(not a political message)
, and it never looked like this.

Quote from: Harald_Gray link=topic=20%27.msg29502#msg29502 date=140%779325%5%
I've already had two missions against mutons, my first terror was sectoids and the second one too, the only time I saw a floater was my third terror and the only time I saw snakemen was a large scout in a new forrest terrain full of hills (it had caves too). The RNG must be out to get me.

So the line about tougher aliens appearing later in the game has me kind of wondering. Could we *please* have more floaters and snakemen during the early game? Sectoids are not exactly weak when you're miles away from psi-labs. My latest mission is another terror and it is gillmen chtonites and boy am I happy to see them...

I guess it would be possible, but it's already pretty balanced. Here's the percentage for alien races for the first three months:

Code: [Select]
ALIEN RESEARCH:
      January:
          Sectoids: 60%
          Floaters: 20%
          Anthropods: 20%
      February:
          Sectoids: 55%
          Floaters: 20%
          Anthropods: 20%
          Snakemen: 5%
      March:
          Sectoids: 60%
          Floaters: 20%
          Snakemen: 10%
          Anthropods: 10%

ALIEN HARVEST:
     January:
          Sectoids: 30%
          Floaters: 30%
          Chtonites: 20%
          Anthropods: 20%
      February:
          Sectoids: 30%
          Floaters: 30%
          Chtonites: 20%
          Anthropods: 20%
      March:
          Sectoids: 30%
          Floaters: 30%
          Chtonites: 20%
          Anthropods: 20%

ALIEN ABDUCTION:
      January:
          Sectoids: 40%
          Floaters: 30%
          Chtonites: 20%
          Anthropods: 10%
      February:
          Sectoids: 40%
          Floaters: 30%
          Chtonites: 20%
          Anthropods: 10%
      March:
          Sectoids: 30%
          Floaters: 20%
          Chtonites: 30%
          Anthropods: 20%

ALIEN INFILTRATION:
      January:
          Sectoids: 50%
          Floaters: 30%
          Anthropods: 20%
      February:
          Sectoids: 40%
          Floaters: 25%
          Anthropods: 25%
          Snakemen: 10%
      March:
          Sectoids: 40%
          Floaters: 30%
          Snakemen: 20%
          Anthropods: 10%

ALIEN BASE:
      January:
          Sectoids: 40%
          Floaters: 30%
          Chtonites: 30%
      February:
          Sectoids: 40%
          Floaters: 30%
          Chtonites: 30%
      March:
          Sectoids: 30%
          Floaters: 30%
          Chtonites: 30%
          Snakemen: 10%

ALIEN TERROR:
      January:
          Sectoids: 30%
          Floaters: 30%
          Chtonites: 30%
          Anthropods: 10%
      February:
          Sectoids: 30%
          Floaters: 30%
          Chtonites: 30%
          Anthropods: 10%
      March:
          Sectoids: 30%
          Floaters: 30%
          Chtonites: 20%
          Anthropods: 20%

Retaliation works differently and has no set races.[/spoiler]

As you can see, Sectoids only have a significant advantage in the research missions, since they're, well, researchers. Most menial and combat missions are mostly undertaken by other aliens. But yes, you the RNG hates you, you'll get your least prefered race 80% of the time. :P

[quote author=Arthanor link=topic=2027.msg29505#msg29505 date=1407793445]
From my experience of adding something to a mod only to find out it was impossible to unlock because I had made a typo in the "requires" list, I think you can do it like this (as a pseudocode summary of a shotgun ruleset):

[spoiler]
items:
- Shotgun
- Shotgun Shell
- Shotgun Alloy Shell
  requires: Alloy Ammo
- Shotgun Elerium Shell
  requires: Elerium Ammo

No research entry

manufacture:
- Shotgun Alloy Shell
  uses: Alien Alloy
  requires: Alloy Ammo
- Shotgun Elerium Shell
  uses: Elerium
  requires: Elerium Ammo

ufopaedia
- Shotgun
- Shotgun Shell
- Shotgun Alloy Shell
  requires: Alloy Ammo
- Shotgun Elerium Shell
  requires: Elerium Ammo

extrasprites:
- Shotgun
- Shotgun Shell
- Shotgun Alloy Shell
- Shotgun Elerium Shell
What this does is provide all the information required to have the extra stuff, but nothing to unlock it. If another mod you have happens to contain an Alloy Ammo or Elerium Ammo research topic, *poof* the shotgun stuff will become available alongside the rest. To keep the illusion complete, use the proper list orders so the extra shotgun stuff fits right where it belongs on lists with the other mod.[/code]

Frankly, I'm, not sure what your advice contains. If it's about how to control typos, well, I guess I'm doing fine with a little help from Falko's tools. If it's about how to split the ruleset into multiple rulesets (which I think is the case), then I agree, but it's still too complex to try at the moment.

In fact, I think it might be interesting if, as a community, we came up with a list of "anchor points" for mods. Techs like "Alloy Ammunition" or "High Energy Weaponry" for plasma level tech. If I make a new shotgun, I can just depend on the anchor of "Alloy Ammunition" to make my shotgun alloy ammo available. If I make a new Laser Blaster tech, I can just depend on the anchor of "High Energy Weaponry" to unlock it.

Different mods could then define what the pre-requisites of these anchors are, the FMP one way, while the XAE could define them differently, and a basic mod called "anchor points" could define what we agree should be the vanilla behavior where pre-requisites can only be vanilla research topics (ex.: Alien Alloy unlocks Alloy Ammo; Elerium + Alien Alloy + UFO Power Source unlocks High Energy Weaponry).

It's certainly an idea worth discussing. I think it deserves a separate thread though, since it concerns many mods, not just FMP. :)

Baterie standard nirmal clip building with techology actual. Is similar than a batteri of mobile and the idea is in the construction of batterie 30% carcase ant the rest quimical for energy.

Sadly, a human tech battery will never be able to power even a humble laser firearm, period. Not even now, after the revolution brought by the development of cell phones, and even more so back in 1999. This is just unfeasible.

Alloy batterie. The alloy is better more hard and the proportion is 5% for case and the rest for energy componets. This is the difference of the weapon. More damage for the difference of the quatity of componets. If you buy a laser weapon withouth clip you have more space for energy components. This is the idea. Sorry if i dont explain better

Yeah, the battery size and weight matters, but even a large and heavy alien alloy battery would only be as good as the alloys are good in energy storage - which is definitely better than human solutions, but not overly so, or the aliens wouldn't need the Elerium for hand weapons. If alloy batteries do get in the game, they'll be really small... Like, 1 shot only for the Heavy Laser, 6 shots for the Laser Rifle and the Laser Pistol. Something like this.

And another question.
In my game i see sectopods in 3 missions. 20 missions along i dont see more. And i dont have corpose to rebuild.
May be ppssible other option to build them

No. :P

...Well, maybe. :P But this mod plays with the idea of making each campaign different depending on what gets randomly chosen to throw at you. In some games you might not even get the lasers at all, since you get plasmas early, in other games you can't find Cyberdiscs so you don't get your own, and so own. This will be further capitalized on with armours, which will largely depend on alien races.

If you're planning on adjusting the dropoffs for balancing, I believe I read that you can set the dropoff for weapons to a negative number and create weapons that fire worse as you get closer. This could help balance weapons that are intended to be long-range.

Oh, I never thought about that - many thanks. But there's the minRange flag, which essentially does the same. I'll probably use it for the sniper rifles.

Using a negative dropoff value... well, I don't know how to use it sensibly. It reminds me of the Warhammer 40.000 weapon named Conversion Beam, which gets stronger as the firing distance increases... But it's a Space Marine weapon, and therefore obviously silly and unfair. :P

I think I've finally come to terms with it.

I've tried this mod at least four times now, and every time I just back out, uninstall it, install my own preferred mods and start a new game. I do not like Final Mod Pack in it's current state.

Let me reiterate that.

In it's current state.

I have faith in Final Mod Pack though. Once it's V.1.0a/b I'll retry it again. For now, I cannot play around with it.

It's not Final Mod Pack, it's me. I just think too many thing can be tweaked and shortened though I can do nothing about it but complain on a forum. And while you might appreciate it, you probably wouldn't appreciate what I had to say about it.

Listen. This is a good mod. A very good mod.

Just not a mod for me in it's current state.

No problem man. The readme even says directly this is not a mod for everyone. I have no problem with that, though of course it would be nicer if everyone loved your work. ;)

Anyway, I'd like to reiterate that I do read every single complaint and take it into consideration. And I introduce most of them, as long as they don't collide with other ideas that I want to keep.

Aaarrrgh... Either the RNG *is* out to get me, or the mod still needs some balancing. Granted, I'm playing on ironman superhuman, but still...

It is June and I'm finally researching a laser rifle.

Well, I think it's pretty early. :)

I already have it in ufopaedia thanks to some glitch but I'm finally researching it.

It's not a glitch, it's an attempt to "appease the masses". :P Since laser weapons were aready seen in the hands of Men in Black, and could be used by X-Com soldiers if picked up, people complained they couldn't see their stats. So I made them available, and now people are complaining again... See what I'm dealing with here? :P

Sorry, let's get back on topic.

So my weapons so far have been earth firearms with alien alloy ammo. Which kinda sucks considering my main enemies for the past two months have been mutons. Power 40*0.6=24 versus armor 20 mutons is not very funny but rifles and LMGs are my best general-purpose weapons so that's what most of my men use. And I'm using up so much alien alloys I've actually had to manufacture some.

I have four bases, two of them with HWDs and I've managed to shoot down all the scouts I've detected. But I've had to defend my main base three times, twice against sectoids and once against my own mechtoids, and my number three base now has a second muton battleship incoming. My first two terrors were sectoids, the third one floaters (a blessing) and the fourth one.snakemen (plus I've shot down several terror ships). I've aborted the fifth terror because it was mutons at night. In fact I'm fighting mostly mutons since May and the fight is becoming a chore. The first base defence against mutons took me 91 turns and I've had to pick up ammo from storage room floors because most of my guys ran out of it. Sure, all but two of them were garrison rookies, but still.

Yeah, same here. I hope that moving the mutons to at least July, as it is now, will help. (The exception is Alien Flyby, which allows Mutons in June.) But if you were playing with an earlier version, you'd get them much earlier, probably even if you switch to the latest version during your campaign (because the missions were already generated for this month). In short, it should be easier with the newest version.

If it's not enough, I can move them further down the timeline.

So I'm really hoping that the laser rifles I'm researching will give me a turnover point because I do need one. I've researched tons of things I have no obvious use for and which give me no immediate benefit. I can finally begin researching laser and gauss and plasma weapons but right now I'm still fighting the aliens using the same weapons I've been using months ago and it feels like I've had to reasearch tons of stuff and there's already 55 (I've just counted them!) more research topics on my list (not counting the few more from my other mods). I've been using laser hovertank for like a month but my men still use LMGs and no powersuits?

So I definittely understand XCOMFan419's feelings. Maybe I'm more patient, so I'll fight on, at least for some time, but I feel like the 0.8 version of the FMP is much more frustrating to play than the 0.5 version I've been using before.

0.8 is definitely more accessible than 0.5, because lasers are way easier to get. If it feels harder, then it's probably due to RNG... But that's what I think. I need more data. :)

Not sure if this is the right place for this observation and to be honest I haven't a clue about designing mods but on looking @ the rulset for the final mod I noticed something that seemed odd to me. My very limited understanding of the air combat had the interception window open @ standoff range which I think is 75km but on looking @ the new Raider ship its weapon range is 82km. How does this work in practice?

The Raider Ship never actually shows up, it's only a way to generate a new type of ground mission. So its stats are irrelevant.

Starting a new game - so far, I've had no problems getting gauss and laser weapons fairly early,

Mister, you're luckier than both me and the others. :)

but in the past games it took me forever to research elerium, essentially leading to a situation where if I could survive to research psi-amp, I had comparatively weak weapons, but could PSI-control everything in sight. Looking at the ruleset, though, it looks like a poor RNG streak, sicne Delta Radiation that's its prerequisite is attainable both from leaders and engineers. I'll try to keep notes of this game.

I've been thinking about making psi harder to get, but whatever you do, it'll always become a game breaker at some point. That's why I play with "line sight only" psionics, even if it makes the game easier against Ethereals. The game just feels better to me. Still, this is a general option, not related to FMP, so do with it what you prefer.

By the way, I suspect it's a bug - last game I couldn't research the stormlance launcher, but the missiles are purchasable in the general store.

Yeah, it's been reported before and will be fixed.

And as for the M range error that Harald reported, I'll look into it, but if your alienDeployments part contains 3 equipment levels per unit (or indeed any number other than 4), then it's not compatible with the FMP, which requires 4 levels. So crashes are expectable.

Whew, I guess that's it for now. I hope this post is not too long for all of you to read... And I know that it's not always what you wanted. Still, it's a complex development and I'm doing my best :)

PS. Has anyone encountered the Hybrids? Do they work?
PPS. WHAT ABOUT THE DAMN SKYRANGER MAP? :P

Offline Harald_Gray

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #496 on: August 15, 2014, 04:56:20 pm »
Where is your base located? I learned the hard way that putting your first base in France is a guaranteed way to get a visit from the aliens once a month. :P Normally I start in south-western Russia, around Crimea, and it never looked like this.

Northern Africa. And I guess I just got unlucky with the RNG, because in my experience, base placement has little to no effect on base defense missions.

I guess it would be possible, but it's already pretty balanced. Here's the percentage for alien races for the first three months:

I'm relatively OK with Jan-March, I even wouldn't mind more floaters and snakemen. Too many Sectoids meant too many psi-capable enemies and I was too busy trying to stay alive to capture any leaders (especially since I didn't know which ones were leaders). Then a few chtonites and floaters and snakemen and then came a huge jump in difficulty with the mutons. I must have angered the RNG god and it seemed as if the midgame aliens have simply vanished within half a dozen missions. Truth is, yYour post made me take a look at your ruleset and the values look good even for April to June, so I must have been simply unlucky.

It's not a glitch, it's an attempt to "appease the masses". :P Since laser weapons were aready seen in the hands of Men in Black, and could be used by X-Com soldiers if picked up, people complained they couldn't see their stats. So I made them available, and now people are complaining again... See what I'm dealing with here? :P

I see. But I've never met a single MiB during this game and then it seemed like I've finally got around to those laser rifles and then it seemed like I had to research them twice. Having the ufopedia entry and not having the actual weapons available added to my frustration. I guess not many people get to laser weapons purely by researching alien data slates plus captured aliens, so this behaviour is not that frequent.

Yeah, same here. I hope that moving the mutons to at least July, as it is now, will help. (The exception is Alien Flyby, which allows Mutons in June.) But if you were playing with an earlier version, you'd get them much earlier, probably even if you switch to the latest version during your campaign (because the missions were already generated for this month). In short, it should be easier with the newest version.

If it's not enough, I can move them further down the timeline.

Actually, the second base defense was (almost) easy. I was expecting them, so I've stored lots of proximity mines and HE autocannon ammo and high explosives and I've only lost two guys and a rocket tank versus some 22 aliens. Not bad, for untrained garrison troops with no armor against mutons on ironman superhuman.

And as for the M range error that Harald reported, I'll look into it, but if your alienDeployments part contains 3 equipment levels per unit (or indeed any number other than 4), then it's not compatible with the FMP, which requires 4 levels. So crashes are expectable.

My own mod uses the same four itemlevels your mod uses - I've learned this lesson some time ago - so this should not be a problem. In fact I've even tested my mod with vanilla game and it causes no crashes even when I've defined four itemlevels. The vanilla game simply never uses the last itemlevel, making such a mod compatible with both 3- and 4-itemlevels mods.

Which is what has me so confused. Other than the new terrorship maps, there's seemingly no reason for that crash. Using the New Battle feature, I can even initiate a mission against such a ship using both your mod and mine and it works, so I see no other likely explanation. I've even tried to remove the terrain parts of my deployment rules, to make sure the game would load the terrain based on where the ship went down, and the game still crashes.


Offline Dioxine

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #497 on: August 16, 2014, 12:27:33 am »
I guess I just got unlucky with the RNG, because in my experience, base placement has little to no effect on base defense missions.

This is untrue. Of course there IS a secret as UFO's follow set patterns but simply checking the code would be cheating :) Anyway there are bad spots like Hawaii (and generally close to any city) where you're guaranteed monthly (if not bi-weekly) visit, and there are sweet spots - one is Transylvania where (depending on exact placement) I've once managed to get no assault for 2 years straight despite dozens of Retals launched over Europe.

Offline chi.code

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #498 on: August 16, 2014, 01:52:22 am »
This mod is very cool :)

How ever I have one thing to change/fix:
I just found what appears to be MiB Man in Black base or something  8)

(I just started playing FMP so please spoilers!)

1) At end there was a super thought guy, he took 5 shoots from sniper rifle, 5-6 shots from pistol, and finally a heavy laser shot took him... wtf? I mean, is that correct behaviour? I play on the 2nd hardness level (not the easiest but the next one)

2) I was looking forward to get research on all the recovered items, how ever I see no new research objects!
- I have 3 kinds of MiB corpses, they can't be researched?
For me it lacks narrative atmosphere like "whaaat the fuck was that?" moment in game, e.g. make a story telling research item (at minimal cost) that will show some information about how Xcom is puzzled by discovering MiB and all
- They where using some suits like black hazmats, I would expect to research them
- If I would had captured them alive (I didn't this time) it would be logical to hold them even without need for alien containment... technically maybe they could be stored as inventory?

Though it's a bit strange to hold man as item... though they were man in... BLACK, if you know what I mean  8)

- There was alien nade, I don't see option to reseach it.

- What about all the laser weapons, no research here either?


Of other things, the new weapons seem not all-right:
- the machines guns, and mini guns, all have INCREDIBLE spread, while being low powered. Maybe make them all a BIT less accurate at least.
- the mini gun should really have a serious punch, maybe 40?  To compensate make it even heavier to handle
- the submachine gun has not cool sound... see how it is in games like SWAT series.
- make another a really cool submachine gun, like a cooler riffle, e.g. 4 shoots, at power like riffle -3, better aim, low weight
- the magnum's sound is mistaken? it sounds like dart gun

One of the files is wrongly names (you see this error on real OSes like Linux, that see difference between uppercase/lowercase in file names):

Resources/FinalModPack/Weapons_Compilation/ClassicWeapons/handob_UZI.png
should be:
Resources/FinalModPack/Weapons_Compilation/ClassicWeapons/HandOb_UZI.png
or the other way around (fix it in .res and the leave the file name as handob_UZI.png)

Either way this mod is very cool, thanks! :)

Offline Hobbes

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #499 on: August 16, 2014, 02:25:39 am »
OK, here's the mod (or you can download it from the modserver).

And I'll admit the bug is leaving me quite confused because I'm using my own alienDeployment, which doesn't exist in the FMP, I'm only using vanilla maps/terrains and the mission works fine when I turn the FMP off. So the bug is likely caused by either a bug in the FMP or by an incompatibility between my mod and the FMP and I see no reason for either. The game crashes even when I ditch all the FMP equipment, I'm fighting my own alien race, the map uses URBAN terrain which the FMP doesn't modify (and crashes even when I delete this from my modfile). My prime suspect is new UFO maps, considering I've copypasted vanilla terror ship and FMP mods those, because other than that, there's (I think) no other reason for the FMP to crash it.

EDIT: OK, meanwhile I managed to download it. What I noticed is this:

Code: [Select]
  - type: STR_NORTH_AMERICA
    missionWeights:
      STR_MECHTOID_ALIEN_RESEARCH: 4
      STR_MECHTOID_MINITERROR: 6
      STR_MECHTOID_TERROR: 6

Unless I'm mistaken, you need to also add there the regular Abductions, etc., missions, otherwise the game won't generate them.

Code: [Select]
    width: 50
    length: 50
    height: 4
    civilians: 8
    terrains:
      - URBAN

Trying to set the terrain of the UFO as URBAN doesn't work since the game automatically gets the terrain from the location where the UFO has landed/crashed on Geoscape. But you can add civilians.
« Last Edit: August 16, 2014, 04:13:05 am by Hobbes »

Offline Hobbes

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #500 on: August 16, 2014, 03:58:55 am »
The Raider Ship never actually shows up, it's only a way to generate a new type of ground mission. So its stats are irrelevant.

Solaris, unless you've adapted the Raider Ship for the FMP, on the Terrain Pack the Raider Ship shows up and it is possible to shoot it before it reaches its ground target. And the stats definitely are relevant there :)

Offline Harald_Gray

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #501 on: August 16, 2014, 04:12:58 pm »
Oh well, I've found the source of my problema and it was my own error. So let me apologize for suspecting FMP was the cause.

It was as simple as one missing itemlevel. But I've never noticed during my testing because I've been loading my mod last and my mod uses three itemlevels. And then I've installed a new version of FMP and the mod loading order has changed and the bug manifested itself.

EDIT: OK, meanwhile I managed to download it. What I noticed is this:

Code: [Select]
  - type: STR_NORTH_AMERICA
    missionWeights:
      STR_MECHTOID_ALIEN_RESEARCH: 4
      STR_MECHTOID_MINITERROR: 6
      STR_MECHTOID_TERROR: 6

Unless I'm mistaken, you need to also add there the regular Abductions, etc., missions, otherwise the game won't generate them.

You are mistaken, the game generates other missions normally. I wouldn't have been able to fight all the sectoids and mutons and floaters and so on if it didn't.

Code: [Select]
    width: 50
    length: 50
    height: 4
    civilians: 8
    terrains:
      - URBAN

Trying to set the terrain of the UFO as URBAN doesn't work since the game automatically gets the terrain from the location where the UFO has landed/crashed on Geoscape. But you can add civilians.

Again, this code *works*. I've tested this with the New Battle feature, even during my own testing of the mod, and I've tested it now that I've fixed my mod. Yes, I would be happier if I knew of another way of modding in terror-like missions but I don't so I'm stuck with this.

But thank you all for trying to help anyway.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #502 on: August 16, 2014, 04:37:55 pm »
I see. But I've never met a single MiB during this game and then it seemed like I've finally got around to those laser rifles and then it seemed like I had to research them twice. Having the ufopedia entry and not having the actual weapons available added to my frustration. I guess not many people get to laser weapons purely by researching alien data slates plus captured aliens, so this behaviour is not that frequent.

OK, I agree, I'll change it back. If anyone complaints... well... please be there for me... :D

Actually, the second base defense was (almost) easy. I was expecting them, so I've stored lots of proximity mines and HE autocannon ammo and high explosives and I've only lost two guys and a rocket tank versus some 22 aliens. Not bad, for untrained garrison troops with no armor against mutons on ironman superhuman.

Congratz!

My own mod uses the same four itemlevels your mod uses - I've learned this lesson some time ago - so this should not be a problem. In fact I've even tested my mod with vanilla game and it causes no crashes even when I've defined four itemlevels. The vanilla game simply never uses the last itemlevel, making such a mod compatible with both 3- and 4-itemlevels mods.

Interesting. Well, it's not completely okay, since the enemies won't be using their best equipment, but it's still better than crashing.

Which is what has me so confused. Other than the new terrorship maps, there's seemingly no reason for that crash. Using the New Battle feature, I can even initiate a mission against such a ship using both your mod and mine and it works, so I see no other likely explanation. I've even tried to remove the terrain parts of my deployment rules, to make sure the game would load the terrain based on where the ship went down, and the game still crashes.

I'll leave this to you and Hobbes to figure out. :q There are many possible reasons for this particular error and I can't say much.

This mod is very cool :)

Yay, thanks! :D

How ever I have one thing to change/fix:
I just found what appears to be MiB Man in Black base or something  8)

(I just started playing FMP so please spoilers!)

1) At end there was a super thought guy, he took 5 shoots from sniper rifle, 5-6 shots from pistol, and finally a heavy laser shot took him... wtf? I mean, is that correct behaviour? I play on the 2nd hardness level (not the easiest but the next one)

2) I was looking forward to get research on all the recovered items, how ever I see no new research objects!
- I have 3 kinds of MiB corpses, they can't be researched?
For me it lacks narrative atmosphere like "whaaat the fuck was that?" moment in game, e.g. make a story telling research item (at minimal cost) that will show some information about how Xcom is puzzled by discovering MiB and all
- They where using some suits like black hazmats, I would expect to research them
- If I would had captured them alive (I didn't this time) it would be logical to hold them even without need for alien containment... technically maybe they could be stored as inventory?

Though it's a bit strange to hold man as item... though they were man in... BLACK, if you know what I mean  8)

These are all interesting issues. However, I think you should direct them to the mod's author, Robin, in this thread: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=2180.0
Apart from a bit of changing weapon loadouts for MiB to make them consistent with the rest of FMP, I did nothing special to his mod, so I can't really talk about it much. But I can tell you there is a small research tree related to the MiB organization.

- There was alien nade, I don't see option to reseach it.

- What about all the laser weapons, no research here either?

It's not so easy, go interrogate some Engineers. :P

Of other things, the new weapons seem not all-right:
- the machines guns, and mini guns, all have INCREDIBLE spread, while being low powered. Maybe make them all a BIT less accurate at least.

By "spread" you mean "broad firing cone"? If so, why make them even less accurate?

The miniguns are already very inaccurate. And Heavy Machine Gun is so hard to use that making it any less accurate would make it useless, I guess. But of course these are balancing issues which are always up for dispute.

- the mini gun should really have a serious punch, maybe 40?  To compensate make it even heavier to handle

....why? It wouldn't be much of a minigun then, it would be some sort of a super-auto-cannon. Which would probably smear the user against the nearest wall. :q

- the submachine gun has not cool sound... see how it is in games like SWAT series.

Duly noted. I need to replace this sound, as well as the Magnum's. I just never got around to do that.

- make another a really cool submachine gun, like a cooler riffle, e.g. 4 shoots, at power like riffle -3, better aim, low weight

I thought about a PDW, which is somewhat like you described, but ultimately decided against it because there are so many weapons already. I might go back to the idea if people demand it though. :)

One of the files is wrongly names (you see this error on real OSes like Linux, that see difference between uppercase/lowercase in file names):

Resources/FinalModPack/Weapons_Compilation/ClassicWeapons/handob_UZI.png
should be:
Resources/FinalModPack/Weapons_Compilation/ClassicWeapons/HandOb_UZI.png
or the other way around (fix it in .res and the leave the file name as handob_UZI.png)

Ouch, sorry - it happens sometimes. I'll fix it ASAP.

Either way this mod is very cool, thanks! :)

Glad to hear that!

Solaris, unless you've adapted the Raider Ship for the FMP, on the Terrain Pack the Raider Ship shows up and it is possible to shoot it before it reaches its ground target. And the stats definitely are relevant there :)


..................
........
..........
....I'll be right back. :P

(Oh, and the next version will feature this: https://www.openxcom.com/mod/ironfist-dropship)
« Last Edit: August 16, 2014, 04:52:16 pm by Solarius Scorch »

Offline Harald_Gray

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #503 on: August 16, 2014, 05:13:48 pm »
Interesting. Well, it's not completely okay, since the enemies won't be using their best equipment, but it's still better than crashing.

I'm aware of this so I gave my modded aliens their best equipment on level 2 and copied it on level 3  :) I know, this means they'll be using their best equipment more often, but I see no other workaround that works.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #504 on: August 16, 2014, 05:45:09 pm »
Version 0.9 is online.

It contains some nice stuff: the abovementioned dropship, the Tactical Lightning mod by x60mmx (making Lightning marginally useful), and of course some fixes/rebalancing.

Offline Hobbes

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #505 on: August 16, 2014, 09:39:33 pm »
You are mistaken, the game generates other missions normally. I wouldn't have been able to fight all the sectoids and mutons and floaters and so on if it didn't.

There are two types of missions generated by the game.

Abductions, Harvest, Alien Base, Infiltration and Research (the ones defined under regions) are randomly selected from a table according to their mission weights. Until the 6th month the game only chooses 1 random mission, afterwards it chooses two.

From my observations so far the game will not generate any these missions if you mod any of the regions and don't include the original missions. This happens because a mod that alters the mission weights completely replace the original mission weights rather than complement them.

Besides those missions, the game is hardcoded (i.e. can't be modded or altered) to generate a series of additional missions:
* A Sectoid Research mission on the 1st month, on the region where your base is located
* A terror mission each month
* Retaliation missions are possible in case UFOs are shot down.
* An additional retaliation mission is added either by reaching the end of 1999/2000 (month depends on the difficulty level) or by researching The Martian Solution.

This explains why you are seeing the original aliens as you mention.

I noticed this with my Terrain Pack since it adds 2 new missions and after a while I noticed that I hadn't gotten any Alien Base, Research, etc. after a game year and only Retaliation and Terror missions in addition to my new missions.

Again, this code *works*. I've tested this with the New Battle feature, even during my own testing of the mod, and I've tested it now that I've fixed my mod. Yes, I would be happier if I knew of another way of modding in terror-like missions but I don't so I'm stuck with this.

New Battle allows you to define the variables more freely (but also with a few restrictions of its own) than the campaign game. Since you added URBAN to the list of terrains it should appear available on New Battle but that doesn't mean that it will appear during the campaign game.

And here I am merely quoting from the ruleset documentation on the wiki that was written by the developers:
Quote
terrains   list of string IDs of the terrain to choose from to generate this map. This is not used for UFO sites where the terrain comes from the Geoscape.
« Last Edit: August 16, 2014, 10:01:50 pm by Hobbes »

Offline Harald_Gray

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #506 on: August 16, 2014, 11:53:28 pm »
From my observations so far the game will not generate any these missions if you mod any of the regions and don't include the original missions. This happens because a mod that alters the mission weights completely replace the original mission weights rather than complement them.

OK, I'll look into this, but I don't think that's how it works. Right now I've tried to load my mod first, then the FMP and then I've started a new game. Possible missions in the savefile include both my missions and the FMP missions.

New Battle allows you to define the variables more freely (but also with a few restrictions of its own) than the campaign game. Since you added URBAN to the list of terrains it should appear available on New Battle but that doesn't mean that it will appear during the campaign game.

Feel free to download my savegame and my mod, you can test it yourself. The downed terror ship sits in a city terrain. Yes, I've read the reference guide too and yes, I'd hoped the UFO would use city terrain if landed and Geoscape-based terrain if downed. Turned out even the downed ship uses the ruleset-defined terrain.

Offline arrakis69ct

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #507 on: August 17, 2014, 01:09:44 am »
The hover tanks dont have ufopedia page......

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #508 on: August 17, 2014, 01:40:02 am »
The hover tanks dont have ufopedia page......

But they do :o

Offline Hobbes

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Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part
« Reply #509 on: August 17, 2014, 04:17:45 am »
OK, I'll look into this, but I don't think that's how it works. Right now I've tried to load my mod first, then the FMP and then I've started a new game. Possible missions in the savefile include both my missions and the FMP missions.

My advice would be for you to ignore the FMP while developing and testing a mod - let Solaris worry about how everything gets integrated, otherwise you're limiting yourself and your mod by trying to get everything integrated. 

I may also be wrong about this assertion but I've played two or three games with my terrain pack where after a year I did not have a single alien base being built and never saw any Harvest/Abductions missions. And I'm not a code expert but from my limited understanding of code syntax some things replace the original ruleset while others complement it and on this case it seems to me it replaces the code.

Quote
Feel free to download my savegame and my mod, you can test it yourself. The downed terror ship sits in a city terrain. Yes, I've read the reference guide too and yes, I'd hoped the UFO would use city terrain if landed and Geoscape-based terrain if downed. Turned out even the downed ship uses the ruleset-defined terrain.

If you're telling me that you've also checked the reference than I have no reason not to believe you. It's simply something that I never tried doing myself and I'm glad I've learned something new since from my experience trying to use conditions originally designed for different missions usually does not work. And it makes sense that it always uses the Urban terrain regardless of being landed or crashed.