[WIP MISSION/MAPS] - Alien Raid

[Hobbes]

EDIT: this mission is now a part of the Terrain/Mission Pack.

Hey all. After some research (kudos for robin and his MiB mod) and some testing, I've decided to create a new mission type called 'Alien Raid', which essentially consists of the aliens deploying a special crew to raid targets on Earth that are essential for the war effort.

Mission Briefing:
* The mission consists of a special UFO type (Raider Ship) which will approach its target location very fast and carry out its mission in a limited time window.
* The ground assault mission starts outside a large facility that has been evacuated of human personnel. XCOM's job is to clear the facility of all aliens - there is no UFO to assault.
* The facility is an HWP factory, an old map that I designed using the Area 51 tileset. Later there will around 6-8 facilities available and 1 will be chosen randomly for the mission.
* The aliens will deploy a Special Crew that will consist of several species. Be prepared!
* This mission can only happen on the 2nd month - I've adjusted the settings for testing so that it has a very high probability of appearing on Geoscape (but your radars still have to detect the UFO). This will be changed when the mod is released to give it the same probability as other missions!
* Failing or not detecting this mission will result on a high score penalty for XCOM
* To install the mod, unzip the contents of the attached file to the /data folder.
* Currently there are no UFOPaedia entries both for the mission and the Raider craft but those will be added later (and can be gained through interrogating a Navigator/Engineer).

Good luck commander, and let me know what you think about it

[Solarius Scorch]

OK, I played a quick battle. What can I say: this is more than impressive!

The building looks very complicated, but it's not as bad as it looks - it only took me 15 minutes or so. I took heavy casualties, but I wasn't playing at my best. However, if this really was February, I'd probably get my ass kicked.

The layout is good and provides plenty opportunities for destruction. It also feels very TFTD, forcing you to think in 3D - I liked this. Aesthetically it's a bit too colourful for my tastes, but nothing outrageous - again, it's more TFTD than UFO:EU.

If I were to complain about anything, then I think the brick wall is a bit too hard; I've already noticed this in Robin's MiB base, where it basically ignored large rockets.

Well then, what else can I say? Excellent work, but I hope for more! Otherwise fighting in the same building over and over again will get tedious. With more maps however, I can see this becoming a huge hit, and not just for a week.

[Hobbes]

OK, I played a quick battle. What can I say: this is more than impressive!

The building looks very complicated, but it's not as bad as it looks - it only took me 15 minutes or so. I took heavy casualties, but I wasn't playing at my best. However, if this really was February, I'd probably get my ass kicked.

The layout is good and provides plenty opportunities for destruction. It also feels very TFTD, forcing you to think in 3D - I liked this. Aesthetically it's a bit too colourful for my tastes, but nothing outrageous - again, it's more TFTD than UFO:EU.

If I were to complain about anything, then I think the brick wall is a bit too hard; I've already noticed this in Robin's MiB base, where it basically ignored large rockets.

Well then, what else can I say? Excellent work, but I hope for more! Otherwise fighting in the same building over and over again will get tedious. With more maps however, I can see this becoming a huge hit, and not just for a week.

Thanks for the report. I designed his map a long time ago as part of Area51 but I could only play it as a Terror mission using XComUtil and I always thought that I required a different type of mission, that would have additional similar maps to make it less repetitive. Examining the MiB mod really started firing up my imagination to use the Area51 tileset for a different kind of mission.

The current strength of those brick walls is 70 but I'll downgrade it to bring it closer to 45-50. That will allow a Large Rocket to pierce through the walls since their damage value is 50 against terrain but without blasting huge holes, while Laser Rifles will have a low chance of piercing it and Heavy Plasmas will have a good chance. 

I'll add more buildings although 1 limitation about variety is that I can only use 1 tileset to create several facilities (airbase and Skyranger factory are on my list) and Mapview can only display 256 tiles but I'm currently reworking the Area51 tileset to squeeze as much juice from it as I can.

[robin]

I'm currently reworking the Area51 tileset to squeeze as much juice from it as I can.

Are you changing the tiles/tiles order for the Area51 tileset?
Because I'd like to use the updated (with the 'weakened' brick walls) tileset with my MiB mod; but if you are changing the tiles/tiles order, there won't be correspondence no more with my map.

[Hobbes]

Are you changing the tiles/tiles order for the Area51 tileset?
Because I'd like to use the updated (with the 'weakened' brick walls) tileset with my MiB mod; but if you are changing the tiles/tiles order, there won't be correspondence no more with my map.

I'll need to replace tiles and change the position of others. I still haven't decided on how extensive the changes will be but I may have to do a trick to 'cheat' MapView so that I can use more than 256 tlles while designing the map.

[davide]

I'll need to replace tiles and change the position of others. I still haven't decided on how extensive the changes will be but I may have to do a trick to 'cheat' MapView so that I can use more than 256 tlles while designing the map.

MapView from OpenXComTool does not have this limit now



I add into MapEdit.dat other pcks

Code: [Select]


files:ARTICURBAN UFO2000
${deps}:roads URBITS URBAN FRNITURE POLAR PORTROADS PORTURBITS PORTBAN PORTFRNITURE
aurban00:${deps}

I apologize if I do not understand your problem

[Hobbes]

MapView from OpenXCom Tool does not have this limit

Ah ha! I had looked at the post but it didn't mention anything about that so I stuck to the older version of Map View that I've been using for years. This will REALLY help! Thanks for the heads up

EDIT: I can't get it to work on Win 7 64 bit. The crazy thing is that my old version that has more than 10 years works fine. I've posted on the relevant thread to see if I can get help.

[davide]

I have Win 7 64 bit 

do  you have recompile it or do you dowload from a link ?

is it possible that you have a 32 bit version

I can recopile it now ..

did

I add a post with it on tool section

I am here for a couple of hours too

During weekend I hope I will spend some time on OX
I am fighting with TFTD palette too  )

If I could do something for speed up your jobs, probably I will get more  that from my experiments ...

[Hobbes]

I have Win 7 64 bit 

do  you have recompile it or do you dowload from a link ?

is it possible that you have a 32 bit version

I can recopile it now ..

did

I add a post with it on tool section

I am here for a couple of hours too

During weekend I hope I will spend some time on OX
I am fighting with TFTD palette too  )

If I could do something for speed up your jobs, probably I will get more  that from my experiments ...

I downloaded your fix, it works but I have bad news for you: Map View still has the 256 tile limit.

To check it for yourself, open a map that uses more than 256 tiles, place a tile whose mapID > 256 and save the map. Map View save the map but the tile that will be saved will be instead the one in: mapID - 256. This most likely has to do with the structure of the  .MAP files themselves.

The trick I'm using to 'cheat' MapView is for the last tileset used on a map to have all of the 'death tiles' (that replace destroyed tiles) at the end of the MCD file. That way, since they are not needed and not used for map design, it is possible to use more a bit more than 256 on Map View. 

[luke83]

to get around the tile limit, have you tried making your own MCD sets with MCDADD?
 https://openxcommods.weebly.com/mcdadd.html

[davide]

Yes it is Correct I suppose ..
but Luke now add a new post and he is more more skilled then me

Here it is written: 1 byte for tile index
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=MAPS

A simple conversion by a tool of all existing maps it is possible
but all people have to do it at least by an installation tool.

but engine should be updated about new format.

otherwise the engine should be improved to support maps of different version.

both solutions must be approved by OX Commanders before start to design them

now I rememder I read a post about this arguments (new format map)
tomorrow I will search it

I am sorry 
good night

[Hobbes]

to get around the tile limit, have you tried making your own MCD sets with MCDADD?
 https://openxcommods.weebly.com/mcdadd.html

That doesn't solve the problem. OpenXCom can use more than 256 tiles, since Industrial terrain is working (it uses 221 tiles + 65 tiles from Skyranger) . The engine itself can use >256 tiles or have larger maps since it doesn't suffer from the limitations of the original engine. The .MCD tilesets are loaded into OpenXCom and combined into a single tileset, with the reference numbers corrected, so you could use 3 tilesets with 100 tiles each, with a total of 300 tiles with the OXC engine without a problem.

With MCD files, the latest version of MCDEdit already allows to copy/paste MCD entries across different tilesets, so it is actually better than MCDADD in that matter. But since you can specify different MCD files to be loaded (eg, Urban uses Roads, Urbits, Urban and Frniture) it's simply a matter of adding an additional MCD file for the additional tiles, and use MCDEdit to reach the limit of 256 tiles.

And, as davide has shown in his post, .MAP files use only 1 byte to identify the tile used on a map location, so they can only reference 256 different tiles for the ground, nwall, wwall or object on a map coordinate (x,y,z). It would be required to use a different map format capable of storing more info for each location (and an editor for it) to get rid of this limit.

A simple conversion by a tool of all existing maps it is possible
but all people have to do it at least by an installation tool.

but engine should be updated about new format.

otherwise the engine should be improved to support maps of different version.

both solutions must be approved by OX Commanders before start to design them

now I rememder I read a post about this arguments (new format map)
tomorrow I will search it

To me this isn't really a priority. The OXC engine has already nearly doubled the number tiles that is possible to use in designing maps, since with the original engine you'd have to leave space for the tiles of the UFOs and XCom craft. Plus you only need more than 256 tiles, if you have the tiles to be used, and graphic design takes a lot of time. I have about +300 tiles I can use for Area51 but I'll simply have to choose the best/more relevant, which actually can be a good thing. Less can be more!

[niculinux]

Great job! Tryed in linux and actually the games start with the  0.2 version. is it  playable in a full campaign?

EDIT: sry a mark altered the sense of the phrase...

[Hobbes]

Great job? The 0.2 version is playable in a full campaign?

You can play it in a full campaign... but you might find it a bit too difficulty. Since I needed to make sure that the UFO is generated I've given it a very high mission weight value, so you should get several of those missions (this will be reduced in the future since it's only to help testing). Each mission has only 1 wave of 1 UFO, with no scouts, the logic being that aliens determine the target facility through other means. The only way to stop them is essentially to shoot down the Raider UFO but it will be nearly impossible with standard interceptors. But every Raid that you fail to respond is -500 points to your score...

In any case, any feedback of the effects on the Geoscape will be most welcome since I'm really testing the concept

[Jstank]

I love the map it is very intricate. Im not sure I like that this occurs with a high probability in month 2. Chances are it will occur in an area of the world that you don't have coverage over and.. Iv played this mission and It would be very very tedious and a tinsy bit frustrating without flying suites. (I lost many soldiers, they all had mass accelerator sniper rifles and I had two enforcers. They also all had flying suites. I would suggest moving this back from month two. I would say move it way back to when battle ships start appearing. And for failing the mission 500 points is very oppressive. Its like saying I started my base in africa, the mission appeared in S. America so i missed it by default, and I am penalized 500 points. Or I got to the mission and was horribly murdered by aliens that are a way higher CR than me and I am penalized again. I would say leave this for end game missions when we have full flying suites and are getting bored cleaning out supply ships and alien bases.