@lordkrike: Thanks for the good word
I am really glad to hear that you guys are using the mod and it's reaching beyond being my own little universe.
@BBHood217: The ammo is a bit hard to find, you're right. What I had originally intended was to have the tanks first, then ammo, then the hulls (since you would often not have many) but I agree the purchase list looks weird.
Actually, just re-enabling the purchase of pre-assembled basic tank like someone suggested before would fix that too. It would put some tanks above the ammo and allow me to keep the hulls last. Pre-assembled tanks will come at a premium though, since they're harder to ship and don't require assembly.
Regarding UFOs, it's funny that I never noticed even the name "Lab Ship". I have played with the AAE for as long as I have played OpenXCom.
@Ascadix: Good catch on the dismantling entry. There are so many things (and sometimes items change names too..). My apologies for the crash and thank you for figuring out the fix.
The tank issue is really annoying. It is interesting that you are finding a link with nightlies since I thought I had one too. v1.02 works for me with the most up to date nightly. Does it not work for you?
@BBHood217: I could look into making a tech tree. So many things are intertwined that it might take a while to get something that looks good though.
Alien Energy Cells and Electronics are purely research and extra money for now. I intend to eventually require them for armours, crafts and tanks, but I haven't gotten to it yet.
On crafts:
As described in its UFOPaedia entry, the raven uses a "Slow Burning prototype Elerium Engine" or some such, which means it requires Elerium for construction (ie activating the reactor) but not as a fuel item. The Lightning and Sentinel both also use that same engine.
The Firestorm and Avenger both use Elerium as fuel, and thus do not require it upon construction. The firestorm is the fastest interception craft available, and the Avenger is.. well the best at everything, except fuel economy.
This was done in an attempt to make every craft relevant. Sentinels are slow by design, otherwise they would overshadow the Firestorm, but to compensate their short range, they don't use Elerium as fuel.
The Raven becomes your mainstay interceptor (superseding the mostly human interceptor), which it would not if it required Elerium (then the Firestorm would always be better). The Firestorm still is more resilient and faster, however.
The lightning is usually a useless craft, but it fills the role of fast response team for small crafts and it can down it's small UFO by itself, making it quite useful. It never challenges the Avenger as the best fighter/transport though.
Overall, it gives a good variety in crafts (I use 6 different craft types in my endgames). As an example, in my games, I have most radar bases (4) with one raven as the best non-Elerium interceptor. They take out scouts and fighters. I also have two thunderstorms based at the poles with alloy cannons. I them use to take out small scouts (Mind Probe = $300k, I don't want to just destroy that).
I then have 2 sentinels, at opposite points of the globe, which are "hemispheric tanks". When something big shows up, the local sentinel gets out and will be leading the interception squadron. If you send multiple planes to engage an UFO, the first one to reach the UFO's maximum firing range will be shot at and the Sentinel can take it better than any other crafts (bar the avenger, but I need that one to carry its troops, not spend weeks in repairs). It will usually be supported by all available Ravens from the region to make the fight 4vs1.
In two other bases are my hemispheric fast response Firestorms. They are dispatched when I need to take out something NOW, or when Raven support is insufficient to take something out. Sometimes, if I know the Sentinels won't make it in time, they will fill the tank role as well.
Lastly, I have two bases with transports, one Skyguardian/Avenger with my "elite squad", one Skywarden/Lightning with my "rookie squad" which is getting training by recovering scouts from “easy” races (ie not gazers, mutons or ethereals).
Regarding the Gauss cannons craft weapons, I have to confess that I have not really looked into them. They are supposed to be short range high dps weapons like the starting cannon and the alloy cannon. Honestly, most of my crafts get Elerium Laser Cannons, which points towards some balance issues that I have not addressed yet. The Gauss cannons are mostly there because it would not make sense for them not to be, but they are a bit of a placeholder.
I have a list of craft cannons and damage (missiles are balanced independently) where the entry is “damage * accuracy / firing time, which gives you a DPS number, followed by the range:
- Cannon: 10*.2/2 = 1 @ 12
- Alloy: 14*.3/2 = 2.1 @ 12
- Laser: 65*.4/8 = 3.25 @ 21
- Elerium laser: 90*.4/10 = 3.6 @ 25
- Gauss: 80*.5/10 = 4 @ 14
- Elerium Gauss: 90*.5/10 = 4.5 @ 18 (40 shots/Elerium)
- Plasma: 110*.5/12 = 4.58 @ 48 (10 shots/Elerium)
So as it is, you gain .5 dps (almost reaching the damage of a plasma cannon) and a fair bit of range. It might be better than the Elerium Laser, although it does cost Elerium (but not much). The plasma cannon stats are taken from Moriarty's Plasma Cannon mod, which I use instead of the vanilla one.
Regarding bullet sprites (technical Qs 1-2), the number that are not defined are probably vanilla bullet sprites, so you don't need to redefine them. It's a bit weird the way it works: what you write in the item entry is 1/35 of the index you use in extraSprites. I have no idea why it would be slow. Also, all mods are indexed independently so it does not matter if you repeat an index (I often use 385 as a projectile index), as long as you don't overwrite a vanilla sprite.
3: The Avenger and Firestorm both use Elerium as fuel, so they do not require it to be constructed. The Raven/Sentinel/Lightning use the “Slow burning Elerium Engine” which you need to fill up once and then lasts forever, so they need Elerium to be constructed.
That's it, I think? If I missed something feel free to ask again. And once more, thank you for all the feedback and interest.
