[Crafts][Weapons] XCom Armoury Expanded - v1.03

[Arthanor]

Cool, I'm glad it's resolved

I am 90% sure that the problem lies in the terrain files. You can look in the ruleset you use for the Skytrooper, in the crafts section. There should be something that looks like:

Code: [Select]

    battlescapeTerrainData:
      name: SKYTROOPER
      mapDataSets:
        - BLANKS
        - SKYTROOPER
      mapBlocks:
        - name: SKYTROOPER
          width: 10
          length: 20
You could try to change it to:

Code: [Select]

    battlescapeTerrainData:
      name: SKYTROOPER
      mapDataSets:
        - BLANKS
        - PLANE
      mapBlocks:
        - name: SKYTROOPER
          width: 10
          length: 20
This changes the file from which the terrain tiles are loaded to create the Skytrooper, from the one which you originally got to the basic Skyranger one. I did that for the Skywarden and Skyguardian and it made things work.

I don't know what, but something got screwed up in the MCD/PCK/TAB with the ramp, which only becomes an issue with the more recent builds, not 1.0.

[XOps]

I don't know what, but something got screwed up in the MCD/PCK/TAB with the ramp, which only becomes an issue with the more recent builds, not 1.0.

One of the nightlies changed how the battlescape engine interacted with any tiles are marked with a Big_Wall # in the mcd files. For some reason, the topmost ramp of the skyranger entry was marked as a Big_Wall. Before the game ignored it, but after one of the recent updates, the engine thinks that the HWP is trying to climb over a wall so it forbids it. I came across the exact same problem in a craft map I made and had to use a mcd editor to fix the ramp. How the normal Skyranger works though I am unsure of unless they are using an mcd patch in the rulesets for them.

[Arthanor]

Well well well.. Looking into my XCom1Ruleset.rul, I came across this:

Code: [Select]

  - type: PLANE
    data:
      - MCDIndex: 13
        bigWall: 6
      - MCDIndex: 14
        bigWall: 6
      - MCDIndex: 49
        LOFTS: [6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6]
      - MCDIndex: 51
        LOFTS: [6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6]
      - MCDIndex: 62
        bigWall: 0
They are indeed changing stuff from the MCD of the Skyranger. I am not well versed enough in the map stuff to see if the ramps are indeed affected though.

That would explain why changing the call from a copy of PLANE.MCD renamed SKYWARDEN.MCD, to directly using PLANE.MCD for my modded planes made it work. By using PLANE.MCD, the Skywarden and Skyguardian both benefit from the ruleset patch, which they would not if they had their own MCDs...

[Arthanor]

Well well, things are quiet in here! I hope that means you're all having a good time in a bug free game (and I fear you all just moved on ).

A little bit of news/questions for you guys:

- Beware of the tank repairs. I am surprised nobody reported it yet, but as far as I can tell, repairing tanks should cause the game to crash as of v1.02. It will be fixed in v1.03.

Alloy Tank Armour will also be nerfed (a bit), since hovertank armour in the early game is too good (as evidenced by nobody losing a tank it seems..). The reasoning being that the alloy tank is still tracked and will get bogged down if it is too heavy, a problem that the hovertank does not have (so it can carry heavier armour).

- Graphics of the alloy armoured dog are done and I am pretty happy with them. Dogs should be released in v1.03.

However, I don't know if dogs are worth the investment of power suit level protection (and of me making yet another series of graphics). They're just dogs and are expendable (as harsh as that may sound), so it's not really worth it. Also, by the time you have power suits, you should have soldiers that will do much more for you than a dog will.

Using the possibility from nightlies to have 2 weapons for hwps, I am thinking of giving dogs a "Canine Senses" second weapon, which would be a low TU cost Motion Sensor. Gives you a reason to bring the dogs in most missions and that's in keeping with dogs being used to find people, not really as killing machines (that's what soldiers are for).

This will also fill their "hands" with 2 fixed weapons, preventing dogs from throwing grenades or using medkits. Since they can't use items anymore, I can now increase their carrying capacities to allow them to act as Anti-Tank dogs (carry HE Pack(s)) or as Logistics dogs (carry other stuff, maybe even enough strength to carry an unconscious soldier to the back lines) along with the Scout and Attack roles that the Bite + Motion Detector gives them.

- Building on 2 weapons for dogs, I will also be looking at 2 weapons for tanks. I won't make all the possible combinations (too many), but I am looking at: Rockets/Launcher + Auxiliary Direct Damage (Cannon/Gauss/Laser/Plasma but with fewer ammo or less power), Direct Damage + Auxiliary Rockets (fewer rockets), Main Weapon + Smoke Launcher. This would essentially triple the number of tanks (each existing tank getting 2 new variants) and I think that's arguably already too much. What do you think?

- The melee expansion pack has been postponed for the moment. I don't really know if it is needed after all. This is XCom, not 40k, and I would rather find a way to get good close range guns than have people waving swords.

- Hard Mode postponed until I finish my next project, an alien races collection + armoury. I am not really happy with the way individual alien race mods interact and, although the AAE is a great mod, I want to tweak it. Mainly change the endgame weapons to better handle XCom armours (ex.: keeping plasma pistols longer was a cool idea, but it really doesn't work for endgame). YetMoreUFOs is already taking care of UFOs so that part of the AAE has become obsolete as well.

So, that's what I've been thinking about. What about you guys? Anything you'd like to see in the XAE?

[Ascadix]

Hello,

I have little time, but :

- i have only assembled tank/laser and a-tank/e-laser, but they were never destroyed in mission (some time badly damaged, but still here :-) so, no repair and ... no crash

- for the crafts, i'm still testing, but it seems that the MCDPatchs: code in recent ruleset for SkyRanger an be used to "patch" the SkyTrooper ruleset so that tank can unload.


- for x2 weapons tank, i think it would be better not to have too much combinations, just some simple combinations of 1 area-damage weapon + 1 chirurgical-strike weapon.
The dual-tank should cary less ammo than a 1-weapon tank in all weapons and maybe be slightlyy less armored since weapons are weak points.

If possible, give priority to the precise weapon for reaction-shot.

-- tank : canon (or better : auto-canon or minigun) + rocket
-- tank : laser + rocket
-- a-tank : e-laser + e-rocket
-- a-tank : gauss + de-gauss

no pure alien-tech in dual-combinations
no hover with dual-weapons
no blaster + xxx
no plasma + xxx


- for tanks armor, maybe better armor/frame for a-tank than for hover, i think an hover shouldn't be heavier than a whelled tank, keep the balance so a-tank keep beeing usefull even with hover available

[Arthanor]

Thanks for the response. I'm glad things are working out. The MCD patches can probably be used, but I have found that those MCD files are usually copies of the Skyranger one any ways, so there's really no point in having them instead of using the Skyranger MCD for all those planes.

- Good point regarding reaction fire. It always uses the weapon with the fastest (lowest TU cost) snap shot. If it is not already like that, I will make sure that rockets are slower to fire than direct fire weapons.

- Although I agree with keeping the combinations limited, I do very much want a smoke + weapon tank. Firing smoke is a waste of a soldier action (no experience from it), so it is a good action for a HWP. Plus, tanks are unloaded first so having them fire smoke is very practical. I think in the end, tanks will be handled with 4 rulesets: Simple, Basic, 2xWeapons and Smoke+Weapons. That way everyone can pick what they like and not have crowded lists unless they want to.

- At first I thought like you, that the alloy tank should have at least as heavy an armour as the hovertank. The problem is how early it is accessible compared to the hovertank. With armour 130, it is too much for early alien weapons. Boosting alien weapons is out of the question because then the early armours for operatives become useless.

So I lowered the alloy tank's flank and rear armor (but not front) to keep the bonus the same on all facings compared to the regular tank (~50% increase compared to basic tank).

The hovertank needs to be better because it requires more resources to make (mainly Elerium for the reactor) and the benefit of flying, while major for snipers, isn't as great for a tank in the front lines, where I want tanks to be. It mainly makes it more visible/have less cover and exposes the weak under armour. Unless you keep it to ground level at which point you might as well use an alloy tank.

[XCOMFan419]

In my opinion, HWP should model modern vehicles, or at least as modern as they were back then. A main cannon, and a Coaxial cannon. For example, a Tank/Laser should require a Craft Laser Cannon and a Laser Rifle for a coaxial 'machine laser' for lack of better terms. Since most tanks have their main cannon in x calibre, most coaxial weapons are rifle calibre and rarely heavier to my knowledge. Most NATO tanks have a 7.62mm machine gun coaxial, equivalent to their LMG and some rifles. Ex-Warsaw Pact vehicles have a 50.cal coaxial and other nations vary.

[Arthanor]

The main XAE Tanks do require the craft cannons to be produced (that's what you combine with the hulls to create the actual tanks). I never though of using rifles equivalents as their secondary weapons. I guess that may make more sense than having 2 cannon-grade weapons.

I am not sure about the combination though. RL tanks have explosive shells for their cannons, so having a coaxial rifle makes some sense to fire it together and guide the cannon. But in XCom, having a laser rifle + laser cannon is not really that useful, unless the rifle's TU cost is low enough to make sense in close quarters and the cannon's damage and accuracy are high enough to justify using it at longer range.

Maybe a combination of:
- Powerful but slow cannon with aim and snap shot.
- Rifle-equivalent with fast snap shot with an auto-shot at roughly the cost of the cannon's snap shot

I wish you could make it such that firing with the rifle increases accuracy with the cannon, but in XCom it's just a waste of TUs. The 2nd weapon is more of a defensive (short range rifle equivalent) or alternative weapon (2nd cannon-type weapon) than something you would fire along the main one (like a coaxial weapon should be). :/

[XCOMFan419]

Well, there was something that I thought of, but only applies to Conventional HWP to my knowledge. Most tanks have different kinds of shells. HESH, HEAT, etc. When I implement 2 weapon HWP the tank/cannon will have AP and HE shells, instead of a coaxial cannon, all things considered. Afterall, I guess you're right about the whole "Coaxial/Main cannon" argument for XCOM, since it'd just be a waste unless if it was high ROF but low-ish damage compared to the laser cannon.

[HelmetHair]

Im on my phone and will later  expand upon the topics you have brought up, Arthanor.

I will admit I love your mod but haven't  played at all with dogs. When using doggy senses is there a custom graphic with no grid lines? Dogs cannot communicate distance.... they are dogs. What is the TU cost to sniff around/ listen?

Do dogs have different movement TU costs or a very high energy or energy replenishment rate? Actually can dogs use alternate movement s at all?

I would like to see aerodynamic alien grenades.
Grenades that are large r(2x1) more exspensive in cash and elerium with 20% less damage but a weight of 1. So basically a discus grenade that is basically thrown far as it needs to.

Also guided grenades
Single use weapon with 2 and only 2 waypoints.. but could be OP.

Melee should be knife tomahawk and  sword.  For a few reasons.... knives are ubiquitous with the military since forever.swords for weeaboos and tomahawks cuz... well story time.

The first native American code talkers were not the Navajo, but the Choctaw during WWI. They being a bunch of okie natives would be in the trenches and would carry tomahawks or hatchets ordered out of the sears catalog. My great grandfather told me a story of being stuck and having to chop a dude in the face and throw it at another so he could run away.

Tank post later

[Arthanor]

@XComFan419: The idea of using 2 weapon HWPs to represent different ammos is really interesting actually. It could be used for both the cannon (AP and HE) and Rocket (High Damage, low radius and lower damage large radius) HWPs. What's HEST by the way? I keep getting directed to HEAT (and even that I only learned recently because of Equal Terms..). I might steal the idea

Although I also like the idea of both low damage, high RoF and/or low TU cost defensive weapons and smoke launchers as defensive weapons. So many options!

@HelmetHair: All I can do is define an item that is used as a motion detector, with different TU costs. It would cost something, but less than for an operative to use it. The interface would unfortunately be exactly the same as for the Motion Detector, although I agree that something without lines and a bit more uncertainty would be better. As far as I know there is no way to mod that.

The Dog Senses is an idea I came up with today, to make dogs more interesting since, like you, I never used them. I am trying to find ways of making myself want them, much like HWPs.

Regarding grenades, the saucer grenade is an interesting idea. I am not sure how useful it would be though, since experienced soldiers can throw pretty far already. Sound be simple to make though, I'll look into adding that to the XAE Utility.

As far as I know, there is no way to specify the number of waypoints an item uses, which means the grenade would have 10. Also, that kind of defeats the purpose of the Blaster Launcher (and guided missile for regular rocket launcher).

Knives are in, for sure, and I think I'll add an alloy version as well. Same thing for swords, a normal one and an alloy one. The laser/plasma ones I lost interest for. Hybrid melee and throwing weapons would be neat (cool story too but throwing stuff doesn't hurt in XCom (unless it's a grenade). I could make it "snap shot" with an ammo of 1, but then it would be lost upon use and I think the only damage type possible for ranged weapons in melee is stun.

The OpenXCom engine is great, but sometimes it's tricky to make it reproduce even mundane items :/

[BBHood217]

I finished my game not long after updating to v1.02, so now I'm just waiting for mods to finish (like this one with v1.03) before I start another game.  It's how I play OpenXcom.

[TaxxiDriver]

I'm having a lot of fun using a variety of mods and making them up to my taste. Your mod is very user-friendly due to modularized rulesets so I think beginners can learn a lot from this and also quite a lot of other mods are also integrated in this so it's a very good starting point, indeed, I think.

So far no crashes nor bugs. Just one thing I hope...

I've used the Skywarden and it was... not good. The agents at the side doors were looking at the front so even turning around caused reaction fires. And overall, it has done more harm than good. I almost got completely eradicated on the following crashed UFO mission within a couple of turns (seems to be a terror ship, I guess).





I really wish if those side doors could be replaced by automatic doors or something. If not, rather just blocking them would be better IMHO. If only I had enough knowledge about terrain files, then I could just have done that by myself, but I think dealing with terrain stuff seems to be quite challenging at the moment 

Other than that, so far having no problem. I actually lowered the tank armor but still seems to be quite sturdy 

[Arthanor]

@BBHood217: I'll try to get v1.03 out to you soon.

@TaxxiDriver: Thanks for the good words!

Regarding your issue.. Man that is a harsh mission setup. Right in front of a terror ship, 4 cyberdiscs and 2 sectoids in view and you barely have any tech. In my games, the side doors of the skywarden/skyguardian have been really useful. Having only one exit point makes XCom crafts death traps if you happen to have aliens facing it and makes it very difficult to unload without overcrowding the door area, which means it's difficult to bring firepower to bear in the first (few) turns. I really dislike those issues and the side doors address them, but I can see how it may not be for everyone.

Without the side doors, the skywarden is just a slightly faster skyranger, so I don't think I would change it. If you don't like it, just keep using the skyranger.

The skyguardian is different since it gives you extra space and sports a weapon so it might be worth it to look into an alternative. Blocking the doors should be easy enough. I could make another craft with more armor and no door, that's unlocked along the skyguardian.

I did not know that turning got reaction fire. I recently learned how to design deployment orders for crafts so I'll make it such that troops in the skywarden and skyguardian face their exits (and also start in the craft rather than on the platforms).

Other than that, two things I have been doing to better use the side doors:
1 - Use the deployment order to make sure the right soldier is at the doors. The side doors are soldiers number 9 and 12 for the skywarden, 11 and 14 for the skyguardian. I have very strict operative roles and equipment.

At both the side doors and the main doors are my scouts: High TUs and Reactions (so they are less likely to be shot at) but low firing accuracy (otherwise they would be too valuable). They always carry some way to make smoke, be it the lowly smoke grenade, grenade launchers with smoke ammo or small launchers with smoke bombs.

If they see aliens through the doors, first thing they do is make some smoke. With the everything except the smoke grenade, you can center the smoke a bit further, with the smoke grenade it's usually just activating and dropping (Note: I don't remember what the option is, but it is totally possible to prime a grenade during the pre-mission phase, leave it on the ground and have it explode, giving you a smoke screen for "free" at the main door)

2- Support the doors! I always have soldiers with rocket launchers just next to the first men out. If they see something big, or a clump of small aliens, BOOM. Then they are followed by support soldiers (Heavy Cannons, AutoCannons, Gauss Launchers, Laser Blasters) who are in the middle of the craft and can exit by whichever door needs their firepower.

All that being said, deploying in front of 4 cyberdiscs and 2 sectoids (and presumably more) is always going to be difficult, especially with early tech.

How did you manage to down a terror ship btw? Do you use the XCom Armoury Expanded - Crafts? With the nerfs to crafts and craft weapons, I am surprised you managed it in what looks like early game.

[HelmetHair]

Okay,

In my own personal opinion there should be some flexibility with tanks which your assembly methods offer. However, I know it is a pain in the ass to code all of them, but I personally know it would be worth it for me as a player.... Anyways, a few comments about HWPs and the Doges

A machine is a machine, and for that reasons should be viewed as an expendable piece of equipment. There are of course limitations within the Vanilla code that both incentivize and deter players on using HWPs which we are all aware of. However, with OXC we have the chance to expand the options available for HWPs to allow tactical doctrine to be as flexible as the player wants.

The mobility and armor and weapons/ equipment are all options that are all inter related to this concept of customization to the mission and wants of the player. So let us talk about how to go about this in an a logical approach.

We have two basic types of Chassis available.

-Tracked
-Hover

The advantages of either basic type of chassis should be fairly obvious. Hover Chassis have greater mobility by being able to fly, but even looking at the sprites we can see that there is less volume within the hover chassis. How can we balance that mobility against the apparent disadvantage that being stuck on the ground is supposed to be? BY making both tracked and hover chassis types become more survivable as the game progresses but with a higher ultimate survival rate  being able to be achieved by a tracked chassis to reflect a better understood, more mature technology. We see this in our world with technological developments becoming better and tougher over generations of equipment. So we would implement generations of equipment that follows the research into alien technology with each generation being greater than the last in some ways.

Tracked Generation progression
Gen.   quality     Cost     PDM  EDM   TT     TUs  Armor    Health  AA E FA RE

T-MKI    -Basic     100K   90%  %50  1/2    70   TV             90    -   -  50 20
T-MKII   -Better    250K  80%  %45   2/3    75   HV+5%     90     20  5 55 25
T-MKIII  -Badass   400K  70%  %40   3/4    80   HV+10%    100   25 15 60 30
T-MKIV   -Best      700K   60%  %35  3/4/5  80   HV+20%    110   30 20 65 35
T-MKV    -Booyah!  1.1 M  50%  %30  3/4/5  75   HV+25%    120   35 25 70 40


Hover Generation progression
Gen.   quality    Cost      PDM  EDM   TT     TUs  Armor    Health  AA E  FA RE

H-MKI    -Basic      200K  70%  %50  2/3    90    HV-20%    60     20 15 60 45
H-MKII   -Better     450K  65%  %45  2/3    95    HV-10%    70     20 20 65 50
H-MKIII  -Badass    600K  60%  %40  3/4    100   HV-5%     80     25 30 70 55
H-MKIV   -Best       900K  55%  %35   3/4/5  110  HV           90     30 35 75 60
H-MKV    -Booyah!  1.5 M  50%  %30  3/4/5  120   HV+10    100     35 45 80 65

PDM=Plasma Damage Modifier. 100%=1.0 etc
EDM=Exsplosive Damage modifier
TT=Turret Type
AA= Alien Alloys
E=  Elerium 115
FA= Firing Accuracy
RE= Reactions
TV= Tracked HWP Vanilla values
HV= Hover HWP Vanilla values


At each level the Chassis becomes tougher, but with a sliding scale of benefit tied not only in Monetary Cost but in Resources that should highly stimulate a feeling of diminishing returns and a feeling of you get what you pay for. Now how would that play out to be balanced is by tweaking not only the amount of armor, but the damage modifiers so at the upper ends we have a tracked HWP that is very hard to kill. What about Hover HWPs? Well they use technology that makes them a bit more fragile but their mobility more than makes up for it, but they are more costly in money and materials. Hover tanks also have advanced computers for plotting firing solutions and providing guardian angel overwatch, but are too short for a soldier to take cover behind, making them harder to hit.

Now this is just the Chassis We still need to provide a turret for the tank and we have a ton of options but we must take the programmers fingers and sanity into consideration (Love you Arthanor ) and think that most players are not going to probably drop a regular old cannon onto a MKV hover chassis And a regular old MkI would probably not have the ability to generate enough power to form a plasma bolt not to mention, the software for optimal performance.

So what I propose is turret type system which would be a system as well for turrets and equipment that encourages research and tactical flexibility for a superior player experience. ALL turrets would be two weapon or one weapon and equipment because it needs to be that way so a player feels it is worth it.

Turret Types

TT-1 $200K
LMG/Smoke     -Machinegun and pops smoke
Grenade/Smoke - HE grenades and pops smoke

TT-2 $300K
Cannon/Smoke launcher - 20mm with Snap, Aimed, and Auto shot. Pops smoke
Recoiless Rifle/Smoke- 105mm Anti-tank weapon single shot only
Rocket/ LMG - Small HE rockets and machinegun,

TT-3 $400K
Laser/Rocket- Laser Rifle and Large HE rocket launcher combo
Laser/Medkit- A medic tank with a laser LMG ***This may be a dog thing***
Laser/Smoke-  Laser Cannon and smoke popper.
Alien grenade/laser - Improved grenade launcher and laser Rifle

TT-4 $500K
Plasma/Smoke- Plasma Cannon and smoke launcher
Laser/Breacher- Laser LMG and a plasma cutter for UFOs
Stun/Breacher- Small launcher and Plasma cutter
Blaster/Smoke- Dumb blaster bomb and plasma rifle.

TT-5 $600K
Plasma/ Blaster- Plasma Rifle and Blaster launcher.
Plasma/ Breacher- Auto Heavy Plasma and plasma torch breacher.
Stun/Plasma- Small launcher/ heavy plasma


None of this covers weapon accuracy, or TU% which would need some love to function correctly, but is not insurmountable.
So we would have tanks that could have various roles and be wicked on the field, being tempered by the number of man hours required in research and manufacture. So what about dogs?

Dogs should be Fast, Brave, With High TUs and Energy and if they bite it, soldiers take a morale cut. Dogs would be great at "sniffing out" enemies, running down sectoids, mutons, and snakemen, acting as scouts, sappers and "fetching" gear (heh). They would however be pretty fragile but could be armored up or maybe even.... They've been at our sides since they realized what we could do for each other and involved in some capacity in every major war. Why would a war against aliens be any different?

Problems though... Zombie dogs, there is no differentiation if a pooch gets zombied, I'd actually be okay with them just dying because of biological incompatibility.


CyberDoges.

MK-2 Alloy teeth and claws with a powered exoskeleton. Body plates; fastest, strong.
MK-3 Full powered armor body replacement. Fast, strongest

thoughts?

-HH