[OLD] Old OXCE discussion thread

[NeoWorm]

Well, I somehow managed to externalize unit glows and it seems to work. My code is probably terrible and should be rewritten but  it is good enough for a proof that it's possible and as toy for me to find out how useful it can be. At least hunting glowing blind mutons in darkness is fun.

When I figure out how to post the code to git I will send link there.

[redv]

Wow, that is pretty huge design flaw there.
Quick testing, model situation: Alien can be seen by one soldier further than 9 tiles away only because its illuminated by personal light of another soldier that actually don't see this alien. If you get into this situation with light off and than turn if on - it wont update - you wont see that alien. On the other hand, when you turn the light off, you still see the alien as if it was illuminated. You can update by turning around, but thats not how it should be. Also aliens with modified nightvission suffer the same problem - and they are not that kind to update their FOV by turning around before frying the soldier with plasma.

When setting the light on or off a recalculation of FOV must be done for all soldiers (and with OpenXcom Extended even for all aliens) or else you will get into weird situations. This should be done even in main OpenXcom build. I will post a bug to feedback forum later.

It's not a bug, it's vanilla behavior.
If you spotted enemy units, then you know where they are.

3) Make the default glow intensity lower than 9 to be sure that nightvision rules will be used. I dont know if the light in X-Com is additive so a tile illuminated by two sources (like a soldier and flare) would have light intensity of highest value or both values added toghether.

Yes, the light in X-Com is additive.

[NeoWorm]

It's not a bug, it's vanilla behavior.
If you spotted enemy units, then you know where they are.

I don't remmember ability to disable personal lighning in original X-Com.

[redv]

Switch on/off an personal lighting is just a particular case.
If your soldier spotted enemy units (any manner), then you know where they are. Even if this soldier will be killed.
It's not a bug, it's vanilla behavior.

[Falko]

doing it differently would be strange
xcom is a turnbased game!
if i play oxc/monopoly/chess and close my eyes during my turn the opponents pieces dont move because i cant see them with eyes closed
sure in oxc they can shoot back but that does not change the principle of "i know there is an alien" even if the spotter is killed

[NeoWorm]

Switch on/off an personal lighting is just a particular case.
If your soldier spotted enemy units (any manner), then you know where they are. Even if this soldier will be killed.
It's not a bug, it's vanilla behavior.

Yet other way around can happen too - you won't be able to spot an enemy even if you are looking at him because this feature - switching personal light on and off - is not properly implemented. It's more of a debug feature and as such it shoudn't be part of a gamedesign. I agree - its not bug, it's just not finished gamedesign-wise and it have to be adressed somehow - marking it as a debug feature or finishing it. Untill it's resolved somehow it is a flaw and additional mechanics shoudn't be based on it - that includes diferent nightvision values for aliens. Having such inconsistencies in a game is just bad practice and it should be avoided if possible.

[redv]

About use case of radarChance of Hyperwave decoder.
Default value is 100. For instance, if set:

Code: [Select]

facilities:
  - type: STR_HYPER_WAVE_DECODER
    radarChance: 50then chance of detection of UFOs will be 50/50 every 30 min.


Interesting option will be if set radarChance to 0.

Code: [Select]

facilities:
  - type: STR_HYPER_WAVE_DECODER
    radarChance: 0In this case hyperwave decoder cannot determine position of UFO but can decode an UFOs transmissions.

My scenario:
1. Conventional radars detects UFOs.
2. Then, after 30 min, hyperwave decoder decodes transmissions and gives additional information about UFO. Blue info screen changes to red.

Looks realistic:)

[Solarius Scorch]

Interesting option will be if set radarChance to 0.

Code: [Select]

facilities:
  - type: STR_HYPER_WAVE_DECODER
    radarChance: 0In this case hyperwave decoder cannot determine position of UFO but can decode an UFOs transmissions.

Sorry, please clarify if this is true for the OpenXCom Extended only, or works for vanilla OpenXCom as well?

[Yankes]

Extended, vanilla have always 100%

[redv]

Sorry, please clarify if this is true for the OpenXCom Extended only, or works for vanilla OpenXCom as well?

This works only for OpenXcom Extended now.
In regular OpenXcom hyperwave decoder always has 100% chance of UFO detection.

Maybe later will work in regular OpenXcom too:)
Pull request was send: https://github.com/SupSuper/OpenXcom/pull/931

[pkrcel]

It makes a lot of sense, thou 30 minutes might be both A LOT or NO SWEAT.

I'll try out it in the future

[RSSwizard]

(multiplies damage to terrain by 0.5)

In truth the way the game originally worked was it had a set of Armor Multipliers in Castes. The ETs, Tanks, Soldiers each had different Castes they belonged to (13 of them) which applied the damage multipliers.

Caste 0 (Unarmored) was used by terrain.

It would be better to just give Armor Multipliers for Terrain in that case. Applicable to all terrain just to get started.


I made a mod once for TFTD which adjusted the armor multipliers for terrain so that different weapons did altered damage to them. For example I lowered it for Gauss and AP so human weapons wouldnt put holes in walls. Raised it for Explosives (for everyone actually) because I lowered explosion damage across the board (to decrease explosion size). Raised it for Sonic so that way sonic shots would almost always melt walls.

Actually I lowered the numbers all over to make it consistent with smaller explosions, but I raised the damage multipliers in many cases so it was still as effective as before.

[Sturm]

I made a mod once for TFTD which adjusted the armor multipliers for terrain so that different weapons did altered damage to them. For example I lowered it for Gauss and AP so human weapons wouldnt put holes in walls. Raised it for Explosives (for everyone actually) because I lowered explosion damage across the board (to decrease explosion size). Raised it for Sonic so that way sonic shots would almost always melt walls.

By the way, from what I've recently read, it's easier to knock down a building with a blast of an explosion than to kill a person. Overpressure that is sufficient to collapse most of buildings would just burst eardrums of 1% of people affected by it.

[Yankes]

Next build of OpenXcomExtended will have some craft improvements.
Now every craft can have up to 4 weapons.
Every weapon slot and every weapon can have defined weapon type.
Only weapons with same type can be equipped in that weapon slot.

craft:

Code: [Select]

weapons: 4
weaponTypes: [0, 0, 0, 1] # slot 1 accept weapon with type 0, ... slot 4 accept weapon with type 1

craft weapon:

Code: [Select]

weaponType: 1 #default value 0

My next target will be probably bonus stats in craft weapons.

[Vulgar Monkey]

Yep. I read a thing a while ago too (possibly the same thing) saying that the military is starting to lean away from using buildings as cover from small arms due to thermobaric warheads becoming more prolific on the arms market.

They did a study iirc and found that, all things being equal, they'd usually just be better off being shot at individually than putting all their eggs in one basket, so to speak.

Also, for some reason (probably something to do with transmission of the concussive blast) ordinary ballistic armour actually makes such threats MORE dangerous. So ingame that'd be a negative damage modifier I guess, although having armour that makes your more vulnerable to explosives does seem very counterintuitive.