[OLD] Old OXCE discussion thread

[Yankes]

un-hardcoding Cydonia is required by TFTD. I can made patch for normal OXC that will do it.

[Warboy1982]

... it's not hard coded in the slightest, that was removed months ago (around the same time as mapscripts)

[Yankes]

Done

[Dioxine]

btw custom ranks have big road block. when you try go back from OXCE to OXC after changing numbers of ranks game will crash or alt least be heavy bugged.
I prefer features that can easy fall back to original ones without big fuss. I don't know if this feature is worth breaking this forward compatibility with basic version.

I don't think it's worth it then, personally.

[Yankes]

I don't think it's worth it then, personally.

But after some thoughts I can see light in tunnel. Simply don't touch ranks and its logic at all, but introduce new sub ranks. Something like you propose for Sergeant.
Every rank could have 1 or more sub ranks. This would be a lot of more compatible with basic version because solders rank will be still valid value after version downgrade. Only conceptual problem I see is how to best handle promotion of hi subrank to next normal rank. Do lowest subrank in next rank is better or worse than largest subrank in previous rank.

[Dioxine]

But after some thoughts I can see light in tunnel. Simply don't touch ranks and its logic at all, but introduce new sub ranks. Something like you propose for Sergeant.
Every rank could have 1 or more sub ranks. This would be a lot of more compatible with basic version because solders rank will be still valid value after version downgrade. Only conceptual problem I see is how to best handle promotion of hi subrank to next normal rank. Do lowest subrank in next rank is better or worse than largest subrank in previous rank.

That seems like a perfect solution! This could actually permit for basically unlimited number of ranks.
Hmm... if the problem is a conceptual one, it's a safe bet to leave it to the modders to decide (each rank has 'outgoing' rank which can be defined in the ruleset, by default Rank 1 highest goes to Rank 2 lowest. This is a list, so if there is more than single outgoing, the game checks prerequisites - like officer post availability and/or number of kills*missions? If more than one next rank satisfies the preqs, chooses randomly).

[DoxaLogos (JG)]

So something like this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rgHZaZYI7_WQ1-x_vTAmYcYCRpW2VFjPA3-Zfng3_bY/edit?usp=sharing  ?

This is just a reference for a starting point for OXC ranks mapped to OXC Extended sub ranks.  I based it on U.S. Army, because it's what I know more.  I'm certainly not tied to the nationality for the ranks, since X-COM is a international military op.

[Solarius Scorch]

Yankes, while this is a bit bold, there's a feature that I would like to see in the game, and that desire grows every day.

We can now have any ships perform special missions (like Terror or Retaliation), but they all will deploy exactly the same crew, because STR_TERROR_MISSION and STR_BASE_DEFENSE aren't related to the ship that drops them. This pretty much kills the concept, since we can't have multiple crews for the job - the landing party is always the same.

Now, what I would like to propose is to ignore deployments like STR_TERROR_MISSION and STR_BASE_DEFENSE and use the same crew as the ship's. This would allow you much more freedom, for example to design several threat levels for alien missions. Besides, why would the landing party use different equipment than what they had on board? (Not that the difference was significant at any point.)

[Dioxine]

Now, what I would like to propose is to ignore deployments like STR_TERROR_MISSION and STR_BASE_DEFENSE and use the same crew as the ship's. This would allow you much more freedom, for example to design several threat levels for alien missions. Besides, why would the landing party use different equipment than what they had on board? (Not that the difference was significant at any point.)

Yeah I'd second that - separate mission/ufo deployment loadout just makes you copy-paste stuff, and there's little practical use for it.

[Yankes]

Simply you want flag "ignoreMissionDeploy" in craft?

[Solarius Scorch]

Simply you want flag "ignoreMissionDeploy" in craft?

Maybe, I don't know the code. But yeah, I think so.

[Yankes]

This will be probably easy to do. I will put it on my TODO list

[Solarius Scorch]

This will be probably easy to do. I will put it on my TODO list

Cool. Though please leave the old option open in case someone wants it.

Actually, I would like to have yet another request: assigning equipment by race.
For example:
(not actual code, I don't have the files here)
ship: STR_TERROR_SHIP
rank: alien rank 5
equipment:
- STR_HEAVY_PLASMA
- STR_HEAVY_PLASMA_CLIP
- STR_HEAVY_PLASMA_CLIP
- STR_ALIEN_GRENADE

rank: alien rank 5
race: STR_SECTOID
equipment:
- STR_PLASMA_RIFLE
- STR_PLASMA_RIFLE_CLIP
- STR_PLASMA_RIFLE_CLIP
- STR_ALIEN_GRENADE

So this particular alien is armed with a Heavy Plasma, as long as it's not a Sectoid - in this case, he gets a Plasma Rifle instead.

This mechanics can be used for example to eliminate Sectoids with heavy weapons (like some people envisage them), but my main objective is to allow non-alien enemies to have their own specific weapons in general missions like Retaliation, for example Men in Black using firearms.

[Yankes]

New version is ready

Update to recent nightly.
I made Solarius Scorch request first because it had biggest `gameplay impact`/`lines of code` ratio

Now every ufo have two new properties:

Code: [Select]

ufos:
  - type: STR_UFO_TYPE
    craftCustomDeploy: STR_BATTLESHIP
    missionCustomDeploy: STR_TERROR_MISSION_AND_BASE_RAID
    raceBonus: #bonus stats per race.
      STR_SECTOID: #name of race that bonus apply.
        craftCustomDeploy: STR_BATTLESHIP_SECTOID #override for race
        missionCustomDeploy: STR_TERROR_MISSION_SECTOID #override for race
`craftCustomDeploy` is used when you attack ufo do determine what weapons aliens have (use data form `data` node in aliens deployments).
`missionCustomDeploy` is used when that ufo start mission. All mission will use it (terror/base defense).

I added option to change weapon deploy in alien bases too:

Code: [Select]

alienRaces:
  - id: STR_SECTOID
    baseCustomDeploy: STR_ALIEN_BASE_ASSAULT_SECTOID
Right now you can't override map generation data only weapons/units. Is possible to do it but for now it will skip it.
Another thing is next stage of mission will use only data from mission definition deploy. I had hard time with way is correct/better, ufo data always override alien deploy or next stage deploy is fixed.

[Solarius Scorch]

Thank you, thank you, thank you!