[Total Conversion][WIP] oXc - War of Shadows v0.92

[robin]

Remember that research cost is in man-days while manufacture cost is in man-hours, I also had this problem.

[jackstraw2323]

Thanks that is definitely something I wasn't aware of.

[jackstraw2323]

Game balance is coming into focus as manageable for savvy players in the tier 0 - tier 1 range, possibly into tier 2. I've got to rebuild some of the rulefiles around missions now since I'm upgrading to the new structure. My hope is this will resolve the capture issue I was seeing. If so that would fix a major problem I am having at the moment as the unit has to be captured in order to get access to a large branch of the research tree. Air combat feels right for the first couple of encounters but then large scouts wreck my interceptors, so they probably need to be toned down a touch.

Also experimenting with some alternate craft weapons for variety.

Need to simplify the heavy weapons at game start, and refine the tanks.

[jackstraw2323]

Reworked the Heavy armor, the previous set looked wonky, and the weapon sprites weren't working out with the drawing routine. Organic armor shares a similar issue, but I think I can fix the one or two things that look off and once I decide to refine a bit.

Newer armor looks beefy enough to carry the superheavy weapons. cheated on the arms and legs a bit, so may need some refinement but as a first draft I like this tons more than the last version. I plan on adding a melee weapon for them as well.

[Solarius Scorch]

So beautiful. Exactly what I wanted.

[jackstraw2323]

Thanks. I'm finding that I'm guilty of scope creep as I've added in several stretch goals. I've revised the Heavy Cannon, Auto Cannon into a single superheavy weapon, and reworked all of the HWP's now. 2 tanks, 2 jaegers. Added in a TAC pistol for medics etc. So I think maybe all of the pieces are now in place for battlescape testing. I don't forsee adding any more weapons or units.

Testing today has turned up a few interesting things, stuns on zombie spawns still don't produce a live alien, but they do disable the self destruct which is good enough for me for now. Superheavy items need to be heavier, it's possible for a strong soldier to carry without a ton of penalty right now, so that needs to be fixed. I.E. it might be possible to fire a superheavy weapon without the armor but you shouldn't be able to walk around much.

Maps/Crafts seem to be my next big rabbit hole. I've got drafts for 3 of my 4 craft maps. Ideally I'm going to redo all the ufo maps as well to provide a new experience.

[Solarius Scorch]

Saying that no more units are planned, did are mean no new sprites at all, or just no vehicles? Because I have high hopes for that new heavy suit you've just posted.

As for the UFO maps, I can offer some help with the RMP files, since I've done quite a bit of them.

[jackstraw2323]

Heavy suit is definitely in, it replaces a previously un posted sprite that looked more like a deep sea divers suit.

Thanks for the offer. Once I've got my ideas written down in a clear way I can hopefully collaborate.

Sprites are still being generated for handobs and floorobs but the game should be in a decently playable state on the next release, but maybe not balanced.

[jackstraw2323]

Okay, pre alpha 3 progress. Again I'm doing a bad job on project management as I've slipped some goals and expanded scope in others. I am however starting to scale back in spots to try and tighten things up.

• At this point, all units are in. One armor sprite needs adjustments to arm for single items, and I'd like to change the tank base, but it's not totally necessary.
• Still need bigobs, floorobs, and inventory screens for assorted units, but there are placeholders that will work for now.
• All weapons graphics except one should now be present, or have a reasonable placeholder. I tried to edit the list down in spots to eliminate overlap and provide some fun options while reducing grinding.
• Added in improved handobs
• found a few research tree bugs that need to be fixed for campaign play
• 3 of 4 transports in game, but need fine tuning.
• Bullet sprites/smoke need work in spots
• Research and manufacturing are a work in progress, I'm not sure how far you can progress on the chain at the moment as I've not had a chance to thoroughly playtest since a substantial restructure
• Air combat is more interesting, but unbalanced. Expect anything large to destroy your interceptors/alloy interceptors before they can do much. I've got some new weapons I'm playing with like the swarm missile, but haven't had a chance to really try and balance them. I want air combat to be hard, but not as bad as Long War. I.E. it would be nice if the aliens got lucky and brought down your fighter, but not every time

Tons more I've done I'm sure, but I think I'm approaching a point where the game might be playable, if a bit empty in the ufopedia section in spots.

Once the game is playable to completion with vanilla maps I want to at a minimum revise all of the basic ufo maps completely, just to add some new wrinkles to the game. I also want to kit bash some TFTD graphics to incorporate some organic elements into the ufo designs since my alien races have a substantial bio tilt over cyber and tech.

[jackstraw2323]

Finally started in on my UFO designs. decided on an angular crystal thing for my art direction. This works pretty well I think since i've got a crystal based weapon as my aliens version of the heavy plasma. I'm also playing with some sections of UFOs being basically open to the outside, similar to EU2012 UFO doors. You cant see the animated fields in the example by the green crystal engine, but the idea is if the UFO crashed on a farm the back end could blow out and set the fields on fire, which would be more interesting I think. Also means the aliens could shoot at you from engineering bay rather than waiting for you to come through the one door on the ship. Should be interesting to see how it shakes out, but I think at a minimum it will provide some very different experiences than XCOM 1 or 2. I've got about 3 other layouts partially planned, with the idea being to replace all the basic tiers and possibly add one extra UFO layout.

I've fallen behind on my playtest in the interim, but I felt like working on this for now, and it's a big chunk of work that I've already got done by getting my MCD PCK files partially set up. Making maps still takes forever though.

[jackstraw2323]

Pre alpha 4 attached.

Major bug possibly discovered, but not sure if that's in the nightly or something to do with my terrain/map files. If you use explosives on some destructable terrain items (Primarily tested vs. the OXC_UFO_CARGO.mcd terrain files) the game will hang. I was having a similar problem with the Rapier.MCD files but making those armor 255 seemed to fix the issue for the xcom crafts. The items in question can be shot and destroyed and should have DIE MCD tiles set, but I think even if they are set to 0 it should do the right thing. Maybe I've got something wrong in my rule file or the MCD file?

I've been able to playthrough to about tier 2 or 3, but I'd have to check my notes. Most time has been spent on revamping all UFO graphics and layouts with my crystal ships. Pretty excited about some of these as they are very different than either UFO defense or TFTD. Hoping they aren't too insane in some cases.

The Cargo Ship and the Abductor are probably the most tactically interesting.

X-Com has all it's ships in but some PCK files could be refined later.

There's definitely some crashes around my blaster launcher for the aliens and some ufopedia entries causing crashes, but it should be possible to test the new UFOs now for holes in the ship walls, LOFTS, etc, as well as how the RMP's are working as I was in a bit of a hurry, so no idea if things are going to spawn where they should or if patrols are going to happen.

[robin]

Finally started in on my UFO designs. decided on an angular crystal thing for my art direction. This works pretty well I think since i've got a crystal based weapon as my aliens version of the heavy plasma. I'm also playing with some sections of UFOs being basically open to the outside, similar to EU2012 UFO doors. You cant see the animated fields in the example by the green crystal engine, but the idea is if the UFO crashed on a farm the back end could blow out and set the fields on fire, which would be more interesting I think. Also means the aliens could shoot at you from engineering bay rather than waiting for you to come through the one door on the ship. Should be interesting to see how it shakes out, but I think at a minimum it will provide some very different experiences than XCOM 1 or 2. I've got about 3 other layouts partially planned, with the idea being to replace all the basic tiers and possibly add one extra UFO layout.

I've fallen behind on my playtest in the interim, but I felt like working on this for now, and it's a big chunk of work that I've already got done by getting my MCD PCK files partially set up. Making maps still takes forever though.

Great. I think you should make the bright lines of the texture on the floor tiles, one step darker (or even two, but then the texture would be very faint): in my opinion having too much contrast on the floor creates too much "visual noise". In your case the issue is mitigated by the purple color, which makes units (or objects) stand out nonetheless; but I'd still keep the contrast tamed and save stronger contrast for units-objects.

[jackstraw2323]

Thanks for the constructive criticism. I'll try it, but I'm wondering if lightening the darker color would be better to make the walls more distinct from the floors. I'll mess around with it.

[Dioxine]

I like the crisp, "early 1990s PC" look of these crystal ships. Indeed there was nothing posted here that is similar. In general, most of your gfx is unique, which is a big plus.
And Pedia crashes from my experience usally come due to lack of properly linked pictures, so they should be easily fixed.

[jackstraw2323]

I think i fixed the terrain issue that was causing the explosives crash. i also dropped the contrast on the floor tile and tweaked it to give some more contrast.