Author Topic: [Total Conversion][WIP] oXc - War of Shadows v0.92  (Read 70436 times)

Offline NebulaM78

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Re: [Total Conversion][WIP] oXc - War of Shadows
« Reply #60 on: March 30, 2015, 08:40:13 am »
Excellent work so far. I'll be looking forward to the 1.0 release.

Offline jackstraw2323

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Re: [Total Conversion][WIP] oXc - War of Shadows
« Reply #61 on: March 30, 2015, 05:24:30 pm »
Thanks. I feel like I'm starting to approach a playable alpha state, even though I've still got some bugs and balance issues. I had a map crash issue that opened up a can of worms since I could now have a much taller ufo set, which I had considered before. I may hold back on changing maps much until alpha 2 though.

Still all of the ufopedia artwork to generate and my final level maps, but I want to wait on that a bit until I understand a bit more about the mapscripting.

Play testing is progressing well enough at the moment, but my tier transition is slightly off as I captured an alien earlier than I expected and had a bit of a research shortcut. I'm also playing with 50 bonus scientists I didn't have to pay for so that's probably skewing things a bit.

Offline jackstraw2323

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Re: [Total Conversion][WIP] oXc - War of Shadows
« Reply #62 on: April 07, 2015, 05:30:16 am »
playtesting continues and is uncovering some bugs. Mostly typos or missing strings I thought I'd put in. Figured out that my craft manufacturing rules weren't completely written just now as the firestorm popped up. Working on difficulty balance as well and making some tweaks there. Still losing a unit or two on average per couple of missions so things are staying deadly. I think once I can confirm that Jaeger Manufacturing is in I can do my next pre alpha set, which should be substantially cleaned up from the last version. I've been doing some polish stuff as well, redoing some craft maps and graphics. Much happier with my ultimate craft now, even though it could use more love.

It's still tough to know whether this is exactly fun as I know all of the secrets and the AI is locked into RMPs, but maybe someone who knows more about that can give me some pointers. My current issue is that I've got aliens on top of a UFO and they jump off almost every time, even when there are flags with high numbers set and no connecting route to the ground. Maybe making them less aggressive would help too. I think right now I've got everyone dialed up to max.

Offline Dioxine

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Re: [Total Conversion][WIP] oXc - War of Shadows
« Reply #63 on: April 07, 2015, 05:43:39 am »
Aliens pretty much ignore RMPs once their combat routine kicks in. What you could do is 'cheat' - like make impassable tiles around the edge of the craft or sth? Making them less aggressive just makes them more conservative with TU usage.

Offline jackstraw2323

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Re: [Total Conversion][WIP] oXc - War of Shadows
« Reply #64 on: April 07, 2015, 03:40:53 pm »
Is there some sort of breakdown or explanation of how the combat routine works? I've not found any kind of lay and explanation yet. I've got a flying melee unit that never engages but I'm assuming tftd patches will address that, but I've got other terror units that while not ignoring civilians don't seem especially interested in them either. This confirms that in one instance I need to revise my map, but I was already leaning that way now that I understand the map sizing script.

Offline Hobbes

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Re: [Total Conversion][WIP] oXc - War of Shadows
« Reply #65 on: April 07, 2015, 04:18:54 pm »
Is there some sort of breakdown or explanation of how the combat routine works? I've not found any kind of lay and explanation yet.

The following is my interpretation from the code at AlienBAIState.cpp. I'm definitely not a code expert, so I might be wrong in some conclusions. The most important aspects to take in mind are the alien's Intelligence, which determines the amount of turns it can remember an enemy's position even without seeing it, and its Aggression stat, which sets how it will respond upon seeing an enemy (0 = more likely to pull back and set a reaction ambush, 2 = more likely to attack rightaway).

There are 5 AI modes:
* Patrol
* Ambush
* Combat
* Retreat
* Psi

There are several conditions that will determine which mode the AI will select for each unit, including sometimes a random element. An alien's Intelligence and Aggression will be a major factor for certain modes, including the type of weapon it is carrying (rifle vs melee).

Patrol is used when an alien doesn't remember the position of any enemies, nor it can see any enemies, either looking back at him or not). When determining where to patrol the AI considers the 'flag' that defines a route node's importance. If an alien spots or learns of an enemy's location it will then reevaluate its next action. Aggression is also a factor when choosing the reaction shot type when on Patrol: Aimed is used by low aggression units, while Auto will be chosen for high aggression.

There's too many conditions for each specific mode, plus more conditions for when choosing the mode, to list them all here.
« Last Edit: April 07, 2015, 04:24:58 pm by Hobbes »

Offline jackstraw2323

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Re: [Total Conversion][WIP] oXc - War of Shadows
« Reply #66 on: April 07, 2015, 05:22:35 pm »
Thanks those are both helpful. Sounds like I need to tweak some of my settings as I think many of my aliens are too smart and aggressive at the moment.

Offline jackstraw2323

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Re: [Total Conversion][WIP] oXc - War of Shadows
« Reply #67 on: April 20, 2015, 05:30:28 am »
Pre-Alpha 5 attached. I've done a bunch of polish play testing, but haven't gotten all the way to cydonia yet. Air combat feels unbalanced at the moment with xcom having too much of an upper hand, but the original game was like that to some degree so it might be kind of baked in.

Research tree tested up to tier 3 and some tier 4. Streamlined some research stuff, but probably needs more work. I still need to make some adjustments based on newer nightly code but this should run on 2015-02-22 era.

Started to fuss with mission maps, but probably won't make many changes until i see some more details about how to work with the script, or take the time to examine how others are using it.

Offline jackstraw2323

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Re: [Total Conversion][WIP] oXc - War of Shadows
« Reply #68 on: April 26, 2015, 10:32:27 pm »
Been squashing bugs and doing my playthroughs. I've just fixed enough now that I have unlocked the ultimate craft and have all armor. I've still got two other unlocks that need to happen, but waiting on a terror unit to make that happen.

Lots of sprite cleanup done too so I think I'm mostly down to needing to generate all my ufopedia artwork, bigobs for corpses and then any misc stuff that I feel like. In some cases the vanilla grenade handob will probably do for now.

Feel like I'm definitely approaching a playable/winnable alpha release, and I'm trying to focus on the broad issues while making note of minor bugs to fix later.

Offline jackstraw2323

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Re: [Total Conversion][WIP] oXc - War of Shadows
« Reply #69 on: May 20, 2015, 04:16:35 am »
Well ufopedia artwork still needs generation, as do my corpses. Ufo's have diagonal wall holes that need plugging too.

But game is playable and can be completed. I was close before but had to rebase thanks to the new mod structure. I THINK that maybe i didn't break any sprites when I combined everything, but I've not tested completely.

I also was able to put in placeholder slides for a custom end that I need to write/generate for storyline purposes. I've not had much time to work on this lately so I feel like my timeline slipped this month.

Offline clownagent

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Re: [Total Conversion][WIP] oXc - War of Shadows
« Reply #70 on: May 20, 2015, 10:10:53 pm »
Well ufopedia artwork still needs generation, as do my corpses. Ufo's have diagonal wall holes that need plugging too.

But game is playable and can be completed. I was close before but had to rebase thanks to the new mod structure. I THINK that maybe i didn't break any sprites when I combined everything, but I've not tested completely.

I also was able to put in placeholder slides for a custom end that I need to write/generate for storyline purposes. I've not had much time to work on this lately so I feel like my timeline slipped this month.


Wanted to make short test, but the mod failed to load. Two floorobs are unrecognised:
OXC-WOS--SIPHONOPHORE-4 and the MARSEC floorob.
After replacing these with other floorobs the mod loads, but in battlescape no bulletsprites are visible at all.






Offline jackstraw2323

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Re: [Total Conversion][WIP] oXc - War of Shadows
« Reply #71 on: May 21, 2015, 03:48:30 am »

Wanted to make short test, but the mod failed to load. Two floorobs are unrecognised:
OXC-WOS--SIPHONOPHORE-4 and the MARSEC floorob.
After replacing these with other floorobs the mod loads, but in battlescape no bulletsprites are visible at all.

I just tested the zip file with a fresh install on the last nightly and I'm not getting the missing floorOb when I kill the siphonophore or missing bullets. Can you provide additional details? Which marsec floorob item was missing? There's a whole batch of them, so I'd like to narrow down to weather it was the armor/corpse or one of the equipment/weapons

Offline clownagent

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Re: [Total Conversion][WIP] oXc - War of Shadows
« Reply #72 on: May 21, 2015, 11:17:38 am »
I just tested the zip file with a fresh install on the last nightly and I'm not getting the missing floorOb when I kill the siphonophore or missing bullets. Can you provide additional details? Which marsec floorob item was missing? There's a whole batch of them, so I'd like to narrow down to weather it was the armor/corpse or one of the equipment/weapons

the MARSEC-PersonalArmor__floorob and siphonophore floorob are damaged in my unpacked zip, so I cannot even open them with a graphics program.
So maybe just my zip file is corrupted. With redownload from your post the same error appears. If it works for everyone else maybe its just a problem with my computer.



Offline jackstraw2323

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Re: [Total Conversion][WIP] oXc - War of Shadows
« Reply #73 on: May 21, 2015, 03:56:54 pm »
the MARSEC-PersonalArmor__floorob and siphonophore floorob are damaged in my unpacked zip, so I cannot even open them with a graphics program.
So maybe just my zip file is corrupted. With redownload from your post the same error appears. If it works for everyone else maybe its just a problem with my computer.

Strange, they do appear to be corrupted, but when I open with preview rather than photoshop they work fine, and don't throw errors for me when I play. I've corrected and will upload newer versions when I have a chance.

Are the bullets giving you the same issue?

Offline clownagent

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Re: [Total Conversion][WIP] oXc - War of Shadows
« Reply #74 on: May 21, 2015, 09:50:02 pm »
Strange, they do appear to be corrupted, but when I open with preview rather than photoshop they work fine, and don't throw errors for me when I play. I've corrected and will upload newer versions when I have a chance.

Are the bullets giving you the same issue?

No, the bullets are just invisible.