AI and explosives

[Meridian]

I support it too.
And yes, I know you have introduced it willingly and after a careful consideration... feel free to ignore me, but I just feel the need to say what's in my heart.

I even thought of building a custom version of OpenXcom for my LP, because of this... but I was too lazy... so instead I just banned the usage of any throwable explosives for XCOM side during the first 2 turns too. But sometimes I forget it and get angry that I break my own rules.

[redv]

Done. Unhardcoded first turn when AI can use grenades.
PR: https://github.com/SupSuper/OpenXcom/pull/993

I support it too.
And yes, I know you have introduced it willingly and after a careful consideration... feel free to ignore me, but I just feel the need to say what's in my heart.

I even thought of building a custom version of OpenXcom for my LP, because of this... but I was too lazy... so instead I just banned the usage of any throwable explosives for XCOM side during the first 2 turns too. But sometimes I forget it and get angry that I break my own rules.

Totally agree about custom build.

[Solarius Scorch]

Done. Unhardcoded first turn when AI can use grenades.
PR: https://github.com/SupSuper/OpenXcom/pull/993

Warboy, pretty please.

[robin]

Awesome!

I already have a (outdated) fork of openxcom; now I need to understand how to update it and add your commit, possibly without nuking the whole openxcom project in the process.

[Arthanor]

That's a great start, but wouldn't it make more sense to add it to the ruleset as a weapon property?

For mods which gives new weapons to the AI (ex.: A human faction with a rocket launcher like the hybrids from Solarius), this won't work.

[redv]

Good point.
Done: https://github.com/SupSuper/OpenXcom/pull/996/files

[Arthanor]

Nice! Thank you for implementing this Now to hope that it will be pulled in..! If not, I'll have to pull it into my local repo before compiling. This is too good to miss.

[Dioxine]

Blanket unhardcoding usage of area damage (HE stun & Incendiary) in the Variables section works better IMO. I don't want to go through dozens of weapons, setting this variable up for every single one, since either I want aliens to be able to fight back, or not. Either way, I don't intend to exclude any weapons from these rules.

[robin]

Blanket unhardcoding usage of area damage (HE stun & Incendiary) in the Variables section works better IMO. I don't want to go through dozens of weapons, setting this variable up for every single one, since either I want aliens to be able to fight back, or not. Either way, I don't intend to exclude any weapons from these rules.

Yeah, it is a "game-wide" setting for me too. Weapon-by-weapon makes sense for making exceptions to a general desired value: let's say you want 0 delay for everything (and thus you set the general delay to 0) but the blaster launcher because you feel it's too overkill.
To be fair though, copypasting a single line around isn't a big deal (I know The Piratez mod has tons of weapons, you fingers will cramp a little but you'll be fine in the end ).

[Solarius Scorch]

Yeah, it is a "game-wide" setting for me too. Weapon-by-weapon makes sense for making exceptions to a general desired value: let's say you want 0 delay for everything (and thus you set the general delay to 0) but the blaster launcher because you feel it's too overkill.

+1.

To be fair though, copypasting a single line around isn't a big deal (I know The Piratez mod has tons of weapons, you fingers will cramp a little but you'll be fine in the end ).

Yeah, but it's not very elegant, is it?

[Arthanor]

A general/default setting for the # of turns before AI can use explosives could make sense, but it removes some of the versatility of it.

Consider a terror unit that blows itself up as an attack (doesn't the cybermite do that?). You might want to enable this unit (otherwise it is useless for 3 turns), but not other weapons.

Having the setting for each weapon, with a default at 3 to keep it like Warboy intended, enables the most customization. Adding a line for weapons that need to be changed is not that bad. Relatively, it is a very small addition to the size of any mode (given that there are other lines to add the explosives weapons, and a lot of other added stuff that doesn't change).

[Yankes]

I don't think that mix explosive ammo and blast launcher in one category is good thing.

I understand concerns of modders and I think that best way to handle it is have overall delay that can be overrider by weapon.
This will best handle common case and some exceptions.

[volutar]

Reasoning behind this "wait for N turns to use explosives":
1. Aliens are turned towards the craft since first moments of battlescape (all 100% of them for superhuman)
2. 2/3 vanilla crafts (i.e. most of them) of XCOM1 have wide opened access during AI turn, and they simply can blast whole team. Lightning craft doesn't suffer from this issue, and technically if you're using it, you won't suffer much from AI being using grenades from the beginning.

TFTD crafts don't have widely opened doors (all crafts have auto doors), and this "wait for N turns" becomes obsolete at least, and really gameplay altering at most.

The weapon list, which can cause this "storm of whine" because of vanished team in 1st turn, is much shorter than list of "issue safe" weapon. Logicaly, it'd be much easier and better to make this variable exactly for the alien grenade and blaster launcher. There's no other weapon causing initial issue, and no need to touch anything else. And by default all kind of weapon is usable from the beginning.

And since TFTD is in development, this change is in "todo". And really, there's no need to bump this thread endlessly.

[Dioxine]

2. 2/3 vanilla crafts (i.e. most of them) of XCOM1 have wide opened access during AI turn, and they simply can blast whole team.

Yup, they're flying coffins. So what? A game ought try to kill a player, not just fiddle with him a bit then let him win
Truth is while this is a lifesaver in vanilla (even if it's as non-vanilla and pro-casual 2010's whiner generation as it gets), if you play a mod with a properly designed dropship (an offensive, not Skyranger's defensive, layout), the battle is often basically won by turn 3. And if you don't - who said you're supposed to win every time? Drop these smoke grenades under your feet and start praying.
But it seems you have arrived at a best possible solution (behaviour consigned to select vanilla weapons), no point in dwelling on the topic.

To be fair though, copypasting a single line around isn't a big deal (I know The Piratez mod has tons of weapons, you fingers will cramp a little but you'll be fine in the end ).

I won't, the feeling of having just done a monkey's job won't wash away that easily

[Arthanor]

The weapon list, which can cause this "storm of whine" because of vanished team in 1st turn, is much shorter than list of "issue safe" weapon. Logicaly, it'd be much easier and better to make this variable exactly for the alien grenade and blaster launcher. There's no other weapon causing initial issue, and no need to touch anything else. And by default all kind of weapon is usable from the beginning.

Having a fix for only the alien grenade and blaster launcher leaves all modded weapons hanging. Extending it so it can be used for modded weapons is much better (or just generalizing it to something that sets the # of turns for all explosive weapons, although that's not as good).

And since TFTD is in development, this change is in "todo".

Which of the implementation is in "todo"?