[ALPHA][WIP] Rise of the New Order

[Dioxine]

Alright then, here's the story structure planning, but I'm thinking of a different way to do this, since I'm pretty sure that you can't lock certain groups to appear until x event shows up.

You can lock them out by research; a research that disables previous mission(s) and enables new ones - naturally, with new enemies instead of old. To make sure a player researches something as soon as he completes a milestone mission, make it an item (might be hidden/indestructible) with 0 research cost. Well, a player may always sell the item... It's a free country

[Hobbes]

Spoiler:

You start out by placing a base and so forth, or the investigate/freeform part. To advance the story, you have to capture the secondary leader () and interrogate him. In the first month, he shows up only in the terror missions. His uniform will be different than the other soldiers. The secondary leader () will reveal information about the primary base of operations.
However, he will only reveal this information if your research in interrogation is high enough, otherwise, he will partially reveal this information, or not at all. Side note: I'm not sure if I'm able to implement this. If I can't, then I'll just make it a requirement to research interrogation techniques beforehand.

Research is all about dependencies - topics A and B are both required to unlock topic C, etc. Topic A can be the secondary leader, and you can set topic C (base's coordinates) can be used to trigger a mission for the base raid. Topic B can either be interrogation techniques, or capturing a pilot, or recovering an item from a mission.

After you get this information, you'll have the option to raid this base. The base is pretty big, so it'll just be a one part mission. The mission's objective is to destroy the 4 reactors in the base. The location is randomized. You don't need to kill everyone in the base. After that, you get aboard the ship to escape before the entire base blows up.

You actually have several ways to design the base, depending on the position of the generators. You can either place all the generators together on a 20x20 map block, or split them up on 4 10x10 blocks. Then you can either set the reactor map(s) on fixed, random or semi-random positions, and that all also depend on whether you're using craft or entry/exit areas.

You also need to consider this on the map size, since you're saying that it will be pretty big: like the original game, OpenXcom is hardcoded so that after turn 20 the AI knows the location of all your soldiers. And the bigger the map size the higher the chances that a mission will last longer than 20 turns. And if there are still a lot of aliens around, all of them now always know where your soldiers are.

[Liquid Snake]

You can lock them out by research; a research that disables previous mission(s) and enables new ones - naturally, with new enemies instead of old. To make sure a player researches something as soon as he completes a milestone mission, make it an item (might be hidden/indestructible) with 0 research cost. Well, a player may always sell the item... It's a free country

Thanks for the advice, I'll look into that.

Spoiler:

Research is all about dependencies - topics A and B are both required to unlock topic C, etc. Topic A can be the secondary leader, and you can set topic C (base's coordinates) can be used to trigger a mission for the base raid. Topic B can either be interrogation techniques, or capturing a pilot, or recovering an item from a mission.

Yeah, I'll need to sort that out, and probably expand upon this.

Spoiler:

You actually have several ways to design the base, depending on the position of the generators. You can either place all the generators together on a 20x20 map block, or split them up on 4 10x10 blocks. Then you can either set the reactor map(s) on fixed, random or semi-random positions, and that all also depend on whether you're using craft or entry/exit areas.

You also need to consider this on the map size, since you're saying that it will be pretty big: like the original game, OpenXcom is hardcoded so that after turn 20 the AI knows the location of all your soldiers. And the bigger the map size the higher the chances that a mission will last longer than 20 turns. And if there are still a lot of aliens around, all of them now always know where your soldiers are.

Well, another way around this is to make it a multi part map. The first map would be the entrance, and the second part would be the main base with the power plant, or have a third level as a seperate power plant level.

Another idea is to say that the aliens/enemies will have complete coverage over the mission area via satellites in 20 turns in the mission briefing. They do have that technology after all. If I do that, I'll have to edit all mission briefings to state that though, since it's hardcoded.

[Hobbes]

Spoiler:

Well, another way around this is to make it a multi part map. The first map would be the entrance, and the second part would be the main base with the power plant, or have a third level as a seperate power plant level.

With multimap missions you'll still have to take the same decisions I mentioned before regarding where to place everything for a single mission. The best example to visualize this is the Alien Base terrain, where you have a 20x20 map block for the alien command center and 2 10x10 map blocks where your units start (and can abort the mission), and all are placed randomly.

Another idea is to say that the aliens/enemies will have complete coverage over the mission area via satellites in 20 turns in the mission briefing. They do have that technology after all. If I do that, I'll have to edit all mission briefings to state that though, since it's hardcoded.

You don't actually need to give this information to the player, I just mentioned it because it is useful to understand how the AI works when designing missions. In fact it can be better not to reveal this because the player can think that the AI is 'smarter' than it really is when he/she encounters all the aliens rushing towards its soldiers.

[Liquid Snake]

Spoiler:

With multimap missions you'll still have to take the same decisions I mentioned before regarding where to place everything for a single mission. The best example to visualize this is the Alien Base terrain, where you have a 20x20 map block for the alien command center and 2 10x10 map blocks where your units start (and can abort the mission), and all are placed randomly.
 

You don't actually need to give this information to the player, I just mentioned it because it is useful to understand how the AI works when designing missions. In fact it can be better not to reveal this because the player can think that the AI is 'smarter' than it really is when he/she encounters all the aliens rushing towards its soldiers.

I'll keep this in mind when designing the mission maps. I'll look at some tutorials to get started on map making.

[Liquid Snake]

I modified the rocket launcher from UFO2000, and turned into a remote controlled missile launcher. I'm not sure if I did it correctly, since I've never drew pixel art before in photoshop. I converted the image to the battlescape palette, and tried to cleanup the rocket launcher as much as I could. It was inspired by the Nikita from MGS.

It's a start, I guess.

[Liquid Snake]

I've made great strides in implementing units, ufopaedia entries, and others. There nothing to show right now, since the changes are minimal.

However, I spent some time changing the colors of the OXC interface. Screenshots attached below.

[niculinux]

Looking forward to a first downloadable version!

[Liquid Snake]

Well guys, I haven't done much for this mod in the past month. I got kinda busy will college and all. I'm gonna have to put a hold onto this project for now. I'm not sure when or if I'll come back and do more for this mod. I'm interested in creating this mod for OpenXCOM, but I don't have a lot of time right now.

I'm currently helping the XCOM 2 community with modding, and making a mod for XCOM 2 as well.