[EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion -- General Feedback Thread

[hellrazor]

I am sitting on this for a while now and i need to get some Testplayers
before i add even more Stuff (mainly Terrains, Missions).

The economy has been drasticly altered, so getting enough money might actually be a problem.

I will compile a ToDo list with stuff which goes into Version 0.95, so i can keep track what is missing.
So now of to my final exams in 5 weeks

I hereby release:

Version 0.94
 - Fix HandOb issues fpr PlasmaBlade and PlasmaSword (thx pwwwa)
 - Fix some Groundtile issues on some UFO Maps
 - Fix wrong Gazer drawingRoutine
 - Fix wrong Muton Elite Guard Corpse BigOb
 - Fix WORLD NEWS UPDATE not popping up after researching a Alien Corpse
 - Fix 1 wrong placed Groundtile on LabShip Map (oversight...)
 - Fix some typos in some UFOpaedia Articles (thx SIMON)
 - Fix MCDPatch for TU usage for THUNDER.PCK
 - Fix Plasma Beam Range (52 -> 42)
 - Fix Alien Infiltration Waves
 - Added some more NEWS Strings (thx nadir)
 - Added Reinforced Power and Flying Suits (Moriaty Sprites)
 - Added Chryssalid Spitter Terrorunit (ranged zombification attack)
 - Added Sectoid Elite Race
 - Added HandOb's for Shotgun Clips, TaserPistol Clip, Elerium Rocket
 - Added FloorOb's for Pistol, Rifle, Heavy Canon, Auto Cannon, SniperRifle Alien Alloy Clips
 - Added HandOb's for Pistol, Rifle, Heavy Canon, Auto Cannon, SniperRifle Alien Alloy Clips
 - Added New BigOb's FloorOb's, HandOb's for PlasmaShotgun Clips and Elerium Clips
 - Added Walkertank/Plasma (hacked Armored Sectopod)
 - Added Plasma Melee Weapons from pwwwa
 - Added New Plasma Hitanimation for Heavy Plasma, Elerium Clips and Armored Sectopod Weapon
 - Added InventoryPicture and UfoPaedia Pictures for Muton Elite Guards
 - Added New BigOb for Vanilla Flying Suits
 - Added new Spriteset for Vanilla Flying Suits
 - Reworked the Racemixes
 - Readjusted TU usage for Heavy Laser / Sniper and Heavy Laser / Auto
 - Readjusted Armor for Waspites, Gazers, Muton Elites and Muton Elite Guards
 - Adjusted all Alien melee stats to more sane values
 - Doubled Money and Elerium-115 cost for Plasma Canons
 - Doubled Money and Elerium-115 cost for Fusion Balls
 - Doubled Money Costs for HWP Fusion Bombs (E-115 cost is 6)
 - Hovertank Launcher increased Damage (140 -> 200)
 - Changed ColorScheme of the Armored Sectopod (lighter Blue)
 - Armored Sectopod, does now Plasma Damage (115) and has Autoshotburst: 5
 - Reduced sellCost for all Items from Aliens and Alive Aliens by 50%
 - Increased Base Maintence Cost to 10% of initial Construction price
 - Increased Points Death penalties for Civilians (30->50) and X-Com Tanks (x2)
 - Reactivated RAILYARDURBAN Terrain in Infrastructure Attack Terror Mission
 - Converted all Sprites into *.png, rechecked Palettes (just for good measure)
 - Adjusted Ruleset to latest changes in : openxcom_git_master_2015_10_10_0133

Please use newest Nightly, or at least Nightly Version: openxcom_git_master_2015_10_10_0133

Modportal Link

Readme attached here

There are also some severe Research changes, so plz take a look at the new Research Tree Graphic:

[hellrazor]

Current ToDo List:

1.) Rework Chryssalid Spiter Sprites, Change Races so they appear on Earth.
2.) Update Terrain Pack Integration (a lot of Bugfixes have come together)
3.) Rework Expanded Terror and City Addon Maps for the Terrain Pack and my own Mod
4.) Add additional Civilians
5.) Rework Terror Briefings and Terrains Destribution
6.) Integrate Special Missions from Hobbes (initiated by interrogations of Alien Engineers and Navigators)
7.) Rework Mapscrips for Alien Base, Mars the Final Assault and some Terrorsites
8.) Create more alien base modules containing Medium Scout, Fighter, Large Scout and Sentry Ship, docked for service.
9.) Create a Mission raiding a Human Collaborator Base recovering the Alien Data Slate (Mapsize 80x80)
10.) Create a Mission containing 2 landed UFO's (probably 1 Terrorship and 1 Battleship) to recover Alien Data Core Mapsize (80x80)
11.) Create a Alien Base / Human Base Mission (2 parter) for recovering the Psi Amp (Mapsize 80x80).
12.) Create more Interior Variants of Vanilla UFO'S.

So there will some nice things to come, and i have some initial ideas maybe, there will also be "Counsil Missions" of some sort.
This list is just a roadmap, so order of stuff will probably change.

Further suggestions and all kinds of feedback are appreciated.

[davide]

As alternative to point 10.)
you could prepare a huge mothership ,
such as the Ufo2k map (60x60x4).
Unfortunately this map is incomplete but perhaps could be used as concept.

I think that an UFO map  level could be traformed in hangar contains small ufo (idea ispired me by your excellent point 8.)

Code: [Select]


files:Alien Other Ship
UFO_mothership:BLANKS U_EXT02 U_WALL02 U_DISEC2 U_BITS U_OPER2 U_PODS POLAR
end


[hellrazor]

As alternative to point 10.)
you could prepare a huge mothership ,
such as the Ufo2k map (60x60x4).
Unfortunately this map is incomplete but perhaps could be used as concept.

I think that an UFO map  level could be traformed in hangar contains small ufo (idea ispired me by your excellent point 8.)

Code: [Select]


files:Alien Other Ship
UFO_mothership:BLANKS U_EXT02 U_WALL02 U_DISEC2 U_BITS U_OPER2 U_PODS POLAR
end


I guess that would even be a better method to do it. Does it really have a 60x60 size? because i guess a 50x50 size would be enough, so that some terrain on a 80x80 could still show up.
In the mothership to have 1 or 2 docked fighters would certainly be possible.
It also a question how high the Mothership should be, a battleship has 3 levels, so maybe make it 4 levels?
Also the amount of aliens, i guess 50-60 should be fine :>

[davide]

An other concept map that I found in the past

The map could be resize to 40x40 removing useless roads

[hellrazor]

An other concept map that I found in the past

The map could be resize to 40x40 removing useless roads

Hm.. thats a nice concept.

Maybe as a Info mission for the Alien Data Core mission, or eventually for recovering the Alien Data Slate.
In any case, i like the idea

[hellrazor]

How about using this Map made by civilian, for a special Mission.

I mean its a large supermarket and the ma needs beautifying of course, but in essence could be interesting. Any Comments?

[davide]

+1
Why not !

Indeed I do not like the full flat roof ...

Above supermarket could be a parking (that needs a ramp for car too) or at least a garden.

[hellrazor]

+1
Why not !

Indeed I do not like the full flat roof ...

Above supermarket could be a parking (that needs a ramp for car too) or at least a garden.

Well the flat roof can be changed.

I am thinking i am nearing myself into a financial breaking point on my Testrun,
i need to get 20m into my Bank or X-Com goes kaboom!

I am hoping of some kind of feedback from the ~20 people who downloaded Version 0.94 and have started a new campeign.
Financial changes are hard to balance especially in a game like X-Com were you have to consider a lot of factors.
If anyone has any suggestions regarding the economic changes, plz tell me.
Maybe remove the ability to produce Laser Canons for money?

[Orz]

If anyone has any suggestions regarding the economic changes, plz tell me.
Maybe remove the ability to produce Laser Canons for money?

I haven't tried your mod (yet?), so I don't know how useful/useless my input may be. In short: you could just increase manufacturing time and/or reduce sell price of Laser Cannon to make it less profitable.

As an aside, I personally feel X-Com craft (FIRESTORM, LIGHNING, AVENGER, or whichever in your mod) should be able to be sold for a hefty price. You still wouldn't be manufacturing them for profit (too much time, too costly, too useful), but in those cases of financial bankrupcy they could be "sacrificed" to help you get back on good standing.

Economics should be a more important factor in X-Com. Unfortunately, they aren't in vanilla (you could easily reach 40K+ and 8 bases within just a couple months). Income shouldn't go too much past 10K and the challenge of going bankrupt should be always present, especially early on. Where's the challenge otherwise?

Just 2 cents!

[hellrazor]

I haven't tried your mod (yet?), so I don't know how useful/useless my input may be. In short: you could just increase manufacturing time and/or reduce sell price of Laser Cannon to make it less profitable.

As an aside, I personally feel X-Com craft (FIRESTORM, LIGHNING, AVENGER, or whichever in your mod) should be able to be sold for a hefty price. You still wouldn't be manufacturing them for profit (too much time, too costly, too useful), but in those cases of financial bankrupcy they could be "sacrificed" to help you get back on good standing.

Economics should be a more important factor in X-Com. Unfortunately, they aren't in vanilla (you could easily reach 40K+ and 8 bases within just a couple months). Income shouldn't go too much past 10K and the challenge of going bankrupt should be always present, especially early on. Where's the challenge otherwise?

Just 2 cents!

I made crafts more expensive, ressource and moneywise and i do not think that making them sellable for a big price is a good idea.
My current experience is, that i have to fight more groundmissions in order to finance myself in my testrun, this part is actually made a little bit easier, since i do have 2 infiltration missions running, which provide me with a regular buildup of bases and UFO occurances in a heavily surveilanced area (4 Large Radars at the moment). Obviously if i didn't had them things would be a little more difficult, since the aliens would perform other missions etc...

But in essence i am so far satisfied. And i already thought about reducing the profit ability for Laser Canon production, but this would require some time to figure out the correct values, which i do not have a t the moment. The maximal funding the player can recieve is already cut by 50% so you will never be able to finance yourself completly by the funding (with country loses from infiltrations this factor gets even more increased).

Feel free to try out the Mod and let my now your experience, but play un Superhuman , otherwise thing might by out of balance.

EDIT:
The economy will change greatly, once the additional vanilla missions i am using right now, will be replaced by the special missions from Hobbes, since there will be much less loot compared to the vanilla missions, since those spawn a lot of UFO's, which would not happen any more, at least not in that degree.
I hope that overall i designed a Mod that will satisfy even experienced players to some degree and maybe i was able to make the lategame a little bit more interesting.
I am planning to increase the amount of points the aliens can get from Mission they perform and also give them points for missions which at the moment do not give them points (like Supply and Research missions for example). So the aliens will generate more Points then in vanilla, lowering the score of the player at least somehow.

[hellrazor]

Honestly, i never thought this coming,
but i was awarded, by someone on the IRC with this:



After the person had looked upon the different unit stats in my Mod.
Should i feel honored or ashamed, i do not know

[nadir-1648]

As the unofficial Vlad Awards arbitrator, I'm gonna say that you should be very, very ashamed of yourself you horrible monster. Keep up the good work, the mod lives up to its name

[hellrazor]

As the unofficial Vlad Awards arbitrator, I'm gonna say that you should be very, very ashamed of yourself you horrible monster. Keep up the good work, the mod lives up to its name

What do you expect from someone calling himself "hellrazor" ?
Anyway back to business, i hope that sooner or later some change suggestions will arrive from people currently playing 0.94 Version, or some kind of feedback.
I also appreciate rage rants, because i then know i did it right, right? Ok enraging people should not be the goal i know...

[pWWWa]

to hellrazor: Hit animation for knifes: