[WIP] Chiko's Alternate Xcom

[Daiky]

don't forget to create an ufopaedia article for it (hi-res image + stats), a bigger image for inventory view and an image for the item on the ground

[moriarty]

I guess the inventory item would be the one made by Chiko. hi-res image... uh... okay... I'll see what I can do...

stats and fluff text should be done by Daiky he's the inventor, after all

[luke83]

Thats a nice looking knife, Did you work out which sprite image is what or did you cheat?

[moriarty]

I kinda worked it out. I'll post it in your old thread right now

EDIT: just for reference, that's https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,426.0.html

[moriarty]

sooo, with my newly-made soldier composites, I re-checked the DaiChi Blade^(tm) and found that I had previously used the wrong arms for placement reference in two of the rotations. here's the updated version (still have to check if it works well with the other soldier sprites):

[moriarty]

I'm done checking with the other armor types, found another wrong-arm-incident, did some minor pixel changes, so I hope that this is the final version. 

As for the UFOpaedia image, Chiko's original picture should be fine for that. My rough draft for the text follows:

-----begin UFOpaedia text-----
This knife is built for close combat. Using its hardened edge and point, a trained field operative can silently kill a lightly-armored enemy with a single slash or thrust.
----- end UFOpaedia text -----

that being said, would it be possible to have different chances for reaction-fire, depending on the weapon used? not reaction fire by the attacked unit, but by onlooking aliens, of course. It would be nice to truly make this a "silent" weapon, perhaps drastically decreasing the chance for reaction fire unless the nearby alien is looking directly at the knife-wielder.

[Chiko]

here's my version of the stun grenade. I'm not sure about the "stun gas" thing, because I don't remember reading anything about it being a gas. if it was a gas, why did it stun sectopods and cyberdiscs? and why did it use elerium? why wasn't there a lingering effect (like purple stun-smoke)? I always think of it as some kind of neural disruption effect, which would also affect the cybernetics of the advanced cybernetic terror units, but not the simple x-com tanks.

so I think the stun grenade should be more like a stun bomb with a direct fuse:

About sectopods and cyberdiscs... one of the new weapon types I had in mind was EM Weapons. Those would be effective weapons against anything but really effective against robot-type enemies, causing no physical damage to them = Stun

[moriarty]

Chiko, which graphics program do you use? I'm having a little trouble and maybe you could help me.

I was trying to convert your laser rifle into a .bmp to push it to the "bigobs.pck" (so I could try it out in the game).

unfortunately, when I try to convert the image into one with the proper color palette, it gets all screwed up, because GIMP only supports a very simple method by which it tries to find the nearest color for a given one... the result is attached.

Just in case you use GIMP too, I've attached an exported palette file for the bigobs.pck file... the red tones available are a little bit different, but usable (and it simply won't work with others anyway). do you have an easy way of converting your files so that they match the palette?

[moriarty]

sooo... that was a bit tricky, but I learned a few things. here's the beta version of Chiko's Laser Weapons!

Chiko, please tell me what you think of them! I decreased the laser rifle's width by 1 pixel, I thought it looked too bulky - too much like the heavy laser.
as for the colors: because of the palette that xcom uses, the reds are a bit stronger.

converting them to the xcom colors was actually quite difficult, I had to separate the graphics into the greyscale parts and the red parts, turn everything greyscale, apply xcom palette, then re-colorize the red parts by changing the hue... not at all easy. if you have a program that handles this easier, please let me know

If you want to try the weapons, head over to luke's site... I've uploaded complete .pck files for easy use.

[Yankes]

this look great

[Chiko]

Nice job converting the sprites. I always had problems with color palettes and stuff. Also, the laser rifle width looks fine to me. Laser Rifle and Heavy Laser I made do look like the same.

Also, the pic editing program I use is really old. It's Paint Shop Pro 7. I'm too used to it to upgrade to something better.

[moriarty]

Hooray for PSP7! I've been using that one for ages

Then one day I discovered the GIMP, and decided to go legit

Really, the transition was a bit difficult at first, but it does everything and more. You should really try it... I could give you some hints on how to do stuff

I'm kind of relieved that you don't hate me for changing what I changed it's your "babies", after all.

Do you have a favorite new weapon you would like me to try next? 

[Amunak]

Do you have a favorite new weapon you would like me to try next? 

Well I think that everyone loves Blaster Launchers. And kittens.

[moriarty]

would you really want me to make a nyan nyan launcher? 

[Amunak]

Nyan launchers?
Exactly!