UFO upgrades

[luke83]

by all means, try any ufo or even a house block , the basics are the same no matter which mapblock you try to MOD. Also i suggest , you watch the youtube videos if you have not already to give you a better feel of how everything works. To me, designing the map block is the fun bit, settup up the spawn/movement nodes , not so much fun

[Aldorn]

I do not know exactly when, but I will try to get some super powers and become a "Spawnerman"
For the moment, I would want to try new features and rulesets possibilities, but I would be honored to help you if possible, perhaps in discharging you of spawning task so that you can concentrate your efforts on designing.

[Aldorn]

If anyone would have some documentation about spawn nodes, I would be glad to have it...
For example :
- use of "Flags" attribute
- use of "Spawn" attribute in case of value different from 0 or 1
- an accurate definition (impacts) of Rank value "0:Civ/Scout"

[Warboy1982]

detailed documentation available here:
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=ROUTES.DAT

flags: higher number = higher priority target for aliens (only comes into effect during base defense missions), otherwise used for priority of patrol destinations.
spawn attribute: some kind of probability of a unit spawning there? not sure myself tbh.
rank value 0: on ufo recovery missions, a certain percentage of aliens will be designated as "scouts", spawning outside and patrolling outside, in terror missions, these nodes are used by civilians.

[luke83]

Understanding of what everything does it still speculative on some of those functions as remember the game was not released with MOD tools, Fans have been building them with no guidance. The Most experienced MOdders ( Zombie ,bombloke or Hobbs) would be the best people to direct some questions at as they have been modding this game for years, most of them live on stratergycore site.

My advice is , do one map how you think it should be, load it into Openxcom and test it. You can view the entire map by pressing "D" ( from memory) as long as you have debug mode active in the config. That way you can quickly check no one is spawning inside a wall and none of my tiles are placed wrong. The Node placement and Linking them together is what takes so long to do, fixing a few Flags is still quiet fast should you do something wrong.

I may not know what every flag does, but the maps Spawn aliens each time in different locations and they still try to kill my agents......As such i am happy

[moriarty]

(actually debug hotkey has been changed to... CTRL-d or something? I can't find the forum post right now. I think you also need to activate debug mode in the config file.)

[luke83]

Gosh , it must of been a while since my last UFo update then 

[wsmithjr]

Recently found Openxcom and the various mods.  Very interested in the new ships.  I've copied all the files from the mod into their respective folders.  However, when I run the game, after selecting "New Game", it crashes with the message:  yaml-cpp: error at line 4707, column 9: key not found: inDogFight

I've made no other changes to the files and without the mod files, it runs correctly.  Thanks for any help.

[luke83]

Are you creating your own Ruleset ? The one i included in the uplaoded files is very old, you will need to manually add the differnt UFO names into the ruleset, Honestly its been that long since i have played OXC i dont know everything that has changed.

If you want , post a upload of the Ruleset your using, maybe i can find time to to update some of these old Mods.


******UPDATE******

There is a NEW RULESET that i just tested been added into the UFO download file on the MOD SITE : HERE IS A LINK
openxcommods.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/8/4/11849982/lukes83_expanded_ufos_v0.4a.zip

[54x]

Shouldn't you just be able to use the changed data now, and add the extra ruleset to your userconfig file?

That would mean it would stay compatible each time the base ruleset file is updated.

I've attached an example ruleset, although essentially the work is just deleting all data that isn't under the heading "ufos:". (I had to add a .txt to the end so the board accepted the file, just delete the extra extension)

That reminds me... we need a UI for adding additional rulesets ingame if we're going to use them for all of the softcoded changes.

[pmprog]

That reminds me... we need a UI for adding additional rulesets ingame if we're going to use them for all of the softcoded changes.

It's been discussed, my suggestion was a lot more integrated, but certainly for an opener adding something where you can just activate/deactivate mods that are already installed would be pretty neat.

https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,1317.msg11952.html#msg11952

I might see if I can have a stab at something later

[54x]

It's been discussed, my suggestion was a lot more integrated, but certainly for an opener adding something where you can just activate/deactivate mods that are already installed would be pretty neat.

https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,1317.msg11952.html#msg11952

I might see if I can have a stab at something later

Well, having a ruleset downloaded and having it enabled are two different things. Having the advanced options screen scan for additional rulesets and allow you to turn them on and off would be brilliant.

[moriarty]

luke, in your expanded UFO mod there are two files that overwrite original files. I don't know what they do, but do you think it would be possible to "externalize" them, too? so that the original data stays intact, but the updated versions are used, sitting in the resources folder instead? or is that a job for our programming team, to allow externalization of these files?

[luke83]

From memory, i added some info to the Original data files also as i always intended these to simply be a Replacement of Original UFO ( the original SHAPE UFOs are included so why would you need to turn these OFF ever) i need to confirm this! Undoing any possible change may require re-working the entire set ( and for me, under current time restictions, that is personally undesirable).

If you want to make it interchangeable , just changes the names to something else on the MCD sets and in the Rulesets, then original data stays intack and My data does not need to be re-done.

54X : Last time i tried the Extra Ruleset option it was still very new and full of Bugs, I have not even played OXC in over 6 months and just wanted to make sure it still worked. I was goign to try to find time to work on the Next set of UFO's this weekend as i just need to do the SPawnpoints , then i will make a NEW update, i may finish these this week or in 2 months , i make no promises.

Moriarty: By Externalise , what do you mean ( sorry i have been out of the loop for so long) When i started this project, only original map formats were possible, so my mods had to fall within these rules, if their is new options now i dont have a working understanding of them  

Its not that i mean to be SLACK and not support my creations , time currently is very scares and i would welcome any help in Updating my current Mods lists or creating NEW MOD videos to go on YouTube.


***update***

I dont think i did change anything in EXT_02 , i think i have just copied it over by accident , It is the File "U_Disec3" file i was thinking off , but it has a different name as the original version of this is "U_DISEC2" so there should be no issue switch beteen my COOL mods and the boring originals

Also, i have just set up my MOD tools again in a new VM so it should be easier for me to do some here and there

[wsmithjr]

There is a NEW RULESET that i just tested been added into the UFO download file on the MOD SITE : HERE IS A LINK
openxcommods.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/8/4/11849982/lukes83_expanded_ufos_v0.4a.zip

Thanks.  That's very helpful and I had fun playing my first new ship.  Just finding Openxcom, I don't know anything about creating my own ruleset.  Probably should start figuring it out, though.