[OLD] Old OXCE+ discussion thread

[yrizoud]

- Todo: in debug-mode only: show a history of all melee and ranged attacks (ignore grenades?) for the current turn with "chance to hit %" and result (hit or miss, resp. multiple hits/misses)

There's quite a lot of info, you may want to log it to file instead. If different functions have to log things separately, it should look like :
Turn 4: XCOM soldier John Doe at 3,4,0 aiming at Alien#1654 at 6,12,0 - Final chance 66% - Success - Deviation -0.45°,+0.07° - Hit unit at 3,9,0 (XCOM soldier Moe)
Turn 4: XCOM soldier John Doe takes damage - Roll 68 of [0-68] - PIERCING damage inflicted 56

[Meridian]

I actually don't want everything, for that I have debug mode in Visual Studio.

I want this as "last resort" for the player... often I find myself in a situation, when I really cannot tell, if the bullet hit or not... and sometimes it is totally confusing.
For example, recently I found out, that shooting from a bow on distance 1 (diagonally) misses a lot... and there's no way to tell.
In such situation, I would like to be able to see wtf is going on...

[yrizoud]

It's your call of course. It's just that this feature reminded me a recent discussion about suspicious trajectory choices from the game engine; and detailed damage stats can also be useful to determine if there's a series of bad luck rolls or game imbalance (*cough* unkillable spartans *cough*).

[Dioxine]

I assume you will need more than one flag? For different categorizations?
If yes, I will actually try to encode multiple boolean flags into one integer attribute (SO OLD-SCHOOL! )... don't worry, it's easier to understand than it looks.

Well, you can go to Mars without any armor already.
Are we talking on theoretical level or is "Xcom Files" a hybrid game?

Well, if you don't have that armor when you leave the base, I cannot magically summon it. (I could... but I won't)
I can make the soldiers sit in the craft, not fighting.... but the player who doesn't know this will just lose the mission immediately (before turn 1), because there will be no soldiers capable of fighting.
All in all, I think this is overengineering... and again same question... is this just a theoretical discussion or are you doing a hybrid game?

I'd welcome such a mechanic as well. As for magically summoning armor - absolutely. But not from the base, from thin air instead (and erasing it after a mission). It should be modder's responsibility to make it logical, eg. making a default costless armor for each of enviros he intends on using. If you're using enviros, you need to make specific default armors as well, this sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
I'd prefer armor change over forcing non-participation. For example, the default armor for Mars could be a jumpsuit which makes you suffocate in a matter of a few turns
This can be also used to simulate any kind of enviro. Although separate enviro conditions (eg. "everyone on this map takes 5-10 damage from Smoke towards HP, each turn") would be very cool too.
Integer attribute sounds perfect.

[Bloax]

This can be also used to simulate any kind of enviro. Although separate enviro conditions (eg. "everyone on this map takes 5-10 damage from Smoke towards HP, each turn") would be very cool too.

Oh right, that reminds me of the one central environment thing that XCOM1 doesn't have. Weather.

Though that's probably too much to ask for, but it sure would be wonderful to have environmental effects (especially visual!) like that.

[Solarius Scorch]

Oh right, that reminds me of the one central environment thing that XCOM1 doesn't have. Weather.

I think it deserves its own discussion thread at the very least.

I'm surprised it hasn't been made yet (at least I can't find anything).

[Dioxine]

Enviro effects, including weather, are my dream. Just one variable (light level) isn't really enough. Sun Tzu said a commander needs to know earth and air. We have Earth (terrain) but very little Air (weather).

[Bloax]

The problem is just that it would require translucency support (for shit like fog/snow drifts) which iOXC doesn't have. :^D

[Dioxine]

Meh you can do rain with an animated picture transimposed over the battle view, using paralax to denote it falls from the sky. Fog would be just sort of smoke filling the whole map.

[Bloax]

Decent-looking fog can't be done without translucency.

and even then that's a half-assed example since i'm not the best at drawing things like this and especially not quickly for lazy demonstrations

[Yankes]

Weather will be available at some point in extended version. This is only matter of placing script in correct places. like for each tile draw custom graphic. This will allow creating rain. Next, when calculating accuracy you will be able to take count of what weather is (for script perspective you will examine custom property of battle map that you can set on whim any value you want). This will allow changing unit graphic too. If you could check if you are on cydonia then switch to torso with helmet (that currently is possible by abusing depth in battlefield, but you can apply it to hands and legs too).

Btw in OXC is possible to have pseudo transparency, but because how engine handle drawing order is impossible to have it bug less. Some fast examples from 2.9

[Solarius Scorch]

OK, it doesn't look natural, but it's damn awesome.

[sambojin]

Decent-looking fog can't be done without translucency.

and even then that's a half-assed example since i'm not the best at drawing things like this and especially not quickly for lazy demonstrations

Is that due to static smoke though? Fog might be kind of easy with a few frames of animation to work with. Not good, but easy. Transparency would be fantastic though, with or without animation frames.

@Meridian. Multiple booleans in an integer? Are you just talking about bit-mapping something to the value? (not graphics bitmapping, but I think I know what you're saying. Might need commenting so people know the basic system though. 1+2+4+8+16+32+64+128 for all flags=true in an 8-bit map. Eight booleans offer plenty of options for virtually any mod, but it only takes a byte of data for all 8 flags.)

[Dioxine]

Decent-looking fog can't be done without translucency.

Meh. You obviously don't remember 1990s. I agree it's not pretty without transparency, but if we were afraid of brick-sized pixels, we wouldn't be here...
Another option for fog or similar stuff would be using palette swap, eg. with every color bleached.

[sambojin]

I *like* 320x200x256c. It makes the best graphics. Probably fog too



On the 8-bit map thing, just for more explanation.

(remember that it goes 1+2+4+8+16+32+64+128, with each of them as a boolean "flag", added together for the value)

A value of:

129 means boolean 1 and 8 flags are true.

71 means boolean 1, 2, 3 and 7 flags are true.

24 means boolean 4 and 5 flags are true.

25 means boolean 1, 4 and 5 flags are true.


Is this what you're going for Meridian? Admittedly, even the most ambitious of mods will probably only ever use bits 1-5 at most, but we didn't design computers. 8-bit maps are where it's at.....