[OLD] Old OXCE+ discussion thread

[liamdawe]

I've tried out the Linux executable on Ubuntu 16.04, but it complains about a missing libSDL1.2 even though I have it installed. Is it possible it's looking in the wrong location?

[Solarius Scorch]

https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,3626.msg62363.html#msg62363

Could be a bug, could be incorrect installation, but I thought I'd let you know.

EDIT:

Another idea: continuous research. A research mechanics that would work like this:
- You add a continuousResearch flag to a research.
- After it is researched, you can researched it again.
- If researched again, the game removes it from researched: section and then adds it again.
- You can repeat it indefinitely.

Why?
Intelligence projects.
You have a research called, say, "track hybrid convoy", enabled by some other research related to hybrids. When researched, it spawns a mission with hybrid convoys appearing on the globe. It represents the effort of acquiring intelligence data to catch the hybrids in the act. But then you can do it again, to spawn another hybrid mission, and so on.

I'm not sure about the mechanics of research project disappearing, but I'm sure you all get the idea.

Maybe it could be considered as part of the "mutually exclusive researches" request?

[Meridian]

So the only point of this research topic is to spawn alien missions at will?

You're really going too far with this I think...
The players will have big problems understanding these weird manufacturing and research mechanics if you keep misusing them like this.

I'll put it on the list, it's not hard to do... just saying things like this may discourage people (including myself) from playing your mod at all. It's similar to Dioxine's "you need to manufacture dynamite/pillow book/etc. to be able to research it"... it is possible to explain it and it may even make sense afterwards... but most people just say WTF?! and stop caring, or worse stop playing... because it is not intuitive and not consistent.

[Solarius Scorch]

So the only point of this research topic is to spawn alien missions at will?

You're really going too far with this I think...
The players will have big problems understanding these weird manufacturing and research mechanics if you keep misusing them like this.

I'll put it on the list, it's not hard to do... just saying things like this may discourage people (including myself) from playing your mod at all. It's similar to Dioxine's "you need to manufacture dynamite/pillow book/etc. to be able to research it"... it is possible to explain it and it may even make sense afterwards... but most people just say WTF?! and stop caring, or worse stop playing... because it is not intuitive and not consistent.

Yeah, you are right... Point taken. I thought that naming the research "Scan for hybrid convoys" and adding a respective Ufopaedia page saying "we've located it, research again to locate more" would suffice, but then I realized that you can't have a respective Ufopaedia page, because it wouldn't make sense for it to stuck in the Ufopaedia section. Maybe something else can be devised.
But the exclusive research request definitely stands; I don't really need it myself, at least not at this point, but I know the X-Piratez mod does.

[Dioxine]

While I think such an 'endless research' mechanic is needless, I need to comment on this whole 'intuitive' thing. In a game, intuitive leads to boring. There's no exhilaration of connecting the dots and making a discovery; sure, it can be too hard, but I don't think it's the case with Piratez. Yeah maybe a player ragequits just because he was missing what was in front of his eyes, but that's all the better - why should I care about someone looking for an easy pleasure? If he can't figure it out in-game and get the highest prize of shouting 'Eureka!' (or laughing manically), there is always looking up a walkthrough (rulesets, online Pedia). If that's still too much, such a person is clearly someone who should've never start playing this mod.
Intuitive is of paramount importance in utility software, not in a game - a game is often a riddle. You're lucky I don't like riddles all that much

[Meridian]

Yes, there were times when "Rubber Chicken With A Pulley In The Middle" (tm) was a challenge, not a nuisance.

I guess I got old

[Dioxine]

Puhleeeease. De gustibus non disputandum, but I was rather thinking about:

[mk-fg]

I wonder, are there any plans/ideas wrt phasing-out items that are no longer relevant as the game progresses?

E.g. have some "don't ever show me this in any of the lists" key that would, when pressed on item (e.g. in "vaults" tab):

- Sell all current stockpiles of an item.
- Remove item from all equipment and buy/sell lists.
- Will keep item listed in "loot" tab, but will auto-sell all new instances of it.
- Maybe keep item in the "vaults" list, so that same key can be used there to un-blacklist item.

Maybe my quirk, but I've found that going through most equipment lists becomes rather tedious chore fast, listing every tiny revolver and dagger there.
Such thing seem to be somewhat orthogonal to existing "categories" concept, unfortunately, as it'd affect all of them.

Maybe there's something like that in place already?

[legionof1]

There was a mention someplace here in the board about setting up things to sell from the post mission loot screen. Perhaps that's where something like these cutoffs could be. Vaults are unaffected but no more umpteen pistols to deal with.

[Dioxine]

That's a lot of fuss over nothing IMO. But Meridian's code allows multiple categories per item (hell yes!). I will try make the categories (hopefully) helpful, such as 'select tier 2+ guns only', 'select tier 3+ guns only' etc. to alleviate the problem. I usually simply build more vaults/take more slaves and clear useless stuff only when I feel like doing so.

[Solarius Scorch]

That's a lot of fuss over nothing IMO. But Meridian's code allows multiple categories per item (hell yes!). I will try make the categories (hopefully) helpful, such as 'select tier 2+ guns only', 'select tier 3+ guns only' etc. to alleviate the problem. I usually simply build more vaults/take more slaves and clear useless stuff only when I feel like doing so.

Do you mean using item categories as a starting loadout criteria? Because I was thinking about exactly the same thing last night. A mission which only allows items with STR_PISTOLS tag or something like that. (With all current mechanics intact, so you can for example exclude Magnum because it's too big or whatever.)

[mk-fg]

I meant auto-selling as a way to get rid of the invisible things, the main point being clearing up buy/sell/manufacture lists, of course.
Guess one way to do that with categories would be to simply edit the yaml and have all this stuff neatly split from the rest there, so indeed, maybe easy enough already... just gotta look into how categories work more closely.

[Dioxine]

Check out how do they work now and propose some improvements maybe? An item can belong to any number of categories. The categories only work for equipment screen, but they should be improved to cover buy/sell/vaults menus as well. Option to sort alphabetically would also help...

Another minor request, this time with memorial screen... Would it be possible (as an optional soldier race parameter) to set a default armor that is given to anyone who died, replacing whatever the soldier was wearing (which got destroyed or looted anyway...)? It would make checking and comparing their stats easier if all were buried in the same armor. Also I think that if said armor was boosting Psi Skill by any number, you'd learn their Psi Power (post-mortem) as well.

[Arthanor]

Just dropping this by in case you would like to include the advanced scanner in your executable. It's not much work and no doubt it'd be easy for you, but since I did it I figured I'd share it too. This is a patch file that goes from the 70dc234e0134d971471d119bd4c2cdaa449fa8e2 commit on April 15th in your repo.

It adds the advanced scanner, enabled as an advanced option in the battlescape section.

Patch and screenshot within Piratez attached below. I'm thinking the "scan" is not necessary since I picked the yellow box, but I haven't decided to remove it yet since I haven't played with it much so far.

[Dioxine]

Makes sense as an advanced scanner ...IF the range of scan would be customizable. Can make for an extremely OP item, though.