[OLD] Old OXCE+ discussion thread

[clownagent]

With the newest version I received an error message on mission start (see screenshot).

The log file showed:

[31-12-2016_17-22-36]   [INFO]   Bad node in RMP file: ROUTES/FLYER-05.RMP Node #22 is outside map boundaries at X:9 Y:20 Z:3. Culling Node.
(it is an original TFTD file)

In map view I could not find this node to repair it.

Is there any possibilty to fix the bad node without making a completely new route file?

[Solarius Scorch]

In such cases I always scrap the .RMP file completely and make a new one from scratch... It's very little work, and TFTD routemaps are horrible anyway.

[Meridian]

This will make capturing a coordinator a lot easier. Was that a conscious decision which came up in your discussion?

Yes, it has been discussed.
Btw. there is even an extra mod for that in the official delivery (the girl from mars sprite for SGC).

[Eddie]

Good job and thank you alot for the recent updates.

On alien Paperdolls: How about displaying also armor values and resistances when the related pedia article is unlocked? Name could also be unlocked by pedia article.

Some further ideas for the weapon damage display: In the CTRL+M Window, also display damage type. If too long, use abrreviation (prc for pirecing, pls for plasma, stn for stun). Display secondary damages (ToHealth, ToStun) as +x% dmg or stn. These numbers are kind of important for weapons which have high modifiers here like the ball bat or the poisoned knive.

So for the poisoned knive, the display would read: 20-40 cut +100% dmg  (cut for cutting damage)
Or pipe: 30-60 cnc +62,5% stn  (cnc for concussive damage)

I'm not sure about the "dmg" though. For the ballbat, that display could be misleading (20-40 stn + 75% dmg), in the way that people might think the +75% dmg is additional stun damage. Using "hp" instead looks like it would heal (+75% hp), and "hlt" for health is not intuitive enough.

[Meridian]

On alien Paperdolls: How about displaying also armor values and resistances when the related pedia article is unlocked?

M-click in next version.

Name could also be unlocked by pedia article.

Not everything has pedia articles... in vanilla basically nothing (e.g. there is no article for let's say Sectoid Medic).

Some further ideas for the weapon damage display: In the CTRL+M Window, also display damage type. If too long, use abrreviation (prc for pirecing, pls for plasma, stn for stun). Display secondary damages (ToHealth, ToStun) as +x% dmg or stn. These numbers are kind of important for weapons which have high modifiers here like the ball bat or the poisoned knive.

So for the poisoned knive, the display would read: 20-40 cut +100% dmg  (cut for cutting damage)
Or pipe: 30-60 cnc +62,5% stn  (cnc for concussive damage)

I'm not sure about the "dmg" though. For the ballbat, that display could be misleading (20-40 stn + 75% dmg), in the way that people might think the +75% dmg is additional stun damage. Using "hp" instead looks like it would heal (+75% hp), and "hlt" for health is not intuitive enough.

Certainly not there.
Most of it doesn't even belong to Pedia.
But there will be a "Stats for Nerds" button in the Pedia in the future, with all info from the ruleset.

Btw. it looks easy (even in your examples), but there are so many variables that it would become totally unreadable and potentially very very very very very long to display everything.

[Eddie]

Maybe some way to see if a unit is considered illuminated or in darkness, though? In Piratez this can be very hard to tell because there are some really weak light sources (looking at you, Boomfruit), yet for spotting purposes the engine only distinguishes between "fully illuminated" and "in complete darkness".

I would vote for having an illumination indicator. The most useful way would be like the nightvision color change at the press of a button, but only for illuminated tiles that you can see. This is kind of counter intuitive as you should see illuminated tiles anyway, but that is not always the case depending on terrain. The problem here is not the light source but the palette of some terrains. See the attached picture. The selected girl, Lyrical Ox, is fully illuminated. The tile next to her is not. There is no graphic difference between the tiles, because the palette does not have enough colors to display it. The only way to know whether there is light on that tile or not is to look at the light source, guess what it's light radius is and then count tiles.

Counting tiles is not fun, but you have to do it from time to time. I do it in night missions, when I want to know if I'm far enough from the enemies or not. I would welcome an indicator for sight distance of enemies (if enemy is researched), because it would save me from counting tiles.
I have other distances that I sometimes would like to know (snapshot range for example). Maybe some kind of universal distance tool can be programmed to eliminate any form of tilecounting? Press button, then a popup window presents you some choices:
1. Show distance circle of [enter value] tiles around selected friendly unit
2. Show distance circle of [enter value] tiles around spotted enemy units
3. Show light radius of light sources
Another hotkey to display the last choice, so you don't always have to go through the choice menu.

[Meridian]

How do you know Lyrical Ox is fully illuminated? (my guess is she's not) ...and what is the light source?

[legionof1]

Yeah she counts as illuminated. The boom fruit in the trees to the right is the light source. The definition of illuminated as light level 9 is fine as an arbitrary dividing line between "day/night". However the engine can't make that apparent to the user on darker palettes because of number of color limitations.

[Meridian]

I see only black, no boom fruit... @Dioxine can you see anything / confirm / disprove?

How far from her is that boom fruit? How many tiles? Which direction?

And what is the deal with "darker palettes"? ? ? There is only ONE single battlescape palette in this game... I'm totally confused.

PS: do we have a save for this screenshot?

[legionof1]

True palette is not quite the correct term. What we are talking about in truth is how incremental lighting levels are handled on the very dark end of the pallet(blacks, greys, dark blues, ect). A single line shift of shade per light level is meaningless when the base color is already so dark as to render shades almost unnoticeable to human vision. Unless you sharply turn up the contrast and brightness of your monitor. Different monitor settings for a specific set of cases in a specific game is a pain in the ass for the end user.

Case in point most people can't see anything in the screenshot we are presently addressing. I only know the likely scenario and what to look for from personal experience with the problem.

As too specifics the boom fruits are 4-6 away. One almost directly right, the second a 2-3 tiles south and 1-2 right of the first. There may be more behind tree trunks that we cant see.

Boom fruits produce just barely sufficient light to illuminate a few squares around them above the lvl 9 threshold the game counts as day. The end result is a visual mismatch. The reality is that your gal can be seen at full daytime range but you can't make out what the hell shes wearing or wielding

[karadoc]

Based on that, it sounds like something should be changed...  here are some options which come to mind. (Maybe none of these are good options. I'm just throwing some ideas out there.)

• Increase the threshold for what counts as a 'light' tile, so that only tiles which are visibly illuminated count as being illuminated (eg. maybe 11 instead of 9 - or whatever).
• Adjust the darker tones of the palette to increase the contrast between level 8 and 9.
• Change the game mechanics so that there isn't a single threshold for visibility; and instead have the light level of darkness result in a smooth transition from night vision level to day vision levels. (eg. take a weighted average of a characters day vision and night vision, with weights based on the illumination level of the tile.)
• Have UI mechanism to easily check whether a tile is lit or not. (eg. show dark tiles in an obviously different colour when using the night-vision setting).

[Starving Poet]

It's the level 'shade' value that causes this problem.  I have this problem with the default shading of base assaults such that I literally can't see girls who aren't wearing armor.  I know they are meant to be moody, but I am, apparently, slightly color blind, because they all melt together.

I was thinking about karadocs number 3 last night -  it would require a total rework and would deviate from the original game, but - in my opinion - so does shading.

One way to do it would be to give each tile a visual range modifier based on whether the light is below the darkness threshold.  Negative for darkness, positive for light, capped at max view.   Now that we have the new light engine this would also allow us to have dark ufo interiors in the middle of the day.  What we would need, however, is a visual indicator of 'darkness' - and that can be solved with a literal fog - modified static smoke graphic.   

NV armor would then lower the penalty for the visual range modifier.

Take for example 40 day (max vision) and 9 NV.
A full dark tile would have a penalty of -4.5.  Which means at the 10 tile, the visibility value would be zero.

Sniper Armor would lower the penalty to -2 - giving us 20 tiles of NV.

[Meridian]

I am not gonna "rework" anything... I can already say that much.
I won't take the burden of maintaining/merging such big changes on my shoulders. (Not to mention I don't agree with those changes)

All I know is that in vanilla, we don't have any such problems.

Maybe, all this can be easily solved by using only "no light" and "bright-light"... I mean:
1. if boom fruit is not supposed to illuminate, then let it have no light
2. if boom fruit is supposed to illuminate, then let it have a light bright enough to actually illuminate... common sense, right?

I mean just think about it... we are trying to make a "light/illumination indicator" by using something else than "light/illumination"? That's really where my patience ends. Either use the light properly, or don't use it.

As for base defense, the maps worked fine before the new light engine which doesn't allow light/illumination to pass through walls.
If PirateZ wants to continue using the new light engine, it should add a ton of new light sources on the map, to achieve acceptable illumination levels... so far I have heard only complaints, and everyone is playing these missions with NV (because it's f*cking too dark)... which is not what we want! I mean, gals are working and living in those bases... there SHOULD be enough light, howgh.

Sometimes easy solutions are the best solutions. K.I.S.S.

[Dioxine]

Going from dynamic light to fog sounds like going backwards...

As for the boom fruits, their lighting adds to the atmosphere while increasing chaos. I can't see what's wrong with them. If you're unsure if you're illuminated or not, accomodate your tactics accordingly. Darkness usually favorizes you, so what's the problem?

Agreed about the base, needs a little more light, but reworking base tiles/maps isn't a work for a single day.

[Meridian]

As for the boom fruits, their lighting adds to the atmosphere while increasing chaos. I can't see what's wrong with them. If you're unsure if you're illuminated or not, accomodate your tactics accordingly. Darkness usually favorizes you, so what's the problem?

Great, I think that answers all the questions about that screenshot above... it works as intended.
More than fine with me... little chaos is always welcome.