[OLD] Old OXCE+ discussion thread

[Meridian]

By the way, can you tell me more about pilots? I always wanted to introduce pilots into the game, the destination of which is mandatory for ships (without them ships do not fly), who gain experience depending on the number of downed UFOs (give different bonuses to ships), that occupy space in residential modules, but do not participate in battles landing places on ships do not occupy. And as you have them implemented?

All of it is possible... except one: pilots are fighting battles too, they don't just stay in the cockpit and watch.
(You can leave them inside the craft if you wish though)

It is possible more in detail?

All pilot-related changes with screenshots, translations, ruleset examples and links to more description:

2016-08-15: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4187.msg69429.html#msg69429
 + Added Craft Pilots GUI
 + Rebalanced pilot bonuses
 + Pilot approach/disengage speed bonus (based on bravery)
 + Pilot dodge bonus (based on reactions)
 + Pilot accuracy bonus (based on firing accuracy)
 + Ability to exclude a soldier type from piloting a craft
 + Craft can now require pilots

2016-08-17: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4187.msg69668.html#msg69668
 + Added ability to select pilots from crew manually

2016-08-21: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4187.msg70108.html#msg70108
 + Added cockpit capacity to Craft Pedia articles
 + Added option to auto-assign pilots

2016-08-26: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4187.msg70569.html#msg70569
 + Pilots can gain experience from dogfights

2016-09-02: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4187.msg71245.html#msg71245
 + Improve pilots' morale by +10

2017-02-20: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4187.msg79505.html#msg79505
 - Craft's disengage speed based on its acceleration, not pilot's bravery (still applies only to piloted craft!)

2017-03-01: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4187.msg79935.html#msg79935
 - Direct link to craft screen from "Not enough pilots" popup
 - Unhardcoded all pilot-related constants

[Ethereal]

Clearly understood. Thank you. Tell me - how to disable the ship from the possibility of landing missions? And at the same time bind them to STR_PILOT? This is to equip the interceptors with pilots.

[Meridian]

Clearly understood. Thank you. Tell me - how to disable the ship from the possibility of landing missions?

You can use "starting conditions": https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4444.msg61196.html#msg61196

And at the same time bind them to STR_PILOT? This is to equip the interceptors with pilots.

I don't understand what you're saying here.

[Neo23]

He means to use pilots for interceptors, but disallowing these ships for mission landing. This was something that bothered me too. I do not want do design maps for all crafts, especially interceptors, but be able to use pilots on all of them. Is excluding the craft from the mission type the only way to disallow a piloted craft to land on missions? Maybe a boolean option in crafts.rul would be better. Like: allowLanding: false

P.S. Thanks for a new version released.

P.S.S. Do you sill consider implementing some of my feature ideas on post 1230? Just asking, if not it is ok, just wanted to know. Hope dies the last.

[Meridian]

He means to use pilots for interceptors, but disallowing these ships for mission landing. This was something that bothered me too. I do not want do design maps for all crafts, especially interceptors, but be able to use pilots on all of them. Is excluding the craft from the mission type the only way to disallow a piloted craft to land on missions? Maybe a boolean option in crafts.rul would be better. Like: allowLanding: false

Currently not possible, but I can easily add it.

P.S.S. Do you sill consider implementing some of my feature ideas on post 1230? Just asking, if not it is ok, just wanted to know. Hope dies the last.

Can you please link it? I don't know which post is post 1230.

[Neo23]

Sure. I can not find the code to link a specific post, so I quote myself. (page 83, first post)

Meridian, maybe you like some new features I was thinking about and can add them to OXCE+.

1. Definable sounds for events on geoscape. Would be nice to add a sound effect on UFO detection like in the intro cutscene "Warning, warning... UFO detected!".
Play definable sounds for events which may be nice to have:
- UFO detected
- Research complete
- Production complete (workshop and facilities separate)
- Goods have arrived
- Mission event alert, like terror missions (be able to give every different mission type its own sound would be cool)

Most could be achieved through custom vars like "Event_SFX_UFO: 154" and missions get something like "BriefingAlertSound: 155" in alienDeployments.
undefined = feature deactivated/unused


2. Some menu backgrounds are still not moddable via ruleset and you need to replace original graphics files. And it always bothers me that the HWP ufopedia background can not be customised. I would really like to make proper backgrounds for every tank, my doggies and other units. Adding  "image_id: SOMEHWPBACKGROUND_CPAL.SPK" support for this kind of pedia entries (type 3) would be cool.


3. Is there a hidden option to disable the "move base facilities around" feature? I like nearly everything in OXCE and OXCE+, but this is to cheaty for me. Moving underground facilities without costs or time consumption around is not very realistic and make proper base planing redundant. I think a user option for this feature, like the tech-tree viewer got, would be good (if there isn't already one).


4. The mission briefing music play most of the time only for 2-4 seconds until you hit OK. This is a little sad, especially with custom music. Would be cool if the briefing music would continue playing until you have equip your soldiers and start the mission. As optional feature of course.

In the beginning there were some misunderstandings. The following posts clarified them.

[Meridian]

1 and 2 are on my todo list.
3 is not.
4 is, but not sure if doable (without changing too much).

I am not very active right now... it might take a while to implement it.

[ohartenstein23]

Number 3 is a matter of personal willpower

On my list of things I want to code up, I have notes for letting the player build on top of certain facilities for decreased build time and cost, and letting facilities leave behind others when sold, such as having a simple corridor left over when removing most facilities.  I believe this would give some nice incentive for moving facilities around without using the OXCE+ special option.

[Solarius Scorch]

Currently not possible, but I can easily add it.

That would be much appreciated. I want pilots, but many of my crafts are strictly interceptors, so no point in allowing them to land. Also I don't feel like making all these maps.

[Ethereal]

Can they be virtualized as engineers and scientists? Participation of pilots of transport ships in battles is also not very correct.

[ohartenstein23]

Can they be virtualized as engineers and scientists? Participation of pilots of transport ships in battles is also not very correct.

I can already assure you that Meridian will reject this idea; code-wise pilots (soldiers) are much too different from scientists/engineers (they are treated like items by the code) for pilots to act as either of those. It would require a great deal of change to make this happen in any capacity, a rewrite that none of the OXCE/OXCE+ contributors are ever likely to do. Sorry, but no dice there.

[Ethereal]

I can already assure you that Meridian will reject this idea; code-wise pilots (soldiers) are much too different from scientists/engineers (they are treated like items by the code) for pilots to act as either of those. It would require a great deal of change to make this happen in any capacity, a rewrite that none of the OXCE/OXCE+ contributors are ever likely to do. Sorry, but no dice there.

Well, then can they make them non-participating in combat? Then it would be possible to increase the seats on the vehicles, according to the number of pilots, without the danger of game errors.

[Neo23]

1 and 2 are on my todo list.
3 is not.
4 is, but not sure if doable (without changing too much).

I am not very active right now... it might take a while to implement it.

Thank you, I am very happy to hear that. And do not worry, just take your time.

That would be much appreciated. I want pilots, but many of my crafts are strictly interceptors, so no point in allowing them to land. Also I don't feel like making all these maps.

+1 I would like that feature too.

[ohartenstein23]

Well, then can they make them non-participating in combat? Then it would be possible to increase the seats on the vehicles, according to the number of pilots, without the danger of game errors.

There is already a way to do this: if the number of defined xcom spawn points is less than the number of soldiers on the craft, the last few soldiers don't show up in battle. There's also an OXCE+ option to make pilots taken from the bottom of the soldier list.

[Ethereal]

There is already a way to do this: if the number of defined xcom spawn points is less than the number of soldiers on the craft, the last few soldiers don't show up in battle. There's also an OXCE+ option to make pilots taken from the bottom of the soldier list.

However, excessive crew members, and especially tanks, that do not appear on the battlefield, often disappear altogether.

I address my idea more specifically.
In the "soldiers.rul", "STR_PILOT" is created - the only one from the whole list of soldiers who can control the ships. The rest are all "allowPiloting: false". The "STR_PILOT" itself needs a function like "allowCombatMission: false".