Author Topic: [DONE] [Suggestion] Soldier's nationality  (Read 21492 times)

Offline g5-freemen

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Re: Soldier's nationality
« Reply #15 on: April 11, 2016, 11:25:33 am »
Meridian
Maybe you can also add flag to the inventory screen before soldier's name?

and maybe better to add some border around flag, because sometimes it looks not good - flag color is the same as name string color
« Last Edit: April 11, 2016, 11:32:48 am by g5-freemen »

Offline yrizoud

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Re: Soldier's nationality
« Reply #16 on: April 11, 2016, 01:15:38 pm »
The issue with this belgian flag is that the black strip is color zero, and zero counts as transparent.
Need to modify the image to use color 15 instead.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Soldier's nationality
« Reply #17 on: December 17, 2016, 04:29:32 pm »
I have a question regarding new nationalities. I want to add some more countries, because several major players are missing - for example Brazil, Canada, Iran.

Let's say I want to add Canada. Making a Canadian.nam file is obvious, but then what should I do with the flag?
The number of the flag corresponds to *.nam file alphabetical order, and Canadian.nam would go between Bulgarian.nam and Chinese.nam. This would mean that all flags starting from China will be mismatched.

Solution 1: call the new file ZZZ_Canadian.nam, to make sure it's the last one. But it's so dirty that I really don't want to do that.

Solution 2: manually change all affected flag numbers by +1. A better solution, though it seems kinda stupid.

Is there another way?

Offline Meridian

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Re: Soldier's nationality
« Reply #18 on: December 17, 2016, 04:35:08 pm »
I'm not aware of any other solution.
I would go for #2.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Soldier's nationality
« Reply #19 on: December 17, 2016, 05:16:44 pm »
I'm not aware of any other solution.
I would go for #2.

Understood, thank you.


EDIT: I really don't understand how this works...

In my XComFiles folder I made a folder named SoldierName. It contains all the .nam files, including the new one, Canadian.nam; 34 files in total.

Under
Code: [Select]
  - type: STR_SOLDIER
Code: [Select]
there is:
    soldierNames:
      - SoldierName/

So far, so good.

In extraSprites I have all flags defined:

Code: [Select]
  - type: Flag0
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/00-USA.png
  - type: Flag1
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/01-Egypt.png
  - type: Flag2
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/02-Belgium.png
  - type: Flag3
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/03-UK.png
  - type: Flag4
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/04-Bulgaria.png
  - type: Flag5
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/05-Canada.png
  - type: Flag6
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/06-China.png
  - type: Flag7
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/07-Congo.png
  - type: Flag8
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/08-Czechia.png
  - type: Flag9
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/09-Denmark.png
  - type: Flag10
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/10-Netherlands.png
  - type: Flag11
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/11-Ethiopia.png
  - type: Flag12
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/12-Finland.png
  - type: Flag13
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/13-France.png
  - type: Flag14
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/14-Germany.png
  - type: Flag15
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/15-Greece.png
  - type: Flag16
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/16-India.png
  - type: Flag17
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/17-Hungary.png
  - type: Flag18
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/18-Ireland.png
  - type: Flag19
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/19-Italy.png
  - type: Flag20
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/20-Japan.png
  - type: Flag21
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/21-Kenya.png
  - type: Flag22
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/22-SouthKorea.png
  - type: Flag23
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/23-Nigeria.png
  - type: Flag24
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/24-Norway.png
  - type: Flag25
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/25-Poland.png
  - type: Flag26
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/26-NewZealand.png
  - type: Flag27
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/27-Portugal.png
  - type: Flag28
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/28-Romania.png
  - type: Flag29
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/29-Russia.png
  - type: Flag30
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/30-Slovakia.png
  - type: Flag31
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/31-Spain.png
  - type: Flag32
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/32-Sweden.png
  - type: Flag33
    singleImage: true
    files:
      0: Resources/Flags/33-Turkey.png

I start a new game, order 50 agents to test.

So far, so good. But in many cases the soldiers have no flag whatsoever. I'm not even sure how it is determined...

Offline Meridian

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Re: Soldier's nationality
« Reply #20 on: December 17, 2016, 05:24:44 pm »
What numbers do the soldiers without a flag have in the "nationality" attribute?

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Soldier's nationality
« Reply #21 on: December 19, 2016, 12:49:34 am »
What numbers do the soldiers without a flag have in the "nationality" attribute?

Never mind, I solved it:

Code: [Select]
    soldierNames:
      - delete
      - SoldierName/

Apparently it was adding soldierNames from the mod with the original soldierNames. After I removed the latter, it works fine.


EDIT:

I was wondering if I should make a new thread, but this is appropriate enough.

I realized it's an elephant in the room, but can we somehow have weighs for countries? Right now, a new recruit has the same chance of being an American or a Bulgarian. While I have no doubt that there are many brave Bulgarians who are eager to protect the Earth, I think there are still more Americans or Russians, because the difference in population is humongous. Not to mention that some countries may, for different reasons, be more willing to give troops to X-Com - for example Japan, because of Kiryu-Kai.

Yes, having definable weighs for soldier nationalities would be good.

Offline Slaughter

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Re: Soldier's nationality
« Reply #22 on: December 19, 2016, 02:28:07 am »
Good idea. Through you should look at how militarized Bulgaria was in WWI - I think 33% of bulgars were in the military?

Btw, soldier flags are a bit weird in that they often differ in size, which is odd.

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Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Soldier's nationality
« Reply #23 on: December 19, 2016, 03:34:55 am »
Good idea. Through you should look at how militarized Bulgaria was in WWI - I think 33% of bulgars were in the military?

Then how about Ireland? :)

Btw, soldier flags are a bit weird in that they often differ in size, which is odd.

Sure! Would you like to be in charge of making standardized versions? :)

Offline Meridian

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Re: Soldier's nationality
« Reply #24 on: December 19, 2016, 11:21:43 am »
Yes, having definable weighs for soldier nationalities would be good.

Your obsession with the unimportant, irrelevant and beyond cosmetic stuff never ceases to amaze me  :P

Anyway, with 30+ nationalities, it is already pretty rare to see all of them, I don't want to make it even rarer (all nations participating in openxcom have a right to appear). Also, I believe most of the people are renaming their soldiers, so I guess they will be changing the default nationality (and maybe even avatar) anyway... and the rest won't care.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Soldier's nationality
« Reply #25 on: December 19, 2016, 11:41:50 am »
Your obsession with the unimportant, irrelevant and beyond cosmetic stuff never ceases to amaze me  :P

Dude, seriously? I mean, seriously? Really? You're not kidding, right?

Sure, let's get obsessed about stuff like shadows and smoke animations instead. That's totally relevant.

If this kind of thing is irrelevant, then why the hell did you add flag support at all?

Anyway, with 30+ nationalities, it is already pretty rare to see all of them, I don't want to make it even rarer (all nations participating in openxcom have a right to appear).

Does it mean we should get as many people from Iceland as from the US? What kind of equality principle is this?

Also, I believe most of the people are renaming their soldiers, so I guess they will be changing the default nationality (and maybe even avatar) anyway... and the rest won't care.

Where do you get this surprising data? And if it was true, again, why did you make the flag support at all?

To be honest, I don't really care that much. But you went too far. Calling world setting elements "beyond cosmetic" and me an obsessed madman isn't just unfair, it's really stupid. Not all my ideas are great, but I can't sit and just take it.

Offline Meridian

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Re: Soldier's nationality
« Reply #26 on: December 19, 2016, 11:56:39 am »
I'm sorry.
Touched the sweet spot I guess, and the smiley wasn't enough to counter it.

To answer the questions:

1/ shadows and smoke animation is constantly visible throughout majority of the gameplay (let's be conservative and estimate 50% of time spent with the game); Nationality is visible for a couple of seconds per soldier hiring process (let's be generous and estimate 0.005% of time spent with the game)... uhm, yes, smoke and shadows are relevant, flags are not.

2/ I added flag support, because people asked for it... I'm not gonna "remove" it again by designating everyone as only American or Chinese

3/ Yes, I would like to see at least one person from Iceland in my roughly 30 person strong team... I believe in XCF the teams are even smaller, but I might be wrong

4/ It's exactly an equality principle: every nation which joins xcom project has to provide also soldiers, at least one

5/ I didn't get any data from anywhere, that's why I said "I believe"... all people I have seen playing xcom though, have been renaming their soldiers

Lastly, I didn't call you madman, and I'm sorry if it sounded that way.
I will refrain from posting on threads, where I have an opposing opinion from now on.

EDIT: btw. if you so insist, you can already increase the probability of Americans ruling xcom by copying their .nam file several times (and assigning the same flag). Three American name files equals 3-times higher probability.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2016, 12:04:20 pm by Meridian »

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Soldier's nationality
« Reply #27 on: December 19, 2016, 12:17:19 pm »
I'm sorry.
Touched the sweet spot I guess, and the smiley wasn't enough to counter it.

Well, what can I say... I probably took it too seriously indeed. But these were harsh words.

1/ shadows and smoke animation is constantly visible throughout majority of the gameplay (let's be conservative and estimate 50% of time spent with the game); Nationality is visible for a couple of seconds per soldier hiring process (let's be generous and estimate 0.005% of time spent with the game)... uhm, yes, smoke and shadows are relevant, flags are not.

I think both things are relevant - smoke anims indeed more so, but nationalities are also something that's present all the time. I can't say they're not important at all. Why? Because it's something I look at frequently. I do sometimes think about stuff like, what language is my team probably using or whether is there a problem with putting an Indian and a Pakistani in the same car. I don't do it much, but it sort of comes up, and that's a fact. From your post I gather you consider this unusual, but I consider it normal.

So what about it? Nothing concrete, but it's not like it doesn't matter at all. If it did, why make all these nations instead of just one?

2/ I added flag support, because people asked for it... I'm not gonna "remove" it again by designating everyone as only American or Chinese

3/ Yes, I would like to see at least one person from Iceland in my roughly 30 person strong team... I believe in XCF the teams are even smaller, but I might be wrong

4/ It's exactly an equality principle: every nation which joins xcom project has to provide also soldiers, at least one

These are fair arguments. I wouldn't want to see only big players either. But I still think I would prefer to have some weighs - like, triple the chance for a big player than a small country. I'm also all for diversity, but as it is now, it looks a little bit unbelievable.
It's not a big deal, or an important feature. But still...

5/ I didn't get any data from anywhere, that's why I said "I believe"... all people I have seen playing xcom though, have been renaming their soldiers

I think LPs are different because the players take soldier requests and such. I did it in the orifinal game, because the name pool was so small and also because I wanted people from other countries too (we're on the same page here).

Lastly, I didn't call you madman, and I'm sorry if it sounded that way.

Yeah, sorry about overreacting too.

I will refrain from posting on threads, where I have an opposing opinion from now on.

Oh please, you know that's not what I want. :) You may actually be right anyway.

Remember it wasn't really a request yet, I was -and still am - just considering options.

EDIT: Is it possible to check the nationality in battlescape? Because that's when I usually feel like looking it up, and it seems I can't.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2016, 12:19:41 pm by Solarius Scorch »

Offline Meridian

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Re: Soldier's nationality
« Reply #28 on: December 19, 2016, 12:29:45 pm »
But I still think I would prefer to have some weighs - like, triple the chance for a big player than a small country.

See end of previous post.

EDIT: Is it possible to check the nationality in battlescape? Because that's when I usually feel like looking it up, and it seems I can't.

I didn't know where to put it, there was no space left anywhere.
Also, we would need a second set of flags with battlescape palette.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Soldier's nationality
« Reply #29 on: December 19, 2016, 12:38:34 pm »
See end of previous post.

Ah yes, I can see the edit now.

Yes, it would work. Not very comfortable, but yeah.

I didn't know where to put it, there was no space left anywhere.
Also, we would need a second set of flags with battlescape palette.

There's a lot of talking about expending the Diary section, so eventually there, probably. For now, like all the junk info:



:)

If you ever feel like it, I think it would be worthwhile to do so. As a modder, I have no problem with maintaining a second set of flags.