[TFTD]More USO Variants

[Blank]

Still learning more about nodes, with some tips from hellrazor. Been put into practice and tested in the nearly complete very large USO (pictured). Still rechecking and adding to the vanilla variations. On the new USOs, I've been looking at the missions and the number of times each USO/UFO class can appear as a wave:

Probe: Survey, Escort, Cruiser
Interdiction: Survey, Survey, Escort, Cruiser, Cruiser, Hunter, Hunter, Dread
Resource Raid: Survey, Escort, Cruiser, Heavy cruiser, Heavy cruiser
Infiltration: Survey, Escort, Escort, Cruiser, Cruiser, Battleship, Supply, Dread
Alien base: Survey, Escort, Cruiser, Supply, Dread
Surface attack: Escort, Cruiser, Battleship, battleship
Retaliation: Survey, Escort, Cruiser, Dread
Supply: supply

Or in terms of how many times a USO/UFO will appear as a unique wave:

Survey: 7
Escort 8
Cruiser 9
Hunter 2
Heavy cruiser 2
Battleship 3
Supply 3
Dread 4

Assuming you wanted to keep the number of UFOs/USOs the same and similar enemy/loot numbers, a really ambitious new ship mod could replace each of those occurrences with a unique ship. Or to put it another way, each mission has it's own unique ships. The hunter and heavy cruiser already only appear on their specific mission. Now I won't go that far but it's a good guide for what kinds of new ships to make. More cruiser sized ships basically, and some escort sized ones if I can think of enough things to do with that small space.

[new_civilian]

^now that is a cool USO layout if I ever saw one!

Btw, there was some info about nodes on the old OXC mod site, I attached the files here. You will need Powerpoint to open them.

[Blank]

Ooh, now I have another unanswered question, is there a limit to the number of nodes I can put on the map? The large UFO battleship/USO dreadnought maps could do with extra nodes to help the AI but I haven't seen vanilla maps go beyond 100. That powerpoint suggests more no-spawn waypoints.

EDIT: While I'm posting, more WIP images

[hellrazor]

I had a maptile with 164 Nodes. i guess 255 would be the limit.

[Mackus]

Very nice USOs. Can't wait for release!

[Blank]

Alright, here's the first proper release and I'd say I'm pretty much done with what I wanted to do. I've included the 'b-type' variations created by New_civilian which along with Lukes extra UFOs were inspiration to get me going on this project. Special thanks too to hellrazor for helping me with node advice.

Final count:
Survey Ship - 3 new maps
Escort - 8 new maps
Cruiser - 10 new maps
Heavy Cruiser - 5 new maps
Hunter - 4 new maps
Battleship   - 5 new maps
Dreadnought - 4 new maps
Fleet Supply Cruiser - 6 new maps
6 new Escort sized ships - 14 new maps
3 new Cruiser sized ships - 14 new maps
2 new Medium sized ships - 6 new maps
1 new Large ship - 3 new maps
1 new Very Large ship - 8 new maps

I've made things modular so you don't need to use the new ships if you don't want to and you can keep the new ships at vanilla stat levels. I still need to test the balance of the new ships with their improved stats: I've kept the changes small for now since I feel they might be most useful in a total overhaul of the interception game.

[new_civilian]

Wow, I have to take a look at them in the Battle Generator right away! 

edit: Your mod works like a charm! Consider moving the thread to the RELEASED MODS section.

[harre]

Cool, I'll try this out next time I'll play tftd and give some feedback.

[davide]

You are a Luke's brother !!!!

Thank you very much !

[hellrazor]

Are you gonna make them Blastproof and give them internal Nortj and West walls?
To prevent the spying into them?

[new_civilian]

TFTD USOs have windows and other openings, even open roofs, why make them blastproof and/or spy-proof?

[hellrazor]

TFTD USOs have windows and other openings, even open roofs, why make them blastproof and/or spy-proof?

Well i was just mentioning it, because it would be possible to aplly the same behaviour, as the UFO's from the Darkened Vanilla Variants thats all.

[Blank]

I've tested all the maps for being spy proof, baring weirdness with diagonal walls and the silhouettes of unexplored terrain, so let me know if I've missed anything. Tftd USOs are constructed a little differently from Enemy unknown UFOs. They only have regular internal walls, none of those pseudo bigwall objects you get in enemy unknown UFOs. So they should be spy proof by default.

As for blast proof, the MCD file I have with my copy of TFTD already has the support struts having HE_Block 80 which was what I thought was what made them blast proof but actually testing them shows that no, they're not blast proof. Not the diagonal walls anyway. I'm going to have to look at what I'm doing differently from the darkened UFOs

[Blank]

I've worked out how to properly blast proof the subs now. Slowly working on that, but it's tricky to tell if I've missed any spots. Been finding incendiary rockets are useful for finding gaps. In the meantime, here's the patches I've got for the original maps, now blast-proof.

EDIT: Possible major issue discovered with the patched maps, use at own risk

[Duke_Falcon]

Hi Blank!
Just play your wonderfull new USOs! Outstanding and lovely work!
The pedia description of the Bomber USO is duplicated as there is another USO what shows the very same description.