Re: The X-Com Files - 3.5: Whispers In The Dark

[Nord]

By the way. I looked into research rules to find, when i can fill empty equipment slots of my advanced crafts... and find nothing. Are they just not ready yet, or i'm dumb?

[Solarius Scorch]

By the way. I looked into research rules to find, when i can fill empty equipment slots of my advanced crafts... and find nothing. Are they just not ready yet, or i'm dumb?

They're not ready yet... I've been working on them a year ago, they were crashing the game, I never got around to finishing it as I started doing other things. If anyone want to help with the ruleset, I'd appreciate it.

[Arthanor]

- Dogs are soldiers now (not HWPs). No special dog armours yet, because the engine is acting up (read: I have no idea what I'm doing).

I'm curious, what's not working? The avatar/rank thing?

[Solarius Scorch]

I'm curious, what's not working? The avatar/rank thing?

Swapping armours. Give a dog some other gear, then change it back to unarmoured... Won't work.

There is a doge.txt file in the Ruleset folder, which contains all data except extraSprites (except armour definition for each one of 48 "faces"). The resources are in the Doge folder. If anyone wants to tackle this, you're welcome.

[Arthanor]

hum.. that's weird.. worked for me. Will look into it.. eventually/next weekend.

[Solarius Scorch]

hum.. that's weird.. worked for me. Will look into it.. eventually/next weekend.

Much appreciated!

[LuigiWhatif]

Are your surrender mechanics different from Piratez?  Twice I've had battles against EXALT where the first guy woke up but he didn't surrender after I took down the second.

[Solarius Scorch]

Are your surrender mechanics different from Piratez?  Twice I've had battles against EXALT where the first guy woke up but he didn't surrender after I took down the second.

Yeah, it's different - surrender kicks in when all remaining enemies are panicking.

This is because morale works differently in our mods - X-Com Files doesn't have the "dynamically adjust your morale to your bravery" thing.

[Juku121]

They're not ready yet... I've been working on them a year ago, they were crashing the game, I never got around to finishing it as I started doing other things. If anyone want to help with the ruleset, I'd appreciate it.

Apparently, nobody reads my changelog. This has been in since August.

As a general advertisement, if you think of something that's an extension or combination of previous work, chances are, something like it exists in the "Idea Proving Grounds" version.

If it's something qualitatively new, requires changes in the codebase or is otherwise creative, wait for Solarius to come up with (or steal) it. 

[Solarius Scorch]

Juku, I appreciate your help and I've used quite a bit of your code, but the harsh truth is that your version is so hard to work with that I'd need to hire a secretary to keep up with it.
As I've said before, it would be MUCH easier for everyone, yourself included, if you wrote a mod to a mod instead of modifying the source file every time the mod gets updated.

Anyway, I'll be happy to use your changes, cheers!

[Juku121]

Juku, I appreciate your help and I've used quite a bit of your code, but the harsh truth is that your version is so hard to work with that I'd need to hire a secretary to keep up with it.
As I've said before, it would be MUCH easier for everyone, yourself included, if you wrote a mod to a mod instead of modifying the source file every time the mod gets updated.

Anyway, I'll be happy to use your changes, cheers!

Well, I've offered to do the secretary bit at least twice, for select changes if nothing else.

But, as Dioxine noted, making a mod to the base mod is largely an execise in futility since I have so many changes I'd have to essentially maintain a base and a diff file for each ruleset, publish only the latter and it'd be outdated the moment you publish a new version.

That's why I made the 'Idea Proving Ground' thread, so I'd know where the secretary is needed.

[ohartenstein23]

Sadly not yet, because there is a number of serious technical problems with it.
Most importantly, the base tileset is already almost full, and making a surface area would require many more tiles.
Secondly, the surface would be independent of global texture, which means it would always look the same - either in a jungle or on an ice field. Not a deal breaker, since you can just make it all concrete and asphalt, but it wouldn't be too easy to make it look good.
Finally, while you can add a surface level to the base map blocks, you can't have surface buildings and independent underground buildings - if you want to build underground, you have to demolish the one above it. I find it rather sad, but it also causes logistic problems, like making sure all underground buildings are accessible without giving each building a separate entry from the surface.

I've been thinking about what we could do about this - I might be able to add a bit of code to at the very least take the day/night shade from the globe.  Perhaps I could also pare down the tileset a bit by simplifying some of the vanilla maps (i.e. taking out some of the decorations), and take care of the logistics issues by making the surface facilities have a basic underground corridor or maintenance level to connect to underground-only facilities.  I can see why you haven't tried much more on this; it's a lot of work for not a ton of benefit.

[Solarius Scorch]

Well, I've offered to do the secretary bit at least twice, for select changes if nothing else.

But, as Dioxine noted, making a mod to the base mod is largely an execise in futility since I have so many changes I'd have to essentially maintain a base and a diff file for each ruleset, publish only the latter and it'd be outdated the moment you publish a new version.

That's why I made the 'Idea Proving Ground' thread, so I'd know where the secretary is needed.

Yeah, sorry, it's not that you're doing things wrong, it is I who get scared by the sheer amount of changes to track. Although I admit I'd do a mod to mod in your place, but it's a matter of preference.

I'll try and have a look at it today or tomorrow, if I need help I'll ask you. So please take care of me senpai

I've been thinking about what we could do about this - I might be able to add a bit of code to at the very least take the day/night shade from the globe.

Yes, this would be absolutely necessary.

Perhaps I could also pare down the tileset a bit by simplifying some of the vanilla maps (i.e. taking out some of the decorations)

Tough; it's not like the base is overloaded with props, so it's hard to start taking them down and not end up with bare walls. What one could do is some .mcd magic with moving destroyed tiles outside the normal tile number range of 256, but it would mean building the base almost from scratch, so... not really viable. But I'm open to discussion regarding possible tile removal.

and take care of the logistics issues by making the surface facilities have a basic underground corridor or maintenance level to connect to underground-only facilities.

Yes, it should work, as long as surface buildings are still connected to each other.

[ohartenstein23]

Yes, this would be absolutely necessary.

Agreed, it's the first thing I'm planning on taking a look at.  Coding-wise, I might also take a look at getting the geoscape texture for separate terrains like UFO missions, so it's not always concrete and asphalt samey-ness, but that'd take more work.

Tough; it's not like the base is overloaded with props, so it's hard to start taking them down and not end up with bare walls. What one could do is some .mcd magic with moving destroyed tiles outside the normal tile number range of 256, but it would mean building the base almost from scratch, so... not really viable. But I'm open to discussion regarding possible tile removal.

Adding above ground stuff to all the vanilla maps is still kinda re-building the base from scratch, but I don't think I'm up for .mcd magic.

Yes, it should work, as long as surface buildings are still connected to each other.

I'll come up with some basic ideas once I have some time to practice a bit more on the maps.

--- posts merged - Solarius Scorch ---

Got some slight progress for ya - getting the shade into the base defense wasn't too hard with an edit to the engine code, then adding

Code: [Select]

    shade: -1
    maxShade: 8 #or maybe 7 to keep it from being too dark
to the alienDeployments gave the attached results for daytime vs. nighttime.

I have the world texture at the location grabbed too, it would just require setting new terrains for each texture at the base, maybe a ruleset definition for base terrain by geoscape texture - in other words, the hard work part of making this happen. =P

Edit: shade: 9 is the maximum setting that you still have daytime vision, right?

[Chiefwaffles]

Just popping in to ask a question:
How do I research alien alloys? I'm in August 1999 and have done plenty of landed and crashed UFO missions. I have nuclear laser rifles, researched elerium, all that stuff.
But despite having tons of alien alloys in storage, I still can't do anything related to alloys. Is it some key mission that hasn't happened yet or an interrogation I need to do..?

(Also, just a bit of a side question, but is there actually TFTD [underwater] content in this? It seems like there is based on what some people are saying, various ufopedia entries, and some usable-underwater equipment, but it definitely seems like that's not possible.)