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

[Solarius Scorch]

Not exactly on topic of laputas, but still about movement: would it be possible to restrict craft movement to certain textures? (Mudranger only on land, USOs only on water, etc.)

[Stoddard]

Not exactly on topic of laputas, but still about movement: would it be possible to restrict craft movement to certain textures? (Mudranger only on land, USOs only on water, etc.)

Hm. Theoretically... but one would have to define regions and restrict craft to regions, not textures.  Best way would be to allow the regions to be defined by referencing the quads/triangles the textures are bound to. But not directly to textures themselves, that would be only creating another unnecessary restriction in place of another.

So yes, possible, medium difficulty.

EDIT: As long as someone designs the rules on what the craft is supposed to do when its target is somewhere not in the same region

[Solarius Scorch]

Hmm, but regions are made of pretty rough shapes, and I can't imagine matching them to coastlines.
It has to be the texture... Otherwise I think it makes no sense, I guess. Too hackish.

[Stoddard]

Hmm, but regions are made of pretty rough shapes, and I can't imagine matching them to coastlines.
It has to be the texture... Otherwise I think it makes no sense, I guess. Too hackish.

No, I mean if you want to restrict craft to some areas, then that's the purpose the regions are there for, to answer the question  "is the point with those coordinates inside me or not".

Now, today they are rectangles of sorts, in spherical coordinates. They can't match the coastlines, or any other feature on the globe.

It is not hard to define some new sort of region, that instead is a set of triangles the globe is made of (and which have textures assigned to them). This way features can match perfectly. But this has nothing to do with textures themselves.

Big question is what you want the craft to do with those regions - like I said, with the targeting. It is not hard to restrict craft to being unable to exit a region with some particular attribute. But this way it will literally just bump into the border and sit there. An annoying popup can be thrown up.

[Finnik]

the first question that comes to mind is how to change/define terrain for the base defense mission. but idk, maybe it's possible right now.

it should be static (can stop thinking about freigter, it gives so much inspiration)

the second question is how does the base move? I mean, do you order it to move (and that means new UI) or it just follows a predefined orbit (then how and when the orbit gets defined?)

just predefined orbit (by mod creator) should be fine.

the actual movement of the base isn't anywhere near hard to do. Deciding where it should move that is.

thats how clocks work, i think, and funds show option also... it updates every hour, lets say, kinda loop that adds to number to base coordination. i dont think its impossible to do, but will requer help of coders for sure. also it should me defined as another object ofc. and any way, some gui changes, to add some button for its ctreation. i also dont think it should have module structure with buildings

from the coding POV let's start with orbital missions that are actually orbital, that is following an orbit with an appropriate orbital speed (15000 knots give or take) and not sitting at poles like it currently is in piratez for example.

but the principles of orbital mechanics just say that in-orbit skirmishes will occur in a very suitable way for xcom. In order to get closer in orbit for, for example, docking, you need to
align the speeds of two objects. Therefore, space boarding in reality will look very similar to what we see in the Pirates. Even the blackness of the map seems to me very realistic due to the way the camera shoots at such great contrasts of illumination

[Solarius Scorch]

No, I mean if you want to restrict craft to some areas, then that's the purpose the regions are there for, to answer the question  "is the point with those coordinates inside me or not".

Now, today they are rectangles of sorts, in spherical coordinates. They can't match the coastlines, or any other feature on the globe.

It is not hard to define some new sort of region, that instead is a set of triangles the globe is made of (and which have textures assigned to them). This way features can match perfectly. But this has nothing to do with textures themselves.

Big question is what you want the craft to do with those regions - like I said, with the targeting. It is not hard to restrict craft to being unable to exit a region with some particular attribute. But this way it will literally just bump into the border and sit there. An annoying popup can be thrown up.

Yes, I get the idea (I think), I was just pointing out that it looks pretty much useless to me:
1. Land masses aren't matched up with regions. There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to go from Berlin to Novosibirsk by car, but here you couldn't, because they're in different regions. Unless you mean adding new special regions on top of the current ones - I'm not sure how this would work.
2. You would still be able to travel over water, as long as the destination is the same region. I think this is not a good representation of movement restriction, as it would be very arbitrary.
I hope I understood your idea well enough and this isn't some babble.

[Stoddard]

I hope I understood your idea well enough and this isn't some babble.

My idea for this is

1. extending the existing region definition for them to be of arbitrary shape, just like the rest of the globe
2. making possible for craft to be restricted from entering some subset of region-types or whatever, including launch

so you just define a region in the shape of a highway from Berlin to Novosibirsk, and with enough waypoints set a car can get there and back, no matter what other regions or textures say

EDIT: just don't ask for pathfinding right now

it should be static (can stop thinking about freigter, it gives so much inspiration)

I meant, how it would be expressed in the ruleset.

just predefined orbit (by mod creator) should be fine.

Yeah, good enough for a start.

thats how clocks work, i think, and funds show option also... it updates every hour, lets say, kinda loop that adds to number to base coordination. i dont think its impossible to do, but will requer help of coders for sure.

No, what I meant is who defines orbit/how it changes, etc, but if could be fixed for now, yes.

also it should me defined as another object ofc. and any way, some gui changes, to add some button for its ctreation. i also dont think it should have module structure with buildings

That's where the design work is. I can launch an underground base into orbit, but how should it look / what it should be capable of?

but the principles of orbital mechanics just say that in-orbit skirmishes will occur in a very suitable way for xcom. In order to get closer in orbit for, for example, docking, you need to
align the speeds of two objects. Therefore, space boarding in reality will look very similar to what we see in the Pirates. Even the blackness of the map seems to me very realistic due to the way the camera shoots at such great contrasts of illumination

I agree. All what it misses in my opinion is the millions-of-stars background.

[nicedayright]

The asylum mission soundtrack was a masterpiece, though I feel the ghosts could stand to be a little more of a threat for how many points the mission was worth. Maybe give them MC? That said, the mental image of handing a rookie an electric club and sending him to flail at a tornado of luminescent skulls is mildly amusing.

[Solarius Scorch]

The asylum mission soundtrack was a masterpiece, though I feel the ghosts could stand to be a little more of a threat for how many points the mission was worth. Maybe give them MC? That said, the mental image of handing a rookie an electric club and sending him to flail at a tornado of luminescent skulls is mildly amusing.

Well, this is an introductory mission to the (hypothetical) ghost arc... I think it's fine.

[SG_Barton]

Hello, my dear friends, I would like to know from you, how long will the X-Files version for OXCE 5.1 be ready?

[Solarius Scorch]

Hello, my dear friends, I would like to know from you, how long will the X-Files version for OXCE 5.1 be ready?

I have a policy of having at least 10 lines of changes in the log, and now I'm at 7. So... it's 70% done, I guess.

And there are also some things to be ironed out for the upgrade to 5.1.

[SG_Barton]

I have a policy of having at least 10 lines of changes in the log, and now I'm at 7. So... it's 70% done, I guess.

And there are also some things to be ironed out for the upgrade to 5.1.

With great pleasure I will expect an update from you.

[Wyldesnelsson]

So I have been looking into the rule sets of the mod and reading through whatever files where human readable, and I have come across a barrier so to speak, I have noticed that the items have a tag in the rule set called category, but looking through every file I could, I could not find any description of the properties of these categories, are they stored somewhere more secretive or are they hardcoded, because I could not find them anywhere

[MFive]

Solaris, I wanted to mention that with your last update 0.9.5, the changelog was not updated with the one you posted in this forum (according to the changelog, the most recent version os 0.9.4).

I don't know how popular it was(is), but I have always liked it.

Thanks for all of your hard work!

[Thunderwing280]

Since my posts seem to be missed ill repost them both:

First when you capture your first cyberweb scientist will get access to promo 3 or will at least get a portal? Any good tips as well to help would be nice too.

Secondly the UI for the mission is weirdly green is that a bug?