Author Topic: [SOLDIERS] Two Mods: Reaver's Soldier Classes https:// RPG Classes (Read 31884 times)

The Reaver of Darkness · « **on:** July 19, 2016, 04:37:14 pm »

The top two posts here are separate but similar mods. This post is Reaver's Soldier Classes which makes relatively small changes, and the post below is RPG Classes which makes much larger changes to soldiers.

Reaver's Soldier Classes
This is a simple mod which adds new soldier "classes" to enable you to streamline your hiring process. The class soldiers have the same maximum attributes as your basic soldiers but some of their minimum attributes are increased. They cost more and will perform better initially, but over the long term basic soldiers are just as good yet cheaper.

Once you have purchased soldiers, they lose their class designation, and you will only see their name and attributes. You can still see how many you have of each class in the monthly costs, and you can also re-name them to mark them with their class if you want to.

Mod Portal page: https://www.openxcom.com/mod/reaver-039-s-soldier-classes

The main version of this mod nerfs the psionics ability of your soldiers, because I believe that X-Com psionics are far too strong. You will still be able to take control of weaker aliens but you will probably never be mind controlling Ethereal Commanders. Maximum psi strength and psi skill have both been reduced from 100 to 60.
If you don't want the psi nerf, you can instead download the psi version of the mod, which maintains the original psi maximums of 100.

Classes
Breacher: frontline soldier
Breachers are good for putting at the front of your formation. They are the ones you would send to enter buildings or UFOs, or go around unexplored corners. These soldiers excel at close combat.
Attribute advantages
Stamina: minor
Health: moderate
Reactions: major
Melee Accuracy: moderate

Ranger: field scout
Rangers are highly mobile and thus excellent for covering ground. They can explore terrain quickly and provide strategic support for other units.
Attribute advantages
Time Units: moderate
Energy: moderate
Firing Accuracy: minor
Throwing Accuracy: minor
Strength: minor

Sniper: high-accuracy shooter
Snipers can seek out a good vantage point with some cover and a wide field of view. From there they will be able to safely pick off aliens that your other soldiers reveal.
Attribute advantages
Reactions: minor
Firing Accuracy: major

Heavy: heavy weapons specialist
Heavies are trained to use the heavy, cumbersome weapons. Those weapons are powerful yet unwieldy and dangerous. Heavy soldiers can handle such weapons much better than most soldiers can.
Note: Heavies have their base max reactions reduced, which makes them less likely to fire powerful weapons in an unsafe manner.
Attribute advantages
Health: minor
Reactions: disadvantaged
Firing Accuracy: minor
Throwing Accuracy: minor
Strength: moderate

Elite: all-round high attributes
Elite soldiers are the most expensive class, and simply have higher minimum values in all attribute ranges. They are a bit expensive for their value, but you can rest assured that no elite soldier will ever have an attribute hole.
Attribute advantages
Time Units: minor
Stamina: minor
Health: minor
Bravery: minor
Reactions: minor
Firing Accuracy: minor
Throwing Accuracy: minor
Strength: minor
Melee Accuracy: minor

Major update version 1.1:
I tweaked the medi-kit a bit and changed its UFOPedia entry, and also added a weaker first-aid kit borrowing (I've been told) Civilian's artwork. Unlike other mods with start-game medi-kits, my first-aid kit does not allow the use of pain killer or stimulant. The pain-killer and stimulant on the medi-kit have been buffed a lot-I hope. (I haven't managed to test that part.) I put some flavor text in the medi-kit UFOPedia entry explaining that it uses banned experimental serum techs, which also helps explain why you must research it. The first aid kit also heals a bit more.

The psi-amp now requires a mind probe and an ethereal corpse to build, and its UFOPedia entry reflects this. You cannot build mind probes anymore. The mind probe now costs only 40% time units to operate (like in RPG Classes mod).

Power Suit and Flying Suit were tweaked to be on the same level. Flying suit still requires UFO Navigation, but you do not have to research power suit first. Power suit/flying suit armor values swapped, now power suit is tougher. Power suit grants +10 TU and +20 strength, reflecting what is stated in its original UFOPedia entry. Flying suit grants +10 TU and +10 firing accuracy, and its UFOPedia entry is changed to reflect this.

Attribute caps have been reduced a bit. Strength only goes to 60 (reduced from 70), and firing/throwing accuracy only go to 100 (reduced from 120). Time units max at 75 instead of 80. This is partly to prevent the eventual development of overpowered soldiers, and also to balance with the armor bonuses. Now you can hire classed rookies, armor them up, and have them ready to fight at high capacity immediately. SoldierClassesPsi 1.1 does not decrease attribute caps, but still grants the armor attribute bonuses.

Items related to this update (including Ethereal Corpse) have had their sell values adjusted to reflect production costs or other things. Manufacturing flying suits is extremely profitable in terms of money earned per worker hour, but it requires a large flow of Elerium to sustain. Sell costs are furthermore based on $10,000 sell value Elerium, a change made in one of my other Reaver's X mods.

Kjotleik · « **Reply #1 on:** July 20, 2016, 08:07:58 pm »

RPG Classes Mod:
by The Reaver of Darkness
modified by Kjotleik

Version 0.9.2 attached to this post.

Changelog:

Spoiler:

Credits:

Spoiler:

EDIT: 2016-11-12
Fixed female psionic soldiers unable to wear psionic armour (woops!).

EDIT: 2016-11-08
Can now hire female/male soldiers (no more gender-randomness).

-- -- --
I will unfortunately not have time to further improve the mod this weekend. Real life comes in the way, I'm afraid.
But all playtesting and reports of wanted improvements from such activities are welcome.

PS!
And thanks, Starving Poet, for reminding me of using the Battle Generator to refine psi-stats. I'll do that once I get the time... not done yet.
I've rarely even thought about using the generator for testing purposes. Don't know why, but it seems to never cross my mind...

--- --- --- ORIGINAL POST --- --- ---
Simple... and brilliant!

Do you mind if I use this as a base and change it a bit to better cater to my personal preferences?

I was thinking of allowing higher max caps for Snipers (Firing Accuracy), Breachers (Health), Rangers (Stamina) and Heavies (Strength); as well as lower max caps for Heavies (Stamina) and Snipers (Time Units).

Maybe I even want to introduce Psi-soldiers as an own class, and drastically reduce psi-skills for the rest of them.

I seriously wonder why I didn't think of this myself

Amazing idea. Well done!

Kjotleik

The Reaver of Darkness · « **Reply #2 on:** July 20, 2016, 10:52:46 pm »

Thanks!

You can make whatever you want out of this. You've got some neat ideas and they would go well into a true soldier classes mod. Mine is more just to streamline the hiring process, you're supposed to get essentially the same soldiers in the end. You could make a variation that introduces more of an RPG setup, in which you eliminate the basic/elite soldiers and adjust all attribute caps for each class!

Good call on increasing Breacher's max health: their reactions stat is the most important thing early on, but as time wears on their health becomes a lot more important.

I would increase Ranger's max time units more than stamina: by the time they max their stamina, they don't have enough time units to use it all up.

Psi class could have really low strength and lowish time units and firing accuracy, while the weight and TU cost of the psi amp could be reduced for them. They might make good pistol users. There is a mod that adds a psi soldier that you become able to recruit after psionics become available, so we can look into that to see how to make that function work.

If you like, I can run up some stats for the mod. I'm pretty good with balancing numbers. Then I'll hand it over to you and you can tweak it to your liking and add any additional features you want. We could post it as a collab! We could call it RPG classes or something!

Starving Poet · « **Reply #3 on:** July 20, 2016, 11:05:54 pm »

Hot Damn, this is a great idea.

There's nothing stopping this from working in TFTD - just change the master in your metadata to "*" from "xcom1"

The Reaver of Darkness · « **Reply #4 on:** July 21, 2016, 03:56:38 am »

Here's a quick write-up for the RPG classes mod. I set all of the soldier costs to the same as the basic soldier: $40,000 to hire and $20,000 per month. Each class has advantages and disadvantages. Breachers have the highest reactions and health, but lowest firing and throwing accuracy. Rangers have the highest time units and stamina, with other stats either higher or lower than other classes but with no major attribute holes. They have particularly good throwing accuracy. Snipers have very high starting firing accuracy and can train it particularly far, but they suffer from low time units and health. Heavies are sluggish units with low reactions but high strength. Their firing accuracy is weak but has plenty of room for growth.

I added Psionics as a class, but I can't find the mod that makes them available later so I don't know how that's done. For now, they're available from the outset and pretty useless in the early game. Psionics have generally low attributes, especially time units, health, and strength. At best, they can probably carry a pistol and psi amp, and you'll want to keep them safe and not have them traveling around the battlescape more than necessary. As a defense, they have moderate firing accuracy and reactions, albeit with poor growth potential. Psionics have 60-80 psi strength and can grow their psi skill all the way to 125. The rest of your soldiers have 0-50 psi skill and can grow their psi strength only to 50, and it grows slower in them.

I normalized bravery a bit, giving each soldier 20-50 bravery. There will be fewer liabilities due to bravery, so you can focus on building a cohesive unit and worry less about weak links in the chain. On the flip side, their max bravery is lower. They can still train it to 100, but the Psionics start with 30-60 bravery and can train it all the way to the alien value of 110.

I reduced the psi-amp weight from 10 to 3, and the mind probe weight from 5 to 2. I also reduced the psi-amp's time unit cost from 25 to 20 (Psionics can use it 2-3 times, just like soldiers in vanilla), and I reduced the mind probe's time unit cost from 50% to 40% to make it easier to use twice in the same turn. A Psionic with 66 time units (max 65-68) can use a mind probe once, and then use a psi amp twice. Most of your other soldiers will eventually be able to use a psi amp 4 times in a turn, but it's of limited utility given their weak psi stats.

I haven't tested this mod at all, so I hope it works.
I wonder if I could simply add a section in Psionics giving them technology requirements.

Emong · « **Reply #5 on:** July 21, 2016, 04:03:51 am »

Quote from: The Reaver of Darkness on July 21, 2016, 03:56:38 am

I haven't tested this mod at all, so I hope it works.
I wonder if I could simply add a section in Psionics giving them technology requirements.

Yep, you can just put

Code: [Select]

    requires:
      - STR_WHATEVER

In the soldier definition to make them not show up until a certain research is done, that's how my mod does it.

Speaking of, these mods are currently not compatible with mine (I had to limit the basic armors to standard soldiers only to keep hybrids from using them, so your new soldier types won't have access to armor if my mod is installed) if you added something like:

Code: [Select]

armors:
  - type: STR_NONE_UC
    units:
      - STR_SOLDIER
      - STR_BREACHER
      - STR_RANGER
      - STR_SNIPER
      - STR_HEAVY
      - STR_ELITE
  - type: STR_PERSONAL_ARMOR_UC
    units:
      - STR_SOLDIER
      - STR_BREACHER
      - STR_RANGER
      - STR_SNIPER
      - STR_HEAVY
      - STR_ELITE
  - type: STR_POWER_SUIT_UC
    units:
      - STR_SOLDIER
      - STR_BREACHER
      - STR_RANGER
      - STR_SNIPER
      - STR_HEAVY
      - STR_ELITE
  - type: STR_FLYING_SUIT_UC
    units:
      - STR_SOLDIER
      - STR_BREACHER
      - STR_RANGER
      - STR_SNIPER
      - STR_HEAVY
      - STR_ELITE

to your mod, it would fix that incompatibility.

The Reaver of Darkness · « **Reply #6 on:** July 21, 2016, 07:59:31 am »

But if I add that, it'll automatically relegate the armor to those classes only, shutting out other classes that may be added by another mod.

Why not just let the hybrids use the armor? You could do like X-Com Apocalypse and make the armor encumber a soldier. If it reduces strength by 10, most soldiers won't be hugely inhibited by it, but hybrids could be very weak and thus have much difficulty wearing it.

Just a thought.

Emong · « **Reply #7 on:** July 21, 2016, 01:11:07 pm »

I'd love to, but both their appearance and psionic powers are functions of their armor. If I let them put normal armor they just turn into normal guys with different stats.

I don't think it's a huge deal either way, since it's not like my mod is hugely popular or anything. I mostly wanted to bring it up because if someone does run into it it'll look like a problem with your mod even though it's really just a function of the way armor limitations work.

Kjotleik · « **Reply #8 on:** July 21, 2016, 08:53:30 pm »

Quote from: The Reaver of Darkness on July 21, 2016, 03:56:38 am

Here's a quick write-up for the RPG classes mod...

Nice!

I'll take a look at the RPG Classes mod this weekend.
Then I'll see if I can playtest it a bit.
And maybe tweak it some.

If I come up with some new idea, I'll let you know.

And to Emong
Would...

Code: [Select]

items:
  - type: STR_MIND_PROBE
    units:
        - STR_PSIONIC

...make the Mind Probe useable by Psionic soldiers only? Or does the rulesets not work like that for items?
Would be nice if it did.

Kjotleik

Emong · « **Reply #9 on:** July 21, 2016, 10:51:00 pm »

Quote from: Kjotleik on July 21, 2016, 08:53:30 pm

And to Emong
Would...
Code: [Select]
items: - type: STR_MIND_PROBE units: - STR_PSIONIC...make the Mind Probe useable by Psionic soldiers only? Or does the rulesets not work like that for items?
Would be nice if it did.

Kjotleik

Unfortunately not, currently you can only restrict armors based on soldier type (otherwise I'd have been all over making a Canine Soldiers mod). You could, potentially, set the "max" psiSkill to 0 for non-Psionic soldier types which should keep them from gaining psi-skill from lab training, but that's about it.

Kjotleik · « **Reply #10 on:** July 22, 2016, 12:16:36 am »

Quote from: Emong on July 21, 2016, 10:51:00 pm

Unfortunately not, currently you can only restrict armors based on soldier type...

EDIT: Not exactly solving the matter, but it would be cool to have...
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

OK. That's unfortunate. But expected.

Then what we need is a PSI-Armour that increases PSI Skill/Strength, and restrict it for use with Psi-soldiers only.

PS!
If somebody with good abilities in graphics could make a purple-ish version of the Personal Armour and Flying Suit I'd be willing to "steal" it and use it in this mod

Or if someone has done this already... a link to the mod in question, perhaps?
(or better, yet, if it is easy to change the colour of an existing armour... a little step-by-step guide - like in babysteps - to show me how?)

SIMON BAILIE · « **Reply #11 on:** July 22, 2016, 12:37:31 am »

There is a psi armor as part of the xeno operations 0.957 mod.

https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,2913.0.html

ivandogovich · « **Reply #12 on:** July 22, 2016, 01:09:40 am »

Quote from: Kjotleik on July 22, 2016, 12:16:36 am

If somebody with good abilities in graphics could make a purple-ish version of the Personal Armour and Flying Suit I'd be willing to "steal" it and use it in this mod
Or if someone has done this already... a link to the mod in question, perhaps?

This one might have some interesting stuff for you:
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,2464.0.html

Also, Maybe this: https://www.openxcom.com/mod/colored-moriarty-armors

Kjotleik · « **Reply #13 on:** July 30, 2016, 08:47:26 am »

EDIT: Changed a few things. Changes documented in the spreadsheet (both in OpenOffice- and Excel-formats).
NEW attached file. Same file-name, though.

I've tested out a few things.

Thanks to ivandogovich and SIMON for links, and Emong for hints & tips.

This is just a suggestion on my part. Use whatever you find good, and discard the rest.

I've shamelessly stolen graphics from XOps XenoOperations mod (as I've noted in the credits-file).

I've set recruitment of psi-soldiers dependent on the Mind Probe research. You can change this, if you find something more suitable.
Max Caps for psi-strength and -skill is set to zero. Except from the psi-soldier class. I hope this works as intended; that no other classes can train psi-skills. I think setting max cap for psi-strength to anything else than zero leads to it being trainable, but I don't really know this. The standard XCom 1 ruleset (in OpenXCom) has set it as such, so I changed it in this mod.

Oh, and I've changed the name of the Breacher to Assault. Feel free to reject this change. I just feel it is a better name. Personal taste, you know.

Recruitment costs are set to 60k (Assaults & Rangers), 80k (Snipers & Heavies) and 160k (Psionics). Monthly salaries are half of recruitment costs.

I've also made it so that soldiers get a (S), (R), (P), (H) or (A) after their family name, to make it easier to see what type of soldier they are. THANK YOU for search & replace in Notepad++ (and Save All). I just wish there were a "Save All to new folder (keeping all names)," but that would be too much to ask, no?

You will need four Alien Alloys and a Mind Probe to manufacture the Psionic Armour. In addition to a cost of $107k. Maybe that is a bit low, I don't know. I just feel like a psi-soldier should be really expensive. After all, using psi against the aliens is a huge game-changer.

EDIT: Oh, and I forgot. To research the Psionic Armour, you first need to finish researching the Mind Probe and Personal Armour. It increases both psi-strength and -skill by 25. Maybe change max cap of psi skill to 115 in the mod (I haven't done this) to get a maximum 140 psi-skill. That would be consistent with some other specialists max caps.

And please come with suggestions if you think there are things to improve upon.

Sincerely
Kjotleik

Star_Treasure · « **Reply #14 on:** July 31, 2016, 05:09:39 am »

With respect to the Psi angle. maybe have these soldiers have low psi values, but once psionics is unlocked, allow the player to hire people with high Psi ability, but shitty combat statistics. The justification being that Xcom started out by selecting elite soldiers, but once Psionics started to be a problem, started looking for random people off the street who had the gift, people who didn't have any military training.

Is psi strength connected to bravery at all? It would be interesting if Psi recruits were more likely to panic from combat losses, while trained soldiers were more resistant to non Psi morale effects.