[SOLDIERS] Two Mods: Reaver's Soldier Classes https:// RPG Classes

[Kjotleik]

I've made some changes based on experience.

I discovered that my starting soldiers could be of any available specialty. Since this could potentially be costly, due to the increased salaries, I've had to introduce a new starting topic to research: Soldier Specialists.

This means that now all eight starting soldiers are regular troops. They are nerfed in this mod (compared to vanilla), just so you know. But then they are cheaper to recruit as well. 30k vs 40k in vanilla.

The two other topics are Psionic Soldiers and Psionic Armour. The former depends on Soldier Specialists and Psi Lab, while the latter depends on the former and Personal Armour.

See attachment for updated version: RPG Classes 2b. All the .rul-files have not yet been "cleaned up" and organized, but there is not so much in them that you won't figure out how this mod works, if you take a look inside.

@Star_Treasure: Yes, the psionic soldiers do have lower combat-abilities. No, the psionic soldiers does not have lower bravery. They have higher. The reason being that once trained in psionics they have gotten a rather huge ego. They KNOW they can enter another entity's mind, and that does something to the psyche of a person. Think EGO the size of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and you get the picture.

[Star_Treasure]

@Star_Treasure: Yes, the psionic soldiers do have lower combat-abilities. No, the psionic soldiers does not have lower bravery. They have higher. The reason being that once trained in psionics they have gotten a rather huge ego. They KNOW they can enter another entity's mind, and that does something to the psyche of a person. Think EGO the size of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and you get the picture.

Makes sense, but I was imagining that Psi troopers are people who were grabbed off the street by MIBs and conscripted into a war they didn't even know existed.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

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.



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.

I'm giving you creative control of the RPG Classes mod since it was your idea. The rest is up to you, really, it's yours now. I see you've done a lot already! I'll just keep the Reaver's Soldier Classes mod up at the top of this thread.

I originally allowed other units to have psionics in case you wanted to train it. I like allowing everybody to do everything, even if some are better at it than others. For instance, rangers are best at throwing grenades but anyone can throw a grenade. Maybe someone wants a psi soldier who is really physically strong and doesn't mind that their psi stats are weak.

Assault sounds better than breacher, and it's what they used in EU2012. I selected the name breacher because they're particularly good at that brief moment right after you barge in through the front door on a medium scout. Landed medium scouts can be one of the most dangerous times for your soldiers in the first few months, but I have seen many a breacher survive 3 or 4 aliens at once in the first room. Also I just wanted to distance myself from EU2012 cause I hate that game.
Call them anything you like. =)

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.

I figure more likely psi troops would come from among military units. There are hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the world, surely some of them have strong psi potential. Furthermore, it's easier to force the military personnel to undergo psi testing to check. Civilians don't just do whatever you tell them. But taking them from civilian populations is a more fanciful idea that a lot of people will probably enjoy.

I made their bravery higher entirely on the basis of gameplay. Braver soldiers are more resistant to psionic panic attacks. It makes sense for your psi troops to be resistant to psionics. It might also be realistic, however, as a soldier trained in psionics will gain two advantages: they will be less intimidated by non-psionics, and they will be less frightened by psionics as they understand them much better. Normal soldiers might view psionics as some sort of sorcery or supernatural haunting, and it could frighten them very much.

[Kjotleik]

I'm giving you creative control of the RPG Classes mod since it was your idea. The rest is up to you, really, it's yours now. I see you've done a lot already! I'll just keep the Reaver's Soldier Classes mod up at the top of this thread.

Thanks. I'll look into it a bit more come the weekend. Don't really have the time right now to mess around inside rul-files during the week.   
Would you prefer I started a new thread for the RPG Classes to separate it from your original Reaver's Soldier Classes? Or don't you mind it being here, since both are very related to each other?

I originally allowed other units to have psionics in case you wanted to train it. I like allowing everybody to do everything, even if some are better at it than others. For instance, rangers are best at throwing grenades but anyone can throw a grenade. Maybe someone wants a psi soldier who is really physically strong and doesn't mind that their psi stats are weak.

Yes. On second thought, I believe I will allow a limited psi-strength and -skill to remain for the non-psi soldiers as well. If you have done any testing, or calculations, to find out how much is enough, I'd be delighted for some input. I'm thinking maybe Psi-strength of [0-64] and Psi-skill of [0-48] would do well for ordinary troops. Psi-strength is a more defensive attribute, from what I understand, because it is used in determening the likelihood of successful enemy psi-attacks. That is, unless I've got that completely wrong...?

I'm thinking Psi-soldiers would do well with Psi-strength [64-96] and -skill [16-120]. With the Psi-Armour that would increse to max 120 (strength) and 144 (skill).

Assault sounds better than breacher, and it's what they used in EU2012. I selected the name breacher because they're particularly good at that brief moment right after you barge in through the front door on a medium scout. Landed medium scouts can be one of the most dangerous times for your soldiers in the first few months, but I have seen many a breacher survive 3 or 4 aliens at once in the first room. Also I just wanted to distance myself from EU2012 cause I hate that game.

   Hating a game that has only two "time-units" available, limits squad size to (originally) four troops, where friendly fire is stupidly ignored (unless using explosives!!!) and you can shoot straight through torsos of comrades without them getting as much as a scorch on the back, that have a (very) limited number of fixed maps (not generated), where you cannot pick up weapons from the ground, cannot throw a grenade to a team-mate in a better position, where you have no ammo-clips (or, in reality, unlimited ammo)...etc, etc. How can this be?   

Well. At least they improved the graphics. EU2012 looks better than UFO: Enemy Unknown. I'll give them that!

I didn't really think too much of EU2012 when changing it, though. In my head, Assault is a proper name for someone that is...um...being on the front-lines, assaulting enemy troops, wherever they may be found (in the fields, or inside a UFO). Maybe I'll change it to Infantry, if that sounds better. But, then again, the new EU uses that as well (in the Long War mod, at least). 


Sincerely
Kjotleik

[Star_Treasure]

Assault sounds better in general, but Breacher is a good description of what you would use them for in game.

Entry Team, might be another good description. I tend to devote about a quarter of my troops to an entry team with pistols and stun rods, while another 25% is a perimeter team armed with heavy weapons, leaving the other half as generic riflemen who can fill any role. Normally I let stats decide this (Entry team are people with low psi or str) but I could see this being formalized.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

Thanks. I'll look into it a bit more come the weekend. Don't really have the time right now to mess around inside rul-files during the week.   
Would you prefer I started a new thread for the RPG Classes to separate it from your original Reaver's Soldier Classes? Or don't you mind it being here, since both are very related to each other?

I don't mind, it's up to you. But since you have the first post in the thread, you could edit that post into an official OP for your mod. If you do that, I'll edit the top post to reflect that. I'll go edit the title now, since there's already tons of posts here relating to your mod.

I'm thinking Psi-soldiers would do well with Psi-strength [64-96] and -skill [16-120]. With the Psi-Armour that would increse to max 120 (strength) and 144 (skill).

You can test it pretty easily by choosing some attributes and using the Mission Generator [New Battle] to test them out really quick. One thing you might try is look through all of the soldier attributes and find some with psi strength and skill values around where you think you want to have them, and test those soldiers mind-controlling various alien races. After several tries on a few different races, you'll have a feel for how easy or difficult it is to use them at those attribute levels.

Well. At least they improved the graphics. EU2012 looks better than UFO: Enemy Unknown. I'll give them that!

You're right. Puffy ninja-turtleoid soldiers and aliens look so much better than Guile and his fat-barreled guns.

Honestly, I think original X-Com graphics are far superior to EU2012 graphics. More pixels, polygons, and shaders doesn't make the stuff look better. Firaxis should hire some actual artists.

[Emong]

Yes. On second thought, I believe I will allow a limited psi-strength and -skill to remain for the non-psi soldiers as well. If you have done any testing, or calculations, to find out how much is enough, I'd be delighted for some input. I'm thinking maybe Psi-strength of [0-64] and Psi-skill of [0-48] would do well for ordinary troops. Psi-strength is a more defensive attribute, from what I understand, because it is used in determening the likelihood of successful enemy psi-attacks. That is, unless I've got that completely wrong...?

I'm thinking Psi-soldiers would do well with Psi-strength [64-96] and -skill [16-120]. With the Psi-Armour that would increse to max 120 (strength) and 144 (skill).

Keep in mind the max for psi-skill in the rul is not actually the maximum you can get. It's used to control the amount of skill you gain from lab training. There isn't actually a cap on psi-skill, as far as I know.

[ohartenstein23]

Keep in mind the max for psi-skill in the rul is not actually the maximum you can get. It's used to control the amount of skill you gain from lab training. There isn't actually a cap on psi-skill, as far as I know.

I thought that was an original-version-only thing, but OpenXcom has the hard limits on Psi Skill.

[Emong]

I thought that was an original-version-only thing, but OpenXcom has the hard limits on Psi Skill.

Regardless of whether OpenXcom has a cap (never bothered to test it), you can't define one in the ruleset. The max psi-skill only determines the amount you get from your first lab training (you get 50 to 150% of the value), that's why the default soldier has it set at 16.

[ohartenstein23]

Regardless of whether OpenXcom has a cap (never bothered to test it), you can't define one in the ruleset. The max psi-skill only determines the amount you get from your first lab training (you get 50 to 150% of the value), that's why the default soldier has it set at 16.

There is a cap - it's set in the statCaps tag of the ruleset (in Vanilla OXC, it's 100 for Psi Skill).
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Ruleset_Reference_Nightly_(OpenXcom)#Player_Units_.28Soldiers.29

[Emong]

There is a cap - it's set in the statCaps tag of the ruleset (in Vanilla OXC, it's 100 for Psi Skill).
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Ruleset_Reference_Nightly_(OpenXcom)#Player_Units_.28Soldiers.29

Oh, nevermind then. I'm just dumb and misremembered how that works!

[Starving Poet]

Yes. On second thought, I believe I will allow a limited psi-strength and -skill to remain for the non-psi soldiers as well. If you have done any testing, or calculations, to find out how much is enough, I'd be delighted for some input. I'm thinking maybe Psi-strength of [0-64] and Psi-skill of [0-48] would do well for ordinary troops. Psi-strength is a more defensive attribute, from what I understand, because it is used in determening the likelihood of successful enemy psi-attacks. That is, unless I've got that completely wrong...?

That's probably a good idea - if all your non-PSI classes had strengths of zero, they would be completely useless when facing _any_ PSI capable alien.  and youre assumptions are correct - to help you figure out your stat caps:

These aren't exact, but close enough:
Offense = Strength * Skill / 50
Defense = Strength + (Skill / 5)

So, very low skill caps will keep non PSI troops from being used offensively, but it won't hurt their defense. 

/edit on the offense formula - I had skill / 2.   Don't know why, brain fart.

[Kjotleik]

Post #2 in this thread updated as "host-post" for RPG Classes mod.

All updates/changes will be mentioned up there from now on...

If I ever get to a version 1.0 I'll be sure to make a new reply, to tell you about it though.
So there is no need to constantly click this thread to make sure you've got the latest...

To Emong and ohartenstein23:
Psi-Skill were trainable in the original, both via the battlefield and the Psi-Lab. However, the max cap set by the game were not respected by the Psi-Lab. Once the cap was reached, no more increase in Psi-Skill via battlefield usage. But you could continue to train it via the Psi-Lab.

I believe this was an error from the developers. Don't know if OpenXCom has corrected this oversight, or not...

To Starving Poet:
Thanks for the approximations of the stat-usage for offensive/defensive psi. I'll use the Battle Generator when I get the time to test it.
Now I'm heading for episode three (!!!) of your YT TFTD-playthrough. I see I have a lot to catch up on. I just hope my soldier doesn't do too bad (but don't tell me anything beyond episode three, because I don't like spoilers ahead. OK?)



Sincerely
Kjotleik

[Starving Poet]

Let's just say that using the OXCE+ executable from X-Piratz has led to some interesting RNG.

[Random Commander]

Hey guys!

I have taken a liking to this mod, especially the edits that Kjotliek made (Don't get me wrong, Reaver, Kjotliek's edits are more akin to a Class mod I was making many months ago and eventually abandoned, so I actually sympathize with his ruleset more than I do with yours). But, I was kind of having trouble with determining which class was which, mainly because I rename my soldiers with generic ID/Codename combos (For example: "Klaus Schwartz (A)" becomes "AST-285 'Blitzkrieg'" instead. It's a personal preference), and while the tag on the name is a good reminder, I have a bad habit of deleting that tag and then forgetting what class that soldier was. But I propose a solution to this which might help with people that have a similar problem to me and/or can find that this will enrich the mod's experience.

I mentioned that I was working on a similar Class mod that I eventually abandoned, right? I had a graphical aid for each of the soldiers (in their inventory sprites) to help remind the player which soldier was which class. That graphical aspect was a lot of work, and then real life events got in the way, leading me to abandon the project altogether. I still have most of those graphical aspects, however, and can add them in if you guys want me to.

All I really need to do is fill in any missing vanilla armors for the classes and make new inventory sprites for the soldiers with Psi armor.