Playable alien and flyable UFO projects

[Droggarth]

Previous thread title: "Need Firestorm to have alien Scout's battlescape appearance"
Reason: Initial requirement met. Alien small scout reverse-engineered for X-Com use.

Original (old) message:

Spoiler:

The alien Scout is a ship I want, no scratch that. NEED at this point to be able to use it both in geoscape combat and battlescape combat as my commando unit (Yes I am a cheater and no I'm not ruining my fun, cheating and modding makes games more playable for me).

Thought of getting back into X-Com/OpenXcom again but first I need to get Firestorm to use UFO1/Scout's sprites and my modding know-how of what little I understood has gotten rusty so all I'm asking for is some help with this (better if someone else did it entirely, still recharging my mind).

As you can see this is my first post here and I've played OpenXcom from time to time. The need for making Firestorm be useable on battlescape but with UFO1's sprites and layouts, finally forced me into making an account on the forum and this post.

Thanks goes to Hobbes and various others here.
Playable alien ship Fhyr:

Commando's items in the ship. Can take off/abort. Shoot down other crafts.
Drop quickly into the mission and rain hot plasma into foes with the Gazer unit.

Final product still needs proper geoscape and ufopedia graph stuff, both OP and normal versions along with descriptions. Download below:
Small update: Got the colors working with a trick with GIMP!

Playable alien ship Fhyrra:


New playable alien space car known as Fhyrrian Space Car 1 or Fhycrath for short:


Also a quick showcase of my ship work so far: https://imgur.com/a/bVmbDEn


Update (May 08, 2021): Fixed slow refueling rate for both Fhyr and Fhyrra. Gazer Commando can fly now (in battlescape)!
Update (May 09, 2021): Fixed crashing when trying to see Fhyr's and Fhyrra's Ufopaedia. Added a new space vehicle.
                                 Also made repair and refuel time quick for Fhyr, Fhyrra and Fhycrath.
Update (February 25, 2022): Added crouching sprites to Gazer spritesheet in GazerArmor mod

[ohartenstein23]

First off, how experienced are you with modding OpenXcom?  I think this can be done with a few edits to a ruleset file, and is a great place to start getting into modding if you haven't done much or any with OXC before.

Secondly, just to make sure I (and the rest of the forum) understand what you're saying, you want to make the Firestorm a dropship for a single soldier, using the alien small scout as the appearance on the Battlescape, correct?

[Droggarth]

First off, how experienced are you with modding OpenXcom?  I think this can be done with a few edits to a ruleset file, and is a great place to start getting into modding if you haven't done much or any with OXC before.

Secondly, just to make sure I (and the rest of the forum) understand what you're saying, you want to make the Firestorm a dropship for a single soldier, using the alien small scout as the appearance on the Battlescape, correct?

Last time I modded X-Com was without OpenXcom and that was me trying to make my soldiers into aliens (been ages since succeeding in doing that, OpenXcom allowed more modding so my units can be Gazers now by wearing an unique impervious armor) and also making Firestorm an alien dropship for a commando in the past too (didn't achieve that, couldn't figure out, yet to figure). So yes. At the moment trying a few combinations to achieve the latter in the .rul file.

Spoiler:

Code: [Select]

      - STR_NEW_FIGHTER_CRAFT
    sprite: 4
    fuelMax: 30
    damageMax: 600
    speedMax: 4200
    accel: 12
    weapons: 2
    soldiers: 1
    refuelItem: STR_ELERIUM_115
    refuelRate: 10
    score: 250
    battlescapeTerrainData:
      name: UFO1A
      mapDataSets:
        - BLANKS
        - UFO1
      mapBlocks:
        - name: UFO1A
          width: 10
          length: 10


Still crashes, with or without deployment entry. Think I need a map tool to designate soldier/item spawn point or something along those lines. Could use a link to necessary new tools if there are any as what I once used either crash or I can't do much with them.

[ohartenstein23]

Are you editing the original .rul file directly, or creating a mod directory with a new file?  Also, where in the file are you making this change, that is, under what heading?  It might be helpful to look at the ruleset for the XcomUtil Fighter Transports mod:

Code: [Select]

crafts:
  - type: STR_FIRESTORM
    soldiers: 10
    vehicles: 1
    battlescapeTerrainData:
      name: FIRES
      mapDataSets:
        - BLANKS
        - LIGHTNIN
      mapBlocks:
        - name: FIRES
          width: 10
          length: 10
    deployment:
      - [5, 3, 1, 2]
      - [5, 4, 1, 2]
      - [4, 3, 1, 2]
      - [4, 4, 1, 2]
      - [4, 2, 1, 2]
      - [4, 5, 1, 2]
      - [3, 2, 1, 2]
      - [3, 5, 1, 2]
      - [2, 3, 1, 2]
      - [2, 4, 1, 2]

This mod might be as simple as replacing the above battleScapeTerrainData: with the corresponding lines from the small scout's definition, setting soldiers: to one and vehicles: to zero, and editing the deployment coordinates for your single soldier.

[Droggarth]

Was adding it to the "Xcom1Ruleset.rul", now I separated some data to my "FirestormUFO1.rul" and it still crashes.

Code: [Select]

# FirestormUFO1
crafts:
  - type: STR_FIRESTORM
    soldiers: 1
    vehicles: 0
    battlescapeTerrainData:
      name: UFO1A
      mapDataSets:
        - BLANKS
        - UFO1
      mapBlocks:
        - name: UFO1A
          width: 10
          length: 10
    deployment:
      - [10, 5, 1, 2]

Would help to know where the center point of the UFO1 is as I don't know how to work with deployment values.

[ohartenstein23]

The mods should not go in the same folder as the base ruleset for the game, and it sounds like you're still using the 1.0 milestone release, which is quite out-of-date for doing anything with mods.  I'd suggest updating to the latest nightly release, as that will make it much easier to keep mods organized.

Also, it does look like you'll need a map editor to place a spawn point for XCOM units.  I haven't done any map editing myself, but here's a site which should help you get started:
https://openxcommods.weebly.com/general-map-creation.html

[ohartenstein23]

You could also try the simple solution of making a copy of XcomUtil's fighter transports for just the Firestorm, setting the soldier count to one, and keeping that map.  It's not exactly the small scout, but it does feel more like an X-COM craft.

[Droggarth]

The mods should not go in the same folder as the base ruleset for the game, and it sounds like you're still using the 1.0 milestone release, which is quite out-of-date for doing anything with mods.  I'd suggest updating to the latest nightly release, as that will make it much easier to keep mods organized.

Also, it does look like you'll need a map editor to place a spawn point for XCOM units.  I haven't done any map editing myself, but here's a site which should help you get started:
https://openxcommods.weebly.com/general-map-creation.html

Nightlies? No thanks been doing good with 1.0 so far along with the mods being in the same folder, have noticed no issues in game with that. My OpenXcom 1.0 install has been dormant for about a year or so (until now) and when I played it I played a lot of it.

But yeah so far the issue can be zeroed down to the Scout missing that nospawn zone node for items and still need proper values for deployment, working on right now getting the node in.

You could also try the simple solution of making a copy of XcomUtil's fighter transports for just the Firestorm, setting the soldier count to one, and keeping that map.  It's not exactly the small scout, but it does feel more like an X-COM craft.

No thanks. Doesn't work for me. Alien Scout or Alien Scout.

[ohartenstein23]

Fair enough.  I hadn't done much at all with 1.0, since my jump into modding started by looking at FMP, and that required the upgrade to a nightly version.

[Hobbes]

Still crashes, with or without deployment entry. Think I need a map tool to designate soldier/item spawn point or something along those lines. Could use a link to necessary new tools if there are any as what I once used either crash or I can't do much with them.

Was adding it to the "Xcom1Ruleset.rul", now I separated some data to my "FirestormUFO1.rul" and it still crashes.
Would help to know where the center point of the UFO1 is as I don't know how to work with deployment values.

The crash happens because the game can't place any XCom units on the map.

You need MapView to change the spawn point in the Small Scout from Alien to XCom. This is the version I use: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,1321.msg39286.html#msg39286

Nightlies? No thanks been doing good with 1.0 so far along with the mods being in the same folder, have noticed no issues in game with that. My OpenXcom 1.0 install has been dormant for about a year or so (until now) and when I played it I played a lot of it.

1.0 works but it is completely outdated and has a ton of bugs that have been already fixed on the nightlies - you'll either run into issues while trying to use newer mods that were designed for the nightlies, or you may find impossible to use some of the modding features.

[Droggarth]

Added nodes in MapView, still crashes. Tried nightly a bit. Good grief, even more hassle.

EDIT: To elaborate. I wasn't planning to have tons of mods to sort through (or re-download) I have in my OpenXcom data folder. At least not today but frell, it should work even in 1.0!

EDIT2: Also the MapView doesn't show some of the ufos right, especially the Scout. just bunch of walls from bigger ufos.

EDIT3: Frelling frell! About more than 10 years since I first played X-Com, still can't get my alien Scout, just crash, crash, crash and more crash. If you only had any idea how pissed off I am. So please... can somebody just do it for me as I get overly aggressive and unstable due to my own mental issues to a point I can't even mod and it pisses me off. Just tried another trick I thought would work and nope, crash (DAMNIT!!!).

[Droggarth]

At least got my customized armor mod to work (sprites from Gazer mod, everything else, OP on purpose by me) but that was a simple case of putting the files in the proper place. I need that ship! Please.

[ohartenstein23]

Are you editing the small scout's map directly, or working on a copy of it?  Also, could you attach a copy of the openxcom.log file and any modded rulesets to help us debug?

[Droggarth]

Are you editing the small scout's map directly, or working on a copy of it?  Also, could you attach a copy of the openxcom.log file and any modded rulesets to help us debug?

I don't have that file, just did a search.

Nevermind. Nothing conclusive to me.

Spoiler:

Code: [Select]

[27-07-2016_23-15-39] [INFO] Data folder is:
[27-07-2016_23-15-39] [INFO] Data search is:
[27-07-2016_23-15-39] [INFO] - C:\Users\[REDACTED]\Documents\OpenXcom\
[27-07-2016_23-15-39] [INFO] - C:\Games and Stuff\OpenXcom
[27-07-2016_23-15-39] [INFO] - C:\Games and Stuff\OpenXcom
[27-07-2016_23-15-39] [INFO] User folder is: C:\Users\[REDACTED]\Documents\OpenXcom\
[27-07-2016_23-15-39] [INFO] Config folder is: C:\Users\[REDACTED]\Documents\OpenXcom\
[27-07-2016_23-15-39] [INFO] Options loaded successfully.
[27-07-2016_23-15-39] [INFO] SDL initialized successfully.
[27-07-2016_23-15-39] [INFO] SDL_mixer initialized successfully.
[27-07-2016_23-15-39] [INFO] requested file not found: openxcom.png
[27-07-2016_23-15-39] [INFO] Attempting to set display to 1440x900x8...
[27-07-2016_23-15-39] [INFO] Display set to 1440x900x8.
[27-07-2016_23-15-39] [INFO] Loading data...
[27-07-2016_23-15-39] [INFO] Scanning standard mods in 'standard'...
[27-07-2016_23-15-39] [INFO] Scanning user mods in 'C:\Users\[REDACTED]\Documents\OpenXcom\mods'...
[27-07-2016_23-15-39] [INFO] Mapping resource files...
[27-07-2016_23-15-39] [INFO] Resources files mapped successfully.
[27-07-2016_23-15-40] [INFO] Loading fonts... Font.dat
[27-07-2016_23-15-40] [INFO] Loading extra resources from ruleset...
[27-07-2016_23-15-40] [INFO] Data loaded successfully.
[27-07-2016_23-15-40] [INFO] Loading language...
[27-07-2016_23-15-40] [INFO] Language loaded successfully.
[27-07-2016_23-15-40] [INFO] OpenXcom started successfully!
[27-07-2016_23-15-40] [INFO] Using software scaling routine. For best results, try an OpenGL filter.


EDIT:
And yeah I'm using MapView on the files directly which IMO is an outdated inconvenient tool as trying to figure out what causes this crashing exactly. I just attached a similar node from FIRES.rmp file from the fighter craft transportation mod, made sure to the best of my knowledge which isn't much when it comes to modding this game that the stuff is set up right. It crashes, i just attach the FIRES stuff to my WIP mod for Firestorm and it works fine and I can see a cobbled together thing which I did not alter for reasons of benchmark and clarity.

The crash happens because the game can't place any XCom units on the map.

Which is the main cause under the suspect now. How the frell do I even make it so that it DOES spawn the necessary stuff and WHERE the HELL is the frelling thing to change.

[ohartenstein23]

It doesn't seem to have any information about the crash, only just the startup log.  When does the game crash?  Before you reach the main menu?  Or when you start an instance of the Battlescape with the new map?