aliens

Author Topic: [FULL MOD] Awesome Guns (an awesome modification of the OpenXcom game)  (Read 109612 times)

Offline CanadianBeaver

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 184
    • View Profile
    • AwesomeGuns
Re: [FULL MOD] Awesome Guns (updated 3rd September 2016)
« Reply #45 on: September 06, 2016, 01:28:25 am »
I would like to inform, that Awesome Guns modification is updated to the new Grand Release (1.3). Almost 150 files have been corrected during 100 hour of developing and testing.

1. The converted arsenal has been expanded by Cannon and Launcher:



Quote

2. The new type of weapon (melee weapon) has been implemented. There are knife, plasma blade, stun rod and a little surprise from a faraway distant galaxy - Laser Sword.

Quote

3. The Conventional, Laser Weapons and Alien weapons have been repainted

Quote

4. Other innovations are:
  • Some images of items and grenades have been corrected.
  • The snap shot was added for some weapons due reaction fire.
  • Prices, weights and sizes of weapons and items have been balanced.
  • Also, manufacturing requirements for converted weapons were balanced.
  • Research tree and manufacturing has been adapted due new weapons and items.
  • New cities have been added to the globe. Also, the regions of countries have been corrected.
  • Armor values have been corrected for all weapons and items.
  • Shooting distance of some weapons were balanced.
  • A few articles in UFOpedia were corrected.
  • Some mistakes have been corrected.
  • see all changes
Download release 1.3



Moreover, the additional modifications have been updated.

Awesome Guns - Laser
In version 1.4 Heavy Laser was repainted and two-handed Laser Sword was implemented.
https://www.openxcom.com/mod/awesome-guns-laser

Awesome Guns - Cities
In version 1.2 the regions of countries have been corrected and new cities have been added to the globe.
https://www.openxcom.com/mod/awesome-guns-cities

Offline new_civilian

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 725
    • View Profile
Re: [FULL MOD] Awesome Guns (updated 5th September 2016)
« Reply #46 on: September 10, 2016, 11:52:15 am »
Here something for your mod (maybe)

I recolored the AC and HC ammo to also fit the grey theme.

Offline CanadianBeaver

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 184
    • View Profile
    • AwesomeGuns
Re: [FULL MOD] Awesome Guns (updated 5th September 2016)
« Reply #47 on: September 10, 2016, 02:42:19 pm »
Here something for your mod (maybe)

I recolored the AC and HC ammo to also fit the grey theme.

new_civilian, thank you for sharing your creation. These images look pretty nice. I will think about implementing in the next release.

PS: Be aware, that Awesome Guns modification uses only four grenades for HEAVY CANNON.

Offline Interceptor

  • Squaddie
  • *
  • Posts: 3
    • View Profile
Re: [FULL MOD] Awesome Guns (updated 5th September 2016)
« Reply #48 on: September 10, 2016, 03:28:33 pm »
Very interesting modification. Made with style and quality.
I play on the release version of game (v1.0), on the "night" version is not yet tested.

I have a small problem (actually a big problem  :) ) - I can not explore and produce a stun rod. I can not find alien entertainment (alien biology and food I researched). Perhaps I had forgotten, they must be on the UFO? Or, on the alien bases?

Offline CanadianBeaver

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 184
    • View Profile
    • AwesomeGuns
Re: [FULL MOD] Awesome Guns (updated 5th September 2016)
« Reply #49 on: September 12, 2016, 11:06:32 am »
Very interesting modification. Made with style and quality.
I play on the release version of game (v1.0), on the "night" version is not yet tested.

I have a small problem (actually a big problem  :) ) - I can not explore and produce a stun rod. I can not find alien entertainment (alien biology and food I researched). Perhaps I had forgotten, they must be on the UFO? Or, on the alien bases?

Thank you for playing the Awesome Guns modification. The Alien Entertainment can be found on Alien Bases. Also, the Terror Ship and the Battleship contains a numerous quantity.

Offline Interceptor

  • Squaddie
  • *
  • Posts: 3
    • View Profile
Re: [FULL MOD] Awesome Guns (updated 5th September 2016)
« Reply #50 on: September 12, 2016, 12:52:01 pm »
The Alien Entertainment can be found on Alien Bases. Also, the Terror Ship and the Battleship contains a numerous quantity.
Thanks for the info.
With great difficulty, I managed to clear the aliens base (Snakeman's) and get the aliens entertainment (It was a demolition operation  :) ). Laser weapons are very low power, even against Snakeman's (Muton's can kill mostly "High Explosive" and grenades).
It might be worth to provide the possibility of obtaining the stun rod a little earlier? No need to get the "Alien_Entertainment"? (In the game in September 1999, my soldiers are running only with laser rifles.)

I play on "Genius" difficulty.

Offline CanadianBeaver

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 184
    • View Profile
    • AwesomeGuns
Re: [FULL MOD] Awesome Guns (updated 5th September 2016)
« Reply #51 on: September 13, 2016, 02:44:47 pm »
Thanks for the info.
With great difficulty, I managed to clear the aliens base (Snakeman's) and get the aliens entertainment (It was a demolition operation  :) ). Laser weapons are very low power, even against Snakeman's (Muton's can kill mostly "High Explosive" and grenades).
It might be worth to provide the possibility of obtaining the stun rod a little earlier? No need to get the "Alien_Entertainment"? (In the game in September 1999, my soldiers are running only with laser rifles.)

I play on "Genius" difficulty.

Thank you for your suggestion. I will check the damage of laser weapon.

Be aware, the one of ideas in Awesome Guns modification is "Conventional weapons should be suitable as long as possible". You can found, that there is no big difference in damage between rifle (48), assault rifle (52), laser rifle (62) and converted plasma rifle (68). Also, rifle can shoot 1aim+1snap or 4 snap per turn, assault rifle - 1aim or 3snap, laser rifle - 1aim+1snap or 2snap. The idea of laser rifle is - high accuracy (85% aim and 75% snap) and no ammunition, but it can shoot only twice per turn. Each kind of weapon in the Awesome Guns modification has their weakness and strengths. There is no big fire gun for all situations.

Try to put snipers on the roof of skyranger and let your soldiers walk in pairs. In the Awesome Guns modification only SECTOID and FLOATER can be killed by one shoot. The SNAKEMAN, MUTON and other aliens have protection and can be killed from several hits.

Moreover, each race of aliens has their resistance. For example, the  SNAKEMAN has:
      - 0.8 # Armor Piercing
      - 0.6 # Incendiary
      - 0.6 # High Explosive
      - 0.5 # Laser
      - 0.5 # Plasma
      - 1.2 # Stun
      - 1.2 # Melee
      - 0.4 # Acid
      - 2.4 # Smoke
It means that conventional weapon with alloy ammunition is better against SNAKEMAN - 80% of damage. Furthermore, the Snakeman can be exhausted by smoke (240% of damage), stun rod, stun grenades (120%) or melee weapon (rifles, knifes and swords). The ACID ammunition (40% of damage), laser weapon (50%) and converted plasma weapon (50%) have no great power against SNAKEMAN.

The MUTON is worst enemy:
      - 0.6 # Armor Piercing
      - 1.0 # Incendiary
      - 0.6 # High Explosive
      - 0.6 # Laser
      - 0.6 # Plasma
      - 0.6 # Stun
      - 0.8 # Melee
      - 1.0 # Acid
      - 2.0 # Smoke
It can be killed by incendiary (grenades or rockets) or ACID ammunition (assault rifle or thunderbolt). Also, it can be exhausted by smoke.
« Last Edit: September 13, 2016, 02:54:33 pm by CanadianBeaver »

Offline Interceptor

  • Squaddie
  • *
  • Posts: 3
    • View Profile
Re: [FULL MOD] Awesome Guns (updated 5th September 2016)
« Reply #52 on: September 13, 2016, 10:47:45 pm »
Hmm, that's very interesting. I underestimated the firearm, immediately jumping to laser rifles.

P.S. I look forward to the new version of your mod.  :)
« Last Edit: September 14, 2016, 07:14:11 am by Interceptor »

Offline Zyzyfer

  • Captain
  • ***
  • Posts: 56
    • View Profile
Re: [FULL MOD] Awesome Guns (updated 5th September 2016)
« Reply #53 on: September 25, 2016, 09:10:32 am »
Really enjoying your mod for past 1 week. I really like the way you balanced weapon range/dropoff and your many other ideas you have implemented (particularly enjoyed your tuned launcher idea- albeit i think it was about April before I could bring down my first UFO with Raven interceptor and tuned stingray launcher/laser cannon (maybe it was also because I am playing nightmare mode)- had to resort following UFOs with skyranger until UFO lands and doing terror missions to get by.
One of my pet peeves was how the conventional weapons were obsolete from the get go (this mod certainly addresses this issue adequately.

Albeit the Auto-Cannon needs some loving (right now it just isn't worth using the weapon- seems to perform like a jack of all trades without being particularly good at anything), maybe improving its ammo AP ability to 40x9; I-ammo to 48x5; HE-ammo to 42x5, decreasing accuracy to 30%, increasing dropoff=4 and maybe giving it slightly more range (24-28), and removing snap shot would make it work more like a large mini-gun from the fallout series (which is what I always imagined the AC to be), would give it some life too.

Anyways thanks for the great mod, I'll probably post more comments once/if I manage to defeat the alien menace or die trying!!! XDDD
« Last Edit: September 25, 2016, 09:12:49 am by Zyzyfer »

Offline CanadianBeaver

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 184
    • View Profile
    • AwesomeGuns
Re: [FULL MOD] Awesome Guns (updated 5th September 2016)
« Reply #54 on: September 28, 2016, 08:27:01 pm »
Zyzyfer, thank you for playing Awesome Guns. This modification is designed for better balance, more excitement during the game and beautiful graphic, especially for conventional weapon.

Also, thank you for sharing your ideas. Auto-Cannon is a difficult weapon and how you understand, this is a handyman weapon. I will test and check your proposed param as soon as possible. Maybe you know, that snap shoot for auto-cannon and converted plasma cannon has been implemented just in Grand Release (1.3). It was necessary for reaction fire (see this topic).

Offline Zyzyfer

  • Captain
  • ***
  • Posts: 56
    • View Profile
Re: [FULL MOD] Awesome Guns (updated 5th September 2016)
« Reply #55 on: September 28, 2016, 10:08:27 pm »
Zyzyfer, thank you for playing Awesome Guns. This modification is designed for better balance, more excitement during the game and beautiful graphic, especially for conventional weapon.

Also, thank you for sharing your ideas. Auto-Cannon is a difficult weapon and how you understand, this is a handyman weapon. I will test and check your proposed param as soon as possible. Maybe you know, that snap shoot for auto-cannon and converted plasma cannon has been implemented just in Grand Release (1.3). It was necessary for reaction fire (see this topic).
I have considered the reaction fire without snap shot situation, but maybe the AC/PC shouldn't have reaction fire, and instead make up for this disadvantage in other areas.

Personally would like to see a conventional weapon that could shred through a Sectopod/Muton in one burst (as long as you can get into point blank range-while risking reaction fire from aliens), but far from being OP; takes a lot of TUs to fire (maybe make tuAuto=60), cannot react fire, & is near useless/extremely inaccurate at longer distances (high dropoff). Basically a high risk-reward weapon.

I can just imagine trying to sneak up on a Sectopod/Muton/Cyberdisc from behind while still trying to leave enough TUs to fire the thing while attempting to avoid reaction fire XDDD.
The AC would also come in handy while in close quarters such as inside a UFO.

Would add more tactical play into game (& less reliance on high explosives). As it stands there is really little point in using the AC as specialising with the HC/HE/shotgun/rocket launcher dose things better.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2016, 10:10:12 pm by Zyzyfer »

Offline CanadianBeaver

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 184
    • View Profile
    • AwesomeGuns
Re: [FULL MOD] Awesome Guns (updated 5th September 2016)
« Reply #56 on: October 03, 2016, 03:42:03 pm »
Zyzyfer, I tested your params and I have found, that these params are better for Auto-Cannon. Thank you for sharing it.

The_Funktasm

  • Guest
Re: [FULL MOD] Awesome Guns (updated 5th September 2016)
« Reply #57 on: October 17, 2016, 04:15:51 am »
Man... I like this mod, I do, but I have to play a modified custom version, because I'm just that anal about realistic magazine sizes. Otherwise it's just about perfect. I just get weird about things like that, personally. That and the amount of pellets per shot-shell. That kind of irks me too, but still.

I understand that balance is the overriding concern here and not fine realism. Perfectly understandable. Vanilla XCOM really doesn't have enough options for the soldiers they give us. Not enough choices that work with everyone's strengths or weaknesses. This mod solves that, at least partially.


I should note I play on lower difficulties at the moment, and that I'm only as picky as I am with weapons because I know a lot about them. Otherwise the mod is great. It covers a few oversights in the game. My only real problem is the handling of plasma weapons, as far as real stuff. Humankind, or at least the U.S. have had plasma weapons projects since even before the 90's. Not that that'd be enough to use against aliens, of course, but I would assume you could really soup up your own examples of the same technology by having a "proper" example like an alien weapon to reverse engineer to see all the "proper" or "textbook" cases and situations for these weapons to function properly. Maybe you should have a few more steps involved technology-wise to bridge the gap. Like say, a "miniturization" tech tree to cover shrinkage of existing developmental technologies on earth like high-power lasers and railguns, or in the case of alien tech, circumventing what we can't understand with smaller versions of our own technology.

It is our only edge in that fight, to be honest.
In XCOM aliens have the edge in pre-developed tech.
We however are a species that has repurposed things since day one.
If that's our edge, I don't see why alien tech would be quite as off-limits as it is. I would however agree with it being hard to acquire with longer research times that maybe force players to create R&D focused bases to compensate for said long research times.
That said I kind of agree with the human-driven variants of plasma weapons. I will say though that they may not deserve quite the nerf they've been given, raw-power wise. I think if anything, the human plasma weapons should be inaccurate more than weak. If they fire using mental functions, that seems more like an accuracy driven function than a power one.

I dunno, just a few thoughts.

Also some things seem to weigh too much compared to a human corpse. Magazines, stuff like that.


Also on a separate note, I think HWPs would be worth reworking. Namely, the logic that if you're going to the trouble of making one, it'd probably be in either a higher caliber, rate of fire, or armor quality that a soldier armed with the same.  I notice they start in "cannon" but realistically, with their small size, they'd be either 5.56 like soldiers, .50 cal for cheapness, 20mm for power, higher for the power of a similarly sized tank, or some similar scheme. All those have bigger magazines and variable power. I dunno. Sometimes attention to detail makes it hard to enjoy games. (or make them enjoyable in my case.)
« Last Edit: October 17, 2016, 09:40:36 am by The_Funktasm »

Offline CanadianBeaver

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 184
    • View Profile
    • AwesomeGuns
Re: [FULL MOD] Awesome Guns (updated 5th September 2016)
« Reply #58 on: October 19, 2016, 01:08:36 pm »
The_Funktasm, thank you for sharing your ideas. Your offers are great and very interesting. Actually, it takes a time for thinking and realizing. Fortunately, I am collecting the new ideas for next release of Awesome Guns modification and I will think about your proposal. Thank you once again. Please, feel free to tell me more details or new ideas.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2016, 01:47:41 pm by CanadianBeaver »

Offline Zyzyfer

  • Captain
  • ***
  • Posts: 56
    • View Profile
Re: [FULL MOD] Awesome Guns (updated 5th September 2016)
« Reply #59 on: October 20, 2016, 12:22:52 pm »
I'd just up the armour modifiers of Aliens to plasma damage to make it at least on par with AP resistance.
As it stands [looking at the code] with most alien species its pretty much worse than AP.
Considering the materials to build the converted plasma weapons and ammo (some that cannot be manufactured/must be salvaged), are quite hard to come buy there should be at least a modest reward for using them (right now it just doesn't feel like it).

I guess on the flip side (another way to go), is to make it even harder to acquire materials to make converted weapons/ammo but give the converted weapons a clear advantage if one does manage to acquire them & be able to maintain the ammo for them.
Otherwise I am liking everything else, particularly love the changes to interceptors/dog fights, & I always liked using the conventional weapons even while playing vanilla Xcom (so I particularly love this aspect of the mod).