Author Topic: How to mod my files to buy/manufacture academy drones.  (Read 5552 times)

Offline BetaSpectre

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How to mod my files to buy/manufacture academy drones.
« on: August 25, 2016, 09:34:29 pm »
I always loved the little buggers, I was wondering how I could add auxillary units like dogs, and drones.

Offline Arthanor

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Re: How to mod my files to buy/manufacture academy drones.
« Reply #1 on: August 25, 2016, 09:48:50 pm »
haha I agree! I've always tried to capture them and study them  in the hope that I could refurbish them. They'd be much better than parrots for the later game as they can survive low level weapons much better. Sadly, no luck :/

I might look into that one over the weekend. That, and converting raiders (at least females into gals, maybe males into a new soldier type with only a few armor choices) so you can poach from other gangs.

Offline BetaSpectre

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Re: How to mod my files to buy/manufacture academy drones.
« Reply #2 on: August 25, 2016, 09:53:55 pm »
haha I agree! I've always tried to capture them and study them  in the hope that I could refurbish them. They'd be much better than parrots for the later game as they can survive low level weapons much better. Sadly, no luck :/

I might look into that one over the weekend. That, and converting raiders (at least females into gals, maybe males into a new soldier type with only a few armor choices) so you can poach from other gangs.

I remember you could add mercenaries, but I'm unsure about units that aren't already in the .rul file, those things would be so nice end game just from an RP standpoint. After going through the effort to catch a large amount I'm always sad I can't reuse them. Or fix broken ones.

Offline Arthanor

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Re: How to mod my files to buy/manufacture academy drones.
« Reply #3 on: August 25, 2016, 09:58:40 pm »
You can hire a mercenary, yes, but you can't buy enemy mercenaries' loyalty, even after having captured them (which feels like it should be doable, since you can buy other ones?).

You can add units that aren't already in the .rul file, exactly how Dioxine added Piratez units which weren't in the vanilla .rul file. It's just more work.. But I'd either add things that exist (drones) or create new soldiers types (harder but not that hard, especially if they're gal clones like the converted raider gals would be. The raider men would be harder though...)

Offline BetaSpectre

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Re: How to mod my files to buy/manufacture academy drones.
« Reply #4 on: August 25, 2016, 11:44:46 pm »
You can hire a mercenary, yes, but you can't buy enemy mercenaries' loyalty, even after having captured them (which feels like it should be doable, since you can buy other ones?).

You can add units that aren't already in the .rul file, exactly how Dioxine added Piratez units which weren't in the vanilla .rul file. It's just more work.. But I'd either add things that exist (drones) or create new soldiers types (harder but not that hard, especially if they're gal clones like the converted raider gals would be. The raider men would be harder though...)
Converting all the slaves would be a rather interesting idea to use as auxiliary units. However, there could be implants that if removed they die for the aliens, which ensure loyalty as is potentially seen in 2012 XCOM.

It'd be fun to do this anyway. even if the units aren't going to be great.

Offline Arthanor

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Re: How to mod my files to buy/manufacture academy drones.
« Reply #5 on: August 26, 2016, 03:58:43 am »
Well, that'd be a lot of work for very little reward. I'd rather not get my slaves slaughtered in base defences where they would contribute little any ways.

I'll look into drones and raiders for now. ;)

Offline Dioxine

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Re: How to mod my files to buy/manufacture academy drones.
« Reply #6 on: August 26, 2016, 05:30:22 am »
You already can convert slaves into combat units... As for the drones, something more interesting than the little bugger is in the works, but in the meantime, good luck :)

Offline Arthanor

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Re: How to mod my files to buy/manufacture academy drones.
« Reply #7 on: August 26, 2016, 06:08:10 am »
That's true, but those combat units aren't really slaves anymore. I think what was meant was having actual slaves show up in battle, looking like what their pedia articles look like.

I'll see what I can do over the weekend. It's been a while I modded so it should be fun. Nice change from trying to get power armor parts.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2016, 05:47:16 pm by Arthanor »

Offline karadoc

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Re: How to mod my files to buy/manufacture academy drones.
« Reply #8 on: August 26, 2016, 05:05:41 pm »
That's true, but those combat units aren't really slaves anymore.
Do you think they are willing going into to battle, armed with a rock and wearing underwear on the outside of their clothes?

Offline Arthanor

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Re: How to mod my files to buy/manufacture academy drones.
« Reply #9 on: August 26, 2016, 05:58:18 pm »
Do you think they are willing going into to battle, armed with a rock and wearing underwear on the outside of their clothes?
You're just playing at being thick, right? Just in case, I'll be as pedantic as possible:

Having the superheroes themed units (regardless of their origin as slave or willingness to go into combat, or lack thereof) doesn't seem to address my understanding of BetaSpectre meant. What I think BetaSpectre meant, and what I was responding to, was the possibility to have "Slave Maids", "Slaves", "Slave Lashers", "Slave Gladiatrix", etc. show up as combat units in base defenses, which would be representing during the base defense all the different type of slaves that one keeps in their hideout to improve storage space. Hence my response that it would be a large amount of work, one needs to sprite all those new units, and an unrewarding project because you'd just get your slaves slaughtered without actually doing much in combat.

Hopefully that's relatively clear now?  :P

Offline Arthanor

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Re: How to mod my files to buy/manufacture academy drones.
« Reply #10 on: August 26, 2016, 09:25:38 pm »
And on a much more positive note: I did it :D

This mod enables:
- capturing academy drones live to hack them and turn them into your own scouts. (No cost in parts! But requires a CPU on site)
- fixing drone corpses with a bunch of components. (components taken from the existing drone disassembly)
- turning drone corpses into components. (components taken from the existing drone disassembly)

This is enabled after having "interrogated" a "live" drone and researched both laser weapons and damaged grav units. As far as I know, it has a working ufopaedia article and all required strings, so it is complete. Let me know how it goes.

Offline Dioxine

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Re: How to mod my files to buy/manufacture academy drones.
« Reply #11 on: August 27, 2016, 03:08:38 pm »
What I think BetaSpectre meant, and what I was responding to, was the possibility to have "Slave Maids", "Slaves", "Slave Lashers", "Slave Gladiatrix", etc. show up as combat units in base defenses, which would be representing during the base defense all the different type of slaves that one keeps in their hideout to improve storage space.

I did consider doing that immediately after adding the slavery, I even concocted a couple of basic sprites, but then decided against it as it'd look quite retarded (and quite possibly make it impossible for the AI units to even spawn, if you have, say, 200 slaves). I agree it's a fun idea though :)

Offline Surrealistik

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Re: How to mod my files to buy/manufacture academy drones.
« Reply #12 on: August 27, 2016, 07:56:53 pm »
I did consider doing that immediately after adding the slavery, I even concocted a couple of basic sprites, but then decided against it as it'd look quite retarded (and quite possibly make it impossible for the AI units to even spawn, if you have, say, 200 slaves). I agree it's a fun idea though :)

There would literally not be a tile in my base that wasn't occupied by a slave.