Grenade Extensions? Submunitions?

[The_Funktasm]

I dunno if I'm getting ahead of myself here, making engine level suggestions this early in my membership here, but I had a thought.

Grenades, or explosions having a shotgun spread in 360 degrees with a definable number of shots, and damage for those shots. Grenades in XCOM are great, but I've been a bit spoiled on games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. where they actually send out shrapnel for damage separate from the explosion itself. I'm also curious as to whether there might ever be a split of the grenade priming state, and the proximity grenade priming state so that both can be placed on the same grenade. Maybe so that the alien grenade has an early advantage for being used early. I dunno exactly what you guys can add though, since I'm more used to zdoom. They have fairly frequent code extensions and I don't know that that's really your focus.


I guess to clarify since I get a bit rambly: Some ability to define a sub-projectile, a count, and a few other extra variables for explosive projectiles or weapons. This could allow for cluster weapons, grenades with low damage AP shrapnel, alien grenades with plasma bolts, and other more complicated sub-munition behavior for weapons. I will freely admit I don't know the engine limitations that would cause trouble with this.

[Solarius Scorch]

Yes, it would be nice if the X-Com engine could have multiple damage rolls per hit - including with different damage types. Because that's what you need, right?

AFAIK, the OXCE+ version already allows for explosions of any type, including shrapnel. But for now, only one damage type per explosion - so you can have shrapnel (AP) "explosion", but without the HE component. I think we can realistically expect this feature to be implemented, but I don't know how soon.

[ohartenstein23]

It's more than possible to have explosions of any damage type, but creating multiple projectiles at the source of an explosion is more difficult.  Engine modifications are definitely a thing here, especially if you're talking to Yankes or Meridian about OXC Extended (OXCE)/ OXC Extended Plus (OXCE+).  The best way to get something into the engine is to create a branch of the source for your feature, and try a little C++ yourself!  That's how things like configurable shotgun behavior and special night vision modes made it in to OXCE+.

[hellrazor]

It's more than possible to have explosions of any damage type, but creating multiple projectiles at the source of an explosion is more difficult.  Engine modifications are definitely a thing here, especially if you're talking to Yankes or Meridian about OXC Extended (OXCE)/ OXC Extended Plus (OXCE+).  The best way to get something into the engine is to create a branch of the source for your feature, and try a little C++ yourself!  That's how things like configurable shotgun behavior and special night vision modes made it in to OXCE+.

OXCE lacks the patches of SupSuper Master for the last 10 months or so?
I myself would not mod for it. The changes are to severe.

EDIT: or am i missinformed in this regard?

[ohartenstein23]

It's true that OXCE/OXCE+ is based off an older version of the nightly, lacking features like armed civilians, but I think Yankes is currently working on merging back to the latest nightly.

To me, it's a matter of what features I want in my mod - extended/plus has much more variety possible with weapons and ammunition types, plus the new vision modes and scripting open up tons of possibilities, and there's the fact that it includes my personal improvement to shotgun behavior.  Eventually, once the merge is finished, there won't be much of a trade-off in what I get from what executable.

[hellrazor]

It's true that OXCE/OXCE+ is based off an older version of the nightly, lacking features like armed civilians, but I think Yankes is currently working on merging back to the latest nightly.

To me, it's a matter of what features I want in my mod - extended/plus has much more variety possible with weapons and ammunition types, plus the new vision modes and scripting open up tons of possibilities, and there's the fact that it includes my personal improvement to shotgun behavior.  Eventually, once the merge is finished, there won't be much of a trade-off in what I get from what executable.

I personally didn't wanted to deviate too much from the vanilla game. So those changes are not really relevant to me.
For someone making a complete new total Conversion Mod, they will probably make sense.

Hm.. just zipping through the github repo, what can global scripts do?

[ohartenstein23]

Hm.. just zipping through the github repo, what can global scripts do?

That's a good question, one which probably only Yankes can really explain.  IvanDogovich uses them in his alternate corpse mod for Piratez, to change the floorob of a unit based on whether it's bleeding, stunned, or dead, and Yankes has written examples for an item that confers better night vision when held (like night vision goggles) and for making a silenced pistol that increases that weights the reactions check in favor of the firing unit, making return fire less likely.

Edit: We should probably move to the OXCE thread, so as not to completely derail The_Funktasm's thread.

[Solarius Scorch]

It's still off-topic, but once I tried OXCE+ I'll never go back to vanilla, ever. It just lacks all the great functionalities I'm now used to, like selling equipment from the post-battle report or changing armours from the inventory, or...

[Meridian]

OXCE lacks the patches of SupSuper Master for the last 10 months or so?
I myself would not mod for it. The changes are to severe.

EDIT: or am i missinformed in this regard?

There hasn't been much development in the last 10 months... at least not compared to 2014 or 2015.
And the changes are in no way severe... if you give a player (who didn't see the git repo) two versions of OpenXcom (one from january '16 and one from september '16), they will not see any difference.

On the other hand, OXCE and OXCE+ now give over 200 new QoL and modding features to players and modders alike...
I personally can't return back to OXC anymore, it's like returning from OpenXcom to 1994 original.
After I am finished with XPirateZ, I want to try Area 51 and XOps... but before that I will definitely create OXC+ (OpenXcom with my QoL improvements, without Extended stuff -- since Area 51 or XOps don't use them, yet).

[The_Funktasm]

So essentially in its own way, the extended version has almost what I would want, or at least enough of it to do some interesting stuff? Like even if there aren't submunitions coded, there is the possibility to make an explosion of any damage type? Meaning I could just use AP as the damage type of an alternate grenade and use that to simulate shrapnel?

[ohartenstein23]

Exactly, you can define a blast radius for any damage type, and it will create an explosion that has that damage type.  You still have to provide the special effects and pedia entries to let players know what's going on.  Piratez is a great example of this, there's a special bomb (I think the flavor is a dirty shrapnel bomb mixed with improvised incendiary stuff) that does melee damage (called cutting in the mod), while having a chance to light people on fire.  You should delve through the ruleset or check out the https://ufopaedia.org page to see what's already possible.