Questions about Alien Arsenal

[drages]

Hey...

I would need a hand about this. I try to figure out how to mod the "Alien" side but it confuses me here and there. I need a little guide guide about:

- How to give new weapons to aliens?

- Can i give special weapon to special aliens?

- Can i give special weapons to terror units.. i mean i want to make terror units more tougher weapons in time. More tougher bite, different caliber of their weapons..

- Is there any guide about missions and ufo crews because i did not get any idea from those codes ..

- How is the resistance work at armours or aliens.. I mean there is a resistance from sides and another as percent. How can i calculate this? For example i want to have an alien race with huge laser resistance but vulnerable to AP damage.. %50 damage from lasers, %200 damage from AP weapons..

As i am working on FMP, i want to make the Alien Arsenal bigger.. they just got only one alien laser and all plasma even with more variety. So i want to make a whole new laser weapons to aliens as a full branch. If i can, i want to make the races uses different weapon branches.. for example sectoids laser and mutons plasmas... FMP did this with MiB units, so i want to know how to make it to all alien races.

AND if there is a willing modder to help to handle the code, i could work with him/her with graphics needed.

Thank you!

[Warboy1982]

hi there!

- How to give new weapons to aliens?

first, define the new weapons, as seen in items.rul.
second, modify the deployments to include the new weapons, as seen in deployments.rul
third, if you want to define specific weapons (or sets of weapons) for certain aliens, you can add them as seen in units.rul, see triscenes for a good example

- Can i give special weapon to special aliens?

yes, as above and below.

- Can i give special weapons to terror units.. i mean i want to make terror units more tougher weapons in time. More tougher bite, different caliber of their weapons..

yes, as above, you can define a list of items, or a list of lists of items, and one set will be chosen at random, based on the alien technological progression as seen in alienItemLevels.rul.

- Is there any guide about missions and ufo crews because i did not get any idea from those codes ..

alienMissions contains all the relevant data, and details can be found here: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Ruleset_Reference_Nightly_(OpenXcom)

- How is the resistance work at armours or aliens.. I mean there is a resistance from sides and another as percent. How can i calculate this? For example i want to have an alien race with huge laser resistance but vulnerable to AP damage.. %50 damage from lasers, %200 damage from AP weapons..

the resistance values can be thought of as damage multiplier, you can use 0.5 and 2.0 to achieve 50 and 200 percent damages respectively. a given weapon needs to do at LEAST the amount of damage indicated by the side, front, back and under armour to penetrate said armour and actually inflict damage on the unit, more information here: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Damage_Formula

[drages]

Thank you warboy!

If i get any questions, i will ask it here!

[drages]

Can you help me about how to use "list of weapons"?

[Warboy1982]

Code: [Select]

builtInWeapons:
  - STR_WEAPON1
  - STR_WEAPON2
  - STR_WEAPON3
  - STR_WEAPON4
  - STR_WEAPON5
  - STR_WEAPON5_AMMO

Code: [Select]

builtInWeapons:
  -
    - STR_WEAPON1
    - STR_WEAPON2
  -
    - STR_WEAPON3
    - STR_WEAPON4
  -
    - STR_WEAPON5
    - STR_WEAPON5_AMMO
first example is a list, second example is a list of lists.

in the first example, the unit will spawn in with all five weapons.
in the second example the unit will spawn in with either weapons 1 and 2, 3 and 4, or 5 with ammo, depending on how far the player has progressed in the game, and a roll of the dice.
note that you will need to include ammo for any relevant weapons, and that this works for civilians, too.

[drages]

Code: [Select]

builtInWeapons:
  - STR_WEAPON1
  - STR_WEAPON2
  - STR_WEAPON3
  - STR_WEAPON4
  - STR_WEAPON5
  - STR_WEAPON5_AMMO

Code: [Select]

builtInWeapons:
  -
    - STR_WEAPON1
    - STR_WEAPON2
  -
    - STR_WEAPON3
    - STR_WEAPON4
  -
    - STR_WEAPON5
    - STR_WEAPON5_AMMO
first example is a list, second example is a list of lists.

in the first example, the unit will spawn in with all five weapons.
in the second example the unit will spawn in with either weapons 1 and 2, 3 and 4, or 5 with ammo, depending on how far the player has progressed in the game, and a roll of the dice.
note that you will need to include ammo for any relevant weapons, and that this works for civilians, too.

As i understand we can't give more then one inventory per "0" or  "1" . Does aliens change ammo? If i put more then one ammo types for a weapon to alien inv, which one does he uses? Can we loot the ammo in the weapon too at the end of combat (1 ammo per weapon always)?

And another question about manufacturing. Can we make the result of manufacturing more then 1 item? For example i want to create 3 weapon parts from 1 alien weapon. So one weapon needed but result will be 3 parts from a single manufacture.

Thx again!

[Meridian]

As i understand we can't give more then one inventory per "0" or  "1".

Don't understand the question.

Does aliens change ammo?

No, but they can reload when out of ammo.

If i put more then one ammo types for a weapon to alien inv, which one does he uses?

The "first".

Can we loot the ammo in the weapon too at the end of combat (1 ammo per weapon always)?

Yes, anything that has recoverable flag can be recovered.

Used ammo is not recovered, but they stack together, example:

A/ there is only one ammo clip on the whole map of type X, with 15 out of 20 rounds left => nothing is recovered

B/ there are 3 ammo clips on the whole map of type X, first 10/20, second 15/20 and third 15/20. Together there are 10+15+15=40 usable rounds... 40/20 = 2 clips will be recovered

And another question about manufacturing. Can we make the result of manufacturing more then 1 item? For example i want to create 3 weapon parts from 1 alien weapon. So one weapon needed but result will be 3 parts from a single manufacture.

Yes:

Code: [Select]

manufacture:
  - name: STR_PLASMA_PISTOL_DISASSEMBLY
    requiredItems:
      STR_PLASMA_PISTOL: 1
    producedItems:
      STR_PLASMA_WEAPON_PARTS: 3
      STR_BURNT_FINGERS: 2


[drages]

Great info again!

I want to bring 'get parts from alien things, use them for your arsenal' idea to xcom. It's a bit more micro management maybe but makes looting and farming more sense.

As I will give 3 type of weapon branch to aliens as laser, plasma and ion, you will need the parts from them to make your guns. MiB will use ballistic weapons mainly as gauss and laser support.

Most of modders try to add things to user side but I like to give enemies more things.

[Meridian]

I want to bring 'get parts from alien things, use them for your arsenal' idea to xcom. It's a bit more micro management maybe but makes looting and farming more sense.

As I will give 3 type of weapon branch to aliens as laser, plasma and ion, you will need the parts from them to make your guns. MiB will use ballistic weapons mainly as gauss and laser support.

There are mods, which do that, e.g. PirateZ... you can't use alien weapons until VERY late and various stuff & junk you recover must first be disassembled into gauss coils, focusing lens, energy parts, elerium batteries and many more funny things before you can assemble your own weapons from those parts. It's a lot of micro, but people like it so far

Most of modders try to add things to user side but I like to give enemies more things.

Completely agree, make the aliens great again

My motto: "More options = lower difficulty, less options = higher difficulty".

Some mods think they can make game harder by introducing more aliens or giving them more hp or more aim... but on the other hand, they give the player even more stuff to counter that... and ultimately make the game easier!

What's more difficult?
a/ Killing just 1 grizzly with bare hands alone in the woods?
b/ Or killing a 1000 grizzlies with a gatling mounted on a helicopter?

I'd say A.

[drages]

As a ufo player from day 1 at those days, I hate to see them just use 4 5 weapons from beginning to end. And only one damage type. They have more race then weapon numbers lol.

Micro is lovely when the ui supports and user friendly enough. Piratez is another world. It's much more then anything. But I can add some cool things to the xcom without harming vanilla feel.

I don't want to go ultra micro but I want to make the loot important, like elerium. I want to make weapons and armors useful because of their damage and resistance types, not sheer strength.

Like sectoids will die with ballistic easily but hardly with lasers. So even the most frigate races will have strength points.

I will see what I can do.