Arsenal Expanded

[chaosshade]

Good news everyone!  I finally have my own topic for Arsenal Expanded; no more piggy-backing on Rockfish's topic!

Current version is 1.63

Read the changelog first!
Link to Mod:  https://openxcom.mod.io/arsenal-expanded

List of contributors:

Rockfish - the original creator who made the original skeleton
XOps - Mass Drivers and some conventional weapons
hellrazor - debugging and formatting (file merging between version 0.9 and 1.0)
Warboy - debugging and coding assistance
Hobbes - debugging and coding assistance
nadir - pistol and magazine sprites and data slate floorobs
Dioxine - Heavy Cannon Mk2, Alien Multi-Launcher, Alien Auto-Launcher
ohartenstine - Tau weapons

!WARNING!
DO NOT ADD THIS MOD MID-PLAYTHROUGH.  IT REQUIRES A FRESH GAME!
THIS MOD IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH ANY MOD THAT CHANGES THE ALIEN DEPLOYMENTS!
THIS MOD IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH OPENXCOM VERSION 1.0!
THIS MOD IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH TERRAIN PACK 3.7!
DO NOT ADD THIS MOD MID-PLAYTHROUGH.  IT REQUIRES A FRESH GAME!
!WARNING!

1.63 change log:

- Fixed: multiple code errors
- Fixed: incorrect pallet colours
- Fixed: Tau Assault Cannon Clip unable to be manufactured

- Nerfed: Plasma Grenade
- Nerfed: Tau Assault Cannon auto shot removed (it was just so hilarious OP!)

1.62 change log:

- Fixed (hopefully):  Racial bases not spawning with the correct items (may be biased toward certain races.)  Special thanks to Hobbes for helping me with this one!
Alert!  New game required for it to properly apply the patch!

1.61 change log:

- Fixed:  Sound error with Heavy Machine Gun

1.6 change log:
- Fixed:  Tau Shotgun unplayable
- Fixed:  Multi Launcher ammunition unable to be manufactured
- Fixed:  Auto Launcher ammunition unable to be manufactured
- Fixed:  Alien Research no longer suffers from the "missing pistol" problem

- New:  Compatibility with UFO Extender Accuracy
- New:  New sprites for the Tau Weapons courtesy of ohartenstein
- New:  New hitSound for the Tau Weapons

- Update:  Heavy Machine Gun flogged with the Nerf Bat to better fit its role as a middle ground between Rifle and Auto-Cannon

1.51 change log:
- Fixed:  racial alien bases not spawning!

1.5 change log:
- New:  Multiple Grenade Launcher, three ammo types, HE, Stun, and Smoke.
- New:  Heavy Machine Gun, three ammo types, AP, HE, and IN.  Lighter, faster, and more accurate than the Auto-Cannon, but doesn't hit as hard.
- New:  Multi Launcher (Alien Heavy Cannon), three ammo types, AP, HE, IN!  Enjoy!
- New:  Auto Launcher (Alien Auto Cannon), three ammo types, AP, HE, IN!  Enjoy!
- New:  Plasma Grenade, twice as much boom as the Alien Grenade~
- New:  Stasis Grenade, not all grenades are lethal!
- New:  Alien Gauss Weapons!  Seven new weapons that can screw up your day with unique sounds, sprites, and animations!
- New:  Laser Sniper Rifle!  Finally!
- New:  Tau Weapons!  Research pays off!  Strike back at the aliens with these unique weapons!  They're hard to get though, so have fun~
- New:  Flechette Weapons have a unique firing sound to tell them apart!
- New:  Elerium Slugs!  The Plasma Shotgun now has a single, accurate, high damage round it can fire in addition to the plasma burst from Cydonia!

- Restored:  Heavy Cannon!  A favourite heavy weapon has returned, complete with a new sprite and buffs!
- Restored:  Auto Cannon!  A new set of sprites and new sounds!

- Updated:  Heavy Pistol has a new sprite!
- Updated:  Small Rocket changed to Guided Rocket, two waypoints and 65 damage!
- Updated:  Heavy Launcher can totally make your day suck!
- Updated:  Racial alien bases!  All aliens now have unique weapon sets for their bases!  (makes getting Data Slates less obnoxious)

- Removed:  Blaster Launcher.  (I truly apologize for this one, but it was WAY broken!)

Please, for the love of all things holy to us alien-hating humans, report bugs immediately and with detail so I can fix them properly!

[ohartenstein23]

With the caveat that I haven't played much with this mod at all, there are a few things I've noticed about the balance of the weapons looking through the 'pedia articles:

• The shotguns are incredibly powerful compared to other weapons at their same level.  I'd be worried that this would make equivalent-level autoshot weapons obsolete.  Why take the autocannon with AP rounds (45x3, twice per turn), when you can use the combat shotgun (50x8, thrice per turn, greater accuracy)?
• The heavy machine gun seems to outclass the autocannon in everything but raw power.  The x5 autoshot with higher accuracy makes it very useful, especially in my favorite autocannon role, incendiary vs. cyberdiscs and reapers.  Perhaps the autcannon needs a bit of a buff, or the heavy machine gun should be toned down?
• Stun rounds on an arcing grenade launcher, available for purchase from the beginning, make getting aliens for interrogation much easier.  The arcing AoE shot makes it more reliable than the small launcher, and the power won't be a concern when you have 6 rounds/clip and can use it from behind cover effectively.  You might want to gate that behind some research, unless you want to take away the "fun" of having to use stun rods.

Beyond that, I like the fleshing out of weapons variety before you get heavy plasma - having a nice continuum of choices in the firepower/speed/accuracy trade-off makes for less railroaded gameplay.

[chaosshade]

Thanks for the feedback, ohartenstein!

The shotguns are hilariously OP because the mod isn't designed to work with OXCE+, so they don't have access to the accuracy bonuses included in that.  I admit they are a bit metal on the alien side of things (have fun facing the plasma shotgun) but I feel like that helps to balance the game some at the same time.

The heavy machine gun is meant to be a middle ground between the rifle and the auto cannon.  I will freely admit that it fills its role too well, but the damage drops off pretty heavily in the mid-game when the Mutons start showing up and, like most weapons, it's more or less rendered useless against Sectopods.  (HMG-IN?)

The stun rounds were meant to take the edge off capturing aliens.  I admit they do allow for a lot of other utility uses as well, but given the variety of alien weapons you'll be up against when playing, you might be better off trying to stun them from afar than you will from exposing yourself to get clear shots.

[Dwarmin]

I really like these sprites  But I'm going need to mod this mod before I can use it.

Have you considered lending your work to complement a major mod? I'm seriously going to jack this into Area51...

But as for my opinions!

The shotguns are hilariously OP because the mod isn't designed to work with OXCE+, so they don't have access to the accuracy bonuses included in that.  I admit they are a bit metal on the alien side of things (have fun facing the plasma shotgun) but I feel like that helps to balance the game some at the same time.

Yeah, I will have to adjust the shotguns to work with UFOextender accuracy mod. Right now your shotguns wipe out enemies even at mid range. Which eliminates the need for rifles and such.

The heavy machine gun is meant to be a middle ground between the rifle and the auto cannon.  I will freely admit that it fills its role too well, but the damage drops off pretty heavily in the mid-game when the Mutons start showing up and, like most weapons, it's more or less rendered useless against Sectopods.  (HMG-IN?)

The way Area51 balances out the machine gun vs the AC, is that the AC keeps it's unique ammo, and has better accuracy in all modes. In return, the MG does less damage, and has no aimed shot-but has a very cheap TU cost (16%) for firing extended bullet auto-shots. Essentially the only way to make them really unique from each other is to make the MG a primary auto-attack weapon. Of course this requires UFOEx accuracy compatibility, which might be beyond the scope of this mod.

The stun rounds were meant to take the edge off capturing aliens.  I admit they do allow for a lot of other utility uses as well, but given the variety of alien weapons you'll be up against when playing, you might be better off trying to stun them from afar than you will from exposing yourself to get clear shots.

I think the stun damage is fine. I actually used a variant of this weapon in a TFTD Mod, it was useful for clearing out the field, but not so much in close quarters. It was also much less effective against any aliens higher than Aquatoids, due to the fact that most aliens in TFTD seem to have better armor and HP than their XCOM UFO Defense kin, and the base damage was slightly lower.

On the other hand, money is so tight in that game I needed to capture aliens alive in vast numbers just to pay the bills...

...

Also, have you considered adding SolariusScorches Plasma Blades to your mod? That seems to be the only thing your aliens lack, melee weapons with which to kill XCOM even more efficiently.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

I just found this, looks neat!

I was reading some of the old posts on Rockfish's thread. I think there's no need to use an elerium crystal for the laser shotgun. Why not just use a diamond crystal? Elerium is supposed to be for producing gravity waves and it also probably releases a lot of total energy. People use it for too many other things that it's becoming the generic phlebotinum of X-Com. Diamond crystals would work great for refracting lasers, however, as they have a high transparency as well as a high heat tolerance, they're very rigid, and best of all they can be produced at very high quality without costing much.

Sometimes I like to design background lore and explanations behind weapons. My current explanation for laser weapons is that they're based on some alien technology found in ancient crash sites uncovered by older X-Com divisions.

[chaosshade]

I have Elerium as a requirement for Laser Weapons because of the need to create ultra-pure crystals in a sharply reduced amount of time.  I like to tailor the lore as well, but everyone has their own interpretation of it.  Your lore sounds cool though.

I wonder if the admins would spring for a "lore" section where we could each take our shots at it and see what we like best.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

I wonder if the admins would spring for a "lore" section where we could each take our shots at it and see what we like best.

That would be great! I want to get an X-Com Extended Universe we can agree on, to get people on the same page and make more content cross-compatible!

[ohartenstein23]

Had some more time to test the starting weapons:

• The two aimed shots on the basic assault rifle is really nice for the rookies, makes the tradeoff between the damage of the marksman's rifle and the speed of the assault rifle meaningful. As a result though, I might suggest bumping up the accuracy of the marksman's rifle and maybe the snap shot range for those using the extender accuracy option.
• Ten more damage on large rockets is certainly nice against cyberdiscs, but the turning the small rocket into a guided rocket with two waypoints was a stroke of genius.  It might be a bit too powerful,
   but given all of the other powerful options you've created, it's right at home.
• Thank you for the increased clip size on AC-AP, it doesn't feel like as much a bad idea to waste ammo on an autoshot at longer ranges.

[chaosshade]

I don't use UFOExtender accuracy, so it's just using the default values.  I should probably update it because it seems to be a fairly popular add-on.

[SirBastage]

I installed the mod and loaded a saved game and found UFO Navigation, Power Source, Small Launcher and stun bombs were removed from my research choices. Do I have to start a fresh game?

[chaosshade]

I installed the mod and loaded a saved game and found UFO Navigation, Power Source, Small Launcher and stun bombs were removed from my research choices. Do I have to start a fresh game?

You shouldn't have to to start a new game, buuut it'll take the mod about a month to kick in.  Weapons (and some equipment) are now locked behind certain research requirements.  You can't just rush research now.

[JPlayer 101]

I do not know how to ask but I have some troubles with this mod on Android version, so I can't research new alien weapons, but i can max laser research, meybe it's some your's rebalanse, but I'd like to hear is it maded specially, or not? I have no installed same working mods, also it's OXCE+ app.

[ohartenstein23]

You won't be able to research the newer alien weapons in this mod until you do some alien bases and get some specific stuff from there.

[chaosshade]

New update!  Check the first post!

[Amoebka]

What does the "compatibility with UFOExtender accuracy" mean? Is the mod only balanced when it's turned on? Is it balanced for both on and off?

Edit:

The game crashed on my first mission when trying to autofire the heavy machine gun with HE ammo loaded: