OXCE (OpenXcom Extended) main thread

[Meridian]

Let's say a week at 40 CHF/hour.

[mercy]

Let's say a week at 40 CHF/hour.

Thank You! Considering an emotionally involved programmer - "This has become a personal matter!", etc.. -  maybe 10-14 hrs a day and bug fixing, another requested week or two, to polish and "just give it more love":
Seven 14 hrs workdays = 98 hrs = 40 * 98 CHF / week = ~3920 CHF per week.
+
Estimated polishing, any contingency during coding coming up, might mean plus 2 weeks  = 8000 CHF

Realistically if anything unexpected comes up and requires added engineering hours, probably 3 weeks of work worth about 12000 CHF

((Then of course later paying for (difficult) bugfixing + important related community requests that are really good ideas and are very worthy to implement, but need serious work hours.))

Okay. Very nice! I needed the amount money to think about and make plans.

THANK YOU!!

[Meridian]

I'm not an emotionally involved programmer, I work 8.5 hours a day (=42 hours a week). Working 14 hours a day only creates problems, no exceptions.

Also, I don't do this for money, my entire donation income from the last 5 years is 24 CHF (thanks to 2 generous donators).

Lastly, although being paid by time and material sounds really cool, I don't know if anybody actually does that.
In the last 15 years in the industry, I have seen only fixed price contracts... if you're ever in a situation that you need to outsource something, keep that in mind

All that being said, if you're a rich guy who can afford it, I would gladly do business with you.
Otherwise, your request will just end up on my todolist and may or may not happen sooner or later, or never. In this particular case probably later than sooner.

[Shiroi Bara]

How to enable full light (or increase it by steps) at dark maps when using debug mode? Can't find info in wiki.

[mercy]

@Meridian, do you maintain some release notes for each OXCE release?

[Meridian]

@Meridian, do you maintain some release notes for each OXCE release?

Yes, each release is announced in this thread, together with release notes.

I seem to have forgotten the 5.6.2 tho... here goes:

New OXCE v5.6.2 is up.

2019-08-15
 - Prevent overcrowding of crafts in starting base
 - Fixed CTD when going into MODS menu and not restarting the game
 - Fixed AI not using grenades in certain situations
 - "Save pre-primed grenades" user option now also applies to non-grenade items

Download: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,5258.0.html

[mercy]

I'm trying to mod the Autolaser shoot sound, to lower its volume, but when I define

extraSounds:
  - type: BATTLE.CAT
    files:
      11: Resources/Sounds/Autolaser.wav

Then the simple lasgun [its lesser brother] sound effect is played MIXED together with the autolaser.wav

WTF is happening here?

--

I have an idea: packing a new sample2.cat. Let's see what happens..

Apparently when the game first loads the sounds into memory -it takes a long time and I should have to be able to reset the entire game so it loads everything again- , because now, upon subsequent starts, it just finds the old RAM addresses again, sounds that are still there in memory and loads everything together. Vanilla original and the new sounds.
So If I make a new sound it will be mixed with the sound position stored in RAM.     

No cigar!

Now these two sounds are being played mixed together: one from memory, one from the sample2.cat file.   

0B   5F EF 01       43 27     laser shot

aand:

13   59 41 03       6C 34     laser/plasma hit

[Meridian]

1/ Which version of OXCE are you using exactly?
2/ Which mod are you trying to change? And which version exactly?
3/ Can you upload your mod? The one that's not working.

I have an idea: packing a new sample2.cat. Let's see what happens..

Do not change original CAT files, it won't always work properly, as explained here: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,7355.msg116263.html#msg116263

Then the simple lasgun [its lesser brother] sound effect is played MIXED together with the autolaser.wav

OpenXcom is not even theoretically capable of mixing two sounds into one, something else must be wrong.

Apparently when the game first loads the sounds into memory -it takes a long time and I should have to be able to reset the entire game so it loads everything again- , because now, upon subsequent starts, it just finds the old RAM addresses again, sounds that are still there in memory and loads everything together. Vanilla original and the new sounds.
So If I make a new sound it will be mixed with the sound position stored in RAM.     

When you quit and start the game again, it DOES load everything again. It's not even theoretically possible to "find old RAM addresses again". The reason why subsequent starts are quicker is because of the harddisk cache.

[mercy]

I'm in a bandit cave.  Mistook playing back mixed sounds with the fact that, where I shot was a close rock wall and the game had to play the correct autolaser sound effect, but then the shot hit almost immediately and the game had to play to laser hit effect as well, giving the appearance that both sounds were played at once mixed together. Because they were. Correctly.

On normal missions - with open, wide spaces - the autolaser sounded correctly  - too loud -  .. .. .. then  its "hit-object" sound played out, to which I paid no attention, since the volume level of that one was okay.   

All right. So lets try this one again..

Okay, it works with the extrasounds method.  Now:  onto what I wanted to do originally:
1. mastering this autolaser shooting sound effect to make it amazing and
2. giving you new effects, for exotic, hand-held, mega-blaster-lasers! 

[Meridian]

My day-time job deals a lot with "minefield" questions, so it came "naturally" at the time of posting (yes, I'm at work ATM). 

As per situations. I'm playing Piratez at the moment and my interaction comes from OXCE+ and the mod. I see a pull down menu on the top left that allows the filtering of items based on all sort of categories.  I see also pull down menus on the craft inventory screen, like the one that says "equipped", where one can "top-off" items as needed. A similar feature may come useful for bases.

My intended use is for example, if I have assigned certain satellite bases to store each different class of items, like one base for craft parts, another for raw materials, another for surplus weapons, etc. Then after a mission where my local storage is overflow, or any other time, I can dispatch the excess to each of the corresponding bases. The ability to filter and show only items existing at the destination (from the pull down menu, for example), would come very handy.

I guess this may not be an issue for other mods, but for Piratez and its hundreds of different items, this would easy the pain a bit 

Added, see screenshot.

[Meridian]

While we're at it, may I request a global variable to make grav shields stack?

Code: [Select]

vars:
    gravStacking: true
It won't significantly increase base defense power in most setups, but may allow you to slightly reduce the number of facilities used. Such as: 1 grav shield and 5 fusion defense = 10x fusion defense for 6 facility space. But 2 grav shield and 3 fusion defense = 9x fusion defense for 5 facility space.

On the other hand, mods like Tech-Comm might implement using large fractions of your base for defense, and trying to calculate how many grav shields vs defenses gives you the best ratio.

Grav shields stack in OpenXcom since early 2013.

[Alex_D]

Added, see screenshot.

Thank you!

Not to abuse Meridian's kindness, but I have another request (previously asked) :
  - An option for transfer the loot after a battle (like the sell button but for transfer).

Currently this screen is triggered only when there is no room at the craft's original base. I don't know if the game code would allow that feature to work with the existing "sell" mechanic. I can see myself selling the loot and transfer the rest for some missions.

[Ninawindia]

Okay, so, after downloading and updating to the latest Android app I keep getting crashes now. I'm still using the same version of the steam version and everything, nothing should have changed. Unless it requires TFTD now? Or something? How in the world did I break this. ~.~

[Meridian]

Okay, so, after downloading and updating to the latest Android app I keep getting crashes now. I'm still using the same version of the steam version and everything, nothing should have changed. Unless it requires TFTD now? Or something? How in the world did I break this. ~.~

No, it doesn't need TFTD.

Can you try with this UFO data and let me know if it helped? <link removed>

[Meridian]

Not to abuse Meridian's kindness, but I have another request (previously asked) :
  - An option for transfer the loot after a battle (like the sell button but for transfer).

Currently this screen is triggered only when there is no room at the craft's original base. I don't know if the game code would allow that feature to work with the existing "sell" mechanic. I can see myself selling the loot and transfer the rest for some missions.

Don't edit your posts if you want me to see what you write... I found this only by accident.

I don't mind double posting, you can post even 100x times in a row in my thread if you want.

Btw. the request is on the todo list... it's just not easy to implement... it will take some time until I convince myself to look at it.