Author Topic: [UFO]&[TFTD][Beta?]Hybrid Mod for UFO enemy unknown and TFTD.  (Read 29734 times)

Offline Meridian

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Re: [UFO]&[TFTD][Beta?]Hybrid Mod for UFO enemy unknown and TFTD.
« Reply #45 on: August 31, 2020, 01:05:18 pm »
Currently, due to technical limitation of OXCE, Starting Condition and enviroeffect from primary mod cannot be carry over to expansion, there is a lot more work needing to be done to ensure compatibility.

For other people potentially reading this:

1. it's not a technical limitation, it's a deliberate design decision
2. it's also not only about starting conditions and enviro effects, every other list-based attribute works exactly the same way
3. OXCE added support to make manual merging easier, but it's still fully manual effort and manual decisions, see also:
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,6586.msg127524.html#msg127524
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,6586.msg128914.html#msg128914

wcho035

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Re: [UFO]&[TFTD][Beta?]Hybrid Mod for UFO enemy unknown and TFTD.
« Reply #46 on: September 02, 2020, 09:54:41 am »
Version 2.9 is now complete. Under going testing.

For the sea hangers, Aliens would land on the Oil Rig looking like structure, then make their way down to the XCom base
underwater. Please note no alien units can walk on the sea bed underneath of the water. The Oil rig like structure is indestructible.

This feature will finally give XCom sea bases, to have aircraft for interception against ufos.

Aliens terror units deployment for each TFTD Alien race, with the addition of Triscene, will finally match the exact composition just like those from vanilla TFTD.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2020, 09:56:17 am by Precentor Apollyon »

wcho035

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Re: [UFO]&[TFTD][Beta?]Hybrid Mod for UFO enemy unknown and TFTD.
« Reply #47 on: September 05, 2020, 07:03:00 pm »
Conversion update. 6/09/20

I have finally solved the problem with starting condition and enviroEffects not able to carry over to expansion.

Conversion and compatibility of TWOTs and FMP with Hybrid mod ver 2.9 continue to progress well. Most issues have been solved.

The final to do list are.

-Facilities from both expansion has to be compatible to those from Hybrid mod.
-Items for FMP and TWOTs, need to be review and sort out  for land or sea weapons.
-Ufos from TWOTs and FMP need underwater Alien deployments with new matching Starting conditions and Eviroeffects
-Research needing final review for both FMP, TWOTs.

If I have two week of free time, those problem would be hacked out easy. So, this is a two months job.

After the conversion, the only thing left would be balancing. These are mods from 3 different megamods. Nord's TWOTs, Solarius FMP and Reaver's Faithful. 3 different authors with 3 different interpretation to balancing on UFO and TFTD. It will be an interesting combo.

I am just a conversion modder not a balancing modder. So the job would be left to others.

Art Conversion for TWOTs is almost 80% complete to UFO pals. Thanks to 8charlim and his hard work.
 
« Last Edit: September 05, 2020, 07:05:30 pm by Precentor Apollyon »

xcomfan

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Re: [UFO]&[TFTD][Beta?]Hybrid Mod for UFO enemy unknown and TFTD.
« Reply #48 on: October 09, 2020, 11:49:29 pm »
This could have been a brand new hybrid game/gem called "Xcom: Terror from both sides", basically mergin the two xcoms , plus a plethora of new content: woulda have been a hell of a work but what a game it could have be...

Offline brogue123

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Re: [UFO]&[TFTD][Beta?]Hybrid Mod for UFO enemy unknown and TFTD.
« Reply #49 on: November 02, 2020, 11:05:14 pm »
I just want to say that the FMP, Reaver, TWoTS fusion idea is blindingly, blindingly cool and I am genuinely psyched to play this. Get the balance right and this could be a new xcom epoch, those mods are sick, fuse them properly, balanced well in a hybrid campaign and that's just epic, epic xcom madness. I'm bouncing up and down with anticipation. Do not get coronavirus and die before you finish this. :D

Can I make a few points? I would say two things are critical, one is in Reaver's megamod already. His is the one that I think best balanced manufacturing by making it profitable (which keeps it as a cool game element) but made profitability dependent on alloys and elerium, so that's a great one to keep.

The other thing I would suggest is this: you got to nerf psionics, man. You just gotta. This is especially crucial in a hybrid mod because soon as psi works (in a vanilla way), it kills the game tension... so if you got it before the end of UFO:EU, the entirety of TFTD would be rendered challengeless. You could just psi crush all possible things.


My only issue with the FMP is that it has this amazing deep research tree, the last (and coolest) third of which isn't really relevant because psionics just come in and make the whole game a process of data entry.

It will kill this mod dead if you start the TFTD/TWoTS section with vanilla psi troops, or even the option to get them. My view would be to simply remove the psi-amp entirely from the original Xcom, and then make Molecular Control line-of-sight based. Making the TFTD aliens immune to psi but not M.C would be another way to deal with this, but I would honestly prefer - certainly with the original xcom FMP, to just nix the psi amp entirely. That way the player can get psi resistant troops but not use psi offensively, forcing an exploration of the sick, super-cool late-game FMP tech. Rail sniper rifles FTW.

Just my 2 cents, hope this helps, love and encouragement, you're doing something truly ambitious and epic, keep it coming. Word!


Offline gijoe

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Re: [UFO]&[TFTD][Beta?]Hybrid Mod for UFO enemy unknown and TFTD.
« Reply #50 on: November 03, 2020, 04:24:49 pm »
Sadly, this mod si dead and not avaiable anymore, an old version - the 1.3a - is anyway avaiable attached to this post here

Offline chickenx4

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Re: [UFO]&[TFTD][Beta?]Hybrid Mod for UFO enemy unknown and TFTD.
« Reply #51 on: November 06, 2020, 01:31:10 am »
That Suck but who'll now work on it

Offline brogue123

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Re: [UFO]&[TFTD][Beta?]Hybrid Mod for UFO enemy unknown and TFTD.
« Reply #52 on: November 21, 2020, 12:22:12 am »
WHAT? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

It sucks if it's not being developed anymore. The last update was from September this year, so surely it's not a true death. A sadness if it is.

The thing is, it's a herculean task to get this thing working. Not just because of stitching together the two games, but stitching together the gameplay. I've played the latest version. I have some thoughts. I want to put them somewhere, because

There are a couple of technical wrinkles but taken as a whole it is epic. The ability to go land or sea is cool.

Now to the nitty gritty. Nothing I say here should be taken as an attack. The vision and ambition of this project is simply insane, and I love it. I point out issues because wcho035 has asked for help on game balance. I'm not a modder, my ability to monkey around with the code is very rudimentary. But I love xcom, and I've played almost all forms of it to death, so I know the game side of it inside out.

The biggest problem with the game balance in this mod is that the vanilla research tree is simply nothing like deep enough to go with the extra size of the game. This is the big one. More than anything else.

As a corollary, there's not enough aliens because it goes on for longer and takes longer to get going. That's not bad, but it gets a bit samey killing the thousandth floater. You could say that this is okay because there's TFTD research as well as TFTD aliens, but two things- 1 they don't come along for ages, as the early game in this mod seems to go on a lot longer, and 2 even then we all know that there's a lot of reskinning going on there (and I say this as a massive TFTD fan).

The obvious answer to this is the FMP. A work about Area 51 though, there's some fun content, but the hunter killer (HK) mod in that shatters the balance of the air war and almost demands savescumming. I love the ironman superhuman game, and believe it's the gold standard for game balance - if you literally cannot complete ironman superhuman without dumb luck, it's a badly balanced mod. The beauty of the original UFO:EU and also TFTD is that you really, really can beat Ironman Superhuman without luck, just good strategy. It's hard, but very doable. That's the sign of an excellent game balance.

I made the suggestion on the Area 51 thread to create some kind of counterattack trigger condition where the HK behaviour begins after a certain point in the game though - that might work beautifully in this hybrid mod: the obvious point would be the fall of Cydonia - the massively more intense air war would be a cool new element and would test the player's advanced air force to the limit. Even on a low level it is chaos, my problem is not with the HK mod, it's starting a game with it, as it just makes it dumb luck if your skyranger gets shot out of the sky on any given mission. And don't tell me to send interceptors to 'clear a path' because they get shot down too and that's 500k you're pissing up the wall every time they do. This kills the early game and means that it's only plausible to beat with savescumming. So early HK behaviour is bad game balance, but later HK'ing, triggered to start at some point when the aliens "kick it up a notch" would be epic. As long as you have time to get your air force developed first.

The FMP has an amazing loadout of planes and air weapons,  and they all have a use and a value.

What I think would work brilliantly is to force a jump between UFO:EU tech tree (including the FMP) and the TFTD tech tree. Basically, very, very few of the UFO weapons would work underwater. A normal gun *might*, but it would depend on the gun. But normal ballistic weapons underwater might easily break or jam, especially anything automatic. Laser weapons would be far less useful as the particulate matter in seawater would absorb the light far more than air would, so halving the damage of laser weapons underwater makes sense. Plasma would simply explode, as the 'liguid' plasma would be unable to penetrate water very far, and so would disperse rapidly, dumping all its heat into the water itself, creating a massive explosion of superheated steam. I thought what would be cool, if a little evil, is not to tell anyone that, but just to have it so plasma weapons are set to explode the second they are fired.

A quick note re the railgun in the FMP - a railgun would be a very unwise thing to fire underwater, because unlike a gauss gun (coilgun) there must be direct contact between the projectile or projectile housing, and the rails. This would make them very difficult to waterproof. As a huge electric current is being passed through them underwater, this would immediately electrocute the user.

These are ways to make the FMP weapons semi-redundant at a stroke when TFTD happens. I say semi-redundant because alien base missions (the lower part at least) and land-based terror missions could still see you use your whole arsenal. Which would be cool, and would keep it relevant. But it would also force you to get those sonic weapons found and researched. The only thing that could still work from the FMP is the gauss weapons (which are different to the TFTD gauss weapons). I prefer the FMP gauss weapons, just because they're their own thing, not just reskinned laser weapons with clips. FMP gauss has no autofire, which goes quite well with the TFTD feel. You do need to choose between the two though because you can't have two weapons called 'gauss' as I would find it frightening and confusing, and start to cry. I'm very emotionally fragile about electromagnetic catapult technology.

I love, love, love the psionic solution - just make it line of sight. I still think it would be better not to allow psi amps at all, and force the player to wait for molecular control disruptor before they can get their psi freak on, but maybe that's just because I'm bored with psi. Either will work well, line of sight sorts the big game-busting problem of it, leaving it still very powerful and cool. Waiting for M. C would just leave something really, really juicy at the other end of the research tree to aim for with your heart. So I think that would work well to drive research, right into the TFTD section. The reason I say this is that you have to realise that once you've taken Cydonia, you're going to be tough as a thousand bastards, so you need something to keep the game interesting. The HK mod would be very good here. Pushing psi right to the end of the TFTD research tree (by just eliminating the psi amp research option in the code so forcing MC Disruptor as the only option to use it) would be cool too.

Having the FMP just roll straight into TFTD, with the HK mod (and alien hives) kicking off as soon as Cydonia falls, and then forcing the full development of molecular control before psi is usable (and having it line of sight even then) would make this game fucking killer. Like, straight up, fucking killer. The best thing about the FMP, Railgun Sniper Rifles notwithstanding, is that it preserves the beautiful balance of the game in a way Area 51 doesn't. FMP is very doable on ironman superhuman if you really, REALLY go for it, and have a really strong mix of tactical and strategic savvy. And a strong heart when you inevitably lose everyone to the ONE FUCKING CHRYSSALID that SOMEHOW MANAGED TO GET INSIDE YOUR LIVING QUARTERS.

Oh, and that reminds me. The maps on base assaults are too big. Every time I had to go to debug mode to discover some alien that had run away into a hole somewhere and I couldn't find after (I shit you not) 100+ turns of looking. I love what you've done with the surface, with the sea and the land, it's awesome. It's too big, it doesn't work. Or, you somehow trigger a suicide rush from unarmed aliens. Or maybe give everyone a super-weak melee attack and trigger a suicide rush on turn 50 or something. There's no challenge hunting these fuckers down, there's no fun in it, and no real way to avoid it. If you want to make it so they pick up their guns by default and then go on the attack, do that, but only as long as that 100% solves the problem. That would be a great way to do it if it would work, because I really do like the new surface level on the base defence missions, it's a great touch. But that needs something sorting it, and sorting it from inside the mod, not something you have to remember to do before you start through some different option.

The Area 51 mod has some really interesting stuff with the men in black. That's the coolest thing about it that the FMP doesn't have. I raise this because I didn't think the 'mercenary ships' worked as well as they should. They were like this seeming story element that didn't lead anywhere. There was no research to be done on them, no extra stuff (apart from tungsten core bullets, cool idea, but outclassed by plasma and lasers so not that much of a game impact). If you can fold the MiB stuff from Area 51 into the mod, that's got research trees, a little sub-story, all sorts of stuff. It's great fun. If not, then something needs to be done with these mercenaries. Also (and sorry if this upsets people) I don't think it's a good idea to have the mercs named after forum members. It just breaks the fourth wall, it doesn't really add anything to what's happening. If you can think of an actual story in which these nicknames have a plot relevance within the XCOM world, great, but otherwise just cut them.

Oh, and you need to remove the 'lend me money' option, or at least make that an optional extra, or something that only exists on easy mode. It really kills a big part of the early game, especially if you know what you're doing.

I haven't done TWoTS as much as I should have, I've dabbled, but not delved. It's on my list, probably next :). That's the only reason I'm not mentioning it. But anything that adds content and challenge to the TFTD section should be applauded and added if possible. This could be magisterial.

Wish I could give you more. Seriously, don't give up. This is an awesome mod with astounding potential. It truly could fuse the two games together, and if done well would represent something just astounding in XCOM history. I'm not kidding, it would be an amazing addition. If you're feeling tired and frustrated, take some time off, but don't you dare give up. Make it happen.

Humanity is counting on you.

On your feet, soldier. Don't you know there's a war on?





Offline brogue123

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Re: [UFO]&[TFTD][Beta?]Hybrid Mod for UFO enemy unknown and TFTD.
« Reply #53 on: November 21, 2020, 12:52:33 am »
Okay, look, I just had an idea. I think this is fucking epic, please hear me out, please.

An easy way to think of the main issue here is this: how do you make TFTD interesting in a hybrid mod?

It's fun to look at, of course, but if you're going into TFTD with all your research, weapons and kit from UFO, you're going to flatten it. No challenge = no fun. But we don't want to wipe out all the gains from UFO either, because that's the whole point of the mod.

SO HOW'S ABOUT THIS....

Make it so you have to ACTIVELY RESEARCH all the seabase components, all flying subs, and all of the nautical equipment! Bear with me, I realise this might seem nuts, but listen. You get to the end of UFO:EU. You control the skies. You have your A-team. You have your kick-ass guns. You have everything the FMP can give you. Railguns fired by Tormentor jets smashing up battleships. The works. It's total domination.

BUT THEN.....

Suddenly you're getting attacked from the sea. If you shoot down the alien flying subs over land, they explode into pieces. No salvage, no missions. Nothing. I know that can be done in the code, Hobbes does it with the HK's in Area 51 so it doesn't unbalance the game with too much salvage so there is a way. You can't even see them in the water because for that you need SONAR, not radar or hyperwaves (not sure how tricky that would be to code but bear with me). Either way, you can't destroy and/or salvage any of them. All you have is terror missions. That's it. You can only research the enemies you get from cruise mission attacks, beach terror attacks, coastal city attacks.

But while you can't salvage any of their ships, they're attacking yours (HK mod) and building bases you can't stop them building in the ocean! OH NO!

THAT places it EXACTLY at the right starting point for TFTD's story!

So your first job is to actively research, then manufacture, a flying sub - the triton! And then the barracuda! Etc....

I know that TWoTS would help with this, there's a whole lead up to these things. But the point is that to make the switch to the sea-based war as jarring and absolute as possible. Aliens that attack your ships, bases you can't attack being built in the sea, a real pressure to research new kinds of base so you can find them with sonar. I don't know if it would be possible/easy to make it so sea-based stuff can only be manufactured at sea, only researched at sea. You wouldn't want to stretch credibility. But basically force the player to do as much at sea as you can get away with, which will force them to totally upend their comfortable plans to create a whole new kind of FIGHTING FORCE!!! AAAAAA!!!! I AM SO EXCITED!!!!

Dude, if you could handle this like a killer plot-twist, forcing a total shift in the game focus down a new tech tree? Be merciless to the player, force them to totally re-adapt to a new kind of enemy. And now I'm writing, actually, the TWoTS one would be absolutely great for this because it starts off even before the flying sub with much more basic things you have to work with first, adding to the desperation and tension. And the longer you leave it, the more bases the aliens build unopposed, the more those bases are sending up hives of alien fighters and controlling the seas...... you might even have to fly your people over land as much as possible all the time, and slowly clear the seas of alien bases to make them safe, which would add this amazing new element to the game.

Mate, you are not giving up, I fucking forbid it. This is too cool. You have to continue, there's just so much potential here. This could be the most demented, full-spectrum xcom experience that exists. DO IT!!!! DO IT DO IT DO IT!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

thePaleone

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Re: [UFO]&[TFTD][Beta?]Hybrid Mod for UFO enemy unknown and TFTD.
« Reply #54 on: December 21, 2020, 06:09:28 pm »
Seems like this account is no longer a secret to those I tried to hide. I may as well make full use of it, before it gets deleted.

Here are some updated screen shots to my personal mod.

thePaleone

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Re: [UFO]&[TFTD][Beta?]Hybrid Mod for UFO enemy unknown and TFTD.
« Reply #55 on: December 21, 2020, 06:10:49 pm »
More screenshot

Offline linuxrocks123

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Re: [UFO]&[TFTD][Beta?]Hybrid Mod for UFO enemy unknown and TFTD.
« Reply #56 on: December 21, 2020, 10:28:41 pm »
Hello, if you could email me the encryption key and a link to download the latest version, I would appreciate it.  I can't seem to send you a message on here and the discord link isn't working for me.  This looks awesome!  Thank you!