Author Topic: [OXCE][BETA][MAJOR] Vigilo Confido  (Read 26430 times)

Offline memmaker

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[OXCE][BETA][MAJOR] Vigilo Confido
« on: March 18, 2020, 09:54:36 pm »

Survive. Adapt. Win.

A demake of the remakes - This partial conversion includes the complete EU2012 story line and lets you play through it using OpenXcom. It also adds an extensive class and skill system, thus completely changing the experience.

Mod.io page: https://openxcom.mod.io/vigilo-confido

The mod is feature complete and definitely playable but has only seen testing by me.

=== Features ===

 - 5 soldier classes (Ranger, Grenadier, Specialist, Sniper, Psi Operative)
 - ~50 scripted abilities with unique skills for each class
 - 500+ callsigns for each soldier class
 - 8 new alien units (Cyber Floater, Thin Man, Berserker, Armored Muton, Sectopod Drone, Muton Elite, Andromedon, Outsider)
 - 3 new weapon types in T1, T2 & T3 versions (Swords, Shotguns, Sniper Rifles)
 - Complete new graphics for all T2 & T3 weapons and armors
 - Complete rebalancing of all weapons, armors, units and deployments
 - Status, day & night and hit indicators
 - Laser weapons not reasearchable from the start
 - Laser weapons need recharging and can implode in the field
 - Limited Explosives
 - No Tanks (But the Gremlin drone instead)
 - Bring home alien weapons and research them for progress
 - Ground deployment added with a small research tree for squad size
 - "Killing Aliens destroys their Weapons" option is fixed
 - Additional status effects & Visualisations
 - Weapons can be disabled in combat
 - A buttload of maps (thanks to C.M.P)
 - Training rooms
 - Integrated the Commendations mod
 - Passive bonus items (S.C.O.P.E., etc.)

=== Requirements ===

OpenXcom Extended (OXCE) 6.4

Download release versions of OXCE here:
https://openxcom.org/oxce/release/

NOTE: For the intended experience, make sure you have sound turned on and the intro animation enabled.
At least on your first start.

=== Quickstart (via Ufopedia) ===

You can find information about the classes and their skills in the Ufopedia
under the "MILITARY MOLDING" category.

The changes on weapons and armors can be found under the "WEAPONS AND EQUIPMENT" section.

The category "MISSION OBJECTIVES" will always contain an entry with your current objectives.

=== Goals and influences ===

This started out as some experiments with Yankes scripts and soon got out of hand.
I wanted to have skills, like in the remakes and wanted to see which ones I could do.
Turns out I can do most of them.

So this then turned into a more complex mod with a class and skill system at its core and
with mechanical influences from the remakes (EU2012/XCOM2 and Phoenix Point).

My goal is to extend the vanilla X-Com experience with some
mechanics, items, units & lore references from the newer X-Com titles.

While my focus is on the class & skill system, I also completely rebalanced the
weapons and armors and some other gameplay elements.

I also want to try to add only graphics which keep the X-Com style and which harmonize
with the existing graphics. Each tier of items should be visually distinguishable.

Many thanks to XOps and his Xeno Operations for most of the graphical enhancements.
When looking through his modification of the game, I realized we shared many common goals
and it felt like his work was made with the same visual vision as my mod.

=== Concepts ===

Soldiers of each class can be hired directly by X-COM.
Soldiers can choose to undergo the military molding process, gaining access to their class skills in the process.
Classed soldiers receive additional active and passive skills for each level of training.
The active ones are activated with the special icon and the passive ones are always active.

There are three training phases. The initial molding process is awarded to soldiers when they are
hired by X-Com. The Second Phase (or Advanced Training) and Third Phase (or Elite Training)
add additional skills respectively.

Advanced level training requires: The second "Combat Experience" decoration,
which is awarded for 4 kills and 8 missions.

Elite level training requires: The fourth "Combat Experience" decoration,
which is awarded for 10 kills and 16 missions.

=== Skills ===

For a list of the currently implemented skills per class please refer to the file
Rulesets/classSkills.rul line 10, heading "Class Skill list".

There is also in-game description available in the Ufopedia (if you don't want to read some spoilers..).

=== Tiers ===

Weapons and armors all follow the three Tier concept.

T1 is available from the start.

T2 depends on alien alloys.
 - You should aim at researching "Laser Weapons" and "Predator Armor" until April.

T3 depends on Elerium-115.
 - You should aim at researching "Plasma Weapons" and "Warden Armor" until August.

Armor & Weapon Tiers
T1 - Kevlar Armor   & Conventional Weapons
T2 - Predator Armor & Laser Weapons
T3 - Warden Armor   & Plasma Weapons
« Last Edit: March 19, 2020, 04:32:06 pm by memmaker »

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: [OXCE][BETA][MAJOR] Vigilo Confido
« Reply #1 on: March 19, 2020, 01:10:58 pm »
So it's basically a NuCom demake, right? :)

Looks pretty fun! ... with NuCom plot, enemies and all. It would allow us to play NuCom on an actually fun mechanics. :D
« Last Edit: March 30, 2020, 05:12:09 pm by Meridian »

Offline memmaker

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Re: [OXCE][BETA][MAJOR] Vigilo Confido
« Reply #2 on: March 19, 2020, 03:08:34 pm »
Quote
... with NuCom plot, enemies and all. It would allow us to play NuCom on an actually fun mechanics.

That is exactly the idea.

But I'd rather let my first playtester speak, Reaver of Darkness:
Quote
I'm really liking this mod! Super cool. Great representation of the Firaxcom experience. The best thing about it is that it lacks most of the faults of XCOM while carrying most of the strengths. It's better than just a demake, it's far better than just a copy+paste of features. (...) XCOM: Enemy Unknown was a game that enraged me because they built this wonderful game and then ruined it with a whole bunch of purposeful decisions that didn't need to happen, like limiting soldiers to 2 time units, not allowing aiming at terrain, or forcing players to accept nonsensical limitations like selecting one of three terror sites "just because". Your mod finally gives me a chance to play what Firaxcom could have been.
« Last Edit: March 30, 2020, 05:12:39 pm by Meridian »

Offline Bobit

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Re: [OXCE][BETA][MAJOR] Vigilo Confido
« Reply #3 on: March 21, 2020, 03:24:49 am »
This looks potentially really fun as OpenXCOM has a lot better spawning, but, and I'll only say this once, it would be MUCH BETTER with actual cover which nobody will allow me to implement on the engine.

Offline Nord

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Re: [OXCE][BETA][MAJOR] Vigilo Confido
« Reply #4 on: March 22, 2020, 05:17:52 am »
It is completely different game. Good.
Also, how "concealment" works?
Upd. Found it. Gracefully made.
Also i feel dizzy from so much scripting. How long was you doing that? Fantastic job!
« Last Edit: March 22, 2020, 08:06:25 am by Nord »

Offline memmaker

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Re: [OXCE][BETA][MAJOR] Vigilo Confido
« Reply #5 on: March 22, 2020, 11:48:24 am »
The core concepts and the first scripts for this mod were written in December 2019.

Offline eXalted

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Re: [OXCE][BETA][MAJOR] Vigilo Confido
« Reply #6 on: March 22, 2020, 03:24:10 pm »
Damn, this looks so good!

How does "concealment" works? Or where can I find that description, I can't seem to find it.

Offline memmaker

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Re: [OXCE][BETA][MAJOR] Vigilo Confido
« Reply #7 on: March 22, 2020, 03:25:45 pm »
The skills are described in the Ufopedia under the "Military Molding" section.

Offline Rndl99

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Re: [OXCE][BETA][MAJOR] Vigilo Confido
« Reply #8 on: March 22, 2020, 04:04:49 pm »
This is one of the most unique and interesting mods out there. Huge amount of work went into this! Class skills are one of the few additions that XCOM 2012 done better than original.

Now to the problems :)

At this moment this mod is so unbalanced that it is almost unplayable.

In no particular order:

Funds are toned down, but not in a consistent way, some items have original price. Nevertheless, with 20k funds per month, it's not really possible to afford a new base for 800k.
Also, Skyranger can't be bought or manufactured, so other bases can't be used for anything other than interception.
Engineers/scientist cost 1 million each Oo...
Crew limit of 4 makes the early game much more difficult. In few months of game time haven't seen any research for other crafts or upgrades.
It seems that score is computed from all events around the globe, even those that are not seen by player, i.e. outside of detection range. I shot down almost every UFO that was detected, except for very large, won all combat missions, including few terror missions and two landed battleships, and still after three months or so, score started to drop into negative thousands, ending the game on 1st of June due to low score.
I've managed to capture few aliens including Outsider or two, but never got the chance to research the live Outsider or skeleton key. Wthout one, alien bases can't be accessed, which probably also affects the score.

Anyway, with issues addressed, this mod can be great! Good luck!

Offline memmaker

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Re: [OXCE][BETA][MAJOR] Vigilo Confido
« Reply #9 on: March 22, 2020, 05:00:42 pm »
First of all, thank you very much for the praise and the constructive feedback. I am not sure what version you was testing, since the mod had a pretty troubled start and I had to hotfix like 5 times.

Funds are toned down, but not in a consistent way, some items have original price. Nevertheless, with 20k funds per month, it's not really possible to afford a new base for 800k.
Econonomy has be re-adjusted in the latest patches.

Also, Skyranger can't be bought or manufactured, so other bases can't be used for anything other than interception.
That was a bug that also has been fixed now.

Quote
Engineers/scientist cost 1 million each Oo...
That is intended since I do not want the player to hire scientists at all via buying.

Quote
Crew limit of 4 makes the early game much more difficult. In few months of game time haven't seen any research for other crafts or upgrades.
The crew limit is by design. However there is a first squad upgrade research available when researching Alien Alloys. Although that was bugged. Fixed now. I am also thinking about making the squad upgrades available easier, suggestions welcome.

Quote
It seems that score is computed from all events around the globe, even those that are not seen by player, i.e. outside of detection range. I shot down almost every UFO that was detected, except for very large, won all combat missions, including few terror missions and two landed battleships, and still after three months or so, score started to drop into negative thousands, ending the game on 1st of June due to low score.
Bug. Has been fixed.

Quote
I've managed to capture few aliens including Outsider or two, but never got the chance to research the live Outsider or skeleton key. Wthout one, alien bases can't be accessed, which probably also affects the score.

How it should work:
Instead of recovering a live Outsider you should receive an "Outsider Shard", since the alien vaporizes and leaves this behind. You should then be able to research the Outsider Shard which unlocks the Skeleton Key manufaturing project.
If it not behaves like this, it is a bug.

Offline eXalted

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Re: [OXCE][BETA][MAJOR] Vigilo Confido
« Reply #10 on: March 22, 2020, 07:01:32 pm »
The crew limit is by design.
I haven't played extensively so I can't say if bigger squad is needed. I liked the small squads at the beginning of X-Com Files though.

Offline Nord

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Re: [OXCE][BETA][MAJOR] Vigilo Confido
« Reply #11 on: March 25, 2020, 10:05:15 am »
Bugreport:
I think you need to add
Code: [Select]
          attacker.getFaction attacker_faction
          victim.getFaction victim_faction
into
Code: [Select]
tryPsiAttackUnit part.

Offline memmaker

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Re: [OXCE][BETA][MAJOR] Vigilo Confido
« Reply #12 on: March 25, 2020, 11:27:05 am »
@Nord: You are right. Thank you for the bug report.

Offline Rndl99

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Re: [OXCE][BETA][MAJOR] Vigilo Confido
« Reply #13 on: March 25, 2020, 08:44:15 pm »
Ok, tried latest version (0.9.6). A lot of issues are fixed, thanks!

I've managed to capture and research few alive aliens, but objectives didn't change. Killed few Outsiders, but don't see any shards anywhere. I still have some research available, but nothing seems to move the story. But managed to increase size of Skyranger :) still, the replacement is kinda confusing, because new skyranger has exactly the same name as the old one :)

Shooting heavy rocket can leave behind some weird walls. It's difficut to explain, I will try to attach images to show how it looks.

Sometimes, attack gives some interesting extra info that appears in place of soldier stats, like "hit 39, pierce 3" or something and make target turn red for a fraction of a second. I love this effect, but it seems completely random. Can appear in one mission and then be completely gone for the rest of the game session. May be an engine bug.

Difficulty is still kinda crazy :) I know, I've tried superhuman, but still, base defense with soldiers having starting equipment against some heavy mutons, few sectopods and ethereal or two is basically a game over most of the time.

I haven't played version extended 6.4 before, so I'm kinda cofused about this whole mana/battle focus thing. Not sure if it's explained anywhere.

Cheers, keep up the good work! Don't know who made the new terrains, but the look great!

Offline memmaker

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Re: [OXCE][BETA][MAJOR] Vigilo Confido
« Reply #14 on: March 25, 2020, 09:19:03 pm »
Hi again and thanks for the feedback.

I've managed to capture and research few alive aliens, but objectives didn't change. Killed few Outsiders, but don't see any shards anywhere. I still have some research available, but nothing seems to move the story.

This is an error on my side. Have been investigating this and it will be fixed in the next release (0.9.7).

But managed to increase size of Skyranger :) still, the replacement is kinda confusing, because new skyranger has exactly the same name as the old one :)

Alright, guess I'd better add a suffix space indicator to the name then.

Shooting heavy rocket can leave behind some weird walls. It's difficut to explain, I will try to attach images to show how it looks.

This seems to be an issue with the map pack, I have reported it to the creators and will integrate a the new version once it has been fixed.

Sometimes, attack gives some interesting extra info that appears in place of soldier stats, like "hit 39, pierce 3" or something and make target turn red for a fraction of a second. I love this effect, but it seems completely random. Can appear in one mission and then be completely gone for the rest of the game session. May be an engine bug.

This feature is called "Combat Information" and is a special passive ability of the "Specialist" class. So you will only see these hit confirmation messages when you have a specialist in your squad.

Difficulty is still kinda crazy :) I know, I've tried superhuman, but still, base defense with soldiers having starting equipment against some heavy mutons, few sectopods and ethereal or two is basically a game over most of the time.

When did you get a base defense? There is actually only supposed to be one scripted base defense, so some more information could help me out here.

The same applies to the difficulty, please provide me with some more feedback. Are you used to playing vanilla X-COM on super-human? How does the difficulty curve behave? Did you find easy strategies to cheese the difficulty?

I haven't played version extended 6.4 before, so I'm kinda cofused about this whole mana/battle focus thing. Not sure if it's explained anywhere.

Mana is resource that has been added to OXCE. Modders can change it to represent anything they want in their mods. I have been using it under the name of "Battle Focus" as a resource for ability use. Is there anything specific you'd need to know? I could update the in-game Ufopedia articles accordingly.

Cheers, keep up the good work! Don't know who made the new terrains, but the look great!

These fine maps have been provided by the C.M.P. (Community Map Pack): https://openxcom.mod.io/community-map-pack