Harmonica

Ah, my bad, I was clearly not caffeinated enough when I wrote that bit. You're correct, I meant strings.xml, and thanks for helping him out.

Skitso's removal of the hidden movement image led me to want to mod this minor aspect of the game myself. I always love the suspense of the hidden movement and alien turn in general but the image flashing up was a bit obtrusive. - I have changed the alien turn to now be dimmed slightly in general (the same level throughout). The only exception to this is if you're fired upon by visible aliens and your troops have their reaction fire - I think this is working as intended and it's not distracting. - When there is hidden movement, the darkness encroaches around the edges of the screen, and there is a printed text telling as much. I have designed it to avoid screen flicker (originally I tried dimming the screen only during Hidden Movement but the flashing was annoying) and I think I have succeeded. - I moved the text to the top left of the screen, and changed alien turn to say 'Stand by...' (since the alien turn also includes neutral movement). Preview: note that this was a terror mission so the screen may be darker than usual How to install: Download the file attached to this post 1. Back up the relevant original .lua files in assets\scripts, and your assets\strings.xml file. 2. Extract blackhiddenmove.png to Xenonauts\assets\uitextures 3. Extract hiddenmove.lua and hiddenmove_large.lua to Xenonauts\assets\scripts 4. Add some lines to your assets\strings.xml file: You can CTRL+F and find 'hiddenmove.text', now select that entire block enclosed between <Row ss:AutoFitHeight="0"> .... </Row> and replace it with these lines: <Row ss:AutoFitHeight="0"> <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">hiddenmove1.text</Data><NamedCell ss:Name="_FilterDatabase"/></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">Hidden Movement</Data><NamedCell ss:Name="_FilterDatabase"/></Cell> </Row> <Row ss:AutoFitHeight="0"> <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">hiddenmove2.text</Data><NamedCell ss:Name="_FilterDatabase"/></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">Stand by...</Data><NamedCell ss:Name="_FilterDatabase"/></Cell> </Row> In order to do this, I recommend using an editor like Notepad++ since this is a long file, or you may be able to use Wordpad. Notepad is generally not recommended since it handles larger files poorly (and files in general). notes If anyone has any problems installing this or during use, please post and I'll try to help! If you don't want the 'Hidden Movement' or 'Stand by...' text, you can of course change those lines to read whatever you want (if you leave them blank that would probably work as well - but I haven't tested this). I intend to perhaps mod the battle screen more thoroughly in future so I may revise this mod as well. darkened_alien_turn 1.01 - Harmonica.zip darkened_alien_turn 1.01 - Harmonica.zip

Yeah - I just made the modification I mentioned myself, and you're right, the dark screen is more noticeable. But I can't do away with that 'hold onto your butts' sensation when it all goes dark It's okay at about 64 alpha. I wonder if there's a way to have the screen stay dimmed during civilian movement.

Well, the hidden movement thing is kind of classic but I think the image should be full screen. If I had a suggestion as an alternative to this style, it would be simply to darken the entire screen with 'hidden movement' text.

As the title. I get a buffer overflow error and crash if I place a large spectre (eg the irrigator) onto a grid that is too small for it to be placed (eg in that case a 1xsomething map).

Well it hadn't crashed for me at all in all the time I've been using it so far. Not sure what else would be the cause. If I attempt to add any Spectres by dir it crashes after that. edit: couldn't get it to work by deleting or moving bits and pieces of the set. Deleted those atlas .pngs in the Farm tiles folder and did a Steam verify scan and after it had replaced the files, the editor is now working again. (of course now I have to work out how to repatch your mod in) So... I don't know what the cause is, anyone else have this issue? Later today I will backup the vanilla files and go through re-adding Skitso's files folder by folder and see it it starts crashing again.

After installing this map pack I'm getting crashes when using the submap editor. Any idea why that might be the case? Specifically, I try to add spectres from a folder (Farm tiles) and it crashes. edit: going to hazard a guess it's something to do with those atlas images.

If anyone has like me had problems whilst following the tutorial on page 1, with getting anything to show up in paint mode, I'll point out that for some reason you might have to double-click the spectre in the list box once you've added it. I've loaded up the editor and starting editing and I've had to do this 9/10 times, for some reason. I don't know if that was obvious, but without that step you're not painting anything and single-clicking won't show you the preview image on the top left (ie of the rock). I couldn't figure out why after moving around the extracted tiles all over the place, adding folders, rescanning, etc, they still wouldn't paint. Well, that is why! Anyway I hope to get cracking on some maps now that I've got that failure out of my system.

Yeah, that's true - that's what I meant. Sorry I meant base as in the submaps themselves.

The art in the game is beautiful. Are the base layouts going to be randomised like everything else? Can we create base maps for use by the game?

Map randomisation, map editing, skill points, inventory loadout, action points, the kitchen sink.

Both amazingly useful images, thanks for those. I knew there was a trick to the ground tiles I was missing!

Thanks for all the tips and information. Inevitably so far I have succeeded in biting off more than I can chew in my multiple mapping attempts. I always start off like this. Best way to learn, perhaps, anyway. Now I'm working on something that is more straightforward but is quite effective, which is a map where the team lands on an apartment block roof and has to clear the various rooms and hallways on all sides - which are all made up of randomised submaps, of course. Currently just 10x10 areas but I might try doing the 5x5s at some point. My main problem is getting tiles to match up. The editor is powerful and robust but it would probably be easier if you could select a grid tile and cycle through tiles to see which will fit in nicely. Unless there's some 'proper' way to layout ground tiles that I'm missing...

I have just starting tooling around with the map editors. I didn't realise they were already available for the alpha release, oh well. I think that the map randomisation aspect is one of the biggest selling points for Xenonauts. Ideally after release my game can pick from hundreds of available maps. I intend to create a lot of maps. But I have a question to those who are more experienced: could you outline your basic workflow or thinking process when it comes to creating maps? I am trying to get my head around how to plan out adding a map to the game. For example, I live in a rural area so I thought I would focus on creating some simple rural type maps. Do I start with the sub-maps themselves? Do I think about an overall 'type' of location I would like to add? (ie, a particular style of farm) Getting my head around how the game will randomise my level-editor layout composed of my submaps is difficult. Here is how I currently think I need to plan it: 1. Think of a type of location/environment to design, ie a farm with surrounding land. 2. Sketch roughly the areas that might be added to the level editor: ie, field/forest/field/barn, etc etc. 3. Pick one of those areas (ie forest), and create sub-map for it. Now work on variations of this submap until there are 3/4 of them. (ie, for a forest, different arrangements of trees, land, maybe sometimes a structure in there too). 4. Go through the rest of the submap areas in the same way. 5. Create multiple other level editor maps using same submaps but laid out in a different arrangement? Does that sound right? So, maybe an entire single level editor map will not vary too much - different shaped barns with different interiors, different trees and fields, and so on [always a forest in 1,1 submap space, always a barn/structure in space 1,2, etc] - but because the game will pick out of the various new 'farm' submap arrangements I created that then gives more variation? Or, do I have it wrong, maybe I should make many more submaps, and vary them a lot, but only create one overall level editor map. So for a [forest area] I would in fact sometimes have almost no trees with a bit of a field, and a hut in there. Sometimes dense trees you cannot pass through. Sometimes a road through the forest. Etc. Then when the game adds from that submap it is very different each time, rather than just always trees in different spots. Which method is better? My head hurts I would love a step-by-step guide to create a basic (ie, small urban with houses) layout that I could follow - I have looked (and read the wiki) but cannot see one.

Echoing the 'they look amazing'. The graphics are exactly what I want. Understated, in some ways, but with plenty of intricate detail suggesting the reality. And letting the tactical battles take center stage. I absolutely cannot wait to get stuck into designing layouts for battle maps, too. (We will still be able to do this, right? Probably the main reason I ever was interested in Xenonauts was the potential for having a huge cache of layouts for the game to draw upon when it throws out its battle maps - and adding to myself/from the community).