DarkExcalibur42

So long as it's lower than 1650, we'll see battleships getting escorts at a faster rate (which is desirable). And so long as it's still high enough, we won't really see much of the ship that comes after it if we see it at all. I just wish I could check what the ticker was at in my current save-game. It'd give me an idea of where games end. Plus! We could use the unused art assets from the Dreadnought for the after-battleship enemy. Then just stack on the scary mean stats so that the best way to bring it down is via the Fury. Boom. You've given yourself a very scary escalation of force in the air war.

Speaking of the local forces, I couldn't find their AI code. Do they just share the code with the unarmed civilians? Because aiprops doesn't have an entry for them...

You're right. For some reason I was thinking I'd need to make copies of art assets for some reason... now I can't remember why I thought that was necessary.

I forgot about the weapons.xml file. I was just looking at the weapons_gc.xml file where ammo types are listed, since the weapons.xml only deals with stuff at the base I thought... I'll report back and let you know what I break.

But that's exactly what the rocket launcher does... it uses 2 ammo types. AND it uses ammo that auto upgrades on research. Well this will definitely work, no question about that. But I think I'm going to play with the code and test to see if i can upgrade just the ammo. It'd save time and make the final mod smaller.

This? ReplaceItem("weapon.grenade.frag","weapon.grenade.alenium"); Found it in the researches.xml, though I don't think I yet properly understand the context and how to place it into the file appropriately.

WAIT.... you can do that?! I thought there were all sorts of posts on the modding boards about how we couldn't get multiple ammo types to be used by the same weapon... except for rocket launchers for some reason. Now I'm confused, because I don't see how it works in the xmls. I was just comparing rocket weapons in the weapons_gc.xml to ballistic weapons, and it looks like all that happens is they have multiple ammo types listed. So next I'm looking through the strings.xml and weapons.xml, but i need to download Libre Office to make these tables easier to read. Where is this that you tell the game to replace an old ammo type with a new one? I'm fascinated now!

Yeah.... if we had a way to upgrade ballistics, then downgraded MAG weaponry we could make a 3-tier system: Starting Ballistics Alloy Munitions / Laser Weapons Plasma / MAG weapons Ohhh.... oh yeah. I like this a lot. I'm stealing this for when I rebalance weapons and alien armor values.

This thread got me thinking along some new lines.... and reminded me of Falling Skies. If only we could code research-unlocked ammunition upgrades, like what happens with grenades and rockets where the new model replaces the old, then we could research Alien Alloy Munitions for ballistic weapons which could put starting ballistics on par with laser weapons...

I like the blue uniforms because they give the Xenonauts a distinct character. But I love that these sprites exist in the more traditional color scheme. They're highly valuable assets, and allow me the possibility to mod local forces in exciting ways. Using this I could add a Precision Rifle NPC (or any weapon for that matter) with a % chance to spawn. All I need to do now is start tinkering with their AI and I could get local forces NPCs to behave like squads and stick together...

Although it is starting to look like I'll need to talk to one of them to start learning some of these intricacies. Apparently Medkits and Shock Batons are grenade type weapons that are set to melee=1. I cannot yet understand what's going on there.

Ohhh man, you think that's bad? I was still using basic armor and all ballistics for my 8-man squad when I went to my first Terror mission. You know what I found there? REAPERS. My squad spent the entire mission cowering in the dropship with shotguns because if we went outside reapers would come out of nowhere and eat us. And if we stayed out in the open where we could see them coming Sebillians would blast us with plasma weapons. Prior to that I'd been going very tactical with lots of cover usage and crouching to make up for my absent armor. When that wasn't an option things went bad fast. The game supports control of up to 16 troops while stock dropships only ever carry a maximum of 12.... and Terror missions are the only ones causing balance concerns... hmmmm... Undoubtedly this would require some hard coding trickery, but would it be possible to assign an extra four troops under your command that spawn with the map? Admittedly, this is just a continuation of my love affair with local forces. But yeah, if you could give your squad command of 4 local forces style units which could be commanded for the duration of the Terror mission and then removed from your squad so you don't bring them home with you I feel like that'd be an ideal gameplay solution (if not an ideal coding solution). Yeah.... you'd have to edit EVERY terror map to include them somehow as well, and that would suck especially because I don't think the game is designed to permit that sort of editing with any ease.

Good warning on the rockets! I hadn't thought of that, since I assumed that for most weapons the damage characteristics were a part of the weapon and not the ammunition. If drages or TacticalDragon drop in on this thread, I'll happily listen to their insight. But I'm plenty happy with any conversation, expert or otherwise.

The weapons DO look very awesome! If I go ahead with work on a particular mod concept of mine, I may need to ask if I can use one of these variant Laser designs. With all the proper citations and credit of course.

I did notice that from my forum research, as well as my trial and error with the weapons and weapons_gc files, so I was kinda banking on that BINGO! This stuff doesn't have to mechanically be word-for-word psionic, since players don't see the mechanics. It just has to look and feel right. One other question, which I'm worried will be a negative: I can't make a gun that fires a grenade effect, can I? A rocket effect, clearly. But not a grenade effect? And thanks very much for the answers! It may not look like I'm accomplishing very much yet, but I'm learning and getting a feel for my limitations before I set a specific design goal for myself