[MOD IDEA] New vehicles

Hi.

After many games of Xenonauts, I noticed that vehicles lack of variety and those which are in the game are only designed for wide and open maps : they are too big for industrial maps and stay stuck almost at the spawn, and they are useless for Xenonauts base defence ( because they destroy everything ) and alien base attack ( because corridors are too narrow ).

And, even on large maps, I think that a rocketeer and a machinegun in a predator suit almost do a better job than a Hunter and a Scimtar just because they are more agile and TU efficient if you play relatively safe. So I thought about few new vehicles that should be a great addition into the game :

- A Hunter scout car upgrade : a sort of lighter antigrav platform like the Hyperion tank but with machineguns instead of that kaboomblowshitupcollateraldamage stuff. A bit more armor than the Hunter, a bit more TUs but late game and hard/expensive to produce, like the Hyperion.

- Light combat drones for humans : the equivalent of the light saucer shaped drone, a very compact recon unit. I would see that like a drone from Battlefield 2142 ( http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSGYlqE74Ys09WpHhTxBTHuuPCZrFhxpqk7lVD-XjLBznjhPB5YzEDj2r9XxQ ) with 360° FOV and a small gun that act like its alien counterpart : low damage output but very good at supressing. It would also be quite fragile and relatively cheap to produce, making sending some recon units around the map more forgiving and also be very useful indoor ( in base attack or defence for example ).

I know it would be some serious hard work to do stuff like that and I have no idea how to do it ( my modding capabilities so far is only adding guns into the game... ). But maybe my idea will interest a competent modder, at least I hope so

Thanks for reading.

Well one of the problems with these is that you'd need to model the vehicles first, and then go through the lengthy process of making the sprite sheets.

The second is that the game cannot handle vehicles smaller than 3x3 tiles. Max tried it out a while back and it didn't really work out. I'd suggest asking if the community coders can work something out.

If you're willing to do/find and pay someone to do the modelling and sprite-making, I'd be more than happy to help code it.

hmmmm about adding weapons to the vehicles this can be done right now (IIRC kabill done it, adding upgraded version of the rockets for the hunter, and a machine gun to other tanks).

Right now i guess that MAYBE the only way to adding new vehicles to the game could be achieve is using the same batch file proccess used right now to recolour the armour sprites for soldiers...but used in vehicles,getting for example:

an UPGRADED HUNTER MKII (painted green/white/blue/whatever color). buffing their STATS (more tus,more armor)giving a little lore explaining that the desing was updated because the better tecnologie abviable and aliens becoming stronger, and with the image presented in the base is where you could ad all the stuff to differenciate from the normal hunter (because this image dont affect anything in the gc sprite).

A straight, all-round stat upgrade isn't necessarily best way to approach this because that's how the game works already. Each vehicle is, stats-wise, better than the last one so straight stat upgrades either make the next vehicle redundant or the gap between up-statting and the next vehicle is small enough it's worthwhile saving up and putting your cash in the next tier. That being said...

There are other ways to approach it....

Max! Quit teasing us with these fancy new mods! Finish Drone Strike at least!

Well, technically, It's less complicated than say, Max_Caine's fabulous attempt at making new Xenonaut Armours. It doesn't need the animation, and 3d modellers exist in a greater ratio than animators. But by a stretch, its possible to make it in 2D, you just have to redo the art 4 times for 8 directions, but it will take awhile.

A 2x2 vehicle seems a more ideal choice to add in new vehicles, but what about 1x1 ones? Like small turret robots that function like a vehicle that's less flexible than a soldier but provides constant firepower.

Hmm, I might go back to 3d Modelling and have a swing at this. It might be fun

A 2x2 vehicle seems a more ideal choice to add in new vehicles, but what about 1x1 ones? Like small turret robots that function like a vehicle that's less flexible than a soldier but provides constant firepower.

Like I said couple posts above.

The second is that the game cannot handle vehicles smaller than 3x3 tiles. Max tried it out a while back and it didn't really work out. I'd suggest asking if the community coders can work something out.

Max tried a 1x1 vehicle using a drone and the game still thought it was a 3x3 vehicle. I'll send a suggestion to the community coders if changing this is possible

Just happened to come across this before I went to bed. Let me explain certan things.

First of all, gauddlike tried ages ago to make a 1x1 drone. This didn't work out - the game didn't recognise a 1x1 drone. Then, much later down the line I tried both a 1x1 and a 2x2 vehicle. 1x1 still didn't work - it never appeared. 2x2 seemed to sort-of work, but the problems were that the test sprites I made kept disappearing, the cursor is set for a 3x3 vehicle and it interacted oddly with the map and soliders. Tell you what I'll do - I'm in from work and I have the day off. I was going to spend it modding anyway, so I'll dig out the 2x2 Square Of Doom, have a play about with it and let everyone else have access to the files so we can collectively try and get 2x2 vehicles working. Sound fair?

Well, 1x1 vehicles should be implementable as armour rather than a vehicle - that might not be very elegant, but it should work. It would only take up one space in the dropship, but I guess that's okay for a vehicle this small. Also, the armor could fix the stats at the values it should with CE. Only problem would be that it would be recoverable if lost.

Well, 1x1 vehicles should be implementable as armour rather than a vehicle - that might not be very elegant, but it should work. It would only take up one space in the dropship, but I guess that's okay for a vehicle this small. Also, the armor could fix the stats at the values it should with CE. Only problem would be that it would be recoverable if lost.

I think it is impossible to make an armor with no soldier in it, so basically it won't be a vehicle, but a Predator suit. And then, I don't even know if it is possible to stick guns on a armor other than the guns carried by the solder. Looks wierd to me.

I don't know the feasibility of it, but what if the game could be modded to allow players to capture and reprogram the Androns?

Those are technically a 1 x 1 square drone.

I think it is impossible to make an armor with no soldier in it, so basically it won't be a vehicle, but a Predator suit. And then, I don't even know if it is possible to stick guns on a armor other than the guns carried by the solder. Looks wierd to me.

That's what I meant by "not elegant". You could change the sprites so they look like a drone instead of a soldier, but technically there would always be a soldier in it. Regarding the guns, you could make them so that they could only be used by the drone-armour and all other weapons not by the drone, just like it is with the Predator. Not elegant, as I said, but possible.

Just popping in. I'm not keen to wave the wings of a raven, but I have to inject a little negativity here. CE wouldn't fix the problem that every "drone" would have different stats, as CE offers stat buffs/debuffs not stat overrides (like the vanilla strength stat override in armours does), so stat buffs/debuffs would over-emphasise existing solider stats rather than homgenise them. Certain stats you could explain away such as accuracy, but you couldn't explain away stats like TU or HP - the disconnect would be too strong. And only vanilla offers a weapon specificier - specifcally <biggunsonly>. As far as I know, there's no weapons limiter in CE beyond <biggunsonly>, so one could equip a "drone" with either all weapons, or LMGs. Finally, if the "drone" died so would the solider, and there's no amount of explaining could do to explain away why a solider dies if a drone does.

I perosnally think it would be better to ask for expanded functionality, as the functionality is sort-of there already, it just needs work. (Possibly a LOT of owrk).

Well.. it looks like I've lost my Square of Doom. Can't find it anywhere, so I'm going to have to replicate it. *sigh*

Hi gang. I spent last night scratching my head over how I managed to do it last time. One epiphany later, et volia!

The Square Of Doom

This is very rough and ready. It's so rough and ready it's raw files from vanilla 1.09 - I've not even CE'd it because I wanted to work with the most basic, most universal version but you have a 2x2 vehicle there. There are a lot of problems and there's a lot of fixing to be done, especially with the GC animation registration points, but it works. Sort of. Don't try to rearrange it in the dropship - the game will crash. It will start off invisible on the map but when you move it, it will appear and stay appeared. To see it in action, start a new game. the Square can be researched and built very, very quickly. I repeat - this is a 1.09 style of install, so this is really for experienced modders ONLY and I would urge anyone trying it out to backup their files.

Well, I do have something to contribute on the menu:

(For comparison)

Something that I was working on while trying to get back my 3D modelling skills from a long hiatus. I was working on a futuristic tank design so why not make an alternative Soviet experimental airborne light tank that would fit the idea of a Xenonauts Assault Vehicle?

Still have to relearn texturing and baking though...

That looks awesome!