thixotrop

This looks great. The floor gaps to see lower levels are nice. But do not have full height walls below the gap, take the half-height versions. I would make the middle layer more triangular, right now it is quite strange as the footprint isn't rotation-symmetric. Mind you, the UFOs doesn't have to be that way, but it should fit the other layers in my opinion. If unsymmetric, then as a general design style. Make the walls in NE and NW and S all the same length and keep the chafered edges of the triangle (as in N direction). Uh wait, do you have props on the outside of the UFO hull?

Man, I admire and envy you for your 3d graphic abilities, you are so fast. The design looks really like the original game with its round shapes, though I think you should keep the style of the alien technology in Xenonauts. Maybe more like ED209 form Robocop (1987) but "alienated": 1987 ED209 (from here) 2014 ED209 (from here, haven't seen the movie) Just a thought, not compulsory for you.

Have you seen kabills mod "Enhanced Crash Sites"? It is also within the "Fire in the hole" mod where you can breach the UFO hulls. Wonder why he didn't mentioned it himself, but maybe he hopes that everybody read his signature.

Ah, but you have seen the UFO movement on the (flattened globe) geosacpe? Definitely horizontal movement too me, unless they go straight up into orbit, move horizontal and come straight down again. Hmm, I doubt the radar stations could follow them all the way and neither the jets. Ah Kevin and his sarcastic humor Neuer...who? Ah one of the football idi...players. *Cough* As you might have guessed from that, I do not care a teensy tiny little bit of a morsel of a nano...unit about that issue.

@Kevin The collapsing wall concept is really nice and can explain this for me, so I can live with it. A Xenopedia description would be really nice then. However, this also shows the aliens doesn't understand human soldiers well...once trapped that way, they will blast their own entrance into the UFO (see FITH mod ). @Kabil Ok, wasting space may not be the same for the aliens as it is for humans due to the powerful alenium technology and its surplus of energy. "Moreover, reducing the overall mass of the ship is almost certainly advantageous from a resource-consumption perspective (less fuel) and from a mobility perspective (faster, less resistance moving vertically in an atmosphere). Possibly also helps with access in a zero-g environment." Less fuel - absolutely agree. Atmospheric mobility - no. The hole may be OK for pure vertical movement in atmospheres but not when horizontal movement is happening too, due to a lot of turbulences (see drag coefficient). Yeah, you could kill this argument again with the surplus of energy, but this applies to aliens only, not to human technology. Gravity has no effect here, as only the total mass of the UFO is important then. Then a hole may be reasonable. Though, in viscous conditions like an atmosphere turbulences have a drastic effect. @Ragnarok You are right, human engineering should not be applied as the alien technology may have other constraint, but still there is physics. And this is everywhere the same (as far as we know). Furthermore, the aliens changed their crafts for atmospheric travel, it says so in the Xenopedia, so they seem to struggle with physics already, so they don't have other physics as we do. An UFO with an engine at one side will spin unless there are those thruster that will negate this spin. The space shuttle had thrusters for rotation in all degrees of freedom. Additionally, the research progression in the Xenopedia tells a lot about how humans can understand alien technology after some time and with some struggle. And yes I know Arthus C. Clarks laws. The "beam down - UFO without doors" is absolutely reasonable for me. Why use doors when teleporters exist and you have enough energy? Before this all goes too much off-topic: I don't want to force you all to consider physics and engineering aspects in each and every way. Just keep in mind that the whole "story of aliens arriving on Earth" should not be too much a fairy tale and stay science fiction and this means a fiction (imaginative approach) of science. Yeah and this not-fariy-tale-approach should also apply to combat and the ground missions, hence the narrow corridor headache. When I see all the "realistic weopanry" modders, they do a lot of work too to get it all right, I guess reasonable ground combat scenes will be appreciated.

I don't want to spoil your fun with this, and I definitely see that you put a lot of work into it, but I just wanted to say, please don't create UFO designs in a way that they are complex for combat sake only. Make them in an "alien" way reasonable. Something similar has been said for maps: "Maps should look real and logical and not obstruse and strange to boost complexity." (or at least in that meaning). Two examples: It has only one engine off-center, this UFO will rotate but not travel along. If "not visible thrusters" should compensate this they must be immensly powerful. Seems illogical for me. Why would anyone (engineer, designer, architect) want to create an entrance/exit between such narrow walls. And then this "hole" in the center of the UFO goes straight through it; what a waste of space. This seems to me the best example to create "complexity" over reason. I know I have mentioned earlier to play a bit with split-up entrances on ground level, and the original four "footed" UFO looks somewhat similar on ground level, but there the aliens have also four exit routes and not one narrow "pearlchain-shoot-me-corridor". Again, don't get me wrong. I see a lot of your effort here. Just want to keep you in line with the rest of the game style and its approach to technology. I don't know if others see this like me....maybe my engineer soul comes out again.

Yes I did, but I am not playing at the moment, so I can't test. Also, just wanted to mention that these two mods will/would be great together.

Would be great if it can be combined with this.

Yes, that was one of my wishes for a new features. I will definitely us this in my next game.

I definitely don't! Not all germans like football! And "Schland" comes from a horrible fun-band who made a mock-up song out of the also horrbile song "sattelite" of the german winner Lena of Eurovision Song Contest (can't remeber the year, and don't care). Both, Lena and that fun-band, are financed by Stefan Raab a popular and very successful german TV entertainer. Also both "songs" are extremely mainstream, very catchy, nothing in it worth remembering.

I want a better selction tool. From my other post: Is there any other method/software/tool to have a better overview and easier search-and-select of props, walls and so on. I fear I will get really annoyed with the current way to do that. ...like I said, I fear that I get annoyed and scared away because of this. If there was a better order of those; like vehicles, plants, walls (and I count the sandbags and barriers to this too) and so on.

Wow, you have read my mind somehow, you sure you don't have any Psion genes somewhere? Although still far away from any...ehm...playable maps, I intend to do some desert maps, canyonesque with narrow space but a lot of rock cover where you have to go from one side to the other. I still struggle with submaps though..and the friggin' tedious probs/walls/building selection mechanics. (you have to know nearly all graphics to know where to look, and then its loading..waiting..scrolling...selscting..nah, that isn't it...scrolling and so on and so on...*sigh*)

Don't mess with Texas!

Na, ich sehe es eher so, dass man den Thread sauberhalten möchte, also nur nutzbare Mods, Karten und Übersetzungen dort zu finden sein sollen. Jemand der so etwas sucht, soll dahin und es herunterladen, ohne erst schreiben/fragen zu müssen, ob es aktuell ist. Verstehe ich durchaus. Auch meine erste Reaktion war dort: "Wieso ist es denn schon hier? Ist doch noch gar nicht fertig oder?" Also eigentlich nicht unglaublich, oder? Ich an Deiner Stelle würde es verschieben. Obwohl ich Dich auch verstehe, dass es jetzt dort ist, da man es ja bereits nutzen kann.

I guess you are answering me? Ok, maybe I missed something, but during my research I never found any really good weapons/ammo to have a real chance against the aliens. It were mostly wipes in the beginning of the combats. I tried different tactics but was blasted away with rockets from over the horizon that made it for me. Though I don't know of patches either, too long ago for me.

Oh my... incredible. Only looking at the pictures I am totally blasted away. And then I look at my own feeble mapping issues... ...feels like me wanting to start playing guitar and hearing Pink Floyd, DireStraits or (old) Metallica and...uhm...stopped it due to lack of patience to wait for the change tedious work to delight.

Nice, didn't know about that. But any model to use has to fit the 70's style and tech level or if the game time allows has to be used only in later stages.

Agree with you on Aftermath with dread, "Endzeit"-Feeling, living in debris and so on....but for me the game was over when the aliens unwrapped their Xmas presents, which turned out to be their kind of rocket launcher. They could shoot from far out of the visible area, the blast area was tremendous, they nearly always hit, and it was near instant soldier death. And it didn't change anything to group huggle or spread wide with your soldiers, because they had loads of ammo too. (Xmas...Xcom...do we have to be afraid in December?)

Hey kabil, have you thought about something like this: level 0 level 1 level 3 All from here: http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Battleship Just wanted to say, that the main UFO area does not have to start at ground level. I guess you can find lots of different shapes and split-up base levels. So have different kind of ships in same class (Corvette A, Crovette B and so on). If not possible or too tough to realize, forget it. Now I will go back to do mapping...

>> 2: Only vanilla, no mods/maps installed yet. >> 3: Yes the guide is kind of out of date.

>1 Sounds complex, will check if I can do that. >2 There is no image in the Editor and I can't find a png either. >3 Sound complex again. In the "new mapping guide" there was something mentioned about mixing tilesets, but Skitso did that with submaps, so I am confused if this is allowed or just "bad style". The "bring everything you need" is clear to me for map use. >4 Yeah have seen it with the single-tiles. >5 So there is a difference, hmm. (6) I had the wrong friendlies, civies instead of soldiers. >7 Changing the level did not do anything, when I deleted a tile, always the top one vanished, regardless of level. But the submap editor is still a bastard to me. >8 Damn, like I said, I fear that I get annoyed and scared away because of this. If there was a better order of those; like vehicles, plants, walls (and I count the sandbags and barriers to this too) and so on. Though which order calls for a heated debate, I guess. Thank you kabil for you answers. I will try more maps before I make up my mind.

Eventually, after some struggle, I did some initial mapping steps and also quickbattle. @kabill You were right, I unzipped everything wrong into assets/tiles/tiles instead of assets/tiles. As Chris mentioned in his thread to unzip in /tiles, but the zip-file created a tiles folder already. My fault, haven't looked into the zip first. However I have still some questions: In the GCLevelEditor it seems to be impossible to use props, walls and so on that are already in different damage states. Or is there a way? The prop "green barrel" in desert set seems to have no sprite and is also no ostruction as you can pass the spot. An error on my side? It seems only possible to use desert props, walls and so on in the desert mapping work, but in submaps you can use all (I have seen in Skitso Petrol station props from Xenonaut base). Why is it possible in submaps but not in normal maps? Submaps cannot use other submaps right? Or why is it impossible to use street submaps as with the LevelEditor but single street-tiles are possible? In my maps I positioned a lot of aliens outside the UFO and also friendly AI (10-20 positions). But there is never an alien outside of the UFO. The UFO (LightScout) is full and some come out when approaching. In the quickbattle.xml (see below) I made 6/10 aggressive, thus shouldn't some of them placed outside? And where are the friendlyAI soldiers? All friendlyAI that were on the map (5 are pre-set) were civies, though the xml shows only 4/8 should be civies? Yeah, and it took me some time to understand that some positions in the quickbattle.xml were commented out, tricky. This one is for Skitso: I have looked into your Petrolstations submaps (nice really) but don't understand how and why nearly all of your tiles are below the green grid. Also some tiles are outside the grid? If this submap is somehow a different size of grid, how did you do that and why? I thought when loading the submap the correct grid will be loaded also. And mapping-guys (all of you out there), only now I can truely grasp what a work you have done with your map work. On the one hand you have to know practically ALL props, walls and so on, and always browse or scroll like crazy to get the right one to paint in map/submap. And on the other hand you always have to switch between LevelEditor and SubmapEditor to adjust/adapt/improve, especially with random elements (submap-props) for changing maps. Chapeau! 8. Is there any other method/software/tool to have a better overview and easier search-and-select of props, walls and so on. I fear I will get really annoyed with the current way to do that. Hier is my quickbattle.xml: <?xml version="1.0" ?><LevelSetup> <Map tileset="desert" mapname="des1" /> <SpawnTarget dropshipType="airplane.human.chinook" ufoType="airplane.alien.lightscout" ufoLandStatus="landed" /> <Aliens> <Alien name="AI 1" race="Caesan" rank="Guard" script="defensive" isKilled="0"/> <Alien name="AI 2" race="Caesan" rank="Guard" script="defensive" isKilled="0" /> <Alien name="AI 3" race="Sebillian" rank="Soldier" script="offensive" isKilled="0" /> <Alien name="AI 4" race="Caesan" rank="Soldier" script="offensive" isKilled="0" /> <Alien name="AI 5" race="Sebillian" rank="Soldier" script="offensive" /> <Alien name="AI 6" race="Sebillian" rank="NonCombatant" script="defensive" /> <Alien name="AI 7" race="Caesan" rank="Soldier" script="offensive" /> <Alien name="AI 8" race="Caesan" rank="Soldier" script="offensive" /> <Alien name="AI 9" race="Sebillian" rank="Soldier" script="offensive" /> <Alien name="AI 10" race="Caesan" rank="NonCombatant" script="defensive" /> <Alien name="Civilian 1" race="Human" rank="NonCombatant" script="civilian" /> <Alien name="Civilian 2" race="Human" rank="NonCombatant" script="civilian" /> <Alien name="Civilian 3" race="Human" rank="NonCombatant" script="civilian" /> <Alien name="Civilian 4" race="Human" rank="NonCombatant" script="civilian" /> <Alien name="Friendly AI 1" race="Human" rank="Soldier" script="friendlyai" /> <Alien name="Friendly AI 2" race="Human" rank="Soldier" script="friendlyai" /> <Alien name="Friendly AI 3" race="Human" rank="Soldier" script="friendlyai" /> <Alien name="Friendly AI 4" race="Human" rank="Soldier" script="friendlyai" /> </Aliens></LevelSetup>

The "Open level Viewer" shows only black tiles. I have copied my whole Xenonauts folder to another spot and unzipped the unpacked tiles into /assets/tiles/. Made a simple map with only desert tiles like described in the "how to map.." sticky, but the viewer is completely black. Moving with arrows does not help. Opened various existing maps but only some arctic maps show some water, nothing else. Where is my error? Edit: I used the GCLevelEditor out of the cloned folders, not the one in the steam path. And btw. is it normal that the viewer is not available anymore once it is closed? Edit2: Some farm maps show me ground tiles, but only some and they are divided by black tiles, no buildings, bushes or other things. Other maps alos show me only ground tiles, but not all of them.

Really good. Even the art style matches with the game. Thumbs up! Though the female pose and body look too similar, I guess they are. If possible go some steps further and vary body height, body position and so on to have some diversity. Surely also for males then.

Yeah they are really great, in Rome there is Palazzo Spada with this unbelievable art from Borromini. The sculpture looks like hundreds of meter away and is just 2 m out of reach. Crazy when you are in front of it, you know the trick and stil... However, I think this is hard to realize in the game due to the isometric view. And then the props for this are not there, oh what a hell of work.