Non-Moddable Parts of the Game

[Caaygun]

I'm starting the thread to get some dev attention and hopefully intervention to make more of the game moddable. And here's what made me do it, if anyone knows the way to mod the following I'd be happy to know but after quite some meddling with game files I failed to discover and decided that were hard coded:

Air Combat:

-the green grid field

-green borders of the control panel

-aircraft red and green fire cone colors

-Green and red color coding of projectiles

Geoscape:

-Red overlay of lost continents

(this can only be made darker but the red tint is still hardcoded)

Feel free to post your own additions to the list.

[Skitso]

Yep, those are pretty much whats missing from my Oppressive UI Mod. Also, most geoscape font colors (yellow, green, red) are hard coded.

[kabill]

There's some game mechanic things that would be nice to have accessible. I can't remember all of them off the top of my head but the short-range to-hit bonus/distance is probably top of that list.

On the other hand, I'm not going to hold my breath because making changes like that will invariably lead to adding bugs into the game.

[Jsleezy]

When I started modding the game I wanted to change the "on-hover" popup of the soldier portraits on ground combat to just be on at all times, but they said it was hard-coded. If they could change that I would have liked to make a more RPG-like interface. They said it would be a simple change in the code, but I never heard back about the change being made.

[Mikhail Ragulin]

Some off the top of my head:

- inventory containers. They're changeable, but also defined somewhere else. I'd like that somewhere else to be exported to somewhere else.

- start date. Would open up the range of options considerably.

- barracks screen. Being able to give the soldier role a pop-up, like the dropship assignment has, so it can be changed there too. Although that could just count as a feature request.

- starting roles/loadouts.

[Victor_Tadeu]

I think kabill, not sure, once started to add new missions types, but it seens impossible. I'm not sure if was he too, but once I read somewhere that someone was trying to create new UFO types but it also seens impossible. The game appears to reject the new stuff and and dont use them at all or freezes.

I'm not sure about the details, since I didn't tried to mod those things myself, but if guys like kabill and TacticalDragon wasn't able to do those things yet, I stand no chance anyway.

So:

- new missions types are impossible

- new UFO types also impossible

[Lt_Parsons]

Hardcoded things i encountered that were not been listed yet:

Geoscape:

- list of funding nations

- list of tilesets

Ground combat:

- all npc's use the same setting for view angle

- bullet trajectory (tied to bulletType property instead of separate setting)

- shot animation type (also tied to bulletType)

- projectile explosion (same)

- flare light emit (same)

- can't set shot count for regular shots

- can't set range/accuracy modifier on ammo

- can't define projectile origin point

- cant do lingering projectile effects (i.e glow/trail that lasts after the impact)

- can't throw non-grenade items (i.e spare magazine toss)(i have tried to combine ammo and grenade into single item, but it didn't worked out)

Most of it was mentioned earlier in development and was too big (or unnecessary) system change even then, but listed them anyway for completeness sake.

Edited June 10, 2014 by Lt_Parsons

[kabill]

I think kabill, not sure, once started to add new missions types, but it seens impossible.

Yeah, tried this, doesn't work. Probably very hard to add in, though, unless you just create a generic "UFO flies around" template for anything new, as I think all the scripting for the missions is hard-coded.

I'm not sure if was he too, but once I read somewhere that someone was trying to create new UFO types but it also seens impossible. The game appears to reject the new stuff and and dont use them at all or freezes.

I tried adding in new UFO crew types (for example, a Harridan Corvette to go along with the Caesan, Sebillian and Andron ones). Again, it doesn't work. The UFO spawns fine, but it never has any crew in it. That, I imagine, would be easier to add in as the crew type doesn't really matter beyond what's displayed on the Quantum Cryptology Centre information.

In terms of literally adding new UFO types, I reckon there's a chance that's possible. The major problem is maps: you'd have to add your new UFO type to each map individually, and if you wanted to support custom maps you'd have to package those with the mod with them added on, too. (The same thing is true with dropships, for what it's worth).

Here's a thing:

Buildings. Buildings are basically unmodable at the moment. There's a few variables that are accessible (cost, size and maintenance) but no way to affect their functions at all. In particular, it's impossible to add in new building types, since you can't give them any function at all (e.g. you can't add in an improved medibay or lab or anything like that). Even being able to allocate a building function to a structure (e.g. create a new structure which counts as a lab) would be useful, as you could do things like have advanced buildings which take up less base-space or cost less or something.

[Ragnarok]

Variables like scientist / engineer count or Radar range should defintily be made public. They are variables after all, i dont see why they should be hardcoded. The underlying function of course, but the Parameters ?

[kabill]

Variables like scientist / engineer count or Radar range should defintily be made public. They are variables after all, i dont see why they should be hardcoded. The underlying function of course, but the Parameters ?

Those are actually all available. The trouble is that they're universal. I.e. you can set the number of scientists you can have in a lab, but you can't have two different labs allowing different numbers of scientists. Same with radars: you can mod radar range, but not specify that radar type A has range X, while radar type B has range Y.

[Skitso]

the short-range to-hit bonus/distance is probably top of that list.

That's moddable in the gameconfig, if I remember correctly.

[Mikhail Ragulin]

That's moddable in the gameconfig, if I remember correctly.

Close. It's in config.

[kabill]

Ah, yes. You can modify the bonus, but not the range at which you start getting it. It's the latter I'm particularly interested in; I'd forgotten you could do the former already though.

[Nagho]

Another thing that has been confirmed hardcoded is that it is impossible to make new aircraft that are buyable. The only way to have aircraft buyable in the same way as the Condor is to either use airplane.human.f17 or airplane.human.mig31, it's not possible to add new ones.

[Sentelin]

Actually I am pretty sure that you can use any entry of in-game planes to use as replacement for user made model if you want them to be "buyable".There is 6 more models beside Condor and Fox that you can use.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Sentelin