[v1.5/X:CE] Fire in the Hole! Destructible UFO Hulls (v1.3.3)

[silencer]

It's a bug, but not because of the mod but rather how the game works. Please read this whole page at least. I've talked with Kabill about those holes. I'm guessing he will remove them until XCE will fix the LoS for that particular case.

[GerbilSchooler]

Sorry, I lazily skimmed it Thanks for the quick reply, however

[silencer]

Ok. Am I to first reach Cruiser UFO with this mod? At first I thought I could standard breach by the sides. It turns out it was the main front door, which needs blowing up. I'm a bit concerned about big main room. How resistant is the anti gravity thing against explosives? I've met there Haridan Officer and 3 Sebillians. Hardian and one Sebillian had Plasma cannon.

I have also have to report my concern about the top floor. The aliens (Sebillians currently) like to sit on the teleporters. And I didn't encounter anyone in the "command" room. Up the floor. Might want to reconsider the design there.

[kabill]

Can't remember whether I've gotten as far as a Cruiser with FitH and don't know anyone else who did.

In terms of breaching, there is also an approach on the NW side of each wing, so it's not just the front door. There's also an approach through the front of the roof like with the landing ship. None of that's very clear, though. I'm wondering whether it might be worth adding a Xenopedia entry for the UFOs, actually, to highlight where the breach-points are.

In terms of the top floor, this might have been the specific submap. Usually, the command aliens should be in the proper command bit, but on one (maybe two?) I placed command tiles over the entirety of the upper floor to mix things up a bit. Might be that this isn't working well, though, if the aliens are camping on the teleporters. So I could scale it back to just being in the command room.

As for the anti-gravity generator, they're not especially durable (180hp total). Not sure that's a problem, though: it's a disincentive to explosive-spamming which I think is reasonable (or is your concern about alien's with plasma cannons?).

[silencer]

I thought so, that the corners were breach able, but didn't want to risk it. The command room might be populated if it wasn't that badly damaged in that instance I was playing. And I am concerning about my explosives rather plasma cannons. Though I proritise aliens with plasma cannons and I don't cut any expenses on them. The top yeah, but I need buzzards for this at least, and frankly I am not convinced to buzzards. I've already buffed the armors to beta level where it felt appropriate. I think that the double nerf Chris gave in v22 was too much. The nerf with durability I can understand but lowering the armour values themselves not. I had a situation where sebilian Warrior point blanked fired PC at my Wolf armor with 65 armor. My soldier got hit for 90 dmg and so did the sebillian. How it is possible if they don't have as high armour as mine... bleh but this is not for this topic.

[kabill]

Yeah, sounds like you got one of the maps where the command group isn't in the command room. If nothing else, I'll move the command tiles off of the teleporters as that should stop them camping on them.

Re: buzzard armour - I never used it either in vanilla, as the height advantage always felt marginal. It's one of the reasons why I wanted to add in roof-top breaches in UFOs, as it gives them an added advantage.

Re: point-blank plasma cannon: I suspect that this is due to splash-damage reduction. I think all the tiles around ground-0 will suffer only 75% damage, which is why the seb took less than you would have expected.

[andysonofbob]

how do I know this mod is working? Are there any obvious tells?

I am using X:CE 26

and using the appropriate version - I used the installer and it said all went well but I didn't notice any flames around the landed UFO.

If it isn't working should I just extract the files into assets etc?

thanks

[kabill]

You can't use the mod installer to install this mod. You need to extract the mod into your Xenonauts directory instead.

[andysonofbob]

Cool-dee-do-dee!

that would explain that one then

thanks

[podbelski]

hi!

just have tried to blow up a corvette hull but it works only on the sides in the middle of the ship. The charge put near the navigation room does not blow the wall... can provide a screenshot if needed

[kabill]

If I've understood you right, that's intentional. You can only breach the hull in specific places. This is for a whole host of technical reasons for this which I won't go in to. Suffice it to say that without entirely overhauling the design of the UFOs and replacing them with modular segments a la the vanilla game, it's impossible.

(There was a project to redo the UFOs using modular segments, but it died due to a critical bug. I'm hopeful that some recent work on the community edition mod might fix the problem, though, which might make fully modular UFOs feasible.)

[podbelski]

ok, clear...

[silencer]

Are there going to be changes applied to XCE 0.27?

[kabill]

I'm not sure what you mean exactly. If you mean, am I am planning on making updates to FitH for 0.27, not specifically. The mod should work perfectly fine (better, in fact, with the LoS changes) with 0.27 as is (and it'll work even better when some fixes for the LoS system get rolled out, though I don't know when that's going to happen).

That said, I'm thinking about spending some time finishing off the last UFOs I've not updated (Carrier and Battleship) at the weekend if I have time, and resolving the issues with the Cruiser reported previously. I might also have a go at trying to make the submaps/spectres work with the modular system, with a view to moving the mod towards 'final, fully finished' release.

In fact (this is mostly for my benefit) a worklist of things that need to get done:

- Modularise UFO submaps - Done (except for UFOs which need updating)

- Modularise all spectres - Done

- Check modular system is updating LUA scripts correctly now (and move LUA script to correct place if functional) - Done (is functioning, but not quite 100% correctly somehow)

- Revise Carrier UFO maps -Done

- Revise Battleship UFO maps - Done

- Clean up Cruiser command spawn areas to avoid teleporter camping - Done

- Implement some method of highlighting rooftop breaching marks/indicators (have no thoughts about this other than having xenopedia entries for UFOs highlighting their weakpoints) - Kind of Done

- Change some Corvette alien spawns from Defensive to Command AI to make them use the command room section (can be implemented now but might be better to wait to see if there is an update to the ufocontents file structure first) - Done

- Fix Cruiser breach point images. - Done

I think that's it. If anyone has any thoughts on stuff that should be added to that list (or has ideas on how to solve the rooftop breach highlighting issue) please share them.

Edited August 23, 2014 by kabill

[silencer]

You've sort of guessed everything I've asked in my question.

[Bulk]

And um, 1.09?

[kabill]

And um, 1.09?

Yeah, as silencer indicates, there's currently a 1.09 build which is fully up-to-date. When I finish the last bits and pieces that need doing, I'll be releasing an X:CE and vanilla version.

[silencer]

Although it gives a nice alternative, allowing aliens landing on top of the UFOs are rather problematic during night missions. Aliens on the roofs are almost impossible to detect during night Throwing flares up there does jack squat. Either add some sort of light source on the UFO, or try to make some room for flares, or simply disable top of the UFOs. I had also one mission where Haridan was camping on top of the landingship. Every soldier was sniped long before I could close to the UFO. I might try using rockets to land some fire, but that should not be the strategy I think.

The problem starts arising with landingship and above.

Also the blowable corners of the cruiser are not that perfect

Edited August 23, 2014 by silencer

[kabill]

Regarding the roof issue, I'm not sure this is something that I'm likely to make changes for. Removing the ability to land on the roof completely is out of the question, since it's necessary in order for the player to be able to breach through roof sections. And there's nothing I could do to make flares work better.

The remaining option, adding light sources, is plausible but I think that will end up punishing the AI which - really - has demonstrated smarts by camping on top of a tall structure surrounded by nothing but open ground. If there were light sources, you could easily just snipe it from a distance and - ironically - it would therefore have been better off hiding in the dark somewhere on the ground instead. So while I appreciate that it might be difficult to deal with (especially without any flying ability), I think putting lights up there would swing it too much in the player's favour.

That said, I'll keep it in mind. It doesn't look to me on the same level as the corvette debacle, but playing through it myself might change my mind.

As regards the Cruiser breach points, that's (sadly) working as designed. I'll not bore you with the details but there's a technical reason why it's like that. What I'll do, though, is create some L-shaped debris images which clearly show the area which is passable so there's no confusion.

In other news, hoping to have the new version out by the end of the evening.

[silencer]

Alright, thanks for clearing it up.

[kabill]

Update: THE MOD IS 100% FINISHED! (Kind of)

The new versions can be accessed via the OP. I've updated both the XCE version and the vanilla version.

Changelog:

- Carrier and Battleship UFOs redesigned in line with the other UFO revisions.

- Some small tinkering with the Cruiser UFO to make it better (rear hull debris shows clearly what is accessible; aliens should hopefully not teleporter-camp any more.

- Xenopedia entries added for the largest UFOs (Cruiser, Carrier and Battleship) giving a rough indication of the location of the vulnerable hull sections and some fluff writing.

- Corvettes now have some aliens assigned as Command so the command room section of the corvette actually gets used.

- The glass pedestal thing now doesn't completely block LoF undamaged.

- Interior UFO doors have been changed so that Androns don't destroy them by walking through them.

- XCE ONLY: The mod is now 100% modular, meaning that it requires utterly no file overwrites.

As of this point, work on this mod is more or less finished. I'm intending to resolve any bugs that arise (no doubt something has crept in), but I don't plan on any significant changes. That's not to say that feedback isn't welcome, though - given a convincing enough argument, I can be persuaded to do most things.

Edited August 23, 2014 by kabill

[silencer]

I hope you didn't forget to change that 1 prop that gave 100% cover? The one we discussed in Corvette / Scout ? That pillar thing with small glass.

[kabill]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I did actually already do this, but apparently failed to copy it across to the folder set for uploading. Am uploading with the fix now.

[kabill]

Update: So, after uploading a fix for the pedestal I *then* realised that I'd forgotten to add in another fix for some of the UFO walls which had less HP than they should. It's not a major issue, but if you downloaded before this post it might be worth downloading again for the fix. Sorry for messing people about.

[silencer]

Do you have to change the values of that prop everywhere or just once? (Yes I've downloaded after your fix).

This screen shows that there is a possibility to see the bottom of the UFO from upper floor. So maybe it is possible in the landingship to make the balconies not black.