Jump to content

[v1.07] Xtended Backgrounds Mod (v0.7)


Ogaburan

Recommended Posts

Xtended Background

First i must thank Pinetree (& those who helped him) for his Original Mod.

I am one of those who believe his mod is essential for the game, and refuse to have a "serious" play-through without it.

In fact i got so impatient I started toying with the files myself. To the point i think i made a modmod and eventually got Pinetrees blessing to take over the mod.

So what is it?

Its my version of a "realistic" distribution of soldiers who would join Xcom, with realistic backgrounds to fit the 1974 setting. Only one fantasy background has been added due to the "Icelandic Incident" lore.

This is how it looks:

nations_all_zps75014d1a.png

I think the numbers speak for themselves...

But in a nutshell:

There are vast deference between the distribution of men and women from different countries.

With Nato and the West being more sexist (with the tiny buff towards Scandinavians), while the communist countries are more egalitarian. African and Muslim countries would not produce female soldiers.

I also gave in and put the female % at 20.

The numbers are kind of "tight" so no two playthrougs will be the same and while there is a "status quo", it still allows for "crazy" setups.

Here are also some Pie Charts, because everybody loves a good pie chart. (spreadsheet also is in the download)

Ofc any feedback on these distributions will be appreciated!

Download Link

Current version v0.7

Change-log :

v0.7:

- British preordered soldiers will now show as English and not ####

- More regiments and experience for English Women

- Deleted some Russian odd names

- No more Welsh Women in the Scots Division

- The following agencies added (all share the "classified" experience):

* England, Scotland, Wales - MI6, MI5 (Both Male & Female)

* Romanian Securitate (Both Male & Female)

* Israeli Mossad (Both Male & Female)

* US CIA, FBI (Both Male & Female)

* Russian KGB (Both Male & Female)

v0.6:

- Fixed the elusive rare CTD

- Changed Polish Experience.

- Added & Changed Russian Regiments

v0.5:

- Fixed extra spaces after first names and last names

- Removed around 997 duplicate name/last name entrees for males

- Removed around 125 duplicate female names/last names

- Sorted & Added many names

- Removed weird Mexican names

- Fixed Icelander Female names (were the same as Spanish)

- Fixed most Asian names

- Added Korean Regiments

- Polish regiment name changed

- Changed Gurkha Regiment

v0.4:

- Allot of bug-fixing as im starting to get the hang of this!

- Reduced woman % from 35% to 20%

- Made NATO and the West allot more sexist.

- Reduced % of Chinese Spawns (still high tho)

- Increased the % of Scandinavian women (less sexist)

- Increased the % of Vietnamese women (due to high experience)

- Minor decrease to Brazilian & Argentinian

- Broke the "British" into English, Scottish, Welsh & Gurkha

- Removed some none Characteristic English names (to increase the "Classics")

- All Modern UK nations have access to the current "British" regiments, while the Scottish also have the Scottish Division

- The Gurkha have their own Regiment, but share experience with the former "British"

- Added India as a neutral nation

- Added women for English, Scottish & Welsh

- Added allot of surnames to the female roster of all nations

v0.3:

- Expanded the Hungarian Names for both sexes.

v0.1-0.2:

- Added Iranians

- Extended the Female soldiers backgrounds to nations added

- Redistribution of soldiers % across the world

Credits:

Pinetree for original mod

ResFu for helping out with the Polish names and units.

jamoecw for U.S. unit experience.

llunak for correcting Czech names and adding Slovak names.

steelgonads for correcting Portuguese names.

-For this iteration of the mod-

ocsisajt for Hungarian names

Pinetree for some bug-stumping

Theon Greyjoy for eastern european reserch & bugstuping

mindwr for most asian nation names & korean regiments

Jsleezy for most of the worked done on 0.5 release

Edited by Ogaburan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

35% is vanilla, and i dont want to mess with another .xml file... as you can see that just messing with these 3 causes problems of compatibility and merging with other mods.

You can easily adjust the % of females in gamesconfig.xml, its in line 65 and quite obvious.

About Jsleezys mod compatibility.

I stopped using Jsleezys mod (not that its bad) so i wont be digging into it anytime soon to make a compatible version.

I dont really know how its not compatible... as im only changing the names and the % of soldiers popping out form a given nation. While Jsleezys only seems to affect what pictures shows up.

But since you tried it and they are not compatible, I dont think i'll even know how to "fix" it.

There is line of code somwhere in soldiernames/soldierfeamles that extend the pool from witch game draws pictures in vanila its 36 potraits and we have 114 thanks to Jsleezy so this line of code implemented into your mod makes all pictures available. If u ak Jsleezy on pm maby he easly can give you details what has to be changed, i am unfamiliar with that otherwise i would have do this myself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is line of code somwhere in soldiernames/soldierfeamles that extend the pool from witch game draws pictures in vanila its 36 potraits and we have 114 thanks to Jsleezy so this line of code implemented into your mod makes all pictures available. If u ak Jsleezy on pm maby he easly can give you details what has to be changed, i am unfamiliar with that otherwise i would have do this myself.

Nope it is not in soldiernames/soldierfeamles this can be done in gameconfig.xml.What Jsleezy did is this:

<minSoldierAge value="21" comment="The minimal age of a soldier."  /> <maxSoldierAge value="35" comment="The maximal age of a soldier."  />[u] <femaleSoldierChance value="20" comment="The percent chance that a generated soldier is a female" />[/u]

He reduced it from 35 to 20 % and it means that game will less draw soldiers from female pool.

He also increased pull of names by adding his own in soldiernames/females.xml and adding entry which is called "cust" in other words that value defines percantage of generating custom names (name that he included).What is done in this mod is more complex good job Ogaburan :)

Edit:Last part of my post isn't correct this what "cust" does:

It does not pull custom names. It pulls the locked custom portraits, but the names remain random. You can still force the locked/custom names with portraits and there is still that chance that a locked/custom name with portrait will show up, but for the most part it will pull a custom portrait with a random name which means you are now able to use the whole pool instead of the same ones that show up every time.
Edited by Sentelin
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nope it is not in soldiernames/soldierfeamles this can be done in gameconfig.xml.What Jsleezy did is this:
<minSoldierAge value="21" comment="The minimal age of a soldier."  /> <maxSoldierAge value="35" comment="The maximal age of a soldier."  />[u] <femaleSoldierChance value="20" comment="The percent chance that a generated soldier is a female" />[/u]

He reduced it from 35 to 20 % and it means that game will less draw soldiers from female pool.

He also increased pull of names by adding his own in soldiernames/females.xml and adding entry which is called "cust" in other words that value defines percantage of generating custom names (name that he included).What is done in this mod is more complex good job Ogaburan :)

I know nothing about those changes what they do and what they dont, what Jsleezy said is that vanila game when chosing pictures for your soldiers, pick up from the pool of 36, and he change it so all 114 pictures have chance to be drawed. If this is changed in this mod then its fine but I dont know is it done here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nope it is not in soldiernames/soldierfeamles this can be done in gameconfig.xml.What Jsleezy did is this:

He reduced it from 35 to 20 % and it means that game will less draw soldiers from female pool.

He also increased pull of names by adding his own in soldiernames/females.xml and adding entry which is called "cust" in other words that value defines percantage of generating custom names (name that he included).What is done in this mod is more complex good job Ogaburan :)

Just to clarify, it does reduce the female soldier percentage but that's more of an optional file. However, the last part is wrong. It does not pull custom names. It pulls the locked custom portraits, but the names remain random. You can still force the locked/custom names with portraits and there is still that chance that a locked/custom name with portrait will show up, but for the most part it will pull a custom portrait with a random name which means you are now able to use the whole pool instead of the same ones that show up every time.

I'll be working with Ogaburan on creating a file with the Xtended names with a freed soldier pool.

Edited by Jsleezy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, then here comes another question: Does Ogaburan's mod unlock these 100 "cust" faces?

if i understand right...no..this doesnt...so this is the reason why we are asking a merge patch between jsleezy mod and this

so we can GET ALL THE 115 CUSTOM FACES and stuff annnnnd the expanded soldiers background :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

if i understand right...no..this doesnt...so this is the reason why we are asking a merge patch between jsleezy mod and this

so we can GET ALL THE 115 CUSTOM FACES and stuff annnnnd the expanded soldiers background :)

I dunno. I mean, I've already did a playthrough with both this and Jsleezy's mods. I was thinking about another playthrough, this time without real faces. But I'm concerned about those custom ones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i know what are you saying...well i use jsleeszy mod..or half of ¡t,without the real faces..just put the xml and you'll get all the custom faces in the soldierimage folder instead of always geting the same 40 faces,right know i have like 25 soldiers everyone with a diferent face (thats all the point of his mod,getting variability in the portraits,and also the real faces..you can use only one if you want (for now im happy with the vainilla cartoonish faces,maybe later i switch them)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i know what are you saying...well i use jsleeszy mod..or half of ¡t,without the real faces..just put the xml and you'll get all the custom faces in the soldierimage folder instead of always geting the same 40 faces,right know i have like 25 soldiers everyone with a diferent face (thats all the point of his mod,getting variability in the portraits,and also the real faces..you can use only one if you want (for now im happy with the vainilla cartoonish faces,maybe later i switch them)

The main problem actually, as far as I know, the portraits which can be pulled from the face pool is scripted either in gameconfig(which is doubtful) or soldiernames(I think it's there) files

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wait wait wait, so these ~100 "cust" faces will remain locked without Jsleezy's mod?

the 100 cust portaits are used. Just not very often.

They are used when you get a predefined-kickstarter soldier (e.g. Josh Eales). The problem is that (I might be wrong here) but I think that the predefined soldiers are connected to certain countries (hardcoded)

So normally you would get lots of predefined soldiers cos you have lots of e.g. Americans in your soldier pool. With Extended mod you only have 4% of American soldiers. Now a predefined soldier won't appear among the Chinese, Filipino, Rhodesians etc.... cos they are not even hardcoded.

So you will have much more soldiers using the pool of only 36 portaits.

The only problem with unlocking all 100 is that, in some circumstances you might actually increase the chance that you will get two people with the same face (because you will have luck enough to spawn Josh Eales (hardcoded) AND you were unlocky enough to spawn a soldier who took a portrait from the unlocked "cust" pool...which happend to be the coded face of Josh Eales

Of course it's deffinitly worth the risk if you have only 36 portraits..because portaits will repeat themselves during a long game.

Another issue is that "Cust" portaits are only suitable for multi-culti nations (because they cover all ehtnic groups).

It would be historically weird to e.g. get dark skinned Soviet Block soldiers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One way you could get around it is renaming the custom faces to nor, afri, asi etc, and increase the face pool that way..

I've been thinking about the same thing (great minds think alike etc etc), the only issue is that there would have to be a portrait pack for the vanilla portraits (maybe Oran can handle that one) and one for my custom portraits. It would also increase repetition, but it won't be worse than it currently is and it would solve the melting-pot problem...it might work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You also have to specify the ethnicity count at the top of the soldiernames xml files. Remember the portraits start at zero. But don't just rename; you would have to make a duplicate then rename the duplicate otherwise once it pulls a Kickstarter custom portrait it's going to give you a blank soldier.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh well, seems like an awful lot of crappy work.

It is :P

One way you could get around it is renaming the custom faces to nor, afri, asi etc, and increase the face pool

I've already tried this some time ago. Wasn't happy with the results. The rate of of repeating faces was even higher than when simply unlocking cust.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...