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Skitso's Alien Base Booster Pack


Skitso

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Skitso's Alien Base Booster Pack

The vanilla game has practically only 3 different small and medium sized alien bases where only variations are different race specific rooms. This map pack has 21 completely unique maps and also more than five times the number of unique submap variations for each room.

This pack also fixes a few small but annoying graphical tile issues the alien bases had. (some inner corners had ugly gaps and some outer corners didn't tile perfectly.

DOWNLOAD

INSTALLATION: (important stuff)

As all my new maps are named differently compared to vanilla (for reasons), you should delete all three original map files from each folder listed below before installing this pack.

/assets/maps/alienbase/basemaps/alienbase.medium.andron

/assets/maps/alienbase/basemaps/alienbase.medium.caesan

/assets/maps/alienbase/basemaps/alienbase.medium.sebillian

/assets/maps/alienbase/basemaps/alienbase.small.andron

/assets/maps/alienbase/basemaps/alienbase.small.caesan

/assets/maps/alienbase/basemaps/alienbase.small.sebillian

After that, just unpack the archive file into install directory/assets/

Edited by Skitso
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Also, I forgot to put an important installation information there in the first place. As all my new maps are named differently compared to vanilla, you should delete all three original maps from each folder listed below before installing this pack.

/assets/maps/alienbase/basemaps/alienbase.medium.andron

/assets/maps/alienbase/basemaps/alienbase.medium.caesan

/assets/maps/alienbase/basemaps/alienbase.medium.sebillian

/assets/maps/alienbase/basemaps/alienbase.small.andron

/assets/maps/alienbase/basemaps/alienbase.small.caesan

/assets/maps/alienbase/basemaps/alienbase.small.sebillian

Why is this procedure needed? Well, the alien base map names are identical to each other in the vanilla game. (small sebillian and small andron base maps share the same name for example) As the game saves the information about which maps player has visited in the save file, it would have ingnored many of my new maps. In other words, if you had visited a small sebillian base, you would not get small andron or small caesan map with the same running number) Make sense? :)

Edited by Skitso
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  • 2 weeks later...

Did my first alien base assault using this pack and I thought the map was really good. Some comments:

- I like the corridors with the little side-areas - it makes the corridors a little less death-trap like if there's an alien nearby.

- I liked the placement of the base power core and the ability to use vents/locked doors to access it. Getting to the power core using an openly accessible route took me about half way through the base but that could have been cut out by going through vents via a locked-out room. This is something that might prove invaluable when playing Dynamic UFOs as it's an interesting means by which a large base might be defeated with an under-powered squad.

- The branching felt pretty good, too. For basically the whole map I was able to run my squad in two teams so it felt there were always multiple approaches to moving through the base.

So, don't have any comments for improvement (more, please?). Although I did notice a small bug with a corridor leading up to the command room - one of the wall spectres wasn't aligned properly. Steam wouldn't let me take a screenshot for some reason but I made a save there so will grab one on Bandicam later.

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Well, the alien base map names are identical to each other in the vanilla game. (small sebillian and small andron base maps share the same name for example) As the game saves the information about which maps player has visited in the save file, it would have ingnored many of my new maps. In other words, if you had visited a small sebillian base, you would not get small andron or small caesan map with the same running number) Make sense? :)

Not quite. Can I do something about the vanilla maps in X:CE so that there is no need to delete them? Or adjust the code if that's what the fix would be, I don't quite get what the actual technical problem causing this is meant to be.

And the more important question :) : When get I ship this with X:CE (either mod or directly, I don't particularly care, seeing you haven't created a proper mod for of this)?

(Also, is there any special reason why you upload to Mediafire instead of the downloads section here?)

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And the more important question :) : When get I ship this with X:CE (either mod or directly, I don't particularly care, seeing you haven't created a proper mod for of this)?

I'd love to get this merged into X:CE like my Megamix Map Pack! :)

(Also, is there any special reason why you upload to Mediafire instead of the downloads section here?)

No. :)

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There's no technical problem in the map names but more of a slight naming issue.

The vanilla game has only 3 maps in each base size and (for example) caesan small base 1 and sebillian small base 1 are identical excluding few unique race specific submaps. So the problem is that if you encountered Caesan small base 1, then you would be locked out of sebillian small base 1 and Andron small base 1, at least until you had gone full cycle through all the numbers. In my pack each map has an unique name so they won't lock other maps out of map pool.

The issue is tiny, and if you want to fix it, you can rename my stuff how you see fit.

EDIT: regarding the atlases, you don't actually even need those. There are three or four 1 pixel fixes that people won't probably even see. They are there mostly for my own sanity. :D To be frank, I don't even remember what I changed there. :)

Edited by Skitso
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Thinking of it a bit more, I think vanilla alien base maps work the way they should. If all alien_base_small_1 maps are the same except for some rooms being race-specific, then it is correct that playing one of them kicks all the matching ones out of rotation, simply because they are basically the same.

So I think the correct way of handling this should be renaming your maps that are based on vanilla ones back to the original name, and only your new maps should have unique names.

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Yeah, they do work as intended in the vanilla game. But if I do that, there will be duplicates of certain maps that affect the randomization. ie. original maps have double change to be picked from the pool compared to the new ones.

Edited by Skitso
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Yeah, I worded myself badly there, but here's the real issue that remains:

Here's what this pack has now:

Caesan:

SkitsomapC1

SkitsomapC2

SkitsomapC3

SkitsomapC4 (renamed and improved vanillamap1)

Android:

SkitsomapA1

SkitsomapA2

SkitsomapA3

SkitsomapA4 (renamed and improved vanillamap2)

Sebillian:

SkitsomapS1

SkitsomapS2

SkitsomapS3

SkitsomapS4 (renamed and improved vanillamap3)

[/Quote]

Okay, here's what this pack would have with your proposal:

Caesan:

SkitsomapC1

SkitsomapC2

SkitsomapC3

Vanillamap1(renamed SkitsomapC4)

Android:

SkitsomapA1

SkitsomapA2

SkitsomapA3

Vanillamap2 (renamed SkitsomapA4)

Sebillian:

SkitsomapS1

SkitsomapS2

SkitsomapS3

Vanillamap3 (renamed skitsomapS4)

[/Quote]

And here's what the vanilla game has:

Caesan:

Vanillamap1

Vanillamap2

Vanillamap3

Andron:

Vanillamap1

Vanillamap2

Vanillamap3

Sebillian:

Vanillamap1

Vanillamap2

Vanillamap3

[/Quote]

If you now copy/overwrite your proposal to vanilla files above, you'll get

Caesan:

SkitsomapC1

SkitsomapC2

SkitsomapC3

Vanillamap1 (renamed SkitsomapC4)

Vanillamap2

Vanillamap3

Andron:

SkitsomapA1

SkitsomapA2

SkitsomapA3

Vanillamap1

Vanillamap2 (renamed SkitsomapA4)

Vanillamap3

Sebillian:

SkitsomapS1

SkitsomapS2

SkitsomapS3

Vanillamap1

Vanillamap2

Vanillamap3 (renamed skitsomapS4)

[/Quote]

So, as you see, there's a possibility that the game rolls a non improved vanilla map with this system (for example sebillian vanillamap1) Sorry this is a bit complicated, but I hope you can see the issue now... :)

Edited by Skitso
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finally, I've raided my first alien base - superb stuff Skitso!

I reloaded like 30 times b/c it was surprisingly tricky... command room with a single leader cost me about 10 reloads :eek: The layout is made in a way he kept killing my poor guys, either by reacting or by darting out.

it would have been easier if the bottom-left gate was not shifted into the wall:

base_gate_bugged.jpg

base_gate_bugged.jpg

base_gate_bugged.thumb.jpg.0df6dcf12ee0a

Edited by podbelski
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finally, I've raided my first alien base - superb stuff Skitso!

I reloaded like 30 times b/c it was surprisingly tricky... command room with a single leader cost me about 10 reloads :eek: The layout is made in a way he kept killing my poor guys, either by reacting or by darting out.

it would have been easier if the bottom-left gate was not shifted into the wall:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]6237[/ATTACH]

Thanks, I'll fix the map in the next update.

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