New Here, looking for some Modding advice.

[devinemag]

Hi everyone, been searching through the MODs and trying to come up with a recipe for perfect game. First off I want to say I love this game and love the concept. I have a background in Special Operations with the military for the last 10 years, so I love games that represent realistic concepts. Yes even when it involves aliens....lol. Things I am looking for in a MOD

1.New Weapons. Especially starting weapons. You are telling me the most elite unit in the world cant get anything better than a standard m16? How about a carbine M4 or add some night vision scopes, Grips, Flashlights, extended clips. Machine guns need to be able to fire 2 times if not moved entire turn.

2. Uniforms, look like they are working at a gas station, would like something looking more tactical.

3. Missions are repetitive, Would like to see some rescue missions, retrieval missions. How about if a chopper gets shot down you need to fight off a enemy attack until rescue shows up. How ever fast your rescue gets there depends on how many waves of attacks you need to fight off.

4. Humans vs Humans. Would like to see some human vs human action. Maybe some people are working for the Aliens, maybe some humans don't want to cooperate. Maybe some terrorists get a hold of alien technology and need to be dealt with.

5. Morale, Would like to see leadership play more of a role. Can be an attribute that can applied to any player that helps boost the morale of other players within a certain radius.

6. Suppressive fire- Would like to see a mode of fire that any automatic weapons can do, Machine guns specializing in it. Entire turn spraying a cone of fire that denies enemy that area or face a chance to be hit.

I have many more but thats all at the top of my head. There may be lots of mods out there that can be combined with desired results. If so please let me know some that could fit the bill. If anyone that is great at Modding wants to get together to talk about some concepts I would love to add an element of realism that my real life experience in non alien fire fights could help.

John

[drages]

Hi devinemag..

Some of your ideas are out of reach with the game engine.

1. You can change weapons.. but cant put flash-scope or anything additional. The game system dont have that kind of system..

2. You can easily change it if u got an artist to draw.. there are visual mods already for this.

3. You cant add another missions like them..

4. Like missions its nearly impossible..

5. Impossible for now as i know..

6. There is already suppression in game just works differently.

You can check big mods like XNT or X-Division to see the game limits..

[Max_Caine]

Eeeh... if you want realism, I don't think Xenonauts is really going to be your bag, Something like a total overhaul of JA2 is going to be more your bag.

Anyway.

1). Uh... you can sort of do that. As drages has written, you can't modify weapons. But you can have a weapon type with various modifications. It's just the modifications can't come off. Ever.

2). Yup, others do't like the uniforms and have made some decent mods. Try looking here7.

3). That would need a community coder to do that.

4). I disagree with drages. This is do-able. There are human soldier sprites in the game, so a quick respray in photoshop then a lot of work modding them in and you can have human thralls in ufo.

5). This was removed in beta - no-one liked it. It would take a community coder to add it back in.

6). It would be possible to make weapons more suppressive in burst mode and less damaging, but as drages says suppression is worked into weapons.

[devinemag]

Hi devinemag..

Some of your ideas are out of reach with the game engine.

1. You can change weapons.. but cant put flash-scope or anything additional. The game system dont have that kind of system..

2. You can easily change it if u got an artist to draw.. there are visual mods already for this.

3. You cant add another missions like them..

4. Like missions its nearly impossible..

5. Impossible for now as i know..

6. There is already suppression in game just works differently.

You can check big mods like XNT or X-Division to see the game limits..

1. So could I have 10 different versions of a m16? like one with Grip, one with flashlight, one with grip and flashlight? One with Night vision, one with grip and night vision?

2. How easy would it be to change the actual in game uniforms as well?

3. Different missions are impossible to make?

6. Suppression I understand the current state, But If I order someone to spray down a few windows to keep their heads down that will take up a lot of ammo and keep their heads down as I maneuver. Way different then try to shoot that guy in the window and maybe he will pop his head down.

[kabill]

Many of the things you've listed would entail a great deal of work. Some specific points:

1) Adding weapons is fairly easy, all said and done. Other equipment no so much as there's utterly no support for it (i.e. the inventory system would need to be rewritten from scratch) so it's unlikely to happen I think.

2) The main issue here is sprite rendering. Max_Caine here on the forums has part-completed a sprite-set for a new kind of armour but it's a lot of work and, unless you're a 3D artist, expensive as well. So probably not likely to happen, sadly

3) New mission types is something I'd personally like to look at but I don't know whether it would fall within my skill range. Again, likely to take a lot of effort in any case.

4) I think XNT (and it's children) do this a little bit. Difficult to make work in the way you suggest without implementing some new mission types though.

5) This can be very easily implemented as support for it already exists (it's just not used in vanilla). All you need to do is look in moraleconfig.xml and you can add morale bonuses for soldiers of different ranks within a designated radius. It would probably need some rethinking of the morale system as a whole to make it worthwhile, though, since soldier bravery and the overall leadership bonus make up a substantial amount of a soldier's base morale.

6) I'm personally not convinced that a suppression ability of that kind is very coherent with the overall ruleset that Xenonauts uses as there's no such thing as a 'continuous' or 'sustained' action per se. As an approximation of reality, a machinegun burst is a continuous or near-continuous burst of fire as it uses most of a soldier's TUs; it's not clear then how this would be distinct from the kind of suppressive fire that you're referring to and why it would function differently. As such, it's not something I'd be interested in working on personally.

On the other hand, I'm now taken by the idea of trying to implement an actual suppressive fire mode. As it is, it's impossible to actually try and suppress an area with automatic fire since you have to pick a discrete target-point. What's worse, soldiers with higher aim are less good at suppression since their shots will scatter less often and therefore tend to cover a smaller area than a low-aim soldier. As such, it might be nice to have the option to deliberately scatter a burst over an area specifically for the purposes of suppression rather than target-hitting. (A simple way of doing this would be to have a means of force-missing a shot so that it deliberately scatters. It would be better if you had some control over it though.)

EDIT: Ninja'd to death.

[devinemag]

2.I would also think it would look so much better if what ever you equipped your soldier with shows up in the artwork. If you have him equipped with a machine gun, he is shown holding a machine gun.

3. I would have thought someone would have thought about this before, I know I can't be the first person to think UFO after UFO gets repetitive. I would love some rescue a scientist or group of engineers that you could then add to your base. Or Take out a Alien command and control area that would disrupt UFO activity in an area. Would love multiple mission opportunities with having to choose what missions are more important and which ones should be held off or not taken entirely. I just feel like this game has so much potential with a little more variety.

[devinemag]

Many of the things you've listed would entail a great deal of work. Some specific points:

1) Adding weapons is fairly easy, all said and done. Other equipment no so much as there's utterly no support for it (i.e. the inventory system would need to be rewritten from scratch) so it's unlikely to happen I think.

2) The main issue here is sprite rendering. Max_Caine here on the forums has part-completed a sprite-set for a new kind of armour but it's a lot of work and, unless you're a 3D artist, expensive as well. So probably not likely to happen, sadly

3) New mission types is something I'd personally like to look at but I don't know whether it would fall within my skill range. Again, likely to take a lot of effort in any case.

4) I think XNT (and it's children) do this a little bit. Difficult to make work in the way you suggest without implementing some new mission types though.

5) This can be very easily implemented as support for it already exists (it's just not used in vanilla). All you need to do is look in moraleconfig.xml and you can add morale bonuses for soldiers of different ranks within a designated radius. It would probably need some rethinking of the morale system as a whole to make it worthwhile, though, since soldier bravery and the overall leadership bonus make up a substantial amount of a soldier's base morale.

6) I'm personally not convinced that a suppression ability of that kind is very coherent with the overall ruleset that Xenonauts uses as there's no such thing as a 'continuous' or 'sustained' action per se. As an approximation of reality, a machinegun burst is a continuous or near-continuous burst of fire as it uses most of a soldier's TUs; it's not clear then how this would be distinct from the kind of suppressive fire that you're referring to and why it would function differently. As such, it's not something I'd be interested in working on personally.

On the other hand, I'm now taken by the idea of trying to implement an actual suppressive fire mode. As it is, it's impossible to actually try and suppress an area with automatic fire since you have to pick a discrete target-point. What's worse, soldiers with higher aim are less good at suppression since their shots will scatter less often and therefore tend to cover a smaller area than a low-aim soldier. As such, it might be nice to have the option to deliberately scatter a burst over an area specifically for the purposes of suppression rather than target-hitting. (A simple way of doing this would be to have a means of force-missing a shot so that it deliberately scatters. It would be better if you had some control over it though.)

EDIT: Ninja'd to death.

I like your idea of suppression mode that could be easily intergraded rather then redoing the entire concept. I think one burst of a few rounds per turn is way less then a machine gun can do. In one turn I can shoot a M4 with pretty good accuracy 2-3 rounds. In that same time period I should be able to let lose a burst of 10 rounds of machine gun fire that is a little less accurate but more volume. I would like to see a mode of fire that simply less accurate but more suppressive. It could even be a combination of opportunity fire and suppression. First a burst of highly suppressive fire but not as accurate is fired. Then if any enemy walking in LOS of Machine gun they suffer a chance to be shot with less accurate fire, but highly suppressive.

[drages]

Look into the units xeno sprites at game folder. You will see that everything is done frame by frame like a gif. So the best chance is to edit colors. I did it and create many new aliens.

I was thinking about humans at aliens side and more. As kabill says, secret

[kabill]

It could even be a combination of opportunity fire and suppression. First a burst of highly suppressive fire but not as accurate is fired. Then if any enemy walking in LOS of Machine gun they suffer a chance to be shot with less accurate fire, but highly suppressive.

There's definitely a case to be made for reaction fire causing suppression. Currently it doesn't, which means relying on opportunity fire to stop incoming attacks is an all-or-nothing endeavor (i.e. you kill the target or you don't and it can attack). On the other hand, the effect of this if the target becomes suppressed would be for them to immediately lose all TUs, probably exposed and in the open because they were moving at the time. So it might be too good. I might try and implement it anyway so people can have a play around with it if they want.

As regards suppressive fire - I think this comes to a discussion had long ago about being able to have multiple burst-mode fire for weapons. This is something that is probably doable but might run into issues with the UI (e.g. the time unit reserve panel). If that were implemented, though, it would be possible to do precisely what you've suggested: have an 'aimed' burst (which would be similar to what it does now) and a 'suppressive' burst (no accuracy but, say, double the number of rounds fired and extra suppression).

[devinemag]

There's definitely a case to be made for reaction fire causing suppression. Currently it doesn't, which means relying on opportunity fire to stop incoming attacks is an all-or-nothing endeavor (i.e. you kill the target or you don't and it can attack). On the other hand, the effect of this if the target becomes suppressed would be for them to immediately lose all TUs, probably exposed and in the open because they were moving at the time. So it might be too good. I might try and implement it anyway so people can have a play around with it if they want.

As regards suppressive fire - I think this comes to a discussion had long ago about being able to have multiple burst-mode fire for weapons. This is something that is probably doable but might run into issues with the UI (e.g. the time unit reserve panel). If that were implemented, though, it would be possible to do precisely what you've suggested: have an 'aimed' burst (which would be similar to what it does now) and a 'suppressive' burst (no accuracy but, say, double the number of rounds fired and extra suppression).

I think at the least a different fire burst mode of extra suppression double rounds but not as accurate is a great start. I would like to see something the would prevent enemy from running past that same area without any chance of being shot as well. Is there a way to make a suppression mode that would make an initial burst to pin down the enemy and then have a reaction fire that would be same concept of not accurate but extra suppressive? That would make machine gun fire extra effective and more worth taking in a game. I would like to see the enemy with the ability to have same as well for certain classes and weapons.

[devinemag]

Also The amount of TUs used for firing at single unit IMO should cost less for repetitive shots at same target than repetitive shots at different targets.

[kabill]

Is there a way to make a suppression mode that would make an initial burst to pin down the enemy and then have a reaction fire that would be same concept of not accurate but extra suppressive? That would make machine gun fire extra effective and more worth taking in a game. I would like to see the enemy with the ability to have same as well for certain classes and weapons.

I suspect a way to do that using the system I suggested would be to have a suppressive burst take half the TUs of a regular burst, therefore you could use one suppressive burst to shoot and pin units in sight and another saved for reaction fire (RoF would be the same as a regular burst in this instance but because you can fire twice be effectively doubled). This would also solve something that's been a frustration of mine for a while - the inability to use a LMG as an on-the-move suppressive weapon without also augmenting their killing power. (Although now I think about it, there'd still be some issues with the LMG being a too-good close-assault weapon.)

[Gauddlike]

I don't know if any of the community coders have looked into allowing the single shot modes to fire multiple rounds. That could easily allow the options you talk about without needing to change anything else. Keep burst fire the same but add a 'single shot' aim level that has poor accuracy, low TU cost, high suppression, 5 rounds fired. The code must be there somewhere for burst mode but that may not mean it is easy to re-use.

For reaction fire suppression the rules really need to change a little to prevent it being a little too powerful in my eyes. I don't know how it is coded but rather than reducing the units TU to 0% when suppressed maybe reducing it by 75% of current TU? That should mean anyone suppressed in the open by reaction fire should at least be able to duck or move a few tiles to cover even if they lose the ability to fire.

That could work for all suppression rather than just reaction fire. It still effectively removes the ability to reaction fire as no weapon (in vanilla) has less than 28% TU cost to fire.

As a bonus maybe the amounts of TU reduced on the initial turn and subsequent turns could be brought out to the xml? That would at least allow modders to add weapons with very low TU costs and alter the suppression TU reduction to compensate.

Both need the input of a friendly neighbourhood community coder who has the time and inclination to look at the issue. Might be worth brining up in the proper forum though and see if anyone is working on, or interested in working on, these areas.

[kabill]

I don't know if any of the community coders have looked into allowing the single shot modes to fire multiple rounds. That could easily allow the options you talk about without needing to change anything else. Keep burst fire the same but add a 'single shot' aim level that has poor accuracy, low TU cost, high suppression, 5 rounds fired. The code must be there somewhere for burst mode but that may not mean it is easy to re-use.

For reaction fire suppression the rules really need to change a little to prevent it being a little too powerful in my eyes. I don't know how it is coded but rather than reducing the units TU to 0% when suppressed maybe reducing it by 75% of current TU? That should mean anyone suppressed in the open by reaction fire should at least be able to duck or move a few tiles to cover even if they lose the ability to fire.

That could work for all suppression rather than just reaction fire. It still effectively removes the ability to reaction fire as no weapon (in vanilla) has less than 28% TU cost to fire.

As a bonus maybe the amounts of TU reduced on the initial turn and subsequent turns could be brought out to the xml? That would at least allow modders to add weapons with very low TU costs and alter the suppression TU reduction to compensate.

Both need the input of a friendly neighbourhood community coder who has the time and inclination to look at the issue. Might be worth brining up in the proper forum though and see if anyone is working on, or interested in working on, these areas.

Don't know if you've seen it, but I've started doing some stuff on XCE myself. Externalising the TU damage caused by suppression is a good idea and I'll add it to my list.

I'd also like to investigate making suppression more fine-grained but that might not be so simple to do.

[Gauddlike]

I noticed but didn't want to presume you would be interested.