I miss handling inventory for starting weapons

[Aries144]

I know others here don't like the micromanagement, but I really miss having to deal with watching the money spent on equipment from the start of the game.

In the original XCOM, deciding to buy multibarrel cannons and HE and AP ammo for it, instead of other items, was a choice I liked being able to make.

Having fuel costs, ammo costs, etc, as something that had to be considered as part of your monthly cost of operating was quite realistic, imho. The higher your operational tempo, the higher your costs and the more you had to pick and choose when the budget was running thin. Now you have a permanent safety net.

It kind of sucks the fun and challenge out of the early game for me.

Could buying and maintaining inventory of starting weapons and equipment be added at least as an option (hardest difficulty maybe?) or be made so that mod makers could add it in themselves if they so desired?

[BuzuBuzu]

Did buying any of that stuff ever break your bank though?

I too am sometimes nostalgic for making sure I have three rifle clips in stores for every rifle, or enough HE for each man, but I don't every recall having to buy only two rifle clips or cutting back on the HE. It was just part of a two-minute obsessive compulsive ritual on the equipment screen following each mission. The only things that I remember being a big drain on my pocketbook were the Avalanche Missiles.

The thing you need to remember is that unlike in X-COM, in Xenonauts you can't make things for profit (someone correct me on this if I'm wrong). You won't be able to start manufacturing motion scanners and laser cannons for profit, and I remember that was one of the things which helped me pay for the boatloads of Avalanche Missiles I'd go through per month.

Lastly, game play aside, doesn't it make sense that an organization supported by NATO and the Soviet Union would have access to a free and unlimited supply of small arms. It wouldn't fit the spirit of the game if you were getting nickel-and-dimed for every rifle and pistol you used to keep Earth safe, especially since during the Cold War the US and USSR probably had tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of these in stores.

Edited April 6, 2012 by BuzuBuzu

[Gorlom]

I believe it will be moddable if it isnt already.

[thothkins]

Hi,

I honestly thought that the infinite rifles and clips was just for the alpha, and that it would cost when the game was further along :-)

I do remember not being able to give everyone Autocannons early on in EU. Perhaps I was just being frugle. It did make a bifg difference to those early missions though.

It's a fair point about a funded military operation rationing the rifle clips, but I saw the likes of the heavy cannon and Auto cannon as being advanced, if not alien, weaponry that came with a cost.

[zzz]

I honestly thought that the infinite rifles and clips was just for the alpha, and that it would cost when the game was further along

It's by design

I do remember not being able to give everyone Autocannons early on in EU.

You could, 12 of them cost(with ammo) 174.000 from starting 4.154.000. Just not all can handle them because it weight, And this is not always useful.

Edited April 6, 2012 by zzz

[thothkins]

Penny pinching on X-Com. That's me.

I always recall pumping lots into facilities and mainly research, so that there wasn't much left to spare. I often didn't want to spend needlessly, when there were upgrades around the corner.

I think I pretty much ordered three autocannons and that was about it. It made for some great standoffs against Cyberdiscs.

>shakes fist in air< Bah! Cyberdiscs!

[The New Romance]

You could give "autocannons" (or its equivalent) to everyone in Xenonauts, but would it be useful? I say no. The design philosphy of Xenonauts is different, there isn't a "best" weapon, at neither tier, so while you can give everyone a machine gun, that won't do no good as some soldiers might not be able to use it, while others will be slowed down considerably and won't be firing often. Also, you will need different weapons for different combat situations, just giving everyone a sniper rifle or a rocket launcher will drain so much flexibility you won't be going anywhere, as every weapon has its drawbacks.

Personally, I like this approach much more than fully sticking to X-COMS forumula, or doing a "Fallout" where there are in fact "best" weapons and you can trash the rest.

[thothkins]

I agree with this. Ideally, there should be plenty of squad specialisations available, with each weapon type having it's place in the scheme of things.

[The New Romance]

I agree with this. Ideally, there should be plenty of squad specialisations available, with each weapon type having it's place in the scheme of things.

I sure hope so. I'm really itching for the upcoming fundraising to be really successful so Chris can create a seriously deep game.

[Chris]

It's very easy to mod the starting items so they aren't available in unlimited quantities (takes literally 2 minutes), but it won't be in the starting game simply for ease of use.

We'll signpost this a bit better in the new UI though, so someone actually tells you not to worry about stores until you start capturing / manufacturing items. Quite a few vets have been thrown by the current setup.

[Aries144]

Chris,

Thanks for stopping in to mention that. I appreciate you having spent your time to answer my concern.

If it's easily moddable, then I'm good. I'll just do it my self the way I like it when mod tools/source code/whatever is released.

I actually haven't even looked at the game files yet. For all I know, it's already possible.

Thanks for the comments and perspective guys.

[Chris]

It is already possible. Open items.xml in Excel and change the items form Unlimited to Normal.

Actually, scratch that. There was another reason why we made ammo etc unlimited - it means we don't have to worry about the UI controls for buying things on the Stores screen, just selling them. Given you buy aircraft / vehicles / personnel on the other screens, the stores screen didn't need any purchasing functionality.

You can make the items manufacturable and have those manufactures available from the start of the game, but admittedly it's not quite the same. That's a pity.

[Aries144]

Chris,

Thank you once again for your time.

That is rather disappointing news.

Would it be possible to add that UI function at some point for those who wish to mod in the rest themselves? It would be greatly appreciated.

[Gauddlike]

Give them a low manufacture time and whatever cost you want then that kind of represents delivery time.

Is it possible to have a batch build?

Say build twenty clips in a one day cycle?

[jimbobfury]

Hey guys, so I've managed to get Jackal armour to appear as a manufactured item, which is a step in the right direction, but I can't seem to set it as unavailable at the start of the game, which is defeating the object of wanting to produce them in the first place.

Any tips on how to stop your initial soldiers having access to Jackal Armour by default? I've changed the status in the items.xml doc from unlimited to normal or capped, and no matter what, my initial soldiers are equipped with Jackal Armour and there's an unlimited supply available for them.

Also, I've managed to get an image to appear for the item in the manufacture window, but I can't get a name or description to show up correctly, instead I just get the #### showing up in the item name field. I've added rows for a ManTech.JackalArmour item along with another row for the descripton in the strings.xml file but it's not picking it up.

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers

Jim

Edited April 7, 2012 by jimbobfury

[Gauddlike]

In strings you need an entry for ManTech.JackalArmourDesc

Have a look at the LaserPistolDesc as an example.

That should tell the game what to display, if it works anything like the research section at least.

*edit* doesn't seem to work, I know there should be a desc somewhere but doesn't look like it's this one.

*edit to the edit* This DOES actually work when you spell the entry name correctly...

Remember the <left> flag as well or the text alignment is off.

Did you add a research topic to unlock the jackal manufacturing or did you figure out how to make it available without?

I am wondering if there is a code element to the starting equipment.

I can't seem to make the jackal unavailable either.

Building or removing a set of jackal armour makes them appear in your stores but running out has no effect.

I would be interested to see how they managed it with the MiG.

Edited April 8, 2012 by Gauddlike

[Zach]

I also thought the infinite ammo was part of the alpha phase, but I kinda like the idea of having unlimited basic weaponry.

I think it's going to get kinda cheap just tossing grenades around, but with the implementation of allied NPC's, tossing nades around might not be too bright. lol.

[Gauddlike]

If a player decides they want to ignore all of the weapons and just throw grenades then they will do that regardless.

How high would the price have to be on grenades to stop it happening?

Even if there was a price tag you could probably fund months worth of missions by doing without one interceptor or a couple less troops.

The only way to ensure people don't automatically play that way is to make it more fun to play another way.

[jimbobfury]

In strings you need an entry for ManTech.JackalArmourDesc

Have a look at the LaserPistolDesc as an example.

That should tell the game what to display, if it works anything like the research section at least.

*edit* doesn't seem to work, I know there should be a desc somewhere but doesn't look like it's this one.

*edit to the edit* This DOES actually work when you spell the entry name correctly...

Remember the <left> flag as well or the text alignment is off.

Did you add a research topic to unlock the jackal manufacturing or did you figure out how to make it available without?

I am wondering if there is a code element to the starting equipment.

I can't seem to make the jackal unavailable either.

Building or removing a set of jackal armour makes them appear in your stores but running out has no effect.

I would be interested to see how they managed it with the MiG.

Hey man. So, you got the name and description to display? It just won't work for me at all. I've got the ManTech.item and ManTech.itemdesc lines in the string.xml but it's not picking it up. What are you referring to when you say the entry name sorry? One thing I've noticed is that at various places in the files the Jackal armour is referred to by a couple of different titles, so maybe I'm using the wrong one.

I've tried setting it up with both a research requirement first, and having the armour as a starting manufacture. In the manufacturing excel doc, the right hand column, after the 'stockitem' column, is the 'starting item?' column and can have either yes or no entered into it.

I've also set up all human weapons and ammo to be manufacturable too, which works (although I can't get their names or descriptions to show up either...) but it seems that the system isn't properly calculating how they're used. My stores start at 0 for them, but my initial squad have access to them. If I place their weapons and ammo in the stores and then start equipping people with the items again, the counter for how many I have increases, rather than decreases...

Annoying, as I feel like I'm getting close and now that it's back, I really like having to manage my inventory early on.

[Gauddlike]

If I recall these are the changes I made:

items.xml jackal armour type set to to normal

manufactures.xml added Mantech.JackalArmour

researches.xml added researches.JackalArmour

strings.xml added ManTech.JackalArmour - ManTech.JackalArmourDesc - Researches.JackalArmour - Researches.JackalArmourDesc

I tried with the research hoping it would lock the armour out until after the research but no such luck.

I've tried setting it up with both a research requirement first, and having the armour as a starting manufacture. In the manufacturing excel doc, the right hand column, after the 'stockitem' column, is the 'starting item?' column and can have either yes or no entered into it.

Ah nice, I didn't notice that column.

Had my excel on my second monitor and it was just off the edge of the page...

[jimbobfury]

Cool man. I'm not going to have chance to monkey around with it much today, but if you make any progress then I'd really appreciate any tips or tricks you might discover!

Is the final game going to be as easy to mod as the alpha version do you know? If so, that's fantastic, I'm loving being able to add these touches. And tweaking the balance of the weapons has made the game better for me too.

[Gauddlike]

It should be easier to tweak as the game progresses because of the extra little changes Chris is having added.

The more settings he can get moved out to xml files and out of the code the more we will be able to adjust.

[Chris]

You can make manufactures available at the start of the game using the /scripts/_basebuilt.lua, details on our wiki here:

http://xenowiki.goldhawkinteractive.com/index.php?title=Basebuilt.lua

If you do discover stuff that isn't in the wiki, please add it. I don't have the time to keep it up to date myself.

[Gauddlike]

That file doesn't list the gear you actually start the game with though so you can't remove things.

For example you cant take out the precision rifle or jackal armour if you wanted to add them later as research topics.

You can have a research topic available at the start of the game by not adding any pre reqs ito the researches.xml file.

Jimbobfury also pointed out that you can have a manufacturing job available from the start as well by adding a line to the manufactures.xml file.

If that is the case then what does the _basebuilt.lua script file actually do?

It looks like everything it is supposed to do is overridden elsewhere.

[Chris]

That file doesn't list the gear you actually start the game with though so you can't remove things.

For example you cant take out the precision rifle or jackal armour if you wanted to add them later as research topics.

You can have a research topic available at the start of the game by not adding any pre reqs ito the researches.xml file.

Jimbobfury also pointed out that you can have a manufacturing job available from the start as well by adding a line to the manufactures.xml file.

Just having no prereqs will not make something appear unless it is in _basebuilt. The Jackal / Precision rifle can be taken out of the starting gear by setting it not to be unlimited in items.xml.