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XMC Part 1: (Ground Combat) Version 1.0 for XCE 0.33 HF1


aajs

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You got my attention. I recommend you first change starting money, 30k is too much.

I will write some of my feedback soon. I strongly believe that modding is much more than add senseless stuff and weapons, unfortunately the lack of flexibility and tools of the game engine dont let other options.

Im curious about testing lot of your proposals in XMC.

Keep working and thanks a lot for your work.

Unfortunatley, I added an extra 0 to starrting funds which, I am going to go back and correct, however some players like the idea of being well funded. So I think I am just going to add instructions for setting starting funds, or alternatively create a little script people can run to set some common values.

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I am posting this here as this it seems is where everybody likes looking for updates regarding my mods.

I can report I have finally fixed the sprites in the Part 4 of my Choices mod.

The bug was introduced it seems, by a late post balance testing search and replace change that targeted a sprite that was not available in the armour resource pack.

This has now been resolved and I have personally tested thousands of weapon / armour / shield combinations.

I confirm that everything tested has a sprite.

If you find anymore they will be fixed as reported. I will need?

1) Armour Worn

2) Weapon held

3) Shield held if any.

Hopefully you will not find any.

Update: Finished Uploading

I will also update the starting money in the Choices part 1 mod.

Edited by aajs
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I just hope that this fix will be savegame-compatible. Too far in my playthrough to sacrifice it to fix some missing sprites :D

P.S

A little bit of extra feedback: I believe that electromine launcher is very OP. I'm yet to try it out against robotic enemies, but against organic ones it's just beyond powerful : I'm yet to see a single mine trigger, just because that volley of mines devastate caesans and sebilians on impact. The range is pretty damn good, I seem to hit even the lowest accuracy shots every time (shooting 12% shots all day), it doesn't matter if aliens are behind cover - I killed one despite him standing in 100% cover from that angle - I tried to trap him in mines, but ended up killing him right through the wall. Sometimes I don't even need my eyes on an alien - I just shoot in general direction of incoming fire and slay them, both behind cover and in the open.

The amount of mines layed is huge as well (it's way more than 5 mines it takes to fires that weapon), though I can't tell how effective they are (because of aforementioned issues - killing them in 1 volley)

I'm pretty sure this weapon was not designed to be shot directly at your opponents, like conventional ones. But it's so damn powerful.

My suggestions:

- Remove (or lower significantly) the impact damage of mine volley (smth like 5-10 kinetic)

- Lower the amount of rounds fired and tie it to the "ammunition" count - right now it takes 5 ammo to fire a volley, and lays down like 10 tiles of mines

- Lower accuracy significantly (should me more of an AoE weapon, instead of accurate, MG-like contraption)

Edited by Rallige
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I just hope that this fix will be savegame-compatible. Too far in my playthrough to sacrifice it to fix some missing sprites :D

Yes it will be compatible its just updating the sprites .xml files in the part 6 mod.

The changes I have made to part 1 is starting funds which will make no difference to your game.

(additionally I am just slightly widening the armour selection menu in the soldier equipment screen but that will not effect your play-through either)

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Ok, I tested the electromine launcher more closely, and here's what I came up with - It's basically a 1 shot-kill weapon. It doesn't even matter how much HP alien has - it will outright kill them, despite showing only tiny numbers as damage ( like 10 red and 26 blue damage ). Mines are pretty strong too - though I had to test those on my own troops, lol.

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Ok, I tested the electromine launcher more closely, and here's what I came up with - It's basically a 1 shot-kill weapon. It doesn't even matter how much HP alien has - it will outright kill them, despite showing only tiny numbers as damage ( like 10 red and 26 blue damage ). Mines are pretty strong too - though I had to test those on my own troops, lol.

The mines were always meant to inflict heavy damage, however I never envisioned anybody using them as a direct weapon. So well done for your creative thinking.

The damage looks like this:

<Ammo name="ammo.ballistic.electromines" type="kinetic" damage="5" stunDamage="20" mitigation="0" disableDamageScaling="1">

<Projectile spectre="projectiles/grenadelauncher/shot" speed="1500" />

<Impact spectre="particles/stungrenade/stun_explosion" radius="1" sound="Weapon Gas Grenade" fireChance="0" smokeChance="100" gasType="electromine" />

</Ammo>

</Ammos>

I could reduce It I suppose, however I think maybe what is happening is that all 5 mines hit the alien on the same square, which would be a combined damage of all the mines aoe. Which would be pretty high.

[Edit]

Yep the gas.xml looks like this.

<GasType MODMERGEATTRIBUTE="name" MODMERGE="insert" name="electromine">

<Anim name="particles/electromine/electromine" />

<Props damage="100" stunDamage="40" damageType="chemical" dissipationChance="0" accuracyReduction="5" />

</GasType>

If you use this at close range they are going to take 500 damage. Hmm that's slight overkill.

I have reduced it down to 40. I have updated the part1 mod with the new value, so you can check it out when I upload it.

I guess this is not a killer problem and, I will do better testing on my next official release.

Edited by aajs
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Hey Aajs, it looks like this electromine creates a "smoke" thing, does it do any damage? Be careful with weapons that deal damage directly plus "smoke" damage because the result can be... deadly ;)

This is actually something I've been working on my mod with incendiary weapons, giving them direct damage beyond the fire damage usually makes them too powerful.

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Hey Aajs, it looks like this electromine creates a "smoke" thing, does it do any damage? Be careful with weapons that deal damage directly plus "smoke" damage because the result can be... deadly ;)

This is actually something I've been working on my mod with incendiary weapons, giving them direct damage beyond the fire damage usually makes them too powerful.

Yes its a permanent gas effect that never dissipates and does damage, however I never allowed for the fact it may be used directly against an alien... the only thing I can do now is to reduce the damage right now, in order to balance it...Which may make it less desirable as tool.

Just read another post with more info... I am tweaking this on the fly before my official next release because sounds like a bit of a game balance killer, will reduce mine damage to 10 as suggested and reduce accuracy... not sure why it is delivering more mines than expected. This used to be fine before CE.

Edited by aajs
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Ok

Part6 has been uploaded with all the sprite fixes.

Hopefully that has dealt with all the Major issues. (Hope I have not missed any).

Part 1 has been uploaded.

1) Adjusted Starting Money and put note in mod install instructions to show how to adjust to desired amount.

2) widened the armour selection menu in soldier equipment screen

3) adjusted the mine launcher for game balance.

If Nobody Minds, I am now going to carry on with my Vehicles Mod.

However If you find anything you want adjusted let me know. I don't ignore any feedback.

Some bugs I fix immediately, the rest is carefully recorded for the next release.

Edited by aajs
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I had test the mod in the surface, at least to laser tech and medium armours.

I will resume some of my impressions in quick note to be easy interpreted:

BRAVO FOR THIS! :D

- The general design of the mod is astonishing, graphic desing is clean, the lineup of the game is intuitive and very well done. I was really surprised with "Refit" feature of this game. Bravo! Well done AAJS.

- The general rules of targeting, distance and accuracy are awesome! I need to say that is the best part of the game, the difference of accurated shot at distance and burst shot in short range is incredible. Other Bravo for that!

- New weapons and items, I appreciate every new content of the game but I need to point out that some of the stuff is redundant. For example when you reach one of the basic Tech. "Adv Pistols" you get two revolvers, I summit to test the differences of this two weapons and find out that they dont have different role in ground combat, is simple, one is better than other (And revolver is one of the most older weapon machinery of gun-making history). The mod has too much content for my taste, I strongly recommend reduce content, reduce the amount of researches (OR Even better make paths of research, if you need more information PM)

- I love the aircraft module of this game, Hellicopters and ballons are smart choice and good touch to the game. Bravo again!.

RECOMMENDED :cool:

*Review the use of grenades, some of then dont have relevant use in GC specially when you find difficult to use the grenades to interact with obstacles (Remove Adv. Grenade research, this grenades exist long time ago since WWII)

*Give the player less content but unique feature or role for each element, in this game there are two kind of weapons that make the game easy, heavy machingunes and snipers, they are SO overpowered that you cant even with Tier 2 aliens with a full platoon of basic machinguners. Weapon balance is quiet hard and each time you add new weaposn things come up harder and harder.

*Difficulty and diversity in the game is unexistent, I recommend you check new aliens in XDiv or XNT, Xenomorphs and zombies can give some diversity to ground combat. The general overall of the game difficulty is dull, even if you play on Insane or Veteran. Make the game hard, make that Rockets has a role in combat, give grenades the importance that they have, make penalties fofr heavy weapons and add some flexibility to mobile weaponry like rifles and pistols. (You can make some test of XNT Hell Gate V6, this is a clear example of professional weapon balance).

* Make refited UFOs a unique element of the game. Make enemy ships hard to kill, great fighters. Human aircraft are too good to refit an UFO and refited UFO are not good enough. In other words you dont need to refit any ufo, human air weaponry is HARDCORE. Make enemies faster, make enemy UFO highly resistant. When the time come your new refited recovered UFO will be your star in the sky.

AASJ! My conrgatulation about your work, the art is amazing, the choices are incredible and the game is pretty near to vanilla game in concept and artwork.

If you need any support just write me or make comments in this forum topic.

PD/ Unfortunately I had too much work right now to make more accurate review of the game.

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Other notes:

* Adding the alien weapons as usable weapons is a NICE touch, but put it latter when xenonauts find out a way to use it and remove the alien weapons penalties. Right now this kind of weapons are not recommended to be used cuz the low accuracy.

* AI aggressively is quiet low at the start Tier 1 aliens, give aliens more exploration and quantity in each mission.

Edited by TacticalDragon
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Wow!

Thanks TacticalDragon, Its going to take me a little while to process all your feedback and come up with a suitable plan for implementation.

However, this should keep me busy for quite some time to come.

Thanks again.

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Wow!

Thanks TacticalDragon, Its going to take me a little while to process all your feedback and come up with a suitable plan for implementation.

However, this should keep me busy for quite some time to come.

Thanks again.

Good luck, your doing an amaizing job with this mod, clean and well pased in progress.

Anyway I love the armour categories :3

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Wolf armor (combat) + plasma pistol + basic tall shield = shield sprites do not show. I'm using updated packs.

Nice well done I am on it... I will post just the fix sprite back here with the instructions soon as I have it nailed.

Give me an hour or so.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/5hwev18qqf40dxm/Wolf4_TallShld_Plasmas.rar

To make this simple as possible just download and unpack the file.

You will get 3 folders..

Copy them to the following locations.

1) ......\Xenonauts\assets\mods\ChoicesPart2\units\xenonaut\armour.wolf_4

2) ......\Xenonauts\assets\mods\ChoicesPart4\units\xenonaut\armour.wolf_4

I will wait to see if you find anymore before uploading the whole mods again.

Good Spotting by the way. I thought I found all the missing sprites.

Edited by aajs
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Aaj.. i can save you...

To add weapons to all armours safely:

1. Make a folder and put all the new weapon and shield folders with soldier_spectre.xml inside them.

2. Be sure to have same folder path written on that soldier_spectre.xml files:

Example: <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.basic/weapon.machinegun/run_w" anim="walk_NY"/>

3. After you finished all folders, copy and paste them into every armour folders.

4. Get Ultraedit program. A program like notepad++. Use Search-Replace in Files.

5. For each armour, make it replace all armour.basic with the armour you want. For example if it's wolf armour, replace armour.basic with armour.wolf in all files inside armour.wolf folder.

6. So every armour will have their new weapons without an error.

With this way you can add ridiculous number of weapons and armours with an effort of 1 armour.. With this method i put tons of new weapons and armours to my mod in mins..

I hope it helps.. if you do this manually, there will be some problems or missing combinations for sure..

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Aaj.. i can save you...

To add weapons to all armours safely:

1. Make a folder and put all the new weapon and shield folders with soldier_spectre.xml inside them.

2. Be sure to have same folder path written on that soldier_spectre.xml files:

Example: <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.basic/weapon.machinegun/run_w" anim="walk_NY"/>

3. After you finished all folders, copy and paste them into every armour folders.

4. Get Ultraedit program. A program like notepad++. Use Search-Replace in Files.

5. For each armour, make it replace all armour.basic with the armour you want. For example if it's wolf armour, replace armour.basic with armour.wolf in all files inside armour.wolf folder.

6. So every armour will have their new weapons without an error.

With this way you can add ridiculous number of weapons and armours with an effort of 1 armour.. With this method i put tons of new weapons and armours to my mod in mins..

I hope it helps.. if you do this manually, there will be some problems or missing combinations for sure..

Thanks Drages for your expert help as usual.

I generally use the mass update on armours, however I did not realise until too late that the armour resource pack does not have the same sprites as the vanilla armours..(it has smaller subset). So unfortunately I referenced a whole load of sprites that did not exist.

On top of that My mods are all modular and designed to interwork with each other so I need some of my armour sprites in different mods so that they still work if you have mixed and matched my mods...

Still at least its keeping me busy.

I now have created a test mod with all my items and weapons unlocked and stocked so I can test any combination.

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Photoshop got automated commands. Like you make an action change the color and save. When you fire it for an exited armour, it changes all the colors and you gt your new armour with all the sprites recolored.

Thanks Drages,

Is there anything you do not know?

I will look into that...Depending on how much Photoshop costs of course but automated commands sounds like the perfect solution.

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Ohh yeah, they are called actions and they are perfect for unit sprites and all that. Here's a tip to make things even faster with them:

1- copy the original files you want to modify to a new folder, so you can save with the same filenames.

2- open the first one, start recording a new action.

3- do all the modifications you need.

4- save (not save as, but save so it uses the same name).

5- close the file and stop recording the action.

Now you can simply open all the other files, click the action button and the file will receive the changes, be saved and closed. Have fun!

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Ohh yeah, they are called actions and they are perfect for unit sprites and all that. Here's a tip to make things even faster with them:

1- copy the original files you want to modify to a new folder, so you can save with the same filenames.

2- open the first one, start recording a new action.

3- do all the modifications you need.

4- save (not save as, but save so it uses the same name).

5- close the file and stop recording the action.

Now you can simply open all the other files, click the action button and the file will receive the changes, be saved and closed. Have fun!

You do not need to open files on your own. At banch settings you can start an automation within a folder. So photoshop open all the image files, use the action and saves in some mins.. so you got your new armour/alien ready..

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