XMC Part 6: (Ground Combat Vehicles) Version 1.0 for XCE 0.33 HF1

[aajs]

XMC Part 6: (Ground Combat Vehicles) Version 1.0 for XCE 0.33 HF1

Introduction:
“Xenonaut More Choices” is designed for players that liked the look, feel and playability of the vanilla version but would just like more content in the game. This is pretty much a total overhaul mod but has been broken into parts to allow players to more easily pick and choose what add-ons they want in their game. If you do not like a certain part of this mod just swap it out with another mod of you choice.

PART 6 - Ground Combat Vehicles:
This Mods Expands the current Ground Vehicle offering and is fully compatible with and best experienced with the "Armoured Assault!" Mod. This Mods takes the total vehicle count to 9 however it maintains the same 3 tiers of vehicles from the Vanilla games, it just allows you the choice of a lighter Scout or a More heavily armoured but slower vehicle at each tier as an alternative. Of course there is no reason why you could not research and use them all during your game.

The vanilla vehicles are still present however they have been slightly reclassified as follows:

Light Scout Vehicles: Very fast but limited armour and mostly defensive weapons.
Rank1 Standard Military Jeep. (This is available in Garage at start of game)
Rank2 Improved Jeep
Rank3 Armoured Security Vehicle

Medium Armoured Vehicles: These are Hybrid Scouts with enough Armour to provide Troop Support
Rank1 The Vanilla Hunter
Rank2 A Faster Armoured Car
Rank3 A Giant Tracked Fully Robotic Unit

Heavy Armoured Vehicles: Slow but can take a lot of damage
Rank1 A Nice Big Tank
Rank2 Vanilla Scimitar
Rank3 Vanilla Hyperion

I have tried to introduce a bit of an interesting sub story along the way between, the lead scientist, chief engineer and the Military guy as I really like the little sub story in the Lore++ mod. Hopefully you will like it.

Features at a Glance:
•New Vehicles
•New Weapons
•New Particle Effects & Sounds
•Free starting Vehicle
•Easily identifiable Vehicle and weapon tiers

Economy:
Vehicles are all manufactured and based off the vanilla production costs however heavily armoured vehicles take longer and are more expensive to produce, however at the other end of the scale, scout vehicles are quick and cheep to produce.

Compatibility:
I have done my utmost to also make this Mod completely free standing, however if you do not run this with the Choices part1 mod I sadly have to say that you will miss out on the first scout vehicle and will be missing various additional weapons. This is an unfortunate result of tying it into research items from that Mod.

Game Balance:
This Mod is to received on an as is basis. I was keen to get this out as soon as it was ready, however I have not spent a huge amount of time tweaking it for balance. So it may be a little bit Raw in balance terms. I will perform some emergency updates should they be required based on your feedback.

Installation:
Download the mod.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/012wj05okbijasz/ChoicesPart6.rar

If you are already using the XMC Mods then I strongly Advise you download all of the mods again before play to update them, as they have had a number of modifications in order to make this mod work correctly. There have also been a lot of emergency patches to fix missing sprites and balance issues.

The links to my other mods and generally recommended mods are best serviced from the main Mod link below.

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/13248-XMC-Part-1-%28Ground-Combat%29-Version-1-0-for-XCE-0-33-HF1

CREDITS:
Big Thanks As Always To:

Drages (My Unofficial Mentor)
Specialist Skill: Knowing Everything

Reactocore (Playtesting and feedback)
Specialist Skill: PR Expert

Rallige (Xenopedia, Playtesting / Balance & Bug Reporting)
Specialist Skill: Game Balancing

Soul Filcher (Graphics Support)
Specialist Skill: Photoshop & Blender Expert

Max Cain (Help with GC Vehicles)
Specialist Skill: Square of Doom

3D Graphic Models Contributions:
Special thanks to the following otherwise this Mod would not have happened.
Jay-Artist at Blend Swap
http://www.blendswap.com/user/Jay-Artist

SONGKRO at Blend Swap
http://www.blendswap.com/user/SONGKRO

Content Updates:
I think a final tier of vehicles can be squeezed in towards the end of the game.
Additionally there is always room for a few more choices within each tier.
I am currently resisting the urge to add a bunch more military vehicles for fun.

Feedback:
Yeah go for it.
Some positive feedback is always nice, otherwise we wont bother sharing....
Additionally if you have some issues, just highlighting it is not as helpful as also providing a some details on how you would like it fixed.
E.g. If something is not balanced, how about provide some more realistic figures etc.
That way we can hopefully get things nearer to what you want....

Edited September 6, 2015 by aajs

[drages]

I checked the files..

This is one of the best mod out there i can say.. the details are top for a mod. I am in love with the tank. High tech jeep and terminator is very nice too. I will work on their graphics to fit them to the game for my taste ( they got a bit brighter then game's atmosphere, because they are pure white). I am in love with the green pictures of them for dropship UI, how did you do that so nice? I need that technique for airplanes battle images ..

I think some of them are missing shadows. We see this at screenshots too.

And about the files.. you can use only spectre files if you do not change the images at unit folder. As i see you copy pasted every file for every weapon. This takes the mod file much bigger. You only need one folder with images/files and you can copy/paste its spectre file for all other weapons. Same for the projectile files, you only need "1" side and the game will handle all other angles, so you dont need to put 8 way of them.

As you are pro at vehicles now, i am expecting some nice drones for aliens. I will use the terminator one for the androns and it will be a perfect fit as we all give the androns "terminator" name... I want to give a large round drone to caesans like original UFO and i try to find something to fit to sebillians.

I worked on armored car, terminator and tank. Check them, maybe you like some..

Edited September 6, 2015 by drages

[aajs]

I checked the files..

This is one of the best mod out there i can say.. the details are top for a mod. I am in love with the tank. High tech jeep and terminator is very nice too. I will work on their graphics to fit them to the game for my taste ( they got a bit brighter then game's atmosphere, because they are pure white). I am in love with the green pictures of them for dropship UI, how did you do that so nice? I need that technique for airplanes battle images ..

..

Hi Drages, thanks so much for the feedback, you have done an amazing upgrade on the graphics already, those colours feel much nicer.

If you don't mind I will upgrade my mod with them.

I think some of them are missing shadows. We see this at screenshots too.

Yep, this is quite true, a am running a balancing act, as I wanted to get this mod finish but am also trying to keep up to date with my other regarding all the feedback. So I will need to go back and give this a second pass at some point.

And about the files.. you can use only spectre files if you do not change the images at unit folder. As i see you copy pasted every file for every weapon. This takes the mod file much bigger. You only need one folder with images/files and you can copy/paste its spectre file for all other weapons. Same for the projectile files, you only need "1" side and the game will handle all other angles, so you dont need to put 8 way of them.

Thanks about the spectre files hint, yes I should have guessed that, because that's how my soldier armour spectres are in my other mod. I guest I was just concentrating on completing on rather than on file size, however I will go back and tidy that for my next release.

Yes I did finally realise that the game will rotate your bullets sprites, you only need the 8 ways sprites when your sprite has a distinctively different look at different angles... I was working on this with an oval sprite, but in the end I dropped it as was too tricky to get working right.

As you are pro at vehicles now, i am expecting some nice drones for aliens. I will use the terminator one for the androns and it will be a perfect fit as we all give the androns "terminator" name... I want to give a large round drone to caesans like original UFO and i try to find something to fit to sebillians.

I have some great plans for new aliens, and do want to make some big ones. and additionally some tiny ones.

I worked on armored car, terminator and tank. Check them, maybe you like some..

Yes please...The vehicles definitely look better with less white.

[drages]

Yes ofcourse, you can use them freely. You dont need any permission to use my files,codes.. I am following your mods as code and files, so you got many bright ideas and different way of thinking.. the creativity is important. I do not play your mods, because i do not play the game for months.. just working on my mod and testing.. you got many good players for tests already.

And addition, if you find a tank with bigger gun, it would be nice with your tank.

After you handled the missing shadows, i can remake them like i did.

[aajs]

Yes ofcourse, you can use them freely. You dont need any permission to use my files,codes.. I am following your mods as code and files, so you got many bright ideas and different way of thinking.. the creativity is important. I do not play your mods, because i do not play the game for months.. just working on my mod and testing.. you got many good players for tests already.

And addition, if you find a tank with bigger gun, it would be nice with your tank.

After you handled the missing shadows, i can remake them like i did.

Thanks;)

Well I was thinking of making two more tank type vehicles... for fun but will not add a whole depth to the game.

But I was thinking of a tracked mobile rocket launcher.. The big ones that carry 3 big rockets where each rocket is the length of a car.

These would be complete overkill and not balanced at all. The fact is, if you decide to use them you will have to pay the cost in civilian casualties and no items returned from aliens... but for completeness would be kinda cool..and a good emergency get out of trouble vehicle. Also I like playing with the fire in the hole mod so thought it would be fun to turn up in big tanked rocket launcher and blow a big whole in the alien craft so your troops can just wander in.

Additionally I was thinking of trying to get a conventional tank with a big long gun working, but it may take a while.. I have a theory it could be achieved if the pivot point was in the centre of the tank and the gun was high enough that it would swing round above any soldiers heads if they were standing close. then the only remaining clipping issue was if you drove the tank near to a wall the gun may disappear into in... I guess I would only know by trying it.

There was a post in the mod discussion forum from a guy cant remember who it was but he wanted to make a kind of tank mod with big open battles maps between aliens and earth troops. If I could get the big gun tank working he could get the mod started.

[EDIT] Oh by the way if you want me to pull any vehicle sprite from 3D files, I am happy to cover that bit for you if you need it.. Soulfilcher created an amazing template and its now very quick and easy to get the sprites... The Garage, view however always seems to need a bit of tweaking as the default angles don't always look good against the garage backdrop.

I am going to take a timeout and actually go and play the game for fun. I a have never completed it so I am exited to follow it through. Also Rellige who is helping me on my mod balancing and xenopedia plays his game right to the end even if he is loosing and they way he reports it back, makes it sound really exciting so I want to go and do the same..

This also gave me an idea for a new long play bitter fight to the end mod.

I am thinking of extending the ticker significantly, allowing you to lose all continents but one, but making it really difficult... Its still in planning stage at moment.

Edited September 6, 2015 by aajs

[drages]

You can add a vehicle with big damage out put. You just could make it very low armour and HP. Normally vehicles are for taking the heat and make soldiers survive. But this vehicle will be opposite of this. Slow, expansible and very low ammo. Huge explosions got a big chance to crush the game sometimes with there are buildings out there but maybe illunak fixed this..

I want to have a big cannon tank to just bring down houses, aggressive gameplay.

I got an idea about sealing the UFO entrance and command room doors. They will be very powerfull and needs high explosives to breach. So after cleaning the map, you will need to assult specially into ufo and that room.. I wish there is an option which only aliens can open their gates.

I can ask this to Ilunak to be honest.. maybe it's easy to do..

[Larry Burstyn]

Got a problem...maybe I screwed up the install. When I BUILD a researched vehicle my game crashes when production is finished. Any ideas? The only two vehicles so far as my research has gone that don't result in a crash when I build them is the Hunter and the Scimitar. Not sure about the one that hovers as I haven't researched that one yet.

[aajs]

Hmmm well that's the vanilla ones, so maybe you mods are not quite right.

Quite a few people have played my game to the conclusion without issues with vehicles.

[Larry Burstyn]

Well, I downloaded Choice 6 again and found that my previous download was missing two folders plus the files in those folders and several files not in those folders. Added them to the game I am currently playing and no more crashes when I build the new vehicles.

Oh? Met a cruiser first time and when I fought it I could not see the first level even when my men entered that first level under the main section the wings were okay. It was just all black. When I used the level indicator it showed all black on level 1 and 2 and the top of the cruiser in level 3.

[aajs]

Oh, I did not mod any of the alien vessels so that may be a bug in one of the other mods.

Might be worth searching the forums in case someone else had the same issue and managed to resolve it.

[WhiteDingo]

That Autocannon... This mod works great-too bad there isn't a way to implement the autocannon from the Rank 1 heavy armor onto the Vanilla Scimitar and Hyperion; I find the extra 10 shots in a burst great fire support, usually taking out cover and the two enemies behind it.

[Larry Burstyn]

Okay when I downloaded the correct version of this (or successfully downloaded) I started a new game and got no starting vehicles in the garage. And no vehicle ready to be built. Had to research to get a vehicle to build is this correct or should I have a vehicle when I start a new game like it says in the 1st post.

[aajs]

Okay when I downloaded the correct version of this (or successfully downloaded) I started a new game and got no starting vehicles in the garage. And no vehicle ready to be built. Had to research to get a vehicle to build is this correct or should I have a vehicle when I start a new game like it says in the 1st post.

When you start the game you definatley get a jeep.

Only time you don't ithat I have seen is when you add a bunch of mods but don't delete the scripts folder. Think I posted this in the part 1 mod post. Basically the scripts are supposed to get overwritten, but this does not always happen. Deleting them forces them to be recreated.

[Larry Burstyn]

Sorry don't remember seeing that...when I delete the scripts folder do I reinstall just Choice 6 or all of them?

[aajs]

Nope once you deleted the scripts folder just start a new game... and it should be fine.

If you have already started a game, then it will still help, but have a more limited effect, as some of the files are only read at the beginning of a games.

[jiduthie]

I'm having a similar problem in that I also do not start with a jeep. I tried deleting the \assets\scripts folder and starting a new game yet still I did not start with a jeep either in the garage or as a construction project. Additionally, starting a new game after deletion of \scripts did not appear to recreate and repopulate the \scripts folder within the \xenonauts\assets directory; though I do not know whether or not that is expected behavior. A ctrl-f for "scripts" in both the OP and the "XMC Part 1: (Ground Combat) Version 1.0 for XCE 0.33 HF1" post turned up no hits.

I'm running a fully updated Steam Win7 version of Xenonauts with the Community Edition beta enabled. I've included a jpeg of my mod order:

(edited for additional clarity)

Edited December 6, 2015 by jiduthie

[aajs]

I'm having a similar problem in that I also do not start with a jeep. I tried deleting the \assets\scripts folder and starting a new game yet still I did not start with a jeep either in the garage or as a construction project. Additionally, starting a new game after deletion of \scripts did not appear to recreate and repopulate the \scripts folder within the \xenonauts\assets directory; though I do not know whether or not that is expected behavior. A ctrl-f for "scripts" in both the OP and the "XMC Part 1: (Ground Combat) Version 1.0 for XCE 0.33 HF1" post turned up no hits.

I'm running a fully updated Steam Win7 version of Xenonauts with the Community Edition beta enabled. I've included a jpeg of my mod order:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]6844[/ATTACH]

(edited for additional clarity)

Erm just looking at your Mod list.

You have Xdivision in it..... That is a complete and utter No.No.

Xdivision is a total overhaul mod (and a very good one at that) however it cannot be mixed well with other mods because it already uses all those assets.

You need to either play the choices mods with other modular mods or Xdivision not both. Well not at the same time any way.....

If you stick to my recommended mods you will be fine, however if you want to experiment with your own mod lists I cant really help you too much as I don't know what mods conflict with what.

[EDIT] You have given me a great idea...

I will try to create a section in my mod choices part 1 description identifying those mods that definitely conflict with mine. That way it can save people a lot of time..

Edited December 6, 2015 by aajs

[jiduthie]

X-Division is deactivated. Does a deactivated mod still cause conflicts? I had assumed that the purpose of the mod manager and folder was to allow installation of multiple mods without conflict while deactivated. So I need to delete X-division completely?

[aajs]

I sorry, can't see its deactivated on my mobile device as the screen is too small.

Whenever I start a game I get the vehicle.

I think deactivated is actually fine.

Are you sure you deleted the scripts folder?

[aajs]

Does this Mod need more vehicles?

.......Erm that was a silly question, the game probably didn't even need the ones I added, however I think this mod needs a bit of a tune up.

1) I think I should have another go at drawing the little men that drive the jeeps... mainly because from some angles it looks like they driver is dead, or has too much starch in his shirt.

2) I have a request to give the scout type vehicles at least a little basic firepower. Defensive only weapons is a little to restrictive.

3) Do we want a proper Tanks that fires shells not just an APC with a heavy machine gun like I have now?

4) Do we want a hovercraft style vehicle so we can go over water?

5) Do we want a mobile missile launcher?

[Larry Burstyn]

Does this Mod need more vehicles?

.......Erm that was a silly question, the game probably didn't even need the ones I added, however I think this mod needs a bit of a tune up.

1) I think I should have another go at drawing the little men that drive the jeeps... mainly because from some angles it looks like they driver is dead, or has too much starch in his shirt.

2) I have a request to give the scout type vehicles at least a little basic firepower. Defensive only weapons is a little to restrictive.

3) Do we want a proper Tanks that fires shells not just an APC with a heavy machine gun like I have now?

4) Do we want a hovercraft style vehicle so we can go over water?

5) Do we want a mobile missile launcher?

1) Your choice I don't see well enough (5 eye surgeries) to make out what the drivers look like.

2) YES, please.

3) Or improve accuracy of HMG & range seems a little low. But yes anyway.

4) Don't we already got one.

5) Not for me...don't use the one we already got.

BTW I did everything but a complete new install and still don't get opening jeep.

[ShadowAdmiral]

1) The jeep is okay, as it is.

2) I have also a request (not sure if it is possible) kould you give the Scimitar a tier 1 gun or a MG like your Tier 1 tank has? Alternative a secondary MG-kind weapon for "soft attacks".

3) the APC is superb. Right now I prefer it over the Scimitar, because of it's main weapon.

4) We have the Hyperion, but a nice anti grav scout would be nice.

5) No, we have enough weapons that splash the enemy I would like to see more non splashing weapons for tanks.

I don't find the buy option for initial Jeep too. I only can build the Jeep MK2 in the manufacturing bay. Can you make a little tutorial on YT how to buy a jeep?