FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

[Zekram Bogg]

It is a fair bit of work.

To reuse my own words from another, slightly related post:

For a skin tone to match the African soldier images would be 16000 image files (Basic and Jackal armour).

Add an oriental skin tone as well and you obviously double that to 32000 new files.

Only the first two armour types have visible skin so after that you wouldn't need to change anything.

The different races you mention are all available to select, the only issue would be that ground sprites are all the same due to the amount of work involved.

*edit* Forgot to add that male and female soldiers share ground combat sprites for the same reason.

To be fair though, while it is a lot of frames that have to be redone for something like skin colors, it's theoretically not that complicated a thing on a per image basis (unlike say, the armband you mention, which is non-symetrical and would require more than just a recolor as it needs to be drawn on each frame). Recoloring the skin sections to matching tones is, again - in theory - just a matter of the paintcan tool in most any digital image editor/creator.

Now yeah, you have to paintcan like, 32,000 frames, and that's a lot of tedious, boring work. But in theory anyway, it's a relatively simple process on the per frame basis. The other issue though would be the linking of the models to the individual soldiers so that the game properly does it, and you don't have your asian soldier become black, or you black soldier become white et cetera. That's another bit of coding at least.

But I'm mostly fine with it since it's something the game shares with the original X-Com. You had different ethnicities on the details for a soldier, but not on the battlescape as I recall.

There were female models though, so that's a bit of a shame, but alas, not everything is possible I suppose.

[GizmoGomez]

It's more than a simple paint can, each sprite is hand painted to have a distinctive look. You'd have to hand paint each of the 32,000 sprites, and that takes a lot of time and, perhaps more importantly, a certain amount of money needed to pay the artist.

Maybe we can kickstart a Xenonauts Race-Pack or something to raise money for the art assets and to compensate the devs for the additional coding necessary. I'd be down for that.

[EchoFourDelta]

The original game had it perhaps a little bit smarter; each sprite set had a few "poses," mainly pistol/shoulder-fired weapons, and each weapon sprite was dropped into place, so you didn't have a set of sprites for the pistol, a set for the laser pistol, a set for the plasma pistol, etc., just a set for a given sort of armor, and everything got attached to it.

[a333]

The original game had it perhaps a little bit smarter; each sprite set had a few "poses," mainly pistol/shoulder-fired weapons, and each weapon sprite was dropped into place, so you didn't have a set of sprites for the pistol, a set for the laser pistol, a set for the plasma pistol, etc., just a set for a given sort of armor, and everything got attached to it.

That was a lot easier with the pixel art style. Developing such system for detailed sprites would require almost as much work as the rendering 32000 sprites (and there is no guarantee that you will succeed). Also, engine limitations.

Let's hope the Goldhawk's next game will be more technically advanced and modder-friendly in that way.

Or at least it will be powered by something other than playground SDK.

[ErvJ]

Can someone EXPLAIN to me HOW to use the med packs to heal your soldiers? I have NOT quite figured it out....

[GizmoGomez]

Sure.

All you do is equip the med pack, select it, hover the cursor over an ally, right click or use the scroll wheel to decide how much healing you want to do (more HP for more TUs spent), and click on the wounded ally. It can only be used to heal another person; you can't heal yourself with it.

[Gorlom]

and by "equip it" GinzoGomez means that you should put it in the soldiers hands instead of the weapon.

(just covering all the bases)

[ErvJ]

THANKS guys!

[Elydo]

You guys failed to mention "Hurl wellness at your injured comrade with an overhand motion"

[NoirWolf]

I am still saddened by the mention of a flamethrower in the FAQ on this thread it and the mech are two things I would've liked to have seen in-game..

[EchoFourDelta]

I am still saddened by the mention of a flamethrower in the FAQ on this thread it and the mech are two things I would've liked to have seen in-game..

The vehicle, or the Colossus? Colossus wasn't so much a "mech" as a heavier suit than the Predator. There was apparently a walker sort of vehicle earlier on, though.

[thothkins]

breaching suits were in the plans at one stage. These were mechs. Like the flamethrower, they won't be making the final game.

[NoirWolf]

breaching suits were in the plans at one stage. These were mechs. Like the flamethrower, they won't be making the final game.

-sheds a tear silently-