Alien Class Analysis Mod

[Max_Caine]

THIS WORKS WITH: v20 Stable and v21 Experimental 1

(TEXT EDITED SINCE COMPLETION)

“How can I tell what's an officer and what isn't?”, said a_beorning, several months ago. “We need a guide to the classes!”. “What a good idea”, thought I. “Too bad Chris probably doesn't have the time or the money to do that! But wait! Am I not a person with both time and money? To the Batmobile!”. I slunk back to the Batcave and put my master plan into action. Enlisting the able artistic aid of Boy Wonder a333, we have completed a pictorial guide to the various alien classes in the game, for each race.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Alien Class Analysis mod! Also known as the classmod, it's a series of Xenopedia articles (art by a333, words by me) which are gradually triggered as the game progresses. Like autopsies, they require no time to research and appear automatically once the specific research requirements for the article have been met. They're designed so you can install them at almost any point in game and they should kick in without having to worry about previous research topics. That's because the particular research prequisite for each article is the corpse of a commonly available alien.

Unfortunately, this mod doesn't work with the mod tools in the launcher. If you want to run it, you will have to unzip it and install the files over the existing Xenonauts files. This may cause you problems if you already have mods active, as you will overwrite:

strings.xml

researches.xml

xenopedia.xml

So please be careful! If you do have other mods, it would be best if you did a Diff (there are some good diff tools online) and copied over what you need to copy from one file to the other. (Hopefully Giovanni will fix the modding tools!).

Here's the classmod itself. It's not very big, so enjoy!

v20 stable and v21 Experimental 1

--------------------

Here are all the teaser images displayed throughout the thread for your convience.

EDIT: Images have now been spoilered so people who want to enjoy the game without images can do so.

EDIT 2: Teasers have been replaced with the new images. Old images available on request.

Early-era. Tier-1 weapons/equipment (small UFOs)

Mid-era. Tier 2-3 weapons/equipment (medium UFOs)

End-era. Tier 3-4 weapons/equipment (large UFOs)

Edited January 19, 2014 by Max_Caine

[Lt_Parsons]

Only thing i can say is "Wow".

Superb art, good and witty descriptions, Max_Caine and a333 - thank you for this mod, you both are awesome =)

[raziel1981]

Indeed wow

[GizmoGomez]

Superb. Absolutely superb. This should be added to the game, it would be awesome. (This sentiment seems to be a common theme whenever I see something of your (and a333 in this case) creation, I've noticed. I said much the same thing about the "Firewall".)

[Gauddlike]

I particularly like the fact that the Sebillian appears to be reading the information on his bullet resistant hide.

He may even have a slight smirk on his face while doing it.

[Chris]

Wow. This is very impressive stuff. If you do finish this mod, I'd probably be happy to bundle it with the game so people can just activate it from the drop-down menu (so as a mod, rather than default in-game content).

[Sathra]

Congratulations Max and a333! Official support!

Also, very nice, though the entries might be a bit too snarky.

[Jean-Luc]

Tres bien!

[Steelpoint]

Excellent work, I have always wanted to see some emphasis on the different Alien ranks.

[Max_Caine]

I hope that a333 will come and say something about his work. I would like to say on both a333's and my behalf thank-you to everyone who has commented so far. And wow! Bundled with the game as a mod? Well, that's all the incentive I need! While I love the positive messages, I would appreciate any criticism or thoughts you might like to give as we continue to release more of the class guide.

Some notes on the descriptive text.

Getting the right level of dry wit is very hard. It's really easy to make the Director of Research appear as if he hates everyone and everything, and that isn't how the DoR is presented in the offical xenopedia text. The DoR strikes me as a man who knows just how smart he is, he's more than a little egocentric and he has a very strong alpha male personality. He's probably published, and he's in the best position possible to be the father of not simply one branch of science, but a flourishing oaken tree. His peers are the ones who can keep up with him, and everyone else? Well, I imagine in his world the important people are the people who actually figure out how things work, and no-one but his peers appreciates just how hard it is to get from a blank blackboard to E=mc2. To put it bluntly, he's frustrated. He'll try and tell a solider something, but because he expects the solider to keep up, rather the DoR than slow down, it'll go right over that soldier's head, which makes the DoR cross (why in God's name did I bother flapping my lips for this cloth-headed baboon?) His sarcasm draws from this bitter well, and I try to let it leak into the text without becoming overwhelming.

Edited June 4, 2013 by Max_Caine

[a333]

I'd like to say thanks, Chris and everyone. Thank you, Max, for your idea and support. I'd like to, but it's too early for the final credits, folks, come on. Back to work, back to work.

Actually, i'm very inspired =) But don't forget to throw on some critics too.

[Sathra]

Its only a little bit too snarky. Maybe a 10-20% reduction? It is an official report after all, and making them too personal wouldn't reflect too well in posterity.

[Argie]

Max & a333 this looks incredible! Keep it up!

[Wintermist]

Holy smokes, that's really nice stuff! I'd definately want something like that in the game!

[Moxar]

I'd like to say thanks, Chris and everyone. Thank you, Max, for your idea and support. I'd like to, but it's too early for the final credits, folks, come on. Back to work, back to work.

Actually, i'm very inspired =) But don't forget to throw on some critics too.

*throwing a critic*

...

And here comes another one!

*throwing another critic*

Congratulation guys, this looks very awesome, and I always wanted to have more information about the differences between alien's classes.

[cybrbeast]

Amazing! Can't wait to see what others you come up with. I hope you can find the motivation to make a full set, I know how hard it is to finish a project once the initial inspiration and rush wear off.

[a333]

Oh we will, since my project finishing abilities were a number one priority to work at when i was planning my part of work. And i believe in Max better than i do in myself.

[TornadoADV]

Very nice, can't wait to see what you guys can come up with. Hopefully Chris fully intergrates it into the full release! (If they don't already have something similar planned.)

[Max_Caine]

Okay, got some new research for you. Ths research is easily available in any game - shoot a noncom and a guard to get the relevant bits of research.

We've had to make some compromises as there are differences between the concept art, ground combat sprite, corpse art and xenopedia art for the Caesan. Oh well!

Download it like it's nineteen ninety-nine.

(Donwload link on OP should also be updated).

[Sathra]

Its spelt soldier, not solider.

Other than that, good work! Except that non-coms only show up on the first 3 ship classes in vanilla.

[raziel1981]

Great stuff Max, can't wait to see the Andron and wraith versions

[svidangel]

Nice, though the Sebillian's no longer have poor eyesight. /bitteraboutherding

[Max_Caine]

I've fixed the spelling error. As for the second point Sathra made, and the point svidangel makes, I'm going to hang fire on that until it gets closer to the end of beta. Prior-to-Steam builds had noncoms present in every ship, and they may return, as might poor Sebillian eyesight (seeing how it's in the autopsy!).

[MisterLock]

Max...Is this compatible with a savegame?Or do you need to start over to use it?

[Max_Caine]

It should be compatible with savegames in Xenonauts vanilla (both 18 stable and 19 experimental). The research topics don't rely on any previous research, instead they require a corpse as the research predicate, a noncom corpse for the noncom research and a guard corpse for the more general class analysis. If you've installed Sathra's Little Mod, I wouldn't recommend installing this as it will overwrite the xenopedia, researches and strings files. In fact, hey, Sathra! could you add this to your Little Mod?

EDIT: I have in my hand a333's preliminary sketches for the next one. You'll love it, I promise you.

Edited June 16, 2013 by Max_Caine