Max's Grease Pit (Vehicle custom jobs are our speciality!)

[Max_Caine]

So, having played a lot with the vehicles in 19.6 and having modded them to make them more useful, I thought I might put the mods up here for people to enjoy.

The Type 2 Hunter

The primary upgrades to the Type 2 hunter are a more powerful engine, an enhanced set of optics and a more powerful receiver/transceiver so it can report back what it sees to the squad. The armour has been enhanced with strategically located ceramic plates, especially at the front to protect the inhabitants and ammo storage. While the new engine gives better performance, it's physically bigger than the old one so the rear armour has been thinned to make room. The previous issue with the ammo feeding mechanism in the .30 cal turret has been cleared up so longer bursts can be fired without danger of jamming

APs improved by +20 (80)

Front armour improved by +10 (30)

Rear armour reduced by -5 (15)

Sight range improved by +4 (22)

Burst fire improved by +2 (7 shots)

Scimitar 20A1/B

The B model Scimitar has been extensively redesigned to increase its durability in a protracted firefight. Armour plating has been thickened and borrowing a trick from Wolf armour, a superconducting lattice has been woven in which transmits energy from incoming plasma bolts to "bleed pods" that store and use this energy to power the vehicle and its weapons. Unfortunately repeated shots to the same area will damage the lattice and render it useless. There is also a potential issue with bleed pods possibly overloading, but we don't have the chance to give it a thorough field trial. We've added triple redundancy to the autonomous systems and added a secondary drive unit in case of failure of the main system. Improvements in weapon trajectory calculation have lead to modest increases in accuracy, although the updated fire control module has an alarming tendency to occupy most of the processor time when focussing on a particularly difficult shot, reducing the efficiency of other systems.

APs improved by +10 (70)

HP improved by +200 (600)

Front armour improved by +10 (50)

Side armour improved by +10 (50)

Rear armour reduced by -10 (30)

Accuracy improved by +25 (75)

Laser weapons and above are capable of aimed shots at 40APs

And the moment you've been waiting for! The download! This has been tested to work with v19.6 HF2. I do not know yet if it works with v18 - that' on my list of things to do. I'm still fiddling with the Hyperion, so I haven't included it on my list here.

The vehicles... so pretty...

Edited August 10, 2013 by Max_Caine
Updated descriptive text, cleaning up spelling, grammar and wording

[Ishantil]

This is how I imagined vehicles to be, Max. Great work!

How are these vehicles unlocked?

Is there a way to add a secondary weapon?

[Max_Caine]

These are straight upgrades to the current vehicles so replacing the vehicle files will give you the modded version. These stat upgrades will take effect immediately even if you have built a vehicle. However, they will not work if you try to apply them to a vehicle in ground combat - the best way to apply them is to do it in between GC missions. this is because a vehicle in the Geoscape and a vehicle in ground combat have a different form of existance.

Yes, there is a way to add a secondary weapon. There are some really old mods that do this. As I'm not in front of my home computer, I don't have the Xeno files so I'll link you to Gauddlike's old mod and Xenonaut's Mod.

[Akrakorn]

I love you.

[Ishantil]

Thanks, Max. I appreciate you putting this together!

[Max_Caine]

The aim of this mod will be to produce variants on each era of vehicle, while taking into account the original intent of the vehicle and the effect that modifying it will have (for example, I might make a close-support Hunter and give it more armour at the expense of reducing its total APs, etc.). I will make secondary weapons and mount them, however secondary weapons were stopped fairly early on in development, so they'll need a lot of testing to make sure they work correctly.

[Ishantil]

Are you planning on hooking them up through research? Can new vehicle chassis be added to the game?

[Max_Caine]

Well, I do plan to do it through research, certainly.

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

On a new chassis

Vehicles consist of two parts - the vehicle and the weapon. All vehicles have a list of primary weapons they can equip, and because there is no UI feature for secondary weapons, they can only have one secondary weapon (you could add several but there's no UI to select a secondary weapon from, so it would just pick the first or bork on ya). It means you can have a variety of primary weapons and you can restrict what a vehicle can have - for example the Scimitar can't be equipped with the 30 cal guns or the rocket launcher from the Hunter, neither can the Hyperion.

Because of this separation, it's possible to create an entirely new chassis. That's not too hard to code. The hard work is getting the artwork together. I'd really like to reactivate the mecha sitting in the files that have definitions in the XML and even sounds! But it would cost a pretty penny to get the animation done (unlike vehicles, mecha movement would have to be animated, there's no way around it).

Edited August 8, 2013 by Max_Caine

[Ishantil]

By additional chassis I mean upgraded versions based on new armor coming out and a better secondary weapon. I assume that's what you'll be doing, then hooking it up through research. And reusing the existing vehicle armor settings.

Updating UI elements might not be too hard, but it's certainly not going to be high on the developer's list right now. Maybe after the game is released.

And that mecha sounds awesome.

[thothkins]

was the mecha setting there for the armour that was dropped - The Colossus.

good job on the vehicles Max. I'd also like to see the troops start with armour as per earlier builds, then an upgrade to that following alien alloy research.

[Max_Caine]

@Thothkins, I don't think so. There are 4 different walker-class vehicles. There are sounds for one of them (the Tetsudo or the Terrapin, I forget which), and there's also a dropship template. These were described in Xenopedia of earlier builds as "breaching suits". I'm guessing that there wasn't the money and there wasn't a great deal of difference between what a "breaching suit" could do and a squaddie could do.

@Ishantil. Oh! Ohhhhhhh. Oh. Right. Yes. Haha. Wellllll..... Yes.

But!

I also want to do variants that aren't just vehicle+. I'd like to do some variants that take on specific roles. I mean, take a vehicle like the humvee. Here's a list of some of variants that exist:

M56 Coyote Smoke Generator Carrier

M707 Knight HMMWV

M966 HMMWV TOW Armored

M996 Mini-Ambulance, Armored

M997 Maxi-Ambulance, Armored

M998 Cargo/Troop

M998 HMMWV Avenger

M1025 Armament Carrier, Armored

M1026 Armament Carrier, Armored W/W

M1035 Soft-Top Ambulance

M1036 TOW Armored W/W

M1037 S-250/S-788 Shelter Carrier

M1038 Cargo/Troop Carrier W/W

M1042 S-250/S-788 Shelter Carrier W/W

M1043 Armament Carrier, Up-Armored

M1044 Armament Carrier, Up-Armored W/W

M1045 TOW Up-Armored Armor

M1046 TOW Up-Armored Armor W/W

M1069 Tractor for M119 105-mm Gun

M1097 Heavy

M1097 Heavy HMMWV Avenger

M1109 Up-Armored Armament Carrier

Active Denial System

Ground Mobility Vehicle (special ops variant)

IMETS

ZEUS-HLONS

I'd like to do some variants that fill certain roles, but make it clear at the same time when the suitiblity of the vehicle to fill that role is brought into question. E.G. there may be a call for a close-support/urban assault vehicle. That would be filled by the Scimitar. However, a modified version of the Hunter might be pressed into service before the Scimitar exists, but it would be clear the Hunter doesn't fill the niche as well as the Scimitar.

[thothkins]

ah, the breaching suits! There's a little icon for one of them somewhere...

I wasn't sure whether they were suits, or as it looks here, sort of vehicles. Mecha!

[Ishantil]

This looks awesome. I am very excited! I love modding!

[Max_Caine]

The Cherubim Class Hyperion anti-gravatic impellers have been radically overhauled. This combined with new agent-based data processing technology adapted from high-end Androns, ultra high speed telemetric and telecommand systems and a virtual immersion pod that gives the operator the impression s/he is present in the machine create a tank that is much faster, more manoeverable and much more responsive to commands than the prototype. Increased understanding of the armour systems used by larger UFO warships have been applied to the Hyperion, giving it armour almost on par with the Predator. Finally, the faulty microrocket system has been cleared of most of its bugs. The 16-rocket pack is set to a salvo of four plasma microrockets with each command. Unfortunately, the targetting systems are not yet functioning properly, so the salvo tends to be quite random in its saturation.

APs +40 (100)

Front Armour +20 (70)

Side Armour +20 (70)

Microrocket pack added as Secondary Weapon.

The most significant update to the Grease Pit is that I've worked out how to mod in secondary weapons. Things have changed a little since Gauddlike first made his mod, but now secondary weapons can be added en masse. I've been working on some things for the Scimitar and the Hunter, so the next update will be secondary weapons for the Scimitar and the Hunter. To use the microrocket launcher, press the "L" key. However, there is no access to artwork or to an ammo count (le sigh).

This has been tested with 19.6 HF2. It didn't seem to have any trouble integrating the weapon into my saved games. As usual, do not make this change during ground combat. You won't see the benefit,and it may screw the combat. Do it before or after.

Link should be the same as the OP

[marcoasalazarm]

It. Is. Awesome.

One thing to mention: somebody should film these bad boys in action and post them on YouTube or some other place.

[Max_Caine]

I'd love to do it, but the free stuff is too crappy to make a decent recording, and the paid stuff is more than I can afford, as my cash has been put into other projects. I think someone should do a "mods of Xenonauts", just to show off the cool stuff.

[raziel1981]

Id be more then willing to put a penny or two for those breaching suits....

[Max_Caine]

Just a wee update. The Scimitar now has access to three secondary weapons.

Heavy Scatter Laser

Very similar to the normal Scatter Laser. The following differences are:

Cheaper to shoot (30AP verses 40AP)

Twice as accurate (60ACC verses 30ACC)

Fires more bursts (10 bursts verses 3 before reload)

No armour penetration

Slightly reduced suppression (30 verses 40)

Smoke Grenade Launcher

Agains, very similar to the standard smoke grenade. The only difference being it has a total of 6 shots, and a max range of 10 squares.

40mm Grenade Launcher

Did a lot of reading up and a lot of watching people shoot 40mm grenades on youtube before doing this. Modelling the 40mm exactly made it OP. Additionally, I can't make burst-firing grenades work. So, it has the same stats as a frag grenade, except for a max range of 15 tiles, and the radius has been increased to 4 tiles. Magazine size of 6.

The link is the same as previous, so there's no point in putting one up that's two posts above!

[SteelSoldier]

Bro, if you have a savefile with these vehicles currently unlocked, I could try and run a few missions demonstrating your vehicles in a high quality video.

[Ishantil]

Uh oh, my two favorite mods are clashing! Now I have to reconcile xml files. Is there any way to do mod packages for this game yet?

[JamesRoshal]

for the Mod spot lights, I could do that, If I get max's permission.

[SteelSoldier]

For some odd reason, I have installed the mod, but it doesn´t seem to have changed any of the values of the tanks, maybe I am doing something wrong?

[Max_Caine]

Hmm.

How did you install the mod? You see, if you used the mod tools on the launcher, it won't work.

[SteelSoldier]

Ah, so I have to override the files, I will do that then!

Alright done!

I am going to see if I can play the game for a while and unlock some of your vehicles, so I can try and make a video about them

Edited August 12, 2013 by SteelSoldier

[Max_Caine]

SAVE YOUR FILES FIRST.

P.s, I should have a suitble savefile soonish - am in the middle of a base attack. Not very suitible.