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(Proof of Concept) Destructible UFO Hulls!


kabill

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When I put together the enhanced crash site package without the hull-breaching element, I could probably do a quick variant which allows UFO hull toggling. Aligning the image is probably the only vaguely time-consuming task.

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@kabill: Can you tell us here when you remove the blood drops near ufo? I will wait it to use the mod. Awesome work, by the way. Thanks! :)

Update is live.

It's the full version, but all it does is patch out the blood drop image that I accidentally left in and add damaged ground tiles which I forgot to include on the Corvette maps.

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Looks awesome!

The Mod is ready to integrate?

I've not done the last three UFO types, but other than that yes. To be honest, I don't think I'm planning any further changes to the game files which will clash, so it should be fairly easy to integrate any further updates.

If you need any help identifying the files you need to copy, just send me a PM or something.

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I've not done the last three UFO types, but other than that yes. To be honest, I don't think I'm planning any further changes to the game files which will clash, so it should be fairly easy to integrate any further updates.

If you need any help identifying the files you need to copy, just send me a PM or something.

The Kabill's UFO HUll Breach has been integrated and you have the acknowledge

Thank you!

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I had test UFO Hull Breach mod and I like it a lot! here is my review:

- Great job on UFO breach Charges, they are hard to carry and very unsuited for normal equipment.

- The real Goal of the mod is look for alternative ways to enter in a UFO, but I think that in small alien ships thats not a urgent requirement, maybe it could be much useful and greater if the main use was suited for larger UFO like landing ships.

- I really like the fire and smoke, but some processors get burned and RAM consuming makes slow the GC, at the same time Alien AI require more calculations when environment elements are present.

- There are some issues with floor tiles, but I think taht it could be easy to fix.

- Internal Small UFOs desing is great but tactical elements of Xenonauts makes harder explorer small areas, for humans and even for aliens, much of the time aliens get separated and easy to kill by the separation tiles. This separations could be great for larger alien ships! I get contaminated by some kind of nostalgia about Classic XCOM.

Thank you for the mod Kabill! Its great see diversity in game with things like this

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- Great job on UFO breach Charges, they are hard to carry and very unsuited for normal equipment.

Mission accomplished!

- The real Goal of the mod is look for alternative ways to enter in a UFO, but I think that in small alien ships thats not a urgent requirement, maybe it could be much useful and greater if the main use was suited for larger UFO like landing ships.

Yeah, certainly with the smaller UFOs its less important. As the UFO size increases, the distance of the hull segments from the main entrance also increases so hopefully it should be more useful.

- I really like the fire and smoke, but some processors get burned and RAM consuming makes slow the GC, at the same time Alien AI require more calculations when environment elements are present.

Hmm, I'd not thought about how that might affect other machines. Sadly, though, there's nothing I can do about it without outright removing it, as I can't actually control how much fire (and I think it's the fire that's the problem) . This said, the way I've been applying those effects is a bit excessive in some places (e.g. if there's a pre-existing hull breach, I set one or more internal props to explode and the hull segment as well), and I'm planning on going back over those sections to set them as missing/damaged manually and set up a single explosion point instead to minimise overlap. So that might help a bit.

I guess the best plan would be to add a warning on the main page indicating that it can run slow on lower-end machines. I could possibly put together an alternative version for people who still want to use it but without the fire and smoke.

- There are some issues with floor tiles, but I think taht it could be easy to fix.

If you could post screenshots when you find stuff like this it would be great.

- Internal Small UFOs desing is great but tactical elements of Xenonauts makes harder explorer small areas, for humans and even for aliens, much of the time aliens get separated and easy to kill by the separation tiles. This separations could be great for larger alien ships! I get contaminated by some kind of nostalgia about Classic XCOM.

I do miss the old claustrophobic UFOs from the OG, so I'll admit to some of forcing my own preference in the UFO design. This aside, though, I do also think they're better suited to the hull-breach mechanic. Certainly with the smaller UFOs, being able to open up the hull is just opening up another line of fire and the ability to suppress/shoot from outside aliens' reaction arc. Since UFO breaches were already easy enough, I didn't want to see them become easier still. That isn't to say that the current design is necessarily harder, but I think it makes hull breaches less overkill at the very least.

If there's the demand for it, though, I might resurrect my plan to produce an alternative version of the mod with more-or-less vanilla interiors.

Thank you for the mod Kabill! Its great see diversity in game with things like this

No trouble. I like making stuff like this (though this project's much bigger than anything else I've done before).

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I haven't yet had a chance to play using the UFO mods but this is one of the ones I am looking forward to trying the most.

It is right up there on my list with Max_Caines mods.

Some great work going into this and I am looking forward to seeing what you try next.

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What I dont get is why an apparently so simple and not resource demanding game like Xenonauts can become so RAM hungry with just some smoke and fire sprites added... I mean, I may not have a top gaming pc but it's a good one, enough to run most new games in very high graphics without any lag but it still sometimes struggle with Xenonauts just because the mod added some effects.

What is the sense in this!? Seriously... I really dont get it. For example: how can the new XCom game with full high quality 3D graphics NEVER lags in my pc no matter what and the 2D isometric sprite based Xenonauts does!? I know it have some technical explanation but it still makes no sense in my head... Maybe Xenonauts coding/engine/whatever itself have some flaws that makes his processing confusing for the computer?

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What I dont get is why an apparently so simple and not resource demanding game like Xenonauts can become so RAM hungry with just some smoke and fire sprites added... I mean, I may not have a top gaming pc but it's a good one, enough to run most new games in very high graphics without any lag but it still sometimes struggle with Xenonauts just because the mod added some effects.

What is the sense in this!? Seriously... I really dont get it. For example: how can the new XCom game with full high quality 3D graphics NEVER lags in my pc no matter what and the 2D isometric sprite based Xenonauts does!? I know it have some technical explanation but it still makes no sense in my head... Maybe Xenonauts coding/engine/whatever itself have some flaws that makes his processing confusing for the computer?

I have a similar problem at this end. One of the major, major reasons I fell in love at first sight with Xenonauts is the fact I can play it on my 1.66 Core 2 Duo 2 GB Ram laptop which has a terrible Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (and this applies for nearly no other 2014 games!) - but as soon as Carriers and Battleships appear and I have to climb floors higher than 2 it becomes a sheer test for my nerves as it lags like hell and my experience is entirely ruined. I spend an entire night trying to complete just two or three crash sites and my passion quickly downgraded to painful desire to just finish the campaign and get done with it.

Please don't take this as undeserved criticism - I am fully aware my machine is painfully outdated in terms of gaming and nobody but me is to be held accountable for this fact. Just sharing my frustrations.

If anyone has any suggestions how to improve performance in those two types of UFOs, it'd be greatly appreciated - I don't really know where the lag originates from and there aren't any game options to mess with so it seems my hands are tied and the latter part of the campaign will remain forever ruined for me.

Edited by KevinHann
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I think fire has been a long-standing problem for the game. At one point, fire during night missions completely destroyed the game; it couldn't cope with it at all. They made it better, but I presume whatever caused the problem still lingers in the code somewhere.

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I didn't have any problems with explosions, fire or smoke until the Carriers and Battleships appeared, kabill - even though it does seem to cause even heavier lag at this point. Alien turn also starts consuming significantly more time all of a sudden, up to several minutes! I wouldn't mention it if there wasn't such a massive gap between it and the game performance before that.

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kabill, I think you have absolutely no part in the problem. This game simply SHOULDN'T lag has it does, no matter how many fire you add. What fires does, anyway!? It's a changing sprite image that should trigger damage when someone step on it and light it surroundings. Games like this one is able to do the same thing for, like, 20 years without any problem. So why is it happening!?

But since we are playing an early-access game with experimental build, I think it's understandable. They still are adjusting things so problems like that are expected. I just hope to it vanish at some point before the release or soon after it with a patch.

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I didn't have any problems with explosions, fire or smoke until the Carriers and Battleships appeared, kabill - even though it does seem to cause even heavier lag at this point. Alien turn also starts consuming significantly more time all of a sudden, up to several minutes! I wouldn't mention it if there wasn't such a massive gap between it and the game performance before that.

The slowdown on carriers and battleships is a vanilla issue, by my understanding. In fact, now I think of it, since I've not yet done anything to those UFOs it's definitely nothing to do with this mod! Might be worth reporting that it's still happening, as I know GH have tried to sort this issue out previously.

EDIT: And now I've just seen your correction!

@Victor_Tadeu: I agree in principle, although Xenonauts has had a crazy development history which probably hasn't helped with stuff like that (I'm amazed Chris has managed to pull off the game as well as he has, to be honest!). Sadly, I doubt it's something that's going to get fixed for release, as I'm not sure it's a major issue for the vanilla game.

Hmm, now I think about this, are people suffering from this issue all the way through missions? In theory, the fire around the crash site shouldn't last more than a few turns, at least not in a volume large enough to make a difference. Just wondering whether there's something else causing problems as well.

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Hmm, now I think about this, are people suffering from this issue all the way through missions?
I haven't had any issues with speed for a long time. I have a pretty powerful system though, SSD, 8 gigs, quad processors. I can understand an increase processing time for the AI on big ship mission with lots of aliens. More aliens = more processing time and usually, stuff like that tends to become exponential. So, having twice as many aliens and Xenonauts would probably take more than twice as much time as there are many more possible combinations for the AI to run through. Of course, I can't speak for Gijs-Jan directly. That's just the tendency in most computer programs. The improvement in both speed and quality of the AI since I started following Xenonauts is impressive though. The AI in this game is WAY better than the OG. I'd give up a lot of turn processing speed for a good AI anyday in any game that wasn't real time. Edited by StellarRat
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