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Fire in the Hole! - Destructible UFO Hulls and Dynamic UFO Assaults


kabill

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Here's the crashed light scout spectre. I've highlighted the relevant section in red:

<?xml version="1.0" ?><spectre id="UFO/lightscout/HBP_light_scout_crashed_hull_main_2" width="6" height="12" version="1">   <state id="damaged" name="" pivotX="221" pivotY="18" pathScore="1" objectTypePreset="0" visibilityScore="1.000" bulletScore="1.000" orientation="0" sortPoint="0.500" hp="0" wallType="none" isUFOHull="1">       <image src="tiles/UFO/lightscout/HBP_light_scout_crashed_hull_main_damaged.png" />   </state>   <state id="default" name="" pivotX="221" pivotY="18" pathScore="1" objectTypePreset="0" visibilityScore="1.000" bulletScore="1.000" orientation="0" sortPoint="0.500" hp="0" wallType="none" isRecoverable="1" recoverItemString="Items.AlienLightScoutDatacore" [b][color=#FF0000]recoverAlienium="0" recoverAlienAlloys="1"[/color][/b] isUFOHull="1" isUFODoor="1">       <image src="tiles/UFO/lightscout/HBP_light_scout_crashed_hull_main.png" />   </state>   <state id="destroyed" name="" pivotX="221" pivotY="18" pathScore="1" objectTypePreset="0" visibilityScore="1.000" bulletScore="1.000" orientation="0" sortPoint="0.500" hp="0" wallType="none" /></spectre>
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Are you still trying to improve the AI inside the UFOs? With 1.07 the aliens are now quite better, and with their new door opening technique it increases the danger quite nicely. My only concerns with current small UFOs layout is that the corridors are so tight and door opening doesn't create reaction fire (I think).

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I had a little play around with the AI post 1.07 and things do seem to be a bit better. The door-opening thing is key, I think, especially for FitH.

However, I've not noticed any especially marked change in alien behavior otherwise. They're often still doing meaningless patrols backwards and forwards over the same spaces and otherwise wasting TUs. The range of their exploration still seems to be limited as well.

I've tried changing one of the settings that was supposed to turn off the roaming with v1.07, but that didn't have any effect and they still wandered around (there seems to be something hard-coded into the AI which forces the aliens to move on their turn and I do. As such, I don't think there's going to be any way to make the aliens use their TUs sensibly.

My inclination, then, is to try and turn off the limitations on their movement, which I think I can do using the CautoiusDistance AI variable. This should give the AI more freedom to come and attack you, which I think will work best given their new ability to open doors and the current design of the UFOs.

My plan, then, is to upload a separate aiprops file with the relevant changes in which people can try out and use if they want. I don't want to upload it as a default part of the mod as I've not had time to do proper tests either with 1.07 or with my intended change so I don't want to 'break' it if it's already working ok at the moment. With some feedback from that (and hopefully some time for my own testing) I'll consider making further changes if necessary.

(I'm reluctant to make too many changes at the moment as the entire mod might become redundant if the modular UFO concept gets off the ground. I've not a massive amount of time for modding at the moment so I'm trying to avoid doing stuff that won't be useful in the end.)

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  • 1 year later...

Hope it's Ok to still reply to this topic.

Firstly, thankyou for this.

I was quick looking through this to see if there is a way to make the fires to dissipate quicker or have less fires, i have set 'FireChanceOfDissipating>90</FireChanceOfDissipating' & does it not work, the fires keep on burning. Help!

While looking through here i have not seen any of those UFO interiors, all UFOs types are the same, i looked in the map folders & there are several layout files for each type of UFO, are the interiors supposed to alternate.

Thankyou.

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The UFO interiors all use the same base layout but there are a number of iterations with different levels of crash damage. It's technically redundant with current version of XCE but I made this a long time before.

In terms of the fire - some of the burning tiles are placed on the map as props. These are not actually fire - there's no way to place real fire on maps - and so cannot be set to dissipate.

(Part of me wonders whether I should update this mod to work with the current version of XCE. Probably wouldn't even take that long. But I also have All the Work and accidentally bought XCOM2, so I can't promise it will happen.)

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Am using XCE 0.34.1 & the mod works fine, it does not cause any problems that i can notice.

I forgot there was a 'No Smoke Edition' patch, i will try that, also never noticed there was an 'Alternative UFO Interiors', i'll make sure to take plenty of grenades.

So what does this 'FireChanceOfDissipating>90</FireChanceOfDissipating' do then.

Thankyou kabill.

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There's no problems - it just overwrites additions in a recent version of XCE which adds procedurally generated crash damage (with real fire and smoke rather than my workaround equivalents). As such, it would probably be better now to remove all the added crash damage and just retain the destructible hulls.

The variable you've highlighted does precisely what you think it should do (% chance of fire dissipating per turn). It's just the fire that is placed with FitH isn't real fire - it's a map prop that looks like fire but in code is nothing of the sort - so that variable has no effect on it.

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  • 7 years later...

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