Enhanced UFO Crash Sites (Mod)

[Skitso]

Cool. Hope you find time to finish this before the game goes gold.

[kabill]

Update: Mod finished! Having done some playtesting of Fire in the Hole, I was happy with the placement of the power-core explosions outside the UFO and, apparently, had nothing better to on a bank holiday. So it's done.

[Skitso]

Nice! Thanks for your hard work with these mods. How many man hours you think you have put in these?

[kabill]

Too many?

[kabill]

Oh, I should probably add that it's unlikely that I'll get around to testing these properly myself so I'll be relying on feedback from other folks if there's any issues. I don't think there should be any, mind, but no doubt I'm accidentally failed to place a UFO hull or something stupid somewhere.

EDIT: Also, I'm just about to reupload as I completely forgot to take the marker off for the explosion centres. Dammit.

[Skitso]

I've put something like 200+ hours on my map pack I think... Terrifying.

[kabill]

Wow, I didn't realise they took that long.

[KevinHann]

That's effort beyond comprehension, mate.

[Skitso]

Yeah, it's easily like 8-12 hours per map. Plus I've iterated and polished them like mad.

EDIT: Sorry Kabill for stealing your thread. I'll shut up now.

[KevinHann]

A single map takes that long?! Whoa there goes my spirit for editing post release...

[Skitso]

Well, high quality ones does at least. But if we want to talk about mapping and my map pack, lets continue in the mapping forums.

[kabill]

Quick post: This mod is more or less compatible with the new build. It will revert a small number of changes, but that should be fine. If you want, you could play with the vanilla gameconfig file instead of the modded one: all that will do is reduce the likelihood of additional smoke and fire damage around the crash site.

I'm not going to update the mod until after 31st of May. At that point, the game should be stable in terms of game files and I won't need to do any further updates. At that point, the mod will be 100% complete I think, as there shouldn't need to be anything else I need to add or change. With the update, though, I'll remove the wall sections at the front of the Light Scout in accordance with the vanilla change, and ensure the external doors as set to auto-close (the internal ones should already do that).

[kabill]

Quick note:

If you're looking to get a clean install for the latest experimental build without the mod, you will need to manually delete the additional UFO maps from maps/UFO/Crashed/

Basically, any map with a number after it is a modded map and needs to go. If going through the files seems too complicated, just delete the maps folder entirely and revalidate the game files; the vanilla maps will be reinstalled.

[kabill]

Update: Mod has been updated for compatibility with final release. There's been a minor tweak to UFO doors as well so they auto-close as in vanilla, but other than that, no changes.

[Alexandre Lange]

This is NOT included in the Fire in the Hole mod?

[kabill]

Fire in the Hole has ECS built into it. If you're running Fire in the Hole, you don't also need ECS. (I'll add that to the OP).

[kabill]

Update: I've updated the mod for compatibility with v1.03.

[victorix58]

Great mod. It really enhances the atmosphere. I also like how it makes the crash sites easier to find, particularly during night missions due to the fire. I have no slowdown issues.

[kabill]

Thanks, glad you like it!

[kabill]

Update: Small update for compatibility with v1.04

[MrClock]

Yeah !!!

[llunak]

I remember you originally wanted to also alter the landing site so that it would look like the UFO has actually crashed into the terrain rather than just landed. Have you abandoned that idea?

[kabill]

I remember you originally wanted to also alter the landing site so that it would look like the UFO has actually crashed into the terrain rather than just landed. Have you abandoned that idea?

Basically, yes.

The problem with a 'proper' crashed-into-terrain effect is that it would have to be added into the map itself, rather than the UFO submap. This is because otherwise you can't make sure the ground type and the crash effect will align properly. That's a lot work, and in any case would require more artistic skill than I possess.

The alternative - having a generic 'burn shadow' which could apply to any terrain - is the easier option but I couldn't get it to look right. Part of my problem is that I was using a single image rather than individual tiles, which made it look bad when you hadn't explored all the way around the UFO. But breaking it down into individual tiles is again a lot of work.

A further issue is the size of the UFO submaps. In some instances, the UFO comes right up to the edges of the submap (e.g. Scout and Corvette) leaving no room for a crash effect to be applied. So to make it work well, you'd need to resize the submaps, and then re-place them on the actual maps to make sure they fit properly.

In other words, there were a lot of barriers which made continuing with the idea too costly in terms of the time and effort required to make it work. In principle, it could definitely be done. But - personally speaking - I think the aesthetic improvement would be limited compared with the amount of work required to do it. That's not to say that I'd discourage someone with time, skill and enthusiasm, mind. But it's not something I'm personally looking at developing further.

[kabill]

Update: Small update for compatibility with v1.06

[Mikhail Ragulin]

Kabill, what was the outcome of giving the aliens incendiary armour? Did you look into much more than to see if it works?

I was playing a crashed UFO for the next M'nauts, and I thought "ooo, I could give them incendiary armour", and saw that you've already been there, and I'm in for sloppy seconds. I figure it'll work well, as there aren't any fire weapons in the game, and I have fire dissipating after one turn anyhow. Did they survive all the time, or some of it?