[Ground Combat] Stinky Alien Weapon Variants

This mod is currently version 3 and has been tested in v19 experimental, hotfix 2.

The mod launcher is currently not working, as far as I know. To install the mod, you'll have to extract the files into your Xenonauts folder. Sadly, this mod will not work with Sathra's, WalrusJones', or anything else that alters the same files. When I get closer to what I want, maybe I (or they? I'm not sure of the etiquette) will merge mods.

Download.

Mod description:

I find lightscout and scout ground missions to be a bit on the dull side. Yes, Caesans are different from Sebilians. But they're both using the same plasma pistol or rifle, and it gets old. There's none of the variety that the mix of alien weaponry later on provides. This mod tries to change that a bit.

Introducing the overloaded, stabilized and focused versions of alien plasma pistols and plasma rifles.

Overloaded guns: these guns have had various safety mechanisms disabled, making them deadlier, but also making them rather unreliable. The result is that they now deliver an explosive blast. It also means that the user cannot snap shot, take reaction fire, or burst fire, for fear of the gun exploding in their hands and eradicating all matter within a respectable radius.

Stabilized guns: These guns have been modified to deliver a near-constant stream of plasma. To achieve this, the punch of each individual shot is notably weaker than a typical version of the weapon. The upside is that they can pump out blasts without worrying about the reliability of the gun, granting lower TU costs, higher suppression (in terms of suppression value and suppression radius) as well as a 6-shot burst fire. The shots do now have armour mitigation, though, so don't underestimate anyone using a stabilized plasma pistol or rifle.

Focused guns: this modification delivers a charged, tight beam; this grants a bonus to the weapon's range, higher suppression and a more accurate standard/aimed shot. The downside is that snap shot is less accurate, the charge-up time makes burst fire impossible.

Version 3 introduces feral sebillians.

They can withstand impressive amounts of damage, but have regressed to an even more bestial state, so they cannot use items.

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Files modified:

in assets\

aiprops.xml

items.xml

weapons_gc.xml

weapons.xml

strings.xml

in assets\ufocontents

airplane.alien.lightscout.caesan

airplane.alien.scout.caesan

airplane.alien.corvette.caesan

airplane.alien.lightscout.sebilian

airplane.alien.scout.sebilian

airplane.alien.corvette.sebilian

To-do list:

• I need to play around with (I reckon) strings.xml so that the different plasma weapons don't show up as "weapon.StabilizedAlienPlasmaPistol" and the like. [Done as of v2]
  
• I need to sort out graphics for human soldiers who want to use these guns.

Do they have new sprites?(Like in aliens hands)

The new alien ranks and their guns look identical to their comrades, so you won't know who has (say) an overloaded pistol and who has a standard one until they fire, or unless you pry the guns out of their cold dead hands. I have changed sounds and/or graphics used, though, so if you get the following then you know there's at least one guy with a variant weapon out there.

- Overloaded ones are kinda obvious since they cause explosions, but they also use the plasma torch sfx for firing.

- Stabilized plasma shots move twice as fast, which is noticable but maybe not enough to distinguish them?

- Focused ones use the alien laser graphic when firing.

Okay, I've made v2. Changes are as follows:

• Strings.xml contains the names for the various modded weapons.
  
• Greys and lizards now have the mods divided between them. Sniper lizards seemed to go against their closer-combat nature. Caesans keep focused guns but lose overcharged/stabilized ones; Sebillians keep the overcharged/stabilized ones but lose focused weapons.
  
• Focused guns have had their hypervelocity taken away from them. I didn't like how it played; you felt as though you were being punished for playing the game wrong when the enemy could ignore your cover. Given the change above, I exchanged hypervelocity for extra suppression so that greys have a suppression tool. I think it plays better for the change, as being suppressed is a lot more interesting than cover being unreliable.
  

I've played the main campaign up to terror missions, and so far, it's stable. Let me know if there are any problems.

This mod looks quite tasty, Ol' Stinky.

Its almost like an alien version of my mod, but more devious.

This mod looks quite tasty, Ol' Stinky.

Its almost like an alien version of my mod, but more devious.

Thank you!

He means he's considering consuming the mod into his own.

He means he's considering consuming the mod into his own.

Shhh.

*Pets Sathra*

No need to tell them.

I'm just deflecting attention as I ready my cutlery...

jeezz...you absorbing mod moguls...

Just kidding...But shouldn't Ol'Stinky agree with you guys before absorbing the mod into one of your mods?

Of course. We're just asking in a creepy way.

*Insert creepy joke here*

I'm just deflecting attention as I ready my cutlery...

It's tough being a carrot.

(If anyone does want to integrate my mod into their own, go right ahead.)

Version 3's up. Here's a link. I've played up until a terror mission in v19 HF2, and everything seems to run okay. One issue is that sometimes the aliens' turn takes a little longer than usual to calculate the feral sebillians' move, but other than that it runs as normal for me.

I think the sebillians need a scouting option, but I don't want to give them a blanket buff to vision sight, as it's one of the things that makes them distinct. So I've made the feral sebillians, who have 200 health and a melee attack, but cannot use guns. The idea being that these huge monsters charge in there with little regard for their safety, and by doing so, act as the eyes for their ranged comrades. Sadly, I can't tweak the AI to make them have no sense of self preservation, so it's not yet working as intended. Still, it's better than nothing.

I also can't get the melee attack to bypass shields, as hypervelocity doesn't work with melee attacks. Having said that, I'm not sure I'd tease ferals with a shieldbearer, as ferals attack very quickly. If I could, though, I'd make it so ferals would reduce shieldbearers to a red mist on contact.

In addition, I've made some tweaks to the alien plasma pistols. The vanilla version has gone from range 10, damage 50 to range 20, damage 25. Basically it works out to be an accuracy buff. I'm trying to encourage sebillians non-coms to take shots, as often they'll huddle behind a crate and pray for divine intervention. This might not be a case of the AI being dumb; it might actually be smart enough to realise that the plasma pistol sucks so much that there's no point in making a shot.

I read this post of Max_Caine's and kinda agree. Has anyone had any success with modding the "locate enemies" ability? I don't know whether it doesn't work, whether it isn't actually implemented in the game yet, or even if the aliens are using it. In contrast to the sebillians who have a "scout" that charges in like a nutter, I wanted to make a complete coward who's frail and hides at the back, spamming locate enemies. Needless to say, this one's a work in progress.

That post came from a bitter series of experiments to see if I could make Caesan noncoms and guards use low-grade psychic powers. In v19 experimental, noncoms would sometimes use a psychic power. But when locate enemies is used, it seems to crash the game. In v18, I've tried adjusting the various smartness settings (even setting them to be exactly the same as a psion), but they won't do it. Caesans would rather use their pistols, even if it makes no damn sense. They will use "attack" powers (sometimes) if you take away their gun. But even then, I get the impression that the AI is asking "Who touched Sasha? WHO TOUCHED MY GUN?!". I have recently learned about debug mode (from you!), so I'm going to follow Caesans to see what happens. There must be something I'm missing.

Well, forcing psychic powers in debug mode crashes the game. Bah. Never mind, I'll try something else instead.

It's wierd though. The two classes which are supposed to use powers (officers and psions) will use them more often (but still rarely) than the classes who don't.. but surely the difference is only as far as the XML? Would jacking up psionicpower to something like 90 or 100 be a step forward?

I suspect it's something that's hidden in the newer AI code and out of our reach (for now), but it's still worth a try, I suppose.

Great work there, absolutely love the ferals! Is there a simple way to put just them in the game?