|
Post by strangeguy on Jan 2, 2013 10:05:45 GMT -5
I decided to start my modding with this Total Conversion where you lead a small inquisitorial kill-team through cultist and mutant infested area, but it is was probably a bit ambitious and in some ways I didn't really try- the map is the cataclysm one with some buildings of my own. Consider this an early version, there's certainly a lot of ways it could be improved (though whether I can and will I'm not so sure). For instance one guaranteed building has one enemy whose reaction fire is ridiculously deadly despite fairly average stats (compared to aliens anyway), an important and dangerous enemy who for some reason decides to flee and never attack- also due to their only being one entrance their 'fleeing' tends to take them closer to you and make them an easy target. As well as that most inhabitants of that building don't even notice you. I'm also concerned I might have made it a little difficult, does anyone want a couple of PDF members or an arbitrator and a cyber mastiff? You are outnumbered pretty heavily and while you outmatch many of them, others are your equals. A readme is included which contains quite a bit of information, mostly about weapons. It does contain some references for things in the files but not yet in the scenario, so if you wonder why you never encountered something mention that could be the reason, or if it is a weapon quite a lot of them are rare. Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by Kyzrati on Jan 3, 2013 11:37:39 GMT -5
Oh sweet, another total conversion--was so busy yesterday I didn't even see this :/
I'm really busy over the next week or more (with releasing my own mod and then family stuff), but hopefully one of the other guys can help you check this out in the short term. Later on I can help solve the problem with your one dude who just won't behave (read: kill people ;p). That's totally solvable, whatever the cause may be...
Looking forward to trying this one out! And I'm sure with the release of R8.3 you'll have a good source of new ideas and methods to improve on it.
EDIT: Oh, and about the lack of in-game information about objects and the need for external resources to know more, that's a big problem right now since I don't have info screens in the UI yet (waiting on the UI expansion phase), which is one reason I chose to go with fairly typical fantasy content for my own mod--so players can have a fairly good idea what to expect based on their common knowledge of D&D/RPGs (then I just threw in some fun stuff of my own). Good idea to provide that info in a file though. I'd definitely read it to play and/or have it open for reference.
|
|
|
Post by strangeguy on Jan 3, 2013 13:53:45 GMT -5
Slight update- you can now chat with one of the PDF members (the one with the laspistol), I changed the colour of the missile (and grenade) launcher and their ammo since the missiles blending in with the floor in the one place you can reliably find them made them hard to spot, you can actually encounter arbites who were already in the readme of the last version. I reduced how many and how well armed they were from my first attempt since they were far too effective, but they will still do a good job of dealing with local heretics. More daemons are in the files but not encounterable yet- I'll try and find a place for them for next update. Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by 10101 on Jan 5, 2013 12:07:50 GMT -5
Wow, 8 rifts spawning a demon every round. Thats a LOT of demons.. lost the game but don't feel that way. With 4 Furies killed i got nearly the same points back than i lost by losing all my men. Hm. Should i say men? Is a sororita out there?
Should definitly use those special abilities next time.
|
|
|
Post by strangeguy on Jan 5, 2013 13:13:19 GMT -5
Wow, 8 rifts spawning a demon every round. Thats a LOT of demons.. lost the game but don't feel that way. With 4 Furies killed i got nearly the same points back than i lost by losing all my men. Hm. Should i say men? Is a sororita out there? Should definitly use those special abilities next time. Whoops, rifts are meant to be the product of a place that spawned daemons (I don't think invisible props exist until 8.3 otherwise I would have used them) not spawners. I copy pasted the spawning prop changing the name and forgot to remove the special ability. A horde of daemons does seem exciting though, maybe I should spawn more than just 8, though probably not all at once. I've fixed that and changed the scoring system a bit (mutants and cultists were so trivial to deal with but gave the same points as big mutants and cult soldiers). Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by Kyzrati on Jan 5, 2013 13:21:21 GMT -5
Yeah, invisible props are coming in 8.3, and man are they useful for doing all kinds of fun stuff, as you've no doubt seen in Rookie's Tale. That and much better control of scoring, so you'll be able to spruce that up if necessary as well. Still haven't gotten to try this yet--writing up my 8.3 release post right now... though still not ready to release.
I'm going to mention your mod in my release post, btw (if that's okay), just to give a heads up and also see if anyone's interested in stopping by to playtest.
EDIT: Curious and just checked out your readme file--this looks like fun.
|
|
|
Post by 10101 on Jan 6, 2013 4:35:02 GMT -5
Hm, is that intended? Ok,ok, i see it IS intended.. should really talk to people first. Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by 10101 on Jan 6, 2013 15:08:32 GMT -5
I hardly know the Imperial Army or the Inquisition, but should't the Guard be the tough guys with the better equipment and the Fanatics those with flamer and meeleweapon and a lot of enthusiasm? It's because those Guardsmen are so weak. They can't even reliable hold a rocketlauncher (and 2-3 rockets and a laserpistol in the belt)
Second Point: 8.3 will do a lot of good to this mod for modifying the moraleffects alone. I have the impression that a lot of cultists and mutants leave their weapons behind being in panic. If they wouldn't, the game would be MUCH more difficult. (might perhaps need 1-2 more Guardsmen or Fanatics)
|
|
|
Post by strangeguy on Jan 6, 2013 15:57:51 GMT -5
I hardly know the Imperial Army or the Inquisition, but should't the Guard be the tough guys with the better equipment and the Fanatics those with flamer and meeleweapon and a lot of enthusiasm? It's because those Guardsmen are so weak. They can't even reliable hold a rocketlauncher (and 2-3 rockets and a laserpistol in the belt) I was going for a fanatical strength sort of thing (though that doesn't really benefit fanatics much with their small inventory space) and leaving guardsmen with fairly poor strength as they aren't the best warriors, but seeing how I gave most weapons higher weight than XCOM equivalents and they aren't conscripts or PDF it would make sense to give them a bit more.
|
|
|
Post by Kyzrati on Jan 6, 2013 19:42:56 GMT -5
The main thing to remember with strength is that it also has to balance out with cell/prop "firmness" which is the strength required to smash through it. I like to define several key levels of strength where I know that if someone has that much, they'll be able to break through a certain number/type of obstacles. This is mostly an issue for the player since they have full control over smashing--the AI only actively uses it if you tell them to in entities.xt.
You can also set firmness to -1 which means no amount of strength will break through it. (And of course that value really only matters if a cell/prop blocks movement in the first place.)
|
|
|
Post by strangeguy on Jan 8, 2013 20:40:15 GMT -5
This is mostly just an update to 8.3 and now as a stand-alone, though there have been some minor changes some using new 8.3 features. Converting to 8.3 hasn't been too much of a hassle, though I've gotten a weird problem where I can't select the new modpack notepad++ as a default program for the files when I had no problem doing so for the old one. Not a major problem so I'll keep on at it and use more 8.3 features. I was considering having a chance of a god specific cult HQ and church instead of undivided and that now seems possible but since I can't change the global spawns without a new scenario I think I'll design a building for each that has a chance of spawning one as well as the undivided buildings. I wanted to attach the stand alone but it went over the maximum file size. You will have to either try to assemble it into your own standalone (I used the Rookies tale file structure) or use the batch file from older versions if you want to have it as a mod (or just edit the batch file yourself). Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by Kyzrati on Jan 9, 2013 6:41:48 GMT -5
I've gotten a weird problem where I can't select the new modpack notepad++ as a default program for the files when I had no problem doing so for the old one. Very strange. Didn't you just copy it over your old one? If you can't solve it, you can continue to use the old one (if you still have it) and I can tell you how to update it manually by just copying over the 3 files or so that changed. I was considering having a chance of a god specific cult HQ and church instead of undivided and that now seems possible but since I can't change the global spawns without a new scenario I think I'll design a building for each that has a chance of spawning one as well as the undivided buildings. Good idea. One way to create a greater volume of content is to make your collection of important areas, then after you're sure it's got no issues just copy it several times, then modify each one so that it's somewhat different, and put unique content in each. I used that method a few times in Rookie's Tale. Alternatively, it's also possible to use a series of conditional statements in spawning.xt to create alternate versions of content in a single area--without copying the area, though it may not be as intuitive. Something like <50%>...<IF>...<IF>...<IF>...<ELSE>...<IF>...<IF>...<IF>..., which will have a 50% chance of executing all the first set of lines, otherwise it does the second set starting from <ELSE>. I wanted to attach the stand alone but it went over the maximum file size. You will have to either try to assemble it into your own standalone (I used the Rookies tale file structure) or use the batch file from older versions if you want to have it as a mod (or just edit the batch file yourself). Since stand-alones are too large to attach, I would suggest test/sample versions on our forum be uploaded using the traditional add-on mod method including batch file for convenience. We should all have the proper X@COM release ready to just drop mods in and run them anyway. I'm just converting mods to stand-alones for official release so it's more convenient for general public consumption. I was just worried about the potential negative impact of having to upgrade old mods that don't really need it; since versions can change quite a bit we don't want to be introducing new problems and borking older mods which should still be perfectly playable.
|
|
|
Post by strangeguy on Jan 9, 2013 15:13:37 GMT -5
It seems like changes to item spawning in 8.3 meant enemies and loot had weapons spawning empty so a quick version to fix that (and properly set up as a mod again). I wasn't able to get the AUTO ammo designation that the M3 changelog mentions working so I had to put in the correct ammo for each weapon which was a bit of a pain but it's done now and won't be that hard to do when adding more weapons, especially now I am using global lists for some things. It does contain some other changes I was working on, some enemies will now speak when up close to you, hopefully not too often. Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by Kyzrati on Jan 9, 2013 19:43:19 GMT -5
I didn't use AUTO myself, but tested it when added and it worked fine I believe. Something as simple as [ITEM]"gunname|ammoname" doesn't load the ammo? I'll fix that soon if so. Or is it specifically not working with [ITEM_ADD] or the entity equipment [ITEM] designation? I assumed I'd added it to all three places, but perhaps it's incompatible with one or more of them.
|
|
|
Post by strangeguy on Jan 9, 2013 20:40:28 GMT -5
Maybe I'm just using it wrong but using say [GLIST_GEAR_CULTIST]"Stubber|AUTO" doesn't work, neither does [ITEM_ADD]"Multi-laser|AUTO" or [ITEM]"Missile Launcher|AUTO" as examples I just tried out.
|
|