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Post by strangeguy on Apr 10, 2013 18:05:53 GMT -5
While I should probably actually finish a mod, I was just too tempted to put the ideas of some mech designs I'd thought of a few years back actually into something. So this mod was born. While containing mechs it still features infantry with you getting more of them than mechs to make up for their vulnerability and low firepower. Currently an early version, everything seems to work fine but most things are fairly simple and could be improved. Had one test game, which proved far to easy so I increased enemy spawns. Will need some more difficultly balanced in the future. Again readme contains a lot of information, though enough should be obvious or quickly figured out that it should be possible to play without it. Attachments:
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Post by 10101 on Apr 11, 2013 1:40:25 GMT -5
That's a nice one. You might use the gamesounds as for most of that weaponary some adequat sound is found. Look for the Sectopod for footsteps.
Perhaps you should speed up the animation for those HMGs as bursts with more than 3 projectiles take their time.
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Post by strangeguy on Apr 11, 2013 6:23:32 GMT -5
That's a nice one. You might use the gamesounds as for most of that weaponary some adequat sound is found. Look for the Sectopod for footsteps. Definitely, I only just quickly converted to 9.0 for mutation retaining health so once I work out the sound system I should be able to add it fine. There are a few odd weapons which will probably miss sounds, but it shouldn't be too big a deal. Perhaps you should speed up the animation for those HMGs as bursts with more than 3 projectiles take their time. I've found them taking too long myself, so I should try and do something about it. I've not really done anything with the projectiles other than use already existing ones and recolours of them but it shouldn't be too hard to just speed up a bit.
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Post by 10101 on Apr 11, 2013 12:02:17 GMT -5
You might try that one: Heavy_AP_Debris2 GEN CONST 400 100 SINE 80 200 0 1 A_SYM - 50 1 SET gray_8 - - - SCALE - 1.0 SINE- - NONE - - - - NONE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Heavy_AP2 PRO INF 0 0 CONST 20 0 0 1 DIRECT |/-\|/-\ - 1 SET gray_8 - - - NONE - - - - NONE - - - - NONE - - - - Heavy_AP_Debris2 DEATH - 0 5 0 - - - R_XY - - 0 - - - - -
It's a good amount faster. If you compare it to the original one you'll see i only changed a single number. So, if you want to adjust some more projectiles, you'll know where to look for
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Post by strangeguy on Apr 25, 2013 16:03:11 GMT -5
Minor update, adds more of a scoring system, more randomized enemy numbers, bit of messing with particle speeds and just so there is something interesting a new version of an old foe, the Longhorn minotaurs have earned their horns in combat and have a bit better stats, though their mostly outdated versions of the mech have vulnerable fuel tanks liable to explode when badly damage and weak rear armour for a short ranged medium mech. It does have better front armour to make up for this. Attachments:
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Post by Kyzrati on Apr 26, 2013 20:14:53 GMT -5
WHOA. This popped up while I was gone and I've been so busy since returning I didn't even see it (new threads don't pop up often so I don't catch them right away...). I love mech games (long-time BT fan and the only AAA game I play right now is MWO), and have always wanted to make one myself.
I'll definitely find some time to play this and provide you with more input. Right now I'm working on a "secret project" I'll be posting about soon. (The "secret" not being all that amazing, really, just an unannounced diversion needed for future X@COM development.)
If you do use sounds, I could possibly put together some more for the "stranger weapons" of which you speak. Also, you'll notice in the sounds.xt that I made several more mech movement sounds than I actually used myself (for the HWPs in Ground Zero), _A, _B, _C... etc., so you could add some variety by using those. The FARM release currently has the most complete sound pack since I added the tank treads for 10101.
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Post by Kyzrati on Apr 30, 2013 21:15:51 GMT -5
Finally got a chance to try this out today and I love it.
Enemy Minotaurs can be freaking devastating! My unit started close to one and I lost almost all my infantry in the first two rounds to flamethrowers spewing fire all over the place. Then quite a few mechs started arriving and my Executor cleaned them up pretty well single-handedly. That mech's pretty devastating itself, and plowed through lots of enemies until coming up against an MK8 having already lost a lot of armor, and died to several rail shots. The MK8's kinetic shield is cool.
After that all I had left was a couple infantrymen, and they were pretty much useless against all the mechs patrolling about--dropped four primed grenades in succession under a Long-Horn and still couldn't take it out. (My other two mechs were lost to long-range rail fire early on.)
It would've gone better had we not started in such an exposed location (plus the adjacent Minotaur ;p), and we were definitely outgunned, but the challenge made it more interesting.
The primary thing that's missing are sounds for many of the new weapons, and infantry movement as well. I'd like to help put together more sound effects for this, but that'll have to wait until I'm a little less busy.
The lore is also great, and we really need to get that into the game itself rather than the readme file. The upgraded UI will have in-game UFOpaedia access, which I believe we'll get in R10.
I'll definitely need to play this some more--though I'll wait until we get some more sounds in there.
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Post by strangeguy on May 1, 2013 7:41:30 GMT -5
Glad you enjoyed it. What with explosions getting a lot of hits against multi-tiles like mech, since I've made them tall it can go all the way to eight, they are mostly pretty weak so I'm not surprised the Long-Horn survived, still looking at the numbers it could do serious damage if you went for under and rear armour, and got lucky. This also makes the explosions a bit rubbish at destroying terrain compared to normal attacks. I also made the explosions small but decided that was unneeded so wanted to increase them all for next version, but I didn't think of the start where you are packed close together. Minotaurs are already nasty for your infantry without giving them more of a fire radius so I'll need to make more changes somewhere or revert things.
I have noticed how exposed you usually are is a problem, that I may have to do something about. Possibly just stick them in a building like purification, or could have some cars you can use for cover, or reintroduce smoke grenades and make them common.
I hadn't even worked out how to enable sounds in my mod until today, so the next version will take a bit longer than I though as I'll try to get everything sorted out for that.
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Post by Kyzrati on May 1, 2013 8:03:37 GMT -5
Ah, I didn't use your included batch file so I was playing with full sound on using my own default settings--I didn't realize you hadn't even attempted to add any sound yet at all Saw it was 9.0 and thought you may have already done that. For most of the new sound effects stuff you can just copy whole blocks of values from the latest EmptyMod or Ground Zero. The materials should be pretty much the same stuff you're using, same with props and cells etc. I could've used a bit more strategy and perhaps done better, but having just started I was mostly interested in just seeing what was out there. Still more mechs and units I didn't even get to face off against (or use). I wouldn't say the Minotaur is necessarily overpowered, though if desired you can attempt to prevent certain enemies from spawning too close to the arrival area (esp. if it's exposed) by possibly creating some buffer areas (copies of existing areas even) that have few or no spawned entities and generally attach themselves to the arrival area itself. I see even though your squad spawns on a map edge, it also requires road adjacency, which means that at best you'll still have 3 of 5 adjacent areas being open terrain. Perhaps it'd be enough to just make it impossible for parks to be placed next to the spawn area, then you always have at least something on your flanks. When I played I had roads and parks around me, which is why it was too open; a house on either side would've been plenty. Obviously it's nice and makes sense to start near a road.
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Post by strangeguy on May 4, 2013 16:15:26 GMT -5
Next version is here. Big change is sounds, most things have sounds that fit pretty well though some less so. There are other changes, the starting area will generally be less exposed and I've increased explosion sizes though haven't done any rebalancing except for the mortar. Still I hadn't really balanced things in the first place, so it shouldn't be too disruptive. I've also added the Scylla, the third in the Hydra/Gorgon family. It exchanges their power and accuracy for a firing rate that puts anything bar the Jackal to shame, still with more power than most fast firing weapons. In making it I realised to be less accurate than the Hydra it would have to be very inaccurate, and fixed that meaning the Hydra should be a bit more deadly now. Attachments:
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Post by Kyzrati on May 4, 2013 19:19:48 GMT -5
If you could give me a list of sounds that are completely missing, and others that you think are very lacking/inappropriate, that'd be a great help so I don't have to find/judge them all for myself. Would be nice to polish this up and actually release one of your mods one day ;p
No rush since I think this would be a better candidate for an R10+ releases in which players can see the lore, and I'm not really sure when R10 will be out since I have yet to even start on it (it's going to entail some heavy work). I wouldn't do a mod myself for R10, so perhaps Union could be a good simultaneous launch to give people a reason/way to try out R10 with some new content.
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Post by strangeguy on May 25, 2013 22:00:56 GMT -5
Version 0.55 is here. Adds a UPF bunker defended by some guards on mounted guns, a few other guards with more varied weaponry as some are dismounted mech pilots or the like, and a mech often a normal one but sometimes not. Currently seems to be appearing in every map which wasn't really my intention. Also I'm wondering if I'm missing a way to have the area something can spawn in be across multiple pieces of a multi-part building or that's just something missing. I added Special Forces, top quality infantry using either an improved version of the heavy rifle with an underslung grenade launcher fired by 'u'sing it or so they can carry explosives using a lighter weapon in their carbine, a shortened close range version of the assault rifle. Was going to have a small strike team spawn after a few turns when there was a bunker but wasn't sure I'd be able to spawn them properly equipped using special abilities so they are just another possibility when infantry spawn. In other infantry news a real heavy sniper rifle was added and the heavy one renamed just sniper rifle. Not massively different, but heavier, smaller clip, more accurate with the slowest fire and most damage of infantry non-rocket launchers. Thought it would be weird giving infantry access to slightly better guns and not mechs, so added to Coyote. Better ammo, guns modified for firing that and improve armour make it more effective than the Jackal but also more expensive so are only rarely found used by more experienced Jackal pilots. Attachments:
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Post by Kyzrati on May 26, 2013 0:55:00 GMT -5
Nice!
The new bunker will appear in every map because the game will always try to insert at least some 2X2 areas if there is space for them--they don't really follow all the same rules used for selecting 1X1 due to additional space considerations (see steps 7/8 under map generation in the modding guide; that and the subsequent "Area Size" explanation). The original intent was to help balance out map layouts in Cataclysm, but I never went back to add extra limitations to broaden the use of the larger areas. Essentially if you design 2X2 areas there will always be some on the map. One way to avoid always generating a bunker is to create more alternate 2X2 areas, even simply ones like open field, parking lot, or park area, and make them mutually exclusive with the bunker, so the generator will only pick one (just put a limit of 1 on each, and make them all mutually exclusive).
Note that for 3X3 areas, because there are generally even fewer of them, I did add a way to limit them to possibly none in a given map. Ideally the same should be possible with 2X2, but I'm not going to update the system any more until there's a map editor.
About the spawning across multi-part buildings, you're right, it's a missing feature. The only workaround I can think of is to use weighted spawning for those areas, but it's somewhat limiting because 1) you only have so many weighted areas to work with (not really an issue in your case since you don't have a huge number of large areas), and 2) you won't be able to set the AI to wander the local area--only guarding and map wander would be available/valid options. I'll lift these restrictions with the map editor.
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Post by strangeguy on Aug 3, 2013 10:52:47 GMT -5
Next version is ready. You may have noticed it has jumped all the way to v1.0, not because I added a lot or are definitely finished but because I've ran out of things I was definitely going to do. Everything should be working fine, but I doubt it is very well balanced and some of my attempts to add variety might be redundant or unfitting. There is possibility of me coming up with more to add, and putting more variety into the maps is an obvious improvement though one of my least favourite bits so don't expect too much. Now onto what's added. Damaged and ruined variants of the bunker as well as a 2x2 park area for more map variety, enemy heavy mech which causes one of your to spawn in a few turns if present. Your enemy now has elite power armoured infantry. Executors advanced shields can now be changed between 3 modes, either as now, kinetics shields that you've seen elsewhere, or absorption shields that can reduce damage taken but is worse at completely preventing it. You can have troops wielding experimental plasma rifles giving them a powerful close range punch but lacking burst, long range and forcing them to wear armour to protect them against overheating rather than other threats. Attachments:
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Post by Kyzrati on Aug 4, 2013 0:12:06 GMT -5
Cool, I'll have to try out this new version. Seeing as how you've added most of what you wanted to and brought it to 1.0, want me to put this one up on the blog? Not a lot of people get to try out the forum version since there are only a tiny number of members here, but there's definitely a good bit more players who download mods from the files page (though none very vocal at this point since we don't have a general forum).
I was really hoping to have in-game UFOpaedia-like info support ready to help show off more of what you've done, since it would really help integrate the lore and details you provide for the world, but at the same time there are so many other things that should ideally be done before implementing that...
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