anUser

I've just thought that this trick can be used as a way to fake extra arguments for custom function calls, like firaxis did in BuildItems with that category variable... call me dumb, but I didn't thought of this at first and now it seems so great to me :)

so you just call it using the same hex code it had in it's function? Anyway it's indeed a great finding, I remember discarding a project because I didn't have a counter variable to iterate an array

I see this opening an entire new game level by making psi abilitis a major factor. If i recall correctly it is impossible to mind controll an ehereal unless you cheat... but if a soldier could gain will when using psi abilities you could end having to train a soldier in will so you can mind controll an ehtereal. Extra requirements, first autopsiing it, then capturing it and interrogating it, that would enable mind controlling it... Its already hard to kill them, trying to capture them and all the failed attempts... btw, what about reducing mind control range? Could it be limited only for xcom soldiers? I guess they all use the sameability

I like the idea of more aliens per pod and less pods. Whats the default behaviour if you dont mod it? Low level aliens seem to come in pack, but sectopods, cyberdisks and ethereal have scouts... drones or muton elite. Could it be made so every pod contains any randomly choosen alien type from those already available due to date? And is that 5 number some sort of limit or can it be increased to face 9 aliens pod?

Hey, Ive got a few things to say, Ill try to be brief and dont miss any. Sry for bad writting, onscreen keyboard. Manually placed links, i was thinking something like in the utorials page highlight the howto install mods, howto mod and howto write wiki artilcles, nothing else Notes page, i vote for creating a raw, unprocessed data section or category for such files. Dont get me wrong, they are useful but ideally Id love to have the original function involved in each mod decompiled and hex code brokn down... and then from the oriinaal function link to that version or write the altered code in the same function plage... if it ever happens that 2 or more mods use the same function differently we just list their reespective code there. Again, the first time ill want to implement amineris mod ill follow the mod page, but the 2nd or 3rd ill want to jump to the function I know I have o edit... so I d hate having to navigate to get there. If by now, until all the data gets processed i have to im ok with that but i dont think thats gotta be some sort of basis to structure data in the wiki Im ok with not listing every function in the main XCOM category, but Id limit to max 1 step to reach ANYTHING, 2 for very specific content... 3 it gets lost, imo

hmm .. making it configurable is quite a challenge. I suggested somewhere else (or was it this thread?) creating new ini entries for each alien to store perks for each alien. I like Yzaxtol's idea of giving more specialization to each alien, but I'd also like some variety, so an ideal solution (at least for me) would be having 2 extra entries for alien (optional, and in any order if possible), so for each alien it has a pool of up to 7 perks that would be granted just for being of that class (leaving a setting to 0 wouldn't grant perk), and in the other entry there's 6 perks (perk ID) and a value that could be used to choose (up to) how many of those perks are selected. an example: Characters=(iType=22, // ID for the alien HP=3, // pick up to 3 perks from the list at random Offense=2F, // perk Covering Fire Defense=XX // some other perk, Mobility=0, SightRadius=0, Will=0, Psionics=0, CritHitChance=0, CritWoundChance=0, FlightFuel=0, Reaction=0, (...) ... but I think I'll go with a hand-coded mix of custom and random perks per alien by now maybe there could be a way to group common perks among aliens and grant an amount of them proportional to the time elapsed since invasion started, a la: while (I < days elapsed / factor vaule) {pick perk at random; I++} so that could be covered in a single block and then manually place those perks unique to certain aliens...

new psi power... swap heads with an alien! Thanks for the info, I'm fine by now with heavies carrying the rocket tube and regular rifle

Excellent finding! I really hope it doesn't tell you particular perks of each alien when you aim at them, that'd spoil most of the fun... approaching a harmless sectoid with the arc thrower and it turns out it had close combat specialist... that perk Vengange sounds good for some tough or resentful alien, rapid reaction and sentinel could be a real surprise too if they worked on aliens, ... ready for anything, bullet swarm, double tap (if unrestricted), not sure if the AI would make use of it, that'd be cool to have too.

snap shot works with rockets too, in their face! bear in mind that danger zone and mayhem affect both rockets and machineguns, I like them more for machineguns though, on rockets it's kinda overpowered, that's the good thing about using different classes. For some time I played with machineguns on heavies, and without rockets, and leaving the second slot empty kind of feels right, since I assume a machinegunner must carry tons of ammo, so no backup choice for heavies, is fair enough to me. If keeping this idea of assigning roles to heavies, rocket+pistol vs machine gun + nothing else would seem a fair trade to me. The problem I had is that when using the rocket launcher from any slot that is not it's proper heavy slot, animations get messed and the tubes aren't in the back but hanging from the belt, so they seem to impale the soldiers, and equipping more than one would display them all... in the end the best place for it seemed to me it's original heavy 'special' slot... just FYI In the Zone should belong to mg and/or units with low mobility imo. That's also a reason to separate rockets and mg in different classes or roles, one can blow up cover and the other provide massive fire @Amineri, you could make that firing both regular or shredder rocket consumes both charges, and reloading gives again 1 of each, depending on the perks the unit's got it'll be able to fire regular or shredder rockets.

I've always thought it'd be cool if the covering fire perk would allow the reaction shot to take place *before* the alien shots, I'd love to see a muton handing a grenade and getting shot down right there before throwing it... would the grenade explode there? Now that we know there are plenty of unused perks maybe that can be made in a different perk, obviously a much superior one, more fitting for higher levels. I haven't searched for the code responsible for the covering fire perk or anything, I may eventually do it, but I thought I'd toss the idea here. Combined with regular Covering Fire and Sentinel or rapid fire and nobody'll dare to shoot you

Thank you so much dubious, you've done great. I know the time and dedication it takes so it's much appreciated. I must admit I haven't made much use of the wiki yet, I'm not researching or modding much lately, so maybe I'm not yet entire familiarized with the wiki and that's why I couldn't find things at first, but I'd like to make a suggestion related to categories to improve navigation. - Categories are arranged in a hierarchical and not necessarily symetrical manner (this is already done). - Each article (page, not category) belongs to ALL the categories in it's "category tree" (ie if the "path" were Category:XCOM, Category:XCOM Modding) then the article would have these two categories, the more nested the path the more categories it belongs to. - Highlighted/selected content of each category is manually linked in the category page itself (the text inserted shows before the boxes with sub-categories and the one with articles) The reason to do so is to avoid that in the attempt to make content more accessible and ordered some of this content ends in fact being harder to reach. The point is avoiding "navigating through a path" to reach some content and instead giving the user the perception that content is ordered in a hierarchical manner, in a way that the content of some category is also available to the categories above... so if you just see a bunch of links, hundreds of them, or maybe thousands, and you don't locate by name the page you want, you just need to *narrow down* the results, via accessing a subcategory. I stress it, because there's a singnificant difference between narrowing down, or filtering the content, and accessing another page with different content. I honestly think that it's much more clear that way I'm saying, even if the cost is that the main categories would end up cluttered with links. There's always the option to manually write some links in the category page itself to direct users to most relevant stuff, or maybe the article with the same name as the category can be used to explain what is in that category. Well that's just my opinion, I'd like to hear yours if you think this matter is still open to debate or whatever thoughts you may have concerning accessibility, maybe it's just me that didn't get it right when navigating. Anyway, thank you all who contribute to the wiki, it's looking pretty good :)

Excellent job. I've already implemented it, I'll try it out next time I play. ps: any chance to interfere with team strategy... like forcing a dash move if alien options are poor and there's many xcom overwatching and in range and still many aliens are pending on getting a task assigned and they're also in range of the same xcom (no longer) overwatching units... maybe a simple one, decreasing grenade priority per each alien taking action, or increasing it for near alien units that haven't taken an action yet (making the AI somehow considers how much use of that grenade they'd make considering it blows up cover, so it allowed for more deadly combos) I'd love to see those, even if that would make them more predictable, it would also make them more deadlier so it wouldn't matter much, if you're caught at grenade range against many enemies is to be expected a casualty or more unless you've played it well... about the altruist kamikaze I'm not entirely sure how it'd play, I guess it'd be cool... rapid reaction and sentinel would be god then

This reminds me of many old shooter games where there's a kind of soldier that's the one able to carry big weapons, ... probably the developers had similar thoughts when creating that flamethrower weapon. Honestly I like rockets being one-use items, it seems to me it'd be too much to have unlimmited rockets, although just for fun I'd love to get on overwatch with the rocket launcher loaded ready for anything that pops out I've taken a completely different approach here in trying to balance weapons, but it's all tangled and correlated. I've always considered a machinegun was such a key element in a squad that it cannot allow himself not using the mg in his turn, ... and I really like the concept of a support class, but a medic class in a 4 wo/men squad seems excessive to me, so what I've done is making that support class gets the machinegun, so it becomes machinegunner, heavies now become the "tools guy", explosives, rockets, smoke grenade, etc, and assault and sniper remains more or less the same ... and NO MEDIC (ie no Savior or Field medic perk). It's a bit rough, but it's pretty challenging. I'm expecting that in a more evolved scenario with consumible items and more inventory slots available, it'd be pretty fair if by the last missions you equip each unit with as many medikits as possible. But again this relates to my weapon config, where pistols and rifles have long range aim penalty just like shotguns, so the chances of taking a hit are lower but the consequences are higher. And btw, re-assigning classes this way I could give the eWP_Heavy tag to rifles and not machineguns, that now only have the Support tag, so now machineguns have to reload after 4 shots, and rifles and pistols after 3 shots, as it should have been from the beginning. You see I may be using weapons in a different manner than you do, for me the machinegun is essential to pin down targets and hold the line with covering fire, while other tools suchs as explosives are used to ease the way, or as a last resource/special move. Well I'm sry I've rambled and I haven't been very supportive towards your suggestion, I just don't see it quite fitting my taste :P I think there's ppl that have already played with rocket launchers as main weapon, I assume it's just a matter of ini settings and maybe some check in isWeapon or some other place of the sort, and as for giving the heavies a pistol slot, I think you're already familiar with the code... so you'll tell us if it works and it's fun. happy modding!

I'm sorry I can't give any insight, there's just too much code for me to catch up, and I see you're doing pretty well so far. So is the aim still making aliens don't skip their turn, is it all so tangled, or are you planning some other enhancements? I must say I'd love seeing aliens performing dash moves inteligently, but just fixing the skipt turn bug would be great, preferably with an easy way to switch between fire / overwatch or 50/50, if that is possible (easy way I mean 1 hex edit or 2).

Excellent work Amineri for the discoveries and mods and bokauk for making them abailable to the public, you ppl rock I know what Ill say is a bit offtopic, related to custom perk trees... I've played a bit redefining classes, for heavies or whatever class has the rocket launchernis a bit cruel not giving them the fire rocket, cause they will have the launcher anyway. And in my attempt to unlock bullet swarm for all classes I made the ready for anything perk can be used after moving and firing, quite powerful now, I assigned it to support but I may keep it as it is for assault at the same level as rapid fire or close comb spec. Repeating perks can already be done with defautl perk trees. I gave support 2nd choice either smoke grenade orfield medic, and then give them the same choice at lvl 5 or 7, so it will automatically choose the other unselected perk. It's pertty cool in the sense you kind of choose a path and youll be stick to it for a few missions, if those choices can be corrected next level you quite emove the payoff for chosing somthing instead of something else. Keep up the good work, this promises lots of nice combinations

Nice JL I'll try it out. Maybe it'd be possible to add a 50/50 chance using bool implicit casting. Ive already tested that in updateItemCharges, ala return max (whatever *( bool conditon, either 0 or 1)). Not sure if it would affect somehow turning negagive values to 0 though

Exploring now this approach of removing items from storage once equipped. If I stand correct it can be achieved with minor changes to 4 functions plus re-writting a big one to still empty the inventory slots "on the fly" as the abilities are used. The idea is to make it simple and consistent, so it doesn't need a special code to run on mission end (that was an issue I had with previous version, because when cancelling a mission before taking it, just stepping back to barracks or so would trigger the code for the skyranger returning to base, to that's something to avoid). Whatever, my plan now is: - during tactical game, in XGAbilityTree.ApplyActionCost, still reduce the m_iFragGrenades variables (ie num charges available), and call that TInventorySmallItemsSteItem(0) that empties the inventory slot. - then on the strategy game, in XGFacility_Lockers, edit EquipSmallItem so it removes it from storage, and UnequipSmallItem adds it back. I guess this functions are called when equipping the soldiers in the barracks view and mission select. This would decopensate the number of "claimed items" and those actually present in the inventory, but as far as I can tell I haven't noticed if this could have any impact on the game, since inventory slots would be empty and ready to be filled, and item charges depend on the number of items in inventory, as per the UpdateItemCharges edit. In any case that difference would be corrected once the unit were injured and sent to infirmary after a battle, in which case the ReleaseLoadout function would be called and that one would call in turn a helper function ReleaseSmallItems that in conjunction would clean wipe the inventory and claimed items array, and only add back to storage those items really presents in the inventory. Here's the intended code: ... now that I think of it... maybe the claimed items issue isn't solved this way ... I'll keep working on the ApplyActionCost function by now, any idea is welcome.

This are indeed terrible news, but it's good to know how it works and what are the limitations. I'll try to think of some way to remove the items later in the strategic game, the problem is how to tell which item to remove if it's no longer present in the inventory... I'm thinking maybe there's a way to substract from the recovered items array so in the end of the mission it showed negative values for the items you've used, if that is then mapped/added to the storage array it may be a way to go "on the fly" without editting strategic game, if that's possible, or some workaround of the sort, making soldiers carry a negative amount of items. I recall seeing some code to check for multiple items *inside* one single inventory slot, not sure if there's anything workable of it.

Making some progress here with consumible items. I've got (almost) all the code written, but there's a couple of things I couldn't solve, so I'd like to ask our modders if they can help. Code: The problems I'm hitting are: - getting kAbility.kUnit.m_iFragGrenades and other XGUnit inherited variables. I'm using as a template the kAbility.m_kUnit.m_bInfiniteGrenades call, replacing the 2D (boolVar) for 2C (int)... but I couldn't find the reference to the variables. I've looked for them but they aren't "called" from XGAbilityTree... so, do you ppl know some trick to know beforehand an instance variable reference code like there is for functions? - I need to call a function in XGStorage from XGAbilityTree.ApplyActionCost but I have no idea how to do that... - I could use a call to XGFacility_Lockers.UnequipSmallItem, because that function calls ReleaseItem and TInventorySmallItemsSetItem, but it requires as argument an XGStrategySoldier, and I'm not sure it can be retrieved from there or how. Any tip or hint is much appreciated

that's really interesting. Using this approach the dynamic stats mod could be tweaked to use several layers of quality for each alien and time progression could just make it so it pushes random choices to higher levels, a la: stats layer = Alien ID + 21 * ( Rand(3) + int(DaysPassed / AlienUpdateTime) ), so there's still randomness and enemy progression. Taking it further, this trick could also be used to give each alien a pool of (up to) 7 perks to choose from, and again, with several layers per alien ... I'm pretty busy as well coding other stuff, I haven't yet implemented DR or regeneration effects (I wanted to code it myself once I finished spendable items ... sooon, very soon :S), but definitively if no one else takes the initiative to mod this out it'll be good to remember this thread :)

Regarding not being able to select the same perk multiple times, it's completely ok. I'm thinking an easy implementation of this dynamic inventory could be done just making armor grants 0 slots, soldiers get 1 slot when getting a class assigned (SetClass function) and later make deep pockets the only choice in some higher rank, like the sole option in rank 6 (using default trees). And as for those perks that give free items, in any case I was planning to make a unit can select them more than once each. That isn't a feature I'm looking for, I was just considering it as a possible implementation in case you'd code it soon; if it isn't in your plans don't do it just because of this. I'm currently trying to code the spendable items solution I posted here, which actually involves rewritting entirely the XGAbilityTree.ApplyActionCost function. I'm still gathering pieces of code, but I think space won't be a problem, current code can be squeezed a lot. But the approach I'm using has some limitations, first is that it doesn't allow 2 items performing the same action, so that weaker medikit couldn't be implemented as a consumible item with this method. Second, it is assumed that every item grants 1 charge, so using the ability will use up the item; and third, in case the unit had extra items given by some perk, first the unit would spend those in the inventory, and use the free items last. Actualy regarding different items performing the same ability the issue is a little bit more subtle, because we can actualy know the weapon that activated it, but there wouldn't be any way for the player to tell which item s/he's using. I'll think of some way to add a double check for two-version items, anyway I think I can live with those limitations, and in conjunction with this crude dynamic inventory implementation I've described here I think the result may be pretty good.

Good point. I like both soldiers getting inventory slots as they rank up, and that backpack item for rookies or maybe only for support soldiers, to carry extra smoke grenades and medikits. The truth is I haven't found yet an entirely satisfactory way to compensate multiple item choices with perks and finite storage, so this is also an important factor to consider. I'll sum up my impressions so far with several different settings: - 3 inventory slots by default is too much, even if each item only grants 1 charge (ie, no grenadier, no field medic, no rocketeer). 2 still creates interesting combinations. If "exploited" and picking imo the 2 most powerful items, scope & armor vest, because they grant continuous effect, that still leaves the soldier with no "consumibles" such grenades, medikits, etc. - having to build basic consumible items such as frag grenades and so isn't quite contributing to the strategic aspect of the game, right the opposite, all this popup screens in the geoscape telling you've got 8 or 12 new grenades aren't helping much. Also right at the beginning of the game is when you're more vulnerable so it's when you're in greatest need of extra grenades and armors and so, and it's also when you're funding is lower, so kind of forcing the player to spend money in this isn't quite appealing. On the other hand, I think that on the long run, once the player's income is respectable, having to spend some money on equipment is ok. So my thought now is finding a good amount of initial storage of each item, to make it so if the player makes reasonable use of the storage then that could last enough to allow the player to stabilize his/her economy, but if the player makes intensive use of consumibles then s/he may be in need of buying some more before "stabilizing". - carrying extra charges is a nice option. I mean it's a fair tradeoff when you exchange a scope for an extra rocket, extra arc thrower battery, etc. It makes so you can priorize - Free items given by perks is cool but not with many item slots (I mean making the grenadier perk gives 1 free grenade, smoke & mirrors 1 free smoke grenade, etc). Maybe with dynamic number of item slots this can be an interesting option. I'll give it some more thought to this idea of dynamically expanding soldier's inventory. Right now there are a few possible combinations, either including the Deep Pockets perk several times in the perk tree (assuming we can select the same perk multiple times with Amineri's mod), so each item comes at expenses of an ability; or directly grant the extra item slots as the units rank up, from 0 up to 2 or 3. And this with or without free items from perks.

Hey, welcome to the forum, and thanks for sharing your ideas. I can see how this change has a big impact on gameplay, I'm sure it must be pretty cool when you can perform a perfectly executed ambush and kill all the aliens in a strike without them even taking notice of your presence, but as Yzaxtol pointed out most modders seek for a more challenging experience, and this mod kind of make things (much) easier (although what modders want may not be what players want). Maybe this "mod" combined with increased alien aim and damage can be a fair challenge, either put out the ambush perfectly or pay the slightest mistake... Anyway I'd like to hear from people playing the several options what are their impressions as for playability... this limited xcom visual range reminded me of something someone said in this forum about an earlier version of the game having night-time missions where soldiers had a lower visual range than usual... does it play well? btw, it's appreciated that you'd packed it in a ready-to-go file, but that is a really simple edit you could teach people how to do it themselves as well, since there are many other aspects of the game that can be changed editting the DGC.ini file besides visual range.

all this pieces of code looks the same in my function, except for the sectoid commander that I set to true (it would only check if already was killed by explosives, so just confirming that :) ), the only difference there might be I don't include smoke grenades in the infinite items array. I thought I could've messed something up but the strange thing is that I still get the corpses and weapon fragments from aliens not killed by explosives, so the mod is working, but I get the same number of smoke grenades than sectoid corpses... so I guess they have a smoke grenade item in their inventory, or I'm adding it to them... the only possible case is if they run the UpdateItemCharges and they have the "smoke and mirrors" perk, in that case I'd be giving them a smoke grenade item... is that possible? By the way when implementing the mod I followed the instructions and made that ninja edit, jumps and offsets match yours.

Hey, I just implemented this mod and I've noticed that now I'm collecting smoke grenades from sectoids, but I'm not sure exactly what's happening here 'cause those are added to storage (in engineering each of those items I collect it increases the count of the same smoke grenade item I can manufacture, and I can equip them, but in the tactical game it doesn't report ability charges, although I've checked twice the UpdateItemCharges function and it's ok, item 86, so maybe it's a duplicate item)... btw I haven't tried to capture an alive alien yet, but shouldn't the inventory slots loop be in the kAlien.m_bStunned block? Definitively I'm not collecting plasma pistols from dead sectoids, so I'm clearly quite lost as how this all works... any hint is appreciated.