Anbar
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Posts posted by Anbar
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Thanks Daemonjax! You, dreadylein and the rest are awesome. Its a shame Firaxis hasnt provided any tools or made the game engine/etc less convaluted.
Any thoughts on if my idea would screw up the balance of the game?
It would definitely make things easier, that's for sure. If you wanted to keep it semi balanced, at 100 percent critically wounded chance I'd reduce the time they are wounded to 1 turn (depending on whether that counts the turn they are wounded on, as a turn. If so, then 2).
Maybe even just keep it as one anyway.
last critically wounded i had went
3:
2:
Dead
so 1 would, i assume, mean "revive this turn or deader"
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Personally I would just mod classic to be harder, rather than make impossible easier.
yup, its a lot simpler
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Latest Version: 0.1beta
Download: http://code.google.com/p/xshape/downloads/list
XSHAPE patches your game executable to load modified upk files. You can update the SHA hashes by hand if you want, but this is faster.
now, if ONLY I could find out where the darn game calls the voices from I could add some variety in!
(tomorrow methinks.. time today to play for a little bit instead!..a least with shorter overwatch delay!!!)
top job that person! ¬_¬
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Weapons assume class limitations:
example:
change Assault Rifle to be usable by the sniper soin properties add: eWP_Sniper (sniper can use it)
Having made this change the WEAPON will have the Sniper aim-fall applied to it.
i.e. Assault Rifles will now have a penalty too-hit at close ranges.
Now allow anybody to use the assault_rifle .... Assault_Rifle eWP_AnyClass (properties again)
Now anybody can use the assault rifle, however it will STILL have the sniper aim-fall limitations applied to it, regardless of who/what class is using it.
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With this borne in mind there are some rather clever things that can be done....
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Furthermore, you 'outfit' a trooper - but the trooper keeps the gear on them when they are not loaded into a mission. It's not their 'away loadout' - it's their inventory, thus if you have 6 assault that you rotate in and out of missions depending on your specific needs, you have to juggle their armor or have 6 sets of whatever they have (which is difficult to unlikely depending on what you use especially with heavies and blaster bomb launchers)
not entirely accurate....
any wounded trooper's equipment is always available and if you dont equip a soldier outside of the mission-choice screen then their equipment is always available.
Problem is that the game encourages you to customise your soldiers, which means choosing equipment for them outside of the mission screen....
its kinda half-arsed, as though 2 different people worked on it and could never agree.
"OK, so if a guy gets wounded all of his kit becomes vailable?"
"Great Idea (but i wont use the same theory)!"
odd
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offence is a good example: often the offence bonus given to the weapon, shows up on the F1 in-game stats but fails to add to the actual roll-too-hit percentage.
I'm pretty sure this is not true. The random rolls do seem to be affected by offense bonuses; my sniper rifles have +25 offense on them, and either it's working as it should or I've been getting really, really lucky.
hit F1.. take a look at the hit%
The bonus on offence is listed (+5, whatever) but then the too-hit percentile doesnt change.
e.g.
base too-hit 65%
Half cover - 20
Offence +5
Total too-hit = 45%
Whether or not the game ACTUALLY does what it says on F1 - no way to tell.
(edit - i only really just read that and realised you put a+25 too-hit on a sniper rifle...you're not the guy doing the "easier easy mod" are you ? ¬_¬ l)
I have noticed that pistols inherit offense bonuses from the primary weapon, though; my snipers have the same standardized stat progression as my other soldiers, but they're crack shots with pistols because they're getting the +25 offense from the sniper rifles. I tested it by switching out the sniper rifles for assault rifles and their accuracy dropped considerably, both displayed and in practice.
Yeah thats exactly the sort of thing I am talking about - people are out and changing individual weapons traits and *assuming* that they will work *for every weapon* - they dont... just because its in the .ini doesnt mean that modding the numbers produces an actual change "in game". They all need to be tested & verified in-game.
Its a bit like the iTime on items produced in engineering - the .ini has them all listed with build-times..but the "game" ignores those times for everything except for satellites.
Unfortunately, a lot of the time, the only way to "verify" a change is observable data.... but dont be tempted to simply swap a number in the .ini and run it out as a "New feature" or "change" in ones' latest MOD... it might not work.
thats all I'm saying.
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I can watch panic increase on a country that literally nothing has happened in game that I could see, so if it's not a missed UFO, I'm not sure what it is. Either way I was happy to find those values actually buried in the ini file as well. There's not much you can't do by only editing the ini files it seems, short of creating an entirely new ability/item/etc.
ive never seen panic rise in a country or continent unless UFO activity has taken place, such as the 2 out fo the 3 (or 4) un-assaulted abduction missions....rmember their is a continetal panic status on these, as well as country: but i re-ran some saves last night to check and the only areas where panic rose is continents with UFO activity on them (unsighted, but abductions) and the continent and countries the player desires to resolve/assault.
But, ultimately, yeah... theres only so much the ini does and we all really want to get into the iinner workings and really see what is going on.
I mean, intheory items should take time to build - just like satellites do, the build times being listed in the .ini.... clearly something in the code in one of the UPKs is telling the game to ignore those timing, except the satellite one... its very frustrating.
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rather a lot to take in in one go...
the UE Explorer lets me get the names of the constituent ogg files (sounds, voices).... but as i thought previously, without access to changing the object reference i cant substitute one set of voices for another ;-(
still, ALL the other stuff to look through now ;-)
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Ideally I'd love to see a mix of the both, expand on the mod that balances the aim/crit cheats and lets you intercept the abduction mission UFOs while also not giving you a panic penalty for missed UFOs you couldn't detect. Something along those lines.
you dont get a panic penalty for missed UFOs that you dont detect.
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On a hunch, I added eWP_Sniper to the assault rifle's properties. This enabled Squad Sight as well as Precision Shot for my sniper only, who had those perks. While it seems that eWP_AnyClass allows all non-Heavy classes to use a weapon, if you want them to be able to use their class abilities with that weapon you'll need to add the corresponding class specifically.
I noticed the suppression values listed for various weapons as well. They don't seem to do anything.
funny that ¬_¬
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Ive mentioned elsewhere that swinging changes to weapons should be avoided in the assumption that they "work" L often they do not.
offence is a good example: often the offence bonus given to the weapon, shows up on the F1 in-game stats but fails to add to the actual roll-too-hit percentage.
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watch out for second wave features also.
Random stats....
Soldier 1: Will 34 Aim 80
Soldier 2 Will 54 Aim 50
Game assigns Soldier 1 as Heavy & soldier 2 as sniper.
GO figure.
The upshot is that some second wave features turn arguments on their head due to the randomnality of rookie stats AND the fact that the player cannot assign classes.
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SW_SATELLITE_INCREASE=1.45f
the percentage by which the satellites' costs are increased for each satellite produced in this second-wave feature.
i.e. 1.45f means each satellite will cost 45% more than the previous (or 145% if you like).
Sat 1 = 100
Sat 2 = 145
Sat 3 = 210
etc etc.
Tested in second wave features & confirmed working.
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; Main Balance Factors
TECH_TIME_BALANCE=6.66
ITEM_TIME_BALANCE=1
ITEM_CREDIT_BALANCE=1
ITEM_ELERIUM_BALANCE=1
ITEM_ALLOY_BALANCE=1
FACILITY_COST_BALANCE=1
FACILITY_MAINTENANCE_BALANCE=1
FACILITY_TIME_BALANCE=1
; Appears to follow the same multiplier rules as other settings, however I am unsure of TIME BALANCE. The rest make it cost more/less resources to build things vs BASE depending on ; what you set them to. 1 being BASE, 2 being TWO TIMES BASE, 0.5 being half base. and 0 being FREE.
Item time balance is a straight multiplier of the time required to build an item.
e.g. ItemBalance=(eItem=eItem_Satellite,iCash=150,iElerium=0, iAlloys=0, iTime=20, iEng=5)
ITEM_TIME_BALANCE=3 will turn those 20 days into 60 days (tested, verified)
works with percentiles, so item balance = 1.2 will add 20% time to the iTime of each eItem.
(I do not know where, or how, the remainder of the eItem times are disabled, its a darn shame as turning them back on, so items take time to produce, would be a wonderful, wonderful change)
Someone said in another topic that those settings are set in one of the .upk files, which means we can't change it right now. Would be nice to turn it on, as it sort of feels like cheating right now.
nope, works fine (item time balance and tech balance)
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; Main Balance Factors
TECH_TIME_BALANCE=6.66
ITEM_TIME_BALANCE=1
ITEM_CREDIT_BALANCE=1
ITEM_ELERIUM_BALANCE=1
ITEM_ALLOY_BALANCE=1
FACILITY_COST_BALANCE=1
FACILITY_MAINTENANCE_BALANCE=1
FACILITY_TIME_BALANCE=1
; Appears to follow the same multiplier rules as other settings, however I am unsure of TIME BALANCE. The rest make it cost more/less resources to build things vs BASE depending on ; what you set them to. 1 being BASE, 2 being TWO TIMES BASE, 0.5 being half base. and 0 being FREE.
Item time balance is a straight multiplier of the time required to build an item.
e.g. ItemBalance=(eItem=eItem_Satellite,iCash=150,iElerium=0, iAlloys=0, iTime=20, iEng=5)
ITEM_TIME_BALANCE=3 will turn those 20 days into 60 days (tested, verified)
works with percentiles, so item balance = 1.2 will add 20% time to the iTime of each eItem.
(I do not know where, or how, the remainder of the eItem times are disabled, its a darn shame as turning them back on, so items take time to produce, would be a wonderful, wonderful change)
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Yeah I tend toa gree: a lot of decisions make sense and, upon play-testing, pan out sensibly
A lot of "this class is good" is down to play style.. when you see the 2k forums with side-by-side threads one with "SNipers are USELESS!" and the other "SNipers are OVERPOWERED!" then its usually a pretty good sign that the balance is somewhere close to bieng right. ¬_¬
edit: My current bugbear is how easy the game gets strategically after the start which is... usually, the most fun as it is the most challenging.
I dont want to make the start easier as the entire game can then suffer from fatal annui.
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f.ex some guys have modded classic with unlimited ammo weapons "Because they are lasers why do they need ammuntion?"
OK. Good example of where "reality" has no place in game-balancing.... you just removed the ENTIRE dynamic of "when do i reload?!!!".
There then follows "I know, lets double amunition isntead!"
Well, guess what - there is a Foundry condition that already does that... so if you double ammunition at the start, you just quadrupled it by late game and, once again, you have fubar'd the balance/challenge.
OK, i've some advantage, worked in the industry, dev and press, and own a gaming company (table-top) and help other companies design games....
So i have experienced a LOT of isntances where "it should work like that" or "Its cool" completely undermines the challenge in a game, for no other reason than self-edification or a desire to "it works like that in reality".
In reality Craig Harrison shoots you from 2 miles away and you never even get to hear the shot... how is that a challenge?
The "Colonel Craig Harrison", reasonable (especially with raised XP), the Squaddie Craig Harrison - not.
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eCP_Hardened = (NEED MORE INFO)
"Hardened" is what HEAT ammo counters and is a robot attribute.
SHOOT_WHEN_PANICKED=5; This appears to be the "Chance" that your soldiers or other NPC units will attempt to shoot a target (friendly or enmey) when they panic. I believe it is a shortened percent, ; meaning its a 50% chance. However I am not certain and more input is needed.
I concur: i did a fair few tests of this and set at 5 you get an awful lot of panic, set to 1 its rare, set to 0 and ive never seen it occur.
ABDUCTION_LURK_PCT=50SMALL_UFO_LURK_PCT=0
LARGE_UFO_LURK_PCT=50
; I have NO IDEA what these effect.
percentile chance of a UFO hanging around after its stated mission .... i.e. can be spotted and attacked on the geoscape after abduction/terror mission/ etc.
If you up the percentage they stay hanging around the geoscape for some time:
e.g. I had this guy hanging around for quite some time after I had failed to intercept it on its abduction mission (it shot my interceptor down).
I then played the "abduction mission" and completed it - normally the UFO then "dissapears", in this case it spent some time floating around looking all big'n nasty, then ventually buggered off elsewhere.
this is the screen AFTER i had completed the abduction mission, returned to based and done some other stuff...
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8187/8092103739_721980cb9b_c.jpg
MAX_CRIT_WOUND=90; No idea what this setting does. Perhaps it ties into the CritWoundChance in the character stats, again, need more information.
The percentage of the original shot damage value that can contribute to the critical damage....
i.e. in tabletop terms... base damage of 10 means you can get a critical hit of up to 90% (9) meaning total possible damage = 19.
I've lowered this to 50 and critical hits (total damage shown) are lower as anticipated.
Worth bearing in mind that just because your base damage is 10, it doesnt mean you will HIT for 10... you may hit for 5, meaning your critical damage max would then be 4 = 9
(Observed result are therefore still somewhat speculative)
LATE_UFO_CHANCE = 50 ; Chance of Aliens sending out a second UFO in the months after you've defeated the baseEARLY_UFO_CHANCE = 50
UFO_LIMIT = 2
UFO_INTERCEPTION_PCT=66 ; Chance that a UFO will require interception
; Not entirely sure what the above actually effect, the LATE/EARLY UFO seems meaningless to me as I get UFO's all the time, so what KIND of UFO are we talking about here? The UFO ; Limit seems to indicate the number of UFO's that will be active at one time? And the UFO Incterception percent is the random chance a random UFO will appear and need to be shot ; down. Again, need some clarity on these.
Havent entirely worked this out yet but essentially you have UFOs flying around all the time, unseen by the player.
Generally the player gets to see 1 UFO per month with a percentile chance of a second UFO becomming visible, early & late referring to before & after the Alien Base assault mission is completed.
UFO_LIMIT appears to be a cap on the # of UFOs that the player can be given in any month - so if the abduction/terror UFOs are enabled, then you will get the chance to see only 2 total, regarldess of "second-chance" UFOs flying around.
When I upped this to 4 I encountered a "standard" UFO, an abduction UFO, then a third small UFO, which as it raised no other event, I can only assume was a "second chance" UFO (which i shot down and got a mission for).
I had raised both early and late UFO chance to 75.
(again, observable only, so subject to confirmation)
UFO_INTERCEPTION_PCT=66I *think* that this is the percentage that any "Observed UFO" will need to be intercepted by the player i.e. is "made visible" to the player, so even if you get a second-chance UFO you may not need to intercept it - but that is pretty much a guess and only makes a lot of sense if the abduction/terror UFOs were enabled, so it may be legacy code..... Big chunk of guessing in there. :-0
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yeah I think i'm gonna go with daemonjax's...
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I'm going to add it into my mod changes and see how it goes in-game.
yarp, as originally suspected this re-arrangment of stats doesnt work well in-game.
It makes early game far to easy with "super-snipers" the main culprits.
If there is any point in the game where you need the help, it's early game :) still don't want 1 class dominating any aspect.
yes. i agree, but with eraly scope develpment the increase is MASSIVE.
Squaddie 8
Corporal 7
Sergeant 6
SCOPE 10
= 31gain to the too-hit and youa re probably just into April... sniper too-hit now being 96.
Its too much.
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I tried this and can't get it to show up. I used the Modpatcher and changed ENABLE_SECOND_WAVE to = 1 but the option is not there. I also changed Sectoid health to 10 just to test and that worked.
have you completed the game on any difficulty yet? (I made the same mistake!)
Whoops. Not yet. I feel a bit stupid now.
yeah so did I! ;-0
(finished it on xbox, hadnt even really played it on the PC!)
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I tried this and can't get it to show up. I used the Modpatcher and changed ENABLE_SECOND_WAVE to = 1 but the option is not there. I also changed Sectoid health to 10 just to test and that worked.
have you completed the game on any difficulty yet? (I made the same mistake!)
I'm a little worried that something is wrong about it though - after the base attack, I need 2 devices to build the hyperspace relay. Of course the base attack gave me only one. I see two possibilities :
1.bug
2.two base attacks :)
I'm rooting for number 2 ! Still waiting for any sign that it would come up though. My current objective is still to build the relay but that's not gonna happen as is
I'm afraid that it is probably 1 as fwict the marathon change just alters most things by a factor (of 2 by default).
Change the marathon setting to 3.0f and seee if you then need 3 items...
(If you do, then change it to 1.0f) get passed that "Hurdle" then set it back to 2.0f
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yeah i've made changes to some of those stats but what i REALLY need to get at is the method by which increased engineer produce the discount in buildable items....
I.e. i want to reduce the "Massive" cost reduction that engineers produce early-game. those stats wont do it.
Second wave settings can only be used if the player has completed the game once.
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I'm going to add it into my mod changes and see how it goes in-game.
yarp, as originally suspected this re-arrangment of stats doesnt work well in-game.
It makes early game far to easy with "super-snipers" the main culprits.
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Thanks Anbar, that's awesome to see ... I'm not normally one to "cheat" items/stats to the point that the game becomes just a cake walk, it's just that currently I have s sniper with a very high aim score and with a laser/plasma pistol she is already very nearly as good as when wielding her sniper rifle, However it seemed to me that if a person is that good a shot, they should be able to use any weapon realistically, however to make it a little more "realistic" with weight carrying, I figured it you could only apply it to the pistol and/or the sniper rifle the "carry weight" would be more realistic ... So I wouldn't want the to see the ability so you carry say an SMG and Assuallt rilfe, but the pistol/sniper rifle combo doesn't seem to over the top.
I've also recently (after playing a bit more) come the conclusion that its REALLY annoying that all classes don't have a double slot and/or double (or triple) item backpack option/ability, Like the 'nades or medkits
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8048/8092110794_f05eced847_o.jpg
Re pistols etc: I've restricted the Pistol ranges in my own modification to offset the extra abilities being available on them.
I am, at this point, not convinced that weapon changes are taken into account versus class abilities.
i.e. you restrict a pistol to range 10, but can still squad-sight shoot across the map.
I am checking this tonight.
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How did you add the ability to a weapon while restricting it to a specific class? Also, does this work for any soldier of that class, or do they need to have the ability themselves as well?
its in that link to vercengetericks post Pax.
Essentially you can link *any* Ability or a weapon to *any* Property
e.g.
ABILITIES[5]=eAbility_NONE ****** Properties[5]=eWP_None
Ability 5 is linked to property 5 (ability 4 to property 4, etc etc).
Class attributes are then picked up and applied over this.
Modding Impossible - starting panic settings
in Enemy Unknown
Posted · Edited by Anbar
well modding impossible isnt that hard, you just want to change a few other settings other than starting panic to get things more manageable...
try this: all it does is marginally reduce the panic you will face, and give a sligthly lower chance of a country leaving when it gets to 5 bars of panic... if the continent and country has a satellie it may well stay.. also lowered the max-number of ocuntries that can leave in any single month to 6
edit: If you are playing with all UFOs enabled, then you may want to change to this: PANIC_UFO_IGNORED=1 (from PANIC_UFO_IGNORED=2)