Modding EXALT

[Drakous79]

I had one heli-drop Exalt sniper that entered overwatch upon landing on commercial catwalk :) It happened tonight at gas station.

[Anbar]

Its that sort of thing that makes me think theres some weighting on behaviour somewhere that can be modded... otherwise it would *never* happen. /em hsrugs

[wghost81]

They do overwatch sometimes and this could easily be a random chance, not the weighting.

[wghost81]

I was thinking.

 

Suppose, I'm a head of huge paramilitary organization, my goal is a complete world domination and I have a lot of money to buy me a personal army, a personal science and engineering facilities or even build a whole modern command center. Now aliens have invaded, XCOM was formed to combat new threat and what do I do? Why would I want to rise panics, steal money from XCOM and stall their research? Why wouldn't I just gather all the materials from unattended alien abductions/other activities, conduct my own research (or steal research info from XCOM, rather than stall them), strengthen my army, wait until XCOM drives aliens away and then attack XCOM base, finish them off and conquer the world? Or, attack aliens if XCOM loose.

 

Now suppose I'm still some reach crazy villain who sympathize with aliens. I may or may not want complete world domination (if I do, suppose, aliens offered this to me in exchange for my loyalty), but I don't like XCOM, because they want to drive aliens away. Suppose, I made a pact with aliens (Thinmen diplomacy, heh!) and now we're on the same side. Now I DO want to raise panics, sabotage research and steal resources from XCOM! And when XCOM realizes I'm doing this and comes to wipe one of my EXALT cells, I call for help and aliens send Tinmen/Mutons/etc. I can even deploy my troops to assist aliens with abductions and other non-UFO missions.

 

I may not be much of a storyteller :smile: , but second story makes more sense to me. And if EXALTs were combined with aliens on the battlefield it would be more fun. I don't know if this is possible, I was just thinking. :smile:

Edited November 30, 2013 by wghost81

[wghost81]

While digging around Larger Pods related functions in EW, I found an interesting code, which suggests that EXALT pods were supposed to consist of THREE different types of operatives. Is that really so? I had like 4-5 EXALT missions and I can't even remember their pods composition. :smile:

[Anbar]

medic, heavy and "normal guy"... support i guess.

 

Snipers come on separately

 

or do you mean something else?

[Krazyguy75]

I was thinking.

 

Suppose, I'm a head of huge paramilitary organization, my goal is a complete world domination and I have a lot of money to buy me a personal army, a personal science and engineering facilities or even build a whole modern command center. Now aliens have invaded, XCOM was formed to combat new threat and what do I do? Why would I want to rise panics, steal money from XCOM and stall their research? Why wouldn't I just gather all the materials from unattended alien abductions/other activities, conduct my own research (or steal research info from XCOM, rather than stall them), strengthen my army, wait until XCOM drives aliens away and then attack XCOM base, finish them off and conquer the world? Or, attack aliens if XCOM loose.

 

Now suppose I'm still some reach crazy villain who sympathize with aliens. I may or may not want complete world domination (if I do, suppose, aliens offered this to me in exchange for my loyalty), but I don't like XCOM, because they want to drive aliens away. Suppose, I made a pact with aliens (Thinmen diplomacy, heh!) and now we're on the same side. Now I DO want to raise panics, sabotage research and steal resources from XCOM! And when XCOM realizes I'm doing this and comes to wipe one of my EXALT cells, I call for help and aliens send Tinmen/Mutons/etc. I can even deploy my troops to assist aliens with abductions and other non-UFO missions.

 

I may not be much of a storyteller :smile: , but second story makes more sense to me. And if EXALTs were combined with aliens on the battlefield it would be more fun. I don't know if this is possible, I was just thinking. :smile:

 

Meh, again, my problem isn't your story, it's the official lore. EXALT raises panic for XCOM, so that the country withdraws and stops all attempts to look for them in that area. And they steal money and research not to help themselves, but to hurt you. They want to be the ones ruling after the apocalypse, and they worry that XCOM will stop them. Their biggest enemy is XCOM, not the aliens. They just avoid the aliens. It is also not said how EXALT gets it's weapons, but I'd assume it is a combination of scavenging other alien sites and manipulating the black market (I really want a mod where 10% of grey market sales go towards advancing EXALT's tech level). They also do research to increase their tech level. However, they have limited resources, and their people aren't top notch military scientists, so they proceed much slower. They can't find the XCOM base, only attack their operations in certain countries. It took the aliens half a year to find the base, and they have tech beyond anything EXALT had.

[wghost81]

my problem isn't your story, it's the official lore

We're talking about modding the game, why talk about official lore? I want them to be stronger and their actions to be more logical. If you're satisfied with the story — no one will force you to use a mod, which changes it. That's what the mods are for: if you don't like something — you change it. :smile: Edited November 30, 2013 by wghost81

[wghost81]

medic, heavy and "normal guy"... support i guess.

 

Snipers come on separately

 

or do you mean something else?

Yes, I mean this. But I don't understand the coding behind this... but that's a different problem. :smile: Thanks for the info!

 

UPD Lack of attention :smile: Found my mistake, EXALT do spawn 3 types of units in one pod. :smile:

Edited November 30, 2013 by wghost81

[Tycus]

I have always seen these petty attempts to undermine XCOM activity as some sort of twisted rivalry, because it looks like they can't catch up to XCOM progress on alien research and then try to use some underhanded tactics just to buy themselves a bit more time or something like that.

 

And I believe we should avoid discussion of plot and lore (at least here), because it can easily lead to off-topic flame war.

 

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Anyway, back to the topic: yesterday I found some pretty interesting stuff (like functions, that control HQ Base Defense reinforcements; type of aliens, that are deployed on Council missions (ie thinmen, occasional sectoids), even chryssalids for special "site recon" mission), even EXALT pods, that are already present on maps, but haven't found, where EXALT reinforcements (types) are defined; probably I have found, where numbers of those guys are (can't check yet, if that is true); also it looks like placement of drop-ins are hard-coded for each map individually, and I have strong suspicion, that these reinforcement EXALT guys are defined there as well, or even worse, controlled by some function buried in native code (I'll be glad, if somebody proves my suspicion wrong on last statement; btw, can somebody check those CaptureAndHold and DataRecovery maps?).

Edited December 1, 2013 by Tycus