Sectopod - Reinforced Armor

[Nolanoth]

Well one last thing I have on my mind right now is the Reinforced Armor passive trait on the EW Sectopods. Is there any way to copy this ability on to Mec units and Mechtoids? They are after all heavy robotic units with a lot of armor.

Edited December 10, 2013 by Nolanoth

[Amineri]

You're in slightly better shape, here...

 

The sectopod damage reduction is applied via perk 167, ePerk_ReinforcedArmor. The amount is hard-coded (but luckily as a float) in a spiffy new function XGUnit.AbsorbDamage. The lines in question are :

    if(GetCharacter().HasUpgrade(167))
    {
        fReturnDmg = fReturnDmg - (XComGameReplicationInfo(class'Engine'.static.GetCurrentWorldInfo().GRI).m_kGameCore.0.50 * fReturnDmg);
        bAdjusted = true;
    }

Simply changing the 0.50 to another float will alter the damage reduction of the perk.

 

Unfortunately granting new perks to aliens isn't quite so easy :(

 

It appears that perks for aliens were for some reason relegated to native code (?!?) in XGGameData.GetPerkContentForAlien. I checked and there doesn't appear to be any config data for alien perks in DefaultGameData.ini.

 

In Long War I was able to grant perks to aliens by taking over a debug function in XGUnit and hard-coding various perks for aliens (which could be then dynamic). Eventually I plan to update that modlet piece for Enemy Within (and ideally will make perks granted configurable via config edits), but it will be a bit before it gets done (at least by me).

[Nolanoth]

Any chance you could whip me up a little hex code I could just use in the upk file? Just so I could buff that poor little Mechtoid. Please?

 

And the ePerk_ReinforcedArmor hmm I'd have to place it in the perk slot of the Mec wouldn't I? There's no way to attach it to the armor itself?

Edited December 10, 2013 by Nolanoth

[Nolanoth]

I've dealt with the problem thanks to increasing the shield value. So this thread can be closed and of course I can confirm the perk works on XCOM troopers.

 

Thank you so much for the help!

Edited December 12, 2013 by Nolanoth

[Amineri]

I was wondering whether adding some shielding would work.

 

And you've confirmed that shield points can be given to XCOM soldiers as well?

 

Hmmm... this raises the possibility of new item akin to the personal energy shield items in X-COM : Apocalypse. Equipping said item would grant the trooper the same type of shield as the Mectoids get from mind merge. Of course for Long War users should expect to see some aliens occasionally fielding personal energy shields as well.

 

I'm also interested in whether or not said shields can be made to recharge themselves slowly (although I'm not sure how that would work balance-wise).