Idea/Basic Brainstorming Thread

[Krazyguy75]

So the idea fairy visited me again today, this time delivering a potential solution to my goal to allow aliens to have individualized appearances. However, after searching through XComStrategyGame.upk, I'm still not quite sure how it works.

 

The basic concept is that I use code similar to how the humans can change heads, bodies, etc, all while remaining the same type of pawn (Soldier), to allow multiple textures for aliens, allowing for more variation in the alien ranks. If we can swap out the texture for another one, that should solve the problem. I'm just not sure how the human code works. If it swaps the entire mesh for the face every time you change the appearance, well... then we'd need to copy a whole mesh.

 

On the other hand, I don't even know if we can clone a material and its textures, so it may not be feasible.

[Amineri]

The human code works like so :

1) The base pawn is a headless body -- this base pawn is entirely determined by armor and gender (see XGBattleDesc.MapSoldierToPawn, which we've modded in Long War to turn the Genemod armor meshes into entirely new armor items)

2) The head is an "attachment" mesh defined by the TAppearance structure stored in TSoldier. In the tactical game this is stored in XGCharacter_Soldier. In strategy it is stored in XGStrategySoldier.

3) Armor Decos and Weapons are also attached meshes added separately.

 

Alien pawns on the other hand are pretty much an single mesh which already includes the head. The easiest way to get a sense of this is to decompress Soldier_MaleKevlar_SF.upk (which contains the male non-genemod Kevlar body mesh) and GameUnit_XComSectoid_SF.upk (which contains the Sectoid body mesh).

 

Head-swapping for aliens just isn't going to work. If there were a good 3D modeler out there (I'm not one) it might be possible to create the equivalent of armor deco overlays for aliens to visually show different alien types, but it would require some significant upk restructuring to make it work. At which point it might be easier to simply create brand new alien textures instead.

[Zyxpsilon]

Idea(s)?

 

-- Give XCom soldiers a variable row of HP (new colors like Darker Blues or Greenish health, Chitin being 4 of Magenta, etc) dots for whatever amounts of Armor protection they carry. Similar to the Mechtoid shield process, in fact. I've always been puzzled when someone gets near Infirmary range and *could* use some Medic attention before missions are over.

[Krazyguy75]

@Zyx: Are you aware that only 2 types of HP exist for players, and 1 for aliens: Base HP and Armor HP (which includes Chitin, etc), and Shield HP for mechtoids? If your HP drops below Armor's HP, you go to the infirmary based on how much of this HP gets lost, regardless of if you heal it. But I concur, It'd be really nice to see armor to know when they're at risk of injury.

 

@Amineri: Yeah, I was talking 'bout primarily swapping textures only (do they seriously include a model for every flag?) or if that is impossible, allowing you to swap out the whole mesh for an identical one with differing textures.

 

If we can finally get models in game, I'd be happy to design them. It's what I want to do for my career, though it is currently only a hobby.

[Krazyguy75]

So, my newest idea is about level creation and design. We already know that saves hold map data to store what terrain you've destroyed, etc. I don't know if there is a whole map in there, but if it is, that could have potential to solve some of our map creation problems. My idea is to try to use the existing coding in the game to create a map editor of sorts, similar to GMod. We already know that it is possible to dynamically create and move cover, as shown by MECs. If we could harness that ability and move objects from square to square, keeping their cover with them, we could potentially create new maps in game. Then by saving the game, we could have another program to export the maps from the saves and turn them into actual map files by cloning the original map and replacing it.

 

I'm sure this would be a monstrous task, and I'm not sure how you could easily move the terrain around, but if done it'd save us all the trouble of making an external map viewer and editor.

 

PS: Not sure if the Long War people ever discovered a way to make the title screen allow a choice b/w the normal version and their mod, but if they did, then you could just launch it from there instead,

[wghost81]

After a several EW playthroughs I started to think about squad-sight snipers and how useless they are now. I know, people still take squadsight and say it's a God-mode, but that's because they haven't seen colonel snap-shoot ITZ sniper with genemods and medals, who has 100%/100% hit/crit chance even from close range and can wipe out an entire alien squad in one turn.

 

I actually tried that "God-mode" once: killed a pack of 3 Heavy Floaters with squad-sight sniper while mimetic skin assault was watching them flying around aimlessly. It was boring and it's definitely not how I used squad-sight in EU.

 

I think any penalty, aim or crit, is useless. Because it can't do anything with the fact, that aliens can't calculate sniper's position as human player does in MP. So, IMO, the only solution to this problem will be to make aliens aware of the sniper's position immediately after he's fired at them. I don't know if this could be done with current game mechanics, may be simply adding sniper to VisibleEnemies array will do the trick...

 

And if the above could be done, I want original EU parameters for squad-sight and snap-shot restored. Those are hard-coded in one of the natives function, unfortunately.

 

Third thing would be to increase close range penalty for snipers, but that's a simple ini editing for EW.

Edited March 11, 2014 by wghost81

[Krazyguy75]

Yeah, SS sniping is boring, despite it being effective. Honestly, I think it is mainly to do with the fact that you only really get hit with one pod at a time.

 

What one of my AI dreams is is to make the seekers truly dangerous. Currently, they attack too early, never find my SS nests, and I just wait them out with overwatch, and I don't risk activating new pods. If you made more pods wander, and made the seekers more patient, it could result in very deadly situations, and would make the other skin mod more useful. For example, I think seekers should wait for other pods to collide with you before attacking (or possibly even have the ability to draw the nearest pod closer to you). I think that seekers primary objective should be to shoot players from flanking, with a secondary objective of strangling, assuming the target is a long way away from any ally. In addition, I want them to attack as a squad, doing tactics like group strangles. Finally, they should be able to see your entire squad at all times.

 

The last problem with the seekers are all the counters: there are three things that reveal them, and lots of things to prevent them from strangling you. My solution: Make seekers aware of what reveals them and actively avoid it, so you have to find them, they won't wander into a detection radius; and also make them use their plasma as primary, as mentioned previously.

 

All in all, with much better AI, the seeker could work to break SS snipers, keeping them wounded if not killed, and you'd have to revisit tactics.