So we can't extract map assets. Can we inject new ones?

[ImmortalD42]

Despite my best efforts, the Unreal Engine is simply not reverse-engineering friendly like Source is. This got me thinking though; can the game be tricked into accepting UPKs that aren't part of the base game? If you setup the camera and npc pawns in the same way, could the map list be changed to accept a new UPK? I don't know what if any properties are associated with the spawning of soldiers and aliens, it is entirely possible that adding a generic NPC marker wouldn't do anything, since it can't access the assets telling it what to create.

 

I'm going to attempt to create a map that uses the first person 'free roaming' camera, along with whatever npc models are available in the default Unreal library. Even if the game can load the map, I don't know if there is a way to actually choose a specific map (haven't explored the dev console at all). Maybe a command to choose which maps are available as the starting mission? This is all purely speculation, just wanted to write it down, see if anyone else has some brainstorming ideas.

[Amineri]

The closest I've been able to come to utilizing new upks is importing 2DTextures into a new upk and then using them for Inventory and Weapon Panel images. The Inventory images only took a couple of relatively straightforward upk changes to draw the pathnames from a config file instead of being hard-coded. However the weapon panel changes were a much bigger effort, requiring me to get the assistance of X Marks the Spot to rewrite a Flash UI code in order to dynamically bind the images at run-time instead of the current system that binds them at compile time. I'm still not 100% exactly sure what he did...

 

One thing about using UDK -- you have to use an old enough version. I'm using the September 2011 version, which generates upks with a engine version 8916, which matches the XCOM upks. I've used older version of UDK as well (for inventory images), but any UDK version that is newer generates incompatible upks.

 

Also, maps are set to load via the DefaultMaps.ini file. For example :

Maps=( MapFamily="URB_Bar",                   Name="URB_Bar",                      DisplayName="URB_Bar (Beta/Functionality Complete Urban Bar)",                                 MissionType=eMission_Abduction,           bInRotation=True,  TimeOfDay=eMissionTime_Night, ShipType=eShip_None,          eRegion=eMissionRegion_NorthAmerica, CouncilType=eFCMType_None,       NewMap=True, InitialChance=20,  InitialGain=1.04, DynamicAliens[0]=eChar_None,    DynamicAliens[1]=eChar_None, StreamingMaps[0]=( MapName="CIN_DropshipIntros", Loc=( X=0, Y=0, Z=0 ), Rot=( Pitch=0, Yaw=0, Roll=0 ) ) )        

is one line from the file that configures the URB_Bar.upk mapfile to be included in the randomized rotation system the XCOM uses. Johnnlylump has already been messing around with using maps for other purposes, so loading a valid map isn't a problem...

 

The big problem so far is creating a new map package that is compatible with XCOM. Good luck! :)