LW Projects (...after final version #3)

[Dethraker]

Right now I'm trying to work on an alternate Tech Tree that I would like to eventually expand upon. The LW team has recently given us several slots for extra Second Wave options, along with a method of adding variables and such.

 

My vision is a Tech Tree that makes you choose one direction or another, gene mods OR MECs? Laser OR Advanced Ballistics? The difference would be more foundry options to upgrade the chosen direction instead of trying to find a balance of them all.

 

Anyway, that's what I'm imagining currently, and though I plan to purchase Xcom2 and start modding on that I have been enjoying learning Hex Editing recently(as I've actually had the time to really get into it finally), and will probably continue working on this concept even after it launches.

 

@Zyxpsilon, your first option sounds interesting enough. Are you speaking about making an in game visible tech tree similar to that of Civilizations?

[Zyxpsilon]

Yes... it should be somehow similar to Civ.

 

But -- it wouldn't stop there; the design includes an "interactive" way to navigate through some hybrid variations of the tree structures in four directions with search functions, symbolic referencing of items, integration of ingame images (inventory, etc) & costs, and so on.

 

That kind of project is wildly ambitious if not complex and yet it is certainly possible with the proper code tricks.

[Obelixdk]

i would LOVE to see something like this added to the game (sorry for bad mockup skills)

 

http://i.imgur.com/RsCZ7V6.jpg?1

 

I´m thinking that it could be done by calling a modified version of the facial hair file males uses

Basicly make it so that Lestroyer's Facial hair and mask mod can be used for females too.. think that its possible?

Edited July 22, 2015 by Obelixdk

[Zyxpsilon]

And... more tints (customizable) too! ;)

 

Although such Head-Decos could just as easily be added (if there is spare array entries for them) to the current "Hair/Helmet" slot indirectly, i think.

[amaciel81]

Zyx,

 

These are some mod ideas I'd like to see:

 

1) Air game slow down: no change in balance, only cut in half the damage and double the time and boosts. Why? Because today you can lose your all-upgraded Firestorm with two shots, or destroy a large UFO without any scratch. I believe this could reduce the randomness without making the air game easier.

 

2) Firestorm crash survival: since it's based in alien technology, give a chance to a shoot down Firestorm survive the crash, maybe a flat 20%, maybe using the rules similar to crashed/destroyed UFO. Armoured Fighters improve the odds, and recovered Firestorms take the full-period repair time and lose their pilot (are named back to Firestorm-X, zero kills).

 

3) Interceptor/Firestorm pilot survival: regardless the Firestorm survives the crash, the pilot could have a chance to survive. If the Firestorm survives (because Interceptors would never), business as usual: long repair time. Otherwise, the pilot name (and his kills) would be assigned to a interceptor (not unlike we transfer an Interceptor pilot to a newly-built Firestorm), the money subtracted. The only thing I'm not sure is whether it would be possible to make the Interceptor unavailable for 3 days, like when you buy a new one. Maybe a new Foundry project could to improve the odds.

 

4) If you capture a alien drone and bring it alive, it would generate a new loot: alien drone. A new research project: alien drone control (having drone autopsy as requisite, and a number of alien drones as material), would enable Engineers to use it as a heavy small item. Differently of other items, if it's destroyed, there is no chance it can be repaired.

 

5) A new research project, using a Hyperwave Beacon as material and requiring a Hyperwave Relay. This project would expose alien stays (resources, research, bonus research and aggression level) in a meaningful way, i.e. research level to be a number between 1 and 12, corresponding to the thresholds to alien upgrades, instead raw values.

 

6) A fix to display more than 7 alien types before a mission.

 

7) A research project to double the number of places in psi labs, because 3 is not nearly enough, but I don't like just giving it away for free.

 

8) Change Steadfast perk to give extra will based in the soldier kill count (global or in the current mission), instead a flat 3. Steadfast as today is a weak and boring perk, it would make it more interesting.

 

That's it.

 

Cheers,

Alexandre

[Zyxpsilon]

#1+2) If Pendra has his/her way with a test-phase Interception simulator ( http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/590/? ), you might very well get your wish and more!

 

#3) Could be done. But i feel that would "remove" some of the value we give to Pilots and their Kills-Count that improves their effectiveness.

 

#4) Gosh, i'd like this very much.

 

#5) I believe there's an indirect way to already receive such information (in three different types; Alien Research, Alien Resources, Threat Level) via a Mod that replaces the ticker banner underneath the Situation-Room world map. But it could certainly be enhanced and moved into another UI feature.

 

#6) Might as well give the whole facts, true... although i can understand why the Hyperwave detection is operating in this somehow "limited" manner -- it would become MUCH more powerfull to know in advance which and how many Aliens are present in the AO -- at all times.

 

#7) Beta15e solved that issue by allowing us to define (with simple DGC.INI edit) how many exact slots we want for Psi-Labs *&* GeneticLabs *&* Cyber-Augmentation.

 

#8-) Somehow, a modder like SpazmoJones could make this happen rather easily. Try contacting him, you may get lucky!

 

Good ideas nevertheless.

This thread is more about MAJOR projects (Ex; Campaign Summary+Journal which has been picked up by TrackTwo & XMarksTheSpot.. we're at the concept phase but a lot of proper development steps are being taken as we go along) that impact gameplay extensively though... i'd recommend that some of the above suggestions be posted directly in the dedicated "Mod Requests" section. As more people will tend to look into it and you'll have better hopes of stirring Modders' attention & interest for such new stuff.

Edited July 26, 2015 by Zyxpsilon

[MyNexusVIP]

My idea is not that demanding but essential to the immersion of the game...please add back the basic and meld tutorial for long war, it was disabled because probably some compatibility issue from the mod resulting in breaking those tutorials. Those first contact with the aliens with 3 XCOM operatives dead right away simply adds the feeling how we humans are inferior to the Xenos and we have 3 dead soldiers to honor in the memorial and the survivor as the first veteran which makes sense.

[Zyxpsilon]

IIRC, JL or Amineri had once explained why these Tutorials were removed and there was a solid reason. Something to do with available resources to stack the multiple new LW-Features.

You might have better luck if you try contacting someone in their team directly -- since this issue is related more to a design decision that some additional modding attempts by external forces like ours. ;)

[Dethraker]

While it's completely possible to reintroduce the tutorials with what wghost has been talking about with mutators, it would likely be very time consuming due to how the LW team utilized available resources.

 

You would either have to recreate the tutorials entirely with mutators, or utilize mutators for existing LW designs, thus rewriting/hexing significant amounts of code to make LW work the same without utilizing those parts of the original code.

 

Personally I'm not that committed to tutorials lol. It would be something worth putting in mod suggestions though. Maybe someone out there would enjoy creating new tutorials.

[Amineri]

As a further point, in some cases I don't think it's practically possible to use mutators to replicate direct hex replacement.

 

As an example, changes made to XComUnitPawn cannot easily be re-done using mutators. This is because XComUnitPawn is the parent class of XComHumanPawn, XComAlienPawn, and XComTank. Reworking this via mutators would require making a new XComUnitPawn_LW child class of XComUnitPawn, and then completely re-implementing all child classes to inherit from XComUnitPawn_LW. XComHumanPawn in particular is quite complex, with multiple states and dozens of functions, many of which reference native functions.