Cybernetic Warfare Mod - ideas and planning

[PepprmintButler]

I'm putting my tasklist in here if someone wants to help with any of this.

 

Planning

Define ability trees - WIP

Design alpha health/dmg model

Rebalance Sectoid Commanders and Thin Men

Check and tune flanking mechanics

Define Difficulty settings

 

DefaultGameCore modding

Give Robotic and Hardened properties on COs and Tachikomas – OK

Give Tachikomas a healing ability – WIP

give TKs ShotOverload - WIP

Give COs and TKs the “explode on death” property (test) - WIP

Give Tachikomas more health and much less damage - WIP

Keep soldier panic mechanic as vanilla (for aliens and possibly Zhang)

Ditch will bonuses for armor and items, revert to vanilla will (renamed) -WIP

Use Council panic from vanilla with a bit more leniency (lower starting panic levels, etc) - WIP

Tweak UFO variables (no use of “intercept UFOs on mission”) - OK

Tune Repair Bay (Med Bay) times

 

.ini, .int modding

Replace UI text all over (esp Tachikoma-related text)– WIP

Limit customization range for skin tones and heads – XCOMContent.ini

Unlock customization options for armor, and Zhang

Create corporations list and Change country names - WIP

 

UPK surgery, advanced modding

Make the gender ratio 1:0 (all male models)

Switch up all abilities in UPK from Warspace

Texmod for skin textures

Texmod country flags, replace by logos

 

I'd especially appreciate help on the last, more tricky ones, but inputs on mechanics and balance would be most helpful too.

Edited December 18, 2012 by PepprmintButler

[PepprmintButler]

Giving Drone Repair to SHIVs was in fact pretty easy. eAbility_Repair on weapon does the trick. I forgot that this particular ability does not show up in the Action bar unless there is a valid target for repair in range.

It works but unfortunately there is no animation for repair. Did anyone have results trying to switch animations around ? Being able to call for the drone repair beam animation would be nice.

 

Modding parameters :

 

- Check if const DRONE_REPAIR_HP = 3 actually works

 

- m_nRepairs is possibly related to charges for this ability.

It has the following incremental-looking function

simulated function OnRepair()
{
++ m_nRepairs;
}

and it's defined as =0 in XGAIBehavior/InitFromPlayer.Function :

simulated function InitFromPlayer()
{
CheckHasCoverWithinRange();
m_bTeamTargetSet = false;
m_bMoveAndDeactivate = false;
ResetErrorCheck();
m_nRepairs = 0;
m_kSuppressionFlankTarget = none;
}

I'd like to set that m_nRepairs to 1 or higher if possible and see what happens.

 

Here is the corresponding bytecode:

DC 8A 00 00 32 55 00 00 00 00 00 00 C7 8A 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 2A 02 00 00 20 52 00 00 45 00 00 00 35 00 00 00 1B 58 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 16 14 2D 01 8F 8A 00 00 28 14 2D 01 87 8A 00 00 28 1B A8 5D 00 00 00 00 00 00 16 0F 01 5F 8A 00 00 25 0F 01 44 8A 00 00 2A 04 0B 53 00 00 00 02 01 02 00 61 3A 00 00 00 00 00 00

Honestly I'm not sure how to identify the relevant bytes...

 

- ShotOverload on SHIV : ability appears in UI and is useable, but nothing happens (no animation, no death, no AoE effect, just uses up the unit's turn). No solution ATM.

 

EDIT : Overload needs the Perk (ePerk_Overload, numbered 100), but I have no idea how to give it to the Shiv...

Some more interesting data re: overload and deathexplosion

const OVERLOAD_DAMAGE_DRONE = 3;
const DEATH_DAMAGE_CYBERDISC = 3;
const DEATH_DAMAGE_SECTOPOD = 5;
const DEATH_DAMAGE_ETHEREAL = 4;
const OVERLOAD_RADIUS_DRONE = 192.0f;
const DEATH_RADIUS_CYBERDISC = 192.0f;
const DEATH_RADIUS_SECTOPOD = 320.0f;
const DEATH_RADIUS_ETHEREAL = 144.0f;

	eAnim_DroneRepair,
eAnim_ShotOverload,

	AnimMapping(34)=FF_FireA_DroneHack
AnimMapping(35)=FF_FireA_RepairSHIV
AnimMapping(36)=AC_NO_BullRushStartA
AnimMapping(37)=AC_NO_HealA
AnimMapping(38)=AC_NO_OverloadA

Edited December 18, 2012 by PepprmintButler

[Drakous79]

m_nRepairs = 0

0F 01 5F 8A 00 00 25

 

Set 25 to 26 to make it = 1. Higher numbers require 2 bytes.

 

Haven't saw working const so far.

 

Animation could be tied to a weapon, like arc thrower. Dunno if drone has any, something like repair kit or how to give arc thrower to SHIV.

[PepprmintButler]

m_nRepairs = 0

0F 01 5F 8A 00 00 25

 

Set 25 to 26 to make it = 1. Higher numbers require 2 bytes.

 

Haven't saw working const so far.

 

Animation could be tied to a weapon, like arc thrower. Dunno if drone has any, something like repair kit or how to give arc thrower to SHIV.

 

thanks, will try.

The drone weapon is DroneBeam, it has eAbility_Repair and supposedly is also tied to eAnim_Repair and ePerk_Repair. Likewise the Arc Thrower has eAbility_RepairSHIV and is tied to eAnim_ShotDroneHack, eAnim_ShotRepairSHIV. Not sure about a perk for that one.

I need to figure out how AnimMapping() works to see if there's a way to modify them.

I have no idea yet on what to touch to assign the right ePerks (not supported in defaultgamecore)

[PepprmintButler]

Re: limiting hair choices :

Commenting out HairPackage lines in XComcontent.ini does just the trick. The packages become unavailable to selection in soldier customization and civilians still look correct (as far as I can tell) thanks to the civilian-specific packages. However I can't seem to get rid of the bald head option.

For some reason the commenting I did in the DLC xcomcontent.ini are not taken into account, so I can't remove the DLC haircuts. I'm modifying the \steamapps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown\XComGame\DLC\PCConsole\DLC_Day060\Config, I could not find another version in \Documents\My Games\XCOM - Enemy Unknown (which is where I successfully modified vanilla xcomcontent)

Edited December 19, 2012 by PepprmintButler

[PepprmintButler]

Progress update :

work on Corporations (Nationality replacements) is advancing nicely. There are still a couple of spots to fill. I'll edit their probabilities later with toolboks. I have most of the soldier "names" planned out already. Texture replacements for texmod are almost finished.

 

Here is the "logo" texture with most of the Corporation logos ready for use :

http://i.imgur.com/3jcy8.jpg

Big kudos if you can identify all (or most) of the references.

Taking suggestions for the remaining spots.

[Drakous79]

I don't know all, maybe you could post a list. TriOptimum :) Or Weyland Yutani Corp :) If we could change chryssalids to aliens!

 

Good job with hair packages. I am now trying to persuade soldier generator to use helmets instead of random hair.

[Roninberg]

Couple of suggestions about the CO's themselves.

 

1. About the robot's lore perhaps it could go something like this:

 

Since the human mind(at least i think so) operates by sending some sort of electrical signals throughout the brain, We could build a robot brain specifically designed to house these electrical signals and operate with them.

 

So how would we get the signals into the new brain? We could hook up a "cord" between the robot brain and the human brain and then send an electrical discharge that stimulates the brain very specifically to send the electrical signals from the old brain through the cord and straight into the robot brain. Therefore effectively transferring the human mind into a new body.

 

But then of course, there's the problem of the "human error". The beauty of this is how easily the problem could be solved by programming the robot with specific protocols that essentially makes sure that the mind operates under purely optimal circumstances making sure that the mind stays on the task on hand and making sure that the mind is fully aware of everything it needs to know.

 

So what does this solve exactly? Well for one, this gets the best of both worlds between human and robot, (the human's sentience with the robot's strength and neither of it's weaknesses) And what's more since you transferred the human mind in tact it's still possible for the robot to comprehend it's psionic potentials thus giving it psi powers and still preventing mind-control because well, it's a robot body.

 

2. I'd also like to suggest using the Outsider model as the robot model because:

 

A, Outsiders look badass and can totally pull off being a robot(and you can get rid of the crystal in the middle with texmod easily i think)

 

B, I tend to have a hard time pretending that my characters are actually robots just because I can't see their skins and have helmets on(because that's what I always do with my reg soldiers, and I think others would agree)

 

P.S. You forgot CryNet Industries

Edited December 19, 2012 by Roninberg

[PepprmintButler]

Couple of suggestions about the CO's themselves.

 

1. About the robot's lore perhaps it could go something like this: [snip]

 

2. I'd also like to suggest using the Outsider model as the robot model because:

 

A, Outsiders look badass and can totally pull off being a robot(and you can get rid of the crystal in the middle with texmod easily i think)

 

B, I tend to have a hard time pretending that my characters are actually robots just because I can't see their skins and have helmets on(because that's what I always do with my reg soldiers, and I think others would agree)

 

P.S. You forgot CryNet Industries

 

Thanks for the input :)

 

1. Storywise, I have also been toying with the idea of using actual cyborgs, or uploaded humans as you describe them. However I do like the narrative of the pure AI evolving into something greater (psychic, possibly self-aware true AI). It all hinges on the narrative for why regular humans can't fight aliens themselves (except for unique DLC characters, preferably), which I'm not completely set on yet.

 

2. Interesting idea. I have a couple of problems with it though :

A. I don't think the necessary model swapping is technically possible, even less so for such central models as the operatives.

B. The outsider model would lack many of the necessary animations (weapon swapping, psi powers, and a lot more I assume)

C. There would be no operative customization whatsoever. I'm not a big fan of having all your soldiers looking exactly the same.

It'd be a really fun thing to do though so I'll keep the idea as a "maybe later" thing.

 

Thanks for reminding me of Crynet, I will add it in the list :)

 

Here are the Corporation names with references and model names.

EDIT : logo map with normalized background color

http://i.imgur.com/OlcKm.jpg

from left to right and top to bottom on the above image :

 

 

Cyberdyne - model name : HAL9000-xx - you know that one

Stark - Warmachine-xx - from Iron Man

RoMeLa - DARwin-xx - Real-world robotics company, not sure I'll keep that one

GDI - model name TBD - from Command & Conquer, not sure about that one either

Boston Dynamics - PETMAN-xx - Real-world robotics company, may change model name

Cybertronics - David-xx - from Spielberg's AI, not sure about model name

Reynholm Industries - model name TBD - from TV series The IT Crowd - meant as an "easter egg", should have low probability

Graystone Industries - Centurion-xx - from Battlestar Galactica / Caprica

Tyrell - Nexus-xx - from Blade Runner

PAL Technology - REEM-X-xx - Real-world robotics company

Momcorp - Bender-xx - from Futurama - meant as an "easter egg", should have low probability

Aperture - Atlas-xx and P-body-xx - from Portal (names from the robots in Portal2)

Waseda - Kobian-xx - Real-world University with a cutting-edge robotics department

Mr. Fusion - model name TBD - from Back to the Future 3

Lunar Industries - model name TBD - from the movie Moon

Aldebaran Robotics - Neo-xx - Real-world robotics company

Weyland-Yutani - model name TBD - from the Alien movies

Tri-Optimum - model name TBD - from System Shock

EuroCorp - DART-xx - from Syndicate

Omni Consumer Products (OCP) - model name TBD - from Robocop

Starfighter - model name TBD - from the classic movie Starfighter, not sure about this one either

Union Aerospace Company (UAC) - Doom-xx - from Doom

Fringe - model name TBD - from the TV series Fringe, not sure it fits the bill though

Veridian Dynamics - Drone-xx - from the TV series Better Off Ted

Blue Sun - Model name TBD - from the TV series Firefly

Torchwood - model name TBD - from the TV series Doctor Who

Aramaki - Motoko-xx (01 to 11) - from the Ghost in the Shell universe (specifically GitS2: Man/Machine Interface)

SHIELD - Avenger-xx - from the Marvel universe

(to be added) Crytech - model name TBD - from Crysis

 

 

CO names whould go like this :

(rank - first name = corporation name - last name = model name)

MkII Cyberdyne HAL-9000-04

In most places, it will just show "MkII HAL-9000-04".

I'll be changing the ranks from my first idea to better fit the new naming conventions (possibly just PTU and MkI, MkII, etc all the way up)

Edited December 19, 2012 by PepprmintButler

[BlackAlpha]

Why not use the Section 9 logo instead of the Laughing Man?

 

See HERE.

 

Also, some logos might be hard to see because they will be really small. You should test ingame how many details will be lost.

Edited December 19, 2012 by BlackAlpha