R&D Additional Options for SHIV Customization

[Amineri]

I haven't yet addressed the perk removal issue. I have a plan for it, however. It involves reworking some new data elements that store when a perk has been selected for each soldier at each level. I was hoping to also add additional perk choices at each level (up to 3 per level), but that appears to be coded in at a very deep level in the actionscript. The best I've been able to do it to make the same "normal" ability tree UI be available for the "psi" ability tree. This would allow up to 7 choices of perks in the "psi" tree. I'm not quite sure how this would be useful, however :)

 

I've been on the fence about the Arc Thrower upgrade for the SHIV. I don't mind including it if there is definite interest, however. There are tons of possibilities, and just not enough item IDs to include them all. The Launch option seems like a decent possibility.

 

I've been thinking about how I would implement the +Damage small items -- that might be a lot trickier than it sounds.

 

Regarding the small side weapons. I'll have to do a bit of testing to see which weapon animations will cause problems with the SHIVs. I've been able to equip a SHIV with an LMG in the past (and it equips and looks fine in the barracks). However, something to do with the SHIV move-animation causes it to "soft-hang" the game if a SHIV with an LMG moves during the tactical game.

 

This makes me very concerned about any other weapon animations. I agree it would be a nice way to balance the SHIVs out -- give them both a powerful but inaccurate main weapon and a more accurate but less powerful side weapon. I'm not very optimistic about this, however -- as soon as we enter the realm of meshes and animation my ability to effect changes goes down dramatically. This applies for the rocket launcher as well as the Arc Thrower.

 

I will mention that as I am restructuring the BuildItems() function, I am making things much easier to edit and reconfigure. The BuildItem calls are much more regular in size, and every item will have a BALANCEITEM entry in the DGC.ini file to configure everything (except the image and weapon/foundry/item requirements).

[anUser]

I know this is a bit off-topic but since the subject's been mentioned I think this is as good as any other place to mention that:

 

Additional item for soldiers I'm reserving:

1) Smoke Grenade -- adds +1 charge to Smoke Grenade ability

2) Battle Scanner -- adds +1 charge to Battlescanner ability

3) Grapple -- grants grapple ability

4) Flashbang Grenade -- ??

5) Rocket -- adds +1 charge to Fire Rocket ability

6) Ceramic Plates -- add +1 HP (unlimited number available at beginning of game)

7) Basic First Aid Kit -- allows healing and stabilizing, but not poison immunity (unlimited number available at beginning of game)

:cool: Personal Effects -- adds +10 Will

The next set of items would be a new class of weapons -- ballistic weapons, but improved with alien alloys and/or elerium-based charges. They could be configured to be sidegrades, go in between regular ballistics and lasers, or something else entirely. Images/models would be based on existing ballistic weapons.

9) Alloy Assault Rifle

10) Alloy Shotgun

11) Alloy LMG

12) Alloy Sniper Rifle

You know I have plans for items too, and I think we could make both compatible. Regarding rockets my idea was to create an item as well, but then I had a doubt with Shredder rockets. Ideally it'd be another item that if equipped grants a shredder rocket charge, and there would be a HEAT rocket head, and maybe some more projectile type. The problem comes in using the same ability for different items with different charges/num. of uses.

 

In the case of this weaker medikit you suggest, it wouldnt' work with spendable items, since it'd be impossible to know if the item used in the "Heal" or "Stabilize" ability was a regular or a cheap medikit. In this case it would only conflict with the consumible items mod, but in case of rockets it isn't possible to create several items with scripted effects, such as HEAT rockets. If the soldier were able to equip both regular and heat rockets there would be no way to tell which one shot.

 

But, in the case of grenades, those are "weapons" and so they can have an independent entry in the ini file, it could be interesting to test what happens when two secondary items use the same ability...

 

Increased damage: I don't know how much fan of the gunslinger perk you are, I was going to cannibalize it for a special ammo item that would grant +2 dmg and -5 aim. I haven't search for the code, but I was thinking of replacing the check for weaponProperty or weapon type for another that would include ballistic weapons (excluding shotgun). Probably the fastest way would be adding manually some property to ballistic weapons in the ini.

 

Regarding ballistic weapons made of alien materials... I'd love that, but I've just realized there's no way that I know to set an item model. We can set the icon in BuildItems but how could we change the model? Is there already some other/repeated working model?

 

ps: sry I rambled and forgot about flash grenades... as I said, the problem is with abilities... I was planning to use the shredder rocket ability with those flas grenades and leave rockets with just normal rockets... anyway it'd be the same item either for one use or the other... I'm not seeing any chance to use both together.

Edited April 29, 2013 by anUser

[Amineri]

I've put up the information on non-SHIV items specifically to be try and be as compatible as possible with what other people (mostly @anUser) are working on. So yes, please provide feedback :)

 

----------------

 

The weak/normal medikit and consumables could be made consistent ... just need a consistent rule that the player understands for the order in which items are consumed.

 

By default, I'd assume that the weaker medikits are consumed first (if equipped), and the normal medikits are consumed after that.

 

However, my concept for the weaker medikits was to make them an initial unlimited item -- the tradeoff in using them would not be in strategy resources used to build them, but in the tradeoff between initial items.

 

Initial items would be:

Ceramic Plates (+1 HP)

Frag Grenade

Basic First Aid Kit

Smoke Grenade

Battle Scanner

... and maybe a laser sight with +5 aim ... still on the fence about that.

 

Even with 2 small item slots per soldier, in the beginning this creates some interesting decisions about how to loadout each squad for each mission. It also creates a lot more interesting tactical play (in my opinion) in the early game, which I think is a good thing. None of these items are overwhelming in late game, especially if alien stats are upgrading and aliens are getting DR and regen.

 

---------------

 

My current thinking on the alloy weapons is to make them deal the same damage as regular ballistic weapons, but automatically grant the "Bullet Swarm" perk to the wielder. This would enable alloy weapons to up to double the damage as regular ballistics (6 average for alloy assault rifle), but also are tactically a lot more flexible, alloying shoot/move, shoot/hunker, shoot/reload, as well as shoot/shoot.

 

Defensively they would be better than laser and plasma weapons. Damage wise would be roughly comparable to laser (laser rifle does 5 damage with one shot, allowing move/shoot for 5), compared to alloy assault rifle (with 6 damage on shoot/shoot).

 

Alloy weapons would also be very ineffective against enemies with damage reduction.

 

------------------------

 

My plan to implement the +damage items is via XGAbility_Targeted.CalcDamage.

 

The example code I'm basing this on is:

 

if(kPrimTarget != none && (kPrimTarget.GetInventory() != none))

{

kItem = kPrimTarget.GetInventory().GetRearBackpackItem(79);

which is for the TARGET (checking to see if chitin plating is equipped)

but this can be replaced with m_kUnit, which is the unit using the Targeted ability.

[Yzaxtol]

Item Ideas:

HEAT Ammo

EMP Ammo (disabling shot)

Explosive Ammo (Flush)

[Amineri]

Excellent suggestions, thank you! I've added them to the list.

 

I think I might have more ideas than free space to add new items. I've been working on adding the new items in an organized way that will allow for easier swapping / changing of items.

 

1) Every BuildItem call in XcomStrategyGame.upk will be the same size, and I'm building a commented ToolBoks file to allow for editing the prereq values.

2) Every item built with a BuildItem call has a BalanceItems reference in the DGC.ini (and this is how the cash, alloy, elerium, time, and engineer values have to be set)

3) Every item that is equippable has a Weapons reference in the DGC.ini

 

I'm sorting the three lists into the same order, to allow for easier editing

 

------------------

 

Here is a short preview:

Following are a few lines of code from the ToolBoks file I'm working on for changing the strategy game BuildItem calls

 

 

0F 01 61 35 00 00 26 {//category 1}

1B 6E 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 2C 02 25 25 25 25 25 2C 00 4A 2C 00 2C 25 16 {// pistol}

1B 6E 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 2C 03 25 25 25 25 25 2C 00 4A 2C 00 2C 10 16 {// assault rifle}

I've made all the item calls the same hex length to make them easier to parse. The cash, alloy, elerium, time and engineer values are all set to zero here. The true values are set via the DGC.ini (this is how I'm freeing up enough space to add more items).

Each hex function call reserves room for 2 tech/item/Ftech reqs. There are free bytes to make a few 3 req items -- they can be added as-needed (but if I made all functions like that it would cut into the number of new items).

Item category calls are labeled so items can be moved between categories. The item categories determine which tab items are built under (in Engineering) as well as whether items are equippable in the barracks.

Category 1 = equippable "weapons" (includes pistols and small items)

Category 2 = armor

Category 3 = vehicles and vehicle upgrades (includes SHIVs and Interceptors)

Category 4 = Currently undefined

Category 5 = Collectable artifacts

Category 6 = Alien corpses and captives

My current goal is to make Category 4 contain Vehicle items that are equippable. Thus categories 1 and 4 would be equippable in the Barracks, and categories 3 and 4 would be built under tab 3 in engineering.

 

 

[anUser]

Maybe we could open a new thred to discuss items. I wouldgo conservative hereand keep the 3 requirements for all items. I currently have items that uses the 3 of them, specially wih this item prototyping mechanism. I wouldn't close that possibility beforehand, if we could put out a list of items and see exactly how many new items we need it d be cool. If it turns out that we need more items we'll find a way to balance requirements, I'm just saying if it can be avoided limiting the requirements the better

[bokauk]

Amineri, on 29 Apr 2013 - 20:02, said:

Following are a few lines of code from the ToolBoks file I'm working on for changing the strategy game BuildItem calls

Quote

0F 01 61 35 00 00 26 {//category 1}

1B 6E 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 2C 02 25 25 25 25 25 2C 00 4A 2C 00 2C 25 16 {// pistol}

1B 6E 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 2C 03 25 25 25 25 25 2C 00 4A 2C 00 2C 10 16 {// assault rifle}

In case you haven't seen it yet, the new version of ToolBoks is out which usses a different format for Custom Mods than the old version, so make sure you use the offset rather than [FIND] and [REPLACE] :smile:

[Amineri]

I saw that just after I had posted this. Thank you so much for the great capability in the new update!

[Amineri]

I've recently been back working on adding in the new items for the new SHIV customization options (taking a short break from the new alien stuff to let ideas settle in my brain), and had a new idea for something to make SHIVs a little different from soldiers.

 

It came up because I'm including the code that removes the claim system so that consumable items will work. With that change, I also have to change a bit in how the current (and future) SHIV loadout mod works.

 

Currently when a new SHIV is built, three items are automatically created. The base "SHIV item" itself (three possible kinds), the SHIV armor associated with the SHIV type, and a SHIV weapon. In vanilla the weapon is the best researched in the Foundry -- the SHIV Loadout mod changes this so that a Minigun is always added. With the change to the claim system, something has to change regarding how these items get cleaned up.

 

This gave me an idea. What if I added a new build project in Engineering, a "Rebuild SHIV" project. There would be one such project for each of the three SHIV types. If a SHIV is destroyed in combat, but not lost (through MIA or SW option Total Loss), then the Armor and Minigun would be released back into storage the same as for a soldier.

 

This would allow the "Rebuilt SHIV" item to be built, which requires the armor + Minigun to be built. It would cost credits, but less than purchasing a brand new SHIV. Additionally, Alloy and Hover SHIVs would require fewer resources to be rebuilt than building from scratch.

 

Any thoughts on this? Like? Dislike? Suggestions?

[Vereist]

Do SHIVs unequip their items when they're in for repair like injured soldiers do?