Questions on Editing Alien Stats/Equipment

[Zeno]

This is for XCOM:UFO.

 

 

Okay, I'm planning to create something but I want to see if there is:

 

1) An existing program

2) If not, then a similar program

3) If not, then any interest?

 

I can generate a flat file with a series of numbers. Then, I can take that flat file and copy over the alien data in Geoscape.exe.

 

Why? To give each alien stat (the modifiable ones) a variable boost in power based on a random number. I could add this to XCOMUTIL, so that after every battle, the Geoscape data for each alien would be "randomized" (it would occur after Tactical closes and before Geoscape executes). In effect, every battle would start with aliens that have random stats.

 

That's the implementation. As for the game effect, I will take the original stats and give a 20% chance for improvement. If there is improvement, I will give a 1% to 100% randomized increase. I will also give a 5% chance for significant improvement, with a 100% to 300% randomized increase. The maximum for any stat will be 200 (thus even on Superhuman difficulty, no alien will hit the wrap-around at 256+).

 

This would give aliens a 25% chance for each skill to be improved--so some aliens might be very fast, have high reactions, be sharpshooters, have strong armor, have high psi strength to resist psi attacks...etc. I would also give non-psionic aliens a small chance to have psi-power, and (maybe) non-flying aliens a small chance to have flying ability.

 

Mind probes, obviously, would suddenly become a lot more useful. Soldiers with psi skill might not be able to control every alien they come across. Veteran soldiers would have to be careful even when facing a mere Sectoid Soldier. Those of us who have near-memorization of every alien ability in the game would be taken by surprise on occasion. I think the positives outweigh any negatives, as long as the Geoscape data-copying process is 100% error-free to prevent game corruption.

 

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Since the information is in the same location, I could easily incorporate a similar system for HWPs. It's generally considered that HWPs are radio-controlled, rather than artificial intelligence. Therefore, I could give very slight modifications to account for the skill of the operator (basically, firing accuracy and reactions, as everything else is built into the system). For HWPs, there would be a range for both increased and decreased stats (rather than the Alien system that only gives improvements).

 

Finally, Civilians could be adjusted. Though this would have little effect, a Civilian could have high psi-strength, health, or time units to make them potentially survive longer. I would only allow minor increases for Civilians, as the idea of Civilians with higher stats than my soldiers would really annoy me.

 

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And that leads to my question. Has anyone come up with a way to equip Civilians by default? I know it is possible, because there is an XCOMUTIL command to ARM aliens. Therefore, it would be a nearly-identical programming process to ARM civilians.

 

I recognize that this might require saving the Tactical game, exiting, ARMing the civilians, then reloading the game. There might be some problems with the 170-item limit, thus requiring the destruction of some objects. The same problems exist with the alien ARM command.

 

Regardless, I would personally like a modification to equip Civilians with a standard pistol and one clip. That's it. If the 170-item limit is reached, don't give any more pistols. Some of the 10-15 civilians in a terror site would (it seems to me) be armed, though anything bigger than a pistol seems excessive and unrealistic.

 

I like the idea of terrified civilians potentially shooting at the XCOM rescuers in their confusion, or the highly unlikely chance of a civilian killing an alien. It would amuse me even if it only happened once per game.

[Hobbes]

Concerning the civilians check the UFO forums... a few months ago BladeFireLight came up with a mod where the civilians were armed with pistols and would shoot at both aliens and humans.

 

Your idea is interesting and here's a couple more food for thought: choosing or randomly adding other races to be present at the tactical situation, like the final mission at Cydonia. In other words, you could originally face Mutons but instead of Celatids/Silacoids you would be facing Chryssalids/Sectopods and wouldn't know until you faced one.

[Munkeylord]

i like the idea of the alien stats editor! though, your remark

though anything bigger than a pistol seems excessive and unrealistic.

now if i were in that situation.....i don't thinki'd be using my damn pistol, hell i don't even own a pistol anymore. the big caliber guns would be flying out of the gun cabinet. but yea, about the alien stats editor, would you beable to edit the heigth of the aliens as well?? possibly edit both human and aliens? i would like to find and armor editor or something similar. just to finish up my ww2 mod.

[BladeFireLight]

for the list of number to mod the EXE... check the documentation for 'sdump' from Scott's page it's kind of a swiss army knif for moding files.

 

 

xcomutil itself has a way to modify the alien stats... but it's accross the board.. not random.

 

There is currently no util to auto equip civilians.. it has been on my to do list for a while...

 

-Blade FireLight

[NKF]

Something like this would actually be feasable, as I've been thinking of making a tool for just such a purpose ('thinking' being the operative word).

 

And it would simply be in the form of a third party utility that works on the temporary battlescape files that store the units whenever the game transitions between the Geoscape and the battlescape. XComutil does this all the time. No editing of the .exe should be necessary.

 

You could do some rather interesting things too, like swap a few of the aliens with other classes to make a sort of 'mixed' crew mission, and you can even make civilians (or the aliens) look like X-Com soldiers if you wanted. Identifying the various units in the file would be a simple task of checking what sprite the unit references, since each side only uses a limited sprite set, and a simple name comparison should identify what the unit is supposed to be.

 

Arming civilians with HWP cannons can reduce the strain on the item table -- but, you wouldn't be able to see what it is they're carrying until they shoot.

 

- NKF

[BladeFireLight]

Arming civilians with HWP cannons can reduce the strain on the item table -- but, you wouldn't be able to see what it is they're carrying until they shoot.

 

- NKF

Actualy the Civilian Sprite set do not have a Show Weapon options.. it doesnt matter what they carry, it will not show.

 

I personaly find arming them with lasors a way to keep the item table impact low.

 

-Blade FireLight

[Zeno]

BladeFireLight, I've checked and use Scott's information (what modder/hexer hasn't?) The civilian sprite set can be modified--I know I've seen them wearing generic blue police uniforms on some online graphic mod.

 

I don't like my civilians using lasers, despite the reduced impact to the tables. It's crazy to think lasers would be available to the general population even late in the game (and finding a bunch of laser pistols on your first terror mission, before you've researched them, would be ludicrous).

 

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Munkeylord, I agree that I wouldn't want to use a pistol against aliens. But this is a *global* game. Not every country's civilians have "1st Amendment" rights, an NRA to support them, and children to exploit them.

 

If there were some way of knowing *where* you are when you go from Geoscape to Tactical, you could do some really incredible things! Imagine a "Bangkok" map that looks different from "Paris"! Then you could, theoretically, arm civilians with different weapons based on the availability of such weapons in a given country...

 

That latter seems a bit too much detail, though. You can't see the weapons that the civilians fire, anyway. I think pistols are adequate. Or, if you want to give them "shotgun" power and simultaneously reduce the object table impact, I'd (hesitatingly) go along with NKF's cannon ammo idea.

 

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NKF, you can do some mixed-crew setups using XCOMUTIL's RPL command. However, you must save the tactical game, run the commands, then re-load the game. You could set up a batch file to automate the process somewhat, but you would always know the forces you're going to face.

 

I would love to have a randomizing effect, to change each alien race and rank into a random race/rank combination (one of the legal combinations--check the XCOMUTIL documentation for details on which aliens can replace what). This should have some restrictions to prevent you from gaining too much benefit (i.e. if you stun and research a horde of commanders to open the final mission in January, or if you use the "research help from aliens" feature of XCOMUTIL).

 

If there is room on the 170-item/creature limit, you can also add aliens using the TYP command. However, over-using this would make the game redundant. It might be useful to randomly add between 0 and 5 "surprise" aliens to every combat mission. It might be fun to add "surprise" civilians to non-terror sites, too.

 

Basically, XCOMUTIL (more specifically, Scott) has done all the work. The trick is changing it from a manual process running specific batch commands, to a partially or fully automated process that utilizes randomization.

 

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I haven't done any work on any of this yet. RL takes precedence for us all. Most of us, anyway.

 

--Zeno

[BladeFireLight]

Basically, XCOMUTIL (more specifically, Scott) has done all the work. The trick is changing it from a manual process running specific batch commands, to a partially or fully automated process that utilizes randomization.

 

Scott's replace command is not a ture aline replacment... only a cosmetic one. and I feel poorly implemented.. I have talked to him a few times about it, and he has shone no interested in updating it for modifying missdat data.

 

the only way to get it to work automaticly would be quite adhoc, as you would have to convince xcomutil that missdat was a game_x directory by rename files and then renaming them back after the changes.. not to mention makeing a program or batch file to randomly chose the command to send xcomtuil.

 

A lot of what your talking about I have had on my list of things to do.

 

I'm working on a new Battlefeild Generator that will eventualy do things like what your talking about.

 

-Blade FireLight

[Zeno]

I only tried Scott's replace command once, when I was experimenting with a variety of things for making DOS XCOM work on my machine. (At the time, I was trying to figure out why Sectoids work, but Floaters would not. I discovered it was not the alien race, but the number of aliens that caused heap overflow. After partial success and heavy, some would say haphazard, hex-editing, I gave up the attempt and stuck with CE.)

 

I had no idea it was simply a cosmetic change! That bit of information should definitely be in the accompanying text file. It states that the flying attribute will remain the same as the original alien type...but it does not state that all attributes will remain the same.

 

XCOMUTIL does have many problems. But it also provides totally new functionality to the game, something no other mod or hex actually does. So I forgive it's flaws, and use it any way I can.

 

BladeFireLight, you've mentioned that a lot of this is on your to-do list. Are you interested in any sort of group effort for the project?

 

We obviously have a few programmers here. Has anyone attempted to...er, for informational purposes only...oh, nevermind, that would be illegal...

 

I think a group effort to mod the game and share information would result in better and higher quality mods. A complex mod should take less time than the full-scale, highly speculative parallel projects to revise the entire game. With a focused group effort and target goal, these changes could be implemented (potentially) with very little new research into the executables.

 

Just a thought. My brain prefers organization. I think I wrote the same thing in the Field Manual discussion in the other forum...

[NKF]

While making a half hearted attempt at writing a design document for a stat randomisation utility (which, knowing me, will never get off the ground) , an idea struck.

 

What say you gents about being able to create unique units in addition to the random stat units? For example: neutral (civilian) X-Com units (those pesky 'agents' we so often hear about -- ignore the fact they'll also shoot you with reaction fire), The Nigh Indestructable Psionic Muton Overseer With Distinct Weak Spots™, neutral aliens (civilians), traitorous X-Com soldiers, the e-mail X-Com sectopod (sectopod w/ fusion hovertank weapon), sectopods modified into immobile defence turrets mounted on top of the Skyranger or in a base corridor (X-Com controlled or as a civilian 'shoot everything that moves' turret ), a small platoon of X-Com soldiers already out in the field (the soldiers are non recoverable (their weapons are), but you lose lots of points if they die), etcetera.

 

It's not really a well thought out idea; questions like 'what will this do to game balance ?', 'is any of this even possible?', and 'have you gone completely mad?' never quite crossed my mind. Still, I thought I'd best mention it just to get it out of my system.

 

- NKF

 

P. S: Ignore all those wacky ideas. I think I just sold myself on the small X-Com platoon scenario. Knocking down their TUs, giving them to the aliens and marking them as under mind control should keep them off the soldier equip screen, and you will regain control of them by the end of turn-1. Light armament, injuries and morale loss would be a nice touch.

 

P. P. S: Rather than make a new post, about making immobile 'turrets': There's a stat that governs energy recovery over the turns. Set that to 0 and maybe even set maximum and current energy to 0 or 1 and the unit will not be able to move at all. You need energy to move between tiles, but shooting, turning and other actions that happen in the same tile don't need energy.

[Zeno]

There is a friendly/enemy flag which trips during mind control, so discovering it's location in the tactical saves should be relatively painless.

 

Most everything else you mentioned is just weapon data/stat data changes. There is a Civilian1 and Civilian2, with separate stats, so one of these could be replaced with "agent" or "military" graphics and stats (for the gender-conscious, everyone could wear hats--though the gender-conscious probably aren't playing the game, due to other "features" of the tactical graphics).

 

Modifying the sectopods into turrets...I'd say that requires a bit more difficulty. My gut response is to convert the tanks rather than the sectopods, but eliminating mobility would be tough without reducing TUs to 3. Still, reducing TUs to 3 should allow a unit to shoot, or turn...135 degrees, maximum. They would be turrets, but very slow turrets...

 

Regardless, if there is a layer between the Geoscape and the Tactical that manipulates the files, then you could theoretically add any number of new units. You would use the copy-and-replace technique, as XCOMUTIL does for the randomly selected UFO maps.

 

IF rand() = replace large terror unit with Sectopod Turret unit

THEN copy Sectopod Turret unit graphics, stats, etc. into proper locations and file names

 

You would just need dummy files for every possible replacement, the way XCOMUTIL takes .XCU files and replaces the original .MAP and .RMP files.

 

But this is just my gut response. The point is, if a dedicated group made a change work...then adding to the change is relatively simple.

 

A few years ago, creating new UFOs was difficult, painful, and tough to implement. Now, the knowledge and programs (thanks Daishiva!) exist to create maps comparitively quickly, and with XCOMUTIL you can add the maps painlessly. Once we break the technology/difficulty barrier, creative people with less patience or programming knowledge can come in and make it pretty.

 

The point is, *anything* is possible. But if the groundwork isn't there, most people aren't going to spend 3-6 months or more singlehandedly implementing a mod. Personally, I'd rather imagine, create, and design new aliens and XCOM units than help develop a new interface/middleware component. But it seems the interface is a prerequisite.

 

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A thought: Rather than unwieldy batch-file implementation in series execution, have you considered a program that resides in memory? If we could modify the data in memory before it ever generates the relevant files, we could potentially avoid some of the sticky read/write issues and corruption bugs.

 

Or not, now that I think about it. However, a fully executable program is preferable to the batch file technique, in my opinion. Open source, of course.

 

 

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EDIT: NKF, I forgot to mention regarding game balance. In this endeavor, game balance is totally not a factor. As always, it's up to the player to decide what is balanced, or not. Hex editing allows super-powerful weapons and super-weak aliens and super-strong soldiers. People have different ideas about what they want in the game. The whole point of a mod is to allow people to make the game closer to their ideal.

 

And by the way, my interest in this is totally selfish. I want the game to surprise me again. But I also see the value in group effort. I personally never plan to arm my civilians with rocket launchers and body armour. But I don't see anything wrong with making it possible to do so.

 

--Zeno

[BladeFireLight]

Many things are posible... and some are in the works.. the problem being the the format of many data files are not completely known.. and most of what is 'known' is not exacticaly public domain. reverse engineer to mutch in a public manor and we risk brining the IP holder down on us... and some of us have more to loose then others.. Any one familiar with scott's situation will know what I mean.. and He has more info on the file formats that any one.

 

Most of what has been talked about here are things that I have thought about and found ways to impliment.. I'ts just a mater of turning manual hex editing into an automated program.

 

-Blade FireLight