Minor Modding

[Galagher]

Thought I'd give you all an update on the progress of my modding, since you've all been so helpful in fielding my questions. I have to say I was wrong about UFOpaedia. The information on the game files is quite helpful. With that, a hex editor and BBs graphics utility I can do everything I'd wanted to do. So of course now I want to do more things. Anyway, the mods I've made to my game are slight.

 

The Stun Rod has had its stunning power increased, weight reduced and been made into a 1x2 item so it can be worn on the belt. I love the thing, and want it to be useful throughout the game.

 

The Auto-cannon and Heavy Cannon have been changed to Minigun and Grenade launcher much like in Chris 82's "New Weapons Mod." I especially like the Auto-cannon style weapon and want it to have a unique battlefield role. Reducing its accuracy and time units for Autoshot while increasing its clip, weight and damage makes it a handy weapon for shredding terrain that might conceal aliens. As an added bonus it becomes the weapon of choice for kicking in UFO doors. I also removed its snap shot and it now only uses AP ammo.

 

I've decreased the damage on the Blaster Bomb Launcher. The thing is just obscene in game. Really I want to keep its high damage but reduce its blast radius. Unfortunately I don't think this can be done.

 

Final modifications I'm considering are juggling the stats of weapons so that each of the three basic sets (standard munitions, laser and plasma) have distinct advantages. I envision standard munitions packing more damage and having a better auto-shot than lasers. While lasers would have more accuracy, superior snap and aimed shot, and of course not use ammunition. Finally I'd like limit the potential of plasma weapons. However this presents a difficulty becuase the Aliens only use Plasma weapons and I don't want to make the game easier. I was thinking about significantly reducing the clip sizes. Since in my experience aliens live a turn or two after making contact with X-com troops. Plus I think they carry a couple extra clips in Super Human mode.

 

What do people think?

 

P.S. I don't think it's possible to make a convincing flame thrower (due to the way explosions work) but if you think it is tell me how.

[NKF]

As it is, standard munitions (bullets) are cheap but weak and have average accuracy. There's a balancing act between sacrificing speed for accuracy.

 

Lasers are very fast, semi-accurate and do moderate damage. The laser pistol is the least accurate weapon in the game but also the fastest (hey, it's a sub-machine laser), while the laser rifle is fast firing but moderate weapon in every other aspects. The heavy laser is powerful but sacrifices far too much for it.

 

Plasma weapons are slow, but they trump in accuracy, weight, damage and are cheap as free. They're also identical in the single-shot firing speeds. They are unique from each other in that the plasma pistol is the fastest auto-shot weapon, the plasma rifle is the game's best sniper weapon for casual snaps and reaction fire, and the heavy plasma is meant to be better than every other weapon in the game except in speed.

 

I cannot really recommend any actual changes - except perhaps turning the plasma pistol into something that's desireable. As the aliens tend to get rid of it very quickly in favour of the heavy plasma, it ends up being quite rare. How about a plasma sub-machine gun to match the laser pistol? Not as fast as the laser pistol but packs a bit more firepower with a considerably plentiful clip.

 

When lowering damages, remember that you need to at least keep some weapons that are powerful enough to defeat a super-human level sectopod. It's all very well to rebalance the weapons, but if you cannot defeat this ... oy you're going to get a lot of complaints.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

Perhaps the plasma pistol could become a more powerful alien grenade, or even a prox mine? If you could make a throwable stun bomb out of the thing, that'd be pretty cool, too.

 

Yep, so long as it explodes, I'm happy.

 

Dunno if it can be done, but if you can get the grenade launcher to fire in an arcing path, as in the way of the Celatid, it'd be a bit more realistic.

 

I'm afraid the flame thrower is a stumbling block. Guns in UFO tend to have unlimited range, and throwers do not. You could try making a stun rod that deals IN damage or something, but I really doubt it'd work.

 

Note that with but a small amount of coding, aliens could come into combat with terrestrial weapons, like in Apocalypse where they attack you with MegaPol smoke grenades. This would give you an excuse to cripple the plasma weapons and give the X-Com arsenal some real strengths. Ideally, they wouldn't do it until they'd made a deal with one of your funding nations, hence giving them a "supplier".

[Galagher]

I also would like to see an arcing fire ability on the grenade launcher. Unfortunately there is no known toggle for such a thing in Obdata. Certainly the Plasma Pistol could be made into something more useful. I am considering what. Aliens with explosives terrify me, so maybe that'd be a good reason to make it a grenade.

[Zombie]

You know, I wonder what would happen if you would substitute the Blaster Launcher in place of the Plasma Pistol? Aliens which would normally carry the PP now are toting the Blaster Launcher. The PP is also phased out by the aliens in favor of the PR and HP, so that would create some severe shortages. Instead of requiring a single loose Blaster Bomb, make the Launcher require a clip of a single bomb. That way the aliens only carry half the number of bombs as normal. Think: even more shortages. This way, the aliens are going to scare the bejesus out of your troops in the beginning missions. In addition, because of the slow phase-out, that weapon would play a bigger role in the later stages of the game. It would also force people to actually conserve BL ammo instead of wasting it. Interesting.

 

- Zombie