UFO All-Pistol Mod concept

[NKF]

Sorry, yes it was the abductor.

 

Finally managed to run a test on chryssalids. As expected, I the team was instantly slaughtered. Though the 30 damage MP rounds worked a treat on them. The knife's not bad either, but it took a lot of stabs from the front, so picking the right facing and having plenty of TUs is key for combating chryssalids with a lone soldier.

 

The gatling laser stats I copied over into the laser rifle and set to 20 damage works really nicely too, but not terribly well against the chryssalids (or scenery for that matter). I guess that makes it useful enough to keep around against the regulars, but not useful enough to stick to exclusively. Perhaps 25 damage will make it more appealing.

 

- NKF

[NKF]

Most interesting. Killed a power suit guy by accident with one(!) shot in the back with the heavy pistol and the standard 60AP bullets. That's bad - but good in that gives me a reasonable base level to work with for the plasma weapon damage levels. Might need to adjust for the front armour.

 

Also managed to have a good rumble with the mutons. It's just beginner, but quite pleased with the results. Even with the 60% AP modifier, most of the AP weapons did okay except the basic pistol - which is a reasonable outcome.

 

I'll upload my current progress so far. A quick summary of the more interesting bits include:

 

- Alien weapons (except the alien grenade) now function again. Still working on the firing stats a bit, and damage levels are around 50-60.

 

- Plasma Pistol conversion into Acid Pistol underway. Slow, accurate and deadly (thanks to acid multipliers). Acid damage's string points to 7-? in the ufopaedia. Naturally, it's not a valid damage type. Though must work 7-? into the description somehow.

 

- Laser rifle will now be the Laser Revolver. Basically the laser edition of the machine pistol.

 

- Heavy Laser will be a slow heavy hitter later on, but for now I've copied the gatling laser's core stats (damage, accuracy, costs and weight) into it for anyone that would like to give it a spin. I'm starting to think this weapon's way too good.

 

Getting there. Will need to eventually get round to the graphics. Speaking of the graphics, the rifle looks like it would make a great looking handgun if the stock were removed. Maybe I'll do that and turn it into the heavy pistol, or maybe use it as a base image for the machine pistol.

 

 

 

- NKF

pxwip.zip

[Zombie]

- Plasma Pistol conversion into Acid Pistol underway. Slow, accurate and deadly (thanks to acid multipliers). Acid damage's string points to 7-? in the ufopaedia. Naturally, it's not a valid damage type. Though must work 7-? into the description somehow.

The #-? deal is (I think) a leftover feature for extra damage types which never made it into the game. As you might guess, those strings are found in English.dat, so all you would have to do is edit the appropriate text for it to show up as a damage type in the UFOPaedia weapon entry. Here's a short list:

 

426/x1AA 	ARMOUR PIERCING
427/x1AB 	INCENDIARY
428/x1AC 	HIGH EXPLOSIVE
429/x1AD 	LASER BEAM
430/x1AE 	PLASMA BEAM
431/x1AF 	STUN
432/x1B0 	6-?
433/x1B1 	7-?
434/x1B2 	8-?
435/x1B3 	9-?

So in short, the acid damage type (and melee for that matter) are perfectly valid damage types, it's just that the string doesn't spell it out. #8 & 9 are technically invalid damage types as there isn't an associated damage modifier for them in the executable.

 

I'll give your mod a runthrough this afternoon.

 

- Zombie

[NKF]

I meant an invalid string for damage type. It's not used anywhere else, so I might as well change it.

 

Also thought I'd start bashing together some graphics. Even if I can't put them in yet, I may as well get them ready. Editing the images dot by dot is quite... well it's quite a test of patience.

 

 

Two larger pistols and a knife. The cut-down 'custom' rifle is just the standard rifle cut in half and given a new handle. I think it looks good enough to be thrown in as-is.

 

The one underneath it is the start of the machine pistol. Was thinking of making the ammo magazine much longer to make it fit a mind-probe sized slot. Maybe I'll work with it tilted to the side - that'll give more room to lengthen the barrel a little. No comment about the knife.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

With that dark green background, your pic almost looked like the Pistol and knife were fused into one weapon. Not only that, but the knife blade was pointing back to the user of the gun.

 

That said, I really like the machine pistol so far. Knife blade looks like it needs a good sharpening though, unless it's supposed to be serrated.

 

- Zombie

[NKF]

You should've seen the rust marks on it before I decided a nice shiny knife would be more visually pleasing. The uneven blade was... intentional. I could always create a set of optional images.

 

 

I did make a start on the ammo for the two pistols. Not terribly visible in these shots, but I've finished off the shading on the machine pistol.

 

 

The ammo's so expensive, so they're packed individually with care in their own handy dandy collectors belts.

 

 

The mid ammo will end up with a red or orange band. Just to make them all unique.

 

Also started doodling with some ideas for the heavy plasma replacement. One and a half ideas so far.

 

 

One thing I'd really like to do is recycle the heavy plasma clip into the design as the handle of the weapon. Partly an excuse to cut down on having to create a separate clip image.

 

I even started on the laser pistol, but it's just a silhouette at the moment so not really much to look at.

 

Heavier work thanks Christmas and other things haven't been kind to me so I haven't been working too heavily on the images. Luckily the end-of-year holidays are up soon. Should be able to bash a few more guns out. Then the battlescape images.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

So is the knife going to be a Bowie-like design?

 

Love the ammo for the heavy pistol, that's impressive! Good start on the Heavy Plasma replacement too. (The green one is fairly nice, not sure what to make of the other one though). Can't wait to see some more stuff from you NKF, you are so talented in this area!

 

- Zombie

[NKF]

The original concept for the knife was a rusting kitchen knife with lots of cuts in it to make it look dangerous. Of course it'll probably end up a bowie-like before long.

 

As for the second idea for the heavy plasma replacement: perhaps an illustration of what I had in mind would help:

 

 

All designed around a weird three-hole grip.

 

The problem here is that my idea is for a tiny gun, but the in-game image I put together looks a bit huge. I'm considering using this as a replacement for the plasma rifle, as I'm leaning towards the one with dual-barrels and green pipes. This one almost gives the impression that it might be a reasonable snap-shot type weapon.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

As for the second idea for the heavy plasma replacement: perhaps an illustration of what I had in mind would help:

 

All designed around a weird three-hole grip.

Ah, thanks. The illustration cleared things up. (Love the pic). So, how many digits do you reckon a Sectoid has on each hand? 3? 4?

 

The problem here is that my idea is for a tiny gun, but the in-game image I put together looks a bit huge. I'm considering using this as a replacement for the plasma rifle, as I'm leaning towards the one with dual-barrels and green pipes. This one almost gives the impression that it might be a reasonable snap-shot type weapon.

Aye, that sounds like a good idea. You'll need to think of something else for the Plasma Pistol replacement then. Smaller, preferably.

 

- Zombie

[Bomb Bloke]

My first thought was that I've never seen a Sectoid with four fingers, but then it occurred to me that my media collection is probably quite insignificant compared to yours...

[NKF]

2-digits and a thumb - that's just based off the ufopaedia. Since their battlescape sprites make them look as big as humans, they must have some pretty big fingers!

 

The sectoids in Enforcer contradicts their three fingered tan bretheren as the one depicted on the cover has four fingers and a thumb on one hand (holding the gun handle) and three fingers and a thumb on the other. I guess they can have as many digits as they want, being a species really big into self-improvement and all.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

You know, I never really looked that close at the Sectoid's Ufopaedia entry before. Good catch, Sectoids have 3 digits and all the other aliens with arms have 4 digits. (Digits is defined as fingers + thumbs). Can't really tell what the Ethereal has as the hands are so small and the orientation of the foreground finger blocks the rest. It appears to have at least 3 or 4. This is a great piece of trivia!

 

Edit: So if the weapon is designed around a 3 digit hand, what will the 4-digit aliens do? Stick two fingers in one hole?

 

The sectoids in Enforcer contradicts their three fingered tan bretheren as the one depicted on the cover has four fingers and a thumb on one hand (holding the gun handle) and three fingers and a thumb on the other. I guess they can have as many digits as they want, being a species really big into self-improvement and all.

Mutation perhaps? Graft? Transplant?

 

- Zombie

[NKF]

Now, toes on the other hand...

 

I was going through some of the files I'd recovered from my old PC and found a treasure trove of old stuff I'd written up about the games a long time ago, along with an old draft of TRTBAG. There was an article on the nature of reactions and an opinion piece of the rifle vs pistol. Much of it outdated drivel that I think I've already put onto the wiki or has information that no longer applies. There's even a 26 page guide (unfinished) that I was writing. Must've been planning on writing a really comprehensive guide, but the wiki showed up and filled that role and much more.

 

Anyway, while going through them I found this little beaut.

 

 

I think my all-pistol mod idea was seeded years ago (after reading a comment some one made) but never got round to realizing it. This was mostly on account of not really understanding the game files.

 

Not sure what I built this as, but the original filename reads "Hand Cannon". The barrel looks like it's inspired by the heavy plasma, but it's got a firing hammer on that suggests it was made for standard solid projectiles.

 

It's laser-pistol-tan in colour, so maybe I'll add technical looking bits and/or orange lights to bulk up the barrel and turn it into the heavy laser pistol.

 

Regarding my trouble with importing images with pckview, After a bit of searching it appears that I have put this very same problem to Daishiva years ago. Guess it' a problem that's been around for a while. Unfortunately this means that until I can get the images plugged in, this mod's not really going to go far. The visuals are equally as important as the weapon effects. I wonder if this can be hand fixed?

 

Say, Bomb Bloke, would you happen to a have any image importers/exporters in the works by any chance?

 

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

As it happens, I've long since polished off a PCK converter aimed specifically at getting around that little problem. Check the link in my sig, you'll find it soon enough.

 

Basically Daishiva's PCKView screws up BigObs files, I think it's got something to do with their greater vertical length.

 

I've also got code to deal with BDY/SPK/SCR files, for what that's worth. There's no user interfaces for it (my other programs access it all directly) but it'd be dead easy to slap some on if anyone ever needed them.

[NKF]

I'd be more than happy to work even with the good old command line interface if it'll do the trick. I'll grab it and give it spin when I get a chance.

 

About your comment about the effects being seen under Dosbox, will I still need the Java VM or would running them under dosbox alone be fine?

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

You need the VM to run the tools. The converted graphics can be used under DosBox.

 

DosBox can't use the VM, so the tools themselves can be booted from, say, the Windows command line (Start => Run => "cmd").

[NKF]

Right'o. Will have to get the VM then.

 

Though I may have to wait until my connection improves. For some strange reason my connection literally stops dead every 23 minutes on the dot. Connection shows that it's on, but none of my programs seem to do anything. Been happening for the last month. Probably my provider secretly sending me the message "~Norm, you're our last dial-up-user. Please upgrade to our Broadband package right away and all your troubles will go away~"

 

Maybe my local computer magazine will have a DVD with a selection of tools including the Java VM. I'll get it up and running yet - mark my words.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

It looks like their servers support resuming. Plug this url directly into a decent download manager (I use GetRight myself, though I think FireFox 3 offers the feature as well) and it won't matter if your line conks out half way through - you just dial up again and continue where you left off.

[Bomb Bloke]

Just remember, if it really is too much trouble, you can always send me the images directly. So long as they're already at the right dimensions etc it will only take me a minute to get 'em converted.

[NKF]

I might just take you up on that. Would be good to get the inventory images out of the way and get onto battlescape weapon image frames.

 

By the way, does your converter work with both the combined bigob file as well as the separate bigob images? PCKView didn't appear to recognise them.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

PCKView doesn't read them 'cause they don't have TAB files, and nor will my converters for the same reason. If you create TAB files (two bytes each set to 0) both'll read 'em.

 

But there's no point 'cause they're pretty much the same as the combined archive.

 

For the purpose of writing those files, when you convert your GIFs to PCK format my tools generate both the separate files as well as the combined ones all with the one command. I know the separate files are required for the game to work, can't remember if the combined archive is actually used or not.

[NKF]

The combined archive is used in the inventory screen. At least this appears to be true for the dos version.

 

It's probably a case of the programmers starting off with the separate images, and then later combined them into one file, then never converted everything to use the combined archive.

 

- NKF

[NKF]

Progress on the inventory images so far:

 

 

I know I left out the knife, but no matter.

 

The heavy pistol, machine pistol and the fairly obvious Heavy Plasma replacement are complete.

 

The three weapons down the middle are the laser family. I've put the standard laser pistol in for comparison of the other two. I mainly used it as the colour palette. Managed to just get them within the laser pistol's 2wx1h dimensions. I might have to darken the last pistol (heavy laser replacement) a bit.

 

I've reduced the size of that alternate heavy plasma replacement, but will probably not use it in the end.

 

Also introducing the Breacher Ball Bearing launcher. Er, yes it's a flintlock pistol with a modified firing hammer.

 

I wonder if it should be used as the small launcher replacement instead? Much better than the slingshot I originally had in mind.

 

- NKF

[NKF]

Bomb Bloke:

 

I've converted my work so far into GIFs.

 

working_files.zip

 

If you could please convert these, that would be fantastic.

 

---

 

Did a few more adjustments to the weapon stats. I've posted a copy of the obdata for anyone interested in giving it a spin.

 

obdataupdate.zip

 

Minor tweaks, only major update is the revamped Heavy Laser Pistol - now a single shot heavy hitter that closely resembles the laser rifle. It passed my solo base assault test (against sectoids) with fair results. I technically sent two guys - the other one didn't do anything but knock a hole in the wall as a test run of the Breacher Pistol.

 

The Breacher Pistol has been fine tuned. 250 AP didn't seem to want to cut through inner UFO walls, so I upped it to 255. Now it works brilliantly. It doesn't have any sound effects for when the bullet strikes, but considering it's a one-hit kill weapon, does it need one?

 

I've left it with its original firing stats. 120% accurate aimed attack that costs 80% to fire. This might cause a problem with the AI - as I don't think they even use aimed attacks. Might create a lesser snap mode.

 

----

 

Incidentally, I finally got a chance to fight the ethereals in a base attack in the savegame I'm using to trial my work. Due to the item spawning precedence, I ended up with only the basic pistol, Pistol LE and tons of related ammo. Still, I was quite surprised to see how well the ordinary pistols were doing against the ethereals at half armour! Definitely needed a few strikes, but they were certainly falling. But on that same note, my men were slaughtering each other with the very same weapons. Even the ones in personal armour couldn't last forever. A whole base full of rookies taking down about three or four ethereals before turning on themselves is not bad.

 

Haven't seen a sectopod yet, but it'll be a good opportunity to de-claw it and upgrade it to standard armour, then see how some of the weapons fare against it. Not expecting too much, but I assume the Heavy Laser Pistol and the Breacher Pistol should work well against it.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

Done, but a few comments....

 

Next time, could you number the images according to which of the originals you want replaced? I've gone along with my best guesses based on your other posts, but I suspect I wasn't entirely accurate.

 

Woulda been a heck of a lot faster for me too...

 

Also note that you don't need to worry about maintaining the game palette. The results will be closer to what you draw if you do so, but it's quite optional.

 

Likewise you don't need to use a specific color in order to maintain transparency. Just choose any color. I like to use bright green myself, darker colors (such as black) can be difficult to differentiate from some parts of the actual image.

 

When writing my converters, I took the line that they should do all the work. No point in wasting YOUR time trying to keep track of nitty-gritty details like palettes when you could be drawing...

NKFPistolPCKs.zip