Currently I am not working toward patching the issues in previous versions since I'm taking the time this time to organize and release each independent thought separately. Here's an update on that:
1) A Few Good Men is done and released, it's a relatively simple change affecting only starting stats and amount of soldiers. I considered the issue with too few starting soldiers, but not in terms of impossible to be honest as I've never played that difficulty in LW. Personally I balance most things around Brutal since that is the difficulty level I enjoy the most. Can you give more details around why 3 and then 5 is too few in Impossible? Are there just that many more enemies? Do the aliens progress much faster due to the limited amount of soldiers? Are there too many ranks required before attaining the additional soldiers? Feedback like that would help me with making it a better experience for Impossible. I know I can change some things based off difficulty, but I don't really want to give a buff to an Impossible playthrough just because of enemies being harder then it's not getting progressively more difficult.
2) Expanded Officer Training School is done and released, it has a few more complex issues that could cause problems in other parts of the game. I haven't received any feedback on the standalone version as of yet so if you are using it I would truly value some.
3) Profitable War has proved troublesome the way I'm trying to approach it this time. Unfortunately on new games the grey market checks different parts of the code than what it does on loads so there is a bug on startup that goes away on your first load but that's an unacceptable way to release IMO. I'm currently trying to find a work-around but if I can't I may abandon my current concept.
4) New Soldier Classes: This one I have been working on for quite awhile, I can get everything working but only through a bunch of messy hacks so far. I'm trying to clean up the changes as much as possible, but I may have to release this one attached to my main mod(once I clean that one up) in order to have everything working as intended.
5) Alternate Tech Tree: This of course is where I started, everything worked to my knowledge until you reported to me the issues of Foundry Projects not unlocking. This of course defeats the entire purpose of the mod since without those Foundry Projects you can't unlock any weapons besides the very limited ones I had release with the tech research. I'll definitely be looking into this before releasing my next version with the new soldier classes attached.
Just as an update, I will have the overhaul out tomorrow after I get out from work. I have finished all the changes to the code as well as ini and int changes, I just need to write up an installation guide, README.txt, and organize into a zip file. Ran into a couple of complications with some of my code changes and it took a bit longer than I anticipated.
Thank you for the update, I will definitely try it out on my new campaign.
I'm trying to make this mod compatible with Art of War and it seems the conflicting files are XComGame.int and XComStrategyGame.int and DefaultGameCore.ini. I've compared the 2 int files and it seems that the changes are the following: ( In case anyone is interested )
If I remember correctly Art of War is just a bunch of ini and int tweaks, correct? So the easiest way to make them compatible would be to use Art Of War's ini and int files and just add my new stuff.
Added new foundry projects Added new OTS projects Changed Research Techs Changed Item names
Item names aren't that big a deal and you can easily change them in the corresponding .int file. Research is more of a deal since I reorganized how things worked in XGTechTree to create the branching trees. The foundry and OTS projects are completely new and can be modified to be used however you want with a bit of modding experience, but not with simple ini tweaks alone.
I tried to reach out to the guy making the ini tweaks for Art of War to try and work together on a bigger project involving both our mod ideas, but he didn't seem interested.
My time is very limited due to my work schedule, so changes are a bit slower than I'd like them to be, but I welcome suggestions for improvement. Thanks for taking the time to try out my mod!
That's why I thought that it's possible to "combine" the two mods. But when I looked inside your DGC.ini I found some strange changes. ( Don't know if they're intentional or remained from something else ) For example: - Outsiders getting extra crit at line 382 - Minimum aim for soldiers changed to 59 from 58 - Some comments changed at soldiers xp levels - etc.
So maybe not Long War b15f3 was the file you worked from? ( I did a clean install yesterday )
Anyway if I concentrate on the tech changes it should be fairly simple to merge the two ini files. Sadly my time is quite limited since thankfully we have a lot of work, but since I do not plan on buying X-Com 2 on launch I have some time to play with Long War.
There might be a few minor changes like that that I did for my personal playthrough that I forgot to reset. Shouldn't be too many, and they aren't required of course. Just the new stuff, I'll dig into it tonight before I run a couple missions myself. I'll try and upload a "necessary DGC.ini" changes tonight, not quite off work yet though.
If the OTS section could be made into a separate file or an Art of War compatibility patch could be made, I would absolutely love that, because while your overhauls look lovely, I rather like AOW.
I've thought about doing that, but am still trying to find the time to finish the entirety of the overhaul I've been working on. Have my new classes working bringing the total classes up to 10 instead of 8. New classes gain perks based on weapons or items equipped while other classes maintain the same perktree perks.
Mercenary: Close range specialist with perks attached to weapons and armor -Raider: Mercenary MEC variant, perks attached to primary, secondary and MEC suits -Choose Mercenary by selecting middle column for Assault class, replaces random option
Command: Unit for field control, perks attached to items and armor -Overseer: Command MEC variant, perks attached to primary, secondary and MEC suits -Choose Command by selecting middle column for Support class, replaces random option
OK i just downloaded the Mod and question Have you changed things and just not mentiond them Because my soldier barrieks are 55 and i can by soldiers for 40$ insted of the Said 100$
Yes, I'm in the process of balancing things around the changes I made, soldiers become significantly more expensive with the OTS upgrades but come out at a higher rank.
The way it is figured is like this: Rookie: $40(configurable in DefaultGameCore.ini Squaddie: Rookie * 3 LCPL: Rookie * 5 CPL: Rookie * 6 SGT: Rookie * 6
Due to the increase in cost of the soldiers I did increase the starting amount of soldiers, this is also configurable in the DefaultGameCore.ini.
With the holidays here and me having family on top of work I have not had the time to update all my changes, I just wanted to release what I had for others to play around with. I changed the starting squad limit to 5, but probably will reduce it further once I get all my changes put together, though I intend to add the ability to take more soldiers on specific missions just like LW did with Base Assaults and such, just not to start off.
The weapons have been changed significantly and might even be a bit overpowered currently, mainly because if you know the order of techs you can unlock their techs much quicker. The foundry projects for weapons slow things down a bit, but not enough to allow the struggle that we(or at least I) enjoy about XCom. I am doing all my changes on a limited schedule so things may sometimes take a bit longer than I want them to.
Cash is a bit easier to get ahold of, and this is by design, foundry projects, OTS techs and certain other things are more expensive. On the other hand you can sell built items for a significant markup of how much credits they cost, though making a habit of this will turn out badly because I also increased the cost in materials for most items.
I've reached out to a few other modders in the hopes of getting others with similar goals to work with me on a larger project(much like the LW team did) but so far no luck. Anyone interested in sharing ideas and the workload is more than welcome to message me on Nexus and we can discuss things further.
Thanks for trying out my mod Jester!
Something to note, I increased the sell value of items more than I intended, the next version will reduce the amount to 1.3 times the item cost. Currently it is multiplying by both the original value (cost * .4) as well as my 1.3, which is making the game multiply by 1.7 for some reason.
P.S. Most likely once I finish my next set of changes I will start a new mod page for my overhaul.
about 15 hours in, and working great so far. -Having to choose actualy increase replayability to test out the other paths -Balance is okay so far, depending on what you're facing, some path are going to give you an harder time than others, but it's only natural -takes a lot of time to see the changes, and it can get lost in all the changes brought by long war -In the end it's kind of a nerf mod, since you lock out a good portion of the possibility by focusing on a signe branche.
So yeah pretty fun and interesting so far, would like to see what's comming next.
1) That's what I was going for, but along with the different TechTree branches I also wanted to make the style of play more custom for each person. Rather than all weapons being unlocked by x Tech, the Foundry is where you'll spend your time, you can pick and choose which weapons you want to invest in. The Research still unlocks a weapon(in some cases more than one) which is essentially your "Prototypes", then the Engineers come up with additional designs.
2) I was actually a bit worried about balance, it's gonna take less time to get to Gauss and Pulse in comparison to vanilla Long War, but with the new Foundry Projects as requirements to unlock weapons and armors you still have that additional wait time. I left the weapon stats the same as vanilla Long War, but added in the ability to upgrade those weapon categories via my DefaultAltTree.ini file. You can choose the Research/Foundry Project required and then also the upgrade stats, then they are applied upon completion of the required project.
3) That's something that every mod to Long War suffers from, the Long War team did such a good job adding new things. In the particular case of my mod I'm currently trying to make a UI fix that will show the stat changes in the in game UI, or the Item Cards as they're referred to in the code.
4) I choose to think of it as an "Alternate Challenge Mod"
What's next...well I am working on a template to create custom classes, want to add 2 additional classes instead of changing the existing ones. Mercenary and Infiltrator are the current names but are open to discussion . I don't want to put out too many details until I figure out exactly what I can and can't do.
WEll i want to start a new campaign but since that mean i will be investing hundreds of hours into this i would like more info. I love gauss and will pick them more likely do they get buffs in order to match the power of plasma in the end game? Also could we get a tech tree with details?
I am currently reworking the DGC.ini as well as making some additional changes to balance one side against the other. Weapon tiers will end up being unlocked faster, but you will have to complete foundry projects to actually be able to produce weapon types. As far as a full tech tree printout, currently I am the only one working on this project and it is in my free time, I would be happy to work on that after I finish my overhaul(currently it is sketched pretty crudely on a couple sheets of paper, nothing easily understandable).
There will be several changes to address balancing gauss against pulse, but ultimately I am working on making ballistic an acceptable weapon toward end-game as well. Plasma will still be the almighty weaponry, but the other tiers will be somewhat balanced against each other with each tier having it's own specialty. Ended up working through the weekend, but I will have the overhaul out as quickly as I am able.
In my mod there is also fusion, it uses models from other weapon tiers, but gives you a high damage option on the ballistic tech line. There are only 4 options for fusion though, the Alloy Cannon equivalent, Heavy Machine Gun, SHIV weapon, and MEC weapon. So essentially Gauss is half a step below pulse, but with fusion you can carry a Gauss + Fusion combo, utilizing your fusion to complement certain soldier builds such as heat ammo, and maybe higher mobility units.
Short answer, yes I am tweaking the Gauss also, but Pulse will be higher damage while maintains that oh so crucial DR reduction.
Essentially this is the plan: Ballistic: lower damage, higher magazine capacity Beam: lower crit, higher accuracy Gauss: lower magazine capacity, balanced stats with DR reduction Pulse: balanced stats with higher crit Fusion: higher stats, limited options, higher expense. Plasma: still the best, can be used regardless of tech tree path choice, harder to attain.
I hope to make all options viable mid-late game, but for the last couple months you should need Gauss/Pulse or higher to not have impossible odds.
I have to ask this... is it possible that I cut myself off of mecs simply by researching xenogenetics and building a gene lab? I did not do gene mod recovery at all, and for some reason I do not have the option for chop people up. Don't know if I missed something or if it's a bug, but even tough I like this mod a lot, I'm just about to give up on it. I hope it's something I can fix, since I'd rather not start another campaign after 15+ hours.
Sorry for the delayed response, Halloween is a big ordeal in my house so just getting back to the forums. Xenogenetics should not have blocked you from getting MECs, however the research tech requirements are slightly different in this mod. To get access to your first MEC variant you need
Alien Materials >> Drone Autopsy >> Alien Cybernetics AND Alien Systems >> Alien Biocybernetics
If you have already researched all those and don't have the ability to build MEC 1: Paladin Armor, then please let me know and I will look into it more closely.
Something else to note is that you should be able to have both gene-mods AND MEC suits(1-3), but getting the advanced MEC suits or advanced gene-mods is where you must make the choice. I am also currently working on an overhaul to better emphasize these changes, I hope to have it out by the weekend.
I too can be a tad bit slow to respond mainly thanks to my employer so no problem there. Maybe the problem was because of the dozen hex mods, so I decided to make a clean install of the game so sadly I do not have the save files. I'll probably wait for the new version and start a new campaign after that and we'll see if I encounter the same problem again. Probably have to check the mods for compatibility before installing so many hex mods or at least install them in a certain order so that not so important mods get overwritten. I'm looking forward to the next version and will report back after playing it some.
That's why I enlisted the affected classes in the mod details tab. Just so that people at least know which ones I'm using. If you open that .txt file for each of the hex edits you will see a line like:
OBJECT = XGFacility_Labs.Init : AUTO
This means that in the Class "XGFacility_Labs" the function "Init" is being modified with hex. So if you're motivated enough to check each one you install you can see if two mods change the same functions, if so it's likely they aren't compatible. Though there isn't a list(to my knowledge) of which mods on this site are/are not compatible with others.
When I release the overhaul it will require several .ini and .int edits, for installation I'm going to recommend using a "clean" Long War b15f3 install and just copying the files from the folder I upload due to the large amount of changes. That will be in the Install.txt file included with the overhaul, anyway just a bit of info on that, thanks for the feedback on my mod!
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22 comments
1) A Few Good Men is done and released, it's a relatively simple change affecting only starting stats and amount of soldiers. I considered the issue with too few starting soldiers, but not in terms of impossible to be honest as I've never played that difficulty in LW. Personally I balance most things around Brutal since that is the difficulty level I enjoy the most. Can you give more details around why 3 and then 5 is too few in Impossible?
Are there just that many more enemies?
Do the aliens progress much faster due to the limited amount of soldiers?
Are there too many ranks required before attaining the additional soldiers?
Feedback like that would help me with making it a better experience for Impossible. I know I can change some things based off difficulty, but I don't really want to give a buff to an Impossible playthrough just because of enemies being harder then it's not getting progressively more difficult.
2) Expanded Officer Training School is done and released, it has a few more complex issues that could cause problems in other parts of the game. I haven't received any feedback on the standalone version as of yet so if you are using it I would truly value some.
3) Profitable War has proved troublesome the way I'm trying to approach it this time. Unfortunately on new games the grey market checks different parts of the code than what it does on loads so there is a bug on startup that goes away on your first load but that's an unacceptable way to release IMO. I'm currently trying to find a work-around but if I can't I may abandon my current concept.
4) New Soldier Classes: This one I have been working on for quite awhile, I can get everything working but only through a bunch of messy hacks so far. I'm trying to clean up the changes as much as possible, but I may have to release this one attached to my main mod(once I clean that one up) in order to have everything working as intended.
5) Alternate Tech Tree: This of course is where I started, everything worked to my knowledge until you reported to me the issues of Foundry Projects not unlocking. This of course defeats the entire purpose of the mod since without those Foundry Projects you can't unlock any weapons besides the very limited ones I had release with the tech research. I'll definitely be looking into this before releasing my next version with the new soldier classes attached.
I'm trying to make this mod compatible with Art of War and it seems the conflicting files are XComGame.int and XComStrategyGame.int and DefaultGameCore.ini.
I've compared the 2 int files and it seems that the changes are the following: ( In case anyone is interested )
XComStrategyGame.int
AoW changed 125 lines.
Cerberus changed 6 lines.
Conflicting lines 0 lines.
XComGame.int
AoW changed 734 lines.
Cerberus changed 6 lines.
Conflicting lines 29 lines.
It seems only weapon names conflict, so merging seems pretty simple.
The real poblem is DGC.ini. Will try to make a similar comparison.
Ps: This is only a preliminary result, so I may run into other problems on the way especially with dgc.ini
Added new foundry projects
Added new OTS projects
Changed Research Techs
Changed Item names
Item names aren't that big a deal and you can easily change them in the corresponding .int file. Research is more of a deal since I reorganized how things worked in XGTechTree to create the branching trees. The foundry and OTS projects are completely new and can be modified to be used however you want with a bit of modding experience, but not with simple ini tweaks alone.
I tried to reach out to the guy making the ini tweaks for Art of War to try and work together on a bigger project involving both our mod ideas, but he didn't seem interested.
My time is very limited due to my work schedule, so changes are a bit slower than I'd like them to be, but I welcome suggestions for improvement. Thanks for taking the time to try out my mod!
But when I looked inside your DGC.ini I found some strange changes. ( Don't know if they're intentional or remained from something else )
For example:
- Outsiders getting extra crit at line 382
- Minimum aim for soldiers changed to 59 from 58
- Some comments changed at soldiers xp levels
- etc.
So maybe not Long War b15f3 was the file you worked from? ( I did a clean install yesterday )
Anyway if I concentrate on the tech changes it should be fairly simple to merge the two ini files.
Sadly my time is quite limited since thankfully we have a lot of work, but since I do not plan on buying X-Com 2 on launch I have some time to play with Long War.
I've thought about doing that, but am still trying to find the time to finish the entirety of the overhaul I've been working on. Have my new classes working bringing the total classes up to 10 instead of 8. New classes gain perks based on weapons or items equipped while other classes maintain the same perktree perks.
Mercenary: Close range specialist with perks attached to weapons and armor
-Raider: Mercenary MEC variant, perks attached to primary, secondary and MEC suits
-Choose Mercenary by selecting middle column for Assault class, replaces random option
Command: Unit for field control, perks attached to items and armor
-Overseer: Command MEC variant, perks attached to primary, secondary and MEC suits
-Choose Command by selecting middle column for Support class, replaces random option
Neither class can become Officers.
even thought my squad has been limited to 5
The way it is figured is like this:
Rookie: $40(configurable in DefaultGameCore.ini
Squaddie: Rookie * 3
LCPL: Rookie * 5
CPL: Rookie * 6
SGT: Rookie * 6
Due to the increase in cost of the soldiers I did increase the starting amount of soldiers, this is also configurable in the DefaultGameCore.ini.
With the holidays here and me having family on top of work I have not had the time to update all my changes, I just wanted to release what I had for others to play around with. I changed the starting squad limit to 5, but probably will reduce it further once I get all my changes put together, though I intend to add the ability to take more soldiers on specific missions just like LW did with Base Assaults and such, just not to start off.
The weapons have been changed significantly and might even be a bit overpowered currently, mainly because if you know the order of techs you can unlock their techs much quicker. The foundry projects for weapons slow things down a bit, but not enough to allow the struggle that we(or at least I) enjoy about XCom. I am doing all my changes on a limited schedule so things may sometimes take a bit longer than I want them to.
Cash is a bit easier to get ahold of, and this is by design, foundry projects, OTS techs and certain other things are more expensive. On the other hand you can sell built items for a significant markup of how much credits they cost, though making a habit of this will turn out badly because I also increased the cost in materials for most items.
I've reached out to a few other modders in the hopes of getting others with similar goals to work with me on a larger project(much like the LW team did) but so far no luck. Anyone interested in sharing ideas and the workload is more than welcome to message me on Nexus and we can discuss things further.
Thanks for trying out my mod Jester!
Something to note, I increased the sell value of items more than I intended, the next version will reduce the amount to 1.3 times the item cost. Currently it is multiplying by both the original value (cost * .4) as well as my 1.3, which is making the game multiply by 1.7 for some reason.
P.S. Most likely once I finish my next set of changes I will start a new mod page for my overhaul.
-Having to choose actualy increase replayability to test out the other paths
-Balance is okay so far, depending on what you're facing, some path are going to give you an harder time than others, but it's only natural
-takes a lot of time to see the changes, and it can get lost in all the changes brought by long war
-In the end it's kind of a nerf mod, since you lock out a good portion of the possibility by focusing on a signe branche.
So yeah pretty fun and interesting so far, would like to see what's comming next.
1) That's what I was going for, but along with the different TechTree branches I also wanted to make the style of play more custom for each person. Rather than all weapons being unlocked by x Tech, the Foundry is where you'll spend your time, you can pick and choose which weapons you want to invest in. The Research still unlocks a weapon(in some cases more than one) which is essentially your "Prototypes", then the Engineers come up with additional designs.
2) I was actually a bit worried about balance, it's gonna take less time to get to Gauss and Pulse in comparison to vanilla Long War, but with the new Foundry Projects as requirements to unlock weapons and armors you still have that additional wait time. I left the weapon stats the same as vanilla Long War, but added in the ability to upgrade those weapon categories via my DefaultAltTree.ini file. You can choose the Research/Foundry Project required and then also the upgrade stats, then they are applied upon completion of the required project.
3) That's something that every mod to Long War suffers from, the Long War team did such a good job adding new things. In the particular case of my mod I'm currently trying to make a UI fix that will show the stat changes in the in game UI, or the Item Cards as they're referred to in the code.
4) I choose to think of it as an "Alternate Challenge Mod"
What's next...well I am working on a template to create custom classes, want to add 2 additional classes instead of changing the existing ones. Mercenary and Infiltrator are the current names but are open to discussion
Thanks again for the feedback!
I love gauss and will pick them more likely do they get buffs in order to match the power of plasma in the end game?
Also could we get a tech tree with details?
There will be several changes to address balancing gauss against pulse, but ultimately I am working on making ballistic an acceptable weapon toward end-game as well. Plasma will still be the almighty weaponry, but the other tiers will be somewhat balanced against each other with each tier having it's own specialty. Ended up working through the weekend, but I will have the overhaul out as quickly as I am able.
Short answer, yes I am tweaking the Gauss also, but Pulse will be higher damage while maintains that oh so crucial DR reduction.
Essentially this is the plan:
Ballistic: lower damage, higher magazine capacity
Beam: lower crit, higher accuracy
Gauss: lower magazine capacity, balanced stats with DR reduction
Pulse: balanced stats with higher crit
Fusion: higher stats, limited options, higher expense.
Plasma: still the best, can be used regardless of tech tree path choice, harder to attain.
I hope to make all options viable mid-late game, but for the last couple months you should need Gauss/Pulse or higher to not have impossible odds.
I did not do gene mod recovery at all, and for some reason I do not have the option for chop people up.
Don't know if I missed something or if it's a bug, but even tough I like this mod a lot, I'm just about to give up on it.
I hope it's something I can fix, since I'd rather not start another campaign after 15+ hours.
Alien Materials >> Drone Autopsy >> Alien Cybernetics
AND
Alien Systems >> Alien Biocybernetics
If you have already researched all those and don't have the ability to build MEC 1: Paladin Armor, then please let me know and I will look into it more closely.
Maybe the problem was because of the dozen hex mods, so I decided to make a clean install of the game so sadly I do not have the save files.
I'll probably wait for the new version and start a new campaign after that and we'll see if I encounter the same problem again.
Probably have to check the mods for compatibility before installing so many hex mods or at least install them in a certain order so that not so important mods get overwritten.
I'm looking forward to the next version and will report back after playing it some.
OBJECT = XGFacility_Labs.Init : AUTO
This means that in the Class "XGFacility_Labs" the function "Init" is being modified with hex. So if you're motivated enough to check each one you install you can see if two mods change the same functions, if so it's likely they aren't compatible. Though there isn't a list(to my knowledge) of which mods on this site are/are not compatible with others.
When I release the overhaul it will require several .ini and .int edits, for installation I'm going to recommend using a "clean" Long War b15f3 install and just copying the files from the folder I upload due to the large amount of changes. That will be in the Install.txt file included with the overhaul, anyway just a bit of info on that, thanks for the feedback on my mod!