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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Yet Another Ufo Remake


ufonef

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You could use some help. Not me through, i know 0% about programming only.

 

The globe looks cool, althrough you 100% took it from X-Force or from where X-Force took it(LOL) I can`t guess where you took blue buttons from, through...

The blue skyranger is DISGUSTING!!! DISGUSTING DISGUSTING!!! As well as brown color in the lab.

 

Recently i had lots of free time so i filled it with thinking how could be an X-COM MMORPG set up. I think it wouldn`t hurt if i share suggestions:

Cydonia has armory pyramid, where you can get new crew, equipment and UFOs, research pyramid, where you can give samples of Earth and scienists study it and Brain Pyramid(only Ethereals allowed to enter it!!!)

 

Aliens have points instead of cash, for what they get equipment. The Battleship costs too many, but it is the only craft that cen assault X-COM bases. Once you find one, you can ask your masters to give you a battleship for assault.

 

In terror missions you don`t have to kill all X-COM operatives when they arrive. Just kill the civilians and press dust off(the battle doesn`t auto end unless you kill all X-COM agents)

 

X-COM start with no tech. But player starts with Sectoid soldiers always.

It is possible to recruit ranked aliens in Cydonia armory. Terrorist ranked will get themself a weapon creature with superior powers(remember Cyberdiscs?)

Edited by nonam
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Globe is simply a satelite picture of earth made i think by nasa. I guess its pretty common and first hit on google.

Blue skyranger...yeah, its temporary image. However I wont do any graphics for this project, so unless i find someone willing to either make ufo original graphics a bit better (question of legality arises here again) or make a totaly new ones (that would retain the ufo feeling), this will stay as it is :).

Edited by ufonef
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Weekly update :).

Some more geoscape has been made, this time for ufo player.

Im getting more into battlescape now.

http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/3971/ufo1j.jpg

Now, i've got some little questions. Again in points :)

1) Ufo file bigobs.pck - object 20 and 27 look almost the same (smoke granade). I assume its a leftover, but wanned to make sure. Is one of them truely unused?

2) Is there original grapahics sets of backgrounds? It seems ufo.exe changed color palettes for most of the background images, base facilities and crafts. (thats why i got this bluish skyranger in earlier screenshots). Now, tools for extracting them dont show proper colors. Perhaps someone has them in original ones?

3) What are unit pictures numbering 232-263? (for example sectoid.pck). Those are hands, left and right times 8 for each direction, so there should be 16 pictures, but there are 32. I didnt notice ufo rendering any animation for throwing granades, so if first 16 picutres are for sticking out hand when holding granade in either left or right hand and each direction, what are the next 16 pictures for?

thanks.

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Weekly update :).

Some more geoscape has been made, this time for ufo player.

Im getting more into battlescape now.

http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/3971/ufo1j.jpg

Now, i've got some little questions. Again in points :)

1) Ufo file bigobs.pck - object 20 and 27 look almost the same (smoke granade). I assume its a leftover, but wanned to make sure. Is one of them truely unused?

2) Is there original grapahics sets of backgrounds? It seems ufo.exe changed color palettes for most of the background images, base facilities and crafts. (thats why i got this bluish skyranger in earlier screenshots). Now, tools for extracting them dont show proper colors. Perhaps someone has them in original ones?

3) What are unit pictures numbering 232-263? (for example sectoid.pck). Those are hands, left and right times 8 for each direction, so there should be 16 pictures, but there are 32. I didnt notice ufo rendering any animation for throwing granades, so if first 16 picutres are for sticking out hand when holding granade in either left or right hand and each direction, what are the next 16 pictures for?

thanks.

 

I can remember some of those pictures were for holding grenades, and others for holding pistols, they were not the same... I would say you can ignore them.

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1) Ufo file bigobs.pck - object 20 and 27 look almost the same (smoke granade). I assume its a leftover, but wanned to make sure. Is one of them truely unused?

Object 27 is indeed a leftover graphic for the Smoke Grenade from the development of the game. Apparently the prerelease beta had a bunch of unused graphics as well, but these were stripped out when game was released. :)

 

2) Is there original grapahics sets of backgrounds? It seems ufo.exe changed color palettes for most of the background images, base facilities and crafts. (thats why i got this bluish skyranger in earlier screenshots). Now, tools for extracting them dont show proper colors. Perhaps someone has them in original ones?

There are a set of images for this over at the X-COM wiki here. May want to take a look at the palettes page too. ;)

 

- Zombie

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That second smoke grenade seems like an extra. Looks like it could be useful for use with one of the disabled obdata.dat entries if somehow they could be added to the buy/sell/transfer screens. By the way, the game actually has a second set of bigob images in ufograph\ - as separate files. The combined pck is used for the inventory screen while the separate images are used for the battlescape.

 

The graphics with the hand sticking out are also used for when you fire your weapon. Basically all one handed items, items and for firing weapons.

 

The background graphics are just raw images 320x200 in dimensions. Each byte is a palette reference to the entries in the Geoscape palette which the game alters as its running to shift the colours to different shades.

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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Thanks :).

I was wondering what that other set of bigobs was too since they seemed the same.

Btw, im using exporting programs and then converting images to 24/32 bit bmp's, so i dont have modules for importing original graphics straight from the game. Was easier this way, and i thought it would be better for future modifications. (could have made both mechanics but oh well...didnt know there was a problem with palletes).

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=BASEBITS.PCK <-- this is gold. Thanks. What a shame http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=B....SCR-BACK17.SCR dont use original colors:(, but oh well, background is less important than a bluish skyranger :).

Edited by ufonef
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Thanks :).

I was wondering what that other set of bigobs was too since they seemed the same.

Btw, im using exporting programs and then converting images to 24/32 bit bmp's, so i dont have modules for importing original graphics straight from the game. Was easier this way, and i thought it would be better for future modifications. (could have made both mechanics but oh well...didnt know there was a problem with palletes)

 

I wanted to ask you, if you think that the battlescape is too much work to begin with... I would love it if you could make the Geoscape for the Alien side first, but that may be just me...

 

Good work btw.

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I wanted to ask you, if you think that the battlescape is too much work to begin with... I would love it if you could make the Geoscape for the Alien side first, but that may be just me...

 

Good work btw.

 

Thanks.

Ufo geoscape is done for the most part and functional. I didnt give any screenshots for that, as its mostly just buttons. Also, i dont have base facility images for base view :(, and im using some of the TFTD background images as ufo background image :D They even fit.

Well, i repeat this quite often, but i lack images for this project. All i have are stuff from original ufos. This means that xcom andufo side will look visually similar. Ofcourse working and naming differences will be quite large. Gameplay as ufo is (as mentioned in the first post) organized in less micromanagment way. You cant control every detail of your soldier like xcom can, as this would take too much time. It might take some time to get used to. I'll present two screen shots and short description:

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/6158/ufoufo.jpg

work in progress - please dont mind typos if you see them, i'll be correcting everything later. You'll notice part of the screen is missing :). Well, quite obvious, after chosing ufo ship, you get to chose a mission type, and point on the globe where you want the mission to take place. From this point, you can only call your ufo back to base. Everything else will be handled by the ufo crew. They will fly over the point, do some patroling random waypoints over it, and search for a place to land (if the mission requires landing). Then the mission gives you benefits the longer it takes. When its over, ufo heads home for base bringing whatever could be brought from that mission. Ofcourse providing that xcom didnt interfere :).

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/33/ufoufo2.jpg

Here is in base menu where you pick a list of ships to build. Background taken from tftd. You'll notice new ufo type 'mother ship'.

I'll repeat that: I want to make a remake as close to the original as possible. I dont plan to add hundred of new ufo types. For now only 2 are planned, maybe i'll add something in the future.

Mother ship is a split of actions a battleship could take previously. Now battleship is used for base assualt only, and mothership can built bases. Values of cost are also for testing. It will be balanced later on, im thinking what should be small scout's value in elerium, as it didnt really had an engine in ufo. Yet it flew....makes me wonder why and how. I'll probably change it to some small value to reflect it having some small engine too.

EDIT:

One more word on the mother ship. Its not some kind of death star craft. The ultimate ufo. Its simply a colony ship, weak in air combat and slow. Its high cost is because instead of building a base like battleship did in ufo, mothership becomes the base (the entry point building in base view, like the access point in xcom base) and its crew becomes the base defence. Therefore, mothership carries the cost of building a new base in iteself. Also its the only ship that will carry the commander.

cheers.

Edited by ufonef
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I wanted to ask you, if you think that the battlescape is too much work to begin with... I would love it if you could make the Geoscape for the Alien side first, but that may be just me...

 

Good work btw.

 

Thanks.

Ufo geoscape is done for the most part and functional. I didnt give any screenshots for that, as its mostly just buttons. Also, i dont have base facility images for base view :(, and im using some of the TFTD background images as ufo background image :D They even fit.

Well, i repeat this quite often, but i lack images for this project. All i have are stuff from original ufos. This means that xcom andufo side will look visually similar. Ofcourse working and naming differences will be quite large. Gameplay as ufo is (as mentioned in the first post) organized in less micromanagment way. You cant control every detail of your soldier like xcom can, as this would take too much time. It might take some time to get used to. I'll present two screen shots and short description:

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/6158/ufoufo.jpg

work in progress - please dont mind typos if you see them, i'll be correcting everything later. You'll notice part of the screen is missing :). Well, quite obvious, after chosing ufo ship, you get to chose a mission type, and point on the globe where you want the mission to take place. From this point, you can only call your ufo back to base. Everything else will be handled by the ufo crew. They will fly over the point, do some patroling random waypoints over it, and search for a place to land (if the mission requires landing). Then the mission gives you benefits the longer it takes. When its over, ufo heads home for base bringing whatever could be brought from that mission. Ofcourse providing that xcom didnt interfere :).

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/33/ufoufo2.jpg

Here is in base menu where you pick a list of ships to build. Background taken from tftd. You'll notice new ufo type 'mother ship'.

I'll repeat that: I want to make a remake as close to the original as possible. I dont plan to add hundred of new ufo types. For now only 2 are planned, maybe i'll add something in the future.

Mother ship is a split of actions a battleship could take previously. Now battleship is used for base assualt only, and mothership can built bases. Values of cost are also for testing. It will be balanced later on, im thinking what should be small scout's value in ellirium, as it didnt really had an engine in ufo. Yet it flew....makes me wonder why and how. I'll probably change it to some small value to reflect it having some small engine too.

EDIT:

One more word on the mother ship. Its not some kind of death star craft. The ultimate ufo. Its simply a colony ship, weak in air combat and slow. Its high cost is because instead of building a base like battleship did in ufo, mothership becomes the base (the entry point building in base view, like the access point in xcom base) and its crew becomes the base defence. Therefore, mothership carries the cost of building a new base in iteself. Also its the only ship that will carry the commander.

cheers.

 

Yes, that is what I meant. You could actually "finish" the geoscape, or at least make most of the features.

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Yes, that is what I meant. You could actually "finish" the geoscape, or at least make most of the features.

Many of the features are done. From important stuff air combat is still missing, but its my next goal for this week. Well, by features i mean the most important features. For example, no matter what, i'll leave stuff like graphs for the end. But you can build ships and equipment/breed new aliens/train them (sort of)/lauch missions/research on ufo side. Still cant build facilities (which is a simple task actually, but with no graphics for ufo bases im leaving this for later as well.). However the already built facilities work. From technical stuff, there is a working system for recognizing terrain type on the globe (so ufo shot down above water will sink like in original), also the same mechanics is used for recognizing regions and country borders - those however are not yet implemented. Hmm..xcom part is missing transfer, base information and build new base buttons.

So, geoscape will be ready sooner than batlescape, but i'll be doing both at the same. Its more fun this way. For example, yesterday i made my first small scout appear on the battlefield. It was fun to watch that sectoid from earlier screen walk inside the scout :). Anyways, except air combat, all the important functions are already done.

Edited by ufonef
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Some more ideas...

 

You know that supply ships are required to support alien bases, right?

Here are some suggestions for that:

If the supply chain breaks, then the base is either inoperational till a supply ship succesfully lands and facilities stop being constructed. Althrough...you could cut the supply out, but add purchase button for base. As sson as you purchase something several hours after a supply ship appears in random spot and heads towards your base.

 

I do not like the idea of mothership!!! Especially that it is weak and non-combat craft!!! The supply ship could fit for that as well, since it can carry what aliens need for survival.

Really, you do not need it...

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I do not like the idea of mothership!!! Especially that it is weak and non-combat craft!!! The supply ship could fit for that as well, since it can carry what aliens need for survival.

Really, you do not need it...

If you're speaking about the flavour, then mother ship could be named differently, for example base ship or constructor. Otherwise i do not see a reason why a ship meant only to build a base should be armed. The original game had battleship building a base, and i think that its a good idea that the largest ship in the fleet should build bases, supply ship is not the largest. I want to use mother ship/base ship/constructor for two purposes: to include the cost of paying for building a base into the ship itself (makes it easier and i think more interesting this way, rather than building battleships and loading them with tons of materials for the new base, especially since battleship wasnt meant to carry cargo. or was it? Ship layout show only some fuel pods inside battleship. Anyways, falvor wise i wanned to have a ship that is of the 'very large' category, but having much equipment like the supply ship -therefore the new type that combines both). Second purpose is the, not yet mentioned idea of alien ranks. They stay, and are way more important for ufo side than originally. Im using templates for putting alien crew into ships. Those templates forbid you from putting commander ranked officers onto any other ship except this one. And you need a commander to set up a base. (also - unlike original - mutons will have all ranks). Commanders are more expensive and require some alien research to be done before they can be breed/trained in bases. This is because i made (again similar to original ufo) sectoids into two levels of threat. One is the first sectoid small ships with low ranked sectoids, and the other is much more serious threat of sectoid leaders/commanders capable of doing psy attacks. This means that first there will be low ranked sectoids, then floaters, then perhaps some other race/races and finaly just before ethereals, there will be sectoid leaders and commanders. Now, if i changed that, i would either end up with supply ships that could cary commanders on build base missions (which ruins my idea of templates, or at least i would have to add one more template for base building) or commander would be not necessery to build a base, which means sectoids could build base before they even had a commander. Well, anyways, the name can be changed for the ship, but its role in my oppinion should stay.

Some more ideas...

 

You know that supply ships are required to support alien bases, right?

Here are some suggestions for that:

If the supply chain breaks, then the base is either inoperational till a supply ship succesfully lands and facilities stop being constructed. Althrough...you could cut the supply out, but add purchase button for base. As sson as you purchase something several hours after a supply ship appears in random spot and heads towards your base.

 

Good point. I'm ofcourse doing supply ships and supply missions (supply mission is visible in one of the screenshots). There is however one thing. In original game, ufo bases except point deduction for xcom, had no other purpose. Bases and supply ships was just for fun, with no real role. Here, ufo bases for aliens are as important as xcom bases for humans. Cydonia is still present, but only sends some occasional supplies. This will work well, since those will be vital for all bases, and if they lack, bases will not be able to produce at full capacity. However, bases are capable of gathering all resources except elerium by themselves, and also you can transport materials via supply ships from one base to another. This means that there wont be an artificial way of disabling a base, by, lets say, not reciving 3 consecutive supplies. It works all inside the game's mechanics. If ufo player stocked up huge ammounts of supplies earlier, base will continu to be operational even if there are no supply ships droping by. So, your idea in a different way is already present in the game :). Hope you like that :).

Edited by ufonef
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I am not going to say anything else aganist mothership, since i just want to play with aliens. But alien bases are not organic, they are made of alloys...

 

Do not forget there are such resources as alien food, entertainment and etc.

And even if harvesters could support the base with food, the alien entertainment and reproduction...

Edited by nonam
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Good point, nonam. (Though ufonef, the Battleship doesn't carry food; the Supply Ship and Harvester do). The way Alien Bases are now, the aliens survive on basically nothing since food containers are absent from the base facilities. Odd, isn't it? Unless we consider that those base vats contain "prepared" alien food and are unrecoverable. :idea:

 

You can also recover lots of Alien Entertainment from certain bases as well as UFO Power Sources and Elerium. It's strange that Supply Ships do not carry Alien Entertainment and yet a base still has it. Maybe it doesn't get consumed so the base is constructed with the supply from the Battleship initially? Anyway, just some ramblings. ^_^

 

- Zombie

Edited by Zombie
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I would assume the power sources are used to power/light the base. Then again, the module with the power sources isn't present in every base design either. Plus the base is usually completely dark (sans for a few objects which cast light), so that kinda shoots down the "lighting" theory, doesn't it? Some bases even have 4 or 6 power sources present. I wonder where all the excess power goes? Hmmm. LOL

 

- Zombie

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first of all, i appreciate all the constructive ideas that you give :). And welcome everyone that wants to point something out. Know however that everyone has their own vision as something might work, since original game was actually quite vague as to many features for alien race. Also, i have the game planned pretty much already, so im unlikely to do many changes to it at this point.

But alien bases are not organic, they are made of alloys...

Mothership will not be mutating into a base. Its not a zerg. It will be dismentled, and parts of it used for building basic facilities and entry point. (or just the entry point). Its a flavour thing actually, since the mechanics remain the same. But i never assumed anything organic about the ship.

Do not forget there are such resources as alien food, entertainment and etc.

And even if harvesters could support the base with food, the alien entertainment and reproduction...

Well...out of that only food could be considered a real resource. Entertainment is ...hm....a wall? :) Its more like a structure of sorts. Not something that gets consumed (at least that's what i think). So, beside the point that it is hard to make some actual usage for alien entertainment (bonus in combat? bonus for aliens in battleship? battleship had alien entertainment, yet no aliens had any bonus during battlescape - so it was a pointless from the game mechanics point of view. it was only a flavor for the game), i would consider it more to be a facility of some sorts. Reproduction is similar. Its more a facility than a resource. What really is a resource are the organs used for reproducion. Since there are signs that ufo had something to do with earth's fauna, and they use some of the organs from animals from earth, both alien food and organs can be gathered by the harvester on earth, and manipulated so that it fits alien needs. So, resources that i consider are : elerium, food, organs, alloys, and - possibly and yet unnamed - material for building facilities. Im not sure here, i might go simply for using alloys for building both ships and facilities, it doesnt matter that much.

Elerium is the only material you are fully dependant on cydonia to get. Organs, food and alloys will be shipped from cydonia, but all you can produce/gather yourself. Base without elerium will hover have hard time producing weapons (which also require elerium after all) and ships. So, what i meant to say in the earlier post is that cutting supplys from your base will have very bad consequences for you, but you can do some work to minimise those. This include gathering whatever is possible to gather on your own, and making stock supplies of elerium.

 

Good point, nonam. (Though ufonef, the Battleship doesn't carry food; the Supply Ship and Harvester do). The way Alien Bases are now, the aliens survive on basically nothing since food containers are absent from the base facilities. Odd, isn't it? Unless we consider that those base vats contain "prepared" alien food and are unrecoverable. :idea:

 

You can also recover lots of Alien Entertainment from certain bases as well as UFO Power Sources and Elerium. It's strange that Supply Ships do not carry Alien Entertainment and yet a base still has it. Maybe it doesn't get consumed so the base is constructed with the supply from the Battleship initially? Anyway, just some ramblings. ^_^

 

- Zombie

I wasnt saying battleships carry food. On the contrary, i said that i find it funny that they construct bases since they do not carry too many supplies (except fuel). And thats why i wanned to make the mothership/constructor/base builder ship.

About your second sentence. That's exactly the problem about making ufo gameplay. There is no solid game design coming from the original game, since most of the alien side was done for flavor and with heavy use of random functions. So...everyone has some idea of how something could work, and unfortunetly, not everyone will like all the ideas. Its funny tho' but i dont even know any attempt of making ufo side playable. (in full campaing that is). There were only some ideas floating on various forums and projects that never gotten started.

Edited by ufonef
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Just noticed, you confused Ellirium with Elerium :P

 

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Elirium

 

In screenshot.

I do that alot. Always elerium for me was elirium or ellirium. Anyways, already corrected this one. Btw, there are more spelling misstakes. I will sit one day, when the game is finished and correct everything i find. So, be patient :).

And apparently there is something about that name that makes people misspell it ;)

Edited by ufonef
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  • 2 weeks later...
Well, i repeat this quite often, but i lack images for this project. All i have are stuff from original ufos. This means that xcom andufo side will look visually similar.

If you need images you can try this. Once you build the models I could help you turn them into nice looking sprites. I already have scripts set up to do just this.

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Never seen this before. But i'll give it a try.

However, that will be in at least months time. still coding :(

It looks great, in what language are you coding this?

 

Keep up the nice work

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Hello,

 

It looks great :)

 

I think that only way to be legal is to use (somehow) original data. There are many projects which are doing this, like scummvm, exult, openttd and many many more (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine_recreation). But in first post you've written that it's impossible, could you tell why?

 

Maybe solution would be to create some kind of converter program, which extracts data from original files, process it (cut images into smaller images, resample sounds, etc - everything what is needed) and save this data into format you use?

 

Do you plan to open source it? Maybe someone would be able to help you (with game or such converter program).

Edited by misiek
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It looks great, in what language are you coding this?

 

Keep up the nice work

 

c++/directx

 

Hello,

 

It looks great :)

 

I think that only way to be legal is to use (somehow) original data. There are many projects which are doing this, like scummvm, exult, openttd and many many more (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine_recreation). But in first post you've written that it's impossible, could you tell why?

 

Maybe solution would be to create some kind of converter program, which extracts data from original files, process it (cut images into smaller images, resample sounds, etc - everything what is needed) and save this data into format you use?

 

Do you plan to open source it? Maybe someone would be able to help you (with game or such converter program).

I do use original data. What i meant by impossible is that i use only standard graphical formats like bmp and tga, and did not use inbuilt converters (like ufo2000 does) to process pck and other files. So its impossible to install my game, and have it extract original data. A separate converter/extractor is ofcourse possible. Its just quite a lot to do and probably i wont do it anytime in the near future.

I do not plan to open source it. I could use some help with graphics and the converter program, but i'll need it a bit later, when the game is closer to getting done.

And...a new screen. :)

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/5113/ufotts.jpg

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Uh...then why aren`t you busy with new graphics if you can`t distribute it? Or you are doing it for yourself?

Now we know the reason nobody ever did an x-com alien remake. Take Two came and said that you can`t. Like the Black men in the Black.

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Uh...then why aren`t you busy with new graphics if you can`t distribute it? Or you are doing it for yourself?

Now we know the reason nobody ever did an x-com alien remake. Take Two came and said that you can`t. Like the Black men in the Black.

Let's straighten a couple of things up.

First of all, dont think that because im taking already made graphics it is any less coding to do. Its less graphics to do, but in terms of coding its still the same. And that's making a rather large game from scratch. I even dare to say that due to making it playable for two sides (both sides differening greatly in play style) and multiplayer this is even more work than the original game. I do have a job and a school to finish, a diploma to write etc. I've made more progress on this game in a 1 month time than many other free projects made in years. So you asking me "why arent i busy with graphics" kind of hurts me, because im REALLY busy with this game overall. I cant be more busy, i would have to stop sleeping to be that.

So, it comes down to priorities. My priority is to make this game. I'll be worring about everything else later on. This includes graphics converters and so on.

I did also say in my first post that there are chances this game will never be publicly distributed. The deal here is like that:

I make if for my own fun. But i dont mind sharing it with people, as long as i can do that legally.

Now, if someone helps me in that, chances for this game being made public rise. If not, then you'll have to hope that after doing the game, i'll still be interested in making other stuff to make it legal. Because as i said, i have a diploma to write, i might make this game, and switch priorities to finishing my school, which to be honest, is something i should be doing right now instead of this. So, please forgive me if this project sounds selfish in a way. But that's also the reason why im not making any websites with communities for it. Don't want to get people's hopes too high.

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There is a way to distribute your code / game legally in the form of an upgrade package to an existing Xcom installation or that it requires the user to have Xcom installed already.

 

The user can use BB's Toolkit to convert all the graphics to GIF format which hopefully your code can use.

 

You might want to look at writing a batch file to help the process; allowing input for the source and destination (eg: Xcom1 to Xcomnew) but it should not be too hard.

 

Otherwise, your project is looking great! The revised battlescape view looks awesome and hope it scales to user selectable resolutions.

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I'm using bmps, but yeah, it can be done one way or the other. But still, i'll look into it a bit later. :)

The problem im facing now is that....i have to do my diploma more and more, so probably i'll get a short break from ufo.

So for the time being this is my last update:

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I'm using bmps, but yeah, it can be done one way or the other. But still, i'll look into it a bit later. :)

The problem im facing now is that....i have to do my diploma more and more, so probably i'll get a short break from ufo.

So for the time being this is my last update:

 

nice clip!

 

just one quick question: is it normal that it's slow on the battle field ?

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No. It's because of the video capture program. It slowed it down somehow.

The same with loading weapons onto skyranger...you can hold mouse button down like in the original and it will load it. Here i had to click as it worked too slow. Wanned to make the movie clip small in size so i decreased FPS rate, which in turn affected in game timer for various things.

Edited by ufonef
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Let's straighten a couple of things up.

First of all, dont think that because im taking already made graphics it is any less coding to do. Its less graphics to do, but in terms of coding its still the same. And that's making a rather large game from scratch. I even dare to say that due to making it playable for two sides (both sides differening greatly in play style) and multiplayer this is even more work than the original game. I do have a job and a school to finish, a diploma to write etc. I've made more progress on this game in a 1 month time than many other free projects made in years. So you asking me "why arent i busy with graphics" kind of hurts me, because im REALLY busy with this game overall. I cant be more busy, i would have to stop sleeping to be that.

So, it comes down to priorities. My priority is to make this game. I'll be worring about everything else later on. This includes graphics converters and so on.

I did also say in my first post that there are chances this game will never be publicly distributed. The deal here is like that:

I make if for my own fun. But i dont mind sharing it with people, as long as i can do that legally.

Now, if someone helps me in that, chances for this game being made public rise. If not, then you'll have to hope that after doing the game, i'll still be interested in making other stuff to make it legal. Because as i said, i have a diploma to write, i might make this game, and switch priorities to finishing my school, which to be honest, is something i should be doing right now instead of this. So, please forgive me if this project sounds selfish in a way. But that's also the reason why im not making any websites with communities for it. Don't want to get people's hopes too high.

 

 

Sorry for offending you. But if you do not want to get people`s hopes too high, why did you...wait...did somebody stuff a plasma pistol next to my head? I guess did...

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I've rethink some of the things and decided to set up a page.

Also, this projects draws me in. I'll keep on doing it but slower :).

http://nefurii.my-place.us/

Nothing much new there but all future news will be posted there.

The good news is that even if i dont do any graphic converters, i will most likely give the exe itself with instructions on how to extract graphics with already existing tools. Should be both legal and not too much time consuming on my part.

cheers.

Edited by ufonef
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I've rethink some of the things and decided to set up a page.

Also, this projects draws me in. I'll keep on doing it but slower :).

http://nefurii.my-place.us/

Nothing much new there but all future news will be posted there.

The good news is that even if i dont do any graphic converters, i will most likely give the exe itself with instructions on how to extract graphics with already existing tools. Should be both legal and not too much time consuming on my part.

cheers.

 

This is really great information :) Surely, someone else could make those converters.

 

Also, can you again consider relasing you project as open source? This way some people would be able to help you with coding. Also, if you won't be able to work on it anymore, it won't die.

 

From my point of view you won't lose anything if you will open source, because you're planning to release it as freeware anyway. But decision is yours.

 

You're concerned about legality, maybe this topic will help you (it's quite long unfortunately):

http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=2...936&start=0

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I've rethink some of the things and decided to set up a page.

Also, this projects draws me in. I'll keep on doing it but slower :).

http://nefurii.my-place.us/

Nothing much new there but all future news will be posted there.

The good news is that even if i dont do any graphic converters, i will most likely give the exe itself with instructions on how to extract graphics with already existing tools. Should be both legal and not too much time consuming on my part.

cheers.

 

This is really great information :) Surely, someone else could make those converters.

 

Also, can you again consider relasing you project as open source? This way some people would be able to help you with coding. Also, if you won't be able to work on it anymore, it won't die.

 

From my point of view you won't lose anything if you will open source, because you're planning to release it as freeware anyway. But decision is yours.

 

You're concerned about legality, maybe this topic will help you (it's quite long unfortunately):

http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=2...936&start=0

 

 

I have just visited you new homepage. Thanks for your update.

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  • 3 weeks later...
I can't wait for the first release ;) count me in for testing!
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I don't know if you're tracking progress on official page. If not, i encourage you to do it.

 

First public release (without single player mode) may be released on end of may/beggining of june.

 

 

I am so excite that I check the progress of this project everyday. I left some comments for your progress update. My name is Gillman. Do you remember? :-)

 

Thanks for your contribution to the x-com community!

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I don't know if you're tracking progress on official page. If not, i encourage you to do it.

 

First public release (without single player mode) may be released on end of may/beggining of june.

 

 

I am so excite that I check the progress of this project everyday. I left some comments for your progress update. My name is Gillman. Do you remember? :-)

 

Thanks for your contribution to the x-com community!

 

I hope you're not thanking me, because i'm not author, just messenger ;)

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To answer the problem of Aliens requiring research and manufacturing of goods... It wouldn't be all that hard to create a realistic way for that to be equally as difficult for Aliens as it would be for Humans..

 

Here's a few ideas:

 

-Alien soldiers 'rank up' just as Human soldiers do. Thus, aliens will only ever have 1 commander (of each species). Leaders would be Corporals. Captains and Sergeants would be assigned as either: Medics, Engineers, or Navigators... BUT only by being randomly selected as 1 of those 3 "types" when captured by X-Com. On the Alien side they would appear as another rank. Rookies and Squaddies would be "Soldiers", etc.

 

-Rather than X-Com craft (ufos) randomly appearing on the Geoscape, from an Aliens perspective you would receive orders from Cydonia and a set of progressively more important (and harder) missions would appear on the geoscape.. Starting with scouting, then research, terror, infiltration, base creation, supply, etc.. All the same as in X-COM: UFO Defense. The difference is these orders would be coming from the Alien overlords on Cyndonia. You could choose to complete these missions or pass on them. If you pass, you lose points and X-Com gains points. If you attempt/complete them, you gain points.

 

-Points reward you "Favor" with the Alien hierarchy. The greater your favor, the greater your tech level becomes. You start out only toting mind-probes/plasma pistols, and you eventually gain enough favor for rifles, floaters, access to better craft (which you must order or manufacture from finishing mission objectives), etc. This would be effectively the same (and hopefully progress laterally) with human tech.

 

-Certain missions would require certain units to be assigned. IE - You MUST assign your commander to any mission with a battleship. To do a terror mission you MUST have a Corporal, as well as at least a few terror units.

 

-The missions success is what determines what resources you get (more alien alloys, more elerium, access to superior races). This would be similar to nations funding. Once your favor reaches a certain level, the game does a check. .at the end of each month if you are between X and Y values, Cydonia gives you access to the next progressively better species and technology sets (ships etc) and assigns you more and more difficult missions.

 

-There is no alien armor, and a limited amount of weapons.. these are advantages AND drawbacks. To receive better armored units you must gain favor with Cyndonia and get better Species assigned to man your NEW base.. Which means if you lose a base to X-Com, you are effectively set back 1 month.

 

-Aliens have no proximity grenades, no laser weapons, no electro flares (but aren't effected by darkness), no stun rods, no smoke grenades, no avenger (the best ship in the game), only certain units can have Psi: Sectiod Corporals/Commanders or Ethereals).. Thus, only a few of your sectiods could become psi-capable at any given time, and by the time you get Ethereals as an option you must first have a base with each other alien species occupying it, and that won't happen until later in the game (A minimum of 6 months..Probably realistically less). This balances the technology issues.

 

-Terror units must be manufactured on base or ordered and sent in from Cydonia. Same as Human HWP's.

 

-The smaller the ship, the less units you are allowed to carry on it. (say.. Vet/Gen difficulty.) If all you have access to is medium scouts you may not have more than say, 7-8 units aboard. Meanwhile, Xcom can have 14 units on their skyranger. Yes, you have better technology, but they have greater numbers and more versitility with their loadouts.

 

-Of course, Aliens will always have plasma 'whatever' before humans. .but Aliens have less options and versitility with their units/weapons and are put in positions which leave them vulnerable. ie- they land on a site and must defend that site from X-Com.

 

-Alien Stats are more standardized and progress with rank rather than training. Or perhaps only progress extremely slowly with training.. Where as humans have the potential to start out either "Good" or "Bad", but no matter what they start out as, they can progressively get better.. Where as aliens can only get better by achieving higher rank, and/or getting enough favor to build a base for the next species so they may start using them.

 

-Each species has weaknesses.. unlike the humans. For example, Mutons have great armor and accuracy but CANNOT get Psi and are relatively slow and have crappy terror units. Floaters can float and have 'average' stats. Snakemen have decent armor but are extremely slow and unintelligent, and thus can't use certain technologies.. The tradeoff being their awesome terror units. Sectiod leaders have Psi and their terror units are awesome, but they are overall the weakest individual soldiers.. Ethereals are the equivelent of late game Flying Suit fully trained Psi-Op soldiers and should be treated as such.

 

 

 

Those are some ideas, anyway..I'll probably write more later. hehe

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  • 2 weeks later...
I have always loved the idea of commanding a group of "renegade" aliens... You have to live by looting food from other crafts, and researching Alien races. This will be a lot more compatible with the Human gameplay...
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