24 replies to this topic

[stjones]

New XcomUtil Developer

I have finally decided to stop working on XcomUtil after more than 12 years. Over that time, I have done almost everything I have ever wanted to do to improve Xcom and I have not made any new improvements in almost 2 years.

Rather than just let it die, I am passing the torch to David Jones (no relation to me), who many of you know as BladeFireLight (kid3@usa.net). David has worked with me in the past on Xcom related projects and has long been a champion of XcomUtil on the XcomUfo forums.

Since my employer always claims the rights to anything I create, both inside and outside of work, I will still have to retain official ownership of the XcomUtil source code. However, David will become the primary developer of XcomUtil and I will simply aid him in an advisory capacity.

I know he has many changes that he has wanted to make to XcomUtil and now he will get his chance. Please support him as you have supported me over the years. I probably should have taken this step two years ago, but it is hard to let your children go. Thank you, David.

[Darkhomb]

i'm curious how your employer can claim the rights to what you do outside of work?

Edited by Darkhomb, 23 January 2007 - 12:26 PM.

[stjones]

i'm curious how your employer can claim the rights to what you do outside of work?

When I joined the company, I had to sign an agreement that gives them first rights to EVERYTHING I produce, on or off the job. I am a salaried employee, not paid by the hour. My employer owns all of the rights to all 36 US Patents that I have filed. I just get a small award for each one that I file and an even smaller award for each one of those that is eventually issued by the US Patent Office. I can not even give anything away without getting special approval from management and our Intellectual Propert Law department, as I did with XcomUtil more than 10 years ago.

Yes, it is painful, but my employer pays me very well. After more than 32 years working for them, I have gotten used to it.

[stewart]

I think in these cases though the "company" has to show that what you create is related to their business. If you work for say IBM and you invent a new towel I think IBM would be pressed to show that your towel impacts their business.

[Tsereve]

You might be more pressed to actually invent a new towel, though

[Darkhomb]

I think in these cases though the "company" has to show that what you create is related to their business. If you work for say IBM and you invent a new towel I think IBM would be pressed to show that your towel impacts their business.

I agree with him, there should be no way they are allowed to own everything you invent or create, now if it is toward what they do then i could understand because tech they own that you have access could have allowed you to create it. so I'm sure that new towel you invent could make it! Good luck

Edited by Darkhomb, 26 January 2007 - 02:36 PM.

[NKF]

I certainly hope this doesn't apply to do-it-yourself kits and the like. Patenting an already patented DIY shelf or making a custom Lego set could make things rather awkward at the patent office! Sand castles? Or your garden?

And a new towel could just be the things that kickstarts our woefully depressing world that's so caught up with the past and drag it kicking and screaming into the future! And towels are such useful things, as a number of discerning sci-fi enthusiasts may have come to realise.

But joking aside, I know we've got some really smart technical folks here, and few pointers here and there on how some things were done could very well result in a whole new swiss army knife. It might take a bit of reinventing of those - er- round things, but if it helps work around all the complications, then it'll be fine.

- NKF

[BladeFireLight]

Knowlage on the data structures of the saved games and missdat that are already on the net are in most places just as extensive as what scott put together.
Any one can use what it avalible to make there own "swiss army knife" withs some createive manipulating of the numbers.

Using just the pre combat data file structure I was able to create a batlefield generator that is more extensive then the one in xcomutil. The only areas i'm strugling with is importing from an easy to edit config file. Text parsing is not my favorite thing.

-Blade FireLight.

[Shotgunner]

Scott, I'm sorry to hear of this, but thanks for passing on the project rather than let it fade into obscurity.

BladeFirelight, congrats on being the new XComUtil developer, and good luck - looking foward to seeing your first release!

[BladeFireLight]

For starters I was planing on some minor fixes to the install and runxcom files.

xcopy /y issue
ask for mod of transports
only replace small scout when needed
sub directory for install files (for a clean root folder)

Most of thease will only require an update to the batch files.

after that I have some ideas on battle field generation that can use other maps (I even know how to save states of the tilesets between reloads) but that may take some time.

-Blade FireLight

Edited by BladeFireLight, 27 January 2007 - 12:57 PM.

[Hobbes]

after that I have some ideas on battle field generation that can use other maps (I even know how to save states of the tilesets between reloads) but that may take some time.

-Blade FireLight

I have 2 things I'd like to see there.

- Fix the road placement for City when choosing the terrain before the battle (and for Port on TFTD)
- Better support to add custom designed terrains/maps (it is currently possible but it requires replacing original terrains with the xcomutil.cfg file)

[Pi Masta]

I don't mean to pile more work on you, but if you could remove the requirement that all bases have a soldier in order for the autoequip to work it would be mah-velous

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

You Know, We COULD just do what Apple did to IBM, and reverse Engineer it, using Two Engineers, a Dirty Engineer to write down what it does and whats needed, and a Virgin Engineer to rewrite the entire thing. But Also a question.. How would they find out?
Could we simply not keep this under the table and change the file name? x3

[BladeFireLight]

I have 2 things I'd like to see there.

- Fix the road placement for City when choosing the terrain before the battle (and for Port on TFTD)
- Better support to add custom designed terrains/maps (it is currently possible but it requires replacing original terrains with the xcomutil.cfg file)

All ready have thease in a seporate program. it's still in alpha and I have not worked on it in a while but I hope to merge the programs either with a batch file hook or integrating the code.

I don't mean to pile more work on you, but if you could remove the requirement that all bases have a soldier in order for the autoequip to work it would be mah-velous

Have not ran in to this myself as i alwase have a defense team at each one. but I know that would annoy the heck out of me.

You Know, We COULD just do what Apple did to IBM, and reverse Engineer it, using Two Engineers, a Dirty Engineer to write down what it does and whats needed, and a Virgin Engineer to rewrite the entire thing. But Also a question.. How would they find out?
Could we simply not keep this under the table and change the file name? x3

The trick here is geting two engineer interested in x-com for long enough.. and besides there already is an X3 I got it for christmass and love it. It's just hard to play when my kids keep triping over the joystick cord. with xcom I can just use wireless mouse and sit on the coutch.

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

Blade, Are you not an Engineer?
StJones can simply reverse engineer his own Appliction, and give you the standards of how it works, Its not the Source code. So its Legal.
Hes the dirty and youre the clean xD

[BladeFireLight]

Blade, Are you not an Engineer?
StJones can simply reverse engineer his own Appliction, and give you the standards of how it works, Its not the Source code. So its Legal.
Hes the dirty and youre the clean xD

I'm afraid I'm already dirty . I have been looking at the source.

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

..Well as long as you dont copy and paste anything Im sure it would be alright xD

[Slaughter]

I just posted this in the news at StrategyCore.co.uk. Would be nice with some screens to go if anyone has any. Want me to try and get this posted at Evil Avatar?

[stewart]

I have added BladeFireLight as a moderator for the XcomUtil forum. I have retained Scott as comoderator as well.

[CRM114]

I've been playing X-COM with Scott's utility for years, and I'm very happy to see that it's going to be getting at least one more update. Thanks for all of the work over the years, Scott, and good luck to FireBladeLight.

[BladeFireLight]

Thanks. It looks like a have my work cut out for me.

-Blade FireLight

[Longshot]

Hi...I'm sorry to say I just discovered this...utility. It's very nice, and thanks to both of you for your work on it.

One thing, if it's ever possible, is there ANY way to make the CE run on new computers at a normal speed? You know, so I don't move my mouse a millimeter and watch the screen scroll by at the speed of light? I guess the game wasn't designed in the era of dual core processors and whatever else makes them so fast nowadays, but I have to use two turbo programs set at 10% each to be able to play the game. It'd be nice not to have to do that.

Anyway, thanks in advance for whatever you can do.

Big, big fan.

[keybounce]

You know, so I don't move my mouse a millimeter and watch the screen scroll by at the speed of light?

I found that I had to adjust the mouse sensitivity in the mouse driver. I'm using freedos, and there is a /r flag on the mouse driver on that system.

There's also a scroll speed in the battle options page.

[Dens]

Hey, dunno if anyone will remember me anymore as it's been quite a few years now.

Just wanted to thank you Scott T Jones, Xcomutil has brought much fun to go with X-COM.
Glad to see the torch is being passed on to good hands.

Sorry to bring bump up an old post but I'd just found out and wanted to pay my dues for good times past.

-Dens
X-COM Forever!