Tain Posted August 28, 2004 Report Share Posted August 28, 2004 Well, the title says whats on my mind! Does anyone know of any editors or such tht allow you to take control of the aliens in say a saved tactical map? There used to be a little utility for TFTD that let you do just that, and i was just curious if such a thing exists for Apoc. Just beat the game again, and have been looking for some more ways to juice some fun out of the game. (well that, and i have always wanted to launch brainsucker pods at a few annoying agents.. hehe) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsereve Posted August 28, 2004 Report Share Posted August 28, 2004 sorry, midnight is the only editor i know of worth downloading, and you can't even load tac games on it (have to wait until back in cityscape). I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about programming, but perhaps you could get someone witha)that knowledge andb)lots of spare timeto create a program. Isn't exactly a "just modify files xyz" thing, cuz of the whole different dimension, different tech, bio weapons, etc. thing. Ask someone in the programming department. P.S. If Tain starts spamming you guys for help on this, I bear no responsability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[NKF] Posted August 28, 2004 Report Share Posted August 28, 2004 Well, if you can get XED to run (it normally takes your usual every day miracle to do this on modern computers), you can use it to permanently (well, for the duration of the battle) take over an enemy unit by using the 'heal unit' option. For some reason it switches the ownership flag to player control. Not sure why, but it does. Now if only the save files weren't all chucked into one big lump, I'd be poking around them by now. - NKF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tain Posted August 28, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 28, 2004 (edited) NKF, that may just be able to do what i want. If the Xcom agents could be switched to AI as well. A simple flip flop of unit control on a map is really all i am after. I have XED, though as you mentioned it doesn't want to run on my machine. I will have to see if i can beat some sense into it. Thanks for input! [Also so as not to confuse anyone, an example of what i want to do: Lets say i down a UFO as xcom. I go into the mission, and then save the game. What i wish to do specifically is then gain control of the alien units, and defend the downed UFO from the hopefully AI controlled X-com agents. just thought such a scenario would be new, fun, and definitely challenging. Especially if they have toxiguns, yeesh..] Edited August 28, 2004 by Tain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tain Posted August 29, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 29, 2004 Well here is a little update for anyone interested. The Good news. I can get control of the aliens in tactical. All aliens have their custom graphics, cannot wear armor, are brainsucker friendly and even get their abilities, this includes popper detonations. The Bad news: I cannot yet find a way to set the X-com agents to computer controlled. The way it works now, i just end up with the Aliens and X-com all on the same team. If there are no hostile aliens the mission will immediately end. More Bad news: Unfortunately my new alien allies do not stay with me after the fight, even if i have room. This is sad, as i was oh so hoping to raid some annoying organizations with UFOs carrying alien ground troops. I hope this may be possible if i can find an editor that can export agents from saved tactical games. (IE trying to export an alien who is an agent and importing him into a saved cityscape game) Well thats it for now, a glimmer of hope but just a faint one. I am going to resume my searching! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Master Maniac Posted August 29, 2004 Report Share Posted August 29, 2004 (edited) Maybe later on down the road, a couple of people can get together and make a game based on X-Com 3, but not using the exact same engine and what have you (like the excellent X-Com 1 "mod", UFO2000), in which the sides are swapped, as they player must defeat the humans as the aliens. That really does sound kind of cool, but that might be a long time coming. A very, very long time... edit--how exactly did you do that, really? Edited August 29, 2004 by The Master Maniac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tain Posted August 30, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 30, 2004 Indeed Master Maniac, it would be very fun. Its especially tempting because when you look through the game, all the aliens have custom equip graphics, portraits, weapon select graphics (like the spitters spit tube shown in the weapon panel in tactical). So close yet just out of reach.. As to how i got as far as i did, its quite simple really. I did exactly what NKF suggested. I used the program "XED" and loaded a game saved in tactical. (a ufo mission). After opening the saved game in XED, a list of soldiers came up. What seems to be a bug in the program is that if you select the "heal" option for an alien, it sets the alien to player controlled. Hence, when you load the mission in game, you have control of said alien, and keep control until the end of the mission. The aliens as i mentioned earlier have their own "weapon in hand" graphics (even the popper, that one is kinda funny, shows a popper in the midst of "popping"), portraits, equip screens etc. They even cannot wear armor, and brainsuckers ignore them. Its really cool. You do not keep control of the aliens after the mission sadly, and i have found no way to set the xcom agents to computer controlled so as to fight against them. Those are the big and gameplay killing problems i ran into myself. (a small note, the original XED will not work on xp i have discovered, i was forced to use a recompiled version to get the program to work) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Master Maniac Posted August 31, 2004 Report Share Posted August 31, 2004 Huh--that definitely indicates the aliens were controllable at one point, right? Maybe part of the much-touted multiplayer portion of the game that was unfortunately scrapped (I thought that I once heard that the city itself was going to have some seriously massively multiplayer elements)? I can't imagine why the aliens would have custom menu graphics any other way, or why they'd even bother if that wasn't the case. Guess it's as mysterious as the strange, "hidden" beta elements of the game still left in the final version. Creepy. Well, this is definitely worth looking into, at any rate. Call me crazy, but I've always wanted to pulverize some X-Com soldiers with some tricky alien gun-fu. Maybe one day, that dream will be realized. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Blehm 98] Posted August 31, 2004 Report Share Posted August 31, 2004 if you drop the alien weapons on the ground, they will crash teh game, . also, talk to scott and apocutil, they could help you(apocutil is not a person) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Master Maniac Posted August 31, 2004 Report Share Posted August 31, 2004 Hmm, that's funny (glad that wasn't the case with the first X-Com, as that was a routine part of my alien-busting strategy, using mind control and the "inventory bug" to strip the enemy of their equipment). I wonder if there's any way to "activate" all those "hidden" features? From what I've seen, there's actually a great deal of stuff left in the game that was seemingly pulled right at the very last minute--more than half of the things I know about actually had the CG UFOpedia images and everything, and even a few of those had text descriptions (courtesy of an editing program I just discovered that allows you to flip a "switch" that enables the complete UFOpedia). Strange to know you're playing a game that's, honestly, about halfway complete... As for the multiplay or role-swapping features, that's nothing a little honest modding couldn't handle... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tain Posted August 31, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2004 Exactly Master. I would even guess that the devolopers could easily play X-com or the Aliens in tactical for testing things. I suspect it could even be as easy as finding a "switch" in the code. Pay attention to the screens that pop up while turns go by. It says something like "Turn 2. Side: Aliens. Player: Computer" The part that gets my attention is "Player: Computer" I can't help but wonder if there is a way to switch the two. ie make X-com Player:Computer and make the Aliens Player: Human. Blehm, i thank you for your information! I have long tried to get the aliens playable in at least tactical. So close yet so far. Do you have any idea how i may get in contact with the people you mentioned? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j'ordos Posted August 31, 2004 Report Share Posted August 31, 2004 (edited) Exactly Master. I would even guess that the devolopers could easily play X-com or the Aliens in tactical for testing things. I suspect it could even be as easy as finding a "switch" in the code. Pay attention to the screens that pop up while turns go by. It says something like "Turn 2. Side: Aliens. Player: Computer" The part that gets my attention is "Player: Computer" I can't help but wonder if there is a way to switch the two. ie make X-com Player:Computer and make the Aliens Player: Human. Blehm, i thank you for your information! I have long tried to get the aliens playable in at least tactical. So close yet so far. Do you have any idea how i may get in contact with the people you mentioned?IIRC, the game originally had a scenario generator which allowed you to play anyone you wanted, xcom, one of the organizations and the aliens, against anyone you wanted. This was stripped out along with alot of other things, but there already are many topics about this. Go here if you wish to find out about the left out equipment (not entirely correct information though, eg. Dimension Destabilizer only damages shields, which they happened to forget ) : http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~xcom/x3x9.shtml anyway, this should be possible, someone with some hex editing skills and patience could figure that out. Unfortunately, apoc doesn't get as much attention as xcom1... Blehm only mentioned one person, scott (as he said, apocutil is not a person ), he is the author of xcomutil and it's apocalypse alternative, apocutil, you can contact him on this very forum, name : stjones. edit : well, if you open up the TACTGAME.XX with a hex editor (XX being the number of the savegame), and search for the name of your soldiers, and count 13 from the last letter of the name, change that value (should be '00') to '01', the xcom unit will be under alien control . Then you would have to do that for every soldier you have. edit2 : oops, a bit too early there, I forgot there is open space for different name lenghts... Anyway, here's the trick then. You search for a name of one of your soldiers, then you start counting from the first letter of it's name, until you reach 20 (max length of names), from there, you add 7. At that location you change the 00 into 01. edit3 : tried it out, few notes : obviously, your side is still xcom, and the former xcom units' side is now alien, minor bug I'd sayYour original squads still appear on the squads tab, but you can't select them. Probably some value somewhere that still needs editing.As in xcom1, you need to have the tech researched if you want to use the alien weapons.the squad did not seem to move.(TB) Edited August 31, 2004 by j'ordos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tain Posted August 31, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2004 Thanks much for the info j'ordos. I'll dig out my hex editor and give that a go, should be interesting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Master Maniac Posted August 31, 2004 Report Share Posted August 31, 2004 (edited) There's got to be some way to puzzle this out. With the sudden, swift way most of the game's major features were gutted (most at the last second of development, no less), it would surprise me if most of them weren't simply "switched off" rather than completely removed. As for the turn-based screens, I've wondered about that, too. Then again, it gives you a different bar for each "player" operating in the battlescape, civilians included, so I'm not sure how that works. Again, I'm thinking that multiplayer once played a big role in the game, as j'ordos said, but I'm not sure how well developed upon the idea was. However, there are indeed still some elements left in the game that suggest there was once a bevy of optional modes of play that were suddenly, and unfortunately, stripped. Who knows--maybe they're still there, buried underneath a sea of code? However, if all else fails, maybe some time or another, a couple of people could get together and make a full-fledged, Aliens vs. X-Com mod or something. Hey, it's possible. Edited August 31, 2004 by The Master Maniac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tain Posted August 31, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2004 (edited) it would surprise me if most of them weren't simply "switched off" rather than completely removed.<{POST_SNAPBACK}> My thoughts exactly Master Maniac! Thats my driving force in this ordeal. Trying to find that "switch". There may be other ways also if that does not pan out. J'ordos, Thank you much for that previous information concerning hex. Using that method, i managed to get control of the aliens, and give X-com some limited computer control. Its very resitricted however as you mentioned. X-com agents do not move from where they start, though they do fire and return fire etc. Another unfortunate side effect of this method is because you are still technically playing for the X-com side, brainsuckers and hyperworm spawns are useless, because they spawn aligned with the enemy. However, i think this put us on the right track. My search for the Side:Player switch continues, but you guys have certainly helped to narrow the search! [Also: There may be a work around to dufus AI that is currently a problem with this method. I wonder if we can give these x-com agents the same kind of computer control that a Brainsucked agent would get. Brainsucked agents have demonstrated that they know how to move around and fire all on their own. This could be a rather devious method of solving the moron AI problem if we cannot find a better way.] Edited August 31, 2004 by Tain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Master Maniac Posted August 31, 2004 Report Share Posted August 31, 2004 Hey, I never thought about that! Do you know what triggers a brainsucked X-Com soldier into "swapping sides?" That could very well be the key! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j'ordos Posted August 31, 2004 Report Share Posted August 31, 2004 Hey, I never thought about that! Do you know what triggers a brainsucked X-Com soldier into "swapping sides?" That could very well be the key!well, that's how I found out what the trigger was to set them to alien control, but it is very likely there are more values that trigger full alien control, would require more and deeper savegame comparing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tain Posted August 31, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2004 (edited) Thats what i am trying to figure out at the moment Master Maniac. I need find out what a brainsucked agent looks like in hex, not going to be fun hehe. I suspect that the reason X-com agents in the method i tried were so stupid is because X-com as an entity has no fallback AI to use, because its supposed to be player controlled only. Thats why i suspect starting off all the X-com agents in Brainsucked mode may solve this problem, brainsucked agents obviously have AI they can use. If anyone happens to already know what makes an agent brainsucked and how to set an agent to such a state via hex, your input would be invaluble! edit : the allegiance swap bug in xed probably is not a bug, but a feature to turn brainsucked units back under your command. Ahh, i suppose that makes sense! Thanks mysterious and all knowning entity that edited my post! Edited August 31, 2004 by Tain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j'ordos Posted August 31, 2004 Report Share Posted August 31, 2004 edit : the allegiance swap bug in xed probably is not a bug, but a feature to turn brainsucked units back under your command.er, oops, I just tried to edit my post, not noticing you had posted something in the meantime, sorry about that :Blush: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tain Posted August 31, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2004 Ahh no problem, had me rather startled though . You make a good point about that feature, thats most likely exactly what its meant to do. Luckily it opens the door for other things too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tain Posted August 31, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2004 (edited) WOOHOO UPDATE! Ok guys i got AI for xcom working! They now run, crouch, go prone, fly if they have marsec armor, and do everything normal enemy AI does! I found the value to turn on Brainsuck mode and it sure is sweet! Ok now for how i did it: Doing as J'ordos mentioned, i compared in depth 2 save games. the first had my agent right before he was brainsucked, the second right after. After looking through these, i found the "brainsuck AI" value. It is as follows. Count 4 values after the 01 which denotes alien control. Switch the 00 there to 63, and the ai works. Here is a copy and paste of EXACTLY what to replace in hex. My soldier was named "Jurgen", and here is what i changed: Normal: 00 00 00 00 FF FF 6C 01 4A 75 72 67 65 6E 00 0000 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0000 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 FF 00 Brainsuck AI Turned on: 00 00 00 00 FF FF 6C 01 4A 75 72 67 65 6E 00 0000 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0000 00 01 00 00 00 [63] 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 FF 00 The value in brackets [] is the value that tells brainsucker AI to turn on. Obviously imput that value without the brackets, they are just there to show which it is. To add it to any soldier, simply count 4 values to the right of the 01 value denoting alien control and TADA. Working enemy X-com AI. [if i had any webspace i would upload the savegame that i used to verify this: is a reverse UFO mission. however the savegames are between 1.9 and 3 megs for some reason!] A few notes and issues yet to be solved: Spitters: They are somewhat useless. Their graphic for weapon-in-hand is there, but it behaves like an unresearched weapon- you cannot fire it. Poppers: They seem to go off only when they feel like it. Its hit or miss. Also they have no smoke trail when under human control. Brainsuckers: You can actually brainsuck people. The problem is they get turned to the "alien" side, and that means you are actually turning them against you. Still thinking on how to address this one.. So stay awawy from brainsucker launchers.. ITS HARD. X-com WILL hand you your butt, especially early in the game. Owe... Its still my hope that we can find a Side:Player switch that makes all this hex dancing obsolete. Let us hope we can find one! (oh and by the way, anyone know how to take a screenshot inApoc? printscreen + paste isn't working for me in this game for some reason) Edited August 31, 2004 by Tain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Master Maniac Posted September 1, 2004 Report Share Posted September 1, 2004 (edited) Uh, I never could get a screenshot either. But still, that's some excellent progress you've made, there. For the sake of experimentation, I tried using that "heal alien in the editor" trick to gain control of an alien in the battlescape, but Apoc decided to crash when I did so, effectively ruining that particular backup save. Hmm. Well, if there's anything I can help with to aid the effort, just tell me what to do. I've burned through a good 30 minutes, you know, trying to get that to work. edit--I read how that editor supposedly won't work in XP. Well, it works for me. Usually, when you try to use it, you get a brief "runtime error" that flashes on screen for about a half second, then it closes itself. Well, all you have to do is to "catch" the window by grabbing onto it, then move it around a bit until it starts working (?). Strange, but that's all I need to do. Thought that was worth pointing out. Edited September 1, 2004 by The Master Maniac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tain Posted September 1, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2004 (edited) Master Maniac, are you using the recompiled version of XED? Thats the only one i could get to run successfully on XP. Also, are you running it in windows 95 combatability mode? Also, if you are desperate, you could set the Aliens to your control via hex editing. Its just much easier and quicker to use XED's heal option. It seems the save games compress well, despite being rather large at first glance. Here is the UFO mission i am testing on currently. I include it at the beginning, player being aliens enemy being X-com. It should be a pretty good proof of concept. It takes up the very last save slot, so if you have anything there i suggest back it up. Hopefully this will work for you seeing as your editor decided to blow up your game. edit- hmm it won't let me upload the zip file i put it in, im going to try putting it up on some geocities space in that case, its about 600 k in size. Try this link then- TACTGAME Edited September 1, 2004 by Tain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Master Maniac Posted September 1, 2004 Report Share Posted September 1, 2004 (edited) Well, that was a backup save it killed, anyway, so no harm done. I'd like to try this out, though. It's the first step in a cool new direction, possibly for a new mod. As for as the editor, I'm not entirely sure--it appears to be a DOS executable, though it works quite well. I'll go and look at the details in a moment. edit--file trouble? Hmm, well, I've run into that problem a couple of times myself. I just make a new zip folder, change the name, then try again. Usually, for some reason, that works. Edited September 1, 2004 by The Master Maniac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tain Posted September 1, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2004 (edited) Added the file to my previous post in case you missed it! And careful of X-com, they are tough! And if it doesn't go try right clicking and selecting save as Also, please take pity on my poor agents. They may look rag tag in their mix-match marsec/megapol armor but they have spirit dangit! Edited September 1, 2004 by Tain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Master Maniac Posted September 1, 2004 Report Share Posted September 1, 2004 Okay, it finally downloaded (I have one seriously lousy connection). Thanks--I'll have to reboot the whole computer to go into "hey, I finally got freaking X-Com Apocalypse to work!" VGA mode. I'm quite interested to see how this turns out. side-note: funny enough, the final game slot was the one that I just killed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tain Posted September 1, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2004 (edited) Another really odd thing. I have discovered that if you give an x-com agent the "poppers bomb" it will go off when clicked. However, when the popper itself has the "poppers bomb" it seems like it doesn't want to. weird. Edit- Wahoo solved that problem too. Poppers now go BOOM when they should. Strangely enough, all it requires is that x-com has researched a live popper. Also, the brainsucker problem has me completely stumped. I don't know how to adress it as long as we are playing for the x-com "side". Edited September 1, 2004 by Tain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j'ordos Posted September 1, 2004 Report Share Posted September 1, 2004 (edited) Great to see you found the AI value, I think I saw that one on all alien units too, so maybe we can use this to make those civilians always running around behave like gaurds if we give them that value (and instead of 01 the correct value for the organization in question, ofcourse ) and a few weapons! They should even shoot only at those they are hostile to, not neccesarily aliens You probably need to have the alien weaponry researched, perhaps by researching the live alien you also learn about it's natural attack and make it usable? In that case you just have to enable all tech with an editor . Sadly I know nothing about side swapping yet, all I looked at before was the vehicles and vehicle weapons. And trying to find out where on earth the armor strength of roads are. Edited September 1, 2004 by j'ordos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tain Posted September 1, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2004 Well it appears to be just as you theorized J'ordos. The alien attacks are directly dependant on whether or not you have the live alien researched or not. Enabling all aliens researched, i was able to get all their attacks working, including the spitter. The only problem remaining with this method of alien play is that the brainsuckers/hyperworms still spawn enemy. A true side swap appears to be the only way to solve this, and that could be most difficult to pull off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j'ordos Posted September 2, 2004 Report Share Posted September 2, 2004 Well it appears to be just as you theorized J'ordos. The alien attacks are directly dependant on whether or not you have the live alien researched or not. Enabling all aliens researched, i was able to get all their attacks working, including the spitter. The only problem remaining with this method of alien play is that the brainsuckers/hyperworms still spawn enemy. A true side swap appears to be the only way to solve this, and that could be most difficult to pull off.just thinking, there's a good chance the TACP.EXE (in the TACEXE folder) contains the 'default' alien stats (well, they have to be stored somewhere), I currently can't look into it, but if you can change the side in there, they will always be a xcom unit. This would mess up every game to, not just the savedgame... This could be something towards a full play as alien mod if it works, but I'm afraid it is unlikely default XCOM soldier stats&side are in there too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tain Posted September 4, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 4, 2004 Something to look into thats for sure J'ordos. Also, for everyone else. Talking with a nice fellow by the name of Bomb Bloke over at xcom.co.uk, and giving him what information i knew, he was able to write a small program to do the switching of the units automatically. Its called "ApocFlop" and it does just what its supposed to. Check out the thread here: Link It does exactly what we were doing here, but automates it. Same limitations apply, but i am still going to be looking into other methods. However, this works for now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j'ordos Posted September 4, 2004 Report Share Posted September 4, 2004 anyway, couldn't find default stats in TACP unfortunately, they're probably there, but no 'Brainsucker', or something easy like that near it Program looks great, I'll give it a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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