Thanks and no problem

*EDIT* P.S. I love the UB shotguns lol.

I recently tried the drone heavy machine gun with ap ammo. Unless it's shooting a very close target the hit chance shown is always less then 5% but still always hit the target with high accuracy. A single hit can cause more than 1000 damages to a normal wargot. It takes less than a second to kill a wargot. A defender drone with the heavy machine gun can easily take on 5 wargot at the same time and win. It's too powerful.

My own experience with a defender drone mounting the .50cal is very different ...

The drone must be within shotgun range to hit anything, and even at shotgun ranges a shotgun is more accurate. I had the drone stand a few meters away from an unconscious wargot priest and quite a few shots missed (and the hit percentages shown for the misses weren't as high as they should be for the range the drone was).

As for the damage inflicted, base damage is 1300 so the kinds of hits you are seeing come as no surprise. It is, after all, the same bullet as the Barrett.

It was supposed to be able to mow down the common wargots. Imagine my dismay when it didn't because it couldn't hit anything beyond spitting distance. And by the time it gets that close the now-tougher, more accurate wargots will have shredded the drone.

I have found that both the regular and heavy drone machineguns are so inaccurate that they are all but useless for me in the game, except to kill enemies that I have already neutralized. Seems your experience is MUCH different than mine. I'd like to hear from a few other folks before I do anything to this weapon.

No experience with the drones yet (but in a game-time day I will) but I have some experience with the machineguns:

I'm using two machineguns in the following setup:

Minimi with gyro, with a human with Good at mechanics
PK with underbarrel flamer with a cyborg with VeryGood at mechanics

I noticed that the hit-percentage shown on ennemy is the LAST bullet percentage, and so its nearly always 0% with the minimi and its 14 bullets burst, and upto 10% with the PK and its 10 bullets burst. Of course, in fact the first bullets have a far higher chance to hit, and its somewhat hard to know at wich distance I should start firing.

Well, until I equiped Recoil compensators.... Now I can see high hit-percentages at surprising distance, and my two machinegunners are often more usefull that regulars assault-rifle wielding guys. They dont have higher chance to hit that rifles (I can see 50-75% when the rifles have 80-90%) but the amount of bullets fired make it almost certain that more than the rifles will hit.

Rifle: 3 bullets at 90%, lets say three hits
Minimi: 14 bullets at 50% and higher: 7 bullets hits, ouch

I just saw the same thing too using the drone heavy machine gun. The hit chance at the target is 0% but the message log shows that the first shot which missed had about 30% hit chance.

MGs are supposed to be nastier than rifles. That's why they require special training to use. Anyone can use a rifle.

What I haven't tested yet is the M60 with no add-ons versus the normal drone MG. (They are both basically the same gun.) If anyone would care to do such testing (Elevrai or LimXC?) it might shed light quicker on whether the drone guns need some tweaking.

I've noticed that in the mod in equipment.txt prereqs are spelled "prerequisites", while in vanilla equipment.txt they are spelled "prerequisities".
Is this difference have any meaning, or game accepts either way ?

Yes, there is a difference. Mine is spelled correctly.

So, this means that non of the vanilla prereq are working ?

The vanilla works just fine. The spelling mistake is purely cosmetic.

prerequisities . that just made my day.

I can't do that. I don't have anyone with the same mechanical and enemy skill as the defender or fighter drone.

Oh and I have another request. Could you make like a Commando armor? Like have a speed boost or something lol. Well, if it's possible anyway. It would be cool if you got a stealth bonus or something when wearing a certain type of armor...

Which gives me another Idea... nvm, that would be too much armor, having an armor type for each class

Anwyay it's kinda cool how I'm actually influencing (in a minor way) a mod... whereas 2 years ago I thought NOTHING of the people who make mods... just thought, "oh cool, this mod does this". then a year ago I join a website branch and it feels like mods are a part of the community... Now i'm actually talking to the person making the mod... lol, I never thought something like that would ever happen.

I could create a Commando armor, based on light, but I doubt anyone would use it. Besides, can't you add stealth to any armor already via cloaks? Also, modded-in speed bonuses aren't working in the game.

I was wondering if it would be possible to restrict Katanas to be used only when standing? Along the same lines, might a Wakizashi only be usable when standing or kneeling? I also wondered if there couldn't be an advanced Katana which counted as AP? Just a thought.

The katana is already defined as "NotProne", and I won't restrict them to standing-only.


The wakizashi has always been defined as "NotProne".


Already exists: Duralloy katana.

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my dumb suggestion! I'll have to play some more.

The cloak only works for scouts, that's what my question is based on; non scouts. My commando has commando, stalker, and ranger training, so he can't use cloaks.

Seems silly that commandos and stalkers cannot use cloaks, but it's a limitation in the AS design because you can either specify a restriction to ONE class, or no restriction at all. You cannot restrict an item to several classes. A possible workaround would be to create multiple cloaks, one for each desired class, but that's an ugly fix.

The ideal solution would be to create a new cloak training ability, give that ability to Scouts, Commandos, and Stalkers (and perhaps Rangers), and then change the cloaking items to require this new training. I don't know if/how new trainings can be created, I'd have to investigate it.

Thx alot, it would help if u could

Just wondering if this is intentional:

Nearly 100% of the time, when I've knocked a wargot down I find that all my standard rifle damage (XM-8s with AP ammo) only does 0 damage. Also, I find that other damage types seriously reduced (For example, my level 3 sniper with a L115A1 with 100% accuracy headshots can only do around 900 damage, instead of around 6-7k headshot kills). Even my M60 only does around 0 damage when they're knocked down.

This makes it incredibly hard to kill Wargots effectively with Rifles: I shoot them up a few, they get knocked down, and often block line of sight to their friends. At the moment, I'm reduced to finding them with my scouts and picking them off with snipers.

Is this intentional, a design flaw in the game, or is my game just bugged ?

If you are doing zero damage you are NOT using AP ammo in your XM8s and M60s. Please check your ammo load again. And even with AP ammo you will never get 6-7k headshots against the improved wargots. That is intentional. The L115A1 only uses AP ammo, so you should be getting 900 point hits against the power armors and priests. Against the other wargots it should be 2-3k, which is enough for a kill.

If by some extraordinarily bizarre circumstance you are using AP ammo in your XM8s and M60s and still getting zero damage, then you have a seriously trashed game because I assure you that I don't have such a problem (and AFAIK, no one else does either).

Ah. Well, I know for certain that I have equiped AP Ammo for my XM8 and my M60s. I also one shot wargots with my sniper's L115A1. Against the power armors (The big mecha things) it takes several headshots to bring them down.

However, just to make sure we're on the same page... I have no problem with damage while they're standing up. Its when they're knocked down that damage gets wierd.

I think the probable cause is that my game is indeed screwed.

I thought you were saying that you were getting zero damage all the time. I'd misread the part where you said they were knocked-down. My bad. Thanks for clearing that up. Getting zero damage against knocked-down enemies is something that I've seen myself on rare occasions. I'm pretty sure it's a bug in the game itself, because it happens regardless of enemy, ammo, or weapon used (or even if you are playing with a mod).

I usually stop shooting at unconscious enemies to save ammo, and finish them off with katanas, unless they are immune to katana -- like the PAs and priests are. If it's an unconscious priest/PA, I just keep plugging away at them with snipers until they finish dying. BTW, get meson rifles as quickly as you can. They are MUCH better against wargots than L115A1s.

Hey, just found this mod forum and I am eagerly anticipating starting a new game with some of these activated. Since your mod looks like the biggest and most well put-together, and frequently updated, I was wondering if you had a rough timeframe on when you were going to release a new version?

If it was going to be within a few days I can put of starting a new game, but if you're not planning on it for another week or so I'll just download it now.

I've taken a short vacation from AS modding the past two days to consolidate mods (editing XML and Python scripts) for my Civ4. As soon as I'm done (another day or so) I'll return to working on AS.

There's no reason for you to wait, because the changes that are coming up should not affect existing games (ie: require savegame editing). And if I do happen to make a change that requires savegame editing I always post an explanation of what to do and how to do it, and why/when it may be necessary.


PS - welcome to the forum!

Great, will do.

Do you have any plans for adding custom models and icons for your new weapons in game?

The short answer is: "yes".

If you read the rest of this modding forum you will learn a few things (and find some other great mods, too). First, you will learn that I cannot model myself. Second, and by far more important, there are others who are trying to create models for AS (including for my mod), but progress is slow and hampered by a lack of tools.

Hi ShadoWarrior,

I agree. They should incorporate it in the next patch and pay recompense to ShadoWarrior for doing their job.

After reading some of this thread to get caught up, it sounds like Altar owes you some money... I Just finished AS 1.2. Started a new game as Veteran and am struggling a little bit. From what I've read, it sounds like I'm in for a ride, cool! To give you an idea of how far along I am in the new game, I am only now using my first XM8. I am going to install your mod now. But first, after reading through this thread I have some suggestions.

The DE:
I agree with others about the DE; it should have NEVER been made a 9mm weapon. If the designers wanted a 9mm Handgun in the Game they should have modeled a Glock or something. I look forward to the dignity that you have restored to the DE.

The Mk-48:
As much as I like the M60 it is what; 50 years old? When I first played UOF-AS I continually waited for a Browning MG so I could 1) wield it and 2) create AP ammo... Man was I disappointed. I'm happy that you have added, I believe, the M249. The M249 SAW is only 20+ years old but uses a 5.56x45mm NATO round. However, The Mk-48 is a scaled up version of the SAW using 7.62x51mm NATO rounds. I would be VERY happy if you could include this weapon. The XM307 or XM312 are both .50 caliber (wipes drool from chin). I'm sure there would be alot of debate over these weapons as they are still in development and the XM312 is supposed to be an interim weapon. It also seems that and it is designed as a mounted two-man weapon. Strange when you consider they significantly reduced the weight and we are carrying around the M60E3...

The MP7:
Now let's talk a little about the MP7. Why oh why was this weapon left out of UFO-AS after having been in UFO-AM I'll never know. I'm glad to read it's on your list, not yet sure if you have introduced it in your current version. You have my vote to move it up a little. The MP7 is the successor to the MP5. It is more accurate, has a greater range, it's more stable in burst mode, and can be dual wielded. It can even be holstered! Imagine having more inventory space because your side-arms (Desert Eagle/MP7) are holstered. But that's another story.

The XM8:
At one point you seemed to be contemplating replacing the XM8 with the Steyr Aug. Personnaly, I prefer the XM8 and was actually surprised to see no AK74's and the proliferation of AK47's (I was going to suggest replacing AK47's with AK74's or FN-Fal's; I know the cultists use AK47's as a primary weapon but why? might Make things a little more interesting...). You also seem to believe the XM8 is overpowering (?) for the game. In my first game, I eventually had only a few soldiers equipped with XM8's. My end game was 4 soldiers and a scout equiped with a detonater, which was never used. Only one of these was equipped with an XM8. Maybe this was a bad strategy but I knew more than 4 soldiers was unnecessary... I wasn't using your mod.

The High Caliber Assaul Weapon:
In my first game, I was actually hoping for an "Advanced Weapon Blueprint" assault weapon ala "Starship Troopers". The XM8 is cool but I ask everyone to consider what makes the XM8 superior (please take with a grain of salt) to all other 5.56mm weapons. What is the military attempting to achieve? Weight is one primary concern! What is a considerable portion of a weapons' weight? The ammunition. New weapons like the MP7, P90, and G11 address the ammo weight by reducing either the caliber of the round or removing the cartridge. Cartridgeless rounds also implies increased magazine capacity. Now, imagine a large caliber assault rifle made possible due to improvements in propellant and elimination of cartridges. If I'm battling hordes of Aliens (OK no hordes in AM/AS; did someone say 20 Warthogs?). then I want a more powerful PROJECTILE weapon. A higher caliber (I'm thinking .44), higher velocity, more stable, and accurate weapon ala "Starship Troopers". Just a thought.

Alien Tech:
Some have asked for new or different alien weapons and I agree that Warthog weapons are tremendously UNDERPOWERED for their size. I would like to see alien weapons in the hands of a Human having penalties like accuray and refire rate. Have you seen the fingers on those Ridiculans? IMO, NO Ridiculan weapon should be usable by a Human. This rule should be applied to all alien weapons.

RasterOps, please read post #1 in this thread (again), and then the changelog file in the ZIP archive.

1. For game purposes, the M60E3 in the game is representative of all 7.62mm NATO weapons. There's no real need for another MG of the same caliber.

2. The MP7 was included in my mod at revision 2.10 (14 major releases ago).

3. Don't ever mention that Hollywood abomination of one of Heinlein's best books to me again if you wish to stay on my good side.

4. If the Ridiculous weapons weren't usable by humans then your starting squad would be pretty well screwed trying to fight their first battles with just knives and fists. Bear in mind the storyline. You just came off of a space station where all you had were what the Greys left behind. You don't find your first human-style weapons until AFTER your first battle on Earth.

Just thinking, who will be the first to tell someone to read through this thread for a piece of info

Sorry to hijack the thread but this has to be "the" if not close to the thread with the most posts.

Too late. I've already done that on several occasions. And I'm serious about it, too.


It is, and it has more posts and views than some forums.

I need a volunteer. Someone who is a modder, who has a savegame with all of the following:

• Scout(s)
• Stalker(s) level 2+
• Personal Cloaks
• Sound Dampeners

to test v3.05 so that I may feel comfortable in releasing it to the general public.

I need to be sure the items work, that they work for those two professions (and no others), and that the Glossary entries for the items are correct.

There is a bug I need help in squashing where the description for the new ability "Use cloaks" (ID #53) is not showing up in the Glossary under the Scout and Stalker trainings. I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out why. I did increase the array sizes in the two files (ability.txt and train_abil.txt) as appropriate. I know the changes to train_abil.txt are working because the new abilities are showing up in the two professions that I added them to (Scout & Stalker). But the indexing into pack.txt, which should be taken care of by ability.txt, isn't working as it should.

Please contact me by PM and include an email address where I may send the ZIP to. thx

I was using your mod the other day and tried to manufacture ammo for the DE .50AE... Worked just fine but there was one small problem: 100 units of .50AE took longer to manufacture then 1000 units of .50 Browning. Was this something you intended? IMO the .50AE ammo takes a tad too long to manufacture... and you can get roughly the same DPS using the added-in 7.62 N HK rifle on burst mode with bullets manufactured a LOT faster.

Also I'm having problems researching AP ammo... Says I need a .50 Browning weapon (I'm guessing a Barret sniper). I've got two of those. One I manufactured and took to a mission, left it on the ground hoping to be recovered. Thing is, it didn't show on the recovered items list, but my sniper still had it in his inventory after the mission (and I didn't have a spare at the time). The second I got from a cultist encounter and it DID show on the recovered items list. Am I doing anything wrong? Is another weapon required? Got 9 days 'till Wargot arrival and I'd hate to be fighting them with JHP ammo...

First, that's an exaggeration. It currently takes 1.44 hours to make 10 rounds of .50BMG and 2.4 hours to make 10 rounds of .50AE. However, the time to make ALL pistol ammo in the game is too long, so I'm changing it for v3.05. Thanks for the heads-up on this issue. The new time will have the .50AE take the same time as the .50BMG on a per-round basis (a coincidence, as the numbers just work out the same).

As for your other problem, that's an issue which should be discussed in the GENERAL forum and not in this thread (or even this forum), as it has nothing to do with my mod.

Sorry about the general issue. It's just that it never happened the other 4 times I played through without your mod. It's fixed anyway now.

And yeah, that was an exaggeration. Was only tring to make a point, as I didn't have the exact values handy when I wrote that post

No modders are volunteering to test v3.05? I could really use the help of someone like LimXC, Caelum, Elevrai, or WiseAvatar to help me find this ability-glossary issue so I can release v3.05 and move on.

Hi,

I'd love to volunteer, but I don't have personal cloaks or sound dampeners yet in my current game.

First, a funny story of what happened at work today. One of my software testers comes up to me and says :Check it out, I've got a really cool animated gif for my logo (we all have them in the system, mine is a drunken geezer on the couch,
<<< quite lifelike really). I look and behold, suprise, it's shadoWarriors logo (but with animated ones and zeros). Probably nicked it from battlefield 2 site I quess. So I tell him he's a lame gif-stealing loser and that I know a weapons expert who would probably take a dim view of him using that logo. He didn't believe me so his eyes rolled out of his head when I showed him this thread

Anyway...

After screwing up my veteran save games I restarted with v1.1 and 2.13 on superhuman. Later upgraded that to 2.15a. Had to give up on iron man around mission 40, as soldiers are just way too expensive. Nevertheless, finally battled my way trough 150 missions, conquered the world and just fought the wargots (again).

*autsj*

When you say ''use lasers, you fools !'' you mean it ! Except for my sniper rifles it seemed like I was firing blanks ! And that was with AP ammo ! Gave up the third try and used lasers and won the day barely.

I've read the thread and the changelog of your current version of the mod. As I already messed my game up once I'm naturally quite cautious now. Yet I already see I'm really going to need those meson rifles (and the even nastier wargots !).

The thing is :
In !READ THIS BEFORE USING
it says : "This mod is based on version 1.1 ..."
and in the FAQ
it says :
Q: Is the mod compatible with patch 1.2?
A: Yes.

As I'd hate to upgrade AS midgame to 1.2 seeing my horrible experiences last time I don't dare to upgrade my mod to 3.04 before checking if is still compatible with version 1.1. So kindly enlighten me. And don't worry, I won't come screaming bloody murder when I mess up my savegames again

Oh yeah, and a final warning, if this thread gets any bigger it'll probably collapse into a singularity (information=power=energy=mass), suck up the forum and destroy the planet

Cheers,
Lodewijk

My avatar is animated on the StrategyCore site. The file is too big to load on this site, so I had to edit the gif to remove the animation on these forums. Go look at one of my posts at StrategyCore.




My mod works with patch 1.1 or 1.2.

Thanks for the incredibly fast reply (as always)

Cheers,
Lodewijk

you have a pm
I'm not the most kwalified for helping you but I can find my way in AS's files easy enough

You have email.

Thanks!

ok, I'll get back to you with my findings asap

ShadoWarrior, I have also just sent a pm to you.

Another thing, for the XM26 Lightweight Shotgun System the mfg_tech is "Grenade launchers blueprints". Is this a mistake? Shouldn't it be "Shotguns blueprints"?

You, too, have email. Thanks!


No. The basic tech for underbarrel stuff is GLs. First you have to be able to make a UGL, then a regular shotgun. Since I cannot use two seperate techs as a prereq, I had to pick one and GL is the more relevant tech, even though this item is a shotgun. The only other solution is to create its own tech, which is too extreme. Compromises are annoying, but at times necessary.

ShadoWarrior, the Use cloaks ability as you stated it does not show up properly in the glossary. Both Personal cloak and Sound absorber does not need any training to use when in equpiment.txt it is stated they do need the Use cloaks ability. The whole Use cloaks ability does not work. I looked in ability.txt, train_abil.txt, pack.txt and equpiment.txt but found no mistake.

The testing was done using a new game with the equpiment.txt edited to give light armour, Personal cloak and Sound absorber at the start of the game. train_level.txt was also edited to easily atain and quickly train to new career levels.

While looking at those ability related files, I started wondering where is it stated that Sniper bonus give +1 to long range or Dodge bonus give +1 to dodge. Maybe there is some other files that need to be look at.

I think you understand why I'm frustrated and asked for help. It should work. Yet it doesn't.

That the two items can be used without training is obviously due to the Use Cloaks ability being broken. Why it's broken is very puzzling. And annoys me immensely.

I too can't find anything wrong, this is extremely puzling, I'll look some more when I get back from work

Do Cenega officially support modding? I mean, is there any way to get an expert's opinion on the matter? I think you understand what I mean... And it could solve a lot of problems.

First, Cenega is the publisher. Altar (the owners of these forums) is the developer, and they do officially support modding.

Second, I thought I'd run the problem past of few of the other modders before I went and bothered the folks at Altar (who have much more important things like bug-fixing to do).